Calendar of Crime

The Adventure of The Inner Circle

If you are an Eastern alumnus who has not been to New York since last year’s All-University Dinner, you will be astounded to learn that the famous pickled-pine door directly opposite the elevators on the thirteenth floor of your Alumni Club in Murray Hill is now inscribed: LINEN ROOM.

Visit The Alumni Club on your next trip to Manhattan and see for yourself. On the door now consigned to napery, in the area where the stainless steel medallion of Janus glistened for so long, you will detect a ghostly circumference some nine inches in diameter—all that is left of The Januarians. Your first thought will of course be that they have removed to more splendid quarters. Undeceive yourself. You may search from cellar to sundeck and you will find no crumb’s trace of either Janus or his disciples.

Hasten to the Steward for an explanation and he will give you one as plausible as it will be false.

And you will do no better elsewhere.

The fact is, only a very few share the secret of The Januarians’ obliteration, and these have taken a vow of silence. And why? Because Eastern is a young—a very young—temple of learning; and there are calamities only age can weather. There is more to it than even that. The cataclysm of events struck at the handiwork of the Architects themselves, that legendary band who builded the tabernacle and created the holy canons. So Eastern’s shame is kept steadfastly covered with silence; and if we uncover its bloody stones here, it is only because the very first word on the great seal of Eastern University is: Veritas.

To a Harvard man, “Harvard ’13” means little more than “Harvard ’06” or “Harvard ’79,” unless “Harvard ’13” happens to be his own graduating class. But to an Eastern man, of whatever vintage, “Eastern ’13” is sui generis. Their names bite deep into the strong marble of The Alumni Club lobby. A member of the Class is traditionally The Honorable Mr. Honorary President of The Eastern Alumni Association. To the last man they carry gold, lifetime, non-cancelable passes to Eastern football games. At the All-University Dinner, Eastern ’13 shares the Chancellor’s parsley-decked table. The twined-elbow Rite of the Original Libation, drunk in foaming beer (the second most sacred canon), is dedicated to that Class and no other.

One may well ask why this exaltation of Eastern ’13 as against, for example, Eastern ’12, or Eastern ’98? The answer is that there was no Eastern ’12, and Eastern ’98 never existed. For Eastern U. was not incorporated under the laws of the State of New York until A.D. 1909, from which it solemnly follows that Eastern ’13 was the university’s very first graduating class.

It was Charlie Mason who said they must be gods, and it was Charlie Mason who gave them Janus. Charlie was destined to forge a chain of one hundred and twenty-three movie houses which bring Abbott and Costello to millions; but in those days Charlie was a lean weaver of dreams, the Class Poet, an antiquarian with a passion for classical allusion. Eastern ’13 met on the eve of graduation in the Private Party Room of McElvy’s Brauhaus in Riverdale, and the air was boiling with pipe smoke, malt fumes, and motions when Charlie rose to make his historic speech.

“Mr. Chairman,” he said to Bill Updike, who occupied the Temporary Chair. “Fellows,” he said to the nine others. And he paused.

Then he said: “We are the First Alumni.”

He paused again.

“The eyes of the future are on us.” (Stan Jones was taking notes, as Recording Secretary of the Evening, and we have Charlie’s address verbatim. You have seen it in The Alumni Club lobby, under glass. Brace yourself: It, too, has vanished.)

“What we do here tonight, therefore, will initiate a whole codex of Eastern tradition.”

And now, the Record records, there was nothing to be heard in that smoky room but the whizz of the electric fan over the lithograph of Woodrow Wilson.

“I have no hesitation in saying—out loud! — that we men in this room, tonight... that we’re... Significant. Not as individuals! But as the Class of ’13.” And then Charlie drew himself up and said quietly: “They will remember us and we must give them something to remember” (the third sacred canon).

“Such as?” said Morry Green, who was to die in a French ditch five years later.

“A sign,” said Charlie. “A symbol, Morry—a symbol of our Firstness.”

Eddie Temple, who was graduating eleventh in the Class, exhibited his tongue and blew a coarse, fluttery blast.

“That may be the sign you want to be remembered by, Ed,” began Charlie crossly...

“Shut up, Temple!” growled Vern Hamisher.

