The Four of Hearts (9 page)

He scurried away, vanishing down a small side-hall, while Ty struck a match and applied it to the paper and kindling beneath the large logs in the fireplace. Butch rubbed his freezing hands, staring sombrely down at Bonnie's white face. She moaned as the fire blazed up with a great snapping and crackling.

Dr. Junius came hurrying back with an armful of blankets and a small green-black bag, its handle hanging by one link.

‘Now if you gentlemen will clear out. Would one of you be kind enough to watch the coffee? Kitchen is at the end of that hall. Brandy, too, in the pantry.'

‘Where,' asked Ellery, ‘is Mr. Tolland Stuart?'

Dr. Junius, on his bony knees before the settee tucking Bonnie's tossing figure into the blankets, looked up with a startled, ingratiating smile. ‘You're the gentleman who phoned me a few hours ago from the Griffith Park airport, aren't you? Voice has a distinctive ring. Hurry, please, Mr. Queen. We can discuss Mr. Stuart's eccentricities later.'

The three men went wearily down the hall and, passing through a swinging door, found themselves in a gigantic kitchen, badly illuminated by a single small electric bulb. A pot of coffee bubbled on an old-fashioned range.

Ty sank into a chair at the work-table and rested his head on his arms. Butch blundered about until he found the pantry, and emerged with a dusty bottle of cognac.

‘Drink this, Ty.'

‘Please. Let me alone.'

‘Drink it.'

Ty obeyed tiredly. The Boy Wonder took the bottle and another glass and went out. He returned empty-handed, and for some time they sat around in silence. Ellery turned off the light under the coffee. The house seemed unnaturally quiet.

Dr. Junius bobbed in.

‘How is she?' asked Butch hoarsely.

‘Nothing to be alarmed about. She's had a bad shock, but she's coming round.'

He ran out with the coffee. Ellery went to the pantry and, for lack of anything else to do, nosed about. The first thing he spied was a case of brandy on the floor. Then he remembered the ruddy bulb on Dr. Junius's nose. He shrugged.

A long time later Dr. Junius called: ‘All right, gentlemen,' and they trooped back to the living-room.

Bonnie was sitting up before the fire, sipping the coffee. There was colour in her cheeks and, while the circles under her eyes were heavy and leaden, her eyes were sane again.

She gave Butcher one hand and whispered: ‘I'm sorry I've been such a fuss, Butch.'

‘Don't be silly,' said Butch roughly. ‘Drink that java.'

Without turning her head she said: ‘Ty. Ty, it's so hard to say … Ty, I'm sorry.'

‘For me?' Ty laughed, and Dr. Junius looked alarmed. ‘I'm sorry, too. For you. For dad. For your mother. For the whole God-damned world.' He shut off the laugh in the middle of its highest note and flung himself full length on the mat before the fire at Bonnie's feet, covering his face with his hands.

Bonnie looked down at him. Her lower lip began to quiver. She set the coffee-cup down blindly.

‘Oh, here, don't –' began Butcher miserably.

Dr. Junius whispered: ‘Let them alone. There's really nothing to do for them but let the shock and hysteria wear off naturally. A good cry will do wonders for her, and the boy is fighting it off very nicely by himself.'

Bonnie wept softly into her fingers and Ty lay still before the fire. The Boy Wonder cursed and began to prowl up and down, throwing epileptic shadows on the flame-lit walls.

‘Once again,' said Ellery. ‘Dr. Junius, where the hell is Tolland Stuart?'

‘I suppose you find it strange.' The doctor's hands were shaking, and it occurred to Ellery that Tolland Stuart's dictum against alcohol worked a special hardship on his physician. ‘He's upstairs behind a barricade.'

‘What!'

Junius smiled apologetically. ‘Oh, he's quite sane.'

‘He must have heard our plane coming down. Hasn't the man even a normal curiosity?'

‘Mr. Stuart is – peculiar. He's been nursing a grudge against the world for so many years that he detests the very sight of people. And then he's a hypochondriac. And odd in other ways. I suppose you noticed the lack of central heating. He has a theory about that – that steam heat dries up your lungs. He has a theory about nearly everything.'

