The Four of Hearts

Chapter 19 The Four of Hearts

Ty recovered a little of his color, or perhaps it was the Scotch. At any rate, he said: “I don’t believe it. You’re trying to frighten us with a bogey-man.”

“Doesn’t want us to be married?” said Bonnie in a daze. “You mean mother... too? That that—”

“It’s nonsense,” scoffed Ty. “I’m through listening to you, anyway, Queen. All you’ve ever done to me is mix me up.”

“You poor fool,” said Ellery. “You don’t know what I’ve done to you. You don’t know what I’ve done for you. How can people be so blind?”

“That’s me,” said the Inspector. “Not just blind; stiff. Queen, talk some sense, will you? Give me facts, not a lot of curly little fancies.”

“Facts, eh?” Ellery glowered. “Very well, I’ll give you—”

The front doorbell rang. Bonnie called wearily: “Clotilde, see who it is.” But Ellery and the Inspector jostled each other crowding through the doorway. They pushed the Frenchwoman out of their way. Ty and Bonnie stared after them as if the two men were insane.

Ellery jerked open the door. A stout lady, hatless but wearing a broadtail coat over a flowered house-dress, stood indignantly on the Welcome mat trying to shake off the grip of one of Glucke’s detectives.

“You let go of me!” panted the lady. “Of all things! And all I wanted to do—”

“In or out?” asked the detective of his superior.

Glücke looked helplessly at Ellery, who said: “I daresay we may invite the lady in.” He stared at the woman with unmoving eyes. “Yes, Madam?”

“Of course,” sniffed Madam, “if a person can’t be neighborly...”

Bonnie asked from behind them: “What is it? Who is it?”

“Oh, Miss Stuart,” gushed the stout lady instantly, barging between Ellery and the Inspector and bobbing before Bonnie in a ponderous figure that was almost a curtsy. “You do look just the way you look in pictures. I’ve always remarked to my husband that you’re one of the loveliest—”

“Yes, yes, thank you,” said Bonnie hurriedly. “I’m a little busy just now—”

“What’s on your mind, Madam?” demanded Inspector Glücke. For some reason of his own Ellery kept watching the stout lady’s hands.

“Well, I hope you won’t think I’m intruding, Miss Stuart, but the funniest thing just happened. I’m Mrs. Stroock — you know, the big yellow house around the corner? Well, a few minutes ago my doorbell rang and the second maid answered it after a delay and there was nobody there, but an envelope was lying on my mat outside the door, and it wasn’t for me at all, but was addressed to you, Miss Stuart, and to Mr. Royle, and I thought to myself: ‘Isn’t that the queerest mistake?’ Because after all your address is plain enough, and the names of our streets are so different—”

“Yes, yes, envelope,” said Ellery impatiently, extending his hand. “May I have it, please?”

“I beg your pardon,” said Mrs. Stroock with a glare. “This happens to be Miss Stuart’s letter, not yours, whoever you are, and you aren’t Mr. Royle, I know that. Anyway, Miss Stuart,” she said, turning to Bonnie again, all smiles, “here it is, and I assure you I ran over here just as fast as I could, which isn’t fast,” she giggled, “because my doctor says I am running the least bit to flesh these days. How do you keep your figure? I’ve always said that you—”

“Thank you, Mrs. Stroock,” said Bonnie. “May I?”

The stout lady regretfully took an envelope out of her coat pocket and permitted Bonnie to take it from her. “And may I congratulate you on your engagement to Mr. Royle? I just heard the announcement over the radio. I’m sure it’s the nicest, sweetest thing for two young people—”

“Thank you,” murmured Bonnie. She was staring with a sort of horror at the envelope.

“By the way,” said Ellery, “did you or your maid see the person who rang your bell, Mrs. Stroock?”

“No, indeed. When Mercy went to the door there was nobody there.”

“Hmm. Thank you again, Mrs. Stroock.” Ellery shut the door politely in the stout lady’s face. She sniffed again and marched down the steps, followed to the gate by the detective, who watched her until she turned the corner and then drifted away.

“Thank you,” said Bonnie for the fourth time in a stricken voice to the closed door.

Ellery took the envelope from her fingers and, frowning, returned to the drawing-room. Inspector Glücke gently took Bonnie’s arm.

Ty said: “What’s the matter now?”

Ellery opened the too familiar envelope, addressed in pencilled block letters to “Miss Bonnie Stuart and Mr. Tyler Royle” — no stamp, no other writing except Bonnie’s address — and out tumbled two playing-cards with the blue-backed design.

“The... four of hearts?” said Bonnie faintly.

Ty snatched both cards. “Four of hearts? And the ace of spades!” He went to Bonnie and pulled her close to him suddenly.

“I told you this morning, Glücke, we were dealing with a playful creature,” remarked Ellery. He stared at the cards in Ty’s fist. “Perhaps now you’ll believe me.”

“The ace of spades,” said the Inspector, as if he could not credit the evidence of his own eyesight.

“What does it mean?” asked Bonnie piteously.

“It means,” said Ellery, “that the interview you two gave the press today has already borne fruit. I suppose the extras have been on the streets for an hour, and you heard that awful woman mention the radio. Our friend Egbert was in such haste to get this message to you he refused to wait for the regular mails, which would have brought the cards Monday, or even a special delivery, which would have brought them some time tomorrow.”

“But what’s it mean?”

“As an intelligible message?” Ellery shrugged. “Together the cards say: ‘Bonnie Stuart and Tyler Royle, break your engagement or prepare to die.’”

The Inspector made a sound deep in his throat and nervously looked about the room.

Bonnie was pale, too; paler than Ty. Her hand crept into his.

“Then it is true,” she whispered. “There is a pattern. Ty, what are we going to do?”

“The reason,” Mr. Queen remarked, “that Egbert delivered this message in such haste is that Monday — obviously — will be too late. Even tomorrow may be too late. I trust you get his implication?”

Ty sat down on the sofa, his shoulders sagging. He said wearily: “I get it, all right. It’s true, and we’re not to marry, and if we do it’s curtains for us. So I guess we’ve got to satisfy everybody— Butch, the studio, Egbert L. Smith — and drop our marriage plans.”

Bonnie moaned: “Oh, Ty...”

“Why kid ourselves, honey?” Ty scowled. “If I was the only one concerned, I’d say the hell with Egbert. But I’m not; you’re in it, too. I won’t marry you and lay you wide open to an attack on your life.”

“Oh, you are stupid!” cried Bonnie, stamping. “Don’t you see that isn’t so? I received threats even before we announced our plans. Those threats were mailed to me. The only time you were threatened was just now, after we’d announced our intention to be married!”

“Hurrah for the female intelligence,” said Ellery. “I’m afraid Bonnie scores there, Ty. That’s perfectly true. I refrained from mentioning it before, but I can’t hold it back any longer. All my efforts to keep you two apart have been exerted in your behalf, Ty, not Bonnie’s. It’s your life that’s involved in this association with Bonnie. Bonnie’s life, with or without you, has been in danger from the day her mother died.”

Ty looked confused. “And I socked you!”

“Marry Bonnie and you’re on the spot. Don’t marry Bonnie and you’re not on the spot. But she is whether you marry her or not. It’s a pretty thought.”

“In again, out again.” Ty grinned a twisted grin. “I’ve given up trying to make sense out of this thing. If what you say is true, we’re going to be married. I’m not going to let her face this alone. Let that sneaking son try to kill me — let him try.”

“No, Ty,” said Bonnie miserably. “I can’t have you doing that. I can’t. Why should you endanger your life? I don’t pretend to understand it, either, but how can I let you share a danger that’s apparently directed at me alone?”

“You,” said Ty, “are marrying me tomorrow, and no arguments.”

“Oh, Ty,” whispered Bonnie, creeping into his arms. “I’d hoped you’d say that. I am afraid.”

Inspector Glücke was prowling about in a baffled sort of way. “If we only knew who it was,” he muttered. “If we knew, we might be able to do something.”

“Oh, but we do know,” said Ellery. He looked up at their exclamations. “I forgot you didn’t know. I do, of course, and I tell you we can do nothing—”

“‘Of course,’ he says!” shouted the Inspector. He pounced on Ellery and shook him. “Who is it?”

“Yes,” said Ty in a funny voice. “Who is it, Queen?”

“Please, Glücke. Just knowing who it is doesn’t solve this problem.” He began to pace up and down, restlessly.

“Why not?”

“Because there’s not an atom of evidence to bring into court. The case wouldn’t get past a Grand Jury, if it ever got to a Grand Jury at all. It would be thrown out for lack of evidence, and you’d have missed your chance to pin the crimes on the one who committed them.”

“But, good God, man,” cried Ty, “we can’t just sit around here waiting for the fellow to attack. We’ve got to do something to trim his claws!”

“Let me think,” said Ellery irritably. “You’re making too much noise, all of you.”

He walked up and down, head bent. There was no sound at all except the sound of his march about the room.

“Look,” interrupted the Inspector. “A cop has just as great a responsibility protecting life as investigating death. You say you know who’s behind all this, Queen. All right. Let’s go to this bird, tell him we know, warn him he’ll be watched until the day he dies by a squad of detectives on twenty-four-hour duty. He’d be a bigger fool than any one could be if he didn’t give up his plans then and there.”

“I’ve thought of that, of course,” said Ellery crossly. “But it has one nasty drawback. It means Egbert will never hang for the murder of Jack and Blythe; and if there’s one little fellow I’d have no objection to seeing hanged, it’s Egbert.”

