The Origin of Evil

Chapter Seven

As Ellery was able to put it together when he arrived at Delia Priam’s summons that fabulous Sunday morning — from the stories of Delia, Alfred Wallace, and old Mr. Collier — Delia had risen early to go to church. Beyond remarking that her church attendance was “spotty,” she was reticent about this; Ellery gathered that she could not go as regularly as she would like because of the peculiar conditions of her life, and that only occasionally was she able to slip away and into one of the old churches where, to “the blessed mutter of the mass,” she returned to her childhood and her blood. This had been such a morning, five days after the poisoning attack on her husband, two after her strange visit to Ellery’s cottage.

While Delia had been up and about at an early hour, Alfred Wallace had risen late. He was normally an early riser, because Priam was a demanding charge and Wallace had learned that if he was to enjoy the luxury of breakfast he must get it over with before Priam awakened. On Sundays, however, Priam preferred to lie in bed until mid-morning, undisturbed, and this permitted Wallace to sleep until nine o’clock.

Delia’s father was invariably up with the birds. On this morning he had breakfasted with his daughter, and when she drove off to Los Angeles Mr. Collier went out for his early morning tramp through the woods. On his way back he had stopped before the big oak and tried to rouse his grandson, but as there was no answer from the tree house beyond Crowe’s Brobdingnagian snores the old man had returned to the Priam house and gone into the library. The library was downstairs off the main hall, directly opposite the door to Roger Priam’s quarters, with the staircase between. This was shortly after eight, Mr. Collier told Ellery; his son-in-law’s door was shut and there was no light visible under the door; all seemed as it always was at that hour of a Sunday morning; and the old man had got his postage stamp albums out of a drawer of the library desk, his stamp hinges, his tongs, and his Scott’s catalogue, and he had set to work mounting his latest mail purchases of stamps. “I’ve done a lot of knocking about the world,” he told Ellery, “and it’s corking fun to collect stamps from places I’ve actually been in. Want to see my collection?” Ellery had declined; he was rather busy at the time.

At a few minutes past nine Alfred Wallace came downstairs. He exchanged greetings with Delia’s father ― the library door stood open ― and went in to his breakfast without approaching Priam’s door.

Mrs. Guittierez served him, and Wallace read the Sunday papers, which were always delivered to the door, as he ate. It was the maid’s and chauffeur’s Sunday off and the house was unusually quiet. In the kitchen the cook was getting things ready for Roger Priam’s breakfast.

Shortly before ten o’clock Alfred Wallace painstakingly restored the Sunday papers to their original state, pushed back his chair, and went out into the hall carrying the papers. Priam liked to have the newspapers within arm’s reach when he awakened Sunday mornings, and he flew into a rage if they were crumpled or disarranged.

Seeing a line of light beneath Priam’s door, Wallace quickened his step.

He went in without knocking.

The first he knew anything out of the ordinary had occurred, said Mr. Collier, he heard Wallace’s cry from Roger Priam’s room: “Mr. Collier! Mr. Collier! Come here!” The old man jumped up from his stamp albums and ran across the hall. Wallace was rattling the telephone, trying to get the operator. Just as he was shouting to Collier, “See about Mr. Priam! See if he’s all right!” the operator responded, and Wallace ― who seemed in a panic ― babbled something about the police and Lieutenant Keats. Collier picked his way across the room to his son-in-law’s wheelchair, which was still made up as a bed. Priam, in his night clothes, was up on one elbow, glaring about with a sort of vitreous horror. His mouth was open and his beard was in motion, but no sound passed them. As far as the old man could see, there was nothing wrong with Priam but stupefying fright. Collier eased the paralyzed man backward until he was supine, trying to soothe him; but Priam lay rigid, as if in a coma, his eyes tightly shut to keep out what he had seen, and the old man could get no response from him.

At this moment, Delia Priam returned from church.

Wallace turned from the phone and Collier from Priam at a choked sound from the doorway. Delia was staring into the room with eyes sick with disbelief. She was paler than her husband and she seemed about to faint.

“All this... all these...”

She began to titter.

Wallace said roughly, “Get her out of here.”

“He’s dead. He’s dead!”

Collier hurried to her. “No, no, daughter. Just scared. Now you go upstairs. We’ll take care of Roger.”

“He’s not dead? Then why―? How do these―?”

“Delia.” The old man stroked her hand.

“Don’t touch anything. Anything!”

