Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 152, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 926 & 927, November/December 2018
- Автор: Ловси Питер, Зельцерман Дэйв
- Год: 2018
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 152, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 926 & 927, November/December 2018». Краткое содержание книги:
I told Julius that Prescott’s blinking only showed that he was nervous; it didn’t prove he was lying. Since I talk to him over a wireless earpiece, he was the only one who heard me, and he signaled that he agreed with me.
Griff had gone from looking harried to exasperated. “I thought you had a theory you were going to share with me?” he complained to Julius.
“Two more questions for Mr. Prescott, then you will have my theory.” Julius turned again to Prescott and asked, “Has anyone tried purchasing the building where you have your wine shop?”
This caused Prescott to blink three times. “Yes, an offer was made two months ago. A generous offer, in fact. I turned it down. I have no interest in selling.”
“Who made this offer?”
Three more blinks. “I never got the man’s name. He gave me a business card that only had the name of the company he was representing and a phone number. I threw it out the same day. I don’t remember the name of the company.”
Julius had brought along his Boston city atlas. He opened it up to the page he had marked and pointed out Prescott’s building to Griff. “Archie has been trying to determine the ownership of the other buildings on this same block, and so far all he’s come up with is a tangle of shell companies.”
“You’re thinking the same person owns them?”
“That’s part of my theory. In order to prove the most significant aspect of it, I need one of the bottles of recovered Lafite Rothschild, a corkscrew, and two wineglasses.”
Griff gaped at Julius as if he were nuts. “I’m not giving you evidence so you can drink it,” he said flatly.
“Evidence of what? I don’t believe the wine will be able to testify in court, at least not in the way you’re expecting. Besides, I’m only asking for one bottle, not all twelve. If Mr. Prescott, the rightful owner, doesn’t object, neither should you.”
Griff didn’t like what Julius was asking, and there was some stubbornness and seven minutes and eighteen seconds of flat-out refusal. But in the end the worry that there actually might be something about the wine that could lead to Prescott’s acquittal on the stand had him agreeing to let Julius open one of the bottles, and while Prescott wasn’t nuts about the idea either, he gave his permission. I was beginning to have an idea of what Julius was thinking, but since I didn’t have taste buds or olfactory senses, all I could do was watch as Julius uncorked the bottle and poured wine into the two glasses, one of which he handed to Prescott. Both Julius and Prescott sniffed the wine before tasting it, and both spat out their wine in coffee mugs that Griff had provided. Prescott looked stunned after the tasting. Julius grunted in a way to show this was exactly what he was expecting.
“Not bad for a forty-dollar Bordeaux, but it’s certainly not Lafite Rothschild,” Julius said. He told Griff he didn’t expect the wine was poisoned, but it should be tested anyway.
“You’re saying the wine’s been replaced by cheaper stuff?”
“Exactly.”
“And what’s that supposed to prove?”
Julius asked Prescott if having the wine stolen could’ve damaged him seriously enough to be forced to sell his building. Prescott said the loss would’ve stung, but not much more than that. “If the wine wasn’t recovered, I could’ve absorbed the three-thousand-dollar insurance loss,” he added.
“What would’ve happened if you had put the counterfeit wine up for auction?”
“That was what I’d been planning to do, and it would’ve been devastating.” Prescott’s round face deflated even more as he thought about Julius’s hypothetical. “Word of that would’ve gotten out among serious wine collectors, and I’d be finished.”
“And if the same offer was then made for your building?”
“I would’ve had to take it.”
Griff rubbed the thick stubble covering his face as he absorbed this. “Julius, I admit it’s an interesting story,” he said. “But that’s all it is. Interesting. It doesn’t prove Prescott didn’t kill Duncan.”
“Possibly not, but is it interesting enough for you to hold Mr. Prescott for twenty-four hours before charging him? Because I expect to give you the real murderer before those twenty-four hours expire.”
Griff stopped rubbing his jaw. If Julius had a tell, I’d never been able to figure it out, and I was sure the same was true with Griff. He had no idea whether Julius was bluffing, but he also knew you could go broke betting against Julius, except for those rare poker games when the stars are perfectly aligned against him.
The homicide detective made his decision. “You’ve got until six tomorrow evening,” he said.
I waited until after Julius had a short conversation with Zack and we were walking back to his townhouse before telling him that he’d been bluffing earlier. “You can’t possibly know that Prescott is innocent. Even if he was being set up to auction off a bogus case of Lafite Rothschild, he still could’ve killed Duncan in a fit of rage.”
Julius took out his cell phone so that he wouldn’t appear to be a crazy man talking to himself. “Prescott wasn’t lying, Archie.”
“He could’ve been. Outside of all that blinking, he could still have a damn good poker face.”
“He doesn’t. I was able to pick up his tell; it shows as bright as a flashing red light when he’s lying. It’s when you see him struggling not to blink.”
I searched through the video I had recorded that night, and I didn’t see Prescott do that once. “How’d you pick up that tell if he didn’t show it?”
“He did, Archie. Just not tonight.”
“When, then?”
Julius’s jaw muscles momentarily tightened. “A year ago when he promised me he’d put aside a certain vintage of pinot noir that I wanted.”
Of course. Still, as I chewed on that I couldn’t see how Julius could possibly know that he’d solve this murder by six tomorrow, and I told him this.
“The original plan must have been to slip the counterfeit Lafite Rothschild back into the storeroom without the theft ever being noticed. I have to believe framing Prescott for Duncan’s murder was hastily improvised.” Julius snorted, which was the first time I’d ever seen him do that. “If I can’t uncover the murderer by tomorrow evening, I deserve to eat only at The Happy Pig Whistle until my last day.”
Julius might’ve been knee deep in a murder investigation he had promised to solve by six P.M... but that didn’t deter him from his usual routine. The next morning he awoke at six-thirty, spent the next two hours engaged in a rigorous martial-arts workout inside the private studio he had built on the top floor of his Beacon Hill townhouse, and then showered and shaved before dressing in a conservative gray suit and dark gray tie, slipping on a pair of light gray oxfords, and heading downstairs to the kitchen. He brewed a pot of his favorite French roast, then brought a cup of coffee, a croissant slathered with imported strawberry jam, and the day’s newspaper to his office. After he was settled comfortably behind his desk, he gave me a list of instructions and commenced with his breakfast and reading the paper.
At ten-thirty on the dot Julius’s internal clock must’ve dinged, because he put the paper down, wiped his hands with a cloth napkin, then used the same napkin to dab at his mouth. He was finally ready to turn on his brain and go to work.
“Archie, are Tom, Saul, and the others available?”
The Tom and Saul he referred to were Tom Durkin and Saul Penzer, two of the best freelance P.I.s in the business. The others were Stan Green and Alvin Stubbs, a couple of freelancers that Tom recommended.
“They’re ready and waiting.”