The Origin of Evil (10 page)

‘Yes? Yes?'

‘It's probably nothing at all. But you told Crowe —'

‘Delia, what's happened?'

‘Roger's sick, Ellery. Dr. Voluta is here. He says it's ptomaine poisoning. But —'

‘I'll be right over!'

Dr. Voluta was a floppy man with jowls and a dirty eye, and it was a case of hate at first sight. The doctor was in a bright blue yachting jacket over a yellow silk undershirt and his greasy brown hair stuck up all over his head. He wore carpet slippers. Twice Ellery caught himself about to address him as Captain Bligh, and it would not have surprised him if, in his own improvised costume of soiled white ducks and turtle-neck sweater, he had inspired Priam's doctor to address him in turn as Mr. Christian.

‘The trouble with you fellows,' Dr. Voluta was saying as he scraped an evil mess from a rumpled bedsheet into a specimen vial, ‘is that you really enjoy murder. Otherwise you wouldn't see it in every belly-ache.'

‘Quite a belly-ache,' said Ellery. ‘The stopper's right there over the sink, Doctor.'

‘Thank you. Priam is a damn pig. He eats too much for even a well man. His alimentary apparatus is a medical problem in itself. I've warned him for years to lay off bedtime snacks, especially spicy fish.'

‘I'm told he's fond of spicy fish.'

‘I'm fond of spicy blondes, Mr. Queen,' snapped Dr. Voluta, ‘but I keep my appetite within bounds.'

‘I thought you said there's something wrong with the tuna.'

‘Certainly there's something wrong with it. I tasted it myself. But that's not the point. The point is that if he'd followed my orders he wouldn't have eaten any in the first place.'

They were in the butler's pantry, and Dr. Voluta was looking irritably about for something to cover a plastic dish into which he had dumped the remains of the tuna.

‘Then it's your opinion, Doctor —?'

‘I've given you my opinion. The can of tuna was spoiled. Didn't you ever hear of spoiled canned goods, Mr. Queen?' He opened his medical bag, grabbed a surgical glove, and stretched it over the top of the dish.

‘I've examined the empty tin, Dr. Voluta.' Ellery had fished it out of the tin can container, thankful that in Los Angeles you had to keep cans separate from garbage. ‘I see no sign of a bulge, do you?'

‘You're just assuming that's the tin it came from,' the doctor said disagreeably. ‘How do you know?'

‘The cook told me. It's the only tuna she opened today. She opened it just before she went to bed. And I found the tin at the top of the waste can.'

Dr. Voluta threw up his hands. ‘Excuse me. I want to wash up.'

Ellery followed him to the door of the downstairs lavatory. ‘Have to keep my eye on that vial and dish, Doctor,' he said apologetically. ‘Since you won't turn them over to me.'

‘You don't mean a thing to me, Mr. Queen. I still think it's all a lot of nonsense. But if this stuff has to be analyzed, I'm turning it over to the police personally. Would you mind stepping back? I'd like to close this door.'

‘The vial,' said Ellery.

‘Oh, for God's sake.' Dr. Voluta turned his back and opened the tap with a swoosh.

They were waiting for Lieutenant Keats. It was almost six o'clock, and through the windows a pale farina-like world was taking shape. The house was cold. Priam was purged and asleep, his black beard jutting from the blankets on his reclining chair with a moribund majesty, so that all Ellery had been able to think of — before Alfred Wallace shut the door politely in his face — was Sennacherib the Assyrian in his tomb; and that was no help. Wallace had locked Priam's door from the inside. He was spending what was left of the night on the day-bed in Priam's room reserved for his use during emergencies.

Crowe Macgowan had been snappish. ‘If I hadn't made that promise, Queen, I'd never have had Delia call you. All this stench about a little upchucking. Leave him to Voluta and go home.' And he had gone back to his oak, yawning.

Old Mr. Collier, Delia Priam's father, had quietly made himself a cup of tea in the kitchen and trotted back upstairs with it, pausing only long enough to chuckle to Ellery: ‘A fool and his gluttony are soon parted.'

Delia Priam … He hadn't seen her at all. Ellery had rather built himself up to their middle-of-the-night meeting, although he was prepared to be perfectly correct. Of course, she couldn't know that. By the time he arrived she had returned to her room upstairs. He was glad, in a way, that her sense of propriety was so delicately tuned to his state of mind. It was, in fact, astoundingly perceptive of her. At the same time, he felt a little empty.

