Эллери Куин - The Golden Goose

“There doesn’t seem to be much to see,” Coley said keenly. “Nothing appears to be out of order except your uncle.”

He began to move around the room, not touching anything. He moved and peered and nosed with the same beautiful precision and economy with which he mixed cocktails. It exhilarated Prin just to watch him.

It required only a few minutes for Coley to circumambulate the room, still looking like a master-detective undaunted by temporary failure. He paused at Uncle Slater’s bedside table and studied it enigmatically. On it stood a clock, a half-empty bottle of bourbon and a glass. Prin could see nothing out of the ordinary in these items, but Coley appeared to find them of peculiar interest, for he said, “Ah!” and stood looking at them as if the case were solved.

“Yes?” Prin whispered tensely.

Coley turned to her. “And no,” he said. “It’s really quite elementary. Appleton is a senile ass making something out of nothing, probably to cover up his incompetence in letting Mr. O’Shea die of something that could have been diagnosed by any good veterinarian. However, if Uncle Slater was dosed with something deadly, it appears to me quite clear that the dose was administered in this bottle of bonded bourbon.”

“That may be true,” Prin said, “but I don’t see what’s so clear about it.”

“My dear child,” said Coley with a smile. “You overlook your late uncle’s chronic thirst. The bourbon is something he would have been certain to indulge in generously at the first opportunity on his return home this afternoon. However, I strongly doubt that there was any poisoning at all. He drank the whisky, and lay down for a nap, and simply died of something old Appleton didn’t know he had.”

Prin regarded him adoringly. But then her heart jumped, because Coley suddenly raised his hand and cocked his head.

“Do you hear anything?” he whispered.

She listened and shook her head.

“Open the door and have a quick look.”

She opened the door cautiously and stuck her head into the hall. The hall was empty. She withdrew her head, closed the door and gave a sudden jump and gasp.

“Damn it, Coley,” Prin said, “did you have to slip up behind me like a ghost the minute my back was turned? You almost scared the panties off me.”

Coley moved closer. He moved so close that Prin found herself backed against the door. “Anybody out there?” His eyes were glittering.

“Coley! What’s the matter with you? Why are you acting so queer suddenly...?”

“Who’s acting queer?” Coley muttered menacingly. “I just wanted to be sure no one was coming so our investigation shouldn’t be a total loss. Shall we therefore indulge in a few gestures of affection before going downstairs?”

He began at once to activate his suggestion. Even while Prin collaborated, she felt uneasy. The gestures of affection were no more than good taste demanded in the presence of a third party, especially one who was dead, but even so... Besides, it was hard not to feel glad-happy-joyous under the influence of Coley’s gestures, and this tended to get in the way of Prin’s sad feelings about Uncle Slater. The most disturbing thought of all was that Uncle Slater in his time had himself been no mean hand at gestures of affection; and their gesticulating interchange in his presence seemed rather like rubbing it in.

All these thoughts had the effect of taking the fun out of everything, so Prin said, “Coley. Darling. Coley. Don’t you think we’d better go downstairs?”

Coley, who was in the middle of a particularly affectionate gesture, said, “No, I don’t.”

“But dearest, someone’s sure to miss us soon, if not already... Cole... ey... and there’s the... police-and-besides-it-doesn’t-seem-right-to-do-what-we’re-doing-with-Uncle-Slater-lying-here...”

“Uncle Slater doesn’t mind. He wouldn’t even if he could.”

“Well, I do,” Prin said a little crossly, “and it prevents my giving you my full attention. So if you please...”

“Oh, hell, all right.”

Coley released her sulkily, switched off the light and opened the door. The timing was uncanny: if he had not opened the door in that instant, it would have been opened from the other side in the next, for there in the hall, one aged hand in the act of reaching for the knob, stood Dr. Horace Appleton. The old physician looked so fiercely fiery that Prin went weak. But then she saw from Coley’s composure that her soldier of fortune had the situation perfectly in hand, and felt immediately better. It was one of Coley Collins’s most endearing virtues, this ability to make her feel immediately better in the worst circumstances.

“What in the ding-dang devil you two up to?” screamed Dr. Appleton.

“Dr. Appleton, I presume?” said Coley coolly.

“What? Yes! What you been doing in this room?”

“What we have been doing in this room, Doctor,” replied Coley, “is looking around.”

“Ha!” said Dr. Appleton. “The police will be interested to hear that!”

“The implications in your statement, not to mention the tone in which you uttered it, sir,” said Coley frostily, “come dangerously close to slander. You’re taking far too much upon yourself, my dear doctor. Have a care.”

Dr. Appleton began looking apoplectic and seemed about to join Slater O’Shea, wherever Slater O’Shea was. “Unlawful entry,” he spluttered. “Destruction of evidence on the scene of a crime—”

“Entering a room in a house where one is a resident or guest hardly constitutes unlawful entry,” said Coley, at absolute zero now. “Plus we have destroyed nothing, because we have touched nothing. And may I point out, sir, that so far this room is merely the scene of a death? That a crime has been adduced only by you?”

Dr. Appleton made a heroic effort to remain in the realm of the quick. He slowly regained his natural color, which was pink, not purple.

“I am the doctor on this case,” he said, “and I have acted in all ways within my competence. Now! Why were you in this room after I locked it? The truth! You may tell me or the police, as you choose.”

“As I see it,” Coley said, “it’s a poor choice either way, and nothing constructive is likely to come of it.”

This time Dr. Appleton contracted asthma. He tried to say something, but nothing came out except a kind of shrill whinny that, without being intelligible, nevertheless contrived to sound profane. Coley, seeing that he had achieved a tactical advantage, remorselessly pressed it.

“You have no one to censure but yourself, Dr. Appleton,” he said evenly, “if I have felt compelled to conduct a preliminary investigation of the scene in defense of this defenseless young woman, whose very liberty may be threatened by your sly folly. It is my conviction, sir, that you are yelling copper in order to cover the tracks of your own professional in competence. If I am in error, I tender you my apology in advance. In either case, the police will decide when they get here — which, unless my ears deceive me, is an event that is taking place right now.”

And so it was. They were out on the veranda ringing the bell, and by the time old Appleton and Coley and Prin got downstairs they were inside the house, all two of them.

The pair constituted precisely half of Cibola City’s plainclothes force. The one in charge was very tall and very lean, with squared-off shoulders and a square-jawed head that he kept cocking, first on one side and then on the other. This gave him a disconcerting appearance of continuous skepticism. As Prin learned later, his name was Sherm Grundy, his rank was lieutenant, and he was reputed to be as sour-souled as a stoat. Somehow, Prin doubted it.