“Surely not,” said Ellery indulgently, and turned to the housekeeper again. “Mrs. Simms, when you fetched the tea-things last Friday night, how many tea-bags did you provide?”
“A handful, sir. There were six, as I recall.”
The Inspector moved quietly forward, as did Pepper, and both men eyed the tabouret with puzzled interest. The tabouret itself was small and old―there was nothing distinguished about it that either could see. On it there was a large silver tray; and on the tray, beside the electric percolator, were three cups and saucers, with spoons; a silver sugar-bowl; a plate with three desiccated, unsqueezed pieces of old lemon; a second plate with three unused tea-bags; and a silver pitcher of curdled, yellowed sweet-cream. In each of the cups there was a dried sediment of tea-fluid, and in each cup a tannic ring near the inside of the rim. Each of the three silver spoons was dull and stained. In each of the three saucers, too, dropped a stained yellowish tea-bag and a dried, squeezed piece of lemon. And nothing more, so far as either the Inspector or Pepper could see.
It was too much for the Inspector, accustomed though he was to his son’s whimsical vagaries. “I don’t see what―”
“By loyal to your Ovid,” chuckled Ellery. “
“Have patience and endure; this unhappiness will one day be beneficial.”” He raised the lid of the percolator again, stared inside, then, removing from his inseparable pocket-kit a tiny glass vial, he drained a few drops of the stale cold water from the percolator-tap, replaced the lid, stoppered the vial and tucked it away in a bulging pocket, whereupon, under an assault of eyes growing more and more bewildered, he lifted the entire tray from the tabouret and carried it to the desk, setting it down with a sigh of satisfaction. A thought struck him; he said sharply to Joan Brett: “When you moved the tabouret last Tuesday, did you touch or change anything on this tray?”
“No, Mr. Queen,” she said submissively.
“Excellent. In fact, I might say perfect.” He rubbed his hands briskly together. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, we have all had a somewhat fatiguing morning. Perhaps some liquid refreshment . . . ?”
“Ellery!” said the Inspector coldly. “After all there’s a limit to everything. This is no time for anything so―so―”
Ellery transfixed him with a mournful eye. “Father! Do you spurn what Colley Cibber took a whole speech to eulogize? “Tea! thou soft, thou sober, sage, and venerable liquid, thou female tongue-running, smile-soothing, heart-opening, wink-tippling cordial!”” Joan giggled, and Ellery made her a little bow. One of Inspector Queen’s detectives, standing in a corner, whispered behind a horny hand to a confederate, “This is one hell of a murder investigation.” The glances of the Queens crossed above the percolator, and the Inspector lost his ill-humour. He retreated very quietly, as if to say, “My son, the world is yours. Do with it what you will.”
Ellery’s ideas seemed definite. He said to Mrs. Simms almost brusquely: “Please fetch three new tea-bags, six clean cups and saucers with spoons, and some fresh lemon and cream. Vitement, Madame la gouvernante! Get a move on!”
The housekeeper gasped, sniffed and sailed out of the room. Ellery cheerfully grappled with the electric attachment of the percolator, walked around the desk looking for something, found it, and plugged the attachment into a socket in the side of the desk. By the time Mrs. Simms returned from the kitchen, the water was bubbling in the glass top of the percolator. In a deathly silence to which he was merrily oblivious, Ellery, without placing tea-bags in the six cups Mrs. Simms had brought, opened the tap and began to fill the cups with boiling water. The percolator ran dry when the fifth cup was almost full, and Pepper, in a puzzled way, said: “But Mr. Queen, that water is stale. It must have been standing there for over a week. You can’t be intending to drink it . . . “
Ellery smiled. “Stupid of me. Of course. Mrs. Simms,” he murmured, “I’ll trouble you to take the percolator away, fill it with fresh water and bring it back with six clean cups.”
Mrs. Simms had quite openly changed her mind about this young man; the glare she directed at his bent head was annihilating. He picked up the percolator and thrust it at her. While she was gone, Ellery with perfect gravity dipped the three yellowed, used tea-bags into three of the cups of steaming stale water. Mrs. Sloane uttered a little exclamation of disgust; surely this amazing young pagan was not intending to―! Ellery proceeded with his mysterious ritual. He allowed the three used tea-bags to soak in their stale-water hot baths, then prodded each one vigorously with one of the stained spoons. Mrs. Simms sallied back into the library, bearing a new tray with a full dozen clean cups and saucers, and the percolator. “I trust and pray,” she said cuttingly, ‘that these are sufficient, Mr. Queen. I’ve quite run out of cups, you know!”
“Perfect, Mrs. Simms. You’re a jewel of the first water.
Happy phrase, eh?” Ellery left off his pushing and prodding long enough to insert the electric attachment into the desk-socket. Then he returned to his pummelling rite. Despite all his efforts the old tea-bags produced no more than the ghost of a tea-solution in the stale hot water. Ellery smiled, nodding his head as if this proved something to him, waited patiently for the fresh water in the percolator to boil, then proceeded to fill the fresh cups Mrs. Simms had furnished. He sighed when the percolator ran dry after the sixth cup, murmuring, “My dear Mrs. Simms, it looks as if you’ll have to refill the percolator again―we’re a goodly company here,” but everyone disdained to join him in a frivolous cup of tea―the Britishers, Joan Brett and Dr. Wardes, included―and Ellery sipped alone, ruefully surveying the top of the desk, which was positively cluttered with tea-cups.
As a matter of cold fact, the glances directed at his composed features told, more eloquently than words, that most of those present considered that he had suddenly sunk to Demmy’s stratum of intelligence.
Chapter 11. Foresight
Having daintily dabbed at his lips with his handkerchief, Ellery set his empty tea-cup down and, still smiling, disappeared into Khalkis’s bedroom. The Inspector and Pepper, both wearing looks of resignation, followed him.
Khalkis’s bedroom was large and dark and windowless―the chamber of a blind man. Ellery switched on a light and surveyed this new field of exploration. The room was in considerable confusion; the bed was soiled and unmade; a heap of men’s clothing lay on a chair near the bed; there was a faintly nauseating odour in the air.
“Probably,” remarked Ellery, moving toward an old highboy across the room, “essence of embalming, or something. This may be an old and solidly built house, as Edmund Crewe said, but it certainly neglects the ventilative necessities.” He looked the highboy over, critically, without touching anything. Then, with a sigh, he made a search of the drawers. In the top drawer he seemed to discover something of interest; for his hand emerged bearing two pieces of paper, and he began to read one of them with relish. The Inspector growled, “What have you found now?” and he and Pepper craned over Ellery’s shoulders.
“Merely the clothes schedule that our friend the idiot used in caparisoning his cousin,” murmured Ellery. They saw that one of the papers was written in a foreign language, the other―its physical counterpart―in English. “I have sufficient knowledge of philology,” Ellery went on, ‘to identify this hocus-pocus as the degenerate modern Greek written language. What a marvellous thing education is!” Neither Pepper nor the Inspector smiled; and Ellery, sighing, began to read the English schedule ailoud. It read: