The King is Dead

I

The invasion of the Queen apartment occurred at 8.08 o’clock of an ordinary June morning, with West 87th Street just washed down three stories below by the City sprinkler truck and Arsène Lupin in grand possession of the east ledge, breakfasting on breadcrumbs intended for a dozen other pigeons of the neighborhood.

It was an invasion in twentieth-century style — without warning. At the moment it exploded, Inspector Queen was poising a spoon edgewise over his second egg, measuring peacefully for the strike; Mrs. Fabrikant had just elevated her leviathan bottom at the opposite side of the room, preparing to plug in the vacuum cleaner; and Ellery was in the act of stepping into the living-room, hands at his neck about to pull down his jacket collar.

“Don’t move, please.”

There had been no noise at all. The front door had been unlocked, the door wedged back against the wall, and the foyer crossed in silence.

The Inspector’s spoon, Mrs. Fabrikant’s bottom, Ellery’s hands remained where they were.

The two men were standing just inside the archway from the foyer. Folded topcoats covered their right hands. They were dressed alike, in suits and hats of ambiguous tan, except that one wore a dark blue shirt and the other a dark brown shirt. They were big men with nice, rather blank, faces.

The pair looked around the Queen living-room. Then they stepped apart and Ellery saw that they were not a pair but a trio.

The third man stood outside the apartment, straddling the landing to block the public hall. His motionless back was toward the Queen front doorway and he was looking down the staircase.

Blue Shirt suddenly parted company from his twin. He had to pass Inspector Queen at the dropleaf table, but he paid no attention to the staring old gentleman. He went through the swinging door to the kitchen, very fast.

His mate remained in the archway in an attitude of almost respectful attention. His brown shirt added a warm tone to his personality. His right hand appeared, holding a .38 revolver with a pug nose.

Blue Shirt came out of the Queen kitchen and disappeared in Inspector Queens bedroom.

The Inspector’s spoon, Mrs. Fabrikant’s bottom, Ellery’s hands all came cautiously down at the same moment. But nothing happened except that Blue Shirt came out of the Inspector’s bedroom, crossed to the doorway where Ellery stood, stiff-armed Ellery politely out of the way, and went into the study.

The third man kept watching the stairs in the hall.

Mrs. Fabrikant’s mouth was working up to a shriek. Ellery said, “Don’t, Fabby,” just in time.

Blue Shirt came back and said to his partner, “All clear.” Brown Shirt nodded and immediately set out across the room, heading for Mrs. Fabrikant. She scrambled to her feet, creamier than the woodwork. Without looking at her, Brown Shirt said in a pleasant voice, “Take the vacuum into one of the bedrooms, Mother, shut the door, and get it going.” He stopped at the window.

Arsène Lupin boomed and flew away, and Mrs. Fabrikant fled.

That was when Inspector Queen found his legs and his voice. Jumping to his full five feet four inches, the Inspector bellowed, “Who in the hell are you?”

The vacuum cleaner began to whine like a bandsaw from Ellery’s bedroom beyond the study. Blue Shirt shut the study door, muffling the noise. He wedged his back in the doorway.

“If this is a stickup—!”

Blue Shirt grinned, and Brown Shirt — at the window — permitted himself a smile that only briefly shattered his expression. His glance remained on 87th Street below.

“—it’s the politest one in history,” said Ellery. “You at the window. Would you get nervous if I looked over your shoulder?”

The man shook his head impatiently. A black town car with a New York licence plate was just swinging into West 87th Street from Columbus Avenue. Ellery saw its glittering mate parked across the street. Several men were in the parked car.

Brown Shirt’s left hand came up, and two of the men in the parked car jumped out and raced across the street to the sidewalk below the Queen windows. As they reached the curb, the car which had turned into 87th Street slid to a stop before the house. One of the men ran up the brown-stone steps; the other swiftly opened the rear door of the car and stepped back, looking not into the car but up and down the street.

A smallish man got out of the town car. He was dressed in a nondescript suit and he wore an out-of-shape gray hat. In a leisurely way he mounted the brownstone steps and passed from view.

