The New Adventures of Ellery Queen (8 page)

“Keith gone?”

“His bed hasn't been slept in at all. I looked.”

“And he was away most of yesterday, too!”

“Precisely. Our surly Crichton, who seems afflicted by a particularly acute case of
Weltschmerz
, periodically vanishes. Where does he go? I'd give a good deal to know the answer to that question.”

“He won't get far in those nasty drifts,” mumbled the lawyer.

“It gives one, as the French say, to think. Comrade Reinach is gone, too.” Thorne stiffened. “Oh, yes; his bed's been slept in, but briefly, I judge. Have they eloped together? Separately? Thorne,” said Ellery thoughtfully, “this becomes an increasingly subtle devilment.”

“It's beyond me,” said Thorne with another shiver. “I'm just about ready to give up. I don't see that we're accomplishing a thing here. And then there's always that annoying, incredible fact … the house—vanished.”

Ellery sighed and looked at his wristwatch. It was a minute past seven.

Thorne threw back the comforter and groped under the bed for his slippers. “Let's go downstairs,” he snapped.

“Excellent bacon, Mrs. Reinach,” said Ellery. “I suppose it must be a trial carting supplies up here.”

“We've the blood of pioneers,” said Dr. Reinach cheerfully, before his wife could reply. He was engulfing mounds of scrambled eggs and bacon. “Luckily, we've enough in the larder to last out a considerable siege. The winters are severe out here—we learned that last year.”

Keith was not at the breakfast table. Old Mrs. Fell was. She ate voraciously, with the unconcealed greed of the very old, to whom nothing is left of the sensual satisfactions of life but the filling of the belly. Nevertheless, although she did not speak, she contrived as she ate to keep her eyes on Alice, who wore a haunted look.

“I didn't sleep very well,” said Alice, toying with her coffee cup. Her voice was huskier. “This abominable snow! Can't we manage somehow to get away today?”

“Not so long as the snow keeps up, I'm afraid,” said Ellery gently. “And you, Doctor? Did you sleep badly, too? Or hasn't the whisking away of a whole house from under your nose affected your nerves at all?”

The fat man's eyes were red-rimmed and his lids sagged. Nevertheless, he chuckled and said: “I? I always sleep well. Nothing on my conscience. Why?”

“Oh, no special reason. Where's friend Keith this morning? He's a seclusive sort of chap, isn't he?”

Mrs. Reinach swallowed a muffin whole. Her husband glanced at her and she rose and fled to the kitchen. “Lord knows,” said the fat man. “He's as unpredictable as the ghost of Banquo. Don't bother yourself about the boy; he's harmless.”

Ellery sighed and pushed back from the table. “The passage of twenty-four hours hasn't softened the wonder of the event. May I be excused? I'm going to have another peep at the house that isn't there any more.” Thorne started to rise. “No, no, Thorne; I'd rather go alone.”

He put on his warmest clothes and went outdoors. The drifts reached the lower windows now; and the trees had almost disappeared under the snow. A crude path had been hacked by someone from the front door for a few feet; already it was half refilled with snow.

Ellery stood still in the path, breathing deeply of the raw air and staring off to the right at the empty rectangle where the Black House had once stood. Leading across that expanse to the edge of the woods beyond were barely discernible tracks. He turned up his coat collar against the cutting wind and plunged into the snow waist-deep.

It was difficult going, but not unpleasant. After a while he began to feel quite warm. The world was white and silent—a new, strange world.

When he had left the open area and struggled into the woods, it was with a sensation that he was leaving even that new world behind. Everything was so still and white and beautiful, with a pure beauty not of the earth; the snow draping the trees gave them a fresh look, making queer patterns out of old forms.

Occasionally a clump of snow fell from a low branch, pelting him.

Here, where there was a roof between ground and sky, the snow had not filtered into the mysterious tracks so quickly. They were purposeful tracks, unwandering, striking straight as a dotted line for some distant goal. Ellery pushed on more rapidly, excited by a presentiment of discovery.

Then the world went black.

It was a curious thing. The snow grew gray, and grayer, and finally very dark gray, becoming jet black at the last instant, as if flooded from underneath by ink. And with some surprise he felt the cold wet kiss of the drift on his cheek.

