“Can’t say I blame him.”
“Yes, for obvious reasons he always loathed it. When he entered private school — some military school, I think — even as a boy he insisted on changing it. He told me he had won this water-polo trophy in his Genesis phase, as I always call it, so he had it re-engraved later to read K-a-n-e.”
“From his appearance, Mrs. Bendigo,” said the Inspector, “your husband must keep up a lot of these sports. When does he get the time?”
“He doesn’t. I have never seen him do anything but wrestle and box a little with Max.”
“What?” The Inspector looked around the trophy room.
“He takes no exercise to speak of,” laughed Karla. “I told you Kane is unique! He keeps his figure and muscles in trim by massage twice a day. For all his stupidity, Max is a skillful masseur and Kane, of course, is Max’s religion. Careful food habits — you saw how sparingly he ate tonight — and a constitution of steel do the rest. Kane has so many facets to his personality! In many things he is a little boy, in others a peacock. Did you know that for years now he has been judged one of the world’s ten best-dressed men? I will show you!”
King’s wife dragged them to another room. It was a large room; it might have been an exclusive men’s shop. Closet after closet, rack after rack, of suits, overcoats, sportswear, dinner-jackets, shoes — he had everything, in wholesale lots.
“He can’t possibly find the time to wear all of these,” exclaimed the Inspector. “Ellery, take a gander at that line-up of riding boots! Does he ride much, Mrs. Bendigo?”
“He hasn’t been on a horse for years... Isn’t it fabulous?
Kane comes in here often, just to admire.”
They were inspecting this kingly wardrobe with appropriate murmurs when a deep voice said behind them, “Karla, why would our guests be interested in my haberdashery?”
He was in the doorway. His handsome face was fatigued. His voice held a cross, raspy note.
“You would not deprive your wife of the pleasure of boasting about her husband?” Karla went to him quickly, slipped her arm about his waist. “Kane. You are very tired tonight.”
She was frightened. There was no trace of it in her expression or attitude, and her voice was merely anxious, but Ellery was sure. It was almost as if she had been caught in the act of treason, discovery of which meant merciless punishment.
“I’ve had a long day, and some of it was trying. Would you gentlemen join me in a nightcap?” But his tone was icy.
“Thank you, no. I’m afraid we’ve kept Mrs. Bendigo far too long as it is.” Ellery took his father’s arm. “Good night.”
Karla murmured something. She was smiling, but her face was suddenly bloodless.
Bendigo stood aside to let them pass. The Inspector’s arm jerked. A security guard stood at attention just outside the door. They were about to step into the corridor when Bendigo said, “One moment.”
They stopped, alert to some new danger. It was puzzling and annoying. Every word this man uttered seemed full of traps.
King Bendigo, however, sounded merely absent. “Something I was to show you. Abel told me not to forget. What the devil was it, now?”
Blocking the corridor at the turn loomed the ape, Max’l. He was holding up a wall as he smoked a long cigar. He eyed them with a grin.
“Yes?” Ellery tried to relax.
“Oh.” King’s hand went to his breast pocket. “Another of those letters came tonight. By the late plane. It was in the general mail.”
He dropped the envelope into Ellery’s hand. The envelope had been slit open. Ellery did not remove its contents; he was looking at Bendigo’s face.
He could see nothing there but weary indifference.
“You’ve read this, Mr. Bendigo?” asked Inspector Queen sharply.
“Abel insisted. Same brand of garbage. Good night.”
“Kane, what is it?” Karla was clinging to him.
“Nothing to concern you, darling—” The door shut in their faces.
Max’l followed them at a distance of six feet all the way to the door of their suite. Then, to their alarm, he closed the gap in a bound.
“Here!” The Inspector backed up.
Maxie’s sapper of a forefinger struck Ellery in the chest, staggering him.
“You ain’t so tough. Are you?”
“What?” stammered Ellery.
“Na-a-a.” Max’l turned on his heel and rolled contemptuously away.
“Now what in hell,” muttered the Inspector, “was that for?”
Ellery bolted the door, rubbing his chest.
The third note was almost identical with its predecessors. The same elegant stationery, the same type — of a Winchester Noiseless Portable — and virtually the same message:
You are going to be murdered on Thursday, June 21—
“June twenty-first,” said the Inspector thoughtfully. “Adds the date. Less than a week from now. And again he ends up with a dash, showing there’s more to come. What the devil else can he say?”
“At least one other thing of importance.” Ellery was scanning, not the enclosure, but the envelope. “The exact hour, maybe the exact hour and minute, on Thursday, June twenty-first. Have you noticed this envelope, Dad?”
“How can I have noticed it when you’ve hoarded it like a miser?”
“Proves what we suspected all along. King says it was found with the mail brought in by tonight’s mail plane. That ought to mean that it went through somebody’s post office. Only, it didn’t. Look.”
“No stamp, no postmark,” mumbled his father. “It was slipped into the pouch on arrival.”
“An inside job, and no guesswork this time.”
“But this is so dumb, Ellery. Doesn’t he care? A school kid would know from this envelope that the origin of these notes is on the island. I don’t get it at all.”
“It’s pretty,” said Ellery, with a faraway look. “Because they don’t need us, Dad. Not the least bit. And right now I don’t care a toot if they do hear all this in their spy room.”
“What are you going to do, son?”
“Go to bed. And first thing in the morning — assert myself!”
6
The next morning Ellery asserted himself. He deliberately set out to make as much trouble as he could.
Leaving his father at the Residence, Ellery ordered a car. One showed up in the courtyard with Blue Shirt behind the wheel and his alter ego at the door.
“I don’t want company this morning, thank you,” Ellery snapped. “I’ll take the wheel myself.”
“Sorry, Mr. Queen,” said Brown Shirt. “Get in.”
“I was told I could go anywhere.”
“Yes, sir,” said Brown Shirt. “We’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
“My father took a car out without a wet-nurse!”
“Our orders this morning are to stick with you, sir.”
“Who gives these orders?”
“Colonel Spring.”
“Where does Colonel Spring get them?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir. From the Home Office, I suppose.”
“The Home Office is where I want to go.”
“We’ll take you there, sir.”
“Jump in, Mr. Queen,” said Blue Shirt amiably.
Ellery got into the car, and Brown Shirt got in beside him.
At the Home Office Ellery strode into the black marble lobby with a disagreeable face. The Shirts sat down on a marble bench.
“Good morning, Mr. Queen,” said the central of the three security men behind the desk. “Whom did you wish to see?”
“King Bendigo.”
The man consulted a chart. He looked up, puzzled. “Do you have an appointment, sir?”
“Certainly not. Open that elevator door.”
The three security men stared at him. Then they conferred in whispers. Then the central man said, “I’m afraid you don’t understand, Mr. Queen. You can’t go up without an appointment.”