‘Very amusing,' said Ellery, ‘but what's all this to do with the fact that his granddaughter has come calling for the first time in years? Hasn't he the decency to come downstairs to greet her?'

‘Mr. Queen,' said Dr. Junius, baring his false teeth in a humourless grin, ‘if you knew as much about Mr. Tolland Stuart as I do you wouldn't wonder at any of his vagaries.' The grin became a whining snarl. ‘When he came back late this afternoon from his damned eternal rabbit-shooting, and I told him about your call and his daughter Blythe apparently kidnapped on her wedding day and all, he shut himself up in his room and threatened to discharge me if I disturbed him. He claims he can't stand excitement.'

‘Can he?'

The doctor said spitefully: ‘He's the healthiest man of his years I know. Damn all hypos! I have to sneak my liquor and coffee up here, go out into the woods for a smoke, and cook meat for myself when he's out hunting. He's a cunning, mean old maniac, that's what he is, and why I bury myself up here with him is more than I can understand!'

The doctor looked frightened at his own outburst; he grew pale and silent.

‘Nevertheless, don't you think you might make an exception in this case? After all, a man's daughter isn't murdered every day.'

‘You mean go up those stairs and into his bedroom, when he's expressly forbidden it?'

‘Something like that.'

Dr. Junius threw up his hands. ‘Not I, Mr. Queen, not I. I want to live out the few remaining years of my life with a whole skin.'

‘Pshaw, he has you buffaloed.'

‘Well, you're welcome to try, if you don't mind risking a load of buckshot. He always keeps a shotgun by his bed.'

Ellery said abruptly: ‘Ridiculous!'

The doctor made a weary gesture of invitation towards the oak staircase and trudged down the hall to the kitchen – and his cache of brandy – with sloping shoulders.

Ellery went to the foot of the staircase and shouted: ‘Mr. Stuart!'

Ty raised his head. ‘Grandfather,' said Bonnie limply. ‘I'd forgotten about
him.
Oh, Butch, we'll have to tell him!'

‘Mr. Stuart?' called Ellery again, almost angrily. Then he said: ‘Damn it, I'm going up.'

Dr. Junius reappeared, his ruddy nose a little ruddier. ‘Wait, please. If you insist on being foolhardy, I'll go up with you. But it won't do you any good, I warn you.'

He joined Ellery and together they began to ascend the stairs into the thickening shadows above.

And just then a low humming mutter came to their ears, growing louder with each passing moment, until it became raw thunder. They stopped short halfway up the stairs.

‘A plane!' cried Dr. Junius. ‘Is it coming here?'

The thunder grew. It was a plane, unquestionably, and it was circling Tolland Stuart's eyrie.

‘This is the last straw,' moaned the doctor. ‘He'll be unbearable for a week. Stay here, please. I'll go out.'

And without waiting for an answer he hurried down the stairs and out into the darkness.

Ellery remained uncertainly on the staircase for an instant. Then he slowly descended.

Bonnie said: ‘I can't understand grandfather. Is he ill? Why doesn't he come down?'

No one answered. The only sounds came from the fire. The thunder had died.

And then Dr. Junius reappeared, wringing his hands. ‘He'll kill me! Why did you all have to come here?'

A large man in an overcoat and fedora marched in, blinking in the firelight. He blinked at each of them, one by one.

Ellery smiled. ‘It seems we meet again, Inspector Glücke.'

CHAPTER 7

THE OLD MAN

Inspector Glücke grunted and went to the fire, shedding his coat and rubbing his great red hands together. A man in flying togs followed him, and Dr. Junius hastily shut the outer door against a rising wind. The aviator sat quietly down in a corner. He said nothing, and Inspector Glücke did not introduce him.

‘Let's get you people straight now,' said Glücke, contracting his black brows. ‘You're Miss Stuart, I suppose, and you're Mr. Royle? You must be Butcher.'

