Queen's Ransom, page 86
“We have reason to believe it was Cazalis who planned it, told her just where to get the stuff, what to do. She’s been in something of a fog for some time. They weren’t alone in his cell more than a minute or so when it happened. She brought him the poison and they both swallowed a lethal dose at the same time. It was a quick-acting poison; before the cell door could be unlocked they were writhing, and they died within six minutes. It happened so blasted fast Cazalis’s lawyer, who was standing…”
His father’s voice dribbled off into the blue. Or seemed to. Ellery felt himself straining to catch remote accents. Not really straining to catch anything. Except a misty, hard-cored something—something he had never realized was part of him—and now that he was conscious of it it was dwindling away with the speed of light and he was powerless to hold on to it.
“Herr Queen. Mr. Queen!”
Good old Seligmann. He understands. That’s why he sounds so excited.
“Ellery, you still there? Can’t you hear me? I can’t get a thing out of this goddam—”
A voice said, “I’ll be home soon, goodbye,” and somebody dropped the phone. Ellery found everything calmly confusing. There was a great deal of noise, and Frau Bauer was in it somewhere and then she wasn’t, and a man was sniveling like a fool close by while his face was hit by a blockbuster and burning lava tore down his gullet; and then Ellery opened his eyes to find himself lying on a black leather couch and Professor Seligmann hovering over him like the spirit of all grandfathers with a bottle of cognac in one hand and a handkerchief in the other with which he was gently wiping Ellery’s face.
“It is nothing, nothing,” the old man was saying in a wonderfully soothing voice. “The long and physically depleting journey, the lack of sleep, the nervous excitements of our talk—the shock of your father’s news. Relax, Mr. Queen. Lean back. Do not think. Close your eyes.”
Ellery leaned back, and he did not think, and he closed his eyes, but then he opened them and said, “No.”
“There is more? Perhaps you would like to tell me.”
He had such a fantastically strong, safe voice, this old man.
“I’m too late again,” Ellery heard himself saying in the most ridiculously emotional voice. “I’ve killed Cazalis the way I killed Howard Van Horn. If I’d checked Cazalis against all nine murders immediately instead of resting on my shiny little laurels Cazalis would be alive today. Alive instead of dead, Professor Seligmann. Do you see? I’m too late again.”
The grandfatherly voice said, “Who is being neurotic now, mein Herr?” and now it was not gentle, it was juridical. But it was still safe.
“I swore after the Van Horn business I’d never gamble with human lives again. And then I broke the vow. I must have been really bitched up when I did that, Professor. My bitchery must be organic. I broke the vow and here I sit, over the grave of my second victim. What’s the man saying? How do I know how many other poor innocents have gone to a decenter reward because of my exquisite bitchery? I had a long and honorable career indulging my paranoia. Talk about delusions of grandeur! I’ve given pronunciamentos on law to lawyers, on chemistry to chemists, on ballistics to ballistic experts, on fingerprints of men who’ve made the study of fingerprints their lifework. I’ve issued my imperial decrees on criminal investigation methods to police officers with thirty years’ training, delivered definitive psychiatric analyses for the benefit of qualified psychiatrists. I’ve made Napoleon look like a men’s room attendant. And all the while I’ve been running amok among the innocent like Gabriel on a bender.”
“This in itself,” came the voice, “this that you say now is a delusion.”
“Proves my point, doesn’t it?” And Ellery heard himself laughing in a really revolting way. “My philosophy has been as flexible and as rational as the Queen’s in Alice. You know Alice, Herr Professor? Surely you or somebody’s psychoanalyzed it. A great work of humblification, encompassing all the wisdom of man since he learned to laugh at himself. In it you’ll find everything, even me. The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small, you’ll remember. ‘Off with his head!’”
And the fellow was standing. He had actually jumped off the couch as if Seligmann had given him the hotfoot and there he was, waving his arms at the famous old man threateningly.
