“It’s almost useless,” shrugged Nikki, studying Attorney Bondling’s card, which was as crackly-looking as Attorney Bondling. “You say you know the Inspector, Mr. Bondling?”
“Just tell him Bondling the estate lawyer,” said Bondling neurotically. “Park Row. He’ll know.”
“Don’t blame me,” said Nikki, “if you wind up in his stuffing. Goodness knows he’s used everything else.” And she went for Inspector Queen.
While she was gone, the study door opened noiselessly for one inch. A suspicious eye reconnoitered from the crack.
“Don’t be alarmed,” said the owner of the eye, slipping through the crack and locking the door hastily behind him. “Can’t trust them, you know. Children, just children.”
“Children!” Attorney Bondling snarled. “You’re Ellery Queen, aren’t you?”
“Yes?”
“Interested in youth, are you? Christmas? Orphans, dolls, that sort of thing?” Mr. Bondling went on in a remarkably nasty way.
“I suppose so.”
“The more fool you. Ah, here’s your father. Inspector Queen—!”
“Oh, that Bondling,” said the old gentleman absently, shaking his visitor’s hand. “My office called to say someone was coming up. Here, use my handkerchief; that’s a bit of turkey liver. Know my son? His secretary, Miss Porter? What’s on your mind, Mr. Bondling?”
“Inspector, I’m handling the Cytherea Ypson estate, and—”
“Nice meeting you, Mr. Bondling,” said Ellery. “Nikki, that door is locked, so don’t pretend you forgot the way to the bathroom...”
“Cytherea Ypson,” frowned the Inspector. “Oh, yes. She died only recently.”
“Leaving me with the headache,” said Mr. Bondling bitterly, “of disposing of her Dollection.”
“Her what?” asked Ellery, looking up from the key.
“Dolls—collection. Dollection. She coined the word.”
Ellery put the key back in his pocket and strolled over to his armchair.
“Do I take this down?” sighed Nikki.
“Dollection,” said Ellery.
“Spent about thirty years at it. Dolls!”
“Yes, Nikki, take it down.”
“Well, well, Mr. Bondling,” said Inspector Queen. “What’s the problem? Christmas comes but once a year, you know.”
“Will provides the Dollection be sold at auction,” grated the attorney, “and the proceeds used to set up a fund for orphan children. I’m holding the public sale right after New Year’s.”
“Dolls and orphans, eh?” said the Inspector, thinking of Javanese black pepper and Country Gentleman Seasoning Salt.
“That’s nice,” beamed Nikki.
“Oh, is it?” said Mr. Bondling softly. “Apparently, young woman, you’ve never tried to satisfy a Surrogate. I’ve administered estates for nine years without a whisper against me, but let an estate involve the interests of just one little ba—little fatherless child, and you’d think from the Surrogate’s attitude I was Bill Sykes himself!”
“My stuffing,” began the Inspector.
“I’ve had those dolls catalogued. The result is frightening! Did you know there’s no set market for the damnable things? And aside from a few personal possessions, the Dollection constitutes the old lady’s entire estate. Sank every nickel she had in it.”
“But it should be worth a fortune,” protested Ellery.
“To whom, Mr. Queen? Museums always want such things as free and unencumbered gifts. I tell you, except for one item, those hypothetical orphans won’t realize enough from that sale to keep them in—in bubble gum for two days!”
“Which item would that be, Mr. Bondling?”
“Number Eight-seventy-four,” snapped the lawyer. “This one.”
“Number Eight-seventy-four,” read Inspector Queen from the fat catalogue Bondling had fished out of a large greatcoat pocket. “The Dauphin’s Doll. Unique. Ivory figure of a boy Prince eight inches tall, clad in court dress, genuine ermine, brocade, velvet. Court sword in gold strapped to waist. Gold circlet crown surmounted by single blue brilliant diamond of finest water, weight approximately 49 carats—”
“How many carats?” exclaimed Nikki.
“Larger than the Hope and the Star of South Africa,” said Ellery, with a certain excitement.
“—appraised,” continued his father, “at one hundred and ten thousand dollars.”
“Expensive dollie.”
“Indecent!” said Nikki.
“This indecent—I mean exquisite royal doll,” the Inspector read on, “was a birthday gift from King Louis XVI of France to Louis Charles, his second son, who became dauphin at the death of his elder brother in 1789. The little dauphin was proclaimed Louis XVII by the royalists during the French Revolution while in custody of the sans-culottes. His fate is shrouded in mystery. Romantic, historic item.”
“Le prince perdu. I’ll say,” muttered Ellery. “Mr. Bondling, is this on the level?”
“I’m an attorney, not an antiquarian,” snapped their visitor. “There are documents attached, one of them a sworn statement—holograph—by Lady Charlotte Atkyns, the English actress-friend of the Capet family—she was in France during the Revolution—or purporting to be in Lady Charlotte’s hand. It doesn’t matter, Mr. Queen. Even if the history is bad, the diamond’s good!”
“I take it this hundred-and-ten-thousand dollar dollie constitutes the bone, as it were, or that therein lies the rub?”
“You said it!” cried Mr. Bondling, cracking his knuckles in a sort of agony. “For my money the Dauphin’s Doll is the only negotiable asset of that collection. And what’s the old lady do? She provides by will that on the day preceding Christmas the Cytherea Ypson Dollection is to be publicly displayed... on the main floor of Nash’s Department Store! The day before Christmas, gentlemen! Think of it!”
“But why?” asked Nikki, puzzled.
“Why? Who knows why? For the entertainment of New York’s army of little beggars, I suppose! Have you any notion how many peasants pass through Nash’s on the day before Christmas? My cook tells me—she’s a very religious woman—it’s like Armageddon.”
“Day before Christmas,” frowned Ellery. “That’s tomorrow.”
“It does sound chancy,” said Nikki anxiously. Then she brightened. “Oh, well, maybe Nash’s won’t co-operate, Mr. Bondling.”
“Oh, won’t they!” howled Mr. Bondling. “Why, old lady Ypson had this stunt cooked up with that gang of peasant-purveyors for years! They’ve been snapping at my heels ever since the day she was put away!”
“It’ll draw every crook in New York,” said the Inspector, his gaze on the kitchen door.
“Orphans,” said Nikki. “The orphans’ interests must be protected.” She looked at her employer accusingly.
“Special measures, Dad,” said Ellery.
“Sure, sure,” said the Inspector, rising. “Don’t you worry about this, Mr. Bondling. Now if you’ll be kind enough to excu—”
“Inspector Queen,” hissed Mr. Bondling, leaning forward tensely, “that is not all.”
“Ah.” Ellery briskly lit a cigaret. “There’s a specific villain in this piece, Mr. Bondling, and you know who he is.”
“I do,” said the lawyer hollowly, “and then again I don’t. I mean, it’s Comus.”
“Comus!” the Inspector screamed.
“Comus?” said Ellery slowly.
“Comus?” said Nikki. “Who dat?”
“Comus,” nodded Mr. Bondling. “First thing this morning. Marched right into my office, bold as day—must have followed me; I hadn’t got my coat off, my secretary wasn’t even in. Marched in and tossed this card on my desk.”