There Was an Old Woman

by Ellery Queen

  She appeared from the front door and marched towards the marble steps, flanked on one side by Dr. Innis and on the other by Sergeant Thomas Velie. Each escort, in his own fashion, was pleading with her.

  The reporters and cameramen deserted the Queens shamelessly. In a twinkling they had raced across the lawn and set up shop at the foot of the steps.

  "Bloomin' heroes," said Ellery. He was squinting at the Old Woman, disturbed.

  There was no sign of grief on that face; only rage. The jet snake's eyes had not wept; they had kept the shape and color of their reptilian nature. "Get off my property!" she screamed.

  Cameras were raised high; men fired questions at her.

  If these intrepid explorers of the news had the wit, thought Ellery, they would shrink and flee before an old woman who accepted her young son's bloody murder without emotion and grew hysterical over a transitory trespass on the scene of his death. Such a woman was capable of anything.

  "It's the first peep out of her today," remarked the Inspector. "We'd better get on over there. She may blow her top any minute."

  The Queens hurried toward the house. But before they could reach the steps, Cornelia Potts blew, and blew in an unexpected manner.

  One moment she was standing there like an angry pouter pigeon, glaring down at her tormentors; the next her claws had flashed into a recess in the overlapping folds of her taffeta skirt and emerged with a revolver. It was absurd, but there it was: an old lady, seventy years old, pointing a revolver at a group of men.

  Somebody said: "Hey," indignantly; then they grew very quiet.

  It was a long-barreled revolver alive with blue fires in the sun. All eyes were on ¡t.

  Dr. Innis took a quick backward step. On the Old Woman's other side, Sergeant Velie looked dazed. Ellery had seen the Sergeant disarm five thugs all by himself without excitement laying them out in a neat and silent row; but the spectacle and the problem of a septuagenarian who resembled Queen Victoria brandishing a heavy revolver evidently frustrated him.

  "One of Thurlow's mess of guns," the Inspector said bitterly, eyes intent on the talon that was crooked about the trigger. "So she knew where Thurlow'd hid 'em after all. I swear, anyone who mixes with these crazy drooglers gets addled—even me."

  "Someone ought to stop her," said Ellery nervously.

  "Care to volunteer your services?" And since there was no answer, his father lit a stogie and began to puff on it without relish. "Mrs. Potts," he called, "put that naughty thing down and—"

  "Stand where you are!" said the Old Woman grimly to the Inspector; at which he looked surprised, for he had exhibited no least intention of moving from the spot. She turned back to the fascinated group below her. "I told you ¿Ten to get off my property." She waved the revolver shakily.

  One witless enthusiast raised his camera for a furtive shot of Cornelia Potts Draws Bead on Press. There was a shot, but it came towards the camera, not from it. It was a bad shot, merely nicking one edge of the lens and ricocheting off to bury itself in the grass; but It had the magical property of causing a group of grown men to disappear from the foot of the steps and reintegrate behind the solid bronze of the Shoe some yards away.

  "She's loco," said the Sergeant hoarsely to Dr. Innis.

  "Get out!" shrieked Cornelia Potts to the men cowering behind the Shoe. "This is my family's business and I won't have it all over the dirty newspapers. Out!"

  "Piggott, Hesse," said the Inspector wearily. "Where in time are you men? Escort the boys from the grounds."

  Several heads peered from behind several trees, and it was seen that they were the heads of several large persons —what was more shameful, of detectives attached to Inspector Queen's staff.

  "Well, go on," said the Inspector. "All she can do is kill you. That's what you're paid for, isn't it? Get these brave men out of here!"

  The detectives emerged, blushing. Whereupon Mr. Queen enjoyed the spectacle of numerous male figures scampering helter-skelter toward the front gates, their flank covered, as it were, by plain-clothes men who were running as energetically as they. Within seconds only the three at the top of the steps and the two a short way off on the grass were left to watch the fires burn blue on the barrel of the faintly smoking revolver.

  "That's the way it is," said the Old Woman with satisfaction. "Now what are you men waiting for?" The barrel waggled again.

  "Madam," said the Inspector, taking a step. "Stop, Inspector Queen." Inspector Queen stopped.

  'TU say this now, and not again. I don't want you. I don't want an investigation. I don't want police. I don't want any outside interference. I'll handle my son's death in my own way, and if you don't think I mean it—"

  Ellery said respectfully: "Mrs. Potts."

