The Origin of Evil (23 page)

‘Have you opened it, Mac?'

‘No.'

‘Where are you?'

‘Your house.'

‘Wait there and keep your hands off it.' Ellery hung up. ‘Number six, Keats!'

They found Laurel and Macgowan in Ellery's living-room, hovering hostilely over a package the size of a men's suit-box, wrapped in strong manila paper and bound with heavy string. The now-familiar shipping tag with Priam's name lettered on it in black crayon — the now-familiar lettering — was attached to the string. The package bore no stamps, or markings of any kind.

‘Delivered in person again,' said Keats. ‘Miss Hill, how did you come to get hold of this?'

‘I've been watching for days. Nobody tells me anything, and I've got to do
something
. And, darn it, after hours and hours of hiding behind bushes I missed her after all.'

‘Her?' said Crowe Macgowan blankly.

‘Well, her, or him, or whoever it is.' Laurel turned old rose.

Crowe stared at her.

‘Let's get technical,' said Keats. ‘Go ahead and open it, Macgowan. Then we won't have to lie awake nights with a guilty conscience.'

‘Very humorous,' mumbled Delia's son. He snapped the string and ripped off the wrapping in silence.

The box was without an imprint, white, and of poor quality. It bulged with its contents.

Mac removed the lid.

The box was crammed with printed documents in a great variety of sizes, shapes, and coloured inks. Many were engraved on banknote paper.

‘What the devil.' Keats picked one out at random. ‘This is a stock certificate.'

‘So is this,' said Ellery. ‘And this …' After a moment they stared at each other. ‘They all seem to be stock certificates.'

‘I don't get it.' Keats worried his thumbnail. ‘This doesn't fit in with what you figured out, Queen. It couldn't.'

Ellery frowned. ‘Laurel, Mac. Do these mean anything to you?'

Laurel shook her head, staring at a name on the certificate she had picked up. Now she put it down, slowly, and turned away.

‘Why, this must represent a fortune,' exclaimed Crowe. ‘Some warning!'

Ellery was looking at Laurel. ‘We'd better have a breakdown on the contents of this box, Keats, and then we can decide how to handle it. — Laurel, what's the matter?'

‘Where you going?' demanded Macgowan.

Laurel turned at the door. ‘I'm sick of this. I'm sick of the whole thing, the waiting and looking and finding and doing absolutely nothing. If you and the lieutenant have anything, Ellery, what is it?'

‘We're not through making a certain investigation, Laurel.'

‘Will you ever be?' She said it drearily. Then she went out, and a moment later they heard the Austin scramble away.

About seven o'clock that evening Ellery and Keats drove up to the Priam house in Keats's car, Ellery carrying the box of stock certificates. Crowe Macgowan was waiting for them at the front door.

‘Where's Laurel, Mac? Didn't you get my phone message?' said Ellery.

‘She's home.' Crowe hesitated. ‘I don't know what's the matter with her. She's tossed off about eight Martinis and I couldn't do a thing with her. I've never seen Laurel act like that. She doesn't take a drink a week. I don't like it.'

‘Well, a girl's entitled to a bender once in a while,' jeered Keats. ‘Your mother in?'

‘Yes. I've told her. What did you find out?'

‘Not much. The wrappings and box were a wash-out. Our friend likes gloves. Did you tell Priam?'

‘I told him you two were coming over on something important. That's all.'

Keats nodded, and they went to Roger Priam's quarters.

Priam was having his dinner. He was wielding a sharp blade and a fork on a thick rare steak. Alfred Wallace was broiling another on a portable barbecue. The steak was smothered with onions and mushrooms and barbecue sauce from several chafing dishes, and a bottle of red wine showed three-quarters empty on the tray. Priam ate in character: brutally, teeth tearing, powerful jaws crunching, eyes bulging with appetite, flecks of sauce on his agitated beard.

His wife, in a chair beside him, watched him silently, as one might watch a zoo animal at feeding time.

The entrance of the three men caught the meat-laden fork in mid-air. It hung there for a moment, then it completed its journey, but slowly, and Priam's jaws ground away mechanically. His eyes fixed and remained on the box in Ellery's hands.

