Double, Double

Saturday — Sunday, June 10–11

Rim a and Ken were at the Bijou seeing a movie, Ellery having begged off, and Ellery was alone in the living room listening to the Huddersfield Choral Society’s recording of Holst’s “Hymn of Jesus” — which seemed to him for the first time very distant music — when the telephone rang in the waiting room.

“It’s for you, Mr. Queen,” said Essie. “Long distance.”

He almost knocked her down getting by.

“Dakin?”

“Hello.” Dakin sounded weary.

“You’ve found him!”

“In a farmhouse in Huxton — that’s northwest of Connhaven. We talked him into coming with us and we’ve got him holed up in a room at the Hotel Dorcas in Connhaven.”

“Where is that?”

“It’s just as you pull into Connhaven on 478. Room 412.”

“Dakin, hang on to him. I’ll be there in two hours.”

“And then what?” said Dakin sourly; but Ellery hung up.

He turned off the record player, thrust Holst back between Haydn and Humperdinck, scribbled an explanatory note to Rima and Ken, and raced upstairs for his coat and hat. On his way out he halted; then he went back and opened his suitcase. Absolute rot, he kept saying to himself as he rummaged in the false bottom. He wondered if it was still there. It had been given to him years before by his father — a birthday gift which was a joke of long standing. It was there; and when he came out of the bedroom its weight made him feel silly.

Homer Findlay’s newest used car, a Buick Roadmaster, was waiting for him at the curb. It had been waiting there with a full tank since Friday morning.

In three minutes he was on Route 478, whistling in the wind and stretching his legs for the seventy-five mile run through Slocum, Bannock, Agunquin, Scottstown, and Fyfield to Connhaven.

Dakin rose from the lobby settee. “I was beginning to worry about you. It’s almost midnight.”

“I didn’t figure on that ten-mile detour south of Fyfield. Does he know I’m coming?”

“I told him. He didn’t do a jig about it.”

“Done any talking?”

“No.”

One of Dakin’s younger men, in plainclothes, nodded from an alcove near the elevator. They crossed the hall and Dakin opened the door of 412 without knocking.

David Waldo was lying on the bed with the candlewick spread drawn up to his little chin. Beyond the fact that his eyebrows and hair looked singed, Ellery could see nothing wrong with him. Another young officer sat in the single armchair under a lamp with a newspaper over it. He got up as they came in.

“Tried to get Mr. Waldo to take his clothes off and make himself comfortable,” he said, “but he wouldn’t even douse his shoes.”

“All right, Jeep.”

The officer went out.

Ellery took the newspaper off the lamp and went over to the bed. “How are you, Mr. Waldo?”

The little tailor kept his eyes shut.

“Mr. Waldo.” Waldo blinked. “Does the light bother you?”

“No.” The eyes opened. They were bloodshot and fixed on some inner object.

Ellery sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’ve spent the past two months of my life up here because I’m convinced there’s a killer loose in Wrightsville, a killer who covers his tracks so well he leaves no evidence of murder. I think the fire that killed your brother and so nearly killed you, Mr. Waldo, is part of a murder pattern that began with Luke MacCaby’s death. Now I can’t prove that — or anything else — so it’s of tremendous importance that you give me what help you can. Of importance to you personally if you’re to stay alive. That’s why I asked Chief Dakin to find you and why I drove here from Wrightsville tonight to talk to you.”

David Waldo quivered. “I’m going to die.”

“No. Not if we compare notes and see this thing through together.”

“But I don’t know anything.”

“Why did you run away?”

“I’m afraid.”

“Of what? Of whom?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. The fire was set. Somebody was out to kill us. I was just lucky or I’d be dead, too.”

“Why do you think the fire was set? Did you see or hear anything? Get a warning of any kind?”

“No. But the Record... the rhyme... merchant... I’m no merchant now! I sold out! You’re not going to take me back to Wrightsville! I won’t go!” The little man grew hysterical. Ellery and Dakin had to muffle his cries. Finally he began to weep quietly into the pillow.

Ellery sat doubled on the edge of the armchair, frowning at the elderly little figure on the bed.

“Never was one to kick a man when he was down,” came Dakin’s dry voice, “but between you and the Prentiss woman, Mr. Queen, you’ve given poor Dave a bad case of frozen toes, and that’s about the story.”

“No,” said Ellery absently.

“You’re just a mule. Well, I can’t hang around here. What are you going to do?”