“All right! All right. I’m really through this time. I’ll turn my bitchery into less lethal channels. I’m finished, Herr Professor Seligmann. A glorious career of Schlamperei masquerading as exact and omnipotent science has just been packed away forever without benefit of mothballs. Do I convey meaning? Have I made myself utterly clear?”
He felt himself seized, and held, by the eyes.
“Sit down, mein Herr. It is a strain on my back to be forced to look up at you in this way.”
Ellery heard the fellow mutter an apology and the next thing he knew he was in the chair, staring at the corpses of innumerable cups of coffee.
“I do not know this Van Horn that you mention, Mr. Queen, but it is apparent that his death has upset you, so deeply that you find yourself unable to make the simple adjustment to the death of Cazalis which is all that the facts of the case require.
“You are not thinking with the clarity of which you are capable, mein Herr.
“There is no rational justification,” the deliberate voice went on, “for your overemotional reaction to the news of Cazalis’s suicide. Nothing that you could have done would have prevented it. This I say out of a greater knowledge of such matters than you possess.”
Ellery began to assemble a face somewhere before him. It was reassuring and he sat still, dutifully.
“Had you discovered the truth within ten minutes of the moment when you first engaged to investigate the murders, the result for Cazalis would have been, I am afraid, identical. Let us say that you were enabled to demonstrate at once that Mrs. Cazalis was the psychotic murderer of so many innocent persons. She would have been arrested, tried, convicted, and disposed of according to whether your laws admitted of her psychosis or held that she was mentally responsible within the legal definition, which is often absurd. You would have done your work successfully and you would have had no reason to reproach yourself; the truth is the truth and a dangerous person would have been removed from the society which she had so greatly injured.
“I ask you now to consider: Would Cazalis have felt less responsible, would his feelings of guilt have been less pronounced, if his wife had been apprehended and disposed of?
“No. Cazalis’s guilt feelings would have been equally active, and in the end he would have taken his own life as he has done. Suicide is one of the extremes of aggressive expression and it is sought out at one of the extremes of self-hate. Do not burden yourself, young man, with a responsibility which has not been yours at any time and which you personally, under any circumstances, could not have controlled. So far as your power to have altered events is concerned, the principal difference between what has happened and what might have happened is that Cazalis died in a prison cell rather than on the excellently carpeted floor of his Park Avenue office.”
Professor Seligmann was a whole man now, very clear and close.
“No matter what you say, Professor, or how you say it, the fact remains that I was taken in by Cazalis’s deception until it was too late to do more than hold a verbal post-mortem with you here in Vienna. I did fail, Professor Seligmann.”
“In that sense—yes, Mr. Queen, you failed.” The old man leaned forward suddenly and he took one of Ellery’s hands in his own. And at his touch Ellery knew that he had come to the end of a road which he would never again have to traverse. “You have failed before, you will fail again. This is the nature and the role of man.
“The work you have chosen to do is a sublimation, of great social value.
“You must continue.
“I will tell you something else: This is as vital to you as it is to society.
“But while you are doing this important and rewarding work, Mr. Queen, I ask you to keep in mind always a great and true lesson. A truer lesson than the one you believe this experience has taught you.”
“And which lesson is that, Professor Seligmann?” Ellery was very attentive.
“The lesson, mein Herr,” said the old man, patting Ellery’s hand, “that is written in the Book of Mark. There is one God; and there is none other but he.”
A Note on Names
IF ONE OF THE functions of fiction is to hold a mirror up to life, its characters and places must be identified as in life; that is, through names. The names in this story have had to be numerous. For verisimilitude they are common as well as uncommon. In either category, they are inventions; that is to say, they are names deriving from no real person or place known to the Author. Consequently if any real person finds a name in this story identical with or similar to his or her own, or if any place in this story has a nominal counterpart in life, it is wholly through coincidence.