“Read that bird out of the party!” yelled Ziss Brown, who was suspected of holding radical views because his father had stumped for Teddy Roosevelt in ’12.

“Sounds good,” said Bill Updike, scowling. “Go on, Charlie.”

“What sign?” demanded Rod Black.

“Anything specific in mind?” called Johnnie Cudwise.

Charlie said one word.

“Janus.”

And he paused.

“Janus,” they muttered, considering him.

“Yes, Janus,” said Charlie. “The god of good beginnings—”

“Well, we’re beginning,” said Morry Green.

“Guaranteed to result in good endings—”

“It certainly applies,” nodded Bill Updike.

“Yeah,” said Bob Smith. “Eastern’s sure on its way to big things.”

“Janus of the two faces,” cried Charlie Mason mystically. “I wish to point out that he looks in opposite directions!”

“Say, that’s right—”

“The past and the future—”

“Smart stuff—”

“Go on, Charlie!”

“Janus,” cried Charlie — “Janus, who was invoked by the Romans before any other god at the beginning of an important undertaking!”

“Wow!”

“This is certainly important!”

“The beginning of the day, month, and year were sacred to him! Janus was the god of doorways!”

“JANUS!” they shouted, leaping to their feet; and they raised their tankards and drank deep.

And so from that night forward the annual meeting of the Class of ’13 was held on Janus’s Day, the first day of January; and the Class of ’13 adopted, by unanimous vote, the praenomen of The Januarians. Thus the double-visaged god became patron of Eastern’s posterity, and that is why until recently Eastern official stationery was impressed with his two-bearded profiles. It is also why the phrase “to be two-faced,” when uttered by Columbia or N.Y.U. men, usually means “to be a student at, or a graduate of, Eastern U.” — a development unfortunately not contemplated by Charlie Mason on that historic eve; at least, not consciously.

But let us leave the profounder explorations to psychiatry. Here it is sufficient to record that something more than thirty years later the phrase suddenly took on a grim verisimilitude; and The Januarians thereupon laid it, so to speak, on the doorstep of one well acquainted with such changelings of chance.

For it was during Christmas week of last year that Bill Updike came—stealthily—to see Ellery. He did not come as young Billy who had presided at the beery board in the Private Party Room of McElvy’s Brauhaus on that June night in 1913. He came, bald, portly, and opulently engraved upon a card: Mr. William Updike, President of The Brokers National Bank of New York, residence Dike Hollow, Scarsdale; and he looked exactly as worried as bankers are supposed to look and rarely do.

“Business, business,” said Nikki Porter, shaking her yuletide permanent. “It’s Christmas week, Mr. Updike. I’m sure Mr. Queen wouldn’t consider taking—”

But at that moment Mr. Queen emerged from his sanctum to give his secretary the lie.

“Nikki holds to the old-fashioned idea about holidays, Mr. Updike,” said Ellery, shaking Bill’s hand. “Ah, The Januarians. Isn’t your annual meeting a few days from now—on New Year’s Day?”

“How did you know—?” began the bank president.

“I could reply, in the manner of the Old Master,” said Ellery with a chuckle, “that I’ve made an intensive study of lapel buttons, but truth compels me to admit that one of my best friends is Eastern ’28 and he’s described that little emblem on your coat so often I couldn’t help but recognize it at once.” The banker fingered the disk on his lapel nervously. It was of platinum, ringed with tiny garnets, and the gleaming circle enclosed the two faces of Janus. “What’s the matter—is someone robbing your bank?”

“It’s worse than that.”

“Worse...?”

“Murder.”

Nikki glared at Mr. Updike. Any hope of keeping Ellery’s nose off the grindstone until January second was now merely a memory. But out of duty she began: “Ellery...”

“At least,” said Bill Updike tensely, “I think it’s murder.”

Nikki gave up. Ellery’s nose was noticeably honed.

“Who...?”

“It’s sort of complicated,” muttered the banker, and he began to fidget before Ellery’s fire. “I suppose you know, Queen, that The Januarians began with only eleven men.”

Ellery nodded. “The total graduating class of Eastern ’13.”

“It seems silly now, with Eastern’s classes of three and four thousand, but in those days we thought it was all pretty important—”

“Manifest destiny.”

