Dutch Shoe Mystery (17 page)

In the lurching vehicle Inspector Queen glumly counted off on his fingers the details which he must supervise when he reached the big stone building on Centre Street. … The search for Janney’s mysterious visitor; the investigation of the impostor’s clothes in an endeavor to trace their real ownership; the hunt for the hardware or department store which had sold the strangling picture-wire; the gathering into a smoother fabric of the dark dangling threads.

“Most of ’em hopeless,” shouted the old man above the roar of the motor and the shriek of the siren.

The car stopped briefly at the curb outside the Dutch Memorial Hospital to deposit Ellery on the sidewalk; it immediately picked up speed and disappeared in the downtown traffic.

For the second time that day Ellery Queen found himself mounting the steps of the Hospital, and for the second time alone.

Isaac Cobb was on duty in the vestibule, talking with a policeman. Opposite the main elevator Ellery found Dr. Minchen.

He glanced up the corridors. At the entrance to the Anæsthesia Room stood the detective who had been left there an hour before. Bluecoats sat chatting in the main Waiting Room. Three men lugging bulky photographic equipment tramped in his direction from a corridor to the right.

Ellery and Dr. Minchen strolled to the left and turned into the East Corridor. They passed the telephone booth in which the discarded clothing had been found. The booth was sealed with tape. Several feet farther up the corridor, to the left as they proceeded toward the North Corridor, there was a closed door.

Ellery halted. “This is the outer door to that Anteroom lift, isn’t it, John?”

“Yes. There’s a double door here,” replied Minchen drearily. “The lift can be entered either through the corridor here or through the Anteroom. The corridor door is used when the patient to be operated comes from a ward on this floor. Eliminates having to cart ’em all the way round into the South Corridor.”

“Smart,” commented Ellery. “Like everything else around here. And I see our good Sergeant has had the door taped up.”

A moment later, in Minchen’s office, Ellery said abruptly, “Tell me a little about Janney’s relations with the rest of the staff. I’m anxious to discover how people here regard him.”

“Janney? He’s not an easy man to get along with, of course. But then he’s given healthy respect because of his position and reputation in surgery. It makes a difference, Ellery.”

“You would say,” demanded Ellery, “that Janney has no enemies in the Hospital?”

“Enemies? Hardly. Unless there’s a personal undercurrent outside my ken.” Minchen pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, there’s one individual in the place who’s been rather at dagger-points with the old man. …”

“Really! Who?”

“Dr. Pennini. Head—or rather former Head of the Obstetrical Department.”

“Why ‘former’? Is Pennini leaving—resigned?”

“Oh, no. There was a change in administration recently and Dr. Pennini was demoted to Assistant Head. Janney was, nominally at least, put in charge of the Obstetrical Department.”

“But why?”

Minchen grimaced. “No fault of Dr. Pennini’s. Just another manifestation of the deceased’s affection for Janney.”

A shadow crossed Ellery’s face. “I see. Dagger-points, eh? Just a case of petty professional jealousy. Well …”

“Not petty, Ellery. You don’t know Dr. Pennini, or you wouldn’t say that. Latin blood, fiery, the vengeful type, she’s certainly far from—”

“What’s that?”

Minchen seemed surprised. “I said she was the vengeful type. Why?”

Ellery lit a cigarette with elaborate ceremony. “Naturally. Stupid of me. You didn’t mention … I’d like to see this Dr. Pennini of yours, John.”

“Of course.” Minchen telephoned. “Dr. Pennini? John Minchen speaking. Glad I found you so easily. You usually gad about so. … Can you come to my office for just a moment, Doctor? … No, nothing, nothing important. An introduction, a few questions Yes. Please.”

Ellery regarded his fingernails until there was a knock on the door. Both men rose and Minchen said clearly, “Come!” The door opened to admit a stocky, white-garbed woman of nervous movements.

“Dr. Pennini, allow me to present Mr. Ellery Queen. Mr. Queen is helping with the investigation of Mrs. Doorn’s murder, you know.”

“Indeed.” Her voice was rich, throaty, almost masculine. Motioning imperiously toward their chairs, she sat down.

She was a striking woman. Her skin was olivaceous; the faintest smudge of hair appeared above her upper lip. Keen black eyes flashed in a regular-featured face. Her jet hair, set off at one side by a thick white streak, was parted severely in the center of her scalp. Her age was elusive; she might have been thirty-five or fifty.