  She gave him a sharp glance. "You've been hanging around to no good, young man. What d'ye want?"

  "Do you quite realize your position?"

  "My position is what I make it!"

  "I'm afraid not," said Ellery sadly. "Your position is what your impulsive son Thurlow has made it. Or rather whoever was using Thurlow as a witless fool to commit a revolting crime. You can't get out of your position, Mrs. Potts, with revolvers, or threats, or loud tones of voice. Your position, Mrs. Potts, if you'll reflect for a moment, dictates that you hand that revolver to Sergeant Velie, go into your house, and leave the rest to those whose business it is to catch murderers."

  Sergeant Velie, thus obliquely brought into the conversation, gave a nervous start and cleared his throat.

  "Don't move," said Cornelia Potts sharply; and the Sergeant gave a feeble laugh and said: "Who, me, Mrs. Potts? I was just shiftin' to the other foot."

  She backed up, grasping the revolver more firmly. "Did you hear what I said? Get out, Innis—you too!"

  "Now, Mrs. Potts," began the physician, pallidly. "Mr. Queen is quite right, you know. Besides, all this excitement is bad for your heart, very bad. I shan't be responsible—"

  "Oh, fiddlesticks," she snapped. "My heart's my own. I'm sick of you, Dr. Waggoner Innis, and what I've been thinking of to let you mess around me I can't imagine." Dr. Innis drew himself up. "For the last time, you men— are you going to leave, or do I have to shoot one of you to convince you I mean what I say?"

  Inspector Queen said: "Velie, take that gun away from her."

  "Dad—" began Ellery.

  "Yes, sir," said Sergeant Velie.

  Several things happened at once. Dr. Innis stepped aside with extraordinary agility to get out of the way of Sergeant Velie, who was advancing cautiously towards the old lady; and of the old lady, who had twisted about to train her revolver on the advancing Sergeant. At the same moment Ellery darted from his station on the grass and hurled himself at the steps. Simultaneously the front door opened and eyes clustered, staring, while on the grass Inspector Queen took two kangaroo steps to the left, pulling from his pocket as he did so his large and ponderous fountain pen, and let fly.

  Ellery, pen, and Cornelia Potts met at the identical instant that the revolver cracked. The fountain pen struck her hand, joggling it; Ellery struck her legs, upsetting them; and the bullet struck Sergeant Velie's hat, causing it to dart from his head like a bird.

  The revolver clanked to the porch.

  Sergeant Velie pounced on it, mumbling incredulously: "She took a shot at me. She took a shot at me! Blame near got me in the head. In the head!" He gaped at Cornelia Potts as he rose, clutching the gun.

  Ellery got up and brushed himself off. "Forgive me," he said to the furious old lady, who was struggling between Inspector Queen and Dr. Innis.

  "I'll have the law on you!" she screamed.

  "Let me get you inside, Mrs. Potts," murmured Dr. Innis, twisting her arm. "Quiet you down—your heart—"

  "The law on you ..."

  Inspector Queen smote his forehead. "She'll have the law on us!" he roared. "Flint, Piggott, Johnson! Get this maniac into her house—come out of hiding there, you yellow-bellied traitors! She'll have the law on us, will she?
Velie!"

  "Huh?" Sergeant Velie was now staring at his hat, which stared back at him with its new eye.

  "Those fourteen shooting irons Thurlow bought," the old gentleman snarled. "We've got three of 'em now—the two he used in the duel this morning, and this one his mother swiped. Round up those other eleven, understand me, or don't come back to Center Street. Every last one of em!"

  "Yes, sir," mumbled Sergeant Velie. He shambled into the house after Dr. Innis and the fighting Old Woman, still shaking his head as one who will never understand.

  10 . . . The Mark of Cain

  The wake is quite all for the living, and no man eats more heartily than the butcher.

  Ellery suddenly found himself craving sustenance. He was rested by his nap, Robert Potts lay irrevocably downtown on Dr. Prouty's autopsy table, and Mr. Queen was hungry, hungry. He beat a path to the dining room, one eye out for a servant; but the first living soul he met was Detective Flint, hurrying through the foyer toward the front door.

  "Where's the Inspector, Mr. Queen?"

  "Outside. What's wrong now, Flint?"

