The Devil To Pay (25 page)

“How do you figure that?” demanded Glücke.

“I don’t figure it; it’s a fact. In archery, as in any other sport, the favored arm is called upon to do the most work. A right-handed archer will draw back the string of the bow with his right hand. Obviously a left-handed archer will draw it back with his left. Now the shooting glove is always worn on the hand which draws back the bow. On which hand did the murderer wear his shooting glove?”

“The left!” cried Val. “I remember we talked about those prints—”

“Yes, the thumb and little-finger smudges on the table from their relative shape and position came from a left hand, as you accurately observed. Then a left hand wore the shooting glove. Then the murderer was left-handed. That lets Walter out.”

Walter shook his head, grinning a little, and Val ran over to him and seized him, her face shining.

“Now let me show you a little trick,” murmured Ellery out of a spurt of smoke. “What do we know about the murderer? One—he’s an expert archer. Fifty yards to hit a man in the heart is no mean feat, even after one bad shot. Two—he’s left-handed. Three—and this is important—
he knew Jardin’s coat had a rip in it
.”

“I don’t follow, I don’t follow,” said the Inspector in a fit of irritable excitement.

“He took the coat from Walter and planted it on Jardin, didn’t he? To do that,
he had to know it was Jardin’s coat
. But how could he have known it was Jardin’s coat? Walter was wearing it—a fact ordinarily sufficient to establish an assumption that it was his. Both men owned identical camel’s-hairs. There were no distinguishing marks. No, the only means of identifying the coat as Jardin’s was
by the rip under the pocket
, which had been made that very afternoon. The archer, then, recognized the coat by the rip. So he must have known in advance of the crime that the coat was ripped in that specific place. Four—and this is also a delicate point,” said Ellery with a slight smile, “the murderer, in order to have been able to use the Indian club on Walter’s head,
had to know where to find it.
”

“Say that again?” implored Glücke, who was having a hard time all around.

Ellery sighed. “Visualize our homicidal friend. He has just seen Walter leaving with the sword and arrows. He wants to get those arrows back. What to do? He hasn’t anything against Walter personally; he’s not out for Walter’s blood. A tap on the head will be sufficient. What should he use for a bludgeon? We know he used one of the Indian clubs. That means he ran along the terrace, forced the door of the ex-gymnasium, went to the wall-closet where the two clubs hung, opened the closet, and took out the undamaged club.
What made him force the door of the gymnasium?
There were lots of other rooms to investigate if he wanted to find a bludgeon. Even if he went to the gymnasium first by mere chance, and forced the door, there was nothing to be seen but a small pile of débris. For Miss Jardin told me Wednesday afternoon that the closet door had been left closed when they moved out of the house. No, when he forced that door and went to the closed closet and opened it,
he knew what he was going to find
. He knew there were two Indian clubs in that closet.”

Ellery threw away his cigaret. “I think we have enough now to paint a picture of our ‘compleat criminal.’ To our knowledge, who fits all four qualifications I’ve laid down?

“Who is an expert archer,
and
left-handed,
and
knew Jardin’s coat was ripped,
and
knew the Indian clubs were in the gymnasium closet?”

For a moment, by some communal telegraphic instinct, the very bees stopped humming; and a final silence fell that was uncomfortably not of this world. Then Pink burst into laughter, doubling up as he clutched the bows and arrows. “But jeeze,” he gasped, “you’re ’way off your base. That’s
me!
”

Inspector Glücke looked at Ellery with an anxiously questioning triumph, as if to say: “There, smart guy. What do you say to that?”

And Ellery said to that: “Yes, Pink. That’s you.”

“Oh, no,” said Valerie, holding on to Walter’s arm. “Oh,
no
.”

“Oh, yes,” said Ellery. “I knew Pink was an expert archer—wasn’t he runner-up to Jardin when Jardin won the California Archery Tournament last spring? You mentioned that yourself Monday night, Inspector. And besides, he’s just beautifully demonstrated his markmanship. Left-handed? Ample evidence of that, plus the fact that he just shot an arrow left-handedly. He was one of the five persons who were present when Jardin’s coat was ripped. And he was one of the three who knew about the clubs being left in the closet.

“On the archery point, the only other known archer in the group is Jardin, whose alibi lets him out. On the coat-ripping point, the other four witnesses were Jardin, Valerie, Walter, and the gateman Frank. Jardin and Valerie are eliminated because of their albis. Walter is right-handed. And Frank has only one arm, so he couldn’t possibly have been an archer. And on the Indian-club point, the other two were the Jardins, eliminated before.

