Эллери Куин - The Golden Goose

PRINCESS — Her unusual pride indicated that she was sired on the wrong side of the royal bedsheet, but her bar sinister faded quickly

UNCLE SLATER — He didn’t come and go as easily as the money he inherited from his wife — the only luck he’d had since he first struck it poor—

AUNT LALLIE — Vague and ill-meaning, she tried to hatch the golden goose eggs prematurely

BROTHER BRADY — The weakest of sisters despite his physique and libido — no one knew what held his body up since the Creator had evidently omitted his backbone

COUSIN PEET — An enchanting exhibitionist who is full of beans, but manages never to spill them

COUSIN TWIG — A warped mind in a warped body, he proves that a tomcat can look at a princess

MRS. DOLAN — Due to foul play, her dinner and employer turned cold while she watched warmed-over TV

DR. HORACE APPLETON — An elderly curmudgeon who keeps his own eyes open and prefers the eyes of a peaceful corpse closed

COLEY COLLINS — A charming rapscallion who can shake up the Princess quicker than a cocktail

SHERM GRUNDY — A plainclothesman under the sway of the Princess’ sceptre and her uncle’s spectre, he considers the murder a lese majesty

BOATNER — Grundy’s partner, saying nothing and doing nothing, almost, as it were, being nothing

SELWYN FISH — A shyster lawyer who has swum beyond his depth; as far as Aunt Lallie is concerned, it is Fish or cut bait

ORVILLE FREE — A pharmacist whose facial and vocal expressions are measured as meticulously as his prescriptions

WINSTON WHITFIELD — This old-young man-boy charms snakes and snakes-in-the-grass, and that’s about all

Princess O’Shea was not really a princess. Her father’s name happened to be Royal, and “Princess” seemed logical. It was also a good joke. Royal O’Shea had had a taste for jokes. It ran in his family.

Prin’s mother died in attempting to continue the dynasty, and her father lived another eighteen years before surrendering to an unregal cirrhosis of the liver. That was when Prin came to live with her father’s brother Slater in his house at the edge of Cibola City, which was not much of a city by any but the most technical definition, although it was a good deal of a house.

Uncle Slater O’Shea had money. He had it by way of his late wife, who had acquired it from her late first husband. She had been a realistic lady of some shrewdness, suspecting rightly that Slater O’Shea had pressed his suit more out of regard for his own future happiness than for hers; but he was also charming and amusing and sometimes exciting, which was all the good lady asked after fifteen years of being married to a man whose idea of a high old time was to go to his safe deposit box and see if his bonds and stock certificates were still there. She cheerfully willed Uncle Slater what was left of what she had had when he started helping her spend it. Uncle Slater being what he was, it was not nearly so much as it might have been; but it did include the big old house at the edge of Cibola City, and enough income from the remains of the safe deposit box to enable him to live in non-working comfort. A life of non-working comfort had been Uncle Slater’s prospector-like dream since he had first struck it poor, which was practically at birth.

Prin liked Uncle Slater fine. With his libido now damped by the dews of time, he roared more quietly; and since he had not worked for his late wife’s earlier husband’s money, he was quite generous with it. He was certainly more fun than Aunt Lallie, Uncle Slater’s sister, and than Cousin Twig and Cousin Peet, the spawn of another brother (not Prin’s father Royal) who had deserted his two motherless chicks and gone off and died interestingly somewhere. As for Brady O’Shea, Prin’s brother, Uncle Slater was a king by comparison, and Princess O’Shea would have been the first to say so; in fact, she was the first to say so.

Aunt Lallie and Cousins Twig and Peet had been living with Uncle Slater when Prin arrived. Prin was the only one who had come by invitation. The others had dropped in for visits and just stayed on, like The Man Who Came to Dinner; and Brother Brady, learning of his sister’s providential haven, got there virtually on her heels. Aunt Lallie, Cousins Twig and Peet, and Brother Brady had not been asked to stay, as Prin had; but on the other hand they had not been asked to leave, so it all came to the same thing.

The reason they had not been asked to leave was that Uncle Slater had a tender feeling for scoundrels and a sense of responsibility toward all O’Sheas in the blood line. In every instance he could think of — Prin excepted — “scoundrel” and “O’Shea” were synonyms; so that at the same time that he felt tenderly toward them, he refrained from turning his back, since he took it for granted that any of the quartet was quite capable of sinking a knife in it, especially if the exertion promised a profit. The price of eternal vigilance being exhaustion, Uncle Slater restored tranquillity to his aging soul by writing a most engaging will. In this will he prorated his worth among the five O’Sheas who lived with him and seventeen other O’Sheas who lived elsewhere.

“Those of you who did not flunk simple arithmetic will therefore see,” said Uncle Slater to the five O’Sheas in residence as he waved the will heartily, like a flag, “that my decease will, automatically and ipso facto , divide my estate into twenty-two equal parts. The advantages to us all must be evident. So long as I remain in a state of animation there is enough to support the six of us under this roof in freedom from reasonable want. Were I to pass on, however, the butchered bits of my estate would scarcely suffice to support any one of you for more than a year or so. I see that you grasp the unpleasant consequences of my demise. Each of you would be reduced to the alternatives of, one, working; two, stealing; three, starving; or four, finding another sucker. I agree in advance that the first of these alternatives is too far fetched to be seriously considered. The third is almost, although not quite, as bad. The second is a possibility, but I would not recommend it. The fourth, I grant, seems the most attractive; however, there are countless parasites for each available host, and I do not think the odds of finding another one are good. I have myself been lucky in this respect, and my natural inclination is to identify with those less fortunate. I was in my time an accomplished freeloader at others’ expense, so I am agreeable to your being likewise at mine. In short, let’s all relax and enjoy the fruits of my dear Millie’s first husband’s labors and take very, very good care of Uncle Slater. Any questions?”

“I don’t have a question,” Princess O’Shea said firmly, “I have an announcement. Which is that I’m working six days a week in a drugstore for pay, Uncle Slater. I know I get that weak gene from my mother’s side, and I apologize; but by the same token I’m no damn freeloader, so don’t lump me with them — those — that are.”

“True,” said Uncle Slater. “Our Princess is a mutation, and in all fairness I should have said so. I’m happy to be able to point out that this ‘pay’ she mentions with such deplorable pride is just about enough to keep her in nylons; however, she is technically correct. As for having inherited the weakness from your mother’s side, Princess, I’m obliged to register a dissent; I knew your mother’s side. To be candid, my dear, in view of this unhealthy streak in you I’m inclined to believe that you may not be an O’Shea at all. There may well have been an interlude in the Royal household, briefly before your nativity, when your poor mother dallied with a commoner.”