“Recognize him, Dad?”

Inspector Queen, at Ellery’s shoulder, shook his head. He looked bewildered.

“Neither do I.”

Brown Shirt was now at the door of the Inspector’s bedroom, so that he and Blue Shirt faced each other from opposite sides of the room. Their foreshortened Police Positives dangled at their thighs. Their companion on the landing stepped up to the newel post, and now his right hand was visible, too, grasping a third .38.

Mrs. Fabrikant’s machine kept sawing.

Suddenly, out in the hall, the third man backed away.

The smallish man’s shapeless hat and undistinguished suit began to rise from the stairwell.

“Good morning,” said the smallish man, removing his hat. He had a voice like a steel guitar-string.

Seen close up, he was not so small as he had appeared. He was several inches taller than Inspector Queen, but he had the Inspector’s small bones and the narrow face structure of many undersized men. His head broadened at the temples and his forehead was scholarly. His skin was bland and firm, with an undertinge of indoor gray, his hair mouse-brown with a tendency to scamper. His eyes, which were protected by squarish rimless glasses, had a bulgy and heavy-lidded look, but this was an illusion; his blinking stare was unavoidable. A growing pot strained the button of his single-breasted jacket, which could have done with a pressing. He looked as if he ought to be wearing a square derby and a piped vest.

He might have been fifty, or sixty, or even forty-five.

Ellery’s first impression was categorical: The absent-minded professor. The rather high-pitched Yankee voice of authority went with examinations and blackboards. But professors, absentminded or otherwise, do not go about the city accompanied by armed guards in powerful cars. Ellery revised. A general, perhaps, one of the intellectual brass, a staff man who moved mountains from the Pentagon. Or an old-fashioned banker from Vermont. But...

“My name,” twanged the visitor, “is Abel Bendigo.”

“Bendigo!” The Inspector stared. “You’re not the Bendigo—”

“Hardly,” said Abel Bendigo with a smile. “I take it you’ve never seen his photograph. But you see what I’m up against, Inspector Queen. These security people are members of my brother’s Public Relations and Personnel Department, which is under the command of a very hard fellow named Spring. Colonel Spring — I doubt if you’ve ever heard of him. He tyrannizes us all, even my brother — or, I should say, especially my brother! And so you’re Ellery Queen,” their visitor went on without so much as a glissando. “Great pleasure, Mr. Queen. I’ve never got over feeling a bit silly about these precautions, but what can I do? Colonel Spring likes to remind me that it takes only one bullet to turn farce into tragedy... May I sit down?”

Ellery pulled the old leather chair forward, and the Inspector said, “I wish, Mr. Bendigo, you had let us know in advance—”

“The Colonel again,” murmured Abel Bendigo, sinking into the chair. “Thank you, Mr. Queen, my hat will do nicely on the floor here... So this is where all the mysteries are solved.”

“Yes,” said Ellery, “but I believe what’s bothering my father is the fact that he’s due in his office at Police Headquarters in about twelve minutes, and it’s downtown.”

“Sit down, Inspector, I want to talk to both of you.”

“I can’t, Mr. Bendigo—”

“They won’t miss you this once. I guarantee it. By the way, I see we’ve interrupted your breakfast. Yours, too, Mr. Queen—”

“Just coffee this morning,” Ellery went to the table. “Will you join us?”

From the side of the room Brown Shirt said, “Mr. Bendigo.”

Bendigo waved his slender hand humorously. “You see? Another of Colonel Spring’s rules. Finish. Please.”

Ellery refilled his father’s cup from the percolator and poured a cupful for himself. There was no point in asking this man questions; in fact, there was every point in not. So he stood by the table and sipped his coffee.

The Inspector gulped his breakfast, throwing side glances at his wristwatch in perplexity.

Abel Bendigo waited in silence, blinking. Blue Shirt and Brown Shirt were very still. The man on the landing did not move. Mrs. Fabrikant’s vacuum cleaner kept buzzing in a helpless way.