“Pink is the only one who fits all four characteristics. So he must have murdered Solly Spaeth.” Ellery sighed. “Take it away, Inspector. I’ve shot my bolt, too.”

During this peroration, they stood motionless, too surprised to think, to take the simplest defensive measure. As for Pink, his crimson neck grew more crimson, and the cords expanded and became visible, and the look of the hunted animal slowly emerged from the sluggish morass of his brain. But at a certain point something snapped, and Pink demonstrated his amazing nervous and physical versatility. Before they could move a muscle he had bounded off the terrace to a point fifteen feet away and whirled like a tightly wound mechanical toy with an arrow fitted into the bow, the string taut, and the arrowhead pointed directly at Mr. Ellery Queen’s petrified breast. “Don’t move,” said Pink thickly. “Nobody make one little move.”

They were strung out in a straggly line along the terrace, no one behind another. It was absurd, in the sun, with the bow gleaming like a plaything. And yet nobody moved. “You can get me with a gun,” said Pink in the same thick, dreary voice, “but this guy gets it through the heart first. So don’t move. He’s got something coming to him.” He stopped, and then he said: “He
fooled
me.”

And nobody laughed, even at the childish petulance, the plaintive wonder in Pink’s voice. His red hair flamed. With his legs widespread and solidly planted in the earth, and the bow grotesquely arched, he was a fascinating object; and faintly in a remote chamber of his brain Mr. Ellery Queen began to recite a small, foolish prayer.

Pink’s left arm drew back a little farther and his eye glared at Ellery’s breast with an awful fixity. “Pink,” said Valerie. She happened to be standing with Walter near the top step of the terrace. “Pink.”

Pink’s eye did not waver. “Keep out of this, Val. Keep away.”

“Pink,” said Val again. Her cheeks were almost blue. Walter made a convulsive movement and she breathed: “Walter. Don’t move. He’ll kill you. He won’t touch me.” And slowly she stepped forward and slowly she went down the steps.

“Val,” cried Pink, “Val, I swear—go back!”

“No, Pink,” said Val in a quiet soothing tone. Slowly, slowly. She hardly touched the ground. She drifted toward him, never taking her eyes from him. It was as if Pink had been a sliver of gold leaf balanced on the tip of a needle; the merest quiver of the ground, the merest breath would send it tumbling. “Don’t, Pink. I know there’s something horribly wrong in all this. You’re not a criminal. You may have killed Spaeth, but I know you must have had a good reason—in your own mind, Pink. …” Fat drops appeared on Pink’s red forehead. His body trembled as he stood rooted in the garden, shaken by an invisible wind. “Pink,” said Val, and she went up to him and took the bow out of his hand.

And Pink did a curious thing. He sank down among the flowers and began to weep.

When it was all over and Pink, with a dead look in his eyes, was led away to wait in a police car for Inspector Glücke, Ellery went into Solly Spaeth’s study and opened a liquor cabinet and drank standing up from a full brown bottle. Then, with the bottle in his hand, he went over to Val and kissed the tip of her ear. “Just like a woman,” he said. Val was crying bitterly in Walter’s arms and Rhys was sitting, a little shrunken, and looking old. “You saved my life,” said Ellery.

Val sobbed against Walter’s chest. Walter glanced at Ellery significantly and he turned away. Walter drew Val off to a corner and sat her down on his lap; she clung to him. “Pink. He was… Oh, I can’t believe it!”

“It’s all right, darling. We’ll get him off,” crooned Walter in her ear. “No jury will ever convict him in this county.”

“Oh, Walter…”

Ellery raised the bottle again, and Inspector Glücke said something, and Ruhig and Winni Moon were sent off in custody with their conspiracy to defraud hanging heavy over their heads. And after a while District Attorney Van Every left with a bewildered look; and Fitz, clapping his forehead like a man awakening from a trance, grabbed the telephone, spluttered into it, dashed out, dashed back, found his hat, threw it away, and dashed out again. Glücke rubbed his jaw. “King, I don’t know how to—”

Ellery lowered the bottle. “Who killed Cock Robin?” he sang. “I, said the sparrow, with my little bow and arrow. … It’s like a resurrection! Have I sprouted any gray hairs in the last ten minutes?”

“Mr. King.” Rhys Jardin rose, working his jaws. For a moment there was no sound except Val’s sobbing and Walter’s crooning in her ear.

