The Door Between (14 page)

Eva stiffened. “I know! It’s all so simple. Karen just reconstructed this room, with all of her sister’s clothes and things, out of sentiment. Of course – that’s it! Daddy’s right – she isn’t alive at all.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” said Terry Ring, studiously examining his fingernails. “What did Karen do – save her sister’s hairbrush with some of the hair on it?”

“Wait!” Eva held her throat. “Or it’s possible she is alive, but … a little mad. daddy, you said she went insane after the accident. That might account for – for Karen’s keeping up the pretence of her suicide and … having her live here. If she was harmless – maybe Karen didn’t want to put her in an institution –”

The Inspector looked thoughtful. “Say, there’s something in that, Miss MacClure.”

Ellery went over to the writing-desk and fingered some papers. He looked troubled. “Well, you’d better get on the job, dad. You have a pretty full description, and she can’t have been gone long, whoever she is.”

“I’ve already put Thomas on it. He’s going to check with Japan by cable on the death certificate, and so on. If we find anything phony about her death, we’ve got samples of her handwriting for a cross-check – some of these old letters.”

“I tell you it can’t be,” said the doctor futilely.

Inspector Queen went to the head of the stairs and shouted: “Kinumé! Hey, come up here, Kinumé – attic!” He turned back and went on in a grim tone:

“There’s one check we can make right now. Karen Leith didn’t keep a woman hidden up here for years without help. Somebody had to assist her. If the woman
is
Esther Leith, it’s certain this old Japanese woman was in on it. She came over with Miss Leith, didn’t she? Kinumé!”

Dr. MacClure said hoarsely: “I don’t think she –”

“Somebody had to clean up this place. Fact, it was cleaned only a few days ago, as I said before. Somebody had to watch. And if the woman was cracked, somebody had to do the dirty work. Come up here, Kinumé.”

The old woman ascended slowly, stopping on each step to catch her breath. When she finally appeared her oblique eyes were filled with fear; her frail figure was trembling. She glanced about the attic-room involuntarily, as if to see if someone she knew was there; and then lowered her eyes and folded her hands in her sleeves and waited.

“Kinumé”, said the Inspector, “where is Esther?”

Kinumé said calmly: “’Lo, Eva, ’lo, Dr. MacCloo.”

“Did you hear what I said? Where’s Esther Leith!”

Kinumé bowed. “Missie Esther dead. She die long time. She die in big water.”

“Who lived in this room?”

“Missie Karen. She live here some time.”

“Nobody else, huh?”

“Missie Karen, she live here.”

“Did you clean this room a few days ago?”

“Missie no let nobody this room. Missie holluh.”

“All right,” sighed the Inspector. “Get out. When a Jap won’t say anything, he just won’t, that’s all.”

And Kinumé bowed again and went sedately down the stairs, unmindful of his carelessness with pronouns.

“Suppose you two go on home and get some rest,” continued the Inspector. “There’s nothing more you can do to-day. When I get something on this Esther business, I’ll ring you.”

“Good-bye,” said Eva in a low voice to no one in particular. But as she and Dr. MacClure, who looked grateful, began to descend the stairs Terry Ring stirred himself, as if to follow.

“No,” said the Inspector softly. “Not you, Terry.”

“Oh,” said Terry Ring, and he stopped. The Inspector went to the attic door and closed it.

Ellery sighed and stepped to the window to look down at the garden. It was peaceful in the dusk, and quite empty. He wondered if on the evening of Karen Leith’s garden-party the woman who had lived in this attic had not stood where he was standing now, with the lights off, looking down even as he was looking down. And he wondered, too, what had been in her heart.

He noticed that shutters were folded back from the window – heavy wooden shutters, with just a few decorative holes for air. And rolled up there was a midnight-blue shade. Yes, he thought, it was very like a cell.

“It’s incredible,” he remarked without turning around, “how a human being could have lived here for years without a single person even suspecting. It’s the strangest thing I ever heard of.”

“Never mind that now,” said Inspector Queen. “Terry!”

“What is it this time, pop?” sighed the brown man. “The bracelets? Come on, act your age.”

Ellery turned. The two men stood facing each other like polite duellists, and each was smiling a little.

“I’ve known you for a good many years,” said Inspector Queen mildly. “You’ve always been a good boy. You’ve kidded some of the men at Headquarters at times, but I’ve never known you to do a crooked thing or, for that matter, a mean one. I’ve always liked you, Terry.”

