The Finishing Stroke (13 page)

‘Not a particle.' Ellery turned the card over. ‘And here's another pencil jotting.'

‘The essential hand,' Ellery murmured. ‘Form stripped to its skeletal function. Complete with X – in case John can't read, I presume. It's so inane it's frightening.'

He tossed the card on the table and turned away. One by one they drifted back to their chairs. No one, not even Dr. Dark, seemed disposed to turn the radio on.

‘John darling,' Rusty said.

‘What?'

‘Darling, you're not really taking this seriously, are you?'

‘Oh, no,' John said. ‘I've been weaned on death threats. They don't mean a thing to me, sweet Rusty Brown. I eat 'em for breakfast, belch 'em for lunch and digest them for dinner. They roll right off my backside, girlie. Serious!' he exploded. ‘What am I supposed to do, Rusty, die laughing?'

‘John, John,' his guardian said.

‘Come on, Ellery,' John cried. ‘This is your stuff. The screwball-de-luxe type. Don't hold out on us. Expatiate.'

‘Hear, hear,' Marius said, banging his glass on the arm of his chair. ‘Speech.'

‘In English,' Roland Payn said darkly.

‘In spades,' Dr. Dark said, watching John.

‘In God's mercy,' Mr. Gardiner said in low tones.

‘In any damn way at all!' John shouted; and he sat down and drained his glass.

‘All right, I'll take as the subject of my discourse this evening the Curious Coincidence of the Twelves,' Ellery said on exactly the right note of amiability. Rusty looked her thanks.

‘I'll listen to anything,' Ellen said disagreeably, ‘but are we back to that again?'

‘We've never left it, Miss Craig,' Ellery said, bowing to her. John looked up rather vacantly. Then he settled back in his chair.

‘Go on, Ellery,' Rusty begged.

‘Twelve people in our party,' Ellery said, nodding. ‘A holiday consisting of the Twelve Days – or Nights – of Christmas. Among the twelve people we have represented the twelve signs of the zodiac. And John receives nightly gifts accompanied by parodies of the English carol actually known as “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Twelves all over the place. Too many for coincidence. So I say to myself: Can the number twelve be a planned signpost to something? For example, can I connect anyone here with twelveness?'

Sergeant Devoe had made a quiet appearance from the hall, and he had listened with mounting disbelief. Now he leaned against the archway, open-mouthed.

‘Well, let's see.' Ellery looked around. His eyes lit on Roland Payn. ‘Suppose we start with Mr. Payn.'

‘Me?' The lawyer was taken by surprise. ‘I'd appreciate it if you left me out of this nonsense, Queen.'

‘No, no, you can't be left out of it. That's the whole point of the inquiry. Think, Mr. Payn, hard. Does the number twelve – in any context – strike fire anywhere in your personal experience?'

‘Of course not!' Payn replied, not with grace.

‘Your professional life? You're a lawyer. Lawyer … Of course!' Ellery said, beaming. ‘What could be clearer? Lawyer – jury. Twelve good men and true. You see?'

‘I hardly ever try a case in court,' the white-haired estate attorney snapped. ‘Anyway, I'm in the civil law, not the criminal.'

‘Oh, come, Payn,' Freeman said unexpectedly. ‘This could be fun. Surely –?'

‘Well, I really don't know of any twelve.'

‘Roland, how can you have forgotten your postgraduate thesis?' Craig asked solemnly. ‘You were so proud of it that years later you had me design and print a private edition of it for distribution among your legal friends. Don't you remember? It was about that fifth century
BC
code of Roman law.'

‘My God,' the lawyer groaned. ‘Arthur, never mind!'

‘The title of it, of course,' Craig chuckled, with a side glance at John, ‘was
Lex XII. Tabularum
– I have a copy of it around somewhere.
The Law of the Twelve Tables
, by Roland Payn.'

‘Yes, yes, that's right, Arthur,' Payn said with a feeble smile. ‘I'd forgotten. And I don't thank you for reminding me.'

‘So there we are,' Ellery said cheerfully. ‘Mr. Payn, you at least have now been connected with twelveness. In fact, come to think of it, you're also a douzeper.'

‘I'm a what?' Payn gasped.

‘Douzeper,' Ellery assured him. ‘The douzepers were the twelve paladins of Charlemagne. Surely you can't have forgotten the most famous paladin of them all? Doesn't
Chanson de Roland
ring a bell for you, Mr. Payn? “A Roland for an Oliver”?
Childe Rowland?
My dear sir, you're up to your quiddities in twelves. Now, who's next? Dr. Dark?'

