Greek Coffin Mystery (13 page)

Ellery’s ideas seemed definite. He said to Mrs. Simms almost brusquely: “Please fetch three new tea-bags, six clean cups and saucers with spoons, and some fresh lemon and cream.
Vitement, Madame la gouvernante!
Get a move on!”

The housekeeper gasped, sniffed and sailed out of the room. Ellery cheerfully grappled with the electric attachment of the percolator, walked around the desk looking for something, found it, and plugged the attachment into a socket in the side of the desk. By the time Mrs. Simms returned from the kitchen, the water was bubbling in the glass top of the percolator. In a deathly silence to which he was merrily oblivious, Ellery, without placing tea-bags in the six cups Mrs. Simms had brought, opened the tap and began to fill the cups with boiling water. The percolator ran dry when the fifth cup was almost full, and Pepper, in a puzzled way, said: “But Mr. Queen, that water is stale. It must be standing there for over a week. You can’t be intending to
drink
it …”

Ellery smiled. “Stupid of me. Of course. Mrs. Simms,” he murmured, “I’ll trouble you to take the percolator away, fill it with fresh water and bring it back with six clean cups.”

Mrs. Simms had quite openly changed her mind about this young man; the glare she directed at his bent head was annihilating. He picked up the percolator and thrust it at her. While she was gone, Ellery with perfect gravity dipped the three yellowed, used tea-bags into three of the cups of steaming stale water. Mrs. Sloane uttered a little exclamation of disgust; surely this amazing young pagan was not intending to—! Ellery proceeded with his mysterious ritual. He allowed the three used tea-bags to soak in their stale-water hot baths, then prodded each one vigorously with one of the stained spoons. Mrs. Simms sallied back into the library, bearing a new tray with a full dozen clean cups and saucers, and the percolator. “I trust and pray,” she said cuttingly, “that these are sufficient, Mr. Queen. I’ve quite run out of cups, you know!”

“Perfect, Mrs. Simms. You’re a jewel of the first water. Happy phrase, eh?” Ellery left off his pushing and prodding long enough to insert the electric attachment into the desk-socket. Then he returned to his pummeling rite. Despite all his efforts the old tea-bags produced no more than the ghost of a tea-solution in the stale hot water. Ellery smiled, nodding his head as if this proved something to him, waited patiently for the fresh water in the percolator to boil, then proceeded to fill the fresh cups Mrs. Simms had furnished. He sighed when the percolator ran dry after the sixth cup, murmuring, “My dear Mrs. Simms, it looks as if you’ll have to refill the percolator
again
—we’re a goodly company here,” but every one disdained to join him in a frivolous cup of tea—the Britishers, Joan Brett and Dr. Wardes, included—and Ellery sipped alone, ruefully surveying the top of the desk, which was positively cluttered with tea-cups.

As a matter of cold fact, the glances directed at his composed features told, more eloquently than words, that most of those present considered that he had suddenly sunk to Demmy’s stratum of intelligence.

*
See
The French Powder Mystery,
by Ellery Queen (Frederick A. Stokes Company, Publishers), 1930.

H
AVING DAINTILY DABBED AT
his lips with his handkerchief, Ellery set his empty tea-cup down and, still smiling, disappeared into Khalkis’ bedroom. The Inspector and Pepper, both wearing looks of resignation, followed him.

Khalkis’ bedroom was large and dark and windowless—the chamber of a blind man. Ellery switched on a light and surveyed this new field of exploration. The room was in considerable confusion; the bed was soiled and unmade; a heap of men’s clothing lay on a chair near the bed; there was a faintly nauseating odor in the air.

“Probably,” remarked Ellery, moving toward an old highboy across the room, “essence of embalming, or something. This may be an old and solidly built house, as Edmund Crewe said, but it certainly neglects the ventilative necessities.” He looked the highboy over, critically, without touching anything. Then, with a sigh, he made a search of the drawers. In the top drawer he seemed to discover something of interest; for his hand emerged bearing two pieces of paper, and he began to read one of them with relish. The Inspector growled, “What have you found now?” and he and Pepper craned over Ellery’s shoulders.

“Merely the clothes schedule that our friend the idiot used in caparisoning his cousin,” murmured Ellery. They saw that one of the papers was written in a foreign language, the other—its physical counterpart—in English. “I have sufficient knowledge of philology,” Ellery went on, “to identify this hocus-pocus as the degenerate modern Greek written language. What a marvelous thing education is!” Neither Pepper nor the Inspector smiled; and Ellery, sighing, began to read the English schedule aloud. It read:

MONDAY:
Grey tweed suit, black brogans, grey socks, light grey shirt, attached collar, grey checked necktie.

