Greek Coffin Mystery (32 page)

“Indeed,” murmured Ellery. He was wondering why Mr. James J. Knox was relating to a comparative stranger these boring items of personal information, when Mr. James J. Knox would come to the pointy and whether Mr. James J. Knox was not concealing a serious perturbation beneath this chatter.

Knox fiddled with a gold pencil. “Something occurred to me to-day, Queen—I’ve been upset, or I would have recalled it before. Completely forgot to mention it in my original account to Inspector Queen in his office at Headquarters.”

Ellery Queen, you lucky devil! thought Ellery Queen. This is what comes of canine persistence. Prick up your lucky ears … “And what was that?” he asked, as if it really did not matter.

A story unfolded, related in a nervous Knoxian manner which gradually disappeared as the tale grew in stature.

It seemed that on the night of Knox’s visit to Khalkis, accompanied by Grimshaw, a peculiar thing had occurred. This phenomenon took place directly after Khalkis had made out, signed, and handed to Grimshaw the promissory note which Grimshaw had demanded. It appeared that Grimshaw, while he stowed the note away in his wallet, had evidently decided that the moment was ripe for the pressing of a further advantage. Whereupon, putting his request on the basis of a “good will” payment, he had coolly demanded a thousand dollars of Khalkis—for, he said, his immediate needs in advance of expected payment of the principal represented by the promissory note in his wallet.

“No thousand dollars were found, Mr. Knox!” said Ellery sharply.

“Let me get on, young man,” said Knox. “Khalkis said at once that he didn’t have the money in the house. Turned about and asked me to lend it to him—promised to repay it the next day. Well, pshaw …” Knox flipped his cigaret deprecatingly. “He was good for it. I’d drawn five one-thousand-dollar bills from my bank earlier in the day for personal expenses. Took ’em out of my wallet, handed one of ’em to Khalkis, and he turned it over to Grimshaw.”

“Ah,” said Ellery. “And where did Grimshaw put it?”

“Grimshaw snatched it from Khalkis’ hand, took from his vest pocket a heavy old gold watch—must be the one found in Sloane’s safe—opened the case at the back, folded the bill into a small wad and stored it in the case-back, snapped it shut, put the watch back into his vest pocket. …”

Ellery was gnawing a fingernail. “Heavy old gold watch. You’re certain it’s the same?”

“I’m absolutely sure of it. Saw a photo of the watch from Sloane’s safe in one of the newspapers earlier in the week. That was the watch, all right.”

“By the Luck of Eden Hall!” breathed Ellery. “If this isn’t … Mr. Knox, do you recall the numbers of the bills you drew from your bank that day? It’s most essential that we investigate the interior of the watch-case at once. If that bill is gone its serial-number may provide a trail to the murderer!”

“Exactly what I thought. Find out in a minute. Miss Brett, get Bowman, head cashier of my bank, on the wire.”

Miss Brett very impersonally obeyed, handed the instrument to Knox and returned quietly to her secretarial chores. “Bowman? Knox. Get me the serial-numbers of the five one-thousand-dollar bills I drew on October first … I see. All right.” Knox waited, then reached for a scratch-pad and began to scribble with his gold pencil. He smiled, hung up, and handed the scrap of paper to Ellery. “There you are, Queen.”

Ellery fingered the scrap absently. “Ah—would you like to go down to Headquarters with me, Mr. Knox, and help me to inspect the interior of the watch?”

“Should be delighted. Fascinated by these detective things.”

The telephone-bell rang on his desk, and Joan rose to answer it. “For you, sir. The Surety Bond. Shall I—?”

“I’ll take it. ’Scuse me, Queen.” While Knox conducted a dry, pointless—as far as Ellery could see—and thoroughly boring business conversation, Ellery rose and strolled back to the other desk with Joan. He gave her a significant glance and said: “Er—Miss Brett, would you mind copying these serial-numbers on your typewriter?”—an excuse for bending over her chair and whispering in her ear. She took the penciled notation from him very demurely, placed a sheet of paper in the carriage of her machine, and began to type. Meanwhile, she murmured: “And why didn’t you tell me Mr. Knox was the unknown man who came with Grimshaw that night?” reproachfully.

Ellery shook his head in warning, but Knox had not faltered in his conversation. Joan quickly tore the sheet from her machine, saying in a loud voice: “Oh, bother! I’ll have to write out the word ‘number,’” and, placing a fresh sheet in the carriage, began to copy the numbers with a rapid touch.

