When she looked up, Ellery had disappeared.
She found him with his father and Sergeant Velie on the road above the ravine. They were standing before a large maple looking at a road-sign. Studded lettering on the yellow sign spelled out Sharp Curve Ahead, and there was an elbow-like illustration.
“No lights on this road,” the Inspector was saying as Nikki hurried up, “so he must have had his brights on—”
“And they’d sure enough light up this reflector sign. I don’t get it, Inspector,” complained Sergeant Velie. “Unless his lights just weren’t workin’.”
“More likely fell asleep over the wheel, Velie.”
“No,” said Ellery.
“What, Ellery?”
“Updike’s lights were all right, and he didn’t doze off.”
“I don’t impress when I’m c-cold,” Nikki said, shivering. “But just the same, how do you know, Ellery?”
Ellery pointed to two neat holes in the maple bark, very close to the edge of the sign.
“Woodpeckers?” said Nikki. But the air was gray and sharp as steel, and it was hard to forget Mrs. Updike’s look.
“This bird, I’m afraid,” drawled Ellery, “had no feathers. Velie, borrow something we can pry this sign off with.”
When Velie returned with some tools, he was mopping his face. “She just identified him,” he said. “Gettin’ warmer, ain’t it?”
“What d’ye expect to find, Ellery?” demanded the Inspector.
“Two full sets of rivet-holes.”
Sergeant Velie said: “Bong,” as the road-sign came away from the tree.
“I’ll be damned,” said Inspector Queen softly. “Somebody removed these rivets last night, and after Updike crashed into the ravine—”
“Riveted the warning sign back on,” cried Nikki, “only he got careless and didn’t use the same holes!”
“Murder,” said Ellery. “Smith, Jones, and Brown died of natural causes. But three of the five co-owners of that fund dying in a single year—”
“Gave Number 5 an idea!”
“If Updike died, too, the $200,000 in securities would… Ellery!” roared his father. “Where are you running to?”
“There’s a poetic beauty about this case,” Ellery was saying restlessly to Nikki as they waited in the underground vaults of The Brokers National Bank. “Janus was the god of entrances. Keys were among his trappings of office. In fact, he was sometimes known as Patulcius — ‘opener.’ Opener! I knew at once we were too late.”
“You knew, you knew,” said Nikki peevishly. “And New Year’s Eve only hours away! You can be wrong.”
“Not this time. Why else was Updike murdered last night in such a way as to make it appear an accident? Our mysterious Januarian hotfooted it down here first thing this morning and cleaned out that safe-deposit box belonging to The Inner Circle. The securities are gone, Nikki.”
Within an hour, Ellery’s prophecy was historical fact.
The box was opened with Bill Updike’s key. It was empty.
And of Patulcius, no trace. It quite upset the Inspector. For it appeared that The Inner Circle had contrived a remarkable arrangement for access to their safe-deposit box. It was gained, not by the customary signature on an admission slip, but through the presentation of a talisman. This talisman was quite unlike the lapel button of The Januarians. It was a golden key, and on the key was incised the two-faced god, within concentric circles. The outer circle was of Januarian garnets, the inner of diamonds. A control had been deposited in the files of the vault company. Anyone presenting a replica of it was to be admitted to The Inner Circle’s repository by order of no less a personage, the vault manager informed them, than the late President Updike himself—who, Inspector Queen remarked with bitterness, had been more suited by temperament to preside over the Delancey Street Junior Spies.
“Anybody remember admitting a man this morning who flashed one of these doojiggers?”
An employee was found who duly remembered, but when he described the vault visitor as great-coated and mufflered to the eyes, wearing dark glasses, walking with a great limp, and speaking in a laryngitical whisper, Ellery said wearily: “Tomorrow’s the annual meeting of The Januarians, dad, and Patulcius won’t dare not to show up. We’d better try to clean it up there.”
These, then, were the curious events preceding the final meeting of The Januarians in the thirteenth-floor sanctuary of The Eastern Alumni Club, beyond the door bearing the stainless steel medallion of the god Janus.
We have no apocryphal writings to reveal what self-adoring mysteries were performed in that room on other New Year’s Days; but on January the first of this year, The Januarians held a most unorthodox service, in that two lay figures—the Queens, pater et filius — moved in and administered some rather heretical sacraments; so there is a full record of the last rites.
It began with Sergeant Velie knocking thrice upon the steel faces of Janus at five minutes past two o’clock on the afternoon of the first of January, and a thoroughly startled voice from within the holy of holies calling: “Who’s there?” The Sergeant muttered an Ave and put his shoulder to the door. Three amazed, elderly male faces appeared. The heretics entered and the service began.
It is a temptation to describe in loving detail, for the satisfaction of the curious, the interior of the tabernacle—its stern steel furniture seizing the New Year’s Day sun and tossing it back in the form of imperious light, the four-legged altar, the sacred vessels in the shape of beakers, the esoteric brown waters, and so on—but there has been enough of profanation, and besides the service is more to our point.
It was chiefly catechistical, proceeding in this wise:
INSPECTOR: Gentlemen, my name is Inspector Queen, I’m from Police Headquarters, this is my son Ellery, and the big mugg on the door is Sergeant Velie of my staff.
BLACK: Police? Ed, do you know anything about—?
TEMPLE: Not me, Rodney. Maybe Charlie, ha-ha...?
MASON: What is it, Inspector? This is a private clubroom—
INSPECTOR: Which one are you?
MASON: Charles Mason—Mason’s Theater Chain, Inc. But—
INSPECTOR: The long drink of water—what’s your name?
TEMPLE: Me? Edward I. Temple. Attorney. What’s the meaning—?
INSPECTOR: I guess, Tubby, that makes you Rodney Black, Junior, of Wall Street.
BLACK: Sir—!
ELLERY: Which one of you gentlemen belonged to The Inner Circle of The Januarians?
MASON: Inner what, what?
BLACK: Circle, I think he said, Charlie.
TEMPLE: Inner Circle? What’s that?
SERGEANT: One of ’em’s a John Barrymore, Maestro.
BLACK: See here, we’re three-fourths of what’s left of the Class of Eastern ’13...
ELLERY: Ah, then you gentlemen don’t know that Bill Updike is dead?
ALL: Dead! Bill?
INSPECTOR: Tell ’em the whole story, Ellery.
And so, patiently, Ellery recounted the story of The Inner Circle, William Updike’s murder, and the vanished $200,000 in negotiable securities. And as he told this story, the old gentleman from Center Street and his sergeant studied the three elderly faces; and the theater magnate, the lawyer, and the broker gave stare for stare; and when Ellery had finished they turned to one another and gave stare for stare once more.
And finally Charlie Mason said: “My hands are clean, Ed. How about yours?”
“What do you take me for, Charlie?” said Temple in a flat and chilling voice. And they both looked at Black, who squeaked: “Don’t try to make me out the one, you traitors!”