John was smiling. Rusty moved over to him and curled up in his lap. Her hand slipped into his and squeezed. He kissed the tip of her nose.

‘Doctor, we're waiting,' Ellery said in a chiding tone. ‘What does twelve mean to you?'

‘The hour when I'm usually wakened from a sound sleep by a patient who's positive she has the Australian pip,' the fat man said. ‘However, I could refer you to the twelve cranial nerves, an inescapable part of the anatomy, which terminate in the twelfth, or hypoglossal, nerve –'

‘Remote, remote,' Ellery said with a frown.

‘Think, Samson,' Craig chuckled.

‘Samson! Did you say Samson, Mr. Craig?' Ellery cried.

‘Certainly I said Samson. That's his name.'

‘And I thought it was Samuel! Well, that makes all the difference,' Ellery said with satisfaction. ‘You see that, of course.'

‘Frankly,' Ellen said, ‘
no
.'

‘What do they teach you at Wellesley? Samson is the Biblical equivalent of the Greek Hercules. And what does Hercules suggest?'

‘The Twelve Labours!' Freeman said, smiling broadly.

‘You see the advantages of an ivory tower.'

‘Ivory tower my foot. It reminds me of Mrs. Jabotinsky,' Dr. Dark said. ‘Or at least it seemed like twelve labours to me before I got her on the delivery table.'

‘And he said the hypoglossal nerve was
remote
!' Ellen shrieked.

John laughed a big booming laugh.

After that it was easy. Marius Carlo qualified as a musical disciple of Schönberg's, with his twelve-tone system; Mr. Gardiner was linked with the Twelve Apostles, one of whose names – Andrew – he actually bore; Mrs. Brown and the twelveness of the zodiac were natural affinities; Arthur Craig was accepted through one of the annual staples of his press, the famous Craig Calendars; Valentina, denying that she had ever played Shakespeare's
Twelfth Night
, nevertheless insisted on inclusion because she was Sagittarius, the archer, and her birthdate was December twelfth – the twelfth day of the twelfth month! Rusty was a problem until Ellery ferreted from her the information that her baptismal name was not Rusty at all, but Yolanda; which, having seven letters, combined with the five letters of her surname to add up to the magic twelve; and Dan Z. Freeman, who was of the Jewish faith, was unanimously voted – by John's nomination – Grand Twelveness, since his Jewishness not only suggested the Twelve Tribes of Israel and their chiefs, the Twelve Sons of Jacob, but his first name, Dan, was the name of one of the twelve and his middle name, Zebulon – ‘after my maternal grandfather,
olav hasholem
,' Freeman assured them gravely – was the name of another.

By this time Sergeant Devoe's lower jaw was perilously close to his chest.

The effect was rather spoiled when it was discovered that neither John nor Ellen could join the club. In spite of the best efforts of Ellen, she could think of no twelve in her life, nor could her uncle. As for John, if anyone thought of bringing up the twelve nightly gifts he was being threatened with, the thinker thought better of it.

‘What about you, Mr. Queen?' Craig smiled. ‘You mustn't leave yourself out.'

‘Me? I'm in John's and Ellen's boat, Mr. Craig. I can't think of a twelve that applies to me.'

‘Your name,' Freeman suggested. ‘It has eleven letters. If you had a middle initial –'

‘Unfortunately, I don't.'

‘Books!' Craig slapped his thigh. ‘You're in this club on the basis of your association with books! One of the technical book sizes is duodecimo, what we call 12mo. You see?'

Ellery said reverently, ‘Mr. Craig, I believe you've struck it.'

‘That gets me in, too,' John said, grinning. ‘I've written a book, haven't I? Poor old Sis. You're the only one left out.'

‘Come around twenty years from now,' Ellen said through her little white teeth, ‘and I'll show you. A dozen kids!'

On this happy note the Impromptu Sebastian Nonsense Therapy came to a close. The patient, with every appearance of complete recovery, suggested a raid on the refrigerator and persuaded the confused Sergeant Devoe to head the raiding party; Marius scuttled to the piano and began banging out
Marche Militaire
; Dr. Dark seized Olivette Brown's ropy arm and insisted on escorting her in the grand manner; Roland Payn slipped his arm about Val Warren's waist and gave it a paternal little squeeze; and the whole party trooped gaily kitchenward.

