The Dragon’s Teeth (20 page)

Beau growled deep in his throat, but Ellery rose quickly and came forward to step between the two men. He kicked Beau's shin not gently with his left heel and took De Carlos's arm.

“I think we understand, Mr. De Carlos,” he said with a leer to match their visitor's. “You feel we've been snooping about a bit too freely, and you'd breathe more easily if we directed our agency energies elsewhere. How much did you say our stepping out was worth to you?”

“I didn't shay.” De Carlos peered up at him with a bleary shrewdness. “Shall we shay—ten thoushand dollars?”

“Come, come, Mr. De Carlos. We'd have made a good deal more than that in the Margo Cole deal.”

“De Carlos-boy'sh bein' held up, held up,” De Carlos grunted. “Now don' hoi' me up, gen'l'men. Fifteen.”

“Now you're bruising my feelings, Mr. De Carlos.”

“Aw ri',” grumbled De Carlos, “shall we shay twen'y thoushand?”

“Shall we rather say twenty-five, Mr. De Carlos?”

De Carlos muttered to himself. Finally he growled: “'S a deal. Twen'y-fi' thoushand. Robbersh!”

“Just-business,” Ellery assured him. “Now how is this little payment to be made? Cash, I trust?”

“Cash! I don't carry that mush cash aroun' me,” said De Carlos irritably. “Give you a sheck.”

“Checks bounce,” reflected Mr. Queen.

“Well, thish one won't! An' if it doesh, you're protected. You don't have to go through with our 'greement.”

“Before that logic we bow. A check it shall be. Chair, Mr. De Carlos?”

He helped the reeling man around the desk and sat him down in the swivel-chair, reaching over to switch on the powerful desk-lamp.

De Carlos fumbled in his clothes and brought out a checkbook. He opened it, stared at the last stub morosely, then groped in his pockets again. Finally his hand emerged with a fountain-pen.

He unscrewed the cap, pushed it onto the other end of the pen, leaned over and, tucking his tongue in one cheek, began laboriously to write out a check.

If he had taken a bomb from his pocket Mr. Queen and Mr. Rummell could not have been so startled.

Their eyes fixed in a fascinated amazement at the pen in De Carlos's lax, blundering fingers.

It was a black hard-rubber fountain-pen, fat and scarred, and it was trimmed in gold.

On the cap, etching-sharp in the bold light of the lamp, there were certain curious scratchy marks and dents in an arced pattern—a familiar pattern, a pattern Messrs. Queen and Rummell had seen twice before … once earlier that evening in Room 1726 at the
Villanoy
on the pencil they had found behind the radiator, and once months before in that very office, at that very desk.

The identical pen.

Under the identical circumstances.

It was Cadmus Cole's fountain-pen!

PART FIVE

XVI.
The Empty Mouth

Cadmus Cole's fountain-pen! What was it doing in De Carlos's possession?

Ellery raised his eyebrows to Beau. They drifted off to a corner of the office as De Carlos, at the desk, struggled to control his hand.

“You're sure it's the same one?” whispered Beau.

“Positive, although we've always got a check-up against those microphotographs.”

“Cole's pen!” mumbled Beau. “The same pen he used to write out that check for fifteen grand when he originally hired us. It might have a simple explanation, El. Maybe De Carlos just appropriated it after Cole cashed in.”

Ellery shrugged. “There's one way of finding out. De Carlos is just drunk enough to be off guard, and if we asked him he's apt to tell the truth. Let me handle this.”

He went back to the desk and rested his palms on it, smiling down at the writing man.

“There!” said De Carlos with a bubbly sigh. “Twen'y-fi' thoushand dollarsh, Mis'er Rummell.” He sat back limply in the swivel-chair, waving the check like a flag to dry the ink. “Shay! How'd I know you'll keep your wor', gen'l'men?”

“You don't,” replied Ellery with a smile.

“You doublecrosh me,” said De Carlos furiously, reeling to his feet, “an' I'll—I'll—”

Ellery took the check gently from the man's slack fingers. “Is that friendly? We're a reputable agency, Mr. De Carlos. Word's our bond. Yes, twenty-five thousand, signed Edmund De Carlos—correct, Mr. De Carlos, and thank you!”

“'S all ri',” said De Carlos, forgetting his suspicions and trying to bow. He almost fell on his face. Beau caught him and straightened him up none too carefully. “Thanksh, Mis'er Queen. 'S mighty rocky weather we're having. An' now I'll be on my way.”