“We were young. Anyway, World War I came along and we lost two of our boys right away—Morry Green and Buster Selby. So at our New Year’s Day meeting in 1920 we were only nine. Then in the market collapse of ’29 Vern Hamisher blew the top of his head off, and in 1930 John Cudwise, who was serving his first term in Congress, was killed in a plane crash on his way to Washington—you probably remember. So we’ve been just seven for many years now.”

“And awfully close friends you must be,” said Nikki, curiosity conquering pique.

“Well...” began Updike, and he stopped, to begin over again. “For a long time now we’ve all thought it was sort of juvenile, but we’ve kept coming back to these damned New Year’s Day meetings out of habit or—or something. No, that’s not true. It isn’t just habit. It’s because... it’s expected of us.” He flushed. “I don’t know—they’ve—well—deified us.” He looked bellicose, and Nikki swallowed a giggle hastily. “It’s got on our nerves. I mean—well, damn it all, we’re not exactly the ‘close’ friends you’d think!” He stopped again, then resumed in a sort of desperation: “See here, Queen. I’ve got to confess something. There’s been a clique of us within The Januarians for years. We’ve called ourselves... The Inner Circle.”

“The what?” gasped Nikki.

The banker mopped his neck, avoiding their eyes. The Inner Circle, he explained, had begun with one of those dully devious phenomena of modern life known as a “business opportunity” — a business opportunity which Mr. Updike, a considerably younger Mr. Updike, had found himself unable to grasp for lack of some essential element, unnamed. Whatever it was that Mr. Updike had required, four other men could supply it; whereupon, in the flush of an earlier camaraderie, Updike had taken four of his six fellow-deities into his confidence, and the result of this was a partnership of five of the existing seven Januarians.

“There were certain business reasons why we didn’t want our er... names associated with the ah... enterprise. So we organized a dummy corporation and agreed to keep our names out of it and the whole thing absolutely secret, even from our—from the remaining two Januarians. It’s a secret from them to this day.”

“Club within a club,” said Nikki. “I think that’s cute.”

“All five of you in this—hrm! — Inner Circle,” inquired Ellery politely, “are alive?”

“We were last New Year’s Day. But since the last meeting of The Januarians...” the banker glanced at Ellery’s harmless windows furtively, “three of us have died. Three of The Inner Circle.”

“And you suspect that they were murdered?”

“Yes. Yes, I do!”

“For what motive?”

The banker launched into a very involved and—to Nikki, who was thinking wistfully of New Year’s Eve—tiresome explanation. It had something to do with some special fund or other, which seemed to have no connection with the commercial aspects of The Inner Circle’s activities—a substantial fund by this time, since each year the five partners put a fixed percentage of their incomes from the dummy corporation into it. Nikki dreamed of balloons and noisemakers. “—now equals a reserve of around $200,000 worth of negotiable securities.” Nikki stopped dreaming with a bump.

“What’s the purpose of this fund, Mr. Updike?” Ellery was saying sharply. “What happens to it? When?”

“Well, er... that’s just it, Queen,” said the banker. “Oh, I know what you’ll think...”

“Don’t tell me,” said Ellery in a terrible voice, “it’s a form of tontine insurance plan, Updike — last survivor takes all?”

“Yes,” whispered William Updike, looking for the moment like Billy Updike.

“I knew it!” Ellery jumped out of his fireside chair. “Haven’t I told you repeatedly, Nikki, there’s no fool like a banker? The financial mentality rarely rises above the age of eight, when life’s biggest thrill is to pay five pins for admission to a magic-lantern show in Stinky’s cellar. This hard-eyed man of money, whose business it is to deal in safe investments, becomes party to a melodramatic scheme whereby the only way you can recoup your ante is to slit the throats of your four partners. Inner Circles! Januarians!” Ellery threw himself back in his chair. “Where’s this silly invitation to murder cached, Updike?”

“In a safe-deposit box at The Brokers National,” muttered the banker.

“Your own bank. Very cosy for you,” said Ellery.

“No, no, Mr. Queen, all five of us have keys to the box—”

“What happened to the keys of the three Inner Circleites who died this year?”

“By agreement, dead members’ keys are destroyed in the presence of the survivors—”

“Then there are only two keys to that safe-deposit box now in existence; yours and the key in the possession of the only other living Inner Circular?”

