Chapter 17. Stigma

The proverbial arm stretched forth and plucked young Mr. Alan Cheney out of limbo into the light of day. To be exact, its fingers descended upon him out of the darkness above a Buffalo flying-field on the night of Sunday, October the tenth, as he was about to step unsteadily into the cabin of a Chicago airplane. The fingers, attached to the hand of Detective Hagstrom―an American gentleman with latent centuries of exploratory Norse blood in his veins―were very sure, and they saw to it that young Mr. Alan Cheney, bleared and sodden and surly and exceedingly drunk, was deposited on the next Pullman express bound across the State for New York City.

The Queens, apprised by telegram of the capture after a Sunday in which hymns were conspicuously absent and gloom seemed the order of the day, were on hand early Monday morning in the Inspector’s office to welcome the homecoming recalcitrant and his justly jubilant captor. District Attorney Sampson and Assistant District Attorney Pepper joined the reception committee. The atmosphere of that fragment of Center Street was gay indeed.

“Well, Mr. Alan Cheney,” began the Inspector genially, as young Alan, seedier and surlier than ever now that his tipple had worn off, flung himself into a chair, “what have you got to say for yourself?”

Alan’s voice was hoarse through cracked lips. “I refuse to talk.”

Sampson snapped: “You realize what your flight implies, Cheney?”

“My flight?” His eyes were sullen.

“Oh, then it wasn’t flight. Just a jaunt―a little holiday,

Ellery’s came in a case preceding those others already published, his strange conduct is understandable.-J. J. McC. eh, young man?” The Inspector chuckled. “Well, well,” he said suddenly, with that change of front so characteristic of him, ‘this isn’t a joke and we aren’t kids. You ran away. Why?”

Young Alan folded his arms across his chest and stared defiantly at the floor.

“It wasn’t―” the Inspector groped in the top drawer of his desk―”it wasn’t because you were afraid to stay, was it?” His hand emerged from the drawer flourishing the scribbled note Sergeant Velie had found in Joan Brett’s bedroom.

Alan paled all at once and he glared at the slip of paper as if it were an animate enemy. “Where on earth did you get that?” he whispered.

“Gets a rise out of you, does it? We found it under Miss Brett’s mattress, if you’d like to know!”

“She―she didn’t burn it . . . ?”

“She did not. Cut the comedy, son. Are you going to talk or do we have to apply a little pressure?”

Alan blinked rapidly. “What’s happened?”

The Inspector turned to the others. “He wants information, the whelp!”

“Miss Brett . . . Is she―all right?”

“She’s all right now.”

“What do you mean?” Alan leaped from his chair. “You haven’t―?”

“Haven’t what?”

He shook his head and sat down again, pressing his knuckles wearily into his eyes.

“Q.” Sampson tossed his head. The Inspector cast a peculiar glance at the young man’s dishevelled hair and joined the District Attorney in a corner. “If he refuses to talk,” said Sampson in a low voice, “we can’t very well hang on to him. We might hold him on a technical charge, but I can’t see that it will do us any good. After all, we haven’t a thing on him.”

“True. But there’s one thing I want to satisfy myself about before we let this cub slip through our fingers again.” The old man went to the door. “Thomas!”

Sergeant Velie appeared, bestriding the sill like a Colossus. “Want him now?”

“Yes. Get him in here.”

Velie barged out. A moment later he returned escorting the slight figure of Bell, the night-clerk at the Hotel Benedict. Alan Cheney sat very still concealing his uneasiness beneath a mask of stubborn silence; his eyes leaped to Bell as if anxious to come to grips with something tangible.

The Inspector jerked his thumb at the victim. “Bell, do you recognize this man as one of Albert Grimshaw’s visitors a week ago Thursday night?”

Bell examined the grim figure of the boy scrupulously. Alan met his eye in a sort of defiant bewilderment. Then Bell shook his head with energy. “No, sir. He wasn’t one of “em. Never saw the gentleman before.”

The Inspector grunted his disgust; and Alan, ignorant of the meaning of the inspection but sensible of its failure, sank back with a sigh of relief. “All right, Bell. Wait outside.” Bell retreated hastily, and Sergeant Velie set his back against the door. “Well, Cheney, still refuse to explain your little skip-out?”

