Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 134, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 817 & 818, September/October 2009

The Mad Hatter’s Riddle by Dale C. Andrews

Dale Andrews returns this month with his second Ellery Queen pastiche. His first, “The Book Case,” which he co-authored with Kurt Sercu, was published in our Department of First Stories in May, 2007, won second place in the Readers Award competition for that year, and was nominated for the 2008 Barry Award for Best Short Story. Mr. Andrews describes himself as a “recovering attorney,” having recently retired from the United States Department of Transportation, where he was Deputy Assistant General Counsel.

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.

“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat; “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”

“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.

“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you would not have come here.”

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“It is a well known fact that anyone exposed to Hollywood longer than six weeks goes suddenly and incurably mad.”

Ellery Queen, The Four of Hearts

Hollywood, California, September 21, 1975

NBC Neither King nor Queen on Thursdays

by Paula Paris

The latest Nielsens confirm a continuing slide in NBC’s Thursday-night ratings. Particularly troubling to the Peacock brass are the numbers for the Ellery Queen skein anchoring the 9:00 hour. While the Queen pilot played well last spring, the weekly outings debuted middle of the pack in September and have been sliding a bit deeper every week. The detective opus, presented as a throwback set in the late 1940s, met with good reviews but is still searching for an audience.

Now Universal reports that the series is about to get a jolt of some nostalgia caffeine. In a planned up-coming episode, based on an actual Queen short story, “The Mad Tea Party,” Hollywood legends Bonnie Stuart and Ty Royle have been cast in leading roles. This will be the first time in twenty-five years that the once-married duo has appeared at all, let alone together. Bonnie, an inveterate recluse, rarely leaves her mountain retreat. And Ty, somewhat of a her mithimself, swore years ago, after several notably uneven productions, that he would rather die than return to acting.

“The Adventure of the Mad Tea Party,” originally written by Ellery Queen in 1934 and derived from the work of Lewis Carroll, is one of the author’s most popular stories. What a vehicle to reunite these fabled stars of yesteryear!

Upon later reflection, Ellery Queen would think of 1975 as a transitional year. The national disruption of Watergate had receded; Viet Nam, with the fall of Saigon, was unalterably behind us. Rex Stout, P.G. Wodehouse, and Thornton Wilder would leave us behind forever. And in a year of changes, the twentieth century, three-quarters through, would pause for a quick breath as it prepared for the final twenty-five-year dash to the millennium.

But such historical ruminations were for later. On a Thursday morning in early October, Mr. Queen was grappling with more fundamental concerns. The cross-country flight west to Los Angeles had been bumpy, particularly over the Rockies, and he had been bone-weary when the cab deposited him at a Beverly Hills address, where someone from Universal Studios (and Ellery could not even remember who) had shouldered his bag and showed him to the room where he had finally stumbled into bed. But his sleep had been fitful, and by morning he still found himself more than a little disoriented in time, thick of tongue, and feeling every bit of his seventy years. Mr. Queen lamented the loss of the leisurely cross-country Pullman trips of yore and grumbled, not for the first time, how flying so unforgivably takes the travel out of travel.

It was the smell of coffee, and the promise of its alchemy, that finally drew Ellery out of his room and down the long hall to the kitchen. A slender figure looked up from the table as Ellery entered. Recognition dawned, but slowly. As Hollywood had changed since the nineteen thirties, so too had Jacques Butcher, who now bore little resemblance to the young producer who, thirty-five years before, had been the boy wonder of Magna Studios. While still lithe, Butcher, attired in jeans and a Western shirt, now sported a shock of snow-white hair and a cracked and ruddy complexion that bore witness to decades of the relentless California sun. Ellery offered his hand, but was instead engulfed in a bear hug.

“The Boy Wonder!” Ellery smiled, pushing himself back to at least arm’s length. “Hollywood is still treating you well, Jack.”

Butcher snorted. “Hollywood has nothing to do with it. I’ve been shed of this town since Magna Studios got swallowed in the takeover bid and I retreated to my grape arbors.” Jacques Butcher appraised Ellery. “And you, El, are also looking fit. Still writing those convoluted whodunits?”

“No. I gave up writing detective stories about four years ago. I still edit the magazine. I guess it’s my vineyard.”

“And the inspector?”

“Dad’s fine. He wanted to be here for the filming, but I had to put my foot down. He’s far too frail for coast-to-coast jumps. He’s still grousing over the fact that in the series David Wayne is playing him without a moustache.” The Boy Wonder smiled as Ellery continued, “So filming the ‘Mad Tea Party’ episode is what finally dragged you back to a studio?”

“Yeah, but it’s temporary. The episode has to be ready to air in six weeks, and that’s the limit of my contract and my attention span. When it’s a wrap I’m headed back to the hills. The producers twisted my arm when they had the brainstorm of casting Ty and Bonnie as Spencer and Laura Lockridge in the episode. They said they needed me on board if they had any hope of roping in those two characters, and they kept hounding me until I caved. I have to say, they also tempted me by promising that you would be on board as a consultant for the episode. That sort of clinched it for me.” Butcher’s smile cracked his leather face into a thousand lines. “We had some great fun last time around, didn’t we?”

“That we did.” Ellery smiled back. “But this time let’s go a little easier on the cognac.” Turning serious, Ellery continued, “The Ty and Bonnie deal surprised me. The Spencer Lockridge part is a pretty small role for him.”

Butcher grimaced. “I’m afraid Ty’s part can’t be small enough. Not to put too fine a point on it, Ty’s deep into the bottle. Remember lines? He’s lucky to remember where he is. He retired from pictures only when he became unemployable. Those last films, particularly that beach-blanket vampire thing, were embarrassments. After those, he sulked off to his Arizona ranch.”

Ellery’s pain was visible. “And Bonnie?”

Jacques Butcher brightened. “Bonnie’s great; always has been, always will be.”

“Still carrying a torch, Jack?”

