Dutch Shoe Mystery (12 page)

District Attorney Sampson leveled his forefinger at the physician. “Let’s be frank with each other,” he said. “You know Mrs. Doorn’s position as a world figure, I might say, and you know what a furor will be raised when the world learns that she has been murdered. For one thing, the reverberations will certainly be heard in the stock market. The sooner this case is solved and forgotten, the better off everybody will be. …Just what do you think about the entire affair?”

Dr. Dunning got slowly to his feet, began to walk up and down, up and down. As he walked he cracked his knuckles. Ellery winced, crouched in his chair.

“You were about to say …” he murmured in almost unpleasant accents.

“What?” Dunning appeared confused. “No, no. I know nothing at all. It’s a complete mystery to me. …”

“Amazing, how all-pervasive this mystery seems to be,” snapped Ellery. He eyed Dunning with a species of curious disgust. “That’s quite all, Doctor.”

Dunning strode out of the room without another word.

Ellery sprang to his feet and began to prowl. “By the Minotaur!” he cried. “All this is leading us nowhere. Who else is waiting outside? Kneisel, Sarah Fuller? Let’s get this over with. There’s work to be done. …”

Pete Harper stretched his legs luxuriously and chuckled. “Headline,” he said. “‘Noted Sleuth Gets Cramp in Belly; Bad Circulation Affects Temper. …’”

“Hey, you,” growled Velie, “shut up.”

Ellery smiled. “You’re right, Pete. It’s got me. … Shoot, Dad. Out with the next victim!”

But the next victim was destined to bide his time in continued patience. For from the West Corridor came the broken sounds of a violent altercation, and the door crashed open to admit Lieutenant Ritchie and a trio of odd-looking men being prodded forward by three bluecoats.

“What’s this?” demanded the Inspector, starting up. “Well, well, well,” he said equably, his wand straying to his snuffbox. “If it isn’t Joe Gecko, Little Willie and Snapper! Ritchie, where in time did you pick ’em up?”

The policemen pushed the three captives into the room. Joe Gecko was a lean, cadaverous individual with burning eyes and a preternaturally cartilaginous nose. Snapper was his direct antitype—small and cherubic, with rosy cheeks and full wet lips. Little Willie was the most sinister-appearing of the three: his bald, triangular head was covered with noxious brown-flecked skin; he was huge and bulky and flabby, but his nervous movements and uneasy eyes belied the promise of strength in his powerful frame; he looked dull, even stupid, but there was something loathsome and terrifying in his very stupidity.

“Pompey, Julius and Crassus,” murmured Ellery to Cronin. “Or perhaps it’s the Second Triumvirate of Mark Antony, Octavius and Lepidus. Where have I seen them before?”

“Probably in the line-up,” grinned Cronin.

The Inspector confronted the captives with a frown. “Well, Joe,” he said peremptorily, “what’s the racket this time? Sticking up hospitals? Where’d you find ’em, Ritchie?”

Ritchie looked pleased with himself. “Skulking around upstairs—328—a private room.”

“Big Mike’s room!” exclaimed the Inspector. “So you’re playing nurse to Big Mike now, hey? I thought you guerrillas were running with Ikey Bloom’s mob. Changed your luck, eh? Spit it out, boys—what’s the dirt?”

The three gunmen looked at each other uneasily. Little Willie uttered a hoarse, shy chuckle. Joe Gecko screwed up his eyes and slid back tensely on his heels. But it was Snapper, rosy and smiling, who replied.

“Jeeze, give us a break, Inspector,” he said, and the lisp in his mincing voice did not seem strange. “You got nuttin’ on us. We wuz on’y waitin’ for th’ boss. They been takin’ out his guts or somepin’.”

“Sure, sure!” replied the Inspector affably. “You’ve been holding his hand and telling him bedtime stories.”

“Naw, he’s a reg’lar,” said Snapper seriously. “We been hangin’ around his room upstairs. Y’know how it is—th’ boss layin’ there an’ there’s a lotta guys don’t like’m, sorta. …”

Inspector Queen snapped at Ritchie, “Did you frisk them?”

Little Willie shuffled his gigantic feet spasmodically and began to edge toward the door. Gecko hissed, “Snap outa it!” and grabbed the big man’s arm. The policemen closed in and Velie grinned expectantly.

Ritchie said, “Three little gats, Inspector,” with satisfaction.

The old man laughed merrily. “Caught at last! And by the good old Sullivan Law. Snapper, I’m surprised at you. …All right, Ritchie. They’re your meat. Take ’em out and book ’em on the gun-toting charge. …Just a second. Snapper, what time did you men get here?”

