Ellery Queen - The Origin of Evil

Priam’s beard had sunk to his chest.

Paler than Priam. For Delia Priam’s eyes had flashed to their widest at sight of the wallet, all the color running out of her face. Then the lids had come down as if to shut out a ghost.

Shock. But the shock of what? Fear? Yes, there was fear, but fear followed the shock; it did not precede.

Suddenly Ellery knew what it was.

Recognition.

He mulled over this, baffled. It was a new wallet. She couldn’t possibly have seen it before. Unless... For that matter, neither could Priam. Did it mean the same thing to both of them? Vaguely, he doubted this. Their reactions had thrown of? different qualities. Lightning had struck both of them, but it was as if Priam were a meteorologist who understood the nature of the disaster, his wife an ignorant bystander who knew only that she had been stunned. I’m reading too much into this, Ellery thought. You can’t judge the truth of anything from a look... It’s useless to attempt to talk to her now... In an indefinable way he was glad. It was remarkable how easily passion was killed by a dirty fact. He felt nothing when he looked at her now, not even revulsion. The sickness in the pit of his stomach was for himself and his gullibility.

“Delia, where you going?”

She was walking out.

“Mother.”

So Crowe had seen it, too. He ran after her, caught her at the door.

“What’s the matter?”

She made an effort. “It’s all too silly, darling. It’s getting to be too much for me. A wallet! And such a handsome one, too. Probably a gift from someone who thinks it’s Roger’s birthday. Let me go, Crowe. I’ve got to see Mrs. Guittierez about dinner.”

“Oh. Sure.” Mac was relieved.

And Laurel...

“The only thing that would throw me,” Keats was drawling, “I mean if I was in Mr. Priam’s shoes―”

Laurel had been merely puzzled by the wallet.

“―is what the devil I’d be expected to do with it. Like a battleship getting a lawnmower.”

Laurel had been merely puzzled by the wallet, but when she had glimpsed Delia’s face her own had reflected shock. The shock of recognition. Again. But this was not recognition of the object per se. This was recognition of Delia’s recognition. A chain reaction.

“When you stop and think of it, everything we know about these presents so far shows one thing in common―”

“In common?” said Ellery. “What would that be, Keats?”

“Arsenic, dead frogs, a wallet for a man who never leaves his house.

They’ve all been so damned useless.”

Ellery laughed. “There’s a theory, Mr. Priam, that’s in your power to affirm or deny. Was your first gift useless, too? The one in the first cardboard box?”

Priam did not lift his head.

“Mr. Priam. What was in that box?”

Priam gave no sign that he heard.

“What do these things mean?”

Priam did not reply.

“May we have this wallet for examination?” asked Keats.

Priam simply sat there.

“Seems to me I caught the flicker of one eyelash, Mr. Queen.” Keats wrapped the wallet carefully in the tissue paper and tucked it back in the box. “I’ll drop you off at your place and then take this down to the Lab.”

They left Roger Priam in the same attitude of frozen chaos.

Keats drove slowly, handling the wheel with his forearms and peering ahead as if answers lay there. He was chewing on a cigaret, like a goat.

“Now I’m wrong about Priam,” laughed Ellery. “Perfect score.”

Keats ignored the addendum. “Wrong about Priam how?”

“I predicted he’d blow his top and spill over at warning number four. Instead of which he’s gone underground. Let’s hope it’s only a temporary recession.”

“You’re sure this thing is a warning.”

Ellery nodded absently.

“Me, I’m not,” Keats complained. “I can’t seem to get the feel of this case. It’s like trying to catch guppies with your bare hands. Now the arsenic, that I could hold on to, even though I couldn’t go anywhere with it. But all the rest of it...”

“You can’t deny the existence of all the rest of it, Keats. The dead dog was real enough. The first box Priam got was real, and whatever was in it. There was nothing vapory about those dead frogs and toads, either. Or about the contents of this box. Or, for that matter,” Ellery shrugged, “about the thing that started all this, the note to Hill.”

“Oh, yes,” growled the detective.

“Oh yes what?”

“The note. What do we know about it? Not a thing. It’s not a note, it’s a copy of a note. Or is it even that? That might be only what it seems. Maybe the whole business was dreamed up by Hill.”

“The arsenic, froglets, and wallet weren’t dreamed up by Hill,” said Ellery dryly, “not in the light of his current condition and location.

No, Keats, you’re falling for the temptation to be a reasonable man. You’re not dealing with a reasonable thing. It’s a fantasy, and it calls for faith.” He stared ahead. “There’s something that links these four ‘warnings,’ as the composer of the note calls them, links them in a series. They constitute a group.”

“How?” Bits of tobacco flew. “Poisoned food, dead frogs, a seventy-five dollar wallet! And God knows what was in that first box to Priam ― judging by what followed, it might have been a size three Hopalong Cassidy suit, or a bock beer calendar of the year 1897. Mr. Queen, you can’t connect those things. They’re not connectable.” Keats waved his arms, and the car swerved. “The most I can see in this is that each one stands on its own feet. The arsenic? That means: Remember how you tried to poison me? ― this is a little reminder. The frogs? That means... Well, you get the idea.”

But Ellery shook his head. “If there’s one thing in this case I’m sure of, it’s that the warnings have related meanings. And the over-all meaning ties up with Priam’s past and Hill’s past and their enemy’s past. What’s more, Priam knows its significance, and it’s killing him.

“What we’ve got to do, Lieutenant, is crack Priam, or the riddle, before it’s too late.”

“I’d like to crack Priam,” remarked Keats. “On the nut.”

They drove the rest of the way in silence.

Keats phoned just before midnight.

“I thought you’d like to know what the Lab found out from examination of the wallet and box.”

“What?”

“Nothing. The only prints on the box were Mrs. Priam’s. There were no prints on the wallet at all. Now I’m going home and see if I’m still married. How do you like California?”

Outside her garage, Laurel looked around. Her look was furtive. He hadn’t been in the walnut tree this morning, thank goodness, and there was no sign of him now. Laurel slipped into the garage, blinking as she came out of the sun, and ran to her Austin.

“Morning, Little Beaver.”

“Mac! Damn you.”

Crowe Macgowan came around the big Packard, grinning. “I had a hunch you had a little something under your armpit last night when you told me how late you were going to sleep this morning. Official business, hm?” He was dressed. Mac looked very well when he was dressed, almost as well as when he wasn’t. He even wore a hat, a Swiss yodeler sort of thing with a little feather. “Shove over.”

“I don’t want you along today.”

“Why not?”

“Mac, I just don’t.”

“You’ll have to give me a better reason than that.”

“You... don’t take this seriously enough.”

“I thought I was plenty serious on the frog safari.”

“Well... Oh! all right. Get in.”

Laurel drove the Austin down to Franklin and turned west, her chin northerly. Macgowan studied her profile in peace.