“If it means safety for Bonnie,” said Ty, “let him go. Let him go! Glücke’s right.”

“Or why couldn’t we,” began Bonnie, and stopped. “That’s it! Why couldn’t Ty and I be married right this minute and then vanish? Go off somewhere without anybody’s knowing where. Anybody. Then we’d be safe!”

“And go through the rest of a long life looking over your shoulder every time you heard a sound behind you?” asked Ellery. And then he stared at Bonnie. “Of course! That’s it. Vanish! Exactly. Exactly. Force his hand. He’d have to...” His voice trailed off and he began to run madly, like an ant, his lips moving silently.

“Have to what?” demanded the Inspector.

“Try to murder them, of course... Yes, he would. Let’s see now. If we pulled the stunt—”

“Try to murder us?” repeated Bonnie, blinking.

Ellery stopped racing. “Yes,” he said briskly. “That’s exactly what we’ll do. We’ll jockey this bird into the position of trying to murder you. If the compulsion is strong enough — and I think we can make it strong enough — he must try to murder you... Bonnie.” Ellery’s eyes were shining. “Would you be willing to run the risk of an open attack on your life if by running that risk we stood a good chance of catching your mother’s murderer red-handed?”

“You mean,” said Bonnie slowly, “that if it were successful I’d be free? Ty and I — we’d both be free?”

“Free as the air.”

“Oh, yes. Oh, yes, I’ll do anything for that!”

“Not so fast,” said Ty. “What’s the plan?”

“To go through with the announced marriage, to utilize it as a trap for the murderer.”

“And use Bonnie as a guinea-pig? Nuts.”

“But I tell you Bonnie’s life is in danger in any event,” said Ellery impatiently. “Even if she’s surrounded by armed guards day and night, do you want her to spend the rest of her life waiting for the ax to fall? I assure you, Ty, it’s either Egbert or Bonnie. Take my word for that. The creature’s gone too far to stop now. His plans make it mandatory for Bonnie to die.”

“It’s a hell of a decision to make,” muttered Ty.

“Ty, will you listen to me? I tell you it’s the safest course in the long run. Don’t you see that by setting a trap we force his hand? We make him attempt Bonnie’s life when we want him to, under conditions we have established — yes, lure him unsuspecting right into a spot where we know what he’ll do and be prepared for him. By taking the bold step we reduce the danger to a minimum. Don’t you see?”

“How do you know,” said Glücke intently, “he’ll attack?”

“He’s got to. He can’t wait too long; I’m positive of that, never mind how. If part of our plan is to announce that immediately after the wedding tomorrow Bonnie and Ty are taking off for an unknown destination, to be gone an indefinite length of time, he must attack; I know he must. He can’t let Bonnie, living, vanish; he’ll have to try to kill her tomorrow or give up his whole plan.”

“Why shouldn’t he give up his whole plan?”

“Because,” said Ellery grimly, “he’s already killed two people in pursuance of his objective. Because we’ll give him another opportunity he can’t pass up. Because he’s desperate, and cold-blooded, and his motive — to him — is overwhelming.”

“Motive? What motive? I thought he was crazy.”

“Yes, what motive?” asked Bonnie tensely. “Nobody could possibly have a reason for killing me.”

“Obviously some one has, as this last message indicates. Let’s not go down byroads now. The big point is: Are you game to try?”

Bonnie laid her head on Ty’s shoulder. Ty twisted his head to look down at her. She smiled back at him faintly.

“All right, Queen,” said Ty. “Let’s go.”

“Good! Then we’ve got to understand this clearly, all four of us. You, too, Glücke. You’ll have an important job.

“We’ll let Sam Vix’s plans for the wedding stand; in fact, we use them. As it’s turned out, that studio mix-up just now was a break for us; it happened naturally, and that’s what we need most — natural events arousing no possible suspicion on the part of... let’s continue to call him Egbert.

“All right. We can depend on Sam to ring the welkin tonight; there will be plenty of ballyhoo between now and tomorrow afternoon. We make it clear that you two are to be married in the plane; we make it even clearer — this is vital — that you two are leaving for an unannounced destination, for an indefinite stay. That no one, not even the studio, will know where you’re going or when you’re coming back. That you’re sick and tired of it all, and want to be alone, to chuck Hollywood and all its sorrows for a while. If possible you must tell that to the press... convincingly.”

“The way I feel,” grinned Ty, “don’t worry about that.”

“Now what does Egbert do? He’s got to murder Bonnie — yes, and after the wedding you, too, Ty — before you slip out of his grasp. How is he going to do it? Not by poisoning food or drink, as in the case of Jack and Blythe; he’ll realize that, with the manner of their deaths so fresh in your minds, you just won’t touch untested gifts of food or drink. So he’ll have to plan a more direct assault; that’s inevitable. The most direct is a gun.”

“But—” began the Inspector, frowning.

“Let me finish. To shoot and get away safely, he can’t attack on the field; even if he succeeded in taking two accurate potshots from the crowd, he’d never live to leave the field. So,” snapped Ellery, “he’ll have only one course to follow. In order to make sure of a successful double murder and a successful getaway, he’ll have to get into that plane with you.”

“Oh... I see,” said Bonnie in a small voice. Then she set her smooth jaw.

“I get it, I get it,” mumbled Glücke.

“Moreover, since we know he’ll try to get into that plane, we also know how. He can get in, reasonably, only as the pilot.”

“The way he did it in the case of Jack and Blythe!” exclaimed the Inspector.

“Since we’re reasonably certain he’ll take the opportunity if he’s given the opportunity, all we have to do is give it to him. So we engage a professional aviator. That’s part of our announcement. We see to it that the pilot isn’t openly under surveillance, we permit Egbert to decoy the pilot into a dark corner, to incapacitate him — I don’t believe he’ll be in serious danger, but we can take steps to keep it down to a minimum — and we permit Egbert to take the pilot’s place in the plane.”

“Why a pilot at all? I run my own ship. Won’t that sound phony?” asked Ty.

“No, because you’re taking a pilot in order to have him drop you off somewhere to make connections with a train or a boat — not even the pilot, we’ll announce, will know where he’s going until after the takeoff. So, of course you’ll need a pilot, ostensibly, to bring the plane back after he dumps you. That’s all right. At any rate, friend Egbert will hop into the plane and take off, secure in the feeling that he’s left no trail and will be able to commit his crime in mid-air.”

“Wait a minute,” said Glücke. “I like your scheme, but it means putting these two youngsters in a plane with a dangerous criminal, alone except for some fool of a minister who’ll probably only make things worse.”

“This minister won’t.”

“Erminius is an old woman.”

“But it won’t be Erminius. It will be some one who just looks like Erminius,” said Ellery calmly.

“Who?”

“Your obedient servant. Erminius has a beautiful set of black whiskers, which makes him a cinch to impersonate. Besides, Egbert won’t be paying much attention to the preacher, I can promise you that. He’ll be too intent on getting that plane off the ground unsuspected. Anyway, Ty and I will both be armed. At the first sign of trouble, we shoot.”

“Shoot,” repeated Bonnie, licking her lips and trying to look brave.

“We’ll subdue him if we can, but we must give him the opportunity to show his hand. And that can be brought out in court.”

“Hell,” protested the Inspector, “you ought to know even catching the guy in an attempted homicide won’t pin the murders of Jack and Blythe on him.”

“I rather think it won’t make any difference. I think that, once caught, our friend will collapse like a straw man and tell all. If the stunt works, sheer surprise at finding himself trapped at a moment when he thought his plans were about to be consummated will put him off guard. At any rate, it’s our only chance to catch him at all.”

There was a little uncomfortable interval, and then Glücke said: “It sounds screwy as the devil, but it might work, it might work. What do you say, you two?”

“I say, yes,” said Bonnie quickly, as if she were afraid that if she hesitated she might not say yes at all. “What do you say, darling?”

And Ty kissed her and said, “I love you, Pug Nose.” Then he said to Ellery in an altogether different tone of voice: “But if anything goes wrong, Queen, I swear I’ll strangle you with my bare hands. If it’s the last thing I do.”

“It probably will be,” muttered Ellery. “Because Egbert’s plan will undoubtedly be to stage a second St. Valentine’s Day massacre in that plane with his popgun and then bail out, leaving the plane to crash in the desert somewhere.”

Chapter 20 Castle in the Air

Time, which had been floating by, suddenly took on weight and speed. Ellery kept looking at his wristwatch in despair as he went into the details of his plan, instructing Ty and Bonnie over and over in their roles.

“Remember, Ty, you’ll have to handle all the arrangements; Glücke and I can’t possibly appear in this. In fact, we’ll stay as far away from you as we can until tomorrow. Have you a gun?”

“No.”

“Glücke, give him yours.” The Inspector handed his automatic over to Ty, who examined it expertly and dropped it into his jacket pocket. “Now what’s your story to the press?”

“Bonnie has received a warning to break our engagement, but we both agree it’s the work of some crank and intend to be married at once. I show the cards.”

“Right. Not a word about our real plans to any one. In a half-hour call Erminius and engage him to perform the ceremony. Bonnie.”

Bonnie peeped out from the cradle of Ty’s arms.

“You’re all right?”

“I’m feeling fine,” said Bonnie.

