The Door Between (20 page)

And here we are, Eva thought. Here I am, stretched out like an animal on the dissecting table, under the eyes of men … She sat up suddenly, swinging her legs to the floor with a clatter.

“You’re
not
going to frighten me,” she said fiercely to the silent Inspector. “I’ve been acting like a scared child. But you won’t scare me! I did
not
kill Karen Leith. I did
not
know my mother is alive. I didn’t even know who my mother is! I’ve given you perfectly reasonable explanations for the fingerprints and the handkerchief. Why aren’t you
fair
?”

“That’s the stuff, baby!” said Terry Ring, grinning. “Tell the old baboon where the hell he gets off.”

“And you,” said Eva scornfully. “If you know where my mother is, why don’t you tell us? Take me to her this instant!”

Terry blinked. “Now listen, kid, take it easy. I didn’t say I knew positively. I only said –”

“Why don’t you make him tell?” cried Eva to the Inspector. “You’re awfully good at scaring a woman, but when a man stands up to you –”

Terry grabbed her arm. “Listen, kid –”

She shook it off, glaring at the old man. “You’d better find her! God knows what’s happened to her – alone in New York for the first time in her life, after spending nine years cooped up in an attic!”

Inspector Queen nodded at his stenographer. “All right, Mushie,” he sighed. “Send Thomas Velie in. We’ll want to book her.”

Eva relaxed very slowly. Very slowly she stared about her – at Dr. MacClure, pacing, pacing; at Dr. Scott – who was he? it seemed to Eva she had never seen him before – nibbling at a fingernail and studying the sky through the window; at Terry Ring lighting one cigaret from another and frowning deeply; at Ellery Queen, motionless and impotent as the onyx figurine on Inspector Queen’s desk.

The police stenographer said: “Yes, sir,” and rose.

But before he could get to the door it swung open and a tall, lanky, black-jowled man wearing an archaic derby and smoking a black cigar slouched in.

“Oh, company?” scowled Dr. Samuel Prouty, Assistant Medical Examiner of New York County. “Hello, Queen. Ah, Dr. MacClure! Sorry about all this … Listen, Q. I’ve got bad news for you.”

“Bad news for
me
?” said the Inspector.

“You know that half-scissors – the one you’ve got in your desk?”

“Yes! Yes!”

“It didn’t kill Karen Leith.”

Terry Ring drawled in the very special silence: “Well, what do you know about that.”

“You wouldn’t kid an old man, would you, Sam?” asked the Inspector, trying to smile.

“I’m telling you,” said Prouty impatiently. “Listen, I’ve got to be back at the Morgue in twenty minutes and I can’t stand here gassing. But after that first autopsy report of ours on Tuesday, I guess I owe you an explanation.”

“I guess you do,” growled the old man.

Terry Ring went over to Dr. Prouty and pumped his limp hand. “The Marines have landed!” Then he went to Eva and led her, chuckling, to the settee. “Sit down, kid. This is your show now.”

Bewildered, Eva sat down. She had never felt more alert in her life; it had something to do, she knew vaguely, with the adrenal glands; and yet nothing made sense. The half-scissors … the fingerprints …

“My fault,” said Prouty. “I was busy and left the autopsy to – well, never mind. He’s a youngster and hasn’t had much experience. Besides, I thought it was merest routine. There didn’t seem to be any doubt about the agency of death.”

Ellery ran over to him and gripped his lapel. “Prouty, stop babbling before I throttle you! If the half-scissors didn’t kill her, what did?”

“A different … If you’ll give me a chance –”

Ellery smacked his father’s desk. “Don’t tell me the knife-wound was inflicted over a
first
wound, a
smaller
wound –
to
obliterate
it!
”

The black jaw, which needed a shave badly, dropped.

“Lord! I never dreamed … Is there any way of telling, Prouty? Is the venom recognizable?”

“Venom?” repeated Dr. Prouty dazedly.

“It was just yesterday. I’d been thinking over the case – its curious angles. I got to thinking about Kinumé.” Ellery was exultant. “And then I remembered Karen Leith’s remarking in the spring that the old Japanese woman came from the Loo-choo Islands. I promptly referred to
Britannica
and found – pure hunch, mind you! – that a majority of the islands, especially a place called Amami-Oshima, are infested with a genus of venomous reptile called
habu
.”

“Ha – what?” said Prouty, goggling at him.

“
Trimeresurus
– I hope I’ve remembered it correctly. No rattle, scaly head, attain a length of six to seven feet, and their bite causes quick death.” Ellery drew a deep breath. “It
was
the marks of fangs underneath, Prouty?”

