The King is Dead (6 page)

There was a lull, and Ellery mumbled, ‘In big stuff they send 'em in direct. I wonder if there's another elevator to H.R.H.'s office. Bet there is.'

‘Shut up!' said his father, straining.

King Bendigo was saying heartily, ‘
Entrez, Monsieur.'

A buttered voice said something in rapid French, but then, with a foreign accent that was not French and was spread with irony, added in English: ‘
Let us dispense with the amenities. What do you want?'

‘The signed contracts, Monsieur.'

‘I do not have them.'

‘You promised to have them.'

‘That was before you raised your prices, Monsieur Bendigo. I hold the folio of Defence in my country, not of clairvoyance.'

‘Is this your personal decision?'
They heard a drumming sound.

‘No. Of the entire Cabinet.'

‘Are you slipping, Monsieur le Ministre?'

‘I have been unable to persuade my colleagues.'

‘You evidently used the wrong arguments.'

‘You did not provide me with the right ones. Your prices are so high that they would wreck the budget. New taxes are out of the question —'

The rich voice was frigid. ‘
This is an annoyance. What of your word?'

The buttery voice slipped. ‘
I must repudiate it. I have no choice. It is too risky. A contract with Bodigen Arms at such a price might unseat us. The Actionist Party —'

‘Let's be realistic, Mr. Minister
,' said King Bendigo's voice suddenly. ‘
We know the influence you exert in the power group of your country. We admit the risks. What is your price to take them?'

‘I wish to terminate this conversation. Please have me flown back.'

‘Damn it all —'

Abel's voice said something.

‘What, Abel?'

The brothers played another counterpoint in murmurs. Then the big voice laughed.

‘Of course. But before you go, Mr. Minister, may I examine that stickpin you're wearing?'

‘This?
' The European voice was surprised. ‘
But certainly, Monsieur Bendigo. How could it interest you?'

‘I'm a collector of stickpins. Yours struck my eye at once … Beautiful!'

‘It is merely a reproduction in gold and enamel of our national emblem. I am happy that it strikes your fancy.'

‘Mr. Minister, you know what collectors are — perfect idiots. I must have this pin for my collection.'

‘I shall send you one this week. They are obtainable at numerous shops in the capital.'

‘No, no, I want this one — yours, Monsieur.'

‘I gladly present it to you.'

‘I make it a rule never to accept gifts. Permit me to buy it from you.'

‘Really, Monsieur, it is no more than a trifle —'

‘Would you accept two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for it?'

‘Two hun
—' The voice choked.

‘Deposited in a New York bank under any name you designate?'

The Queens gaped at each other.

After a very long time, in a voice so low as almost to be inaudible, the Defence Minister said, ‘
Yes … I will sell it.'

‘Take care of it, Abel. Thank you for coming, Mr. Minister. I'm sure, on re-examining the situation, you'll find some means of persuading your distinguished compatriots that no sacrifice is too great for a nation to make in this crisis in world history.'

‘Monsieur has given new strength to my persuasive powers
,' said the foreign voice in a tone compounded of bitterness, irony, and self-loathing; and the Queens heard it no more.

When the door opened and Abel Bendigo reappeared, Inspector Queen was in the armchair with his head thrown back and Ellery was smoking a cigarette at the glass outer wall, staring as if he could see through it, which he could not.

The Inspector rose immediately.

‘Sorry to have kept you waiting, gentlemen. My brother can see you now.' Abel stood aside.

The Inspector went in first, Ellery followed, and Abel shut the door.

The hemispherical architecture of King Bendigo's office had been cleverly utilized to impress. The door from the reception room was near the end of the straight wall, so that the visitor on entering the office faced, first of all, the curved glass wall at its narrowest. He naturally made a half-turn toward space, and the long diameter of the room struck him like a blow. And near the other end, behind a desk, sat King Bendigo. The approach to him looked eternal.

