The Door Between (17 page)

“Even a gorilla wouldn’t have arms
that
long.”

“It makes you think of Poe. It’s mad. It’s impossible.”

“Unless,” said Terry, squinting, “Eva MacClure’s a liar.”

“Yes, unless Eva MacClure’s a liar.”

Terry got to his feet with a leap. “Well, she isn’t! I’m not the prize sucker of all time, am I? I tell you she’s on the level. She told the truth. I couldn’t be wrong. I’ve been right about women too damned many times!”

“Human beings will do inconsistent things to save their skins.”

“Then you do think she killed that phony!”

Ellery did not reply for some time. A goldfish flopped back into the water, leaving circles. “There’s one other possibility,” he said suddenly. “But it’s so fantastic I scarcely credit it myself.”

“What is it? What is it?” Terry stuck his brown face forward. “The hell with how it looks. What is it?”

“It involves Eva herself. It would make it possible for her to have told the truth and yet to have …” He shook his head.

“Talk, you exasperating ape!”

But just then Ritter pressed his red face to the bars of the sitting-room window upstairs and yelled: “Hey, Mr. Queen! These MacClure people are here, askin’ for you. Mr. Queen!”

“Stop bellowing.” Ellery nodded curtly to Terry. “Trail along. I’ve asked them over.” Then he winced. “We may as well get it over with.”

But when they went into the house they found three people – Dr. MacClure, Eva, and Dr. Scott. Eva looked quieter this afternoon, as if she had spent a peaceful, dreamless night. And Dr. MacClure had got a grip on himself: the redness had left his eyes and there was something resigned, almost fatalistic, in them. But Dr. Scott looked as if he had slept badly; and somehow, without being told, Ellery knew that the story of Karen Leith’s mysterious blonde tenant had been related to him. But why, he thought, should that worry young Dr. Scott? Did he have a traditional distaste for family skeletons?

“Hello,” he said with an attempt at cheerfulness. “You all look worlds better to-day.”

“What’s happened?” asked Dr. MacClure. “You sounded –”

“I know,” sighed Ellery. “It’s important, Doctor.” He stopped to let Kinumé flit by. Then he said to his fingernails: “If I have something of – well, great and tragic significance to tell you … is it all right to disclose it before Dr. Scott?”

“Why not?” asked the young doctor angrily. “If you’re ready to spill something before this fellow” – he stabbed at Terry with his forefinger – “why not before me? I’ve more rights than he has! I’m –”

“You don’t have to be so damned snooty about it,” said Terry, swinging on his heel. ‘I’ll go.”

“Wait,” said Ellery. “I want you here, Terry. Let’s not become involved in emotional entanglements, please. This is something much too grave to be squabbled over.”

Eva said quietly: “I told Dick last night – everything.”

“Oh. Well, that’s your affair, Miss MacClure. You know best. Upstairs, please.”

He led the way, saying something to Ritter at the head of the stairs, and when they entered the sitting-room Ritter closed the door behind them. Terry went last, as usual, and Dr. Scott turned at every few steps to glare back.

“Let’s go up to the attic,” said Ellery. “I’m expecting Karen Leith’s publisher. We can wait there.”

“Buescher?” frowned Dr. MacClure. “What’s he to do with it?”

“I need him to verify a conclusion of mine.” And Ellery in silence led them up the attic stairs.

They were scarcely in the slant-roofed room when Ritter’s voice yelled from below: “Hey, Mr. Queen! This Mr. Boosher’s here.”

“Come up, Mr. Buescher,” called Ellery. “I suppose we may as well make ourselves comfortable … Ah, Mr. Buescher. You know the MacClures, of course. And this is Dr. Scott, Miss MacClure’s
fiancé
, and Mr. Ring, a private detective.”

Karen Leith’s publisher offered a sweating palm to the two young men, but he said to Dr. MacClure: “I’m horribly sorry, Doctor. I’ve sent my condolences, but … Great shock, of course. Nastiest business. If there’s anything I can do –”

“It’s all right, Mr. Buescher, it’s all right,” said Dr. MacClure steadily. He went to one of the windows and clasped his hands behind his broad back.

Buescher was a calfish man with a clever face – a prancer, something of a buffoon. But no one who knew him underrated his intelligence. He had built up a house with seven important authors and a score of paying small fry out of nothing but a hope and a plan. He sat down gingerly on the edge of a cane chair, putting his hands on his skinny knees. His large, innocent eyes went from face to face and finally settled on Ellery’s.