“Yes—”

“And you’re afraid said sole-surviving associate murdered the deceased trio of your absurd quintet and has his beady eye on you, Updike? — so that as the last man alive of The Inner Circle he would fall heir to the entire $200,000 boodle?”

“What else can I think?” cried the banker.

“The obvious,” retorted Ellery, “which is that your three pals traveled the natural route of all flesh. Is the $200,000 still in the box?”

“Yes. I looked just before coming here today.”

“You want me to investigate.”

“Yes, yes—”

“Very well. What’s the name of this surviving fellow-conspirator of yours in The Inner Circle?”

“No,” said Bill Updike.

“I beg pardon?”

“Suppose I’m wrong? If they were ordinary deaths, I’d have dragged someone I’ve known a hell of a long time into a mess. No, you investigate first, Mr. Queen. Find evidence of murder, and I’ll go all the way.”

“You won’t tell me his name?”

“No.”

The ghost of New Year’s Eve stirred. But then Ellery grinned, and it settled back in the grave. Nikki sighed and reached for her notebook.

“All right, Mr. Updike. Who were the three Inner Circlovians who died this year?”

“Robert Carlton Smith, J. Stanford Jones, and Ziss Brown—Peter Zissing Brown.”

“Their occupations?”

“Bob Smith was head of the Kradle Kap Baby Foods Korporation. Stan Jones was top man of Jones-Jones-Mallison-Jones, the ad agency. Ziss Brown was retired.”

“From what?”

Updike said stiffly: “Brassières.”

“I suppose they do pall. Leave me the addresses of the executors, please, and any other data you think might be helpful.”

When the banker had gone, Ellery reached for the telephone.

“Oh, dear,” said Nikki. “You’re not calling... Club Bongo?”

“What?”

“You know? New Year’s Eve?”

“Heavens, no. My pal Eastern ’28. Cully?… The same to you. Cully, who are the four Januarians? Nikki, take this down... William Updike—yes?… Charles Mason? Oh, yes, the god who fashioned Olympus... Rodney Black, Junior—um-hm... and Edward I. Temple? Thanks, Cully. And now forget I called.” Ellery hung up. “Black, Mason, and Temple, Nikki. The only Januarians alive outside of Updike. Consequently one of those three is Updike’s last associate in The Inner Circle.”

“And the question is which one.”

“Bright girl. But first let’s dig into the deaths of Smith, Jones, and Brown. Who knows? Maybe Updike’s got something.”

It took exactly forty-eight hours to determine that Updike had nothing at all. The deaths of Januarians-Inner Circlers Smith, Jones, and Brown were impeccable.

“Give it to him, Velie,” said Inspector Queen at Headquarters the second morning after the banker’s visit to the Queen apartment.

Sergeant Velie cleared his massive throat. “The Kradle Kap Baby Foods character—”

“Robert Carlton Smith.”

“Rheumatic heart for years. Died in an oxygen tent after the third heart attack in eighteen hours, with three fancy medics in attendance and a secretary who was there to take down his last words.”

“Which were probably ‘Free Enterprise,’” said the Inspector.

“Go on, Sergeant!”

“J. Stanford Jones, the huckster. Gassed in World War I, in recent years developed t.b. And that’s what he died of. Want the sanitarium affidavits, Maestro? I had photostats telephotoed from Arizona.”

“Thorough little man, aren’t you?” growled Ellery. “And Peter Zissing Brown, retired from brassières?”

“Kidneys and gall-bladder. Brown died on the operatin’ table.”

“Wait till you see what I’m wearing tonight,” said Nikki. “Apricot taffeta—”

“Nikki, get Updike on the phone,” said Ellery absently. “Brokers National.”

“He’s not there, Ellery,” said Nikki, when she had put down the Inspector’s phone. “Hasn’t come into his bank this morning. It has the darlingest bouffant skirt—”

“Try his home.”

“Dike Hollow, Scarsdale, wasn’t it? With the new back, and a neckline that—Hello?” And after a while the three men heard Nikki say in a strange voice: “What?” and then: “Oh,” faintly. She thrust the phone at Ellery. “You’d better take it.”

“What’s the matter? Hello? Ellery Queen. Updike there?”

A bass voice said, “Well—no, Mr. Queen. He’s been in an accident.”

