THE TINKLY BELL QUAVERED over the door of Miss Curleigh’s Pet Shoppe on Amsterdam Avenue, and Mr. Ellery Queen wrinkled his nose and went in. The instant he crossed the threshold he was thankful it was not a large nose, and that he had taken the elementary precaution of wrinkling it. The extent and variety of the little shop’s odors would not have shamed the New York Zoological Park itself. And yet it housed only creatures, he was amazed to find, of the puniest proportions; who, upon the micrometrically split second of his entrance, set up such a chorus of howls, yelps, snarls, yawps, grunts, squeaks, caterwauls, croaks, screeches, chirrups, hisses, and growls that it was a miracle the roof did not come down.
“Good afternoon,” said a crisp voice. “I’m Miss Curleigh. What can I do for you, please?”
In the midst of raging bedlam Mr. Ellery Queen found himself gazing into a pair of mercurial eyes. There were other details—she was a trim young piece, for example, with masses of titian hair and curves and at least one dimple—but for the moment her eyes engaged his earnest attention. Miss Curleigh, blushing, repeated herself.
“I beg your pardon,” said Ellery hastily, returning to the matter at hand. “Apparently in the animal kingdom there is no decent ratio between lung-power and—ah—aroma on the one hand and size on the other. We live and learn! Miss Curleigh, would it be possible to purchase a comparatively noiseless and sweet-smelling canine with frizzy brown hair, inquisitive ears at the half-cock, and crooked hind-legs?”
Miss Curleigh frowned. Unfortunately, she was out of Irish terriers. The last litter had been gobbled up. Perhaps a Scottie—?
Mr. Queen frowned. No, he had been specifically enjoined by Djuna, the martinet, to procure an Irish terrier; no doleful-looking, sawed-off substitute, he was sure, would do.
“I expect,” said Miss Curleigh professionally, “to hear from our Long Island kennels tomorrow. If you’ll leave your name and address?”
Mr. Queen, gazing into the young woman’s eyes, would be delighted to. Mr. Queen, provided with pencil and pad, hastened to indulge his delight.
As Miss Curleigh read what he had written the mask of business fell away. “You’re not Mr. Ellery Queen!” she exclaimed with animation. “Well, I declare. I’ve heard so much about you, Mr. Queen. And you live practically around the corner, on Eighty-seventh Street! This is really thrilling. I never expected to meet—”
“Nor I,” murmured Mr. Queen. “Nor I.”
Miss Curleigh blushed again and automatically prodded her hair. “One of my best customers lives right across the street from you, Mr. Queen. I should say one of my most frequent customers. Perhaps you know her? A Miss Tarkle—Euphemia Tarkle? She’s in that large apartment house, you know.”
“I’ve never had the pleasure,” said Mr. Queen absently. “What extraordinary eyes you have! I mean—Euphemia Tarkle? Dear, dear, this is a world of sudden wonders. Is she as improbable as her name?”
“That’s unkind,” said Miss Curleigh severely, “although she is something of a character, the poor creature. A squirrely-faced old lady, and an invalid. Paralytic, you know. The queerest, frailest, tiniest little thing. Really, she’s quite mad.”
“Somebody’s grandmother, no doubt,” said Mr. Queen whimsically, picking up his stick from the counter. “Cats?”
“Why, Mr. Queen, however did you guess?”
“It always is,” he said in a gloomy voice, “cats.”
“You’d find her interesting, I’m sure,” said Miss Curleigh with eagerness.
“And why I, Diana?”
“The name,” said Miss Curleigh shyly, “is Marie. Well, she’s so strange, Mr. Queen. And I’ve always understood that strange people interest you.”
“At present,” said Mr. Queen hurriedly, taking a firmer grip on his stick, “I am enjoying the fruits of idleness.”
“But do you know what Miss Tarkle’s been doing, the mad thing?”
“I haven’t the ghost of a notion,” said Mr. Queen with truth.
“She’s been buying cats from me at the rate of about one a week for weeks now!”
Mr. Queen sighed. “I see no special cause for suspicion. An ancient and invalid lady, a passion for cats—oh, they go together, I assure you. I once had an aunt like that.”
“That’s what’s so strange about it,” said Miss Curleigh triumphantly. “She doesn’t like cats!”
Mr. Queen blinked twice. He looked at Miss Curleigh’s pleasant little nose. Then he rather absently set his stick on the counter again. “And how do you know that, pray?”
Miss Curleigh beamed. “Her sister told me.—Hush, Ginger! You see, Miss Tarkle is absolutely helpless with her paralysis and all, and her sister Sarah-Ann keeps house for her; they’re both of an age, I should say, and they look so much alike. Dried-up little apples of old ladies, with the same tiny features and faces like squirrels. Well, Mr. Queen, about a year ago Miss Sarah-Ann came into my shop and bought a black male cat—she hadn’t much money, she said, couldn’t buy a really expensive one; so I got just a—well, just a cat for her, you see.”
“Did she ask for a black tomcat?” asked Mr. Queen intently.
“No. Any kind at all, she said; she liked them all. Then only a few days later she came back. She wanted to know if she could return him and get her money back. Because, she said, her sister Euphemia couldn’t stand having a cat about her; Euphemia just detested cats, she said with a sigh, and since she was more or less living off Euphemia’s bounty she couldn’t very well cross her, you see. I felt a little sorry for her and told her I’d take the cat back; but I suppose she changed her mind, or else her sister changed her mind, because Sarah-Ann Tarkle never came back. Anyway, that’s how I know Miss Euphemia doesn’t like cats.”
Mr. Queen gnawed a fingernail. “Odd,” he muttered. “A veritable saga of oddness. You say this Euphemia creature has been buying ’em at the rate of one a week? What kind of cats, Miss Curleigh?”
