Greek Coffin Mystery (33 page)

“You were Grimshaw’s fourth visitor, then,” said Ellery thoughtfully, “beyond a doubt. Why did you go, Mr. Odell?”

“This Grimshaw rat looked up Lily soon as he came down the river. I didn’t know this—didn’t know Lily’s life before I married her. Not that I’d ’a’ given a damn, y’understand, but she thought I would, and like a fool she never told me what she’d been before I met her …”

“Very unwise, Mrs. Odell,” said Ellery severely. “Always confide in your soul-mate, always. That’s a fundamental of the perfect marital relation, or something.”

Odell grinned for an instant. “Listen to the lad talk … Thought I’d run out on you, hey, Lil?” The woman said nothing; she was staring into her lap, pleating her apron. “Anyway, Grimshaw looked ’er up—I don’t know how he got a line on her, but he did, the sneaky weasel!—and he forced her to meet him at this Schick guy’s joint. She went, because she was afraid he’d spill the beans to me if she got balky.”

“I understand.”

“He thought she was workin’ some new kind o’ racket—wouldn’t believe her when she said she’d gone straight and wanted none o’ his kind o’ trash. He was sore—told her to meet him in his room at the Benedict, blast his lousy soul to hell!—and she beat it out, and then she came home an’ told me … saw it was goin’ too far.”

“And you went to the Benedict to have it out with him?”

“That’s the ticket.” Odell looked glumly at his big scarred hands. “Talked turkey to the snake. Warned him to keep his dirty paws off my wife or I’d take it out of his hide. That’s all. Just put the fear o’ God into him and walked out.”

“How did Grimshaw react?”

Odell looked embarrassed. “Guess I must’ve scared hell out of him. He went white around the gills when I grabbed him by the neck—”

“Oh! You manhandled him?”

Odell bellowed with laughter. “You call that manhandlin’, Mr. Queen—grabbin’ a guy by the neck. Say, you ought to see how we muss up those big steamfitters in our trade when they get too much ‘smoke’ in ’em … Naw, I just shook him up a little. He was too yellow to pull a rod on me.”

“He had a
revolver?”

“Well, maybe not. Didn’t see none. But those birds always do.”

Ellery looked thoughtful. Mrs. Odell said timidly: “So you see, Mr. Queen, Jerry didn’t really do anything wrong.”

“On the other hand, Mrs. Odell, both of you would have saved us a lot of trouble by taking this attitude when you were originally questioned.”

“Didn’t want to run
my
neck in a noose,” rumbled Odell. “Didn’t want to be collared for killin’ the mutt.”

“Mr. Odell, was anybody in Grimshaw’s room when he let you in?”

“Not a breathin’ soul but Grimshaw himself.”

“The room itself—did it show signs of a scrap, or whisky-glasses—anything which might have indicated that some one else was there?”

“Wouldn’t notice it if there was. I was pretty riled.”

“Did either of you see Grimshaw again after that night?”

They shook their heads at once.

“Very well. I warrant you won’t be disturbed again.”

Ellery found the subway journey to New York irksome; there was little to think about, and he found no solace in a newspaper he had purchased. When he rang the bell on the third floor of the Queen’s brownstone habitation on West Eighty-seventh Street, he was frowning; not even the sight of Djuna’s sharp Romany face popping out of the doorway erased the frown—and Djuna was normally his spiritual tonic.

Djuna’s crafty little brain sensed the disturbance, and he went about quelling it in his own cunning way. He took Ellery’s hat, coat and stick with a flourish, made a few experimental faces which usually evoked an answering grin—but now did not—darted from the bedroom into the living-room again and set a cigaret between Ellery’s lips, struck a match with ceremony …

“Somethin’ wrong, Mr. Ellery?” he asked plaintively, at last, when all his efforts proved vain.

Ellery sighed. “Djuna, old son, everything is wrong. That, I suppose, should encourage me. For, ‘It’s a different song when everything’s wrong,’ as Robert W. Service said in unambitious doggerel; on the other hand, I can’t seem, like Service’s little soldier, to pipe the tune of bucking up and chortling. I’m a very unmusical beast.”

To Djuna this was the most arrant nonsense, but Ellery in a quotative mood betokened certain inevitables, and Djuna grinned his encouragement.

“Djuna,” continued Ellery, slumping back on his spine, “attend. Messer Grimshaw had five visitors that hideous night; of the five we have now accounted for three: the late Gilbert Sloane, his worthy helpmeet, and fearsome Jeremiah Odell. Of the two visitors outstanding, so to speak, we are convinced, despite the man’s denial, that Dr. Wardes was one. If we could clear up the Dr. Wardes situation, which might have an innocent enough explanation, that would leave the fascinating remainder of
one
unknown visitor, never identified; who, if Sloane were our murderer, came second in the quintuple line.”