Alan moistened his lips. “I want to see my lawyer.”

The Inspector threw up his hands. “Heavens, how many times I’ve heard that! And who is your lawyer, Cheney?”

“Why―Miles Woodruff.”

“Family mouth-piece, hey?” said the Inspector nastily. “Well, it isn’t necessary.” The Inspector plumped himself into his chair and consulted his snuff-box. “We’re going to let you go, young man,” he said, gesturing with the old brown box as if he begrudged the necessity of releasing his prisoner. Alan’s features lightened by magic. “You may go home. But,” and the old man leaned forward, “I can promise you this. One more monkeyshine like the one you pulled Saturday, my boy, and I’ll put you behind the bars if I have to go to the Commissioner to do it. Understand?”

“Yes,” muttered Alan.

“Furthermore,” continued the Inspector, “I make no bones about telling you that you’re going to be watched. Every move. So it won’t do you any good to try a skip again, because there’ll be a man on your fanny every second of the time you’re out of the Khalkis house. Hagstrom!” The detective jumped. Take Mr. Cheney home. Stay in the Khalkis house with him. Don’t bother him. But stick to him like a brother every time he leaves the place.”

“I got you. Come on, Mr. Cheney.” Hagstrom grinned and grasped the young man’s arm. Alan rose with alacrity, shook off the detective’s grip, squared his shoulders in sorry defiance, and stalked out of the room with Hagstrom at his elbow.

Now it will be observed that Ellery Queen had not so much as uttered a syllable during the scene. He had examined his perfect fingernails, held his pince-nez up to the light as if he had never seen it before, sighed several times, consumed several cigarettes, and generally composed himself as if he were wearied to tears. The only flicker of interest he had exhibited was when Cheney had been confronted with Bell; but the flicker died away as soon as Bell failed to identify him.

Ellery pricked up his ears when Pepper said, as the door closed behind Cheney and Hagstrom: “Seems to me, Chief, he’s getting away with murder.”

Sampson said quietly: “And what does that massive brain of yours think we have on him, Pepper?”

“Well, he ran away, didn’t he?”

“How true! But are you going to be able to convince a jury that a man is a criminal merely because he runs away?”

“It’s been done,” said Pepper stubbornly.

“Tommyrot,” snapped the Inspector. “Not a shred of evidence, and well you ought to know it, Pepper. He’ll keep. If there’s anything fishy about that young man, we’ll find it . . . . Thomas, what’s on your mind? You seem bursting with news.”

In truth, Sergeant Velie had been turning from one to another, opening his mouth and closing it again as he failed to find a crevice in the conversation. Now he drew a Brobdingnagian breath and said: “I’ve got two of “em outside!”

“Two of whom?”

“The dame Grimshaw scrapped with in Barney Schick’s dive, and her husband.”

“No!” The Inspector drew himself up sharply. “That’s good news Thomas. How’d you find her?”

“Traced her through Grimshaw’s record,” rumbled Velie. “She’s a certain Lily Morrison―ran around with Grimshaw in the old days. Got married while Grimshaw was in stir.”

“Get Barney Schick.”

“Got him waiting, too.”

“Great. Bring “em all in.”

Velie tramped out and the Inspector settled back expectantly in his swivel-chair. The sergeant returned in a moment with the redfaced speakeasy proprietor, whom the Inspector commanded to silence as Velie at once departed by another door. Velie returned shortly with a man and a woman.

They came in hesitantly. The woman was a veritable Briinnehilde, large and blonde and Amazonian. The man was a fitting mate―a grizzled giant in his forties with an Irish nose and hard black eyes.

Velie said: “Mr. and Mrs. Jeremiah Odell, Inspector.”

The Inspector indicated chairs, and they sat down stiffly.

The old man began to fuss with some papers on his desk―a purely mechanistic exhibition performed for its effect. They were properly impressed, and their eyes ceased twitching about the office and concentrated on the old man’s thin hands.

“Now, Mrs. Odell,” began the Inspector, “please don’t be frightened; this is just a formality. D”ye know Albert Grimshaw?”

