The Player on the Other Side (18 page)

Ellery's mouth clamped again.

‘Mr. Queen,' Mallory went on to inquire politely, ‘do you also know why I broke my engagement to Myra York almost two decades ago?'

It was a relief to be able to say
something
. Ellery said, ‘No.'

Mallory seemed pleased. ‘Very good. I admire the laconic interviewer. Mr. Queen, I am a man who makes plans and, having made them, follows them. I began this useful practice early in life. In those days I made plans for myself and Myra — who was, by the way, most desirable — at that time. When those plans became impossible — I'll amend that; when I discovered that those plans were impossible with
her —
I had to plan her, so to speak, out of them.'

The Old Master reached abruptly. His kingly fingers closed about a tooled morocco twin-picture frame facing him, and turned it around. The fingers then spread with a little wave, in gracious invitation. Ellery accepted and bent forward.

One of the two photographs showed a calm-eyed lady with an impressive bust and hair either blonde or white; the facing picture was of three corn-fed teenagers, two boys and a girl, descending robustly in what was obvious chronological order.

Mallory smiled. ‘
They
are what would have been impossible with Myra.' He reached again, this time to turn the frame away from Ellery's view and back to his. ‘She told me so,' he said, now smiling at the teenage frame of the two, ‘herself.'

‘And on her unsupported word —'

‘I never act on anyone's unsupported word. As her fiancé, I consulted her doctor. It was true enough. But I had planned a dynasty, and dynasties are grown only in fertile ground. No children, no Myra York. Could anything be simpler? Comment, Mr. Queen.'

Said Mr. Queen: ‘I hardly know where to begin.'

‘Certainly you know where to begin. You might say, for example: this was a brutal blow to Myra. Admitted. But it was also a brutal blow to me; I was young, too, and she was
very
desirable, Mr. Queen. I had to comfort myself with the truism that it is in the nature of things for us all to endure brutal blows.

‘Or say, for another example, Mr. Queen,' continued Mallory, leaning back in his tall and massive chair, ‘that you nosed your way to Boston seeking a suspect fortune hunter; that, having sniffed me out and discovered that I
had
a fortune, you were compelled to doubt your hypothesis; but that, being a man who examines all sides of everything, you gave me further thought and reinstated your hypothesis, on the ground this time that I might be the kind of affluent man whose acquisitiveness is insatiable. My answer to that is, of course: I have no designs on Myra York's millions. I submit corroboration of this statement to your common sense. Already this year my own millions, my investments, this business, have earned more in profits than the entire fortune Myra York is coming into. I will happily instruct my people to open my books to any firm of reputable accountants you may designate.'

‘As a matter of fact,' murmured Ellery, ‘I wasn't thinking any of those things, Mr. Mallory. I was thinking instead of such unfashionable, if not obsolete, words as responsibility and conscience. Since you say that you've kept yourself informed about Myra York, you must therefore be aware of her mental condition. Doesn't it bother you that what she is today may very likely be the direct result of your cold-blooded rejection of her years ago? — a rejection, by the way, for something that was not her fault?'

‘Nor mine,' smiled Mallory, ‘a fact you have conveniently left out. But aside from that. People are, by and large, what they want to be. You are what you are, Mr. Queen, and I am what I am, because you and I have so willed it. You and I willed ourselves to be successes, so we are. But the principle applies equally to failures. Of course it bothers me to hear of poor Myra's condition; I pity her with all my heart. But pangs of conscience?' He shook his head. ‘I cannot, do not, and will not accept responsibility for Myra's decline, for that is manifestly something
she
has willed.'

It came to Ellery suddenly that this amazing man might be angry, he kept smiling so.

‘I beg your pardon?' Ellery said.

‘I said,' Mallory repeated, ‘that you might also inquire what I was doing on the night of so-and-so, et cetera.'

‘That,' said Ellery with his own smile, ‘— now that we have cleared away the smog — is the hard question I'm here to ask.'

Mallory spun about on his revolving throne and swept aside the towering drapes behind him. They uncovered an almost unpleasantly large expanse of glass and, beyond it far below, a miniature panorama of Boston Harbor. The object of his action, however, was neither the glass nor the view; it was propped against the window.

A crutch.

Mallory grasped it and spun back, still smiling. ‘The evening Robert York was killed,' he said, fondling the crutch, ‘I was lying in a traction splint in Auburn Hospital — that's in Cambridge, Mr. Queen — with a broken femur. On the afternoon Emily York was killed, I was confined to my home, my mobility rather limited by two crutches. I now manage with this one. Of course you will check this, Mr. Queen, although I assure you I would not bring it up if it were not true.' He wagged his ice-crowned head. ‘I'm afraid I'm not a very profitable suspect.'

In the silence that followed — although Ellery was sure that behind the Mount Rushmore countenance the man was shouting with laughter — the telephone rang. It was a relief, for Ellery had been rather desperately trying to think of an exit speech.

‘Excuse me,' Mallory said, and picked up the phone. He listened then covered the transmitter with his muscular hand. ‘It's for you, Mr. Queen. Are you here?'

‘Of course.'

Stretching far forward to meet Ellery's hand, Mallory explained, ‘I like to offer visitors to my office the option of lying to their associates,' and, still smiling, settled back.

‘This is Queen,' Ellery said to the phone. ‘Oh, yes, put him on. Dad?'

And then Ellery went so still for so long that the smile faded from Mallory's face.

Finally: ‘When?' Ellery said, and cleared some obstruction from his throat. ‘All right. All right. As soon as I can.'

He leaned over and replaced the instrument precisely on its cradle. Mallory's eyes alertly followed the action: there was the slightest crevice between them.

‘Bad news, Mr. Queen?'

