Ellery was surprised to find himself sitting up in bed, a position he had been unable to achieve in over a week. “And the Witch?” he exclaimed.
“Bewildered, Mr. Queen. The last time she saw her nephew was when he was seven years old, just before his parents took him to the Far East. He spent an exciting week in New York with her — during which week, by the way, she kept a diary. She still has it—”
“There you are,” said Ellery. “All she has to do is question each man about that week. The genuine one surely remembers something of such a great boyhood adventure.”
“She has done so.” said Father Bowen sorrowfully. “Each recalls part of it. Each claims with dismaying bitterness that the other can answer such questions because he told him all about it — forgive me if my pronouns are confused. The poor woman has quite worn herself out trying to trip one of them up. She’s ready to divide her money between them — and I won’t have that!” said the old shepherd sternly.
Ellery asked every question he could think of, and he thought of a great many.
“Well, Father,” he said at last, shaking his head, and Father Bowen’s lean face fell, “I don’t see...” And suddenly he stopped shaking his head.
“Yes?” cried the clergyman.
“Or maybe I do! A way to get at the truth... yes... Where are the two Johns now, Father?”
“At my rectory.”
“Could you have them here in, say, an hour?”
“Oh, yes,” said Father Bowen grimly. “Oh, yes, indeed!”
One hour later the aged cleric herded two angry-looking young men into Ellery’s bedroom and shut the door with a sinister little snick.
“I’ve had a lot of trouble keeping them from manhandling each other, Mr. Queen. This, gentlemen, is Ellery Queen,” said Father Bowen coldly, “and he’ll soon put an end to this nonsense!”
“I don’t care who he is and what he says,” growled the first young man. “I’m John Gaard.”
“You dug-up shi,” bellowed the second young man, “you took those words right out of my mouth!”
“Did you ever get your head knocked off by a corpse?”
“Try it, you—”
“Would you two stand side by side, please,” said Ellery, “facing that window?”
They grew quiet.
Ellery looked them over sharply. The first young man was blond and tall, with big shoulders, sun-squinted brown eyes, a snub nose, and huge feet and work-battered hands. The second was short and sandy-haired, squintily blue-eyed and curve-nosed, with small feet and clever-looking hands. They were as unlike as two kittens in an alley litter, but two pairs of fists were at the ready, and both glowered, and it was impossible to say which seemed more honestly outraged, the Witch’s nephew or his impostor.
“You see?” said Father Bowen despairingly.
“Indeed I do, Father,” said Ellery, smiling through his travail, “and I’ll be happy to identify John Gaard for you.”
CHALLENGE TO THE READER: How did Ellery determine which claimant was the real John Gaard?
The young men glared, as if daring each other to make a break for it.
“It’s all right, gentlemen,” said Ellery, “there’s a very large detective-sergeant named Tom Velie waiting in the next room who could break the back of either of you without dropping the ash from his cigaret. How do I know, did you ask, Father Bowen?”
“Why, yes, Mr. Queen,” said the clergyman, bewildered. “You haven’t asked these young men a single question.”
“Would you mind reaching to that shelf, Father,” said Ellery with another smile, “and handing me that great, fat, ominous-looking book in the plain paper wrapper?... Thank you... This volume, gentlemen, is forbiddingly entitled Forensic Medicine and Legal Biology, and it was written by two of the foremost authorities in the field, Mendelius and Claggett. Let’s see, it should be around page five hundred and something... Why, Father, you told me that Miss Wichingame’s twin sister was identical with her in every physical respect. Since Miss Wichingame is blue-eyed, then Mrs. Gaard must have been blue-eyed, too. And you described the Reverend Gaard in Miss Wichingame’s words as ‘a pure Nordic,’ which ethnologically puts John Gaard’s father among the blue-eyed, too... Ah, here it is. Now let me read you the second paragraph on page 563 of this authoritative work.
“ ‘Two blue-eyed persons,’ ” Ellery said, his eyes on the open page of the big book, “ would produce only children with blue eyes. They would not produce children with brown eyes.’ ”
“There he goes!” cried Father Bowen.
“Velie!” roared Ellery. “Catch him!”
And Sergeant Velie, appearing magically, did so in his usual emphatic manner.
While the Sergeant was leading the tall, broad, brown-eyed impostor away, and the short, blue-eyed, authenticated John Gaard was trying to express his thanks to Ellery in an excited mixture of English, Chinese, and Korean, Father Bowen picked up the fat book from Ellery’s bed, which Ellery had closed, and he turned to page 563. A look of perplexity wrinkled his leathery face, and he removed the paper jacket and glanced at the cover.
“But Mr. Queen,” exclaimed Father Bowen, “this book isn’t entitled Forensic Medicine and Legal Biology. It’s an old edition of Who’s Who!”
“Is it?” said Ellery guiltily. “I could have sworn—”
“Don’t,” said Father Bowen in a severe tone. “The fact is Mendelius and Claggett don’t exist. You just made up that whole quotation about blue eyes-brown eyes! Isn’t it true?”
“There was a time when the books said it was,” said Ellery mournfully, “but they probably don’t any more — too many blue-eyed parents of irreproachable probity were turning up with brown-eyed children. However, our brown-eyed claimant didn’t know that, Father, did he? And now,” Ellery said to blue-eyed young John, who was gaping idiotically, “I’ll name my fee: Turn me over in this damned — beg pardon, Father — bed!”
The man without a head
by T. W. Hanshew
Here is an “unknown” story by the creator of Hamilton Cleek, The Man of the Forty Faces, the Master Detective of Scotland Yard. Unfortunately, Cleek is not in the story. But you will meet some fascinating characters — a mummified Italian, a fat German, a sallow faced man from Cornwall and an Alsatian murderer minus a head. This, perhaps we should warn you, is a smoking-car story. It is also, in your Editors opinion, the best-written tale ever to come from the pen of T. W. Hanshew.
I cannot conceive what impelled me to do the thing, for I am not what might be tailed a “betting man” at any time, and, moreover, the habit of speaking my thoughts aloud is not one of my many failings. But the fact remains that, just as the train pulled away from the dingy little station at Modane, and the fat man in the corner began to nod again, I said quite audibly: “I’ll bet a fiver that fellow is asleep before we reach the tunnel, and will snore like a blessed pig the whole way through it!”
I did not address my remarks to any of the persons who shared the compartment with me; for one thing, I did not suppose any of them understood more than a word or two of English at most, and, for another, I was, as I have stated, merely speaking my thoughts aloud. There were four of us in all — a mummified Italian who kept his nose in a book, hour in and hour out; the fat German who had sat blinking like an owl every time I opened my eyes during the night, and had only had two waking intervals since the day broke; and a somewhat sallow-faced individual who looked like a Frenchman, and spent the time jotting things down in a pocket notebook when he wasn’t chewing the end of his lead-pencil and staring up at the roof of the carriage in a manner indicative of deep thoughtfulness.