“What? After thirty-five years? Anyway, she’s a pillar of strength. It showed in every part she ever played. Bonnie turned her back on Hollywood at the top of her game, and she left her public clamoring for more. Basically, Bonnie can do anything that she sets her mind to. Hell, she’s the only reason the marriage to Ty lasted ten years. So once she settled into her hermit phase she reinvented herself as an investment manager. She resisted all overtures for a comeback, but that didn’t stop NBC. The ratings for any show that manages to reunite those two will go through the roof. That’s the challenge that Universal dropped into my lap.”

“A tall order even for the Boy Wonder,” Ellery chided.

“Too tall. You know what they say, wolves hunt in packs. So this had to be a team effort. I was in on the hunt, but so was Rand Canyon. You would have been, too, if you had been out here two weeks earlier.”

Ellery raised an eyebrow. “Who is Rand Canyon, and why is it that people with names like that always seem to end up in this crazy town?”

“Actually,” Butcher replied, “the people usually precede the names. ‘Starring Archibald Leach, Leroy Scherer, and Doris Von Kappelhoff’ doesn’t ring like ‘starring Cary Grant, Rock Hudson, and Doris Day.’ And Rand Canyon sounds a hell of a lot better on a playbill than Beryl Snatt, which is how Momma Snatt originally sent her little boy off into the world. When Rand hit Hollywood in the nineteen forties he picked a name to fit his craggy aspirations, even though the aspirations proved to be a bit north of the reality. Rand landed some ‘best buddy’ parts in a couple of horse-opera serials, but that was it. Lucky for him, though, he hit it big in real estate. Before he retired he spent decades moving property between rising and falling stars with enviable finesse. And now he helps Bonnie manage her property. Lives up there at her estate, too, although my understanding is that they are completely platonic. As I said, Rand’s forte has always been the ‘best buddy.’”

“So were the two of you also tasked with securing Ty’s agreement?” Ellery asked.

Butcher snorted and shook his head. “No, Ty and I lost track of each other years ago, and Rand and he never saw eye-to-eye. Luckily for us, once Bonnie was on board, Ty fell into place like a domino. As I said, he left Hollywood much more reluctantly than she did. But even at that it was damned difficult getting them all here and under one roof.”

Ellery raised an eyebrow. “So Bonnie and Ty are staying here also? Universal sent me an address to give to the cabbie but nothing else.”

Jacques Butcher smiled back. “Yep, we’ve got a full house here. Ty and Bonnie had all sorts of demands that would have made more sense in the forties than in the seventies. The house is part of that. They originally wanted bungalows on the Universal lot. We explained that there’s nothing like that on Hollywood lots anymore. Bonnie’s ensemble wouldn’t have fit in a bungalow anyway. So we scouted around and Rand eventually suggested this place. It’s for sale, Rand knows the realtor, and it’s huge. Plus it’s furnished — the owner removed the personal items, wall hangings and bric-a-brac stuff, but the furniture was left to help the place look good to prospects. We put Ty in the smaller wing, Bonnie and her folks are in the larger one. Universal agreed to rent the place for six weeks, and there was plenty of extra room for Rand and me to bunk here as well. And that’s why you’re here and not at the Beverly Wilshire.”

“Sounds like I’ll need a score card to keep track of the players!”

Butcher grinned. “And a difficult lot they are. The staff were even harder to pry out of the mountains than Bonnie was. Every one of them was dead set against filming the episode and against the trip to Hollywood, but we had to drag them along somehow. Bonnie made it clear that not bringing her people along was a deal breaker. So she’s here with her assistant, Charles Roethke, her personal secretary Jerri Swanson, and her, well, ‘spiritual advisor,’ I guess you’d call her. A crazy lady who calls herself ‘Madame Sojourner.’ Dealing with the lot of them has been like herding cats. Roethke and Swanson had a thing for a while, but they’re now on the outs and hardly speak to each other. Neither one of them will have anything to do with the card reader, and she reciprocates by treating each of them like lepers.”

“Ty, I hope, travels a little lighter?”

“Yep. He only brought along his personal assistant, Taylor Brandt, who, by the way, was just as insistent that Ty shouldn’t film the episode. Like everyone else, he was pretty happy with the status quo and with Ty staying retired. So you can begin to see the mountains that Rand and I had to move to pull this off.”

Ellery glanced around the bare walls of the kitchen and then eyed his wrist watch. “What time are we supposed to leave for the rehearsals?”

Butcher smiled and stretched his long arms behind his head. “I have no idea, besides the fact that it’s sometime this morning. In this town I never worry about time and schedules. When you’re supposed to be somewhere there are always plenty of people to let you know and get you there.”

As if on cue, the door to the kitchen swung open and a tall man with a winning smile strode into the room. He crouched in a mock pose and swung around, his right index finger feigning a six-gun, which he pretended to shoot in the direction of Butcher. The man blinked, blew the imaginary smoke from his finger, transformed the pistol back into a hand, and extended it towards Ellery.

“Mr. Queen, it’s an honor to meet you. I’m Rand Canyon. Looks like we’re going to be working together.”

As Ellery mumbled a greeting, Rand’s arms swung out in an all-inclusive gathering gesture. “Time to hit the trail, gents,” he drawled. “Everyone else is already at the studio and our car is waiting.”

“See what I mean about this town?” Jacques Butcher said to Ellery with a conspiratorial wink. “There’s always someone there to take care of you, and I’m going to prove it to you.” Before he could react, Butcher reached across the table and pulled Ellery’s watch off his wrist, deftly pocketing the timepiece. “This is one of my favorite little experiments. You can have your watch back tomorrow. By then you’ll understand.”

Rand Canyon rolled his eyes and smiled. “Sorry, Mr. Queen. This is like religion for Jack — he pulls this on everyone who will let him.”

“It’s Ellery,” Queen muttered, rubbing his bare left wrist. “Call me Ellery.”

“Oh, by the way,” Rand said, “when I was checking on the car I found this in the front mailbox.” He held out a business envelope bearing Ellery’s name in box letters.

“No address or return address,” Ellery mused, examining the envelope. “How did it get here?”