“Good girl! Now do a little of that acting Butch pays you for. You’re happy — just the proper combination of happiness and grief. You’re marrying Ty because you love him, and you also know that Blythe and Jack must be happy somewhere knowing what you’re about to do. The feud is over, never to be resurrected. You’ve got all that?”

“Yes,” said Bonnie in a shaky little voice.

“By George, I feel like a director!” Ellery grinned with a confidence he did not feel and stuck his hand out to Ty. “Good luck. By this time tomorrow night the nightmare will be over.”

“Don’t worry about us, Queen,” said Ty, shaking hands soberly. “We’ll come through. Only — get into that plane!”

Glücke said abruptly: “Stay here. Send for your duds, Ty. Don’t leave this house. It’s surrounded right now, but I’ll send two men in here to watch from a hiding-place — just in case. Don’t do anything foolish, like those heroes you play in the movies. At the first suspicion of trouble, yell like the devil.”

“I’ll take care of that part of it,” said Bonnie with a grimace; then she tried to smile, and they shook hands all around, and Ellery and the Inspector slipped out by the back way.

The next twelve hours were mad on the surface and madder underneath. The necessity for boring from within was a bother; Ellery was constantly answering telephone calls in his hotel apartment and giving cautious instructions. He could only pray that Ty and Bonnie were carrying off their end successfully.

The first assayable results came booming in via radio late that night. Towards the end of an expensive Saturday-night program a studio announcer interrupted with the detailed news of the projected wedding. Apparently Sam Vix had sailed into his assignment with his customary energy. Within two hours four of the largest radio stations on the Pacific Coast had broadcast the announcement of the Sunday airplane wedding of Tyler Royle and Bonnie Stuart. A famous female studio commentator climbed panting on the air to give the palpitating public the intimate details of the plan, as transmitted directly from the mouths of the lovers themselves. The interview, reported this lady, had been too, too sweet. Somebody, she said sternly, had had the bad taste to “warn” Bonnie against marriage. This was, it seemed, a frank and brutal case of lese majesté. Those two, poor, sorrowing children! panted the lady. She hoped every friend Ty and Bonnie had within driving distance of Griffith Park airport would be on hand Sunday to show Ty and Bonnie what the world thought of their coming union.

The newspapers erupted with the news late Saturday night, chasing a scarehead concerning the Japanese war in China off the front page.

And so on, interminably, far into the night.

Ellery and the Inspector met secretly at Police Headquarters at two o’clock in the morning to discuss developments. So far, so good. Dr. Erminius had been duly, and unsuspectingly, engaged to perform the unique ceremony. Dr. Erminius was delighted, it appeared, at this heaven-sent opportunity to join two fresh young souls in holy wedlock with God’s pure ether as a background, although he fervently prayed to the Lord that there would be no repetition of the ghastly aftermath of the first Royle-Stuart wedding at which he had officiated.

The pilot had also been engaged; he had been selected without his knowledge more for his character than for his skill as an aviator. He was known to have a healthy respect for firearms.

In his office at Headquarters Glücke had several photographs of the eminent divine ready for Ellery, who came down with a make-up box stolen from one of the Magna dressing-rooms; and the two men spent several anxious hours making Ellery up and comparing him with Dr. Erminius’s photographs. They agreed finally that a bundling, muffling overcoat with a beaver collar, such as Dr. Erminius affected in brisk weather, would help; and parted with plans to meet early in the morning.

Ellery returned to Hollywood, snatched three hours of uneasy sleep, and at eight Sunday morning met the Inspector and two detectives outside Dr. Erminius’s expensive house in Inglewood. They went in; and when they came out they were minus the two detectives and richer by a fur-collared coat. The good man howled ungodly imprecations from within.

Several telephone calls, a final check-up... Ellery crossed his fingers. “Nothing more for us to do,” he sighed. “Well, so long, Glücke. See you in the Troc or in hell.”

At noon Sunday the parking spaces about the Griffith Park airport were almost filled. At one o’clock there was a jam over which a hundred policemen sweated and cursed. At one-fifteen all cars were halted at the intersection of Los Feliz and Griffith Park boulevards and detoured; and at one-thirty it seemed as if every automobile-owner in the State of California had come to see Ty and Bonnie married.

Ty’s red-and-gold plane stood in a cleared area considerably larger than the area in which it had stood a week before. But the jam threatened to burst the ropes on the field, and the police heaved against them, shouting. When Dr. Erminius’s royal-blue limousine rolled onto the field under motorcycle escort and the good dominie descended, complete with shiny black whiskers and beaver-collared coat, muffled to the ears — the doctor had a bad cold, it appeared — a cheer shook the heavens. And when Ty and Bonnie arrived, pale but smiling, the din frightened a flock of pigeons into swooping for cover.

Cameras were leveled, reporters yelled themselves hoarse, and Ty and Bonnie and Dr. Erminius were photographed from every conceivable angle and in every position commensurate with the moral tone of the family newspaper.

Meanwhile, the pilot who had been engaged, very natty in his flying suit, received a puzzling message and wandered off to the empty hangar in which only a week before Ty and Bonnie had been held up. He went into the hangar and looked about.

“Who wants me?” he called.

Echo answered; but answer also materialized, and the man’s jaw dropped as a bulky, shapeless figure in flying togs, wearing a face-concealing pair of goggles and a helmet, stepped from behind a tarpaulined airplane and leveled a revolver at the pilot’s chest.

“Huh?” gasped the pilot, elevating his amis.

The revolver waved an imperious order. The pilot stumbled forward, fascinated. The butt described a short, gentle arc and the pilot crumpled to the floor, no longer interested in the proceedings.

And from a rent in the tarpaulin, behind which he had been suffocating for two hours, Inspector Glücke, automatic in hand, watched the pilot fall, watched the bundled figure stoop over the man and drag him into a corner. The Inspector did not so much as stir a finger; the tap had been gentle, and the interference just then would have been disastrous to the plan.

Because of his position, Glücke could see only the inert body. He did see a pair of hands begin to undress the pilot, divesting him of his outer clothing; it struck Glücke suddenly that the two flying-suits were of different cut; of course, little Egbert would have to put on his victim’s suit and helmet and goggles.

It was all over in two minutes. Glücke saw the flying-suit of the attacker flung down on the unconscious pilot, then the helmet, the goggles; and the quick disappearance of the pilot’s rig.

Then the attacker appeared again, dressed as the pilot, goggled and unrecognizable; he appeared stooping over the motionless figure. He began to bind and gag the pilot. Still the Inspector did not move.

The attacker pushed his bound victim under the very tarpaulin behind which Glücke crouched, pocketed the revolver, and with a certain grim jauntiness strode out of the hangar.

Glücke moved then, quickly. He clambered out of the covered ship, made a low warning sound, and three plainclothes men stepped out of steel lockers. Leaving the unconscious man in their hands, he ducked out of the hangar by a rear door and strolled around the building to merge briefly with the crowd. Then he sauntered casually up to the group of shouting, gesticulating people around the red-and-gold plane.

The “pilot” was busily engaged in picking up the tumbled luggage and depositing it, piece by piece, in the plane. No one paid any attention to him. Finally he climbed into the plane and a moment later the propeller turned over and began to spin with a roar.

He looked out the window and waved his arm impatiently.

The Reverend Dr. Erminius looked startled. But he caught the eye of Inspector Glücke, who nodded, and heaved a relieved sigh.

“All set,” he said in Ty’s ear.

“What?” yelled Ty above the roar of the motor.

Dr. Erminius gave him a significant look. Bonnie caught it, too, and closed her eyes for a second; and then she smiled, and waved, and Ty, looking rather grim, picked her slender figure up in his arms and carried her into the plane to the howling approval of the mob. The Reverend Dr. Erminius followed more sedately. The pilot came out of his cubicle, shut the door securely, went back to his cubicle; the police and field attendants cleared the runway; and finally the signal came, and the red-and-gold plane began slowly to taxi down the field, picking up speed... its tail lifting, its wings gripping the air. And then it left the solid ground and soared into the blue, and they were alone with their destiny.

Afterwards, in recollection, it all seemed to have happened quickly. But at the time there was an interminable interval, during which the thousands on the field below grew smaller and smaller as the plane circled the field, and finally became only animated dots, and the hangars and administration buildings looked like toys, and the runway, the crowd released, suddenly took on the appearance of a gray patch overrun with bees.

Bonnie kept looking out the window as Ty adjusted the speaking tube to her head, and put one on himself, and gave one to Dr. Erminius. Bonnie was trying to look gay, waving idiotically at the mobs below, steadfastly keeping her eyes averted from the cubicle in which the pilot sat quietly at the controls.

Ty’s arm was tightly about her, and his right hand gripped the automatic in his pocket. And his eyes never left the back of the pilot’s helmeted head.

As for the Reverend Dr. Erminius, that worthy beamed on the earth and on the sky, and fumbled with the Word of God, obviously preparing to preside over the coming union of two young, untried souls.

And the plane began imperceptibly to nose towards the northeast, where the desert lay, leveling off at eight thousand feet and throbbing steadily.

“I believe,” announced Dr. Erminius solemnly, and at his words the bees being left behind stopped swarming and froze to the ground as the amplifiers on the field caught his voice, “that the time has come to join you children in the ineffable bliss of matrimony.”

“Yes, Doctor,” said Bonnie in a low voice. “I’m ready.” And she turned around, and gulped, and the gulp was audible as a hollow thunder below. She rose to stand at Ty’s knee and clutch his shoulder. Ty rose quickly then, placing her behind him. His right hand was still in his pocket.