The moment the Queens set their cups down, the visitor said, “What do you gentlemen know about my brother King?”

They looked at each other.

“Got a file on him, son?” asked the Inspector.

“Yes.”

Ellery went into his study. Blue Shirt moving aside. When he came back, he was carrying a large clasp envelope. He shook it over the table and a few newspaper and magazine clippings fell out. He sat down and glanced over them.

Abel Bendigo’s prominent eyes behind the glasses blinked at Ellery’s face.

Finally Ellery looked up. “There’s nothing here that amounts to anything, Mr. Bendigo. Sunday supplement stuff, chiefly.”

“You know nothing about my brother,” murmured the slender man, “beyond what’s in those clippings?”

“Your brother is rumored to be one of the five richest men in the world — worth billions. That, I take it, is the usual exaggeration. However, the assumption may be made that he’s a man of great wealth.”

“Oh, yes?” said Abel Bendigo.

“How great makes an interesting speculation. There is in existence an industrial monster known as The Bodigen Arms Company, munitions manufacturers, with affiliates all over the globe. This company is supposed to be owned lock and stock by your brother King. I say ‘supposed to be’ because the only ‘proof’ presented in evidence of his alleged ownership is the rather amusing one that Bodigen is an anagram of Bendigo. If it should happen to be true, I salaam. During World War II a single branch of The Bodigen Arms Company — just one branch out of the dozens in existence — showed profits after taxes of some forty-two millions a year.”

“Go on,” said Abel Bendigo, blinking.

“Your brother, Mr. Bendigo, is also said to be deeply involved in worldwide oil interests, steel, copper, aluminium — all the important metals — aircraft, shipbuilding, chemicals—”

“Anything, that is,” said Inspector Queen, dabbing at his mustache, “relating to materials vital to war. I really must be getting downtown, Mr. Bendigo—”

“Not yet.” Bendigo crossed his legs suddenly. “Go on, Mr. Queen.”

“Personal data,” continued Ellery, “are almost as speculative. Your brother seems extremely shy. Little or nothing is known about his background. A photographer for a Kansas newspaper won a national spot-news photography award two years ago for snapping a picture of King Bendigo and managing to get away with an unbroken plate, although the decoy camera by which he pulled off the trick was smashed to crumbs — by these gentlemen here, for all I know. The photo shows a big man, handsome as the devil — I quote an eye-witness — at that time fifty-two years old, which makes him fifty-four today. But he looks little more than forty or so, and he carries himself — I quote again — ‘with an arrogant self-confidence usually associated with twenty.’ ‘Dressed to kill,’ it says here, and you’ll forgive me if I wonder whether the reporter was trifling libelously with the English language when he wrote it.”

King Bendigo’s brother smiled, but then the corners of his mouth dropped and snuffed the smile out.

“I have in my possession,” he said slowly, “two letters. They were addressed to my brother. They’re threat-letters.

“Now a man in my brother’s position, no matter how careful he is to avoid publicity, can hardly avoid cranks. Colonel Spring’s PRPD takes all the necessary precautions against that sort of thing as a matter of routine. These letters, however, are a different run of shad.”

Bendigo took two folded sheets of paper from his inside breast pocket. “I want you to examine these, please.”

“All right,” said Ellery, and he came over.

The Inspector rose, too. “Where are the envelopes?”

“King’s secretaries discarded them before their importance was appreciated. My brother’s staff opens all his mail for sorting and distribution — all, that is, except letters marked ‘confidential’ or under special seal. These two letters, I understand, were in the ordinary mail.”

Ellery made no move to unfold them. “Was no attempt made to recover the envelopes, Mr. Bendigo? From the waste-basket, or wherever they were tossed?”

“There are no waste-baskets at our offices. Each secretary has beside his desk a chute which leads to a central macerating machine. Discarded paper goes down the chute and is chewed to pulp. The pulp feeds automatically into an incinerator.”

“Since smoke,” murmured Ellery, “can’t be yanked out of a file?”