Their eyes touched, and hers drew away. “Why―you mean the man that was found choked to death in that coffin?” she asked. She possessed a throaty voice at the base of which something constantly churned. Ellery felt his own throat ache.

“Yes. Know him?”

“I―No, I don’t. Only through the newspapers.”

“I see.” The Inspector turned to Barney Schick, sitting motionless across the room. “Barney, do you recognize this lady?”

The Odells shifted quickly, and the woman gasped. Her husband’s hairy hand clamped on her arm, and she turned about with a pale effort at composure.

“I sure do,” said Schick. His face was wet with perspiration.

“Where did you see her last?”

“In my place on Forty-fifth Street. Week ago―near two weeks ago. A Wednesday night.”

“Under what circumstances?”

“Huh? Oh. With the guy that was croaked―Grimshaw.”

“Mrs. Odell was quarrelling with the dead man?”

“Yep,” Schick guffawed. “On”y he wasn’t dead then, Inspector―not by a long shot.”

“Cut the comedy, Barney. You’re sure this is the woman you saw with Grimshaw?”

“Nothin” else but.”

The Inspector turned to Mrs. Odell. “And you say you never saw Albert Grimshaw, didn’t know him?”

Her full over-ripe lips began to quiver. Odell leaned forward, scowling. “If my wife says no,” he growled, “it’s no―get me?”

The Inspector considered that. “Hmm,” he murmured. There’s something in that . . . Barney, my boy, have you ever seen this fighting Mick here?” He flung his thumb at the Irish giant.

“Nope. Can’t say I have.”

“All right, Barney. Go back to your customers.” Schick creaked to his feet and went out. “Mrs. Odell, what was your maiden name?”

The lip-quivering redoubled. “Morrison.”

“Lily Morrison?”

“Yes.”

“How long have you been married to Odell?”

“Two and a half years.”

“So.” The old man again consulted a fictitious dossier. “Now listen to me, Mrs. Lily Morrison Odell. I have before me a clear record. Five years ago one Albert Grimshaw was arrested and sent to Sing Sing. At the time he was arrested there is no record of your connexion with him―true. But several years before that you were living with him at . . . What was the address, Sergeant Velie?”

“One-o-four-five Tenth Avenue,” said Velie.

Odell had leaped to his feet, his face surcharged with purple. “Livin” with him, was she?” he snarled. “There ain’t a skunk breathin” can say that about my wife and get away with it! Put up your mitts, you old wind-bag! I’ll knock―”

He was crouching forward, huge fists flailing the air. Then his head jerked backward with a viciousness that almost snapped his vertebrae; it had moved in that direction under the iron urging of Sergeant Velie’s fingers, now clamped in the man’s collar. Velie shook Odell twice, as a baby shakes a rattle, and Odell, mouth open, found himself slammed back in his chair.

“Be good, you mug,” said Velie gently. “Don’t you know you’re threatening an officer?” He did not release his grip on Odell’s collar; the man sat choking.

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll be good, Thomas,” remarked the Inspector, as if nothing untoward had occurred. “Now, Mrs. Odell, as I was saying―”

The woman, who had watched the manhandling of her leviathan husband with horror-struck eyes, gulped. “I don’t know anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never knew a man named Grimshaw. I never saw―”

“A lot of “nevers”, Mrs. Odell. Why did Grimshaw look you up as soon as he got out of prison two weeks ago?”

“Don’t answer,” gurgled the giant.

“I won’t. I won’t.”

The Inspector turned his sharp eyes on the man. “Do you realize that I can arrest you on a charge of refusing assistance to the police in a murder investigation?”

“Go ahead and try it,” muttered Odell. “I’ve got influence, I have. You’ll never get away with it. I know Olli-vant at the Hall . . . “

“Hear that, Mr. District Attorney? He knows Ollivant at the Hall,” said the Inspector with a sigh. “This man suggests bringing undue influence to bear . . . Odell, what’s your racket?”

“Got no racket.”

“Oh! You make an honest living. What’s your business?”

“I’m a plumbing contractor.”

“That explains your pull . . . Where do you live, Irish?”

“Brooklyn―Flatbush section.”

“Anything on this bird, Thomas?”

