Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 114, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 697 & 698, September/October 1999

The Three Widows by Ellery Queen

© 1950 by Ellery Queen

Intricate plots were a hallmark of the Queen mysteries, tut in this case — one of the finest in short story form — what must strike the reader is the sheer simplicity of the solution. One wants to groan: But of course! And is that not the highest art of the detective writer — to surprise us with what is right before our eyes? Manfred B. Lee did most of the writing of these stories, while Frederic Dannay plotted: both did a superb job here!

To the normal palate the taste of murder is unpleasant. But Ellery is an epicure in these matters and certain of his cases, he deposes, possess a flavor which lingers on the tongue. Among these dangerous delicacies he places high “The Case of the Three Widows.”

Two of the widows were sisters: Penelope, to whom money was nothing, and Lyra, to whom it was everything; consequently, each required large amounts of it. Both having buried thriftless husbands at an early age, they returned to the Murray Hill manse of their father with what everyone suspected was relief, for old Theodore Hood was generously provided with the coin of the Republic and he had always been indulgent with his daughters. Shortly after Penelope and Lyra repossessed their maiden beds, however, Theodore Hood took a second wife, a cathedral-like lady of great force of character. Alarmed, the sisters gave battle, which their stepmother grimly joined. Old Theodore, caught in their crossfire, yearned only for peace. Eventually he found it, leaving a household inhabited by widows exclusively.

One evening not long after their father’s death, Penelope the plump and Lyra the lean were summoned by a servant to the drawing room of the Hood pile. They found waiting for them Mr. Strake, the family lawyer.

Mr. Strake’s commonest utterance fell like a sentence from the lips of a judge; but tonight, when he pronounced, “Will you be seated, ladies?” his tone was so ominous that the crime was obviously a hanging one. The ladies exchanged glances and declined.

In a few moments the tall doors squealed into the Victorian walls and Sarah Hood came in feebly on the arm of Dr. Benedict, the family physician.

Mrs. Hood surveyed her stepdaughters with a sort of contempt, her head teetering a little. Then she said, “Dr. Benedict and Mr. Strake will speak their pieces, then I’ll speak mine.”

“Last week,” began Dr. Benedict, “your stepmother came to my office for her semiannual checkup. I gave her the usual thorough examination. Considering her age, I found her in extraordinarily good health. Yet the very next day she came down sick — for the first time, by the way, in eight years. I thought then that she’d picked up an intestinal virus, but Mrs. Hood made a rather different diagnosis. I considered it fantastic. However, she insisted that I make certain tests. I did, and she was right. She had been poisoned.”

The plump cheeks of Penelope went slowly pink, and the lean cheeks of Lyra went slowly pale.

“I feel sure,” Dr. Benedict went on, addressing a point precisely midway between the sisters, “that you’ll understand why I must warn you that from now on I shall examine your stepmother every day.”

“Mr. Strake,” smiled old Mrs. Hood.

“Under your father’s will,” said Mr. Strake abruptly, also addressing the equidistant point, “each of you receives a small allowance from the income of the estate. The bulk of that income goes to your stepmother for as long as she shall live. But at Mrs. Hood’s demise, you inherit the principal of some two million dollars, in equal shares. In other words, you two are the only persons in the world who will benefit from your stepmother’s death. As I’ve informed both Mrs. Hood and Dr. Benedict, if there is a single repetition of this ghastly business I shall insist on calling in the police.”

“Call them now!” cried Penelope.

Lyra said nothing.

“I could call them now, Penny,” said Mrs. Hood with the same faint smile, “but you’re both very clever and it might not settle anything. My strongest protection would be to throw the two of you out of this house; unfortunately, your father’s will prevents me. Oh, I understand your impatience to be rid of me. You have luxurious tastes which aren’t satisfied by my simple way of living. You’d both like to remarry, and with the money you could buy second husbands.” The old lady leaned forward a little. “But I have bad news for you. My mother died at ninety-nine, my father at one hundred and three. Dr. Benedict tells me I can live another thirty years, and I have every intention of doing so.” She struggled to her feet, still smiling. “In fact, I’m taking certain precautions to make sure of it,” she said; and then she went out.

Exactly one week later Ellery was seated beside Mrs. Hood’s great mahogany four-poster, under the anxious eyes of Dr. Benedict and Mr. Strake.

She had been poisoned again. Fortunately, Dr. Benedict had caught it in time.

Ellery bent over the old lady’s face, which looked more like plaster than flesh. “These precautions of yours, Mrs. Hood—”

“I tell you,” she whispered, “it was impossible.”

