The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories

by Otto Penzler

  “This,” replied Queen, drawing from his pocket a fat and aromatic cigar.

  “A Merlinda!” gasped Morley, recognizing the cigar band. “How long has EQMM supported you in this style?”

  “Since the notices about the Short Story Contest, to be exact,” said Ellery, as he lit the cigar. “I’m sorry that I don’t have one for each of you but you will find those Cabañas in the humidor quite good. There’s a story that goes with my cigar. I may as well tell it to you since it concerns one of the manuscripts submitted in the contest.

  “Several days ago, I received a story from a young fellow named Hugh Ashton, a graduate student at Hale. So far as I can discover he has never written anything before, and for a first effort it’s amazing. I don’t want to influence your judgment, but I don’t mind telling you that it’s a honey—as we say in Hollywood, it’s colossal!

  “Unfortunately, the manuscript needs a bit of editing. Ashton seems to realize that himself because shortly after the story arrived he phoned me to say that a friend of his on the faculty had offered to polish it for him. This Professor was to be in New York yesterday—so he asked, as a special favor, that I meet him at the Hale Club and return the manuscript to him along with any suggestions I might care to make. I agreed to meet the Professor—for two reasons. First, because Ashton’s story is so clever that I don’t want to lose it, and second, because I was piqued by the Professor’s name. What do you suppose it was?”

  “Elementary, my dear Queen,” said Morley. “It was Moriarty, James Moriarty, I should guess.”

  “Right,” said Queen. “So yesterday morning I went to the Hale Club and as I approached the door, a man stepped up and said: ‘Mr. Queen? Professor Moriarty.’ ”

  “What did he look like?” asked Haycraft.

  “I’ll bet I know,” put in Morley, and shutting his eyes as if to aid his memory he recited: “He is extremely tall and thin, his forehead domes out in a wide curve, and his two eyes are deeply sunken in his head. He is clean-shaven, pale and ascetic-looking, retaining something of the professor in his features. His shoulders are rounded from much study and his face protrudes forward and is forever slowly oscillating from side to side in a curiously reptilian fashion. He peers at you with great curiosity in his puckered eyes.”

  “Bravo!” laughed Ellery. “That’s not quite right but it will do. To go on, I was studying him carefully when he jolted me by saying—”

  “Don’t tell me,” broke in Morley again, “that he actually told you that you had less frontal development than he expected?”

  “Exactly,” replied Queen. “I told him it was evident that he was a keen student of Sherlock Holmes, at which he smiled and said that the Moriartys always have been. He then invited me into the Club where we had oyster cocktails without cocktail sauce, blast it! In the end I traded the manuscript of the story for this cigar.”

  Here Queen paused and looked at the cigar a trifle apprehensively, as if he were not sure that the swap had been an advantageous one.

  “The Professor promised to do the rewriting at once, so you will have a chance to read the story for yourselves very soon, I hope. And now let’s get on to selecting the prize-winning stories in EQMM’s first short story contest. There are, as you know, fifteen finalists so far.”

  He rose and started toward his desk on which stood a pile of fifteen manuscripts, but before he got there he began to sway and stumble. He opened his mouth as if to say something but seemed to have difficulty in drawing his breath. Suddenly he pitched forward to the floor, knocking over several piles of books and magazines, so that he lay almost buried under them. Haycraft and Morley, stupefied, remained frozen in their chairs, but finally roused themselves and rushed to Ellery’s side. By the time they got to him and swept away the books, it was too late.

  Ellery Queen was dead.

  —

  Sometime later, Ellery’s physician, Dr. Dundy, entered the study accompanied by two men whom Morley and Haycraft, standing in glum silence, recognized as Ellery’s father, Inspector Richard Queen, and Sergeant Thomas Velie.

  “Inspector,” said Morley, “I never dreamed I would meet you under such distressing circumstances. This is simply dreadful.”

  The Inspector, overcome, sank into a chair and mumbled some reply which no one heard. His eyes, usually so bright and alert, were glazed over with a dull film. For the first time in his life, he showed his age. He sat motionless, like a man in deep shock.