Rand Canyon shrugged.

“There are delivery services all over Hollywood. It’s probably from one of your fans,” Jacques Butcher chuckled. Ellery returned the smile and slid the envelope into his inside jacket pocket.

Thirty minutes later, Ellery, Jacques, and Rand stood behind a bank of cameras on the sound stage at Universal City. Ellery crossed his arms and looked through the cameras, the director, and assorted staff, and admired the New England drawing room in the glow of the stage lights. The tall, gray-haired man dressed as the Mad Hatter was just barely recognizable to Ellery. The years had not been kind to Ty Royle. As Ellery watched, Ty turned to the other cast members and spoke.

“You can’t take more or less when nothing is very easy at all,” he stammered.

An exasperated “Cut!” exploded from the man with tired, stooped shoulders sitting in a collapsible chair next to the cameras. “Mr. Royle,” he muttered through hands that Ellery surmised were burying his face, “once again, the line is, ‘You can’t take less; it’s very easy to take more than nothing.’ That’s the way Lewis Carroll wrote it, and that’s the way you have to say it.”

Ty threw his outrageous hat to the floor. “The damned line makes no sense. No sense at all,” he snorted.

Across the set, a figure dressed as a door mouse removed its mask, revealing still-golden locks, and suddenly became Bonnie Stuart. Bonnie crossed the set towards Ty, as Ellery stared transfixed. The loveliness of her youth had not diminished; it had matured into a jewel even more precious. Images of pre-war Hollywood flashed through his mind, a hundred memories of things gone from the world, but still a part of his. He wiped an errant tear, shook the sepia memories from his head, and watched as Bonnie Stuart wrapped a loving arm around Ty Royle, all the while explaining that everything was just fine, that it always was, and that it always would be.

“My God,” Ellery thought, stunned. “They’re in love.”

The man in the collapsible chair sighed and called out, “Break! Back on the set in fifteen minutes.” Ellery began picking his way through the cameras and cables.

“Ellery,” Bonnie enthused when she saw him, offering a cheek, “you are a treat for sore eyes.”

Ty grinned awkwardly, looking totally uncomfortable in his Mad Hatter attire. He extended a thin, dry hand and muttered, “Good to see you again, Queen.”

But before Ellery could offer more than a perfunctory greeting, a young NBC page was at his elbow explaining that a conference on script changes was about to begin.

Bonnie smiled as Ellery stammered an apology while being dragged away. “Don’t worry,” she called after him. “There will be plenty of time for us to catch up this evening. I’m...” and she paused, “actually Ty and I are hosting a little soirée at the house where we’re all staying. We’ll expect you promptly at six o’clock for cocktails and a buffet dinner in the parlor. This will be such fun!”

In fact, Ellery had seldom seen a sorrier soirée. Bonnie’s secretary, Jerri Swanson, a pretty young thing with long brown hair, had spent the evening sulking on the sofa, nursing a drink, dabbing at the corner of her eyes with a handkerchief, and staring daggers at tall, thin, and elegant Charles Roethke, Bonnie’s assistant, across the room. Charles and Taylor Brandt fawned respectively over Bonnie and Ty and were uniformly ignored by each. And Madame Sojourner, who had, Ellery had come to understand from Jacques, a scant fifteen months before, miraculously ascended from working the checkout line at a Piggly Wiggly in Clarinda, Iowa, swirled about the room in layers of multicolored silk wrappings, warning everyone in her ambit of things that only she could see. Through it all, Bonnie and Ty stared into each others’ eyes, oblivious.

Early on, Ellery had embarked on shuttle diplomacy, moving from person to person in hopes of generating something approaching cocktail-hour banter. He eventually forsook the task as hopeless and retreated to a large velvet couch where Madame Sojourner cornered him and proceeded to wax eloquent on the length of his lifeline. Unimaginably to Ellery, things progressed from bad to worse.

Bonnie stood, tapped her champagne flute with a fork, and waited for the room to quiet. She smiled nervously and spoke. “These last few days,” she stammered, blinking and edging next to Ty for support, “have been a whirlwind. Being here in Hollywood again, and being with Ty—” she glanced up adoringly before continuing — “I, well... I certainly thought I’d never act again. And certainly not with Ty.” She reached tentatively for his hand and continued, “But as it turns out, I can’t thank Jacques and Rand enough for insisting that I... that we do this. Ty and I, well, it’s been years and we really don’t even know why we...” She stopped, at a loss for words, sniffed into her handkerchief, and looked up imploringly at Ty, who broke the silence. Still holding her hand, he smiled, brushed the gray shock of hair from his eyes, and gazed out across the room. Ellery marveled that he suddenly seemed to shed ten years.

“Bonnie and I,” Ty announced sheepishly, “are going to be married.”

“Again!” Bonnie giggled. “And we’re moving back to Hollywood!”

Behind Ellery someone gagged, several breaths were quickly drawn in, and Jerri Swanson’s plate dropped, scattering lasagna and boiled shrimp on the floor. The room froze in awkward silence for a long moment before Ellery stood, cleared his throat, and offered congratulations, quickly followed by Jacques and Rand, and then, as the dam finally broke, by the others in the room. It was long minutes later that Jacques Butcher caught Ellery’s eye and the two slipped out of the room.

In retreat in the first-floor library, Ellery exhaled long as Jacques Butcher poured scotch into two tumblers and handed one to Ellery.

“I can’t tell you how much I wish I was in a hotel,” Ellery groaned. “What was that all about anyway?”

Jacques settled into a leather chair across from Ellery. “I suppose,” he said, “it was about change. Jerri and Charles have carved out a decent life working for Bonnie. And, God knows, that Sojourner character has certainly landed on easy street. The same goes for Taylor Brandt, Ty’s assistant. And every one of those apple carts just tipped over. Bonnie’s people kept saying they were only concerned for her health, that a trip back to Hollywood couldn’t turn out well, but I suspect they were much more concerned with anything that might destroy their comfortable cocoons. Probably it was the same with Taylor Brandt. In fact,” and Jacques paused uneasily, “rumor has it that Taylor and Ty may actually be a little more than just friends. Anyway, I don’t think any of them is looking forward to this pending marriage.”

