Эллери Куин - The Door Between

“Your father,” choked Eva.

“You must understand, Miss MacClure, that there’s no sentiment in our family where business is concerned. My father lives his life, and I live mine. Our methods, our techniques, are different. My father looks for evidence, I look for truth. They don’t always turn out to lie in the same direction.”

“What do you know?” asked Terry Ring abruptly. “Let’s cut the prelims.”

“All right, Terry, it’s cards on the table. I’ll tell you just what I know.” Ellery crushed out his cigaret. “I’ve been in constant communication with my father from the Panthia . He hasn’t been specific, but I think he’s suspicious of both of you.” Eva lowered her eyes. “Dad works cautiously. I should say that neither of you is out of the woods.”

“Eva, honey,” groaned Dr. MacClure. “Why don’t you—”

“Please, Doctor. Now I want to explain my own position. I’ve got to know Dr. MacClure well, and to like him immensely. I’d met Miss Leith and you, Miss MacClure, and your father has been kind enough to tell me many things about the background of your relationship which, frankly, have aroused my interest. I agreed to help. My father knows that; I’ve told him. From now on he goes his way and I go mine. What I learn I keep to myself, what he learns he keeps to himself.”

“Come on,” drawled Terry Ring. “You’re wasting time.”

“Is it so valuable? Now from what I’ve gathered, it appears that an unknown assailant got into Miss Leith’s house through the attic window, came down the attic stairs, stabbed Miss Leith, and made his escape by the same route. This is a theory. But a theory only. For there’s apparently not a single clue, not a single item of evidence, to support it... no footprint in the garden under the ell-roof, no fingerprints so far, nothing at all but a hypothetical way of entrance and exit. It’s the only theory which accounts for Miss Leith’s murder on the basis of physical accessibility.” He shrugged. “ Unless you stabbed her yourself.”

“Oh,” said Eva faintly, and Terry started.

“Forgive me for speaking so bluntly, but as I’ve explained to your father, Miss MacClure, I must treat these things as problems in mathematics. There is no evidence to support the theory of an outsider using that open window and door. And you were admittedly in the next room.”

“Eva—” began Dr. MacClure in an agonized voice.

“If you can’t satisfy me about your innocence,” continued Ellery gently, “I shall step out now. With you guilty, this is no case for me — and I shouldn’t care to take it for Dr. MacClure’s sake.”

“Satisfy you!” cried Eva, springing up. “How can I? How could anyone!”

“Did you?” muttered the doctor. “Did you, honey?”

Eva seized her temples with both hands, pushing the coolie hat back. “I think I’m going... No one could believe me. There’s nothing I can say. I... I’m just trapped!”

“Stop it,” said Terry in a low voice.

“I won’t! I didn’t kill Karen! Why should I want to kill her? I was happy — Dick had just promised to marry me — I rushed over to tell Karen. Even if I had a reason, would I have murdered Karen feeling as I did Monday afternoon? Kill!” She sank back in the chair, trembling. “I couldn’t kill a... a bug.”

The doctor stared at her with a different light in his eyes.

“But if I told you the truth,” continued Eva hopelessly, “I—”

“Don’t be a fool,” growled Terry. “Remember what I said!”

“Yes?” prompted Ellery.

“You’d have to say I did it. Anyone would, anyone. Anyone!” She began to cry on the arm of the chair.

“Perhaps that’s just the reason,” murmured Ellery, “ I wouldn’t.”

Terry Ring looked at her, and then he shrugged and went to the window to smoke furiously. Dr. MacClure leaned over to brush her hat off and stroke her hair.

Ellery went to the chair and lifted Eva’s face.

Then Eva sobbed: “I’ll tell you everything.”

Terry swore and hurled his cigaret butt out the window.

When Eva was finished she lay back and closed her eyes, drained and empty. Dr. MacClure was cracking his knuckles in a savage, masochistic way, glaring at his shoes.

Terry said from the window: “All right, Sherlock. What’s the verdict?”

Ellery went into his bedroom and shut the door. They heard the tinkle of the telephone. Then he came out and said: “I really can’t do anything until I’ve gone over that house. I’ve asked Morel, Miss Leith’s lawyer, to meet us there. There are some questions I want to ask him. Miss MacClure.”

“Yes?” said Eva without opening her eyes.

“I want you to get a hold on your nerves. You can help tremendously by being sane about this thing.”

“I’m all right.”

“She’s all right,” said Terry.

“And you, Terry. You’re a professional. Apparently you spotted Miss MacClure’s predicament in a moment. What do you think?”

“I think she’s okay just as long as you keep your mouth shut about that bolted door.”

“Always the iconoclast,” murmured Ellery. He took a turn about the room. “I confess it’s a poser. If we assume Miss MacClure’s innocence, the thing’s impossible. It can’t have been done. And yet apparently it was... Terry, why were you in Karen Leith’s house Monday?”

“None of your business.”

“That’s hardly cooperative. And how did you know a Headquarters detective was due there by appointment with Karen Leith, at her own telephoned request Sunday morning, at five o’clock Monday?”

“A little birdie told me.”

“Most important of all, why did you become an accomplice of a girl whom the facts said was a murderess?”

“I’ll tell you that,” rapped Terry, swinging about. “Because it’s too damned pat. Because she’s the only one. Because things just don’t happen that way. Because I think she’s being taken for a ride!”

“Ah! Frame-up, eh?”

“Frame-up?” Dr. MacClure shook his head wearily. “That’s impossible, Ring. There just isn’t anyone—”

“But mostly,” said Terry, going over to Eva and smiling down at her, “because I think she’s telling the truth. Maybe I’m a sucker; I don’t know. But stick to it, kid. I’m with you to the end of the line.”

Eva flushed; her lower lip quivered. Terry scowled then and began to march across the room.

“I haven’t told you, Ring,” began the doctor awkwardly, “how much I appreciate—”

“Thank him ,” said Terry, disappearing into the foyer. “He goes for that stuff in a big way.” And they heard the slam of the front door.

“I think,” said Ellery dryly to Eva, “you’ve made a conquest. It’s the only time, to my knowledge, that the feat has been accomplished.”

On the way downtown in a taxicab Ellery asked: “Did anyone know in advance that you were going to Karen Leith’s house Monday afternoon?”

“No one except Dick.” Eva leaned against her father’s shoulder; they both seemed to take comfort from it. “And Dick only knew at a few minutes to four.”

“You went on impulse?”

“Entirely.”

“Terry Ring is wrong then. You couldn’t have been framed.”

To their astonishment they found the peripatetic Mr. Ring in the Washington Square house, guying Inspector Queen, who seemed to be doing nothing at all but enjoying the banter. The two Queens greeted each other with their eyes and then Ellery introduced Dr. MacClure, who looked tired and ill.

“Why don’t you go on home, Doctor?” said the Inspector. “This can’t be pleasant for you. We’ll talk some other time.”