The Origin of Evil (13 page)

She shrugged. ‘I really thought there were mice.'

‘Of course.'

‘Good night, Ellery.'

‘Good night, Delia.'

He did not offer to walk her down the hill and she did not seem to expect it.

He stared at the kitchen door for a long time.

Then he went upstairs and poured himself a stiff drink.

At three in the morning Ellery gave up trying to sleep and crawled out of bed. He turned on the lights in the living-room, loaded and fired his briar, turned the lights out, and sat down to watch Hollywood glimmer scantily below. Light always disturbed him when he was groping in the dark.

And he was groping, and this was darkness.

Of course, it was a puzzling case. But puzzle was merely the absence of answer. Answer it, and the puzzle vanished. Nor was he bothered by the nimbus of fantasy which surrounded the case like a Los Angeles daybreak fog. All crimes were fantastic insofar as they expressed what most people merely dreamed about. The dream of the unknown enemy had been twenty years or more in the making …

He clucked to himself in the darkness. Back to the writer of the note.

The wonder was not that he made gifts of poisoned dogs and wrote odd notes relishing slow death and promising mysterious warnings with special meanings. The wonder was that he had been able to keep his hatred alive for almost a generation; and that was not fantasy, but sober pathology.

Fantasy was variance from normal experience, a matter of degree. Hollywood had always attracted its disproportionate quota of variants from the norm. In Vandalia, Illinois, Roger Priam would have been encysted in the community like a foreign substance, but in the Southern California canyons he was peculiarly soluble. There might be Delia Priams in Seattle, but in the houri paradise of Hollywood she belonged, the female archetype from whom all desire sprang. And Tree Boy, who in New York would have been dragged off to the observation ward of Bellevue Hospital, was here just another object of civic admiration, rating columns of good-natured newspaper space.

No, it wasn't the fantasy.

It was the hellish scarcity of facts.

Here was an enemy out of the past. What past? No data. The enemy was preparing a series of warnings. What were they? A dead dog had been the first. Then the unknown contents of a small cardboard box. Then a deliberately non-lethal dose of arsenic. The further warnings, the warnings that were promised, had not yet come forth. How many would there be? They were warnings of ‘special meaning.' A series, then. A pattern. But what connection could exist between a dead dog and an arsenic-salted tuna-fish salad? It would help, help greatly, to know what had been in that box Roger Priam had received at the same moment that Leander Hill was stooping over the body of the dog and reading the thin, multi-creased note. Yes, greatly. But … no data. It was probable that, whatever it was, Priam had destroyed it. But Priam knew. How could the man be made to talk? He must be made to talk.

The darkness was darker than even that. Ellery mused, worrying his pipe. There was a pattern, all right, but how could he be sure it was the only pattern? Suppose the dead hound had been the first warning of special meaning in a proposed series to Hill, the other warnings of which were forever lost in the limbo of an unknown mind because of Hill's premature death? And suppose whatever was in Priam's box was the first warning of a
second
series, of which the second warning was the poisoning — a series having no significant relation to the one aborted by Hill's heart attack? It was possible. It was quite possible that there was no connection in
meaning
between Hill's and Priam's warnings.

The safest course for the time being was to ignore the dead dog received by Hill and to concentrate on the living Priam, proceeding on the assumption that the unknown contents of Priam's box and the poisoning of his salad constituted a separate series altogether …

Ellery went back to bed. His last thought was that he must find out at any cost what had been in that box, and that he could only wait for the third warning to Priam.

But he dreamed of Delia Priam in a jungle thicket, showing her teeth.

7

As Ellery was able to put it together when he arrived at Delia Priam's summons that fabulous Sunday morning — from the stories of Delia, Alfred Wallace, and old Mr. Collier — Delia had risen early to go to church. Beyond remarking that her church attendance was ‘spotty,' she was reticent about this; Ellery gathered that she could not go as regularly as she would like because of the peculiar conditions of her life, and that only occasionally was she able to slip away and into one of the old churches where, to ‘the blessed mutter of the Mass,' she returned to her childhood and her blood. This had been such a morning, five days after the poisoning attack on her husband, two after her strange visit to Ellery's cottage.