Ellery put down his drink as something rustled in his inner jacket pocket. He reached in and pulled out the envelope, still unopened, that he had pocketed that morning. “I had forgotten about this,” he snorted as he opened the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of paper. Ellery’s eyebrows knotted as he read.

Across the room Jacques Butcher watched inquiringly until Ellery finally shook his head and handed the sheet to him. “What, pray tell, do you make of this?”

Butcher proceeded to read out loud the typewritten poem on the sheet of paper.

Synergistic solutions from lessons of yore.

“What’s this all about?” Butcher asked incredulously. “Is this something from Alice in Wonderland?”

“I don’t think so,” said Ellery. “It appears to derive from Lewis Carroll, but I think it’s a pastiche of some sort.” Ellery puzzled over the page for a few minutes and then his eyes widened and he laughed in amazement. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “I need to get something from my room.”

When Ellery returned he carried a volume, The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll, under his arm. He sat down again and asked, “Are you a fan of Carroll?”

“As a kid, I suppose. Not recently,” Butcher responded.

“Lewis Carroll,” Ellery continued “was the pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a mathematician who wrote both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Dodgson denied that either book was written with a real Alice in mind, but there is a poem near the end of Through the Looking-Glass that belies that denial.” Ellery thumbed through the volume, located a page containing a poem, and pushed the book towards Butcher. “Carroll’s poem has no title, but the fifth line is the title of this poem: ‘Eager Eye and Willing Ear.’ And do you know what was particularly famous about this untitled poem?”

Butcher shook his head.

“The poem is famous,” Ellery continued, “because it is an acrostic. If you read down the first letter of each line it reveals the name of the real Alice: Alice Pleasance Liddell. So, Jack, tell me: Applying the same formula, what does this poem reveal to us?”

Jacques Butcher studied the poem and emitted a low whistle. “Read down,” he said, “the first letter of each line spells out ‘trip required no chances.’ ” He shook his head in bewilderment as though trying to clear cobwebs. “But what does this have to do with anything?”

“I’m damned if I know,” Ellery replied. “The poem alludes to the works of Carroll. And the references to the desirability of two people working together rather than apart, that could be relevant to the re-pairing of Ty and Bonnie in the ‘Mad Tea Party’ episode. You’ve already explained the effort it took to get them to agree to this, and that everyone around them was dead set against the plan and the trip to Hollywood. The acrostic might be addressing this — it advises that, in fact, the ‘trip required no chances.’ But the obvious question remains ‘So what?’ Bonnie and Ty are here. We are about to film. Who would construct something this elaborate, after the fact, and then send it to me?”

“You’ve got me,” Butcher replied.

“Ahh, well,” Ellery sighed. “It’s probably just someone’s idea of a joke.” Ellery folded the paper and returned it to his pocket. “Let’s take a look at those script changes.”

Ellery and Jacques were lost in the script when Rand eventually entered the library. He smiled and shook his head. “Seems like I’m still the babysitter for you two. This week’s Ellery Queen episode is on in a few minutes. I think it’s the one about the elevator murder. Wouldn’t want to miss that,” he enthused. Reaching for the phone at the bar, Rand continued, “Just enough time to take care of this.” Lifting the phone, he dialed and after a few seconds spoke into the receiver. “Hello, Jerri? Rand here. Ty asked me to call and let Bonnie know he’s not up to working on the script any more tonight. Said to give her his love and tell her that he will see her tomorrow.”

Rand hung up the phone and busied himself at the bar. “Voila,” he exclaimed after a few seconds as a wall of books across from Ellery and Jacques slid back, revealing a television console. Rand turned on the television and settled onto the couch next to Ellery just as the TV Ellery Queen intoned, “In a few minutes this newspaper publisher will become an obituary notice.” For the next hour Queen watched, with growing embarrassment, as Jim Hutton proceeded to piece together faster than Ellery could why a dying man, alone in an elevator, would push the sixth- and fifth-floor buttons before he expired.

At the end of the episode, Jacques Butcher rose from his chair, and stretched and yawned simultaneously. Rand Canyon crossed the room, turned off the television, and pushed the button sliding the bookshelves back across the television alcove. “Well, I didn’t figure out who did it. How about you, Ellery?” Queen shook his head, his embarrassment persisting. Jacques waved a languorous hand and excused himself for the evening. It was not until Ellery and Rand were themselves headed back toward their rooms that all Hell broke lose.

Walking down the deserted hallway, Ellery and Rand were confronted by Jacques, who approached them with a troubled look on his face.

“Nobody seems to know where Bonnie is,” he muttered. He glanced at Rand. “She got your message but, according to Jerri, she decided to go to Ty’s room anyway and hasn’t come back.”

“Perhaps,” Ellery offered delicately, “this is a personal matter?”

“Maybe, but no one is answering Ty’s phone. I’m going to take a look.”

Wordlessly, Ellery and Rand fell in step as the threesome crossed the entryway, climbed the circular staircase to the second floor, and proceeded to Ty Royle’s room at the end of the corridor. It was the sight of the half-ajar door that precipitated the first shiver of trepidation at the nape of Ellery Queen’s neck.

Jacques eased the door open as the three men gasped in unison. Ty Royle was lying on the bed in a silk dressing gown. A small bullet hole, surrounded by a good deal of blood, flared like a flower from the center of his chest. Jacques rushed to Ty’s side and, in an effort Ellery recognized immediately as doomed, began feeling for a pulse as Rand Canyon grabbed for the phone next to the bed.

Queen took a deep breath, shook his head, and resorted to instincts. He walked the circumference of the room, checked the closet, peered beneath the bed, and then slowly began a trek back down the hall, testing each of the locked doors along the way. At the second-floor foyer he bent, examined the slick marble floor, and then began a slow descent down the winding stairs. At the foot of the staircase he found what he had missed before — a red pool behind and slightly to the left of the first step. Slowly Ellery raised his eyes across the foyer toward a closet door, also ajar. With trepidation he crossed the foyer and pushed the closet open with the toe of his shoe.

