Queen's Ransom, page 64
Neighbors had heard no screams.
The fingerprint men turned up nothing of interest.
Dr. Prouty of the Medical Examiner’s office was unable to fix the time of death more accurately than the limits defined by Mrs. Cazalis’s departure and her husband’s arrival.
The strangling cord was of tussah silk.
“Henry James would have called it,” said Dr. Cazalis, “the fatal futility of facts.”
They were sitting around at dawn in the wreckage of the night over cold ginger ale and beer. Mrs. Cazalis had prepared a platter of cold chicken sandwiches to which no one applied but Inspector Queen, and he only under Ellery’s bullying. The body had been removed on the official order; the sinister blanket was gone; a breeze blew from the penthouse terrace. Mrs. Richardson was asleep in her bedroom under sedation.
“With all respect to the Great Casuist,” replied Ellery, “it’s not the futility of facts that’s fatal, Doctor, but their scarcity.”
“In seven murders?” cried the doctor’s wife.
“Seven multiplied by zero, Mrs. Cazalis. Well, perhaps not quite, but it’s very difficult.”
Inspector Queen’s jaws were going mechanically. He seemed not to be listening.
“What can I do!”
They were startled. Lenore’s father had been still so long.
“I’ve got to do something. I can’t just sit here. I have a great deal of money…”
“I’m afraid money won’t do it, Mr. Richardson,” said Ellery. “Monica McKell’s father had the same idea. His offer of $100,000 reward on August 10 hasn’t even been threatened. It’s simply increased the work of the police.”
“How about turning in, Zach?” suggested Dr. Cazalis.
“She didn’t have an enemy in the world. Ed, you know that. Everyone was mad about her. Why did this… why did he pick Lenore? She was all I had. Why my daughter?”
“Why anybody’s daughter, Mr. Richardson?”
“I don’t care about the others. What do we pay our police for!”
Richardson was on his feet, his cheeks cerise.
“Zach.”
He sagged, and after a moment he mumbled something and went out very quietly.
“No, dear, let him go,” said the psychiatrist quickly to his wife. “Zach has that sturdy Scotch sense of the fitness of things and life is very precious to him. But I’ve got to worry about you. Your eyes are drooping out of your head. Come on, darling, I’ll take you home.”
“No, Edward.”
“Della’s asleep—”
“I won’t go without you. And you’re needed here.” Mrs. Cazalis took her husband’s paw. “Edward, you are. You can’t stay out of this now. Tell me you’ll do something.”
“Certainly. I’ll take you home.”
“I’m not a child!”
The big man sprang to his feet. “But what can I do? These people are trained to this sort of thing. I wouldn’t expect them to walk into my office and tell me how to treat a patient!”
“Don’t make me seem stupid, Edward.” Her voice had sharpened. “You can tell these gentlemen what you’ve told me so many times. Your theories—”
“Unfortunately, that’s all they are. Now let’s be sensible. You’re going home this—”
“Della needs me.” The taut voice was stretching.
“Darling.” He seemed startled.
“You know what Lenore meant to me.” Mrs. Cazalis broke. “You know, you know!”
“Of course.” His glance warned Ellery and Inspector Queen off. “Lenore meant a great deal to me, too. Now stop, you’ll make yourself very ill.”
“Edward, you know what you said to me!”
“I’ll do what I can. You’ve got to cut this out, dearest. Stop it.” Gradually, in his arms, her sobs subsided.
“But you haven’t promised.”
“You needn’t go home. I think you’re right. Della will need you. Use the guest room, dear. I’ll give you something to make you sleep.”
“Edward, promise!”
“I promise. Now I’m putting you to bed.”
When Dr. Cazalis returned, he looked apologetic. “I should have seen those hysterics coming on.”
“I’d welcome a good old-fashioned emotional binge myself right now,” murmured Ellery. “By the way, Doctor, which theories was Mrs. Cazalis referring to?”
“Theories?” Inspector Queen looked around. “Who’s got theories?”
“Why, I suppose I have,” said Dr. Cazalis, seating himself and reaching for a sandwich. “Say, what are those fellows doing out there, anyway?”
“Examining the terrace and roof. Tell me about these theories of yours, Doctor.” The Inspector took one of Ellery’s cigarets; he never smoked cigarets.
“I suppose everybody in New York has one or two,” smiled the psychiatrist. “The Cat murders would naturally not pass a psychiatrist by. And even though I don’t have the inside information at your disposal—”
“It wouldn’t add much to what you’ve read.”
Cazalis grunted. “I was about to say, Inspector, that I’m sure it wouldn’t make any material difference. Where it seems to me you people have gone off is in applying to these murders the normal investigatory technique. You’ve concentrated on the victims—admittedly the sensible methodology in ordinary cases, but in this one exactly wrong. In this case you stand a better chance concentrating on the murderer.”
“How do you mean?”
“Isn’t it true that the victims have had nothing in common?”
“Yes?”
“Their lives crossed nowhere?”
“As far as we can tell.”
