The King is Dead

6

The next morning Ellery asserted himself. He deliberately set out to make as much trouble as he could.

Leaving his father at the Residence, Ellery ordered a car. One showed up in the courtyard with Blue Shirt behind the wheel and his alter ego at the door.

“I don’t want company this morning, thank you,” Ellery snapped. “I’ll take the wheel myself.”

“Sorry, Mr. Queen,” said Brown Shirt. “Get in.”

“I was told I could go anywhere.”

“Yes, sir,” said Brown Shirt. “We’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

“My father took a car out without a wet-nurse!”

“Our orders this morning are to stick with you, sir.”

“Who gives these orders?”

“Colonel Spring.”

“Where does Colonel Spring get them?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir. From the Home Office, I suppose.”

“The Home Office is where I want to go.”

“We’ll take you there, sir.”

“Jump in, Mr. Queen,” said Blue Shirt amiably.

Ellery got into the car, and Brown Shirt got in beside him.

At the Home Office Ellery strode into the black marble lobby with a disagreeable face. The Shirts sat down on a marble bench.

“Good morning, Mr. Queen,” said the central of the three security men behind the desk. “Whom did you wish to see?”

“King Bendigo.”

The man consulted a chart. He looked up, puzzled. “Do you have an appointment, sir?”

“Certainly not. Open that elevator door.”

The three security men stared at him. Then they conferred in whispers. Then the central man said, “I’m afraid you don’t understand, Mr. Queen. You can’t go up without an appointment.”

“Then make one for me. I don’t care how you do it, but I’m talking to your lord and master, and I’m doing it right now.”

The three men stared at one another.

From behind him, Blue Shirt said, “You don’t want to make trouble, Mr. Queen. These men have their orders—”

“Get Bendigo on the phone!”

It was a crisis Ellery thoroughly enjoyed. Brown Shirt must have touched Blue Shirt’s arm, because both fell back; and he must have nodded to the central security man, because that baffled official immediately looked scared and sat down to fumble with the controls of his communications system. He spoke in a voice so low that Ellery could not hear what he said.

“The King’s receptionist says it’s impossible. The King is in a very important conference, sir. You’ll have to wait, sir.”

“Not down here. I’ll wait upstairs.”

“Sir—”

“Upstairs.”

The man mumbled into the machine again. There was a delay, then he turned nervously back to Ellery.

“All right, sir.” One of the trio pressed something and the door in the circular column sank into the floor.

“It’s not all right,” said Ellery firmly.

“What, Mr. Queen?” The central man was bewildered.

“You’ve forgotten to check my thumbprints. How do you know I’m not Walter Winchell in disguise? Do you want me to report you to Colonel Spring?”

The last thing Ellery saw as the elevator door shut off his view was the worried, rather silly, look on Brown Shirt’s face. It gave him a great deal of satisfaction.

The elevator discharged him in the wedge-of-pie reception room. This time the black desk was occupied. The man behind the desk wore a plain black suit, not a uniform, and he was the most muscular receptionist Ellery had ever seen. But his voice was soft and cultured.

“There’s some mistake, sir—”

“No mistake,” said Ellery loftily. “I’m getting tired of all this high-and-mightiness. King Kong in his office?”

“Have a seat, please. The King is in an extremely—”

“—important conference. I know. Doesn’t he ever hold any unimportant conferences?” Ellery went to the left-hand door and, before the receptionist could leap from behind the desk, pounded coarsely on the panel. It boomed.

He kept pounding. It kept booming.

“Sir!” The receptionist was clawing at his arm. “This is not allowed! It’s... it’s—”

“Treason? Can’t be. I’m not one of your nationals. Open up in there!”

The receptionist got him in a stranglehold. The other hand he clamped over Ellery’s mouth and nose.

Things began to turn blue.

Ellery was outraged. Taking his own bad office manners into due consideration, this sort of treatment smacked more of the bouncer in a Berlin East Zone rathskeller than the dutiful clerical worker of a civilized democracy. So Ellery slumped, feigning submission, and when the muscular receptionist’s hold relaxed, Ellery executed a lightning judo counter-attack which sent his captor flying backward to thump ignominiously on his bottom.

Just as the door to King Bendigo’s private office opened and Max’l peered out.

Ellery wasted no strength parleying with the gorilla. Having the advantage of surprise, there was only one way to deal with such as Max’l, and Ellery did so. He stiff-armed the King’s jester in the nose and walked in past the outraged carcass. What must follow in a matter of seconds he preferred not to linger over in his thoughts.

