The King is Dead

17

The guards were gone from the foyer of the family’s apartments.

The corridors were deserted.

“They’re probably at the Home Office,” said the Inspector.

“No,” said Ellery, “no. If anything’s happened, it took place here!”

They pushed open the door and went in. There were no flunkies about. Everything was in disorder.

“Max?” roared the Inspector.

Ellery was already racing toward King Bendigo’s private suite. When the Inspector caught up with him he was at the doorway to a great bedchamber, looking in.

“Isn’t Max—” began the Inspector.

Then he stopped.

King Bendigo was lying neatly on his bed, his head on the bolster and his open eyes staring up at the canopy.

There was no sign of Max.

The master of Bendigo Island was dressed as they had last seen him, with still-damp slacks and soaked sports shoes, his torso naked. Three trails of blood snaked diagonally down the right side of his face. They led from a hole in his right temple. The hole looked burned; around it the flesh was tattooed with powder.

A revolver with a nickel finish was gripped in the right hand, which lay on the bed parallel with the body.

King’s forefinger was still on the trigger.

“S & W .22/32 kit gun,” said the Inspector, turning it over in his hands. “One shot fired. Suicide, all right—”

“You think so?” muttered Ellery.

“—if you’re blind. Look at the angle of the wound, from point of entry to point of exit, Ellery. The course of the bullet was sharply downward. If King had committed suicide, he’d have had to hold the gun pointing sharply downward — which means from above his head. To pull the trigger from such a position and make such a wound, he’d have had to hook his right thumb around it. With the forefinger it’s a physical impossibility.”

Ellery nodded, but not as if he had been listening. “So after everything that’s happened — all the planning, all the eyewash — something’s gone wrong again,” he murmured. “In Abel’s hurry he forgot to take into account the angle of the shot. I wonder how he got Max.”

“Let’s go ask him,” said the Inspector.

They found Abel in King Bendigo’s office. Abel, and Judah, and Karla, still together.

Colonel Spring was there, too. The Colonel was in mufti. Stripped of his beautiful uniform, in a wrinkled and badly fitting suit, he fooled them. But only for a moment. His hand came up with a brown cigarette, and he said something with a lazy sting in it. He was directing the feverish activities of a group of men, also in ordinary clothes. These men were hurrying in and out of the safe vault near the great black desk, empty-handed going in, coming out laden with documents, money boxes, and what might have been precious gems in sealed cases.

The safe was almost empty.

Judah was bundled up in a coat; he looked cold. Karla was in a suit and a long wool coat. Her face was swollen and red.

Abel Bendigo was at his dead brother’s desk going through drawers. A man stood silently by, holding a grip open. Abel was dropping papers into it.

The Colonel and his men paid no attention to the interruption, but the wife and the brothers looked up sharply. Then Abel rose from the desk and made a sign to the man beside him, and the man shut and locked the grip and put the key in his pocket and carried the grip out, past the Queens.

“We’re about through,” said Colonel Spring to the Prime Minister.

“All right, Spring.”

The men went out under their last burdens. Colonel Spring followed them, lighting a fresh cigarillo. As he approached the Queens he looked up, smiled, spread his hands in a charming gesture, shrugged, and passed on.

“Getaway?” said Ellery.

“Yes,” said Abel.

“You seem to be doing it on a wholesale basis, Mr. Bendigo. Who gets left holding the bag?” the Inspector asked.

“You’d better get ready, too,” said Abel. “We’re leaving in a very few minutes.”

“Not before you answer a question or two, Mr. Bendigo! Where is Max?”

“Max’l?” Abel sounded preoccupied. “I really don’t know, Inspector. When the evacuation started, he disappeared. Search parties are looking for him now. I’m hoping, of course, that he’ll be found before we leave the island.”

The Inspector’s jaws worked,

Ellery stood by in silence.

“And where,” rasped the Inspector, “have you and Mrs. Bendigo and your brother Judah been since you left us at the pool?”

Abel’s stare did not falter. “The three of us — I repeat, Inspector, the three of us — went directly to the Home Office, and we’ve been here, together, ever since. Isn’t that so, Karla?”

“Yes,” said Karla.

“Isn’t that so, Judah?”

“Yes,” said Judah.

“You haven’t left this room, I suppose,” said the Inspector, “not one of you?”

The three shook their heads.

“When did Colonel Spring and his men get here?”

“Only a few minutes ago,” said Abel with a faint smile. “But that’s of no importance, is it, Inspector Queen? Since the three of us vouch for one another?”

Now the Inspector was silent. But then he said, “No. No, if you vouch for one another, I don’t suppose it is. By the way, my condolences.”

“Condolences?” said Abel.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Bendigo. I thought you knew that your brother King is dead.”

Karla turned away. She faced the wall, and she remained facing it.

Judah took a flask from his coat and unscrewed the cap.

“We know,” said Abel. “I wasn’t sure you did. My brother’s death was reported to us — a few minutes ago. I’m told he took his own life.”

“He was murdered,” said Ellery.

They stared at each other for a long time.

At last Abel said, “If there were time to go into it... But of course there isn’t, Mr. Queen. You understand that?”

Ellery did not reply.

Abel came around King Bendigo’s desk and took his sister-in-law’s arm gently. “Come, Judah.”

“But are you going to leave him lying there—” began the Inspector.

“My brother,” said Abel, and before his stare the Inspector felt himself tighten all over, “will be buried in a fitting manner.”

