Dutch Shoe Mystery (26 page)

Not two minutes later Djuna came flying into the living-room. “Mr. Ellery!” he cried. “F’r me?”

He deposited the package reverently on the table. He had torn off the paper wrapping; within it was a metal box, its lid raised, displaying a gaudy and most mysterious collection of hair-tufts, chalks, paint-sticks, wigs and numerous other articles of a similar nature.

“For you, young limb.” Ellery flung his coat and hat in a corner, leaned over the boy. “For you, Djuna, and it’s because you’re just about the best detective in the Queen family.”

Djuna’s face was a canvas of riotous colors.

“If it hadn’t been for you,” continued Ellery oracularly, pinching the boy’s cheek, “and your uncanny suggestion this morning, there would be no solution to the Doorn and Janney cases.”

Djuna found his tongue instantly. “Y’ got’m?”

“Not yet, but I promise you it won’t be long.—Now get out of here with your disguises, and let me think. There’s a heap of it before me.”

Djuna, trained to the vagaries of the Queen temperaments, disappeared into the kitchen like Aladdin’s genie.

Ellery spread the long roll of paper on the table. It was the blueprint which Superintendent Paradise had brought him in the Hospital. Cigarette drooping from his mouth, he studied the map again for a long time.

Occasionally he scribbled his cryptic notes on the margin of the diagram.

Something seemed to perplex him. He began an endless pacing about the room, smoking innumerable cigarettes. The map lay forgotten on the table. His forehead was damp, white-lined, corrugated.

Djuna stole in shyly. He presented a fearsome aspect. On his black curly hair he sported a glaringly crimson wig. A sandy van dyke beard hung from his chin. A ferocious black mustache trailed beneath his nose. To complete the hirsute decoration of his features, his eyebrows spurted heavy grey patches, not unlike those of the Inspector. Rouge reddened his cheeks; black pencil had rimmed his eyes until they resembled the legendary orbs of Svengali.

He stood hopefully by the table, attempting to catch Ellery’s eye.

Ellery stopped short, a look of utter amazement spreading over his face. The surprise vanished; his face assumed a grave, even apprehensive, expression.

In a slightly quavering voice he asked, “Who are you? How did you get in here?”

Djuna’s eyes popped. “Why—Mr. Ellery—it’s me!”

“What!” Ellery retreated a step. “Get out,” he whispered hoarsely. “You’re fooling me … Djuna—that’s not really
you?
”

“Sure it’s me!” cried Djuna in triumph. He whipped off the mustache and beard.

“I’ll be eternally switched!” murmured Ellery, and the laughter which had been lurking in his eyes sparkled clear. “Come here, imp!”

He sat down in the Inspector’s big armchair and drew the boy to him. “Djuna,” he said solemnly, “the case is quite solved. All but one thing.”

“Shucks.”

“I echo that delightful sentiment—shucks.” Ellery’s frown crept back. “I could put my hand on the criminal today—the one and only person who could have committed both murders. I have a perfect, an airtight case. But that one stubborn little point. …” He was talking to himself more than to Djuna. “One little point. Peculiarly enough, it doesn’t affect the capture in the slightest, and yet I won’t know everything until I learn the answer to …” His voice trailed off startlingly as he sat up with half-closed eyes, pushing Djuna from him.

“By heaven,” he said quietly. “I’ve got it.”

He leaped from the chair and vanished within the bedroom. Djuna followed him quickly.

Ellery tore the telephone from the night-table and rapped a number into the instrument. …

“Pete Harper! … Pete. Listen carefully. … Don’t ask questions. Just listen.

“Pete, if you’ll do what I ask now I promise you a bigger story than the one you got the other day. … You heard me! Pencil and paper ready? And for the love of your eternal soul, don’t breathe a word of this to any one.
Any
one, do you hear? It’s not for publication until I say so.

