Queen's Ransom, page 82
He dodged in and out of great stores, trampling on little children, pushing and being pushed, clawing at merchandise, shouting his name and address, writing out checks—until, in midafternoon, his master list was reduced to a single uncrossed-off name.
But beside that name stood a large, repulsive question mark.
The McKells were the nice problem. Ellery had not sent them a wedding gift in view of the uncertainty surrounding their future habitat. At the time he had thought that by Christmas they would surely be settled, whereupon he could combine the nuptial gift with the seasonal; and here was the annual Miracle and neither the problem of the McKells’ residence nor the nature of his gifts to them had been solved. He had kept an eye alerted for inspiration all day. Silver? Glass? Silk?—no, not silk, definitely not silk. Ceramic? He saw a glossy Bubastis and shuddered. Native wood carving, something primitive? An antique? Nothing came, nothing at all.
Until, in late afternoon, Ellery found himself on 42nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Before Stern’s a Salvation Army lass, a strapping soldier of charity, sang hymns accompanied by a bluing comrade at a portable organ set down in the slush.
The organ made tinkly sounds in the treble and for a moment sounded like a musicbox.
Musicbox.
Musicbox!
They were originally a fad of French exquisites, dispensing snuff to little metallic tunes, but centuries of delight had made them currency in the realm of childhood and their pure elfishness purchased smiles from lovers.
Ellery dropped a dollar in the tambourine and considered his idea excitedly. Something special… featuring the Wedding March… yes, that was a must… inlays of precious woods, mother-of-pearl, cunning stonework… a big one, artfully made. An import, of course. The most delicate pieces came from central Europe… Swiss. A Swiss musicbox of the most elaborate craftsmanship would be expensive, but hang the expense. It would become a household treasure, a little chest of golden sentiment unawed by the McKell millions, to be kept at their bedside until they were eigh—
Swiss.
Swiss?
Switzerland!
ZÜRICH!
In a twinkling musicboxes, Wedding Marches, Christmas itself were forgotten.
Ellery waded wildly across 42nd Street and dashed through the side entrance into the New York Public Library.
For a point in his plot-in-progress had been bothering him for days. It concerned phobias. Ellery was postulating a significant relationship (of such is the kingdom of mystery writers) among morbid fear of crowds, of darkness, and of failure. Just how he had come to juxtapose these three phobias plotwise he did not know; it was his impression that he had read about their interrelationship, or heard about it, somewhere. But research had failed to turn up the source. It was holding him up.
And now Zürich. Zürich on the Limmat, Athens of Switzerland.
Zürich rang that bell!
For now Ellery remembered having either read or been told that in Zurich, at some recent international meeting of psychoanalysis, precisely such a phobic relationship had been the subject of a paper.
Search in the foreign periodical section of the Library rewarded him in less than an hour.
The source was a Züricher scientific journal, one of a pile Ellery was leafing through as he exercised his stiffened German. The entire issue was given over to the proceedings of the convention, which had lasted ten days, and all scientific papers read before it were reprinted in full. The paper he was interested in bore the alarming title of Ochlophobia, Nyctophobia, and Ponophobia; but when he glanced through it he found it to contain exactly what he was looking for.
He was about to go back to the beginning to start rereading carefully when an italic note at the end of the article caught his eye.
A familiar name.
—Paper read by Dr. Edward Cazalis of the United States…
Of course! It was Cazalis who had been responsible for the birth of the idea. Ellery recalled it all now. It had come up during that September night in the Richardson apartment, in the first hours of the on-scene investigation of Lenore’s murder. There had been a lull and Ellery found himself in conversation with the psychiatrist. They had talked about Ellery’s fiction and Dr. Cazalis had remarked with a smile that the field of phobias offered Ellery’s craft rich stores of material. On being pressed, Cazalis had mentioned work he himself had done on “ochlophobia and nyctophobia” in relation to the development of “ponophobia”; in fact, Ellery remembered his saying, he had read a paper on the subject at a convention in Zurich. And Cazalis had talked for a little about his findings, until they were interrupted by the Inspector and recalled to the sorry business of the night.