And Ellery looked down at Mallory in a sort of blindness and said, ‘For Myra York, the worst. She was murdered last night.'

The muscles that managed the center of Mallory's mouth held up all right, but those at the corners gave out. For a moment the massive face might have posed for Tragedy's mask on some theater proscenium. ‘Poor Myra,' he muttered.

But that was all.

Ellery made for the door without another word.

And Mallory said, ‘Mr. Queen!' and Ellery stopped and turned. The man had reassumed command; the corners were now lifted back into place. ‘I mean to have that devil caught,' Mallory barked, ‘whoever it is. I'm prepared to post a reward —'

‘So there's conscience on Olympus after all.' The Queenian torso inclined toward the tycoon ever so little, as if ready for anything. ‘But this time, Mr. Mallory, money won't solve it. My father tells me he's had the murderer in a cell since ten o'clock this morning.'

Their stares locked across the long dueling ground. Both men were pale.

Then Ellery reversed himself and marched to Mallory's door and opened it and stepped through and shut it behind him as bitterly as he could.

20

Breakthrough

‘It was Ann Drew,' Inspector Queen said, ‘who found her dead this morning. With the jug on the night table beside the bed. The girl's had a bad time of it.'

The old man had been waiting at La Guardia in a squad car when the Boston plane set down. The only thing he could have done to look older would have been to wear silk knee breeches and a ruff. His face was so gaunt, his eyes were so redly rimmed, that Ellery found himself wishing he could belittle this incredible third York death.

‘The poison was put into her drinking water, Dad? I should think even Myra would have tasted —'

‘Who said there was water in the jug?' The inspector showed his dentures.

‘The joke escapes me,' Ellery said sharply. ‘What would a water jug hold but water?'

‘A fair question, except in Myra's case.
That
water jug held straight gin. Now it comes out she's been a secret lush for years.'

‘That floating walk, that slow slurry coo of hers,' exclaimed Ellery. ‘Did Ann know?'

‘Sure she knew.'

‘Poor kid.'

‘She's been throwing ashes on her head like a professional mourner. And you ought to see the shape that policewoman, Constant, is in. I had to order her home on sick leave. And Mrs. Schriver's wandering around in a daze, looking twenty years older.'

And so do you, Ellery thought. Aloud he said, ‘Has a card shown up, Dad?'

‘What else?'

The Inspector went fishing. He handed over his catch; and Ellery seized the familiar white card with the five odd sides as if it were the key to Solomon's treasure room.

‘Lower starboard. Myra's castle, all right,' Ellery said tensely. ‘W … W. H before that, J before H. J, H, W. JHW. What the devil! Or — wait! Could it be' — he turned the card upside down — ‘an M?'

The Inspector stared at it. ‘M. That's Myra's initial.'

But Ellery scowled and shook his head. ‘Then why didn't Robert get an R, and Emily an E? Besides, notice that in the M-position the card would have to be assigned to the northwest corner of the Square, and that makes no sense at all — that was Emily's corner.' He restored the card to its W-position. ‘No, Dad, this one's meant to be a W. Now tell me about it.'

‘I was the one who found it.' The old man took back the white card and glared at it. ‘It was in the usual envelope, addressed in the usual style to Miss Myra York, et cetera, and postmarked night before last at the local station. It was delivered in the regular mail yesterday morning.'

‘But if you knew about it yesterday morning —' Ellery began, perplexed.

‘I didn't know about it yesterday morning.'

‘You said you were the one who found it!'

‘
This
morning,' said the Inspector woodenly, ‘when it was too damn late.'

‘But how did it slip by everybody?' Ellery cried.

‘You won't believe it, it's so ridiculous.' Then the Inspector's voice turned policeman. ‘First of all, the carrier says it was Myra herself who took the mail from him.'

‘
Myra?
' said Ellery incredulously. ‘How was she allowed —?'

‘If you'll shut up, I'll tell you. Mrs. Schriver was preparing breakfast in the kitchen. Constant was upstairs, picking up after Myra. Ann Drew was downstairs, setting the dining room table. She called upstairs that breakfast was ready; the policewoman called down that Myra was on her way. In the few seconds after Myra left Constant's line of sight and before she got into the Drew girl's, Myra passed the front door — and that had to be the exact moment the postman came with the mail. A thing like that couldn't have been planned by anybody but Satan, Ellery. The breaks.'

‘But didn't one of them see Myra take the mail? At least hear the doorbell?'

‘Ann heard it and came right out. But by then Myra had the door closed, and the mail — a couple of magazines, some advertising matter, a cheer-up note from Miss Sullivan — in her hand. Ann took it from her and led her to the dining room. But Myra could be almighty quick — apparently she'd spotted the W-envelope and slid it into the side pocket of her suit. And then must have forgotten all about it, because that's where I found it this morning — twenty-four hours later — in her suit pocket, unopened.' The Inspector paused. Then he swallowed, making a face. ‘Don't ask me why Myra latched onto the particular envelope. Don't ask me why she was sly about it — not mentioning it to Ann, or Policewoman Constant, or Mrs. Schriver. And don't ask me why she didn't open it. Don't ask me
anything
about this case!'

They became absorbed in watching the police driver fight his way onto the ramp from the Triborough Bridge to the East River Drive.

When they were speeding down the Drive, Ellery murmured, ‘So now you've got your killer.'

The Inspector retorted, ‘So now we've got
your
killer,' and gave him half a grin, the left half. ‘Go ahead and say it, Ellery. “I told you so.”'

‘But I didn't. He's just bothered me.' Ellery scowled at the back of the driver's neck. ‘By the way, how did you break him?'

‘Who said I broke him? I arrested him, booked him, locked him up. He hasn't said a damn word but his name — I half expected him to add his rank and serial number before he clammed up.'