“Oh, pilot,” called Dr. Erminius over the mutter of the motor.

The pilot turned his goggled head in inquiry.

“You have automatic controls there, have you not?”

Ty answered in a flat voice: “Yes, Doctor. This is my plane, you know. The Sperry automatic pilot.”

“Ah. Then if you will come back here, pilot, after locking the controls you may act as the witness to this ceremony. It will be more comfortable than crowding about your cockpit, or whatever it is called.”

The pilot nodded and they saw him adjust something on the complex control-board in front of him. He spent a full minute there, his back to them; and none of them spoke.

Then he got out of his seat, and turned, and stooped, and came into the body of the plane with a swift lurch of his bulky body, looking like a hunchback with the protuberance of the unopened parachute between his shoulder-blades. The Reverend Dr. Erminius had his Book open and ready, and he was beaming on Ty and Bonnie. Ty’s hand was still in his pocket, Bonnie was by his side and yet somehow a little behind him, sheltered by his body and the body of the beaming preacher.

And the preacher said: “Let us begin. Bless my soul, we’re leaving the field! Weren’t we supposed—”

The pilot’s hand darted into his pocket and emerged with a snub-nosed automatic, and he brought his hand up very swiftly, his finger tightening on the trigger as the muzzle came up to aim directly at Bonnie’s heart.

At the same moment there was a flash of fire from Ty’s right pocket, and a flash of fire as if miraculously from the pages of the Good Book in the no longer beaming dominie’s hands; and the pilot coughed and lurched forward, dropping the snub-nosed automatic from a gloved hand which suddenly spouted blood.

Bonnie screamed, once, and fell back; and Ty and Dr. Erminius pounced on the swaying figure.

The pilot lashed out, catching Ty with his good fist on the jaw and sending him staggering back against Bonnie. Dr. Erminius snarled and fell on the cursing man. The two tumbled to the floor of the plane, pummeling each other.

Ty lunged forward again.

But somehow, by exactly what means they never knew, the pilot managed to shake them off. One moment they were all struggling on the floor and the next he was on his feet, goggles and helmet torn away from his flushed face, screaming: “You’ll never hang me!”

And before either of the men on the floor could get to his feet, the pilot darted to the door, wrenched it open, and flung himself out into the sky.

He bounced once on the metal wing.

His body hurtled toward the distant wrinkled face of the earth.

They watched that plummet dive with the paralysis of horror.

The tumbling figure waved frantic arms, growing smaller and smaller.

But no parachute blossomed, and the body became a shrinking mote that suddenly stopped shrinking and spread infinitesimally on the earth.

Chapter 21 Excursion into Time

The field was the surface of a bubbling pot when they landed. Police were using their night-sticks. Men with cameras and men with notebooks were fighting openly to break through the cordon.

Ellery, one whisker askew, cooing over Bonnie, saw Inspector Glücke in a small army of detectives gesticulating near the hangar; and he grinned with the satisfaction of sheer survival.

“It’s all right, Bonnie,” he said. “It’s all over now. You’ve got nothing more to worry about. That’s right. Cry it out. It’s all right.”

“Just wait,” growled Ty. “Wait till I get this damned thing standing still.”

“I’m waiting,” sobbed Bonnie. “Oh, Ty, I’m waiting!” And she shuddered over the palpable sight of a small leggy figure tumbling end over end through empty air, like a dead bug.

The Inspector hurried them into the hangar, out of sight of the frenzied crowd. He was red-faced and voluble, and he grinned all over as he pumped Ty’s hand, and Ellery’s hand, and Bonnie’s hand, and listened to details, and shouted instructions, and swore it had all come in like a movie. Outside a police plane managed to find a space clear enough for a take-off; it headed northeast on the funereal mission of locating and gathering the splattered remains of the one who had sought escape and found death.

Ty seized Bonnie and began shoving through the crowd of detectives to the hangar door.

“Here, where are you going?” demanded Ellery, grabbing his arm.

“Taking Bonnie home. Can’t you see the poor kid’s ready to collapse? Here, you men, get us off this field!”

“You wouldn’t run out on me now, Bonnie?” smiled Ellery, chucking her chin. “Come on, square your shoulders and get set for another sky-ride.”

“Another?” yelled Ty. “What now, for the love of Mike? Haven’t you had enough sky-riding for one day?”

“No,” said Ellery, “I have not.” He began to rip off his false whiskers, glancing inquiringly at the Inspector; and the Inspector nodded with a certain grimness, and before Ty could open his mouth to protest he and Bonnie were hurried onto the field and through lanes of police into a large transport plane drawn up on the line with its motor spitting.

“Hey, for God’s sake!” shouted a reporter. “Glücke! Give us a break. Glücke!”

“Ty!”

“Bonnie!”

But the Inspector shook his head, and followed Ty and Bonnie into the plane; and there, huddled in a pale-faced group, were several familiar faces.

They were looking at Ty and Bonnie, and Ty and Bonnie were looking at them; and Glücke hauled Ellery in and said something in a low voice to the pilot.

And then they all stared at the rushing, congested field as the plane took off and headed southeast.

And soon they were settling down on the little landing-field near Tolland Stuart’s mountain mansion; and as they landed another plane, which had been following from Los Angeles, settled down after them.

Ellery, his face his own, jumped to the ground almost before the plane stopped. He waved to its oncoming pursuer, and ran over to the hangar before which the emaciated figure of Dr. Junius was waiting. The doctor’s mouth was open and his eyes were glary with confusion.

Police poured out of the second plane and scattered quickly into the woods.

“What’s this?” stammered Dr. Junius, staring at the numerous figures getting out of the first plane. “Mr. Royle? Miss Stuart? What’s happened?”

“All in good time, Doctor,” said Ellery brusquely, taking his arm. He shouted to the others: “Up to the house!” and began to march the physician along.

“But...”

“Now, now, a little patience.”

And when they reached the house, Ellery said: “Where’s the old fire-eater? We can’t leave him out of this.”

“Mr. Stuart? In his room, sulking with a cold. He thinks he’s catching the grippe. Wait, I’ll tell him—” Dr. Junius broke away and ran up the living-room steps. Ellery watched him go, smiling.

“Upstairs,” he said cheerfully to the others. “The old gentleman’s indisposed for a change.”

When they got upstairs they found Dr. Junius soothing the old man, who sat propped up in bed against two enormous pillows, wrapped in an Indian blanket almost to the hairline, his two bright eyes glaring out at them.

“I thought I told you,” he began to complain, and then he spied Bonnie. “Oh, so you’ve come back, hey?” he snarled.

“Yes, indeed,” said Ellery, “and with a considerable escort, as you see. I trust, Mr. Stuart, you won’t be as inhospitable this time as you were the last. You see, I’ve got a little tale to tell, and it did seem a pity to keep it from you.”

“Tale?” said the old man sourly.

“The tale of an escapade just now in the California clouds. We’ve captured the murderer of John Royle and your daughter Blythe.”

Dr. Junius said incredulously: “What?”

And the old man opened his toothless mouth, and closed it again, and then reopened it as he stared from Ellery to Inspector Glücke. His mouth remained open.

“Yes,” said Ellery, nodding over a cigaret, “the worst is over, gentlemen. A very bad hombre’s come to the end of the line. I shouldn’t have said ‘captured.’ He’s dead, unless he learned somewhere to survive an eight-thousand-foot drop from a plane with a parachute that didn’t open.”

“Dead. Oh, I see; he’s dead.” Dr. Junius blinked. “Who was he? I can’t imagine...” His eyes, bulging out of their yellow-violet sockets, began timidly to reconnoitre the room.

“I think it would be wisest,” said Ellery, blowing a cloud of smoke, “to clean this sad business up in an orderly manner.”

“So I’ll begin at the beginning. There were two elements in the double murder of John Royle and Blythe Stuart which pointed to our now departed friend as the only possible culprit: motive and opportunity.

“It was in a consideration of motive that this case has been most interesting. In one way, unique. Let’s see what we had to work with.

“Neither Blythe nor Jack left an estate worth killing for, so murder for monetary gain was out. Since there were no romantic entanglements, such as jealous inamoratos of either victim — Blythe was stainless morally and all of Jack’s lady-friends have been eliminated by Glücke because of alibis — then the only possible emotional motive would have had to arise out of the Royle-Stuart feud. But I have been able, as some of you know, to rule out the feud as the motive behind these crimes.

“If the feud is eliminated, then neither Jack Royle nor Ty Royle could have been criminally involved — the feud being their only possible motive.

“But if the feud is eliminated, we’re faced with a puzzling situation. No one gained by the double murder, either materially or emotionally. In other words, a double murder was committed apparently without motive.

“Now this is palpably absurd. The only kind of crime which can even be conceived to lack motivation is the crime of impulse, the passion of a moment — and even this kind of crime, strictly speaking, has some deep-seated motive, even though the motive may manifest itself only in a sudden emotional eruption. But the murder of Jack and Blythe did not fall into even this classification. It was clearly a crime of great deliberation, of much planning in advance of the event — the warnings, the hamper, the frame-ups of Ty and Jack, the poison, and so on.

“Why, then, was Blythe Stuart, against whom the crime was originally and exclusively directed, marked for death? We agree there must have been a motive in so deeply premeditated a crime. But what?