Inside, lying on the floor in her own pool of blood, was Bonnie Stuart. Ellery pinched the bridge of his nose and squinted, as if to ward off the gathering storm of the headache building behind his eyes. The figure on the floor gagged, drew in a ragged breath, and Ellery, shocked back to his senses, bolted for the nearest telephone.

Later, Ellery stood in the driveway with Jacques and Rand as the ambulance sped away. He glanced back toward the front door of the mansion as a tall, disheveled, overweight man lumbered toward them. The sight was almost surrealistic, like watching a large bear walking upright in a rumpled trenchcoat. As the man approached, Jacques and Rand looked up as well.

“Detective Tramone.” the man said curtly. He nodded at Jacques and Rand and then offered an incongruously shy smile and a gigantic paw. “You’re Mr. Queen, right? I’m a big fan. Pleased to meet you, although I wish the circumstances were better.” The paw engulfed Ellery’s right hand, the touch firm but, surprisingly, not the bone crunch for which Ellery had braced. The detective extended a plastic bag in his other hand and Ellery could see that it contained a small pistol. “Any of you gentlemen recognize this?” Tramone asked.

Ellery, Jacques, and Rand shook their heads in unison.

“Compact little gun and silencer,” Tramone continued. “It’s recently been fired. We had to pull it out of Miss Stuart’s clenched fists when we loaded her onto the stretcher.”

“So you think she was the one who fired it?” asked Rand.

Tramone shook his head. “Miss Stuart never fired this gun. She was wearing gloves, the kind ladies used to wear in the nineteen forties. If she fired the gun there should be powder stains on the gloves, and there aren’t. Also, at least when we found her, she was holding the other end of the gun, and with both hands, like she was trying to use it as a club or something. In any event,” the detective continued, “she couldn’t tell us anything. She’s unconscious and in pretty poor shape.” He sighed and glanced at his watch. “Almost midnight. We’re going to speak with some of the folks inside, and then we’ll post a couple of uniforms here for the night. Needless to say, I don’t want anyone leaving this house. And I’d like to talk to you gents again first thing in the morning.”

Ellery awoke the next morning with a headache and with the sense of unreality that often follows a night of disaster. He shook his head, hoping that this would somehow clear a bad dream. When it didn’t, he quickly dressed and headed for the kitchen.

Detective Tramone was already there, armed with a cup of coffee. “Hope you don’t mind. I helped myself.” The burly detective smiled. Ellery forced his own smile and sat down at the table. “How’s Bonnie?” he asked. Tramone shook his head. “It’s pretty grim. We figure she either was pushed or fell from the second floor. She landed on her head.”

Ellery shook his head glumly. “How’s your investigation going?”

“Lots of dead ends so far.” Tramone pulled a notepad from his pocket and scowled down at his own longhand. “The gun’s going to be a dead end. Serial numbers have been filed off. We do know that Mr. Royle was shot sometime shortly after nine o’clock. Bonnie and Jerri Swanson left the party early. Ty stuck around a little longer, still drinking, but when he left a little before nine he announced that he was tired and was not going to work on the script any more that night. Rand volunteered to let Bonnie know. He called Bonnie’s room and relayed the message to Jerri Swanson right around nine o’clock. But according to Swanson, Miss Stuart pooh-poohed the phone message and headed off for Ty’s wing of the house anyway. That was the last anyone saw of her.”

“Swanson claims she watched the rest of your show, which sounds right — she can recount the whole plot.” Tramone shuffled through his notes and continued. “Charles Roethke and Ty’s assistant, Taylor Brandt, left shortly after the show started, to go drinking — a pattern the two of them have fallen into over the last couple of days. You, Mr. Canyon, and Mr. Butcher were watching the television show in the library. And ‘Madame Sojourner,’ ” he continued — spitting the word “madame” as though it were an epithet, “says she was in her room the whole evening and persists in claiming that she warned Bonnie that something like this would happen and that she never should have made the trip down here in the first place.”

Ellery looked across the table at the detective and then removed a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “That reminds me. I think you should see this,” he said. “I received it anonymously yesterday.” Detective Tramone unfolded the paper and read the poem, looking up afterwards, perplexed. “What’s this all about?” he asked. “Alice in Wonderland?”

Ellery extended his palms, shrugged, and shook his head. “I honestly don’t know,” he replied. “But as Alice might have observed, when you study this poem it gets curiouser and curiouser. Yesterday I figured it was just some silly prank, but I studied it closer last night.” Ellery and Tramone hunched over the paper as Ellery continued.

“The first stanza refers directly to Alice in Wonderland, and the third stanza references an incident (although a rather trivial one) that takes place at the beginning of Through the Looking-Glass. The second stanza also seems to be taken from the Wonderland book, with the exception of the first line — its reference to ‘rehearsals’ that are ‘intriguing’ seems to bear no relation to Carroll, but could well refer to the enterprise we’ve been engaged in — the filming of the teaparty episode. And this equally could be said of the final two stanzas — which each alludes to a re-teaming, precisely what Ty and Bonnie were poised to undertake. And the reference, in fact ‘warning,’ that there must be ‘two on the throne’ seems, again, to squarely refer to Ty Royle and Bonnie Stuart. And, as I pointed out yesterday to Jacques Butcher, the poem employs a well-known Lewis Carroll word game — the first letter of each line forms an acrostic and, when read down, the letters reveal a hidden message: ‘trip required no chances.’ Here virtually everyone warned Ty and Bonnie against taking this trip to Hollywood. That advice, of course, now seems prescient.”

“But what does it mean?” the detective snorted.

“I have no idea,” Ellery sulked. “I was up half the night trying to puzzle it through. The poem doesn’t really explain much of anything.”

