Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 120, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 733 & 734, September/October 2002

Driver’s Seat by Ellery Queen

Ellery Queen, editor, frequently published the work of Ellery Queen, writer. In fact, more than eighty short stories and radio plays hearing the Queen byline appeared in EQMM during Ellery Queen’s tenure as editor. Many of these stories were reprints even then, and subsequent editors have continue the tradition of reprinting Queen. A few of the Ellery Queen stories were ghosted by other mystery writers, but this tale is the genuine article...

There were four Brothers brothers until Big Dave died. And then there I were three, and that was a bad day for all of them. With Big Dave in the driver’s seat there had never been any question of where they were going. The withdrawal of his guiding arm left Archibald, Everett, and Charlton Brothers steering with their noses. They were bound to land in a ditch sooner or later. Big Dave’s widow saw to it that it was sooner...

But that is the story.

It was the afternoon of the semiannual board meeting of The Four Brothers Mining Company. The widow had inherited her husband’s quarter holdings in the closed corporation, so now — for the fourth consecutive time — she occupied Big Dave’s big chair. And she almost filled it. She was a large young woman with long legs and very blond hair in albuminous swirls, and her figure was as rich and ornamented as a French pastry.

The three brothers did not mind her presence; it gave a fillip to what had always been a tedious necessity. Or, at least, Archibald and Everett did not mind; about Charlton it was difficult to say, for he had the mummified exterior and dyspeptic potential of a hot pepper drying on a wall. But Archibald was like a hairless Santa Claus, leanly ruddy and roaring, the nearly visible pack on his back crammed with long-legged blonde memories; and he amused himself by tossing his gusty gifts at Daisy Brothers across the board table as if she were his wife’s upstairs maid and his wife were at Newport. Everett toyed with the widow typically, in smiling silence; he was a mouth-smiler, this Everett Brothers, with cold gray skin and blunt eyes.

But the widow paid no attention to either Archibald or Everett; she did not even appear to be listening to the crabby nose tones of Charlton, who was presiding.

Until Charlton snapped, “If there’s no further new business, I’ll entertain a motion—”

Then Daisy Brothers looked away from the oil painting of Big Dave above Charlton’s skimpy hair, and she said: “But there is.”

Archibald stopped frisking, Everett’s smile took on an edge of interest, Charlton raised his sandpapery brows almost audibly. They looked at one another as if the polished table had given tongue; and then they looked at her.

“The Four Brothers Mining Company was organized with one hundred shares of stock divided into four equal blocks,” said Big Dave’s widow. “That is, each of you and Dave put up twenty-five thousand dollars for twenty-five shares. Today the corporation’s holdings are worth a hundred times the original investment.”

“Hear, hear,” roared Archibald.

“Yes, yes, Daisy,” grunted Charlton, beginning to rise.

But Everett, still smiling, put his hand on his desiccated brother’s arm.

“Since Dave’s death,” continued the young widow, “you three lads have gone haywire. My irresistible brother-in-law Archibald here, for instance, he’s been taken to the cleaners by a big parade of cuties. Everett, you’ve gone over your wiseguy head in hock to the bookies and gamblers. And Charlton, you’ve got a headache to bellyache about for a change; without Dave to tell you what to do, you’ve lost your shirt in the stock market. And in the meantime your wives have kept throwing money around as if the company mines diamonds instead of coal.

“So for quite a while now each one of you has been in a nice deep hole. And for quite a while now each one of you has been trying to dig himself out by selling part of his stock in The Four Brothers Mining Company.”

The brothers made little noises.

Daisy Brothers opened her bag and consulted a slip of paper. “Archibald, the great lover: Arch, you’ve sold nine of your twenty-five shares. Everett, the big brain: Ev, you’ve sold seven of your twenty-five. And little Napoleon — Charlton, I mean — you’ve sold ten of yours.”

There was a silence. Then Archibald laughed. “I never knew a head went with those shoulders.”

Everett said nothing, but his smile was thoughtful.

“So I wasn’t the only one,” rasped Charlton, glaring about at his brothers. “Daisy, what’s the point?”