Ty scrambled to his feet. ‘Well?' he said eagerly. ‘Have you found him?'

Bonnie cried: ‘Who is he?'

‘Now, now, all in good time. I'm half-frozen, and we've got a long wait, because the pilot says there's a storm coming up. Where's the old man?'

‘Upstairs sulking,' said Ellery. ‘You don't seem very glad to see me, old friend. And how did you horn into this case?'

Glücke grinned. ‘What d'ye mean? They were Angelenos, weren't they? Say, this fire feels swell.'

‘I take it you simply jumped in feet first and usurped the authority to handle the case?'

‘Now don't start anything, Queen. When we got the flash at Headquarters that Mr. Royle and Miss Stuart had been found dead – we already knew they'd been snatched – I got me a plane and flew up to that plateau. I beat the Riverside and San Bernardino County men by a hair. If you ask me, they were tickled to death to have L.A. step in and take over. It's too big for them.'

‘But not for you, eh?' murmured Ellery.

‘Oh, it's simple enough,' said the Inspector.

‘Then you
have
found him!' cried Ty and Bonnie together.

‘Not yet. But when we do, there's our man, and that's the end of it.'

‘When you find him?' said Ellery dryly. ‘Don't you mean “if”?'

‘Maybe, maybe.' Glücke smiled. ‘Anyway, it's no case for you, Queen. Just a plain, everyday manhunt.'

‘How sure are you,' said Ellery, lighting a cigarette, ‘that it
was
a man?'

‘You're not suggesting it was a woman?' said the Inspector derisively.

‘I'm suggesting the possibility. Miss Stuart, you, and Mr. Royle saw that pilot in a good light. Was it man or woman?'

‘Man,' said Ty. ‘Don't be foolish. He was a man!'

‘I don't know,' sighed Bonnie, trying to concentrate. ‘You couldn't really tell. Those flying togs were a man's, but then a woman could have worn them. And you couldn't see hair, or eyes, or even face. The goggles concealed the upper part of the face and the lower part was hidden by the turned-up collar.'

‘He walked like a man,' cried Ty. ‘He was too tall for a woman.'

A spirited note crept into Bonnie's voice. ‘Nonsense. Hollywood is full of impersonators of both sexes. And I'll bet I'm as tall as that … creature was.'

‘And nobody,' put in Ellery, ‘heard the creature's voice, for the excellent reason that the creature took remarkable care not to speak. If it were a man, why the silence? He could have disguised his voice.'

‘Now listen, Queen,' said Glücke plaintively, ‘stop throwing monkey-wrenches. All right, we don't know whether it was a man or a woman. But, man or woman, we've got the height and build –'

‘Have you? Heels can be built up, and those flying suits are bulky and deceptive. No, there's only one thing you can be sure of'

‘What's that?'

‘That that pilot can fly an aeroplane.'

Glücke growled deep in his throat. Dr. Junius coughed in the silence. ‘I don't want to seem inhospitable, but … I mean, don't you think it would be wise to take off now, before the storm breaks, Inspector?'

‘Huh?' The Inspector turned cold eyes on Dr. Junius.

‘I said –'

‘I heard what you said.' Glücke stared hard at the doctor's saffron face. ‘What's the matter with you? Nervous?'

‘No. Certainly not,' said the doctor, backing away.

‘Who are you, anyway? What are you doing here?'

‘My name is Junius, and I'm a medical doctor. I live here with Mr. Stuart.'

‘Where'd you come from? Did you know Blythe Stuart and Jack Royle?'

‘No, indeed. I mean – I've seen Mr. Royle in Hollywood at times and Miss Blythe Stuart used to come here … But I haven't seen her for several years.'

‘How long have you been here?'

‘Ten years. Mr. Stuart hired me to take care of him. At a very nice yearly retainer, I must say, and my own practice wasn't terribly –'

‘Where'd you come from? I didn't hear you say.'

‘Buenavista, Colorado.'

‘Police record?'

Dr. Junius drew himself up. ‘My dear sir!'

