Double, Double

Monday, May 1

“It was fear of the ultimate,” said Ellery.

“Fear of what?” said Kenneth Winship.

“Fear of death.”

They were sitting about in the Dodd living room waiting for Otis Holderfield. Until now they had avoided talking about the past four days — the police, the autopsy report, the inquest, the funeral, Mrs. Fowler’s lamentations, Essie’s hysterics, the dry and tasteless titbits of Harry Toyfell’s philosophy, the prying telephone, the visits of the curious, the demands of the Record... the house fuller of Sebastian Dodd now that he was gone than when he had clumped through its halls. But Attorney Holderfield, looking put upon, raised a petulant voice Sunday afternoon after the funeral, announcing that he would be over the next morning with the deceased’s will, which, Holderfield snapped, Dr. Dodd had drawn up only a few days before the accident; and this had brought a certain resurgence of interest in all quarters. Prosecutor Chalanski had indicated that he would be present; Chief Dakin had remarked that he’d likely be along, too. And Malvina Prentiss promised grimly that the press would not evade its responsibility to report the proceedings. In fact, her Monday edition — an advance copy of which lay on the living room floor, hurled there by Dr. Winship — cried the probability that with the reading of Sebastian Dodd’s will “the motive of his murderer” would be revealed. (Friday’s Record had merely raised the question of murder; by Monday — to the Record, at least — the question had been answered and was beyond dispute. Which was exasperating to Coroner Grupp and Prosecutor Chalanski, since nothing had come out in the interim to add a crumb’s weight to the evidence; in fact, Wesley Hardin, 54, truck farmer, whose farm was located on Route 478 roughly halfway between Wrightsville and Slocum, came forward with the statement that it was he who had telephoned Dr. Dodd a little after 4 A.M. Thursday to come right away as Calvin, 9, was delirious and he was afraid the boy’d caught the diphtheria; when Dr. Dodd failed to arrive, Mr. Hardin had phoned the hospital and they sent an ambulance and Calvin was placed in the isolation ward — diphtheria sure enough. So that had been that and the coroner’s jury had brought in a prompt verdict of “accidental death,” to which the Record paid no attention whatever.)

“Fear of death,” repeated Ellery as they sat waiting for Holderfield, Dakin, Chalanski, and the Record. “It had become a phobia. Unless you understand that... Didn’t you know, Ken, that Dr. Dodd was obsessive on the specific subject of death?”

“No! A doctor — who sees it all the time—”

“Fears it all the more if there’s something wrong with him to begin with. Dodd was so terrified of death that he took steps regularly to thwart it.”

“To do what?” asked Rima bewilderedly.

“Well, the practice of divination is largely devoted to foretelling the future; and no diviner tries to foretell the future who doesn’t have the frantic hope that somehow he can forestall it.”

“Divination?”

“Only the practice of divination,” nodded Ellery, “explains the variety of things Dodd kept in that locked room I showed you this morning. A pile of pebbles, books, finger rings, flatiron and burner, salt, dice, playing cards, and so on. Divination is practiced in many forms and each form is respectable with tradition, to the point of having scientific names like ‘pessomancy,’ for example, divination through the use of pebbles. Books, finger rings, redhot iron, salt, dice — and playing cards, of course — each has its prescribed divining uses and ritual, and each is represented in Dodd’s locked room. I haven’t seen anything like it in a long time.”

“But Dr. Dodd?” said Rima faintly.

“You doubt it. Well, take the arrows, seven of them. Our Christian world has no monopoly on the practice of divination; the Mohammedans, for instance, are old hands at it and one of their favorite forms employs arrows to the number seven. There are seven ‘divining arrows’ in the great mosque at Mecca. Some authorities claim the Arabs actually employed only three. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that with that bundle of arrows upstairs, on top of all the other objects — every one of which is used in some form of divination — you simply have to conclude that Dr. Dodd for a long time had been trying to find out what the future held for him, using numerous prescribed methods, including the Mohammedan. And since the most important question about anyone’s future is when and how he is going to die, it’s obvious that the subject of his phobia was death. I myself saw him knocked galley-west by a couple of aces of spades. A dog howled and he was up all night. A bird got into his study and he had hysterics. All death omens... if you believe that sort of thing. He believed. And when he was convinced death was coming, he stopped fighting. You saw how he acted the last couple of days.”