  "Wrong!" Detective Flint mopped his face. "Inspector says 'Flint, keep an eye on this Horatio Potts,' he says. The one that lives in that pink popcorn shack in the court,' he says. 'I don't cotton to that billygoat,' he says, 'and a guy who'll play marbles at his age'd slip a live cartridge into his brother's rod just out of clean, boyish fun,' he says. 'Probably like to hear 'em pop good and loud,' he says—"

  "Spare me," said Mr. Queen. "I'm a starving man. What's the matter?"

  "So I watch Horatio," said Detective Flint. "I watch and I watch till my eyes are fallin' out of my head, and what do I see?" Flint paused to mop his face again.

  "Well, well?"

  "His brother's layin' downstairs dead, see? Young guy, everything to live for—dead. Murder. House full of cops. Hot hell let loose. Does Horatio get scared?" demanded Detective Flint. "Does he go around bitin' his nails? Does he dive into bed and pull the covers over his yap? Does he cry? Does he make with the hysterics? Does he yell he's gonna get revenge on whoever the bloody murderin' killer was who—"

  Ellery moved off.

  "Wait!" Flint hurried after him. "I'm gettin' to it, Mr. Queen."

  "And so is starvation to me," said Mr. Queen gently.

  "But you don't get it. What does Big Brother Horatio— cripes, what a name!—do? He sits himself down at his desk in that Valentine's box he built himself back there in the garden and he says to me—friendly, see? 'Sir,' he says 'sir, this gives me a honey of an idea for a new kiddy book,' he says. "There is somethin' uny—uny—' "

  "Versal," said Ellery, perking up.

  "That's it—'unyversal in the manly code of punk-something or other—' I didn't get the word, but it sounded like Spick talk—'and anyway,' he says, 'it's always a good theme for a child's work,' he says, 'so I'm gonna sit me down with your permission, sir, of course,' he says, 'and I'm gonna make some notes on a swashbucklin' Stevensonian romance for boys of the early teen age,' ha says, *based on two brothers who fight a dool to the death,' he says, and I'm a shyster lawyer if that big slob don't pick up one of them chicken feathers he writes with and start in writin' away like his life depends on it. Then he stops writin' and looks at me. 'Seventeenth century, of course,' he says. And he writes again. And again he stops and looks at me. 'You'll find apples and preserved ginger and cookies in the cupboard, Mr. Flint,' he says to me." Detective Flint looked around cunningly. "Do you s'pose the wack did it to get material for a book?" he whispered. "That's what I gotta tell Inspector Queen. It's a theory, Mr. Queen, you can't break down!"

  "You'll find the oldest living iconoclast out front," sighed Mr. Queen; and he hastened on.

  Sheila and Charley Paxton were seated in the dining room pecking at a salad luncheon.

  "No, don't go," said Sheila quickly.

  "I wasn't intending to." Ellery came in. "Not with food so near."

  "Oh, dear. Cuttins!" The long-shanked butler materialized, trembling. "Cuttins," said Sheila in a deadly voice, "can't decide whether to quit our service or stay, Mr. Queen. Suppose you tell him what the situation is."

  "The situation," said Mr. Queen, impaling Cuttins on his glance, "is that this house and everyone in it are under surveillance of the police, Cuttins, and since you can't very well skip out without a police alarm being broadcast in your honor, you'd be well advised to get me something to eat instantly."

  "Very good, sir," muttered Cuttins; and he oozed rapidly out.

  "I'm still punchy," said Sheila vaguely. "I can't seem to get it through my thick head that Bob's dead. Dead. Not of pneumonia. Not hit by an automobile. Killed by a bullet from Thurlow's gun in a duel. Such a s-silly way to die!" Sheila bent suddenly over her plate. She did not look at Charley Paxton, who sat stricken.

  "Something's happened between you two," said Ellery keenly, glancing from one to the other.

  "Sheila's called off our engagement," murmured Charley.

  "Well," said Ellery cheerfully, "don't treat it like some major convulsion of nature, Charley. A girl has a right to change her mind. And you're not the handsomest specimen roving the New York jungle."

  "It isn't that," said Sheila quickly. "I still—" She bit her lip.

  "It isn't?" Ellery stole a slice of bread from Charley's bread-and-butter plate. "Then what is it, Sheila?"

  Sheila did not answer.

  "This is no time to split up," cried Charley. "I'll never understand women! Here's a girl up to her neck in trouble. You'd think she'd want my arms around her. Instead, she pushed me away just now! Won't let me kiss her, won't let me share her unhappiness—"

  "Every fact has a number of alternative explanations," murmured Mr. Queen. "Maybe you had garlic for lunch yesterday, Charley."