But later, in his bedroom, writing in his diary, Ellery paused to wonder just how much of it was nonsense and how much was not … or if it was nonsense at all.

He concluded his diary entry for the day:

The absurdity of tonight's exhibition is like laughing in the dark. Through the nonsense-fabric of this thing runs an invisible thread full of menace. But what, what? Where is the sense in the nonsense? What do the gifts mean? Who's dropping them all over the place? …
And who is the dead man?

8 Sixth Night:
Monday, December 30, 1929

In Which the Reverend Mr. Gardiner Has an Unclerical Adventure, The House of Freeman Totters, and Young John Goes to Bed with a Whip

Mr. Gardiner came downstairs Monday morning with a heart as heavy as his tread. The old clergyman had been sleeping poorly since Christmas night, but the fatigue he felt was largely of the spirit. He had viewed with increasing misgiving the events in the Craig household; each night, in his bed, he prayed earnestly that the explanation might turn out, by some miracle, full of laughter and grace. The dead man in the library he had firmly put out of his thoughts. That was an event that only his Lord could set to rights, and Mr. Gardiner knew in his heart that the Second Coming was not for the world of his existence.

Because he was bewildered, and because in his bewilderment he saw some vague sin of his making, or at the least a wavering of faith, Mr. Gardiner chose this morning to deny the flesh. He would eat no breakfast. Avoiding the dining room, from which he heard the murmurs of various of his fellow-guests, the old gentleman crossed the living room and went quietly into his host's library. He would, he thought, write a long letter to his Bishop. That was a regimen the Bishop himself recommended to his retired rectors for their times of trial and self-doubt, for did it not say in John 10:11, ‘The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep'?

So Mr. Gardiner sat down at the desk, opened the writing case he had brought downstairs with him, unscrewed the cap of his fountain pen – how many sermons had flowed from that blunted nib! – prayed momentarily for guidance, and then began to write.

How long he wrote he could not have said. He was dimly aware of the passage of people through the living room – voices, laughter, footsteps – but some time afterward he became conscious that these sounds had long since ceased. They must all have gone outdoors or back to their rooms, he thought; and he began to read what he had written, his lips moving soundlessly.

At this moment he heard two voices in the living room. They were not loud voices; indeed, Mr. Gardiner would scarcely have heard them if not for the profound quiet. One voice belonged to the little man with the large, half-bald head and the beautiful sad brown eyes, Mr. Freeman, the publisher; the other was John's. It seemed a business conversation, and since the voices were pitched low Mr. Gardiner gathered that it was confidential. He wondered uncomfortably if he should not go to the doorway and make his presence known. But that might prove embarrassing, he decided on reconsideration, especially to shy Mr. Freeman. Mr. Gardiner resolved to remain where he was, neither attempting to subdue his natural movements nor calling attention to himself unduly. Perhaps one of them, in moving about, would catch sight of him through the doorway.

And then, suddenly, Mr. Gardiner hoped with fervour that that would not happen. For what he had thought a business conversation had begun to take on a sinister sound.

John was being nasty, very nasty. He had begun by recalling that Mr. Freeman's publishing house, The House of Freeman, had been founded by his, John Sebastian's, father and Arthur Craig; and that while Arthur Craig had voluntarily sold Sebastian & Craig after John Senior's youthful death he, John the son, had long regarded that sale as a blight on his father's memory and for years had brooded upon how he might ‘right the wrong'. And then he had seen how it could be done. On January 6, 1930, he, John, was coming into the principal of his father's estate; he would be worth millions. He would simply buy the publishing house back.

All this was said in a smiley, mocking sort of voice that Mr. Gardiner found very nasty indeed.

Mr. Freeman sounded uncertain, as if he hoped but was not quite sure that the young man was being facetious. The publisher, too, had interpreted that tone as, at the least, unpleasant.

There was a pause, as if Mr. Freeman were cogitating and John were waiting; then Mr. Gardiner heard the older man say with a nervous laugh, ‘For a moment, John, I thought you were serious.'

‘And you were dead right.'

Another interlude, during which Mr. Gardiner tried to forget both the words and the way they had been uttered. But he could not.

Mr. Freeman's voice said, ‘I … I don't quite know what to say, John. If this is actually a serious offer for The House of Freeman, I'm touched, really I am, especially because of the sentiment involved. But The House of Freeman is not for sale.'

