The King is Dead

12

July came — the first, the Fourth.

There was a ceremony of sorts before the Home Office, with the American flag raised beside the black Bendigo standard and a short speech by Abel Bendigo. But this was for the benefit of the Honorable James Walbridge Monahew, unofficial representative of the United States to The Bodigen Company — a courtesy such as the sovereign power extends to a friendly government. Present were Cleets of Great Britain and Cassebeer of France. There was a cocktail party afterwards in the Board Room, which neither Ellery nor his father was invited to attend. They learned later that several toasts were drunk — to the health of the absent King Bendigo, the President of the United States, the King of England, and the President of the Republic of France, in that order.

Bendigo was still confined to the hospital wing at the Residence, under twenty-four-hour guard. Ambiguous bulletins posted by Dr. Storm gave the impression of a rapid recovery. By July fifth the patient was reported sitting up. Still, no visitors were permitted except his wife and his brother Abel. Max’l was not classified as a visitor; he never left the sickroom, feeding there three times a day and bedding down on a cot within arm’s reach of his divinity.

Karla spent most of her days in the hospital. The Queens saw little of her except at dinner, when she would chat in a strained, preoccupied way about everything but the subject uppermost in their minds. Abel they saw rarely; with the King helpless in bed, the Prime Minister was a busy man.

Judah was the surprise. For the first week after the attempted assassination he was confined to his quarters under guard, and the six cases of Segonzac cognac behind his Bechstein grand were removed at Abel Bendigo’s order. But Judah kept mellow. His apartment was searched repeatedly, and a bottle or two were found occasionally in a rather obvious hiding-place; the guards suspected him of trying to keep them happy. The chief source of his supply they never located. For a few days it was a game which Judah showed every evidence of enjoying in his sardonic fashion. After his confinement was lifted and he was given freedom of the Residence, with the exception of the hospital wing, all attempts to keep him sober were abandoned. It would have taken a general of logistics commanding an army corps of Carrie Nations to track down half his secret caches.

The Queens wondered grimly about Judah’s release, and they spent several days seeking an explanation. Finally they succeeded in ambushing Abel. It was late one night, as he entered the Residence bound for bed.

“Honestly, gentlemen, I haven’t been avoiding you. With King down, there’s been no time to breathe.” Abel looked grayer than usual and his narrow shoulders sagged with fatigue. “What’s on your mind?”

“Lots of things,” said Ellery, “but a good place to start would be: Why did you order Judah’s release?”

Abel sighed. “I should have explained that. Do you mind if we sit down?... One of the critical things that’s been occupying me — perhaps the most critical — is keeping the real story of what happened on the night of June twenty-first from getting out. You’ll have noticed that Mr. Monahew and Sir Cardigan and Monsieur Cassebeer are under the impression that King is indisposed because of influenza. If it became known that he was the victim of an assassination attempt that nearly succeeded, the news would cause the most serious repercussions. Throughout the world. Our affairs are normally very delicate, gentlemen, and they’re so spread out that — as a great European statesman remarked only the other day — let King Bendigo stand in a draft and the whole world sneezes.”

Abel smiled faintly, but the Queens remained grim.

“What’s that got to do with your brother Judah?” asked the Inspector.

“The gentlemen from the United States, Great Britain, and France are very astute. If Judah were kept out of sight for any length of time, they would start speculating. They might put two and two together — King’s sudden ‘illness,’ Judah’s sudden disappearance.” Abel shook his head. “It’s safer this way. Judah can’t possibly get to King. And he’s being watched closely without seeming to be.”

The Queens said nothing for a while.

Then the Inspector said: “Another thing, Mr. Bendigo. We’ve been trying to see Dr. Storm’s patient without being permitted within a hundred yards of his bed. There are some questions we’d like to ask him. How about arranging a visit to his bedside?”

“Dr. Storm won’t allow it. My brother’s still a very sick man, he says.”

“We understand you see him daily.”