  Sheila smiled despite herself. Then she said in despair: "There's nothing else for me to do, I tell you."

  "Just because poor Bob was murdered," Charley said bitterly. "I suppose if my father had died on the gallows rather than home in bed, you'd run out on me, wouldn't you?"

  "Cough up, sweetheart," said Mr. Queen gently.

  "All right, I will!" Sheila's dimples dug hard. "Charley, I've always told you that the main reason I was holding off our marriage was because -Mother would cut me off without a cent if we went through with it, and that that wouldn't be fair to you. Well, I wasn't being honest. As if I cared two cents whether Mother left me anything or not! Td be happy with you if I had to live in a one-room shack."

  "It isn't that?" The young lawyer was bewildered. "But then what possible reason, darling—?"

  "Charley, look at us. Thurlow. Louella. Horatio—"

  "Wait a minute—"

  "You can't get away from the horrid truth just by ignoring it. They're insane, every one of them." Sheila's voice soared. "How do I know I haven't got the same streak in me? How do I know?"

  "But Sheila dearest, they're not your full brothers and sisters—they're half-brothers, Louella's a half-sister."

  We have the same mother."

  "But you know perfectly well that Thurlow, Louella, and Horatio inherited their—whatever they inherited—not from your mother but from their father, whose blood isn't in you at all. And there's certainly nothing wrong with Steve—"

  "How do I know that?" asked Sheila stridently. "Look at my mother. Is she like other people?"

  "There's nothing wrong with the Old Woman but plain, ordinary cussedness. Sheila, you're dramatizing. This childish fear of insanity—"

  "I won't marry you or anybody else until I know, Charley," said Sheila fiercely. "And now with a murderer in the family—" She jumped up and fled.

  "No, Charley," said Ellery quickly, as with the look of a wounded deer the lawyer started after her. "Abide with me."

  "But I can't let her go like this!"

  "Yes, you can. Let Sheila alone for a while."

  "But it's such nonsense! There's nothing wrong with Sheila. There's never been anything wrong with the Brents�
�Steve, Sheila, Bob, Mac—"

  "You ought to be able to understand Sheila's fears, Charley. She's in a highly nervous state. Even if she weren't a naturally high-strung girl, living here would have made her a neurotic."

  "Well, then, solve this damned case so T can take Sheila out of this asylum and pound some sense into her!"

  "I'll do my best, Charley." Ellery looked thoughtfully over his chicken salad, which, now that the first pangs of his hunger had been assuaged, he realized with annoyance he had always detested.

  When Inspector Queen and Sergeant Velie bustled into the dining room, Ellery was low in his chair, smoking like a sooty flue, and Charlie was tormenting his nails.

  "Shhh," whispered Charley. "He's thinking."

  "He is, is he?" snapped the Inspector. "Then let him think about this. Velie—set 'em down."

  There was a crash. Ellery looked up with a start. Sergeant Velie had dumped an armful of revolvers and automatics on the dining-room table.

  "Well, well. Thurlow's arsenal, eh?"

  "Me, I found it," pouted Velie. "Don't I ever get credit for nothin'?"

  "A regular Pagliacci," snarled Inspector Queen. "The fact is, son, here's the kit and caboodle of 'em, and there's two missing."

  "Not fourteen?" Ellery looked distressed. In some things he had the soul of a bookkeeper; a mislaid fact irked him —two drove him mad.

  "Count them yourself."

  Ellery did so. There were twelve. Among them he found Thurlow's .25 Colt automatic, Robert's stubby S. & W. .38/32, and the long-barreled revolver with which Cornelia Potts had almost assassinated Sergeant Velie—a Harrington & Richardson .22-caliber "Trapper Model."

  "What's Thurlow got to say?" demanded Charley.

  "Can you make sense out of a pecan?" asked the Sergeant. 'Thurlow says he had fourteen, and that's what the sportin'-goods store says he bought. Also, Thurlow says nobody but himself knew where he hid the guns. So I says: Then how come two are missin'? What did they do—pick themselves up and take a walk?' So he looks at me like I'm nuts!"

  "Where did he have them cached, Sergeant?" asked Ellery.

  "In a false closet in his bedroom along with some boxes of ammunition he'd bought."