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There Was an Old Woman [= The Quick And the Dead]
- Автор: Куин (Квин) Эллери
- Год: 1943
- Язык: английский
- Год: Little, Brown and Company
- Жанр: Классические детективы
Электронная книга - «There Was an Old Woman [= The Quick And the Dead]». Краткое содержание книги:
“I’ve been thinking—”
“That’s always salutary.”
“Two things still bother me. So much I can’t sleep—”
“Yes?” Ellery did not mention his own insomnia of the past three weeks.
“Remember the Old Woman’s confession?”
“I think so,” said Ellery dryly.
“Well, one statement the Old Woman made in it strikes me as pretty peculiar,” said Charley slowly.
“Which statement is that?”
“The one about the guns. She wrote she was the one who swiped the Harrington & Richardson revolver from Thurlow with which she held up the reporters the day of the first murder — the gun she almost killed Sergeant Velie with—”
“Yes, yes.”
“Then she said: ‘Later it was I who stole one of Thurlow’s other guns and hid it from the police and went with it into my son Maclyn’s bedroom in the middle of the night and shot him with it.”
“Yes?”
“ ‘One of Thurlow’s other guns’!” exclaimed Charley. “But Ellery, there were two guns missing.”
“Indeed,” said Ellery, as if he had never thought of that. “What do you make of it, Charley?”
“But don’t you see?” cried the young lawyer. “What happened to that second gun, the one that’s still missing? Where is it? Who has it? If it’s still in the house, isn’t Sheila in danger?”
“How’s that?”
“Thurlow, Louella, Horatio! Suppose one of those poppy-eaters takes it into his head to continue the Old Woman’s massacre on the Brent part of the family? Anything is possible with those three, Ellery. They hate Sheila and Steve as much as the Old Woman — maybe more. What do you think?”
“I’ve concocted more fantastic theories myself,” murmured Mr. Queen. “Go on talking, Charley. I’ve been pining to discuss the case for three weeks now, but I haven’t dared for fear I’d be disowned.”
“I’ve been bursting, too! I can’t get these thoughts out of my mind. I’ve had another — theory, suspicion, whatever you choose to call it. This one’s driving me wild.”
Ellery looked comforted. “Talk.”
“The Old Woman knew she was going to die, Ellery. She said so in her confession, didn’t she?”
“She did.”
“Suppose she thought one of her precious darlings had killed the twins! She knew she was dying, so what did she have to lose by taking the blame on herself?”
“You mean—”
“I mean,” said Charley tensely, “that maybe the Old Woman’s confession was a phony, Ellery. I mean that maybe she was covering up for one of her crazy gang — that there’s still an active killer in that house.”
Ellery swigged deeply. When he set his glass down, he said: “My dear fraternal sleuth, that was the first thought I had when we opened the envelope and read the Old Woman’s confession.”
“Then you agree it’s possible?”
“Of course it’s possible,” said Ellery slowly. “It’s even probable. I just can’t see Cornelia Potts killing those two boys. But—” He shrugged. “My doubts and yours, Charley, won’t stand up against that confession bearing Cornelia Potts’s signature... By George!” he said.
“What’s the matter?”
Ellery jumped up. “Listen to this, Charley! The Old Woman was dead an hour or so at the time we found her body. Suppose someone had gone into her bedroom during that hour she lay there dead? The door wasn’t locked. And anyone could have typed out that confession right there — on the portable which was standing conveniently by the bed!”
“You think someone, the real killer, forged that confession, Ellery?” gasped Charley. “I hadn’t thought of that!” But then he shook his head.
“I didn’t say I think so. I said it’s possible,” said Ellery irritably. “Possible, possible! That’s all I do in this blasted case — call things ‘possible’! What are you shaking your head for?”
“The Old Woman’s signature, Ellery,” said Charley in a depressed tone. “You compared it yourself with the other signatures — the one at the end of the will, the one on the large envelope. And you pronounced the signature genuine.”
“There’s the rub, I admit,” muttered Ellery. “On the other hand, it was only a quick examination. It might be an extremely clever forgery that only the most minute study will disclose. The traps one’s sense of infallibility sets! Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Mr. Queen, and start punching!”
“We’ve got to go over the signatures again?”
“What else?” Ellery clapped Charley on the shoulder. Then he fell into a study. “Charley. Remember when we visited the Old Woman early in the case to question her about the terms of her will? At that time, I recall, she handed you a slough of memorandums. I saw her sign them myself with the same soft pencil she apparently used always. What happened to those memos?”
“They’re at the house, in that kneehole desk in the downstairs study.”
“Well, those memos bear her authentic signature; that I’ll swear to. Come on.”
“To the house?”
“Yes. But first we’ll stop at Headquarters and pick up the original of the confession, Charley. Maybe one theory in this puzzle will come out right side up!”
22
Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin
They found no one about but the servants, as usual. So they made directly for the library, and Ellery shut the door, rubbing his palms together, and said: “To work. Those signed memos, please.”
Charley began rummaging through the drawers of the kneehole desk. “Got the shakes,” he muttered. “If it’s only... Here they are. What do we do now?”
Ellery did not reply at once. He riffled the sheaf of memorandums with an air of satisfaction. “Employ the services of a rather large ally,” he said. “Nice sunny day, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“Silence, brother, and reap ‘the harvest of a quiet eye,’ as Wordsworth recommends.”
“Seems to me you’re in an awfully good humor,” grumbled Charley Paxton.
“Forgive me. This is like a breath of forest air to a man who’s been shut up in a dungeon for three weeks. It’s hope, Charley, that’s what it is.”
“Hope of what? More danger for Sheila?”
“Hope of the truth,” cried Ellery. He went to the nearest window. The sun, that “large ally,” made the window brilliant; by contrast, the study was in gloom.
“Perfect.” Ellery took the topmost memorandum of the sheaf and held it flat against the pane with his left hand. The sunshine made the white paper translucent.
“The confession, Charley. Wasn’t Dad curious!”
Ellery placed the confession over the memorandum on the windowpane, shifting it about until its signature lay superimposed upon the signature of the memorandum, visible through it. Then he studied the result. “No.”
The signatures were obviously written by the same hand, but minor variations in the formation and length of certain letters caused a slight blurry effect when the two signatures were compared, one upon the other.
Ellery handed the memorandum to the lawyer. “Another memo, Charley.”
Charley was puzzled. “I don’t understand what you’re doing.”
“No,” said Ellery again. “Not this one, either. And the next, Mr. Paxton.”
When he had exhausted the pile of memorandums, he said to Charley in an assured voice: “Would you mind handing me again that memo which instructed you to sell all the Potts Shoe Company stock and buy back at 72?”
“But you’ve examined it!”