“Accident! Who’s this speaking?”

“Captain Rosewater of the Highway Police. Mr. Updike ran his car into a ravine near his home here some time last night. We just found him.”

“I hope he’s all right!”

“He’s dead.”

“Four!” Ellery was mumbling as Sergeant Velie drove the Inspector’s car up into Westchester. “Four in one year!”

“Coincidence,” said Nikki desperately, thinking of the festivities on the agenda for that evening.

“All I know is that forty-eight hours after Updike asks me to find out if his three cronies of The Inner Circle who died this year hadn’t been murdered, he himself is found lying in a gulley with four thousand pounds of used car on top of him.”

“Accidents,” began Sergeant Velie, “will hap—”

“I want to see that ‘accident’!”

A State trooper flagged them on the Parkway near a cutoff and sent them down the side road. This road, it appeared, was a shortcut to Dike Hollow which Updike habitually used in driving home from the City; his house lay some two miles from the Parkway. They found the evidence of his last drive about midway. The narrow blacktop road twisted sharply to the left at this point, but Bill Updike had failed to twist with it. He had driven straight ahead and through a matchstick guardrail into the ravine. As it plunged over, the car had struck the bole of a big old oak. The shock catapulted the banker through his windshield and he had landed at the bottom of the ravine just before his vehicle.

“We’re still trying to figure out a way of lifting that junk off him,” said Captain Rosewater when they joined him forty feet below the road.

The ravine narrowed in a V here and the car lay in its crotch upside down. Men were swarming around it with crowbars, chains, and acetylene torches. “We’re uncovered enough to show us he’s mashed flat.”

“His face, too, Captain?” asked Ellery suddenly.

“No, his face wasn’t touched. We’re trying to get the rest of him presentable enough so we can let his widow identify him.” The trooper nodded toward a flat rock twenty yards down the ravine on which sat a small woman in a mink coat. She wore no hat and her smart gray hair was whipping in the Christmas wind. A woman in a cloth coat, wearing a nurse’s cap, stood over her.

Ellery said, “Excuse me,” and strode away. When Nikki caught up with him he was already talking to Mrs. Updike. She was drawn up on the rock like a caterpillar.

“He had a directors’ meeting at the bank last night. I phoned one of his associates about 2 A.M. He said the meeting had broken up at eleven and Bill had left to drive home.” Her glance strayed up the ravine. “At four-thirty this morning I phoned the police.”

“Did you know your husband had come to see me, Mrs. Updike—two mornings ago?”

“Who are you?”

“Ellery Queen.”

“No.” She did not seem surprised, or frightened, or anything.

“Did you know Robert Carlton Smith, J. Stanford Jones, Peter Zissing Brown?”

“Bill’s classmates? They passed away. This year,” she added suddenly. “This year,” she repeated. And then she laughed. “I thought the gods were immortal.”

“Did you know that your husband, Smith, Jones, and Brown were an ‘inner circle’ in The Januarians?”

“Inner Circle.” She frowned. “Oh, yes. Bill mentioned it occasionally. No, I didn’t know they were in it.”

Ellery leaned forward in the wind.

“Was Edward I. Temple in it, Mrs. Updike? Rodney Black, Junior? Charlie Mason?”

“I don’t know. Why are you questioning me? Why—?” Her voice was rising now, and Ellery murmured something placative as Captain Rosewater hurried up and said: “Mrs. Updike. If you’d be good enough...”

She jumped off the rock. “Now?”

“Please.”

The trooper captain took one arm, the nurse the other, and between them they half-carried William Updike’s widow up the ravine toward the overturned car.

Nikki found it necessary to spend some moments with her handkerchief.

When she looked up, Ellery had disappeared.

She found him with his father and Sergeant Velie on the road above the ravine. They were standing before a large maple looking at a road-sign. Studded lettering on the yellow sign spelled out Sharp Curve Ahead, and there was an elbow-like illustration.

“No lights on this road,” the Inspector was saying as Nikki hurried up, “so he must have had his brights on—”

“And they’d sure enough light up this reflector sign. I don’t get it, Inspector,” complained Sergeant Velie. “Unless his lights just weren’t workin’.”

“More likely fell asleep over the wheel, Velie.”

