“Who’s ‘he’?”
“The Man Nobody Knows. The Ghost of Wall Street. The Vanishing American. Cadmus Cole — in person!”
The great man himself, it appeared, had telephoned for an appointment. He had specifically asked for Mr. Queen — Mr. Queen, and no other. Mr. Rummell had promised to produce Mr. Queen; he would have promised to produce the equestrian statue of General Grant.
“He’ll be here in fifteen minutes,” said Beau, jubilantly. “What a break! Now keep me out of it. He insisted on you. What d’ye know about him? I buzzed Tom Creevich of the Herald and he dug some dope on Cole out of the morgue for me.”
They put their heads together. Cole had been born in Windsor, Vermont, in 1873, eldest son in a moderately prosperous family. He had inherited his father’s ironworks. He was married in 1901, there had been a scandal involving his wife’s fidelity, and he had divorced her in 1903. She married four times more before being shot to death in Italy by a stickler of a husband some years later.
Cole expanded his ironworks. In 1912 he went into South American nitrates. When the World War broke out, he began manufacturing munitions. He made millions. After the War he quadrupled his fortune in Wall Street. It was at this time that he sold out all his holdings and bought the colossal château at Tarrytown on the Hudson which he rarely used.
In 1921 the multimillionaire retired and, with his confidential agent, Edmund De Carlos, who had represented him for many years, took to the sea. He had lived aboard his yacht Argonaut ever since.
“The Argonaut rarely visits the big ports,” said Beau. “Puts in only for refueling, supplies, and cash. And when the yacht does drop anchor, Cole sulks in his cabin and this fellow De Carlos — he’s still with Cole — manages everything.”
“Sort of plutocratic marine hobo,” remarked Ellery. “What’s the matter with him?”
“He’s wacky as hell,” said Beau happily.
“If what you say is true, this must be his first personal appearance in New York City in eighteen years.”
“I’m honored,” said Beau. “Yes, sir, I’m sorry I didn’t put on my other suit!”
Since millionairus Americanus is a rare and fine species, it is important to study Mr. Cadmus Cole while we have the opportunity. For Mr. Cole is doomed to an early extinction... perhaps earlier than he thinks.
Observe, ladies and gentlemen, that his first act in entering the inner office of Ellery Queen, Inc. is to bump into the door-jamb. A curious fact, which it will be instructive to bear in mind. No, he is not drunk.
He then advances to the focus of the beige rug, and pauses. His gait is not so much a walk as a stumping lurch, each foot raised deliberately from the floor and planted wide, as if feeling its way on an insubstantial terrain.
He stares at Messrs. Queen and Rummell with an oddly squinty sharpness. The squint, enmeshed in radial wrinkles, has surely been caused by years of gazing upon the shifting planes of sunstruck seas; but the sharpness, let us suspect, has a deeper root.
The ancient mariner’s complexion is redbrown. The shallow pale plinths of pupil visible behind his squint are clear and youthful, if intently focussed. His face is a mask, smooth, hollowy, and mummiferous. He is paunch’ less, erect.
His cranium is innocent of hair; it bulges broadly, a brown and naked bone. And, his pale lips being parted a little, we see that he is as toothless as an embryo.
Clad in a blue, brass-buttoned yachting suit of great age, the millionaire squints from Mr. Rummell to Mr. Queen and back again with all the animation of a tailor’s dummy.
“Great pleasure, great pleasure,” said Mr. Queen hastily. “Won’t you have a chair, Mr. Cole?”
“You Queen?” demanded the great man. He spoke in a strangulated mumble that was difficult to make out. His lack of teeth also caused him to drool and spit slightly when he spoke.
Mr. Queen closed his eyes. “I am.”
“Talk to you alone,” said Mr. Cole testily.
Beau kowtowed and vanished. Mr. Queen knew he was listening, observing, and engaging in other Rummellian activities from a peephole in the combination laboratory and darkroom adjoining the office.
“Not much time,” announced the great man. “Sailing tonight. West Indies. Want to clear up this business. I’ve just come from Lloyd Goossens’s law-office. Know young Goossens?”
“By reputation only, Mr. Cole. His father died about five years ago and he heads the firm now. It’s an old, respectable outfit specializing in the liquidation and trusteeship of large estates. Are you... er... liquidating your estate, Mr. Cole?”
“No, no. Just left Goossens my sealed will. Used to know his father. Good man. But since his father’s dead, I’ve appointed Goossens co-executor and co-trustee of my estate.”
“Co-?” asked Mr. Queen politely.
“My friend Edmund De Carlos will share the administrative duties with Goossens. Can’t say this concerns you at all!”
“Naturally not,” Mr. Queen assured the nabob.
“Come to you on a confidential matter. Understand you know your business, Queen. Want your promise to handle this case personally. No assistants!”
“What case, if you please?” asked Mr. Queen.
“Shan’t tell you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Shan’t tell you. The case hasn’t happened yet.”
Mr. Queen looked indulgent. “But, my dear sir, you can’t expect me to investigate a case of which I know nothing! I’m a detective, not a clairvoyant.”
“Don’t expect you to,” mumbled the great man. “Engaging your future services. You’ll know what it’s about when the proper time comes.”
“I can’t refrain from asking,” observed Mr. Queen, “why, if that is the case, Mr. Cole, you don’t engage me at the proper time.”
It seemed to him that a certain slyness crept over the brown mask of the millionaire. “You’re a detective. You tell me.”
“There’s only one reason that comes directly to mind,” murmured Mr. Queen, rising to the challenge, “but it seems so indelicate I hesitate to mention it.”
“The devil! What’s the reason?” And Mr. Cole’s nostrils betrayed an oscillant curiosity.
“If you didn’t decide to do the normal thing, which would have been to hire an investigator at the time an investigation became necessary, then it must be because you don’t expect to be able to hire an investigator at that time, Mr. Cole.”
“Fiddle-faddle! Talk sense.”
“Simply that you think you may be dead.”
The great man sucked in a long, snorkly breath. “Ah!” he said. “Well, well!” as if he had not heard anything so astounding in all his sixty-six years.
“Then you do expect an attack on your life?” asked Mr. Queen, leaning forward. “You have an active enemy? Perhaps some one has tried to kill you already?”
Mr. Cadmus Cole was silent. His lids slid closed, like the segmented roof of an observatory. Then he opened his eyes and said: “Money’s no object. Always buy the best. Don’t haggle. Will you take the case, Queen?”
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Queen promptly.
“I’ll send a registered letter to Goossens as soon as I get back to the boat, with an enclosure to be filed with my will in Goossens’s possession. It will specify that I’ve retained you to perform certain services at the stipulated fee. Which is?”
Mr. Queen could sense the mental vibrations of Mr. Beau Rummell imploring him to name an astronomical number. “Since I don’t know what or how much work is involved, I can scarcely set a fee, Mr. Cole. I’ll set it when, as you say, the time comes. Meanwhile, may I suggest a retainer?”