Эллери Куин - The Devil To Pay

Mr. King grabbed Miss Jardin’s arm and pulled her stealthily into the doorway of a room off the corridor. He kept peering out and back toward the study.

“What’s the idea?” whispered Valerie.

He shook his head, watching. So Val watched, too. In a few moments they saw Miss Moon flounce out of the study, lifting her beige hostess-gown and scratching her naked left thigh in an inelegant manner, and mumbling crankily to herself. She clumped up the stairs, her hips rising and falling like a watery horizon in a monsoon.

Ellery took Val by the hand and tiptoed back to the study.

“There,” he said, closing the study door. “Now we can reconnoiter a bit, unknown to the Presence.”

“But why?” asked Val blankly.

“Sheer nosiness. This is where the last rites were administered, isn’t it? Park your pretty carcass in that chair while I snoop a bit.”

“You’re a funny sort of newspaperman,” said Val, frowning.

“I’m beginning to think so myself. Now shut up, darling.”

Val shut up and sat down, watching. What she saw puzzled her. Mr. King lay down on the floor near the ell in which Mr. Solomon Spaeth had been sitting so quietly Monday night. He nosed about like Mickey’s Pluto; Val could almost hear the sniffs. Then he rose and examined the wall of the alcove. After a moment he stood off and looked up at the wall above the fireplace. Then, shaking his head, he went to Solly’s desk and sat down in Solly’s chair and thought and thought and thought. Once he looked at his wrist-watch.

“It’s an impressive act,” said Val presently, “but it conveys absolutely nothing to my primitive mind.”

“How do you get the gateman’s booth by telephone?” he asked in reply.

“Dial one-four.”

He dialed. “This is that reporter again. It’s five after six, so Walewski ought to be there. Is he?”

“So what?” rasped the detective’s voice.

“Put him on. What’s your name?”

“David Greenberg. Say, listen, pal, if—”

“I’ll remember that, Dave. Put Walewski on.” He waited, saying meanwhile: “That’s the hell of these post-mortem investigations. If there was any clue in this room, the police have ruined it... Walewski? I’m a reporter. You remember Monday a few minutes past six, when Mr. Ruhig drove up to the gate?”

“Yes, sir, yes, sir,” came Walewski’s quavering voice.

“Was he alone in his car? Or were there two men with him?”

Val jumped. She ran to the desk, listening for the answer.

“No, sir,” said Walewski. “He was all alone.”

“Thanks.”

Ellery hung up and Val stared at him. Then he rose and said lightly: “What’s out here? Ah, a terrace. Let’s imbibe some fresh air.”

The study wall facing the terrace was completely glass. They went out through the glass doors. The terrace was deserted, and its gaily striped awning, bright furniture, cushions, rattan, wrought-iron chairs, and pastel flagstones looked a little forlorn.

Ellery handed Val gallantly into the slide-swing and stretched himself out in a long summer chair.

“I think, my brave colleague,” he said, settling himself comfortably and gazing out over the rock gardens and the empty pool below, “we have our Mr. Ruhig neatly figured.”

“He was alone when he came back, Walewski says!”

“Exactly. Let’s see what we have. Pink discovers that Ruhig left his office around four-thirty Monday afternoon, in his car, accompanied by two assistants. This checks with other facts — that the previous week when he drew up, and Spaeth signed the will which cut Walter Spaeth off, Ruhig also came with two assistants, to serve, as he himself said, as witnesses to the signature.”

“How do you know that?” frowned Val. “You weren’t present when he told that to the Inspector Monday night.”

“I — uh — I read it in the papers. Now. From Ruhig’s office to Sans Souci is a good forty-minute drive through traffic; so Ruhig probably told the truth when he said he reached here at five-fifteen Monday. With, mind you, his two assistants. He says he couldn’t get in and drove away and returned at six-five or so. Why? Obviously, if he hadn’t got in at five-fifteen, then he still had to handle the change of will for Spaeth. But when he returned at six-five, presumably for this purpose, his two men weren’t with him! What does that suggest?”

Val wrinkled her brow. “I can’t imagine.”

“Obviously that he no longer needed them . But why had he brought his assistants in the first place? To witness a new will. Then if he no longer needed them at six-five, it seems to me highly indicative that the assistants had already served their purpose by six-five. In other words, to reduce it to specifies, that they had witnessed a new will between five-fifteen, when Ruhig first came, and five-thirty-two, when Spaeth died.”

“A new will!” cried Val. “Oh, lord. Then that means—”

“Hush! We don’t want Winni hearing this. We don’t know exactly what this means in terms of the will. But we can be pretty sure Spaeth signed a new will before he died, and that Ruhig and his men were in this study at approximately the murder-period.”

Val sat thinking furiously. It did sound logical. And it changed everything. Any new will would have affected Winni Moon’s gigantic legacy. Where did Walter enter the picture? Did he find that will? Was he... was he protecting Winni? What real part did that oily little Ruhig play?

“What’s that?” asked Ellery sharply, sitting up.

“What’s what?” asked Val in an absent way.

Ellery pointed. Fifty yards from where they sat, directly beyond the pool, was the rear terrace of the old Jardin house. Something was winking there, flashing prismatic colors in the rays of the sinking sun.

“I can’t imagine,” said Val. “That’s the terrace of our old house. We didn’t leave anything there except an odd piece or two or porch furniture we didn’t want.”

Ellery rose. “Let’s go look-see.”

They stole down the stone steps and made their way without noise across the rock garden, around the pool, to the Jardin house. The awning still hung over the terrace, which was largely in shadow; but the sun illuminated an area several feet deep along the entire length of the terrace; and in this sunlit area stood an old wrought-iron porch table.

They saw at once what had caused the fiery flashes. A pair of battered binoculars lay on the table, its lenses facing the sun.

“Oh, shoot,” said Val, disappointed. “It’s just that old pair of binoculars.”

“Here!” said Ellery sharply. “Don’t touch that table.” He was crouched over, studying its surface with narrowed eyes. “You mean you left them here when you moved?”

“Yes. One of the lenses is cracked.”

“Did you leave it on this table?”

“Why, no,” said Val, surprised. “It wasn’t left here at that. We went over a lot of stuff — pop likes the races, and we have several pairs of binoculars — and we just threw this one out.”

“Where did you leave it?”

“There’s a pile of junk in the gym.”

“Then what is it doing here?”

“I don’t know,” said Val truthfully. “But what difference does it make?”

Ellery did not reply. He indicated the glass doors which led to the vacant study; they stood slightly ajar.

“That’s funny,” said Val slowly. “Those doors were locked when we left. Unless the landlord had some one come in and—”

“If you’ll look closely, you’ll find the lock broken,” said Ellery, “indicating a basic disrespect for the rights of property.”

“Oh!” cried Val, pointing to the table. “Those marks!”

She bent over the table and Ellery smiled faintly. The surface was covered with mottled dust. There seemed to be two layers of dust, deposited at different times. Val was studying two oval marks — they were more like smudges — under the upper dust-stratum. One was larger than the other, and they were separated by several inches.