“Now, I want you to go down to the …”

TO THE READER

At this point in the story of
THE DUTCH SHOE MYSTERY
,
according to a precedent I created in the first of my detective novels several years ago, I inject a
Challenge to the Reader …
maintaining with perfect sincerity that the reader is now in possession of
all the pertinent facts
essential to the correct solution of the Doorn and Janney murders. …

By the exercise of strict logic and irrefutable deductions from given data, it should be simple for the reader to name at this point the murderer of Abigail Doorn and Dr. Francis Janney. I say simple advisedly. Actually it is not simple; the deductions are natural, but they require sharp and unflagging thought.

Remember that knowledge of the article which the author extracted from the cabinet in the Anteroom, and of the information which the author gave to Harper over the telephone in the preceding chapter is not necessary to the solution … although if you have correctly followed the logic you may deduce what the article was, and with less certainty, what the information was.

To avoid any charge of unfairness I submit the following refutation: that I myself deduced the answer
before
going to the cabinet and
before
telephoning Harper.

—
ELLERY QUEEN

“Every man who has spent his life in the pursuit of criminals has amassed, by the time he has reached his doddering retrospective years, the visible evidences of a phobia. … I know a detective whose rooms are heaped with lethal weapons, and another who surrounds himself with fingerprint records. … My own weakness has been the collection of
paper—
paper of all sizes, shapes, colors and uses
—
but all, too, bound together by their common source: i.e., their significance in a criminal case.
…

“You will find among my treasures, for example, that precious scrap of yellow pasteboard from a study of which I was able to determine that Rezillos, the Brazilian slayer of nineteen people, had headed for Guiana. And the half-burned cigar-band which led to the apprehension of that queer maniac called Peter-Peter, the renegade Englishman of Martinique. … I have in my files complete case-histories which revolve upon such innocent-appearing paper-items as a pawnticket, a twenty-year-old insurance notice, a pricetag of a woman’s cheap cloth coat, a little packet of cigarette-papers, and an interesting one which is perhaps the prize of my collection. …

“When it was found it seemed merely a water-soaked, absolutely blank piece of once heavy paper, with no apparent trace of writing or printing. It was so wet that we barely managed to keep the fibers together. … And this innocuous scrap turned out to be the clew which hanged the greatest pirate of the twentieth century.

“It was an old whiskey-label, chemical analysis of which disclosed it to have been immersed in the salty waters of the ocean …
”

—from
A SLEUTH’S SYLLABUS

—by Bartholomew Tean

Melbourne, Australia

PHILIP MOREHOUSE

Attorney-at-Law

Friday, January —

Inspector Richard Queen

No. — 87th Street

New York

By messenger

DEAR INSPECTOR QUEEN
:

I am writing this at the special request of Mr. Ellery Queen, with whom I conversed this morning over the telephone.

Mr. Queen advised me that he was entirely familiar with certain personal secrets whose facts were not in possession of the police until he learned of them from Dr. John Minchen, of the Dutch Memorial Hospital, yesterday.

Since the secret is out, there is no longer any reason for silence or evasion on my part, and I take this opportunity to clarify such points of the Dunning-Fuller story as may still be unexplained or unclear.

Before I proceed, however, allow me to take the liberty of reminding you of Mr. Ellery Queen’s personal assurance to me this morning. He said that every precaution would be taken to keep the story of Hulda Doorn’s true parentage out of the papers and even, if it were possible, out of your police files.

The documents which were ordered destroyed by Mrs. Doorn’s will were in substance a personal diary kept by my client during the years surrounding the events herein described, and taken up again some five years ago, from which time it was religiously kept.

Mr. Queen shrewdly guessed that I had exceeded my legal authority on Monday when, instead of destroying the envelope without breaking its seals, as legal ethics demanded, I had opened it and read its contents.

Inspector Queen, I have been practicing law for a long time now and I have faithfully, I think, upheld the integrity of my father’s business reputation; especially in the case of Mrs. Doorn, a friend as well as a client, and always to her very best interests. If Mrs. Doorn had died a natural death I should never have breached my legal trust. But her murder, combined with the fact that I was—and am now—engaged to be married to Miss Doorn with the full consent of her deceased foster-mother, so that I am really a member of the Doorn family—forced me to open the envelope and investigate its contents. If I had turned it over to the police before opening it, personal facts absolutely unrelated to the murder would have come out. So I opened it myself, assuming the position of a member of the family rather than its attorney, with the mental reservation that if anything in the documents seemed to relate to the crime I would place them in your hands.

