“Who is an expert archer, and left-handed, and knew Jardin’s coat was ripped, and knew the Indian clubs were in the gymnasium closet?”
For a moment, by some communal telegraphic instinct, the very bees stopped humming; and a final silence fell that was uncomfortably not of this world.
Then Pink burst into laughter, doubling up as he clutched the bows and arrows. “But jeeze,” he gasped, “you’re ’way off your base. That’s me!”
Inspector Glücke looked at Ellery with an anxiously questioning triumph, as if to say: “There, smart guy. What do you say to that?”
And Ellery said to that: “Yes, Pink. That’s you.”
“Oh, no,” said Valerie, holding on to Walter’s arm. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes,” said Ellery. “I knew Pink was an expert archer — wasn’t he runner-up to Jardin when Jardin won the California Archery Tournament last spring? You mentioned that yourself Monday night, Inspector. And besides, he’s just beautifully demonstrated his markmanship.
“Left-handed? Ample evidence of that, plus the fact that he just shot an arrow left-handedly.
“He was one of the five persons who were present when Jardin’s coat was ripped.
“And he was one of the three who knew about the clubs being left in the closet.
“On the archery point, the only other known archer in the group is Jardin, whose alibi lets him out. On the coat-ripping point, the other four witnesses were Jardin, Valerie, Walter, and the gateman Frank. Jardin and Valerie are eliminated because of their alibis. Walter is right-handed. And Frank has only one arm, so he couldn’t possibly have been an archer.
“And on the Indian-club point, the other two were the Jardins, eliminated before.
“Pink is the only one who fits all four characteristics. So he must have murdered Solly Spaeth.” Ellery sighed. “Take it away, Inspector. I’ve shot my bolt, too.”
During this peroration, they stood motionless, too surprised to think, to take the simplest defensive measure. As for Pink, his crimson neck grew more crimson, and the cords expanded and became visible, and the look of the hunted animal slowly emerged from the sluggish morass of his brain.
But at a certain point something snapped, and Pink demonstrated his amazing nervous and physical versatility. Before they could move a muscle he had bounded off the terrace to a point fifteen feet away and whirled like a tightly wound mechanical toy with an arrow fitted into the bow, the string taut, and the arrowhead pointed directly at Mr. Ellery Queen’s petrified breast.
“Don’t move,” said Pink thickly. “Nobody make one little move.”
They were strung out in a straggly line along the terrace, no one behind another. It was absurd, in the sun, with the bow gleaming like a plaything. And yet nobody moved.
“You can get me with a gun,” said Pink in the same thick, dreary voice, “but this guy gets it through the heart first. So don’t move. He’s got something coming to him.” He stopped, and then he said: “He fooled me.”
And nobody laughed, even at the childish petulance, the plaintive wonder in Pink’s voice. His red hair flamed. With his legs widespread and solidly planted in the earth, and the bow grotesquely arched, he was a fascinating object; and faintly in a remote chamber of his brain Mr. Ellery Queen began to recite a small, foolish prayer.
Pink’s left arm drew back a little farther and his eye glared at Ellery’s breast with an awful fixity.
“Pink,” said Valerie. She happened to be standing with Walter near the top step of the terrace. “Pink.”
Pink’s eye did not waver. “Keep out of this, Val. Keep away.”
“Pink,” said Val again. Her cheeks were almost blue. Walter made a convulsive movement and she breathed: “Walter. Don’t move. He’ll kill you. He won’t touch me.” And slowly she stepped forward and slowly she went down the steps.
“Val,” cried Pink, “Val, I swear — go back!”
“No, Pink,” said Val in a quiet soothing tone. Slowly, slowly. She hardly touched the ground. She drifted toward him, never taking her eyes from him. It was as if Pink had been a sliver of gold leaf balanced on the tip of a needle; the merest quiver of the ground, the merest breath would send it tumbling. “Don’t, Pink. I know there’s something horribly wrong in all this. You’re not a criminal. You may have killed Spaeth, but I know you must have had a good reason — in your own mind, Pink...”
Fat drops appeared on Pink’s red forehead. His body trembled as he stood rooted in the garden, shaken by an invisible wind.
“Pink,” said Val, and she went up to him and took the bow out of his hand.
And Pink did a curious thing. He sank down among the flowers and began to weep.
When it was all over and Pink, with a dead look in his eyes, was led away to wait in a police car for Inspector Glücke, Ellery went into Solly Spaeth’s study and opened a liquor cabinet and drank standing up from a full brown bottle.
Then, with the bottle in his hand, he went over to Val and kissed the tip of her ear.
“Just like a woman,” he said. Val was crying bitterly in Walter’s arms and Rhys was sitting, a little shrunken, and looking old. “You saved my life,” said Ellery.
Val sobbed against Walter’s chest. Walter glanced at Ellery significantly and he turned away. Walter drew Val off to a corner and sat her down on his lap; she clung to him. “Pink. He was... Oh, I can’t believe it!”
“It’s all right, darling. We’ll get him off,” crooned Walter in her ear. “No jury will ever convict him in this county.”
“Oh, Walter...”
Ellery raised the bottle again, and Inspector Glücke said something, and Ruhig and Winni Moon were sent off in custody with their conspiracy to defraud hanging heavy over their heads. And after a while District Attorney Van Every left with a bewildered look; and Fitz, clapping his forehead like a man awakening from a trance, grabbed the telephone, spluttered into it, dashed out, dashed back, found his hat, threw it away, and dashed out again.
Glücke rubbed his jaw. “King, I don’t know how to—”
Ellery lowered the bottle. “Who killed Cock Robin?” he sang. “I, said the sparrow, with my little bow and arrow... It’s like a resurrection! Have I sprouted any gray hairs in the last ten minutes?”
“Mr. King.” Rhys Jardin rose, working his jaws. For a moment there was no sound except Val’s sobbing and Walter’s crooning in her ear.
Ellery sighed: “Yes?” He was not feeling terribly fit; there was a bitterness on his tongue not liquorish.
“There’s one thing I’ll never believe,” said Rhys in a troubled voice. “I’ll never believe Pink framed me for Spaeth’s murder. I couldn’t be wrong. He was my friend. I treated him like a member of my own family. It just can’t be, Mr. King.”
“Look,” said Ellery. “A friend may become a greater enemy than an enemy. He was your friend, and you were his. You had advised him to put all his savings in Ohippi. When Ohippi fell, he was furious with Spaeth; and so long as he thought you were Spaeth’s victim, too, he remained your friend.
“But Monday morning, in packing your things in the gym across the way, he found a bankbook in your golf-bag which seemed to indicate that you had salted away five million dollars. Were you still his friend? Not if you doublecrossed him by pretending to be broke while you had five millions to keep you warm against a rainy day. Pink is a primitive soul and he didn’t stop to ask questions. In his mind you became one with Spaeth — two crooks who had defrauded him of his life’s savings.
“He planned things then and there. He had to take that collection of arrowheads down to the Museum, didn’t he? On the way he took two of the arrowheads out of the package, delivering the rest. He fitted them out with shafts, preparing his little broth of molasses and potassium cyanide—”