Halfway House (3 page)

“Yes.”

“Or better still, turn your car about to block the road. We don’t want anyone running cars up these drives. I don’t see any footprints in the mud here, and that may be important. The tire marks which already exist should naturally be preserved. The rain this afternoon was an act of God… Bill! Are you listening?”

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

Ellery said gently, “Then do as I say.” He ran forward to the point where the semicircular drive began. He stopped at the edge of Lamberton Road, careful not to set foot on the driveway. There were ruts in the mushy earth in which were clearly stamped the treads of tires. He eyed them for a moment and strode back.

“I was right. Bill, perhaps you had better remain out here and guard the drives. Warn the police when they come. Don’t let anyone walk on either driveway; they can reach the house by skirting them and walking on those weedy borders… Bill!”

“I’m all right, Ellery,” muttered Bill. He was fumbling with a cigaret and shivering. “I understand.”

As he stood in the middle of the main road leaning against his car, there was something in his eyes that made Ellery turn away. Then, on impulse, he turned back. Bill smiled; a ghastly smile. Ellery patted his shoulder rather helplessly and, raising his flashlight, hurried back to the dirt lane. He vaulted over to the weeds on the river side, played the flash, and made his way cautiously toward the side door of the shack.

Fifteen feet from the porch, he stopped; the weeds ended there, and between the last clump and the porch was bare earth. He gave the old Packard to the side only a passing glance; it was ground around and beyond it that held his attention. For some time he swept the flash about and with a vaguely sensed satisfaction convinced himself that no human foot had trodden anywhere within range. Then he set his own feet down in the muck.

The wooden porch was tiny, a square platform of rotting boards raised a few inches from the mud. For the moment he ignored the half open side door and the quiet leg which he could see protruding from beyond the round table inside; instead, he crossed to the farther edge of the porch and stabbed the ground with his torch. His brows went up. A narrow path led from the porch toward the river. In the mud of this walk there were two sets of male footprints, one going and one coming. Those which pointed toward the porch were for the most part superimposed upon those which pointed toward the river. Even on superficial examination it was evident that they were all impressions of the same feet.

Ellery sent the beam dancing down the path. It led straight to a small, staggering structure perched on the very edge of the Delaware River, some forty feet away. This second shack was even more woebegone in appearance than the house. “Garage or boathouse,” he thought, peering at it. Then he quickly snapped off his flash and stepped to the threshold of the shack; for a roaring sound was growing on Lamberton Road, coming from Trenton, and it sounded like a high-powered motor car.

His panoramic survey of the room was hasty; but Mr. Ellery Queen had a genius for rapid and accurate observation, and he missed nothing in that first glance… The carpet was a curious note in this seedy hovel: it was well-worn but of superb quality—silky, deep-piled, without design, and a warm fawn in color. It had no borders and had obviously been cut to fit a room of larger size, for it was doubled under where the floor met the walls.

“Made for some woman’s modern bedroom, I’ll wager,” muttered Ellery. “What the devil is it doing here?” Then, noting that the rug was spotless, he scraped the soles of his muddy shoes on the sill of the side door—someone else had done the same thing before him, he saw—and gingerly walked into the room.

Joseph Wilson’s eyes were still open and twisted sidewise; but now they had the appearance of steamed glass. His breast had bled copiously; the shirt was saturated; but the nature of the wound was evident enough: there was a thin incision over the heart in the very vortex of the blood-welter, a wound which could only have been inflicted by a narrow-bladed cutting instrument. The approaching motor was thunderous now.

He swiftly examined the table, illuminated by the cheap lamp. A chipped crockery plate lay in the glow, its surface covered with the burnt stubs of many small yellow paper matches; otherwise it was perfectly clean. Near the plate lay a bronze-hafted paper-knife, its long wicked blade bathed to the hilt in dry blood. Something was impaled on the point—a tiny truncated cone of some indeterminate substance, for its surface was concealed under a layer of soot. Whatever it was, it had been thoroughly charred by fire. His eyes went back to the dead man.

There was something about Wilson’s contorted face, he realized with a sensation of annoyance, that had piqued him from the very first glance. Disregarding the distortion of death, it was a rather striking face, crisp-featured and interesting and in a subtle way handsome. Wilson had been in the prime of life—between thirty-five and forty, Ellery judged. The forehead was high and mild, the mouth almost feminine, the nose short, the chin faintly cleft. The curly chestnut hair at the temples was thin, but it was vigorous still. What it was that bothered him Ellery could not decide. Perhaps it was the overcast of delicate intelligence, a certain refinement, the mark of good blood…

“Who the devil,” said a cool bass voice, “are you?”

