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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:
“Wait a minute, son,” said the Inspector irritably. “I don’t see what difference it would have made if Thurlow’d been left with a dozen identical guns.”
“Why not?”
“Why not? Because Thurlow couldn’t have murdered Bob Potts, that’s why not. From the time you left that Colt .25 in Thurlow’s bedroom with a blank in it till you handed Thurlow that same gun the next morning at the duel, Thurlow couldn’t possibly have touched it. You said so yourself!”
“That’s right, Maestro,” said Sergeant Velie. “He never could of got into his bedroom during the night to take the blank out and put the live bullet in the gun — he was with Miss Brent and Charley Paxton, and later you, all the time.”
“Either here in the study with us,” nodded Charley, “or in Club Bongo, where all four of us went that night after you came downstairs from putting the blank-loaded gun in Thurlow’s room, Ellery.”
“Not only that,” added Inspector Queen, “but you told me yourself, Ellery, that the only ones who positively did not have opportunity to switch bullets in that gun in Thurlow’s room were Charley, Miss Brent, and Thurlow.”
“From the facts, Maestro,” chided the Sergeant. “From the facts.”
Ellery smiled sadly. “How you all belabor the ‘facts’! Although I shouldn’t cast the first stone — I did a bit of belaboring myself. I agree: Thurlow could not have replaced the blank cartridge with the live one in that Colt I left on his highboy.”
“Then what are you talking about?” expostulated his father.
“Just this,” said Ellery crisply. “Thurlow murdered his brother Bob deliberately nevertheless.”
“Huh?” Sergeant Velie reamed his right ear doubtfully.
“Thurlow murdered—” Sheila stopped.
“But Ellery,” protested Charley Paxton, “you just got through admitting—”
“That Thurlow couldn’t have replaced the blank with the live cartridge, Charley? So I did. And I still do. But don’t you people see that by having two identical guns, Thurlow not only prepared a colossal alibi for himself but pulled off a seemingly impossible murder, too? Look!” Ellery jumped up, grinding out his cigaret. “We all assumed that the killer replaced the blank in the Colt with a live bullet; we all assumed that this was the only possible way in which Bob Potts could have been murdered. But suppose that blank had never been replaced?”
They gaped at him.
“Suppose the blank-loaded Colt was not used in the duel at all, but the other Colt was used — the duplicate Colt?”
At that the Inspector groaned and clapped his palms to his gray head in an agony of realization.
“Very fundamental,” said Mr. Queen, lighting a fresh cigaret. “Thurlow didn’t use the Colt .25 we’d put the blank cartridge in. He simply used the other Colt .25, loaded with a live bullet. The attack on me a few minutes ago proved this — proves that Thurlow switched the two Colt .25’s just before his duel with Bob, switched them right under our noses. How does the attempt on my life in this room prove this?
“Well, ever since Bob’s death, the Colt that killed him the one we know had a live bullet in it because it killed him, the Colt that Thurlow aimed at him — has been in your possession, Dad, as the murder weapon, the vital piece of evidence. Today Horatio Potts found the duplicate Colt .25 in the sycamore tree on the estate. A few minutes ago that duplicate Colt was fired at me at point — blank range. Yet there was no mark on me, no bullet hole, no abrasion on my steel vest, no powder burn; and no bullet or bullet hole or sign of ricochet anywhere in this room. Only possible explanation: That duplicate Colt fired at me tonight was loaded with a blank cartridge. But we’d loaded a Colt .25 with a blank cartridge for Thurlow to use in his duel with Robert!
“Conclusion: The weapon fired at me tonight was that first gun, the gun that had been on Thurlow’s highboy the whole night before the duel, the gun I’d run up to fetch for him, the gun I’d handed him at dawn and which he immediately put, you’ll recall, into the right-hand pocket of his tweed jacket... The gun he did not take out of that pocket a few moments later! Yes, Thurlow switched guns on us under our eyes; and how he did it becomes childishly apparent once you recognize the basic fact that he did switch guns. The fact that, having two guns, he had no need to switch bullets was the strongest and wiliest part of Thurlow’s plan. It made it possible for him to create an unassailable alibi. He must have eavesdropped and overheard our plan to replace the live bullet with a blank in the only Colt .25 we knew at the time he possessed. But he knew he had a duplicate Colt. So why not let us go through with our plan to draw the death out of the first Colt, give himself that powerful alibi, and still manage to kill Robert? Moreover, under such circumstances that he’d seem the witless tool of some mysterious other person?
“Thurlow snatched his opportunity. Sheila, he permitted you to get him ‘out of the way.’ Charley, he welcomed your joining him and Sheila here in the study later. And he must have been beside himself with delight when I came down, too, to join the party. Then what did he do? If you’ll recall, it was Thurlow who suggested going to Club Bongo; it was Thurlow who managed things so that we stayed out all night and didn’t get back until it was time for the duel — whereupon it could never be said that he’d had opportunity to switch bullets in that gun in his room at any time after I placed the blank-loaded weapon there. How were we to know that all the previous evening, all that night at Club Bongo, all the early morning coming back to the grounds, Thurlow had the duplicate Colt .25, loaded with a lethal bullet, in his right-hand pocket?
“And now observe how cunning he is. We get back, and he sends me upstairs to his room to fetch the blank-loaded Colt, under the ‘artless’ pretense that I’m his second! For it must not be said afterwards that Thurlow Potts for even two minutes was alone with that gun...
“I fetched the gun, playing the dupe, handed it to Thurlow in sight of numerous witnesses, and he slipped it at once into his coat pocket.
“The dueling silliness began. Thurlow took a Colt .25 from that pocket. How were we to know that it was not the same weapon, loaded with a blank? How were we to know that the Colt he took out of that pocket was a duplicate of the one I had just handed him, a weapon identical in shape and size and appearance, and that the one just handed him was still in his pocket? And remained there?”
Inspector Queen groaned. “Who’d ever think to search the nut? We didn’t even know at the time that there were duplicate Colt .25’s!”
“No, we did not. And Thurlow knew we didn’t. He was running no risks. Later, he simply disposed of the first Colt — hid it in that starling’s nest in the sycamore tree, the blank cartridge still in it.”
“And then, of course,” muttered the Inspector, “he pulled that second challenge — to Mac — as a fake and a cover-up. By that time we were sure to pass his part in the killing off as irresponsible craziness. So he murders Mac in an ordinary way during the night, while we’re expecting a duel in the morning. Clever is right.”
“But why’d he kill the twins?” demanded Sergeant Velie.
Sheila said: “Because he hated them,” and began to cry.
“Stop it, darling,” said Charley, putting his arms about her. “Or I’ll take you out of here.”