Miss Curleigh sighed. “Not very good ones. Of course, since she has pots of money—that’s what her sister Sarah-Ann said, anyway—I tried to sell her an Angora—I had a beauty—and a Maltese that took a ribbon at one of the shows. But she wanted just cats, she said, like the one I sold her sister. Black ones.”
“Black….It’s possible that—”
“Oh, she’s not at all superstitious, Mr. Queen. In some ways she’s a very weird old lady. Black tomcats with green eyes, all the same size. I thought it very queer.”
Mr. Ellery Queen’s nostrils quivered a little, and not from the racy odor in Miss Curleigh’s Pet Shoppe, either. An old invalid lady named Tarkle who bought a black tomcat with green eyes every week!
“Very queer indeed,” he murmured; and his gray eyes narrowed. “And how long has this remarkable business been going on?”
“You are interested! Five weeks now, Mr. Queen. I delivered the sixth one myself only the other day.”
“Yourself? Is she totally paralyzed?”
“Oh, yes. She never leaves her bed; can’t walk a step. It’s been that way, she told me, for ten years now. She and Sarah-Ann hadn’t lived together up to the time she had her stroke. Now she’s absolutely dependent on her sister for everything—meals, baths, bedp…all sorts of attention.”
“Then why,” demanded Ellery, “hasn’t she sent her sister for the cats?”
Miss Curleigh’s mercurial eyes wavered. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “Sometimes I get the shivers. You see, she’s always telephoned me—she has a ’phone by her bed and can use her arms sufficiently to reach for it—the day she wanted the cat. It would always be the same order—black, male, green eyes, the same size as before, and as cheap as possible.” Miss Curleigh’s pleasant features hardened. “She’s something of a haggler, Miss Euphemia Tarkle is.”
“Fantastic,” said Ellery thoughtfully. “Utterly fantastic. There’s something in the basic situation that smacks of lavenderish tragedy. Tell me: how has her sister acted on the occasions when you’ve delivered the cats?”
“Hush, Ginger! I can’t tell you, Mr. Queen, because she hasn’t been there.”
Ellery started. “Hasn’t been there! What do you mean? I thought you said the Euphemia woman is helpless—”
“She is, but Sarah-Ann goes out every afternoon for some air, I suppose, or to a movie, and her sister is left alone for a few hours. It’s been at such times, I think, that she’s called me. Then, too, she always warned me to come at a certain time, and since I’ve never seen Sarah-Ann when I made the delivery I imagine she’s planned to keep her purchases a secret from her sister. I’ve been able to get in because Sarah-Ann leaves the door unlocked when she goes out. Euphemia has told me time and time again not to breathe a word about the cats to any one.”
Ellery took his pince-nez off his nose and began to polish the shining lenses—an unfailing sign of emotion. “More and more muddled,” he muttered. “Miss Curleigh, you’ve stumbled on something—well, morbid.”
Miss Curleigh blanched. “You don’t think—”
“Insults already? I do think; and that’s why I’m disturbed. For instance, how on earth could she have hoped to keep knowledge of the cats she’s bought from her sister? Sarah-Ann isn’t blind, is she?”
“Blind? Why, of course not. And Euphemia’s sight is all right, too.”
“I was only joking. It doesn’t make sense, Miss Curleigh.”
“Well,” said Miss Curleigh brightly, “at least I’ve given the great Mr. Queen something to think about….I’ll call you the moment an Ir—”
Mr. Ellery Queen replaced the glasses on his nose, threw back his square shoulders, and picked up the stick again.
“Miss Curleigh, I’m an incurable meddler in the affairs of others. How would you like to help me meddle in the affairs of the mysterious Tarkle sisters?”
Scarlet spots appeared in Miss Curleigh’s cheeks. “You’re not serious?” she cried.
“Quite.”
“I’d love to! What am I to do?”
“Suppose you take me up to the Tarkle apartment and introduce me as a customer. Let’s say that the cat you sold Miss Tarkle the other day had really been promised to me, that as a stubborn fancier of felines I won’t take any other, and that you’ll have to have hers back and give her another. Anything to permit me to see and talk to her. It’s mid-afternoon, so Sarah-Ann is probably in a movie theatre somewhere languishing after Clark Gable. What do you say?”
Miss Curleigh flung him a ravishing smile. “I say it’s—it’s too magnificent for words. One minute while I powder my nose and get some one to tend the shop, Mr. Queen. I wouldn’t miss this for anything!”
Ten minutes later they stood before the front door to Apartment 5-C of the Amsterdam Arms, a rather faded building, gazing in silence at two full quart-bottles of milk on the corridor floor. Miss Curleigh looked troubled, and Mr. Queen stooped. When he straightened he looked troubled, too.
“Yesterday’s and today’s,” he muttered, and he put his hand on the doorknob and turned. The door was locked. “I thought you said her sister leaves the door unlocked when she goes out?”
“Perhaps she’s in,” said Miss Curleigh uncertainly. “Or, if she’s out, that she’s forgotten to take the latch off.”
Ellery pressed the bell-button. There was no reply. He rang again. Then he called loudly: “Miss Tarkle, are you there?”
“I can’t understand it,” said Miss Curleigh with a nervous laugh. “She really should hear you. It’s only a three-room apartment, and both the bedroom and the living room are directly off the sides of a little foyer on the other side of the door. The kitchen’s straight ahead.”
Ellery called again, shouting. After a while he put his ear to the door. The rather dilapidated hall, the illpainted door…
Miss Curleigh’s extraordinary eyes were frightened silver lamps. She said in the queerest voice? “Oh, Mr. Queen. Something dreadful’s happened.”
“Let’s hunt up the superintendent,” said Ellery quietly.