“Ah, the police,” said Ellery. “Come in, gentlemen, come in.” He flipped something negligently on the table. “Wipe your shoes off before you walk on this rug.”

The side door was crowded with men, at the head of whom stood a tall broad man with flinty eyes. The two men regarded each other for a moment; then the tall man said curtly, “Clean your shoes, boys,” and scraped his own soles on the sill. He glanced from the fawn rug to Ellery and strode in to pick up what Ellery had thrown on the table. “Oh,” he said, handing it back. “Glad to have you, Mr. Queen. This man Angell outside didn’t mention your name. I’ve met your dad once or twice. I’m De Jong, chief of police in Trenton.”

Ellery nodded. “I’ve just been poking about. I hope you haven’t been tramping all over the driveways?”

“Angell told us what you said; good hunch. I’m having the drives boarded over. Let’s see this stiff.”

The room dwindled. Men scuffed about, packing it. De Jong went down on his knees beside the dead man. A fatherly-looking old gentleman with a black bag pushed him aside. Flash lamps burst silently. Bill Angell stood in a corner out of the way and watched with stones in his eyes. “Tell me everything that’s happened, Mr. Queen,” said a wheedling woman’s voice from behind Ellery.

He turned from his puzzled scrutiny of the dead man’s face to find a tall young woman with red hair and vivid lips, pencil poised over a notebook, smiling at him. Her hat, which looked like a large discus, was pushed dowdily back on her head and a red curl drooped over one bright eye.

“And why,” asked Ellery, “should I?”

“Because,” said the young woman, “I am the voice and conscience of the pee-pul. I represent public opinion and some damn’ captious advertisers. Give, Mr. Queen.”

Ellery lit his pipe and carefully dropped the match-stub into his pocket. “It seems to me,” he said, “that I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

“
Mis
ter Queen! That line had whiskers when Cleo suckled the asp. I was sitting only a few feet away in the lobby of the Stacy-Trent when your boy-friend called you up. Good work, Sherlock; you’re living up to your reputation. Who’s the pretty lad on the floor?”

“Now you and I,” said Ellery patiently, “haven’t been formally introduced.”

“Rats! I’m Ella Amity, feature-writer for the
Trenton Times
. Come on now, sport. I’ve got the jump on everybody, but it won’t last long. Open up!”

“Sorry. You’ll have to see De Jong.”

“Stuck-up,” said Miss Amity, and she scowled. Then she burrowed in between the old gentleman with the bag and Chief De Jong, and began scribbling like mad in her notebook. De Jong winked at Ellery and slapped her round rump. She giggled, lunged at Bill Angell, hurled questions at him, scribbled some more, threw him a kiss, and darted out of the shack. Ellery heard her screaming: “Where in hell’s the nearest telephone?” and a man’s gruff: “Hey, you, walk on the weeds.” A moment later he heard the sound of a motor retreating toward the Marine Terminal.

De Jong said, “Angell,” in a friendly voice. The men stepped aside to let Bill pass. Ellery slipped into the group standing over the body.

“Let’s have it,” said the tall man. “Murphy, notes. You said outside this man was your brother-in-law. His name?”

“Joseph Wilson.” The dazed look had gone out of Bill’s eyes; his chin was forward. He mentioned an address in the Fairmont Park section of Philadelphia.

“What’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know.”

“And where do you come in on this, Mr. Queen?”

Ellery related the story of his meeting with the young lawyer in Trenton and, before either man could interrupt, the tale Bill had told him about his first journey to the shack.

“Veiled, Wilson said, eh?” De Jong frowned. “Do you think you’d recognize this dame who beat it in the Cadillac, Angell?”

“All I saw were her eyes, and they were distorted with fright. I’d know the car, though.” He described it.

“Who owns this dump?”

Bill muttered, “I haven’t the faintest idea. This is the first time I’ve been here.”

“One hell of a hole,” grunted De Jong. “I remember now. It used to be a squatter’s shack. They were kicked out years ago. I didn’t know anyone was living here; land belongs to the city… Where’s your sister, Angell?”

Bill stiffened. Ellery murmured, “Bill’s tried to get her on the ’phone, but she’s out. He’s sent her a wire.”

