A Fine and Private Place

by Ellery Queen

  “It depends on what it is.”

  “Sculptures, like paintings, are usually titled. Does the sculpture Peter Ennis gave you have a name?”

  “Yes. What was it again? Something icky… It’s inscribed on the base of the stand-a little plaque… “ She frowned; but then the frown lifted like fog and her face turned sunny. At that moment she was extraordinarily innocent in her loveliness. “I remember! Newborn Child Emerging.”

  Ennis, you dog, Ellery thought.

  * * *

  Crump did not see Ellery out. His stately British march said that he had every intention of doing so, but Ellery stopped him after ten paces. “I want to talk to Mr. Ennis before I leave. Is he in?”

  “I can see, sir.” Unexpectedly, Crump’s tone suggested that he thought it a jolly idea.

  “Please do.”

  Crump knew all about them, then, and of course he disapproved. There was no more straitlaced lot than the old-fashioned servitor class, in the front rank of whom stood the butlers.

  “Mr. Ennis states that he is too busy, sir.”

  “By a coincidence, I’m busy, too. We’ll be busy together. Which way, Crump?”

  “Mr. Ennis states, sir… “ Crump’s tone this time suggested occupational regret, a what-can-I-do-sir-I-can-only-follow-orders apologia.

  “I’ll take you off the hook, Crump. Where is he?”

  “Thank you, sir. This way, Mr. Queen.”

  He led Ellery briskly, with visible enjoyment, to Nino Importuna’s den. There, enthroned in his late employer’s chair behind the Medici table, sat the handsome confidential secretary; he was up to his elbows in files and documents. Peter Ennis looked away from his paper work and expressed annoyance without hesitation.

  “I told Crump to tell you I was too busy to see you, Queen. I simply haven’t the time to go over the same dreary old ground with you. Crump, I’ll have to report you to Mrs. Importuna for this.”

  “Then you’ll be persecuting an innocent man,” Ellery said in his best amicus curiae manner. “Crump performed his duty with the fidelity of any Englishman. I had to use muscle to get him to bring me here. Verbal muscle, of course. I don’t believe you’ll be needed further, Crump; thank you. May I sit down, Ennis? This will take some time. No? I get the feeling you’d rather not talk to me.”

  “All right,” Peter said, shrugging. “I don’t have to put up with you, Queen; I’m doing this only to get rid of you. You’ve no official status-I can’t imagine how you wea-seled your way up here, the way that lobby’s patrolled.”

  “It’s all in the wrist action.” Eilery seated himself in the squat, lumpily carved visitor’s chair and immediately wished he hadn’t. “Whoever selected this chair had a bit of the old Inquisition spirit in him. Importuna, I suppose. Speaking of whom: Did he have an old friend, someone going all the way back to his boyhood, who grew up to become a justice of the United States Supreme Court?”

  “If he did, he never mentioned it to me.”

  “Then let me put it this way: To your knowledge, did Importuna ever communicate-by letter, phone, Pony Express, however-with any justice of the Supreme Court?”

  “To my knowledge? No.”

  “Did any justice of the Supreme Court ever communicate with him?”

  Peter grinned. “You’re cool, man, you know that? You don’t let go. No, not to my knowledge. What’s this about a Supreme Court justice?”

  “Did he play semipro baseball as a young man? Under the name of Nino Importuna, Tullio Importunato, or some other name?”

  “Baseball? Nino Importuna?” Peter’s grin widened. “If you’d known him, Queen, you’d realize what a ridiculous question that is.”

  “Ridiculous or not, you haven’t answered it.”

  “He failed to mention any such terrible secret of his past, at least to me. And I’ve never run across anything in his personal files to indicate it.” The grin faded as Peter stared across the table. “I believe you’re serious.”

  “Does Binghamton, New York, strike a bell?”

  “In connection with Mr. Importuna? Binghamton? Not a tinkle.”

  Ellery mumbled to himself. Finally he said, “Now tell me he doesn’t-didn’t-own a rancho in Palm Springs, California.”

  “That he does-did.”

  “Really? You mean I’ve struck something at last?” Ellery hitched forward. “A property with a private golf course attached?”

  “Golf course? Who on earth told you that?”