Prouty took the dangling cigar out of his mouth. “What’s the matter with him, Q. – is he crazy?”

Ellery’s smile vanished. “You mean it wasn’t a snake?”

“No!”

“But I thought –” began Ellery feebly.

“And who said anything about the knife-wound obliterating another, smaller wound underneath?”

“But when I asked you –”

Prouty threw up his hands. “Look, Q. Put in a call to Matteawan, and then bring out that half-scissors.”

The Inspector took the batting-wrapped half-scissors from his drawer. Prouty unwrapped it. “Hmm. Then I was right.” He threw the thing on the desk and produced a small cardboard box from his pocket. There was a wad of wool inside, and nestling on the wool like a jewel was a small sliver of steel, sharply triangular in shape.

“Dug this out of her throat myself this afternoon. My assistant missed it Tuesday.” He handed the box over to the Inspector, and they crowded around.

“The tip of a scissors” blade,” said the old man slowly. “Snapped off by the blow. And the tip of
this
half” – he glanced over at the half-scissors on the desk – “is still intact.”

“Same kind of tip exactly, wouldn’t you say?” muttered Terry.

“What do you think, El?”

“No question about it. This sliver is the tip of the missing half-scissors.”

“Then you’re right, Sam,” said the old man gloomily. “This half of the scissors couldn’t have knifed her. It was the other half.”

“Okay, kid!” Terry ran over to Eva. “You sleep in your own bed to-night!”

“Found the other half?” asked Prouty, going to the door.

“No!”

“Well, all right, don’t bite my head off.” Prouty scratched his jaw. “Uh – Dr. MacClure. I don’t want you to think this sort of bungling is usual with our office. Green hand. You know –”

Dr. MacClure waved an absent hand. “By the way,” said Ellery, “what else did you find, Prouty? I didn’t see the report.”

“Oh, nothing much. A coronary thrombosis – did you know that, Doctor? I believe you were her physician.”

“Suspected it,” muttered the doctor.

“Coronary thrombosis?” repeated Ellery. “I thought that was a form of heart disease exclusive with men.”

“It’s commoner in men,” said Prouty, “but plenty of women have it. Karen Leith had a nice thrombus. That’s why she died so quickly.”

“Quickly? She lingered for at least fifteen minutes.”

“Ordinarily with a throat wound they’ll live for hours. Bleed to death, and that takes time. But with a weak pump they’ll die in a matter of minutes sometimes.”

“Anything else?”

“Nothing interesting. Anaemia – weak stomach. But that’s about all. After my young man’s boner I did a thorough autopsy myself … Look here, I’ve got to be going. “Bye, Doctor.” And Prouty disappeared.

“I never told Karen about the thrombosis,” sighed Dr. MacClure. “It would only have worried her, and it wasn’t a serious condition. The life she led – no exertion or excitement, plenty of care – she could have lived for many years without danger.”

“She struck me,” said Ellery, “as something of a hypochondriac.”

“Never had another physician – ideal patient,” said the doctor grimly. “Followed my instructions and advice to the letter. I suppose she thought she had a lot to live for.” He sounded bitter.

“By the way, what sort of married life did she contemplate? I’m curious, because I don’t see how she intended to keep up the deception about her sister Esther afterward.”

“She wanted a ‘modern’ marriage. Separate establishments, separate careers, she was to keep her own name – all the rest of it. At the time it sounded like a Lucy Stoner’s whim. But now –” Dr. MacClure scowled – “now I see why. It would have enabled her to continue the deception.” He exploded suddenly. “It’s damnable how a woman can fool a man!”

Or a man, thought Eva, a woman. She said quietly: “I think you can go back to your office now, Dick. There’s no more danger for to-day – is there, Inspector?”

The Inspector picked up the warrant and slowly tore it in half. “Sorry,” he said. But he did not sound sorry. He sounded angry.

“Then I think,” said Dr. Scott with difficulty, “I think I’ll go, Eva … I’ll call you to-night.”

“Yes,” said Eva, and when he made as if to stoop and kiss her again, she turned her face away. He straightened up, smiling a little foolishly; he was white around the lips. Then he left without a word.

“You people might as well go, too,” said the Inspector. “Or no. Wait a minute. You didn’t happen to see the other half of those scissors around anywhere Monday afternoon, did you, Miss MacClure?”

“No, Inspector.” Eva scarcely heard him. The two-carat square-cut diamond on the fourth finger of her left hand burned.

“How about you, Mr. Ring?”