“Stay with it.” Ellery got up. “Dakin, would you leave your men here with me?”

“Now look, Mr. Queen—”

“Suppose you’re wrong, Dakin. Suppose tomorrow morning the Connhaven police called you and said—”

“Cripes!” Dakin yanked the door open and a moment later the officers came in. “I’m going back to town. You’re under Mr. Queen’s orders till you hear from me.” He clumped off down the hall toward the stairs, tugging angrily at his hat.

“You’re Jeep. I remember you from the Van Horn case, but I never did know your last name.”

“Jorking, sir. My dad’s the pig farmer just off the Old Low Road, on 478.”

“And I don’t know you at all,” Ellery said to the other officer.

“Plaskow, sir. Phil Plaskow.”

“Oh, yes. Well, boys, I’m going to try to get some information out of this man. You’re here to protect him. Can we get some sandwiches and coffee?”

“There’s an all-night diner about three squares into town,” said Jorking.

“Swell. Get enough for the four of us, Jeep, with a couple of quarts of black coffee.” Ellery gave him a ten-dollar bill. “Phil, you hole up in that alcove across the hall and keep your eyes open. This looks like a long session.”

At 1 A.M. David Waldo was sitting up in the armchair with a blanket around him — although it was a warm night and he had swallowed two cups of scalding coffee he kept complaining of the chill. But there was color in his face and he seemed touched by their solicitude.

“Now you understand, Mr. Waldo,” Ellery said, setting his cup down on the bureau, “I haven’t any idea where this is going. Let’s begin where the case did. Did you know Luke MacCaby?”

“Not to talk to, Mr. Queen.”

“Does that mean you did see him occasionally?”

“Once or twice, years ago, on the street. He was pointed out to me.”

“By whom?”

“A storekeeper, I think. Maybe it was Jeff Hernaberry — the sporting goods store.” He was stumbling, and Ellery kept smiling at him. “Yes, it was Hernaberry.”

“MacCaby never had a suit made by you or your brother? Or any mending, cleaning, pressing—?”

“No.”

“Do you recall anybody ever discussing MacCaby with you?”

“Jeff Hernaberry—”

“Aside from Jeff Hernaberry.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Not even Otis Holderfield?”

“Well... no... I don’t think so. No, sir. Maybe Mr. Holderfield might have mentioned something to Jonathan—”

The tailor’s voice trembled, and Ellery quickly left Otis Holderfield. He asked a few more questions, more to restore Waldo’s confidence than out of any hope, and then he switched to John Spencer Hart.

“No, Mr. Hart had his clothes made in Boston, I think. I think I once told you that.”

“Yes, the day I bought those bathing trunks from you. How about his pressing?”

“No, sir. Mr. Hart had his own vallay did that. Everybody knew that. We never did any work for him.”

“Were any of the employees of the Wrightsville Dye Works customers of yours?”

“Dye works. Well, there was George Churchward, the plant manager, he had two or three suits made at one time. But we didn’t do his pressing and cleaning.”

“Did Churchward ever mention Mr. Hart?”

“Not that I remember.”

“Did he ever mention MacCaby?”

“I don’t think so...”

Ellery abandoned John Spencer Hart after a while and brought up Thomas Hardy Anderson. Waldo reiterated his ignorance. He had not known Anderson except as one of the town characters; Anderson had never done any odd jobs for the brothers; neither David nor, to his knowledge, Jonathan had ever given Anderson any money; they had had no contact with Anderson’s cronies, Toyfell and Jacquard; and so on.

He fared no better on the subject of Nicole Jacquard.

When he came to Sebastian Dodd, however, Waldo’s replies were meatier. Yes, David and Jonathan had been patients of Dr. Dodd’s for years. Nothing of any importance — their yearly bout of flu, Jonathan’s touch of rose fever every June — nothing important, that is, except their insomnia, which was very important; the doctor prescribed nembutal and they had taken it rather more regularly than he had advised, but a tailor was like a fiddle player, his hands were his livelihood, and if he didn’t sleep they shook so he couldn’t ply a needle for beans. Oh, yes, they’d thought a lot of Doc Dodd; salt of the earth, right smart and obliging. And then, it was convenient having him just across the street—

“When did you see Dodd last?” interrupted Ellery.

“Let’s see. When did he die, again?”

“Very early in the morning of April 27th. A Thursday, before dawn.”

“Thursday. Yes, I saw him two days before he died.”