“Yes, sir,” said Djuna.

“On the other hand, my son,” continued Ellery, “I confess to checkmate. This is rank verbiage. I have discovered nothing yet which so much as casts aspersions on the general validity of the Sloane solution.”

“No, sir,” said Djuna. “I got some coffee in the kitchen—”

“I
have
some coffee in the kitchen, you ungrammatical little worm,” said Ellery severely.

It was, taking it all in all, a most unsatisfactory day.

T
HE DAY, AS ELLERY
was to discover, had not yet ended. For, with a telephone call from his father an hour later, the tree which had been planted by Mrs. Sloane’s uneventful visit some days before blossomed and bore fruit with a horticultural fecundity as astonishing as it was unexpected.

“Something’s come up,” said the Inspector briskly over the wire, “which is queer enough, and I thought you’d like to hear about it.”

Ellery was not sanguine. “I’ve been disappointed so many times—”

“Well, as far as I’m concerned this development doesn’t alter the Sloane solution.” The old man grew brusque. “Look here—do you want to hear this, or don’t you?”

“I suppose so. What’s happened?”

Ellery heard his father sneeze, cough, and clear his throat—an unfailing sign of disapproval. “You’d better come down to the office. It’s a long story.”

“Very well.”

It was with no great enthusiasm that Ellery went downtown. He was heartily sick of subways, and he had a slight headache, and the world seemed a poor place. He found his father, furthermore, in conference with a Deputy Inspector, and he was compelled to wait forty-five minutes outside. It was a snappish Ellery who slouched into the old man’s office.

“What’s the world-shaking news now?”

The Inspector kicked a chair toward him. “Get a load off your feet. Here’s the low-down. Got a little social call from your friend—what’s his name?—Suiza this afternoon.”

“My
friend? Nacio Suiza. And?”

“And he told me that
he
had been in the Khalkis Galleries the night of Sloane’s suicide.”

Fatigue fled. Ellery sprang to his feet. “No!”

“Keep your shirt on,” growled the Inspector. “Nothing to get excited about. It seems that Suiza had to work on a prospectus of the pieces in the Khalkis art-gallery—said it was a long and tedious job, and he thought he’d get a head start on it by working that night.”

“The night of Sloane’s suicide?”

“Yes. Listen, will you, younker? Now he got there, let himself in with his passkey, and went upstairs into that long main gallery there—”

“Let himself in with his passkey. How could he, when the electric-alarm was working?”

“It wasn’t. Showed that some one was still in the place—generally, the last man out saw that the alarm was in place and notified the protective agency. Anyway, he went upstairs and saw a light in Sloane’s office. There was something about the prospectus he wanted to ask Sloane—knew Sloane was probably working there. So he went in and, of course, found Sloane’s dead body, exactly as we discovered it later.”

Ellery was strangely excited. His eyes were fixed hypnotically on the Inspector as he stuck a cigaret between his lips from force of habit.
“Exactly?”

“Yes, yes,” said the Inspector. “Head on the desk, gun under the hanging right arm, on the floor—everything kosher. This was a few minutes before we got there, incidentally. Of course, Suiza got panicky—can’t say I blame him—he was in a tough spot. He was careful not to touch anything, realized that if he was found there he’d have some tall explaining to do, and beat it fast.”

“By the non-existent beard of Napoleon,” muttered Ellery with glazed eyes, “if it’s only possible!”

“If what’s possible? Sit down—you’re going off half-cocked again,” snapped the Inspector. “Don’t get any false notions, Ellery. I put Suiza on the grill for an hour, shooting questions at him about how the room looked, and he came through one hundred percent. When the news of the suicide came out in the papers, he was a little relieved but still nervous. He said he wanted to see if anything further would develop. When nothing did, he saw it couldn’t hurt to talk, and his conscience bothered him anyway, so he came to me with the story. And that’s the kit and boodle of it.”

Ellery was smoking in furious puffs, and his mind was far away.

“Anyway,” the Inspector went on a little uneasily, “it’s beside the main issue. Just an interesting sidelight which doesn’t affect the Sloane-suicide solution in the slightest.”

“Yes, yes. I agree with you there. It’s obvious that since Suiza was not suspected of being implicated, he would not have come forward with the story of his visit to the scene of the—suicide unless he were innocent. That’s not what I’m thinking about … Dad!”

“Well?”

“Do you want
confirmation
of the theory that Sloane committed suicide?”