“I understand, Doctor,” began Ellery in his mildest voice, “that you have been with the Dutch Memorial Hospital for a good many years.”

“Very true. Let me have a cigarette.” She looked amused. Ellery offered his gold-chased case, gravely held a match to the tip of the cigarette. She puffed deeply and relaxed, eying him with open curiosity. “You know,” he said, “we’re up against a stone wall in this investigation of Mrs. Doorn’s murder. The thing seems utterly inexplicable. I’m just asking questions of anybody and everybody. … How well did you know Mrs. Doorn?”

“Why?” Dr. Pennini’s black eyes twinkled. “Do you suspect me of her murder?”

“My dear Doctor …”

“You listen to me, Mr. Ellery Queen.” She set her full red lips firmly. “I didn’t know Mrs. Doorn well. I know nothing of her murder. You’re wasting your time if you think I do. Now does that satisfy you?”

“How could it?” murmured Ellery ruefully. Nevertheless his eyes narrowed. “And I shouldn’t jump at conclusions so. The reason I asked you how well you knew Mrs. Doorn is this—if you did know her well you might be in a position to name possible enemies. Can you?”

“I’m sorry. I cannot.”

“Dr. Pennini, let’s stop fencing. I am going to be very frank.” He closed his eyes and rested his neck on the back of his chair. “Did you or did you not”—he snapped bolt upright and fixed her with his eyes—“utter threats at Mrs. Doorn in the presence of witnesses?”

She stared at him too amazed, from her look of astonishment, to be angry. Minchen put up a protesting hand and muttered something apologetic; he was regarding Ellery with the utmost consternation.

“Did you?” Ellery’s tone was flat, stern. “In this very building?”

“Utterly preposterous.” She laughed without amusement, throwing her head back defiantly. “Who told you that cock-and-bull story? I couldn’t possibly have threatened the old lady. I hardly knew her. I never made remarks about her or any one. That is, I—” She stopped suddenly in confusion, flashed a look at Dr. Minchen.

“That is … what?” prompted Ellery. He had lost his severity and was smiling.

“Well—you see—I did make derogatory remarks about
Dr. Janney
some time ago,” she explained stiffly, “but they weren’t threats, and they certainly weren’t directed against Mrs. Doorn. I can’t see, anyway—”

“Good!” Ellery beamed. “It was Dr. Janney, not Mrs. Doorn. Very well, Dr. Pennini. What have you against Janney?”

“Nothing terribly personal. I suppose you’ve heard”—she glanced sidewise at Dr. Minchen once more; he flushed and avoided her eyes—“that I was demoted through the interference of Mrs. Doorn from the position of Head of the Obstetrical Department. I was naturally resentful, and I am still resentful. I feel that it was Dr. Janney’s propaganda in the ear of the old lady which was responsible. In the heat of the moment I suppose I said some nasty things, and Dr. Minchen and a few others heard me. But what all this has to do with—”

“Very natural, very natural,” said Ellery sympathetically. “I quite understand.” She sniffed. “Now, Doctor, a little routine matter. … Please account to me for your movements in the Hospital this morning.”

“My dear sir,” she returned coldly, “you’re so obvious! I’ve nothing at all to conceal. I had an early confinement this morning, operating at eight o’clock. Twins, if it interests you. Caesarian, and one died. Mother will probably go soon, too. … I had breakfast and then made my regular rounds in the Maternity Ward. Dr. Janney, you know,” she said with sarcasm, “doesn’t bother with routine. His title is purely honorary. I visited about thirty-five patients and an army of squealing brats. I was on the go most of the morning.”

“And you weren’t in one place long enough to provide you with an alibi.”

“If I had needed an alibi I might have been careful to provide myself with one,” she retorted.

“Not in a certain eventuality,” murmured Ellery. “Did you leave the building at all up to noon?”

“No.”

“So helpful, Doctor. … And you can’t offer a plausible explanation of this hideous business?”

“No again.”

“You’re positive?”

“If I could, I should.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.” Ellery rose. “Thank you.”

Dr. Minchen got to his feet awkwardly and they stood silently until the door slammed shut behind the woman. Minchen sank back into his swivel-chair and grinned feebly. “Quite a woman, isn’t she?”

“Quite!” Ellery lit another cigarette. “By the way, John, do you know if Edith Dunning is in the Hospital? I haven’t talked with her since she left this morning to take Hulda Doorn home.”

“See in a moment.” Minchen busied himself with his telephone. “She isn’t in. Went out on a Service call not long ago.”