“No,” said Ellery.

“What, Ellery?”

“Updike’s lights were all right, and he didn’t doze off.”

“I don’t impress when I’m c-cold,” Nikki said, shivering. “But just the same, how do you know, Ellery?”

Ellery pointed to two neat holes in the maple bark, very close to the edge of the sign.

“Woodpeckers?” said Nikki. But the air was gray and sharp as steel, and it was hard to forget Mrs. Updike’s look.

“This bird, I’m afraid,” drawled Ellery, “had no feathers. Velie, borrow something we can pry this sign off with.”

When Velie returned with some tools, he was mopping his face. “She just identified him,” he said. “Gettin’ warmer, ain’t it?”

“What d’ye expect to find, Ellery?” demanded the Inspector.

“Two full sets of rivet-holes.”

Sergeant Velie said: “Bong,” as the road-sign came away from the tree.

“I’ll be damned,” said Inspector Queen softly. “Somebody removed these rivets last night, and after Updike crashed into the ravine—”

“Riveted the warning sign back on,” cried Nikki, “only he got careless and didn’t use the same holes!”

“Murder,” said Ellery. “Smith, Jones, and Brown died of natural causes. But three of the five co-owners of that fund dying in a single year—”

“Gave Number 5 an idea!”

“If Updike died, too, the $200,000 in securities would… Ellery!” roared his father. “Where are you running to?”

“There’s a poetic beauty about this case,” Ellery was saying restlessly to Nikki as they waited in the underground vaults of The Brokers National Bank. “Janus was the god of entrances. Keys were among his trappings of office. In fact, he was sometimes known as Patulcius — ‘opener.’ Opener! I knew at once we were too late.”

“You knew, you knew,” said Nikki peevishly. “And New Year’s Eve only hours away! You can be wrong.”

“Not this time. Why else was Updike murdered last night in such a way as to make it appear an accident? Our mysterious Januarian hotfooted it down here first thing this morning and cleaned out that safe-deposit box belonging to The Inner Circle. The securities are gone, Nikki.”

Within an hour, Ellery’s prophecy was historical fact.

The box was opened with Bill Updike’s key. It was empty.

And of Patulcius, no trace. It quite upset the Inspector. For it appeared that The Inner Circle had contrived a remarkable arrangement for access to their safe-deposit box. It was gained, not by the customary signature on an admission slip, but through the presentation of a talisman. This talisman was quite unlike the lapel button of The Januarians. It was a golden key, and on the key was incised the two-faced god, within concentric circles. The outer circle was of Januarian garnets, the inner of diamonds. A control had been deposited in the files of the vault company. Anyone presenting a replica of it was to be admitted to The Inner Circle’s repository by order of no less a personage, the vault manager informed them, than the late President Updike himself—who, Inspector Queen remarked with bitterness, had been more suited by temperament to preside over the Delancey Street Junior Spies.

“Anybody remember admitting a man this morning who flashed one of these doojiggers?”

An employee was found who duly remembered, but when he described the vault visitor as great-coated and mufflered to the eyes, wearing dark glasses, walking with a great limp, and speaking in a laryngitical whisper, Ellery said wearily: “Tomorrow’s the annual meeting of The Januarians, dad, and Patulcius won’t dare not to show up. We’d better try to clean it up there.”

These, then, were the curious events preceding the final meeting of The Januarians in the thirteenth-floor sanctuary of The Eastern Alumni Club, beyond the door bearing the stainless steel medallion of the god Janus.

We have no apocryphal writings to reveal what self-adoring mysteries were performed in that room on other New Year’s Days; but on January the first of this year, The Januarians held a most unorthodox service, in that two lay figures—the Queens, pater et filius — moved in and administered some rather heretical sacraments; so there is a full record of the last rites.

It began with Sergeant Velie knocking thrice upon the steel faces of Janus at five minutes past two o’clock on the afternoon of the first of January, and a thoroughly startled voice from within the holy of holies calling: “Who’s there?” The Sergeant muttered an Ave and put his shoulder to the door. Three amazed, elderly male faces appeared. The heretics entered and the service began.

