“So he sent his wife south in the care of her sister and brother-in-law, he took the remaining silk cords from his wife’s hiding place and stored them in a place identifiable with him alone, and he set about proving to the authorities that he, Edward Cazalis, was the monster the City of New York had been hunting frantically for five months. His subsequent ‘confession’ in detail was the easiest part of it by far; he was fully informed through his affiliation with the case of all the facts known to the police, and upon a foundation of these facts he was able to build a plausible, convincing structure. How much of his behavior at this point and since has been playacting and how much actual disturbance I can’t, of course, venture to say.
“And that, Professor Seligmann, is my story,” said Ellery in a tightened voice, “and if you have any information that controverts in, this is the time to speak out.”
He found that he was shivering and he blamed it on the fire, which was low. It was hissing a little, as if to call attention to its plight.
Old Seligmann raised himself and devoted a few minutes to the Promethean chore of bringing warmth back to the room.
Ellery waited.
Suddenly, without turning, the old man grumbled: “Perhaps it would be wisdom, Herr Queen, to send that cable now.”
Ellery sighed.
“May I telephone instead? You can’t say much in a cable, and if I can talk to my father a great deal of time will have been saved.”
“I shall place the call for you.” The old man shuffled to his desk. As he took the telephone, he added with a twitch of humor, “My German — at least on the European side, Mr. Queen — will undoubtedly prove less expensive than yours.”
They might have been calling one of the more distant planets. They sat in silence sipping their coffee, attuned to a ring which did not come.
The day was running out and the study began to blur and lose its character.
Once Frau Bauer stormed in. Her bristling entrance startled them. But their unnatural silence and the twilight they sat in startled her. She tiptoed about, switching on lamps. Then, like a mouse, she skittered out.
Once Ellery laughed, and the old man raised his head.
“I’ve just thought of something absurd, Professor Seligmann. In the four months since I first laid eyes on her, I’ve never called her or thought of her or referred to her as anything but ‘Mrs. Cazalis.’”
“And what should you call her,” said the old man grumpily, “Ophelia?”
“I never did learn her Christian name. I don’t know it at this moment. Just Mrs. Cazalis... the great man’s shadow. Yet from the night she murdered her niece she was always there. On the edges. A face in the background. Putting in an occasional — but very important — word. Making idiots of us all, including her husband. It makes one wonder, Herr Professor, what the advantages are of so-called sanity.”
He laughed again to indicate that this was pleasantry, a sociable introduction to conversation; he was feeling uneasy.
But the old man merely grunted.
After that, they resumed their silences.
Until the telephone rang.
The line was miraculously clear.
“Ellery!” Inspector Queen’s shout spurned the terrestrial sea. “You all right? What are you still doing in Vienna? Why haven’t I heard from you? Not even a cable.”
“Dad, I’ve got news for you.”
“News?”
“The Cat is Mrs. Cazalis.”
Ellery grinned. He felt sadistically petty.
It was very satisfactory, his father’s reaction. “Mrs. Cazalis. Mrs. Cazalis?”
Still, there was something peculiar about the way the Inspector said it.
“I know it’s a blow, and I can’t explain now, but—”
“Son, I have news for you.”
“News for me?”
“Mrs. Cazalis is dead. She took poison this morning.”
Ellery heard himself saying to Professor Seligmann: “Mrs. Cazalis is dead. She took poison. This morning.”
“Ellery, who are you talking to?”
“Béla Seligmann. I’m at his home.” Ellery took hold of himself. For some reason it was a shock. “Maybe it’s just as well. It certainly solves a painful problem for Cazalis—”
“Yes,” said his father in a very peculiar tone indeed.
“—because, Dad, Cazalis is innocent. But I’ll give you the details when I get home. Meanwhile, you’d better start the ball rolling with the District Attorney. I know we can’t keep the trial from getting under way tomorrow morning, but—”
“Ellery.”
“What?”
“Cazalis is dead, too. He also took poison this morning.”
Cazalis is dead, too. He also took poison this morning. Ellery thought he was thinking it, but when he saw the look on Seligmann’s face he realized with astonishment that he had repeated these words of his father’s aloud, too.
“We have reason to believe it was Cazalis who planned it, told her just where to get the stuff, what to do. She’s been in something of a fog for some time. They weren’t alone in his cell more than a minute or so when it happened. She brought him the poison and they both swallowed a lethal dose at the same time. It was a quick-acting poison; before the cell door could be unlocked they were writhing, and they died within six minutes. It happened so blasted fast Cazalis’s lawyer, who was standing...”
His father’s voice dribbled off into the blue. Or seemed to. Ellery felt himself straining to catch remote accents. Not really straining to catch anything. Except a misty, hard-cored something — something he had never realized was part of him — and now that he was conscious of it it was dwindling away with the speed of light and he was powerless to hold on to it.
“Herr Queen. Mr. Queen!”
Good old Seligmann. He understands. That’s why he sounds so excited.
“Ellery, you still there? Can’t you hear me? I can’t get a thing out of this goddam—”
A voice said, “I’ll be home soon, goodbye,” and somebody dropped the phone. Ellery found everything calmly confusing. There was a great deal of noise, and Frau Bauer was in it somewhere and then she wasn’t, and a man was sniveling like a fool close by while his face was hit by a blockbuster and burning lava tore down his gullet; and then Ellery opened his eyes to find himself lying on a black leather couch and Professor Seligmann hovering over him like the spirit of all grandfathers with a bottle of cognac in one hand and a handkerchief in the other with which he was gently wiping Ellery’s face.
“It is nothing, nothing,” the old man was saying in a wonderfully soothing voice. “The long and physically depleting journey, the lack of sleep, the nervous excitements of our talk — the shock of your father’s news. Relax, Mr. Queen. Lean back. Do not think. Close your eyes.”
Ellery leaned back, and he did not think, and he closed his eyes, but then he opened them and said, “No.”
“There is more? Perhaps you would like to tell me.”
He had such a fantastically strong, safe voice, this old man.
“I’m too late again,” Ellery heard himself saying in the most ridiculously emotional voice. “I’ve killed Cazalis the way I killed Howard Van Horn. If I’d checked Cazalis against all nine murders immediately instead of resting on my shiny little laurels Cazalis would be alive today. Alive instead of dead, Professor Seligmann. Do you see? I’m too late again.”