The New Adventures of Ellery Queen (29 page)

The poor fellow gave Miss Paris an absent peck, after which he rubbed the lipstick from his mouth.

“No oomph,” said Miss Paris critically, holding him off and surveying his gloomy countenance. “Ellery Queen, you're in a mess again.”

“Hollywood,” mumbled Mr. Queen. “The land God forgot. No logic. Disorderly creation. The abiding place of chaos. Paula, your Hollywood is driving me c-double-o-ditto!”

“You poor imposed-upon Wimpie,” crooned Miss Paris, drawing him onto her spacious maple settee. “Tell Paula all about the nasty old place.”

So, with Miss Paris's soft arms about him, Mr. Queen unburdened himself. It seemed that Magna Studios (“The Movies Magnificent”), to whom his soul was chartered, had ordered him as one of its staff writers to concoct a horse-racing plot with a fresh patina. A mystery, of course, since Mr. Queen was supposed to know something about crime.

“With fifty writers on the lot who spend all their time—and money—following the ponies,” complained Mr. Queen bitterly, “of course they have to pick on the one serf in their thrall who doesn't know a fetlock from a wither. Paula, I'm a sunk scrivener.”

“You don't know
anything
about racing?”

“I'm not interested in racing. I've never even
seen
a race,” said Mr. Queen doggedly.

“Imagine that!” said Paula, awed. And she was silent. After a while Mr. Queen twisted in her embrace and said in accusing despair: “Paula, you're thinking of something.”

She kissed him and sprang from the settee. “The wrong tense, darling. I've
thought
of something!”

Paula told him all about old John Scott as they drove out into the green and yellow ranch country.

Scott was a vast, shapeless Caledonian with a face as craggy as his native heaths and a disposition not less dour. His inner landscape was bleak except where horses breathed and browsed; and this vulnerable spot had proved his undoing, for he had made two fortunes breeding thoroughbreds and had lost both by racing and betting on them.

“Old John's never stood for any of the crooked dodges of the racing game,” said Paula. “He fired Weed Williams, the best jockey he ever had, and had him blackballed by every decent track in the country, so that Williams became a saddlemaker or something, just because of a peccadillo another owner would have winked at. And yet—the inconsistent old coot!—a few years later he gave Williams's son a job, and Whitey's going to ride Danger, John's best horse, in the Handicap next Saturday.”

“You mean the $100,000 Santa Anita Handicap everybody's in a dither about out here?”

“Yes. Anyway, old John's got a scrunchy little ranch, Danger, his daughter Kathryn, and practically nothing else except a stable of also-rans and breeding disappointments.”

“So far,” remarked Mr. Queen, “it sounds like the beginning of a Class B movie.”

“Except,” sighed Paula, “that it's not entertaining. John's really on a spot. If Whitey doesn't ride Danger to a win in the Handicap, it's the end of the road for John Scott.… Speaking about roads, here we are.”

They turned into a dirt road and plowed dustily towards a ramshackle ranch house. The road was pitted, the fences dilapidated, the grassland patchy with neglect.

“With all his troubles,” grinned Ellery, “I fancy he won't take kindly to this quest for Racing in Five Easy Lessons.”

“Meeting a full-grown man who knows nothing about racing may give the old gentleman a laugh. Lord knows he needs one.”

A Mexican cook directed them to Scott's private track, and they found him leaning his weight upon a sagging rail, his small buried eyes puckered on a cloud of dust eddying along the track at the far turn. His thick fingers clutched a stopwatch.

A man in high-heeled boots sat on the rail two yards away, a shotgun in his lap pointing carelessly at the head of a too well-dressed gentleman with a foreign air who was talking to the back of Scott's shaggy head. The well-dressed man sat in a glistening roadster beside a hard-faced chauffeur.

“You got my proposition, John?” said the well-dressed man, with a toothy smile. “You got it?”

“Get the hell off my ranch, Santelli,” said John Scott, without turning his head.

“Sure,” said Santelli, still smiling. “You think my proposition over, hey, or maybe somethin' happen to your nag, hey?”

They saw the old man quiver, but he did not turn; and Santelli nodded curtly to his driver. The big roadster roared away.

The dust cloud on the track rolled towards them and they saw a small, taut figure in sweater and cap perched atop a gigantic stallion, black-coated and lustrous with sweat. The horse was bounding along like a huge cat, his neck arched. He thundered magnificently by.