“On Tuesday the 25th? Where, Mr. Waldo?”

“In Mr. Holderfield’s office.”

So that was where Dodd had been late that morning. It was the morning of the trapped bird, and later Ellery had gone over to Dakin’s office to pick up the second duplicate key made by Millard Peague and when he had returned to the house Dodd was gone.

“You saw Dodd in Holderfield’s office two days before Dodd’s death. What was he doing there, Mr. Waldo?”

“Making his will.”

“Oh. — What were you doing there?”

“Witnessing it, Mr. Queen. My brother and me. Mr. Holderfield phoned down to our store and said he needed two more witnesses to a will, would Jonathan and me come up. We came up and Dr. Dodd was sitting there, looking peaked. Mr. Holderfield called in his secretary, that Flossie Bushmill, Dr. Dodd said the paper in front of him was his will, he signed it, and Floss Bushmill and my brother and I signed as witnesses. Then we went back downstairs, I mean Jonathan and me. Whole thing didn’t take five minutes. Course, the will was all made out beforehand.”

Ellery switched to Otis Holderfield. He asked a great many questions: about the Waldos’ relationship with the dead lawyer, when they had got to know him and under what circumstances; he asked Waldo to recall each occasion on which he had been in contact with Holderfield, each consultation about new clothes, each fitting, each delivery, and the substance of Holderfield’s remarks in every case, to the best of Waldo’s recollection. He brought Waldo up to the Saturday of Holderfield’s death and went over the day like a doctor searching for broken bones, feeling for some splinter of fact, some detail, some incident not known to him. He was sure one lurked in David Waldo’s memory; at least one. It was infantile to feel sure on the basis of nothing whatever, but he felt sure.

And he found nothing.

Waldo began to nod. His lids, yellowswollen with exhaustion, would crawl down over his eyes like grubs over two rotting berries, then they would draw back with a start.

“Are you too tired to go on? Would you like to sleep a bit now?”

“I couldn’t. Run out of nembutal. It’s the light now. Please turn the light down.”

Ellery put the newspaper back over the lamp and went to the door. Phil Plaskow was in the alcove by the elevator and Jorking was down the hall near a door through which loud, mixed laughter was coming. Jorking came back quickly.

“Broadminded hotel. That’s quite a party going on in there. How’s it coming, Mr. Queen?”

“By way of Okinawa. Jeep, do you suppose you could rustle more coffee?”

“There’s some left in the container. Phil, is it still hot?”

“Warm.”

Ellery shut the door and held the container to Waldo’s lips. The tailor gulped, choked.

“No more!”

“Then let’s start all over again.”

Waldo moaned.

MacCaby.

Hart.

Anderson.

Jacquard.

Dodd.

Holderfield.

Jonathan Waldo.

The room was beginning to feel unstable; the floor developed a tilt.

MacCaby.

Hart.

Put two men in a hotel room for a few hours, thought Ellery, and it begins to smell like a tomb.

Anderson.

Jacquard...

At one point Waldo was sick and Ellery had to take him to the bathroom. He was sweating himself and the floor was really unreliable.

MacCaby.

Hart.

Anderson...

They had worked their way back to Dodd again and Ellery was saying through his teeth, “The time you witnessed Dodd’s will, Mr. Waldo. Do you recall Dodd’s saying anything to Holderfield, or Holderfield’s saying anything to Dodd, about...”

“No,” whimpered David Waldo. “Let me alone.”

“... about some third person, say? Or about being afraid? Or about anything that might have struck you at the time as being queer in any way?”

“You’re just trying to kill me. I answered you a thousand times. You’re killing me.”

“I’m trying to keep you alive. Think, man! Anything like that? Answer me!” Ellery shook him.

“What was the question?”

Ellery had to think a little himself. Then he repeated it.

“I can’t remember.” Waldo’s eyes were brimming over with self-pity. “How can a man remember things like that? In the middle of the night?”

“You’ve got to!”

“We just came upstairs...”

“You came upstairs, you and Jonathan. And—?”

“We came upstairs when Mr. Holderfield phoned down. It was three days before Doc Dodd died. There was my brother Jonathan, there was me, there was that floozy—”

“Yes,” sighed Ellery. It was no use. The man simply had nothing to offer. Another dead end. Might just as well—

“It was three days before Doc Dodd died,” Waldo said miserably. “My brother, me...”

“What did you say, Mr. Waldo?”