Ellery made a face. The brief conversation had sunk into his unconscious under the weight of events, to emerge two months later under pressure, its source forgotten. Sic semper the “original” idea.
It was an irony of coincidence that Cazalis should prove responsible for it.
Smiling, Ellery glanced at the footnote again.
—Paper read by Dr. Edward Cazalis of the United States at the night session of 3rd June. This paper was originally scheduled for presentation at 10 P.M. However, the preceding speaker, Dr. Naardvoessler of Denmark, exceeded his allotted time and did not conclude the reading of his paper until 11:52 P.M. A motion to adjourn was withdrawn when President Dr. Jurasse of France, Chairman of the Convention, asserted that Dr. Cazalis had attended all the sessions patiently awaiting the Convention’s pleasure and that, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, in view of the fact that this was the concluding session of the Convention, the distinguished Members present should extend the adjournment hour to enable Dr. Cazalis to present his paper. This was done viva voce, Dr. Cazalis presented his paper, concluding at 2:03 A.M., and the Convention was adjourned for the year by President Dr. Jurasse as of 2:24 A.M. 4th June.
Still smiling, Ellery flipped the journal to the front cover and glanced at the year of issue.
Now he did not smile. Now he sat staring at the last digit of the date as it grew rapidly larger, or as he himself rapidly shrank.
“Drink Me.”
He felt—if it could be called feeling—like Alice.
The Zürcher rabbit-hole.
And the Looking-Glass.
How did you get out?
At last Ellery got up from the table and made his way to the information desk outside the main reading rooms.
He crouched over copies of Who’s Who and the latest annual roster of the American Psychiatric Association.
Who’s Who… Cazalis, Edward.
The national roster of the American Psychiatric Association… Cazalis, Edward.
In each case a single Cazalis, Edward.
In each case the same Cazalis, Edward.
It was really not to be borne.
Ellery returned to his Zürich journal.
He turned the pages slowly.
Calmly.
Anyone watching me is saying: There’s a man who’s sure of himself. He turns pages calmly. Knows just what’s what.”
There it was.
Dr. Fulvio Castorizo, Italy
Dr. John Sloughby Cavell, Great Britain
Dr. Edward Cazalis, United States
Of course he’d be listed.
And that old man? Had he been present?
Ellery turned the page.
Dr. Walther Schoenzweig, Germany
Dr. Andrés Selborán, Spain
Dr. Béla Seligmann, Austria
Someone tapped Ellery on the shoulder.
“Closing time, sir.”
The room was empty.
Why hadn’t they caught it?
He trudged into the hall. A guard directed him to the staircase when he made the wrong turn.
The District Attorney knows his business. His office is topnotch. They’re old hands.
He supposed they had backtracked from Katz, Donald, to Petrucchi, Stella, past Richardson, Lenore, to Willikins, Beatrice, the way growing fainter as they retreated in time until, at the five-months-ago mark, it had disappeared to become impassable. But that wouldn’t have stopped them. They probably had one or two or even three others they hadn’t been able to fix. It would actually not seem necessary to fix each one. Not in so many murders. Not over such a long period in such a peculiar case where the identity of the victim was a detail hardly meriting notice. Six, say, would do the District Attorney nicely. Plus the caught-in-the-act attempt on Celeste-Phillips-thinking-she-was-Marilyn-Soames and the minute-to-minute evidence of his Soames stalk in the days preceding the attempt.
Ellery walked uncertainly up Fifth Avenue. The weather had turned very cold and the slush had frozen in serrated little icehills of dirty gray, rutted and pocked, a relief map of nowhere on which he teetered along.
This will have to be done from home… I’ve got to have a place where I can sit and feel safe.
When the ax falls.