“Two-o-two and four-fifths,” they heard Scott mutter to his stopwatch. “Vulcan's Forge's ten-furlong time for the Handicap in '49. Not bad … Whitey!” he bellowed to the jockey, who had pulled the black stallion up. “Rub him down good!”

The jockey grinned and pranced Danger towards the adjacent stables.

The man with the shotgun drawled: “You got more company, John.”

The old man whirled, frowning deeply; his craggy face broke into a thousand wrinkles and he engulfed Paula's slim hand in his two paws. “Paula! It's fine to see ye. Who's this?” he demanded, fastening his cold keen eyes on Ellery.

“Mr. Ellery Queen. But how is Katie? And Danger?”

“You saw him.” Scott gazed after the dancing horse. “Fit as a fiddle. He'll carry the handicap weight of a hundred twenty pounds Saturday an' never feel it. Did it just now with the leads on him. Paula, did ye see that murderin' scalawag?”

“The fashion plate who just drove away?”

“That was Santelli, and ye heard what he said might happen to Danger.” The old man stared bitterly down the road.

“Santelli!” Paula's serene face was shocked.

“Bill, go look after the stallion.” The man with the shotgun slipped off the rail and waddled towards the stable. “Just made me an offer for my stable. Hell, the dirty thievin' bookie owns the biggest stable west o' the Rockies—what's he want with my picayune outfit?”

“He owns Broomstick, the Handicap favorite, doesn't he?” asked Paula quietly. “And Danger is figured strongly in the running, isn't he?”

“Quoted five to one now, but track odds'll shorten his price. Broomstick's two to five,” growled Scott.

“It's very simple, then. By buying your horse, Santelli can control the race, owning the two best horses.”

“Lassie, lassie,” sighed Scott. “I'm an old mon, an' I know these thieves. Handicap purse is $100,000. And Santelli just offered me $100,000 for my stable!” Paula whistled. “It don't wash. My whole shebang ain't worth it. Danger's no cinch to win. Is Santelli buyin' up all the other horses in the race, too?—the big outfits? I tell ye it's somethin' else, and it's rotten.” Then he shook his heavy shoulders straight. “But here I am gabbin' about my troubles. What brings ye out here, lassie?”

“Mr. Queen here, who's a—well, a friend of mine,” said Paula, coloring, “has to think up a horse-racing plot for a movie, and I thought you could help him. He doesn't know a thing about racing.”

Scott stared at Mr. Queen, who coughed apologetically. “Well, sir, I don't know but that ye're not a lucky mon. Ye're welcome to the run o' the place. Go over an' talk to Whitey; he knows the racket backwards. I'll be with ye in a few minutes.”

The old man lumbered off, and Paula and Ellery sauntered towards the stables.

“Who is this ogre Santelli?” asked Ellery with a frown.

“A gambler and bookmaker with a national hook-up.” Paula shivered a little. “Poor John. I don't like it, Ellery.”

They turned a corner of the big stable and almost bumped into a young man and a young woman in the lee of the wall, clutching each other desperately and kissing as if they were about to be torn apart for eternity.

“Pardon
us
,” said Paula, pulling Ellery back.

The young lady, her eyes crystal with tears, blinked at her. “Is—is that Paula Paris?” she sniffled.

“The same, Kathryn,” smiled Paula, “Mr. Queen, Miss Scott. What on earth's the matter?”

“Everything,” cried Miss Scott tragically. “Oh, Paula, we're in the most awful trouble!”

Her amorous companion backed bashfully off. He was a slender young man clad in grimy, odoriferous overalls. He wore spectacles floury with the chaff of oats, and there was a grease smudge on one emotional nostril.

“Miss Paris—Mr. Queen. This is Hank Halliday, my—boy friend,” sobbed Kathryn.

“I see the whole plot,” said Paula sympathetically. “Papa doesn't approve of Katie's taking up with a stablehand, the snob! and it's tragedy all around.”

“Hank
isn't
a stablehand,” cried Kathryn, dashing the tears from her cheeks, which were rosy with indignation. “He's a college graduate who—”

“Kate,” said the odoriferous young man with dignity, “let me explain, please. Miss Paris, I have a character deficiency. I am a physical coward.”

“Heavens, so am I!” said Paula.