De Jong nodded coldly and went away. When he came back he demanded, “What business was this Wilson in?” Bill told him. “Hmn. Well, this whole thing begins to smell. What’s the verdict, Doc?”

The old gentleman struggled to his feet. “A knife through the heart. Deep wound, De Jong; very neat job. It’s a miracle he didn’t die instantly.”

“Particularly,” said Ellery, “since the weapon was removed from the wound soon after the attack.”

The chief looked at him sharply, and then at the blood-crusted paper-knife on the table. “That
is
funny. And what the hell’s that thingamabob doing on the tip? What is it, anyway?”

“On consideration,” said Ellery, “I believe you’ll find it to be a cork.”

“Cork!”

“Yes, the kind that’s often stuck on the tip of a letter-opener when it’s bought.”

“Hmn. It’s a cinch this lad wasn’t skewered with
that
on it. Somebody put it on the tip of the knife after the kill.” De Jong studied the burnt match-stubs on the plate with irritation. “And charred the cork good and plenty. In the name of hell, why?”

“That,” said Ellery, puffing at his pipe, “is technically an epic question. Most pertinent. By the way, it might be wise not to drop any matches about. I’m an intolerant believer in leaving things as they are on the scene of a crime.”

“Nobody’s smoking but you,” said De Jong in a surly way. “I’m not much on this fancy business, Mr. Queen. Let’s get down to brass tacks. You say you had an appointment with your brother-in-law, Angell? Let’s have the whole story.”

Bill did not move for a moment; and then he put his hand in his pocket and produced a crumpled yellow envelope. “I suppose I may as well,” he said harshly. “Joe came home from one of his trips last Wednesday. He left again this morning—”

“How d’ye know that?” snapped the chief, eyes on the envelope.

“He called at my office Friday afternoon—yesterday—to see me about something, and he told me he was going away the next morning—that is, today. That’s how I know.” Bill’s eyes flickered. “About noon today I received this wire at my office. Read it, and you’ll know as much about this ghastly business as I do.”

De Jong opened the envelope and extracted a telegram. Ellery read it over the big man’s shoulder.

IMPORTANT I SEE YOU TONIGHT WITHOUT FAIL STOP PLEASE KEEP SECRET FROM EVERYONE THIS MEANS A GREAT DEAL TO ME STOP I WILL BE AT AN OLD HOUSE ON DELAWARE THREE MILES SOUTH OF TRENTON ON LAMBERTON ROAD SEVERAL HUNDRED YARDS SOUTH OF MARINE TERMINAL STOP IT IS ONLY HOUSE OF ITS KIND IN VICINITY YOU CANNOT MISS IT STOP HAS A HALF CIRCLE DRIVEWAY AND A BOATHOUSE IN REAR STOP MEET ME THERE AT NINE PM SHARP STOP VERY URGENT AM IN GREAT TROUBLE AND NEED YOUR ADVICE STOP NINE PM TONIGHT DO NOT FAIL ME… JOE

“Queer, all right,” muttered De Jong. “Sent from downtown Manhattan, too. Was he supposed to go to New York, Angell, on this last business trip of his?”

“I don’t know,” said Bill shortly. His eyes were fixed on the corpse.

“What did he want to talk to you about?”

“I don’t know, I tell you. This wasn’t the last I heard from him. He ’phoned me from New York at two-thirty this afternoon at my office.”

“Well? Well?”

The words came slowly. “I couldn’t make out what he was driving at. He sounded horribly depressed and in great earnest. He wanted to make sure, he said, that I’d received his wire and was coming. He repeated how important it was to him, and of course I said I’d be there. When I asked him about the house…” Bill rubbed his forehead. “He said that was part of his secret, that no one he knew was aware of its existence, and that it was the best place for our talk for reasons he couldn’t divulge. He was growing excited and rather incoherent. I didn’t press him, and he hung up.”

“No one knew,” murmured Ellery. “Not even Lucy, Bill?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Well, it sure must have been important,” drawled De Jong, “because somebody shut his mouth tight before he could spill it. At that, he wasn’t telling the truth. Somebody did know about this house.”

“I did, for one,” said Bill coldly. “I knew when I received the telegram. Is that what you’re driving at?”

“Now, now, Bill,” said Ellery. “You’re naturally unstrung. By the way, you said that Wilson had visited your office in Philadelphia yesterday. Anything important?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. He left a bulky envelope in my keeping.”

“What’s in it?” snapped De Jong.