A Fine and Private Place (18 page)

“The fact is, Peter,” Ellery said, “every last book on this shelf, either in its upside down or its rightside up position, is relevant to Importuna's mystical belief in the happy powers of 9. That's why he warned you not to touch any of them. That's why he got so angry when you did.”

“I knew he considered 9 his good-luck number,” Peter said, “but this …! It's mumbo jumbo!”

“Oh, I don't know. You said something before about his accusing you of having caused a deal to fall through. Tell me, Peter, what if anything happened after Importuna restored that trinity of history books to the 9-favoring position? Because I'm sure, Importuna having been the man he was, he didn't let the failure of the deal go at that, once he knew why it had failed.”

“You're right enough about that. He immediately set up a transatlantic conference call and arranged to make the other parties a new offer.”

“What happened?”

“He raised the deal from the dead.”

“You see?” Ellery said; and he shook Peter's hand in triumph and left.

At Police Headquarters Ellery learned that the lines out of Centre Street were still without a twitch. In spite of a confidential fishing expedition into the awesome precincts of the Supreme Court, the Washington phase of the inquiry elicited no flicker or gleam of “the one of Nino's boyhood pals,” living or dead, who was alleged by the second anonymous message to have achieved the high court bench. And the intelligence in the fourth message that the late multimillionaire had played in his youth for the Binghamton, New York, semiprofessional baseball team raised echoes neither in Binghamton nor anywhere else.

There was no golf course on or abutting the Importuna property in Palm Springs, California. There had never been a golf course on or near the property. The claim of the sixth communication was simply false.

As far as could be determined, the allegation of the seventh letter was also false; at least it was unproved. Nino Importuna may or may not have been addicted to sadistic or masochistic sexual practices, but no evidence of any sort turned up corroborating the charge that he enjoyed the use of a cat-o'-nine-tails; and Mrs. Importuna, who was presumed to have been in the logical position to know, and who refused to discuss any aspect of her conjugal relationship with her late husband, nevertheless on the point specifying the cat-o'-nine-tails stated with some heat that “as far as I'm concerned, and to the best of my knowledge, it's an evil lie.”

Further, the Importuna villa in Lugano displayed no images of the Muses, nor could any sculptor be located who would admit to having been commissioned to create such images, as stated by the eighth anonymous message.

“I guess the guy has to be a crank at that,” Inspector Queen said. “We've had a meeting on it, and it's been just about decided to drop that whole line of inquiry.”

“I don't think that would be wise,” Ellery said, “but don't ask me why. Oh, two things, dad. I'd like a rundown on the building at 99 East—details of the sale to Importuna, a copy of the deed, and so on.”

“What could that have to do with anything?”

“Call it hunch time. The other thing—no, I can take care of that myself.”

“Of what?”

“I'll cable that private investigating agency I've been using in Italy to have a copy made of Tullio Importunato's baptismal certificate, from the church records, and airmail it to me.”

“What for? Never mind,” the Inspector grumped, “call it hunch time twice. What did you find out at the penthouse?”

Ellery looked at his father. “How did you know I found out anything at the penthouse?”

“I haven't had to look at your pan all these years without being able to read it occasionally.”

“I didn't find out anything, really. But it's more than a hunch. It's my considered opinion, what with this and that, that Virginia Importuna and Peter Ennis were planting a healthy set of horns on old Nino's head. I'm ready to take my oath it's consisted of more than a yearning glance now and then across the width of a room. Now tell me what's revived you.”

“Revived? Me?”

“A few days ago you were ready to retire to an old folks' home. Today you have a viable look. What's been going on around here?”

“Well, we're working on something,” the Inspector said cautiously. “It's actually been in the cards from the start.… It's all very hush-hush, Ellery, by direct order from the top; they could have my shield if they found out I've told even you.”

“Told me what? You haven't told me a thing!”