“That goes double, pop,” said Terry gravely.

“Why don’t you tell me where you figure? You can help us, Terry. There’s a lot behind this thing. What do you know?”

“Well, if the Giants fold again, I’ll root for the St. Louis Browns next year, so help me,” said Terry.

“I can’t see,” replied the Inspector without turning a hair, “that you’ve got anything to gain by working against us. Who’s going to pay your fee? Karen Leith’s dead.”

The shot went home, but only for an instant did it show. Then the brown man grinned. “When’s the funeral?”

“Now that’s pretty sad,” said the old man, “pretty sad, my boy. You see, if I didn’t know your record I’d hold you as a material witness. Lone-wolf private dicks don’t appeal to me. They’re a pretty shady lot, most of them. Blackmailers, strong-arm men, labor spies, ex-lushes – a bad crew. But you’re different, Terry.”

“That’s swell, pop. I can use a recommendation like that,” said Terry heartily. “Can I quote?”

“You can quote this,” said the Inspector. “If you don’t talk you’ll be in the Tombs before the week is out.” Terry Ring began to look around the room. “What are you looking for?”

“A ’phone . I’ve got to call my lawyer. Isn’t that what all crooks do when the law gets its monkey up?”

The Inspector’s voice rose. “By God, I’ll book you on a charge that’ll stick!”

“Gosh,” said Terry. “Then it looks as if I’m in for it.”

The old man’s face darkened with fury. He jumped to the stairway and yelled: “Thomas! Where the devil are you? Thomas! Come up here!”

Terry waited complacently while the thunder of large feet shook the room beneath them; and then Sergeant Velie’s colossal figure surged into view.

“What’s the matter?” he rumbled. “Is this bird acting up?”

“Take him downtown and make him talk!” roared the Inspector.

Sergeant Velie rubbed what passed for his hands together. “Come along, Terry.”

“Go to hell,” said Terry pleasantly. He was backed against the bed now, leaning against one of the posts; and his body was loose and slightly crouched, although the smile never left his face.

“Say, that’s too bad,” said Sergeant Velie with a grin. “I wouldn’t want to hurt you, toots. I used to kick you in the pants when you sold papers on Centre Street. You coming, or do I have to pick you up and carry you?”

“You,” asked Terry, “and how many hundred like you?”

The Sergeant’s grin became a snarl. He licked his leathery lips and bent for a spring.

“Just a moment,” sighed Ellery, “before we unleash the primitive.” The Sergeant unbent and looked a little sheepish. “Don’t you think, dad, you’re letting your temper run away with you? Terry’s right in one thing – you’d get him down to Headquarters but he’d be out in two hours. And he might be pardonably vengeful, if you mussed him up. The newspaper boys like him.”

The Inspector’s mustache bristled as he glared at the brown man, who looked interested. Then he yanked out his snuff box, pinched some brown stuff into his nostrils, inhaled prodigiously, sneezed a Cyclopean sneeze, and said with a growl: “Come along, Thomas. I won’t forget this, Terry.”

With Sergeant Velie trailing his trim little figure like a wolfhound after a terrier, the Inspector marched down and out of sight. They heard the bedroom door bang a moment later.

“Whew,” said Terry, taking out a cigaret. “Great little guy, your old man.” He chuckled. “I’d like to see him get mad. Butt?”

Ellery took one and Terry held a match for him. “What would you have done,” murmured Ellery, “if that man-eater had really jumped you? I’ve seen Velie mop up a mob of seven single-handed. And they weren’t exactly mama’s boys, either.”

“Damned if I know,” said Terry, scratching his head. Then he grinned ruefully. “In a way I’m sorry you stopped him. I’ve always wanted to see if I could put that big ape away, but I never had a real excuse.”

“Oh, come along,” said Ellery. “You he-men give me a pain.”

On their way downstairs they passed Kinumé. The old woman was trudging up like any other old woman; she flattened against the wall to let them by, keeping her aged eyes on the carpet. Ellery looked back; she was trudging upward again.

“Won’t do her any good,” remarked Terry dryly, “if she’s up to any devilment in those rooms. That mugg Ritter would slough his own grandmother.”

Ellery frowned. “Kinumé … She could solve one problem, anyway. Blast these Orientals!”

“What you got against
her?
”

“Oh, nothing but admiration. It’s the temper of the race that frets me. You know, the Japanese are probably the most inferiority-complexed people on earth. That’s why they’re always raising so much hell in Asia. It’s the curse of the superior-white man psychology.”

