Cat of Many Tails

5

Inspector Queen overslept. He came galloping out at 9:45 Tuesday morning like a late starter under the whip, but when he saw who was having coffee with Ellery he slowed to a walk which neatly ended at the breakfast table.

“Well, look who’s among us,” beamed the Inspector. “Good morning, McKell.”

“Morning, Inspector.” said Jimmy McKell. “On your way to the abattoir?”

“Mmmmmmmmch,” inhaled the Inspector. “I think I’ll have a slup or two of the life-giving mocha myself.” He pulled out a chair and sat down. “Morning son.”

“Morning, morning,” said Ellery absently, reaching for the coffeepot. “Jimmy came up with the papers.”

“Do people still read?”

“Cazalis’s interview.”

“Oh.”

“Goodnaturedly but firmly neutral. The calm voice of organized knowledge. We promise nothing. But one has the feeling that an Osirian hand directed by a radiant eye has taken over. The Mayor must be in the eleventh heaven.”

“I thought it was seven,” said Jimmy McKell.

“Not in the Egyptian cosmography, Jimmy. And there is something Pharaonic about Cazalis. ‘Soldiers, from these pyramids forty centuries look down upon you.’”

“Napoleon.”

“In Egypt. Cazalis is soothing syrup to the general. Simply wonderful for morale.”

“Don’t mind him,” grinned the Inspector, reading the paper. “You’ll never win... Say, this is pretty good medicine at that. You given up journalism, McKell? I didn’t spot you among the rest of the scavengers yesterday.”

“The Richardson deal?” Jimmy looked secretive. “Yesterday was Labor Day. My day. I’m a working stiff.”

“Took off, eh?”

“Who labors best and so on,” said Ellery. “Or was it in line of duty, Jimmy?”

“Something like that.”

“You had a date with Celeste Phillips.”

Jimmy laughed. “And not just yesterday. It’s been one sweet journey through time. You give the most interesting assignments, dearie. You should have been a city editor.”

“I take it you two have been getting along.”

“We manage,” replied Jimmy, “to tolerate each other.”

“Nice girl,” nodded the Inspector. “Son, that tasted like a refill.”

“Ready to talk about it, Jimmy?”

“Say, it’s getting to be my favorite subject.”

“Let’s have another all around.” Ellery poured, amiably.

“I don’t know what you two witch doctors are up to,” said Jimmy, “but I’m happy to report that this is a wench of exceptional merit, and in my circles I’m known as Iconoclast McKell, Female Images a Specialty.” He fingered his cup. “All kidding aside, I feel like a heel.”

“Heeling is a hard profession,” said Ellery. “Would you mind itemizing the assignment’s virtues, as you found them?”

“Well, the gal has looks, brains, personality, guts, ambition—”

“Ambition?”

“Celeste wants to go back to college. You know she had to quit in her freshman year to take care of Simone. When Simone’s mother died back in—”

“Simone’s mother?” Ellery frowned. “You make it sound as if Simone’s mother wasn’t Celeste’s mother.”

“Didn’t you know that?”

“Know what?”

“That Celeste wasn’t the daughter of Mrs. Phillips?”

“You mean those two weren’t sisters?” The Inspector’s cup rattled.

Jimmy McKell looked from Queen to Queen. He pushed his chair back. “I don’t know that I’m fond of this,” he said. “In fact, I know damn well I’m not.”

“Why, what’s the matter, Jimmy?”

“You tell me!”

“But there’s nothing to tell,” said Ellery. “I asked you to find out what you could about Celeste. If we now have something new on her—”

“On her?”

“I mean about her, something we didn’t know, why, you’ve only justified my confidence in you.”

“May we dispense with the horse droppings, sleuth?”

“Jimmy, sit down.”

“I want to know what cooks!”

“Why all the heat?” growled Inspector Queen. “You’ll have me thinking in a minute...”

“Right.” Jimmy sat down suddenly. “There’s nothing to think. Simone was Celeste’s third cousin or something. Celeste’s parents were killed in a gas stove explosion when she was a baby. Mrs. Phillips was her only relative in New York and took her in. That’s all there is to it. When Mrs. Phillips died, Celeste naturally took care of Simone; they always considered each other sisters. I know a hell of a lot of real sisters who wouldn’t have done what Celeste did!”