While Delia had been up and about at an early hour, Alfred Wallace had risen late. He was normally an early riser, because Priam was a demanding charge and Wallace had learned that if he was to enjoy the luxury of breakfast he must get it over with before Priam awakened. On Sundays, however, Priam preferred to lie in bed until midmorning, undisturbed, and this permitted Wallace to sleep until nine o'clock.

Delia's father was invariably up with the birds. On this morning he had breakfasted with his daughter, and when she drove off to Los Angeles, Mr. Collier went out for his early-morning tramp through the woods. On his way back he had stopped before the big oak and tried to rouse his grandson, but as there was no answer from the tree house beyond Crowe's Brobdingnagian snores the old man had returned to the Priam house and gone into the library. The library was downstairs off the main hall, directly opposite the door to Roger Priam's quarters, with the staircase between. This was shortly after eight, Mr. Collier told Ellery; his son-in-law's door was shut and there was no light visible under the door; all seemed as it always was at that hour of a Sunday morning; and the old man had got his postage-stamp albums out of a drawer of the library desk, his stamp hinges, his tongs, and his Scott's catalogue, and he had set to work mounting his latest mail purchases of stamps. ‘I've done a lot of knocking about the world,' he told Ellery, ‘and it's corking fun to collect stamps from places I've actually been in. Want to see my collection?' Ellery had declined; he was rather busy at the time.

At a few minutes past nine Alfred Wallace came downstairs. He exchanged greetings with Delia's father — the library door stood open — and went in to his breakfast without approaching Priam's door.

Mrs. Guittierez served him, and Wallace read the Sunday papers, which were always delivered to the door, as he ate. It was the maid's and chauffeur's Sunday off and the house was unusually quiet. In the kitchen the cook was getting things ready for Roger Priam's breakfast.

Shortly before ten o'clock Alfred Wallace painstakingly restored the Sunday papers to their original state, pushed back his chair, and went out into the hall carrying the papers. Priam liked to have the newspapers within arm's reach when he awakened Sunday mornings, and he flew into a rage if they were crumpled or disarranged.

Seeing a line of light beneath Priam's door, Wallace quickened his step.

The first
he
knew anything out of the ordinary had occurred, said Mr. Collier, he heard Wallace's cry from Roger Priam's room: ‘Mr. Collier! Mr. Collier! Come here!' The old man jumped up from his stamp albums and ran across the hall. Wallace was rattling the telephone, trying to get the operator. Just as he was shouting to Collier, ‘See about Mr. Priam! See if he's all right!' the operator responded, and Wallace — who seemed in a panic — babbled something about the police and Lieutenant Keats. Collier picked his way across the room to his son-in-law's wheelchair, which was still made up as a bed. Priam, in his night clothes, was up on one elbow, glaring about with a sort of vitreous horror. His mouth was open and his beard was in motion, but no sound passed them. As far as the old man could see, there was nothing wrong with Priam but stupefying fright. Collier eased the paralyzed man backward until he was supine, trying to soothe him; but Priam lay rigid, as if in a coma, his eyes tightly shut to keep out what he had seen, and the old man could get no response from him.

At this moment, Delia Priam returned from church.

Wallace turned from the phone and Collier from Priam at a choked sound from the doorway. Delia was staring into the room with eyes sick with disbelief. She was paler than her husband and she seemed about to faint.

‘All this … all these …'

She began to titter.

Wallace said roughly, ‘Get her out of here.'

‘He's dead. He's dead!'

Collier hurried to her. ‘No, no, daughter. Just scared. Now you go upstairs. We'll take care of Roger.'

‘He's not dead? Then why —? How do these —?'

‘Delia.' The old man stroked her hand.

‘Don't touch anything. Anything!'

‘No, no, daughter —'

‘Nothing must be touched. It's got to be left exactly as you found it.
Exactly
.' And Delia stumbled up the hall to the household telephone and called Ellery.

When Ellery pulled up before the Priam house a radio patrol car was already parked in the driveway. A young officer was in the car, making a report to headquarters by radio, his mouth going like a faucet. His mate was apparently in the house.

‘Here, you.' He jumped out of the car. ‘Where you going?' His face was red.