He put the black fountain-pen back into his pocket. Beau watched it disappear with the expression of a fox watching a rabbit vanish in a hole.

Ellery grasped De Carlos's other arm and he and Beau began to steer the bearded man to the door.

“By the way, Mr. De Carlos,” said Ellery respectfully, “you're just the man to help me out.”

De Carlos stopped short, weaving. “Yesh?” he said, blinking at Ellery.

“Mr. De Carlos, I have a hobby—you know, hobby? I collect little personal mementoes of famous people. Not expensive things, you know—the homelier and more personal the better I like them.”

“I
like t'collect the ladies, bless 'em,” chuckled De Carlos. “Blon's, brunettes—any kind, I shay, 's long's they're beau'ful.”

“Every man to his own hobby,” smiled Ellery. “Well, I've often thought no collection of the sort I own would be complete without some memento of Mr. Cadmus Cole.”

“Should think sho,” said De Carlos warmly. “Great man, Mis'er Cole. Great man. Gen'l'men, give you Mis'er Cole!”

“I meant to ask him for some little thing when he hired us a few months ago, but he was in such a hurry that I thought I'd wait for a more propitious time. And then,” Ellery sighed, “he passed on, and I'd missed my chance. Do you think you could help me out, Mr. De Carlos? I mean, you were probably the closest friend he had.”

“On'y frien',” said De Carlos. “Give you my wor'. On'y frien' he had in the worl'. Lemme think. Le' shee. Pershonal—”

“What happened to his personal belongings after his death, Mr. De Carlos—his clothing, fob, studs, things like that? Anything of that nature, you see—”

“Oh, they were all packed in a bunsh o' trunksh, an' I shipped 'em North from Cuba,” said De Carlos, waving his hand. “They're in the housh in Tarrytown ri' now, Mis'er Rummell. I'll shee what I can fin'—”

“I shouldn't want to put you to all that trouble. Didn't he give
you
anything before he died? Or perhaps you took something from his effects to remember him by—his watch, his ring, his fountain-pen, something like that?”

“Di'n' take a thing,” said Mr. De Carlos sadly. “Honesht shteward—tha'sh Edmund De Carlos, gen'l'men. Give you my wor'. Di'n' take so mush as a shteel pin!”

“Oh, come,” protested Mr. Queen. “You must have taken something, Mr. De Carlos. Some little thing. His fountain-pen, for instance. Didn't you take that?”

“I beg your par'on,” said De Carlos, offended. “Di'n' take his fou'n'-pen, di'n' take anything!”

“Such epic honesty,” said Mr. Queen with a gleam in his eye, “deserves a substantial reward.” He snatched off Mr. De Carlos's spectacles suddenly, leaving the man blinking.

“Mis'er Rummell …” began De Carlos with a gurgle.

Ellery waved the silver spectacles at Beau. “Give the gentleman his reward.”

“Huh?” said Beau.

“Mr. Queen,” said Mr. Queen, “the floor is yours. I suggest you stretch Mr. Edmund De Carlos out on it.”

Beau's mouth closed. “It would be sort of taking advantage, wouldn't it? He'd fall apart.”

De Carlos stood gaping and squinting from one to the other.

“That,” said Mr. Queen, “is the idea.”

Beau stared at him and then began to chuckle. “Come and get it,” he said to Mr. De Carlos.

The bearded man shrank against Ellery.

Beau's paw flashed. It clamped about the nape of Mr. De Carlos's neck.

Mr. Queen stepped back and watched with a detached and scientific interest.

De Carlos squealed and flailed at Beau like an agitated crab. Beau grinned and began to shake him up and down, and from side to side, as if De Carlos had been a cocktail shaker. De Carlos's head flopped back and forth, his eyes popping, his glittering teeth rattling with a peculiar, mechanical rattle that awakened another gleam in Mr. Queen's eye.

And suddenly an astonishing thing happened. Mr. De Carlos's teeth, that shining ivory army; that perfect and beautiful string of dental pearls, detached themselves in one piece from Mr. De Carlos's gaping mouth and flew halfway across the room to land at Mr. Queen's feet.

De Carlos began to mumble curses, his cheeks sunken in magically, his gums nakedly forlorn.