There seemed nothing to say, and no one said anything further until Essie Pingarn whined from the doorway, “They’re here.”

Otis Holderfield marched in followed by Chalanski, Dakin, O’Bannon of the Record, and a man who looked like an aged and prosperous Sherlock Holmes and was introduced as Dr. Farnham Farnham, internist and member of the Board of Directors of Wrightsville General Hospital. A moment later Mrs. Fowler and Toyfell appeared, remaining in the doorway beside Essie.

Attorney Holderfield made no attempt to dissemble his feelings. He slammed his antelope gloves and fawn Homburg on the fireplace mantel and opened his alligator briefcase with a yank of zipper disapproval that included not only his late client but all said client’s earthly connections.

“It’s nothing to me, you understand,” Holderfield began, resuming a conversation he had apparently been having with himself. “Less than nothing. I’m just the instrument of my client’s will, haha! Man has a right to dispose of his worldly goods as he sees fit, doesn’t he? Ours not to reason why, hmm? Unless someone wants to raise the question of non compos mentis, which I doubt, seeing that my late client died unwed and without issue and leaving no blood relations that he knew of. Not that it would make any difference. My client certainly knew what he wanted to do with his estate, once he got going. He’d never had a will before last week — kept putting it off.”

“People who are afraid to die,” said Ellery, “generally do.”

“Read it, Holderfield, read it,” said the prosecutor indulgently. “Wills usually speak for themselves.”

“Yes,” said O’Bannon with a surprising incisiveness. “The Record’s very interested in this will.” Then he glanced at Ellery in a startled way. “Did you say Dodd was afraid to die?”

“Who isn’t?” said Chief Dakin. “Come on, Holderfield.”

Otis Holderfield had taken an elegantly bound legal paper out of his briefcase and was gazing down at it with a scrubbed and shaven bitterness. Now, with almost a smile, he flipped back the blue cover.

“I, Sebastian Dodd, now residing in Wrightsville, do hereby make, publish, and declare this to be my will...”

The little lawyer attacked Dodd’s will as if it were an enemy to be dispatched as quickly and venomously as possible. Testator directed that the Wrightsville Dye Works, which constituted the bulk of his estate, was to be liquidated. Out of the general estate legal fees, taxes, and all claims against the estate were to be paid. The mortgage on his house at Algonquin Avenue and Wright Street, which was large, was to be paid off. The house with its office equipment, furniture, furnishings, personal property and effects, et cetera, was to be placed at the disposal of “my associate, Dr. Kenneth Winship, for his residence and use should he so elect, rent free, for a period up to five years from the date of my decease, provided however that said Dr. Winship maintains the property in reasonable condition, pays taxes, et cetera, during his occupancy; thereafter, or at any time within said five years when said Dr. Winship may at his election vacate the premises, the house, its furnishings, et cetera, shall be sold and the proceeds added to my general estate.”

The sum of one thousand dollars in cash was bequeathed to “my housekeeper, Mrs. Regina Fowler.” (Mrs. Regina Fowler started, then fumbled for her apron.)

The sum of five hundred dollars in cash was bequeathed to “Essie Pingarn, housemaid.” (Essie Pingarn looked incredulous, then joyful, then she burst into tears.)

The principal remainder of the estate was to be placed into a Fund. Said Fund was to be known as “The MacCaby-Dodd Wrightsville Municipal Health Center and Receiving Hospital Fund” and was to be administered by the Board of Directors of the Wrightsville General Hospital as Trustee, who were also to act as Executor of the estate, to rebuild said hospital “from the ground up and in its entirety, if necessary, in order to give Wrightsville the modern hospital facilities its size and needs warrant. The rebuilt hospital is to include’ a modern Children’s Wing along the lines indicated in my memorandum to the Board of February 19 of this year.” (Dr. Farnham Farnham permitted himself a gratified smile.)

There was a little more legal language, and then Attorney Holderfield slammed the cover over the document and said malevolently, “That’s that.”

“Any comment, Dakin?” asked Prosecutor Chalanski after a silence.