Sergeant Velie released Odell’s collar. “Clean record, Chief,” he said regretfully.

“How about the woman?”

“Seems to have gone straight.”

“There!” flared Mrs. Odell triumphantly.

“Oh, so you admit you had something to go straight about?”

Her eyes, large as a cow’s, opened wider; but she stubbornly kept silent.

“I suggest,” drawled Ellery from the depths of his chair, ‘that the omniscient Mr. Bell be summoned.”

The Inspector nodded to Velie, who went out and reappeared almost at once with the night-clerk. “Take a look at this man, Bell,” said the Inspector.

Bell’s adam’s-apple joggled prominently. He pointed a trembling finger at the suspicious, glowering face of Jeremiah Odell. “That’s the man! That’s the man!” he cried.

“Ha!” The Inspector was on his feet. “Which one was he, Bell?”

Bell looked blank for an instant. “Gee,” he muttered, ‘don’t seem to remember exactly―by God, I do! This man came next to last, just before that doctor with the beard!” His voice rose confidently. “He was the Irishman―the big fellow I told you about, Inspector. I remember now.”

“Positive?”

“I’d swear to it.”

“All right, Bell. Go on home now.”

Bell went away. Odell’s mammoth jaw had fallen; there was desperation in his black eyes.

“Well, what about it, Odell?”

He shook his head like a groggy prize-fighter. “About what?”

“Ever see that man who just went out?”

“No!”

“Do you know who he is?”

“No!”

“He’s the night-clerk,” said the Inspector pleasantly, “at the Hotel Benedict. Ever been there?”

“No!”

“He says he saw you there at his desk between ten and ten-thirty on the night of Thursday, September thirtieth/

“It’s a damn lie!”

“You asked at the desk whether there was an Albert Grimshaw registered.”

“I didn’t!”

“You asked Bell for his room-number and then went up. Room 314, Odell. Remember? It’s an easy number to remember . . . Well?”

Odell pulled himself to his feet. “Listen. I’m a taxpayer and an honest citizen. I don’t know what any of you guys are ravin” about. This ain’t Russia!” he shouted. “I’ve got my rights! Come on, Lily, let’s go―they can’t keep us here!”

The woman rose obediently; Velie stepped behind Odell and for a moment it seemed as if the two men must clash; but the Inspector motioned Velie aside and watched the Odells, slowly at first, and then with ludicrous acceleration, make for the doorway. They sped through it out of sight.

“Get somebody on them,” said Inspector Queen in the glummest of voices. Velie followed the Odells out.

“Most pig-headed bunch of witnesses I’ve ever seen,” muttered Sampson. “What’s behind all this?”

Ellery murmured: “You heard Mr. Jeremiah Odell, didn’t you, Sampson? It’s Soviet Russia. Some of that good old Red propaganda. Good old Russia! What would our noble citizenry do without it?”

No one paid attention. “It’s something screwy, I’ll tell you that,” said Pepper. “This guy Grimshaw was tangled up in a lot of darned shady affairs.”

The Inspector spread his hands helplessly, and they were silent for a long moment.

But as Pepper and the District Attorney rose to go, Ellery said brightly: “Say with Terence: “Whatever chance shall bring, we will bear with equanimity.”

Until late Monday afternoon the Khalkis case remained in a status quo that was drearily persistent. The Inspector went about his business, which was multifarious; and Ellery went about his―which consisted largely in consuming cigarettes, wolfing random chunks from a tiny volume of Sapphics in his pocket, and between-whiles slumping in the leather chair in his father’s office immersed in furious reflections. It was easier, it appeared, to quote Terence than to follow his advice.

The bomb burst just before Inspector Queen, having concluded his routine work for the day, was about to gather in his son and depart for the scarcely more cheerful destination of the Queen household. The Inspector was already getting into his overcoat, in fact, when Pepper flew into the office, his face crimson with excitement and a strange exultation. He was waving an envelope over his head.

“Inspector! Mr. Queen! Look at this.” He flung the envelope on the desk, began to pace up and down restlessly. “Just arrived in the mail. Addressed to Sampson, as you can see. Chief’s out―his secretary opened it and gave it to me. Too good to keep. Read it!”