Executions brought to your door.
At no extra charge.
He stopped at a shop window through which a faceless angel with a needlethin torch was trying to fly, and he looked at his watch.
In Vienna it’s the middle of the night.
Then I can’t go home.
Not yet.
Not till it’s time.
He drew back from the thought of facing his father like a turtle rapped on the nose.
Ellery let himself in at a quarter of 4 in the morning.
On the tips of his toes.
The apartment was dark except for a night light in the majolica lamp on the living room table.
He felt refrigerated. The mercury had dropped to five above in the streets and the apartment was only a little less icy.
His father was snoring. Ellery went to the bedroom door and shut it, thievishly.
Then he stole into his study and turned the key. He did not remove his overcoat. Switching on the desk light, he sat down and drew the telephone to him.
He dialed the operator and asked for the Overseas Operator.
There were difficulties.
It was almost 6 o’clock. The steam had just begun to rattle the radiators and he kept his eye apprehensively on the door.
The Inspector was a 6 o’clock riser.
Finally, he got through.
Ellery prayed that his father oversleep as he waited for the Vienna operator to settle matters at her end.
“Here is your party, sir.”
“Professor Seligmann?”
“Ja?”
It was an old, old voice. Its bass cracked and a little peevish.
“My name is Ellery Queen,” said Ellery in German. “You do not know me, Herr Professor—”
“Incorrect,” said the aged voice in English, Oxonian English with a Viennese accent. “You are an author of romans policiers, and out of guilt feelings for the many crimes you commit on paper you also pursue malefactors in life. You may speak English, Mr. Queen. What do you want?”
“I hope I haven’t caught you at an inopportune moment—”
“At my age, Mr. Queen, all moments are inopportune except those devoted to speculations about the nature of God. Yes?”
“Professor Seligmann, I believe you are acquainted with the American psychiatrist, Edward Cazalis.”
“Cazalis? He was my pupil. Yes?” There was nothing in the voice, nothing at all.
Is it possible he doesn’t know?
“Have you seen Dr. Cazalis in recent years?”
“I saw him in Zürich earlier this year. Why do you ask?”
“On which occasion, Herr Professor?”
“At an international convention of psychoanalysis. But you do not tell me why, mein Herr.”
“You don’t know the trouble Dr. Cazalis is in?”
“Trouble? No. What is this trouble?”
“I can’t explain now, Professor Seligmann. But it’s of the greatest importance that you give me exact information.”
The line wheezed and keened and for a moment Ellery thought: Let us pray.
But it was only the mysterious defects of the transoceanic process coming up through Professor Seligmann’s silence.
He heard the old voice again.
Growling this time.
“Are you Cazalis’s friend?”
Am I?
“Yes, I’m Cazalis’s friend,” said Ellery.
“You hesitate. I do not like this.”
“I hesitated, Professor Seligmann,” said Ellery carefully, “because friendship is a word I weigh.”
He thought he had lost, but there was a faint chuckle in his ear and the old man said: “I attended the last few days of the Zürich meeting. Cazalis was present, I heard him read his paper on the night of the last session and I kept him up until long past dawn afterward in my hotel room telling him how absurd I thought it was. Are you answered, Mr. Queen?”
“You have an excellent memory, Herr Professor.”
“You question it.”
“Forgive me.”
“I am reversing the usual process of senescence. My memory is apparently the last to go.” The old voice sharpened. “You may rely on the accuracy of the information.”
“Professor Seligmann—”
There was a word, but it was swallowed up by such a howl of atmospheric expletive that Ellery snatched the receiver from his ear.
“Herr Professor Seligmann?”
“Yes. Yes. Are you—?” But then he faded, bolting into space.
Ellery cursed. Suddenly the line was clear.
“Herr Queen! Yes?”
“I must see you, Professor Seligmann.”
“About Cazalis?”
“About Cazalis. If I fly to Vienna at once, will you see me?”