They found Potter, Sup’t in a metal frame before a door on the ground floor. Miss Curleigh was breathing in little gusts. Ellery rang the bell.
A short fat woman with enormous forearms flecked with suds opened the door. She wiped her red hands on a dirty apron sad brushed a strand of bedraggled gray hair from her sagging face. “Well?” she demanded stolidly.
“Mrs. Potter?”
“That’s right. We ain’t got no empty apartments. The doorman could ’a’ told you—”
Miss Curleigh reddened. Ellery said hastily: “Oh, We’re not apartment hunting, Mrs. Potter. Is the superintendent in?”
“No, he’s not,” she said suspiciously, “He’s got a part time job at the chemical works in Long Island City and he never gets home till ha’-past three. What you want?”
“I’m sure you’ll do nicely, Mrs. Potter, This young lady and I can’t seem to get an answer from Apartment 5-C. We’re calling on Miss Tarkle, you see.”
The fat woman scowled. “Ain’t the door open? Generally is this time o’ day. The spry one’s out, but the paralysed one—”
“It’s locked, Mrs. Potter, and there’s no answer to the bell or to our cries.”
“Now ain’t that funny,” shrilled the fat woman, staring at Miss Curleigh. “I can’t see—Miss Euphemia’s a cripple; she never goes out. Maybe the poor thing’s threw a fit!”
“I trust not. When did you see Miss Sarah-Ann last?”
“The spry one? Let’s see, now. Why, two days ago. And, come to think of it, I ain’t seen the cripple for two days, neither.”
“Heavens,” whispered Miss Curleigh, thinking of the two milk-bottles. “Two days!”
“Oh, you do see Miss Euphemia occasionally?” asked Ellery grimly.
“Yes, sir.” Mrs. Potter began to wring her red hands as if she were still over the tub. “Every once in a while she calls me up by ’phone in the afternoon if her sister’s out to take somethin’ out to the incinerator, or do somethin’ for her. The other day it was to mail a letter for her. She—she gives me somethin’ once in a while. But it’s been two days now….”
Ellery pulled something out of his pocket and cupped it in his palm before the fat woman’s tired eyes. “Mrs. Potter,” he said sternly, “I want to get into that apartment. There’s something wrong. Give me your master-key.”
“P-p-police!” she stammered, staring at the shield. Then suddenly she fluttered off and returned to thrust a key into Ellery’s hand. “Oh, I wish Mr. Potter was home!” she wailed. You won’t—”
“Not a word about this to any one, Mrs. Potter.”
They left the woman gaping loose-tongued and frightened after them, and took the self-service elevator back to the fifth floor. Miss Curleigh was white to the lips; she looked a little sick.
“Perhaps,” said Ellery kindly, inserting the key into the lock, “you had better not come in with me, Miss Curleigh. It might be unpleasant. I—” He stopped abruptly, his figure crouching.
Somebody was on the other side of the door.
There was the unmistakable sound of running feet, accompanied by an uneven scraping, as if something were being dragged. Ellery twisted the key and turned the knob in a flash, Miss Curleigh panting at his shoulder. The door moved a half-inch and stuck. The feet retreated.
“Barricaded the door,” growled Ellery. “Stand back; Miss Curleigh.” He flung himself sidewise at the door. There was a splintering crash and the door shot inward, a broken chair toppling over backward. “Too late—”
“The fire-escape!” screamed Miss Curleigh. “In the bedroom. To the left!”
He darted into a large narrow room with twin beds and an air of disorder and made for an open window. But there was no one to be seen on the fire-escape. He looked up: an iron ladder curved and vanished a few feet overhead.
“Whoever it is got away by the roof, I’m afraid,” he muttered, pulling his head back and lighting a cigaret. “Smoke? Now, then, let’s have a look about. No bloodshed, apparently. This may be a pig-in-the-poke after all. See anything interesting?”
Miss Curleigh pointed a shaking finger. “That’s her—her bed. The messy one. But where is she?”
The other bed was neatly made up, its lace spread undisturbed. But Miss Euphemia Tarkle’s was in a state of turmoil. The sheets had been ripped away and its mattress slashed open; some of the ticking was on the floor. The pillows had been torn to pieces. A depression in the center of the mattress indicated where the missing invalid had lain.
Ellery stood still, studying the bed. Then he made the rounds of the closets, opening doors, poking about, and closing them again. Followed closely by Miss Curleigh, who had developed an alarming habit of looking over her right shoulder, he glanced briefly into the living room, the kitchen, and the bathroom. But there was no one in the apartment. And, except for Miss Tarkle’s bed, nothing apparently had been disturbed. The place was ghastly, somehow. It was as if violence had visited it in the midst of a cloistered silence; a tray full of dishes, cutlery, and half-finished food lay on the floor, almost under the bed.
Miss Curleigh shivered and edged closer to Ellery. “It’s so—so deserted here,” she said, moistening her lips. “Where’s Miss Euphemia? And her sister? And who was that—that creature who barred the door?”
“What’s more to the point,” murmured Ellery, gazing at the tray of food, “where are the seven black cats?”
“Sev—”
“Sarah-Ann’s lone beauty, and Euphemia’s six. Where are they?”
“Perhaps,” said Miss Curleigh hopefully, “they jumped out the window when that man—”
“Perhaps. And don’t say ‘man.’ We just don’t know.” He looked irritably about. “If they did, it was a moment ago, because the catch on the window has been forced, indicating that the window has been closed and consequently that the cats might have—” He stopped short. “Who’s there?” he called sharply, whirling.
“It’s me,” said a timid voice, and Mrs. Potter appeared hesitantly in the foyer. Her tired eyes were luminous with fear and curiosity. “Where’s—”
“Gone,” He stared at the slovenly woman. “You’re sure you didn’t see Miss Euphemia or her sister today?”