“Even speaking not Delphically,” said Ellery, “so do I.”

“What?”

“Go on, Jimmy.”

“She’s crazy to get a college education — it half-killed her when she had to give it up at Mrs. Phillips’s death. The books that kid’s read! Deep stuff — philosophy, psychology — why, Celeste knows more right now than I do, and I’ve got a Princeton sheepskin acquired by sweat, toil, and grand larceny. Now that Simone’s gone, the kid’s free to live her own life again, go back to school and make something of herself. She’s going to enroll this week in Washington Square College for the fall semester. She wants a B.A., majoring in English and philosophy, and then she’ll go on to graduate work. Maybe teach.”

“She must want it a great deal to cut out a program like that for herself on a night school basis.”

“Night school? Who said anything about night school?”

“We still live in a competitive economy, Jimmy. Or,” said Ellery cheerfully, “were you thinking of taking that problem off her hands?”

“Maybe,” said the Inspector with a wink, “maybe that question is irrelevant, immaterial, and none of our business.”

Jimmy gripped the table. “Are you crumbums suggesting—?”

“No, no, Jimmy. With benefit of clergy, of course.”

“Oh. Well... let’s leave me out of it.” His homely face was angry and watchful.

“She can’t work as a model daytimes and go to day college too, Jimmy,” said Ellery.

“She’s giving up that job.”

“Really?” said the Inspector.

“Oh,” said Ellery, “she’s got herself a night job.”

“No job at all!”

“I’m afraid,” said Ellery mournfully, “I lost you somewhere back in the third canto. No job at all? How is she going to support herself?”

“With Simone’s nestegg!” Jimmy was shouting now.

“Nestegg?”

“What er... what nestegg would that be, Jimmy?” asked the Inspector.

“Look.” Jimmy inflated his chest. “You asked me to do a dirty chore and I’ve done it. I don’t understand this, any of it. But assuming you’re a big wheel in the gray cell department, Queen, and I’m just a little screw rattling around, will you tell me what the devil difference any of this makes?”

“No more difference than the truth ever makes.”

“Sounds profound, but I suspect a gimmick.”

“McKell.” Inspector Queen was grim. “I’ve had a lot of men working on this case and I’ve been in it myself up to my Adam’s apple. This is the first I’ve heard about Simone Phillip’s leaving anybody anything but a lower back ache. Why didn’t Celeste tell us?”

“Because she only found it last week! Because it’s got nothing to do with the murder!”

“Found it?” murmured Ellery. “Where?”

“She was cleaning out Simone’s junk. There was an old wooden table clock, a French deal that was a family heirloom or something — it hadn’t run for ten years and Simone would never let Celeste have it fixed, kept it on a shelf over her bed. Well, when Celeste took it down last week it slipped out of her hands and cracked open like an egg on the floor. There was a big roll of bills inside, bound with a rubber band.”

“Money? I thought Simone—”

“So did Celeste. The money had been left by Simone’s father. There was a note in his handwriting bound in with the bills. According to the note, written just before he committed suicide, from the date on it, he managed to save $10,000 out of the wreckage when he dropped his fortune in the ’29 market crash. He had left the ten grand to his wife.”

“And Celeste knew nothing about it?”

“Mrs. Phillips and Simone never mentioned it to her. Most of the dough is there, about $8600. Celeste thinks the missing $1400 went toward Simone’s doctors’ bills in the early days, when Mrs. Phillips still had hopes she could be cured. Certainly Simone knew all about it, because she had fits if Celeste went anywhere near the clock. Well, now the money is Celeste’s and it’s going to make life tolerable for her for a while. And that’s the great big mysterious story,” said Jimmy with outthrust jaw, “the moral of which — if you ask me — is that, invalid or no invalid, Simone was a firstclass drip. Imagine letting that poor kid nurse her in the Black Hole of Calcutta and shag her legs off trying to support both of them when all the time Simone had almost nine grand stashed away! What was she keeping it for, the junior prom?... What’s the matter? Why the steely looks?”

“What do you think, Dad?”