“You’ve got no right holdin’ me here. I haven’t done anything. I’m a citizen—”

“Yes, sure you are and we don’t and you haven’t, but what did you just say, Mr. Waldo? How many days before Dodd died?”

“Three.”

“Three?”

“Three!”

“I wish you’d be consistent,” said Ellery fretfully. “Aren’t you making a mistake, Waldo? That would have made it Monday. You said before it was two days before Dodd’s death that you witnessed his will. On Tuesday. Make up your mind, will you?”

Waldo kept blinking. “My head’s goin’ around, Mr. Queen. That’s what’s the matter.”

“Which was it, Waldo — two days before Dodd’s death, or three?”

“Two... or three?” muttered the tailor. “Let me see, now...”

“The day Holderfield phoned you to come up to his office to witness Dodd’s will. Was that on Monday or on Tuesday of the week the doctor died?”

To Ellery’s consternation, Waldo began to cry. “You keep pesterin’ me!” he wept angrily. “I’m in no condition, you can see that! I can’t think. I can’t!”

Ellery braced himself. “Of course you can’t, Mr. Waldo. But try. Don’t fall asleep!” He pounded the little man’s back and Waldo’s eyes blinked open. “It’s a small point, but those are the ones that bother me. Waldo, was it Tuesday or Monday?”

“What difference does it make? One day or another...”

“Waldo. You witnessed Dodd’s will. Was it two days before the accident you did that, or three? Tuesday or Monday?”

“Chnnnh...?”

“Waldo, I’ll snap that skinny windpipe of yours with my bare hands if you fall asleep now! Tuesday or Monday?”

“It was...” Waldo’s voice cracked with hate. “It was... both days,” he said triumphantly. “Yes, sir, that’s it! Both days. Now I’ve answered your question and that’s that. I stand on my rights. I’m goin’—”

“Both days? Now, Waldo, that’s not very likely, is it? You’re just making that up to satisfy me. Nobody witnesses a will two days in succession. You’re not getting out of here! Answer me!”

Waldo’s teeth rattled. “Both days, I tell you. We witnessed it twice. I remember it clear as anything now, Mr. Queen. Can’t we stop now? I’m going to be sick again. I just feel it—”

“Dr. Dodd’s will witnessed twice? Was Dodd there both times? On Monday, then again on the following day?”

“That’s right, and Mr. Holderfield called us up both times. Jonathan and me. That no-good secretary witnessed both times, too. You don’t have to believe me. Go ahead, ask her. She’ll tell... you...”

“You’re certain of this.”

Waldo did not reply.

“Waldo! You’re positive it was two successive days?”

Waldo’s head rolled. “Wha...”

“Positive! Certain! Sure!” Ellery stooped over him, a drop of perspiration falling from the end of his nose into Waldo’s thin gray hair. “Waldo?... Waldo.”

The little tailor’s chin was buried in the blanket. His skin was waxy with exhaustion.

Ellery pulled on his coat. The noise from the party down the hall had stopped. Waldo’s snuffly breathing was very loud.

Ellery opened the door. Jorking had found a chair somewhere and he was nodding against the corridor wall. He got up, yawning. “What time is it, sir?”

“3:40. Waldo’s fallen asleep in the chair, Jeep; don’t disturb him.” Phil Plaskow joined them from across the hall. “I suggest you boys start working in shifts, one resting while the other stands guard. Both of you had better go into the room with him. I want at least one pair of eyes working at all times. Order meals in the room and park here till you hear from Dakin or me. I may be back and I may not. In any event, stick with Waldo till you’re called off. I don’t think he’ll give you any trouble.”

Ellery remained outside the door until he heard the lock turn over.

Then he rang for the elevator.

The night wind had a streamlike coolness that was delicious after the heated air of the hotel room. Ellery opened the Buick’s window to its widest.

He drove slowly along the deserted highway.

The persistency of twoness in this case was certainly remarkable. Either-or. Obverse or reverse. Even the rhyme had two versions. The last line of the second version had two punctuations. And now there had been two witnessings of Dodd’s will, on two successive days.

In any case each suspect may be two-faced, each piece of testimony may be double talk, each act may conceal a double-cross, each motive may be double-dyed, each clue double-edged... right enough; that was what you always kept in mind. But here alternativeness had reached into death itself. Each death offered two faces, the story of each victim was twice-told depending on the twin choice of viewpoints.