Ellery stared gritty-eyed at Dr. Voluta's blue back. It was an immense back, with great fat wrinkles running across it.

He could, of course, get rid of the doctor and go upstairs and knock on her door. There was always a question or two to be asked in a case like this.

He wondered what she would do.

And how she looked at six in the morning.

He played with this thought for some time.

‘Ordinarily,' said the doctor, turning and reaching for a towel, ‘I'd have told you to go to hell. But a doctor with a respectable practice has to be cagey in this town, Mr. Queen, and Laurel started something when she began to talk about murder at Leander Hill's death. I know your type. Publicity-happy.' He flung the towel at the bowl, picked up the vial and the plastic dish, holding them firmly. ‘You don't have to watch me, Mr. Queen. I'm not going to switch containers on you. Where the devil is that detective? I haven't had any sleep at all tonight.'

‘Did anyone ever tell you, Doctor,' said Ellery through his teeth, ‘that you look like Charles Laughton in
The Beachcomber
?'

They glared at each other until a car drew up outside and Keats hurried in.

At four o'clock that afternoon Ellery pulled his rented Kaiser up before the Priam house to find Keats's car already there. The maid with the tic, which was in an active state, showed him into the living-room. Keats was standing before the field-stone fireplace, tapping his teeth with the edge of a sheet of paper. Laurel Hill, Crowe Macgowan, and Delia Priam were seated before him in a student attitude. Their heads swivelled as Ellery came in, and it seemed to him that Laurel was coldly expectant, young Macgowan uneasy, and Delia frightened.

‘Sorry, Lieutenant. I had to stop for gas. Is that the lab report?'

Keats handed him the paper. Their eyes followed. When Ellery handed the paper back, their eyes went with it.

‘Maybe you'd better line it up for these folks, Mr. Queen,' said the detective. ‘I'll take it from there.'

‘When I got here about five this morning,' nodded Ellery, ‘Dr. Voluta was sure it was food poisoning. The facts were these: Against Voluta's medical advice, Mr. Priam invariably has something to eat before going to sleep. This habit of his seems to be a matter of common knowledge. Since he doesn't sleep too well, he tends to go to bed at a late hour. The cook, Mrs. Guittierez, is on the other hand accustomed to retiring early. Consequently, Mr. Priam usually tells Mr. Wallace what he expects to feel like having around midnight, and Mr. Wallace usually transmits this information to the cook before she goes to bed. Mrs. Guittierez then prepares the snack as ordered, puts it into the refrigerator, and retires.

‘Last night the order came through for tuna fish, to which Mr. Priam is partial. Mrs. Guittierez got a can of tuna from the pantry — one of the leading brands, by the way — opened it, prepared the contents as Mr. Priam likes it — with minced onion, sweet green pepper, celery, lots of mayonnaise, the juice of half a freshly squeezed lemon, freshly ground pepper and a little salt, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, a half-teaspoon of dried mustard, and a pinch of oregano and powdered thyme — and placed the bowl, covered, in the refrigerator. She then cleaned up and went to bed. Mrs. Guittierez left the kitchen at about twenty minutes to ten, leaving a night-light burning.

‘At about ten minutes after midnight,' continued Ellery, speaking to the oil painting of the Spanish grandee above the fireplace so that he would not be disturbed by a certain pair of eyes, ‘Alfred Wallace was sent by Roger Priam for the snack. Wallace removed the bowl of tuna salad from the refrigerator, placed it on a tray with some caraway-seed rye bread, sweet butter, and a sealed bottle of milk, and carried the tray to Mr. Priam's study. Priam ate heartily, although he did not finish the contents of the tray. Wallace then prepared him for bed, turned out the lights, and took what remained on the tray back to the kitchen. He left the tray there as it was, and himself went upstairs to his room.

‘At about three o'clock this morning Wallace was awakened by the buzzer of the intercom from Mr. Priam's room. It was Priam, in agony. Wallace ran downstairs and found him violently sick. Wallace immediately phoned Dr. Voluta, ran upstairs and awakened Mrs. Priam, and the two of them did what they could until Dr. Voluta's arrival, which was a very few minutes later.'

Macgowan said irritably, ‘Damned if I can see why you tell us —'

Delia Priam put her hand on her son's arm and he stopped.

‘Go on, Mr. Queen,' she said in a low voice. When she talked, everything in a man tightened up. He wondered if she quite realized the quality and range of her power.

