The King is Dead (10 page)

‘C-a-i-n. That is right, Mr. Queen.'

‘Can't say I blame him.'

‘Yes, for obvious reasons he always loathed it. When he entered private school — some military school, I think — even as a boy he insisted on changing it. He told me he had won this water-polo trophy in his Genesis phase, as I always call it, so he had it re-engraved later to read K-a-n-e.'

‘From his appearance, Mrs. Bendigo,' said the Inspector, ‘your husband must keep up a lot of these sports. When does he get the time?'

‘He doesn't. I have never seen him do anything but wrestle and box a little with Max.'

‘What?' The Inspector looked around the trophy room.

‘He takes no exercise to speak of,' laughed Karla. ‘I told you Kane is unique! He keeps his figure and muscles in trim by massage twice a day. For all his stupidity, Max is a skilful masseur and Kane, of course, is Max's religion. Careful food habits — you saw how sparingly he ate tonight — and a constitution of steel do the rest. Kane has so many facets to his personality! In many things he is a little boy, in others a peacock. Did you know that for years now he has been judged one of the world's ten best-dressed men? I will show you!'

King's wife dragged them to another room. It was a large room; it might have been an exclusive men's shop. Closet after closet, rack after rack, of suits, overcoats, sportswear, dinner-jackets, shoes — he had everything, in wholesale lots.

‘He can't possibly find the time to wear all of these,' exclaimed the Inspector. ‘Ellery, take a gander at that line-up of riding boots! Does he ride much, Mrs. Bendigo?'

‘He hasn't been on a horse for years … Isn't it fabulous?

Kane comes in here often, just to admire.'

They were inspecting this kingly wardrobe with appropriate murmurs when a deep voice said behind them, ‘Karla, why would our guests be interested in my haberdashery?'

He was in the doorway. His handsome face was fatigued. His voice held a cross, raspy note.

‘You would not deprive your wife of the pleasure of boasting about her husband?' Karla went to him quickly, slipped her arm about his waist. ‘Kane. You are very tired tonight.'

She was frightened. There was no trace of it in her expression or attitude, and her voice was merely anxious, but Ellery was sure. It was almost as if she had been caught in the act of treason, discovery of which meant merciless punishment.

‘I've had a long day, and some of it was trying. Would you gentlemen join me in a nightcap?' But his tone was icy.

‘Thank you, no. I'm afraid we've kept Mrs. Bendigo far too long as it is.' Ellery took his father's arm. ‘Good night.'

Karla murmured something. She was smiling, but her face was suddenly bloodless.

Bendigo stood aside to let them pass. The Inspector's arm jerked. A security guard stood at attention just outside the door. They were about to step into the corridor when Bendigo said, ‘One moment.'

They stopped, alert to some new danger. It was puzzling and annoying. Every word this man uttered seemed full of traps.

King Bendigo, however, sounded merely absent. ‘Something I was to show you. Abel told me not to forget. What the devil was it, now?'

Blocking the corridor at the turn loomed the ape, Max'l. He was holding up a wall as he smoked a long cigar. He eyed them with a grin.

‘Yes?' Ellery tried to relax.

‘Oh.' King's hand went to his breast pocket. ‘Another of those letters came tonight. By the late plane. It was in the general mail.'

He dropped the envelope into Ellery's hand. The envelope had been slit open. Ellery did not remove its contents; he was looking at Bendigo's face.

He could see nothing there but weary indifference.

‘You've read this, Mr. Bendigo?' asked Inspector Queen sharply.

‘Abel insisted. Same brand of garbage. Good night.'

‘Kane, what is it?' Karla was clinging to him.

‘Nothing to concern you, darling —' The door shut in their faces.

Max'l followed them at a distance of six feet all the way to the door of their suite. Then, to their alarm, he closed the gap in a bound.

‘Here!' The Inspector backed up.

Maxie's sapper of a forefinger struck Ellery in the chest, staggering him.

‘You ain't so tough. Are you?'

‘What?' stammered Ellery.

‘Na-a-a.' Max'l turned on his heel and rolled contemptuously away.

‘Now what in hell,' muttered the Inspector, ‘was
that
for?'

Ellery bolted the door, rubbing his chest.