He opened his eyes to find himself flat on his back in the snow and Thorne in the greatcoat stooped over him, nose jutting from blued face like a winter thorn.

“Queen!” cried the old man, shaking him. “Are you all right?”

Ellery sat up, licking his lips. “As well as might be expected,” he groaned. “What hit me? It felt like one of God's angrier thunderbolts.” He caressed the back of his head, and staggered to his feet. “Well, Thorne, we seem to have reached the border of the enchanted land.”

“You're not delirious?” asked the lawyer anxiously.

Ellery looked about for the tracks which should have been there. But except for the double line at the head of which Thorne stood, there were none. Apparently he had lain unconscious in the snow for a long time.

“Farther than this,” he said with a grimace, “we may not go. Hands off. Nose out. Mind your own business. Beyond this invisible boundary line lie Sheol and Domdaniel and Abaddon.
Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate
.… Forgive me, Thorne. Did you save my life?”

Thorne jerked about, searching the silent woods. “I don't know. I think not. At least I found you lying here, alone. Gave me quite a start—thought you were dead.”

“As well,” said Ellery with a shiver, “I might have been.”

“When you left the house Alice went upstairs, Reinach said something about a catnap, and I wandered out of the house. I waded through the drifts on the road for a spell, and then I thought of you and made my way back. Your tracks were almost obliterated; but they were visible enough to take me across the clearing to the edge of the woods, and I finally blundered upon you. By now the tracks are gone.”

“I don't like this at all,” said Ellery, “and yet in another sense I like it very much.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can't imagine,” said Ellery, “a divine agency stooping to such a mean assault.”

“Yes, it's open war now,” muttered Thorne. “Whoever it is—he'll stop at nothing.”

“A benevolent war, at any rate. I was quite at his mercy, and he might have killed me as easily as—”

He stopped. A sharp report, like a pine-knot snapping in a fire or an ice-stiffened twig breaking in two, but greatly magnified, had come to his ears. Then the echo came to them, softer but unmistakable.

It was the report of a gun.

“From the house!” yelled Ellery. “Come on!”

Thorne was pale as they scrambled through the drifts. “Gun … I forgot. I left my revolver under the pillow in my bedroom. Do you think—?”

Ellery scrabbled at his own pocket. “Mine's still here.… No, by George, I've been scotched!” His cold fingers fumbled with the cylinder. “Bullets taken out. And I've no spare ammunition.” He fell silent, his mouth hardening.

They found the women and Reinach running about like startled animals, searching for they knew not what.

“Did you hear it, too?” cried the fat man as they burst into the house. He seemed extraordinarily excited. “Someone fired a shot!”

“Where?” asked Ellery, his eyes on the rove. “Keith?”

“Don't know where he is. Milly says it might have come from behind the house. I was napping and couldn't tell. Revolvers! At least he's come out in the open.”

“Who has?” asked Ellery.

The fat man shrugged. Ellery went through to the kitchen and opened the back door. The snow outside was smooth, untrodden. When he returned to the living room Alice was adjusting a scarf about her neck with fingers that shook.

“I don't know how long you people intend to stay in this ghastly place,” she said in a passionate voice. “But I've had
quite
enough, thank you. Mr. Thorne, I insist you take me away at once. At once! I shan't stay another instant.”

“Now, now, Miss Mayhew,” said Thorne in a distressed way, taking her hands. “I should like nothing better. But can't you see—”

Ellery, on his way upstairs three steps at a time, heard no more. He made for Thorne's room and kicked the door open, sniffing. Then, with rather a grim smile, he went to the tumbled bed and pulled the pillow away. A long-barreled, old-fashioned revolver lay there. He examined the cylinder; it was empty. Then he put the muzzle to his nose.

“Well?” said Thorne from the doorway. The English girl was clinging to him.

“Well,” said Ellery, tossing the gun aside, “we're facing fact now, not fancy. It's war, Thorne, as you said. The shot was fired from your revolver. Barrel's still warm, muzzle still reeks, and you can smell the burned gunpowder if you sniff this cold air hard enough.
And
the bullets are gone.”

“But what does it mean?” moaned Alice.