“For just a few minutes. To relieve his mind about pending matters; he frets a good deal. That’s all, really.”

Ellery said quietly: “Have you asked him anything about the shooting?”

“Of course. He’s been no help at all. And I can’t press him. Storm says he must not be excited.”

“But he must have said something. He was shot in the breast. How can you be shot in the breast at close range without seeing who’s shooting you?”

Abel said earnestly: “Exactly what I asked King, knowing it’s the one thing you’d want answered. But he says he can’t remember anything happening except that he woke up in the hospital.” Abel rose. “Is there anything else, gentlemen?”

“Yes,” said Ellery. “The most important question of all.”

“Well, well?” said Abel, a trifle impatiently.

“What are we doing here?”

Abel stared his illegible, unavoidable stare. They could see his features smooth out as if under a hot iron. When he spoke, he was the Prime Minister. “I hired you to confirm my own findings about the authorship of the letters. You did so. I then asked you to stay on to help in a delicate family situation. Which isn’t settled yet.”

“You want us to keep going, Mr. Bendigo?” There was nothing to be read in Ellery’s face, either.

“Most certainly I do. Especially during the next few weeks. When King is allowed out of bed we’ll have the whole problem of Judah on our backs again. I can’t keep him under lock and key—”

“Why not?” demanded the Inspector. “With King back on his feet, anything you do with Judah won’t be noticed.”

The Prime Minister vanished. Abel sat down again, shaking his head, his glasses twinkling a little. “I don’t blame you. It must all seem very strange to you. The truth is, what we have most to contend with is not so much Judah as King himself. Contrary to my expectations, King won’t allow Judah to be locked up. He has his weaknesses, you know. Courage to the point of foolhardiness is one of them. Tremendous pride is another. To lock Judah up, according to King’s code, would be a personal defeat. I realize that now. And then the family relationship... I’m sure I don’t have to go on... Of course, there’s still the matter of the way Judah did it. That bothers me, Mr. Queen, bothers me enormously. And King. We can’t make head or tail of it. Have you made any progress at all?”

Ellery shifted to the other foot. “You can hardly progress, Mr. Bendigo, when you’re caught between the irresistible force and the immovable object. The facts say the attack on your brother was a physical impossibility — and yet, here he is with a bullet hole near his heart. Did you find time to read our report on the ballistics tests?”

“Incredible,” murmured Abel.

“Exactly. Not to be believed. And yet there’s no room for doubt. That the bullet dug out of your brother’s chest was fired from Judah’s gun when Judah’s gun couldn’t possibly, under the ironclad circumstances, have fired it is a scientific fact. It’s something new under the sun, as far as my father and I are concerned.”

“And that bothers you. Of course. A man of your training, your exceptional talents, Mr. Queen... No offense, Inspector.” Abel smiled. “You and I are in the same class — good, solid plug-horses. But the pace of the thoroughbred—” He shook his head as he rose again. “You keep on it, Mr. Queen. I know if anyone can make sense out of it, you’re the man.”

It was only when the private Bendigo elevator had closed on Abel’s smallish figure, the narrow bland face, the broad disturbing brow, that the Queens found themselves totting up the items of their conversation with him. And reaching the sum total of zero.

As usual, Abel had really not answered anything.

They were at breakfast in their suite the next morning when Abel phoned.

“I got to thinking last night, as I was getting ready for bed,” Abel’s twang said, “about our talk, Mr. Queen. It seems to me Dr. Storm is being over-cautious. King is really getting along very well. And I see no reason why you should have to rely on secondhand answers to your questions when you can get them directly from King. I’ve arranged with Dr. Storm for you and Inspector Queen to visit my brother at eleven o’clock this morning. Storm gives you only a few minutes—”

“That’s all we want,” Ellery said quickly. “Thank you!” But when he hung up he did not speak quickly at all. “Abel’s arranged for us to see King this morning, Dad. It’s his way of telling us he knows we were skeptical or dissatisfied with his report of what King said about the shooting. I wonder what it means.”