  Morley averted his head, then turned briskly to the physician.

  “Well, what’s the verdict?” he asked.

  “We aren’t quite certain,” the doctor replied. “That’s why we should like to have your help. Could you tell us exactly what happened?”

  “There isn’t much to tell. Ellery, Haycraft, and I are the judges in the Short Story Contest which Ellery’s Mystery Magazine is sponsoring. Ellery invited us here this morning to discuss the final selections for the prize winners. We had been here only a few minutes—in fact, Ellery was just going to his desk when he fell to the floor—”

  “I would particularly like to get his symptoms straight,” said the doctor with a glance at the Inspector. “As I understand it, he tried to say something but couldn’t; his face became livid and convulsed and his teeth clenched. Right?”

  “Right,” replied Morley.

  Here the Inspector roused himself and spoke clearly for the first time.

  “Did Ellery seem in good spirits?”

  “Quite,” said Haycraft. “Except that he was puzzled by the fact that someone had sent him a King of Spades in this morning’s mail.”

  “Who did that?” asked Sergeant Velie.

  “He didn’t know,” said Morley. “But it’s over there in his desk drawer if you want to see it.”

  Velie went quickly to the desk, found the card, and handed it to the Inspector, who examined it absent-mindedly.

  Dr. Dundy resumed his questioning. “Was there anything else unusual?”

  “Not much,” replied Morley. “He told us about an extraordinarily good story submitted by a graduate student at Hale—Ashton, I think the name was—but it was rather poorly written and needed editing. The other day Ashton called Ellery on the phone to say that a friend of his on the Hale faculty had offered to rewrite it for him. So he asked Ellery to meet his friend at the Hale Club yesterday. Ellery did, and that’s about all there is.”

  “Did he offer you anything to drink?” asked Velie. “Any of that Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry that he liked so much?”

  “No—only cigarettes and cigars,” said Morley.

  “What did Ellery smoke?” asked the doctor.

  “A cigar the Professor from Hale had given him,” said Haycraft. “He was about half through it when—”

  The Inspector rose suddenly from his chair, sharp and bird-like at the hint of a clue.

  “A half-smoked cigar? Where’s the butt?”

  “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen it,” said Morley. “It must be on the floor somewhere.”

  Sergeant Velie started rummaging through the fallen books and magazines. The others joined him when there came a somewhat muffled shout from the doctor who emerged from the kneehole of the desk with a cigar butt in his hand.

  “Is this it?” he asked.

  Morley took a look at the band and nodded.

  Without another word, the doctor handed the butt to the Inspector who examined it carefully and finally sniffed it. He handed it back to the doctor who likewise sniffed it and laid it carefully on the desk.

  “I had hoped I was wrong,” he said to the Inspector, “but I guess it’s a case for you after all.”

  The Inspector gave a little shudder, his eyes filming over again. Then the film passed as quickly as it had appeared. He set his narrow shoulders and turned to Morley and Haycraft.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “the significance of the King of Spades is now all too clear. Someone was threatening Ellery’s life. Dr. Dundy was suspicious as soon as
he heard the symptoms. Now there is no doubt about it. That cigar reeks of cyanide. Ellery was murdered.”

  “Good God—no!” Morley shouted.

  The Inspector continued, his voice thin and hard: “I’m in it now two ways, and by heaven I’ll find the man who did it if it’s the last thing I do! Velie, call headquarters and get the boys started while I ask these gentlemen a few questions.”

  As Velie disappeared, he continued: “First thing I want to know is the name of the Professor who gave Ellery the cigar?”

  “James Moriarty,” replied Haycraft hesitantly.

  “Please,” said the Inspector. “This is no time for any of your damned Baker Street Irregular shenanigans.”

  “So help me, Inspector,” put in Morley, “that’s exactly what Ellery told us.”

  “All right, all right, skip it,” said the Inspector. “What else do you know about him? Where does he live? What does he teach?”

  “All we know is that Ashton said he was on the faculty at Hale,” replied Haycraft.