‘You're quite sure of that.'

‘Certainly I'm sure,' the publisher said, nettled. ‘What sort of question is that?'

‘Mr. Freeman, I want that publishing house, and you're going to sell it to me – or your controlling stock, which amounts to the same thing. I won't hold you up. I can pay what the business is worth, and I will. But you've got to understand, the choice isn't yours. It's mine.'

Mr. Gardiner almost sprang to his feet.

The poor man was saying helplessly, ‘John, you're either pulling my leg or – or you're very ill. But if you insist on playing this out, I'll be as serious as you say you are. I had nothing to do with the original sale. That was strictly a result of your father's tragic death and, as I understand it, Craig's feeling that, alone, he wasn't equipped to carry on. Since that time the firm has gone through a number of hands. I'm merely the current owner. When I took over, it was close to bankruptcy. I've put a lot of hard work into it, John. I've built it up to perhaps the best of the smaller publishing houses in New York. Now you say you want to take it away from me. I could ask, Why? By what right? but I'm not going to. I'm simply going to ask – and I'd like a straightforward answer, without any of this childish byplay: Exactly how is the choice yours? How do you propose to make me sell?'

Mr. Freeman's voice had grown stronger as he spoke, and Mr. Gardiner was tempted to utter a resounding ‘Bravo!' But he continued to sit at the desk and strain his ears.

‘Through your father,' John Sebastian said.

‘Through my father.' Mr. Gardiner could feel the publisher's stupefaction all the way in the library. ‘My
father
?'

‘I wish you'd be reasonable,' the hateful young voice said plaintively. ‘I don't care for this any more than you do. Don't force my hand, Mr. Freeman.'

There was a spluttering from the living room and the
thwack!
of a fist hitting a chair. ‘What – what cheek! See here! What has my father to do with this? What do you mean by dragging an ailing old man you don't even know into this nightmare?'

‘He is old, isn't he? In his seventies … All right, Mr. Freeman, you're asking for it. When I decided to buy the publishing house back, I knew I had to have a sales argument a little stronger than cash. Frankly, I did a bit of rooting around. When I couldn't dig up anything on you, I went after your family. Your father was an immigrant to this country, wasn't he?'

‘Yes?' Freeman said. Mr. Gardiner's heart bled for him.

‘An orthodox Jew from Germany who skipped the country under an assumed name. He was in a lot of political trouble with the Imperial German government.'

‘Whom have you been talking to?' the publisher whispered. ‘What Judas?'

‘I suppose he was afraid of not being accepted here. Anyway, he made certain false statements to the American immigration people. After that, he was scared to apply for citizenship papers. In fact, he never has become an American citizen. He's still a German national, and if those misstatements to which he falsely swore were brought to the attention of the immigration authorities, he might very well – even at his age – be deported back to Germany.'

‘Impossible!' Freeman said in horror. ‘They'd never do it. He's seventy-four. It would kill him. It would be a sentence of death. They'd never do it, I tell you!'

John Sebastian asked politely, ‘Are you willing to take the chance, or do you sell me The House of Freeman?'

There was a long silence.

Then Mr. Gardiner heard the publisher say in a terrible voice. ‘A partnership. I'll give you a partnership, and to hell with your money.'

‘But I don't want a partnership, Mr. Freeman. I want my father's publishing house. Do I get it?'

‘This is intolerable. You're insane – paranoid! No! I won't do it!'

With great charm John said, ‘Think it over, Mr. Freeman. You have time. You'll be here at least another week.'

‘Another week?' Freeman laughed wildly. ‘Do you suppose that after this I could stay here another hour? I'm leaving – at once!'

‘I'm afraid Lieutenant Luria would have something to say about that. Have you forgotten that a murder's been committed here – and that you've been confined to this house as, technically, one of Luria's suspects?'

Mr. Gardiner heard John stroll from the living room.

He could imagine the poor publisher sitting there, staring after the monstrous ward of his host, his delicate hands clenched impotently, grief and confusion in his heart. Mr. Gardiner could have wept.

After a time, he heard the unfortunate man's slow step leave the room.

Mr. Gardiner found Rusty in the old carriage house. She was cuddled against John on the dusty front seat of the ancient sleigh, listening raptly to the young monster read poetry. Their backs were to him, so that for a few moments the old gentleman could observe them unnoticed. The poetry was love poetry of a particularly brittle, clever sort, and from the immense self-satisfaction with which the young man read it Mr. Gardiner gathered that it was his own. Rusty, whom the clergyman could see in profile, was drinking in the verse with parted lips.