“How’s that? Confirmation?” The old man snorted. “It’s not a theory, either—it’s a fact. But I guess a little more evidence won’t hurt. What’s on your mind?”

Ellery was taut with a singing excitement. “It is perfectly true,” he cried, “that on the basis of what you have just related there is nothing in the Suiza tale that invalidates the Sloane solution. But now we can
prove
suicide more completely by asking Mr. Nacio Suiza just one little question … You see, dad, despite your conviction that Suiza’s having visited that office doesn’t alter the facts, there remains a tiny loophole, an infinitesimal possibility. … By the way, when Suiza left the building that night, did he set the alarm to working?”

“Yes. Said he did it mechanically.”

“I see.” Ellery rose quickly. “Let’s visit Suiza at once. I shan’t be able to sleep to-night unless I satisfy myself on that one point.”

The Inspector nursed his lower lip. “By ginger,” he muttered, “you’re right as usual, you bloodhound. Stupid of me not to have thought of asking that question myself.” He jumped up and reached for his overcoat. “He said he was going back to the Galleries. Let’s go!”

They found an oddly disturbed Nacio Suiza in the deserted Khalkis Galleries on Madison Avenue. Suiza was less immaculate than usual, and there was a crinkle in his smooth hair that should not have been there. He met them opposite the closed and barred door to Gilbert Sloane’s office, explaining with flat nervousness that the room had not been used since Sloane’s death. This was all talk, verbal camouflage to conceal a very genuine perturbation. He seated them in his own curio-spattered office and blurted: “Is anything wrong, Inspector? Something hasn’t …”

“Don’t get your wind up,” said the Inspector mildly. “Mr. Queen here has a couple of questions.”

“Yes?”

“I understand,” said Ellery, “that you walked into Sloane’s office next door on the night of his death because you saw a light in there. Is that correct?”

“Not exactly.” Suiza folded his hands tightly. “My intention was merely to speak to Sloane about something. As I walked into the gallery I knew that Sloane was in his office because the light was shining through the transom …”

The Queens jerked as if they had been sitting on electric-chairs. “Ah, the transom,” said Ellery with a queer inflection.
“Then the door to Sloane’s office was closed before you walked in?”

Suiza looked puzzled. “Why, certainly. Is that important? I thought I mentioned that, Inspector.”

“You did not!” snarled the Inspector. His old nose had fallen appreciably nearer his mouth. “And in running out you left the door open?”

Suiza faltered: “Yes. I was panic-stricken, didn’t think … But what was your question, Mr. Queen?”

“You’ve already answered it,” said Ellery dryly.

The shoe was on the other foot. A half-hour later the Queens were in the living-room of their apartment, the Inspector in a vile temper, muttering to himself; Ellery in the gayest of moods, humming and prancing up and down before the fire which a bewildered Djuna had hastily lighted. Neither man said a word after the Inspector made two telephone calls. Ellery calmed, but his eyes were glowing as he flung himself into his favorite chair, feet propped on a firedog, and studied the weaving of the flames.

Djuna answered a wild bell-ringing and admitted two red-faced gentlemen—District Attorney Sampson and Assistant District Attorney Pepper. He took their coats in growing wonderment; both men were nervous, both barked a greeting, both took chairs and joined in the glaring petulance which all at once pervaded the room.

“Here’s a pretty state,” said Sampson at last, “here’s a pretty state of affairs! You seemed damned sure over the wire, Q. Are you—?”

The old man jerked his head toward Ellery. “Ask him. It was his idea in the first place, drat him.”

“Well, Ellery, well?”

They all looked at him in silence. Ellery flipped a cigaret into the fire and, without turning around, drawled: “Hereafter, gentlemen, have faith in the warning-note of my subconscious. My premonition of screwiness, as friend Pepper might say, is justified by events.

“But all this is beside the point. The point is simply this: The bullet which killed Sloane penetrated his head and emerged, taking a trajectory line which led through the door of the office. We found the bullet imbedded in a rug hanging on the gallery wall opposite the office-door, and
outside
the office. Obviously, then, the door was open when the bullet was discharged. When we burst in on the Galleries the night of Sloane’s death, we found Sloane’s office-door open, which was in perfect tune with the
locus
of the bullet. Now, however, Nacio Suiza comes forward with the story that we were
not
the first to enter the Galleries after Sloane’s death; but that he, Suiza, had been a previous visitor. In other words, any condition relating to the door of Sloane’s office when we arrived must be readjusted and examined in the light of this previous visit. The question then arose: Was the condition of the door the same when Suiza got there? If he had found it open, we would be no further advanced than before.”