The hemispherical room seemed full of distinguished-looking men. They were seated or on their feet about the King’s desk, and they were all staring toward the door.

Behind him Ellery could hear the receptionist shouting and a drumming of boots. Max’l was up on one knee, nose bleeding, beret askew over his left eye, and his right measuring Ellery without the least rancor.

Ellery trudged the long mile to Bendigo’s desk, sidestepped one of the distinguished-looking men, planted both fists on the ebony perfection, and stared at the man in the golden chair malevolently.

The man on the throne stared back.

“Wait, Maximus.” The voice was furry. “Just what do you believe you’re doing, Queen?”

Ellery felt Max’l’s hot breath on the back of his neck. It promised neither comfort nor cheer.

“I’m looking for the answer to a question, Mr. Bendigo. I’m sick of evasions and double talk, and I won’t stand for further delays.”

“I’ll see you later.”

“You’ll see me now.”

Abel Bendigo was in the group, looking on inscrutably. Out of the corner of his eye Ellery also noticed Immanuel Peabody and Dr. Akst, the lawyer’s mouth open, the physicist regarding him with an interest not evident the night before. The distinguished strangers looked merely confused.

“Do you have any idea,” demanded the master of Bendigo Island, “what you have interrupted?”

“You’re wasting time.”

The black eyes dulled over. Bendigo sank back.

“Excuse me, gentlemen, just a moment. No, stay where you are. You guards, it’s all right. Shut that door.” Ellery heard a scuffling far behind him, the click of the distant door. “Now, Queen, suppose you ask me your question.”

“Where on your island,” said Ellery promptly, “will I find a Winchester Noiseless Portable typewriter?”

Had he asked for the formula of the H-bomb, Ellery could not have met a more absolute silence. Then one of the distinguished visitors permitted himself an undistinguished titter. The giggle shot King Bendigo out of his golden chair.

“In the course of your stupid, inconsequential investigation,” thundered the King, “you disrupt what is probably the most important conference being held at this moment anywhere on the face of the earth. Mr. Queen, do you know who these gentlemen are? On my left sits Sir Cardigan Cleets, of the British government. On my right sits the Chevalier Camille Cassebeer of the Republic of France. Before me sits the Honorable James Walbridge Monahew, of the United States Atomic Control Commission. And you dare to break in on the deliberation of these gentlemen — not to mention mine! — in order to locate a typewriter? If this is a joke, I don’t appreciate its humor!”

“I assure you, Mr. Bendigo, I’m not feeling the least bit devilish—”

“Then what’s the meaning of this? Explain!”

“Gladly,” said Ellery. “You’ve fouled your island up with so many locked doors, armed guards, orders, restrictions, and other impediments to an investigation, Mr. Bendigo, that it would take me five years to do the job properly, and even then I wouldn’t be sure I’d covered them all. And I don’t have five years, Mr. Bendigo. I want action, and on Bendigo Island it’s obvious that to get it you have to go to the top. I repeat: Where on your island will I find a Winchester Noiseless Portable typewriter?”

The black eyes dulled even more. And the fine hands on the desk top trembled a little. But when the big man spoke, it was in a low voice.

“Abel...”

Then his control broke. The fine hand became a club, smashing the air. “Get rid of this lunatic!”

Abel hurried around the desk to whisper into his brother’s crimson ear...

As Abel whispered, the crimson began to fade and the big fist came undone. Finally King nodded shortly, and his black eyes looked Ellery over once more.

Abel straightened up. “We don’t have such information at our fingertips, Mr. Queen.” There was something secretive and yet amused in his unhurried twang. “I can tell you that all the typewriting machines in the Home Office are electrics, standard in size and weight; we use no portables in this building at all. There may be some, of course, elsewhere on the island, in the personal possession of employees—”

“If you can’t give me any more concrete information than that,” said Ellery, “I want permission to search the private apartments of the Residence. Specifically, the Bendigo living-quarters.” He added brutally, looking Abel in the eye, “Nothing like starting in the feed-box, Abel, is there?”

Abel blinked. He blinked very rapidly indeed, and he kept blinking.

That’s where I’ll find it, thought Ellery.

King Bendigo snapped, “All right, Queen, you have our permission. Now get out, before I let Max’l boot you out.”

Ellery picked his father up in their suite.

“I made myself as obnoxious as possible,” he concluded his recital of his adventures in the Home Office, “and I made one discovery, Dad — no, two.”

“I know the first,” grunted his father. “That you were born with the luck of the leprechaun.”