A half-hour later the father and the son were in a launch, with their luggage, roaring up the bay. Ahead of them sped another launch, a larger one, with the two Bendigos and Karla.

The Queens said nothing to each other. The Inspector was sunk in something remote from launches and islands and people who did murder in such a way as to confuse and defeat a man, and Ellery was taking in the fantastic scene on shore and in the bay. He had never seen so many ships, such a variety. This is what Dunkirk must have been like, he thought, minus the bombs. The whole island seemed on the move, converging in its thousands on the little harbor. Far out to sea scores of other ships lying low in the water were hove to, as if awaiting something — a signal, or nightfall. Overhead, the planes screamed and streaked, most of them leaving the island, some of them still coming in. He must have put in a call for every seagoing vessel and aircraft in the Bendigo empire...

When they climbed aboard the big cruiser, a seaman saluted and conducted them to the chartroom. There they found the Bendigos and Karla, looking back at the harbor through glasses. Two pairs of glasses were waiting for them. In silence Ellery and his father each picked one up. In silence the five kept their eyes on the island.

The activity had noticeably slackened. The gush of vehicles down the cliff roads had dwindled to a trickle. Most of the bay spread clear; the piers were still crowded, but things were coming to the end.

The end came ninety minutes later.

The last ship edged away from the dock and headed up the bay.

The roads, the piers were deserted. From one cusp of the harbor to the other, nothing moved.

The last flight of planes rose from the heart of the island, circled once, gaining altitude, then straightened out and skimmed off into the remote skies.

A red-faced man in a brass-buttoned blue uniform and a cap visored with gold came in.

He said to Abel: “All ready, sir. There is no one left on the island.”

“There’s at least one,” said Inspector Queen. “King Bendigo.”

The officer looked at Abel Bendigo, startled.

“My brother,” said Abel steadily, “is dead. I’m in charge now, Captain. You have your orders.”

Ellery put his hand on Abel’s arm. “Dr. Akst?” he asked.

“On board. Safe and well.”

The Bendigo got under way slowly. Slowly the cruiser headed out to sea.

They were all at the railing in the stern now, watching Bendigo Island shrink and lose color and definition.

Gradually the cruiser picked up speed. The sea was calm; the air was mild.

The armada of small ships and medium-sized ships and large ships was at full steam. Most of them had already vanished over the horizon.

Through the strong glasses Ellery kept watching the island. Nothing on it anywhere moved. Nothing lived.

Five miles from the island the cruiser’s speed slackened, the seas churning. Gradually they subsided, and the vessel lifted and fell gently in the swells.

And suddenly, very suddenly, the whole island rose in the air and spread itself against the sky. Or so it seemed.

A great puff of smoke rose swiftly from the place where the island had lain. It mushroomed like a genie.

The cruiser trembled. A blast of sound struck the vessel, staggered them.

And then there was another explosion, and another. And still another.

And another...

They had no consciousness of time.

Eventually the smoke pall drifted clear, and the debris sank and vanished.

And a sheet of flame stood out of the sea from one end of what had been Bendigo Island to the other. The entire island was burning — the ruins of the exploded buildings, the trees, the roads, the very sands. When it should burn itself out, in the course of days, or weeks, there would be nothing left but a flat black cinder on the surface of the sea.

Ellery turned, and Abel Bendigo turned, and their glances met. And Abel’s glance seemed to say: Trust me.

Ellery’s remained opaque. He was deeply troubled.

But the Inspector said with bitterness, aloud: “And what difference will this make? Nothing has changed. It’s one king or another!”

“Something has changed,” said Abel.

“Yes? What?”

“It’s me now, not him.”

“And will that make a difference?” cried the Inspector.

“Yes. There’s nothing wrong with power. The world needs power. The world needs power more today than ever before in history. Enlightened power — if you won’t laugh. Power directed toward the good. Instead of the other way.” Abel spoke awkwardly. His eyes were on the flames now.

“Do you think I believe that?” said the Inspector scornfully. “That the leopard can change his spots? You were in it up to your neck for twenty-seven years.”

“My brother always spoke to me of a dream he had,” murmured Abel. “A dream of a glorious world, a dream that could come true only if power were absolute. I believed his dream. I convinced myself that the end justified the means.”

Abel stared at the flames, one hand over Judah’s on the rail, the other over Karla’s. “But then I discovered that my brother was a liar and a cheat and that there was no good in him at all. And I saw how a man can fool others with ‘ends’ while he plays with rotten means. Because, when you get right down to it, no end is worth a damn that isn’t the sum total of all the means used to reach it. And I knew that if the power ever passed into my hands, I’d use it differently. And Judah and Karla,” he pressed their hands, “agreed with me.”

Abel turned then and glanced up at the bridge.

He raised his arm.

The seas churned and ran white again.

The Bendigo moved.

Judah Bendigo stirred. His hand went up to cup his eyes as he stared back at the burning island.

Karla turned from the rail. Her eyes were full of tears. She walked away, looking down at the deck.

Abel Bendigo put his coat collar up. His lips were compressed, as if he were making some great effort.

“So the King is dead,” said Ellery in a bleak voice. “The King is dead, long live the King. Point of information: Now who keeps an eye on the incumbent?”

Judah Bendigo looked over his shoulder. One eye was visible, and it was fixed on his brother Abel. It was a bleary eye, but it held remarkably steady.

“I do,” said Judah.