The Greek Coffin Mystery

Chapter 24. Exhibit

On Friday, October the twenty-second, Mr. Ellery Queen―informally, to be sure―visited with the aristocracy.

That is to say, a telephone-call from Mr. James J. Knox solicited Mr. Queen’s immediate presence at the Knox residence on a communication of possible interest. Mr. Queen was delighted, not only because he admired refined society but for less subtle reasons as well, and he proceeded with alacrity in a handsome taxicab to Riverside Drive, where at a structure of awesome proportions he alighted, paid off his suddenly obsequious cabby, and strode with dignity into the grounds of what even in a city fabled for its realty values must be considered an estate.

He was ushered, without too much ceremony, by a tall thin old flunkey into the Presence after a decent interval of waiting in a reception-room which might have been plucked bodily out of a Medici palazzo.

The Presence, for all his flamboyant surroundings, was working at a very modern desk in his―Ellery had this on the authority of the venerable ramrod butler―in his ‘den”. The den was as modern as the desk. Black patent-leather walls, angular furniture, lamps out of a maniac’s dream . . . the very essence of modern riches at homework. And, seated primly by the Presence, notebook propped on a praiseworthy knee, was Miss Joan Brett.

Knox greeted Ellery cordially, tendered a Circassian-wood box filled with pale cigarettes six inches long, waved his visibly impressed visitor into a chair which looked uncomfortable but was not, and then said, in his deceptively soft and hesitant voice: “Fine, Queen. Glad you could come so soon. Surprised to find Miss Brett here?”

“Staggered,” said Ellery gravely. Miss Brett worked her lashes and adjusted her skirt to an infinitesimal degree. “Very fortunate for Miss Brett, I’m sure.”

“No, no. I’m the lucky one. Jewel, Miss Brett is. Own secretary’s down with the mumps, or colic, or something. Unreliable―very. Miss Brett’s assisting me in personal matters as well as the Khalkis business. That Khalkis business! Well, sir, I will say it’s a pleasant relief having a good-looking young lady to look at all day. Very. Own secretary’s a lantern-jawed Scot who last smiled on his mother’s bony knee. “Scuse me, Queen. A few details I want to clear up with Miss Brett here, and then I’ll be free . . . . Make out the cheques for those bills that are due, Miss Brett―”

“The bills,” repeated Miss Brett submissively. “―and the stationery you had sent up. In paying the bill for the new typewriter, don’t forget to add on the small charge for that single replacement key―and send the old machine to the Bureau of Charities―hate old machines . . . “

“Bureau of Charities.”

“And when you find a moment or two, order the new steel files you suggested. That’s all now.”

Joan rose and went to the other side of the room, where she sat down in the crispest secretarial fashion at a small modish desk and began to typewrite. “Now, Queen, for you . . . Damned annoying, these details. Illness of my regular secretary has inconvenienced me greatly.”

“Indeed,” murmured Ellery. He was wondering why Mr. James J. Knox was relating to a comparative stranger these boring items of personal information, when Mr. James J. Knox would come to the point, and whether Mr. James J. Knox was not concealing a serious perturbation beneath this chatter.

Knox fiddled with a gold pencil. “Something occurred to me to-day, Queen―I’ve been upset, or I would have recalled it before. Completely forgot to mention it in my original account to Inspector Queen in his office at Headquarters.”

Ellery Queen, you lucky devil! thought Ellery Queen. This is what comes of canine persistence. Prick up your lucky ears . . . “And what was that?” he asked, as if it really did not matter.

A story unfolded, related in a nervous Knoxian manner which gradually disappeared as the tale grew in stature.

It seemed that on the night of Knox’s visit to Khalkis, accompanied by Grimshaw, a peculiar thing had occurred. This phenomenon took place directly after Khalkis had made out, signed, and handed to Grimshaw the promissory note which Grimshaw had demanded. It appeared that Grimshaw, while he stowed the note away in his wallet, had evidently decided that the moment was ripe for the pressing of a further advantage. Whereupon, putting his request on the basis of a “good will” payment, he had coolly demanded a thousand dollars of Khalkis―for, he said, his immediate needs in advance of expected payment of the principal represented by the promissory note in his wallet.

“No thousand dollars were found, Mr. Knox!” said Ellery sharply.

“Let me get on, young man,” said Knox. “Khalkis said at once that he didn’t have the money in the house. Turned about and asked me to lend it to him―promised to repay it the next day. Well, pshaw . . . “ Knox flipped his cigarette deprecatingly. “He was good for it. I’d drawn five one-thousand-dollar bills from my bank earlier in the day for personal expenses. Took “em out of my wallet, handed one of “em to Khalkis, and he turned it over to Grimshaw.”

“Ah,” said Ellery. “And where did Grimshaw put it?”

“Grimshaw snatched it from Khalkis’s hand, took from his vest pocket a heavy old gold watch―must be the one found in Sloane’s safe―opened the case at the back, folded the bill into a small wad and stored it in the case-back, snapped it shut, put the watch back into his vest pocket . . . .”

Ellery was gnawing a fingernail. “Heavy old gold watch. You’re certain it’s the same?”

“I’m absolutely sure of it. Saw a photo of the watch from Sloane’s safe in one of the newspapers earlier in the week. That was the watch, all right.”

“By the Luck of Eden Hall!” breathed Ellery. “If this isn’t . . . Mr. Knox, do you recall the numbers of the bills you drew from your bank that day? It’s most essential that we investigate the interior of the watch-case at once. If that bill is gone its serial-number may provide a trail to the murderer!”

“Exactly what I thought. Find out in a minute. Miss Brett, get Bowman, head cashier of my bank, on the wire.”