“In the original agreement you and Dave all signed,” replied the widow briskly, “there’s a certain clause that was put in to prevent just what’s happened. The clause says that if any partner in the corporation gets stock control, he can buy out the others at the original cost of their stock.”

The brothers jerked.

Charlton showed his spiked teeth. “What about it? No one’s got stock control of the company!”

“Wrong, brother-in-law,” said the sister-in-law. “The shares you three sold were bought through dummies... by me. Your ten, Charlton. Your seven, Everett. Your nine, Archibald. That’s twenty-six shares I bought up from the three of you. And I own Dave’s twenty-five. Add it up. It’s fifty-one, and it gives me legal control.

“And,” said the woman, very gently, “I’m exercising my rights under the agreement.” She rummaged in her bag. “I have here,” she said, “three certified checks. A sixteen-thousand-dollar check for your remaining shares, Archibald. An eighteen-thousand-dollar check for your remaining eighteen shares, Everett. And a fifteen-thousand-dollar check for your remaining fifteen shares, Charlton. Pony up that stock.”

When Archibald found his voice, it came out blasting. “Sixteen thousand! Why, my sixteen shares are worth more than a million and a half! Do you think you can buy me out at one cent on the dollar?”

“I’ll let your lawyer answer that question.”

Charlton Brothers was purple to the tips of his ears. “Everett,” he spluttered, “do you remember anything like that in the original agreement? Is this — is she right?”

Everett nodded, his eyes on the widow.

Charlton snarled. With his pale lips curled, he looked like an aroused vegetable. “Why, you cheap...! You don’t think you’re going to get away with this!”

“Shut up, Charlton.” Archibald came around the table to slip his arm about her shoulders. “Why don’t you and I go somewhere, baby, and... talk this over?”

She got up so suddenly that the handsome brother almost lost his balance. “I’ll give you three exactly one week to let your lawyers convince you that you’d be crazy to try to break that agreement in court. They’ll tell you you haven’t a prayer, but I guess you’ll want to be told.” She dropped the three checks into her bag, and turned to go.

But now Everett was on his feet, and he spoke for the first time. “One question, Daisy.”

“Yes?”

“Why?”

Daisy Brothers leaned on the table, and its high gloss reflected something bitter, and triumphant, too. “Big Dave took me out of the strip stable in the Boom Boom Club. He was a good businessman, Dave was. He knew a bargain when he saw one. He bought me for a two-buck license and a five-dollar bill to the J. P. and he always said I turned out the best deal he’d ever made. Well, he was right. He gave me respectability, and I gave him the ten happiest years of his life.

“And I’d have been happy, too — if not for you three and your grand dames. From the way you and your wives have treated me, anybody’d think Dave married a dead whale. No class. Didn’t know all the forks. Took my degree at Roseland, and postgraduate work stripping in front of a bunch of drunks. It wasn’t as if I didn’t care. I tried, hard. I tried not to shame you. I even took lessons in how to come into a room without reaching for a zipper. But I was poison... If it was just you jerks, I wouldn’t have minded so much. But those high-class babes of yours really gave it to me, and that I couldn’t take. For Dave’s sake I couldn’t take it. I was his wife, and his wife deserved to be treated by his family like a lady, even if she wasn’t one. I made up my mind that if I ever got the chance to pay you back...”

Big Dave’s widow straightened up, breathing as if she had been running. But when she spoke again, her voice flowed as evenly as a high-voltage wire.

“One week from today you three be at my house between two and three in the afternoon. With your stock.”

Ellery found his father standing outside the David Brothers mansion on the East River. It had been raining since morning and Ellery had to splash through puddles on the driveway before he could join the Inspector under the porte-cochere.

“Was this trip necessary?” grumbled Ellery, shaking the rain from his hat. “And if so, why couldn’t the taxi deposit me decently under the roof?” The protected part of the driveway was roped off.

“Tire tracks,” said Inspector Queen. “I thought you’d want to sit in on this, Ellery. It’s murder, it’s nasty, and... I don’t know.”

Ellery perked up and looked at the tire marks. “Who, how, when, why, and so forth?”