“It means that somebody's being terribly cute. It was a harmless trick to get Thorne and me back to the house. Probably the shot was a warning as well as a decoy.”

Alice sank into Thorne's bed. “You mean we—”

“Yes,” said Ellery, “from now on we're prisoners, Miss Mayhew. Prisoners who may not stray beyond the confines of the jail. I wonder,” he added with a frown, “precisely why.”

The day passed in a timeless haze. The world of outdoors became more and more choked in the folds of the snow. The air was a solid white sheet. It seemed as if the very heavens had opened to admit all the snow that ever was, or ever would be.

Young Keith appeared suddenly at noon, taciturn and leaden-eyed, gulped down some hot food, and without explanation retired to his bedroom. Dr. Reinach shambled about quietly for some time; then he disappeared, only to show up, wet, grimy, and silent, before dinner. As the day wore on, less and less was said. Thorne in desperation took up a bottle of whisky. Keith came down at eight o'clock, made himself some coffee, drank three cups, and went upstairs again. Dr. Reinach appeared to have lost his good nature; he was morose, almost sullen, opening his mouth only to snarl at his wife.

And the snow continued to fall.

They all retired early, without conversation.

At midnight the strain was more than even Ellery's iron nerves could bear. He had prowled about his bedroom for hours, poking at the brisk fire in the grate, his mind leaping from improbability to fantasy until his head throbbed with one great ache. Sleep was impossible.

Moved by an impulse which he did not attempt to analyze, he slipped into his coat and went out into the frosty corridor.

Thorne's door was closed; Ellery heard the old man's bed creaking and groaning. It was pitch-dark in the hall as he groped his way about. Suddenly Ellery's toe caught in a rent in the carpet and he staggered to regain his balance, coming up against the wall with a thud, his heels clattering on the bare planking at the bottom of the baseboard.

He had no sooner straightened up than he heard the stifled exclamation of a woman. It came from across the corridor; if he guessed right, from Alice Mayhew's bedroom. It was such a weak, terrified exclamation that he sprang across the hall, fumbling in his pockets for a match as he did so. He found match and door in the same instant; he struck one and opened the door and stood still, the tiny light flaring up before him.

Alice was sitting up in bed, quilt drawn about her shoulders, her eyes gleaming in the quarter-light. Before an open drawer of a tallboy across the room, one hand arrested in the act of scattering its contents about, loomed Dr. Reinach, fully dressed. His shoes were wet; his expression was blank; his eyes were slits.

“Please stand still, Doctor,” said Ellery softly as the match sputtered out. “My revolver is useless as a percussion weapon, but it still can inflict damage as a blunt instrument.” He moved to a nearby table, where he had seen an oil-lamp before the match went out, struck another match, lighted the lamp, and stepped back again to stand against the door.

“Thank you,” whispered Alice.

“What happened, Miss Mayhew?”

“I … don't know. I slept badly. I came awake a moment ago when I heard the floor creak. And then you dashed in.” She cried suddenly: “Bless you!”

“You cried out.”

“Did I?” She sighed like a tired child. “I … Uncle Herbert!” she said suddenly, fiercely. “What's the meaning of this? What are you doing in my room?”

The fat man's eyes came open, innocent and beaming; his hand withdrew from the drawer and closed it; and he shifted his elephantine bulk until he was standing erect. “Doing, my dear?” he rumbled. “Why, I came in to see if you were all right.” His eyes were fixed on a patch of her white shoulders visible above the quilt. “You were so overwrought today. Purely an avuncular impulse, my child. Forgive me if I startled you.”

“I think,” sighed Ellery, “that I've misjudged you, Doctor. That's not clever of you at all. Downright clumsy, in fact; I can only attribute it to a certain understandable confusion of the moment. Miss Mayhew isn't normally to be found in the top drawer of a tallboy, no matter how capacious it may be.” He said sharply to Alice: “Did this fellow touch you?”

“Touch me?” Her shoulders twitched with repugnance. “No. If he had, in the dark, I—I think I should have died.”

“What a charming compliment,” said Dr. Reinach ruefully.

“Then what,” demanded Ellery, “
were
you looking for, Dr. Reinach?”