Эллери Куин - Dutch Shoe Mystery

“What killed her?”

Janney straightened; he ripped the gag from his face. He did not reply to Ellery at once. Instead he motioned to his two assistants, shook his head significantly. The doctors removed the pulmotor apparatus in silence. A nurse, stony-faced, lifted the sheet to conceal the aged flesh...

Ellery restrained a start when Janney turned to him. The surgeon’s lips were trembling. His face was grey.

“She’s been — strangled,” he said thickly. “God.”

He turned away, reached beneath his gown with shaking fingers and brought out a cigarette.

Ellery bent over the corpse. Around the old woman’s neck was a deep, thin bloody line. On a small table nearby lay a short length of ordinary picture-wire, stained with blood. Without touching it, Ellery examined it and noted that it bent in two places, as if the wire had been tied in a knot.

Abigail Doorn’s skin was dead-white, with a faint bluish tinge, and peculiarly puffy. The lips were tightly pressed together, the eyes deep-sunken. The body was stiff, unnatural...

The corridor-door opened and Minchen reappeared.

“Everything taken care of, Ellery,” he croaked. “I put James Paradise, our Superintendent, on the job of checking up arrivals and departures; we’ll have a report soon. Called your father; he’s on his way with his staff. The precinct is sending a few men—”

A bluecoat stamped into the theater, looked around, made for Ellery.

“Hullo, Mr. Queen. Just got me flash from the precinct. Takin’ charge?” he rumbled.

“Yes. Stand by, won’t you?”

Ellery glanced about the Amphitheater. The occupants of the gallery had not moved. Dr. Dunning sat sunk in thought His daughter looked faint, sick... In the orchestra Dr. Janney had walked to the farther wall and stood facing it, smoking. The nurses, the assistants wandered aimlessly.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Ellery suddenly, to Minchen. “Where can we go?”

“Shall I—?”

“Notify Mrs. Doorn’s relatives outside of what’s happened?” finished Ellery abruptly. “No. Not yet. We have plenty of time. In here?”

“Yes.”

Ellery and Minchen approached the door. Ellery turned, his hand on the knob.

“Dr. Janney.”

The surgeon turned slowly, took a limping step forward, stopped.

“Well?” His voice was harsh, again emotionless.

“I should appreciate your not leaving this room, Doctor. I want to talk with you — soon.”

Dr. Janney stared, seemed about to speak. But he clamped his lips firmly together, wheeled and limped back to his wall.

The anteroom to the Amphitheater was almost square except for one corner, where it was cut off by a small cubicle. On the same wall stood a compartment, the door of which bore the words:

AMPHITHEATER LIFT

(For Operating-Room Use Only)

For the rest, there were a few of the familiar cabinets, shining with enamel and glass, a washbowl, a wheel-table and one white metal chair.

Minchen paused at the door from the theater, and commandeered the use of several chairs. These were brought in by nurses and the door closed.

Ellery stood still in the center of the room and surveyed this unpromising domain.

“Scarcely a plethora of clews, eh, Minchen?” he said with a grimace. “This, I take it, is the room in which Mrs. Doorn was kept before being taken into the theater?”

“That’s right,” replied Minchen gloomily. “Was brought in here about a quarter after ten, I think. She was certainly alive then, if that’s what you’re driving at.”

“There are a few elementary problems to solve, old man,” murmured Ellery, “besides the question of whether she was alive when they brought her into this room. By the way, how can you be sure? She was in a coma, wasn’t she? Seems perfectly possible that she might have been done in before.”

“Janney ought to have an idea about that,” Minchen muttered. “He examined her pretty thoroughly in the theater while they were applying the oxygen and adrenalin.”

“Let’s get Dr. Janney in here.”

Dr. Minchen went to the door. “Dr. Janney,” he called in a low voice. Ellery heard the slow, limping footsteps of the surgeon approach, lag, then resume with a sudden vigor. Dr. Janney stamped into the Anteroom, regarded Ellery challengingly.

“Well, sir!”

Ellery bowed. “Be seated, Doctor. We may as well be comfortable...” They sat down. Minchen prowled back and forth before the door to the theater.

Ellery smoothed his right palm on his knee, regarded his shoe-top lovingly. Suddenly he looked up. “I think, Doctor, it would be best for us to begin in the most incipient place — to wit, the beginning. Please relate to me the incidents of this morning in relation to Mrs. Doorn. I have an avid ear for detail. Would you mind—?”

The surgeon snorted. “Good God, man, do you want me to give you a case history now? I’ve things to do — arrangements to make — patients to see!”

“Nevertheless, Doctor,” smiled Ellery, “as you must know very well, there’s nothing quite so important in a murder investigation as the apprehension of the murderer. Perhaps you’re not familiar with the New Testament? So few scientists are! ‘Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.’ I mean to gather up the fragments. I believe you possess some of them. Well, sir!”

Janney stared fixedly at Ellery’s cheerful lips. He darted one of his quick, keen glances at Minchen from the corner of his eye.

“I see I’m in for it. What precisely do you want me to tell you?”

“A small order. Everything.”

Dr. Janney crossed his legs, lit a cigarette with steady fingers. “At 8:15 this morning I was summoned from my first inspection in the Surgical Ward to the foot of the main stairway of the third floor. There I found Mrs. Doorn, where she had just been picked up. She had fallen from the head of the stairs and ruptured her gall-bladder as a result of the impact to her abdomen as she landed. Preliminary examination indicated that she had been seized by a typical diabetic coma while in the act of descending, and naturally, becoming unconscious, lost command of her muscular action.”

“Very good,” murmured Ellery. “You had her immediately removed, I suppose?”

“Of course!” barked the surgeon. “Had her taken to one of the private rooms on the third floor, undressed at once, and put to bed. Rupture was bad. Absolutely demanded immediate surgical attention. But the diabetic complication forced us to lower the sugar content by the dangerous but essential insulin-glucose treatments. The coma was lucky — only bit of good fortune in the whole business. Anæsthesia would have added to the risk... As it was, we worked her sugar down to normal by these intravenous injections, and by the time I was through with a rush case in Operating Room ‘A’ the patient was already in the Anteroom, waiting.”

Ellery said swiftly, “Are you prepared to say, Doctor, that Mrs. Doorn was alive when she was wheeled into the Anteroom?”

The surgeon’s jaws clamped together. “I’m prepared to say nothing of the kind, Queen — not from personal experience. Patient was under the care of Dr. Leslie, an associate, while I operated in ‘A.’ Better ask Leslie... From the condition of the body, though, I should say she’d been dead no longer than twenty minutes, possibly a few minutes less, when we discovered the wire around her neck.”

“I see... Dr. Leslie, eh?” Ellery stared thoughtfully at the rubber-tiled floor. “John, old man, would you mind calling Dr. Leslie, if he’s available? It’s all right, Dr. Janney?”

“Oh, yes. Of course, of course.” Janney waved his white muscular hand negligently. Minchen left the room by the Amphitheater door, returning promptly with a white-garbed surgeon in tow — one of the men who had aided Dr. Janney.