Ellery rose quickly and went to his father’s side. Together they stared at the envelope. It was of cheap quality; the address was typewritten; the postmark indicated that it had been cancelled through the Grand Central post office that very morning.

“Well, well, what’s this?” muttered the Inspector. Carefully he drew from the envelope a slip of notepaper as cheap as its container. He flipped it open. It bore a few lines of typewriting―and no date, salutation or signature. The old man read it aloud, slowly:

The writer (it ran) has found out something hot―good and hot―about the Grimshaw case. The District Attorney ought to be interested.

Here it is. Look up the ancient history of Albert Grimshaw and you will find that he had a brother. What you may not find out, though, is that his brother is actively involved in the investigation. In fact, the name he goes by now is Mr. Gilbert Sloane.

“What,” cried Pepper, ‘do you think of that?” The Queens regarded each other, and then Pepper. “Interesting, if true,” remarked the Inspector. “It may be just a crank-letter, though.”

Ellery said calmly: “Even if it is true, I fail to see its significance.”

Pepper’s face fell. “Well, darn it!” he said, “Sloane denied ever having seen Grimshaw, didn’t he? That’s significant if they’re brothers, isn’t it?”

Ellery shook his head. “Significant of what, Pepper? Of the fact that Sloane was ashamed to admit his brother was a gaol-bird? Especially in the face of his brother’s murder? No, I’m afraid Mr. Sloane’s silence was animated by nothing more sinister than a fear of social degradation.”

“Well, I’m not so sure,” said Pepper doggedly. “I’ll bet the Chief thinks I’m right, too. What are you going to do about it, Inspector?”

“The first thing, after you two spalpeens get through arguing,” remarked the Inspector dryly, “is to see if we can find anything in this letter of internal significance.” He went to his inter-office communicator. “Miss Lambert? Inspector Queen. Come up to my office a minute.” He turned back with a grim smile. “We’ll see what the expert has to say.”

Una Lambert turned out to be a sharp-featured young woman with a sleek dash of grey running through her blackish hair. “What is it, Inspector Queen?”

The old man tossed the letter across the desk. “What do you make of this?”

Unfortunately, she made little of it. Beyond the fact that it had been typed on a well-used Underwood machine of fairly recent model, and that the characters had clearly distinguishable if microscopic defects in certain instances, she was unable to offer much of value. She felt sure, however, that she would be able to identify any other specimen which might be typed on the same machine.

“Well,” grumbled the Inspector, when Una Lambert had been dismissed, “I suppose we can’t expect miracles even from an expert.” He dispatched Sergeant Velie to the police laboratories with the letter for photographing and fingerprint tests.

“I’ll have to locate the D.A.,” said Pepper disconsolately, “and tell him about this letter.”

“Do that,” said Ellery, “and you might inform him at the same time that my father and I are going to go over Number Thirteen East Fifty-fourth Street at once―ourselves.”

The Inspector was as much surprised as Pepper. “What d”ye mean, you idiot? Ritter went over that empty Knox house―you know that. What’s the idea?”

“The idea,” replied Ellery, “is misty, but the purpose surely is self-evident. In a word, I have implicit faith in the honesty of your precious Ritter, but I have vague misgivings about his power of observation.”

“Sounds like a good hunch,” said Pepper. “After all, there may be something that Ritter missed.”

“Nonsense!” said the Inspector sharply. “Ritter’s one of my most reliable men.”

“I have been sitting here all the long afternoon,” said Ellery with a bitter sigh, “contemplating, among my sins, the complexities of the ever-snarling problem. It occurred to me with force that, as you say, Your Reverence, Ritter is one of your most reliable men. Ergo: my decision to go over the ground myself.”

“You don’t mean to stand there and say you think Ritter is―” The Inspector was shocked.

“By my faith, as the Christians used to say―no,” replied Ellery. “Ritter is honest, trustworthy, valiant, conscientious and a credit to his guild. Except that―henceforth I trust nothing but my own two eyes and the dizzy cerebrum that the Immanent Will, in Its autonomous, aimless, unconscious, and indestructible wisdom has seen fit to bestow upon me.”

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