The eyes of a car glared in his rear-vision mirror, getting rapidly larger. Ellery slowed down further and the car rushed by into the darkness ahead.

...It was as if the case as a whole, the complete fabric of confusion, concealed a double meaning. A deadly sampler with its secret woven in.

Some time later a car tore past again, this time headed the other way.

Ellery paid no attention.

But it was the same car.

And a few minutes later the fast car was northbound again, pulling up rapidly behind the Buick until a hundred yards separated them.

Now it followed meekly, keeping its distance.

Some time passed before the car behind began to close up. Its lights annoyed Ellery into alertness. But suddenly the lights swung away and he forgot them.

The second car had turned off into a side road, a dirt lane. Its lights went out, then its motor, a few yards from the turnoff under the lee of an embankment.

Ellery kicked his brake and the Buick squealed with indignation. He had almost overrun a roadblock.

He was on the ten-mile stretch of detour between Connhaven and Fyfield, on a poor-relation county road whose two ragged lanes had been further chewed by the teeth of the steam shovel tractors and big gravel- and dirt-carting trucks which were working on the state highway paralleling it a few hundred yards away. Shoring, sections of pipe, wooden trestles, the jointed carcass of a small bridge were stockpiled along the soft shoulders. Flarepots were everywhere.

The two trestles which barred the road stood side by side. Each said DANGER.

Ellery stopped the car.

He had come south on this road just before midnight and it had been open all the way. The same clutter along the shoulders, flare-pots flickering, work stopped for the night and workmen gone.

Had they come back to resume work in the middle of the night?

Ellery turned off his lights, let his eyes adjust to the dark.

But aside from the smoky little flames at road level there was no sign of activity ahead, and the road was straight — to judge from the line of pots — for as far as he could see.

Boys, probably; some country kids’ notion of a Saturday night prank.

The road here was hemmed in by crowding woods. He could hear crickets and bullfrogs. But no human sound, and there was no light anywhere except from the pots.

Still, he felt uneasy.

Ellery turned on his lights again. He felt a definite diffidence about getting out of the Buick. There was something hostile in the dark and sibilant countryside with its hundreds of flaming little eyes. But then he became angry with himself and he opened the door and stepped onto the road.

He went forward in the path of the headlights rather quickly.

As he heaved on the righthand trestle, he thought he heard a flat secretive sound behind him, like a footfall.

Ellery turned.

But there were only the Buick, breathing patiently, and the dark road behind.

He pushed the other trestle to the left side of the road and hurried back to the car.

He jumped in, pulled the door to, and released the handbrake.

As he began to straighten up he heard the sound again.

This time it was close by. By the car. By the driver’s seat.

He hurled himself over sidewise, knowing as he did so that he was too late and that the stabbing glint the corner of his left eye had caught in the light of his dashboard was the reflection of a revolver barrel as it flashed over the rim of the open window at his elbow.

He heard two explosions at the same time that a searing agony tore through his left side.

And in the splinter of time between the two shots and the blow of the upholstered seat Ellery underwent a profound experience. It was as if the lightning of death had ripped away the whole concealing roof of the structure, exposing the truth inside for a timeless moment before the darkness closed down.

Ellery returned to life in a slow mangle of images and pain. When he opened his eyes there were lights before them and it was some time before he realized that he was lying on his right side on the car seat and that the lights came from the dashboard. He tried to sit up and after a while he managed it by pushing with his right arm; his left was a dangling uselessness and his whole left side was in flames. When he had succeeded in getting upright he inspected himself. From his shoulder down the left side of his jacket was stained a lively color.

Everything went dark again.

The second time he came to he was still in a sitting position and through the pain he was able to take note of his surroundings. Nothing seemed to have changed since the episode began. The world was still in that talkative darkness, the flarepots still twinkled, the trestles were where he had left them. He tried to lift his left arm to see what time it was but the arm refused to move. Then he became conscious of pain in it and soon the arm was on fire, too. But he was unable to make it function. The stain on his sleeve and side had spread considerably. He knew a warm adhesive satisfaction.

The motor was running. The emergency was off. He wondered if he could do it and then he knew he must and he got his feet in position and his right hand on the wheel and he began to drive.

Later he was turning with caution into Wrightsville’s State Street. The night was backing away before a pale and nervous dawn; the elms lining the street looked pleased, and Ellery looked pleased as he parked the Buick before the County Court House. He turned off the ignition and the lights, edged over to the righthand door, and got out. He walked carefully into the alley toward the green twin lights of the police station and on the steps he tripped and fell on his left side. He felt the rip of coagulation and a warm flow. From where he lay he saw with faraway interest a new stain begin.