“Mrs. Daisy Brothers, ex-club stripper. Stabbed to death between two and three this P.M. by one of her three brothers-in-law. I’ve got the whole story from her lawyer.” And the Inspector told Ellery of the Four Brothers Mining Company board meeting of the previous week and Big Dave’s widow’s stock coup. “So I guess they found she was right when she told them they’d be wasting their time and money trying to beat her in court — and as a result she’s lying in there in her library, still with the three certified checks, the deadest dame you ever saw. She was alone in the house — she’d given up all her servants when her husband died and she’s been living here ever since like a hermit, doing her own work.”

“What about these tire marks?”

“Three cars rolled up here one at a time,” said Inspector Queen with a sigh. “The marks identify the cars as a Cadillac, a Rolls-Royce, and a Chevrolet — and from the overlapping of the treads, they came in that order. The Caddy is a ’fifty-one town car belonging to the finance company — I mean Charlton Brothers; the Rolls is a secondhand job Everett Brothers picked up cheap in London last year; the Chevy is what Archibald Brothers runs around in when he’s calling on his girlfriends or otherwise doesn’t want to be noticed by some vulgar columnist.

“I’ve sweated the three gents and they’ve admitted coming here between two and three today, separately and alone, about fifteen-twenty minutes apart.”

“And their stories are?” murmured Ellery.

“Identical. It’s collusion, of course; they were all ready for me. They probably drew lots, and the brother who got tagged for the party is being covered up by the other two. Each one says she was already dead when he got here, and that he got scared and ran.”

“They’d have to say that,” said Ellery reflectively, “otherwise how would they account for their stocks not having been turned over to her? Let’s have a look at the lady.”

Big Dave’s widow was a mess. Whichever brother had stabbed her with the hunting-knife letter opener from Big Dave’s desk, he had wielded it with passion and without finesse, many times.

“But,” as the Inspector remarked, “he wasn’t out for a medal in technique. The things people do for money!”

“What’s this?” Ellery had picked up a man’s raincoat with the eraser end of a pencil. The raincoat was slightly damp, the lower part of the right sleeve was rain-soaked, and the front of the coat was smeared untidily and redly. It was of medium size, not new.

“We found it rolled up under that leather chair,” said the Inspector. “She fought for her life and he got her blood all over his coat. Rather than risk being caught or even seen with the coat in this condition, he left it here.”

“A bad mistake,” said Ellery.

“You think so? You won’t find any identifying marks, the pockets were cleaned out even of lint and dust, all three brothers owned raincoats like this at one time or other, and they all wear a medium size. Each one denies it’s his coat, and each one says he can’t produce his own coat because he discarded it long ago. So we don’t get at him through elimination.”

“There are other ways,” remarked Ellery.

“Yes,” said his father with a shrug, “we’ll do a sweat, hair, and dust analysis, but they’re not always conclusive. I have a hunch, son, we won’t get any more out of the coat than we did out of the knife, which doesn’t show a print.”

“I disagree.”

“You see something I missed?” exclaimed Inspector Queen. “In the coat?”

“Yes, Dad. Something that indicates exactly which brother killed Big Dave’s widow. And with nothing up my sleeve,” said Ellery with a grin, “although with something definitely up his.

“Look at this coat. It’s slightly damp from the rain, but the lower part of the right sleeve is rain-soaked. How did that part of the sleeve get soaked while the rest of the sleeve — in fact, the rest of the coat — merely got a little damp?

“The brothers came here separately, at different times, each alone in his car. It’s rained all day. So the wearer of this coat drove a car in the rain. In driving a car in the rain, especially in city traffic, what do you habitually do which will get one of your coat sleeves wet?”

“Give arm signals for stops and turns...!” But then Inspector Queen looked puzzled. “But the driver always signals with his left arm, Ellery, and it’s the right sleeve of this coat that’s rain-soaked.”

“Conclusion: This driver signaled with his right arm.”

“But to be able to do that—” The Inspector stopped. Then he said, slowly, “His car has a right-hand drive.”

“Charlton’s Cadillac and Archibald’s Chevrolet — American cars — left-hand drives,” said Ellery, nodding. “But the other car is a Rolls-Royce — British; and what’s more, a Rolls bought secondhand in London, so it has to have a right-hand drive. Indicating the owner of the Rolls — Everett Brothers.

“By the way, Dad, what’s he look like?”