Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 46, No. 6. Whole No. 265, December 1965

The Man Who Read Ellery Queen by William Brittain

To make the transition to institutional living easier, each resident of the Good well Senior Citizens Home was allowed to retain one item of personal property. Some of the old men kept their stamp collections, others preferred to treasure voluminous photograph albums. One senior citizen, Gregory Wyczech, had a 1907 ten-dollar gold piece which was almost as precious to him as life itself. Aside from the single personal item, all the necessities and luxuries — food, clothing, bedding, and recreational material — were furnished by the home.

The only thing that Arthur Mindy brought with him when he entered the Goodwell Home was a complete collection of books by Ellery Queen.

Shortly after his admittance, arranged by a daughter who had grown weary of ministering to the constant needs of an 80-year-old man, Arthur Mindy sat in his small room, discussing his choice with Roy Carstairs, the first-floor attendant.

“I read my first Ellery Queen mystery at the age of forty-five,” said Arthur, finishing his meager lunch. “It was at the beginning of the depression, and I had plenty of time for reading. For a long time I dreamed of solving a mystery just the way Ellery does.”

“What’s so different about the way he solves mysteries?” Carstairs asked.

“The pure logic of his solutions is beautiful,” Arthur answered. “He uses only the smallest wisps of evidence, and from these he is able to arrive at the only possible solution. Take The Roman Hat Mystery, Ellery’s first novel — I read it thirty-five years ago. It was solved when Ellery made deductions from an opera hat found near the body of the murdered man. In other books the pivotal clues have been things like a shoelace, a bottle of iodine, a collar, a packet of matches — all so insignificant! And sometimes the vital clues are things that should be there but aren’t — what Ellery calls ‘invisible clues.’

“It’s always been my ambition,” Arthur went on dreamily, “to solve a mystery using only the one or two seemingly vague clues that Ellery Queen finds sufficient.” He looked at the light brown walls of his tiny room and sighed. “But now I guess I’ll never get the chance.”

“Yeah, but Mr. Mindy,” Carstairs said, “you’ve got to remember that—”

Whatever it was Arthur had to remember may never be known. At that moment a shout — the thin cracked voice of an old man — issued from the hallway outside the door.

Carstairs sprang from his chair and through the half-open door, followed at a more leisurely pace by Mindy. They were both brought up short by the scene in front of them.

In the middle of the thickly carpeted hall Gregory Wyczech, dressed only in the light green pajamas and robe which were almost a uniform at the home, was engaged in a boxing match with another similarly dressed resident. Although the sparring form of both men would have done mild credit to a Jack Dempsey or a Joe Louis, each man was standing well out of reach of the other.

While Carstairs stepped between the two combatants, Arthur Mindy looked at Wyczech’s opponent. Eugene Dennison had been admitted to the home some time before Arthur. After a short but unsuccessful attempt on the part of the other men to become friendly, Dennison had been classified as a “cold fish.” He never had any visitors, and his haughty manner repelled even the most amiable of advances. He refused to take part in any of the home’s recreational activities. Television bored him. In the crowded world of the Goodwell home he walked aloof and alone.

Dennison stood stiffly just outside Gregory Wyczech’s door while Wyczech circled him, chattering like an angry monkey. “He stole my eagle!” Wyczech repeated over and over.

“Your what?” Carstairs’ eyebrows shot up.

“My eagle. My ten-dollar gold coin. He stole it!”

“Mr. Carstairs.” Dennison spoke for the first time. His imperious tone brought silence to the hallway which by this time was beginning to fill with old men. “Mr. Carstairs, I have not stolen his eagle or whatever it is. I was on my way to the dispensary to renew my supply of pills. I took the elevator down since at my age the prospect of three flights of stairs is appalling. Congratulating myself for not having picked up a sliver from the wooden floor of that infernal machine, I came out of the elevator door which, unfortunately for me, is next to Mr. Wyczech’s door. Then this idiot came around the corner, entered his room and burst out again, striking out at me. Naturally I fought back.”

“You stole it!” Wyczech said again.

“I didn’t.”

“You did!”

“I did not.”

“Wait a minute,” said Carstairs. “How do you know he stole it, Mr. Wyczech?”

“Here’s what happened,” said Wyczech, catching his breath. “I’d just gone down the hall and around the corner to wash my hands. My gold coin was in its envelope on the table, and I wanted to wash before handling it. When I got back, just a minute later, the gold piece was gone, and this — this thief in the night was walking away from the door of my room. So I took a swing at him.”

“You must have hit him fairly hard. I see you cut his cheek quite badly.” Arthur pointed to a rather long, deep wound on Dennison’s cheek from which fresh blood was now oozing.

“To lapse into the vernacular,” said Dennison, “he never laid a glove on me. That’s where I cut myself shaving this morning.”

“Could anybody else have taken the coin?” asked Carstairs.

“Nobody would have had time,” said Wyczech. “I wasn’t gone that long. And no one else was around.”

Dennison looked at the many pairs of accusing eyes turned in his direction. Then he opened the front of his robe and spread it dramatically. “If I submit to a search, will that satisfy everybody?”

Dennison shrugged off the robe and flung it at Wyczech. He removed the tops of his pajamas, loosened the bottom’s, let them fall to the floor, and shuffled out of them. He stood on the green carpet, naked as a jaybird, without losing a particle of his massive dignity.

The clothing was quickly searched — even the seams and buttonholes. Nothing. No gold coin.

“He must have swallowed it,” sputtered Wyczech.