He tried to rise, thought better of it, and crawled to the front door. The problem was to get the door open, but to do that he had to support himself with his left arm and that was out of the question. He frowned over the problem for some time. He could raise himself with his right arm but then he had no way of completing the action. Finally he rolled over on his back before the door and struck it with his right fist.

After a long time the door opened and a baldpated man with a rim of black hair was looking down at him, startled.

“Dakin. Get Dakin,” said Ellery clearly. He tried to look reassuringly back at Lieutenant Gobbin; but then it was night again.

When he came to this time he was on a couch looking at a photograph of J. Edgar Hoover, half of whose face was spread alarmingly behind the edge of a water cooler, and a man in a collarless shirt held together at the neck with a large gold collar button was winding bandage around his left arm.

“Here he is, Dakin,” said the man with a grin.

A man who had been standing at a window came to Ellery and Ellery saw that it was Chief Dakin, in a suit of old rose ski pajamas and a black rubber policeman’s cape.

“You’re Coroner Grupp,” said Ellery in a happy voice, as if he had made a delightful discovery.

“How do you feel?”

Ellery saw that he was naked from the waist up. The skin over the ribs on his left side was a brilliant yellow-green-purple-cerise and his left arm was bandaged to the shoulder.

“Not good,” he said.

“Drink this.”

Ellery swallowed something foul. He sank back, tired.

“He’s all right,” he heard Coroner Grupp say a long distance away. “Mostly shock and loss of blood. I’d get him to the hospital.”

“No, no hospital,” said Ellery. “I won’t have it.”

“He won’t have it,” said Dakin.

“I’ve got something to do, Dakin.”

“He’s got something to do,” said Dakin.

“Well, then keep him warm and don’t let him get up for a few hours, Dakin.”

The next thing Ellery knew Dakin was dressed and there was sun in the room. He was lying under a blanket. His arm beat like a drum and his torso felt flayed.

“Feel any better?” asked Dakin.

Ellery tested himself cautiously and found to his joy that he could sit up on the couch. “Oh, wonderful.”

“I’ll bet. I’ve talked to Jorking and Plaskow on the phone and they didn’t know a thing about this.”

“How is Waldo?”

“All right. How come you were wearing this?” Dakin held up an odd-looking garment.

Ellery took it. “Hunch.” A splat of shapeless metal was imbedded in it. “No wonder I felt as if I were kicked by a horse. Right over the heart. Why, Dakin, I carry a few odds and ends in my bag and last night I felt near enough to the payoff to warrant putting on a bulletproof vest before I drove to Connhaven. Too bad it’s sleeveless. How big a hole was blasted in my arm?”

“Big enough. The gun couldn’t have been more than a few inches from you when it went off. Did you see who fired the shots?”

“No.”

“I thought Fire Chief Apworth or me was tagged for the last killing,” said Dakin dryly. “How did it go? Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief? Or’s the game changed to Ring Around the Rosie?”

“It’s the same game, Dakin,” said Ellery with a faint smile. “You see, I’d forgotten I was a chief, too. To one person in this town anyway.” And he was silent.

Dakin grunted and went to the window. “When you’re ready to talk American let me know.”

Ellery lay back, tidying his thoughts.

Finally he said, “Dakin, I know the whole story.” Dakin turned. “It’s an incredible story, and yet it’s a very ordinary story, too. Simple as a kiddie game. The only thing is, you have to see it. Do you suppose Chalanski’s up yet?”

“What?” Dakin sounded helpless.

“Because I think we’d better have Chalanski in on this. There’s a great deal both of you have to understand before we can do what’s called for. Would you phone him to come right over — and bring along one of his shirts? I’m afraid this one’s a bit messy.”

They closed in on the Dodd house in three cars. One shot around to the rear to cover the kitchen door, garden, and alley of the blue stucco apartment building. Another discharged three officers at the curb; one took his stand at the front gate, one ran up to the front porch, and the third strolled across the street to the blackened rubble where the Waldo house had stood. From the third car came Ellery, his left arm in a sling, Chief Dakin, Prosecutor Chalanski, and two plainclothesmen. By the time they reached the porch the patrolman from the second car, Officer Dodie Gotch, had the front door open and was standing just inside the hall with one hand clamped on Essie Pingarn’s petrified elbow. Mrs. Fowler was at the rear of the hall, frantically fumbling with the control box of her hearing aid.

