“You won’t tell me his name?”
“No.”
The ghost of New Year’s Eve stirred. But then Ellery grinned, and it settled back in the grave. Nikki sighed and reached for her notebook.
“All right, Mr. Updike. Who were the three Inner Circlovians who died this year?”
“Robert Carlton Smith, J. Stanford Jones, and Ziss Brown—Peter Zissing Brown.”
“Their occupations?”
“Bob Smith was head of the Kradle Kap Baby Foods Korporation. Stan Jones was top man of Jones-Jones-Mallison-Jones, the ad agency. Ziss Brown was retired.”
“From what?”
Updike said stiffly: “Brassières.”
“I suppose they do pall. Leave me the addresses of the executors, please, and any other data you think might be helpful.”
When the banker had gone, Ellery reached for the telephone.
“Oh, dear,” said Nikki. “You’re not calling... Club Bongo?”
“What?”
“You know? New Year’s Eve?”
“Heavens, no. My pal Eastern ’28. Cully?… The same to you. Cully, who are the four Januarians? Nikki, take this down... William Updike—yes?… Charles Mason? Oh, yes, the god who fashioned Olympus... Rodney Black, Junior—um-hm... and Edward I. Temple? Thanks, Cully. And now forget I called.” Ellery hung up. “Black, Mason, and Temple, Nikki. The only Januarians alive outside of Updike. Consequently one of those three is Updike’s last associate in The Inner Circle.”
“And the question is which one.”
“Bright girl. But first let’s dig into the deaths of Smith, Jones, and Brown. Who knows? Maybe Updike’s got something.”
It took exactly forty-eight hours to determine that Updike had nothing at all. The deaths of Januarians-Inner Circlers Smith, Jones, and Brown were impeccable.
“Give it to him, Velie,” said Inspector Queen at Headquarters the second morning after the banker’s visit to the Queen apartment.
Sergeant Velie cleared his massive throat. “The Kradle Kap Baby Foods character—”
“Robert Carlton Smith.”
“Rheumatic heart for years. Died in an oxygen tent after the third heart attack in eighteen hours, with three fancy medics in attendance and a secretary who was there to take down his last words.”
“Which were probably ‘Free Enterprise,’” said the Inspector.
“Go on, Sergeant!”
“J. Stanford Jones, the huckster. Gassed in World War I, in recent years developed t.b. And that’s what he died of. Want the sanitarium affidavits, Maestro? I had photostats telephotoed from Arizona.”
“Thorough little man, aren’t you?” growled Ellery. “And Peter Zissing Brown, retired from brassières?”
“Kidneys and gall-bladder. Brown died on the operatin’ table.”
“Wait till you see what I’m wearing tonight,” said Nikki. “Apricot taffeta—”
“Nikki, get Updike on the phone,” said Ellery absently. “Brokers National.”
“He’s not there, Ellery,” said Nikki, when she had put down the Inspector’s phone. “Hasn’t come into his bank this morning. It has the darlingest bouffant skirt—”
“Try his home.”
“Dike Hollow, Scarsdale, wasn’t it? With the new back, and a neckline that—Hello?” And after a while the three men heard Nikki say in a strange voice: “What?” and then: “Oh,” faintly. She thrust the phone at Ellery. “You’d better take it.”
“What’s the matter? Hello? Ellery Queen. Updike there?”
A bass voice said, “Well—no, Mr. Queen. He’s been in an accident.”
“Accident! Who’s this speaking?”
“Captain Rosewater of the Highway Police. Mr. Updike ran his car into a ravine near his home here some time last night. We just found him.”
“I hope he’s all right!”
“He’s dead.”
“Four!” Ellery was mumbling as Sergeant Velie drove the Inspector’s car up into Westchester. “Four in one year!”
“Coincidence,” said Nikki desperately, thinking of the festivities on the agenda for that evening.
“All I know is that forty-eight hours after Updike asks me to find out if his three cronies of The Inner Circle who died this year hadn’t been murdered, he himself is found lying in a gulley with four thousand pounds of used car on top of him.”
“Accidents,” began Sergeant Velie, “will hap—”
“I want to see that ‘accident’!”
A State trooper flagged them on the Parkway near a cutoff and sent them down the side road. This road, it appeared, was a shortcut to Dike Hollow which Updike habitually used in driving home from the City; his house lay some two miles from the Parkway. They found the evidence of his last drive about midway. The narrow blacktop road twisted sharply to the left at this point, but Bill Updike had failed to twist with it. He had driven straight ahead and through a matchstick guardrail into the ravine. As it plunged over, the car had struck the bole of a big old oak. The shock catapulted the banker through his windshield and he had landed at the bottom of the ravine just before his vehicle.
“We’re still trying to figure out a way of lifting that junk off him,” said Captain Rosewater when they joined him forty feet below the road.
The ravine narrowed in a V here and the car lay in its crotch upside down. Men were swarming around it with crowbars, chains, and acetylene torches. “We’re uncovered enough to show us he’s mashed flat.”
“His face, too, Captain?” asked Ellery suddenly.
“No, his face wasn’t touched. We’re trying to get the rest of him presentable enough so we can let his widow identify him.” The trooper nodded toward a flat rock twenty yards down the ravine on which sat a small woman in a mink coat. She wore no hat and her smart gray hair was whipping in the Christmas wind. A woman in a cloth coat, wearing a nurse’s cap, stood over her.
Ellery said, “Excuse me,” and strode away. When Nikki caught up with him he was already talking to Mrs. Updike. She was drawn up on the rock like a caterpillar.
“He had a directors’ meeting at the bank last night. I phoned one of his associates about 2 A.M. He said the meeting had broken up at eleven and Bill had left to drive home.” Her glance strayed up the ravine. “At four-thirty this morning I phoned the police.”
“Did you know your husband had come to see me, Mrs. Updike—two mornings ago?”
“Who are you?”
“Ellery Queen.”
“No.” She did not seem surprised, or frightened, or anything.
“Did you know Robert Carlton Smith, J. Stanford Jones, Peter Zissing Brown?”
“Bill’s classmates? They passed away. This year,” she added suddenly. “This year,” she repeated. And then she laughed. “I thought the gods were immortal.”
“Did you know that your husband, Smith, Jones, and Brown were an ‘inner circle’ in The Januarians?”
“Inner Circle.” She frowned. “Oh, yes. Bill mentioned it occasionally. No, I didn’t know they were in it.”
Ellery leaned forward in the wind.
“Was Edward I. Temple in it, Mrs. Updike? Rodney Black, Junior? Charlie Mason?”
“I don’t know. Why are you questioning me? Why—?” Her voice was rising now, and Ellery murmured something placative as Captain Rosewater hurried up and said: “Mrs. Updike. If you’d be good enough...”
She jumped off the rock. “Now?”
“Please.”
The trooper captain took one arm, the nurse the other, and between them they half-carried William Updike’s widow up the ravine toward the overturned car.
Nikki found it necessary to spend some moments with her handkerchief.