  “Is there a golf course on the Palm Springs property!”

  “Jumping down my throat will get you nowhere, Queen. You can’t blame me for being surprised by such a question. You people haven’t done your homework on Nino Importuna, have you? He’d no more consider setting foot on a golf course than becoming den mother of the neighborhood Girl Scouts. Considered golf a criminal waste of a grown man’s time, especially a businessman. No, Nino didn’t own a golf course in Palm Springs, or anywhere else. He didn’t own a set of clubs. In fact, I don’t believe he even knew how to play.”

  Ellery was pinching the tip of his nose to inflict “the pain that kills pain.”

  “Did you ever happen to see a cat-o’-nine-tails in Importuna’s effects?”

  “See a what?”

  “We’ve received a tip that Nino Importuna was rather fond of whips and whippings. How say you, Mr. Confidential Secretary?”

  Peter threw his head back. “I wasn’t that confidential, I assure you!” Then he stopped laughing. “If you’ve got to pry into his sexual hang-ups, you’ve come to the wrong boy. The obvious source would be his wife, but I hope-in fact, I’m pretty sure-she’ll spit in your eye.”

  “I had a conversation with Mrs. Importuna just now, and from something she let drop I gathered that their marital-sex relationship wasn’t exactly-”

  “I’m not going to discuss what isn’t my business,” Peter said loftily, “or yours. Please.”

  “Was Importuna a chaser? You should certainly know something about that.”

  “Chaser? Why, he was imp-” He stopped, stricken.

  “Impotent?” Ellery said softly.

  “I shouldn’t have blurted that out! It could only have concerned Mrs. Importuna. Won’t you forget I said it? But, of course, you won’t.”

  “But of course. How do you know Importuna was impotent? Did he tell you? No, a man doesn’t reveal a thing like that about himself to a younger, virile man, especially a little Napoleon like Nino Importuna. So you probably found out about it from his wife. Right?”

  “I’m not saying another word on the subject!”

  Ellery waved the subject away with instant amiability. “Here’s one that shouldn’t strain your milk: Did Importuna commission some sculptor to do the 9 Muses for his villa in Lugano? By the way, he did own a villa in Lugano, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know anything about his commissioning sculptures for the place. And that’s just the kind of thing I’d know all about, because it would have been my job to take charge of such a project and follow through on it. No runs, no hits, and lots of errors, Queen. Or do you want to go another inning or two?”

  “I’m beginning to think someone’s monkeying with the rules,” Ellery grumbled. “Another question or so, Ennis, and I’ll leave you in peace, which is more than I can promise myself. Did Importuna like cards? You know-poker, chemin de fer, bridge, faro, pinochle, canasta, gin-any card game at all?”

  “He had absolutely no interest in cards or any other form of gambling. Except the stock market, and the way he played that it was more an art than a game of chance.”

  “How about cards to tell fortunes by?”

  “Fortune-telling? Somebody’s been feeding you boys LSD. Nino Importuna didn’t tell fortunes, he was too busy making them.”

  “Who’s Mr. E?”

  “You do hop around.” Peter stirred. “Mr. E? Now that the Importuna empire’s in the throes of liquidation, I don’t see any harm in telling you. For as long as I’ve been emplo
yed here, Mr. E has acted as Importuna’s personal, confidential business investigator-his secret agent, you might call him. Whenever the boss became interested in a new business enterprise-whether he sensed that it was on the rise, or on the skids, and in either event might be bought cheap-any business venture that looked promising, he’d send Mr. E to look into it. No matter where it happened to be. Mr. E practically lives on planes, though he does his share of camel-riding, too. He’s always reported to Mr. Importuna in person-and in private. To no one else, not even Julio and Marco.”

  “What’s his name? It can hardly be just E.”

  “No, the E’s an initial, I gather, but I haven’t the foggiest idea to what. Mr. Importuna never told me, the name doesn’t occur in his personal memoranda, and my work hasn’t involved me with the man beyond making appointments for him to see the big boss.”

  “When Importuna wanted to get in touch with Mr. E, how did he address him? He had to address him by some name.”

  “No, he didn’t. He used a code word, like a cable address. Had such code addresses in major cities all over the world. I’ve given all this information to the police, by the way. I thought they confide in you.”