“Still,” said Ellery, “it was done. So let’s resume. You had your bedroom windows barred and a new lock installed on that door, the single key to which you’ve kept on your person at all times. You’ve bought your own food. You’ve done your own cooking in this room and you’ve eaten here alone. Clearly, then, the poison could not have been introduced into your food before, during, or after its preparation. Further, you tell me you purchased new dishes, have kept them here, and you and you alone have been handling them. Consequently, the poison couldn’t have been put on or in the cooking utensils, china, glassware, or cutlery involved in your meals. How then was the poison administered?”

“That’s the problem,” cried Dr. Benedict.

“A problem, Mr. Queen,” muttered Mr. Strake, “that I thought — and Dr. Benedict agreed — was more your sort of thing than the police’s.”

“Well, my sort of thing is always simple,” replied Ellery, “provided you see it. Mrs. Hood, I’m going to ask you a great many questions. Is it all right, Doctor?”

Dr. Benedict felt the old lady’s pulse, and he nodded. Ellery began. She replied in whispers, but with great positiveness. She had bought a new toothbrush and fresh toothpaste for her siege. Her teeth were still her own. She had an aversion to medication and took no drugs or palliatives of any kind. She drank nothing but water. She did not smoke, eat sweets, chew gum, use cosmetics... The questions went on and on. Ellery asked every one he could think of, and then he shook up his brain to think of more.

Finally, he thanked Mrs. Hood, patted her hand, and went out with Dr. Benedict and Mr. Strake.

“What’s your diagnosis, Mr. Queen?” asked Dr. Benedict.

“Your verdict,” said Mr. Strake.

“Gentlemen,” said Ellery, “when I eliminated her drinking water by examining the pipes and faucets in her bathroom and finding they hadn’t been tampered with, I’d ruled out the last possibility.”

“And yet it’s being administered orally,” snapped Dr. Benedict. “That’s my finding and I’ve been careful to get medical corroboration.”

“If that is a fact, Doctor,” said Ellery, “then there is only one remaining explanation.”

“What’s that?”

“Mrs. Hood is poisoning herself. If I were you I would call in a psychiatrist. Good day!”

Ten days later Ellery was back in Sarah Hood’s bedroom. The old lady was dead. She had succumbed to a third poisoning attack.

On being notified, Ellery had promptly said to his father, Inspector Queen, “Suicide.”

But it was not suicide. The most painstaking investigation by police experts, utilizing all the resources of criminological science, failed to turn up a trace of the poison, or of a poison container or other possible source, in Mrs. Hood’s bedroom or bath. Scoffing, Ellery went over the premises himself. His smile vanished. He found nothing to contradict either the old lady’s previous testimony or the findings of the experts. He grilled the servants. He examined with remorseless efficiency Penelope, who kept weeping, and Lyra, who kept snarling. Finally, he left.

It was the kind of problem which Ellery’s thinking apparatus, against all the protests of his body, cannot let alone. For forty-six hours he lived in his own head, fasting and sleepless, ceaselessly pacing the treadmill of the Queen apartment floor. In the forty-seventh hour Inspector Queen took him by the arm and put him to bed.

“I thought so,” said the Inspector. “Over one hundred and one. What hurts, son?”

“My whole existence,” mumbled Ellery; and he submitted to aspirins, an ice bag, and a rare steak broiled in butter.

In the middle of the steak he howled like a madman and clawed at the telephone.

“Mr. Strake? Ellery Queen! Meet me at the Hood house immediately! — yes, notify Dr. Benedict! — yes, now I know how Mrs. Hood was poisoned!”

CHALLENGE TO THE READER: You now have all the facts. Pause and consider: How was Mrs. Hood poisoned?

And when they were gathered in the cavern of the Hood drawing room Ellery peered at plump Penelope and lean Lyra and he croaked: “Which one of you is intending to marry Dr. Benedict?”

And then he said, “Oh, yes, it has to be that. Only Penelope and Lyra benefit from their stepmother’s murder, yet the only person who could physically have committed the murder is Dr. Benedict... Did you ask how, Doctor?” asked Ellery.

“Why, very simply. Mrs. Hood experienced her first poisoning attack the day after her semiannual medical checkup — by you, Doctor. And thereafter, you announced, you would examine Mrs. Hood every day. There is a classic preliminary to every physician’s examination of a patient. I submit, Dr. Benedict,” said Ellery with a smile, “that you introduced the poison into Mrs. Hood’s mouth on the very thermometer with which you took her temperature.”