There Was an Old Woman

THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN

Ellery Queen was both a famous fictional detective and the pen name of two cousins born in Brooklyn in 1905. Created by Manfred B. Lee and Frederic Dannay as an entry in a mystery-writing contest, Ellery Queen is regarded by many as the definitive American whodunit celebrity. When their first novel,
The Roman Hat Mystery
(1929), became an immediate success, the cousins gave up their business careers and took to writing dozens of novels, hundreds of radio scripts and countless short stories about the gentleman detective and writer who shared an apartment on West 87
^th
Street with his father, Inspector Queen of the NYPD. Dannay was said to have largely produced detailed outlines of the plots, clues and characters while Lee did most of the writing. As the success of Ellery Queen grew, the character's legacy continued through radio, television and film. In 1941, the cousins founded
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
. Edited by Queen for more than forty years, the periodical is still considered one of the most influential crime fiction magazines in American history. Additionally, Queen edited a number of collections and anthologies, and his critical writings are the major works on the detective short story. Under their collective pseudonym, the cousins were given several Edgar awards by the Mystery Writers of America, including the 1960 Grand Master Award. Their novels are examples of the classic ‘fair play' whodunit mystery of the Golden Age, where plot is always paramount. Manfred B. Lee, born Manford Lepofsky, died in 1971. Frederic Dannay, born Daniel Nathan, died in 1982.

THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN

ELLERY QUEEN

THE LANGTAIL PRESS

London

 

 

This edition published 2013 by

The Langtail Press

 

www.langtailpress.com

 

 

 

 

 

There Was An Old Woman

Copyright © 1943 by Little, Brown and Company.

Copyright renewed by Ellery Queen.

 

 

 

 

 

ISBN 978-17-80-02169-0

Contents

PART ONE

1 Who Lived in a Shoe

2 She Had So Many Children

3 She Didn't Know What to Do

4 She Gave Them Some Broth without Any Bread

5 There Was a Little Man and He Had a Little Gun

6 Ellery Betrays the Code of Duello

7 Pistols at Dawn

PART TWO

8 The Paramount Question of Opportunity

9 The Narrow Escape of Sergeant Velie

10 The Mark of Cain

11 “Infer the Motive from the Deed”

12 The Importance of Being Dead

13 Thurlow Potts, Terror of the Plains

14 Mac Solves the Mystery

PART THREE

15 And Whipped Them All Soundly and Put Them to Bed

16 And Then There Were None

17 How the Old Woman Got Home

18 Who'll Be Chief Mourner? “I!” Said the Dove

19 The Queen Wills It

20 The Old Woman's Tale

PART FOUR

21 The Uneasiness of Heads

22 Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin

23 The Fruit of the Tree

24 Queen Was in the Parlor

25 The Light That Succeeded

PART FIVE

26 The Identity of the Sparrow

27 The Beginning of the End

28 The End of the Beginning

29 The End of the End

30 There Was a Young Woman

Cast of Characters

S
ERGEANT
 T
HOMAS
 V
ELIE
, 
of the Homicide Department

I
NSPECTOR
 R
ICHARD
 Q
UEEN
, 
of the New York Police Department, Ellery's father

C
HARLES
 H
UNTER
 P
AXTON
, 
who represents the Pottses

C
ORNELIA
 P
OTTS
, 
the choleric Old Woman

T
HURLOW
 P
OTTS
, 
her eldest son, a most insultable little man

D
R.
 W
AGGONER
 I
NNIS
, 
her doctor, the Pasteur of Park Avenue

M
R.
J
USTICE
 C
ORNFIELD
, 
who meant to see justice done

C
ONKLIN
 C
LIFFSTATTER
, 
who didn't care a tittle

S
HEILA
 P
OTTS
, 
slim and red haired, a girl of inoffensive insolence

L
OUELLA
 P
OTTS
, 
who believed herself to be a great inventor

S
TEPHEN
 B
RENT
, 
Cornelia's second husband, seemingly sane

M
AJOR
 G
OTCH
, 
the companion of his Polynesian youth

H
ORATIO
 P
OTTS
, 
who never grew up

R
OBERT
 P
OTTS
, 
Vice President in Charge of Sales

M
ACLYN
 P
OTTS
, 
his twin and the other businessman of the family, Vice President in Charge of Advertising and Promotion