“But a man, you see … I am particularly afraid of animals. Horses, specifically.” Mr Halliday shuddered. “I took this—this filthy job to conquer my unreasonable fear.” Mr. Halliday's sensitive chin hardened. “I have not yet conquered it, but when I do I shall find myself a real job. And then,” he said firmly, embracing Miss Scott's trembling shoulders, “I shall marry Kathryn, Papa or no Papa.”

“Oh, I hate him for being so mean!” sobbed Katie.

“And I—” began Mr. Halliday somberly.

“Hankus-Pankus!” yelled a voice from the stable. “What the hell you paid for, anyway? Come clean up this mess before I slough you one!”

“Yes, Mr. Williams,” said Hankus-Pankus hastily, and he hurried away with an apologetic half-bow. His lady love ran sobbing off towards the ranch house.

Mr. Queen and Miss Paris regarded each other. Then Mr. Queen said: “I'm getting a plot, b'gosh, but it's the wrong one.”

“Poor kids,” sighed Paula. “Well, talk to Whitey Williams and see if the divine spark ignites.”

During the next several days Mr. Queen ambled about the Scott ranch, talking to Jockey Williams, to the bespectacled Mr. Halliday—who, he discovered, knew as little about racing as he and cared even less—to a continuously tearful Kathryn, to the guard named Bill—who slept in the stable near Danger with one hand on his shotgun—and to old John himself. He learned much about jockeys, touts, racing procedure, gear, handicaps, purses, forfeits, stewards, the ways of bookmakers, famous races and horses and owners and tracks; but the divine spark perversely refused to ignite.

So, on Friday at dusk, when he found himself unaccountably ignored at the Scott ranch, he glumly drove up into the Hollywood hills for a laving in the waters of Gilead.

He found Paula in her garden soothing two anguished young people. Katie Scott was still weeping and Mr. Halliday, the self-confessed craven, for once dressed in an odorless garment, was awkwardly pawing her golden hair.

“More tragedy?” said Mr. Queen. “I should have known. I've just come from your father's ranch, and there's a pall over it.”

“Well, there should be!” cried Kathryn. “I told my father where
he
gets off. Treating Hank that way! I'll never speak to him as long as I live! He's—he's
unnatural
!”

“Now, Katie,” said Mr. Halliday reprovingly, “that's no way to speak of your own father.”

“Hank Halliday, if you had one spark of manhood—!”

Mr. Halliday stiffened as if his beloved had jabbed him with the end of a live wire.

“I didn't mean that, Hankus,” sobbed Kathryn, throwing herself into his arms. “I know you can't help being a coward. But when he knocked you down and you didn't even—”

Mr. Halliday worked the left side of his jaw thoughtfully. “You know, Mr. Queen, something happened to me when Mr. Scott struck me. For an instant I felt a strange—er—lust. I really believe if I'd had a revolver—and if I knew how to handle one—I might easily have committed murder then. I saw—I believe that's the phrase—red.”

“Hank!” cried Katie in horror.

Hank sighed, the homicidal light dying out of his faded blue eyes.

“Old John,” explained Paula, winking at Ellery, “found these two cuddling again in the stable, and I suppose he thought it was setting a bad example for Danger, whose mind should be on the race tomorrow; so he fired Hank, and Katie blew up and told John off, and she's left his home forever.”

“To discharge me is his privilege,” said Mr. Halliday coldly, “but now I owe him no loyalty whatever. I shall
not
bet on Danger to win the Handicap!”

“I hope the big brute loses,” sobbed Katie.

“Now, Kate,” said Paula firmly, “I've heard enough of this nonsense. I'm going to speak to you like a Dutch aunt.”

Katie sobbed on.

“Mr. Halliday,” said Mr. Queen formally, “I believe this is our cue to seek a slight libation.”

“Kathryn!”

“Hank!”

Mr. Queen and Miss Paris tore the lovers apart.

It was a little after ten o'clock when Miss Scott, no longer weeping but facially still tear-ravaged, crept out of Miss Paris's white frame house and got into her dusty little car.

As she turned her key in the ignition lock and stepped on the starter, a harsh bass voice from the shadows of the back seat said: “Don't yell. Don't make a sound. Turn your car around and keep going till I tell you to stop.”

“Eek!” screeched Miss Scott.

A big leathery hand clamped over her trembling mouth.

After a few moments the car moved away.

Mr. Queen called for Miss Paris the next day and they settled down to a snail's pace, heading for Arcadia eastward, near which lay the beautiful Santa Anita race course.