“No comment.” Chief Dakin rose. It was impossible to tell whether he was disappointed or relieved. Ellery, eying him closely, had to decide on a psychic basis that Dakin was relieved.

“And you, Mr. O’Bannon?” asked the prosecutor, turning a rather amused eye on Malvina Prentiss’s shadow.

“What I think personally, Mr. Chalanski,” replied O’Bannon, “hardly matters. And what the Record thinks it will undoubtedly print.” And with a dyspeptic Harvard smile O’Bannon went away, tucking his notebook soberly into his pocket as he did so.

“I’ll go over everything with your Board, Dr. Farnham,” said Otis Holderfield coldly, “at your convenience. I’ll be at my office for the rest of the day, if your attorneys are interested. I don’t believe, gentlemen, there’s anything else—”

“—except his bill for services rendered,” said Chalanski dryly, when Holderfield had gone, “which I’d examine under the microscope, Dr. Farnham. Well, good people, I think I may say the county authorities are satisfied. Glad it worked out this way. Hey, Mr. Queen? Nice, clean disposition. Miss Anderson, Dr. Winship... Coming, Dakin, Dr. Farnham?”

“You know, Winship,” said Dr. Farnham, speaking for the first time as he shook hands, “with Dodd’s death there’s a vacancy on the Board. In the light of this magnificent gift of Sebastian Dodd’s, I think it’s no more than right that you should take his place on the Board, and I’ll certainly recommend it to—”

But Ken, smiling, was shaking his head. “Thanks, Doctor, but I’m afraid I’d have to decline. I’m going to be pretty busy making a living. See me five years from now.”

Everybody laughed, but when the others were gone a silence settled rather heavily. It was stirred up after a while by Ellery.

“You can understand Holderfield’s pique. To have the whole suety pudding kicked out of his hungry little fingers like this must be maddening. All those wonderful plums he expected — for negotiating the sale of the dye works, the nourishing fees he’d have commanded as Trustee and Executor of the estate — snatched. Poor old Otis. I wonder when the Waldo brothers will start dunning him to pay those tailoring bills he’s been running up.”

“And O’Bannon,” grinned Ken. “Did you see his face? The Record can hardly accuse the Wrightsville General of having murdered Doc. Or Mrs. Fowler for the thousand dollars he left her or Essie for her five hundred.”

“Or Harry Toyfell,” murmured Ellery, “for his nothing.”

“Or me for mine! Well, baby, what do we do about our handsome legacy? Do we accept Doc’s offer?”

“It’s entirely up to you, darling,” said Rima seriously. “With Dr. Dodd gone I imagine many of his patients will go elsewhere, so it might come in handy to have no rent to pay. Ken...”

“What?”

“I’m glad he didn’t leave you anything.”

“Huh?” Ken and Ellery exchanged glances. “Why?”

“Oh, nothing. I’m just... glad.”

Ken laughed and enfolded her in his big arms. “You’re about as subtle as a Record editorial. Darling, you’re engaged to a guy who’ll never have a dime. All I’ve ever wanted out of life is a little security, you, and enough surplus to buy some good recordings every once in a while. The rest is love and medicine — money doesn’t come into it. And talking about love, you won’t mind living here?”

“With you? I’d live in a tree. Oh, I wish we could!”

There was some kissing. Then Ken said, “Then let’s get married.”

“When?”

“Now. Tomorrow.”

“But Ken—!”

“Hold it,” said Ellery. “I have to see a street about some ozone.”

“Ellery, no!” Rima was laughing. “Ken proposed long ago; this is just arrangements. You’ve got to be here to protect my interests.”

“You can bloody well protect your own interests. I’m sick of being your Uncle Patsy.”

“Oh, be quiet and listen. Ken, it’s so soon.”

“All right, move out of here,” growled her swain. “Tongues are going to clack if you don’t, Mrs. Fowler and Essie notwithstanding. Not that I give a curse, you understand, but Wrightsville can make it awfully tepid for anyone they drop into their kettle. Rima, Doc’s forced our hand. We’ve got to get married.”