“Just how can I help you, Mr. Queen?”

“Mr. Buescher, I know your reputation very well,” said Ellery. “You’re a clever man. But how good are you at keeping secrets?”

The publisher smiled. “A man in my position learns to keep his mouth shut. Of course, if it’s anything illegal –”

“Inspector Queen knows already. I told him this forenoon.”

“Then in that case … naturally.”

“Knows what, Queen?” demanded Dr. MacClure. “What?”

“The reason I pound the point,” said Ellery, “is that to a publisher this information might be tempting. Marvellous publicity, and all that.”

Buescher spread his hands without lifting them from his knees. “I think,” he said dryly, “if it concerns Karen Leith, we’ve had as much publicity in the last few days as the traffic will bear.”

“But this is ever so much more important news than Karen Leith’s death.”

“More important –” began the doctor, and stopped.

Ellery sighed. “Dr. MacClure, I have proved to my own satisfaction that the occupant of this room was Esther Leith MacClure.”

The doctor’s back twitched. Buescher sat staring.

“Miss MacClure, you were wrong yesterday. Esther Leith MacClure is as sane as you or I. That makes,” he said with a snap of his teeth, “that makes Karen Leith something of a fiend.”

“Mr. Queen, what have you found out?” cried Eva.

Ellery went to the teakwood desk. He opened the top drawer and extracted a red-ribboned bundle of old letters, the bundle Inspector Queen had shown them the day before. He laid this on the desk. Then he poked his finger at a neatly stacked series of typewritten letters.

“How well do you know Miss Leith’s work, Mr. Buescher?”

Buescher said uncertainly: “Very well, of course.”

“In what form was she accustomed to deliver her novels?”

“Typewritten.”

“You read them yourself in the original manuscript?”

“Naturally.”

“All this is true, of course, of
Eight-Cloud Rising
, her last novel – the prize-winner?”

“Especially true of
Rising
. I recognized at once that it was a significant novel. We were all quite mad about it.”

“Do you recall that when you read the manuscript there were written corrections? I mean – typed words crossed out, penciled emendations careted in?”

“There were a few, I believe.”

“Is this the original manuscript of
Eight-Cloud Rising
?” Ellery handed the man a thin sheaf of manuscript. Buescher affixed a pair of gold spectacles to his nose and glanced through the papers.

“Yes,” he said at last, handing them back. “Mr. Queen, may I ask what the point of this – ah – extraordinary inquisition is?”

Ellery put down the manuscript and picked up the neat pile he had poked. “I have here various samples of Karen Leith’s handwriting – indisputably Karen Leith’s, according to Morel. Dr. MacClure, would you be kind enough to look these over and confirm the lawyer’s opinion?”

The big man came away from the window. He did not take the papers from Ellery. He merely stood with his hands behind his back and glanced at the top sheet.

“That’s Karen’s handwriting, all right.” And he went back.

“Mr. Buescher?”

The publisher was more thorough. He went through the pile. “Oh, yes. Oh, yes.” He was perspiring.

“Now then,” continued Ellery, setting the pile down and picking up the manuscript again, “let me read you a few fragments from
Eight-Cloud Rising.”
He adjusted his
pince-nez
and began to read in a clear voice.

“Old Mr. Saburo sat on his haunches and laughed to himself at nothing; but from time to time a thought was visible through the vacant veils of his eyes.”

He paused. “Now let me read you the sentence as it is emended in pencil.” He read slowly:

“Old Mr. Saburo sat on his haunches and laughed to himself at nothing; but from time to time a thought flickered behind the empty windows of his head.”

“Yes,” muttered the publisher. “I remember that.” Ellery flipped a few pages.

“Unperceived from the terrace Ono Jones perceived her standing in the garden below.”

He looked up. “This, observe, has been changed to read as follows.” He looked down.

“Unperceived from the terrace Ono Jones perceived her black shape standing across the moon.”

“I don’t quite understand –” began Buescher.

Ellery turned more pages. “Here’s a place in which a Japanese summer sky is described as ‘
cloisonné
’. The word has been crossed out, and ‘
enamel
’ substituted. In the same paragraph the panoramic outdoor scene over the characters’ heads is ‘
an inverted, delicate bowl
.’ The writer changes her mind and the sentence becomes ‘
They stood beneath a painted teacup turned upside down.’
” Ellery closed the manuscript. “Mr. Buescher, what kind of corrections would you call these?”