  “Not necessarily on this one.” Ellery sighed. “This Mr. E sounds mysterious.”

  “Big business has always been a mystery to me,” Peter Ennis said. “By the way, Queen, speaking of mysteries, as long as I’ve allowed you to waste this much of my time… would you solve a mystery for me? It’s been bothering the life out of me ever since it happened, and you have a reputation for this sort of thing.”

  “You won’t prove it by my performance in this case,” Ellery said. “What sort of thing?”

  “It happened this past summer-back in June, I think it was. Mr. Importuna was dictating to me in here, and while he was pacing he suddenly stopped, glared at that bookshelf there, and then whirled and tore into me as if he’d caught me with my hand in his wallet. Seems I’d noticed several books standing upside down, and being a compulsively neat guy, like the fellow in The Odd Couple, I turned them right side up. Well, he really let me have it.

  Turned the books back upside down and reminded me that he’d warned me never to touch anything on that particular shelf-even put the blame for a deal’s falling through on the fact that I disobeyed his order. It’s bugged me ever since. What the devil’s so special about those books that he considered them bad luck standing right side up, as in any self-respecting library?”

  Ellery pounced on the reversed volumes.

  “The Founding of Byzantium… MacLister… “ He read the title page and scanned the first few pages of the text; he made similar examinations of Beauregard’s The Original KKK and the Santini book, The Defeat of Pompey.

  Replacing them as he had found them, Ellery riffled through some of the volumes that were stacked normally on the shelf.

  He turned back to Peter, shaking his head. “Importuna was the obsessionist supreme. What a stamp collector he’d have made! Was he particularly interested in history?”

  “Hell, no. As a matter of fact, he hardly read anything but market and business reports. I don’t know why he bought any of these books, except that a study’s supposed to have books.”

  “There’s more to these three volumes than shelf fillers, Ennis. No mystery about it, if you start from how hipped he was on the subject of 9s. The MacLister book purports to prove by archaeological evidence that the city of Byzantium was founded in 666 b.c.”

  “666 b.c.?” For a moment Peter Ennis looked blank. Then light dawned. “Upside down, 666 becomes 999!”

  Ellery nodded. “You reverted it to 666 by turning it right side up. That’s about as idolatrous a crime as you can commit against a 9-worshiper, tampering with his mystique.

  “The Santini book similarly. It’s about the defeat of Pompey by the Parthian emperor Mithridates in 66 b.c. The 66 should have read 99 in Importuna’s view; that’s the way he set it, but with the temerity of ignorance you turned it back around to the invidious-even worse, meaningless-66. No wonder he blew his top.

  “The case of The Original KKK is of especially enchanting interest. The original Ku Klux Klan was formed the year after the Civil War ended, 1866. If you turn the volume upside down, every mention of 1866 comes out 9981. Add the integers making up 9981-9, 9, 8, and 1-and you get 27; and 2 plus 7 comes down to that old black magic 9. Upside down the number 1866 represented to Nino the almost perfect number, like the date of his birth. By putting The Original KKK back right side up, you changed every one of its beautiful 9981s into 1866s, which add up to a mere 21, or 2 plus 1, or 3. Now 3 has been the magic number for a great many folks for thousands of years, but it didn’t happen to be the number that turned your boss on. Only 9 could do that. I’m surprised he didn’t fire you on the spot.”

  Peter waved faintly. “I’m dreaming this. The man was mad.”

  “Somebody said-who was it?-the Tristram Shandy man, Sterne, that’s it-that madness is consistent, which is more than can be said of reason; or words to that effect. Do you want to see,” Ellery demanded, “how the consistency of Importuna’s kind of madness operated? Here’s a book on the same shelf, The Landing of the Pilgrims. Standing right side up. Any particular reason for that? Oh, yes! The landing at Plymouth Rock took place Anno Domini 1620. The number 1620 is made up of 1 and 6 and 2 and 0, which total that indispensable 9. The number 1620 is also evenly divisible by 9, to the tune of 180 times. But 180 is 1 plus 8 plus 0, which gives you 9 again! Can’t you see Importuna rubbing his hands in glee?”