H ESSE F LINT P LGGOTT J OHNSON

of the Inspector's staff

D
R
. S
AMUEL
 P
ROUTY
, 
Assistant Medical Examiner of New York County

C
UTTINS
, 
the Potts butler

M
R.
U
NDERHILL
, 
the plant manager

D
R.
C
RITTENDEN
, 
who was amazed

PART ONE

1 . . . Who Lived in a Shoe

The pearl-gray planet of the Supreme Court building, which lies in Foley Square, is round in shape; whereby you may know that in New York County, Justice is one with universal laws, following the conscience of Man like the earth the sun. Or so Ellery Queen reflected as he sat on the southern extremity of his spine in Trial Term
Part VI
, Mr. Justice Greevey not yet presiding, between Sergeant Thomas Velie of Homicide and Inspector Queen, waiting to testify in a case which is another story.

“How long, O Lord?” yawned Ellery.

“If you're referring to that Gilbert and Sullivan pipsqueak, Greevey,” snapped his father, “Greevey's probably just scratching his navel and crawling out of his ermine bed. Velie, go see what's holding up the works.”

Sergeant Velie opened one aggrieved eye, nodded ponderously, and lumbered off in quest of enlightenment. When he lumbered back, the Sergeant looked black. “The Clerk says,” growled Sergeant Velie, “that Mr. Justice Greevey he called up and says he's got an earache, so he'll be delayed two hours gettin' down here while he gets—the Clerk says ‘irritated,' which I
am,
but it don't make sense to me.”

“Irritation,” frowned Mr. Queen, “or to call it by its purer name ‘irrigation'—irrigation, Sergeant, is the process by which one reclaims a dry, dusty, and dead terrain … a description, I understand, which fits Mr. Justice Greevey like a decalcomania.”

The Sergeant looked puzzled, but Inspector Queen muttered through his ragged mustache: “Two hours!
I'd
like to irrigate him. Let's go out in the hall for a smoke.” And the old gentleman marched out of Room 331, followed by Sergeant Velie and—meekly—Ellery Queen; and so barged into the fantastic hull of the Potts case.

For a little way down the corridor, before the door of Room 335, Trial Term Part VII, they came upon Charley Paxton, pacing. Mr. Queen, like the governor of Messina's niece, had a good eye and could see a church by daylight; so he noted this and that about the tall young man, mechanically, and concluded [
a
] he was an attorney (brief case); [
b
] his name was Charles Hunter Paxton (stern gilt lettering on same); [
c
] Counselor Paxton was waiting for a client and the client was late (frequent glances at wrist watch); [
d
] he was unhappy (general droop). And the great man, having run over Charles Hunter Paxton with the vacuum cleaner of his glance, made to pass on, satisfied.

But his father halted, twinkling.

I
NSPECTOR
: Again, Charley? What is it this time?

M
R. PAXTON
:
Lèse-majesté,
Inspector.

I
NSPECTOR
: Where'd it happen?

M
R. PAXTON
: Club Bongo.

S
ERGEANT VELIE
(
shaking the marble halls with his laughter
): Imagine Thurlow in that clip joint!

M
R. PAXTON
: And he got clipped—make no mistake about that, my friends. Clipped on the buttonola.

I
NSPECTOR
: Assault and battery, huh?

M
R. PAXTON
(bitterly
): Not at all, Inspector. We mustn't break our record! No, the same old suit for slander. Young Conklin Cliffstatter—of the East Shore Cliffstatters. Jute and shoddy.

S
ERGEANT
: Stinking, I bet.

M
R. PAXTON
: Well, Sergeant, just potted enough to tell Thurlow a few homely truths about the name of Potts. (
Hollow laugh.
) There I go myself—“potted,” “Potts.” I swear that's all Conk Cliffstatter did—make a pun on the name of Potts. Called ' em “crack-Potts.”

E
LLERY QUEEN
(
his silver eyes gleaming with hunger
): Dad?

So Inspector Queen and Charley-Paxton-my-son-Ellery-Queen, and the two young men shook hands, and that was how Ellery became embroiled—it was more than an involvement—in the wonderful case of the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe.

A court officer plunged his bald head into the cool of the corridor from the swelter of Room 335, Trial Term Part VII.

“Hey, Counselor, Mr. Justice Cornfield says Potts or no Potts he ain't waitin' much longer for your cra—your client. What gives, in God's good name?”

