The American Gun Mystery (Death At the Rodeo)
- Автор: Куин (Квин) Эллери
- Серия: Ellery Queen #6
- Год: 1933
- Язык: английский
- Год: Frederick A. Stokes Company
- Жанр: Классические детективы
Электронная книга - «The American Gun Mystery (Death At the Rodeo)». Краткое содержание книги:
Dr. Samuel Prouty, Assistant Medical Examiner of New York County, rose from his knees and flipped the blanket back over the dead man. “Shot in the heart, Inspector.”
“Same place?” asked the Inspector hoarsely, who looked as if he were living through the horrible episodes of a preposterous nightmare.
“As the other one? Pretty much.” Dr. Prouty closed his bag. “Bullet nipped through the fleshy part at the bottom of the stump of his left arm and lodged in the heart. If he’d had a whole arm he’d probably be alive this minute. As it was, he almost escaped. An inch higher, and the slug might have lodged in the stump.”
“One shot?” asked the old man tremulously. He seemed suddenly to have remembered Ellery’s peroration on the marksmanship of the murderer. “One shot,” said Dr. Prouty.
The routine things were done. Forearmed by unhappy experience, Inspector Queen took every precaution against the possible escape of the criminal and the disappearance of the weapon.
“I suppose it’s a .25 calibre again?”
Dr. Prouty probed for the bullet. He brought it out soon enough — a well-preserved little slug covered with blood. It was unquestionably the bullet of a .25 automatic pistol.
“What about the angle, Sam?” muttered the Inspector.
Dr. Prouty grinned mirthlessly. “Damn remarkable, I call it. Just about the same as the angle the Horne bullet made.”
The riders were segregated and their arms collected. They were searched. Everyone was searched. Sergeant Velie combed the arena again, and again found the shell — a battered shell, obviously again kicked about by human and equine feet, and in a spot yards from where the first shell had been found.
But the .25 automatic remained merely a fantastic notion.
Lieutenant Knowles, the police ballistics expert, was on the scene this time. Once more the ghastly and tedious business of searching twenty thousand people was begun. Some .25’s — so repetitive was the event! — were again turned up. In a long chamber off the arena Knowles set up a makeshift laboratory. He pressed Major Kirby into service, and the two men spent long minutes firing into an improvised target made of absorbent cotton loosely rolled. With the aid of the microscope the Lieutenant had brought with him, comparisons were made between bullets of the .25 calibre automatics found, and the bullet from the dead man’s body... The search continued. Inspector Queen, in a fine roaring rage, was everywhere at once.
The Commissioner of Police himself made an appearance, and an official close to the Mayor.
Everything was done. Nothing was accomplished.
When it was all over, only one thing seemed certain besides the fact that murder had been committed.
Lieutenant Knowles, weary and slouching, appeared with his report, Major Kirby striding silently at his side.
“You’ve examined all the guns?” snapped the Inspector.
“Yes, Inspector. The automatic that was fired at your dead man isn’t here.”
The Inspector was silent. It was so incredible that words were superfluous.
“But there’s one thing I can state positively, although I’ll check up with my universal when I get back to the laboratory,” continued Lieutenant Knowles. “Major Kirby thoroughly agrees. The bullet that killed Woody shows the same identifying marks as the bullet that killed Horne.”
“You mean they both were fired from the same automatic?” asked the Commissioner.
“Right, sir. No doubt about it at all.”
And Ellery Queen stood by and gnawed at the fingernail of his right forefinger, deep in thought and unwilling shame. No one paid the least attention to him.
The ghastly comedy played on. Gradually the crowd was weeded out, sent away. The arena was finecombed. The bowl, the offices, the stables, the whole maze of the Colosseum was gone over with eyes and fingers quickened by official censure.
And the automatic remained missing. It seemed that there was nothing to do but confess complete mystification and failure...
And then while the Commissioner, the Mayor’s representative, the Inspector, Lieutenant Knowles, and Major Kirby stood eying one another in the curiously strained manner of men who are afraid to face an unpleasant truth, Curly Grant furnished a diversion — a radical diversion, since it was so far the only event of significance in the period of Woody’s murder which was not the duplication of a kindred event in the Horne murder.
Curly appeared in the eastern gateway, wild-eyed, disheveled, and loped like a mustang across the tan-bark track to his father, who was standing alone in the arena contemplating his boots. They all turned sharply, sensing something wrong.
They heard very clearly what Curly Grant had to say. It was said in a voice choked with bewilderment, resentment, and anger.
“Pop! The money’s gone!”
Wild Bill Grant looked up slowly. “What? What’s that you’re sayin’, son? The—”
“The money! The ten thousand! I put it in a cash box in my dressin’ room this afternoon, an’ now it’s gone!”
20: The Green Box
Curly Grant’s dressing room was little more than a closet. It contained table, mirror, wardrobe, and chair. On the table there was an ordinary green metal box. The box was open, and the box was empty.
The Inspector was perhaps sharper than usual. Before leaving the arena he had been called aside by the Commissioner and the Mayor’s representative. They had “chatted” for some time. Then the two officials had stamped off. The incident had left Inspector Queen acutely irritable.
“You say you put the dough in this box?” he snarled.
Curly nodded shortly. “It was handed to me by Mr. Comerford, pop’s lawyer, this afternoon at the jamboree in the arena. S’pose you heard about that. Afterward I came in here, put the money in this box, an’ locked the box. The box was in the drawer here. When I just came in here I found the drawer open, an’ the box just like you see it.”
“When was the last time you saw the box with the money actually in it, Grant?” rasped the old man.
“When I stowed ’er away this afternoon.”
“Were you in here before the performance tonight?”
“No. Didn’t have to be. Was dressed fer the show this afternoon.”
“Didn’t you lock your door?”
Curly’s jaw hardened. “No. Never do, by thunder! I know these folks. They’re friends o’ mine. Wouldn’t pull a dirty trick like that on me.”
“You’re in New York now,” said the Inspector dryly, “and not everybody who floats around this dump is a friend of yours. My God, anybody who leaves ten grand lyin’ around behind an unlocked door deserves to lose it!” He snatched the box from the table and carefully examined it.
Now Mr. Ellery Queen had until this moment presented the appearance of a slightly astonished codfish. The murder, the vain search for the automatic, and now the theft of Curly Grant’s legacy — particularly the theft of Curly Grant’s legacy — had left him completely dumfounded, with his mouth witlessly open, as if his brain had received a severe shock; as if, in fact, some jeweled theory had been jarred out of its nice precision by a totally unexpected event.
But habit and a certain resource of resiliency came to his rescue, and a more rational light shone from his eyes. He stepped forward and blinked at the ravished box over his father’s shoulder.
It was in effect nothing more than an ordinary little cash-box. Its lid opened upward, double-hinged at the back. But instead of the usual eye-and-flap on the front, this box had two sets of eyes and flaps, and one was on each of the short sides of the box. When the lid was lowered, the flaps fitted over the eyes on the body of the box, and locks could be slipped through the eyes, thus furnishing double protection — a lock on each side.