“Take my word for it, you’ll never find a significant point of contact. The seven seem unrelated because they are unrelated. At no time did they stand a greater chance of interrelationship than if the murderer had shut his eyes and opened the telephone directory, let’s say, to seven different pages at random, determined to kill the forty-ninth person listed in the second column of each page.”
Ellery stirred.
“We have, then,” continued Dr. Cazalis, swallowing the last of his sandwich, “seven persons dying by the same hand who have no interidentity or contiguity. What does this mean in practical terms? A series of apparently indiscriminate acts of violence. To the trained mind, this spells psychosis. I say ‘apparently’ indiscriminate, by the way, because the conduct of the psychotic appears unmotivated only when judged in the perspective of reality—that is, by more or less healthy minds viewing the world as it is. The psychotic has his motivations, but they proceed from distorted views of reality and falsification of facts.
“My opinion, based on an analysis of the data available to me, is that the Cat—damn that cartoonist! an infamous libel on a very well-balanced beast!—suffers from what we call a systematized delusional state, a paranoid psychosis.”
“Well, naturally,” said the Inspector, who seemed disappointed, “one of our first theories was that the killer’s insane.”
“Insanity is the popular and legal term,” said Dr. Cazalis with a shrug. “There are any number of individuals who, though not insane in a legal sense, are nevertheless subjects of a psychosis. I suggest we stick to the medical terminology.”
“Psychotic, then. We’ve checked the mental hospitals time and again without result.”
“Not all psychotics are institutionalized, Inspector Queen,” said the psychiatrist dryly. “That’s exactly my point. If, for example, the Cat is a paranoid psychotic of the schizophrenic type, he may well be as normal in appearance and behavior—to the untrained eye—as any of us. He might remain unsuspected for a long time, during which he could do plenty of damage.”
“I never yet talked to one of you birds,” said the Inspector wearily, “that I didn’t come away with my chin dragging.”
“I gather, Dad,” said Ellery, “that Dr. Cazalis has more to disseminate than gloom. Go on, Doctor.”
“I was merely going to suggest the alternative, which is that he may be undergoing treatment, or may have been recently under treatment, by a private doctor. It would seem to me whoever’s committing these crimes is a local product, all seven murders having taken place in Manhattan, so a good place to start checking would be right in the borough here. It would mean, obviously, getting the co-operation of every man in the field. Each one, being briefed on what to look for, could comb his own records for patients, either current or discharged, who might be possibilities; and those possibilities would have to be questioned by trained people for clinical clues as well as investigated by you people in the routine way. It might be a total frost, of course, and there’d be a dickens of a lot of work—”
“It’s not the work,” muttered Inspector Queen. “It’s the trained personnel that’s bothering me.”
“Well, I’d be glad to do what I could to help. You heard my wife! I don’t have many patients these days—” the psychiatrist made a face—“I’m tapering off to retirement—so it wouldn’t work any special hardship on me.”
“Handsome offer, Dr. Cazalis.” The Inspector rubbed his mustache. “I’ll admit this has opened up a field we haven’t scratched. Ellery, what do you think?”
“By all means,” said Ellery promptly. “It’s a constructive suggestion and might well lead straight to our man.”
“Do I detect the faintest note of doubt?” smiled Dr. Cazalis. His powerful fingers were drumming on the table.
“Perhaps.”
“You don’t agree with my analysis.”
“Not entirely, Doctor.”
The psychiatrist stopped drumming.
“I’m not convinced that the crimes are indiscriminate.”
“Then you have information I haven’t.”
“No. I base my opinion on the same data, I’m sure. But, you see, there’s a pattern in these crimes.”
“Pattern?” Cazalis stared.
“The murders have a number of elements in common.”
“Including this one?” rasped the Inspector.
“Yes, Dad.”
Dr. Cazalis began to drum again. “I take it you don’t mean consistency of methods—the cords, strangling—”
“No. I mean elements common to the seven victims. I’m convinced they signify a plan of some sort, but what it arises from, what its nature is, where it’s going… Ellery’s eyes clouded.
“Sounds interesting.” Dr. Cazalis was studying Ellery surgically. “If you’re right, Mr. Queen, I’m wrong.”
“We may both be right. I have the feeling we are. ‘Though this be madness, yet there is method in ’t.’” They laughed together. “Dad, I’d emphatically recommend that Dr. Cazalis’s suggestion be followed up, and right away.”
“We’re breaking every rule in the book,” groaned his father. “Doctor, would you consider taking full charge?”
“I? Of the psychiatric end?”
“That’s right.”
Dr. Cazalis’s fingers stopped exercising. But they remained, as it were, available.
“This is going to be as big a selling as a medical job. It won’t work unless every doctor in the field co-operates. With you heading that phase of the investigation—with your reputation and professional connections, Doctor—it’s a guarantee of thorough coverage I don’t think we’d get another way. As a matter of fact,” said the Inspector thoughtfully, “it wouldn’t be a bad arrangement for other reasons. The Mayor’s already appointed my son special investigator. We’re covering the official end. With you in charge of a medical inquiry, it would give us a three-pronged offensive. Maybe,” said the Inspector, exhibiting his denture, “maybe we’d even turn up a little something.”
