Ellery Queen - The Origin of Evil

Ellery tapped his pipe against an ashtray. “And here we have a man up to his ears in the Hill-Priam case who carries the admittedly assumed name of Alfred Wallace. A case in which a naturalist named Charles Adam used the theory of evolution ― fathered by Darwin and the nineteenth century Alfred Wallace ― as the basis of a series of clues. Coincidence that the secretary of one of Adam’s victims should select as his alias one of the two names associated with evolution? Out of the billions of possible name combinations? Just as Charles Adam founded his entire murder plan on his scientific knowledge, so he drew an alias out of his science’s past. He would hardly have stooped to calling himself Darwin; the obviousness of that would have offended him. But the name Alfred Wallace is almost unknown to the general public. Perhaps the whole process was unconscious; it would be a delightful irony if this man, who prides himself on being the god of events, should be mortally tripped by his own unconscious mind.”

Keats got up so suddenly that even Wallace was startled.

But the detective was paying no attention to Wallace. In the firelight his fair skin was a pebbled red as he scowled down at Ellery, who was regarding him inquiringly.

“So when you hired him as your secretary, Queen, you knew you were hiring Adam ― a successful killer?”

“That’s right, Keats.”

“Why?”

Ellery waved his dead pipe. “Isn’t it evident?”

“Not a bit. Why didn’t you tell all this to me a long time ago?”

“You haven’t thought it out, Lieutenant.” Ellery stared into the fire, tapping his lips with the stem. “Not a word of this could have been brought out at the trial. Not a word of it constitutes legal evidence. None of it is proof as proof is construed in a court of law. Even if the story could have been spread before the court, on the record, in the absence of legal proof of any of its component parts it would certainly have resulted in a dismissal of a charge against Wallace, and it might even have so garbled things as to get Priam of? too, or sentenced to a punishment that didn’t fit his crime.

“I didn’t want to chance Priam’s squeezing out by reason of sheer complication and confusion, Keats. I preferred to let him get what was coming to him and try to deal with the gentleman in this chair later. And here he’s been for a couple of months, Keats, under my eye and thumb, and I still haven’t found the answer. Maybe you have a suggestion?”

“He’s a damn murderer,” grated Keats. “Granted he got a dirty deal twenty-five years ago... when he took the law into his own hands he became as bad as they were. And if that sounds like a Sunday school sermon, let it!”

“No, no, it’s very true,” said Ellery sadly. “There’s no doubt about that at all, Lieutenant. He’s a bad one. You know it, I know it, and he knows it. But he isn’t talking, and what can you and I prove?”

“A rubber hose―”

“I don’t believe would do it,” said Ellery. “No, Keats, Wallace-Adam is a pretty special problem. Can we prove that he broke the T key on Priam’s typewriter? Can we prove that he suggested the plan behind Priam’s murder of Hill? Can we prove that he worked out the series of death threats against Priam... threats Priam boasted in court he’d sent to himself? Can we prove anything we know this fellow did or said or suggested or planned? A single thing, Keats?”

Wallace looked up at Lieutenant Keats of the Hollywood Division with respectful interest.

Keats glared back at him for fully three minutes.

Then the Hollywood detective reached for his hat, jammed it down over his ears, and stamped out.

The front door made a loud, derisive noise.

And Keats’s car roared down the hill as if the devil were after it.

Ellery sighed. He began to refill his pipe.

“Damn you, Adam. What am I going to do with you?”

The man reached for another of Ellery’s cigarets.

Smiling his calm, secretive, slightly annoying smile, he said, “You can call me Alfred.”