DR. JOHN MINCHEN, PALE and curious, was waiting at the door of Dr. Janney’s office—a policeman on stolid guard at his side—when Ellery, Inspector Queen, the District Attorney, Sergeant Velie and, incredibly, a trembling hot-eyed Djuna walked rapidly into the Dutch Memorial Hospital.
For all of Ellery’s vaunted suavity, he was patently the most excited of the group, Djuna not excepted. Two red spots burned in his dark cheeks, and his eyes glittered—liquid and lively.
He herded them into the office impatiently, pushing the muscular policeman out of his way with scant ceremony and, as an afterthought, a clipped apology.
Minchen, quiet, sad, introspective, merely looked at his friend.
Ellery gripped the physician’s biceps. “John! I need some one to take a bit of stenographic dictation. Who … ? Oh, yes. That nurse. Dr. Janney’s assistant. Lucille Price. Get her for me immediately, there’s a good fellow.”
He dashed into the office as Minchen hurried away.
The Inspector was rooted in the center of the room, hands folded behind his back. “What now, you stage manager?” he asked mildly. There was a rueful gleam far back in his eyes. “I can’t see the cabinet’s made any difference.”
Ellery glanced over at the corner of the room behind the dead surgeon’s desk. A single green-steel filing-cabinet now stood directly behind it, across the right-angle made by the meeting walls. In this way it was exactly parallel to the desk.
“Velie,” drawled Ellery, “you’re the only one of us, to my knowledge, who was in the room before the murder of Dr. Janney. Remember? It was during the preliminary examination of Mrs. Doorn’s death, and you came here to search Janney’s office for his address-book. On the Swanson trail.”
“That’s right, Mr. Queen.”
“Do you recall seeing this cabinet?”
The giant rumbled reproachfully, “Sure do. It’s my business, Mr. Queen. Even tried to open the drawers, thinkin’ the address-book might be in the cabinet. But it was locked. I didn’t mention it, anyway, because these drawers were marked with cards—they’re there now, I see—tellin’ what’s in each one. Didn’t look likely that book was there.”
“Very naturally.” Ellery lit a cigarette with flying fingers. “And was the cabinet in exactly the position it’s in now?”
“Yep.”
“Were the corners of the desk as close to the wall as they are now?”
“That’s the ticket, Mr. Queen. I remember the corners were so near the wall over on that side that I could only get behind the desk on the side nearer the window. Even then it was a tight squeeze.”
“Excellent! That checks. I might say, Velie,” said Ellery with an unoffending grin, “that by omitting to mention the existence and position of the cabinet you missed your great opportunity for undying fame. Of course, you couldn’t have known. … Ah, come in, John. Come in, Miss Price.”
Dr. Minchen stepped aside to allow the trimly uniformed Lucille Price to enter. When they had both stepped over the threshold Ellery crossed the room quickly and closed the door.
“Nous commençons,” he said in a cheerful voice. He returned to the center of the room, rubbing his hands. “Miss Price, I want you to sit at your desk and take more notes for us. That’s right” The nurse sat down and, unlocking the top drawer of her small desk, extracted a notebook and a pencil; she waited quietly.
Ellery waved at his father. “Dad, I’d be obliged if you will sit in Dr. Janney’s swivel-chair.” The Inspector obeyed with a faint smile. Ellery clapped the big sergeant’s back with vigor, motioning him to take his stand by the door. “Sampson, you might sit—here.” Ellery pulled a chair forward from the west wall and the District Attorney seated himself without a word. “Djuna, old son.” The boy was breathing hard with excitement. “You’re naturally in on this. You stand over by the bookcase, where you’ll be close to Sergeant Velie’s huge and protective wings.” Djuna scuttled across the room and stood in precisely the spot indicated, as if by standing one inch farther to the right he would have completely upset Ellery’s plans. “John. You might sit down beside District Attorney Sampson.” The physician obeyed. “And now we’re ready. The stage is set. Old spider’s waiting with figuratively dripping jaws, and if I’m not mistaken we’ll have the unsuspecting fly quicker than quick!”
Ellery dragged the large chair on the east wall to a commanding position in the office, sat down, adjusted his pince-nez with annoying deliberation, slumped in the chair and with a sigh stretched his legs.