  “Didn’t he tell you anything about his looks?” snapped the Inspector, making no effort to conceal his growing impatience.

  “Only roughly,” said Morley. “When I heard the name I quoted the description of the real Moriarty as given by Dr. Watson in The Final Problem. Ellery said it wasn’t exact but it would do.”

  He went to a shelf, took down a book, thumbed through it, then offered the open volume to the Inspector.

  “Read it for yourself.”

  At this point Sergeant Velie returned. The Inspector ignored the book in Morley’s hand. “There’s nothing further to be gained here,” said the Inspector, “but I should like to know where I can reach both of you at any time.”

  “If you don’t mind,” said Morley, “Haycraft and I would like to take these manuscripts up to my place and look them over. Here’s my address and phone number.”

  “Make a note of it, Velie,” said the Inspector, already leaving the room.

  While Morley spoke to Velie, Haycraft gathered up the manuscripts on the desk.

  “Who would have thought,” said Morley, after Velie’s departure, “that the Short Story Contest would turn out to be the Ellery Queen Memorial Competition?”

  —

  Late that evening Morley and Haycraft were sitting in Morley’s smoke-filled study. The EQMM manuscripts lay on Morley’s desk untouched; neither had had any heart for looking at them. They had discussed Ellery’s murder for hours and were now gloomily silent. Suddenly the phone rang. Morley dashed for the instrument, upsetting his chair in his haste.

  “Hello,” he said. “Yes…Yes…I’m sure I can. I’ll ask Howard….It’s Velie,” he said to Haycraft. “The Inspector wants to know if we’ll meet him in Grand Central at nine in the morning and go up to Old Haven for a day or two.”

  “Try and stop me,” said Haycraft.

  Morley talked again to Velie. Then came a long pause during which Morley listened intently. Finally, with a mere “Goodbye,” he hung up.

  “Velie says there isn’t any Professor Moriarty on the Hale Faculty, nor is there anyone who answers the description we have.”

  “I can’t say I’m surprised,” said Haycraft.

  “Nor I,” replied Morley. “What does surprise me is that this morning a crushed body was found at the foot of a big cliff near Old Haven called North Rock. It was the body of Hugh Ashton.”

  —

  Next morning, on the train to Old Haven, Morley and Haycraft opened up with a barrage of questions, but the Inspector briskly silenced them.

  “I still don’t know much more than you do,” he said, “except that I have vaguely confirmed the description of the Professor. We have just been over at the Hale Club and questioned the doorman who was on duty at the time Ellery and the Professor came in. He recognized Ellery from a picture published recently in connection with some affair of the Baker Street Irregulars. The other chap he didn’t know and didn’t even notice much except that he recalls him as being tall and dark, which certainly isn’t much help. As neither of them was a member of the Club he started to speak to them when the tall fellow explained that they had an appointment to meet Professor Gill of the Chemistry Department and asked if he had come in yet. The doorman turned away to look at the board which indicates which members are in the building; when he turned back he saw them disappearing upstairs in the direction of the lounge. Sometime later they came downstairs and went to the door where Ellery said goodbye and left. The tall fellow went back upstairs again and wasn’t seen by anyone afterward. Professor Gill, of course, never showed up. I just had him on the phone and he says he never had any such appointment, knows no Moriarty, and can’t think of anyone who fits that description. Gill does—did—know Hugh Ashton, who took a number of his courses.”

  “But what about Ashton?” asked Morley.

  “He was a graduate student in chemistry, living with a few other students in a small dormitory on the top floor of the chemistry laboratory. He seems to have been fairly smart, not too well-off, and well liked by both students and faculty. Night before last he went out early in the evening, telling a friend that he was going for a walk. He never came back and yesterday morning his body was found at the foot of North Rock. Presumably he had fallen off the cliff. Our main problem, though, is to find this Professor Moriarty.”

  “We certainly don’t know much about him even now,” said Haycraft.

  “Except,” replied the Inspector, “that he is tall, dark, gaunt, and has a high forehead.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure of any of that,” said Morley. “Besides, you haven’t mentioned the really significant items.”

  “Such as?” asked the Inspector.

