![There Was an Old Woman [= The Quick And the Dead] - Читать Любимую Русскую Полную Книгу 👉 Read-E-Book.com](/uploads/posts/books/2/0/2/3/there-was-an-old-woman-the-quick-and-the-dead-download.jpg)
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:
“Are we boring you, Mr. Queen?” asked the Inspector.
Ellery jumped up. “Sorry, Dad. It was so peaceful here—”
“Peaceful!” The Inspector was red of face, and Sergeant Velie perspired freely; it was evident the two men had rushed uptown from Center Street. “I can think of other words. Blasted case busted wide-open again!”
“Now I suppose I got to start lookin’ for the missing rod all over again,” growled Sergeant Velie in his basso profundo. “I was only tellin’ the wife last night how the whole thing seemed like a bad dream—”
“Yes, yes, the gun, Sergeant,” said Ellery absently.
Velie’s anvil jaw swelled. “I searched this house, I dug up practically this whole square block — I tell you, Maestro, if you want to find that gun, go look for it yourself!”
“Stop it, Velie.” Inspector Queen sat down with a groan. “Who’s got that confession and stock memo? Hand ’em over.”
The Inspector superimposed the signatures, as Ellery had done, and held them up to the sun for a squint. “No doubt about it. They’re identical.” He jammed both papers into his pocket. “I’ll keep these. They’re evidence now.”
“Evidence against who?” grumbled Sergeant Velie, making up in scorn what he lacked in grammar.
At this moment Horatio Potts, in character, chose to enter the scene. That is to say, he appeared from the other side of his improbable dwelling, bearing the now familiar ladder. He waddled to a tall sycamore tree between his cottage and the umbrella table, set the ladder against the bole, and began to climb.
“Now what in the name of thunder is he doing?” asked Inspector Queen.
“It’s his kite again,” said Sheila grimly.
“Kite?” Ellery blinked. “Still at it, eh?”
“While you were napping here, he came out of his shack and began to fly one of ’em,” explained Charley. “It got snarled in that big tree, so I suppose he’s going after it.”
The ladder was shaking under Horatio’s weight.
“That Horatio’s going to take a mighty tumble one of these days,” said Charley critically. “If only he’d act his age—”
“Stop!” shouted Ellery Queen. They were thunderstruck. Ellery had cried out in a sort of terror, and now he was streaking across the lawn towards the sycamore with all the power of his long legs. “Stop, Horatio!” he shouted.
Horatio kept climbing.
The Inspector began to run after his son; Sergeant Velie began to run after the Inspector with a mine-not-to-reason-why expression; and so Sheila and Charley ran, too.
“Ellery, what the devil are you yelling ‘Stop!’ for?” cried the Inspector. “He’s only — climbing — a... tree!”
“Mother Goose!” Ellery roared back over his shoulder, not slackening his pace for an instant.
“What?” screamed the Inspector.
“Suppose the ladder’s been tampered with? Horatio’s big — and fat — he’d fall — ‘Humpty Dumpty — had a great — fall...’ ”
The Inspector gurgled and dug his tiny heels into the turf for traction. Ellery continued to shout at Horatio, and Horatio continued to ignore him. By the time the great man had reached the base of the sycamore, Horatio was almost invisible among the branches overhead. Ellery could hear him puffing and wheezing as he struggled to free the half-torn kite that was impaled above him. “Be careful, Mr. Potts!” Ellery yelled up.
“Ellery, are you coocoo?” panted the Inspector, coming up. Velie, Sheila, Charley were a few steps behind him. They were all frightened; but when they saw Horatio in motion in the tree, the ladder intact, and nothing amiss save the excitement on the Queen countenance, their concern changed to bewilderment.
“Mr. Potts, be careful!” Ellery roared again, craning.
“What’s that?” Horatio’s jovial face peeped redly down from between two leafy branches. “Oh, hullo there, nice people,” beamed Horatio. “Darned kite got stuck. I’ll be right down.”
“Watch your step on the way down,” implored Ellery. “Test each rung with one foot before you put your whole weight on it!”
“Oh, nonsense,” said Horatio a little crossly. “As if I’d never climbed a ladder.” And, the kite in one paw, he brought his right foot crashing down on one of the uppermost rungs.
“The fool will break his neck,” said Ellery angrily. “I don’t know why I even bother.”
“What are you babbling about?” demanded his father.
“Hey, he stopped,” said Sergeant Velie. “What’s the matter up there, Horatio?” the Sergeant called up. “Gettin’ cold feet? A great big boy like you!”
Horatio had paused in his descent to reach far over and thrust his fat hand into the foliage of a lower branch. The ladder rocked precariously, and Ellery and Velie in panic grabbed to steady it.
“Bird’s nest,” said Horatio, straightening. “Lots of fun, birds’ nests.” The kite in one hand, a starling’s nest in the other, he continued his descent, pressing against the ladder’s sides with his enormous forearms. “Just noticed it on that branch,” he said, reaching the ground. “Nothing I like better than a good old bird’s nest, gentlemen. Sets me up for the whole day.”
“Beast,” said Sheila; and she turned away from the nest clutched in his paw.
“Now, sir,” said Horatio, beaming at Ellery, “you were saying something about being careful? Careful about what?”
Ellery had taken the ladder down and, with the Inspector and Velie, was examining it rung by rung. As he looked over the last rung, his face grew very red indeed.
“I don’t see anything wrong,” said the Sergeant.
“Well.” Ellery laughed and tossed the ladder aside.
“Mother Goose — Humpty Dumpty,” snarled his father. “This case has got you, son. Better go home and call a doctor.”
“What’s the matter Horatio?” asked Charley.
Sheila turned quickly.
Horatio stood there, a large enigma, one hand plunged into the starling’s nest.
“What is it, Mr. Potts?” demanded Ellery.
“Of all things!” guffawed Horatio, recovering. “Imagine finding this in a starling’s nest.” And he withdrew his great paw. On his palm lay a small, snub-nosed automatic pistol a little patchy with bird slime. It was a Colt .25.
“But that’s the gun Bob Potts was plugged with,” said Sergeant Velie, staring.
“Don’t be a schtunk all your life, Velie!” cried Inspector Queen, grabbing for the automatic. “The murder gun’s in the Bureau files — they all are!”
“Then this,” said Ellery in a low voice, “this is the duplicate Colt .25 — the missing weapon.”
Later, when the lawn was empty, Ellery took his father by the arm and steered him to the umbrella table. “Sit down, Dad. I’ve got to think this out.”
“Think what out?” demanded the old gentleman, nevertheless seating himself. He glanced at the Colt; it was loaded with a single cartridge. “So we’ve found the missing gun. Whoever’s been pulling these jobs hid the Colt in that nest — blast that Velie for not looking in the trees! — and I suppose had the duplicate S. & W. 38/32 hidden up there, too, in preparation for the Maclyn Potts kill. But so what? The way things stand now—”
“Please, Dad.”
The Inspector sat back. Ellery sat back, too, to stare with eyes that at first saw, and later did not see, the automatic in the Inspector’s lap. And after a long time he smiled, and stretched, and said: “Oh, yes. That’s it.”
“Oh, yes, what’s it?” asked his father petulantly.