‘Sorry to interrupt your dinner, Mr. Priam,' said Keats, ‘but we may as well have this one out now.'

‘The other steak, Alfred.' Priam extended his plate. Wallace refilled it in silence. ‘What's this, now?'

‘Warning number six, Mr. Priam,' said Ellery.

Priam attacked his second steak.

‘I see it's no use,' he said in almost a friendly tone, ‘trying to get you two to keep your noses out of my business.'

‘I took it,' said Crowe Macgowan abruptly. ‘It was left on the mailbox and I lifted it.'

‘Oh, you did.' Priam inspected his stepson.

‘I live here, too, you know. I'm getting pretty fed up with this, and I want to see it cleaned out.'

Priam hurled his plate at Crowe Macgowan's head. It hit the giant a glancing blow above the ear. He staggered, crashed back into the door. His face went yellow.

‘Crowe!'

He brushed his mother aside. ‘Roger, if you ever do that again,' he said in a low voice, ‘I'll kill you.'

‘Get out!' Priam's voice was a bellow.

‘Not while Delia's here. If not for that I'd be in a uniform right now. God knows why she stays, but as long as she does, I do, too. I don't owe you a thing, Roger. I pay my way in this dump. And I have a right to know what's going on … It's all right, Mother.' Delia was dabbing at his bleeding ear with her handkerchief; her face was pinched and old-looking. ‘Just remember what I said, Roger. Don't do that again.'

Wallace got down on his hands and knees and began to clean up the mess.

Priam's cheekbones were a violent purple. He had gathered himself in, bunched and knotted. His glare at young Macgowan was palpable.

‘Mr. Priam,' said Ellery pleasantly, ‘have you ever seen these stock certificates before?'

Ellery laid the box on the tray of the wheel-chair. Priam looked at the mass of certificates for a long time without touching them — almost, Ellery would have said, without seeing them. But gradually awareness crept over his face, and as it advanced it touched the purple like a chemical, leaving pallor behind.

Now he seized a stock certificate, another, another. His great hands began to scramble through the box, scattering its contents. Suddenly his hands fell and he looked at his wife.

‘I remember these.' And Priam added, with the most curious emphasis, ‘Don't you, Delia?'

The barb penetrated her armour. ‘I?'

‘Look at 'em, Delia.' His bass was vibrant with malice. ‘If you haven't seen them lately, here's your chance.'

She approached his wheel-chair reluctantly, aware of something unpleasant that was giving him a feeling of pleasure. If he felt fear at the nature of the sixth warning, he showed no further trace of it.

‘Go ahead, Delia.' He held out an engraved certificate. ‘It won't bite you.'

‘What are you up to now?' growled Crowe. He strode forward.

‘You saw them earlier today, Macgowan,' said Keats. Crowe stopped, uneasy. The detective was watching them all with a brightness of eye he had not displayed for some time … watching them all except Wallace, whom he seemed not to be noticing, and who was fussing with the barbecue as if he were alone in the room.

Delia Priam read stiffly, ‘Harvey Macgowan.'

‘Sure is,' boomed her husband. ‘That's the name on the stock, Delia. Harvey Macgowan. Your old man, Crowe.' He chuckled.

Macgowan looked foolish. ‘Mother, I didn't notice the name at all.'

Delia Priam made an odd gesture. As if to silence him. ‘Are they all —?'

‘Every one of them, Mrs. Priam,' said Keats. ‘Do they mean anything to you?'

‘They belonged to my first husband. I haven't seen these for … I don't know how many years.'

‘You inherited these stocks as part of Harvey Macgowan's estate?'

‘Yes. If they're the same ones.'

‘They're the same ones, Mrs. Priam,' Keats said dryly. ‘We've done a bit of checking with the old probate records. They were turned over to you at the settlement of your first husband's estate. Where have you kept them all these years?'

‘They were in a box. Not this box … It's so long ago, I don't remember.'

‘But they were part of your effects? When you married Mr. Priam, you brought them along with you? Into this house?'

‘I suppose so. I brought everything.' She was having difficulty enunciating clearly. Roger Priam kept watching her lips, his own parted in a grin.

‘Can't you remember exactly where you've kept these, Mrs. Priam? It's important.'