The third note was almost identical with its predecessors. The same elegant stationery, the same type — of a Winchester Noiseless Portable — and virtually the same message:

You are going to be murdered on Thursday, June 21 —

‘June twenty-first,' said the Inspector thoughtfully. ‘Adds the date. Less than a week from now. And again he ends up with a dash, showing there's more to come. What the devil else can he say?'

‘At least one other thing of importance.' Ellery was scanning, not the enclosure, but the envelope. ‘The exact hour, maybe the exact hour and minute, on Thursday, June twenty-first. Have you noticed this envelope, Dad?'

‘How can I have noticed it when you've hoarded it like a miser?'

‘Proves what we suspected all along. King says it was found with the mail brought in by tonight's mail plane. That ought to mean that it went through somebody's post office. Only, it didn't. Look.'

‘No stamp, no postmark,' mumbled his father. ‘It was slipped into the pouch on arrival.'

‘An inside job, and no guesswork this time.'

‘But this is so dumb, Ellery. Doesn't he care? A school kid would know from this envelope that the origin of these notes is on the island. I don't get it at all.'

‘It's pretty,' said Ellery, with a faraway look. ‘Because they don't need us, Dad. Not the least bit. And right now I don't care a toot if they do hear all this in their spy room.'

‘What are you going to do, son?'

‘Go to bed. And first thing in the morning — assert myself!'

6

The next morning Ellery asserted himself. He deliberately set out to make as much trouble as he could.

Leaving his father at the Residence, Ellery ordered a car. One showed up in the courtyard with Blue Shirt behind the wheel and his
alter ego
at the door.

‘I don't want company this morning, thank you,' Ellery snapped. ‘I'll take the wheel myself.'

‘Sorry, Mr. Queen,' said Brown Shirt. ‘Get in.'

‘I was told I could go anywhere.'

‘Yes, sir,' said Brown Shirt. ‘We'll take you wherever you want to go.'

‘My father took a car out without a wet-nurse!'

‘Our orders this morning are to stick with you, sir.'

‘Who gives these orders?'

‘Colonel Spring.'

‘Where does Colonel Spring get them?'

‘I wouldn't know, sir. From the Home Office, I suppose.'

‘The Home Office is where I want to go.'

‘We'll take you there, sir.'

‘Jump in, Mr. Queen,' said Blue Shirt amiably.

Ellery got into the car, and Brown Shirt got in beside him.

At the Home Office Ellery strode into the black marble lobby with a disagreeable face. The Shirts sat down on a marble bench.

‘Good morning, Mr. Queen,' said the central of the three security men behind the desk. ‘Whom did you wish to see?'

‘King Bendigo.'

The man consulted a chart. He looked up, puzzled. ‘Do you have an appointment, sir?'

‘Certainly not. Open that elevator door.'

The three security men stared at him. Then they conferred in whispers. Then the central man said, ‘I'm afraid you don't understand, Mr. Queen. You
can't
go up without an appointment.'

‘Then make one for me. I don't care how you do it, but I'm talking to your lord and master, and I'm doing it right now.'

The three men stared at one another.

From behind him, Blue Shirt said, ‘You don't want to make trouble, Mr. Queen. These men have their orders —'

‘Get Bendigo on the phone!'

It was a crisis Ellery thoroughly enjoyed. Brown Shirt must have touched Blue Shirt's arm, because both fell back; and he must have nodded to the central security man, because that baffled official immediately looked scared and sat down to fumble with the controls of his communications system. He spoke in a voice so low that Ellery could not hear what he said.

‘The King's receptionist says it's impossible. The King is in a very important conference, sir. You'll have to wait, sir.'

‘Not down here. I'll wait upstairs.'

‘Sir —'

‘Upstairs.'

The man mumbled into the machine again. There was a delay, then he turned nervously back to Ellery.

‘All right, sir.' One of the trio pressed something and the door in the circular column sank into the floor.

‘It's not all right,' said Ellery firmly.

‘What, Mr. Queen?' The central man was bewildered.

‘You've forgotten to check my thumbprints. How do you know I'm not Walter Winchell in disguise? Do you want me to report you to Colonel Spring?'

The last thing Ellery saw as the elevator door shut off his view was the worried, rather silly, look on Brown Shirt's face. It gave him a great deal of satisfaction.