“You would be coming to Europe for this alone?”
“Yes.”
“Come.”
“Danke schön. Auf Wiedersehen.”
But the old man had already broken the connection.
Ellery hung up.
He’s so damned old. I hope he lasts.
His European flight was a bother from beginning to end. There was trouble about his visa, long talks with the State Department, much questioning and headshaking and form-filling. And passage seemed an impossibility; everyone was flying to Europe, and everyone who flew was a person of terrestrial importance. Ellery began to realize what a very small tuber he was in the vast potato patch of world affairs.
He spent Christmas in New York after all.
The Inspector was magnificent. Not once in those days of pacing did he question the purpose of Ellery’s trip. They merely discussed ways and means and the impediments.
But the Inspector’s mustache grew noticeably ragged.
On Christmas Day Ellery cabled Professor Seligmann that he was being delayed by transportation and other nuisances but that he expected clearance at any hour.
The hour arrived late on December 28, in time to save the crumbs of Ellery’s sanity.
Exactly how his father managed it Ellery never learned, but at dawn on December 29 he found himself on a conspicuously special plane in the company of persons of obvious distinction, all of whom were unmistakably bound on missions of global gravity. He had no idea where the plane was going or when it was scheduled to arrive. He heard murmurs of “London,” “Paris,” and such, but he could detect no Strauss waltzes, and to judge from the pursed blankness that met his worried inquiries the Wiener Wald was something in Moscow.
Neither his nails nor his stomach survived the Atlantic crossing.
When they did touch soil, it was fog-choked and British. Here a mysterious delay occurred. Three and a half hours later they took off again and Ellery sank into a doze. When he awoke it was to no thunder of motors. He sat in a great hush. As far as he could make out through his window, they had landed on an Arctic ice field; his very corpuscles were frozen. He nudged his companion, a U.S. Army officer. “Tell me, Colonel. Is our destination Fridtjof Nansen Land?”
“This is France. Where you going?”
“Vienna.”
The colonel pushed out his lips and shook his head.
Ellery doggedly began to work his glaciated toes. Just as the first motor exploded, the co-pilot tapped his shoulder.
“Sorry, sir. Your space is required.”
“What!”
“Orders, sir. Three diplomats.”
“They must be very thin,” said Ellery bitterly, getting up. “What happens to the bum?”
“You’ll be put up at the field, sir, till they can find space for you on another ship.”
“Can’t I stand? I promise not to sit on anybody’s lap and I’ll gladly drop off over the Ringstrasse by parachute.”
“Your bag’s already off, sir. If you don’t mind…”
Ellery spent thirty-one hours in a whistling billet, surrounded by the invisible Republic of France.
When he did reach Vienna, it was by way of Rome. It seemed impossible, but here he was on a frozen railway station with his bag and a little Italian priest who had unaccountably clung to him all the way from Rome and a sign somewhere that said Westbahnhof, which was certainly in Vienna, so he was in Vienna.
On New Year’s Day.
Where was Professor Seligmann?
Ellery began to worry about the Viennese fuel situation. He had a frostbitten recollection of engine trouble, a forced landing after tumbling over and over among the stars like a passenger on a space ship out of control, and a miserable railway train; but his chief memory was of the cold. As far as Ellery could make out, Europe was in the Second Ice Age; and he fully expected to locate Professor Seligmann imbedded in the heart of a glacier, like a Siberian mastodon, in a perfect state of preservation. He had telephoned Seligmann from Rome, giving the old man such information as he had had about his Italian plane’s scheduled arrival. But he had not foreseen the journey through outer space and the groaning aftermath of the miserable train. Seligmann was probably getting pneumonia at… which airfield had that been?
The hell with it.
Two figures approached, crunching the icy platform. But one was a saber-toothed porter and the other a Schwester of some Austrian Roman Catholic order and neither satisfied Ellery’s conception of a world-famous psychoanalyst.