“I wonder what anything means!”

They were admitted to the hospital wing without question, and a guard escorted them to the door of King Bendigo’s room. As they walked up the beautiful corridor they met Immanuel Peabody. The lawyer had just emerged from the royal sickroom with a briefcase under his arm, and he hurried past them with a frown and a wave of the hand. “The White Rabbit,” muttered Ellery. “‘Oh, my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting!’”

“I wonder where he was when Judah pulled his miracle,” grunted his father. “And what the devil he carries in that briefcase!”

Then they were admitted to the presence.

The King looked very well, as his brother had remarked. He was thinner and his complexion had paled, but his black eyes were as lively as ever and there was scarcely a trace of weakness in his gestures.

And Max’l was eating nuts again, in a chair beside his master’s bed.

Dr. Storm stood Napoleonically before one of the windows, his back to them. Without turning he snapped, “Five minutes.”

“Fire away,” said the King. He wore white silk pajamas. The crown surmounting the two linked globes was embroidered in metallic gold thread on the breast through which his brother’s bullet had gone.

“First,” said Inspector Queen. “Do you remember the clock’s chiming midnight, Mr. Bendigo?”

“Vaguely. I was absorbed in what I was doing, but it seems to me I remember the chimes.”

“All twelve of them?” asked the Inspector.

“No idea.”

“At that moment — when you heard the midnight chimes — you were sitting at your desk?”

“Yes.”

“In what position, Mr. Bendigo? I mean, taking the front edge of the desk as a line of reference, were you sitting squarely to it? Facing left? Facing right? How?”

“Squarely. I was leaning over, writing.”

“Looking down, of course?”

“Naturally.”

“When you heard the shot—”

“I didn’t hear the shot, Inspector Queen.”

“Oh, I see. There was no shot?”

The man in the bed said dryly, “So that’s the way you fellows do it. Yes, of course there was a shot.”

“Why do you say that, Mr. Bendigo?”

“There must have been. There’s nothing imaginary about the bullet hole in my chest.”

“You didn’t hear the shot. Did you see anything? A flash? A sudden movement? Even something you can’t identify?”

“I saw nothing, Inspector.”

“Did you smell anything unusual?”

“No.”

“One moment you were writing, the next you were unconscious. Is that it, Mr. Bendigo?”

“Yes. — Queen. You haven’t opened your mouth. Don’t you have a question to ask?”

“Yes,” said Ellery. “How do you think it was done, Mr. Bendigo?”

“I don’t know,” said the King grimly. “Isn’t that your department?”

“I’m not running it too well. The facts and the results are totally contradictory. We were hoping you’d recall something that would give us a clue to what happened. Ordinarily, the fact that you didn’t hear, see, or smell anything at the moment you were shot might simply mean that you blacked out instantaneously from a near-fatal wound. But Mrs. Bendigo didn’t hear, see, or smell the shot, either, and she wasn’t wounded — in fact, she was conscious long enough to see you slump back in your chair with the point of the bullet’s entry visible and the blood oozing out to stain your shirt around the bullet hole. So your testimony, Mr. Bendigo, only tends to confirm your wife’s and confuse matters further. — All right, Doctor, we’re leaving.”

Four weeks to the night after the attempt on King Bendigo’s life, Ellery made the decision which changed the course of their investigation and turned it at last into a channel with a discernible port.

He and his father were parked in one of the Residence cars. They had driven off into the soft summer night after dinner that evening in an attempt to escape from the headsplitting maze in which they were trapped. Ellery drove absently, and it was with some surprise that he found himself emerging from the camouflage belt of woods surrounding the island. He pulled over to the raw edge of the cliffs and turned off his motor. At their feet lay the harbor of Bendigo Island, twinkling with a thousand lights and even at this hour the scene of an insect-like activity. In the bay formed by the embrace of the harbor’s arms lay a great number of vessels, and they could see, lying athwart the narrow entrance to the bay, the riding lights and big guns of the heavy cruiser Bendigo, King Bendigo’s “yacht”.