  “Truthfully,” Peter muttered, “no. You really couldn’t call him the gleeful type.”

  “You’re nit-picking. Well, look at this one, Peter-may I call you Peter? I feel as if I’ve known you for a long time. Magna Carta at Runnymede, it’s called. Hardly necessary to look inside. King John reluctantly signed the Great Charter, as every schoolboy knows, in the year 1215. Add, and what do you get? 1, 2, 1, and 5 give you 9. And is 1215 divisible by 9? You bet your sweet bippy-it produces the quotient 135. And 135? Why, 1 and 3 and 5-again-make 9. Another 9-victory for the great tycoon.

  “Or this fellow, Peter, also at attention in the orthodox position. The Establishment of the Roman Empire. Done to his historic glory by Augustus Caesar after his victory at Actium four years earlier. Date of his establishment of the principate? 27 b.c. Good old 27. Doesn’t produce quite the best results, but they’re not bad. 2 and 7, of course, make 9. And 27 is evenly divided by 9. True, it doesn’t give you a quotient of 9, but then you can’t have everything, can you?

  “The fact is, Peter,” Ellery said, “every last book on this shelf, either in its upside down or its rightside up position, is relevant to Importuna’s mystical belief in the happy powers of 9. That’s why he warned you not to touch any of them. That’s why he got so angry when you did.”

  “I knew he considered 9 his good-luck number,” Peter said, “but this…! It’s mumbo jumbo!”

  “Oh, I don’t know. You said something before about his accusing you of having caused a deal to fall through. Tell me, Peter, what if anything happened after Importuna restored that trinity of history books to the 9-favoring position? Because I’m sure, Importuna having been the man he was, he didn’t let the failure of the deal go at that, once he knew why it had failed.”

  “You’re right enough about that. He immediately set up a transatlantic conference call and arranged to make the other parties a new offer.”

  “What happened?”

  “He raised the deal from the dead.”

  “You see?” Ellery said; and he shook Peter’s hand in triumph and left.

  * * *

  At Police Headquarters Ellery learned that the lines out of Centre Street were still without a twitch. In spite of a confidential fishing-fexpedition into the awesome precincts of the Supreme Court, the Washington phase of the inquiry elicited no flicker or gleam of “the one of Nino’s boyhood pals,” living or dead, who was alleged by the second anonymous message to have a
chieved the high court bench. And the intelligence in the fourth message that the late multimillionaire had played in his youth for the Binghamton, New York, semiprofessional baseball team raised echoes neither in Binghamton nor anywhere else.

  There was no golf course on or abutting the Importuna property in Palm Springs, California. There had never been a golf course on or near the property. The claim of the sixth communication was simply false.

  As far as could be determined, the allegation of the seventh letter was also false; at least it was unproved. Nino Importuna may or may not have been addicted to sadistic or masochistic sexual practices, but no evidence of any sort turned up corroborating the charge that he enjoyed the use of a cat-o’-nine-tails; and Mrs. Importuna, who was presumed to have been in the logical position to know, and who refused to discuss any aspect of her conjugal relationship with her late husband, nevertheless on the point specifying the cat-o’-nine-tails stated with some heat that “as far as I’m concerned, and to the best of my knowledge, it’s an evil lie.”

  Further, the Importuna villa in Lugano displayed no images of the Muses, nor could any sculptor be located who would admit to having been commissioned to create such images, as stated by the eighth anonymous message.

  “I guess the guy has to be a crank at that,” Inspector Queen said. “We’ve had a meeting on it, and it’s been just about decided to drop that whole line of inquiry.”

  “I don’t think that would be wise,” Ellery said, “but don’t ask me why. Oh, two things, dad. I’d like a rundown on the building at 99 East-details of the sale to Importuna, a copy of the deed, and so on.”

  “What could that have to do with anything?”

  “Call it hunch time. The other thing-no, I can take care of that myself.”

  “Of what?”

  “I’ll cable that private investigating agency I’ve been using in Italy to have a copy made of Tullio Importunato’s baptismal certificate, from the church records, and airmail it to me.”

  “What for? Never mind,” the Inspector grumped, “call it hunch time twice. What did you find out at the penthouse?”