The American Gun Mystery (Death At the Rodeo)

27: The Heel of Achilles

Ellery Queen, Gent., was never an enthusiastic patron of the journalistic art. He read newspapers as infrequently as possible; the conservative ones bored him, he liked to say, and the lurid ones sickened him.

Nevertheless Monday morning found him on the sidewalk before Police Headquarters purchasing copies of four different morning sheets from a newsboy who accepted his coins with suspicious fingers.

But since there was no necessity for explaining this sudden change of habit to the newsboy, Ellery merely nodded and hurried into the big gray building.

He found Inspector Queen shouting in his battery of telephones. To this accompaniment he read the journals he had bought. The story of the capture of Wild Bill Grant was, of course this morning’s piece de resistance. The showman’s lined features stared at him from the front pages of the two tabloids, and less generously from the front pages of the two full-size papers. The banners variously described Grant as “fiend,” “pal-killer,” “Western bad man,” and “rodeo promoter.”

Curiously enough, Ellery read nothing beyond the headlines and prefatory paragraphs. Then he flung the papers aside, folded his hands pacifically, and regarded his father.

“Well, what’s happened this morning?” he asked cheerfully.

“Plenty. Grant’s mum — won’t talk, won’t say yes or no,” snapped the Inspector. “But we’ll break that down. The point is, we’ve got the gat. Knowles says there’s no question about the automatic from Grant’s room having been used in the two murders.” The Inspector paused, and something thoughtful came into his sharp eyes. “Funny,” he said slowly, “but it seemed to me Knowles was keepin’ something back. Knowles!” He shrugged. “Must be my imagination. The man’s a jewel. When do I get some explanations, darn you? The Commissioner’s been camping on my wire all morning.”

“Don’t tell me that gentleman’s interested in reasons,” murmured Ellery. “He’s been howling for results, hasn’t he? Well, you’ve given him results, haven’t you? You’ve delivered a murderer, F.O.B. New York, evidence clear — haven’t you? What more does he want?”

“Still,” said the Inspector, “he’s human enough to want to know how and why. And, come to think of it,” he added, eying Ellery suspiciously, “I’m a little curious myself. How’s it happen Grant leaves that gat lyin’ around loose that way? Pretty dumb for a slick killer, seems to me. Especially after the way he smuggled it out of the Colosseum twice under our noses. I think—”

“Don’t,” said Ellery. “Has Curly been around?”

“Hart at the Tombs called me up three times. The boy’s been making a pest of himself. Seems old man Grant won’t even see a lawyer — absolutely refuses. Can’t figure it. The boy’s frantic. And Kit—”

“Yes, what about Kit?” asked Ellery with sudden gravity.

The Inspector shrugged. “She’s been here to see me already this morning. Wants Grant prosecuted to the limit.”

“Very natural,” murmured Ellery, and seemed to find something distasteful in his cigaret.

Ellery hung about Police Headquarters all day. He wore an air of expectancy, and looked quickly up at the door every time a member of the Homicide Squad appeared to report to the Inspector. He smoked innumerable cigarets, and several times made telephone calls from a public booth in the main lobby downstairs.

He refused with a smile on three separate occasions during the afternoon to offer an explanation of the solution. He shook his head at District Attorney Sampson, three newspapermen from syndicates, and the Commissioner himself. At no time did he quite lose his head-cocked, waiting air.

But nothing out of the ordinary happened all day.

At six he and the Inspector left Headquarters and took the subway uptown.

At six-thirty they were sitting at a silent repast, and it was apparent that neither had his usually robust appetite.

At seven the doorbell rang and Ellery sprang to his feet. The visitor was Kit Horne — pale, distrait, very nervous.

“Come in,” said Ellery gently. “And sit down, Miss Horne. I’m glad you decided to come.”

“I... I scarcely know what to do or think,” she said in a low voice, as she slowly sat down in the armchair. “I don’t know where to turn. I’m completely... completely...”