“Ken’s right,” said Ellery. “You two couldn’t go on living here together with Dodd gone, and to go off and live alone in a rooming house or that marsh-surrounded shanty — which I haven’t seen yet, by the way! — would be inane. If you’ve actually made up your mind to marry young Dr. Kildare, Rima, you may as well shut your eyes and jump now as later.”

So it was decided that they would get a license from Town Clerk Caiaphas Truslow at Town Hall in the morning and then run over to Justice of the Peace Burleigh Pendleton’s place near the Junction on Route 16. “Of course,” said Ken, “’Aphas will spread the good word, but we’ll be spliced before he can do much damage and a phone call to the Record right afterward ought to calm everybody.” Ken glowered. “I wish we could take a couple of weeks off for a honeymoon.”

“Dearest, I don’t care—”

“I’ve got not only my patients on my hands, but Doc’s. With the diphtheria epidemic still jamming everybody up there’s no one I could turn them over to.”

“Ken, I adore your being the reincarnation of Hippocrates. Really I do.”

“Maybe you’d better forget the whole thing. Doc always said a doctor had no business getting married. And what can I offer you, after all? Certainly not what I’d hoped to be able to.”

“Darling, I don’t want a honeymoon.”

“Well, I do! A man getting married is entitled to a honeymoon!”

It went on that way for some time, somewhere in between Ellery finding himself invited to be Ken’s best man and the Winships’ house guest afterward.

“Are you mad?” Ellery howled. “Camp with a couple of newly-weds? What do you think I’m made of, salt water taffy? Winship, I’ll have you understand I’ve cracked a ventricle or two over this wench, too.”

“Then you’re giving up,” said Rima before Ken could say anything.

“Giving up? What?”

“What brought you here. Not that I blame you, poor dear—”

“No such thing,” said Ellery testily. “It’s simply—”

“Then you’ll have to stay,” retorted Rima with supreme logic. “And since you’re staying, you can’t move to a hotel now or the Record will dream up all sorts of nasty things to print.”

“Ellery, the house is huge. Rima and I’ll have acres of privacy. That’s settled.” Ken got up, looking for his pipe. “The only thing is, where do we go from here?”

“There’s that.” Rima found it for him. “Ellery, what is the next step?”

“Well... now that Dodd’s gone,” said Ellery gloomily, “I’m pretty much locked on my course.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know the two sets of possibilities I’ve had to keep juggling, Rima. They’re reduced to one. It simplifies matters wonderfully.” But he failed to look starry-eyed.

“Two sets of possibilities?” demanded Ken. “How? About what?”

“Oh, dear, it’s kind of intricate, darling.” Rima was looking anxiously at Ellery. When he nodded, she brightened. “Ellery said there were two viewpoints you had to look at the case from. Looked at one way, Dr. Dodd was what everybody thought he was. Looked at the other way, he was...” She stopped, seeing something in her lover’s eye.

“He was what?”

“Criminally involved,” finished Ellery.

“You suspected Doc of... of what, for pete’s sake!”

“Of murdering MacCaby. Of driving Hart to suicide. Of being blackmailed by Tom Anderson and pushing him over Little Prudy’s Cliff to loosen Anderson’s hold.”

“Of all the dribbling... pus!”

“Now, yes. But before Dodd died — no.”

“How the devil does his death change anything?”

“Alive, Dodd was possibly a murderer. Dead, he’s possibly a victim, certainly an innocent man. Innocent, he told the truth. Then, as Dr. Dodd said, Luke MacCaby died of coronary whatever-it-was; Dodd did not deliberately drive John Spencer Hart to suicide; and when he gave Anderson the five thousand dollars, it wasn’t because Anderson was blackmailing him but simply out of the goodness of his heart. With Anderson not a blackmailer, the letter he left with Holderfield in the envelope containing the five thousand dollars probably instructed Jacquard to hold the money for Rima — nothing else. And when Jacquard, after appropriating the money, Rima, broke in here it wasn’t to find ‘blackmail evidence’ but merely to burglarize the house.

“With Dodd innocent, we’re on a straight track, with no alternate route. We’re back where we started from: in a series of deaths following the precise pattern of a child’s game. Rich man MacCaby, poor man Hart, beggar-man Anderson, thief Jacquard, Doctor Dodd.”

“But why?”

“That,” mourned Ellery, “remains the question.”