There was little furniture in the office. A few heavy pieces designed to fit the curve of the outer wall, several uncompromising chairs and occasional tables, and that was all. As in the reception room, there were no paintings, no sculptures, no ornamentation of any kind. Nothing distracted the eye from that big desk, or the big chair that stood behind it, or the big man who sat in the chair.

The desk was of ebony, and there was nothing on its glittering surface.

The chair was of some golden material.

It was only later that Ellery was able to notice what was set into the straight wall near the desk. It was a room-high safe door. The door, a foot thick, was partly open. On its inner surface, behind glass, was the mechanism of a time-lock.

And just inside the safe leaned a troglodyte. His powerful jaws chewed away at something — chewing gum, or candy. He was so broad that he seemed squat; yet he was taller than Ellery. His face was gorilla-like and he stared as a gorilla might stare. His stare never left the visitors' faces. He was dressed in a gaudy black and gold uniform and he wore a beret of black leather with a gilt pompom. He looked ridiculous and deadly.

But that came later. During the endless approach to the eminence of that ebony desk, they could see nothing but the man enthroned behind it.

King Bendigo did not rise. Even seated, he was formidable. He was one of the handsomest men Ellery had ever seen, with pure dark features of an imperious cast, bold black eyes, and thick black hair with a Byronic lock. His ringless hands, resting on the desk, were finely proportioned; they looked capable of breaking a man's back or threading a needle. He wore a business suit of exquisite cut and workmanship which draped itself impeccably at every movement of his torso.

There were deep lines in his face, but he looked no more than forty.

Ellery had the most curious sense of unreality.
Every Inch a King
, starring …

There were no introductions.

They were not offered chairs.

They were left standing before the desk, being inspected by those remarkable black eyes, while Abel went around the desk to murmur into his brother's ear.

Abel's attitude was interesting. It was all deference, but without an obsequious slant. Abel, with his lack of stature or grandeur, with his eyeglasses shining earnestly, with his body slightly inclined as he reported to his brother, was a picture of dedication.

Ellery tingled with the annoyance of something not quite grasped.

‘Detectives?' They instinctively tightened before the black flash in those eyes. ‘So that's where you've been! Abel, I've told you those letters are the work of a crank —'

‘They're not the work of a crank, King.' There was a quiet stubbornness in Abel's voice that aroused Ellery's respect. ‘On that point Mr. Queen agreed immediately.'

‘Mister who?' The eyes made another survey.

‘Queen. This gentleman is Inspector Richard Queen of the New York police department, and this is his son Ellery.'

‘Ellery Queen.' The eyes became interested. ‘You have quite a reputation.'

Ellery said, ‘Thank you, Mr. Bendigo.'

‘And you're his father, eh?' The eyes turned on Inspector Queen and at once turned back to Ellery.

And that takes care of me, thought the Inspector.

‘So you think there's something in this, too, Queen.'

‘I do, Mr. Bendigo, and I'd like to discuss —'

‘Not with me, Queen, not with me.
I
think it's a lot of damned foolishness. Play detectives all you want to, but don't annoy me with it.' King Bendigo turned in his chair. ‘Who's next, Abel?'

Abel began murmuring in the royal ear, and the royal eyes were immediately abstracted.

Ellery said: ‘Are you through with us, Mr. Bendigo?'

The handsome man looked up. ‘Yes!' he said sharply.

‘Well, I'm not through with you.'

The King leaned back, frowning. Abel straightened up and his prominent eyes began to shuttle between them. The Inspector rested against a chair, folding his arms expectantly.

‘Well?' said King Bendigo.

‘Nothing has been said about a fee.'

The stare was degrading. ‘I didn't hire you. My brother did. Talk it over with him.'

Abel said, ‘We'll discuss your fee this evening, Mr. Queen —'

‘I'd rather discuss it now.'

The King looked up at his Prime Minister. His Prime Minister shrugged ever so slightly. The stare went back to Ellery.

‘Really?' drawled the man in the gold chair, and Ellery could have hurdled the desk and throttled him. ‘And what is this fee of yours, Queen?'

‘My services come pretty high, Mr. Bendigo.'

‘What is the fee?'