The little gangster mumbled, “We wuz here all mornin’, Inspector. Just watchin’. Jeeze. …”

Gecko snarled, “I tola you, Snap’. …!”

“I suppose you don’t know anything about the murder of Mrs. Doorn here this morning, boys?”

“A bump-off!”

They stiffened. Little Willie’s mouth began to quiver, it seemed extraordinarily as if he were about to cry. Their eyes curled toward the door and their hands made jerky movements. But they remained mute.

“Oh, all right,” said the Inspector indifferently. “Take ’em away, Ritchie.”

The district detective followed the policemen and the shambling gunmen with alacrity. Velie shut the door after them with the light of a vague disappointment in his eyes.

“Well,” said Ellery wearily, “we’re still awaiting the no doubt slavering presence of Miss Sarah Fuller. She’s been sitting out there for three hours. … She’ll need a hospital when she’s through, and I need nourishment. Dad, how about sending out for sandwiches and coffee? I’m famished. …”

Inspector Queen gnawed his mustache. “Didn’t realize the time. … How’s it strike you, Henry? Have lunch?”

“Well, I’m in favor of it,” announced Pete Harper suddenly. “This sort of work gets you hungry. Is it on the City?”

“All right, Pete,” retorted the Inspector, “I’m glad to hear it. And, City or no City, you’re elected. There’s a cafeteria on the next block.”

When Harper was gone, Velie ushered in a middle-aged woman dressed in black who held her head so rigidly and whose eyes were so fiercely intent that District Attorney Sampson muttered in an undertone to Cronin and Velie himself hitched more closely to her.

Ellery gave her no more than a passing glance as she entered. He saw through the open door a group of internes gathered about the operating-table on which the dead body of Abigail Doorn still lay, entirely covered by a sheet.

He stepped into the Amphitheater, gesturing to his father.

The Amphitheater was quiet now; it gave a queer impression of disorganization, of indecision. Nurses and internes strolled about, talking in broadly gay voices, deliberately ignoring the bluecoats and plainclothesmen who stood about, placidly watchful. And beneath all the talk there was a little note of hysteria that crept quietly along and then, suddenly, leaped out of a conversation, to be followed at once by a painful silence.

Except for the men grouped about the operating-table, no one looked at the outlined body of the dead woman.

Ellery stepped to the table. In the slight hush that followed his appearance he made a brief remark to which several of the young doctors nodded assent. He immediately returned to the Anteroom, closing the door softly behind him.

Sarah Fuller stood somberly in the middle of the room. Her thin, blue-veined hands were clenched at her sides. She stared with hard-pressed stony lips at the Inspector.

Ellery stepped to his father’s side. “Miss Fuller!” he said abruptly.

Her agate-like, faded blue eyes shifted to his face. A bitter smile twitched the corners of her mouth. “Another,” she said. The District Attorney cursed beneath his breath. There was something weird about this woman. Her voice was hard and cold and tight, like her face. “What do you want with me, all of you men?”

“Sit down, please,” said the Inspector fretfully. He shoved a chair toward her; she hesitated, sniffed, and sat down like a stick.

“Miss Fuller,” said the Inspector at once, “you’ve been with Mrs. Doorn for twenty-five years, haven’t you?”

“Twenty-one come May.”

“And you and she didn’t get along, did you?”

Ellery noted with a faint sensation of surprise that the woman had a pronounced Adam’s apple which jerked up and down with the vibrations of her speech. She said coldly, “No.”

“Why?”

“She was a miser and an infidel. Out of heart proceedeth covetousness. She was a tyrant. The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. To the world she was the voice of virtue. To her dependents and retainers she was the breath of evil. Sufficient unto the day …”

This remarkable speech was accompanied by the most matter-of-fact tone. Inspector Queen and Ellery exchanged glances. Velie grunted and the detectives nodded their heads significantly. The Inspector threw up his hands and sat down, leaving the field to Ellery.

He smiled gently. “Madame, you believe in God?”

She raised her eyes to his. “The Lord is my Shepherd.”

“Nevertheless,” replied Ellery, “we should prefer less apocalyptic answers. You speak the God’s truth at all times?”

“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

“A noble sentiment. Very well, Miss Fuller. Who killed Mrs. Doorn?”

“When will ye be wise?”

Ellery’s eyes glittered. “Scarcely a reply upon which to base an arrest. Do you know, or don’t you?”