“No, no, daughter―”

“Nothing must be touched. It’s got to be left exactly as you found it. Exactly.” And Delia stumbled up the hall to the household telephone and called Ellery.

When Ellery pulled up before the Priam house a radio patrol car was already parked in the driveway. A young officer was in the car, making a report to headquarters by radio, his mouth going like a faucet. His mate was apparently in the house.

“Here, you.” He jumped out of the car. “Where you going?” His face was red.

“I’m a friend of the family, Officer. Mrs. Priam just telephoned me.” Ellery looked rather wild himself. Delia had been hysterical over the phone and the only word he had been able to make out, “fogs,” had conveyed nothing reasonable. “What’s happened?”

“I wouldn’t repeat it,” said the patrolman excitedly. “I wouldn’t lower myself. They think I’m drunk. What do they think I am? Sunday morning! I’ve seen a lot of crosseyed things in this town, but―”

“Here, get hold of yourself, Officer. Has Lieutenant Keats been notified, do you know?”

“They caught him at home. He’s on his way here now.”

Ellery bounded up the steps. As he ran into the hall he saw Delia. She was dressed for town, in black and modest dress, hat, and gloves, and she was leaning against a wall bloodlessly. Alfred Wallace, disheveled and unnerved, was holding one of her gloved hands in both of his, whispering to her. The tableau dissolved in an instant; Delia spied Ellery, said something quickly to Wallace, withdrawing her hand, and she ran forward. Wallace turned, rather startled. He followed her with a hasty shuffle, almost as if he were afraid of being left alone.

“Ellery.”

“Is Mr. Priam all right?”

“He’s had a bad shock.”

“Can’t say I blame him,” Wallace mumbled. The handsome man passed a trembling handkerchief over his cheeks. “The doctor’s on his way over. We can’t seem to snap Mr. Priam out of it.”

“What’s this about ‘fogs,’ Delia?” Ellery hurried up the hall, Delia clinging to his arm. Wallace remained where he was, still wiping his face.

“Fogs? I didn’t say fogs. I said―”

Ellery stopped in the doorway.

The other radio car patrolman was straddling a chair, cap pushed back on his head, looking about helplessly.

Roger Priam lay stiffly on his bed staring at the ceiling.

And all over Priam’s body, on his blanket, on his sheet, in the shelves and compartments of his wheelchair, on his typewriter, strewn about the floor, the furniture, Wallace’s emergency bed, the window sills, the cornices, the fireplace, the mantelpiece ― everywhere ― were frogs.

Frogs and toads.

Hundreds of frogs and toads.

Tiny tree toads.

Yellow-legged frogs.

Bullfrogs.

Each little head was twisted.

The room was littered with their corpses.

Ellery had to confess to himself that he was thrown. There was a nonsense quality to the frogs that crossed over the line of laughter into the darker regions of the mind. Beyond the black bull calf of the Nile with the figure of an eagle on his back and the beetle upon his tongue stood Apis, a god; beyond absurdity loomed fear. Fear was the timeless tyrant. At mid-twentieth century it took the shape of a gigantic mushroom. Why not frogs? With frogs the terrible Wrath of the Hebrews had plagued the Egyptian, with frogs and blood and wild beasts and darkness and the slaying of the first-born... He could hardly blame Roger Priam for lying frozen. Priam knew something of the way of gods; he was by way of being a minor one himself.

While Keats and the patrolmen tramped about the house, Ellery drifted around the Priam living room trying to get a bearing. The whole thing irritated and enchanted him. It made no sense. It related to nothing. There lay its power over the uninitiated; that was its appearance for the mob. But Priam was of the inner temple. He knew something the others did not. He knew the sense this nonsense made. He knew the nature of the mystery to which it related. He knew the nature of this primitive god and he grasped the meaning of the god’s symbolism. Knowledge is not always power; certainty does not always bring peace. This knowledge was paralyzing and this certainty brought terror.

Keats found him nibbling his thumb under the Spanish grandee.

“Well, the doctor’s gone and the frogs are all collected and maybe you and I had better have a conference about this.”

“Sure.”

“This is what you’d call Priam’s third warning, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Keats.”

“Me,” said the detective, seating himself heavily on a heavy chair, “I’d call it broccoli.”

“Don’t make that mistake.”

Keats looked at him in a resentful way. “I don’t go for this stuff, Mr. Queen. I don’t believe it even when I see it. Why does he go to all this trouble?” His tone said he would have appreciated a nice, uncomplicated bullet.

“How is Priam?”