TUESDAY:
Dark brown double-breasted suit, brown cordovan shoes, brown socks, white shirt, red moiré tie, wing collar, tan gaiters.

WEDNESDAY:
Light grey single-breasted suit with black pinstripe, pointed black shoes, black silk socks, white shirt, black bow-tie, grey gaiters.

THURSDAY:
Blue rough worsted single-breasted suit, black brogans, blue silk socks, white shirt with blue pin-stripe, blue polka-dot tie, soft collar to match.

FRIDAY:
Tan tweed one-button suit, brown Scotch-grain shoes, tan socks, tan shirt, collar attached, tan-brown striped tie.

SATURDAY:
Dark grey three-button suit, black pointed shoes, black silk socks, white shirt, green moiré tie, wing collar, grey gaiters.

SUNDAY:
Blue serge double-breasted suit, black square-toed shoes, black silk socks, dark blue tie, wing collar, white shirt with semi-stiff bosom, grey gaiters.

“Well, what of it?” demanded the Inspector.

“What of it?” echoed Ellery. “What of it indeed.” He went to the door and peeped out into the study. “Mr. Trikkala! Will you come in here a moment.” The Greek interpreter shuffled obediently into the bedroom. “Trikkala,” said Ellery, offering the man the paper with the Greek script on it, “what does this say? Read it aloud.”

Trikkala did so. It was a word-for-word translation of the English schedule Ellery had just read to the Inspector and Pepper.

Ellery sent the man back to the library and became very busy going through the other drawers of the highboy. Nothing seemed to interest him until he came to the third drawer and found a long flat packet, sealed and unopened. It was addressed to
Mr. Georg Khalkis, 11 E. 54th Street, New York City.
It bore the imprint of
Barrett’s, Haberdasher,
in the left upper corner, and a stamped line,
Delivered by Messenger,
in the left lower corner. Ellery tore open the packet. Inside he found six red moiré neckties, all alike. He tossed the packet to the top of the highboy and, finding nothing that seemed to pique him further in the drawers, went into Demmy’s bedroom next door. This was a small cubicle, with a single window overlooking the court in the rear. It was eremitic in its furnishings—a bare cell, with a high pallet like a hospital cot, a dresser, a wardrobe closet and a chair. The room possessed not a vestige of personality.

Ellery shivered a little, but the arid atmosphere did not deter him from going through the drawers of Demmy’s dresser with thorough fingers. The only item that aroused his curiosity was a sheet of paper identical with the Greek schedule he had found in Khalkis’ highboy—a carbon copy, as he ascertained by an immediate comparison.

He returned to Khalkis’ bedroom; the Inspector and Pepper had gone back to the library. He worked swiftly now, going directly to the chair with the clothing heaped upon it. He looked each article over—a dark grey suit, white shirt, red tie, wing collar; on the floor beneath the chair were a pair of grey gaiters and a pair of black pointed shoes with black socks stuffed into them. He looked thoughtful, tapped his
pince-nez
for a moment against his lips, then went to the large wardrobe across the room. He opened it and fussed about its interior. There were twelve ordinary suits of clothing on the rack besides three tuxedos and a formal swallow-tail. A tie-rack with dozens of ties indiscriminately intermingled hung on the back of the wardrobe door. There were numerous pairs of shoes, all fitted with shoe-trees, on the floor; and a few pairs of carpet-slippers were scattered among them. Ellery observed that the shelf above the suits held remarkably few hats—three, in fact: a felt, a derby and a silk-topper.

He closed the wardrobe door, plucked the packet of neckties from the top of the highboy and returned to the study to find Velie in guarded conference with the Inspector. The Inspector looked up inquiringly; Ellery smiled a reassuring smile and proceeded directly to one of the telephones on the desk. He asked for Information, engaged in a short conversation, repeated a number and promptly dialed it. A rapid-fire series of questions with some one on the other end of the wire, and Ellery hung up, smiling broadly. He had discovered from Undertaker Sturgess that the raiment he had found on the chair in Khalkis’ bedroom had been left there, as described piece by piece, by Sturgess’ assistants after undressing the dead man; it was the clothing Khalkis had been wearing when he died, and was removed from the body in order to embalm and redress it for the funeral in one of Khalkis’ two swallowtail suits.

Ellery flourished the packet in his hand and said cheerfully: “Does this look familiar to any one?”

Two people responded—Weekes and, inevitably, Joan Brett. Ellery smiled sympathetically at the girl, but turned to the butler first. “And what do you know about this, Weekes?”

