Ellery Queen - Cat of Many Tails

And, as if to celebrate his leasehold, he waved a new tail.

It was ingenious. At first glance — there was no caption — the picture advertised a new horror: There were the six numbered tails and the giant-sized seventh, a scratchline arrogance. The reader seized the paper and hunted in vain among the headlines. Puzzled, he returned to the drawing; whereupon he saw it as it was, the noose shaped by the great tail numbered 7 being no noose at all but a question mark.

In the places of authority there was sharp disagreement as to precisely which question the question mark marked. The Extra’s editor, in an interesting telephone conversation with the Mayor on the afternoon of the 28th, protested in a wide-eyed tone of voice that the question was, obviously, Is the Cat going to claim a seventh victim? — a logical, ethical, public-service, newsworthy query, the editor said, arising smack from the facts of record. The Mayor replied carbolically that it seemed to him, and to a great many other New Yorkers who had seen the cartoon and who were even now harrying the City Hall and Police Headquarters telephone operators, that the question it posed was, crudely and brutally, Who’s going to be the Cat’s seventh victim? — executed, moreover, in a drooling-whiskered, chop-licking style which was distinctly not in the public service, quite the contrary, and which he, the Mayor, might have expected from an opposition newspaper which was incapable of subordinating dirty politics to the public interest. The editor retorted that he, the Mayor, ought to know, as he was lugging around a rather large bundle of soiled laundry himself, and the Mayor shouted, “What do you mean by that slanderous remark?”, at which the editor replied that he yielded to no man in his admiration for the rank and file of New York’s Finest but everybody who knew the score knew that the Mayor’s appointee, the present Commissioner, was an old party fire-horse who couldn’t catch a pop fly let alone a desperate criminal, and if the Mayor was so deletedly concerned about the public interest why didn’t he appoint somebody sharp to the top police post? — then maybe the people of the City of New York could go back to sleeping nights. What was more, this was a suggestion the Extra intended to toss off in its lead editorial tomorrow — “in the public interest, Mr. Mayor, you understand.” With which the editor of the Extra hung up to receive a circulation report that left him glowing.

He glowed too soon.

As the Mayor angrily sniffed the green carnation in his lapel, the Commissioner said, “Jack, if you want my resignation—”

“Don’t pay any attention to that rag, Barney.”

“It has a lot of readers. Why not cross it up before that editorial hits the streets tomorrow?”

“By firing you? I’ll be damned if I will.” And the Mayor added thoughtfully, “And I’ll be damned if I won’t, too.”

“Exactly,” said the Commissioner, lighting a cigar. “I’ve given the whole situation a lot of thought. Jack, what New York needs in this crisis is a hero, a Moses, somebody who’ll capture their imaginations and—”

“Distract their attention?”

“Well...”

“Come on, Barney, what’s on your mind?”

“Well, you appoint this fellow something like... well, like Special Cat Catcher for the Mayor.”

“Pied Piper of Gotham, hm?” muttered His Honor. “No, that was rats. We’ve got plenty of those, too.”

“No connection with the P.D. A roving assignment. Sort of advisory. And you could break the story just too late for the Extra to yank that editorial.”

“Don’t you mean, Barney,” murmured the Mayor, “that you want me to appoint a fall guy who’ll absorb the heat and take all the raps, while you and the Department get off the spot and back to everyday operations?”

“Well, it’s a fact,” said the Commissioner, looking critically at his cigar, “that the men, from the brass down, have been thinking more of headlines than results—”

“Suppose this fellow,” asked the Mayor, “beats you to the Cat?”

The Commissioner laughed.

Rather abruptly, the Mayor said, “Barney, whom did you have in mind?”

“A real glamor boy, Jack. Native New Yorker, no political ax to grind, nationally known as a crime investigator, yet he’s a civilian. He can’t refuse, because I softened him up first by dropping the whole hot potato in his old man’s lap.”

The Mayor slowly brought his swivel chair back to the vertical.

The Commissioner nodded.

The Mayor reached for his private line. “Barney,” he said, “this time I think you’ve outfoxed yourself. Oh, Birdy. Get me Ellery Queen.”

“I’m overcome, Mr. Mayor,” said Ellery. “But certainly my qualifications—”

“I can’t think of a better man to become Special Investigator for the Mayor. Should have thought of it long ago. I’ll be frank with you, Mr. Queen—”

“Yes,” said Ellery.

“Sometimes a case comes along,” said the Mayor, one eye on his Police Commissioner, “that’s so off the trail, so eccentric, it licks even the finest cop. I think this Cat business needs the kind of special talents you’ve demonstrated so brilliantly in the past. A fresh and unorthodox approach.”

“Those are kind words, Mr. Mayor, but wouldn’t a thing like this create hard feeling on Centre Street?”

“I think I can promise you, Mr. Queen,” said His Honor dryly, “the full co-operation of the Department.”

“I see,” said Ellery. “I suppose my father—”

“The only one I’ve discussed this with is the Commissioner. Will you accept?”

“May I take a few minutes to think it over?”

“I’ll be waiting here at my office for your call.”

Ellery hung up.

“Special Investigator to the Mayor,” said the Inspector, who had been listening on the extension. “They’re really getting fussed.”

“Not about the Cat,” Ellery laughed. “The case is getting too torrid to touch and somebody’s looking for a potential burnt sacrifice to stand up and take the heat.”

“The Commissioner...”

“He’s really played that angle, hasn’t he?”

The Inspector scowled. “Not the Mayor, Ellery. The Mayor’s a politician, but he’s also an honest man. If he fell for this, it’s for the reason he gave you. Why not do it?”

Ellery was silent.

“All this would do would make it official...”

“And tougher.”

“What you’re afraid of,” said his father deliberately, “is being committed.”

“Well, I’d have to see it through.”

“I hate to get personal, but doesn’t that make two of us? Ellery, the move might be important in another way.”

“How?”

“Just the act of your taking this job might scare the Cat off. Thought of that?”

“No.”

“The publicity alone—”

“I meant no, it won’t.”

“You underestimate your rep.”

“You underestimate our kitty. I have the feeling,” said Ellery, “that nothing can scare him off.”

His voice conveyed such a burdensome knowledge that the Inspector started. “For a second there you had me thinking...” But then he said slowly, “Ellery, you’ve spotted something.”

Between them lay the archaeology of murder. Detail photographs of the victims, full and side views. General views of the scenes of the crimes, interiors, exteriors, closeups, from various angles. Cross-sketchings, neatly compass-directed and drawn to specified scale. The file of appurtenant fingerprints. A whole library of reports, records, assignments, details of work complete with notations of time, place, names, addresses, findings, questions and answers and statements and technical information. And, on a separate table, res gestae evidence, the originals.