There Was an Old Woman [= The Quick And the Dead]

“Knowing to what lengths Thurlow has gone in the past to avenge fancied insults and ridicule where the name of Potts was concerned, it’s easy to believe that his intensely concentrated ego dictated a plan whereby he would seize control of the business on his mother’s hourly expected death (page Dr. Innis) and avert the ‘catastrophe’ of seeing the Potts name possibly lost to a grieving posterity. And what was the only way he could accomplish this? The only way? By eliminating the two brothers who stood in his path, the two who not alone controlled two vital votes but who, both of them, were logical candidates to head the firm on the Old Woman’s death.

“And so — Bob and Mac died by Thurlow’s hand, and in the election, instead of losing by a vote of four to three, he won by a vote of three to two. Oh, no,” said Mr. Queen, shaking his head, “there was no madness in Thurlow when he hatched this little mess of eggs. Or should I say the crime was sane if the criminal was not... Granted Thurlow’s obsession with the name of Potts, everything he planned and executed afterwards was severely logical.”

“Yes,” said Sheila slowly. “I was stupid not to have seen it. Louella, Horatio — why should they care? All they’ve ever asked was to be let alone. But Thurlow — he’s been a frustrated little shadow of my mother all his life.”

“What do you think, Dad,” asked Ellery, “of my Sparrow?”

“I buy it, son,” the Inspector said simply. “But there’s one little detail you haven’t supplied.”

“What’s that?”

“Proof. Proof that District Attorney Sampson’ll cock an eye at,” continued the Inspector, “and say: ‘Dick, we’ve got a case for the courts.’ ”

And there fell upon them the long silence.

“You’ll have to dig up the proof yourself, Dad,” said Ellery at last, uncoiling his long legs. “All I can do is supply the truth.”

“Yeah. The trouble is,” said Sergeant Velie, dryly, “they ought to fix up a new set o’ laws for you, Maestro. The kind of case you make out — it puts the finger on murderers but it don’t put ’em where they can get a hot foot in the seat.”

Ellery shrugged. “Not my province, Sergeant. Ordinarily at this stage I’d say to hell with it and go home to my orphaned typewriter. But I must admit—” his eye wandered to Sheila Brent — “in this case I’d feel better seeing Thurlow safely behind bars before I retire, like his sister Louella, to my ivory tower.”

“Wait,” said Charley Paxton. He was shaking his head. “I think I can supply one important fact that’ll tie Thurlow up to at least one of the murders — Bob’s. I’m a fool!”

“Two-times killer isn’t any the less dead for being burned for only one,” said the Inspector. “What have you got, Charley?”

“I should have told you long ago, Inspector, only it didn’t mean anything to me till Ellery just explained about the duplicate guns. Some time ago — you’ll be able to check the exact date — Thurlow asked me the name of my tailor.”

“Your tailor!” Ellery’s brows rose. “Never a dull moment. What about it, Charley?”

“I gave it to him, assuming he wanted to order a suit. Next thing I knew, I got a bill from the tailor — I still have it somewhere, and that’s evidence for the D.A. — charging me for repairs made on ‘a tweed suit jacket’”

“Tweed?”

“I never wear tweeds, so I knew there was a mistake. Then I remembered Thurlow’s quizzing me about my tailor. So I asked Thurlow about the tweed jacket my tailor’d billed me for and he said, yes, it must have been his jacket the man meant, because he’d had my tailor make some repairs on it and hadn’t received a bill. So Thurlow asked me to pay for the repairs and said he’d reimburse me. He did, too,” added Charley grimly, “in cash, the cagey devil!”

“Repairs,” exclaimed Ellery softly. “What kind of repairs, Charley, did Thurlow say?”

“No, Thurlow didn’t say,” retorted the lawyer. “But I smelled a little mouse, I can’t tell you why. I asked my tailor when I paid the bill. And he said Mr. Potts had asked him to change the right-hand outside pocket of the tweed jacket into a double pocket—”

“Double pocket!” The Inspector leaped to his feet.

“With a partition lining between.”

“Charley, that’s it,” whispered Sheila.

“Double pocket,” grinned the Sergeant, “double guns, double bye Mr. Potts!”

“If that won’t establish premeditation, I don’t know what will,” said the Inspector, rubbing his hands briskly. “Charley, I thank you.”

“Yes, that’s it,” said Ellery. “I should have seen it myself. Of course he’d have to take the precaution of preventing a mix-up in the two guns during the short time he had them both in the same pocket. But with a double pocket, he could put the live-loaded Colt in one half — say the half at the front of the pocket — and the Colt with the blank in the half at the back. That made it easy to locate the live-loaded Colt with his fingers when the time came to withdraw the gun for the duel.”