It is a temptation to describe in loving detail, for the satisfaction of the curious, the interior of the tabernacle—its stern steel furniture seizing the New Year’s Day sun and tossing it back in the form of imperious light, the four-legged altar, the sacred vessels in the shape of beakers, the esoteric brown waters, and so on—but there has been enough of profanation, and besides the service is more to our point.

It was chiefly catechistical, proceeding in this wise:

INSPECTOR: Gentlemen, my name is Inspector Queen, I’m from Police Headquarters, this is my son Ellery, and the big mugg on the door is Sergeant Velie of my staff.

BLACK: Police? Ed, do you know anything about—?

TEMPLE: Not me, Rodney. Maybe Charlie, ha-ha...?

MASON: What is it, Inspector? This is a private clubroom—

INSPECTOR: Which one are you?

MASON: Charles Mason—Mason’s Theater Chain, Inc. But—

INSPECTOR: The long drink of water—what’s your name?

TEMPLE: Me? Edward I. Temple. Attorney. What’s the meaning—?

INSPECTOR: I guess, Tubby, that makes you Rodney Black, Junior, of Wall Street.

BLACK: Sir—!

ELLERY: Which one of you gentlemen belonged to The Inner Circle of The Januarians?

MASON: Inner what, what?

BLACK: Circle, I think he said, Charlie.

TEMPLE: Inner Circle? What’s that?

SERGEANT: One of ’em’s a John Barrymore, Maestro.

BLACK: See here, we’re three-fourths of what’s left of the Class of Eastern ’13...

ELLERY: Ah, then you gentlemen don’t know that Bill Updike is dead?

ALL: Dead! Bill?

INSPECTOR: Tell ’em the whole story, Ellery.

And so, patiently, Ellery recounted the story of The Inner Circle, William Updike’s murder, and the vanished $200,000 in negotiable securities. And as he told this story, the old gentleman from Center Street and his sergeant studied the three elderly faces; and the theater magnate, the lawyer, and the broker gave stare for stare; and when Ellery had finished they turned to one another and gave stare for stare once more.

And finally Charlie Mason said: “My hands are clean, Ed. How about yours?”

“What do you take me for, Charlie?” said Temple in a flat and chilling voice. And they both looked at Black, who squeaked: “Don’t try to make me out the one, you traitors!”

Whereupon, as if there were nothing more to be said, the three divinities turned and gazed bleakly upon the iconoclasts.

And the catechism resumed:

ELLERY: Mr. Temple, where were you night before last between 11 P.M. and midnight?

TEMPLE: Let me see. Night before last... That was the night before New Year’s Eve. I went to bed at 10 o’clock.

ELLERY: You’re a bachelor, I believe. Do you employ a domestic?

TEMPLE: My man.

ELLERY: Was he—?

TEMPLE: He sleeps out.

SERGEANT: No alibi!

INSPECTOR: How about you, Mr. Black?

BLACK: Well, the fact is... I’d gone to see a musical in town... and between 11 and 12 I was driving home... to White Plains...

SERGEANT: Ha! White Plains!

ELLERY: Alone, Mr. Black?

BLACK: Well... yes. The family’s all away over the holidays...

INSPECTOR: No alibi. Mr. Mason?

MASON: Go to hell. (There is a knock on the door.)

SERGEANT: Now who would that be?

TEMPLE: The ghost of Bill?

BLACK: You’re not funny, Ed!

ELLERY: Come in. (The door opens. Enter Nikki Porter.)

NIKKI: I’m sorry to interrupt, but she came looking for you, Ellery. She was terribly insistent. Said she’d just recalled something about The Inner Circle, and—

ELLERY: She?

NIKKI: Come in, Mrs. Updike.

“They’re here,” said Mrs. Updike. “I’m glad. I wanted to look at their faces.”

“I’ve told Mrs. Updike the whole thing,” said Nikki defiantly.

And Inspector Queen said in a soft tone: “Velie, shut the door.”

But this case was not to be solved by a guilty look. Black, Mason, and Temple said quick ineffectual things, surrounding the widow and spending their nervousness in little gestures and rustlings until finally silence fell and she said helplessly, “Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know,” and dropped into a chair to weep.

And Black stared out the window, and Mason looked green, and Temple compressed his lips.

Then Ellery went to the widow and put his hand on her shoulder. “You recall something about The Inner Circle, Mrs. Updike?”

