“Then make one for me. I don’t care how you do it, but I’m talking to your lord and master, and I’m doing it right now.”
The three men stared at one another.
From behind him, Blue Shirt said, “You don’t want to make trouble, Mr. Queen. These men have their orders—”
“Get Bendigo on the phone!”
It was a crisis Ellery thoroughly enjoyed. Brown Shirt must have touched Blue Shirt’s arm, because both fell back; and he must have nodded to the central security man, because that baffled official immediately looked scared and sat down to fumble with the controls of his communications system. He spoke in a voice so low that Ellery could not hear what he said.
“The King’s receptionist says it’s impossible. The King is in a very important conference, sir. You’ll have to wait, sir.”
“Not down here. I’ll wait upstairs.”
“Sir—”
“Upstairs.”
The man mumbled into the machine again. There was a delay, then he turned nervously back to Ellery.
“All right, sir.” One of the trio pressed something and the door in the circular column sank into the floor.
“It’s not all right,” said Ellery firmly.
“What, Mr. Queen?” The central man was bewildered.
“You’ve forgotten to check my thumbprints. How do you know I’m not Walter Winchell in disguise? Do you want me to report you to Colonel Spring?”
The last thing Ellery saw as the elevator door shut off his view was the worried, rather silly, look on Brown Shirt’s face. It gave him a great deal of satisfaction.
The elevator discharged him in the wedge-of-pie reception room. This time the black desk was occupied. The man behind the desk wore a plain black suit, not a uniform, and he was the most muscular receptionist Ellery had ever seen. But his voice was soft and cultured.
“There’s some mistake, sir—”
“No mistake,” said Ellery loftily. “I’m getting tired of all this high-and-mightiness. King Kong in his office?”
“Have a seat, please. The King is in an extremely—”
“—important conference. I know. Doesn’t he ever hold any unimportant conferences?” Ellery went to the left-hand door and, before the receptionist could leap from behind the desk, pounded coarsely on the panel. It boomed.
He kept pounding. It kept booming.
“Sir!” The receptionist was clawing at his arm. “This is not allowed! It’s... it’s—”
“Treason? Can’t be. I’m not one of your nationals. Open up in there!”
The receptionist got him in a stranglehold. The other hand he clamped over Ellery’s mouth and nose.
Things began to turn blue.
Ellery was outraged. Taking his own bad office manners into due consideration, this sort of treatment smacked more of the bouncer in a Berlin East Zone rathskeller than the dutiful clerical worker of a civilized democracy. So Ellery slumped, feigning submission, and when the muscular receptionist’s hold relaxed, Ellery executed a lightning judo counter-attack which sent his captor flying backward to thump ignominiously on his bottom.
Just as the door to King Bendigo’s private office opened and Max’l peered out.
Ellery wasted no strength parleying with the gorilla. Having the advantage of surprise, there was only one way to deal with such as Max’l, and Ellery did so. He stiff-armed the King’s jester in the nose and walked in past the outraged carcass. What must follow in a matter of seconds he preferred not to linger over in his thoughts.
The hemispherical room seemed full of distinguished-looking men. They were seated or on their feet about the King’s desk, and they were all staring toward the door.
Behind him Ellery could hear the receptionist shouting and a drumming of boots. Max’l was up on one knee, nose bleeding, beret askew over his left eye, and his right measuring Ellery without the least rancor.
Ellery trudged the long mile to Bendigo’s desk, sidestepped one of the distinguished-looking men, planted both fists on the ebony perfection, and stared at the man in the golden chair malevolently.
The man on the throne stared back.
“Wait, Maximus.” The voice was furry. “Just what do you believe you’re doing, Queen?”
Ellery felt Max’l’s hot breath on the back of his neck. It promised neither comfort nor cheer.
“I’m looking for the answer to a question, Mr. Bendigo. I’m sick of evasions and double talk, and I won’t stand for further delays.”
“I’ll see you later.”
“You’ll see me now.”
Abel Bendigo was in the group, looking on inscrutably. Out of the corner of his eye Ellery also noticed Immanuel Peabody and Dr. Akst, the lawyer’s mouth open, the physicist regarding him with an interest not evident the night before. The distinguished strangers looked merely confused.
“Do you have any idea,” demanded the master of Bendigo Island, “what you have interrupted?”
“You’re wasting time.”
The black eyes dulled over. Bendigo sank back.
“Excuse me, gentlemen, just a moment. No, stay where you are. You guards, it’s all right. Shut that door.” Ellery heard a scuffling far behind him, the click of the distant door. “Now, Queen, suppose you ask me your question.”
“Where on your island,” said Ellery promptly, “will I find a Winchester Noiseless Portable typewriter?”
Had he asked for the formula of the H-bomb, Ellery could not have met a more absolute silence. Then one of the distinguished visitors permitted himself an undistinguished titter. The giggle shot King Bendigo out of his golden chair.
“In the course of your stupid, inconsequential investigation,” thundered the King, “you disrupt what is probably the most important conference being held at this moment anywhere on the face of the earth. Mr. Queen, do you know who these gentlemen are? On my left sits Sir Cardigan Cleets, of the British government. On my right sits the Chevalier Camille Cassebeer of the Republic of France. Before me sits the Honorable James Walbridge Monahew, of the United States Atomic Control Commission. And you dare to break in on the deliberation of these gentlemen — not to mention mine! — in order to locate a typewriter? If this is a joke, I don’t appreciate its humor!”
“I assure you, Mr. Bendigo, I’m not feeling the least bit devilish—”
“Then what’s the meaning of this? Explain!”
“Gladly,” said Ellery. “You’ve fouled your island up with so many locked doors, armed guards, orders, restrictions, and other impediments to an investigation, Mr. Bendigo, that it would take me five years to do the job properly, and even then I wouldn’t be sure I’d covered them all. And I don’t have five years, Mr. Bendigo. I want action, and on Bendigo Island it’s obvious that to get it you have to go to the top. I repeat: Where on your island will I find a Winchester Noiseless Portable typewriter?”
The black eyes dulled even more. And the fine hands on the desk top trembled a little. But when the big man spoke, it was in a low voice.
“Abel...”
Then his control broke. The fine hand became a club, smashing the air. “Get rid of this lunatic!”
Abel hurried around the desk to whisper into his brother’s crimson ear...
As Abel whispered, the crimson began to fade and the big fist came undone. Finally King nodded shortly, and his black eyes looked Ellery over once more.
Abel straightened up. “We don’t have such information at our fingertips, Mr. Queen.” There was something secretive and yet amused in his unhurried twang. “I can tell you that all the typewriting machines in the Home Office are electrics, standard in size and weight; we use no portables in this building at all. There may be some, of course, elsewhere on the island, in the personal possession of employees—”