The New Adventures of Ellery Queen (23 page)

Miss Eames plucked a daisy. “Gramaton,” she said softly, “doesn't know, you see. And Mimi is a brave child who is terribly in love with her husband.”

“Bosh,” said Ellery, watching the three figures. “If the man's a menace Gramaton should be told. How can he be so blind? Apparently everyone in Natchitauk—”

“Mark's peculiar. As many faults as virtues. When it is aroused he has the most jealous temper in the world.”

“Will you excuse me?” said Ellery.

He strode toward the woods. Under the trees he stopped, listening. A man was crying out somewhere, thickly, helplessly, and yet defiantly. Ellery nodded, feeling his knuckles.

On his way back he saw Mr. Borcca stumble out of the woods. The man's medallion face was convulsed; he blundered into a rowboat and rowed off toward Gramaton's island with choppy strokes. And then Dr. Varrow and Mimi Gramaton strolled into view as if nothing had happened.

“I suppose every able-bodied man in Natchitauk,” remarked Miss Eames calmly when Ellery rejoined her, “has had a crack at Borcca this summer.”

“Why doesn't somebody run him out of town?”

“He's a queer animal. Complete physical coward, never defends himself, and yet undiscourageable. His seems to be an epic passion.” Miss Eames shrugged. “If you noticed, Johnny Varrow didn't leave any marks on him. If his pet were mussed up Mark might ask inescapable questions.”

“I don't understand it,” muttered Ellery.

“Well, if he found out, you see,” said Miss Eames in a light tone, “Mark would kill the beast.”

Ellery met Gramaton and first encountered the phenomenon of the fourth Lord Gramaton's leaky breast at one of those carefully spontaneous entertainments with which the colonial
illuminati
periodically amuse themselves. There were charades, Guggenheim, Twenty Questions, and some sparkling pasquinade; and it all took place Sunday evening at Dr. Varrow's.

The doctor was gravely exhibiting a contraption. It was a tubular steel frame in which, suspended by invisible cords, hung a glistening cellophane heart filled with a fluid that looked like blood and was obviously tomato juice. Varrow announced in a sepulchral voice: “She is unfaithful,” and squeezed a rubber ball. Whereupon the heart pursed itself and squirted a red stream that was caught uncannily by a brass cuspidor on the floor. Everyone folded up with laughter.

“Surrealism?” asked Ellery politely, wondering if he was mad.

The Angers collapsed. “It's Gramaton's bleeder,” she gasped. “The
nerve
of Johnny! Of course, he's Gramaton's best friend.”

“What has that to do with it?” asked Ellery, bewildered.

“You poor thing! Don't you know the story of the Bleeding Heart?”

She pulled him toward a very large and ugly blond man who was leaning helplessly on Mimi Gramaton's bare shoulders from behind, burying his face in her hair and laughing in gusts.

“Mark,” said the Angers, “this is Ellery Queen. And he never heard the story of the Bleeding Heart!”

Gramaton released his wife, wiping his eyes with one hand and groping for Ellery with the other.

“Hullo there. That Johnny Varrow! He's the only man I know who can exhibit bad taste so charmingly it becomes good.… Queen? Don't believe I've seen you in Natchitauk before.”

“Naturally not,” said Mimi, poking her hair, “since Mr. Queen's only been staying with Pearl a few days and you've been shut up with that mural of yours.”

“So you've met, you two,” grinned Gramaton, but he placed his enormous arm about his wife's shoulders.

“Mark,” pleaded the Angers, “tell him the story.”

“Oh, he must see the portrait first. Artist?”

“Ellery writes murder stories,” said Pearl. “Most people say ‘How quaint' and he gets furious, so don't say it.”

“Then you certainly must see the fourth Lord Gramaton. Murder stories? By George, this should be material for you.” Gramaton chuckled. “Are you irrevocably committed to Pearl?”

“Certainly not,” said the Angers. “He's eating me out of house and home. Do go, Ellery,” she said. “He's going to ask you; he always does.”

“Besides,” said Gramaton, “I like your face.”

“He means,” murmured Mimi, “that he wants to use it on his mural.”

“But—” began Ellery, rather helplessly.

“Of course you'll come,” said Mimi Gramaton.

“Of course,” beamed Ellery.