“Seems like ten years since that first day, when Abel made the airport car turn sharp inland the minute we caught a glimpse of the harbor,” remarked the Inspector after a few moments. “I wonder why they’ve stopped tailing us and shooing us away from the hush-hush installations. It’s weeks since I’ve even seen the Bobbsey Twins.”

“The who?” Ellery automatically fingered the Walther in his pocket. He had been carrying Judah’s little gun about with him ever since the night of June twenty-first.

“The colored-shirt boys.”

“Oh, they’re in the States somewhere on an assignment.”

“That’s where I’d like to be, gol ding it. I can’t take much more of this, son, Washington or no Washington.”

“King’s being discharged from the hospital this Saturday, according to the grapevine.”

“Maybe Judah’ll put the hex on him and he’ll turn into gold or something,” the Inspector said hopefully. “Anything for a little action!”

They were silent for a long time.

“Dad.”

“What, son?”

“I’m leaving here.”

“So am I, if I live that long,” said his father gloomily. Then he turned to stare. “You’re what?”

“Leaving.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Suits me,” said the Inspector with celerity. “By golly, let’s go back right now and start packing.”

“Not you, Dad. Just me. You’ll have to stay.”

“Of all the dirty, lowdown tricks,” exclaimed his father. “What’s the idea?”

“Well...”

“What do you have to cover up, your reputation? With me holding the potsy? Why do I have to stay? I mean, why do I have to stay? I’ve got as much in my spy notes as I can hope to get, and the oilskin pouch has given my belly a permanent itch. It’s your end that’s not finished — remember?”

“One of us has to keep a line open here, Dad. And an eye on Judah. There’s something I’ve got to look into.”

The inspector eyed him. “You’ve got something?”

“No,” mumbled Ellery. “No, I’ve got nothing. But a hunch, that is. When there’s nothing else to latch on to, a hunch can look mighty comforting.”

After a moment his father sank back and looked glumly down at the lights of the harbor. “Well, give my regards to Broadway.”

“I’m not going to Broadway.”

“You’re not? Where you going?”

“To Wrightsville.”

“Wrightsville!”

“I made up my mind this afternoon, while you were dunking in the pool. I meandered into the gardens and ran across Judah doing a Ferdinand. He was lying under a royal poinciana waving a peacock flower under his crooked nose and sipping guess-what. We had a long chat, Judah and I. He was unusually voluble.”

“What’s all this got to do with Wrightsville?”

“Judah says that’s where he, King, and Abel were born.”

“You’re kidding!”

“That’s what he told me. And enough more about their boyhood there to make me damned curious.”

“The big boy was born there?”

Ellery shifted in his seat. “It gave me a queer lift, Dad. You know how Wrightsville’s mixed in my life in recent years. I’ve become a little superstitious on the subject. I suppose it’s inane — after all, the Bendigos are Americans by birth... they had to be born somewhere in the United States... and Abel’s twang never came out of anything but a New England nose. Still, learning it was my old Wrightsville jabbed me in the seat of the pants. The moment Judah uttered the magic word — he is a magician! — I knew I’d have to run up there for a session with the town. Because the secret’s probably buried there, just waiting to be dug up. The way Wrightsville secrets have a way of doing.”

Ellery looked out to the dark sea.

“What secret?” demanded his father petulantly.

“The secret.” Ellery shrugged. “The secret of what makes these people tick. Of how this case came to happen, Dad. I’m no longer obsessed with the answer to how Judah pulled that marvelous flimflam. We’ll get to that in due course... Up there in Wrightsville something’s waiting to be discovered about Kane, Abel, and Judah Bendigo that’s going to restore my self-respect. I feel it in my bones and, by God, I’m flying there tomorrow morning!”