Питер Ловси - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 152, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 926 & 927, November/December 2018

“Fright?”

“In one case in my experience, the victim succumbed to the manufactured appearance of what he believed to be a ghost.”

“That would be impossible with Rupert. He wasn’t a fearful man, as I told you. Nor did he believe in the supernatural.”

“He was alone in his study at the time of the seizure, doors and windows all secure?”

“Yes. He went in there for two hours or so almost every evening to work and think. He locked the door out of long habit, because he didn’t wish to be disturbed. Not that I would ever have braved his study except in an emergency.”

“Braved it?” Sabina said. “How do you mean?”

“It was always filled with an unpleasant smoke haze. He smoked his pipes constantly while he worked — he said it helped sharpen his powers of concentration — and he favored very strong tobacco. Out of deference to me he confined the habit to his study or outdoors.”

Quincannon had been about to load his own pipe, a well-used briar. A warning glance from Sabina caused him to set it aside. He fluffed his dark freebooter’s beard instead.

“Did your husband have any visitors the night of his death?” Sabina asked the widow.

“No.”

“Telephone calls?”

“None. I would have heard the ring.”

“Did he leave the study at any time?”

“Not to my knowledge. He almost never did until he was finished for the evening.”

“According to the newspaper report,” Quincannon said, “you heard him cry out. A cry for help?”

Margaret Shellwin shuddered visibly at the memory. “Not exactly,” she said. “One of sudden distress, then a shouted word. And before either there was an audible thumping noise.”

“What was the shouted word?”

“It sounded like ‘cramps,’ but I’m not sure.”

“And the thumping noise? Could you identify it?”

“As if one hard object had struck against another.”

“Where were you at the time?”

“In the parlor, next to the study. Engaged in a game of three-handed whist with Peter Lehman, Rupert’s half-brother, and Jerome Paxson, our next-door neighbor. As soon as we heard the cries, we all ran to the study door.”

“Did you hear anything more from inside?”

“No. We all called out to Rupert, and when he didn’t answer Jerome and Peter forced the door. He... he was on the floor a short distance inside. His face... the pain must have been terrible...” Mrs. Shellwin shuddered again. “There was nothing any of us could do except telephone Dr. Phipps. He came right over, he doesn’t live far away.”

“Did you notice anything in the study that struck you as unusual?”

“Unusual? I don’t know... my attention was on Rupert.”

“Is everything still as it was that night?”

“Yes, just as it was. I can’t bear to go in there yet...”

There was a short, heavy silence. Mrs. Shellwin had rolled the lace handkerchief into a ball; she squeezed it between her hands, her red-rimmed gaze appealing first to Quincannon, then to Sabina. “I know it all seems like a dreadfully commonplace tragedy, but I simply can’t dismiss my misgivings. Rupert spoke well of your agency after the publicity over that Chinatown scandal last year — he said your reputation as the most reliable investigators in the city is well founded. Isn’t there anything you can do?”

From the expression on Sabina’s slender, high-cheekboned face and the look in her dark blue eyes, Quincannon knew that she was about to regretfully decline. He said before she could speak, “We can undertake an investigation, Mrs. Shellwin, though given the circumstances, we can only guarantee effort, not results.”

“Effort is all I ask.”

“Then we are at your service,” he said, ignoring Sabina’s disapproving glance. “I’ll handle the matter personally, beginning with an examination of your husband’s study, if you have no objection.”

She had none, but it couldn’t be undertaken immediately; she had an imminent appointment with the mortician who was arranging her husband’s funeral. A four-o’clock meeting at the Shellwin home was agreed upon. Once the necessary signing of an agency contract and payment of a standard retainer were completed, she quickly took her leave.

No sooner had she gone than Sabina said peevishly, “What’s the matter with you, John? You’ve gotten that poor woman’s hopes up for no good reason other than a hefty fee!”

“Fees are our bread and butter,” he pointed out, “and not to be treated lightly.”

“Bosh. Do you really expect an investigation to produce even a hint of foul play?”

“It’s possible. We have nothing else on the docket just now, and there are one or two points in the widow’s account that make the matter worth looking into.”

“Such as?”

Quincannon smiled enigmatically. “When and if they prove meaningful, my dear. When and if.”

Dr. Mortimer Phipps conducted his medical practice in the same large white frame house in which he lived, three blocks from the Shellwin residence. Fortunately he was not engaged with a patient when Quincannon arrived in a hansom cab, his usual form of transportation around the city when a client was paying expenses, and requested an audience from a gray-haired nurse.

The doctor was at least seventy years of age, a large man with a liver-spotted bald dome and rheumy gray eyes. He wore thick-lensed glasses through which he peered myopically. His manner was crusty and somewhat pompous, his words snappish after Quincannon explained his reason for the visit.

“Mrs. Shellwin is bereft and not thinking rationally,” he said. “She requires rest, not a foolish private investigation.”

“But she has paid for one, and mine are never foolish.”

“Hmpf. An utter waste of your time and her money, nonetheless. There is no question Judge Shellwin died of a massive coronary. I’ve seen dozens of such cases.”

“Neither she nor I doubt you, doctor,” Quincannon said glibly, “but I’ll thank you to answer a few questions that may help to allay her fears and put her mind at ease.”

“Oh, very well. But I’ll thank you not to take up too much of my time.”

“The judge was on the study floor when you arrived, just as he’d been found?”

“Are you asking if he had been moved? No, certainly not.”

“In what position was he lying?”

“Position?”

“Prone? Supine? Body and appendages bent or straightened?”

“Pointless question,” Dr. Phipps said. But he proceeded to answer it, nonetheless. “Foetally convulsed on his right side, both hands pressed to his midsection.”

“His midsection, not his chest?”

“A victim of coronary thrombosis does not always clutch his chest. Death agony produces different physical reactions.”

“Did Mrs. Shellwin or her guests tell you what they heard that drew them to the study? The cry of distress, the shouted word ‘cramps’?”

“I was so informed, yes.”

“You don’t find ‘cramps’ an odd exclamation for a man suffering a sudden coronary?”

“I do not. Didn’t I just tell you that death agony produces different reactions? The pain felt like cramps to him at first.”

“Where would you say he was when stricken? At his desk or elsewhere in the room?”

“Why should that matter? Wherever he was, he cried out and collapsed before he could unlock the door.”

“You examined him where he lay?”

“Naturally. Long enough to ascertain the cause of death.” Dr. Phipps pooched his lips in an expression of distaste. “The study was filled with tobacco smoke, thick as tule fog. Can’t abide it. Reeks and clogs my sinuses.”

“Did you examine the body again later?”

“No. There was no need.” Another lip-pooch. “The fact is, Judge Shellwin smoked far too much. I warned him, but he wouldn’t listen.”