  “First,” replied Morley, “he is undoubtedly a keen student of Sherlock Holmes. Second, he has an exaggerated sense of humor, a talent for the dramatic, and a taste for the bizarre. Third, he knew Hugh Ashton. Fourth, he is a man of considerable resourcefulness and has the instincts of a born killer—a most dangerous combination.”

  The Inspector did not take kindly to this little lecture.

  “Sometimes,” he growled, “I wish you grown men would forget all this Baker Street Irregular nonsense.”

  —

  As they got off at the Old Haven station, a tall, well-knit, blond, young man stepped up to them and addressed the Inspector.

  “Inspector Queen, I believe? My name is Moran. The Chief asked me to take care of you during your visit here. I am happy to meet you and to be of service, though I could wish that it was under less tragic circumstances. You can count on us to do all we can to help find Ellery’s murderer.”

  “Thank you,” replied the Inspector. “I am glad to meet you, Colonel—I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Morley almost jumped. “Colonel! Good God, what next?”

  “I don’t know what your plans are, Inspector,” said Moran, “but the Chief thought you would probably like to talk to the President of the University and to Professor Gill, so he has made an appointment with them for eleven. As you still have twenty minutes, I suggest you go to the hotel and check in. I have my car here and will be glad to take you.”

  “Tell me, Colonel,” said the Inspector, as they drove slowly through the crooked streets of the town, “how did you recognize me so easily?”

  Moran laughed. “You know my methods, Watson. It was Morley who gave the show away. I knew that the four of you were coming and I had seen pictures of both Morley and Haycraft in the ads of your son’s Mystery Magazine. I must say I wouldn’t have spotted Haycraft from his picture but Morley’s beard is unmistakable. Once I had the crowd spotted, the rest was easy. Sergeant Velie was so obviously himself that I knew you must be Inspector Queen.”

  Detecting a Sherlockian flavor to this explanation, the Inspector promptly changed the subject.

  “Anything new on Ashton?”

  “Nothing yet,” replied Moran, “but the Medical Examiner’s report is due sometime this morning. By the way,
I knew Ashton while we were both undergraduates. We were in some chemistry classes together and were fellow stooges in some of the Dramat productions. On graduation, he decided to do post-graduate work and I joined the Army Air Corps.”

  Then glancing at Morley, he went on:

  “I was a Lieutenant-Colonel before I finally got shot up and was discharged. That’s where the Colonel comes from. When I came back, I joined the Old Haven police, with whom I had some slight acquaintance during my practical-joking student days. Well, here’s the hotel.”

  It did not take long to get their rooms and a few moments later they were at the President’s office, where the President and Professor Gill were waiting for them. Both were greatly disturbed over the double tragedy and both were most anxious to do what they could. But after two hours of questioning and discussion, they were no further advanced than before. The group was about to go out to lunch when a phone call came through for Moran.

  “It’s the medical report,” he said as he hung up. “I’m afraid it doesn’t help much either. Except that Ashton was not killed by the fall from North Rock. He was poisoned with cyanide first, then thrown over.”

  —

  Lunch, in which the visitors from New York were joined by Moran and Professor Gill, was a depressing affair. When it was over, the Inspector asked to see Ashton’s room.

  “Certainly,” replied Professor Gill, to which Moran added that he would drive them out to the chemistry laboratory.

  This proved to be a large squat pile of red brick and stone, surmounted by turrets and battlements, the latter decorated with a number of small shields each carrying the likeness of some piece of chemical apparatus. To the great disgust of Professor Gill, Moran insisted on taking them off to one end of the building to show them a shield on which the architects had placed a foaming mug of beer. He then led them through a large gothic arch and up a small winding staircase which brought them to the top floor, into a short corridor with a row of oak doors along one side. He went straight to the third which he opened with a tagged key taken from his pocket; the room was small, barely large enough for the bed, dresser, and desk which it contained. Its walls of rough plaster were decorated with an assortment of pin-ups of the type usually seen in a student’s room. Along one wall was a small bookcase packed with chemistry texts and detective stories.