Ellery Queen - Cat of Many Tails

Executions brought to your door.

At no extra charge.

He stopped at a shop window through which a faceless angel with a needlethin torch was trying to fly, and he looked at his watch.

In Vienna it’s the middle of the night.

Then I can’t go home.

Not yet.

Not till it’s time.

He drew back from the thought of facing his father like a turtle rapped on the nose.

Ellery let himself in at a quarter of 4 in the morning.

On the tips of his toes.

The apartment was dark except for a night light in the majolica lamp on the living room table.

He felt refrigerated. The mercury had dropped to five above in the streets and the apartment was only a little less icy.

His father was snoring. Ellery went to the bedroom door and shut it, thievishly.

Then he stole into his study and turned the key. He did not remove his overcoat. Switching on the desk light, he sat down and drew the telephone to him.

He dialed the operator and asked for the Overseas Operator.

There were difficulties.

It was almost 6 o’clock. The steam had just begun to rattle the radiators and he kept his eye apprehensively on the door.

The Inspector was a 6 o’clock riser.

Finally, he got through.

Ellery prayed that his father oversleep as he waited for the Vienna operator to settle matters at her end.

“Here is your party, sir.”

“Professor Seligmann?”

“Ja?”

It was an old, old voice. Its bass cracked and a little peevish.

“My name is Ellery Queen,” said Ellery in German. “You do not know me, Herr Professor—”

“Incorrect,” said the aged voice in English, Oxonian English with a Viennese accent. “You are an author of romans policiers, and out of guilt feelings for the many crimes you commit on paper you also pursue malefactors in life. You may speak English, Mr. Queen. What do you want?”

“I hope I haven’t caught you at an inopportune moment—”

“At my age, Mr. Queen, all moments are inopportune except those devoted to speculations about the nature of God. Yes?”

“Professor Seligmann, I believe you are acquainted with the American psychiatrist, Edward Cazalis.”

“Cazalis? He was my pupil. Yes?” There was nothing in the voice, nothing at all.

Is it possible he doesn’t know?

“Have you seen Dr. Cazalis in recent years?”

“I saw him in Zürich earlier this year. Why do you ask?”

“On which occasion, Herr Professor?”

“At an international convention of psychoanalysis. But you do not tell me why, mein Herr.”

“You don’t know the trouble Dr. Cazalis is in?”

“Trouble? No. What is this trouble?”

“I can’t explain now, Professor Seligmann. But it’s of the greatest importance that you give me exact information.”

The line wheezed and keened and for a moment Ellery thought: Let us pray.

But it was only the mysterious defects of the transoceanic process coming up through Professor Seligmann’s silence.

He heard the old voice again.

Growling this time.

“Are you Cazalis’s friend?”

Am I?

“Yes, I’m Cazalis’s friend,” said Ellery.

“You hesitate. I do not like this.”

“I hesitated, Professor Seligmann,” said Ellery carefully, “because friendship is a word I weigh.”

He thought he had lost, but there was a faint chuckle in his ear and the old man said: “I attended the last few days of the Zürich meeting. Cazalis was present, I heard him read his paper on the night of the last session and I kept him up until long past dawn afterward in my hotel room telling him how absurd I thought it was. Are you answered, Mr. Queen?”

“You have an excellent memory, Herr Professor.”

“You question it.”

“Forgive me.”

“I am reversing the usual process of senescence. My memory is apparently the last to go.” The old voice sharpened. “You may rely on the accuracy of the information.”

“Professor Seligmann—”

There was a word, but it was swallowed up by such a howl of atmospheric expletive that Ellery snatched the receiver from his ear.

“Herr Professor Seligmann?”

“Yes. Yes. Are you—?” But then he faded, bolting into space.

Ellery cursed. Suddenly the line was clear.

“Herr Queen! Yes?”

“I must see you, Professor Seligmann.”

“About Cazalis?”

“About Cazalis. If I fly to Vienna at once, will you see me?”

“You would be coming to Europe for this alone?”

“Yes.”

“Come.”

“Danke schön. Auf Wiedersehen.”

But the old man had already broken the connection.

Ellery hung up.

He’s so damned old. I hope he lasts.

His European flight was a bother from beginning to end. There was trouble about his visa, long talks with the State Department, much questioning and headshaking and form-filling. And passage seemed an impossibility; everyone was flying to Europe, and everyone who flew was a person of terrestrial importance. Ellery began to realize what a very small tuber he was in the vast potato patch of world affairs.

He spent Christmas in New York after all.

The Inspector was magnificent. Not once in those days of pacing did he question the purpose of Ellery’s trip. They merely discussed ways and means and the impediments.

But the Inspector’s mustache grew noticeably ragged.

On Christmas Day Ellery cabled Professor Seligmann that he was being delayed by transportation and other nuisances but that he expected clearance at any hour.

The hour arrived late on December 28, in time to save the crumbs of Ellery’s sanity.

Exactly how his father managed it Ellery never learned, but at dawn on December 29 he found himself on a conspicuously special plane in the company of persons of obvious distinction, all of whom were unmistakably bound on missions of global gravity. He had no idea where the plane was going or when it was scheduled to arrive. He heard murmurs of “London,” “Paris,” and such, but he could detect no Strauss waltzes, and to judge from the pursed blankness that met his worried inquiries the Wiener Wald was something in Moscow.

Neither his nails nor his stomach survived the Atlantic crossing.

When they did touch soil, it was fog-choked and British. Here a mysterious delay occurred. Three and a half hours later they took off again and Ellery sank into a doze. When he awoke it was to no thunder of motors. He sat in a great hush. As far as he could make out through his window, they had landed on an Arctic ice field; his very corpuscles were frozen. He nudged his companion, a U.S. Army officer. “Tell me, Colonel. Is our destination Fridtjof Nansen Land?”

“This is France. Where you going?”

“Vienna.”

The colonel pushed out his lips and shook his head.

Ellery doggedly began to work his glaciated toes. Just as the first motor exploded, the co-pilot tapped his shoulder.

“Sorry, sir. Your space is required.”

“What!”

“Orders, sir. Three diplomats.”

“They must be very thin,” said Ellery bitterly, getting up. “What happens to the bum?”

“You’ll be put up at the field, sir, till they can find space for you on another ship.”

“Can’t I stand? I promise not to sit on anybody’s lap and I’ll gladly drop off over the Ringstrasse by parachute.”

“Your bag’s already off, sir. If you don’t mind...”

Ellery spent thirty-one hours in a whistling billet, surrounded by the invisible Republic of France.

When he did reach Vienna, it was by way of Rome. It seemed impossible, but here he was on a frozen railway station with his bag and a little Italian priest who had unaccountably clung to him all the way from Rome and a sign somewhere that said Westbahnhof, which was certainly in Vienna, so he was in Vienna.