‘I'm a friend of the family, Officer. Mrs. Priam just telephoned me.' Ellery looked rather wild himself. Delia had been hysterical over the phone, and the only word he had been able to make out, ‘fogs,' had conveyed nothing reasonable. ‘What's happened?'

‘I wouldn't repeat it,' said the patrol-man excitedly. ‘I wouldn't lower myself. They think I'm drunk. What do they think I am? Sunday morning! I've seen a lot of cross-eyed things in this town, but —'

‘Here, get hold of yourself, Officer. Has Lieutenant Keats been notified, do you know?'

‘They caught him at home. He's on his way here now.'

Ellery bounded up the steps. As he ran into the hall he saw Delia. She was dressed for town, in black and modest dress, hat, and gloves, and she was leaning against a wall bloodlessly. Alfred Wallace, dishevelled and unnerved, was holding one of her gloved hands in both of his, whispering to her. The tableau dissolved in an instant; Delia spied Ellery, said something quickly to Wallace, withdrawing her hand, and she ran forward. Wallace turned, rather startled. He followed her with a hasty shuffle, almost as if he were afraid of being left alone.

‘Ellery.'

‘Is Mr. Priam all right?'

‘He's had a bad shock.'

‘Can't say I blame him,' Wallace mumbled. The handsome man passed a trembling handkerchief over his cheeks. ‘The doctor's on his way over. We can't seem to snap Mr. Priam out of it.'

‘What's this about “fogs,” Delia?' Ellery hurried up the hall, Delia clinging to his arm. Wallace remained where he was, still wiping his face.

‘Fogs? I didn't say fogs. I said —'

Ellery stopped in the doorway.

The other radio-car patrol-man was straddling a chair, cap pushed back on his head, looking about helplessly.

Roger Priam lay stiffly on his bed staring at the ceiling.

And all over Priam's body, on his blanket, on his sheet, in the shelves and compartments of his wheel-chair, on his typewriter, strewn about the floor, the furniture, Wallace's emergency bed, the window sills, the cornices, the fireplace, the mantelpiece — everywhere — were frogs.

Frogs and toads.

Hundreds of frogs and toads.

Tiny tree toads.

Yellow-legged frogs.

Bullfrogs.

Each little head was twisted.

The room was littered with their corpses.

Ellery had to confess to himself that he was thrown. There was a nonsense quality to the frogs that crossed over the line of laughter into the darker regions of the mind. Beyond the black bull calf of the Nile with the figure of an eagle on his back and the beetle upon his tongue stood Apis, a god; beyond absurdity loomed fear. Fear was the timeless tyrant. At mid-twentieth century it took the shape of a gigantic mushroom. Why not frogs? With frogs the terrible Wrath of the Hebrews had plagued the Egyptian, with frogs and blood and wild beasts and darkness and the slaying of the first-born … He could hardly blame Roger Priam for lying frozen. Priam knew something of the way of gods; he was by way of being a minor one himself.

While Keats and the patrol-men tramped about the house, Ellery drifted around the Priam living-room trying to get a bearing. The whole thing irritated and enchanted him. It made no sense. It related to nothing. There lay its power over the uninitiated; that was its appearance for the mob. But Priam was of the inner temple. He knew something the others did not. He knew the sense this nonsense made. He knew the nature of the mystery to which it related. He knew the nature of this primitive god and he grasped the meaning of the god's symbolism. Knowledge is not always power; certainty does not always bring peace. This knowledge was paralyzing and this certainty brought terror.

Keats found him nibbling his thumb under the Spanish grandee.

‘Well, the doctor's gone and the frogs are all collected and maybe you and I had better have a conference about this.'

‘Sure.'

‘This is what you'd call Priam's third warning, isn't it?'

‘Yes, Keats.'

‘Me,' said the detective, seating himself heavily on a heavy chair, ‘I'd call it broccoli.'

‘Don't make that mistake.'

Keats looked at him in a resentful way. ‘I don't go for this stuff, Mr. Queen. I don't believe it even when I see it. Why does he go to all this trouble?' His tone said he would have appreciated a nice, uncomplicated bullet.