The two sat quietly for several minutes before Ellery spoke again. “There is a riddle in Alice in Wonderland,” he finally said, “posed by the Mad Hatter, the part Ty’s character was going to portray in the tea-party episode. The riddle is, ‘Why is a raven like a writing desk?’”

“I give up. What’s the answer?” Detective Tramone muttered.

“That’s the point,” said Ellery. “There is no answer, at least none that Dodgson, writing as Carroll, ever offered. Others have hypothesized answers — my own favorite is ‘They are alike because Poe wrote on both’ — but the point is that no answer appears in the book, and the riddle itself, although part of the book, is a dead end. Ultimately it has absolutely nothing to do with the plot.”

“In other words, a red herring?”

“Precisely. I thought you should know about the poem, but I’m not certain that it has anything to do with your investigation. Like the Mad Hatter’s riddle, it sort of hangs out there, on its own.”

“What did the acrostic in the Carroll story ultimately reveal?” the detective finally asked.

“Well, the name of the real Alice,” Ellery answered.

“So this poem is more obscure than the original one. At least with Carroll’s poem, when you figured out the acrostic the relevance was clear — you had a name, not just another riddle.”

Ellery was quiet for an instant, but then his eyes widened.

“What...?” Detective Tramone exclaimed, but Ellery shushed him with a hand. The burly detective watched as Ellery’s eyes then narrowed. Ellery templed his fingers and bowed his head in thought. His eyes closed and his lips moved faintly. After long minutes he shook his head, as though awakening, and blinked across the table.

“Amazing,” he said, and smiled back at the completely uncomprehending detective. “Detective Tramone, my first instincts were correct. You can forget entirely about this poem. The solution to what happened to Ty and Bonnie lies elsewhere, and I think I know where. I have to do a little work in the library, and then we will need to discuss this further. And I’m afraid I may need to ask you for a little professional assistance.”

Later that afternoon Ellery entered the parlor of the mansion behind the detective. Tramone parted from Ellery, who wandered to stand next to Rand Canyon and behind Jacques Butcher’s chair. Jerri Swanson and Charles Roethke shared opposite ends of the couch, separated by a very cold distance, while Taylor Brandt lounged in a wing chair with a snifter in his hand. Madame Sojourner sat at the desk, mumbling over a deck of cards. Tramone approached the fireplace at the far end of the room and cleared his throat loudly as seven pairs of eyes turned in his direction.

Fumbling self-consciously, Tramone, in an unexpectedly soft voice, addressed the room. “I know,” he said, “that all of you have been concerned about what happened to Miss Stuart and Mr. Royle. I just wanted to let you know that we do have some encouraging news. Miss Stuart has made significant progress today. The doctors are now optimistic that she should be able to make a complete recovery. She is still in a medically-induced coma, but they believe they can begin bringing her out of that as early as tomorrow morning.” The detective shuffled self-consciously and continued, “Anyway, that’s why I called you all together here. We knew that you all were concerned...” Tramone paused, searching for a way to close. Ultimately he settled on a curt nod. Thrusting his hands into his pockets, he shuffled out of the room.

That night, shortly before midnight, a tall figure dressed in medical scrubs walked purposefully down the hall of the fourth floor of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The figure clasped a chart in one hand and wore an operating mask. It stopped in front of Room 423, consulted the chart, entered, and then approached the bed, strung with monitors and an intravenous line. The figure set the chart down on the bedside table, drew a vial from a pocket, and reached for the intravenous line just as a meaty paw grasped its arm. The lights flicked on in the room and from behind Detective Tramone, Ellery Queen said, “Rand, why don’t you take off the mask?”

Rand Canyon complied, shoulders slumped.

“Well, I always wanted to play a doctor,” he replied quietly, in a defeated voice. Rand turned and looked back toward the bed, realizing for the first time that he was standing not beside a patient but a pile of pillows arranged under the sheet. He turned, uncomprehending.

“Where... where’s Bonnie?” he stammered.

It was Ellery who answered. “Bonnie died this afternoon, Rand. She died without ever regaining consciousness.”

As Rand Canyon was led away, Tramone turned to Ellery and shook his massive head in disgust. “No wonder he was just a bit player,” the detective muttered. “The poor schmo doesn’t even know that doctors only wear masks in the O.R.”

Ellery was on his third cup of coffee a scant seven hours later when Jacques Butcher shuffled into the kitchen and slid into a chair. Butcher poured his own cup and slumped over it in silence for long minutes, rubbing red eyes.

“You could have blown me over with a light wind when I heard,” he finally said, looking across the table at Ellery. “Why in the world would Rand kill Ty and Bonnie?”

Ellery set his coffee cup down and shrugged. “It was just as you said. Bonnie and Ty were going to remarry, and that was going to upend a lot of lives, particularly Rand’s, since, as you noted, he and Ty have never gotten along. He’d given up everything, his career, even his home, when he signed on as Bonnie’s companion and confidant. Where was this going to leave him when the two of them took up where they had left off twenty-five years ago?”

Butcher shook his head, trying to understand. “But why would Rand kill Bonnie as well? That makes no sense.”

“You’re right. And since it makes no sense, it was never intended to happen.”

“What do you mean it wasn’t supposed to happen?” Butcher responded in some exasperation. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

“Oh yes, she’s dead,” Ellery responded sadly. “But Rand didn’t kill her, or certainly didn’t plan to. That was the last thing he wanted, at least at the time. He wanted his life to return to normal, and for that he needed Bonnie alive. No doubt it went something like this. At around nine o’clock Bonnie left for Ty’s room to go over lines. She probably walked in on Rand just about the time he shot Ty. There could have been a tussle between Bonnie and Rand, but in any event, Bonnie somehow ended up with the gun and ran down the hall. Those damned high heels she always wore must have tripped her on the stairs and she tumbled over. Rand checked the body, presumed she was dead, and moved Bonnie and the gun to the closet, where I found her later.”