“Well, it's still pretty tentative, son—we're inching our way along. I'll tell you this: We won't jump until we get the go-ahead from the D.A. Who's going to be almighty interested, by the way, in what you just told me. It could fit like a tight shoe.”

“But what is it?”

To which the Inspector shook his head; and all Ellery's blandishments could not persuade the old sleuth to expatiate.

This was the autumn of his discontent.

Ellery doodled 9s; he dreamed them; he ate them like alphabet soup. He kept going over the 9 anonymous messages, searching like a monkey mother after lice for secret meanings … wondering if he should not consult a high-ranking cryptographer.

At this he balked, and not only because of the secrecy imposed by Centre Street. Even to consider such a far-out folly, he decided, was a measure of his frustration.

At times he felt, across the millennia of fictitious time, an empathy with the legendary son of Aegeus and Aethra as he groped through the labyrinth under the historic palace of Minos in Knossos toward a monster only dimly imagined. The trouble is, Ellery thought, I'm no Theseus, and I have no loving Ariadne to help me find the Minotaur. The number 9, unlike Ariadne's clew, was circuitous; started at any point, it led round and round, arriving nowhere.

He was positive of only one thing: The 9s meant something. It was inconceivable to him that they could have no meaning at all. The choice of the 9-symbolism by the prime mover of the murderous events was a pregnant fact.

Pregnant? Pregnancy?

For some reason the concept remained with him. He could not quite place the finger of his mind on the reason; but there it dangled, just tantalizingly out of reach.

If the whole case was like a pregnancy, was there going to be a stillbirth? Or was the lady in the painful process of aborting? Or was she going to go to term and throw her get in some sorry delivery room, producing one of those rare little monsters the doctors tacitly allow to die?

A 9-month monster.

9 …

Or 99?… 999?… 9,999?… 99,999?…

Along that route lay madness.

Meanwhile, back at 240 Centre Street, progress was being made, but inchmeal. Certain lines of investigation had now been closed off; that was considered progress, too, although not by the Police Commissioner and other exalted taskmasters. The anonymous messages had been officially written off, to Ellery's dismay. Exhaustive inquiries into Nino Importuna's business enemies, an impressive list, had consistently led to exhausted inquirers and nothing more. True, there was no trace as yet of the enigmatical Mr. E, who seemed to have been engulfed in some convulsion of nature. That line was being held open, but only as a matter of routine caution.

One day late in October Inspector Queen announced to Ellery, “Son, the time's come.”

“For what?” Ellery mumbled. He mumbled a great deal these days.

“Remember all that highfalutin', complicated garbage you spilled after Julio Importunato's murder? About the shifting of the desk, and the left-handedness business, and how Marco was being framed, and the Lord knows what else? It was great, Ellery. Only it was phony baloney. When Marco confessed to Julio's murder by committing suicide, down the drain went your fancy deductions.”

“Thanks, dad,” the son said. “A visit to your office these days really sets a fellow up.”

“And stop sucking your thumb. Well, this time there's no call for mental flip-flops. We've all let ourselves be euchred away from what's been under our noses, plain as daylight at 20,000 feet, from the beginning.”

“I must be going blind. What's been under our noses?”

“For one thing, the motive.”

“The motive?”

“For Importuna's murder,” the Inspector said impatiently. “Aren't you with it today, Ellery? You once threw cooey-something at me—”

“
Cui bono
.”

“That's it. Who benefits. Right? Well, that's so simple it hurts: The one who benefits, the
only
one who benefits, is Virginia Whyte Importuna. To the tune of half a
billion
smackers, for God's sake. That's a powerful lot of smackers. I guess when there's that much moola on the line,” the Inspector philosophized, “it kind of dazzles you. Puts spots before your eyes. Anyway, as a rider to what I just said, not only did her husband's murder put half a billion smackers in Mrs. Importuna's pocket, but it's a fact that he was knocked off
just after she became his sole heir
. The ink on his new will was hardly dry. Right?”

“Right,” Ellery said, “but—”

“No buts. That takes care of motive. How about opportunity, like you always put it?”