“This raises,” said Ellery slowly, “one of the most extraordinary questions in my experience. The question being: How is it possible for a murder-motive to exist and yet elude the most searching analysis? It’s there; we know it’s there; and yet we can’t see it, we can’t even glimpse its ghost; it lies in pure darkness, in the vacuum of the void.

“Well,” said Ellery, “maybe we can’t see the motive for the simplest reason imaginable. Maybe we can’t see it because it doesn’t exist... yet.”

He paused, and Inspector Glücke said with an exasperation which flicked the hide from his words: “You just said there must be a motive, that Blythe Stuart was murdered because of that motive, that all we have to do is find that motive. And now you say we can’t find the motive because it doesn’t exist yet! But if it didn’t exist when the murderer planned his crime, why the devil did he plan it? Do you know what you’re talking about?”

“This fascinating discussion,” drawled Ellery, “shows the limitations of language. Glücke, it’s so simple it’s absurd. It’s merely a question of time — I used the word ‘yet,’ you’ll recall.”

“Time?” repeated Bonnie, bewildered.

“Time — you know, that invisible thing made visible by your wrist-watch. The background of The Magic Mountain and Albert Einstein’s mathematical researches. Time — what time is it? Have you the time? I’m having a great time.”

He laughed. “Look. Whatever the great intellects may call time, mankind has divided it for practical purposes into three classifications: the past, the present, and the future. All living is motivated by one, two, or all of these classifications. The businessman pays a sum of money to his bank because he took a loan in the past, certainly his current headaches are directly attributable to a past event. I am smoking this cigaret because I have the impulse to satisfy a craving for tobacco in the present. But isn’t the future just as important in our lives? In many ways, more important? A man scrimps to provide against the rainy day — our way of nominating the future. A woman buys a steak at the butcher’s in the morning because she knows her husband will be hungry in the evening. Magna plans a football picture in May because they know that in October people will be excited about football. Future, future, future; it dictates ninety percent of our actions.”

He said sharply: “In the same way, it struck me that crime — murder — is dictated by time just as inexorably as any other human activity. A man might murder his wife because she was unfaithful to him yesterday. Or a man might murder his wife if he catches her in the act of being unfaithful to him — which means the present. But mightn’t a man also murder his wife because he overhears her planning to be unfaithful to him tomorrow?”

And Ellery cried: “So not having found a past event to account for Blythe Stuart’s murder; not having found a present event, one contemporaneous with the crime, to account for it — it struck me with force that Blythe Stuart might have been murdered because of an event which was destined to happen in the future!”

Inspector Glücke said queerly: “You mean...” He did not finish. But after that he kept his gaze riveted on one person in the room with a vague curiosity that was half suspicion.

“But what event,” Ellery went on swiftly, “was destined to happen in the future which could have provided a strong motive for the murder of Blythe Stuart? Of all the factors which made up Blythe Stuart — the woman, the actress, the member of a social unit we call ‘family’ — one factor stood out. Some day... in the future... some day Blythe Stuart’s father would die. And when Blythe Stuart’s father died she would inherit a large fortune. She was not yet an heiress, but she was destined to be.”

The old man in the bed sank deeper into his swathings, fixing his eyes bitterly on Bonnie.

And Bonnie grew paler and said: “But that means... If mother died, I would inherit...”

“Queen, are you crazy?” cried Ty.

“Not at all; your hands are clean, Bonnie. For after your mother’s death wasn’t it apparent that you, too, were marked for death? Those threatening messages? The ace of spades?

“No,” said Ellery, “you were the only one who would directly gain by your mother’s death, from the standpoint of a future inheritance. But, equally as restrictive, there was only one person who would gain by the deaths of both your mother and you, the only one who stood in the direct line after you two women should have died.

“And that was how I knew that the sole living relation of Tolland Stuart, once you and your mother were dead, must be the driving force behind the entire plot. That was how I knew the murderer was Lew Bascom.”

Chapter 22 Beginning of the End

And there was an interval in time in which the only sound was the asthmatic breathing of the old man in the bed.

And then he muttered: “Lew? My cousin Lew Bascom?”

And Dr. Junius kept blinking, saying nothing.

But Ellery said: “Yes, Mr. Stuart, your cousin Lew Bascom, who conceived and was well on his way to executing a brilliant reversal of the usual procedure in murdering to-gain-a-fortune. A strange creature, Lew. Always broke, too erratic to settle down and put his undeniable talents to a humdrum and sustained economic use, Lew planned murder as the easy way. Of course it was the hard way, but you could never have convinced a man like Lew of that.

“Lew was no sentimentalist, and naturally he was cracked. All deliberate killers are out of plumb somewhere. But the rift in his psychological make-up did not prevent him from seeing that a man stood a much better chance of getting away with murder if he concealed the motive. Usually, in murders for gain through inheritance, the rich man is killed first, to insure the passing of the estate. Then the heir or heirs are eliminated, the estate passing legally from one to the other until finally, with no one left but the last legal heir, it becomes his property. There are numerous cases on record of such crimes. But the trouble with them, as many murderers have discovered to their sorrow, is that the method leaves a plain motive trail.

“It was too plain for Lew. If your daughter Blythe were killed while her father Tolland Stuart remained alive, he saw that the real motive for her murder would be a hopeless enigma to the police. Originally, of course, he hoped the frame-up of Jack Royle would provide an instant motive to the police. But even when he had to kill Jack and destroy the force of his own frame-up, he still felt safe; Tolland Stuart was still alive. Then he planned to kill Bonnie, and again it would seem as if Bonnie’s death had been a result of the Royle-Stuart feud; the whole childish business of the card-messages had only this purpose — to lay a trail which led back to the Royles. And all the while Tolland Stuart would live, not suspecting that it was his death, and not the deaths of his daughter and granddaughter, that was the ultimate goal of the murderer.”

“Oh, grandfather!” said Bonnie, and she went to him and sat down on the bed. He sank back on the pillows, exhausted.

“He meant to kill me, then?” mumbled the old man.

“I think not, Mr. Stuart. I think — I know — he meant to let Nature take her course. You are an old man... Well, we’ll get to that in a moment.

“Now for element two — opportunity. How had Lew Bascom committed the murders at the airport? That took a bit of figuring.”

“That’s right, too,” said Alan Clark suddenly, from his position between Sam Vix and silent, grim Jacques Butcher. “Lew was with you and me last Sunday, Ellery, when this fake pilot made off with the plane. So Lew couldn’t possibly have been that pilot. I don’t understand.”

“True, Alan; he couldn’t have been the kidnapper of the plane. I saw that, if I could clear the kidnapper of complicity in the murder, I could pin the actual poisoning by a stringent process of elimination on Lew.

“Well, who was the kidnapper? One thing I knew beyond question, as you’ve just pointed out; whoever the kidnapper was, he wasn’t Lew.”

“How did you know,” asked Inspector Glücke, “that he mightn’t have been Bascom’s accomplice? That’s the way I would figure it.”

“No, he couldn’t have been Lew’s accomplice, either, Inspector. Paula Paris gave me the necessary information — the first of the two clues which I got through her.”

“The Paris woman? You mean she’s mixed up in this, too?”

“Lord, no! But Paula was tipped off to the kidnapping before it happened by some one who phoned her from the airport — she didn’t tell you that, but she told it to me. Who could have known of the kidnapping and phoned Paula before it took place? Only the person who planned, or was involved in the plan, to do it. But this person, in tipping off Paula, made no secret of his identity — she admitted that to me, although she wouldn’t for ethical reasons divulge the name.”

“The interfering little snoop!” snarled Glücke. “I’ll break her now. Suppressing evidence!”

“Oh, no, you won’t,” said Ellery. “Before we’re finished you’ll thank her, Glücke; if not for her this case would never have been solved.

“Now, if the kidnapper had been involved in the murders as Lew’s accomplice, would he have revealed his identity to a newspaperwoman, especially before the crime occurred? Absurd. And if he had been the criminal himself — not Lew — would he have revealed himself to Paula, putting himself in her power? Utterly incredible. No, indeed; his telephone call to her, his willingness to let her know who he was, indicated that he had no idea murder was about to occur, eliminated him either as the poisoner or as the poisoner’s accomplice; or even, for that matter, as a kidnapper.”

“This gets worse and worse,” groaned Glücke. “Say that again?”

“I’ll get around to it,” grinned Ellery. “For the moment let me push along on the Lew tack. I was satisfied that the kidnapper wasn’t involved in the murders in any way. That meant he didn’t poison the thermos bottles.

“If the kidnapper didn’t, who did? Well, who could have? The bottles were all right when the last round of cocktails was drunk before the plane — obvious from the fact that no one who drank, and many did, suffered any ill effects. Therefore the morphine-sodium allurate mixture must have been slipped into the bottle after the last round was poured.

“Exactly when? Well, it wasn’t done in the plane, because we’ve eliminated Jack, Blythe, and the kidnapper as the possible murderers, and they were the only three who entered the plane between the last round of drinks and the take-off. Then the bottles were poisoned before the hamper was stowed away in the plane, but after the last round. But after the last round I myself sat on that hamper, and I got up only to hand it to the kidnapper when he was stowing the luggage away in the plane.

