“What the devil are we going to do?” complained the Inspector. “This is getting so damn serious I’m afraid to think about it. We’re in one hell of a jam, El.”
Ellery cupped his chin in his hands. “I’ll admit that the death of one human being doesn’t seem cosmically important, under the circumstances... What the deuce was that?”
They both started up, straining their ears. From somewhere at the east of the house came a series of metallic sounds, muffled and baffling.
“I thought nobody could—” The old gentleman stopped growling. “Come on.”
They hurried down the steps, and sped along the gravel drive in the direction of the sounds. Rounding the left side of the house, they stopped short. The drive branched off here and the branch led to a low, rambling wooden building, the garage. The two wide doors were open, and from the interior of the garage came the noise. The Inspector darted forward and cautiously peered into the dim interior. He beckoned to Ellery, who tiptoed along the margin of vegetation flanking the gravel and joined his father.
There were four cars in the garage, neatly lined up. One of them was the low-slung Duesenberg belonging to the Queens. The second was a magnificent black limousine with a long hood — unquestionably the property of the late Dr. Xavier. The third was a powerful sedan with foreign lines; it could only have belonged to Mrs. Carreau. The fourth was the battered Buick which had borne the dead weight of Mr. Frank J. Smith of New York City up the steep Arrow Mountain road.
From the rear of Smith’s car came the deafening din of metal upon metal. The author of the din was hidden by the body of the car.
They edged between the Buick and the foreign automobile and pounced forward upon the stooping figure of a man who was wielding a rusty hand ax on the gasoline tank of the fat man’s car. The metal was already slashed in several places and the rich, dark, odorous liquid was gushing to the cement floor in streams.
The man uttered a frightened squeal, dropped the ax, and came up fighting. It took the Queens several minutes of rough work to subdue him.
It was old Bones, glaring sullenly as usual.
“What on earth,” panted the Inspector, “do you think you’re doing, you crazy fool?”
His bony shoulders sagged, but he said defiantly: “Taking his gas away from him!”
“Sure,” snarled the Inspector. “We can see that. But why?”
Bones shrugged.
“And why didn’t you drain it off, instead of trying to make scrap iron out of the tank?”
“He couldn’t refill it this way.”
“You’re a rotten Nihilist,” said Ellery sadly. “He could take one of the other cars, you know.”
“I was going to put them out of commission, too.”
They stared. “Well, I’ll be damned,” said the Inspector after a moment. “I believe you would, at that.”
“But it’s so silly,” protested Ellery. “He can’t get away, Bones. Where would he go?”
Bones shrugged again. “It’s safer this way.”
“But why so anxious to impede the departure of Mr. Smith?”
“I don’t like his damn fat face,” rasped the old man.
“Now there,” cried Ellery, “is a reason! Look here, my friend; you let us catch you fiddling around these cars again and, by thunder, we’ll... we’ll annihilate you!”
Bones shook himself, lifted his withered lips in a sneer, and shuffled rapidly out of the garage.
The Inspector threw up his hands and followed, leaving Ellery to dip his toe into the gasoline thoughtfully.
“As long as we’re frying,” growled the Inspector after breakfast, “we may as well fry working as idling. Come along.”
“Working?” echoed Ellery blankly. He was smoking his sixth cigarette of the morning and gazing upon vacancy. He had been frowning for an hour.
“You heard me.”
They left the game-room where the others were apathetically congregated under the hot breeze of an electric fan, and the Inspector led the way down the hall to the door of Dr. Xavier’s study. He used the skeleton key from his key ring and opened the door. The room looked exactly as they had last seen it the day before.
Ellery closed the door and leaned against it. “Now what?”
“I want to look at his papers,” muttered old Queen. “You never can tell.”
“Oh,” Ellery shrugged and went to one of the windows.
The Inspector went through the study with the practised ruthlessness of a lifetime of experience. The cabinet, the desk, the bookcase — he explored each nook and cranny, glancing hastily over memoranda, old letters, a gibberish of medical notations, receipted bills — the usual mess. Ellery contented himself with staring at the trees wavering in the fierce heat outdoors. The room was a furnace and both men were wet to the skin.
“Nothing,” announced the old gentleman glumly. “Nothing but a lot of junk, that is.”
“Junk? Now, that’s something else again. I’m always interested in the scrap heap of a man’s property.” Ellery strolled to the desk where the Inspector was going through the last drawer.
“It’s a scrap heap, all right,” grunted the Inspector.
The drawer was full of odds and ends. Stationery supplies, a broken and rusty surgical instrument, a box of checkers, a score or more of pencils of varying size, most of them with broken points; a solitary cuff link with a tiny pearl inset in the center — apparently the sole survivor of a pair; at least a dozen tie clips and stick pins, most of them tarnished green; shirt studs of rather bizarre design, an old fraternity pin with two diamond chips missing, two watch chains, an elaborate silver key, a polished animal tooth yellow with age, a silver toothpick... The drawer was the tomb of a man’s accumulated trinkets.
“Gay sort of chap, wasn’t he?” murmured Ellery, “Lord, how can a man amass such a mess of perfectly useless adornments! Come, come, dad, we’re wasting time.”
“I s’pose,” grumbled the Inspector. He slammed the drawer shut, sat annoying his mustache for a moment, and then with a sigh rose.
He locked the door behind them and they trudged down the hall.
“One minute.” The old gentleman suddenly peered into the game-room through the cross-hall door. He withdrew his head at once. “It’s all right; she’s in there.”
“Who’s in there?”
“Mrs. Xavier. Gives us a chance to sneak up to her bedroom for a quiet little look-see.”
“Oh, very well. But I can’t imagine what you hope to find.”
They toiled upstairs, sweltering in the heat. Across the hall from the landing they could see Mrs. Wheary’s broad back bent over the bed in Mrs. Carreau’s room. She neither saw nor heard them. They went quietly into Mrs. Xavier’s room and shut the door.
It was the master bedroom, the largest chamber on the floor. It was predominantly feminine in character — a tribute, as Ellery remarked dryly, to the overpowering personality of its mistress. Very little of Dr. Xavier struck the eye.
“No wonder the poor fellow spent his days and nights in the study. I’ll wager he’s slept many a night away on that battered old couch downstairs!”
“Stop jabbering and keep an ear on the hall,” grunted the Inspector. “Rather not have her catch us in here.”
“You will save a lot of time and perspiration if you tackle that chiffonier. All the other pieces are unquestionably filled with Parisian fripperies of the genus female.”
The massive piece in question was, like the other furniture, of French design. The Inspector went through its compartments and drawers like an aged Raffles.