“Nor yesterday. I—”
“There was no ambulance in this neighborhood within the past two days?”
Mrs. Potter went chalky. “Oh, no, sir I can’t understand how she got out. She couldn’t walk a step. If she’d been carried, some one would have noticed. The doorman, sure. I just asked him. But nobody did. I know everythin’ goes on—”
“Is it possible your husband may have seen one or both of them within the past two days?”
“Not Potter. He saw ’em night before last. Harry’s been makin’ a little side-money, sort of, see, sir. Miss Euphemia wanted the landlord to do some decoratin’ and paperin’, and a little carpentry, and they wouldn’t do it. So, more’n a month ago, she asked Harry if he wouldn’t do it on the sly, and she said she’d pay him, although less than if a reg’lar decorator did it. So he’s been doin’ it spare time, mostly late afternoons and nights—he’s handy, Potter is. He’s most done with the job. It’s pretty paper, ain’t it? So he saw Miss Euphemia night before last.” A calamitous thought struck her, apparently, for her eyes rolled and she uttered a faint shriek. “I just thought if—if anythin’s happened to the cripple, we won’t get paid! All that work…And the landlord—”
“Yes, yes,” said Ellery impatiently. “Mrs. Potter, are there mice or rats in this house?”
Both women looked blank. “Why, not a one of ’em,” began Mrs. Potter slowly. “The exterminator comes—” when they all spun about at a sound from the foyer. Some one was opening the door.
“Come in,” snapped Ellery, and strode forward; only to halt in his tracks as an anxious face poked timidly into the bedroom.
“Excuse me,” said the newcomer nervously, starting at sight of Ellery and the two women. “I guess I must be in the wrong apartment. Does Miss Euphemia Tarkle live here?” He was a tall needle-thin young man with a scared, horsy face and stiff tan hair. He wore a rather rusty suit of old-fashioned cut and carried a small handbag.
“Yes, indeed,” said Ellery with a friendly smile. “Come in, come in. May I ask who you are?”
The young man blinked. “But where’s Aunt Euphemia? I’m Elias Morton, Junior. Isn’t she here?” His reddish little eyes blinked from Ellery to Miss Curleigh in a puzzled, worried way.
“Did you say ‘Aunt’ Euphemia, Mr. Morton?”
“I’m her nephew. I come from out of town—Albany. Where—”
Ellery murmured: “An unexpected visit, Mr. Morton?”
The young man blinked again; he was still holding his bag. Then he dumped it on the floor and eagerly fumbled in his pockets until he produced a much-soiled and wrinkled letter. “I—I got this only a few days ago,” he faltered. “I’d have come sooner, only my father went off somewhere on a—I don’t understand this.”
Ellery snatched the letter from his lax fingers. It was scrawled painfully on a piece of ordinary brown wrapping paper; the envelope was a cheap one. The pencilled scribble, in the crabbed hand of age, said:
Dear Elias:—You have not heard from your Auntie for so many years, but now I need you, Elias, for you are my only blood kin to whom I can turn in my Dire Distress! I am in great danger, my dear boy. You must help your poor Invalid Aunt who is so helpless. Come at once. Do not tell your Father or any one, Elias! When you get here make believe you have come just for a Visit. Remember. Please, please do not fail me. Help me, please! Your Loving Aunt—
Euphemia
“Remarkable missive,” frowned Ellery. “Written under stress, Miss Curleigh. Genuine enough. Don’t tell any one, eh? Well, Mr. Morton, I’m afraid you’re too late.”
“Too—But—” The young man’s horse-face whitened. “I tried to come right off, b-but my father had gone off somewhere on a—on one of his drunken spells and I couldn’t find him. I didn’t know what to do. Then I came. T-t-to think—” His buck teeth were chattering.
“This is your aunt’s handwriting?”
“Oh, yes. Oh, yes.”
“Your father, I gather, is not a brother of the Tarkle sisters?”
“No, sir. My dear mother w-was their sister, God rest her.” Morton groped for a chair-back. “Is Aunt Euphemia—d-dead? And where’s Aunt Sarah?”
“They’re both gone.” Ellery related tersely what he had found. The young visitor from Albany looked as if he might faint. “I’m—er—unofficially investigating this business, Mr. Morton. Tell me all you know about your two aunts.”
“I don’t know m-much,” mumbled Morton. “Haven’t seen them for about fifteen years, since I was a kid. I heard from my Aunt Sarah-Ann once in a while, and only twice from Aunt Euphemia. They never—I never expected—I do know that Aunt Euphemia since her stroke became…funny. Aunt Sarah wrote me that. She had some money—I don’t know how much—left her by my grandfather, and Aunt Sarah said she was a real miser about it. Aunt Sarah didn’t have anything; she had to live with Aunt Euphemia and take care of her. She wouldn’t trust banks, Aunt Sarah said, and had hidden the money somewhere about her, Aunt Sarah didn’t know where. She wouldn’t even have doctors after her stroke, she was—is so stingy. They didn’t get along; they were always fighting, Aunt Sarah wrote me, and Aunt Euphemia was always accusing her of trying to steal her money, and she didn’t know how she stood it. That—that’s about all I know, sir.”
“The poor things,” murmured Miss Curleigh with moist eyes. “What a wretched existence! Miss Tarkle can’t be responsible for—”
“Tell me, Mr. Morton,” drawled Ellery, “it’s true that your Aunt Euphemia detested cats?”
The lantern-jaw dropped. “Why, how’d you know? She hates them. Aunt Sarah wrote me that many times. It hurt her a lot, because she’s so crazy about them she treats her own like a child, you see, and that makes Aunt Euphemia jealous, or angry, or something. I guess they just didn’t—don’t get along.”