He said abruptly, “I’d have to get confirmation of this downtown, Dr. Cazalis, but something tells me the Mayor and the Commissioner will be very happy about the whole thing. Pending an okay, can I tell them you’re available?”
The psychiatrist threw up his hands. “What was that line from a movie I once saw? ‘Bilked by my own chicanery!’ All right, Inspector, I’m hooked. What’s the procedure?”
“Where are you going to be later today?”
“Depends on how Della and Zach behave themselves. Either here or at home, Inspector. This morning I’m going to try to get a few hours’ sleep.”
“Try?” Ellery stretched, rising. “In my case it won’t be the least problem.”
“Sleeping is always a problem with me. I’m a chronic insomniac—a symptom which is generally part of the clinical picture,” said the psychiatrist with a smile, “of dementia, general paresis, and so on, but don’t tell my patients. I keep well supplied with sleeping pills.”
“I’ll phone you this afternoon, Dr. Cazalis.”
Cazalis nodded to the Inspector and strolled out.
The Queens were silent. The men working on the terrace were beginning to drift away. Sergeant Velie was crossing the terrace in the sun.
“What do you think?” asked the Inspector suddenly.
“Think? About what, Dad?”
“Cazalis.”
“Oh.—Very solid citizen.”
“Yes, isn’t he.”
“Nothing doing,” said Sergeant Velie. “No sign of a damn thing, Inspector. He got in by that penthouse elevator, all right.”
“The only thing is,” mumbled the Inspector, “I wish he’d stop those figure exercise of his. Makes me nervous.—Oh, Velie. Knock off and get some shuteye.”
“What about those newspaper guys?”
“They’ve probably ganged up on Dr. Cazalis. Run interference for him and tell them I’ll be right there. With my own pet line of double talk.”
The sergeant nodded and clumped off, yawning.
“How about you, Dad?”
“I’ll have to go downtown first. You going home now?”
“If I can get away in one piece.”
“Wait in the hall closet. I’ll decoy ’em into the living room here and then you can make the break.”
They parted rather awkwardly.
When Ellery woke up he found his father perched on the edge of the bed, looking at him.
“Dad. What time is it?”
“Past 5.”
Ellery stretched. “Just pull in?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Anything new in crime?”
“P.m. shows nothing so far. The cord’s a washout. It’s the other six continued.”
“How’s the atmosphere? Safe?”
“I wouldn’t say so.” Inspector Queen hugged himself as if he were cold. “They’re really laying into this one. Every line into Headquarters and City Hall jammed. The papers have taken the gloves off and they’re yelping for blood. Whatever good the announcement of your appointment did has gone up the flue with the murder of the Richardson girl. When I walked into the Mayor’s office with the Commissioner this morning to confer on the Cazalis thing His Honor practically kissed me. Phoned Cazalis then and there. First thing he said over the phone was, ‘Dr. Cazalis, when can you hold a press conference?’”
“Cazalis going to do it?”
“He’s doing it right this minute. And going on the air tonight.”
“I must be a great disappointment to His Honor.” Ellery laughed. “Now hit the sack or you’ll be a candidate for a medical conference yourself.”
The Inspector failed to move.
“There’s something else?”
“Ellery.” The old man pulled up his left leg and began slowly to untie his shoelace. “There’s been some nasty talk downtown. I wouldn’t ask you this except that if I’m to keep taking it on the chin I’ve got to know what round it is.”
“Ask me what?”
“I want you to tell me what you’ve spotted.” He began on the other shoe. “For my own information, you understand,” he explained to the shoe. “Or let me put it another way. If I’m to keep singeing my pants I want to know what the hell I’m sitting on.”
It was a kind of declaration of independence, conceived in grievance and delivered for just cause.
Ellery looked unhappy.
He reached for a cigaret and an ashtray and lay back with the tray balanced on his chest.
“All right,” he said. “From your standpoint I’m a disloyal dispenser of nothing and from your standpoint I suppose I am. Now let’s see whether what I’ve been holding out on you could prove of the slightest utility to you, me, the Mayor, the Commissioner, or the shade of Poe.
“One: Archibald Dudley Abernethy was 44 years old. Violette Smith was 42 years old. Rian O’Reilly was 40 years old. Monica McKell was 37 years old. Simone Phillips was 35 years old. Beatrice Willikins was 32 years old. Lenore Richardson was 25 years old. 44, 42, 40, 37, 35, 32, 25.”
The Inspector was staring.
“Each victim’s been younger than the victim preceding. That’s why I was so positive Dr. Cazalis couldn’t have been Number 7; he’s older than any of them. To have been seventh on the list he’d have to have been under 32, the sixth victim’s age… that is, if there was a descending-age pattern. And it turned out that Number 7, the Richardson girl, was 25, and I was right. There is a descending-age pattern. Mathematically irregular differences, but they’re always younger, younger.”