Ken shook his head, his pipe waggling. “It’s no question at all, Ellery. I think you’re shadowboxing. An old man with chronic heart trouble dies of it, a businessman caught embezzling blows his brains out, a penniless man who suddenly came into possession of five thousand dollars is killed in what was probably an attempted robbery by somebody who didn’t know he’d deposited the money for safekeeping with a lawyer, a petty thief breaks into a house and when he’s caught tries to grab a gun and gets shot in the scuffle, an overworked and highly neurotic doctor on a night call runs off the road. Every damned one has a natural explanation. Why try to string them together because they happen to fit a hunk of nursery nonsense?”

“That’s why,” said Ellery. “Because they do. Oh, it’s silly. But how do you explain it?” When they did not answer, he said, “I have an inbred mind. Eats itself up alive. This is the sort of problem that drives me crazy. I couldn’t let go of it if I wanted to. Especially,” he said suddenly, “since it isn’t over.”

“What isn’t over?”

“The deaths.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.”

“Wait a minute, Ken,” said Rima.

“Dodd blinded me. There was someone else wound up with MacCaby, Hart, Anderson, and Jacquard. And with Dodd, for that matter.”

“Who’s that?” demanded Ken.

“Otis Holderfield. It’s Holderfield who drew the MacCaby will. When Dodd retained Holderfield to look after his interests, it was Holderfield who suggested and composed the letter to Hart for Dodd’s signature which was the direct cause of Hart’s killing himself. It was Holderfield who turned Dodd’s five thousand dollars over to Tom Anderson. It was Holderfield who at Anderson’s request regained possession of the money, allegedly in trust. It was Holderfield who turned Anderson’s sealed envelope over to Nick Jacquard. And it was Holderfield who, as Dodd’s attorney, drew up the Dodd will.”

“You mean that shiny little squirt,” said Ken, “is behind everything that’s happened?”

“No, because — don’t hit me, Ken — there’s reason to believe Holderfield is going to be the next victim.”

“Here we go again!”

But Ellery kept chanting through his teeth, “Rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief; doctor, lawyer...” He spread his hands. “A lawyer is next in the series, and Holderfield is the only lawyer up to his neck in everything that’s happened so far.”

They were silent until a voice said from the doorway, “’Scuse me.”

It was Harry Toyfell.

“I’d like to talk to ye, Dr. Winship.”

“What about, Harry?”

“It’s Doc Dodd give me this job, Dr. Winship. Maybe this ain’t the time. But I’d like to know where I stand.”

“Oh.” Ken looked embarrassed. “Matter of fact, I’ve been meaning to talk to you. I’m going to have to take over the running of the house, the expense is considerable... Maybe, Harry, it would be better if you looked around for another job. Right away.”

Harry Toyfell did not seem surprised. It was as if he never expected anything but the worst and could be surprised only by something short of it.

He shuffled out of sight beyond the doorway.

“Mr. Toyfell, wait!” Rima said in a low voice, “Darling, I know it’s practical to start by cutting expenses, and I’ve never cared for him... much myself, but couldn’t we keep him on a little while? He has had such a hard time...”

“Hell, it isn’t the expense,” said Ken, redfaced. “He’s a damned Jonah!”

“So you’ve noticed it, too,” murmured Ellery.

“I’m not blind! Toyfell worked for MacCaby and MacCaby died. He went to work for Hart and Hart committed suicide. He had two friends, Tom Anderson and Nick Jacquard — and where are they? And he no sooner goes to work for Doc Dodd than Doc dies. Damn it all, baby, we’re starting a new life. Call me superstitious—”

“No, darling. I hadn’t thought of it that way... Ken, do you mind if I do something for him?”

“Cripes, I’ll do something for him. I just don’t want him around here. Toyfell!”

The gardener shuffled back into view.

“Harry, this is kind of sudden, I know. Suppose I pay your salary till you find another job.”

“And you can stay at my shack in The Marshes, Mr. Toyfell,” added Rima, “till you do. There’s some canned food there, and I planted some vegetables that...”

But Toyfell was shaking his long head, his crocodile jaws parted in the imitation of a smile. “Tom brought ye up right, Rima. Mighty Christian. But it’s better to give than to take. The giver gains and the taker loseth. That’s wisdom ye won’t find in the medical books. I’ll be out of here tonight.”