“We seem to be having a pardonable difficulty with our tenses,” said Ellery. “After all, Mr. Morton, there’s no evidence to show that your aunts aren’t merely off somewhere on a vacation, or a visit, perhaps.” But the glint in his eyes remained. “Why don’t you stop at a hotel somewhere nearby? I’ll keep you informed.” He scribbled the name and address of a hotel in the Seventies on the page of a notebook, and thrust it into Morton’s damp palm. “Don’t worry. You’ll hear from me.” And he hustled the bewildered young man out of the apartment. They heard the click of the elevator-door a moment later.
Ellery said slowly: “The country cousin in full panoply. Miss Curleigh, let me look at your refreshing loveliness. People with faces like that should be legislated against,” He patted her cheek with a frown, hesitated, and then made for the bathroom. Miss Curleigh blushed once more and followed him quickly, casting another apprehensive glance over her shoulder.
“What’s this?” she heard Ellery say sharply. “Mrs. Potter, come out of that—By George!”
“What’s the matter now?” cried Miss Curleigh, dashing into the bathroom behind him.
Mrs. Potter, the flesh of her powerful forearms crawling with goose-pimples, her tired eyes stricken, was glaring with open mouth into the tub. The woman made a few inarticulate sounds, rolled her eyes alarmingly, and then fled from the apartment.
Miss Curleigh said: “Oh, my God,” and put her hand to her breast. “Isn’t that—isn’t that horrible!”
“Horrible,” said Ellery grimly and slowly, “and illuminating. I overlooked it when I glanced in here before. I think…” He stopped and bent over the tub. There was no humor in his eyes or voice now; only a sick watchfulness. They were both very quiet. Death lay over them.
A black tomcat, limp and stiff and boneless, lay in a welter and smear of blood in the tub. He was large, glossy black, green-eyed, and indubitably dead. His head was smashed in and his body seemed broken in several places. His blood had clotted in splashes on the porcelain sides of the tub. The weapon, hurled by a callous hand, lay beside him: a blood-splattered bathbrush with a heavy handle.
“That solves the mystery of the disappearance of at least one of the seven,” murmured Ellery, straightening. “Battered to death with the brush. He hasn’t been dead more than a day or so, either, from the looks of him. Miss Curleigh, we’re engaged in a tragic business.”
But Miss Curleigh, her first shock of horror swept away by rage, was crying: “Any one who would kill a puss so brutally is—is a monster!” Her silvery eyes were blazing. “That terrible old woman—”
“Don’t forget,” sighed Ellery, “she can’t walk.”
“Now this,” said Mr. Ellery Queen some time later, putting away his cunning and compact little pocket-kit, “is growing more and more curious, Miss Curleigh. Have you any notion what I’ve found here?”
They were back in the bedroom again, stooped over the bedtray which he had picked up from the floor and deposited on the night-table between the missing sisters’ beds. Miss Curleigh had recalled that on all her previous visits she had found the tray on Miss Tarkle’s bed or on the table, the invalid explaining with a tightening of her pale lips that she had taken to eating alone of late, implying that she and the long-suffering Sarah-Ann had reached a tragic parting of the ways.
“I saw you mess about with powder and things, but—”
“Fingerprint test.” Ellery stared enigmatically down at the knife, fork, and spoon lying awry in the tray. “My kit’s a handy gadget at times. You saw me test this cutlery, Miss Curleigh. You would say that these implements had been used by Euphemia in the process of eating her last meal here?”
“Why, of course,” frowned Miss Curleigh. “You can still see the dried food clinging to the knife and fork.”
“Exactly. The handles of knife, fork, and spoon are not engraved, as you see—simple silver surfaces. They should bear fingerprints.” He shrugged. “But they don’t.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Queen? How is that possible?”
“I mean that some one has wiped this cutlery free of prints. Odd, eh?” Ellery lit a cigaret absently. “Examine it, however. This is Euphemia Tarkle’s bedtray, her food, her dishes, her cutlery. She is known to eat in bed, and alone. But if only Euphemia handled the cutlery, who wiped off the prints? She? Why should she? Some one else? But surely there would be no sense in some one else’s wiping off Euphemia’s prints. Her fingerprints have a right to be there. Then, while Euphemia’s prints were probably on these implements, some one else’s prints were also on them, which accounts for their having been wiped off. Some one else, therefore, handled Euphemia’s cutlery. Why? I begin,” said Ellery in the grimmest of voices, “to see daylight. Miss Curleigh, would you like to serve as handmaiden to Justice?” Miss Curleigh, overwhelmed, could only nod. Ellery began to wrap the cold food leftovers from the invalid’s tray. “Take this truck down to Dr. Samuel Prouty—here’s his address—and ask him to analyze it for me. Wait there, get his report, and meet me back here. Try to get in here without being observed.”
“The food?”
“The food.”
“Then you think it’s been—”
“The time for thinking,” said Mr. Ellery Queen evenly, “is almost over.”
When Miss Curleigh had gone, he took a final look around, even to the extent of examining some empty cupboards which had a look of newness about them, set his lips firmly, locked the front door behind him—pocketing the master-key which Mrs. Potter had given him—took the elevator to the ground floor, and rang the bell of the Potter apartment.
A short thickset man with heavy, coarse features opened the door; his hat was pushed back on his head. Ellery saw the agitated figure of Mrs. Potter hovering in the background.
“That’s the policeman!” shrilled Mrs. Potter. “Harry, don’t get mixed up in—”
“Oh, so you’re the dick,” growled the thickset man, ignoring the fat woman. “I’m the super here—Harry Potter. I just got home from the plant and my wife tells me there’s somethin’ wrong up in the Tarkle flat. What’s up, for God’s sake?”