She stopped weeping and folded her hands, resting them in her lap and looking straight ahead.

“Was it the names of the five?”

“No. Bill never told me their names. But I remember Bill’s saying to me once: ‘Mary, I’ll give you a hint.’”

“Hint?”

“Bill said that he once realized there was something funny about the names of the five men in The Inner Circle.”

“Funny?” said Ellery sharply. “About their names?”

“He said by coincidence all five names had one thing in common.”

“In common?”

“And he laughed.” Mrs. Updike paused. “He laughed, and he said: ‘That is, Mary, if you remember that I’m a married man.’ I remember saying: ‘Bill, stop talking in riddles. What do you mean?’ And he laughed again and said: ‘Well, you see, Mary, you’re in it, too.’”

“You’re in it, too,” said Nikki blankly.

“I have no idea what he meant, but that’s what Bill said, word for word.” And now she looked up at Ellery and asked, with a sort of ferocious zest: “Does any of this help, Mr. Queen?”

“Oh, yes,” said Ellery gently. “All of it, Mrs. Updike.” And he turned to the three silent Januarians and said: “Would any of you gentlemen like to try your wits against this riddle?”

But the gentlemen remained silent.

“The reply appears to be no,” Ellery said. “Very well; let’s work it out en masse. Robert Carlton Smith, J. Stanford Jones, Peter Zissing Brown, William Updike. Those four names, according to Bill Updike, have one thing in common. What?”

“Smith,” said the Inspector.

“Jones,” said the Sergeant.

“Brown,” said Nikki.

“Updike!” said the Inspector. “Boy, you’ve got me.”

“Include me in, Maestro.”

“Ellery, please!”

“Each of the four names,” said Ellery, “has in it, somewhere, the name of a well-known college or university.”

And there was another mute communion.

“Robert—Carlton—Smith,” said the Inspector, doubtfully.

“Smith!” cried Nikki. “Smith College, in Massachusetts!”

The Inspector looked startled. “J. Stanford Jones.—That California university, Stanford!”

“Hey,” said Sergeant Velie. “Brown. Brown University, in Rhode Island!”

“Updike,” said Nikki, then she stopped. “Updike? There’s no college called Updike, Ellery.”

“William Updike was his full name, Nikki.”

“You mean the ‘William’ part? There’s a Williams, with an s, but no William.”

“What did Updike tell Mrs. Updike? ‘Mary, you’re in it, too.’ William Updike was in it, and Mary Updike was in it...”

“William and Mary College!” roared the Inspector.

“So the college denominator checks for all four of the known names. But since Updike told his wife the fifth name had the same thing in common, all we have to do now is test the names of these three gentlemen to see if one of them is the name of a college or university—and we’ll have the scoundrel who murdered Bill Updike for The Inner Circle’s fortune in securities.”

“Black,” babbled Rodney Black, Junior. “Rodney Black, Junior. Find me a college in that, sir!”

“Charles Mason,” said Charles Mason unsteadily. “Charles? Mason? You see!”

“That,” said Ellery, “sort of hangs it around your neck, Mr. Temple.”

“Temple!”

“Temple University in Pennsylvania!”

Of course, it was all absurd. Grown men who played at godhead with emblems and talismans, like boys conspiring in a cave, and a murder case which was solved by a trick of nomenclature. Eastern University is too large for that sort of childishness. And it is old enough, we submit, to know the truth:

Item: Edward I. Temple, Class of Eastern ’13, did not “fall” from the thirteenth floor of The Eastern Alumni Club on New Year’s Day this year. He jumped.

Item: The Patulcius Chair of Classics, founded this year, was not endowed by a wealthy alumnus from Oil City who modestly chose anonymity. It came into existence through the contents of The Inner Circle’s safe-deposit box, said contents having been recovered from another safe-deposit box rented by said Temple in another bank on the afternoon of December thirty-first under a false name.

Item: The Januarian room was not converted to the storage of linen because of the expanding housekeeping needs of The Eastern Alumni Club. It was ordered so that the very name of the Society of the Two-Faced God should be expunged from Eastern’s halls; and as for the stainless steel medallion of Janus which had hung on the door, the Chancellor of Eastern University himself scaled it into the Hudson River from the George Washington Bridge, during a sleet storm, one hideous night this January.