The story has also required the introduction of certain official- and employee-characters of New York City. Where names have been given to characters in this category, if such inventions should prove identical with or similar to the names of real officials and employees of New York City, again the resemblance is coincidental and the Author states in the most positive terms that no real official or employee of New York City has been drawn on in any way. Where names have not been used, only official titles, the same assurance is given. A special point should be made in the case of the characters of the Mayor (“Jack”) and the Police Commissioner (“Barney”). Neither the present Mayor and Police Commissioner of the City of New York, nor any past Mayor or Police Commissioner, living or dead, has been drawn on in any way whatsoever.
The list of person- and name-places invented follows. If any occur in the text which do not appear on the list, it is through failure of a weary proofreading eye and the reader should assume its inclusion.
Abernethy, Archibald Dudley
Abernethy, Mrs. Sarah-Ann
Abernethy, Rev.
Bascalone, Mrs. Teresa
Bauer, Frau Elsa, Austria
Beal, Arthur Jackson
Castorizo, Dr. Fulvio, Italy
Caton, Dr. Lawrence
Cavell, Dr. John Sloughby, Great Britain
Cazalis, Dr. Edward
Cazalis, Mrs. Edward
Chorumkowski, Stephen
Cohen, Cary G.
Collins, Barclay M.
Cuttler, Nadine
Devander, Bill
Ellis, Frances
Ferriquancchi, Ignazio
Finkleston, Zalmon
Frankburner, Jerome K.
Frawlins, Constance
Gaeckel, William Waldemar
Goldberg (Detective)
Gonachy, Phil
Hagstrom (Detective)
Heggerwitt, Adelaide
Hesse (Detective)
Immerson, Mrs. Jeanne
Immerson, Philbert
Irons, Darrell
Jackson, Lal Dhyana
Johnson (Detective)
Jones, Evarts
Jurasse, Dr., France
Katz, Donald
Katz, Dr. Morvin
Katz, Mrs. Pearl
Kelly’s Bar
Kollodny, Gerald Ellis
Larkland, Dr. John F.
“Leggitt, Jimmy”
Legontz, Mrs. Maybelle
MacGayn (Detective)
“Martin, Sue”
Marzupian, Harold
Mayor of New York City (“Jack”) McKell, James Guymer
McKell, Monica
Merigrew, Roger Braham
Metropol Hall
Miller, William
Naardvoessler, Dr., Denmark
“Nostrum, Paul”
O’Reilly, Mrs. Maura B.
O’Reilly, Rian
O’Reilly, Mrs. Rian
Park-Lester Apartments
Petrucchi, Father
Petrucchi, Mr. and Mrs. George
Petrucchi, Stella
Phillips, Celeste
Phillips, Simone
Piggott (Detective)
Police Commissioner of New York City (“Barney”)
Pompo, Frank
Quigley (Detective)
Registrar of Records, Manhattan Bureau of Vital Records and Statistics of the Department of Health
Rhutas, Roselle
Richardson, Mrs. Della
Richardson, Leeper & Company Richardson, Lenore
Richardson, Zachary
Sacopy, Mrs. Margaret
Sacopy, Sylvan
Schoenzweig, Dr. Walther, Germany
Selboran, Dr. Andrés, Spain
Seligmann, Dr. Béla, Austria
Smith, Mrs. Eulalie
Smith, Violette
Soames, Billie
Soames, Mrs. Edna Lafferty
Soames, Eleanor
Soames, Frank Pellman
Soames, Marilyn
Soames, Stanley
Stone, Max
Szebo, Count “Snooky”
Treudlich, Benjamin
Ulberson, Dr. Myron
Velie, Barbara-Ann
Whithacker, Duggin
Whithacker, Howard
Willikins, Beatrice
Willikins, Frederick
Xavinzky, Reva
Young (Detective)
Zilgitt (Detective)
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1949 by Little, Brown & Company
cover design by Jim Tierney
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Ellery Queen, Queen's Ransom