“We’ll find the murderous portable somewhere in the Bendigo living-quarters,” said Ellery. “That’s one. The other is that King is an even more dangerous man than I thought. He has not only the power of a tyrant, but a tyrant’s whims as well. And he’ll become more whimsical when he recognizes power in others. It’s a trait I don’t trust. Let’s see if Abel’s carried out his lord’s command.”

Abel had. They were not stopped by the guards. The officer in charge looked pained, but he saluted and stepped aside without a word.

Each member of the family had a private suite, and the Queens searched them in turn. There was no sign of a machine in Karla Bendigo’s suite, and no sign of Karla. They found a typewriter in the King’s study, and one in Abel’s, but these were standard machines of a different make. They were approaching Judah’s quarters when Ellery noticed for the first time, across the corridor from Judah’s door, a large and massive-looking door of a design different from any he had seen in the Residence. He tried it. It was locked. He rapped on it. He whistled.

“Steel,” he said to his father. “I wonder what’s in here.”

“Let’s find out,” said the Inspector, and he went for the officer in charge.

“This is the Confidential Room, sir,” said the officer. “For the use of the King only, and of whoever’s helping him. Usually it’s Mr. Abel.”

“Where the deeper skulduggery is planned, hm?” said Ellery. “Open it, please, Captain.”

“Sorry, sir. No one may enter this room except by special permission.”

“Well, you’ve got your orders. I’ve been granted special permission.”

“Nothing was said about the Confidential Room, sir,” said the officer.

“Then get something said.”

“One moment, sir.”

The officer strode away.

The Queens waited.

“Confidential Room,” grunted the Inspector. “Fat chance we have to get in there. I suppose that’s where he and Abel work nights when they don’t want to go back to the Home Office.”

The officer came back. “Permission refused, sir.”

“What!” exploded Ellery. “After all that—”

“Mr. Abel assures Mr. Queen that there is no Winchester Noiseless Portable typewriter in the Confidential Room.”

They watched the officer march away.

“It looks, Dad,” said Ellery, “as if Mr. Judah Bendigo is elected.”

He was. They found a Winchester Noiseless Portable in Judah’s study.

Judah Bendigo was still in bed, snoring the spasmodic snores of the very drunk. The Inspector set his back against the bedroom door while Ellery looked around.

There was nothing like Judah’s suite anywhere in the Residence. Karla’s had been feminine, but it lacked depth and breadth. These were the cluttered, comfortable quarters of a man of intelligence, culture, and artistic passions. The books were catholic in range, visibly read, and many were rare and beautiful volumes. The paintings and etchings were originals and could not have been gathered by any but a man of acute perception and taste. Many were by artists unknown to Ellery, which pleased him, for it was evident that Judah set no store by mere reputation, seeing greatness still unrecognized elsewhere. At the same time, there were two little Utrillos which Ellery would have given a great deal to own.

One entire wall was given over to music recordings. Perhaps twenty-five hundred albums, a fabulous record collection which must have taken many years to put together. Ellery saw numerous recordings which had long been out of print and were rare collectors’ items. Palestrina, Pergolesi, Buxtehude, Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Handel, Scarlatti, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Bruckner, and Mahler were heavily represented; there were whole volumes of Gregorian chants; and one long shelf was devoted to ethnic music. But Bartók was there, too, and Hindemith, and Shostakovich, and Toch. It was a collection which embraced the great music of the Western world since the ninth century.

On a table, in a velvet-lined case which was open, glowed a Stradivarius violin. Ellery touched the strings; the instrument was in perfect tune.

And he opened the Bechstein piano. No bell-shaped bottles here! Here, Judah Bendigo found such subterfuge unnecessary. In the corner of the room behind the piano, piled high, stood six cases of Segonzac cognac.

Ellery glanced at the bedroom door with an unhappy frown.

He shook his head and went to the Florentine leather-topped desk on which the Winchester portable stood.

He did not touch it.

Suddenly he sat down and began to rummage through drawers.

The Inspector watched in his own silence.

“Here’s the stationery.”

There was a large box of it — creamy single sheets, personal letter size, of a fine vellum-type paper without monogram or imprint.

“You’re sure, Ellery?”

“It’s of Italian manufacture. The watermarks are identical. I’m sure.”

He took one of the sheets from the box and returned the box to its drawer. The sheet he inserted in the carriage of the machine.

“He’ll wake up,” said the Inspector.

