The Bizarre Murders, page 13
“I suppose there’s no harm in my walking around the grounds for a while?” he rumbled.
“If you want to break a leg over these stones in the dark, that’s up to you,” said the old, gentleman disagreeably. “I don’t care a whoop. You can’t get away, Smith, and that’s all that concerns me.”
The fat man began to say something, smacked his thin lips together, and tramped heavily down the steps. They heard his large feet crunching against the gravel on the drive long after he was no longer visible.
Ellery, in the act of lighting a cigaret, by chance caught a glimpse of Mrs. Carreau’s face in the glow that fell upon the terrace through the foyer doorway. Its expression froze him into immobility. She was staring, straining, after the vast back of the fat man, a humid terror in her soft eyes. Mrs. Carreau and the unknown quantity, Smith! … The match burned down to his fingertips and he dropped it, swearing beneath his breath. He thought he had noticed something there in the kitchen. … And yet he would have sworn that Smith had been afraid of this charming petite dame from Washington. Why should there be terror in her eyes? It was preposterous to believe that they were afraid of each other! This gross hostile creature with the trace of a lost culture in his manner and speech, and this gentlewoman from the land of misfortune. … Not impossible, to be sure. Strange lives mingled in the waters of the past. He wondered, with a certain rising excitement, what the secret might be. Did the others—? But the most searching scrutiny of the faces about him failed to detect an expression of recognition or secrecy. Except perhaps in the case of Miss Forrest. Peculiar young woman. Her eyes fluttered as she tried to avoid looking at Mrs. Carreau’s set face. Did she know too, then?
They heard Smith’s ponderous step on the gravel, returning. He mounted the steps and sat down in the same chair, his froggy eyes inscrutable.
“Find what you were looking for?” grunted the Inspector.
“Eh?”
The old gentleman waved his hand. “Never mind. This is one layout that doesn’t call for the services of a police patrol.” And he chuckled rather bitterly.
“I was merely taking a walk,” said the fat man in an offended rumble. “If you think I’m trying to get away—”
“Perish the thought? Though I shouldn’t blame you if you did.”
“By the way,” remarked Ellery, squinting at the tip of his cigaret, “I’m correct, I take it, in assuming that you and Mrs. Carreau, Smith, are, old acquaintances?”
The man sat still. Mrs. Carreau fumbled with the wisp of veil over her mouth. Then he said: “I don’t understand. Why the devil should you assume that, Queen?”
“Oh, an idle fancy. Then I’m wrong?”
Smith fished a fat brown cigar, of which he seemed to have an inexhaustible supply, from the caverns of his clothes and stuck it very deliberately into his mouth. “Why not,” he said, “ask the lady?”
Ann Forrest jumped to her feet. “Oh, this is intolerable!” she cried. “Aren’t we ever to have any rest from this endless questioning? Sherlock, let’s do something. Bridge, or—or anything. I’m sure Mrs. Xavier won’t mind. We’ll go crazy just sitting here tormenting one another this way!”
“Bully idea,” said Dr. Holmes eagerly, rising. “Mrs. Carreau—?”
“I should love to.” Mrs. Carreau rose and hesitated. “Mr. Xavier, you play a stirring game, I’ve noticed.” Her voice was very light. “Will you be my partner?”
“I suppose I may as well.” The lawyer got to his feet tall and uncertain in the dim light. “Anybody else?”
The four waited a moment and then, when no one replied, they shuffled through the French windows into the gameroom. The lights flashed on and their voices, pitched a little unnaturally, came to the ears of the Queens on the terrace.
Ellery was still squinting at his cigaret; he had not stirred. Neither had Mr. Smith. Watching him covertly, Ellery could have sworn that there was relief on the man’s lunar face.
Francis and Julian Carreau suddenly appeared in the glow from the foyer. “May we—” began Francis with a quaver. The twins looked frightened.
“May you what?” asked the Inspector kindly.
