“But your ultimate purpose was even subtler than that. You took the leaf-in-the-forest concept one step further. You not only concealed the crucial leaf, you used the very fact of its concealment to provide me with the wrong answer to the problem. You maneuvered me into eliminating all the 9s but one, so that on the basis of that remaining one I’d come up at long last with the patsy murderer you’d planned for me to choose from the start.”
And now they were locked eye to eye, and there was no longer any amusement on the murderer’s face, only an advanced alertness, the immobility of an animal at the approach of danger.
The trouble was,” Ellery said in a stripped, clean way, “you grew too big a forest. The last anonymous message did more than you meant it to. It gave me your sham setup solution, yes; but unhappily for you it didn’t stop there, as it was supposed to. You didn’t know, as I remarked a few minutes ago, that Peter and Virginia had inadvertently provided themselves with an unbreakable alibi for the time of Nino’s murder. That their alibi forced me to face the falsity of the solution you’d led me to. Forced me, from the very logic of that fact, to go to you.
“Because,” Ellery said, and his pace was swifter now, /if Peter-not to mention Virginia-was innocent, as his alibi incontestably proved, then the murderer not only had to be someone else, but someone who possessed the same two qualifications: One, the murderer had to know that Virginia and Peter met for lunch on December 9, 1966; two, he had to satisfy cui bono, in the same sense that Peter would have satisfied it by marrying Virginia.
“First qualification: How did the murderer know about that lunch? The answer was embedded like a pearl in Virginia’s diary account, toward the end. She had noticed you come into the restaurant; she was afraid that if you spotted her with Peter you’d guess their relationship, and she got Peter to hustle her out through the kitchen. A beautiful fit, isn’t it? Because if Virginia and Peter could have seen you, by exactly the same token you could have seen them. And see them you did, otherwise the 10th anonymous message could not have been sent.
“Second qualification: Who benefits? Could you? You certainly could, in the same way Peter would benefit: through Virginia. And you were the only other person in the world in that enviable position. What’s more, if anything were to interfere with your control of Virginia’s half billion dollars-if Peter, say, were to prove an obstacle, or Virginia herself-I’m quite certain you’d be prepared to get rid of either or both. In fact, that may have been your ultimate plan, since the deaths of Virginia and Peter-assuming their marriage-would give you in your own right, as Virginia’s only surviving relative, the entire Importuna fortune.
“And then what an orgy of gambling and women and power would be yours at the snap of a finger! Who knows what schemes you’ve blueprinted for the further glory of yourself, the despised object of Nino Importuna’s contempt and charity? Was it to become the Monte Cristo of the 20th century?”
And Ellery uncoiled his length and got to his feet and looked down into the handsome saddle-leather face of Virginia’s father.
“Well, was it?” Ellery repeated.
“Something like that,” said Wallace Ryerson Whyte.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee) has sold, in various editions published by approximately 100 publishers around the world, a total of over 125,000,000 copies. Queen books have been translated into every major foreign language except Russian and Chinese, and many minor languages (including Hebrew and Indonesian).
Ellery Queen popularized the mystery drama on radio in a program called The Adventures of Ellery Queen, which was on the air for nine years, and in 1950 TV Guide gave the Ellery Queen program its national award for the best mystery show on TV. Ellery Queen has won five Edgars (the annual Mystery Writers of America awards, similar to the Oscars of Hollywood), including the Grand Master award (1960); three MWA Scrolls and a raven; and twice Queen has been runner-up for the Best Novel of the Year award. He also holds both the silver and gold Gertrudes awarded by Pocket Books, Inc. Mystery Writers of Japan gave Ellery Queen their gold-and-onyx Edgar Allan Poe ring, awarded to only five non-Japanese throughout the world. And in 1968 Iona College honored Queen with its Columba Prize in Mystery.
Ellery Queen’s most recent successes are The Last Woman in His Life, Cop Out, and The Golden 13. He is internationally known as an editor-Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine is in its 31st year of publication.
The late Anthony Boucher, distinguished critic and novelist, described Queen best when he wrote: “Ellery Queen is the American detective story.”