“He’ll live. The problem was this doctor, Voluta. It seems we took him away from a party ― a blonde party ― at Malibu. He took the frogs as a personal insult. Treated Priam for shock, put him to sleep, and dove for his car.”

“Have you talked to Priam?”

“I talked to Priam, yes. But he didn’t talk to me.”

“Nothing?”

“He just said he woke up, reached for that push-button-on-a-cord arrangement he’s got for turning on the lights, saw the little beasties, and knew no more.”

“No attempt at explanation?”

“You don’t think he knows the answer to this one!”

“The strong man type represented by our friend Priam, Lieutenant,” said Ellery, “doesn’t pass out at the sight of a few hundred frogs, even when they’re strewn all over his bed. His reaction was too violent. Of course he knows the answer. And it scares the wadding out of him.”

Keats shook his head. “What do we do now?”

“What did you find out?”

“Not a thing.”

“No sign of a point of entry?”

“No. But what sign would there be? You come from the suspicious East, Mr. Queen. This is the great West, where men are men and nobody locks his door but Easterners.” Keats rolled a tattered cigaret to the other side of his mouth. “Not even,” he said bitterly, “taxpayers who are on somebody’s knock-off list.” He jumped up with a frustrated energy. “The trouble is, this Priam won’t face the facts. Poison him, and he looks thoughtful. Toss a couple hundred dead frogs around his bedroom and he shakes his head doubtfully. You know what I think? I think everybody in this house, present company excepted, is squirrel food.”

But Ellery was walking a tight circle, squinting toward some hidden horizon. “All right, he got in without any trouble ― simply by walking in. Presumably in the middle of the night. Priam’s door isn’t locked at night so that Wallace or the others can get at him in an emergency, consequently he enters Priam’s room with equal facility. So there he is, with a bag or a suitcase full of murdered frogs. Priam is asleep ― not dead, mind you, just asleep. But he might just as well have been dead, because his visitor distributed two or three hundred frogs about the premises ― in the dark, mind you ― without disturbing Priam in the least. Any answers, Lieutenant?”

“Yes,” said Keats wearily. “Priam polished off a bottle last night. He was dead ― dead to the world.”

Ellery shrugged and resumed his pacing. “Which takes us back to the frogs. A cardboard box containing... we don’t know what;4 that’s warning number one. Food poisoning... that’s warning number two. Warning number three... a zoo colony of dead frogs. One, unknown; two, poisoned food; three, strangled frogs. It certainly would help to know number one.”

“Suppose it was a fried coconut,” suggested Keats. “Would it help?”

“There’s a connection, Lieutenant. A pattern.”

“I’m listening.”

“You don’t just pick frogs out of your hat. Frogs mean something.”

“Yeah,” said Keats, “warts.” But his laugh was unconvincing. “Okay, so they mean something. So this all means something. I don’t give a damn what it means. I said, what kind of maniac is this Priam? Does he want to shove off? Without putting up a battle?”

“He’s putting up a battle, Lieutenant,” frowned Ellery. “In his peculiar way, a brave one. To ask for help, even to accept help without asking for it, would be defeat for Priam. Don’t you understand that? He has to be top man. He has to control his own destiny. He has to, or his life has no meaning. Remember, Keats, he’s a man who’s living his life away in a chair. You say he’s asleep now?”

“With Wallace guarding him. I offered a cop, and I nearly got beaned with the Examiner. It was all I could do to make Priam promise he’d keep his doors locked from now on. At that, he didn’t promise.”

“How about that background stuff? On the partners?”

The detective crushed the stained butt in his fist and flipped it in the fireplace. “It’s like pulling teeth,” he said slowly. “I don’t get it. I put two more men on it yesterday.” He snapped a fresh cigaret into his mouth. “The way I see it, Mr. Queen, we’re doing this like a couple of country constables. We’ve got to go right to the horse’s mouth. Priam’s got to talk. He knows the whole story, every answer. Who his enemy is. Why the guy’s nursed a grudge for so many years. Why the fancy stuff―”

“And what was in the box,” murmured Ellery.

“Correct. I promised Dr. Voluta I’d lay off Priam today.” Keats clapped his hat on his head. “But tomorrow I think I’m going to get tough.”

When the detective had left, Ellery wandered out into the hall. The house was moody with silence. Crowe Macgowan had gone loping over to the Hill house to tell Laurel all about the amphibian invasion. The door to Priam’s quarters was shut.