“Any way you slice it, Ellery, it’s a motive.”

“Motive?” said Jimmy.

“The first one we’ve found.” The Inspector went to a window, looking unhappy.

Jimmy McKell began to laugh. But then he stopped laughing.

“I wondered last week if there might be a motive,” said Ellery, thoughtfully. “When she came here.”

“Celeste?”

Ellery did not reply.

“I know,” said Jimmy. “This is something out of H. G. Wells. An unknown gas drifts into the earth’s atmosphere out of interstellar space and everybody in the world goes fay. Including the great Ellery Queen. Why, Queen,” he snarled, “she came here to help you find the killer of Simone!”

“Who, it develops, wasn’t her sister and had deliberately held her in peonage for years.”

“Give me air. Sweet, sane air.”

“I’m not saying it’s so, Jimmy. But by the same token can you say it isn’t?”

“Damned right I can! That kid is as pure as I was till I stumbled into this Siberian Casbah this-morning and got polluted! Besides, I thought you were looking for the Cat — seven-times strangler!”

“Ellery.” Inspector Queen came back to the table. He had apparently fought an engagement with himself and won it. Or lost it. “It’s out of the question. Not that girl.”

“Now there’s a man,” shouted Jimmy, “who’s still got one toenail on the ground!”

Ellery stared into his cooling coffee. “Jimmy, have you ever heard of the ABC theory of multiple murder?”

“The what?”

“X wants to kill D. X’s motive isn’t apparent, but if he killed D in the ordinary way the police investigation would disclose eventually that the only person, or most likely person, with motive to kill D was X. X’s problem is, How can he kill D and gain his object without having his motive stand out? X sees that one way to accomplish this is by surrounding D’s murder with a smokescreen of other murders, deliberately committed with the same technique in order to tie them up as a series of interrelated crimes. Consequently, X first murders A, B, and C... wholly innocent people, you understand, with whom he’s not in the least involved. Only then does he murder D.

“The effect of this is to make the murder of D appear merely a single link in a chain of crimes. The police will not be looking for someone with motive against D, they will look for someone with motive against A, B, C, and D. But since X had no motive whatever for murdering A, B, and C, his motive against D is either overlooked or ignored. At least, that’s the theory.”

“How to become a detective in one easy lesson,” said Jimmy McKell. “In a series of murders, last one with motive is It and leave my fee in the hypodermic needle, please.”

“Not quite,” said Ellery, without rancor. “X is smarter than that. To stop at the one murder which incriminates him, he realizes, is to bring it into exactly the prominence he has been trying to avoid by making it one of a series. Therefore, X follows the relevant murder of D with the irrelevant murders of E, F, and G — and H and I and J, if necessary. He kills as many nonsignificant persons as he feels will successfully obfuscate his motive against the significant one.”

“Pushing my way through the thicket of scholarly language,” grinned Jimmy, “I now get it. This 23-year-old she-gorilla with the detachable chassis, this fiend in human form, strangles Abernethy, the Smith babe, O’Reilly, Monica, Beatrice Willikins, and little Lenore Richardson just so she can sandwich in the bumpoff of her crippled cousin Simone. Queen, have you seen a good doctor lately?”

“Celeste gave up five years of her life to Simone,” said Ellery patiently. “She faced the prospect of giving up — how many more? Ten? Twenty? Simone might have lived on and on. Evidently Celeste had given her excellent care; the medical report indicates no bedsores, for example, the prevention of which in such cases requires constant attention.

“But Celeste wants desperately to make something of herself. Celeste would like to get away from the cheerless and limiting environment to which Simone’s existence condemns her. Celeste is also young, pretty, and hot-blooded, and her life with Simone is frustrating emotionally. On top of all this, Celeste finds one night — not last week, but last May, let’s say — a young fortune, which Simone has kept a secret from her all these years and possession of which would enable Celeste to satisfy her needs and wants for a considerable period. Only one thing stands in the way of possessing it — and putting it to use — and that’s her cousin Simone. She can’t bring herself to leave a helpless invalid—”

“So she kills her,” chuckled Jimmy. “Along with six other folks.”