The man was plainly puzzled. “Why, creative ones, of course. Question of feeling for the look of certain words – one figure of speech as against another. Every writer makes them.”

“They’re highly personalized? No one would dare take such liberties with someone else’s work?”

“Well, you’re a writer yourself, Mr. Queen,” said Buescher.

“In other words, you would say Karen Leith penciled in those corrections – and all other such corrections in all her novels?”

“Certainly!”

Ellery went to the man with two things. “Please compare the handwriting of the manuscript corrections,” he said quietly, “with the attested handwriting of Karen Leith.”

Buescher stared for an instant; and then he grabbed the papers and began feverishly scrambling through them. “My God,” he mumbled. “someone else’s handwriting!”

“I’m sorry, Doctor,” said Ellery. “From this and certain other indications the truth is very clear. Karen Leith did not write
Eight-Cloud Rising
. Karen Leith did not write
The Sun
, which preceded it, nor
Water Children
, nor any of the other gifted novels ascribed to her pen and which she took credit for. Karen Leith had no more to do with the works on which she built her international reputation than Mr. Buescher’s lowliest proof-reader.”

“But there must be some mistake,” cried Eva. “Who could have written them? Who’d
permit
someone else to get credit for his own writing?”

“Not his, Miss MacClure – her. And I didn’t say it was by permission, which is the most deceptive of words. There are many ways of executing a vile and treacherous plan.” Ellery pursed his lips. “All these novels were written by Karen Leith’s sister, Esther.”

Dr. MacClure sat down suddenly on the edge of the window.

“There’s really not the slightest question about it,” said Ellery. “I’ve checked it every possible way and the answer’s always the same. The handwriting of the revisions is definitely Esther Leith’s – I have plenty of samples of her handwriting in that bunch of old letters – dating as far back as 1913. There are a few time differences, but I had them expertized this morning and the verdict was unanimous. And it couldn’t be that Esther has been acting merely as her sister’s secretary, because as Mr. Buescher had told you the corrections are creative.”

Dr. Scott cleared his throat. “Aren’t you perhaps making more of it than really exists? Possibly the corrections were Miss Leith’s, with her sister acting as a mere stenographer.”

“Then how do you explain,” said Ellery, picking up a fat notebook, “that in this notebook, in
Esther Leith’s handwriting
, is the complete working plan of
Eight-Cloud Rising
– copious notes, all creative, all personal, with little side-comments which clearly indicate the ideas were hers?”

“But she’s dead,” said Eva. “Daddy says so. Karen – Karen told me so.”

“Your father was deliberately misled by Miss Leith, as you were. Esther is alive. According to the story of her “suicide”, it took place in 1924. But all of these books have been written since, you see.”

“But they could have been old books, old notes, dating “way back, and just dug up –”

“No, Miss MacClure. Most of them show internal evidence – references to contemporary events – which far post-date 1924. She’s alive all right, and she wrote Karen Leith’s books, and she wrote them in this very room.”

“Good lord,” said Buescher. He was on his feet now, restlessly pacing. “The scandal! It will turn the literary world upside down.”

“Not if we don’t want it to,” said Dr. MacClure hoarsely. His eyes were red again. “She’s dead. Why resurrect –”

“And then there’s the prize,” groaned the publisher. “If there’s been fraud here, or plagiarism –”

“Mr. Buescher,” said Ellery abruptly, “could
Eight-Cloud Rising
have been written by a madwoman?”

“Good God, no!” shouted Buescher. He rumpled his hair. “I can’t figure it out. Perhaps this Esther Leith did it willingly – for some reason of her own. Perhaps –”

“I don’t suppose,” drawled Ellery, “Karen Leith stood over her sister with a revolver and forced her into a living death.”

“The – the
calmness
of her! At the party in May –”

“There are other ways,” finished Ellery. He sat down behind the teakwood desk, thinking.

“Nobody’d believe it,” moaned Buescher. “I’d be the laughing stock –”

“And where
is
the poor soul?” cried Eva. “After all, it isn’t fair to her.” She ran over to the doctor. “I know how you feel, daddy, about raking up this – this – If Karen did this horrible thing to her it’s up to us to find Esther and make it up to her!”