Ellery Queen - Cat of Many Tails

Normal Normal

Anaesthesia Morphine-scopalamine

Operative Forceps

Crede — prophylaxis Crede

Period gestation 40 wks.

Respiration Spontaneous

Method of resuscitation None

Injuries at birth None

Congenital anomalies None

Medication p-n. None

Weight 6 lbs. 9 oz.

Length 49 cm.

And so on, unto the tenth day. Behavior of Baby... Type of supplemental or complemental feeding... Disturbances noted: Digestive, Respiratory, Circulatory, Genito-urinary, Nervous system, Skin, Umbilicus...

A conscientious physician. Death was always conscientious. Digestive. Circulatory. Umbilicus. Especially umbilicus. The place where the extraembryonic structures are continuous with those of the body proper of the embryo, anatomical and zoological definition. To which is attached the umbilical cord connecting the fetus of the mammal with the placenta... Jelly of Wharton... Epiblastic epithelium... No mention of tussah silk.

But that was to come twenty-one years later.

Meanwhile, pink cards for females, blue cards for males.

Systematized. The scientific mumbo jumbo of parturition.

It was all down here on a card in faded pen-marks. God’s introductory remarks on another self-contained unit of moist, red, squirming life.

And even as the Lord giveth, He taketh away.

When the Inspector set the telephone down he was a little pale. “Mother’s name Edna, nee Lafferty. Father’s name Frank Pellman Soames, occupation post office clerk. Daughter Marilyn is public stenographer. Aged 21.”

Tonight, tomorrow, next week, next month, Marilyn Soames, aged 21, occupation public stenographer, of 486 East 29th Street, Manhattan, would be plucked from the files of Dr. Edward Cazalis by the hand that had pulled her into the world and he would begin measuring her for a salmon-pink cord of tussah silk.

And he would set out on his quest, cord in hand, and later the cartoonist of the New York Extra would sharpen his pens and refashion his Cat to wave a tenth tail and an eleventh in the form of a question mark.

“Only this time we’ll be waiting for him,” Ellery said that night in the Queen living room. “We’re going to catch him with a cord in his hands as close to the actual instant of attack as we can safely manage. It’s the only way we can be sure of slapping the Cat label on him so that it sticks.”

Celeste and Jimmy were both looking frightened.

From his armchair Inspector Queen kept watching the girl.

“Nothing’s been left to chance,” said Ellery. “Cazalis has been under twenty-four-hour observation since Friday, Marilyn Soames since late this afternoon. We’re getting hourly reports on Cazalis’s movements in a special office at Police Headquarters, where Sergeant Velie and another man are on continuous duty. These two officers are instructed to call us on our private line the moment a suspicious movement on Cazalis’s part is phoned in.

“Marilyn Soames knows nothing of what’s going on; no one in her family does. To let them in on it would only make them nervous and their actions might get Cazalis suspicious. Then we’d have the whole thing to do over again or it might scare him off permanently — or for a very long time. We can’t afford to wait. We can’t afford to miss.

“We’re getting hourly reports on the girl, too. We’re almost completely set.”

“Almost?” said Jimmy.

The word hung among them in a peculiarly unpleasant way.

“Celeste, I’ve been holding you in reserve,” said Ellery. “For the most important and certainly the riskiest job of all. As an alternate to Jimmy. If Cazalis’s next available victim had turned out to be male, I had Jimmy. Female — you.”

“What job would that be?” asked Jimmy cautiously.

“My original idea was to substitute one of you for the next victim indicated by Cazalis’s files.”

And there was McKell, out of the cubist tangle of his arms and legs and glaring down at Ellery. “The answer is no. You’re not going to turn this woman into a slaughterhouse beef. I won’t have it — me, McKell!”

“I told you we should have locked this character up as a public nuisance, Ellery.” The Inspector snapped, “Sit down, McKell.”

“I’ll stand up and you’ll like it!”

Ellery sighed.

“You’re so cute, Jimmy,” said Celeste. “But I’m not going to run out no matter what Mr. Queen has in mind. Now won’t you sit down and mind your own business like a lambie-pie?”

“No!” roared Jimmy. “Do you enjoy the prospect of getting your silly neck wrung? Even this vast intellect here can have his off-days. Besides, when was he ever human? I know all about him. Sits in this control tower of his and fiddles with little dials. Talk about delusions of grandeur! If he runs your neck into Cazalis’s noose, what’s the difference between him and Cazalis? They’re both paranoiacs! Anyway, the whole idea is plain damn imbecility. How could you fool Cazalis into thinking you were somebody else? Who are you, Mata Hari?”

“You didn’t let me finish. Jimmy,” said Ellery patiently. “I said that was my original notion. But on second thought I’ve decided it’s too dangerous.”

“Oh,” said Jimmy.

“Not for Celeste — she’d have been as well protected as Marilyn Soames is going to be — but for the sake of the trap. The Soames girl is going to be his objective; he’s going to scout her, as he’s scouted the others; it’s safest to string along with her.”

“I might have known even your reason for not making Cat bait out of her would be non-human!”

“Then what’s my job, Mr. Queen? — Jimmy, shut up.”

“As I said, we have every reason to believe Cazalis makes some sort of preliminary investigation of his victims. Well, we’ve got Marilyn covered every time she steps out of the Soames flat. But obviously with detectives we can only work from outside. That takes care of physical protection, but it doesn’t give us a line on — for example — telephone calls.

“We could tap Cazalis’s phones, on the chance that he’ll try to contact Marilyn or her family from his home. But Cazalis is informed as well as shrewd, and the public’s been made conscious of official wiretapping in the past year or two — the technique, what to listen for, have been well publicized; we can’t chance Cazalis’s getting suspicious. Besides, it’s unthinkable that he’d be foolish enough to use his own phones for such a purpose; that he’s cautious as well as daring is proved by his operations. So if he tries a phone approach it will undoubtedly be from a public booth somewhere, and that we can’t prepare for.

“We could tap the Soames phone, but here again we can’t run the risk of arousing the family’s suspicions; too much depends on the Soameses behaving normally in the next few weeks.

“Or Cazalis may not phone at all. He may try a correspondence contact.”

“It’s true we’ve found no evidence of approaches by letter in previous cases,” put in the Inspector, “but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been any; and even if he’s never done it before, that’s no guarantee he won’t do it now.”

“So a letter under an assumed name is possible,” said Ellery. “And while we could intercept the United States mail...” Ellery shook his head. “Let’s say it just wouldn’t be practicable.

“In either event, our safest course is to plant somebody we can trust in the Soames household. Somebody who’ll live with the family on a round-the-clock basis for the next two or three weeks.”

“And that’s me,” said Celeste.