Mr. Gardiner composed himself and coughed. He had to repeat the cough before they heard him.

‘Oh, Mr. Gardiner,' Rusty cried, her red bob flying. ‘You should hear John's poems. They're magnificent!'

‘Hi, Reverend,' John said shortly.

‘Then I'm interrupting. I'm sorry.' Nevertheless, Mr. Gardiner did not stir.

‘I take it I'm not wanted,' John said.

‘Well, I've been lax,' Mr. Gardiner said, unmoved. ‘With the wedding date so near, I really should have a talk with Rusty. Of course, if you'd rather I deferred it –'

‘Oh, hell,' John said. ‘Get it over with.' He jumped from the sleigh and strode out.

‘Don't pay any attention to John,' Rusty said with an embarrassed laugh. ‘You know what a strain he's been under the past few days. Do you want to sit up here beside me?'

Mr. Gardiner climbed spryly into the sleigh. He took Rusty's hand and smiled down at her. ‘Well, my dear – alone at last, as the spider said to the fly.' It was Mr. Gardiner's standard witticism for such occasions. Then his big Yankee nose tightened at the nostrils as he set himself for what he had to say.

At that instant Rusty gave a little shiver of pure happiness. ‘Oh, Mr. Gardiner, I'm so full of everything wonderful and ecstatic I could burst. Not even what's been happening can spoil it.'

Mr. Gardiner's mouth closed. It was written in I Samuel 2,
If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him.
Still … Matthew 7:1,
Judge not, that ye be not judged.

‘You love John dearly,' Mr. Gardiner said in a troubled voice.

‘Oh, yes.'

‘And John loves you?'

Rusty laughed. ‘He'd better!'

Mr. Gardiner did not smile. ‘You have no doubts, my dear? Either for yourself, or for him?'

Rusty hesitated, and Mr. Gardiner took hope. But then she said thoughtfully, ‘I don't think so. I have been kind of worried the past few days, I admit, John's acted so – well, not himself at times. But it's just all this mixup. You can't really blame him. He feels the responsibility of getting everyone together, and then murder … and those dreadful Christmas boxes …'

‘Rusty.' The old clergyman cleared his throat. ‘Suppose you discovered that John isn't what you think he is. Would you still marry him?'

‘You're a darling.' Rusty squeezed his hand. ‘But I can't answer a question like that, Mr. Gardiner. It has no reality for me. John couldn't be otherwise than I know he is. He wouldn't be my John. I can't imagine not marrying him.'

Mr. Gardiner kissed her on the forehead and began to climb out of the sleigh. ‘In that case,' he said, ‘we'll say no more about it.'

To you, poor child, Mr. Gardiner thought as he tramped back to the house. But I cannot leave it there.

He sought out Olivette Brown, not in hope but out of duty. He knew Rusty's mother thoroughly – a stony, almost sterile, vineyard in which he had laboured without success for many years. Her obsession with the claptrap of psychic manifestations, divorced from any communion with true spirit, he had long since stopped trying to exorcise. Indeed, he had often felt that Olivette Brown did not believe half the drivel she dispensed. This, to Mr. Gardiner, was an even greater sin than her devotion to magic. It made her a vessel not only devoid of grace but full of hypocrisy.

He found her in the kitchen, reading Mrs. Janssen's fortune in some tea leaves.

‘Olivette,' Mr. Gardiner said abruptly, ‘I should very much like to talk to you in private.'

‘I was just going up to help Mabel with the beds,' Mrs. Janssen said hurriedly. She fled.

Mr. Gardiner seated himself on the other side of the porcelain-topped table.

‘You're going to scold me again,' Mrs. Brown said coyly.

‘No, I'm going to ask you what you think of your future son-in-law.'

‘John?' Mrs. Brown became incandescent. ‘Such a dear, fine boy! I'm so happy for my Rusty.'

‘Olivette,' Mr. Gardiner said, ‘suppose you discovered that John isn't all he seems to be. Would you still be happy for your Rusty?'

‘Well, of course! You don't think I'm fool enough to believe the lovey-dovey period lasts very long, do you? I remember Mr. Brown.' Rusty's mother sniffed at the memory. ‘Certainly John isn't all he seems to be. What man is when he's courting a girl?'