“Now, now, there’s no cause for panic, Potter,” murmured Ellery. “Glad you’re home, though; I’m in dire need of information which you can probably provide. Has either of you found anywhere on the premises recently—any dead cats?”
Potter’s jaw dropped, and his wife gurgled with surprise. “Now that’s damn’ funny. We sure have. Mrs. Potter says one of ’em’s dead up in 5-C now—I never thought those two old dames might be the ones—”
“Where did you find them, and how many?” snapped Ellery.
“Why, down in the incinerator. Basement.”
Ellery smacked his thigh. “Of course! What a stupid idiot I am. I see it all now. The incinerator, eh? There were six, Potter, weren’t there?”
Mrs. Potter gasped: “How’d you know that, for mercy’s sake?”
“Incinerator,” muttered Ellery, sucking his lower lip. “The bones, I suppose—the skulls?”
“That’s right,” exclaimed Potter; he seemed distressed: “I found ’em myself. Empty out the incinerator every mornin’ for ash-removal. Six cats’ skulls and a mess o’ little bones. I raised hell around here with the tenants lookin’ for the damn’ fool who threw ’em down the chute but they all played dumb. Didn’t all come down the same time. It’s been goin’ now maybe four-five weeks. One a week, almost. The damn’ fools. I’d like to get my paws on—”
“You’re certain you found six?”
“Sure.”
“And nothing else of a suspicious nature?”
“No, sir.”
“Thanks. I don’t believe there will be any more trouble. Just forget the whole business.” And Ellery pressed a bill into the man’s hand and strolled out of the lobby.
He did not stroll far. He strolled, in fact, only to the sidewalk steps leading down into the basement and cellar. Five minutes later he quietly let himself into Apartment 5-C again.
When Miss Curleigh stopped before the door to Apartment 5-C in late afternoon, she found it locked. She could hear Ellery’s voice murmuring inside and a moment later the click of a telephone receiver. Reassured, she pressed the bell-button; he appeared instantly, pulled her inside, noiselessly shut the door again, and led her to the bedroom, where she slumped into a rosewood chair, an expression of bitter disappointment on her pleasant little face.
“Back from the wars, I see,” he grinned. “Well, sister, what luck?”
“You’ll be dreadfully put out,” said Miss Curleigh with a scowl. “I’m sorry I haven’t been more helpful—”
“What did good Dr. Prouty say?”
“Nothing encouraging. I like your Dr. Prouty, even if he is the Medical Examiner or something and wears a horrible little peaked hat in the presence of a lady; but I can’t say I’m keen about his reports. He says there’s not a thing wrong with that food you sent by me! It’s a little putrefied from standing, but otherwise it’s pure enough.”
“Now isn’t that too bad?” said Ellery cheerfully. “Come, come, Diana, perk up. It’s the best news you could have brought me.”
“Best n—” began Miss Curleigh with a gasp.
“It substitutes fact for theory very nicely. Fits, lassie, like a brassière on Mae West. We have,” and he pulled over a chair and sat down facing her, “arrived. By the way, did any one see you enter this apartment?”
“I slipped in by the basement and took the elevator from there. No one saw me, I’m sure. But I don’t underst—”
“Commendable efficiency. I believe we have some time for expatiation. I’ve had an hour or so here alone for thought, and it’s been a satisfactory if morbid business.” Ellery lit a cigaret and crossed his legs lazily. “Miss Curleigh, you have sense, plus the advantage of an innate feminine shrewdness, I’m sure. Tell me: Why should a wealthy old lady who is almost completely paralyzed stealthily purchase six cats within a period of five weeks?”
Miss Curleigh shrugged. “I told you I couldn’t make it out. It’s a deep, dark mystery to me.” Her eyes were fixed on his lips.
“Pshaw, it can’t be as completely baffling as all that. Very well, I’ll give you a rough idea. For example, so many cats purchased by an eccentric in so short a period suggests—vivisection. But neither of the Tarkle ladies is anything like a scientist. So that’s out. You see?”
“Oh, yes,” said Miss Curleigh breathlessly. “I see now what you mean. Euphemia couldn’t have wanted them for companionship, either, because she hates cats!”
“Precisely. Let’s wander. For extermination of mice? No, this is from Mrs. Potter’s report a pest-free building. For mating? Scarcely; Sarah-Ann’s cat was a male, and Euphemia also bought only males. Besides, they were nondescript tabbies, and people don’t play Cupid to nameless animals.”
“She might have bought them for gifts,” said Miss Curleigh with a frown. “That’s possible.”
“Possible, but I think not,” said Ellery dryly. “Not when you know the facts. The superintendent found the skeletal remains of six cats in the ashes of the incinerator downstairs, and the other one lies, a very dead pussy, in the bathtub yonder.” Miss Curleigh stared at him, speechless. “We seem to have covered the more plausible theories. Can you think of some wilder ones?”
Miss Curleigh paled. “Not—not for their fur?”
“Brava,” said Ellery with a laugh. “There’s a wild one among wild ones. No, not for their fur; I haven’t found any fur in the apartment. And besides, no matter who killed Master Tom in the tub, he remains bloody but un-skinned. I think, too, that we can discard the even wilder food theory; to civilized people killing cats for food smacks of cannibalism. To frighten Sister Sarah-Ann? Hardly; Sarah is used to cats and loves them. To scratch Sister-Ann to death? That suggests poisoned claws. But in that case there would be as much danger to Euphemia as to Sarah-Ann; and why six cats? As—er—guides in eternal dark? But Euphemia is not blind, and besides she never leaves her bed. Can you think of any others?”
“But those things are ridiculous!”