“May we go in, too, sir?” said Julian. “It’s a little—sort of—dull out here. We’d like to play some billiards, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course. Why should I mind?” smiled the Inspector. “Play billiards, eh? I shouldn’t think—”
“Oh, we can do m-most everything,” stammered Julian. “I usually use my left arm, but tonight I guess I’ll have to squirm about a bit and use my right. We’re rather good, you know, sir.”
“Don’t doubt it for a moment. Go ahead, youngsters. Have a good time. Lord knows there’s little enough for you to do around here.”
The boys grinned gratefully and disappeared through the French windows, moving with their graceful rhythm.
The Queens sat in silence for a long time. From the gameroom came the sound of shuffling cards, restrained voices, the click of billiard balls. Mrs. Xavier, shrouded in darkness, might not have existed. Smith, cold cigar stuck between his lips, seemed to be dozing.
“There’s something,” remarked Ellery at last in a low tone, “I really want to see, dad.”
“Hey?” The old gentleman started out of a reverie.
“I’ve been meaning to have a peep at it for some time now. The laboratory.”
“What in time for? We saw it when—”
“Yes, yes. That’s what gave me the notion. I think I saw something. … And then Dr. Holmes made a rather significant remark. Coming?” He rose and flicked the cigaret away into the darkness.
The Inspector got to his feet with a groan. “Might as well. Oh, Mrs. Xavier!”
There was a baffling little sound from the murk at the end of the terrace.
“Mrs. Xavier!” repeated the Inspector, alarmed. He went quickly to where the invisible woman was sitting and peered down at her. “Oh, I’m sorry. You really shouldn’t do that, now.”
She was sobbing. “Oh … please. Haven’t you tormented me enough?”
The old gentleman was distressed. He patted her shoulder awkwardly. “I know. It’s all my fault and I apologize for it. Why don’t you join the others?”
“They—they don’t want me. They all think …”
“Nonsense. It’s our nerves. A little chatter will do you good. Come on, now. You don’t want to be out here alone.”
Under his fingers he felt her shiver. “No. God, no.”
“Come along, then.”
He assisted her to her feet and a moment later they drifted into the light. Ellery sighed. The tall woman’s face was wet with tears and her eyes were red. She paused and fumbled for a handkerchief. Then she dabbed at her eyes, smiled, and sailed from the terrace.
“What a woman!” murmured Ellery. “Remarkable. Any female is who cries her eyes out and then neglects to powder the ravaged countenance … Coming?”
“Go on, go on,” said the Inspector irritably. “Less gab and more action. I’ll live to see the end of this business yet!”
“Let us sincerely hope so,” said Ellery, moving toward the foyer. There was no levity in his tone.
Avoiding the gameroom, they walked down the main corridor to the cross-hall. Through the open door of the kitchen ahead they caught a glimpse of Mrs. Wheary’s broad back and the motionless figure of Bones, who was standing at one of the two kitchen windows staring out at the Stygian night.
The Queens turned right and stopped before a closed door midway between the crossing of the halls and the door of Dr. Xavier’s study. The Inspector tried the door; it gave. They slipped into the black room.
“Where the devil’s the switch?” grumbled the Inspector. Ellery found it and the laboratory blazed with light. He closed the door and set his back against it, looking around.
Now that he was at leisure to inspect the laboratory, he felt a stronger recurrence of the impression of scientific modernism and mechanical efficiency which had struck him earlier in the day when he had been party to the gruesome business of stowing Dr. Xavier’s body away. The place bristled with awe-inspiring apparatus. To his untrained eye it was the last word in research laboratories. Notoriously unscientific, ignorant of the application of most of this glittery and queerly shaped equipment, he surveyed the array of cathode-ray tubes, electric furnaces, twisted retorts, racks of giant test tubes, bottles of evil-looking broths, microscopes and chemical jars and odd tables and X-ray machines with vast respect. Had he seen an astronomical telescope he should have not felt surprise. The variety and complexity of the equipment meant little more to him than that Dr. Xavier had been conducting chemical and physical, as well as biological, researches.
Both father and son avoided that corner of the room which housed the refrigerator.
“Well?” growled the Inspector after a time. “I don’t see anything for us here. Most likely the murderer never even set foot in this room last night. What’s bothering you?”
“Animals.”