“Can't he wait another five minutes, for goodness' sake?” Charley Paxton cried, exasperated. “They must have been held up—Here they are! Officer, tell Cornfield we'll be right in!” And Counselor Paxton raced toward the elevators, which had just discharged an astonishing cargo.

“There she is,” said the Inspector to his son, as one who points out a clash of planets. “Take a good look, Ellery. The Old Woman doesn't make many public appearances.”

“With the getup,” chortled Sergeant Velie, “she could snag a job in the movies like that.”

Some women grow old with grace, others with bitterness, and still others simply grow old; but neither the concept of growth nor the devolution of old age seemed relevant to Cornelia Potts. She was a small creature with a plump stomach and tiny fine-boned feet which whisked her about. Her face, like a tangerine, was almost entirely lacking in detail; one was surprised to find embedded in it two eyes, which were as black and hard as coal chips. Those eyes, by some perverse chemistry of her ego, were unwinkingly malevolent. If they were capable of changing expression at all, it was into malicious rage.

If not for the eyes, seeing Cornelia Potts in the black taffeta skirts she affected, the boned black lace choker, the prim black bonnet, one would have thought of her as a “Sweet old character,” a sort of sexless little kobold who vaguely resembled the Jubilee pictures of Queen Victoria. But the eyes quite forbade such sentimentalization; they were dangerous and evil eyes, and they made imaginative people—like Ellery—think of poltergeists, and elementals, and suchlike creatures of the unmentionable worlds.

Mrs. Cornelia Potts did not step sedately, as befitted a dame of seventy years, from the elevator—she darted from it, like a midge from a hot stream, followed by a widening wake of assorted characters, most of whom were delighted ladies and gentlemen of the press, and at least one of whom—palpably
not
a journalist—was almost as extraordinary as she.

“And who,” demanded the astonished Mr. Queen, “is that?”

“Thurlow,” grinned Inspector Queen. “The little guy Charley Paxton was talking about. Cornelia's eldest son.”

“Cornelia's eldest
wack,”
Sergeant Velie, the purist, said.

“He resents,” winked the Inspector.

“Everything,” said the Sergeant, waving a flipper.

“Always taking—what do you educated birds call it?—umbrage,” said the Inspector.

“Resents? Umbrage?” Ellery frowned.

“Aw, read the right papers,” guffawed the Sergeant. “Ain't he
cute?”

With a thrill of surprise Ellery saw that, if you were so ill-advised as to strip the black taffeta from old Mrs. Potts and reclothe her in weary gray tweeds, you would have Thurlow, her son … No, there was a difference. Thurlow radiated an inferior grade of energy. In a race with his mother, he would always lose. And, in fact, he was losing the present race; for he toddled hurriedly along in the Old Woman's wake, clutching his derby to his little belly, and trying without success to overtake her. He was panting, perspiring, and in a pet.

A lean glum man in a morning coat, carrying a medical satchel, stumbled after mother and son with a sick smile which seemed to say: “I am not trotting, I am walking. This is not reality, it is a bad dream. Gentlemen of the press, be merciful. One has to make a living.”

“I know
him,”
growled Ellery. “Dr. Waggoner Innis, the Pasteur of Park Avenue.”

“She treats Innis like some people treat dogs,” said Sergeant Velie, smacking his lips.

“The way he's trotting after her, he looks like one,” said the Inspector.

“But why a doctor?” protested Ellery. “She looks as healthy as a troll.”

“I always understood it was her heart.”

“What heart?” sneered the Sergeant. “She ain't got no heart.”

The cortege swept by and through the door of Room 335. Young Paxton, who had tried to intercept Mrs. Potts and received a blasting “Traffic!” for his pains, lingered only long enough to mutter: “If you want to see the show, gentlemen, you're welcome”; then he dashed after his clients.

So the Queens and Sergeant Velie, blessing Mr. Justice Greevey's earache, went in to see the show.

Mr. Justice Cornfield, a large jurist with the eyes of an apprehensive doe, took one look from the eminence of his bench at the tardy Old Woman, damp Thurlow Potts, blushing Dr. Waggoner Innis, and their exulting press and immediately exhibited a ferocious vindictiveness. He screamed at the Clerk, and there were whisperings and scurryings, and lo! the calendar was readjusted, and the case of
Potts v.
Cliffstatter
found itself removed one degree in Time, so that
Giacomo v. Jive Jottings, Inc.,
which had been scheduled to follow it, now found itself with priority.