“The deed—No.”

“Thank you.” His lips quivered with inward amusement. “And did you or did you not quarrel with Abigail Doorn habitually?”

The woman in black did not stir nor change her set expression. “I did.”

“Why?”

“I have told you. She was evil.”

“But we have been given to understand that Mrs. Doorn was a good woman. You’ve attempted to make her out a Gorgon. You say she was miserly and tyrannical. How? Household affairs? Little things or big things? Please answer clearly.”

“We did not get along.”

“Answer the question.”

Her fingers were tightly intertwined. “We hated each other deeply.”

“Ha!” The Inspector jumped from his chair. “Now we’re getting it, and in twentieth century language. Couldn’t stand the sight of each other, eh? Scrapped like wildcats. Well then”—he accused her with his finger—“why in tunket did you stay together for twenty-one years?”

Her voice grew animated. “Charity beareth all things. … I was the beggar, she the lonely queen. The habit grows. We were linked by ties as strong as blood.”

Ellery regarded her with puzzled brows. Inspector Queen’s face went blank; he shrugged his shoulders and looked eloquently at the District Attorney. Velie’s lips framed the word, “Nuts.”

In the silence, the door scraped open and several internes wheeled in the operating-table bearing the body of Abigail Doorn. At the Inspector’s furious look Ellery smiled warningly; he stood back, watching Sarah Fuller’s face.

A peculiar change had come over the woman. She rose, hand clutching her thin, narrow bosom. Two bright pinkish spots appeared magically in her cheeks; she looked steadily, almost curiously, at the dead face of her mistress, pitilessly uncovered to the neck.

A young doctor pointed apologetically to the blue, bloated face. “Sorry,” he said. “Cyanosis. Always pretty ugly. But you said I should un—”

“Please!” Ellery waved him away with acerbity; he was intent on Sarah Fuller’s movements. Slowly she approached the table; slowly she examined the stiff outlines of the dead body. When her eyes had traveled the entire length of the corpse and had reached the head, she paused in horrible triumph.

“The soul that sinneth, it shall die,” she cried. “In prosperity the destroyer shall come!” Her voice rose to a shriek. “Abigail, I warned you! I warned you, Abigail! The wages of sin …”

Ellery chanted deliberately, “Know that I am the Lord that smiteth. …”

At the sound of his cool, insistent voice she turned furiously; her eyes shot fire. “Fools make a mock at sin!” she screamed. Her voice fell. “I have seen what I came to see,” she continued more quietly, in a repressed, exultant tone. Already she seemed to have forgotten her hot words. She breathed deeply, raising her thin chest. “Now I can go.”

“Oh, no, you can’t,” retorted the Inspector. “Sit down, Miss Fuller. You’re going to be here for some time yet.” She seemed deaf. An exalted expression crept over the harsh lines of her face. “Oh, for God’s sake!” shouted the Inspector, “stop acting and come down to earth! Here—” He ran across the room and gripped her arm roughly, shaking her. The peaceful, remote look did not leave her. “You’re not in church now—snap out of it!”

She permitted the Inspector to lead her to the chair, but absently, as if he and all his cohorts could do nothing to harm her. She did not again glance at the dead woman. Ellery, who was watching thoughtfully, signaled to the internes.

Hastily, in open relief, the white-garmented attendants wheeled the table to the elevator-shaft at the right side of the Anteroom, opened the door, and disappeared into the elevator. Ellery could see, beyond the grilled car, another door which apparently led to the East Corridor. The door closed and the slight sound of the moving vehicle came through the thin shaft-wall as the elevator descended slowly to the morgue room in the basement.

The Inspector muttered to Ellery, “Here, son, there’s nothing to be got out of her. She’s a lunatic. To my mind, we’d do better to follow up by questioning others about her. What do you think?”

Ellery glanced at the woman, who sat stiffly in the chair, eyes far away. “If nothing else,” he said grimly, “she’s a fine psychiatric object-lesson. I think I’ll have another go at her and see her reaction. … Miss Fuller!”

Her rapt eyes turned to him, blankly.

“Who might have desired to kill Mrs. Doorn?”

She shivered; the film began to fade from her eyes. “I—don’t—know.”

“Where were you this morning?”

“At home, first. Some person telephoned. There was an accident, they said. … God of vengeance!” Her face flamed; when she continued it was more lucidly, in a flatter tone. “Hulda and I came to this place. We waited for the operation.”

“You were with Miss Doorn all the time?”

“Yes. No.”

“Which is it?”