“Mr. Carstairs, I leave it to you,” said Dennison in the manner of a parent speaking to a dull-witted child. “You know the condition of what’s left of my stomach. Considering that my diet for the past several years has consisted only of oatmeal and milk, could I have swallowed a piece of salami, much less a gold coin?”

“That’s true, Mr. Wyczech,” said Carstairs reluctantly.

Wyczech examined Dennison’s hair and the inside of his mouth without results. Then he shrugged. “I still say he stole it. He was the only one who could have.”

“Mr. Dennison,” said Carstairs, “You go back to your room. I’ll take care of Mr. Wyczech.”

With a shrug Dennison reclaimed his clothing and not bothering to put it on, shuffled to the carpeted stairway across from Wyczech’s room.

“Just a moment, please!” The men in the hallway looked to see who had spoken, and then Arthur Mindy stepped forward and faced Carstairs and Dennison.

“If you gentlemen would indulge me, I think perhaps I might be of some assistance. This case is reminiscent of ‘The Black Ledger,’ a story in Q.B.J. — Queen’s Bureau of Investigation. In that story Ellery kept a long list of known criminals on his person the entire time he was being minutely searched by some desperate individuals who were determined to find the list. Ellery was stripped to the buff, just like Mr. Dennison here.”

“Where did Ellery hide it?” asked Carstairs.

“That would be telling. I’ll lend you the book sometime.”

The attendant shook his head sadly. He was sure something had snapped in Arthur’s mind.

“Now,” Arthur continued, “if Mr. Dennison did take the coin, what did he do with it? Where did he hide it? Unless we can find that out, he’s innocent by default. Let’s see if the problem will yield to logic.”

“Like Ellery Queen?” asked Carstairs, attempting to humor Arthur.

“Precisely. Now I ask you to consider two pieces of evidence, Mr. Carstairs. The first is that long, deep cut on Mr. Dennison’s cheek.”

“So he cut himself shaving, Mr. Mindy,” said Carstairs. “What about it?”

“And the second is that Mr. Dennison is now preparing to climb the stairs to his room,” Arthur concluded.

“So what?” moaned Wyczech. “Come on, great detective. Where’s my coin?”

Arthur smiled. “You know,” he said, “in Ellery Queen’s earlier novels and in many of his short stories now, there’s a point at which the reader is challenged to solve the mystery using only the facts given in the story. I’m sorely tempted to use that device right now.”

Editors’ Note: Why not? If Dennison stole the coin, where did he conceal it? You now have all the facts...

“Mindy!” screamed Wyczech. “You can’t torture me like this! Where’s my gold eagle?”

“Very well,” said Arthur, “let’s first consider the cut on Dennison’s cheek. He said he cut himself shaving this morning. That would have been at least two hours ago, since lunch was just served. But you all noticed the cut was bleeding again. Fresh blood. Why?”

“Because Mr. Wyczech hit him?” Carstairs suggested.

“By Dennison’s own admission, Wyczech never laid a glove on him. But tell me, Mr. Carstairs, what do you do when you cut yourself shaving?”

“Use a styptic pencil.”

“But suppose the cut is long and deep?”

“I’d stick a piece of adhesive plaster over it.”

“Exactly. Adhesive plaster. And if Dennison had just torn a piece of adhesive tape from his face, it would have reopened a long deep cut. Right?”

“Right,” said Carstairs.

“So now we have Dennison provided with a piece of adhesive plaster. Where is that adhesive tape? Evidence Number Two: what did he just do when he was told to leave? He went to the stairway, in spite of the fact that there is an automatic elevator waiting right here for him. What is so attractive about the stairway?”

“So he wanted some exercise,” said Wyczech. “Get to the point.”

“The point,” said Arthur, “is that the stairs are carpeted, while the floor of the elevator is bare wood. When Dennison left the elevator and noticed the door to Wyczech’s room open, he walked in — probably just out of curiosity — and saw the coin. He couldn’t resist taking it, but as he went back into the hall, he heard Wyczech returning. So he had to conceal the coin in a place where it could not be found even if he were searched, but where it would be available to him as soon as he was allowed to leave.”

“I don’t get it,” moaned Wyczech. “Why didn’t he go back to his room by the elevator?”

“He would have clicked.”

“Clicked?”

“Clicked. Logically, the only place the coin could be is the one place on his person that we failed to search.”

Arthur savored the silence of the men in the hall. At the age of 80 he was finally given his golden moment.

“You’ll find it taped to the bottom of his foot.”

Dennison was quickly forced to sit on the bottom stair, and on the ball of his right foot was found the gold coin, held there by a thin strip of adhesive plaster — just as Arthur Mindy had deduced. Dennison’s face was now a mask of hatred. Then the mask came apart.

“I didn’t mean to do it!” he cried out. “I just wanted something all to myself — something that belonged to me and not to everybody else, too. You men — you have relatives to come and see you. They bring you gifts and tell you about their families. You don’t know what it’s like to be really alone. I’ve got nobody — nothing.” His thin body was racked by sobbing.

Gregory Wyczech sat down on the bottom step and put his arm around Dennison’s shoulders. “I tell you what,” he soothed. “You and me, we’re gonna be partners. I’m giving you a half interest in my gold coin, see. Every other week you get to keep it — all to yourself.”

The two old men stood up and crossed the hall while Carstairs gazed at Arthur Mindy in awe.

“Thank you, Mr. Queen,” he heard Arthur Mindy murmur.