“It doesn’t matter now.” Ellery inhaled hugely. “Interesting woman. …” He expelled a nimbus of smoke. “Come to think of it, John—Euripides wasn’t so far wrong when he said, ‘I hate a learned woman.’ And don’t think, either, that the Grecian remark was so unallied to that classic statement of Byron’s. …”
*

“In heaven’s name,” groaned Minchen, “of which one are you talking—Miss Dunning or Dr. Pennini?”

“That doesn’t matter either.” Ellery reached for his coat, sighing.

*
The allusion becomes intelligible when it is understood to which quotation Mr. Queen was referring. We asked Mr. J. J. McC. to clear up this point, which he was able to do only with difficulty. He discovered it to spring from a little-known quotation, “I hate a
dumpy
woman.” Undoubtedly Mr. Queen referred to Dr. Pennini. She was both “learned” and “dumpy,” to judge from his own description.—The Editor

T
HE PECULIAR RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
Inspector Queen and his son—comradely rather than paternal-filial—was never more marked than at meal-times. The hour of sustenance, whether breakfast or dinner, was a period of jest, of reminiscence, of lively and good-natured chaffing. With young Djuna serving, the fire crackling, the wind howling through the canyons of West 87th Street and rattling the window panes, the Queens-at-home-of-a-wintry-evening was a spectacle famed in story and song throughout the vestries of the Police Department.
*

But the tradition was shattered on the evening of the January day on which Abigail Doorn went to her reward.

Here was neither laughter nor peace. Ellery sat absorbed in thought and wrapped in gloom, cigarette smoldering above a half-empty coffee-cup. The Inspector shivered and wheezed as he sat hunched in his great armchair before the fire; his teeth chattered despite an armor of three old dressing-gowns. Djuna, ever the interpreter of moods, removed the dinner-dishes in a silence inhumanly complete.

The first real search had failed ignobly. Swanson, the wraith, was still at large. Sergeant Velie’s myrmidons had failed to find the faintest trace of him, despite a thorough canvass of all the Swansons in the borough directories. Headquarters was in an uproar, the Inspector tied to his chambers by a suddenly developed coryza. Preliminary reports from the detectives scouring hospitals and other institutions brought no word about the original source of the surgical clothing found in the telephone booth. The quest for the establishment which sold the picture-wire seemed hopeless, and chemical analysis of the wire revealed nothing. A scrutiny of Abigail Doorn’s financial rivals had as yet borne no fruit. The murdered woman’s private papers were as innocent, it seemed, as a child’s primary notebook. And, to complicate matters further, District Attorney Sampson had just telephoned to transmit the news of two hurried conferences with the Mayor and another long-distance call from the Governor at Albany. City and State officials were harried, anxious, clamorous for police action. The newspapermen hounded headquarters, besieged the closely guarded scene of the crime.

It was this state of affairs which had the Inspector, helpless in his chair, half hysterical with impotent rage. Ellery persisted in maintaining silence, sunk in a sea of speculation. …

Djuna leaped out of his kitchen at the shrill
br-r-ring
of the telephone bell. “For you, Dad Queen.”

The old man hurried across the room, shaking with ague and licking his parched lips. “Hello. Who? Thomas? Well. …” His voice sharpened, became eager. “Oh. Oh.
WHAT?
Oh, good glory. Hold the wire a moment.”

His face was parchment-ivory as he turned to Ellery. “The rottenest luck, son. It’s happened. Janney has given Ritter the slip!”

Ellery got to his feet, startled. “Stupid!” he muttered. “Find out more about it, dad.”

“Hello! Hello!” Inspector Queen wheezed viciously into the mouthpiece. “Thomas. You tell Ritter for me that he has some tall explaining to do or back he goes on a beat. … No news on Swanson yet, eh? .… Well, you’ll have to work all night. …
WHAT?
Good for Hesse. … Yes, I know. He was backstairs in the house this afternoon while we were there. … All right, Thomas. Have Ritter go back to Janney’s hotel and stay there. … He’d better!”

“What’s up?” demanded Ellery as the old man trundled back to his chair and warmed his hands at the fire.

“Plenty. Janney lives at the Tareyton, on Madison Avenue. Ritter tailed him all day. He hung about watching the place and at 5:30 Janney came out in a hurry, took a cab at the door, which headed north. Ritter got a bad break, I’ll say that for him—he couldn’t get a cab for several moments—it all happened so fast he was paralyzed. …