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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:
“No, the Old Woman didn’t have a thing to do with the murder of the twins, even though she wrote out a confession of guilt and signed it with her own hand. So apparently, knowing she was about to die and had nothing more to lose in this life, she wrote out a false confession to protect whichever whelp of her first litter was guilty. She was a wonderfully shrewd woman, that old lady; I shouldn’t be surprised that she suspected it was Thurlow, her pet. By confessing on her deathbed, she believed the case would be officially closed and, with its close, Thurlow would be safe.”
The Inspector nodded slowly. “That makes sense. But if it wasn’t the Old Woman who was masterminding Thurlow, who was it, son?”
“Obviously, the person who made us believe the signature on the confession was false when it wasn’t. And, by the way, that was a very clever piece of business. It was necessary to make us think the confession was false, for reasons I’ll go into in a moment. In order to accomplish that, what did our criminal require? A signature which would be identical with the signature on the confession. No true signature of Cornelia’s could possibly be identical with the confession signature, so our criminal had to manufacture one. In doing so, he could only use for tracing purposes the confession signature itself. He chose the stock memo he knew we remembered having seen the Old Woman sign, typed off its message exactly on similar paper, destroyed the genuine memo, and then traced the confession signature onto the spurious stock memo. Very clever indeed.”
“But who was it, Ellery?” The Inspector glared about. They were all so quiet one would have thought them in the grip of a paralyzing gas.
“We can get to that only obliquely, Dad. Having established that the real criminal, the brains behind Thurlow, wanted us to believe the Old Woman’s confession a forgery, the inevitable question is: Why?
“The reason must be evident. It could only be because he did not want us to accept the Old Woman as the killer, he did not want the case closed — he wanted someone other than Cornelia Potts to be arrested and convicted for the murder of the twins.
“When I proved the case against Thurlow, I thought the series of crimes had come to an end. Well, I was wrong. One more puppet in the play had to be eliminated — Thurlow himself.” The Inspector looked befogged. “Yes, Dad, Thurlow was a victim, too. Oh, this is as fancy a plot as any that ever came out of Hollywood. It’s not double murder, it’s triple murder. First Bob, then Mac — and now Thurlow. For, as we know now, Thurlow was the instrument of the crime, and his being caught doesn’t solve it. There’s still the person behind him. Then since we see that the criminal wanted someone other than Cornelia to be caught and tried and convicted for the murders, and we’ve actually pinned it on Thurlow — isn’t it clear that Thurlow’s capture, too, was part of the criminal’s plan?”
The Inspector blinked. “You mean — he wanted to get not only the twins, but Thurlow, whom he used to kill ’em, out of the way?”
“Exactly. And here’s why I say that. Ask the question: Who benefits most by the elimination of the twins and Thurlow? Can you answer that?”
“Well,” muttered the Inspector, “the twins were killed for control of the Potts Shoe Company — as a result of their murder. Thurlow became President and got control...”
“But with Thurlow out of the way as well, who has control now?”
“Sheila.”
It was not the Inspector’s voice which answered Ellery.
It was Stephen Brent’s.
Stephen Brent was staring at his daughter with the feeble error of a parent who sees his child, for the first time, as others see her.
29
The End of the End
“Yes, Sheila,” said Ellery Queen, in the saddest voice imaginable.
And now he looked at her, with remorse, and with pity, and with something else that was neither. Sheila was glaring from her father to Ellery in a jerky arc, her lips parted and her breath jerky, too.
Major Gotch made a little whimpering noise in his corner.
Charley was glaring, too — glaring at Ellery, his hands beginning to curl into fists. “Idiot!” he shouted, lunging forward. “The Potts craziness has gone to your head!”
“Charley, cut it out,” said Inspector Queen in a tired voice.
Charley stopped impotently. It was plain that he dared not glance at Sheila; he dared not. And Sheila simply stood there, her head jerking to and fro.
The Inspector asked quietly: “You mean this girl with the dimples is the brains behind this nasty business? She used Thurlow as a tool? She’s the real killer?” He shook his head. “Charley’s right, Ellery. You’ve gone haywire.”
And then Ellery said an odd thing. He said: “Thank you, Dad. For Sheila.” And at this they were still with wonder again.
“Because, from the facts, it couldn’t be Sheila,” Ellery went on in a faraway voice. “All Sheila wants to be is... somebody’s wife.”
“Somebody’s wife?” Charley Paxton’s head started the pendulum now — from Ellery Queen to Sheila, from Sheila to Ellery.
Mr. Queen looked full upon Mr. Paxton. “This was all planned by the man who missed a brilliant career in criminal law — you told me that yourself, Dad, that very first morning in the Courthouse. The man whose every effort has been to get Sheila to marry him. The man who knew that, married to Sheila and with her twin brothers and Thurlow out of the way, he could control the rich Potts enterprises. That’s what was behind your ‘insistence,’ as Sheila said only yesterday, Charley, on ‘running the business’ in the reorganization, while she sat back to be your figurehead — wasn’t it?”
Charley’s skin turned claret.
“Don’t you see?” Ellery avoided Sheila’s eyes. “Charley Paxton planned every move, every countermove. Charley Paxton played on Thurlow’s susceptible mind, on Thurlow’s psychopathic obsession with the honor and name of Potts. Charley Paxton convinced Thurlow that he had to murder the twins to protect himself, the business, and the family name. Charley Paxton planned every step of the crime for Thurlow — showed him how to commit two daring murders with safety, planned the scene before the Courthouse, the purchase of the fourteen guns, the duel — everything, no doubt rehearsing Thurlow patiently. A furiously vacillating brain like Thurlow’s might have conceived murder, but Thurlow scarcely possessed the cunning and the application necessary to have planned and carried it out as these subtle crimes were planned and carried out. Only a sane mind could have planned these crimes. And that was why I was dissatisfied with Thurlow as the criminal even though all the evidence indicated that his hands and his person had performed the physical acts required to pull the crimes off... No, no, Charley, I can assure you you wouldn’t stand a chance. Just stand still and refrain from unnecessary movements.”
The Inspector took a small police pistol from his shoulder holster and released its safety mechanism.
Ellery continued in a murmur: “You’ll recall I conjectured that Thurlow had found out by eavesdropping that we intended to substitute a blank cartridge for the live one in the first Colt automatic. But now perceive. Who suggested the device of substituting a blank? Whose plan was it? Charley Paxton’s.”