‘On my arrival I found the tray in the kitchen, where Wallace said he had left it. When I had the facts I phoned Lieutenant Keats. While waiting for him I got together everything that had been used in the preparation of the midnight meal — the spices, the empty tuna tin, even the shell of the lemon, as well as the things on the tray. There was a quantity of the salad, some rye bread, some of the butter, some of the milk. Meanwhile Dr. Voluta preserved what he could of the regurgitated matter. When Lieutenant Keats arrived, we turned everything over to him.'

Ellery stopped and lit a cigarette.

Keats said: ‘I took it all down to the Crime Laboratory and the report just came through.' He glanced at the paper. ‘I won't bother you with the detailed report. Just give you the highlights.

‘Chemical analysis of the regurgitated matter from Mr. Priam's stomach brought out the presence of arsenic.

‘Everything is given a clean bill — spices, tuna tin, lemon, bread, butter, milk — everything, that is, but the tuna salad itself.

‘Arsenic of the same type was found in the remains of the tuna salad.

‘Dr. Voluta was wrong,' said Keats. ‘This is not a case of ptomaine poisoning caused by spoiled fish. It's a case of arsenical poisoning caused by the introduction of arsenic into the salad. The cook put the salad in the refrigerator about 9.40 last night. Mr. Wallace came and took it to Mr. Priam around ten minutes after midnight. During that period the kitchen was empty, with only a dim light burning. During those two and a half hours someone sneaked into the kitchen and poisoned the salad.'

‘There can't have been any mistake,' added Ellery. ‘There is a bowl of something for Mr. Priam in the refrigerator every night. It's a special bowl, used only for his snacks. It's even more easily identified than that — it has the name
Roger
in gilt lettering on it, a gift to Roger Priam from Alfred Wallace last Christmas.'

‘The question is,' concluded Keats, ‘who tried to poison Mr. Priam.'

He looked at the three in a friendly way.

Delia Priam, rising suddenly, murmured, ‘It's so incredible,' and put a handkerchief to her nose.

Laurel smiled at the older woman's back. ‘That's the way it's seemed to me, darling,' she said, ‘ever since Daddy's death.'

‘Oh, for pete's sake, Laur,' snapped Delia's son, ‘don't keep smiling like Lady Macbeth, or Cassandra, or whoever it was. The last thing in the world Mother and I want is a mess.'

‘Nobody's accusing you, Mac,' said Laurel. ‘My only point is that now maybe you'll believe I wasn't talking through clouds of opium.'

‘All
right
!'

Delia turned to Keats. Ellery saw Keats look her over uncomfortably, but with that avidity for detail which cannot be disciplined in the case of certain women. She was superb today, all in white, with a large wooden crucifix on a silver chain girding her waist. No slit in this skirt; long sleeves; and the dress came up high to the neck. But her back was bare to the waist. Some Hollywood designer's idea of personalized fashion; didn't she realize how shocking it was? But then women, even the most respectable, have the wickedest innocence in this sort of thing, mused Ellery; it really wasn't fair to a hard-working police officer who wore a gold band on the fourth finger of his left hand. ‘Lieutenant, do the police have to come into this?' she asked.

‘Ordinarily, Mrs. Priam, I could answer a question like that right off the bat.' Keats's eyes shifted; he put an unlit cigarette between his lips and rolled it nervously to the corner of his mouth. A note of stubbornness crept into his voice. ‘But this is something I've never run into before. Your husband refuses to co-operate. He won't even discuss it with me. All he said was that he won't be caught that way again, that he could take care of himself, and that I was to pick up my hat on the way out.'

Delia went to a window. Studying her back, Ellery thought that she was relieved and pleased. Keats should have kept her on a hook; he'd have to have a little skull session with Keats on the best way to handle Mrs. Priam. But that back
was
disturbing.

‘Tell me, Mrs. Priam, is he nuts?'

‘Sometimes, Lieutenant,' murmured Delia without turning, ‘I wonder.'

‘I'd like to add,' said Keats abruptly, ‘that Joe Dokes and his Ethiopian brother could have dosed that tuna. The kitchen back door wasn't locked. There's gravel back there, and woods beyond. It would have been a cinch for anyone who'd cased the household and found out about the midnight snack routine. There seems to be a tie-up with somebody from Mr. Priam's and Mr. Hill's past — somebody who's had it in for both of them for a long time. I'm not overlooking that. But I'm not overlooking the possibility that that's a lot of soda pop, too. It could be a cover-up. In fact, I think it is. I don't go for this revenge-and-slow-death business. I just wanted everybody to know that. Okay, Mr. Queen, I'm through.'