Ellery sighed: “Yes?” He was not feeling terribly fit; there was a bitterness on his tongue not liquorish.

“There’s one thing I’ll never believe,” said Rhys in a troubled voice. “I’ll never believe Pink framed me for Spaeth’s murder. I couldn’t be wrong. He was my friend. I treated him like a member of my own family. It just can’t be, Mr. King.”

“Look,” said Ellery. “A friend may become a greater enemy than an enemy. He was your friend, and you were his. You had advised him to put all his savings in Ohippi. When Ohippi fell, he was furious with Spaeth; and so long as he thought you were Spaeth’s victim, too, he remained your friend. But Monday morning, in packing your things in the gym across the way, he found a bankbook in your golf-bag which seemed to indicate that you had salted away five million dollars. Were you still his friend? Not if you doublecrossed him by pretending to be broke while you had five millions to keep you warm against a rainy day. Pink is a primitive soul and he didn’t stop to ask questions. In his mind you became one with Spaeth—two crooks who had defrauded him of his life’s savings. He planned things then and there. He had to take that collection of arrowheads down to the Museum, didn’t he? On the way he took two of the arrowheads out of the package, delivering the rest. He fitted them out with shafts, preparing his little broth of molasses and potassium cyanide—”

“But ever since,” cried Val’s father, “he’s been so damned—so damned
solicitous!
He couldn’t have been acting.”

“He wasn’t. When you explained to him late Monday night about the five million,
after
the crime,
after
the planting of the rapier and coat in your closet—when he realized that you’d been with him the entire day on which the five millions were deposited, Pink saw what an awful thing he’d done to you. But it was too late. The crime, the frame-up, were
faits accomplis
. There was nothing he could do. He couldn’t recall that wire he’d sent headquarters only a few minutes before—probably by dodging downstairs to the lobby while Val and Walter were in her bedroom and telephoning the wire from the public booth there. No, he just had to sit and take it. Every emotion of his since Monday night has been genuine.”

Ellery turned to find Val and Walter before him. Val was still sniffling with her handkerchief to her nose, but she looked calmer. “I can’t thank you, Mr. King. None of us can. But—”

“Feel better, Walter?”

“We’re still a little dazed,” said Walter, “but you might be interested to learn that Val and I have decided to do something constructive with my father’s money.”

“I know,” sighed Ellery. “You’re going to put it all back into Ohippi and rehabilitate the plants.”

“How did you know?” they cried together.

“Because,” said Ellery, “you’re that kind of damned fool.”

“That reminds me,” murmured Rhys. “That five million properly belongs to you now, Walter. I’ll—”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort.” Walter smiled faintly. “I hope you’ll find me a better partner than my father was.”

“Look,” said Inspector Glücke, who was still hanging about. “I’ve got work to do. But I’ve got to tell you, King—”

Walter said suddenly: “King? Let me show you a trick, Inspector.”

“I’ve had all the tricks I want. King—”

“No, no, you’ll enjoy this one.” Walter seized a piece of paper from the desk and with a soft pencil began to sketch a face with great rapidity. Glücke looked puzzled. “So what? That’s King. I haven’t time to look at pictures—”

“You have for this.” Walter erased the shaded glasses and replaced them with
pince-nez
. Over the face he smudged a beard. And he put the hair-part in a different place. “Who’s that?”

The Inspector gaped from the drawing to Mr. Hilary King. “My God,” he screamed, “the pest!”

“I think I knew it,” shrugged Walter, “from the moment I saw him. You might fool others, Queen, but you couldn’t fool an artist. I sketched your face at the auction.”

“Mr. Queen?” said Val, wide-eyed. “So
that’s
how you knew what went on here Monday night!”

“I’ll be damned,” said Jardin, staring.

Ellery reached hastily for the telephone and gave the operator a number. “Magna Studios? Connect me with Mr. Jacques Butcher’s office.” As he waited, he said apologetically: “As long as I’m unmasked I may as well go back to work. … Hello, Butcher?… Who?” He swallowed hard. “Now look here, young woman. This is Ellery Queen, and I—want—Butcher!… He
is
there? Put him on!” He said exultantly: “Can you imagine? Butcher at last!” There was a buzzing noise in the receiver and he slowly sucked his lean cheeks in. “Oh, is that so?” he yelled. “So he can’t see me—
yet?
Well, you tell your Mr. Butcher—” But there was a click. He stared at the dead telephone and then hurled the whole thing away.