Mr. Queen found himself being borne across the lake under the stars to Gramaton's island, his suitcase under his feet, trying to recall exactly how he had got there as he watched the big man row. Mimi faced him bewitchingly from the stern, with Gramaton's huge shoulders spread between them, rising and falling like the flails of time; and Ellery shivered a little.

It was queer, because Gramaton seemed the friendliest fellow. He had stopped at Pearl's and fetched Ellery's bag himself, he chattered on, promising Ellery peace, rabbit-shooting, intelligent arguments about Communism, 16-millimeter views of Tibet, Tanganyika, and the Australian bush, and all manner of pleasant diversions.

“Simple life,” chuckled Gramaton. “We're primitive here, you know—no bridge to the island, no motorboats … a bridge would spoil our natural isolation and I've a horror of things that make noise. Interested in art?”

“I don't know much about it,” admitted Ellery.

“Appreciation doesn't necessarily require knowledge, despite what the academicians say.” They landed on the beach; a figure rose, dark and fat against the sands, and took the boat. “Jeff,” explained Gramaton, as they entered the woods. “Professional hobo; like him hanging around.… Appreciation? You could appreciate Mimi's back without knowing the least thing about the geometric theory of esthetics.”

“He makes me exhibit it,” complained Mimi, not very convincingly, “like a freak. Why, he selects my clothes! I feel naked half the time.”

They came to the house and stopped to let Ellery admire it. Fat Jeff, the hairy man, came up from behind and took Ellery's bag and silently carried it off. The house was odd, all angles, ells, and wings, built of hewn logs on a rough stone foundation.

“It's just a house,” said Gramaton. “Come along to my studio; I'll introduce you to Lord Gramaton.”

The studio occupied the second story of a far wing. The north wall was completely glass, in small panes, and the other walls were covered with oils, watercolors, pastels, etchings, plasters, and carvings in wood.

“Good evening,” bowed Mr. Borcca. He was standing before a large covered framework, and he had just turned around.

“Oh, there's Borcca,” smiled Gramaton. “Inhaling art, you pagan? Queen, meet—”

“I've had the pleasure,” said Ellery politely. He was wondering what the framework concealed; the cover was askew and it seemed to him that Mr. Borcca had been examining what lay under it with passionate absorption when they had surprised him.

“I think,” said Mimi in a small voice, “I'll see about Mr. Queen's room.”

“Nonsense. Jeff's doing that. Here's my mural,” Gramaton said, ripping the cover off the framework. “Just the preliminary work on one corner—it's to go over the lobby entrance of the New Arts building. Of course you recognize Mimi.”

And indeed Ellery did. The central motif of a throng of curious masculine faces was a gargantuan female back, dark and curved and womanly. He glanced at Mr. Borcca; but Mr. Borcca was looking at Mrs. Gramaton.

“And this is His Nibs.”

The ancient portrait had been placed where the north light tactfully did not venture—a life-size canvas the color of gloomy molasses, set flush with the floor. The fourth Lord Gramaton glared down out of the habiliments of the seventeenth century, remarkable only for the diameter of his belly and flare of his nose. Ellery thought he had never seen a more repulsive daub.

“Isn't he a beauty?” grinned Gramaton. “Shove an armful, of those canvases off that chair.… Done by some earnest but, as you can see, horny-handed forerunner of Hogarth.”

“But what's the connection between Lord Gramaton and Dr. Varrow's little pleasantry?” demanded Ellery.

“Come here, darling.” Mimi went to her husband and sat down on his lap, resting her dark head against his shoulder. Mr. Borcca turned away, stumbling over a sharp-pointed palette knife on the floor. “Borcca, pour Mr. Queen a drink.

“Well, my noble ancestor married a carefully preserved Lancashire lass who'd never been two miles from her father's hayrick. The old pirate was very proud of his wife because of her beauty; and he exhibited her at Court much as he had exhibited his blacks in the African slave markets. Lady Gramaton quickly became the ambition of London's more buckety buckos.”

“Scotch, Mr. Queen?” mumbled Mr. Borcca.

“No.”

Gramaton kissed his wife's neck, and Mr. Borcca helped himself to two quick drinks. “It seems,” continued Gramaton, “that, conscious of his responsibility to posterity, Lord Gramaton soon after his marriage commissioned some pot-slinger to paint his portrait, with the foul result you see.