It was at this point that Ellery, to conceal the blood in his eye, glanced away, and that was when he first saw the uniformed gorilla standing inside the doorway of the safe, animal eyes fixed on him, jaws grinding away. The King's Jester … He felt himself tighten all over, and in the next moment all the pressure of hostility and outraged pride that had been building up came to a head.

‘I won't talk total fee, since I don't know just what the investigation entails. I want a retainer, Mr. Bendigo, balance left open.'

‘How much of a retainer?'

Ellery said, ‘One hundred thousand dollars.'

Behind him there was a choked paternal sound.

Abel Bendigo was looking at Ellery thoughtfully.

But King Bendigo neither choked nor took stock. He merely waved and said to his brother, ‘Take care of it,' and then he waved at Ellery and Inspector Queen and said impatiently, ‘That's all, gentlemen.'

Ellery said: ‘I'm not finished, Mr. Bendigo. I want my retainer in ten certified cheques of ten thousand dollars each. You are to have the payees' lines left blank, so that I can fill in the names of ten different charities.'

He knew instantly he had taken the wrong tack. Where money was concerned, this man was invulnerable. Money was a power-tool. Anyone who failed to use it as a power-tool was beneath contempt.

King Bendigo said indifferently, ‘Give it to him, Abel, any way he wants it. Anything, just so they stay out of my hair.' In the identical tone, without stopping, he said, ‘Max'l.'

The beast in the beret shot out of the safe, grimacing horribly.

Ellery dodged. The Inspector jumped out of the way like a rabbit.

King Bendigo threw his head back and roared. The wrestler was grinning.

‘All right, all right, gentlemen,' said the big man, still laughing. ‘Go to work.'

In the elevator, Inspector Queen broke the rather sick silence.

‘I picked this up from the floor on the way out, son. It was at that far wall, all the way across the office from his desk. He must have cracked it between his fingers for exercise and then tossed it away for the help to throw in the trash.'

‘What is it, Dad?' Ellery's voice shook a little.

His father opened an unsteady hand. On it lay the fragments of the stickpin they had heard King Bendigo buy from his second visitor for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

4

The shirts were waiting for them in the lobby. Ellery found himself passing the security desk with a stiff back. But the three uniformed men paid no attention to them.

Brown Shirt said, ‘This way,' and Blue Shirt held the outer door open.

Outside, the son and the father breathed again. The sun was low in the west and the western sky was strawberry, copper, and mother-of-pearl. A small, powerful black car gold-initialled PRPD was at the entrance. Blue Shirt took the wheel and Brown Shirt got into the rear seat betwen them.

Neither Queen felt talkative. Each gazed through his window at the countryside. They might have been travelling along the Mohawk Trail in a quiet fold of the Berkshires, with a city of mills and small homes at their feet, except for the pelagic vegetation and the memory of what they had just heard and seen.

‘Who,' inquired Ellery, ‘is at whose orders?'

‘We're taking you to the Residence, Mr. Queen,' replied Brown Shirt. ‘Mr. Abel has arranged everything.'

‘How free are we to move about?'

‘You've been given a temporary A-2 rating, sir.'

‘What's that mean?' asked Inspector Queen, astonished.

‘You may go anywhere you want sir, except those installations marked
Restricted.'

‘From what we've seen, that sounds risky. We're not known on the island.'

‘You're known,' Blue Shirt assured him from the front seat.

The Inspector did not look assured.

The car entered a densely wooded area. There were flashes of flying colour everywhere, but these were the only evidences of wild life.

‘Beauty for its own sake?' asked Ellery sceptically.

‘Karla likes them,' said Brown Shirt.

‘Mrs. Bendigo?' The Inspector was scrutinizing the woods closely without seeming to do so.

‘King's queen,' said Ellery.

He had seen it, too, but he and his father continued to look at opposite terrains. There were camouflaged gun emplacements in these woods. Big guns, of the coast artillery type. Probably the whole wooded area bristled with them. And how much of this jungle itself, Ellery wondered, was real?