The elevator discharged him in the wedge-of-pie reception room. This time the black desk was occupied. The man behind the desk wore a plain black suit, not a uniform, and he was the most muscular receptionist Ellery had ever seen. But his voice was soft and cultured.

‘There's some mistake, sir —'

‘No mistake,' said Ellery loftily. ‘I'm getting tired of all this high-and-mightiness. King Kong in his office?'

‘Have a seat, please. The King is in an extremely —'

‘— important conference. I know. Doesn't he ever hold any unimportant conferences?' Ellery went to the left-hand door and, before the receptionist could leap from behind the desk, pounded coarsely on the panel. It boomed.

He kept pounding. It kept booming.

‘Sir!' The receptionist was clawing at his arm. ‘This is not allowed! It's — it's —'

‘Treason? Can't be. I'm not one of your nationals. Open up in there!'

The receptionist got him in a stranglehold. The other hand he clamped over Ellery's mouth and nose.

Things began to turn blue.

Ellery was outraged. Taking his own bad office manners into due consideration, this sort of treatment smacked more of the bouncer in a Berlin East Zone
Rathskeller
than the dutiful clerical worker of a civilized democracy. So Ellery slumped, feigning submission, and when the muscular receptionist's hold relaxed, Ellery executed a lightning judo counter-attack which sent his captor flying backward to thump ignominiously on his bottom.

Just as the door to King Bendigo's private office opened and Max'l peered out.

Ellery wasted no strength parleying with the gorilla. Having the advantage of surprise, there was only one way to deal with such as Max'l, and Ellery did so. He stiff-armed the King's jester in the nose and walked in past the outraged carcass. What must follow in a matter of seconds he preferred not to linger over in his thoughts.

The hemispherical room seemed full of distinguished-looking men. They were seated or on their feet about the King's desk, and they were all staring toward the door.

Behind him Ellery could hear the receptionist shouting and a drumming of boots. Max'l was up on one knee, nose bleeding, beret askew over his left eye, and his right measuring Ellery without the least rancour.

Ellery trudged the long mile to Bendigo's desk, sidestepped one of the distinguished-looking men, planted both fists on the ebony perfection, and stared at the man in the golden chair malevolently.

The man on the throne stared back.

‘Wait, Maximus.' The voice was furry. ‘Just what do you believe you're doing, Queen?'

Ellery felt Max'l's hot breath on the back of his neck. It promised neither comfort nor cheer.

‘I'm looking for the answer to a question, Mr. Bendigo. I'm sick of evasions and double talk, and I won't stand for further delays.'

‘I'll see you later.'

‘You'll see me now.'

Abel Bendigo was in the group, looking on inscrutably. Out of the corner of his eye Ellery also noticed Immanuel Peabody and Dr. Akst, the lawyer's mouth open, the physicist regarding him with an interest not evident the night before. The distinguished strangers looked merely confused.

‘Do you have any idea,' demanded the master of Bendigo Island, ‘what you have interrupted?'

‘You're wasting time.'

The black eyes dulled over. Bendigo sank back.

‘Excuse me, gentlemen, just a moment. No, stay where you are. You guards, it's all right. Shut that door.' Ellery heard a scuffling far behind him, the click of the distant door. ‘Now, Queen, suppose you ask me your question.'

‘Where on your island,' said Ellery promptly, ‘will I find a Winchester Noiseless Portable typewriter?'

Had he asked for the formula of the H-bomb, Ellery could not have met a more absolute silence. Then one of the distinguished visitors permitted himself an undistinguished titter. The giggle shot King Bendigo out of his golden chair.

‘In the course of your stupid, inconsequential investigation,' thundered the King, ‘you disrupt what is probably the most important conference being held at this moment anywhere on the face of the earth. Mr. Queen, do you know who these gentlemen are? On my left sits Sir Cardigan Cleets, of the British government. On my right sits the Chevalier Camille Cassebeer of the Republic of France. Before me sits the Honourable James Walbridge Monahew, of the United States Atomic Control Commission. And you dare to break in on the deliberation of these gentlemen — not to mention mine! — in order to locate a
typewriter?
If this is a joke, I don't appreciate its humour!'