“So you see,” murmured Ellery, “I arrived by sheer elimination to only one conceivable time and only one conceivable person. The bottles must have been poisoned between the time the last round was poured and the time I sat down on the hamper. Who suggested the last round? Lew Bascom. Who immediately after returned the bottles to the hamper? Lew Bascom. Therefore it must have been Lew Bascom who dropped the poison into the bottles, probably as he was screwing the caps back on after pouring the last round.”

The Inspector grunted a little crossly.

“So both elements — motive and opportunity — pointed to Lew as the only possible criminal. But what proof did I have that would satisfy a court? Absolutely none. I had achieved the truth through a process of reasoning; there was no confirmatory evidence. Therefore Lew had to be caught red-handed, trapped into giving himself away. Which occurred today.”

“But who the hell was the kidnapper?” asked Butch.

“I said, you’ll recall, that he wasn’t even that, really. Had the kidnapper seriously intended to spirit Jack and Blythe away by force, hold them for ransom, or whatever, would he have told a newspaperwoman first? Naturally not. So I saw that it wasn’t intended to be a real kidnapping at all. The wraith we were chasing had staged a fake kidnapping!”

“Fake?” shouted Glücke. “The hell you say! After we’ve worn our eyes out looking for him?”

“Of course, Inspector. For who would stage a kidnapping and inform a famous newspaper columnist about it in advance? Only some one who was interested in a news story, publicity. And who could have been interested in a publicity splash centering about Jack Royle and Blythe Stuart?” Ellery grinned. “Come on, Sam; talk. You’re caught with the goods.”

Vix grew very pale. He gulped, his one eye rolling wildly, looking for an avenue of escape.

The Inspector gasped: “You? Why, you ornery, one-eyed baboon—”

“Peace,” sighed Ellery. “Who can quell the instincts of the buzzard or the dyed-in-the-wool publicity man? It was the opportunity of a lifetime, wasn’t it, Sam?”

“Yeah,” said Vix with difficulty.

“The marriage of two world-famous figures, the gigantic splash of that airport send-off... why, if those two were thought to be kidnapped, the Magna picture Butch was going to make would get a million dollars’ worth of publicity.”

“A million dollars’ worth of misery to me, as it turned out,” groaned Vix. “It was to be a surprise; I didn’t even tell Butch. I figured I’d let on to Jack and Blythe once we were safely away, and then we’d hide out somewhere for a few days. They wanted a little peace and quiet, anyway... Oh, nuts. When I turned around and saw those two dead, my stomach turned over. I knew I was in the worst kind of jam. If I gave myself up and told the truth, nobody’d believe me, certainly not a one-cylinder flattie like Glücke. I could see myself tagged for a twin killing and going out by the aerial route, kicking. What could I do? I set the plane down on the first flat place I could find and took it on the lam.”

“You,” said Inspector Glücke venomously, “are going up on charges. I’ll give you publicity!”

“Take it easy, Inspector,” growled Jacques Butcher. “Why make the studio suffer? It was a dumb stunt, but Sam can’t be considered in any way responsible for what happened; if there’d been no murder there wouldn’t have been any harm done. He’ll take his rap in the papers, anyway; and you’ve got your man.”

“Not only have you got your man,” said Ellery pleasantly, “but if you’re a good doggie, Glücke, maybe I’ll give you something else.”

“Isn’t this nightmare over yet?” Glücke threw up his hands.

“Well, what forced Lew to change his plans?” asked Ellery. “What forced him to kill not only Blythe, but Jack Royle? What happened between the inauguration of his playing-card threats against Blythe and the day of the murder?

“Only one important thing happened — Blythe buried the hatchet, gave up her long feud with Jack; in fact, announced her intention to marry him, and did so.

“But how could Blythe’s marriage have forced Lew to kill not only Blythe but the man she married? Well, what was behind his whole scheme? To get for himself the entire Stuart estate. Who were his obstacles? Blythe and Bonnie. But when Blythe married Jack Royle, then Jack Royle became an obstacle, too! For by the terms of Tolland Stuart’s will half the estate went to Blythe, if living, or to Blythe’s heirs if dead; and her heirs in that case would be her daughter Bonnie and her husband Jack. Only if Jack Royle died, too, before the estate passed would Jack cease to be an heir; living, he would inherit, but if dead his own estate would collect nothing and Bonnie, Blythe’s only heir, would consequently get everything.

“So Lew killed Jack, too. Now he must kill Bonnie. But what happened before he got the opportunity to kill Bonnie? History repeated itself: Bonnie announced her intention to marry Ty. Therefore Ty became an obstacle in the way of Lew, for if Bonnie married Ty and Lew killed only Bonnie, Ty would get the entire estate, since according to the will if Bonnie predeceased her grandfather her portion would go to her heirs... or Ty, her surviving husband.

“Therefore Lew tried to prevent the marriage because if he could scare Bonnie into not marrying Ty he would have to kill only Bonnie; whereas if she did marry Ty he would have to kill both of them; and one murder was preferable to two for obvious reasons.”

“That’s all very well,” muttered Glücke, “but what I can’t understand is how Bascom expected to be able to control Mr. Stuart’s will. How could he be sure Mr. Stuart, when he saw his daughter murdered, wouldn’t write a new will which would make it impossible for Lew ever to collect a cent, murders or not?”

“Ah,” said Ellery. “A good point, Glücke. In discussing that, and Mr. Bascom’s good fortune, I’m forced to refer again to my invaluable friend, Paula Paris. A pearl, that woman! The very first time I met her she painted an interesting word-picture of Tolland Stuart. She told me of his hypochondria, of his pamphlets inveighing against the evils of stimulants, even unto coffee and tea; of his drinking cold water with a teaspoon, obviously because he was afraid of what cold water would do, drunk normally, to his stomach — chill it, I suppose; of his diatribes against white bread.”

“But I don’t see what that—”

“That’s quite true,” said Dr. Junius unexpectedly, clearing his throat. “But I, too, fail to see the relevance—”

“I imagine, Doctor,” said Ellery, “that you’re due for a nasty shock. Your faith in humanity is about to be destroyed. Can you imagine Tolland Stuart being inconsistent in a matter like that?”

Dr. Junius’s face looked like a yellow paste. “Well, now, of course—”

“That disconcerts you, naturally. You’re amazed to learn that Tolland Stuart could be inconsistent in his hypochondriasis?”

“No, really, it happens. I mean I don’t know what you’re referring to—”

“Well, Doctor,” said Ellery in a hard voice, “let me enlighten you. Friday afternoon Miss Stuart and I, as you will recall, came up here to visit her grandfather. You were away — shopping, I believe? Too bad. Because when we came upon Mr. Tolland Stuart lying in this room — yes, in this very bed — what was he doing? The man who had a horror of white bread was eating a cold meat sandwich made of white bread. The man who sipped cold water from a teaspoon because he was afraid of chilling his stomach, the man who avoided stimulants as he would the plague, that man was gulping down quite callously large quantities of iced tea!”

The old man in the bed whimpered, and Dr. Junius shrank within himself like a withering weed. As for the others, they stared in perplexity from Ellery to the old man. Only Inspector Glücke looked aware; and he gave a signal to one of his men. The detective went to the bed and motioned Bonnie away. Ty jumped forward to grasp Bonnie’s arm and draw her from the bed.

And the man in the bed dropped the Indian blanket with the swiftness of desperate purpose and reached for the shotgun which stood close to his hand. But Ellery was swifter.

“No,” he said, handing the gun to the Inspector, “not yet, sir.”

“But I don’t understand,” cried Bonnie, her glance wavering between the old man and Ellery. “It doesn’t make sense. You talk as if... as if this man weren’t my grandfather.”

“He isn’t,” said Ellery. “I have every reason to believe that he’s a man supposed to have committed suicide — an old and desperate and dying man known to the Hollywood colony of extras as Arthur William Park, the actor.”

If Inspector Glücke had seen the revelation coming, at least he had not seen it in its entirety, for he gaped at the cowering old man in the bed, who covered his face with his wrinkled hands.

“Because of that sandwich and iced drink,” continued Ellery, “I saw that it was possible Tolland Stuart was being impersonated. I began to put little bits together; bits that had puzzled me, or passed me by, but that coalesced into a significant whole once my suspicions were aroused.

“For one thing, an imposture was not difficult; in this case it was of the essence of simplicity. The improbability of most impostures lies in the fact that doubles are rare, and that even expert make-up will not stand the test of constant inspection by people who knew the one impersonated well.

“But—” and Ellery shrugged “—who knew Tolland Stuart well? Not even his daughter, who had visited him only two or three times in the last ten years. But granting that Blythe might have seen through an imposture, Blythe was dead. Bonnie? Hardly; she had not seen her grandfather since her pinafore days. Only Dr. Junius of the survivors. Dr. Junius saw Tolland Stuart every day and had seen him every day for ten years... No, no, Doctor; I assure you that’s futile. The house is surrounded, and there’s a detective just outside the door.”

Dr. Junius stopped in his slow sidle toward the door, and he wet his lips.

“Then there was the incident last Sunday, when we flew up here after the discovery of the bodies in Ty’s plane on that plateau. I thought I heard the motors of a plane during the thunder-and-lightning storm. I went out and, while I couldn’t see the plane, I did see this man, now in bed, crouching outside the house with a flyer’s helmet on his head. At the time it merely puzzled me; but when I suspected an imposture I saw that the explanation was simple: this man had just been landed on the Stuart estate by an airplane, whose motors I had heard. Undoubtedly piloted by Lew Bascom, who had departed from the plateau that Sunday before we did in an Army plane. Lew flew a plane, as I knew because he offered to pilot the wedding plane when the original Royle-Stuart wedding stunt was being discussed; moreover, he even offered the use of his own plane. So Lew must have returned to the airport with the Army pilot, picked up Park at his rooms, landed Park on this estate, and returned quietly to Los Angeles. You are Park, aren’t you?”