Miss Brett very impersonally obeyed, handed the instrument to Knox and returned quietly to her secretarial chores. “Bowman? Knox. Get me the serial-numbers of the five one-thousand-dollar bills I drew on October first . . . I see. All right.” Knox waited, then reached for a scratchpad and began to scribble with his gold pencil. He smiled, hung up, and handed the scrap of paper to Ellery. “There you are, Queen.”

Ellery fingered the scrap absently. “Ah―would you like to go down to Headquarters with me, Mr. Knox, and help me to inspect the interior of the watch?”

“Should be delighted. Fascinated by the detective things.”

The telephone-bell rang on his desk, and Joan rose to answer it. “For you, sir. The Surety Bond. Shall I―?”

“IH take it. “Scuse me, Queen.”

While Knox conducted a dry, pointless―as far as Ellery could see―and thoroughly boring business conversation, Ellery rose and strolled back to the other desk with Joan. He gave her a significant glance and said: “Er―Miss Brett, would you mind copying these serial-numbers on your typewriter?”―an excuse for bending over her chair and whispering in her ear. She took the pencilled notation from him very demurely, placed a sheet of paper in the carriage of her machine, and began to type. Meanwhile, she murmured: “And why didn’t you tell me Mr. Knox was the unknown man who came with Grimshaw that night?” reproachfully.

Ellery shook his head in warning, but Knox had not faltered in his conversation. Joan quickly tore the sheet from her machine, saying in a loud voice: “Oh, bother! I’ll have to write out the word “number”,” and, placing a fresh sheet in the carriage, began to copy the numbers with a rapid touch.

Ellery murmured: “Any news from London?”

She shook her head, stumbled a little in her flashing finger-pace, cried: “I’m still not accustomed to Mr. Knox’s personal typewriter―it’s a Remington and I’ve always used an Underwood and there isn’t another machine in the house . . . “ concluded her task, tore the sheet out, handed it to Ellery and whispered: “Is it possible that he has the Leonardo?”

Ellery gripped her shoulder so hard that she winced and went pale. He said with a smile in hearty tones: “That’s splendid, Miss Brett. And thank you,” and whispered, as he tucked the notation into one of his vest pockets: “Be wary. Don’t overplay your hand. Don’t be caught snooping about. Trust me. You’re a secretary and nothing more. Don’t say a word to anyone about the thousand-dollar bill . . . “

“That’s quite all right, I’m sure, Mr. Queen,” she said clearly, and winked with the wickedness of a harpy.

Ellery had the pleasure of riding downtown in Mr. James J. Knox’s town-car seated side by side with the great man himself, and chaffeured by a stiff-necked Charon in sober livery.

Arrived before Police Headquarters in Center Street, the two men got out, toiled up the broad stepped approach, and disappeared within. Ellery was amused to note the awe with which the multi-millionaire regarded the universal cordiality extended by police, detectives, and hangers-on to his own son-of-Inspector-Queen person. He led the way to one of the file-rooms. There Ellery commandeered, on the strength of his wholly fictive authority, the file in which the evidence on the Grimshaw-Sloane case was stored. He disturbed nothing but the old-fashioned gold watch; this he took from the steel case, and he and Knox examined it in the deserted room for a moment without speaking.

Ellery experienced in that instant a portent of impending events. Knox seemed merely curious. And Ellery pried open the back of the watch-case.

There, folded into a tiny wad, was what proved to be, on unfolding, a thousand-dollar bill.

Ellery was plainly disappointed; the possibility he had held out in Knox’s den had vanished with the materialization of the bill. Nevertheless, because he was a thorough young man, he checked against the list in his pocket the serial-number of the bill from the watch, and discovered that the bill he had found was in truth one of the five which Knox had listed. He snapped the watch-case shut and restored it to the file.

“What do you make of it, Queen?”

“Not a thundering lot. This new fact doesn’t alter the existing circumstances as they relate to the Sloane solution,” replied Ellery sadly. “If Sloane murdered Grimshaw, was Grimshaw’s unknown partner, our finding of the bill still in the watch-case merely means that Sloane knew nothing of the bill’s existence. It means that Grimshaw was holding out on his partner, that Grimshaw never really intended to tell him about the thousand dollars he had managed to extort from Khalkis, or to share it with Sloane―witness the curious place in which he secreted the bill. Now Sloane, murdering Grimshaw, took the watch for purposes of his own but never thought of looking into the case, since he had no reason to suspect that anything was there. Consequently, it is still where Grimshaw put it. Q.E.D.―and rats!”

“I take it you aren’t particularly impressed with the Sloane solution,” said Knox shrewdly.

“Mr. Knox, I scarcely know what to think.” They strolled down the corridor. “Nevertheless, sir, I should appreciate one thing . . . “

“Anything you say, Queen.”

“Don’t breathe a word about the thousand-dollar bill to anyone―on general principles. Please.”

“Very well. But Miss Brett knows―she must have overheard me telling you about it.”

Ellery nodded. “You might caution her to keep quiet about it.”

They shook hands and Ellery watched Knox stride away. He walked restlessly up and down the hall for a few moments, then made for his father’s office. No one was there. He shook his head, descended into Center Street, looked about, then hailed a taxicab.

Five minutes later he was in Mr. James J. Knox’s bank. He asked to see Mr. Bowman, the head cashier. He saw Mr. Bowman, the head cashier. Flashing a special police identification card which was his by right of audacity, he demanded that Mr. Bowman produce at once the list of serial-numbers of the five one-thousand-dollar bills Knox had drawn on October the first.

The number of the bill from Grimshaw’s watch matched one of the five numbers the bank official supplied.

Ellery left the bank and, perhaps feeling that the occasion warranted no celebration, eschewed the more expensive motor vehicle and took the subway home.