Roger Priam raised his head. Color had come back into his cheekbones, and his heavy voice was almost animated.
“I’ll have to read some of your books,” Priam said. “You sure make up a good story.”
“As a reward for that compliment, Priam,” said Ellery, smiling, “I’ll tell you an even better one.
“A few months ago you ordered Alfred Wallace to go out and buy a gun. You gave Wallace the money for it, but you wanted the gun’s owner-ship traceable to him.
“Tonight you buzzed Wallace on the intercom, directly to his bedroom, and you told Wallace you heard someone prowling around outside the house. You told him to take the gun, make sure it was loaded, and come down here to your room, quietly―”
“That’s a lie,” said Roger Priam.
“That’s the truth,” said Ellery.
Priam showed his teeth. “You’re a bluffer after all. Even if it was true ― which it ain’t ― how could you know it?”
“Because Wallace told me so.”
The skin above Priam’s beard changed color again.
“You see,” said Ellery, “I took Wallace into my confidence when I saw the danger he was in. I told him just what to expect at your hands and I told him that if he wanted to save his skin he’d be wise to play ball with Lieutenant Keats and me.
“Wallace didn’t need much convincing, Priam. I imagine you’ve found him the sort of fellow who can turn on a dime; or, to change the figure, the sort who always spots the butter side of the bread. He came over to me without a struggle. And he promised to keep me informed; and he promised, when the time came, to follow not your instructions, Priam, but mine.
“When you told him on the intercom tonight to sneak down here with the loaded revolver, Wallace immediately phoned me. I told him to hold up going downstairs for just long enough to allow the lieutenant and me to get here. It didn’t take us long, Priam, did it? We’d been waiting nightly for Wallace’s phone call for some time now.
“I’m pretty sure you expected someone to be outside on guard, Priam, although of course you didn’t know it would be Keats and me in person on Wallace’s notification. You’ve put up a good show about not wanting police guards, in line with your shrewd performance all along, but you’ve known from the start that we would probably disregard your wishes in a crisis, and that was just what you wanted us to do.
“When Alfred stole into this room armed with a gun, you knew whoever was on guard ― you hoped actually watching from the terrace ― would fall for the illusion that Wallace was trying to kill you. If no one was watching, but a guard on the grounds heard the shot, within seconds he’d be in the room, and he’d find Wallace dead ― in your room, with you obviously awakened from sleep, and only your story to listen to. With the previous buildup of someone threatening your life, he’d have no reason to doubt your version of what happened. If there were no guards at all, you would phone for help immediately, and between your version of the events and the fact that the gun was bought by Wallace you had every reason to believe the matter would end there. It was a bold, even a Bonapartist plan, Priam, and it almost worked.”
Priam stirred, and with the stir a fluidity came over him, passing like a ripple. Then he said in a perfectly controlled voice, “Whatever Wallace told you was a damn lie. I didn’t tell him to buy a gun. I didn’t call him down here tonight. And you can’t prove I did. You yourself saw him sneak in here a while back with a loaded gun, you saw me fight for my life, you saw him lose, and now he’s dead.” The bearded man put the lightest stress on the last word, as if to underscore Wallace’s uselessness as a witness.
“I’m afraid you didn’t listen very closely to what I said, Priam,” said Ellery. “I said it almost worked. You don’t think I’d allow Alfred to risk death or serious injury, do you? What he brought downstairs with him tonight, on my instructions, was a gun loaded with blanks. We’ve put on a show for you, Priam.” And Ellery said, “Get up, Wallace.”
Before Priam’s bulging eyes the blanket on the floor rose like the magic carpet, and there, under it, stood Alfred Wallace, smiling.
Roger Priam screamed.
Chapter Sixteen
What no one foresaw ― including Ellery ― was how Roger Priam would react to his arrest, indictment, and trial. Yet from the moment he showed his hand it was impossible to conceive that he might have acted otherwise. Alfred Wallace was a probable sole exception, but Wallace was being understandably discreet.
Priam took the blame for everything. His contempt for Wallace’s part in the proceedings touched magnificence. Wallace, Priam said, had been the merest tool, not understanding what he was being directed to do. One would have thought, to hear Priam, that Wallace was an idiot. And Wallace acted properly idiotic. No one was fooled, but the law operates under the rules of evidence, and since there were only two witnesses, the accused and his accomplice, each ― for different motives ― minimizing Wallace and maximizing Priam, Wallace went scot-free.
As Keats said, in a growl, “Priam’s got to be boss, by God, even at his own murder trial.”
It was reported that Priam’s attorney, a prominent West Coast trial lawyer, went out on the night of the verdict and got himself thoroughly fried, missing the very best part of the show. Because that same night Roger Priam managed to kill himself by swallowing poison. The usual precautions against suicide had been taken, and those entrusted with the safety of the condemned man until his execution were chagrined and mystified. Roger Priam merely lay there with his bearded mouth open in a grin, looking as fiercely joyful as a pirate cut down on his own quarter-deck. No one could dictate to him, his grin seemed to say, not even the sovereign State of California. If he had to die, he was picking the method and the time.
He had to be dominant even over death.
To everyone’s surprise, Alfred Wallace found a new employer immediately after the trial, an Eastern writer by the name of Queen. Wallace and his suitcase moved into the little cottage on the hill, and Mrs. Williams and her two uniforms moved out, the cause leading naturally to the effect.
Ellery could not say that it was a poor exchange, for Wallace turned out a far better cook than Mrs. Williams had ever been, an accomplishment in his new employe Ellery had not bargained for, since he had hired Wallace to be his secretary. The neglected novel was still the reason for his presence in Southern California, and now that the Hill-Priam case was closed Ellery returned to it in earnest.
Keats was flabbergasted. “Aren’t you afraid he’ll put arsenic in your soup?”
“Why should he?” Ellery asked reasonably. “I’m paying him to take dictation and type my manuscript. And talking about soup, Wallace makes a mean sopa de aim en dras, a Mallorquina. From Valldemosa ― perfectly delicious. How about sampling it tomorrow night?”
Keats said thanks a lot but he didn’t go for that gourmet stuff himself, his speed was chicken noodle soup, besides his wife was having some friends in for television, and he hung up hastily.
To the press Mr. Queen was lofty. He had never been one to hound a man for past errors. Wallace needed a job, and he needed a secretary, and that was that.
Wallace merely smiled.
Delia Priam sold the hillside property and disappeared.
The usual guesses, substantiated by no more than “a friend of the family who asks that her name be withheld” or “Delia Priam is rumored,” had her variously in Las Vegas at the dice tables with a notorious under-world character; in Taos, New Mexico, under an assumed name, where she was said to be writing her memoirs for newspaper and magazine syndication; flying to Rome heavily veiled; one report insisted on placing her on a remote shelf in India as the “guest” of some wild mountain rajah well-known for his peculiar tastes in Occidental women.