“Quite right.”
“What is your professional opinion as to cause of death?”
Dr. Wardes raised his full brown brows. “Exactly what Dr. Frost ascribed it to in the death-certificate.”
“Fine. Now, a few personal questions, Doctor.” The Inspector took snuff and smiled benignly. “Would you mind relating the circumstances which find you in this house?”
“I believe,” replied Dr. Wardes indifferently, ‘that I touched upon that not long ago. I am a London specialist on diseases of the eye. I had been visiting in New York on a sorely needed sabbatical. Miss Brett visited me at my hotel―”
“Miss Brett again.” Queen shot a shrewd glance at the girl. “How is that―were you acquainted?”
“Yes, through Sir Arthur Ewing, Miss Brett’s former employer. I treated Sir Arthur for a mild trachoma and made the young lady’s acquaintance in that way,” said the physician. “When she learned through the newspapers of my arrival in New York, she visited me at my hotel to renew our acquaintance and broached the possibility of getting me to look at Khalkis’s eyes.”
“You see,” said Joan in a breathless little rush, “when I saw the announcement of Dr. Wardes’ arrival in the ship news, I spoke to Mr. Khalkis about him and suggested that he might be induced to examine Mr. Khalkis’s eyes.”
“Of course,” continued Dr. Wardes, “I was properly in blighty―my nerves aren’t up to snuff at present―and at first I didn’t feel like turning my vacation into a busman’s holiday. But Miss Brett was hard to refuse and I finally consented. Mr. Khalkis was very kind―insisted I be his guest during my stay in the States. I had the man under observation for a little more than a fortnight when he died.”
“Did you agree with the diagnosis of Dr. Frost and the specialist on the nature of Khalkis’s blindness?”
“Oh, yes, as I think I told the good Sergeant here and Mr. Pepper a few days ago. We know very little about the phenomenon of amaurosis―complete blindness―when it is induced by haemorrhage from ulcerous or cancerous stomach. Nevertheless, it was a fascinating problem from the medical standpoint, and I tried a few experiments of my own in an effort to stimulate a possible spontaneous recovery of sight. But I met with no success―my last rigorous examination was a week ago Thursday, and his condition remained unchanged.”
“You’re certain, Doctor, that you’ve never seen the man Grimshaw―the second man in the coffin?”
“No, Inspector, I have not,” replied Dr. Wardes impatiently. “Furthermore, I know nothing about Khalkis’s private affairs, his visitors, or anything else you may consider pertinent to your investigation. My only concern at the moment is to return to England.”
“Well,” said the Inspector dryly, “you didn’t feel that way, I understand, the other day . . . . It isn’t going to be so easy, Doctor, to leave. This is a murder inquiry now.”
He cut short a protest on the physician’s bearded lips and turned aside to Alan Cheney. Cheney’s replies were curt. No, he could add nothing to the testimony given so far. No, he had never seen Grimshaw before, and what was more, he added viciously, he didn’t care a hoot if Grimshaw’s murderer were never found. The Inspector raised a mildly humorous eyebrow and questioned Mrs. Sloane. The result was disappointing―like her son, she knew nothing and cared less. Her only concern was to have the household restored to at least a semblance of propriety and peace. Mrs. Vreeland, her husband, Nacio Suiza, Woodruff were equally unproductive of information. No one of them had laiown or even seen Grimshaw before, it seemed. The Inspector pressed the butler Weekes particularly on this point; but Weekes was positive, despite his eight years’ service in the Khalkis house, that Grimshaw had never appeared on the premises prior to the visits of the week before, and even then he, Weekes, had not seen him.
The Inspector, a Napoleonic little figure of despair, stood in the centre of the room as if it were his Elba. There was an almost frantic glitter in his eye. The questions rattled out of his grey-moustached mouth. Had anyone seen possibly suspicious activity in the house after the funeral? No. Had any of them visited the graveyard since the funeral? No. Had any of them seen anyone go into the graveyard since the funeral? And again, a climax of thunderous negation―no I
Inspector Queen’s fingers curled in an impatient little gesture and Sergeant Velie tramped over. The Inspector was very short-tempered now. Velie was to foray out into the silence of the graveyard and personally question Sexton Honeywell, Reverend Elder and other attaches of the church. He was to discover if possible someone who might have witnessed something of interest in the graveyard since the funeral. He was to quiz neighbours and servants in the Rectory across the court and in the four other private residences which gave rear exit to the court. He was to be mighty sure that he missed no possible witness to a possible visit by a possible suspect to the graveyard, particularly at night.
Velie, accustomed to his superior’s tantrums, grinned a frozen grin and barged out of the library.
The Inspector bit his moustache. “Ellery!” he said with a paternal irritation. “What the devil are you doing now?”
His son made no immediate reply. His son, it might be said, had discovered something of piquant interest. His son, it should be concluded, was for no sensible reason―and it seemed most inappropriately―whistling the thematic tune of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony over a very ordinary-looking percolator perched on a tabouret in a slight alcove across the room.
Chapter 10. Omen
Now Ellery Queen’s was a curious young soul. He had for hours been disturbed by the merest mental twinge―the vaguest sense of impending events―a dream-like feeling that had no form; in short, an intuition that he was on the verge of a brilliant discovery. He prowled about the library, getting into people’s way, prodding furniture and poking books about and generally making a nuisance of himself. He had passed the tabouret with the percolator on it twice without more than a cursory glance; the third time his nostrils quivered ever so slightly―agitated not by a palpable odour but by the less tangible scent of discord. He stared at it for a moment with wrinkled brow, and then he lifted the lid of the percolator to look inside. Whatever he expected to see there, it was at least nothing bizarre; for all that met his eye was water.
Nevertheless, his eyes were sparkling when he looked up, and he began the musical accompaniment to his thoughts that was to annoy his father. The Inspector’s question was doomed to go unanswered; instead, Ellery addressed Mrs. Simms in his old incisive accents. “Where was this tabouret with the tea-things when you found Khalkis dead last Saturday morning?”
“Where? By the desk, sir, not where it is now. By the desk, where I’d set it down the night before at Mr. Khalkis’s command.”
“Well then,” and Ellery swung about to take them all in, “who moved this tabouret to the alcove after Saturday morning?”
Again it was Joan Brett who replied, and again glances now coloured by the purple of suspicion were directed at her tall slender figure. “I did, Mr. Queen.”
The Inspector was frowning, but Ellery smiled at his father and said: “You did, Miss Brett. When and why, pray?”
Her laughter was a little helpless. “I seem to have done nearly everything . . . You see, there was so much confusion here the afternoon of the funeral, with everyone searching and running about the library looking for the will. The tabouret was in the way, standing by the desk here, and I merely moved it out of the way into the alcove. Surely there’s nothing sinister in that?”