Beau shouted: “So
that's
the way it is!” and grasped the man's beard with his other hand, yanking viciously, already triumphant, as if he did not doubt the beard was as false as the teeth. But De Carlos only howled with pain; the beard refused to part from his cheeks.

Cursing, Beau released it and plunged his fingers into the bush of Mr. De Carlos's hair. This time he was not foiled. Mr. De Carlos's black hair came away from Mr. De Carlos's scalp with a sucking, reluctant sound, in one incredible piece, leaving an almost nude dome behind—almost, for there was a sparse fringe of gray-black hair on his head in the general shape of a horseshoe.

And then Mr. De Carlos ceased howling, ceased struggling, as he felt the top of his head and his hand encountered naked flesh. He grew limp.

“Desist,” said Mr. Queen.

Mr. Rummell desisted, looking rather dazed at the unexpected result of his handiwork. Immediately Mr. De Carlos dropped to all fours and began to grope about the rug. He found his wig by chance and hastily—and askew—clapped it back on his pink gray-fringed skull. Then he began hunting for his teeth.

Mr. Queen stooped and picked them up. “You may rise,” he said gravely, “we have them,” and he inspected them curiously as Mr. De Carlos scrambled to his feet. They were set in their pink shell in perfect alignment—superbly regular teeth disposed with superb regularity … so perfect, so superbly regular, Mr. Queen told himself, that he should feel ashamed for not having suspected their falseness before. And he did feel ashamed.

He returned teeth and spectacles to their owner, and their owner swallowed the one and clapped the other on his nose and at once, with a surprising dignity, went to the desk and reached for the telephone.

Mr. Queen sighed. “I beg your pardon,” he said, “but apparently the effects both of my partner's whisky and his seismic treatment have not yet worn off, Mr. De Carlos. The hour is late, and if I am not mistaken I detect the dawn's early light. You will not be able to stop the check you wrote out a few moments ago for some few hours yet.”

De Carlos replaced the telephone, made an attempt to brush himself off, thought better of it, set his hat on his tilted wig, and calmly went out into the anteroom.

“Mr. Queen,” said Mr. Queen, “show the gentleman out.”

“But—” began Beau hoarsely.

Mr. Queen shook his head at his partner with violence. Beau shrugged and let Mr. De Carlos escape into the friendlier world.

WHEN Beau came back, he said sharply: “What was the idea of letting him go?”

“Plenty of time, plenty of time,” said Ellery. He was examining the twenty-five thousand dollar check De Carlos had written out—examining it with an intentness that puzzled Beau.

“That's easy for you to say,” muttered Beau. “How about Kerrie? Hey!” Ellery looked up. “You're not even listening. What's so interesting about that check? You may as well tear it up. He'll stop it as soon as the bank opens in the morning.”

“This check,” remarked Mr. Queen, “has more than a monetary value to us. It's so valuable, I suspect, that I shan't entrust it even to the office safe. I'm going to carry it about with me, as I've been carrying these microphotographs.”

“You think somebody'd try to crack us open?” demanded Beau, making two fists.

“It's not improbable.”

“I'd like to see 'em try! Say, why didn't you take the pen from him, too?”

“No hurry, and we don't want to flush our rabbit too soon.”

“It's all mixed up,” growled Beau, flinging himself on the leather sofa. “How the hell did De Carlos get Cole's pen, if Cole didn't give it to him? He must have been lying about that. And if he has Cole's pen …” Beau sat up on the sofa suddenly. “If he has Cole's pen, why couldn't he have had Cole's automatic pencil, too?”

Ellery felt absently in his pocket to see if the pencil were still there. It was. He stowed De Carlos's check carefully away in his wallet.

“It's important to check up on De Carlos's story about Cole's personal effects. He said they were in some trunks at the Cole house in Tarrytown. You'd better make sure De Carlos told the truth about that.”

“Yeah, but the pencil! I tell you—”

Ellery frowned. “I have the feeling we oughtn't to jump at conclusions, Beau. There's a good deal to weigh and examine and mull over. Meanwhile, I want you to dig into De Carlos's past. Question old-timers in the Street. Find out as much about him as you can. There must be some people who remember him from the days—1919, 1920, or whenever it was—when De Carlos was running Cole's market operations, before Cole retired to his yacht.”

“But why?”

“Never mind why,” said Mr. Queen. “Do it. And—oh, yes. One thing more—perhaps the most important of all.”

“What's that?”

“Find out if De Carlos has ever been married.”