Ellery Queen - The Origin of Evil

“Ordinarily, Mrs. Priam, I could answer a question like that right off the bat.” Keats’s eyes shifted; he put an unlit cigaret between his lips and rolled it nervously to the corner of his mouth. A note of stubbornness crept into his voice. “But this is something I’ve never run into before. Your husband refuses to co-operate. He won’t even discuss it with me. All he said was that he won’t be caught that way again, that he could take care of himself, and that I was to pick up my hat on the way out.”

Delia went to a window. Studying her back, Ellery thought that she was relieved and pleased. Keats should have kept her on a hook; he’d have to have a little skull session with Keats on the best way to handle Mrs. Priam. But that back was disturbing.

“Tell me, Mrs. Priam, is he nuts?”

“Sometimes, Lieutenant,” murmured Delia without turning, “I wonder.”

“I’d like to add,” said Keats abruptly, “that Joe Dokes and his Ethiopian brother could have dosed that tuna. The kitchen back door wasn’t locked. There’s gravel back there, and woods beyond. It would have been a cinch for anyone who’d cased the household and found out about the midnight snack routine. There seems to be a tie-up with somebody from Mr. Priam’s and Mr. Hill’s past ― somebody who’s had it in for both of them for a long time. I’m not overlooking that. But I’m not overlooking the possibility that that’s a lot of soda pop, too. It could be a cover-up. In fact, I think it is. I don’t go for this revenge-and-slow-death business. I just wanted everybody to know that. Okay, Mr. Queen, I’m through.”

He kept looking at her back.

Brother, thought Ellery with compassion.

And he said, “You may be right, Keats, but I’d like to point out a curious fact that appears in this lab report. The quantity of arsenic apparently used, says the report, was ‘not sufficient to cause death.’ ”

“A mistake,” said the detective. “It happens all the time. Either they use way too much or way too little.”

“Not all the time, Lieutenant. And from what’s happened so far, I don’t see this character ― whoever he is ― as the impulsive, emotional type of killer. If this is all tied up, it has a pretty careful and coldblooded brain behind it. The kind of criminal brain that doesn’t make simple mistakes like underdosing. ‘Not sufficient to cause death’... that was deliberate.”

“But why?” howled young Macgowan.

“ ‘Slow dying,’ Mac!” said Laurel triumphantly. “Remember?”

“Yes, it connects with the note to Hill,” said Ellery in a glum tone. “Nonlethal dose. Enough to make Priam very sick, but not fatally. ‘Slow and sure... For each pace forward a warning.’ The poisoning attack is a warning to Roger Priam to follow up whatever was in the box he received the morning Hill got the dead dog. Priam’s warning number one ― unknown. Warning number two ― poisoned tuna. Lovely problem.”

“I don’t admire your taste in problems,” said Crowe Macgowan. “What’s it mean? All this ― this stuff?”

“It means, Mac, that I’m forced to accept your assignment,” replied Ellery. “And yours, Laurel, and yours, Delia. I shouldn’t take the time, but what else can I do?”

Delia Priam came to him and took his hands and looked into his eyes and said, with simplicity, “Thank you, Ellery. It’s such a... relief knowing it’s going to be handled... by you.”

She squeezed, ever so little. It was all impersonally friendly on her part; he felt that. It had to be, with her own son present. But he wished he could control his sweat glands.

Keats lipped his unlit cigaret.

Macgowan looked down at them, interested.

Laurel said, “Then we’re all nicely set,” in a perfectly flat voice, and she walked out.

The night was chilly, and Laurel walked briskly along the path, the beam of her flashlight bobbing before her. Her legs were bare under the long suede coat and they felt goose-pimply.

When she came to the great oak she stabbed at the green ceiling with her light.

“Mac. You awake?”

Macgowan’s big face appeared in her beam.

“Laurel?” he said incredulously.

“It’s not Esther Williams.”

“Are you crazy, walking alone in these woods at night?” The rope ladder hurtled to her feet. “What do you want to be, a sex murder in tomorrow’s paper?”

“You’d be the natural suspect.” Laurel began to climb, her light streaking about the clearing.

“Wait, will you! I’ll put on the flood.” Macgowan disappeared. A moment later the glade was bright as a studio set. “That’s why I’m nervous,” he grinned, reappearing. His long arm yanked her to the platform. “Boy, is this cosy. Come on in.”

“Turn off the flood, Mac. I’d like some privacy.”

“Sure!” He was back in a moment, lifting her off her feet. She let him carry her into his tree house and deposit her on the roll away bed, which was made up for the night. “Wait till I turn the radio off.” When he straightened up his head barely missed the ceiling. “ And the light.-

“Leave the light.”

“Okay, okay. Aren’t you cold, baby?”

“That’s the only thing you haven’t provided for, Mac. The California nights.”

“Didn’t you know I carry my own central heating? Shove over.”

“Sit down, Mac.”

“Huh?”

“On the floor. I want to talk to you.”

“Didn’t you ever hear of the language of the eyes and so forth?”

“Tonight it has to come out here.” Laurel leaned back on her arms, smiling at him. He was beginning to glower. But then he folded up at her feet and put his head on her knees. Laurel moved him, drew her coat over her legs, and replaced his head.

“All right, then, let it out!”

“Mac,” said Laurel, “why did you hire Ellery Queen?”

He sat still for a moment. Then he reached over to a shelf, got a cigaret, lit it, and leaned back.

“That’s a hell of a question to ask a red-blooded man in a tree house at twelve o’clock at night.”

“Just the same, answer it.”

“What difference does it make? You hired him, Delia hired him, everybody was doing it, so I did it too. Let’s talk about something else. If we’ve got to talk.”

“Sorry. That’s my subject for tonight.”

He encircled his mammoth legs, scowling through the smoke at his bare feet. “Laurel, how long have we known each other?”

“Since we were kids.” She was surprised.

“Grew up together, didn’t we?”

“We certainly did.”

“Have I ever done anything out of line?”

“No,” Laurel laughed softly, “but it’s not because you haven’t tried.”

“Why, you little squirt, I could break you in two and stuff both halves in my pants pocket. Don’t you know I’ve been in love with you ever since I found out where babies come from?”

“Why, Mac,” murmured Laurel. “You’ve never said that to me before. Used that word, I mean.”

“Well, I’ve used it,” he growled. “Now let me hear your side of it.”

“Say it again, Mac?”

“Love! I love you!”

“In that tone of voice?”

She found herself off the bed and on the floor, in his arms. “Damn you,” he whispered, “I love you.”

She stared up at him. “Mac―”

“I love you...”

“Mac, let go of me!” She wriggled out of his arms and jumped to her feet. “I suppose,” she cried, “that’s the reason you hired him! Because you love me, or― or something like that. Mac, what’s the reason? I’ve got to know!”

“Is that all you have to say to a guy who tells you he loves you?”

“The reason, Mac.”