“Don’t call my logical meanderings names. Ridiculous, perhaps, but you can’t ignore even apparent nonsense in an elimination.”
“Well, I’ve got one that isn’t nonsense,” said Miss Curleigh suddenly. “Pure hatred. Euphemia loathed cats. So, since she’s cracked, I suppose, she’s bought them just for the pleasure of exterminating them.”
“All black tomcats with green eyes and identical dimensions?” Ellery shook his head. “Her mania could scarcely have been so exclusive. Besides, she loathed cats even before Sarah-Ann bought her distinctive tom from you. No, there’s only one left that I can think of, Miss Curleigh.” He sprang from the chair and began to pace the floor. “It’s not only the sole remaining possibility, but it’s confirmed by several things…Protection.”
“Protection!” Miss Curleigh’s devastating eyes widened. “Why, Mr. Queen. How could that be? People buy dogs for protection, not cats.”
“I don’t mean that kind of protection,” said Ellery impatiently. “I’m referring to a compound of desire to remain alive and an incidental hatred for felines that makes them the ideal instrument toward that end. This is a truly horrifying business, Marie. From every angle. Euphemia Tarkle was afraid. Of what? Of being murdered for her money. That’s borne out amply by the letter she wrote to Morton, her nephew; and it’s bolstered by her reputed miserliness, her distrust of banks, and her dislike for her own sister. How would a cat be protection against intended murder?”
“Poison!” cried Miss Curleigh.
“Exactly. As a food-taster. There’s a reversion to mediœvalism for you! Are there confirming data? A-plenty. Euphemia had taken to eating alone of late; that suggests some secret activity. Then she reordered cats five, times within a short period. Why? Obviously, because each time her cat, purchased from you, had acted in his official capacity, tasted her food, and gone the way of all enslaved flesh. The cats were poisoned, poisoned by food intended for Euphemia. So she had to re-order. Final confirmation: the six feline skeletons in the incinerator.”
“But she can’t walk,” protested Miss Curleigh. “So how could she dispose of the bodies?”
“I fancy Mrs. Potter innocently disposed of them for her. You’ll recall that Mrs. Potter said she was often called here to take garbage to the incinerator for Euphemia when Sarah-Ann was out. The ‘garbage,’ wrapped up, I suppose, was a cat’s dead body.”
“But why all the black, green-eyed tomcats of the same size?”
“Self-evident. Why? Obviously, again, to fool Sarah-Ann. Because Sarah-Ann had a black tomcat of a certain size with green eyes, Euphemia purchased from you identical animals. Her only reason for this could have been, then, to fool Sarah-Ann into believing that the black tom she saw about the apartment at any given time was her own, the original one. That suggests, of course, that Euphemia used Sarah-Ann’s cat to foil the first attempt, and Sarah-Ann’s cat was the first poison-victim. When he died, Euphemia bought another from you—without her sister’s knowledge.
“How Euphemia suspected she was slated to be poisoned, of course, at the very time in which the poisoner got busy, we’ll never know. It was probably the merest coincidence, something psychic—you never know about slightly mad old ladies.”
“But if she was trying to fool Sarah-Ann about the cats,” whispered Miss Curleigh, aghast, “then she suspected—”
“Precisely. She suspected her sister of trying to poison her.”
Miss Curleigh bit her lip. “Would you mind giving me a—a cigaret? I’m—” Ellery silently complied. “It’s the most terrible thing I’ve ever heard of. Two old women, sisters, practically alone in the world, one dependent on the other for attention, the other for subsistence, living at cross-purposes—the invalid helpless to defend herself against attacks….” She shuddered. “What’s happened to those poor creatures, Mr. Queen?”
“Well, let’s see. Euphemia is missing. We know that there were at least six attempts to poison her, all unsuccessful. It’s logical to assume that there was a seventh attempt, then, and that—since Euphemia is gone under mysterious circumstances—the seventh attempt was successful.”
“But how can you know she’s—she’s dead?”
“Where is she?” asked Ellery dryly. “The only other possibility is that she fled. But she’s helpless, can’t walk, can’t stir from bed without assistance. Who can assist her? Only Sarah-Ann, the very one she suspects of trying to poison her. The letter to her nephew shows that she wouldn’t turn to Sarah-Ann. So flight is out and, since she’s missing, she must be dead. Now, follow. Euphemia knew she was the target of poisoning attacks via her food, and took precautions against them; then how did the poisoner finally penetrate her defenses—the seventh cat? Well, we may assume that Euphemia made the seventh cat taste the food we found on the tray. We know that food was not poisoned, from Dr. Prouty’s report. The cat, then, didn’t die of poisoning from the food itself—confirmed by the fact that he was beaten to death. But if the cat didn’t die of poisoned food, neither did Euphemia. Yet all the indications are that she must have died of poisoning. Then there’s only one answer: she died of poisoning not in eating but in the process of eating.”
“I don’t understand,” said Miss Curleigh intently.
“The cutlery!” cried Ellery. “I showed you earlier this afternoon that some one other than Euphemia had handled her knife, spoon, and fork. Doesn’t this suggest that the poisoner had poisoned the cutlery on his seventh attempt? If, for example, the fork had been coated with a colorless odorless poison which dried, Euphemia would have been fooled. The cat, flung bits of food by hand—for no one feeds an animal with cutlery would live; Euphemia, eating the food with the poisoned cutlery, would die. Psychologically, too, it rings true. It stood to reason that the poisoner, after six unsuccessful attempts one way, should in desperation try a seventh with a variation. The variation worked and Euphemia, my dear, is dead.”
