At Rockefeller Center Noel was being caroled and in the Plaza, dwarfed by a hundred-foot tree raped from some Long Island estate, the skaters were whizzing along to a determined version of “Jingle Bells.”
Santas in wrinkled red suits clanged at almost every corner, shivering. Shop windows were faery glimpses into the magic wood of advertising. And everywhere people slipped and sloshed, and Ellery slipped and sloshed with them, wearing the glazed frown by which you may know all New Yorkers, in the last week before Christmas.
He dodged in and out of great stores, trampling on little children, pushing and being pushed, clawing at merchandise, shouting his name and address, writing out checks — until, in midafternoon, his master list was reduced to a single uncrossed-off name.
But beside that name stood a large, repulsive question mark.
The McKells were the nice problem. Ellery had not sent them a wedding gift in view of the uncertainty surrounding their future habitat. At the time he had thought that by Christmas they would surely be settled, whereupon he could combine the nuptial gift with the seasonal; and here was the annual Miracle and neither the problem of the McKells’ residence nor the nature of his gifts to them had been solved. He had kept an eye alerted for inspiration all day. Silver? Glass? Silk? — no, not silk, definitely not silk. Ceramic? He saw a glossy Bubastis and shuddered. Native wood carving, something primitive? An antique? Nothing came, nothing at all.
Until, in late afternoon, Ellery found himself on 42nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Before Stern’s a Salvation Army lass, a strapping soldier of charity, sang hymns accompanied by a bluing comrade at a portable organ set down in the slush.
The organ made tinkly sounds in the treble and for a moment sounded like a musicbox.
Musicbox.
Musicbox!
They were originally a fad of French exquisites, dispensing snuff to little metallic tunes, but centuries of delight had made them currency in the realm of childhood and their pure elfishness purchased smiles from lovers.
Ellery dropped a dollar in the tambourine and considered his idea excitedly. Something special... featuring the Wedding March... yes, that was a must... inlays of precious woods, mother-of-pearl, cunning stonework... a big one, artfully made. An import, of course. The most delicate pieces came from central Europe... Swiss. A Swiss musicbox of the most elaborate craftsmanship would be expensive, but hang the expense. It would become a household treasure, a little chest of golden sentiment unawed by the McKell millions, to be kept at their bedside until they were eigh—
Swiss.
Swiss?
Switzerland!
ZÜRICH!
In a twinkling musicboxes, Wedding Marches, Christmas itself were forgotten.
Ellery waded wildly across 42nd Street and dashed through the side entrance into the New York Public Library.
For a point in his plot-in-progress had been bothering him for days. It concerned phobias. Ellery was postulating a significant relationship (of such is the kingdom of mystery writers) among morbid fear of crowds, of darkness, and of failure. Just how he had come to juxtapose these three phobias plotwise he did not know; it was his impression that he had read about their interrelationship, or heard about it, somewhere. But research had failed to turn up the source. It was holding him up.
And now Zürich. Zürich on the Limmat, Athens of Switzerland.
Zürich rang that bell!
For now Ellery remembered having either read or been told that in Zurich, at some recent international meeting of psychoanalysis, precisely such a phobic relationship had been the subject of a paper.
Search in the foreign periodical section of the Library rewarded him in less than an hour.
The source was a Züricher scientific journal, one of a pile Ellery was leafing through as he exercised his stiffened German. The entire issue was given over to the proceedings of the convention, which had lasted ten days, and all scientific papers read before it were reprinted in full. The paper he was interested in bore the alarming title of Ochlophobia, Nyctophobia, and Ponophobia; but when he glanced through it he found it to contain exactly what he was looking for.
He was about to go back to the beginning to start rereading carefully when an italic note at the end of the article caught his eye.
A familiar name.
— Paper read by Dr. Edward Cazalis of the United States...
Of course! It was Cazalis who had been responsible for the birth of the idea. Ellery recalled it all now. It had come up during that September night in the Richardson apartment, in the first hours of the on-scene investigation of Lenore’s murder. There had been a lull and Ellery found himself in conversation with the psychiatrist. They had talked about Ellery’s fiction and Dr. Cazalis had remarked with a smile that the field of phobias offered Ellery’s craft rich stores of material. On being pressed, Cazalis had mentioned work he himself had done on “ochlophobia and nyctophobia” in relation to the development of “ponophobia”; in fact, Ellery remembered his saying, he had read a paper on the subject at a convention in Zurich. And Cazalis had talked for a little about his findings, until they were interrupted by the Inspector and recalled to the sorry business of the night.
Ellery made a face. The brief conversation had sunk into his unconscious under the weight of events, to emerge two months later under pressure, its source forgotten. Sic semper the “original” idea.
It was an irony of coincidence that Cazalis should prove responsible for it.
Smiling, Ellery glanced at the footnote again.
— Paper read by Dr. Edward Cazalis of the United States at the night session of 3rd June. This paper was originally scheduled for presentation at 10 P.M. However, the preceding speaker, Dr. Naardvoessler of Denmark, exceeded his allotted time and did not conclude the reading of his paper until 11:52 P.M. A motion to adjourn was withdrawn when President Dr. Jurasse of France, Chairman of the Convention, asserted that Dr. Cazalis had attended all the sessions patiently awaiting the Convention’s pleasure and that, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, in view of the fact that this was the concluding session of the Convention, the distinguished Members present should extend the adjournment hour to enable Dr. Cazalis to present his paper. This was done viva voce, Dr. Cazalis presented his paper, concluding at 2:03 A.M., and the Convention was adjourned for the year by President Dr. Jurasse as of 2:24 A.M. 4th June.
Still smiling, Ellery flipped the journal to the front cover and glanced at the year of issue.
Now he did not smile. Now he sat staring at the last digit of the date as it grew rapidly larger, or as he himself rapidly shrank.
“Drink Me.”
He felt — if it could be called feeling — like Alice.
The Zürcher rabbit-hole.
And the Looking-Glass.
How did you get out?
At last Ellery got up from the table and made his way to the information desk outside the main reading rooms.
He crouched over copies of Who’s Who and the latest annual roster of the American Psychiatric Association.
Who’s Who... Cazalis, Edward.
The national roster of the American Psychiatric Association... Cazalis, Edward.
In each case a single Cazalis, Edward.
In each case the same Cazalis, Edward.
It was really not to be borne.
Ellery returned to his Zürich journal.
He turned the pages slowly.
Calmly.
Anyone watching me is saying: There’s a man who’s sure of himself. He turns pages calmly. Knows just what’s what.”