“Animals?”
“I said,” repeated Ellery firmly, “animals. Dr. Holmes earlier today mentioned something about experiments with diverse creatures and their capacity for noise, in connection with the soundproofing of these rooms. Now I’m very curious about experimental animals, have an unscientific horror of vivisection.”
“Noise?” frowned the Inspector. “I don’t hear any.”
“Probably mildly anesthetized. Or sleeping. Let’s see. … The partition, of course!”
At the rear of the laboratory there was a boarded-off cubicle which reminded Ellery vaguely of a butcher’s icebox. A heavy door with a chromium latchet provided entrance. He tried the door; it was unlocked. Opening it, he went in, groped for an overhanging bulb, turned on the switch, and blinked, about him. The compartment was shelved; on the shelves stood cages of various sizes. And in the cages was the queerest assortment of creatures he had ever seen.
“Lord!” he gasped. “It’s—it’s colossal! Make the fortune of a Coney Island freak-show impresario. Dad! Look at this.”
The light roused them. Ellery’s last word was drowned in a torrent of animal voices: squeaks and tiny barks and the raucous screeching of fowl. The Inspector, faintly alarmed, pushed into the small compartment and his eyes widened even as his nose wrinkled in disgust.
“Pfui! Smells like the Zoo. Well, I’ll be bedeviled!”
“More,” corrected Ellery dryly, “like the Ark. All we need now is an old gentleman with a flowing beard and patriarchal robes. In pairs! I wonder if they’re consistently male and female!”
Each cage housed two creatures of the same species. There were two queer-looking rabbits, a pair of ruffle-feathered hens, two pinkish members of the guinea-pig tribe, two solemn-faced marmosets. … The shelves were full, and upon them were cages inhabited by the weirdest collection of creatures outside an animal trainer’s nightmare, many of which they failed to recognize.
But the miscellaneous nature of the collection was not what startled them. It was the fact that, as far as they could see, each pair of creatures was composed of twins—Siamese twins of the animal kingdom.
And some of the cages were empty.
They quit the laboratory rather in haste, and when the Inspector closed the corridor door behind them he heaved a sigh of relief. “What a place! Let’s get away from here.” Ellery did not reply.
When they reached the juncture of the two corridors, however, he said quickly: “Just a second. I think I’m going to gabble a little with friend Bones. There’s something …” He hurried toward the open kitchen door, the Inspector trotting wearily behind.
Mrs. Wheary whirled at the sound of Ellery’s step. “Oh! … Oh, it’s you, sir. Gave me a turn.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Ellery cheerfully. “Ah, there, Bones. I’m panting to ask you a question.”
The emaciated old man glowered. “Go ahead and ask,” he said sullenly. “I can’t stop your asking.”
“Indeed you can’t. Bones,” said Ellery, leaning against the jamb, “are you by chance a horticulturist?”
The man stared. “A what?”
“A devotee of Mother Nature, with special reference to the old lady’s flowers. I mean to say, are you trying to cultivate a garden in that stony soil outside?”
“Garden? Hell, no.”
“Ah,” said Ellery thoughtfully, “I judged not, despite what Miss Forrest said. And yet this morning you appeared from the side of the house carrying a pickax and spade. I have since investigated that side of the house and there is no sign of the simple aster, the exalted orchid, or the lowly pansy. What the devil were you burying this morning, Bones?”
The Inspector gave voice to an astonished grunt.
“Burying?” The old man did not seem perturbed: rather more surly than before, that was all. “Why, those animals.”
“Bull’s-eye,” murmured Ellery over his shoulder. “Empty cages are empty cages, eh? … And why did you have to bury animals, my good Bones?—Ah, that name! I’ve solved it! You were Dr. Xavier’s keeper of the ossuary, as it were. Eh? Well, why did you have to bury animals? Come, come, speak up.”
The yellow snags of teeth showed in a grin. “There’s a smart question. They were dead, that’s why!”
“Quite right. Stupid question. Yet one never knows, Bones. … They were the twin animals, weren’t they?”
For the first time something frightened twitched across the man’s wrinkled face. “The twin—the twin animals?”