Ellery murmured: “Any news from London?”

She shook her head, stumbled a little in her flashing finger-pace, cried: “I’m still not accustomed to Mr. Knox’s personal typewriter—it’s a Remington and I’ve always used an Underwood and there isn’t another machine in the house …” concluded her task, tore the sheet out, handed it to Ellery and whispered: “Is it possible that
he
has the Leonardo?”

Ellery gripped her shoulder so hard that she winced and went pale. He said with a smile in hearty tones: “That’s splendid, Miss Brett. And thank you,” and whispered, as he tucked the notation into one of his vest pockets: “Be wary. Don’t overplay your hand. Don’t be caught snooping about. Trust me. You’re a secretary and nothing more. Don’t say a word to any one about the thousand-dollar bill …”

“That’s quite all right, I’m sure, Mr. Queen,” she said clearly, and winked with the wickedness of a harpy.

Ellery had the pleasure of riding downtown in Mr. James J. Knox’s town-car seated side by side with the great man himself, and chauffeured by a stiff-necked Charon in sober livery.

Arrived before Police Headquarters in Center Street, the two men got out, toiled up the broad stepped approach, and disappeared within. Ellery was amused to note the awe with which the multi-millionaire regarded the universal cordiality extended by police, detectives and hangers-on to his own son-of-Inspector-Queen person. He led the way to one of the file-rooms. There Ellery commandeered, on the strength of his wholly fictive authority, the file in which the evidence on the Grimshaw-Sloane case was stored. He disturbed nothing but the old-fashioned gold watch; this he took from the steel case, and he and Knox examined it in the deserted room for a moment without speaking.

Ellery experienced in that instant a portent of impending events. Knox seemed merely curious. And Ellery pried open the back of the watch-case.

There, folded into a tiny wad, was what proved to be, on unfolding, a thousand-dollar bill.

Ellery was plainly disappointed; the possibility he had held out in Knox’s den had vanished with the materialization of the bill. Nevertheless, because he was a thorough young man, he checked against the list in his pocket the serial-number of the bill from the watch, and discovered that the bill he had found was in truth one of the five which Knox had listed. He snapped the watch-case shut and restored it to the file.

“What do you make of it, Queen?”

“Not a thundering lot. This new fact doesn’t alter the existing circumstances as they relate to the Sloane solution,” replied Ellery sadly. “If Sloane murdered Grimshaw, was Grimshaw’s unknown partner, our finding of the bill still in the watch-case merely means that Sloane knew nothing of the bill’s existence. It means that Grimshaw was holding out on his partner, that Grimshaw never really intended to tell him about the thousand dollars he had managed to extort from Khalkis, or to share it with Sloane—witness the curious place in which he secreted the bill. Now Sloane, murdering Grimshaw, took the watch for purposes of his own but never thought of looking into the case, since he had no reason to suspect that anything was there. Consequently, it is still where Grimshaw put it. Q.E.D.—and rats!”

“I take it you aren’t particularly impressed with the Sloane solution,” said Knox shrewdly.

“Mr. Knox, I scarcely know what to think.” They strolled down the corridor. “Nevertheless, sir, I should appreciate one thing …”

“Anything you say, Queen.”

“Don’t breathe a word about the thousand-dollar bill to any one—on general principles. Please.”

“Very well. But Miss Brett knows—she must have overheard me telling you about it.”

Ellery nodded. “You might caution her to keep quiet about it.”

They shook hands and Ellery watched Knox stride away. He walked restlessly up and down the hall for a few moments, then made for his father’s office. No one was there. He shook his head, descended into Center Street, looked about, then hailed a taxicab.

Five minutes later he was in Mr. James J. Knox’s bank. He asked to see Mr. Bowman, the head cashier. He saw Mr. Bowman, the head cashier. Flashing a special police identification card which was his by right of audacity, he demanded that Mr. Bowman produce at once the list of serial-numbers of the five one-thousand-dollar bills Knox had drawn on October the first.

The number of the bill from Grimshaw’s watch matched one of the five numbers the bank official supplied.

Ellery left the bank and, perhaps feeling that the occasion warranted no celebration, eschewed the more expensive motor vehicle and took the subway home.