He went away without once having glanced at Ken, the only sign that his philosopher’s skin had been scratched.

It was a remarkably different Otis Holderfield who received Ellery in his office that afternoon. Holderfield was in high spirits. One of the Waldo brothers — Ellery could not determine which — was hurrying away with a handful of swatches; the nubile secretary was still very much in evidence; and the little lawyer himself had his British-last shoes higher than his head in an attitude of nabob comfort.

“Sit down, Mr. Queen! Tickled to see you. Hope you didn’t think I made a darn jackass of myself this morning. Attorney ought never to let his emotions get the better of him; it’s absolute death, haha! When I got back and thought it over, things didn’t look so bad. No, sir. Of course, it’s a blow losing an estate like Dodd’s; but we’ll make out, we’ll make out. What’s on your mind?”

“You.”

“Me?” Holderfield was startled. “How do you mean?”

“Holderfield, do you carry any life insurance?”

The lawyer took the cigar from his teeth. “What’s the joke?”

“Suppose I tell you I have reason to believe you’re going to die.”

Holderfield stared. Then his swivel chair squealed as he sat up. “So are you.”

“But not before my time, I hope.”

“You mean I will before mine?” smiled the little man.

“Any day now.”

“What is this,” he asked genially, “the introductory remarks to a shakedown? Who — I mean whom — do I pay, and for what?”

“I don’t blame you,” said Ellery morosely. “And yet I couldn’t have slept tonight if I hadn’t warned you. There are times, Mr. Holderfield,” he said, looking out the window at Washington Street, “times of peculiar crisis, when almost everything goes wrong, nothing makes sense, all that’s left is a common language. And I don’t suppose you have the faintest notion what I’m babbling about.”

“That’s right,” grinned the lawyer. But his eyes were watchful.

“So I’ll have to tell you my favorite fairy tale these days. Once upon a time there was a miserly old man named MacCaby,” began Ellery; and he proceeded to relate the story of the five men whose deaths followed the specifications of a jingle. “Doctor, lawyer...”

Ellery turned from the window. Otis Holderfield’s head was thrown back, his hands held his jiggling sides, and he was laughing so hard his eyes ran over.

“You find it funny, Holderfield?”

“Funniest thing I ever heard!”

It’s not this funny, thought Ellery. And suddenly it came to him that Holderfield knew something, something he had never revealed, and that it was this knowledge which made him laugh now. Not because he was amused, but because he was not. He’s covering up, thought Ellery. I’ve hit him somewhere. If I only knew where!

“Course, you’re only pulling my leg,” gasped the lawyer as he wiped his eyes.

“No.”

“You’re serious?”

“Yes.”

“For heaven’s sake. See here, Mr. Queen, I’m a man with no imagination at all.” Holderfield waved his cigar. “Don’t misunderstand me. I take it kindly of you to warn me. But — haha! — I can see myself asking Chief Dakin for protection because—”

“I doubt that he could give it to you,” said Ellery, picking up his hat.

“Wait just a minute, Mr. Queen!” His telephone was ringing. “Who, Floss?... Huh? All right, put him on. Hello?... Yes... Oh... Well, maybe I could at that. Matter of fact, I could... No, no, entirely selfish on my part. Wait till you see the condition it’s in, haha! What?... Now wait a minute. I’m not one of your Wrightsville millionaires. Let’s say eighty-five a month and maintenance. Best I can do... You know where it is?... Okay, see you tonight.” Holderfield hung up. “And you hanging crape, Mr. Queen. Why, this is my lucky day. Here, I’ll see you out.”

“Lucky day?” said Ellery.

“I’ve got a little place over on Upper Curling. Pretty much gone to seed. I’ve been thinking about a gardener and handyman, and by crickmajiggy, as old Ivor Crosby used to say, I’ve just hired me the best damn one in the county. Much obliged, Mr. Queen, I’ll remember you in my will, haha!”

Harry Toyfell had found a new employer.

Waiting for Buzz Congress and the elevator, Ellery felt icy mice scamper along his spine. It was ridiculous, but there they were.