Ellery beckoned Charley Paxton, who was hovering about Mrs. Cornelia Potts; and the lawyer scooted over thankfully.

“Come on outside. This'll take hours.”

They shouldered their way out into the corridor again.

“Your client,” began Mr. Queen, “fascinates me.”

“The Old Woman?” Charley made a face. “Have a cigaret? It's Thurlow, not Mrs. Potts, who's the plaintiff in this action.”

“Oh. From the way he was tumbling after his mother, I gathered—”

“Thurlow's been tumbling after Mama for forty-seven years.”

“Why the elegant Dr. Waggoner Innis?”

“Cornelia has a bad heart condition.”

“Nonsense. From the way she skitters about—”

“That's just it. Nobody can tell the old hellion
anything.
It keeps Dr. Innis in a constant state of jitters. So he always accompanies the Old Woman when she leaves the Shoe.”

“Beg pardon?”

Charley regarded him with suspicion. “Do you mean to say, Queen, you don't know about the
Shoe?”

“I'm a very ignorant man,” said Ellery abjectly. “Should I?”

“But I thought everybody in America knew! Cornelia Potts' fortune was made in the shoe business.
The Potts Shoe.”

Ellery started
“Potts Shoes Are America's Shoes
—
$3.99 Everywhere?”

“That's
the Potts.”

“No!” Ellery turned to stare at the closed door of Room 335. The Potts Shoe was not an enterprise, or even an institution; it was a whole civilization. There were Potts Shoe Stores in every cranny of the land. Little children wore Potts Shoes; and their mothers, and their fathers, and their sisters and their brothers and their uncles and their aunts; and what was more depressing, their grandparents had worn Potts Shoes before them. To don a Potts Shoe was to display the honor badge of lower-income America; and since this class was the largest class, the Potts fortune was not merely terrestrial—it was galactic.

“But your curious reference,” said the great man eagerly, turning back to the lawyer, “to ‘when she leaves the Shoe.' Has a cult grown up about the Pottses, with its own esoteric terminology?”

Charley grinned. “It all started when some cartoonist on a pro-Labor paper was told by his editor to squirt some India ink in the general direction of Cornelia. Don't you remember that strike in the Potts' plant?” Ellery nodded; it was beginning to come back to him. “Well, this genius of the drawing board drew a big mansion—supposed to represent the Potts Palace on Riverside Drive—only he shaped it like an old-fashioned high-top shoe; and he drew Cornelia Potts like the old harridan in the
Mother Goose
illustration, with her six children tumbling out of the ‘shoe', and he captioned it: ‘There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, She Had So Many Children She Couldn't Pay Her Workers a Living Wage,' or something like that. Anyway, the name's stuck; she's been ‘the Old Woman' ever since.”

“And you're this female foot potentate's attorney?”

“Yes, but most of my activity is devoted to Thurlow, bless his sensitive little heart. You saw Thurlow? That tubby little troglodyte with the narrow shoulders?”

Ellery nodded. “Built incredibly like a baby kangaroo.”

“Well, Thurlow Potts is the world's most insultable man.”

“And the money to do something about it,” mourned Mr. Queen. “Very sad. Does he ever win one of these suits?”

“Win!” Paxton swabbed his face angrily. “It's driven me to sobriety. This is
the thirty-seventh suit for libel or slander
he's made me bring into court! And every darned one of the first thirty-six has been thrown out.”

“How about this one—the Club Bongo inbroglio?”

“Cornfield'll throw it out without a hearing. Mark my words.”

“Why does Mrs. Potts put up with this childishness?”

“Because in her own way the Old Woman's got an even crazier pride in the family name than Thurlow.”

“But if the suits are all silly, why do you permit them to come to court, Charley?”

Charley flushed. “Thurlow insists, and the Old Woman backs him up. … I know I've been accused of milking them, Queen.” His jaw shot forward. “I've earned every damn cent I've ever collected being their attorney, and don't you think I haven't!”

“I'm sure you have—”

“I've had nightmares about them! In my dreams they have long noses and fat little bottoms and they spit at me all night! But if
I
didn't do it, they'd find a thousand lawyers who'd break their necks to get the business. And wouldn't be so blamed scrupulous, either! Beg your pardon. My nerves—”