But when, on reading the diary, I discovered the awful facts surrounding Hulda’s birth … Inspector, can you blame me for withholding the information and destroying the diary? Not for myself—the shame means nothing to me—but think of what it would mean to such an untainted young girl as Hulda to have the world know that she is the illegitimate child of her own housekeeper.

There is only one other item in this connection … which may be verified by consulting the will now filed for probate. That is, that Hulda inherits the major portion of the Doorn estate with no reservations of birth or parentage, but rather as the legal daughter of Abigail Doorn, which she is. Her true parentage can in no way affect the bequest to her. Consequently, my reticence regarding the whole shameful story cannot be construed as having been animated by selfish motives, such as might be ascribed to me if Hulda’s inheritance hinged upon her being a blood relation of the deceased. …

Mr. Queen was also correct in his surmise that Abigail and Sarah Fuller quarreled incessantly over the secret of Hulda’s birth. The diary stated specifically that Sarah had regretted her bargain, and that she was perpetually threatening to disclose her motherhood unless the girl were returned to her. With the passage of the years Abigail had grown to regard Hulda with genuine maternal love; and it was only her fear that Sarah would tell the story to the world that prevented her from discharging the middle-aged and by now fanatical woman in her employ.

Since the death of Mrs. Doorn I have confidentially spoken with Sarah Fuller and have received her positive assurance, now that Abigail—the object of her hate—is dead, and that I, whom for no reason that I can see she likes, am to marry Hulda—that she will not reveal the secret Dr. Dunning for selfish reasons may be depended upon to keep his mouth shut; his entire career and reputation depend upon his silence.

It is not difficult to guess, as Mr. Ellery Queen did, that it was this matter of Hulda’s parentage and the course they should adopt which caused Sarah Fuller to seek out Dr. Dunning at various times in the past few days. Strangely enough, she bears him no ill will. The crazy whims of a crazy woman! She told me yesterday that they discussed the matter from every angle; and with a shy pride announced that Dunning had persuaded her to let the girl live out her life thinking she was a Doorn.

Another matter disclosed by the diary was important in that it described Dr. Janney’s part in the affair. As you may or may not be aware, Dr. Janney was Mrs. Doorn’s confidant at all times; particularly since he was one of the handful who knew the real facts of Hulda’s birth. Dr. Janney’s attitude, the diary stated in one place, toward Dunning was quite unaffected by his knowledge of Dunning’s virtual rape; it seems that Dunning got by with the worldly view that a man may be forgiven sowing his wild oats. At any rate, Janney often upbraided Sarah for her trouble-making propensities, her willingness to ruin Hulda’s life merely to satisfy her own thwarted maternal instincts. Queer, isn’t it? Perhaps his broad-minded attitude toward Dunning was due to his honest admiration of Dunning’s ability professionally and his own sophistication.

In every sense of the word, Dr. Janney was a friend of Mrs. Doorn’s. He defended her every action; there was never the slightest hint of disaffection or disloyalty between them.

Please pardon me if I renew my plea for your silence. Not for myself; I think you know that. But for the sake of Hulda, who to me is everything worth living for.

Sincerely,

PHILIP MOREHOUSE.

P.S.: I should greatly appreciate your destroying this letter, of which there are no duplicates, as soon as you have read it.

P.M.

The only other incident of that serene Friday which Inspector Queen afterward had reason to recall, was a telephone message for Ellery Queen at 6:30 Friday evening.

Ellery’s attitude in the past twenty-four hours had subtly altered. He no longer chafed, nor did he pace the floor with the fierce absent energy which had characterized his movements during the hectic days before.

All day Friday he remained at the living-room window, reading and, for one interval of two hours, typing at his creaky, cranky old machine. Inspector Queen, who flew into the apartment at noon for a hasty luncheon and a telephone consultation with various subordinates at Headquarters, peered over his son’s shoulder and saw that Ellery was writing away at a detective novel—one which had been begun long months before but which had been tossed aside and neglected during a fitful period enduring for weeks.
*