“Ready, Miss Price?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well. Take a memorandum to the Police Commissioner of the City of New York. Address it ‘Dear Commissioner.’ Got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sub-head. ‘From Inspector Richard Queen re’—indicate italicization by underlining that, Miss Price—‘re Murder of Mrs. Abigail Doorn and Dr. Francis Janney.’ Message. ‘I have the extreme honor and pleasure to report—’”
At this moment, when the only sounds in the room were the slow even words of Ellery, the scratch of the nurse’s pencil and the heavy breathing of Ellery’s audience, there came a sharp rap on the door.
Ellery’s head jerked toward Velie. “See who it is.”
The sergeant opened the door a few inches and growled, “Well?”
A male voice said uncertainly, “Is Dr. Minchen in there? Dr. Dunning wants to see him in his office.”
Velie looked at Ellery with a question in his eyes. Ellery turned to Dr. Minchen and asked mockingly, “Would you like to leave, John? Dunning evidently needs you badly.”
The physician gripped the arms of his chair, half rose. “Well—do you think I ought to—?”
“Suit yourself. I think there will be a most diverting entertainment enacted here in a moment or so which you shouldn’t miss. …”
Minchen muttered, “Tell him I’m busy.” He sank back.
Velie shut the door in the man’s face.
“Who was it, Velie?” inquired Ellery.
“This guy Cobb, the doorman.”
“Oh!” Ellery leaned back again. “To proceed, Miss Price, from the point where we were so rudely interrupted. What did I dictate?”
The girl read in a clear rapid voice, “‘Memorandum to the Police Commissioner of the City of New York. From Inspector Richard Queen re Murder of Mrs. Abigail Doorn and Dr. Francis Janney. Dear Commissioner: I have the extreme honor and pleasure to report—’”
“‘—that both of the abovementioned cases are now solved. Mrs. Doorn and Dr. Francis Janney were murdered by the same assailant. For reasons which I shall explain later, in my regular detailed report—’”
Ellery jumped to his feet as another knock sounded on the door. His face flamed. “Who is that, for the love of heaven?” he cried. “Velie, keep that door closed. I don’t want these confounded interruptions!”
Velie opened the door a few inches, thrust his ham-like hand out into the corridor, gestured pointedly and briefly, and withdrawing his hand slammed the door.
“This here Dr. Gold,” he said. “To hell with him.”
“Verily.” Ellery jabbed his finger at the nurse. “Continue, ‘For reasons which I shall explain later, in my regular detailed report, I shall not go into the matters of motive and method in this memorandum.’ Paragraph, Miss Price. ‘The killer of Mrs. Doorn and Dr. Janney is—’”
Again Ellery paused, and this time there was no faintest whisper of sound in the office. “One moment. I forgot There’s a bit of information I must include here—it’s on that Fuller-Dunning case-history of Janney’s. … Miss Price, please get me that report before we continue.”
“Certainly, Mr. Queen.”
The nurse rustled crisply out of her swivel-chair and, placing her notebook and pencil on her typewriter, crossed the room to Dr. Janney’s desk.
“Pardon me—?” she murmured.
Inspector Queen muttered something beneath his breath and hitched his chair forward to allow her to pass behind him, between desk and wall. She brushed past the old man, took a small key from her starched apron-pocket and bent over, inserting the key into the lock of the bottom drawer of the filing-cabinet.
The room was still as death. The Inspector did not turn his head; his fingers were playing with a glass paperweight. Velie, Sampson, Minchen and Djuna watched the girl’s businesslike movements with varying expressions of tension and befuddlement
She straightened up with a blue-bound sheaf of papers in her hand and, again brushing past the Inspector, handed the case-history to Ellery. She returned quietly to her seat and poised her pencil over the notebook.
Ellery lay comfortably in his chair, smoke dribbling from his lips. Mechanically his fingers flipped the pages of the blue-bound report, but his shuttered eyes were boring into the eyes of his father, sitting behind the dead man’s desk. A communication was born and sparked across the space between them. Something leaped into the Inspector’s face—an expression of intelligence, of amazement, of purpose. It died almost instantly, leaving the old man grim-lipped and lined.
Ellery smiled. “I have an idea,” he drawled, “that Inspector Richard Queen has just made an important discovery. Leave it to the Queens!” The Inspector shifted restlessly. “Dad, how would you like to complete the dictation of this memorandum to the Police Commissioner?”
“I believe I shall,” said the Inspector in a cool placid voice. He rose from the swivel-chair, squeezed by the desk and, crossing the room, set his knuckles on the nurse’s typewriter.
“Take this, Miss Price,” he said, and his eyes were bright and dangerous. “‘The killer of Mrs. Doorn and Dr. Janney is—’ grab her, Thomas!—‘Lucille Price!’”