“How do you get away with that kind of stuff?”

“Don’t be funny. I mean that Kinumé has never overcome her veneration for a white skin. She was Karen Leith’s creature. Now unquestionably she knows everything that went on in that attic-room, but Karen swore her to silence and her typical loyalty to the lack of pigmentation in the epidermis keeps her old mouth as tightly shut as – well, let’s say as yours.”

“Oh,” said Terry; and after that he was silent.

They had to pass through a small sunroom in the rear to get to the gardens. The vinaceous-hued Loo-choo jay hung in his cage there, and as they approached the back door he followed them balefully with his brilliant, inhuman eyes.

“He gives me the willies,” said Ellery uncomfortably. “Scat!”

The jay opened his powerful beak and emitted a raucous, unlovely cry in Ellery’s direction that raised the fine hairs on the nape of his neck. He followed his companion hastily on to the little back veranda overlooking the garden.

“I should think,” he growled, “Karen Leith would have wrung his gorgeous neck.”

“Maybe,” suggested Terry, although he was patently thinking of something else, “maybe he’s a one-woman bird.”

They strolled down among the flower-beds, alone in the garden among the dwarf trees, the scents of late blossoms, and the chirp of unseen birds. It was so cool and pleasant that Ellery winced a little guiltily at the thought of the slight, stiff body lying on the slab in Dr. Prouty’s morgue.

“Let’s sit down,” he said. “I haven’t had time to think.”

They seated themselves on a bench facing the rear of the house, and for a while neither man spoke. Terry smoked, waiting. And Ellery slumped on the tail of his spine and closed his eyes. Once Terry caught sight of an ancient Japanese face pressed to a lower window, watching; and again the sullen, stupid face of Geneva O’Mara, the white maid, from another. But he gave no sign, and after a time the faces disappeared.

Then Ellery opened his eyes and said: “There are so many unknown quantities in this equation that it isn’t possible even to guess at the answer. I must have some of them cleared up. You hold the key to one – I think an important one.”

“Do I?”

“Pshaw. In whose interest do you think I’m working?”

“How should I know? If you think Eva MacClure’s innocent, it’ll be the first time you ever took anybody’s word for anything.”

Ellery laughed. “Aren’t you wearing a somewhat similar brogan?”

The brown man scuffed some gravel on the path.

“Very well,” sighed Ellery, “let’s see what a little unassisted guesswork can accomplish. First of all, there’s that matter of the telephone call Monday afternoon which Karen Leith didn’t answer, for the good and sufficient reason that she was dead when the ’phone rang. It’s been annoying my father, but I can’t say it’s really annoyed me. I’ve felt all along that you made that call.”

“Guess again.”

“Oh, really, Terry!” protested Ellery with another laugh. ‘Don’t be a child. It doesn’t take genius to see that you and Karen Leith were connected with a professional bond – that is, you knew her through your business, which is private detection. No offence, but it’s improbable that she was interested in your mind.”

“What the hell’s wrong with my mind?” flared Terry. “Just because I never went to college, like the rest of the stuffed shirts –”

“Oh, it’s a very good mind, except that I don’t believe it would have entranced Miss Leith. Your physique might have appealed more … Very well, she engaged you in your professional capacity. Secret stuff – people don’t go to private detectives unless they want secrecy. Secret stuff – and there’s the trail of a woman hidden in that attic for years. Connection? I think so. Yes, indeed!”

“All right. What of it?” said Terry sullenly.

“Precisely what
is
the connection?”

“You’re doing the guessing.”

“Hmm. Suddenly Miss Leith takes the necessary steps to establish a second connection – this time with the regular police. Deduction: either you failed her and she was forced to turn to the conventional channels of investigation; or you had succeeded and your success somehow completed the dirty end of the job.”

“Why, you –” began the brown man, beginning to rise.

Ellery touched his arm. “Tut, tut. Such muscles! Sit down. Tarzan.” Terry glared, but obeyed. “In either event your services were no longer required. Let me romance a bit. You were piqued. It’s your business to know things, and somehow you learned that she had called for a Headquarters detective. She may even have told you so herself.” Terry remained silent. “Knowing of the five o’clock Monday appointment with Guilfoyle, you hotfooted it down to Washington Square, stopped in at University Place, let’s say, to ’phone . No answer. The times coincide – in a minute or so you were in the house and found her dead.”