“Don’t blame you,” said the Inspector sympathetically. “It’s hard finding out the real streak in a man who’s seemed to be a friend. If I were you, though, I wouldn’t let this interfere with my feelings in — well, in other people.”

“You mean Curly?” She shook her head. “Impossible. Oh, it’s not his fault, but—”

The doorbell rang again, and Djuna jumped into the foyer. A moment later the tall figure of Curly Grant appeared in the doorway.

“What did you want me—?” he began; and saw Kit. They stared at each other wordlessly. Then she colored and half-rose. The man looked miserable, hung his head.

“No,” said Ellery in a fierce whisper, and she looked at him, startled. “I want you here. I want you here particularly. Don’t take it out on poor Curly. Please sit down, Miss Horne.”

She sat down.

Djuna, coached in advance, appeared with a tray. The awkward moment was bridged by the cheerful clink of ice and glasses; as if by tacit consent the talk turned to light things, and in ten minutes Ellery had them faintly smiling.

But as the minutes passed, lengthening into an hour, and then two hours, the talk languished; and even the Inspector began to grow restless. Ellery was in a fever. He was everywhere at once, speaking quickly, smiling, frowning, smoking, offering cigarets — quite as unlike the normal Ellery as it would be possible to conceive. Despite — perhaps because of — all his efforts, the gloom deepened. Each passing moment now seemed a year. Until finally even Ellery ceased his valiant efforts to disseminate cheer, and no one said anything at all.

It was “precisely at nine o’clock that the doorbell rang for the third time.

Without warning. It came in the midst of a heavy silence. It twitched the Inspector’s mustache, shocked Kit and Curly into rigidity, and raised Ellery from his chair like a yanked rope.

“No, Djuna,” he said quietly to the boy, who as usual had made for the door. “I’ll go myself. Excuse me,” and he darted into the foyer.

They heard the opening of the door. They heard a man’s deep tones. And they heard Ellery say, in a voice steady and dangerous: “Ah, come in, come in. I’ve been expecting you.”

Ellery loomed in the archway from the foyer, his face white as his linen. An instant later a tall man — taller than Ellery — appeared beside him on the sill.

There was an eternal moment, such a moment as life meets infrequently on the normal stream of time. Time for that moment gathered its energies and leaped, exploding, into the brain.

They all stared at the man in the archway, and the man in the archway stared back at them.

It was the man of the frightfully burnt cheek, the ill-clothed shambling Westerner who had vanished so mysteriously from the Colosseum the day before... Benjy Miller. Under the brown skin of his unmutilated right cheek there was a deathlike pallor that matched the pallor of his worn knuckles as he clutched the jamb.

“Miller,” said the Inspector in bewilderment. “Miller,” and rose uncertainly from his chair.

Kit Horne gave vent to a formless choking sound that brought all eyes upon her. She was staring at Miller. The man in the doorway met her eyes for a brief instant, and then looked away, taking a quick step into the room. Kit bit her lip, looked from side to side, drew in her breath spasmodically, eyes filled with a terror that was beyond quelling.

“But what th’ devil—?” muttered Curly in an astonished way.

Ellery said in a barely audible voice: “Tell them.”

Miller paused a yard from the archway, his big hands clenched tightly. He licked his lips and said: “Inspector Queen, I killed — I killed—”

“What!” shouted the Inspector, springing to his feet. He flashed a furious look at Ellery. “You — What d’ye mean? You killed Buck Horne and Woody?”

Curly Grant swore softly to himself.

Miller’s fists unclenched, and clenched again.

Kit began quietly to sob.

And Ellery said: “He killed Woody, but he did not kill Buck Horne!”

The Inspector pounded the table in his fury. “By God, I’ll have the truth now if I go crazy tryin’ to get it! What’s all this foolishness? What d’ye mean — Miller killed Woody but didn’t kill Horne? The same gat was used!”

“And the same hand used it,” said Ellery wearily. “But Miller couldn’t have killed Buck Horne. You see, MILLER’S BUCK HORNE!”