Butcher still looked sceptical. “It seems to me that you have two huge problems with your theory. First, all you have is motive, and it’s a motive that almost everyone in the house shared — a marriage between Ty and Bonnie would upset a lot of lives. There’s nothing in what you have said that ties Rand to the murder. Plus, how do you get opportunity? The murder took place during the Ellery Queen mystery episode that we watched, and Rand was in the room with us the whole time. We heard Rand on the telephone with Jerri Swanson and it was after that call, when Rand was with us, that Ty was shot.”

Ellery looked back across the table. “Let’s deal with your observations in order. First, we do have a clue that ties Rand to the crime. In fact, we have a dying message from Bonnie.”

Jacques Butcher raised his eyebrow inquiringly. “That’s news to me.”

“Remember,” Ellery continued, “that Bonnie and the gun ended up in the closet. Sometime after Rand left, Bonnie must have regained consciousness, because she left us the only clue she could think of to identify the murderer.”

Butcher shook his head and extended both hands out, palms up. “I’m lost,” he said.

“Bonnie didn’t grab the gun by the butt or handle, as you would expect,” Ellery continued. “Remember, Detective Tramone said she was holding the gun like a club. So she grabbed the other end. In other words, with both hands she grabbed the...”

Butcher slapped the side of his head with an open palm. “Of course. She was holding the barrel of the gun. And Rand Canyon’s given name was—”

“Beryl,” Ellery interjected. “Beryl Snatt. When I realized what she was trying to tell us, I pretty well knew that it was Rand who killed Ty. Of course, as you pointed out, that still leaves a huge problem — opportunity. Ty was killed during the Ellery Queen television episode that we watched with Rand, and at first blush that seemed about as airtight an alibi as I could imagine. But as I thought about it, it occurred to me that something was wrong.

“Jerri Swanson did in fact receive a call from Rand asking her to tell Bonnie that Ty didn’t want to go over the lines that night. And Detective Tramone told me that Jerri was sure of the timing of the call. She also was going to watch the Ellery Queen show, and while she was on the phone the Elmer Bernstein theme music for the show was just beginning. But after Rand hung up the telephone and turned on the television in the library we heard the announcer’s opening statement setting up the murder. The formula for the Ellery Queen television show is very precise: the announcer’s opening setup of the murder always precedes the Elmer Bernstein score. So what we saw took place before the theme music began, in other words before the call to Jerri had even occurred.”

“Well, that can’t be right,” Butcher replied. “Obviously someone is mistaken.”

“Not necessarily,” smiled Ellery. “This is nineteen seventy-five. We live in a marvelous age. Walk down the hall with me,” he said, beckoning across the table.

Ellery led Jacques down the hall and into the library. He crossed to the bar next to the telephone, slid a panel aside, and revealed a flat box sporting intricate knobs and buttons. Butcher looked at it in confusion. “What is it?” he asked.

“Jacques, you are living an entirely too isolated life up at your winery,” Ellery replied. “This is the newest technological marvel. It’s called a Betamax, and it’s made by Sony. It allows you to record a television show and then watch it later. It’s only good for one-hour shows, although RCA is supposed to have a competing version out this winter that will record two hours.”

“So we were watching a show that was already over?” Jacques asked. “How could Rand have worked that out?”

“Well,” replied Ellery, “it wasn’t easy, and it certainly wasn’t foolproof. But you actually provided him with his biggest chance to succeed. You pride yourself on paying no attention to time, and you played that silly game — right in front of Rand — of taking away my watch. And my time sense is still out of sync from the cross-country flight. So when Rand came in to remind us that the show was about to start neither of us realized that it was, in fact, an hour later. We watched an episode that Rand had programmed this device to record at nine o’clock, but we watched it later, probably shortly after ten. So at the time Rand turned on the episode, the murder had already been committed. That happened while you and I were going over the ‘Mad Tea Party’ script.”

“But we saw Rand call Jerri Swanson...” Butcher protested.

“We saw Rand speak into the telephone. But in fact the actual telephone call he placed to Jerri Swanson was an hour earlier. Rand originally made the call to make certain that Bonnie didn’t show up in Ty’s room. But his plan could have gone wrong in a hundred different ways. The way it did go wrong was that Bonnie ignored the call, went to Ty’s room anyway, and stumbled upon the murder in progress. When everything went south, and when Bonnie fell after catching Rand in the act, all Rand could do was to revert to his original plan — stage a second faked call to Jerri, and then establish what he hoped would be an alibi by watching the episode with us. What we heard was Rand speaking into a dead phone. And as long as Bonnie couldn’t tell us otherwise, the whole house of cards might have stood.

“But you are correct, in any event,” Ellery continued. “The case against Rand was hardly airtight. When I went back to the library and discovered the Betamax, there was no tape in it. It had already been removed by Rand. That’s why I needed Detective Tramone’s help. I told him what I had surmised and shortly afterwards the hospital called to report that Bonnie had, in fact, died without ever regaining consciousness. I convinced Tramone that our only hope was for him to participate in a little ruse aimed at forcing Rand to show his hand. Obviously, if Bonnie was alive, and if she was about to regain consciousness, she could identify the murderer of Ty, and Rand couldn’t let that happen. The last thing Rand wanted originally was to lose Bonnie, but that was before — before she caught him in the act of killing Ty. All Tramone and I had to do was commandeer the room at Cedars-Sinai, and wait.”

Jacques Butcher shook his head in amazement. “This is horrible. All of this has been like a madhouse.” He sighed and then with some disgust looked at the wrist watch he now sported on his left wrist. “Yeah, I know,” he said, glaring at Ellery sheepishly. “I had to start wearing one now that I don’t have Rand anymore. So now I’m the scheduler and we have a ten o’clock call at Universal.”

“They’re going ahead with rehearsals? Even after what happened?” Ellery asked incredulously.

“This isn’t like the old days, Ellery. We’re not doing a movie that can just be postponed. This is TV. The episode has to air.”

“But how can they film without actors playing the parts of the Lockridges?”