Rima and Ken were at their Sunday breakfast. Both got up slowly, staring at Ellery’s arm, Dakin, Chalanski, the two big plainclothesmen with drawn guns, one of whom blocked the doorway to the hall, the other moving over to the kitchen door and setting his back against it.

“Ellery.”

“We found your note last night—”

“What’s happened to your arm?”

“What is this?”

Ellery lowered himself carefully into a chair, smiling across the table. “I don’t get shot at every day, Rima. I know you’ll understand.”

“Shot.”

“What’s this all about?”

“Why, Ken,” said Ellery, “it’s about something I wish it weren’t. I’m afraid you won’t like it either and if I thought it would do any good I’d ask you to leave.”

Ken blinked. He glanced at Rima. But there was no enlightenment there. There was nothing there except pallor.

“It’s about a child’s game,” said Ellery. “A harmless game, or it was until a diseased mind used it as a pattern for a series of murders. Rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief; doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief. Until last night the first seven deaths occurred on schedule. In the early hours of this morning, the eighth was attempted on a detour between Connhaven and Fyfield. Somebody put up a road-block, got behind me, waited until I stopped, then stuck a gun over the rim of my window and pulled the trigger twice six inches from my heart. Number eight didn’t come off because for no good reason I wore a bulletproof vest last night. So ‘chief’ didn’t die.

“But the attempt on my life wasn’t a total loss. It identified me as a ‘chief.’ But I’m not a chief. Or am I? Then I remembered that for one short period, in this one town, to exactly one person, I was. It was a gag, of course, but any specialist in mental illness will tell you that the disturbed mind has no sense of humor. The one person who knew me as ‘chief,’ therefore, is the one person who could have plugged me. But why resort to these circumlocutions? Let’s name names — shall we, Rima?”

There was no color in her cheeks at all.

“Shall we what?” roared Ken.

Ellery got up. “Ken, Rima is the only one in Wrightsville or anywhere else who’s ever called me, or thought of me as, chief.”

Ken blinked and blinked. “That makes Rima... what?”

“There have been seven deaths in Wrightsville,” Ellery said to him gently, “and all seven followed the child’s counting game. First a man who was revealed as rich died. Then a man who was revealed as poor died. Then a man who was known as a beggar as well as a drunkard — what price heredity? Then a man who was known as a thief. Then a doctor, a lawyer, a merchant. In that exact order. And finally the attempt on my life... ‘chief.’ Since it was Rima who tried to kill ‘chief,’ it was Rima who also killed merchant, lawyer, doctor, thief, beggar, poor man and rich man. That’s what it makes Rima, Ken.”

“Wait a minute,” Ken said. “Wait a minute.” He seemed to be trying to concentrate. “Last night. She was home. With me.”

“I’m afraid,” began Prosecutor Chalanski in a delicate way, “your testimony as her husband, Dr. Winship...”

“Just between us, Ken,” said Chief Dakin dryly, “can you swear she didn’t leave you snorin’ last night, take your car, follow Mr. Queen to Connhaven, ambush him on his return trip, and slip back into bed before you woke up this morning?”

Ken sat down suddenly.

“The way we see it, Dr. Winship,” said Chalanski with a slight cough, “your wife is... I mean, that child’s game business... after all. Er, mental trouble is the only explanation that makes sense to me — at least at this stage of the game. I assure you she’ll get every consideration from my office consistent with—”

“But you can’t be serious,” muttered Ken. He looked up, and then he sprang to his feet, shouting. “You’re all crazy! Making out a case against my wife on the strength of some kid nonsense dreamed up by a deluded paranoid! I’ll sue for false arrest, defamation of character—!”

He stopped. A plainclothesman had appeared in the hall and was making surreptitious signals to Chief Dakin.

“It’s all right, Charlie. What is it?”

“See you a minute?”

Dakin went into the hall. The plainclothesman talked to him in an undertone. In the dining room the only thing that happened was that Kenneth Winship moved around the table to stand beside Rima. As he moved the detective at the kitchen door moved, too. Rima was holding on to the back of her chair, eyes shut. Chalanski’s lips were pursed, but there was no tune. And Ellery shifted to the other foot.