“I’m sorry if I speak indistinctly,” said Ellery gravely. “The twin animals—t-w-i-n, twin. Eh?”
“Yes.” Bones glared at the floor.
“You buried yesterday’s quota today?”
“Yes.”
“But no longer Siamese, eh, Bones?”
“Don’t know what you mean.”
“Ah, but I’m afraid you do,” said Ellery sadly. “I mean this: Dr. Xavier has for some time been experimenting upon Siamese-twin creatures of the lower species—where in the name of heaven did he get them all?—in an earnest, quite unfiendish, and very scientific attempt to sever them surgically without loss of life to either. Is that right?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” muttered the old man. “You’ll have to ask Dr. Holmes about all that.”
“Scarcely necessary. Some—most—perhaps all of these experiments have been unsuccessful. Whereupon we find you in the unique role of animal undertaker. How much of a graveyard have you out there, Bones?”
“Not much. They don’t take up much space,” said Bones sullenly. “Only once, though, there was a big pair—cows. But mostly little ones. It’s been going on, on and off for over a year. The doctor did do some good ones, I know that.”
“Ah, some were successful? That was to have been expected from a man of Dr. Xavier’s reputed skill. And yet—Well, thank you, old-timer. Good night, Mrs. Wheary.”
“Wait a minute,” growled the Inspector. “If he’s been burying things out there … How do you know it isn’t something—?”
“Something else? Nonsense.” Ellery pulled his father gently out of the kitchen. “Take my word for it, Bones is telling the truth. No, it isn’t that that interests me. It’s the appalling possibility …” He fell silent and walked on.
“How’s that for a shot, Jule?” came the ringing voice of Francis Carreau from the gameroom. Ellery stopped, shook his head, and went on. The Inspector followed, biting his mustache.
“It does look queer,” he muttered.
They heard the heavy tread of Smith on the terrace.
Chapter Twelve
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
IT WAS THE MOST stifling night either man had ever experienced. They tossed side by side for three hours in a hell compounded of sticky darkness and acrid air, and then by mutual consent gave up the effort to woo sleep. Ellery crawled out of bed, groaning, and snapped the light on. He groped for a cigaret, pulled a chair to one of the rear windows, and smoked without savor. The Inspector lay flat on his back, cropped mustache moving up and down in a champing mutter, staring at the ceiling. The bed, their nightclothes, were soaked in perspiration.
At five o’clock, with the black sky lightening, they took turns under the shower. Then they dressed listlessly.
Morning dawned brazenly. Even the first faint streaks were dipped in molten heat. Ellery, at the window, blinked out over the valley.
“It’s worse,” he said gloomily.
“What’s worse?”
“The fire.”
The old gentleman put his snuffbox away and went quietly to the other window. From the perpendicular edges of the back of Arrow Mountain thick streamers, mile-long lengths of fluttering gray flannel, curved and lifted to the sun. But the smoke was no longer at the base of the Arrow; it had advanced with silent menace so much farther upward that it seemed to both men to be tickling the summit. The valley was almost invisible. They were floating in air—the summit, the house, themselves.
“It’s like Swift’s island in the sky,” muttered Ellery. “Looks bad, eh?”
“Bad enough, son.”
Without another word they went downstairs.
The house was dipped in silence; no one was about. The crisp chill of a mountain morning strove vainly to get at their damp cheeks as they stood on the terrace and gazed moodily at the sky. Ash and cinders rained steadily now; and although from their vantage point they could see nothing of the world below, the whirling debris of the fire brought up by the winds that incessantly spiraled the mountain told them that the blaze had made alarming progress.
“What the devil are we going to do?” complained the Inspector. “This is getting so damn serious I’m afraid to think about it. We’re in one hell of a jam, El.”
Ellery cupped his chin in his hands. “I’ll admit that the death of one human being doesn’t seem cosmically important, under the circumstances. … What the deuce was that?”
They both started up, straining their ears. From somewhere at the east of the house came a series of metallic sounds, muffled and baffling.
“I thought nobody could—” The old gentleman stopped growling. “Come on.”