“The old chap was terribly pleased with it, though, and hung it over the fireplace in the great hall of his castle, in the most conspicuous place. Well, the story says that one night—he was gouty, too—unable to sleep, he hobbled downstairs for something and was horrified to see blood dripping from the waistcoat of his own portrait.”

“Oh, no,” protested Ellery. “Or was it some Restoration joke?”

“No, it was blood,” chuckled the artist. “The old cutthroat knew blood when he saw it! Well, he hobbled upstairs to his wife's chamber to inform her of the miracle and caught the poor girl enjoying a bit of life with one of the young bucks I mentioned. Naturally, he skewered them both with his sword, and as I recall it lived to be ninety and remarried and had five children by his second wife.”

“But—blood,” said Ellery, staring at Lord Gramaton's immaculate waistcoat. “What did that have to do with his wife's infidelity?”

“Nobody understands that,” said Mimi in a muffled voice. “That's why it's a story.”

“And when he went downstairs again,” said Gramaton, fondling his wife's ear, “wiping his sword, the blood on the portrait had vanished. Typical British symbolism, you know—mysteriously dull. Ever after the tradition has persisted that the fourth Lord Gramaton's heart would bleed every time a Gramaton wife strayed to greener pastures.”

“Sort of domestic tattletale,” remarked Ellery dryly.

Mimi jumped off her husband's lap. “Mark, I'm simply weary.”

“Sorry.” Gramaton stretched his long arms. “Rum sort of thing, eh? Use it if you like.… Shall I show you your room? Borcca, be a good chap and turn off the lights.”

Mimi went out quickly, like a woman pursued. And indeed she was—by Mr. Borcca's eyes, as they left him standing by the sideboard with the decanter of Scotch in his hand.

“Awkward,” said Gramaton at breakfast. “Will you forgive me? I've had a telegram from the architect and I must run into the city this afternoon.”

“I'll go with you,” suggested Ellery. “You've been so kind—”

“Won't hear of it. I'll be back tomorrow morning and we'll have some sport.”

Ellery strolled into the woods for a trampling survey of Gramaton's island. It was, he found, shaped like a peanut; a densely wooded place except in the middle, covering at least thirty acres. The sky was overcast and he felt chilled, despite his leather jacket. But whether it was from the natural elements or not he did not know. The place depressed him.

Finding himself following an old, almost obliterated path, he pursued it with curiosity. It led across a rocky neck and vanished near the eastern end of the island in an overgrown clearing in which stood a wooden hut, its roof half fallen in and its wall timbers sticking out like broken bones.

“Some deserted squatter's shack,” he thought; and it caught his fancy to explore it. One found things in old places.

But what Ellery found was a dilemma. Stepping upon the crumbly stone doorstep he heard voices from the gloom inside. And at the same instant, faintly from the wood behind, rose Gramaton's voice calling: “Mimi!”

Ellery stood still.

Mimi's voice came passionately from the shack. “Don't you dare. Don't touch me. I didn't ask you here for that.”

Mr. Borcca's plaintive voice said: “Mimi Mimi. Mimi,” like a grooved phonograph record.

“Here's money. Take it and get out of here. Take it!” She seemed hysterical.

But Mr. Borcca merely repeated: “Mimi,” and his feet scuffed across the rough floor.

“Borcca! You're a mad animal. Borcca! I'll scream! My husband—”

“I shall kill you,” said Mr. Borcca in a tired voice. “I cannot stand this—”

“Gramaton!” shouted Ellery, as the big man came into view. The voices in the shack ceased. “Don't look so concerned. I've kidnaped Mrs. Gramaton and made her show me your forest.”

“Oh,” said Gramaton, wiping his head. “Mimi!”

Mimi appeared, smiling, and her arm, close to Ellery's jacket, shook. “I've just been showing Mr. Queen the shack. Were you worried about me, darling?” She ran past Ellery and linked her arms about her husband's neck.

“But, Mimi, you know I needed you to pose this morning.” Gramaton seemed uneasy; his big blond head jerked from side to side. Then his head stopped jerking.

“I forgot, Mark. Don't look so grumpy!” She took his arm, turned him around and, laughing, walked him off.

“Lovely place,” called Ellery fatuously, standing still.

Gramaton smiled back at him, but the gray eyes were intent. Mimi drew him into the woods.

Ellery looked down. Mr. Borcca's curiously-shaped walking stick lay on the path. Gramaton had seen it.