“Is that a package from Barrett’s, sir?”

“It is.”

“It was delivered late last Saturday afternoon, sir, several hours after Mr. Khalkis died.”

“Did you accept it yourself?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I—” Weekes looked startled. “Why, I placed it on the foyer-table, sir, as I recall.”

Ellery’s smile vanished. “On the foyer-table, Weekes? You’re certain? You didn’t take it from there and put it somewhere else later on?”

“No, sir, I’m sure I did not.” Weekes was frightened. “As a matter of fact, sir, in the excitement of the death and all, I completely forgot about the package until I just saw it in your hand.”

“Strange … And you, Miss Brett? What is your connection with this ubiquitous packet?”

“I saw it on the foyer-table late Saturday afternoon, Mr. Queen. That’s really all I know about it.”

“Did you touch it?”

“No.”

Ellery became abruptly serious. “Come now,” he said in a quiet voice to the assembled company. “Somebody here surely took this packet from the foyer-table and placed it in the third drawer of Khalkis’ highboy in the bedroom, where I just found it. Who was it?”

No one answered.

“Does anybody besides Miss Brett recall
seeing
it on the foyer-table?”

There was no reply.

“Very well,” snapped Ellery. He crossed the room and handed the parcel to the Inspector. “Dad, it might be important to take this package of neckties over to Barrett’s and check with them—who ordered it, who delivered it, and so on.”

The Inspector nodded absently, crooking his finger at one of his detectives. “You heard Mr. Queen, Piggott. Get going.”

“Check up on these here ties, Chief?” asked Piggott, rasping his jaw.

Velie glared at him and, clutching the packet to his thin bosom, Piggott coughed apologetically and beat a hasty retreat from the room.

The Inspector whispered: “Anything else here you’re interested in, son?” Ellery shook his head; there were worried lines now at the corners of his mouth. The old man clapped his hands together sharply, and everybody moved and sat up straight. “That’s all for to-day. I want you people to understand one thing. Last week you were annoyed by a search for a stolen will—it wasn’t very important, all things considered, so your freedom wasn’t restricted much. But now you’re all up to your necks in a juicy murder investigation. I’ll tell you frankly we don’t know what it’s all about yet. All we do know is that the murdered man, who has a criminal record, made two mighty mysterious visits to this house, the second time in the company of a man who tried very hard to keep his identity secret—and succeeded.”

He glared at them. “The crime is complicated by the fact that this murdered man was found buried in the coffin of a man who died of natural causes. And, I might add, buried right next door to this house.

“Under the circumstances, you’re all potentially under suspicion. Of what, and how, the Lord alone knows. But get me straight—every mother’s son and daughter of you stays right under my eye until we see daylight. Those of you, like Sloane and Vreeland, who have business to attend to, may go about it as usual; but both of you gentlemen will be very careful to stay within reach and call. Mr. Suiza, you may go home—but you’re also to keep within call. Woodruff, you’re of course excused. The others, until I say so, leave this house only with permission and with a specific accounting of where they’re going.”

The Inspector, very grumpily indeed, struggled into his overcoat. No one said a word. The old man snapped orders at his men, stationing a number of them, headed by Flint and Johnson, in the house. Pepper sent word to Cohalan to stay where he was—a representative of the District Attorney’s office guarding the prosecutor’s interests. Pepper, Velie and Ellery donned their coats; the four men went to the door.

The Inspector turned at the last moment and looked them over. “And I’ll tell all of you right here and now,” he said in a most unpleasant way, “you can like it or lump it—it’s all the same to me! Good day!” He clumped out, and Ellery followed the others, chuckling to himself.

D
INNER AT THE QUEEN
ménage that evening was a lugubrious affair. The apartment on the third floor of the West Eighty-seventh Street brownstone was a little newer then, the foyer a little haughtier, the living-room not quite so aged in the wood of time; and, with young Djuna, the Queens’ boy-of-all-work, being very young indeed and consequently a little less restrained than he was to become years later, one would have called the apartment cozy and the atmosphere bright. Not so, however; the Inspector’s
Weltschmerz
hung over the rooms like a pall; he dipped into his snuff-box more frequently and more savagely; he replied to Ellery in fierce monosyllables, ordered a very bewildered Djuna about almost with passion, and trotted from the living-room to the bedroom in an ecstasy of restlessness. Nor did the old man’s temper improve with the arrival of his guests; Ellery had asked them to dinner, and the sight of Pepper’s thoughtful face and District Attorney Sampson’s wearily inquiring eyes did not effect a chemical change in the prevailing indigo mood.