Abel Bendigo’s lips pursed. “We have no use, Mr. Queen, for mere accumulations.”

“Let’s see those letters, Ellery,” said the Inspector.

The two sheets of paper were identical. They were creamy single sheets, personal letter size, of a fine vellum-type stationery, unmarked by monogram or imprint. In the center of each sheet there was a single line of typewriting.

“The six-word message was the first,” said Bendigo.

The six-word message was:

The dash was not casual. It was impressed into the paper, as if the key had been struck at that point with force.

The message on the second sheet was almost identical with that on the first. The only difference was the addition of two words:

As in the first message, the dash had been physically emphasized.

The Queens studied the two messages.

Bendigo waited.

Finally, the Inspector looked up. “Where in these notes does it say that your brother King is going to be murdered, Mr. Bendigo? I don’t see any name on these. Anywhere.”

“The envelopes, Inspector Queen.”

“Did you see the envelopes?”

“No, but the staff—”

“Did anyone but the secretaries who opened them — and threw them down the chute to be destroyed — see the envelopes?”

“No. But they are reliable people, thoroughly screened. Of course, Inspector, you’ll have to take my word for that. The envelopes were addressed to King Bendigo.” Bendigo was not irritated; if anything, he seemed pleased. “What do you think, Mr. Queen?”

“I see what’s bothering you. Threatening letters are usually hand-printed on cheap paper — the block-lettering, commonly in pencil, is almost always unidentifiable, and the cheap paper untraceable. These letters are remarkable for their frankness. The writer did not try to cover his tracks. He used expensive, distinctive notepaper which should be easy to trace. Instead of printing capitals in pencil, he typed his message on a Winchester—”

“Winchester Noiseless Portable,” snapped the Inspector.

“—virtually inviting identification. It’s almost,” said Ellery thoughtfully, “as if he wanted the letters to be traced. Of course, they could be a practical joke.”

“No one,” said Abel Bendigo, “jokes about the death of my brother King.”

“Then they make no sense,” said Ellery, “at least to me. Do they make sense to you, Mr. Bendigo?”

“It’s your opinion, then, that these are the work of a crank?”

“No, indeed,” murmured Ellery. “They make no sense because they’re obviously not the work of a crank. The letters are unfinished: the first ends with an emphasized dash, the second adds a fact and ends with another emphasized dash. There is a progression here. So there will be more letters with more information. Since the first letter promises murder and the second promises murder on a Thursday, logically a third letter will specify on which of the fifty-two possible Thursdays the murder is planned to take place. It adds up to cold calculation, not aberration. Why, then, leave an open trail? That’s why I say it makes no sense.”

The man in the leather chair seemed to weigh Ellery’s words, each one carefully.

“How far apart did the letters arrive?” asked the Inspector.

“The second came Monday. The first a week ago.”

Ellery shrugged, turning to the mantel and his pipe. “I don’t get it. I mean the purpose of all this, Mr. Bendigo. Your establishment is important and powerful enough to employ a private police force of great efficiency. Determining the authorship of these letters should be a kindergarten exercise to your Colonel Spring. Am I seriously to take it that you’re proposing to engage me to do it for him?”

“I haven’t made myself clear.” Abel Bendigo’s blandness remained unmarred. “This matter has nothing to do with Colonel Spring or the security department. I have not permitted it to be put in the Colonel’s hands... I consider it too special a problem. I’m handling it personally.”

“And you haven’t got anywhere,” grinned the Inspector.

“What worries me” — the prominent eyes chilled — “is that I have got somewhere.”

“Oh,” said Ellery. “Then you know who sent the letters?”

“I believe,” said Abel Bendigo, “I do.”

The Queens exchanged glances.

“Well,” demanded the older man, “and who is it?”

Bendigo did not reply.

Ellery looked at the two guards. They had not relaxed. It was hard to say that they were even listening. “Shall we send these boys out for a beer, Mr. Bendigo?”