“Me?” said Terry. “Not
me.”

“It couldn’t have been in one of your pockets, now, could it, when I let you go Monday?” asked the old man bitterly. “Teach me never to –” But he did not finish.

“Come on, Eva,” said Terry with a grin, seizing Eva’s arm. “The old razorback’ll charge you with lifting his leather if you don’t get out of here quick!”

“Chow’s on me,” said Terry Ring as they stood on the sidewalk before the Centre Street Building. He was in high spirits. “Come on, I’ll take you all over to Fung’s. There’s one Chink that knows how to make egg-roll.”

“I’ll go anywhere,” said Eva. She inhaled deeply and with rare enjoyment, as if she had never realized how sweet free air, even in New York, could be.

“How about you, Doc?”

“Can’t eat the stuff,” said Dr. MacClure absently.

“Then we’ll go somewhere else –”

“No.” He kissed Eva. “Run along, honey. Forget everything. You will, won’t you?”

“Yes,” said Eva, but she knew she would not, and she knew he knew she would not. “Oh, come along with us, Daddy! We’ll go –”

“A walk will do me worlds of good.” He paused, and then suddenly said: “Don’t ever call me anything else, Eva,” and swung off up the street. They watched him in silence as his tall, bulky figure marched off toward the police academy on the next block.

“Swell guy,” said Terry. “How about you, Queen? Haven’t you got anywhere to go, either? I’ll bet you’re tired.”

“I’m hungry,” said Ellery.

Terry looked disappointed for an instant. Then he yelled: “Hey, taxi!” and Eva found herself faintly smiling.

He chattered incessantly on the short jolting trip to Chinatown, paid off the driver with a bill, said: “Keep the change, sucker,” and steered them across the narrow Pell Street sidewalk to what looked like the entrance to a cellar.

“Don’t mind the looks of this joint. It’s the real McCoy. All the Chinks eat here themselves. Hello, Fung.” A broad-cheeked Chinese smiled and bobbed in the basement restaurant. The place was empty except for three old Orientals wearing black hats and drinking rice wine out of beer bottles. “Never mind, Fung. I’ll pick my own table. It’s the one the cockroaches keep away from.”

He led them to a corner, held a chair gallantly for Eva. “The cockroaches,” he said, “were a gag.” She smiled again. “The walls are a poisonous green, and plenty dirty, but the kitchen’s spotless. Want to see it?”

“No, thank you.”

“That’s it! You’ve got a dimple near your mouth that you ought to show more often. Hey, Queen! Cheer up. You still seeing snakes?” He chuckled.

“Shut up,” said Ellery irritably. “What on earth do you eat in a place like this?”

“Leave it to Uncle Oscar. Wei
!”
A little Chinese with an apron tied around his waist and no necktie scuttled over. “Big-big
Wan
-
Tan
. Egg-roll, three portions. Shrimp chop-suey. Chow mein, Canton style. Heavy on the rice. Wine. Tea. Shove off!”

“That sounds like an awful lot,” said Eva. “I’ll just have some chow mein and tea.”

“You’ll have what I give you.” Terry chucked his hat carelessly over his shoulder and, by a miracle, it stuck to a peg on the wall. “Take your coat off if you’re hot, Queen. Fung won’t mind.”

“Miss MacClure might.”

“Oh, I don’t!”

“Say, you’re all right, gorgeous! Feel better?”

“You haven’t given me a chance to feel anything,” said Eva. “Where is my mother, Terry?”

Terry glanced away. Through the swinging kitchen doors Wei was emerging, like Atlas, bearing an enormous tray. “I don’t know.”

“But you said –”

“I know what I said.” He turned back and took her hand, feeling her fingers absently. “That’s some sparkler, isn’t it? I had to say something, kid. I thought maybe the old boy would fall for it. Stalling, that’s all.”

“Then you don’t know!” cried Eva. “Nobody knows anything!”

“Take it easy, Eva. Don’t think. Remember what your old man said. He’s right. Forget it. It’ll all come out in the wash.”

Wei arrived and set a huge tureen before them with a slip-slopping bang.
“Wan-tan,”
he announced, and shuffled off.

It was clear Chinese soup choked with doughy masses and floating thick chunks of pork, like chips on the river. The steam smelled savory. “Ah,” said Terry, rubbing his hands. “Here, kid, give me your plate. Chinese
knishes
, those are. Know what a
knish
is? I used to buy “em on the cuff off old Finkelstein down in Cherry Street when I was a kid peddling papers. He had a little wagon that pushed –”