Эллери Куин - The Golden Goose

“When the autopsy has been completed,” Dr. Appleton said with a corpse-like grin, “we will see how precarious it is!”

“Autopsy?” Aunt Lallie screeched. “Did you say autopsy? I simply will not subject Slater to such an indignity, and that’s that!”

“That is not that,” said Dr. Appleton with enjoyment. “And the sooner you get used to the idea, Miss O’Shea, the better for all concerned.”

“We’ve had enough horsing around,” growled Lieutenant Grundy. “Let’s get to it.”

“To what?” asked Brady in an alarmed tone.

“Everybody sit down!”

Momentarily cowed, everybody who was standing sat down; those who were sitting, unconsciously burrowed deeper into their seats with their bottoms, as if to establish the fact. Lieutenant Grundy, still carrying the bottle, stood in the middle of the room, prepared to swivel in any direction.

“Miss O’Shea,” Grundy began. Since there were three Miss O’Sheas present, a slight confusion ensued. The lieutenant restored order by indicating Prin. “You were the one who found Mr. O’Shea dead.”

Prin kept looking at him with interest.

“I asked you—”

“No, Lieutenant, you told me. But if you’re asking, the answer is: Yes, I was, for the umpteenth time.”

“How come?”

“How come what?”

“That you,” cried Grundy, “were the one who found him!”

“I went up to call him to dinner.”

“Suspected something was wrong, is that it?”

“Of course not. We just thought Uncle Slater mightn’t have wakened from his afternoon nap.”

“Oh, he took a nap every afternoon?”

“Well, he went up to his room every afternoon, so presumably it was for a nap.”

“For a nip nap, you might say,” said Twig.

“I’ll get to you,” said Grundy; “but until I do I’ll thank you not to interrupt. Miss O’Shea, how long did your uncle usually stay in his room when he went up for these so-called nips — I mean naps?”

“An hour or so,” said Prin, fighting an impulse to giggle.

“And you didn’t think it queer that he stayed so much longer in his room today?”

“We didn’t think about it at all till Mrs. Dolan — that’s the cook — announced that dinner was ready. When Mrs. Dolan says dinner is ready, people jump around here. We were all down but Uncle Slater, and somebody asked where he was, and somebody else said he was probably still in his room, so I went up to see.”

“Did you see your uncle before he went upstairs?”

“I saw him on his way upstairs, which is a little different, I think. He’d been out somewhere, and when he got home about two o’clock he went straight to his room. I was sitting in here alone listening to Till , and I saw Uncle Slater going up the stairs. I waved to him and he waved back to me and that was it.”

“Who’s Till?” asked Grundy suspiciously.

“Till Eulenspiegel . That’s a tone poem by Richard Strauss.”

“Poetry, huh?” Grundy’s tone disposed of that . Prin wondered what the doughty lieutenant would have said if his range of general information had embraced the even more deplorable fact that a tone poem was a form of music. “How was Mr. O’Shea acting when you saw him go upstairs?”

“Perfectly natural.”

“Not mad or upset or anything like that?”

“No. He smiled and waved and was in the best of spirits, as far as I could tell—”

“He wasn’t in the best of spirits, if I knew Uncle Slater,” said Cousin Twig involuntarily. “The best of spirits was in him.”

Over the lieutenant’s glare at Twig, Prin said, “Well, yes. He was very cheerful-looking. I guess he was carrying a load of sorts at that.”

“Drinking.”

“Isn’t that what I said, Lieutenant?”

“No. You said he was perfectly natural.”

“Uncle Slater was perfectly natural when he was drinking. It was when he wasn’t that he wasn’t.”

Grundy’s head during this phase of the interrogation had been lolling to the left. Now he brought it erect with an appearance of great effort, but he brought it over too far, and it immediately lolled to the right.

“All right . So you went up to get him for dinner. Did you just walk into his room?”

“Of course not. Do I look like the sort of person who goes around just walking into other people’s bedrooms? I knocked. When he didn’t answer I opened the door and peeped in. And saw him lying on the floor, near his bed. At first I thought he’d fainted or something, but when I went in and took a closer look I knew he was dead.”

“Did you touch him?”

“I don’t think so. He was so definitely dead.”

“What made you so sure, Miss O’Shea?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It must have been the way his arms and legs were. Sort of scattered , if you know what I mean. And then, of course, he wasn’t breathing.”

“Did you look closely at his face?”

“Not hardly,” said Prin with a little shudder. “He was lying on his stomach, his head turned so only one side of his face showed. Anyway, it was dim in the room by that time.”

“How long were you up there?”

“Two minutes, I suppose.”

“Did you touch anything?”

“You’ve already asked me that. I did not. I ran right downstairs and told everybody Uncle Slater was dead. No one would believe me.”

“By everybody you mean the people in this room now?”

“Except Coley — Mr. Collins. He didn’t come till later.”

“Did anyone else go into that room between the time you found your uncle dead and the time Mr. Collins came?”

“My brother Brady. That was after I’d phoned Dr. Appleton.”

“Brady.” Lieutenant Grundy looked around. “That’s you, I take it?”

“Right, Lieutenant,” said Brady powerfully.

“You went upstairs to your uncle’s room?”

“To, but not in to, if you get the distinction,” said Brady.

“You didn’t actually set foot in the room?”

“Not I. I had a quick look at Uncle Slater from the doorway, and came right back down.”

“Why didn’t you go in?”

“I’m allergic to dead people. I break out in goose pimples.”

“You were satisfied that he was dead?”

“I accepted it, but I can’t say that it gave me any satisfaction. He is dead, isn’t he?”

“Oh, he’s dead, all right.”

“Then I can’t see why we have to keep going over and over it,” said Brother Brady crossly. “Do we have to circulate a petition to make it legal?”

“If Dr. Appleton’s right,” said Grundy grimly, “you people will need all the legality you can get.”

“And if Dr. Appleton is not right,” piped Aunt Lallie spitefully, “I shall sue him for one million dollars.”

The little old doctor walked over to Aunt Lallie, laughed in her face and walked back again.

“Let’s not start the suing talk,” said Grundy, “not before we do a little more spadework. For instance: I want everyone here to tell me where he or she was and what he or she was doing this afternoon as nearly as he or she can remember it, which had better be the way it actually was if he or she knows what’s good for him or her. And we’ll start with... you! ” and his forefinger speared Aunt Lallie, who went very nearly blue as she jumped.

This was the auspicious beginning of the most inauspicious interrogation thus far. No one, it seemed, had had anything significant to do, and no mnemonically linked place to do it; as a consequence, everyone had been all over the premises at one time or another during the day, and no one could be more specific than that. But Lieutenant Grundy persisted. Gradually he elicited a few statements that might vaguely be considered facts.