“Business, business,” said Nikki Porter, shaking her yuletide permanent. “It’s Christmas week, Mr. Updike. I’m sure Mr. Queen wouldn’t consider taking—”
But at that moment Mr. Queen emerged from his sanctum to give his secretary the lie.
“Nikki holds to the old-fashioned idea about holidays, Mr. Updike,” said Ellery, shaking Bill’s hand. “Ah, The Januarians. Isn’t your annual meeting a few days from now—on New Year’s Day?”
“How did you know—?” began the bank president.
“I could reply, in the manner of the Old Master,” said Ellery with a chuckle, “that I’ve made an intensive study of lapel buttons, but truth compels me to admit that one of my best friends is Eastern ’28 and he’s described that little emblem on your coat so often I couldn’t help but recognize it at once.” The banker fingered the disk on his lapel nervously. It was of platinum, ringed with tiny garnets, and the gleaming circle enclosed the two faces of Janus. “What’s the matter—is someone robbing your bank?”
“It’s worse than that.”
“Worse...?”
“Murder.”
Nikki glared at Mr. Updike. Any hope of keeping Ellery’s nose off the grindstone until January second was now merely a memory. But out of duty she began: “Ellery...”
“At least,” said Bill Updike tensely, “I think it’s murder.”
Nikki gave up. Ellery’s nose was noticeably honed.
“Who...?”
“It’s sort of complicated,” muttered the banker, and he began to fidget before Ellery’s fire. “I suppose you know, Queen, that The Januarians began with only eleven men.”
Ellery nodded. “The total graduating class of Eastern ’13.”
“It seems silly now, with Eastern’s classes of three and four thousand, but in those days we thought it was all pretty important—”
“Manifest destiny.”
“We were young. Anyway, World War I came along and we lost two of our boys right away—Morry Green and Buster Selby. So at our New Year’s Day meeting in 1920 we were only nine. Then in the market collapse of ’29 Vern Hamisher blew the top of his head off, and in 1930 John Cudwise, who was serving his first term in Congress, was killed in a plane crash on his way to Washington—you probably remember. So we’ve been just seven for many years now.”
“And awfully close friends you must be,” said Nikki, curiosity conquering pique.
“Well...” began Updike, and he stopped, to begin over again. “For a long time now we’ve all thought it was sort of juvenile, but we’ve kept coming back to these damned New Year’s Day meetings out of habit or—or something. No, that’s not true. It isn’t just habit. It’s because... it’s expected of us.” He flushed. “I don’t know—they’ve—well—deified us.” He looked bellicose, and Nikki swallowed a giggle hastily. “It’s got on our nerves. I mean—well, damn it all, we’re not exactly the ‘close’ friends you’d think!” He stopped again, then resumed in a sort of desperation: “See here, Queen. I’ve got to confess something. There’s been a clique of us within The Januarians for years. We’ve called ourselves... The Inner Circle.”
“The what?” gasped Nikki.
The banker mopped his neck, avoiding their eyes. The Inner Circle, he explained, had begun with one of those dully devious phenomena of modern life known as a “business opportunity” — a business opportunity which Mr. Updike, a considerably younger Mr. Updike, had found himself unable to grasp for lack of some essential element, unnamed. Whatever it was that Mr. Updike had required, four other men could supply it; whereupon, in the flush of an earlier camaraderie, Updike had taken four of his six fellow-deities into his confidence, and the result of this was a partnership of five of the existing seven Januarians.
“There were certain business reasons why we didn’t want our er... names associated with the ah... enterprise. So we organized a dummy corporation and agreed to keep our names out of it and the whole thing absolutely secret, even from our—from the remaining two Januarians. It’s a secret from them to this day.”
“Club within a club,” said Nikki. “I think that’s cute.”
“All five of you in this—hrm! — Inner Circle,” inquired Ellery politely, “are alive?”
“We were last New Year’s Day. But since the last meeting of The Januarians...” the banker glanced at Ellery’s harmless windows furtively, “three of us have died. Three of The Inner Circle.”
“And you suspect that they were murdered?”
“Yes. Yes, I do!”
“For what motive?”
The banker launched into a very involved and—to Nikki, who was thinking wistfully of New Year’s Eve—tiresome explanation. It had something to do with some special fund or other, which seemed to have no connection with the commercial aspects of The Inner Circle’s activities—a substantial fund by this time, since each year the five partners put a fixed percentage of their incomes from the dummy corporation into it. Nikki dreamed of balloons and noisemakers. “—now equals a reserve of around $200,000 worth of negotiable securities.” Nikki stopped dreaming with a bump.
“What’s the purpose of this fund, Mr. Updike?” Ellery was saying sharply. “What happens to it? When?”
“Well, er... that’s just it, Queen,” said the banker. “Oh, I know what you’ll think...”
“Don’t tell me,” said Ellery in a terrible voice, “it’s a form of tontine insurance plan, Updike — last survivor takes all?”
“Yes,” whispered William Updike, looking for the moment like Billy Updike.
“I knew it!” Ellery jumped out of his fireside chair. “Haven’t I told you repeatedly, Nikki, there’s no fool like a banker? The financial mentality rarely rises above the age of eight, when life’s biggest thrill is to pay five pins for admission to a magic-lantern show in Stinky’s cellar. This hard-eyed man of money, whose business it is to deal in safe investments, becomes party to a melodramatic scheme whereby the only way you can recoup your ante is to slit the throats of your four partners. Inner Circles! Januarians!” Ellery threw himself back in his chair. “Where’s this silly invitation to murder cached, Updike?”
“In a safe-deposit box at The Brokers National,” muttered the banker.
“Your own bank. Very cosy for you,” said Ellery.
“No, no, Mr. Queen, all five of us have keys to the box—”
“What happened to the keys of the three Inner Circleites who died this year?”
“By agreement, dead members’ keys are destroyed in the presence of the survivors—”
“Then there are only two keys to that safe-deposit box now in existence; yours and the key in the possession of the only other living Inner Circular?”
“Yes—”
“And you’re afraid said sole-surviving associate murdered the deceased trio of your absurd quintet and has his beady eye on you, Updike? — so that as the last man alive of The Inner Circle he would fall heir to the entire $200,000 boodle?”
“What else can I think?” cried the banker.
“The obvious,” retorted Ellery, “which is that your three pals traveled the natural route of all flesh. Is the $200,000 still in the box?”
“Yes. I looked just before coming here today.”
“You want me to investigate.”
“Yes, yes—”
“Very well. What’s the name of this surviving fellow-conspirator of yours in The Inner Circle?”
“No,” said Bill Updike.
“I beg pardon?”
“Suppose I’m wrong? If they were ordinary deaths, I’d have dragged someone I’ve known a hell of a long time into a mess. No, you investigate first, Mr. Queen. Find evidence of murder, and I’ll go all the way.”