“You misunderstand. I’d rather not disclose what I’ve found because I don’t want to prejudice your investigation. I never jump to conclusions, Mr. Queen. And when I reach a conclusion I invariably double-check it. There’s always the possibility — though not the probability — that in this matter I’m wrong. I want you gentlemen to tell me whether I am or not.”

“And your brother King? What does he think of all this, Mr. Bendigo?”

“He glanced at the letters and laughed. Threats amuse him. They don’t amuse me.”

“Then he doesn’t know the results of your private investigation? Or even that you’ve been investigating?”

Bendigo shrugged. “I haven’t told him. What he knows or doesn’t know is another matter.” He said abruptly, “I want you both to come with me.”

“This morning?”

“This minute.”

Inspector Queen stared as if Abel Bendigo were out of his mind.

Ellery smiled. “My father is a salaried employee of the City of New York, Mr. Bendigo. And while I’m a relatively free soul, the necessity of earning a living has managed to foul me up in responsibilities and commitments. You can’t walk in here and expect us to get up and walk out with you — with even you, Mr. Bendigo — on five minutes’ notice.”

“Your father has been taken care of—”

“Hold it.” The Inspector deliberately went back to the drop-leaf table and sat down. “And how would you go about ‘taking care of’ me, Mr. Bendigo?”

But Bendigo said patiently, “As for you, Mr. Queen, you’re between novels and you are four issues ahead with the editorial work on Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. And the only investigation on your calendar at the present time has been taken out of your hands.”

“Has it?” said Ellery. “That’s news to me.”

“If you’ll glance through your morning mail, you’ll find a note from a man named Harold P. Consideo terminating your connexion with his affairs.”

Ellery looked at him. He went to the table after a moment and picked up the letters on his breakfast plate. He shuffled through them and came to one that made him stop and look at Abel Bendigo again. Then he tore off the end of the envelope.

A letter fell out. Ellery glanced through it. The Inspector reached over and took the letter and he read it, too.

“Mr. Bendigo,” said Ellery, “what makes you think you can interfere in my life this way?” The man in the chair drummed on the leather. “How well do you know Consideo?”

“I don’t know him at all. These things are easily arranged. Let’s not waste time on Consideo. Are you ready?”

“Me?” said Ellery. “I think not.”

“How long will it take you?”

“Too long, Mr. Bendigo, for your busy schedule.”

Bendigo opened his pink mouth. But then he shut it and regarded Ellery earnestly. “Why do you take this attitude?”

“A shoehorn has nothing to say about who buys it or the use it’s put to. A man wants to feel that he has. Mr. Bendigo,” said Ellery, “I like to be asked.”

“And I’m his old man,” said his father.

“I apologize. We Bendigos live in something of a vacuum. Of course, you’re perfectly right.” He leaned forward, pudgy hands clasped like a deacon. “Making sure who wrote these letters is of great importance, and not only to me. The assassination of my brother would be followed by the most serious consequences all over the world.” He was choosing his words with care. Now he looked up at them with a smile. “Would you gentlemen accept the assignment?”

Ellery smiled back. “Where are your headquarters?”

“On Bendigo Island.”

“Bendigo Island... I don’t believe I know it. Do you, Dad?”

“I’ve heard tell,” said the Inspector dryly, “but I can’t tell you where it is.”

“It’s not well known,” said their visitor. “And you won’t find it on any chart.”

“Where is it?”

Abel Bendigo looked regretful. “I really mustn’t say, Mr. Queen. It’s one of our strictest rules. You’ll be taken there and returned to this apartment when the job is done.”

“How far away is it?”

“I wish I were free to tell you.”

“How long does it take to get there from New York?”

“Planes travel fast these days. Not too long.”

Ellery shrugged. “I’m afraid, Mr. Bendigo, I’ll have to think it over.”

“And I’m afraid,” said Inspector Queen, getting out of his chair, “I’ll have to be moseying on down to Centre Street. Interesting experience meeting you, Mr. Bendigo, and I’ve never meant anything more in my life.”

“Call your office first, Inspector.”

“What for?”

“You’ll find that, as of this morning, you’re on leave of absence. On full pay.”