“We’ve obviously hypothesized a person of confused motivations and personality—”

“I take it back. You don’t need a checkup, Queen. You need a checkdown. From the scalp.”

“Jimmy, I haven’t said Celeste killed Simone and the others. I haven’t even indicated an opinion as to its likelihood. I’m putting the known facts together in one possible way. In a shambles that’s already seen seven people slaughtered and for all we know may eventually include a great many more, would you have me ignore Celeste simply because she’s young and attractive?”

“Attractive. If what you’re ‘hypothesizing’ about Celeste is true, she’s a maniac.”

“Read yesterday’s interview with Dr. Edward Cazalis, Noted Psychiatrist. A maniac — of a very deceptive type — is exactly what Noted Psychiatrist is looking for, and I must say he makes out a convincing case.”

“I am the type maniac,” said Jimmy through his large teeth, “who can take just so much sanity. Watch out below!” And he went over the breakfast table as if it were the edge of a pool.

But Ellery was on his feet and to one side rather more quickly, and Jimmy McKell landed on his nose in a splash of tepid coffee.

“I must say that was silly, Jimmy. Are you all right?”

“Leggo, you character assassin!” yelled Jimmy, swinging.

“Here, sonny-boy.” The Inspector caught Jimmy’s arm. “You’ve been reading too many of Ellery’s books.”

Jimmy shook off the Inspector’s hand. He was livid. “Queen, you get somebody else to do your stooling. I’m through. And what’s more, I’m going to tell Celeste what she’s up against. Yes, and how you suckered me into collecting your garbage for you! And if she upchucks at the mere proximity of McKell, it’ll be no more than the yokel deserves!”

“Please don’t do that, Jimmy.”

“Why not?”

“Our agreement.”

“Produce it in writing. What did you buy, Mephisto — my soul?”

“No one forced you into this, Jimmy. You came to me, offered your services, I accepted them on explicit conditions. Remember that, Jimmy?”

Jimmy glowered.

“Granted it’s a quadrillion-to-one shot. Just on that remote possibility, will you keep your mouth shut?”

“Do you know what you’re asking me to do?”

“Keep your promise.”

“I’m in love with her.”

“Oh,” said Ellery. “That’s really too bad.”

The Inspector exclaimed: “So soon?”

Jimmy laughed. “Did they clock it in your day, Inspector?”

“Jimmy. You haven’t answered my question.”

When the doorbell rang.

The Queens looked at each other quickly.

“Who is it?” called the Inspector.

“Celeste Phillips.”

But it was James Guymer McKell who reached the door first, swooping down like a stork.

“Jimmy. You didn’t tell me you were—”

His long arms dropped around her.

“Jimmy.” She straggled, laughing.

“I want you to be the last to know,” snarled Jimmy McKell. “I love you.”

“Jimmy, what...!”

He kissed her angrily on the lips and took off, sailing down the stairs.

“Come in, Celeste,” said Ellery.

Celeste went crimson. She came in fumbling for her compact. Her lipstick was smeared and she kept looking at it in her mirror.

“I don’t know what to say. Is Jimmy plastered? This early in the morning?” She laughed, but she was embarrassed and, Ellery thought, a little scared.

“Looked to me,” said the Inspector, “as if he knew just what he was doing. Hey, Ellery?”

“Looked to me like the basis for a nuisance charge.”

“All right,” laughed Celeste, eying the repairs. “But I really don’t know what to say.” She was dressed less modishly this morning, but it was a new dress. Her own, thought Ellery. Bought with Simone’s money.

“It’s a situation not covered by Miss Post. I imagine James will go into it in detail at the first opportunity.”

“Sit down, Miss Phillips, sit down,” said the Inspector.

“Thank you. But what’s the matter with him? He seemed upset. Is anything wrong?”

“First time I told a girl I loved her, I found myself making pleats in her father’s best derby. Ellery, were you expecting Miss Phillips this morning?”

“No.”

“You told me to come when I had something to report, Mr. Queen.” Her black eyes were troubled. “Why did you ask me to find out everything I could about Jimmy McKell?”

“Remember our compact, Celeste?”

She looked down at her manicured nails.

