“Fire away,” said the King. He wore white silk pajamas. The crown surmounting the two linked globes was embroidered in metallic gold thread on the breast through which his brother’s bullet had gone.
“First,” said Inspector Queen. “Do you remember the clock’s chiming midnight, Mr. Bendigo?”
“Vaguely. I was absorbed in what I was doing, but it seems to me I remember the chimes.”
“All twelve of them?” asked the Inspector.
“No idea.”
“At that moment — when you heard the midnight chimes — you were sitting at your desk?”
“Yes.”
“In what position, Mr. Bendigo? I mean, taking the front edge of the desk as a line of reference, were you sitting squarely to it? Facing left? Facing right? How?”
“Squarely. I was leaning over, writing.”
“Looking down, of course?”
“Naturally.”
“When you heard the shot—”
“I didn’t hear the shot, Inspector Queen.”
“Oh, I see. There was no shot?”
The man in the bed said dryly, “So that’s the way you fellows do it. Yes, of course there was a shot.”
“Why do you say that, Mr. Bendigo?”
“There must have been. There’s nothing imaginary about the bullet hole in my chest.”
“You didn’t hear the shot. Did you see anything? A flash? A sudden movement? Even something you can’t identify?”
“I saw nothing, Inspector.”
“Did you smell anything unusual?”
“No.”
“One moment you were writing, the next you were unconscious. Is that it, Mr. Bendigo?”
“Yes. — Queen. You haven’t opened your mouth. Don’t you have a question to ask?”
“Yes,” said Ellery. “How do you think it was done, Mr. Bendigo?”
“I don’t know,” said the King grimly. “Isn’t that your department?”
“I’m not running it too well. The facts and the results are totally contradictory. We were hoping you’d recall something that would give us a clue to what happened. Ordinarily, the fact that you didn’t hear, see, or smell anything at the moment you were shot might simply mean that you blacked out instantaneously from a near-fatal wound. But Mrs. Bendigo didn’t hear, see, or smell the shot, either, and she wasn’t wounded — in fact, she was conscious long enough to see you slump back in your chair with the point of the bullet’s entry visible and the blood oozing out to stain your shirt around the bullet hole. So your testimony, Mr. Bendigo, only tends to confirm your wife’s and confuse matters further. — All right, Doctor, we’re leaving.”
Four weeks to the night after the attempt on King Bendigo’s life, Ellery made the decision which changed the course of their investigation and turned it at last into a channel with a discernible port.
He and his father were parked in one of the Residence cars. They had driven off into the soft summer night after dinner that evening in an attempt to escape from the headsplitting maze in which they were trapped. Ellery drove absently, and it was with some surprise that he found himself emerging from the camouflage belt of woods surrounding the island. He pulled over to the raw edge of the cliffs and turned off his motor. At their feet lay the harbor of Bendigo Island, twinkling with a thousand lights and even at this hour the scene of an insect-like activity. In the bay formed by the embrace of the harbor’s arms lay a great number of vessels, and they could see, lying athwart the narrow entrance to the bay, the riding lights and big guns of the heavy cruiser Bendigo, King Bendigo’s “yacht”.
“Seems like ten years since that first day, when Abel made the airport car turn sharp inland the minute we caught a glimpse of the harbor,” remarked the Inspector after a few moments. “I wonder why they’ve stopped tailing us and shooing us away from the hush-hush installations. It’s weeks since I’ve even seen the Bobbsey Twins.”
“The who?” Ellery automatically fingered the Walther in his pocket. He had been carrying Judah’s little gun about with him ever since the night of June twenty-first.
“The colored-shirt boys.”
“Oh, they’re in the States somewhere on an assignment.”
“That’s where I’d like to be, gol ding it. I can’t take much more of this, son, Washington or no Washington.”
“King’s being discharged from the hospital this Saturday, according to the grapevine.”
“Maybe Judah’ll put the hex on him and he’ll turn into gold or something,” the Inspector said hopefully. “Anything for a little action!”
They were silent for a long time.
“Dad.”
“What, son?”
“I’m leaving here.”
“So am I, if I live that long,” said his father gloomily. Then he turned to stare. “You’re what?”
“Leaving.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Suits me,” said the Inspector with celerity. “By golly, let’s go back right now and start packing.”
“Not you, Dad. Just me. You’ll have to stay.”
“Of all the dirty, lowdown tricks,” exclaimed his father. “What’s the idea?”
“Well...”
“What do you have to cover up, your reputation? With me holding the potsy? Why do I have to stay? I mean, why do I have to stay? I’ve got as much in my spy notes as I can hope to get, and the oilskin pouch has given my belly a permanent itch. It’s your end that’s not finished — remember?”
“One of us has to keep a line open here, Dad. And an eye on Judah. There’s something I’ve got to look into.”
The inspector eyed him. “You’ve got something?”
“No,” mumbled Ellery. “No, I’ve got nothing. But a hunch, that is. When there’s nothing else to latch on to, a hunch can look mighty comforting.”
After a moment his father sank back and looked glumly down at the lights of the harbor. “Well, give my regards to Broadway.”
“I’m not going to Broadway.”
“You’re not? Where you going?”
“To Wrightsville.”
“Wrightsville!”
“I made up my mind this afternoon, while you were dunking in the pool. I meandered into the gardens and ran across Judah doing a Ferdinand. He was lying under a royal poinciana waving a peacock flower under his crooked nose and sipping guess-what. We had a long chat, Judah and I. He was unusually voluble.”
“What’s all this got to do with Wrightsville?”
“Judah says that’s where he, King, and Abel were born.”
“You’re kidding!”
“That’s what he told me. And enough more about their boyhood there to make me damned curious.”
“The big boy was born there?”
Ellery shifted in his seat. “It gave me a queer lift, Dad. You know how Wrightsville’s mixed in my life in recent years. I’ve become a little superstitious on the subject. I suppose it’s inane — after all, the Bendigos are Americans by birth... they had to be born somewhere in the United States... and Abel’s twang never came out of anything but a New England nose. Still, learning it was my old Wrightsville jabbed me in the seat of the pants. The moment Judah uttered the magic word — he is a magician! — I knew I’d have to run up there for a session with the town. Because the secret’s probably buried there, just waiting to be dug up. The way Wrightsville secrets have a way of doing.”
Ellery looked out to the dark sea.
“What secret?” demanded his father petulantly.
“The secret.” Ellery shrugged. “The secret of what makes these people tick. Of how this case came to happen, Dad. I’m no longer obsessed with the answer to how Judah pulled that marvelous flimflam. We’ll get to that in due course... Up there in Wrightsville something’s waiting to be discovered about Kane, Abel, and Judah Bendigo that’s going to restore my self-respect. I feel it in my bones and, by God, I’m flying there tomorrow morning!”