Glücke looked him over. ‘No harm done,' he said mildly. The doctor stepped back, wiping his face. ‘Now here's what we've found. You were right, Queen, about the cause of death. The coroner of Riverside County flew up there with his sheriff, examined the bodies –'

Bonnie grew pale again. Butcher said sharply: ‘Dr. Junius is right. We ought to clear out of here and get these kids home. You can talk to them tomorrow.'

‘It's all right,' said Bonnie in a low voice. ‘I'm all right, Butch.'

‘As far as I'm concerned,' growled Ty, ‘the sooner you get started the better I'll like it. Do you think I could sleep and eat and laugh and work while my father's murderer is breathing free air somewhere?'

The Inspector went on, quite as if nobody had spoken: ‘Well, as I was saying, preliminary examination showed they both died of very large doses of morphine.'

‘In the thermos bottles?' asked Ellery.

‘Yes. The drinks were loaded with the stuff. The doc couldn't be sure without a chemical analysis, but he says there must easily have been five grains to each cocktail drink. I'm having Bronson, our chemist, analyse what's left in the bottles as soon as he can lay his hands on them.'

‘But I don't understand,' frowned Bonnie. ‘We all drank from the bottles just before the take-off. Why weren't we poisoned, too?'

‘If you weren't, it's because the drinks were okay at that time. Does anybody remember exactly what happened to that hamper?'

‘I do,' said Ellery. ‘I was shoved about by the crowd and was forced to sit down on the hamper immediately after the last round, when the bottles were put back. And I had my eye on that hamper every instant between the time the bottles were stowed away and the time I sat down on the hamper.'

‘That's a break. Did you sit on the hamper till this disguised pilot hijacked the plane?'

‘Better than that,' said Ellery wryly. ‘I actually got up and handed it to him with my own hands as he got into the plane.'

‘So that means the drinks were poisoned inside. We've got a clear line there.' Glücke looked pleased. ‘He swiped the plane, poisoned the drinks in the plane as he was stowing away the hamper, took off, waited for Jack and Blythe to drink – stuff's practically tasteless, the coroner said, in booze – and when they passed out he just set the plane down on that plateau and beat it. No fuss, no bother, no trouble at all. Damned neat, and damned cold-blooded.'

The pilot's predicted storm broke. A thousand demons howled, and the wind lashed at the butte, pounding the old house, banging shutters and rattling windows. Suddenly lightning crashed about the exposed mountain-top and thunder roared.

Nobody spoke. Dr. Junius shambled forward to throw another log on the fire.

The thunder rolled and rolled as if it would never stop. Ellery listened uneasily. It seemed to him that he had detected the faintest undertone in the thunder. He glanced about, but none of his companions seemed conscious of it.

The thunder ceased for a moment, and Glücke said: ‘We've got the whole State looking for that pilot. It's only a question of time before we catch up with the guy.'

‘But this rain,' cried Ty. ‘It will wipe out his trail from the plateau!'

‘I know, I know, Mr. Royle,' said Glücke soothingly. ‘Don't fret yourself. We'll collar him. Now I want you young people to tell me something about your parents. There must be a clue somewhere in their background.'

Ellery took his hat and coat from the chair near the front door where he had dropped them and, unobserved, slipped down the hallway to the kitchen and out the kitchen door into the open.

The trees about the side of the house were bent over in the gale, and a downpour that seemed solid rather than liquid drenched him the instant he set foot on the spongy earth. Nevertheless he lowered his head to the wind, clutching his hat, and aided by an occasional lightning-flash fought his way towards the distant glow of the landing field.

He stumbled on to the field and stopped, gasping for breath. A commercial plane, apparently the one which had conveyed Glücke to Tolland Stuart's mountain home, strained within the hangar beside the small stubby ship; the hangar doors stood open to the wind.

Ellery shook his head impatiently, straining to see the length of the field in the badly flickering arc-lights. But the field was empty of life.

He waited for the next flash of lightning and then eagerly searched the tossing skies overhead. But if there was anything up there, it was lost in the swollen black clouds.

