Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 140, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 853 & 854, September/October 2012
- Автор: Макдермид Вэл, Манфредо Лу
- Год: 2012
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 140, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 853 & 854, September/October 2012». Краткое содержание книги:
“Come with me,” the marshal said.
He jerked her toward the French doors. If he got her inside, either to question her or arrest her, someone might lift the tray’s lid while they were gone. And if that triggered a bomb? Ella might get away then, in the confusion. Mario wouldn’t be waiting where the driveway met the road. But the dust and carnage would give her a chance to run.
Spots danced in front of her eyes, sweat dripped between her shoulder blades and down her back. Saying anything now was the same as signing her own arrest warrant. So the enormity of her words nearly lodged them in her throat: “The tray,” she said. “The one I was about to uncover. They gave it to me, to bring inside.”
Killy reacted as if she’d slapped him. He turned to face it.
It was too big to pick up with one hand. He let go of her. He grabbed the tray without a backward glance.
She watched him dash down the veranda stairs with it, hurrying past the lush arbor and along the path to the pond.
It was no use leaving. With no car to take her away, she’d be picked up soon enough. And she had to know for sure. Mario, Sacco... would they truly have sacrificed her? She was afraid the answer was clear in the guest list.
Ella was a few paces behind Killy when he reached the dock. He set the tray down, then looked to the boathouse as if searching for something. Not for Ella. He nodded as if certain she’d be there.
“Ah,” he said. He grabbed a pole hanging from a support.
The long stick had a crook at the end for pulling skiffs closer. He signaled for her to back up, then he hooked the handle of the tray’s dome cover. He lifted it and set it aside.
Ella didn’t know exactly what she was looking at, there on the tray. A bit of glass glinted on a pyramid of greasy-looking tubes. A second later, she heard popping, like firecrackers. Again using the stick, Killy pushed the tray into the pond. Then he backed away to stand in front of Ella. His arm went up as if by instinct, shielding his face. Then he let it fall. For a moment he didn’t move.
Ella ventured, “So was it—? Those little bursts. Only firecrackers?”
“Blasting caps. A vial was rigged to tip when the lid came off. What you heard were the caps underneath. Set off by acid.”
“Blasting caps? Did they only mean to... to scare people?”
“No. The caps would have ignited the fuses. Dynamite fuses. Like the package bombs. That’s how I knew we had to get to the water.... But those had one stick. This had nine, stacked four, three, two, the vial on top. Who gave it to you?”
The world seemed to dim. “Mario Buda.”
“The man who wrote the bomb-making pamphlet?” He wheeled to face her. “Salute è in Voi? The one they sold in Galleani’s newspaper?”
“No! That can’t be Mario.”
“He and some others. But Buda was the main— How could you know him, but not know this?”
“I remember the ad. In the Cronaca Sovversiva.” Twenty-five cents for the anonymous booklet. “So tiny. For that and other pamphlets. All of them full of bravado. Fish stories, I thought. Because the country was mad for war — the parades, the marches. It was like that, I supposed. The same lust for battle. But pushing through cracks in a philosophy where it didn’t belong.”
“So you didn’t know Buda as a—?”
“No! No, of course not. I know him as... as an organizer. I’ve seen him only twice in these last...” She could hardly stand. She was shaking, her head pounding.
“Was he in Seattle with you?”
“He came for the strike.” The shame overwhelmed her. What he’d done to the marshal. Because of her.
“The reason we intercepted thirty of the package bombs last April? It was thanks to Ole Hanson. His aide opened one upside down. The acid dripped onto the desk instead of the caps. So we knew what the parcels looked like. And that they came from someone who disliked Seattle’s mayor.”
Ella gestured toward the veranda, not yet empty of partiers. “If I’d taken the lid off?”
“Porch and drawing room would be a smoking hole now. Everyone in them vaporized. Or torn to chunks.”
For an instant, Ella saw it through Mario’s eyes: the triumph. Bloody death to the leaders of a party that brought years of war and injustice.
“They’re wrong about us, you know,” Killy said, as if hearing her thoughts. “We’re fools at times, but we mean well.”
“I’d have said the same to you about Mario and the others, yesterday.”
“Where are they now?”
“A farmhouse, ten or fifteen miles north. Abandoned. It belongs to a dead soldier.”
The marshal would soon find it, she supposed. But would Mario and the others still be there?
A pair of men were coming toward them.
“Was that firecrackers?” one called out.
The other said, “You all right, young lady?”
They were nearly on the dock now. It took Ella a moment to blink them into focus. She recognized William McAdoo, the President’s son-in-law, from newspaper photographs.
“Will you stay with her?” Killy asked. “I have to make an urgent call, but I can’t have her left alone.”
Ella caught her breath. What? Marshal Killy was walking away from her? Trusting strangers to keep her here? When she’d escaped from him twice already?
McAdoo was with Governor Smith, who slipped a hand under her elbow. “You ought to get out of this hot sun, honey.”
Killy looked as if he meant to say something to her. But he didn’t. He turned and ran toward the house.
The men walked her to a boathouse bench. Smith sat beside her. He said to McAdoo, “You go on back, Bill. Tell Roosevelt and Cox not to steal the nomination before I put in a good word for myself.”
McAdoo laughed. He was handsome in the way of rich men, with their unworried smiles and uncrimped brows. “Fine way of saying it won’t be me, next year in San Francisco. When you know it will.”
Smith patted Ella’s hand, on the bench between them. He was a sweet-faced man with a soft smile. His jacket was almost as rumpled as his blond-and-white hair. He said, “I bet the Westfields will give you the rest of the day off if you’re feeling punk. Even useless politicians can make do with only a swarm, and not an outright herd, of servants. Oh, now. Don’t cry.” He fumbled for a handkerchief, setting it on her knee. She looked down at it. An embroidered A and E flanked a larger S. “Can’t be as bad as all that.”
What would he think if he knew she’d nearly killed him?
It was a few minutes before she could speak. She managed to say, “Bless you for Triangle Shirt.” He’d been on a committee to review the factory fire — 146 girls burned alive behind locked doors. Those who appointed him wanted a hasty whitewash but he gave them a three-year inquisition. “I worked in a place like that.”
Smith looked sad. “We’re not done yet. Long road ahead. But look there, old McAdoo’s come back.”
“Say,” McAdoo said. “That campaign manager of Palmer’s? Sent me down with a message for you, missy.”
She blotted her tears with Smith’s handkerchief. Killy would return soon with reinforcements. She hoped their interrogation didn’t leave her scarred. One of her neighbors had lost an eye. Another, all her teeth on one side.
“Asked if you remember Jim Corbett?”
“The big-game hunter?” Smith said.
“That’s the one,” McAdoo said. “Dashing fellow, remember? Killed that man-eater in India.”
“What about him?” Ella knew this must be important. Killy wouldn’t send a man as august as the President’s son-in-law, the former Secretary of the Treasury, to relay a mere afterthought.