Ellery Queen - The Origin of Evil

“Get off the bed, yawn, smile at me if you can, and then stroll over to the door. Go out on the landing. Leave the door open.”

Her eyes widened.

She got off the bed, yawned, stretched, showed her teeth, and went to the door. Ellery moved a little as she moved, so that he remained between her and the window.

When she had disappeared, he casually followed. Smiling in profile at her, he shut the bedroom door.

And sprang for the staircase.

“Ellery―”

“Stay here!”

He scrambled down the black-tiled stairs, leaving Laurel with her lips parted.

A man had been roosting high in the walnut tree, peering in at them through Leander Hill’s bedroom window from behind a screen of leaves. But the sun had been on the tree, and Ellery could have sworn the fellow was mother-naked.

The naked man was gone. Ellery thrashed about among the fruit and nut trees feeling like Robinson Crusoe. From the flagged piazza Ichiro gaped at him, and a chunky fellow with a florid face and a chauffeur’s cap, carrying a carton of groceries, was gaping with him.

Ellery found a large footprint at the margin of the orchard, splayed and deeptoed, indicating running or jumping, and it pointed directly to the woods. He darted into the underbrush and in a moment he was nosing past trees and scrub on a twisting but clear trail. There were numerous specimens of the naked print on the trail, both coming and going.

“He’s made a habit of this,” Ellery mumbled. It was hot in the woods and he was soon drenched, uncomfortable, and out of temper.

The trail ended unceremoniously in the middle of a clearing. No other footprints anywhere. The trunk of the nearest tree, an ancient, oakishlooking monster, was yards away. There were no vines.

Ellery looked around, swabbing his neck. Then he looked up. The giant limbs of the tree covered the clearing with a thick fabric of small spiny leaves, but the lowest branch was thirty feet from the ground.

The creature must have flapped his arms and taken off.

Ellery sat down on a corrupting log and wiped his face, reflecting on this latest wonder. Not that anything in Southern California ever really surprised him. But this was a little out of even God’s country’s class. Flying nudes!

“Lost?”

Ellery leaped. A little old man in khaki shorts, woolen socks, and a T-shirt was smiling at him from a bush. He wore a paper topee on his head and he carried a butterfly net; a bright red case of some sort was slung over one skinny shoulder. His skin was a shriveled brown and his hands were like the bark of the big tree, but his eyes were a bright young blue and they seemed keen.

“I’m not lost,” said Ellery irritably. “I’m looking for a man.”

“I don’t like the way you say that,” said the old man, stepping into the clearing. “You’re on the wrong track, young fellow. People mean trouble. Know anything about the Lepidoptera?”

“Not a thing. Have you seen―?”

“You catch ‘em with this dingbat. I just bought the kit yesterday ― passed a toy shop on Hollywood Boulevard and there it was, all new and shiny, in the window. I’ve caught four beauties so far.” The butterfly hunter began to trot down the trail, waving his net menacingly.

“Wait! Have you seen anyone running through these woods?”

“Running? Well, now, depends.”

“Depends? My dear sir, it doesn’t depend on a thing! Either you saw somebody or you didn’t.”

“Not necessarily,” replied the little man earnestly, trotting back. “It depends on whether it’s going to get him ― or you ― in trouble. There’s too much trouble in this world, young man. What’s this runner look like?”

“I can’t give you a description,” snapped Ellery, “inasmuch as I didn’t see enough of him to be able to. Or rather, I saw the wrong parts. ― Hell. He’s naked.”

“Ah,” said the hunter, making an unsuccessful pass at a large, paint-splashed butterfly. “Naked, hm?”

“And there was a lot of him.”

“There was. You wouldn’t start any trouble?”

“No, no, I won’t hurt him. Just tell me which way he went.”

“I’m not worried about your hurting him. He’s much more likely to hurt you. Powerful build, that boy. Once knew a stoker built like him ― could bend a coal shovel. That was in the old Susie Belle, beating up to Alaska―”

“You sound as if you know him.”

“Know him? I darned well ought to. He’s my grandson. There he is!” cried the hunter.

“Where?”

But it was only the fifth butterfly, and the little old man hopped between two bushes and was gone.

Ellery was morosely studying the last footprint in the trail when Laurel poked her head cautiously into the clearing.

“There you are,” she said with relief. “You scared the buttermilk out of me. What happened?”

“Character spying on us from the walnut tree outside the bedroom window. I trailed him here―”

“What did he look like?” frowned Laurel.

“No clothes on.”

“Why, the lying mugwump!” she said angrily. “He promised on his honor he wouldn’t do that any more. It’s got so I have to undress in the dark.”

“So you know him, too,” growled Ellery. “I thought California had a drive on these sex cases.”

“Oh, he’s no sex case. He just throws gravel at my window and tries to get me to talk drool to him. I can’t waste my time on somebody who’s preparing for Armageddon at the age of twenty-three. Ellery, let’s see that note!”

“Whose grandson is he?”

“Grandson? Mr. Collier’s.”

“Mr. Collier wouldn’t be a little skinny old gent with a face like a sun-dried fig?”

“That’s right.”

“And just who is Mr. Collier?”

“Delia Priam’s father. He lives with the Priams.”

“Her father .” You couldn’t keep her out of anything. “But if this Peeping Tom is Delia Priam’s father’s grandson, then he must be―”

“Didn’t Delia tell you,” asked Laurel with a soupçon of malice, “that she has a twenty-three year old son? His name is Crowe Macgowan. Delia’s child by her first husband. Roger’s stepson. But let’s not waste any time on him―”

“How does he disappear into thin air? He pulled that miracle right here.”

“Oh, that.” Laurel looked straight up. So Ellery looked straight up, too. But all he could see was a leafy ceiling where the great oak branched ten yards over his head.

“Mac!” said Laurel sharply. “Show your face.”

To Ellery’s amazement, a large young male face appeared in the middle of the green mass thirty feet from the ground. On the face there was a formidable scowl.

“Laurel, who is this guy?”

“You come down here.”

“Is he a reporter?”

“Heavens, no,” said Laurel disgustedly. “He’s Ellery Queen.”

“Who?”

“Ellery Queen.”

“You’re kidding!”

“I wouldn’t have time.”

“Say. I’ll be right down.”

The face vanished. At once something materialized where it had been and hurtled to the ground, missing Ellery’s nose by inches. It was a rope ladder. A massive male leg broke the green ceiling, then another, then a whole young man, and in a moment the tree man was standing on the ground on the exact spot where the trail of naked footprints ended.

“I’m certainly thrilled to meet you!”

Ellery’s hand was seized and the bones broken before he could cry out. At least, they felt broken. It was a bad day for the Master’s self-respect: he could not decide which had the most powerful hands, Roger Priam, Alfred Wallace, or the awesome brute trying to pulverize him. Delia’s son towered six inches above him, a handsome giant with an impossible spread of shoulder, an unbelievable minimum of waist, the muscular development of Mr. America, the skin of a Hawaiian ― all of which was on view except a negligible area covered by a brown loincloth ― and a grin that made Ellery feel positively aged.