‘Probably in the storeroom in the attic. Or maybe among some trunks and boxes in the cellar.'

‘That's not very helpful.'

‘Stop badgering her, Keats,' said young Macgowan. Because he was bewildered, his jaw stuck out. ‘Do you remember where you put your elementary school diploma?'

‘Not quite the same thing,' said the detective. ‘The face value of these stocks amounts to a little over a million dollars.'

‘That's nonsense,' said Delia Priam with a flare of asperity. ‘These shares are worthless.'

‘Right, Mrs. Priam. I wasn't sure everybody knew. They're worth far less than the paper they're printed on. Every company that issued these shares is defunct.'

‘What's known on the stock market,' said Roger Priam with every evidence of enjoyment, ‘as cats and dogs.'

‘My first husband sank almost everything he had in these pieces of paper,' said Delia in a monotone. ‘He had a genius for investing in what he called “good things” that always turned out the reverse. I didn't know about it until after Harvey died. I don't know why I've hung on to them.'

‘Why, to show 'em to your loving second husband, Delia,' said Roger Priam, ‘right after we were married; remember? And remember I advised you to wallpaper little Crowe's little room with them as a reminder of his father? I gave them back to you and I haven't seen them again till just now.'

‘They've been somewhere in the house, I tell you! Where anyone could have found them!'

‘And where someone did,' said Ellery. ‘What do you make of it, Mr. Priam? It's another of these queer warnings you've been getting — in many ways the queerest. How do you explain it?'

‘These cats and dogs?' Priam laughed. ‘I'll leave it to you, my friends, to figure it out.'

There was contempt in his voice. He had either convinced himself that the whole fantastic series of events was meaningless, the work of a lunatic, or he had so mastered his fears of what he knew to be a reality that he was able to dissemble like a veteran actor. Priam had the actor's zest; and, shut up in a room for so many years, he may well have turned it into a stage, with himself the star performer.

‘Okay,' said Lieutenant Keats without rancour. ‘That seems to be that.'

‘Do you think so?'

The voice came from another part of the room.

Everyone turned.

Laurel Hill stood inside the screen door to Priam's terrace.

Her face was white, nostrils pinched. Her murky eyes were fixed on Delia Priam.

Laurel wore a suède jacket. Both hands were in the pockets.

‘That's the end of that, is it?'

Laurel shoved away from the screen door. She teetered for an instant, regained her balance, then picked her way very carefully half the distance to Delia Priam, her hands still in her pockets.

‘Laurel,' began Crowe.

‘Don't come near me, Mac. Delia, I have something to say to you.'

‘Yes?' said Delia Priam.

‘When that green alligator wallet came, it reminded me of something. Something that belonged to you. I searched your bedroom while you were in Montecito and I found it. One of your bags — alligator, dyed green, and made by the same shop as the wallet. So I was sure you were behind all this, Delia.'

‘You'd better get her out of here,' said Alfred Wallace suddenly. ‘She's tight.'

‘Shut up, Alfred.' Roger Priam's voice was a soft rumble.

‘Miss Hill,' said Keats.

‘No!' Laurel laughed, not taking her eyes from Delia. ‘I was sure you were behind it, Delia. But Ellery Queen didn't seem to think so. Of course, he's a great man, so I thought I must be wrong. But these stock certificates belong to you, Delia. You put them away. You knew where they were. You're the only one who could have sent them.'

‘Laurel,' began Ellery, ‘that's not the least bit logical —'

‘Don't come near me!
' Her right hand came out of her pocket with an automatic.

Laurel pointed its snub nose at Delia Priam's heart.

Young Macgowan was gaping.

‘But if you sent this “warning” — whatever in your poisoned mind it's supposed to mean — you sent the others, too, Delia. And
they
won't do anything about it. It's washed up, they say. Well, I've given them their chance, Delia. You'd have got away with it if only men were involved; your kind always does. But
I'm
not letting you get away with killing my father! You're going to pay for that right now, Delia! — right n …'

Ellery struck her arm as the gun went off and Keats caught it neatly as it flew through the air. Crowe made a choking sound, taking a step towards his mother. But Delia Priam had not moved. Roger Priam was looking down at his tray. The bullet had shattered the bottle of wine two inches from his hand.