“Now I know this is a pipe dream!”

The Inspector, russet about the ears and neck, stamped past Brown Shirt into his bedroom. Abel Bendigo quietly waited. Ellery heard his father’s voice, on his direct wire to Police Headquarters, raised in outrage, as if a leave of absence on full pay were cruel and unusual punishment. When the Inspector came out, however, he was looking thoughtful.

“Nobody seems to know how it happened or why!”

Bendigo smiled again. “Mr. Queen, you’ll change your mind?”

“I can’t very well change it when I haven’t yet made it up.”

Bendigo rose, glancing at his wristwatch. Something final glittered from his eyeglasses. “I was asked not to use this unless it became necessary, Mr. Queen. You’ve left me no choice.” He handed a long envelope to Ellery. Then he turned to one of the windows, clasping his hands at his back.

The Inspector glared at the envelope. It was addressed by hand to Mr. Ellery Queen, New York City. The reverse was heavily sealed with wax.

Ellery broke the seal. The envelope contained a single sheet of very stiff notepaper. The embossing at the top of the sheet made him glance quickly at their visitor.

The letter was entirely handwritten:

Ellery studied the famous signature for a long moment. “Mr. Bendigo, are you aware of the contents of this letter?”

“I have a fair idea of what it says,” was the dry reply.

“But why me?” muttered the Inspector.

“What, Inspector?” Abel Bendigo turned.

“Excuse us, Mr. Bendigo, for just a few minutes,” said Ellery. Bendigo said nothing.

Blue Shirt stood aside and the Queens went into Ellery’s study. Ellery shut the door in the blank face and carefully turned the key.

Mrs. Fabrikant’s vacuum cleaner was still keening behind the bedroom door.

“I don’t get it,” murmured Ellery. “Granted that King Bendigo is large pumpkins, that his activities touch on national interests, and that the Bendigo name drags enough weight to get a letter like this out of Washington — why either of us?”

“If this isn’t a forgery, son.”

“Somehow I don’t see forgery in that fellow’s horoscope.”

“Call Washington,” said his father. “Just for the hell of it.”

Ellery put the call through with some excitement and no conviction. Yet six minutes later, against all reason, he heard the voice of the letter writer in his ear. There was no mistaking those dry, easy tones.

“No, it’s all right, Mr. Queen, I was hoping you’d check. When B. asked for a letter, I wrote it with care.” The speaker chuckled. “In spite of the seal.”

“May I talk freely, sir?”

“This is a private line.”

“Was it B.’s idea to hire me?”

“Yes.”

“You’re aware, of course, of the nature of the case?”

“Yes, indeed. Someone is threatening His Majesty’s life.” The dry tones were drier than usual. “B. thinks he knows who it is, wants confirmation. Since he does, I reminded him that a brace of good heads is preferable to one, and I suggested your father go along, too. I have something — I think I used the word ‘special’ — in mind for Inspector Queen. Are you going to accept?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good! The United States government is extremely — if unofficially — interested in keeping up to date on the state of His Majesty’s health. Is your father there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let me talk to him.”

Inspector Queen said, “Yes, sir?” and then he listened for a long time. After which he said, “Yes, sir,” and hung up.

“I thought that last paragraph concealed a weenie,” muttered Ellery. “What does he want you to do, Dad?”

“Give him a confidential report on Bendigo Island. What’s on it, who’s on it — plant, personnel, plans, purposes, detail maps if possible — the whole picture, Ellery.”

“Do you mean to say our own government doesn’t know—!”

“Apparently not. Or what they know is sketchy or not up to date. So I’ve got to grow a tail in my old age,” said the Inspector incredulously, “and make like the Trojan horse.”

“What fun.”

They grinned at each other suddenly, shook hands, and then Ellery went into his bedroom to calm Mrs. Fabrikant, give her some money and instructions about the apartment, and pack a bag. Before leaving he burned the Washington letter and envelope in the brass ashtray on his night table and used the nozzle of Mrs. Fabrikant’s vacuum cleaner to suck up the ashes.