So it had been his imagination after all. He could have sworn he had heard the motors of an aeroplane through the thunder. He retraced his steps.

And then, just as he was about to break from under the trees in a dash back to the house, he saw a man.

The man was crouching in the lee of the house, to the rear, a black hunched-over figure. The friendly lightning blazed again, and Ellery saw him raise his head.

It was an old face with a ragged growth of grey beard and moustache, a deeply engraved skin, and slack blubbering lips; and it was the face of one who looks upon death, or worse. Ellery was struck by that expression of pure, stripped terror. It was as if the old man had suddenly found himself cornered against an unscalable wall by a horde of the ghastliest denizens of his worst nightmare.

In the aftermath of darkness Ellery barely made out the stooped figure creeping miserably along the side of the house to vanish somewhere behind it.

The rain hissed down, and Ellery stood still, oblivious of it, staring into the darkness. What was Mr. Tolland Stuart doing out in the storm raging about his mountain retreat at a moment when he was supposed to be shivering behind the barred door of his bedroom?

Why, indeed, only a few hours after the murder of his only child in an aeroplane, should he be crawling about his estate with a flyer's helmet stuck ludicrously on his head?

Ellery found the Inspector straddle-legged across the fire. He was saying: ‘Not much help … Oh, Queen.'

Ellery dashed the rain from his hat and spread his coat before the flames. ‘I thought I heard something on the landing field.'

‘Another plane?' groaned Dr. Junius.

‘It was my imagination.'

Glücke frowned. ‘Well, we're not getting anywhere. Then aside from this down-and-outer Park you mention, Mr. Royle, you'd say your father had no enemies?'

‘None I know of.'

‘I'd quite forgotten that little flare-up at the Horseshoe Club a couple of weeks ago,' said Ellery slowly.

‘Nothing to it. The man was just peeved about being found out. It's not going to be as easy as all that.'

‘The man's cracked,' said Ty shortly. ‘A crackpot will do anything.'

‘Well, we'll check up on him. Only if he's the one, why did he kill Miss Stuart's mother as well as your father? He couldn't have had anything against
her.
'

‘He could have held her responsible for the whole situation,' snapped Ty. ‘An irrational man would react that way.'

‘Maybe.' Glücke looked at his fingernails. ‘By the way. It seems to me there's been a lot of talk about your two families sort of – well, not getting along.'

The fire crackled, and outside the thunder and lightning went out in a spectacular finale. The rain fell to a steady patter.

The pilot got up and said: ‘I'll take a look at my crate, Inspector,' and went out.

And then the Boy Wonder mumbled: ‘Nonsense.'

‘Did I say something wrong?' inquired Glücke innocently.

‘Didn't Jack and Blythe make up? You couldn't want better proof than their reconciliation and marriage.'

‘But how about these two?' said Glücke. There was another silence ‘Hey?' said Glücke.

Bonnie stared straight at the lowest button of the Inspector's jacket. And Ty turned his back to look at the fire.

‘There's no sense smearing it, Butch. We've hated each other's guts since we were kids. We were brought up on hate. When a thing like that is fed to you morning, noon, and night from your nursery days it gets into your blood.'

‘You feel the same way, huh, Miss Stuart?'

Bonnie licked her dry lips. ‘Yes.'

‘But that doesn't mean,' said Ty slowly, turning around, ‘that one of us committed those murders. Or do you think it does, Inspector Glücke?'

‘But he
couldn't
think a horrible thing like that?' cried Bonnie.

‘How do I know,' said Glücke, ‘that story about the hold-up at the hangar in Griffith Park airport is on the level?'

‘But we've got each other as witnesses!'

‘Even if we didn't,' growled Ty, ‘do you think I would poison my own father to revenge myself on Bonnie Stuart's mother? Or that Bonnie Stuart would murder her own mother to get even with my father? You're crazy.'

‘I don't know anything,' said the Inspector blandly, ‘about anything. You might be interested to learn that the Homicide Detail's turned up the boy who brought Miss Stuart the message before the take-off. I got the news by radiophone while I was examining your plane on the plateau.'