The old man in the bed uncovered his face. Dr. Junius started to cry out, but closed his mouth without uttering the cry.

“You aren’t Tolland Stuart.”

The old man said nothing, did nothing. His face was altered; the sharp lines were even sharper than before, but no longer irascible, no longer lines of evil; he merely looked worn out, like an old stone, and weary to death.

“There’s a way of proving it, you know,” said Ellery with a sort of pity. “In the desk in the study downstairs there’s Tolland Stuart’s will, and that will is signed with Tolland Stuart’s signature. Shall we ask you, Mr. Park, to write the name Tolland Stuart for comparison purposes?”

Dr. Junius said: “Don’t!” in a despairing burst, but the old man shook his head. “It’s no use, Junius. We’re caught.” He lay back on the pillows, closing his eyes.

“And there were other indications,” said Ellery. “The way Dr. Junius acted last Sunday. He put up a colossal bluff. He knew there was no Tolland Stuart upstairs. He was expecting Park; our sudden appearance must have made him frantic. When we finally came up here and found Park, who must have blundered about after sneaking into a house he’s never been in before, found Stuart’s room, and hastily got into Stuart’s night-clothes, Junius was so surprised he fled. He hadn’t heard those airplane engines. Oh, it was all cleverly done; Mr. Park is an excellent actor, and he was told everything he must know to play his part perfectly. After Sunday, of course, he was given further instruction.”

“Then the doctor here was Bascom’s confederate?” asked the Inspector, open-mouthed.

“Of course. As was Mr. Park, although he’s the least culpable, I suspect, of the three.

“Now, convinced that Tolland Stuart was being impersonated, I could find only one plausible reason for it. Lew’s plans depended on Stuart’s remaining alive until after the murder of Blythe and Bonnie; if Tolland Stuart was being impersonated, then it could only mean that Tolland Stuart was dead. When had he died? Well, I knew Stuart had been alive four days before the murder of Jack—”

“How did you know that?”

“Because on that day, when Blythe and Jack visited here, she saw him, for one thing; she might have spotted an impersonation. But more important, he gave her a check for a hundred and ten thousand dollars, which she turned over to Jack. Would Stuart’s bank have honored Stuart’s signature if it had not been genuine? So I knew that four days before the murders Stuart had still been in the land of the living.

“Apparently, then, Stuart had died between that day and the following Sunday. Probably Saturday night, the night before the crime, because we know Lew got hold of Park Sunday, hurried him up here under the most difficult and dangerous conditions — something he would not have done Sunday had he been able to do it before Sunday. So I imagine Dr. Junius telephoned Lew Saturday night to say Tolland Stuart had suddenly died, and Lew thought of Park, and instructed the doctor to bury his benefactor in a very deep hole, and immediately got busy on the Park angle. Park left a suicide note to efface his trail and vanished — to turn up here the next day as Bonnie’s grandfather.”

“This is — extraordinary,” said Jacques Butcher, staring from Junius to Park. “But why? What did Park and Junius hope to get out of it?”

“Park? I believe I can guess. Park, as I knew from Lew himself long ago, is dying of cancer. He’s penniless, has a wife and crippled son back East dependent on him. He knew he couldn’t last long, and for his family a man will do almost anything — a certain type of man — if there’s enough money in it to insure his family’s security.

“Dr. Junius? I have the advantage of you there; I’ve read Tolland Stuart’s will. In it he engaged to pay the doctor a hundred thousand dollars if the doctor kept him alive until the age of seventy. From the wording of the will and its date — it was made out at the age of sixty and was dated nine and a half years ago — it was obvious that Stuart had died at the age of sixty-nine and a half. Dr. Junius had spent almost ten years of his life in a living hell to earn that hundred thousand. He wasn’t going to let a mere matter of a couple of murders stand in the way of his getting it. Nevertheless, he wouldn’t have risked his neck unless he felt reasonably certain Stuart wouldn’t live to reach the age of seventy. Consequently, I was convinced that, far from being a healthy man, Stuart was really a very sick man; and that Junius was putting on an act when he claimed his patient was just a hypochondriac. I was convinced that Stuart, who I knew had died suddenly, had died probably of his illness — not accidentally or through violence, since violence was the last thing Lew wanted in the case of the old man.”

“There’s something,” whispered Dr. Junius, “of the devil in you.”

“I imagine the shoe fits you rather better,” replied Ellery. “And, of course, it must have been you who supplied Lew Bascom with the morphine and the sodium allurate in the proper dose — no difficult feat for a physician.”

“I went into it with Bascom,” said Dr. Junius in the same whisper, “because I knew Stuart wouldn’t survive. When he engaged me nine and a half years ago he had a badly ulcerated condition of the stomach. I treated him faithfully, but he developed a cancer, as so often occurs. I felt... cheated; I knew he probably wouldn’t live to reach seventy. When Bascom approached me, I fell in with his scheme. Bascom knew, too, that the old man was dying. In a sense our — interests lay in the same direction: I wanted Stuart to live to seventy, and Bascom wanted him to live until after Blythe and Bonnie Stuart were...” He stopped and wet his lips. “Bascom had got the cooperation of Park, here, in advance, just in case the old man died prematurely, as he did. Park had plenty of time to study his physical rôle.”

“You animal,” said Bonnie.

Dr. Junius said nothing more; he turned his face to the wall. And the old man in the bed seemed asleep.

“And since Park had a cancer, too,” said Ellery, “and couldn’t live very long, it was just dandy all around, wasn’t it? When he died, there’d be nobody to suspect he wasn’t Stuart; and even an autopsy would merely have revealed that he died of cancer, which was perfectly all right. And by that time, too, he’d have grown real hair, instead of the false hair and spirit gum he’s got on his face now. Oh, an ingenious plan.” He paused, and then he said: “It makes me feel a little sick. Do you sleep well at night, Dr. Junius?”

And after a moment Glücke asked doggedly: “But Bascom didn’t know exactly when Stuart would die. You still haven’t answered the question of how he could control the old man before he died, how he could be sure the old man wouldn’t make out a new will.”

“That was simple. The old will, the present will, existed; all Lew had to do was see — probably through Junius — that the old man didn’t get his hands on his own will. Then, even if he did make out a new will, they could always destroy it, leaving the old will in force.

“When Stuart died prematurely, it was even simpler. There would be no question of a new will at all. Park, playing Stuart’s role, couldn’t make out a new one, even if he wanted to. The old will would remain, as it has remained, the will in force.

“Incidentally, I was sure Lew would fall for our trap today. With Park dying of cancer, his survival for even a short time doubtful, Lew couldn’t permit Bonnie and Ty to vanish for an indefinite period. If Park died while they were off on their honeymoon at an unknown place, Lew’s whole scheme was nullified. His scheme was based on Bonnie’s dying before her grandfather, to conceal the true motive. If he killed Bonnie — and Ty, as he would have to — after the death of Park-acting-as-Stuart, his motive would be clearly indicated. So I knew he would take any risk to kill Bonnie and Ty before they went away and while Park was still alive.”

Ellery sighed and lit a fresh cigarette, and no one said anything until Inspector Glücke, with a sudden narrowing of his eyes, said: “Park. You there — Park!”

But the old man in the bed did not answer, or move, or give any sign that he had heard.

Ellery and Glücke sprang forward as one man. Then they straightened up without having touched him. For in his slack hand there lay a tiny vial, and he was dead.

And Dr. Junius turned from the wall and collapsed in a chair, whimpering like a child.

Chapter 23 End of the Beginning

When Ellery turned the key in his apartment door Sunday night, and let himself in, and shut the door, and flung aside his hat and coat, and sank into his deepest chair, it was with a spent feeling. His bones ached, and so did his head. It was a relief just to sit there in the quiet living-room thinking of nothing at all.

He always felt this way at the conclusion of a case — tired, sluggish, his vital energies sapped.

Inspector Glücke had been gruff with praises again; and there had been invitations, and thanks, and a warm kiss on the lips from Bonnie, and a silent handshake from Ty. But he had fled to be alone.

He closed his eyes.

To be alone?

That wasn’t quite true. Damn, analyzing again! But this time his mind dwelt on a more pleasant subject than murder. Just what was his feeling for Paula Paris? Was he sorry for her because she was psychologically frustrated, because she shut herself up in those sequestered rooms of hers and denied the world the excitement of her company? Pity? No, not pity, really. To be truthful about it, he rather enjoyed the feeling when he went to see her that they were alone, that the world was shut out. Why was that?

He groaned, his head beginning to throb where it had only ached dully before. He was mooning like an adolescent boy. Tormenting himself this way! Why think? What was the good of thinking? The really happy people didn’t have a thought in their heads. That’s why they were happy.

He rose with a sigh and stripped off his jacket; and as he did so his wallet fell out. He stooped to pick it up and suddenly recalled what was in it. That envelope. Queer how he had forgotten it in the excitement of the last twenty-four hours!

He took the envelope out of the wallet, fingering its creamy vellum face with appreciation. Good quality. Quality, that was it. She represented a special, unique assortment of human values, the tender and shy and lovable ones, the ones that appealed mutely to the best in a man.

