“The maid?”
“She won’t be there.”
“How did you work it?”
“The Mayor,” said Inspector Queen. “I got His Honor to invite the Cazalises for Sunday dinner.”
Ellery shouted. “How much did you have to tell the Mayor?”
“Not very much. We communicated mostly by telepathy. But I think he’s impressed with the necessity of not letting our friend go too soon after the brandy tomorrow. Dinner’s called for 2:30 and there are going to be bigshot guests in afterward. Once Cazalis gets there, the Mayor says, he’ll stay there.”
“Brief me.”
“We’re to get a buzz the minute Cazalis sets foot in the Mayor’s foyer.” On that signal we shoot over to the apartment and get in through the service door by way of the basement and a back alley. Velie will have a duplicate key ready for us by tomorrow morning. The maid won’t be back till late; she gets every other Sunday off and it happens tomorrow is her off-Sunday. The building help are being taken care of. We’ll get in and out without being seen. Have you heard from Jimmy McKell?”
“He’ll be up around ninish.”
Jimmy showed up that night needing a shave, a clean shirt, and a drink, “but I can dispense with the first two items,” he said, “providing Number 3 is produced forthwith,” whereupon Ellery planted the decanter, a bottle of seltzer, and a glass at Jimmy’s elbow and waited at least ten seconds before he made an encouraging sound in his throat.
“I’ll bet the seismograph at Fordham is going crazy,” said Jimmy. “Where do you sphinxes want it from?”
“Anywhere?”
“Well,” said Jimmy, admiring his glass in the light, “the story of Edward Cazalis is kind of lopsided. I couldn’t find out much about his family background and boyhood, just a few details. Seems he got away from home early—”
“Born in Ohio, wasn’t he?” said the Inspector. He was measuring three fingers of Irish whiskey with care.
“Ironton, Ohio, 1882,” nodded Jimmy McKell. “His father was a laborer of some sort—”
“Ironworker,” said the Inspector.
“Whose report is this, anyway?” demanded Jimmy. “Or am I being checked up on?”
“I just happen to have a few facts, that’s all,” said the Inspector, holding his glass up to the fight, too. “Go on, McKell.”
“Anyway, Papa Cazalis was descended from a French soldier who settled in Ohio after the French and Indian War. About Mama I couldn’t find out.” Jimmy looked at the old gentleman belligerently, but when that worthy downed his whiskey without saying anything Jimmy continued. “Your hero was one of the youngest of fourteen ill-fed, ill-clothed, and ill-housed brats. A lot of them died off in childhood. The survivors and their descendants are strewn around the Middle West landscape. As far as I can tell, your Eddie’s the only one who made anything of himself.”
“Any criminals in the family?” asked Ellery.
“Sir, don’t asperse the rank and file of our glorious heritage,” said Jimmy, pouring another drink for himself. “Or are you taking a refresher course in sociology? I couldn’t find anything special in that line.” He said suddenly, “What are you digging for?”
“Keep going, Jimmy.”
“Well, Edward seems to have been a very hep cookie. Not a prodigy, you understand. But precocious. And very ambitious. Poor but honest, he burned the midnight oil, worked his industrious little fingers to the bone, and got a southern Ohio hardware king all hopped up about him; in fact, he became this tycoon’s protégé. A real Horatio Alger character. Up to a point, that is.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, in my book young Eduardo was something of a heelo. If there’s anything worse than a rich snob, it’s a poor one. The hardware hidalgo, whose name was William Waldemar Gaeckel, lifted the bloke clean out of his lousy environment, scrubbed him up, got him some decent clothes, and sent him away to a fancy prep school in Michigan... and there’s no record that Cazalis ever went back to Ironton even on a visit. He ditched pa and ma, he ditched Tessie, Steve, and the other fifty thousand brothers and sisters, and after old Gaeckel sent him proudly to New York to study medicine he ditched Gaeckel, too — or maybe Mr. G. got wise to him; anyway, they had no further relations. Cazalis got his M.D. from Columbia in 1903.”
“1903,” murmured Ellery. “Aged 21. One of fourteen children, and he became interested in obstetrics.”
“Very funny,” grinned Jimmy.
“Not very.” Ellery’s voice was chill. “Any information on the obstetrical specialty?”
Jimmy McKell nodded, looking curious.
“Let’s have it.”
Jimmy referred to the back of a smudged envelope. “Seems that back in those days medical schools weren’t standardized. In some the courses were two years, in others four, and there weren’t any obstetrical or gynecological internships or residencies... it says here. Very few men did obstetrics or gynecology exclusively, and those who did became specialists mostly by apprenticeship. When Cazalis graduated from Columbia — with honors, by the way — he hooked onto a New York medico named Larkland—”
“John F.,” said the Inspector.
“John F.,” nodded Jimmy. “East 20s somewhere. Dr. Larkland’s practice was entirely O.B. and gyne but it was apparently enough to keep Cazalis with him about a year and a half. Then in 1905 Cazalis started his own specializing practice—”
“Just when in 1905?”
“February. Larkland died that month of cancer, and Cazalis took over his practice.”
Then Archibald Dudley Abernethy’s mother had been old Dr. Larkland’s patient and young Cazalis had inherited her, thought Ellery. It soothed him. Clergymen’s wives in 1905 were not attended by 23-year-old physicians except in extraordinary circumstances.
“Within a few years,” continued Jimmy, “Cazalis was one of the leading specialists in the East. As I get the picture, he’d moved in on the ground floor and by 1911 or ’12, when the specialty had become defined, he had one of the biggest practices in New York. He wasn’t a money-grubber, I understand, although he made pots. He was always more interested in the creative side of his profession, pioneered a couple of new techniques, did a lot of clinic work, and so on. I’ve got lots of dope here on his scientific achievements—”
“Skip it. What else?”
“Well, there’s his war record.”
“World War I.”
“Yes.”
“When did he go in?”
“Summer of 1917.”
“Interesting, Dad. Beatrice Willikins was born on April 7 that year, the day after Congress declared war on Germany. Must have been one of Cazalis’s last deliveries before getting into uniform.” The Inspector said nothing. “What about his war record?”
“Tops. He went into the Medical Corps as a captain and came out a full colonel. Surgery up front—”
“Ever wounded?”
“No, but he did spend a few months in a French rest area in ’18, and in early ’19 after the war ended. Under treatment for — I quote — ‘exhaustion and shell shock.’”
Ellery glanced at his father, but the Inspector was pouring his fourth, fifth, and sixth finger of whiskey.
“Apparently it wasn’t anything serious.” Jimmy glanced at his envelope. “He was sent home from France as good as new and when he was mustered out—”
“In 1919.”
“—he went back to his specialty. By the end of 1920 he’d worked up his practice again and was going great guns.”
“Still doing obstetrics and gynecology exclusively?”
“That’s right. He was then in his late 30s, approaching his prime, and in the next five years or so he really hit the top.” Jimmy hauled out another envelope. “Let’s see... yes, 1926. In 1926 he met Mrs. Cazalis through her sister, Mrs. Richardson — and married her. She was one of the Merigrews of Bangor. Old New England family — blood transparent, blue, and souring, but I’m told she was a genetic sport, very pretty, if you went for Dresden china. Cazalis was 44 and his bride was only 19, but apparently he had Dresden china ideas; it seems to have been an epic romance. They had a fancy wedding in Maine and a long honeymoon. Paris, Vienna, and Rome.