“But her body—Where—”
Ellery’s face changed as he whirled noiselessly toward the door. He stood in an attitude of tense attention for an instant and then, without a word, laid violent hands upon the petrified figure of Miss Curleigh and thrust her rudely into one of the bedroom closets, shutting the door behind her. Miss Curleigh, half-smothered by a soft sea of musty-smelling feminine garments, held her breath. She had heard that faint scratching of metal upon metal at the front door. It must be—if Mr. Queen acted so quickly—the poisoner. Why had he come back? she thought wildly. The key he was using—easy—a duplicate. Earlier when they had surprised him and he had barricaded the door, he must have entered the apartment by the roof and fire-escape window because he couldn’t use the key…some one may have been standing in the hall….
She choked back a scream, her thoughts snapping off as if a switch had been turned. A hoarse, harsh voice—the sounds of a struggle—a crash…they were fighting!
Miss Curleigh saw red. She flung open the door of the closet and plunged out. Ellery was on the floor in a tangle of threshing arms and legs. A hand came up with a knife….Miss Curleigh sprang and kicked in an instantaneous reflex action. Something snapped sharply, and she fell back, sickened, as the knife dropped from a broken hand.
“Miss Curleigh—the door!” panted Ellery, pressing his knee viciously downward. Through a dim roaring in her ears Miss Curleigh heard pounding on the door, and tottered toward it. The last thing she remembered before she fainted was a weird boiling of blue-clad bodies as police poured past her to fall upon the struggling figures.
“It’s all right now,” said a faraway voice, and Miss Curleigh opened her eyes to find Mr. Ellery Queen, cool and immaculate, stooping over her. She moved her head dazedly. The fireplace, the crossed swords on the wall…“Don’t be alarmed, Marie,” grinned Ellery; “this isn’t an abduction. You have achieved Valhalla. It’s all over, and you’re reclining on the divan in my apartment.”
“Oh,” said Miss Curleigh, and she swung her feet unsteadily to the floor. “I—I must look a sight. What happened?”
“We caught the bogey very satisfactorily. Now you rest, young lady, while I rustle a dish of tea—”
“Nonsense!” said Miss Curleigh with asperity. “I want to know how you performed that miracle. Come on, now, don’t be irritating!”
“Yours to command. Just what do you want to know?”
“Did you know that awful creature was coming back?”
Ellery shrugged. “It was a likely possibility. Euphemia had been poisoned, patently, for her hidden money. She must have been murdered at the very latest yesterday—you recall yesterday’s milk-bottle—perhaps the night before last. Had the murderer found the money after killing her? Then who was the prowler whom we surprised this afternoon and who made his escape out the window after barricading the door? It must have been the murderer. But if he came back after the crime, then he had not found the money when he committed the crime. Perhaps he had so much to do immediately after the commission of the crime that he had no time to search. At any rate, on his return we surprised him—probably just after he had made a mess of the bed. It was quite possible that he had still not found the money. If he had not, I knew he would come back—after all, he had committed the crime for it. So I took the chance that he would return when he thought the coast was clear, and he did. I ’phoned for police assistance while you were out seeing Dr. Prouty.”
“Did you know who it was?”
“Oh, yes. It was demonstrable. The first qualification of the poisoner was availability; that is, in order to make those repeated poisoning attempts, the poisoner had to be near Euphemia or near her food at least since the attempts began, which was presumably five weeks ago. The obvious suspect was her sister. Sarah-Ann had motive—hatred and possibly cupidity; and certainly opportunity, since she prepared the food herself. But Sarah-Ann I eliminated on the soundest basis in the world.
“For who had brutally beaten to death the seventh black tomcat? Palpably, either the victim or the murderer in a general sense. But it couldn’t have been Euphemia, since the cat was killed in the bathroom and Euphemia lay paralyzed in the bedroom, unable to walk. Then it must have been the murderer who killed the cat. But if Sarah-Ann were the murderer, would she have clubbed to death a cat—she, who loved cats? Utterly inconceivable. Therefore Sarah-Ann was not the murderer.”
“Then what—”
“I know. What happened to Sarah-Ann?” Ellery grimaced. “Sarah-Ann, it is to be feared, went the way of the cat and her sister. It must have been the poisoner’s plan to kill Euphemia and have it appear that Sarah-Ann had killed her—the obvious suspect. Sarah-Ann, then, should be on the scene. But she isn’t. Well, her disappearance tends to show—I think the confession will bear me out—that she was accidentally a witness to the murder and was killed by the poisoner on the spot to eliminate a witness to the crime. He wouldn’t have killed her under any other circumstances.”
“Did you find the money?”
“Yes. Lying quite loosely,” shrugged Ellery, “between the pages of a Bible Euphemia always kept in her bed. The Poe touch, no doubt.”
“And,” quavered Miss Curleigh, “the bodies….”
“Surely,” drawled Ellery, “the incinerator? It would have been the most logical means of disposal. Fire is virtually all-consuming. What bones there were could have been disposed of more easily than…Well, there’s no point in being literal. You know what I mean.”
“But that means—Who was that fiend on the floor? I never saw him before. It couldn’t have been Mr. Morton’s f-father…?”
“No, indeed. Fiend, Miss Curleigh?” Ellery raised his eyebrows. “There’s only a thin wall between sanity and—”
“You called me,” said Miss Curleigh, “Marie before.”
Ellery said hastily: “No one but Sarah-Ann and Euphemia lived in the apartment, yet the poisoner had access to the invalid’s food for over a month—apparently without suspicion. Who could have had such access? Only one person: the man who had been decorating the apartment in late afternoons and evenings—around dinner-time—for over a month; the man who worked in a chemical plant and therefore, better than any one, had knowledge of and access to poisons; the man who tended the incinerator and therefore could dispose of the bones of his human victims without danger to himself. In a word,” said Ellery, “the superintendent of the building, Harry Potter.”