“I hope he does. But he won’t. He’s stupefied and this is a Noiseless... I don’t get it. If this is the same machine—”

Ellery brought out the third threatening note, propped it against a bottle of Segonzac on the desk and copied its message on the blank sheet.

The machine made a pattering sound. It was soothing.

Ellery removed the copy and set it beside the original. And he sighed, unsoothed. The evidence was conclusive: The latest message threatening King Bendigo’s life and setting the date for Thursday, June the twenty-first, had been typed on this machine. Slight discrepancies in alignment, ink flaws in the impression of certain characters, were identical.

“It is, Dad.”

They looked at each other across Judah’s quiet room.

After a while the Inspector said, “No concealment. None at all. Anybody — Abel, King — could walk in here at any hour of the day or night and in ten seconds find the stationery, the typewriter, make the same test, reach the same conclusion. Or Colonel Spring, or any security guard on the premises. Max’l could do it!”

“Abel did do it.”

Brother proposing to take the life of brother, and taking no precautions of any kind against discovery. And another brother discovering this and — most baffling of all — seeking confirmation where no confirmation was even remotely called for...

“Maybe,” said the Inspector softly, “maybe Judah’s being framed, Ellery, and Abel knows it or suspects it.”

“And would that present a problem?” said Ellery, gnawing his knuckles. “On the top floor of the central building of this fortified castle, in the private apartment of one of the royal family? Does that sort of thing require ‘experts’ flown from New York? When they’ve got a complete law-enforcement organization here, with undoubtedly the most advanced facilities? All the exploration of that theory would require, Dad, is the simplest sort of trap. A mere fingerprint checkup, for that matter.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Neither does this!”

Ellery shrugged. He fished in his pocket and produced a pocket-knife.

“What are you going to do, Ellery?”

“Go through the motions. What else can I do?” Ellery opened the knife to its sharpest blade and carefully nicked both sides of the lower case o in Judah Bendigo’s typewriter.

“What’s the point of that? We know they’re being typed on this machine.”

“Maybe they were all typed at the same time, long ago. If the o’s on the next note are undamaged, they were, and we’ll probably be at a dead end. But if they show these nicks, and if we can get a round-the-clock check on who enters this room...”

Ellery said to the captain of the guard, “Get Colonel Spring on the phone for me.”

The officer stiffened. “Yes, sir!”

The other guards stiffened, too.

“Colonel? This is Ellery Queen. I’m calling from—”

“I know where you’re calling from, Mr. Queen,” said Colonel Spring’s high voice. “Enjoying your visit?”

“I’d rather answer that question in person, Colonel. If you know where I am, suppose you come here at once.”

“Something wrong?” The Colonel sounded alert.

“I’ll wait for you.”

The drowned face of Colonel Spring appeared in six minutes. He was not smiling or limp now.

“What is it?” he asked abruptly.

“How much are these guards,” asked Ellery, “to be trusted?”

The guards, including their officer, were rigidly at attention. Their eyes bulged.

“These men?” Colonel Spring’s aqueous glance washed over them. “Completely.”

“That goes for all shifts on duty up here?”

“Yes. Why?”

But Ellery said, “They’re utterly devoted to the King?”

The little man in the splendid black and gold uniform put one hand on a hip and cocked his fishlike head. “To King Bendigo, you mean? They’d lay down their lives for him. Why?”

“I’ll settle for incorruptibility,” murmured Ellery. “Why, Colonel? Because, as of this minute, I want a twenty-four-hour-a-day report on the identity of every person who enters the private apartment of Judah Bendigo.”

“Mr. Judah? May I ask why?”

“You may, but I’m not going to answer, Colonel Spring.”

The little man produced a brown cigarette and snapped it to his lips. The captain sprang forward with a lighter.

“Thank you, Captain,” said the Colonel. “And is this authorized, Mr. Queen?” He puffed in short, stabbing puffs.

“Check with Abel Bendigo. If he withholds authorization, tell him Inspector Queen and I will expect to be flown back to New York within the hour. But he won’t... This report, Colonel, is to be confidential. No one — except Abel Bendigo, and I’d really prefer not to except even him — no one is to know the check is being made. For simplification, maids and other servants are to be barred from Judah Bendigo’s rooms on some plausible pretext until further notice. If any leak whatever occurs, or the job isn’t done thoroughly, Colonel—”

The green in Colonel Spring’s complexion deepened. But he merely said, “I’ve never had any complaints, Mr. Queen.”

In the elevator Inspector Queen said dryly, “I wonder how much he can be trusted.”

Ellery was wondering, too.