He smiled as he tore the envelope open. Had she really guessed who had murdered Jack Royle and Blythe Stuart?

In her free, clear script was written: “Dear Stupid: It’s inconceivable to you that a mere woman could do by intuition what it’s taken you Siegfriedian writhings of the intellect to achieve. Of course it’s Lew Bascom. Paula.”

Damn her clever eyes! he thought angrily. She needn’t have been so brash about it. He seized the telephone.

“Paula. This is Ellery. I’ve just read your note—”

“Mr. Queen,” murmured Paula. “Back from the wars. I suppose I should offer you the congratulations owing to the victor?”

“Oh, that. We were lucky it all went off so well. But Paula, about this note—”

“It’s hardly necessary for me to open your envelope now.”

“But I’ve opened yours, and I must say you made an excellent stab in the dark. But how—”

“You might also,” said Paula’s organ voice, “congratulate me for having made it.”

“Well, of course. Congratulations. But that’s not the point. Guessing! That’s the point. Where does it get you? Nowhere.”

“Aren’t you being incoherent?” Paula laughed. “It gets you the answer. Nor is it entirely a matter of guesswork, O Omniscience. There was reason behind it.”

“Reason? Oh, come now.”

“It’s true. I didn’t understand why Lew did it — his motives and things; the murder of Jack didn’t fit in... you’ll have to explain those things to me—”

“But you just said,” growled Ellery, “you had a reason.”

“A feminine sort of reason.” Paula paused. “But do we have to discuss it over the phone?”

“Tell me!”

“Yes, sir. You see, I did know the kind of person Lew was, and it struck me that Lew’s character exactly matched the character of the crime.”

“What? What’s that?”

“Well, Lew was an idea man, wasn’t he? He conceived brilliantly, executed poorly — that was characteristic not only of him but of his work, too.”

“What of it?”

“But the whole crime, if you stop to think of it, as I did, was exactly like that — brilliantly conceived and poorly executed!”

“You mean to say,” spluttered Ellery, “that that sort of dishwater is what you call reasoning?”

“Oh, but it’s so true. Have you stopped,” said Paula sweetly, “to think it out? The playing-card scheme was very, very clever — a true Lew Bascom idea; but it was also fantastic and devious, and wasn’t it carried out shoddily? Lew all over. Then the frame-up of Jack, followed by the frame-up of Ty... two frame-ups that didn’t jibe at all. And that clumsy device of filing those typewriter keys! Poor execution.”

“Lord,” groaned Ellery.

“Oh, dozens of indications. That hamper with the bottles of cocktails. Suppose it hadn’t been delivered? Suppose, if it were delivered in that crush, it weren’t taken along? Or suppose Jack and Blythe were too wrapped up in each other, even if it were taken along, to bother about a drink? Or suppose only one of them drank? So awfully chancy, Ellery; so poorly thought out. Now Jacques Butcher, had he been the criminal, would never—”

“All right, all right,” said Ellery. “I’m convinced — yes, I’m not. You saw a clever idea with fantastic overtones and poor craftsmanship, and because Lew was that way you said it was Lew. I’ll have to recommend the method to Glücke; he’ll be delighted. Now, Miss Paris, how about paying off that bet of ours?”

“The bet,” said Paula damply.

“Yes, the bet! You said I’d never catch the criminal. Well, I have caught him, so I’ve won, and you’ve got to take me out tonight to the Horseshoe Club.”

“Oh!” And Paula fell silent. He could sense her panic over the wires. “But... but that wasn’t the bet,” she said at last in a desperate voice. “The bet was that you’d bring him to justice, into court. You didn’t. He committed suicide, he tried to escape and his parachute didn’t open—”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” said Ellery firmly. “You don’t welch on me, Miss Paris. You lost that bet, and you’re going to pay off.”

“But Ellery,” she wailed, “I can’t! I... I haven’t set foot outside my house for years and years! You don’t know how the very thought of it makes me shrivel up inside—”

“You’re taking me to the Club tonight.”

“I think... I’d faint, or something. I know it sounds silly to a normal person,” she cried, “but why can’t people understand? They’d understand if I had measles. It’s something in me that’s sick, only it doesn’t happen to be organic. This fear of people—”

“Get dressed.”

“But I’ve got nothing to wear,” she said triumphantly. “I mean, no evening gowns. I’ve never had occasion to wear them. Or even — I’ve no wrap, no — no nothing.”

“I’m dressing now. I’ll be at your house at eight-thirty.”

“Ellery, no!”

“Eight-thirty.”

“Please! Oh, please, Ellery—”

“Eight-thirty,” repeated Mr. Queen inflexibly, and he hung up.

At eight-thirty precisely Mr. Queen presented himself at the front door of the charming white house in the Hills, and a pretty young girl opened the door for him. Mr. Queen saw, with some trepidation, that the young lady was star-eyed and pink-cheeked with excitement. She was one of Paula’s elfin secretaries, and she regarded his lean, tuxedo-clad figure with a keenness that made him think of a mother inspecting her daughter’s first swain come a-calling.

It was absurd, too absurd, blustered Mr. Queen inwardly. Out of my way, wench.

But the wench said: “Oh, Mr. Queen,” in an ecstatic whisper, “It’s simply wonderful! Do you think she’ll do it?”

“Why, of course she’ll do it,” pooh-poohed Mr. Queen. “All this blather about crowd phobia. Nonsense! Where is she?”

“She’s been crying and laughing and... oh, she looks beautiful! Wait till you see her. It’s the most marvelous thing that’s ever happened to her. I do hope nothing...”

“Now, now,” said Mr. Queen brusquely. “Less chatter, my dear. Let’s have a look at this beauty.”

Nevertheless, he approached Paula’s door with a quaking heart. What was the matter with him? All this fuss and nervousness over a little thing like going to a night-club!

He knocked and the secretary, looking anxious, faded away; and Paula’s voice came tremulously: “Come... come in.”

Mr. Queen touched his black tie, coughed, and went in.

Paula was standing, tall and tense, against the closed glass doors of the farthest wall, staring at him. She was wearing elbow-length red evening gloves, and her braceleted hands were pressed to her heart. She was wearing... well, it shimmered and crinkled where the light struck it — cloth of gold? What the devil was it? — and a long white fur evening cape over her shoulders, caught at the neck with a magnificent marcasite brooch, and her hair done up in — well, it looked like the hair of one of those court pages of the time of Elizabeth; simply exquisite. Simply the last word. Simply — there was no last word.

“Holy smoke,” breathed Mr. Queen.

She was white to the lips. “Do I... do I look all right?”

“You look,” said Mr. Queen reverently, “like one of the Seraphim. You look,” said Mr. Queen, “like the popular conception of Cleopatra, although Cleo had a hooked nose and probably a black skin, and your nose and skin... You look,” said Mr. Queen, “you look like one of those godlike beings from Aldebaran, or some place, that H. G. Wells likes to describe. You look swell.”

“Don’t be funny,” she said with a little angry glance. “I mean the clothes.”

“The clothes? Oh, the clothes. Incidentally, I thought you said you didn’t have any evening clothes. Liar!”

“I didn’t, and don’t; that’s why I asked,” she said helplessly. “I’ve had to borrow the cape from Bess, and the dress from Lillian, and the shoes from a neighbor down the street whose feet are as big as mine, and I feel like the original Communist. Oh, Ellery, are you sure I’ll do?”

Ellery advanced across the room with determined strides. She shrank against the glass doors.

“Ellery. What are you...”

“May I present the loveliest lady I know,” said Mr. Queen with fierce gallantry, “with these?” And he held out a little cellophane box, and in the box there lay an exquisite corsage of camellias.

Paula gasped: “Oh!” and then she said softly, “That was sweet,” and suddenly she was no longer tense, but pliant, and a little abstracted, and she pinned the corsage to her bodice with swift, flashing, red-swathed fingers.

And Mr. Queen said, wetting his lips: “Paula.”

“Yes?”

Mr. Queen said again: “Paula.”

“Yes?” she looked up, frowning.

Mr. Queen said: “Paula, will you... May I... Oh, hell, there’s only one way to do it, and that’s to do it!”

And he seized her and pulled her as close to his stiff shirt as the shirt would permit and clumsily kissed her on the mouth.

She lay still in his arms, her eyes closed, breathing quickly. Then, without opening her eyes, she said: “Kiss me some more.”

And after a while Mr. Queen said thickly: “I think — Let’s not go out and say we did. Let’s sort of — stay here.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, yes.”

But there was iron in that man’s soul, after all. He sternly put aside temptation. “No, we are going out. It’s the very soul of the treatment.”

“Oh, I can’t. I mean... I don’t think I can.”

Mr. Queen took her by the arm and marched her straight across the room to the closed door.

“Open that door,” he said.

“But I’m... now I’m all messed!”

“You’re beautiful. Open that door.”

“You mean... open it?”

“Open it. Yourself. With your own hands.”

The twin imps of fear peered out of her wide, grave eyes. She gulped like a little girl and her red-gloved right hand crept forward to touch the knob. She looked at Ellery in distress.

“Open it, darling,” said Mr. Queen in a low voice.

Slowly her hand turned the knob until it would turn no more. Then, quickly, like little Lulu about to swallow her cod-liver oil, Paula closed her eyes and jerked the door open.

And, her eyes still closed, stumbled blindly across the threshold into the world.