Dakin said, “All right, Charlie, have it towed in,” and at his words Chalanski stopped pursing, Ellery straightened, and Rima opened her eyes.

Ken was looking wildly at the chief of police.

Dakin was back in the doorway, squared off. Chalanski hurried to him and after a moment Ellery joined them. Dakin whispered something, smiling a little. Ellery said, in an exhausted way, “Then that’s it,” and stepped by the two men into the hall as if there were no longer any reason for remaining.

“What in the name of hell,” asked the doctor thickly, “is going on here?”

Chalanski’s sharp face was settled. “You may as well know now, Dr. Winship. Comparison between fresh tire marks found near the scene of the attempt on Mr. Queen’s life and the tires of your Packard show they’re identical. Since you have only one car, that places your wife where Mr. Queen stopped two bullets. No, it’s not airtight, but I imagine a few days’ steady grilling at the jail will get the whole story out of her. I don’t have to tell you, Doctor, that she’ll be protected to the best of our ability. The town’s been very nervous about these killings lately and there’s a lot of ugly talk. However, I’m pretty sure we can handle any trouble that may arise. So don’t worry about that.” The prosecutor growled suddenly, “Oh, come on, Dakin, get this over with.”

Dakin pulled a paper out of his pocket. “I have here a warrant for the arrest of Mrs. Rima Winship, nee Rima Anderson, on a charge — I guess, Mr. Chalanski, I better read this the way it’s written?”

Chalanski agreed.

Dakin began to read in a colorless voice. He droned on and on. Kenneth Winship’s mouth was slightly open, his breathing noisy. Rima’s eyes were closed again.

Then Dakin was saying, “Take her in, Crabbe.”

The big detective near the Winships sprang, his shoulder catching Ken’s and sending Ken spinning to one side; he almost fell. Before he could recover his balance there was a click, and Rima was staring down at her wrists.

“Come on.” The detective clamped his hand about her upper arm and began to hustle her across the room. He looked as if he were holding her aloft with one hand.

Rima cried out at the pain, once.

And then, somehow, Dr. Kenneth Winship was in the doorway before them, arms spread to their widest.

“Dakin.”

“Don’t make this tougher on yourself, Kenny,” said Chief Dakin.

“Dakin...”

“There’s a man behind you with a gun. Don’t be a fool. One side.”

“Take the handcuffs off her. She didn’t do it.”

“I know, Kenny. Come on, out of the way.”

“She didn’t do it, I tell you! I ought to know! She knows — that’s why she’s kept quiet! She didn’t use that car last night, Dakin — and she’s guessed who did!”

“She didn’t, huh?” said Dakin patiently. “Then who did, Kenny? The man in the moon?”

“I did. I shot Queen. I was behind the whole thing. I killed five of them. Anderson, Jacquard, Doc Dodd, Holderfield, Waldo. I planned it, I tell you! The whole bloody thing.”

“I had to do it this way, Rima,” Ellery said. “There was no proof. I had only one available weapon, Ken’s love for you. So we rigged it, Rima — the impressive attack in force, your carefully staged arrest, the timed entrance of Charlie Brady with the fictitious information that the tire marks matched... there weren’t any tire marks... It was crude, and it was cruel, but Rima, there just wasn’t any other way to establish Ken’s guilt.”

The house was quiet, as if another death had taken place and the people gathered in Algonquin Avenue watching in silence were waiting for a casket to be carried out. As perhaps they were. Rima lay on her bed immovably.

“Ken thought he was going after the only thing in the world he wanted,” continued Ellery. “He failed to get it. But, in failing, he found you. That was a great moment in his life, Rima, and if murder were erasable, like pencil marks, then in finding you Ken might have found himself. But murder can’t be wiped away. Ken found out something else. Past a certain point the murderer loses control of events and events begin to control him. It was too late, Rima.

“And it was too late for you, Rima. Sooner or later you’d have seen that something was terribly wrong. Sooner or later you’d have suspected what it was. And eventually you’d have known.” He had prepared himself to say a great deal more, about how young she was, about the curative properties of time, and so on, but her withdrawn silence, an unapproachable quality in her suffering, like the sinking of a bird, made him stop. He rose undecidedly. Finally he said, “Rima, is there anything I can do?”

The two-edged irony of his question struck him as he stood over her unresponsive little figure. But then, he thought, sighing as he left her, his Wrightsville “triumphs” had never left anything but the taste of mockery in his mouth.

At least there was consistency in that!