There was no sign or sound of Delia. She was going to her room to lock herself in, she had said, and lie down. She had seemed to have no further interest in her husband’s condition. She had looked quite ill.

Ellery turned disconsolately to go, but then ― or perhaps he was looking for an excuse to linger ― he remembered the library, and he went back up the hall to the doorway opposite Priam’s.

Delia’s father sat at the library desk intently examining a postage stamp for its watermark.

“Oh, Mr. Collier.”

The old man looked up. Immediately he rose, smiling. “Come in, come in, Mr. Queen. Everything all right now?”

“Well,” said Ellery, “the frogs are no longer with us.”

Collier shook his head. “Man’s inhumanity to everything. You’d think we’d restrict our murderous impulses to our own kind. But no, somebody had to take his misery out on some harmless little specimens of Hyla regilla, not to mention―”

“Of what?” asked Ellery.

“Hyla regilla. Tree toads, Mr. Queen, or tree frogs. That’s what most of those little fellows were.” He brightened. “Well, let’s not talk about that any more. Although why a grown man like Roger Priam should be afraid of them ― with their necks wrung, too! ― I simply don’t understand.”

“Mr. Collier,” said Ellery quietly, “have you any idea what this is all about?”

“Oh, yes,” said the old man. “I’ll tell you what this is all about, Mr. Queen.” He waved his stamp tongs earnestly. “It’s about corruption and wickedness. It’s about greed and selfishness and guilt and violence and hatred and lack of self-control. It’s about black secrets and black hearts, cruelty, confusion, fear. It’s about not making the best of things, not being satisfied with what you have, and always wanting what you haven’t. It’s about envy and suspicion and malice and lust and nosiness and drunkenness and unholy excitement and a thirst for hot running blood. It’s about man, Mr. Queen.”

“Thank you,” said Ellery humbly, and he went home.

And the next morning Lieutenant Keats of the Hollywood Division put on his tough suit and went at Roger Priam as if the fate of the city of Los Angeles hung on Priam’s answers. And nothing happened except that Keats lost his temper and used some expressions not recommended in the police manual and had to retreat under a counterattack of even harder words, not to mention objects, which flew at him and Ellery like mortar fire. Priam quite stripped his wheelchair of its accessories in his furious search for ammunition.

Overnight the bearded man had bounced back. Perhaps not all the way: his eyes looked shaft-sunken and he had a case of the trembles. But the old fires were in the depths and the shaking affected only his aim, not his strength ― he made a bloodless shambles of his quarters.

Keats had tried everything in ascending order ― reason, cajolery, jokes, appeals to personal pride and social responsibility, derision, sarcasm, threats, curses, and finally sheer volume of sound. Nothing moved Priam but the threats and curses, and then he responded in kind. Even the detective, who was left livid with fury, had to admit that he had been out-threatened, out-cursed, and out-shouted.

Through it all Alfred Wallace stood impeccably by his employer’s wheelchair, a slight smile on his lips. Mr. Wallace, too, had ricocheted. It occurred to Ellery that in Wallace’s make-up there was a great deal of old Collier’s Hyla regilla ― a chameleon quality, changing color to suit his immediate background. Yesterday Priam had been unnerved, Wallace had been unnerved. Today Priam was strong, Wallace was strong. It was a minor puzzle, but it annoyed him.

Then Ellery saw that he might be wrong and that the phenomenon might have a different explanation altogether. As he crossed the threshold to the echo of Priam’s last blast, with Wallace already shutting the door, Ellery glimpsed for one second a grotesquely different Priam. No belligerent now. No man of wrath. His beard had fallen to his chest. He was holding on to the arms of his wheelchair as if for the reassurance of contact with reality. And his eyes were tightly closed. Ellery saw his lips moving; and if the thought had not been blasphemous, Ellery would have said Priam was praying. Then Wallace slammed the door.

“That was all right, Keats.” Ellery was staring at the door. “That got somewhere.”

“Where?” snarled the detective. “You heard him. He wouldn’t say what was in the cardboard box, he wouldn’t say who’s after him, he wouldn’t say why ― he wouldn’t say anything but that he’ll handle this thing himself and let the blanking so-and-so come get him if he’s man enough. So where did we get, Mr. Queen?”

“Closer to the crackup.”

“What crackup?”

“Priam’s. Keats, all that was the bellowing of a frightened steer in the dark. He’s even more demoralized than I thought. He played a big scene just now for our benefit ― a very good one, considering the turmoil he’s in.

“Maybe one more, Keats,” murmured Ellery. “One more.”