“Now, Ellery, don’t be a fuddy-duddy before your time,” said the Inspector genially. “A kiss cancels all contracts. Why, Miss Phillips, there’s no mystery about it. Jimmy McKell is a newspaperman. This might have been a dodge for him to get in on the inside of the Cat case, beat other reporters to news breaks. We had to be sure Jimmy’s interest was personal, as he claimed. Do you find him a straight-shooter?”

“He’s simply drearily honest. If that’s what you’re worried about...”

“Well, that’s that, isn’t it?” beamed the Inspector.

“But as long as you’re here, Celeste,” said Ellery, “you may as well tell us the rest.”

“I really can’t add anything to what Jimmy told you about himself last week. He’s never got along with his father and, since he got out of the Service, they hardly speak to each other, because Jimmy insists on living his own life. He really does pay his father $18 a week for board.” Celeste giggled. “Jimmy says he’s going to make it $75 as soon as the lawyers unwind all the red tape.”

“Lawyers?”

“Oh, that business of his grandfather’s estate.”

“His grandfather,” said the Inspector. “Now, let’s see. That would be...”

“Mrs. McKell’s father, Inspector. He was a very rich man who died when Jimmy was 13. Jimmy and his sister were their mother’s father’s grandchildren and he left a big estate for them in trust. The income from the estate was to start being paid when each grandchild reached the age of 30. Monica’d been collecting her share for seven years, but Jimmy wasn’t due to start for five years more, or whenever it is. The only thing is, now Jimmy will get the whole thing, because under his grandfather’s will if one of the two grandchildren died the entire estate — principal and income — was to go to the survivor at once. There’s millions in the estate and Jimmy’s sick about the whole thing, I mean the way it’s coming to him. Through Monica’s death and all... what’s the matter?”

Ellery was looking at his father. “How was that missed?”

“I don’t know. None of the McKells said a word about an existing trust from an outside source. Of course, we’d have found out eventually.”

“Found out what?” asked Celeste fretfully.

Neither man answered.

After a moment she got up. “Do you mean...”

“The fact is,” said Ellery, “the death of Monica McKell means a fortune to her brother, who lives on a reporter’s salary. It’s what’s known in our depressing profession, Celeste, as a motive.”

“Motive.”

Rage reshaped her. It was an alteration that began deep inside, like the first tiny release of energy in the heart of an explosive. Then it burst, and Celeste sprang.

Even as he felt the rip of her fingernails, Ellery thought absurdly: Like a cat.

“To use me to trap him!”

She kept screaming as Ellery seized the clawing hand and his father came up fast from behind.

“To think Jimmy’d do a thing like that! To think it! I’m going to tell him!”

Sobbing, she wrenched away and ran.

They saw Jimmy McKell step out of the basement areaway as the front door burst open and Celeste Phillips flew out. He must have said something, because the girl whirled, looking down. Then she ran down the brownstone steps and hurled herself at him. She was crying and talking wildly. When she stopped, he said something to her very quietly and she put her hand to her mouth.

Then a cab veered inquiringly toward the curb and Jimmy held the door open and Celeste crept in. He got in after her and the cab raced off.

“End of an experiment,” sighed Ellery. “Or the beginning of one.”

Inspector Queen grunted. “Do you believe that baloney you sliced for McKell about ABC, D, X, and what have you?”

“It’s possible.”

“That somebody connected with only one of the seven murders is behind all of them as a coverup?”

“It’s possible.”

“I know it’s possible! I asked you if you believe it.”

“Can you be certain someone connected with only one of the seven murders isn’t behind all of them?”

The Inspector shrugged.

Ellery tossed the stained handkerchief on the sofa. “As far as Celeste and Jimmy are concerned, the way they came to me logically admitted of suspicion. The fact that each one has just disclosed information damaging to the other, viewed without sentiment and on its own merits, only enlarges the suspicion area. Still, I’m willing to go on belief — I don’t believe either is the Cat, no. There’s a factor that goes beyond logic. Or maybe,” said Ellery, “maybe I’m rusty. Do you suppose that could be it?”

“You’re not convinced.”

“Are you?”

“You’ll be questioning me next!”

“Or myself.”

The Inspector reached for his hat, scowling. “I’m going downtown.”