“Nikki,” said Ellery, “what day is today?”
Nikki jumped. “Day? Why, March fifteenth.”
“And what is the date on this newspaper?”
“Why, you saw it yourself. And I remarked on it. Yesterday’s paper, I said.”
“Yesterday’s. Then it’s the New York Times of March fourteenth. When did Mike come to consult me?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“The morning of March fourteenth. When, according to Mike’s story, had the theft of his income-tax records taken place—the fire, the theft, the substitution of a newspaper for the records in his brief case?”
“Why, the evening before that.”
“March thirteenth. And what did Mike say?” cried Ellery. “That the fire and substitution of newspaper for records had taken place around six P.M. — six P.M. on March thirteenth! How could a New York Times dated March fourteenth have been put into Mike Magoon’s brief case at six P.M. on March thirteenth? It couldn’t have been. Not possibly. No New York Times comes out that early the previous day! So Mike Magoon lied. The substitution hadn’t been made the previous day at all—it had been made on the morning of the fourteenth—just before Mike came to see me... obviously by Mike himself. Then Mike’s whole story collapses, and all I had to do was re-examine the known facts in the light of Mike’s duplicity.” Ellery glanced at the clock. “There’s still time to send your tax return to Uncle Sam, Mike,” he said, “although I’m afraid you’ll have to change your address.”
The Adventure of The Emperor’s Dice
When Caligula became emperor of the world he nominated Incitatus his consul, Incitatus being his horse. On evidence such as this, the grandson of Tiberius is considered by historians to have been crazy. The conclusion is questionable. Consuls in Caligula’s day exercised high criminal jurisdiction; obviously, a man could turn his back on his horse. There have been appointments, and not only in Roman history, far less astute.
We are told, too, that Caligula had his adopted son, Lucius, murdered; that he commanded citizens who displeased him to enter the arena; that at the imperial gaming tables this legatee of Tiberius’s mighty treasury played with crooked dice; and so on. That these are the historical facts seems indubitable, but do the facts warrant the historians’ conclusions? We have already disposed of the episode of the praetorian horse. As for Lucius, by Tiberius’s will he was Caligula’s co-heir; and an emperor who murders his co-heir before his co-heir can murder him may be considered of nervous temperament, or overcautious, but he is certainly not irrational. Turning one’s enemies into gladiators combines private interest with the public pleasure and is the sign of a political, not a psychotic, mind. And while loading one’s dice is indefensible on moral grounds, there is no denying the fact that the practice reduces the odds against the dicer.
In short, far from being a lunatic, Caligula was a man of uncommon sense; demonstrating what was to be proved, namely, Caveat lector.
We now leap nineteen centuries.
It was the time of the vernal equinox, or thereabout; in fine, the last day of the third month of the Queenian calendar, and a night of portents it was, speaking in wind, thunder, and rain. Even so, Mark Haggard’s voice could be heard above the uproar. Haggard was driving a leaky station wagon along the Connecticut road with the hands of a charioteer, sawing away at the wheel and roaring oaths against the turbulent heavens as if he were Martius himself. The Queens and Nikki Porter could only embrace one another damply and pray for midnight and the rise of a saner moon.
Ellery did not pine for Connecticut weekends at unmapped homes occupied by unexplored persons. He had too cartographic a memory of hosts floating about in seas of alcohol or, as happened with equal frequency, forty-eight becalmed hours of Canasta. But the Inspector appeared sentimental about this one.
“Haven’t seen Mark, Tracy, or Malvina Haggard since their dad kicked off ten years ago,” the Inspector had said, “and I hadn’t much contact with Jim’s children before that except when they were little. But if they’ve turned out anything like Jim or Cora...”
“They rarely do,” Ellery had said nastily. “Anyway, did Mark Haggard have to include me in?”
“Jim and I went through the police academy together, son. I was Jim Haggard’s best man when he married Cora Maloney in—yep, 1911, just forty years ago. I can see the big lug now,” said the Inspector mistily, “standing in front of the preacher in his monkey suit... Cora buried Jim in that suit, Ellery.”
“Hadn’t he gained any weight? But I still don’t see why—”
“Ellery’s too lofty to mix with ordinary folks, Inspector,” Nikki had put in gently. “Too much of a brain, you know. It gets so bored. Besides, he knows I can’t go unless he does—”
“All right!” howled Ellery; and so here they were, and he hoped they were both thoroughly satisfied.
It had begun with a train that was late, a whistle-stop station that was wrong, no taxi service, and an hour’s wait in splashy darkness. Then their host found them, and even the Inspector began to look as if he regretted the whole thing. Haggard was a staring man with a week’s black stubble, given to sudden convulsions of laughter, and he drove like a madman.
“Can’t tell you how happy I was to hear from you, Mark,” said the old gentleman, bouncing and hanging on to his denture. “I feel like a heel having neglected your mother so long. It’ll be good seeing Cora again.”
“In hell,” screamed Mark Haggard, rocketing over a patch of ice left over from the last snowfall.
“What did you say, Mark?”
“Ma’s in hell!”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear it,” the Inspector said confusedly. “I mean, when did she—?”
“Two years ago.”
“But not in the hot place,” muttered the Inspector. “Not Cora.”
Mark Haggard laughed. “You didn’t know her. You don’t know any of us.”
“Yes, people change,” sighed the Inspector. Then he tried to sound chatty again. “I remember when your father resigned from the Force, Mark. Your mother was against it. But he’d inherited all that money, and I guess it went to his head.”
“What makes you think his head was any different before, Inspector? He was crazy. We’re all crazy!”
Ellery thought that was an extremely bright remark.
“Is it much further, Mark?” asked the old gentleman desperately.
“Yes, I’m so very wet,” said Nikki in a gay voice.
“Threw money around like a maniac,” said Mark Haggard angrily. “The great collector! Who did he think he was—Rosenbach?”
“Books?” asked Ellery, rousing himself.
“My father? He could hardly read. Gambling collection! Crummy old roulette wheels, medieval playing cards, ancient dice—junk filled the whole Gun Room.—Get over on your side of the road, you—!”
“Sounds like a—harmless enough—hobby,” said Nikki jouncily. The other car was lost in the weeping night. Lightning showed them Haggard’s face. Nikki closed her eyes.
“Harmless?” chortled their host. “Nothing about our family is harmless. Including the ancestral dump that Pop inherited from Uncle Jonas.”
“I suppose,” said Nikki, keeping her eyes shut, “you live in a haunted house, Mr. Haggard?”
“Yes!” said Mark Haggard gleefully.
Nikki screeched. But it was only another icy drop pelting the side of her neck.
“Any ghost I know?” asked the Inspector wittily.