S
ATURDAY AFTERNOON IN BROOKLYN
… to make it worse, thought Ellery ruefully as he walked through long residential streets under bare Brooklyn trees—Saturday afternoon in
Flatbush
… At that, he thought, as he paused to study a house-number, it was not so bad as quipping vaudevillists painted it. There was something about it, a peace and sobriety—a
very
peaceful peace and a
very
sober sobriety. … He visualized Mrs. Jeremiah Odell’s voluptuous Broadway figure in these almost bucolic surroundings, and chuckled.

Mrs. Jeremiah Odell, it appeared when he turned into a little stone walk which led up five wooden steps to the porch of a white-frame house, was at home. Her golden eyebrows shot up when she opened the door in answer to his ring; it was apparent that she thought him a house-to-house canvasser, and with the hardened abruptness of the experienced housewife began to retreat, with the obvious intention of shutting the door in his face. Ellery slid his foot over the sill, smiling. It was not until he produced his card that the healthy belligerence faded and something like fear replaced it on her large handsome face.

“Come in, Mr. Queen. Come in—I didn’t recognize you at first.” She wiped her hands nervously on her apron—she was wearing a stiff and flowered housedress—and fluttered before him into a dark cool foyer. A French door stood open at their left; she preceded him into the room beyond. “I—You want to see Jerry—I mean Mr. Odell, too?”

“If you please.”

She went out quickly.

Ellery looked about him with a grin. Marriage had done more for Lily Morrison than alter her name: the connubial state had evidently touched a nascent spring of domesticity in Lily’s large round breast. Ellery stood in a very pleasant, very conventional, very clean room—it would be a “front room,” of course, to the Odells. Fond but unaccustomed feminine fingers had contrived those flaming cushions; a new respectability had dictated the selection of those gaudy prints on the wall—the almost Victorian lamps scattered about. The furniture was heavy with plush and carving; Ellery could close his eyes and see the flushed Lily of Albert Grimshaw’s environment standing beside the solid figure of Jeremiah Odell in a cheap furniture store and selecting the heaviest, richest, most ornate things in sight. …

His chuckling reflections were cut short by the entrance of the master of the household—Mr. Jeremiah Odell in person, who had, from the grimy state of his fingers, apparently been scrubbing the inevitable automobile in his private garage somewhere in the rear. The Irish giant did not apologize either for his fingers or his collarless, old-shoey appearance; he waved Ellery into a chair, sat down himself while his spouse elected to stand stiffly by his side, and growled: “What’s up? I thought this damned snooping was over. What’s eatin’ you people now?”

The lady, it seemed, was not going to sit down. Ellery remained standing. There were thunderclouds on Odell’s beetling features. “Just a chat. Nothing official, you know,” murmured Ellery. “I merely want to check up—”

“Thought the case was closed!”

“So it is.” Ellery sighed. “I shan’t take more than a few moments … For my own satisfaction I am trying to clear up some of the unimportant but still unexplained points. I should like to know—”

“We ain’t got a thing to say.”

“Dear, dear.” Ellery smiled. “I’m sure you have nothing to say which can possibly have an
important
bearing on the case, Mr. Odell. You see, the important things are completely known to us …”

“Say, is this one of them dirty police tricks, or what?”

“Mr. Odell!” Ellery was shocked. “Haven’t you read the papers? Why should we want to trick you? It’s simply that at the time you were questioned by Inspector Queen you were evasive. Well, conditions have altered materially since then. It’s not a question of suspicion any more, Mr. Odell.”

“All right, all right. What’s on your mind?”

“Why did you lie about visiting Grimshaw that Thursday night at the Hotel Benedict?”

“Say—” began Odell in a direful voice. He stopped at the pressure of his wife’s hand on his shoulder. “You keep out of this, Lily.”

“No,” she said in a trembling voice, “no, Jerry. We’re not tackling this the right way. You don’t know the bu—the police. They’ll hound us till they find out … Tell Mr. Queen the truth, Jerry.”

“That’s always the wisest course, Mr. Odell,” said Ellery heartily. “If you’ve nothing on your conscience, why should you persist in not talking?”

Their eyes clashed. Then Odell lowered his head, scraping his big black jaw with his hand; sluggishly he mused, taking his time, and Ellery waited.

“Okay,” said the Irishman at last. “I’ll talk. But God help you, brother, if you’re pullin’ a fast one! Sit down, Lily; you make me nervous.” Obediently she seated herself on the sofa. “I was there, like the Inspector accused me. And I went up to the desk a few minutes after a woman—”