“Simple,” replied Butcher. “Universal re-cast the parts yesterday evening. Edward Andrews is playing Spencer Lockridge and they got Rhonda Fleming to play Laura. Walkthrough is at noon.” Butcher paused and then eyed Ellery. “Oh, and Ellery, did you also miss the other news from NBC?”

“What other news?”

“Well, the good news is that NBC has ordered a full season for your show. But the bad news is that they’re moving it to Sunday night and you’re going to be opposite not only The Six Million Dollar Man but also Sonny and Cher.”

Now, it was Ellery’s turn to be puzzled. “Sonny and Cher? I thought they were divorced.”

“They are,” Butcher moped. “But CBS talked them into resuming their show anyway. The novelty of bringing back the two of them is going to send the ratings through the roof, just watch. And it will all be at the expense of your show.”

At this, Ellery Queen burst into laughter. “So, Jack, we live by the sword and we die by the sword. NBC wanted to spike the ratings of the Ellery Queen show by reuniting a famous and divorced twosome for the ‘Mad Tea Party’ episode, and now CBS has beaten us to the same punch!”

The two rose from their chairs and headed toward the door, but in mid stride Jacques Butcher grabbed Ellery’s arm. “Wait a minute,” he said. “I completely forgot. The poem — what was that all about?”

Ellery smiled back at his old friend. “It’s funny,” he observed, “but over the years there have always been red herrings. They are a part of life. And rarely, not often but rarely, the red herrings themselves end up being almost as interesting as the mystery.”

Jacques Butcher looked exasperated. “So, again, what did the poem mean?”

Ellery laughed. “Well, Jack, you should be able to figure this out on your own, you have all of the clues.”

Jacques Butcher’s countenance darkened. “Well, of all the... You’re turning this into one of your damned ‘challenges to the reader,’ aren’t you?”

It was some days afterwards that Ellery walked into the room, darkened by shades, pulled to blot out the morning sun, and sat down at the table, piled high with work papers and correspondence, surrounding an IBM Selectric typewriter. Ellery cleared a space and laid out the paper containing the poem. Only then did he look into the eyes of the shadowed figure sitting across the table.

“This was all very cleverly done,” he began. “Actually, I could kick myself for being so obtuse. About all that I can say in my own defense is that the poem arrived just shortly before Ty’s murder, and I first saw it only in the context of the murder. It alluded to the writings of Lewis Carroll, which provided the foundation for the television episode we were working on. And at the same time, the poem also referenced the advantages of a reunion, of again having ‘two on the throne,’ which seemed an obvious reference to reuniting Bonnie Stuart and Ty Royle — whose names denoted royalty and who in any event were royalty in fact in Hollywood thirty years ago. That message was, of course, underscored by the clever acrostic — the fact that the first letter of each line spelled out this—” and from his jacket pocket Ellery removed a handful of white wooden Scrabble pieces. He took some seconds and neatly arranged them to read “TRIP REQUIRED NO CHANCES.”

“But what puzzled me was that while the clues in the poem were all decipherable, and while they all gave the appearance of relating to Bonnie, Ty, and the filming of the ‘Mad Tea Party’ episode, they didn’t otherwise seem to mean anything. They were like the Mad Hatter’s riddle in Alice in Wonderland — they were both a part of, but unrelated to, the underlying story. It was the detective working the case who finally said something that shocked me out of my complacency, who made me, in fact, realize that there were other contexts in which the poem could be viewed.”

Ellery gazed across the table, but the shadowed figure remained silent.

“A good example is the title of this maddening little poem — ‘Eager Eye and Willing Ear.’ That is, in fact, a line from the untitled acrostic poem in Through the Looking-Glass that revealed the name of the true Alice. I surmised, as it turns out far too glibly, that the importance of that title was simply to help to point me to the Carroll poem. But this poem is playing on a whole different level, isn’t it?”

At this Ellery detected the first receptive twitch from the figure across the table: a barely discernible hint of the beginning of a smile.

“I paid no further attention to the title,” Ellery continued, “and that’s a cardinal sin in deduction — I brushed the substance of the title aside as irrelevant because ‘eager eyes and willing ears’ had nothing to do with what I thought the poem might mean. After all, filming the ‘Mad Tea Party’ episode and attempting to lure Ty and Bonnie out of retirement to play the Lockridge roles doesn’t suggest anything about eager eyes and willing ears.”

Ellery pulled back the sheet of paper on which he had lined up the Scrabble tiles. He began to fiddle with the individual tiles as he spoke. “So, as I said, it was something that Detective Tramone, who was working the case, said that shook me awake.” Ellery paused, staring across the table. “He said that at least with the original Carroll poem when you figured out that it was an acrostic you knew the name of the person Carroll was referring to, the original Alice. And that made me realize that I needed to rethink everything.

“Could there be another matter to which the poem referred? Someone who was actually anxious to offer eager eyes and willing ears? Could it, in fact, point not to the possible reunion of Ty and Bonnie, but to a different desired reunion? And the acrostic, which clearly announced that the ‘trip required no chances,’ and which was so obviously incorrect when applied to Ty and Bonnie — who, in fact, lost their lives because they separately decided to embark on the trip to Hollywood — could it in fact have been intended to refer to a completely different trip?”

Ellery stifled a yawn. The damned transcontinental flight had gotten to him again, and it was even worse when you flew east. “In any event, when Detective Tramone reminded me that the original Carroll poem revealed a name, I saw what a pure fool I had been, because this poem does also. The poem not only gives us an acrostic, it also — and here it both betters and, again, mimics Carroll — gives us something else, as well.”

Ellery smiled and pushed the now rearranged Scrabble tiles across the table towards the shadowed figure, who was toying with his moustache.

“The acrostic is also an anagram.”

The ancient man across the table smiled down at the tiles, now rearranged to spell “INSPECTOR RICHARD QUEEN.”

Ellery’s own smile broadened as he reached across and grasped the gnarled and folded old hands. “You were right. I should have taken you with me to the Coast, Dad.”

Copyright © 2009 Dale C. Andrews ©2009

Ellery Queen characters copyright ©2009 by the Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee Literary