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Эллери Куин: Dutch Shoe Mystery

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Эллери Куин Dutch Shoe Mystery

Dutch Shoe Mystery: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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An eccentric millionairess is lying in a diabetic coma on a hospital bed in an anteroom of the surgical suite of the Dutch Memorial Hospital, which she founded, awaiting the removal of her gall bladder. When the surgery is about to begin, the patient is found to have been strangled with picture wire. Although the hospital is crowded, it is well guarded, and only a limited number of people had the opportunity to have murdered her, including members of her family and a small number of the medical personnel. The apparent murderer is a member of the surgical staff who was actually seen in the victim’s vicinity, but his limp makes him easy to impersonate. Ellery Queen examines a pair of hospital shoes, one of which has a broken lace that has been mended with surgical tape. He performs an extended piece of logical deduction based on the shoe, plus such slight clues as the position of a filing cabinet, and creates a list of necessary characteristics of the murderer that narrows the field of suspects down to a single surprising possibility.

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“But I... she... he says...”

“You must have forgotten, Doctor,” interposed Minchen. “Miss Price has been copying the Congenital Allergy manuscript all morning, and she’s with Mrs. Doorn now, by your own order...”

“Shucks! That’s right, too,” muttered Dr. Janney. “But I won’t see that man, Cobb, I—”

Mutely, the doorman lifted his huge hand and thrust a white card toward the surgeon, handling it as if it were a precious document.

Janney snatched at it “Who’s this? Swanson... Swanson... Oh!” The tone of his voice changed instantly. His bright little eyes clouded as he froze to immobility. Then he lifted his gown and tucked the card into a pocket of his coat. With the same deft motion he whipped a watch from his underclothes. “10:29,” he mumbled. Surprisingly, with that effortless ease which marked all his manual movements, he replaced the watch and smoothed down his gown. “All right Cobb!” he said clearly. “Lead the way. Where is he?... See you later, John. ’Bye, Queen.”

As suddenly as he had appeared, he swung about and limped off in the wake of Cobb, who seemed anxious to depart. Minchen and Ellery stared down the corridor after them for a long moment. Both men turned away just as Janney and the doorman were passing the elevator opposite the main entrance.

“Janney’s office is down there,” said Minchen, shrugging. “Queer sort of cuss, isn’t he, Ellery? But as great as they come... Let’s go back to my office. There’s still a good quarter of an hour before the operation.”

They turned the corner and walked with leisurely steps up the West Corridor.

“Reminds me of a bird, somehow,” said Ellery thoughtfully. “They way he holds his head, keeps darting those avian eyes of his about... Interesting little fellow. About fifty, isn’t he?”

“Thereabouts... Interesting in more ways than one, Ellery.” Minchen spoke boyishly. “There’s one medical man who’s really devoted his life to his profession. He’s spared neither himself nor his personal fortune. I’ve never known him to refuse a case on grounds of a small fee. In fact he’s done scores of jobs for which he never saw a cent, and didn’t expect to... Don’t get him wrong, Ellery; you’ve just met a genuine personage.”

“If what you said about his relationship with Mrs. Doorn is true,” commented Ellery, smiling, “I don’t suppose Dr. Janney has much to worry about financially.”

Minchen stared. “Why, how did you—? Well, of course,” he chuckled sheepishly, “it’s probably evident. Yes, Janney is due for a whacking big legacy on Abby’s departure from this world. Everybody knows that. He’s been quite like a son to her... And here we are.”

They had reached Minchen’s office. Minchen telephoned briefly, seemed satisfied with what he heard.

“They have Abby in the Anteroom already,” he stated, putting down the instrument. “They got her blood sugar down to 110 milligrams — it’s a question of minutes now. Well, I’ll be glad when it’s over.”

Ellery shivered slightly. Minchen pretended not to notice. Over cigarettes, they sat in silence; an indefinable gloom hovered between them.

With an effort Ellery shrugged his shoulders and exhaled a cloud of smoke. “About this co-authorship, John,” he said lightly. “I never suspected that you’d succumb to the writing bug. What’s it all about?”

“Oh, that” Minchen laughed. “Most of the work is bound up with actual case histories, proving a theory which both Janney and I hold in common; and it is possible to predict the predisposition to specific ailments of embryos by careful analysis of congenital influences. Complicated?”

“Overwhelmingly scientific, professor,” murmured Ellery. “How about letting me peep at the manuscript? I might be able to give you a few pointers in a literary way.”

Minchen flushed. “Thunder! Can’t do that, old son,” he said awkwardly. “Janney’d have my life. As a matter of fact, both the manuscript and the case records we are using in the book are kept absolutely private; Janney guards ’em as jealousy as his life. Why, the old man recently cashiered an interne who had the unhappy impulse to root around in Janney’s filing-cabinet — merely out of academic curiosity, I suppose... Sorry, Ellery. The only people who can see those records are Janney, myself and Miss Price, Janney’s assistant — she’s a trained nurse — and she does only the routine clerical work.”

“All right, all right!” grinned Ellery, closing his eyes. “I surrender. I just wanted to help you, you blamed old codger... Of course you remember your Iliad? ‘Light is the task when many share the toil.’ If you spurn my assistance...”

They laughed together.

Chapter Four

Revelation

Ellery Queen, dilettante of criminology, had no stomach for blood. Raised on stories of crime, fed with tales of murder, in daily contact with desperadoes and manhunters, he nevertheless endured the sight of maltreated flesh with difficulty. His position as son of a policeman; his association with brutality and warped minds; his own literary dabblings in the mire of criminal psychology — these had not inured him to the reeking evidences of man’s inhumanity to man. On the scene of a slaughter his eyes were keen, his judgment swift, but always his heart was sick...

He had never attended a surgical operation. Dead bodies he had seen galore; mangled corpses in morgues, fished out of rivers and the sea, huddled on railroad tracks, lying still in the streets after gang-fights — of death at its unprettiest he had bitter and plentiful knowledge. But chilled steel biting into warm flesh, cutting through live tissue, severing veins through which red blood spurted — the thought nauseated him.

It was with a sensation of mingled dread and excitement, then, that he took his seat in the gallery of the Dutch Memorial Hospital Amphitheater, eyes glued on the scene of calm noiseless activity being enacted twenty feet away in the orchestra of the theater. Dr. Minchen lolled in a chair by his side, quick blue eyes missing nothing of the preparations for the operation... A whisper of conversation came dimly to their ears from a group of people seated about them in the gallery. Directly in the center was a handful of white-garbed men and women — internes and nurses gathered to watch the professional handiwork of the surgeon. They were very still. Behind Ellery and Dr. Minchen sat a man, also in hospital regalia, and a fragile-looking young woman in white who whispered intermittently in his ear. The man was Dr. Lucius Dunning, Chief Internist; the girl his daughter, attached to the Social Service Department of the institution. Dr. Dunning was grey, with a startling seamed face from which mild brown eyes peered. The girl was fair and unhandsome. There was an appreciable tic in one eyelid.

The gallery rose from the floor of the theater, separated from the orchestra by a high impassable barrier of white wood. The rows of seats ascended steeply toward the rear — much as in the balcony of a theater for the drama. At the rear wall was a door, opening outward on a circular staircase which led to the floor below and gave directly on the North Corridor.


Фото

The sound of footsteps now became audible, the door swung open, and Philip Morehouse stepped nervously into the gallery, his eyes roving. His brown overcoat and hat had disappeared. Spying the Medical Director, he ran down the stepped ramp and bent over to whisper into Minchen’s ear.

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