“As I always put it,” Ellery said mechanically.

“Like, as, what's the difference? All right, how about opportunity? Nothing to it. Virginia could have marched into hubby's room bigger than life any time she wanted that night. Who could have got in there easier or more naturally? Who had a better right? Okay?”

“Okay,” Ellery said, “but that's no argument at all. I still want to make the point—”

“Third, the weapon. And what is it? A hunk of cast-iron sculpture that belongs to her.”

“Which the killer went out of his way—I beg your pardon, her way—to lay hands on for the purpose subsequently displayed, the killing of Importuna. Why didn't she leave a signed confession pinned to his pajamas? That would have been even more brilliant.”

“Maybe the gender of your pronoun is still right,” Inspector Queen said, his forefinger alongside his nose.

“What's that mean?”

“The secretary.”

“Peter Ennis? That's always possible, of course, especially if the D.A. can produce proof that they've been having an affair. On the other hand, there's well-established testimony that he left 99 East right after their threesome dinner the night of the murder to go back to his own apartment. Is there any counterevidence connecting Ennis even indirectly with the actual crime?”

“Maybe.”

“You've been holding out on me!”

“I shouldn't be telling you this at all. Suppose I told you,” the Inspector said, “that we have a witness who saw Ennis drive away from in front of his brownstone shortly before 9 o'clock that night, and another witness who saw him come home around 3:30 in the morning?”

“Has Ennis been questioned about that?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“He denied having left his place at any time after he got home that evening from the Importunas' dinner. He said he watched television for a while and then went to bed. Everybody in on the interrogation agreed he was lying in his teeth. He's not a very convincing liar.”

“How reliable are your witnesses?”

“The D.A. thinks so much of them he's ready to go for a grand jury indictment. Murder One.”

Ellery was silent. Finally he said, “Conspiracy?”

“Yes.”

“Not much of a case.”

“In how many Murder Ones do you get an eyewitness?” The Inspector shrugged. “There've been all sorts of howls to lay this case to rest, Ellery. From the mountaintops. At that, it may turn out to be a better case than it looks. Those two were two-timing Importuna for a fact, so they've got to have guilty consciences to start with. The D.A. thinks one of them may break.”

“What about all those 9s?” Ellery murmured.

“They're the work of a nut. Or they're just red herrings. Either way they don't mean anything.”

“What did you say?”

“What did I say about what?”

“Red herrings …?”

“That's right. What's the matter with you?”

“Red herrings.” Ellery's echo sounded fevered. His father stared at him. “You know, dad, you may have put your finger on the crux of this thing? That could be exactly what they are! Nothing more or less than red herrings.”

“That's what I just said—”

“But could they all be red herrings?” Ellery muttered. “So many of them? Every
one
of them?” He sailed out of the cracked black leather chair that had been his by right of occupancy over years of similar consultations, and he began to semaphore with his long arms. “Did I ever quote you that 17th century nonsense rhyme written by everybody's favorite author, Anon.?

A man in the wilderness asked me
,

How many strawberries grow in the sea
?

I answered him, as I thought good
,

As many as red herrings grow in the wood
.

“Red herrings in the wood. The
forest
. Daddy, I do believe I've got something!”

“I'll tell you what you've got,” his father grunted. “You've got sunstroke.”

“No, listen—”

But at this juncture Sergeant Thomas Velie plunged through the Inspector's doorway holding aloft by its sharp edges a familiar-looking envelope.

“Would you believe it?” the sergeant shouted. “Another letter from Friend Nutsy. Special delivery this time.”

“Impossible,” Ellery said. “Impossible!”

But it was true. The message read:

WHO WAS WITH VIRGINIA LUNCH

DECEMBER NINE NINETEEN SIXTY
-
SIX
?

“It's from the same crackpot,” the Inspector said in disgust. “Same hand-printed capitals, same ball-point ink, same post-office stamped envelope—”