Ellery Queen
The Siamese Twin Mystery
Cast of Characters
Ellery and Inspector Queen — The father-son team who found themselves “captive” in the Tepee Mountains, they didn’t need smoke signals to realize they were in a hot spot
“Bones” — Loose-jointed, multitudinously wrinkled oldster, Xavier’s man had been an unfortunate derelict, and hadn’t managed to change most of his ways
Dr. John Xavier — The tall, handsome “Mayo of New England,” he had been doing mysterious work in secret, until someone did some on him
Mrs. Wheary — A staid, stout old woman, Xavier’s housekeeper was in charge of the closets, and any skeletons therein
Ann Forrest — Young, brown-eyed houseguest, she was composed by nature, but her metabolism was undergoing rapid change
Mark Xavier — John’s broad-shouldered, blond brother, his deep-set eyes were filled to the lids with antagonism for the Queens
Dr. Percival Holmes — Xavier’s young English assistant, he had chemical-stained fingers, but it looked as if he might have had the cleanest hands
Sarah Xavier — The doctor’s black-haired, olive-skinned wife, she had a commanding appearance, and her looks didn’t deceive
Marie Carreau — Gorgeous society woman, she was a guest in the doctor’s house for some evasive reason, and it wasn’t for her health
Francis and Julian — Bright, good-mannered sixteen-year-olds, they were held together by more than brotherly love
and
The “Thing”!
Foreword
As the keeper of Ellery Queen’s conscience, as it were, I have long felt it my duty so to annoy and shame him as to make him get down in type, between the usual pasteboard covers, the story of his fascinating investigation many years ago on that isolated peak of iniquity known as Arrow Mountain — not, I hasten to explain, in Darien, but in those more indigenous mountains to the north, the Tepees, in the heart of the ancient Indian country.
In many ways it is a remarkable story; not only because of its strange locale, the peculiarity of at least two of its characters, and the melodic theme of fire which ran through it like a Wagnerian leitmotif; but also because it represents, for the first time among Mr. Queen’s published adventures, an investigation conducted wholly without benefit of official interference. For with the exception of his father, Inspector Richard Queen, the scene was utterly unencumbered by the customary impedimenta of murder cases — detectives, police, medical examiners, fingerprint men, ballistics experts, et al.
How this came about in a country like ours, wherein mere suspicion is sufficient to bring a brigade of heavy-footed sleuths tramping over the scene of a crime, is one of the most interesting elements of a story crammed with surprises. I wish you joy of it.
J. J. McC.
Claremont, N.H.
July 1933
Part I
“The human element is the only factor that keeps this world from being overrun by untouchable murderers. The complexity of the criminal mind is also its greatest weakness. Show me a so-called *clever’ murderer and I will show you a man already condemned to death.”
— Crime and the Criminal
by LUIGI PERSANO (1928).
Chapter I
The Burning Arrow
The road looked as if it had been baked out of rubbly dough in a giant’s oven, removed in all its snaky length, unwound and laid in coils around the flank of the mountain, and then cheerfully stamped upon. Its crust, broiled by the sun, had risen quite as if one of its ingredients were yeast; it erupted like brown cornbread for fifty yards at a stretch and then, for no sane reason, sucked itself in to form tire-killing ruts for fifty more. To make life exciting for the unfortunate motorist who chanced upon that unhappy highway it had been so molded as to slue and curve and dip and wind and swoop and climb and broaden and narrow in a manner truly wonderful to behold. And it raised swarms of dust, each grain a locust ferociously bent upon biting into such damp crawling human flesh as it happened to alight upon.
Mr. Ellery Queen, totally unrecognizable by virtue of specked sunglasses over his aching eyes, linen cap pulled low, the wrinkles of his linen jacket filled with the grit of three counties, his skin where it showed a great raw wet irritation, humped his shoulders over the wheel of the battered Duesenberg, wrestling with it with a sort of desperate determination. He had cursed every curve in the alleged road from Tuckesas forty miles down the Valley, where it officially began, to the present point; and he had quite run out of words.
“Your own damn fault,” said his father peevishly. “Cripes, you’d think it would be cool in the mountains! I feel as if somebody’s scraped me all over with sandpaper.”
The Inspector, gray little Arab swathed to his eyes against the dust in a gray silk scarf, had been nursing a grudge which, like the road itself, bucked skyward and erupted at every fifty yards. He twisted, groaning, in his seat beside Ellery and peered sourly over the pile of luggage strapped behind at the lumpy stretch of paving in their wake. Then he slumped back.
“Told you to stick to the Valley pike, didn’t I?” He brandished his forefinger at the rush of hot sticky air.
“ ‘El,’ I said, ‘take my word for it — in these blasted mountains you never know what kind of squirty road you run into,’ I said. But no; you had to go and start explorin’ with night coming on, like — like some damn Columbus!” The Inspector paused to grumble at the deepening sky. “Stubborn. Just like your mother — rest her soul!” he added hastily, for he was after all a God-fearing old gentleman. “Well, I hope you’re satisfied.”
Ellery sighed and stole a glance from the zigzag expanse before him to the sky. The whole arc of heaven was purpling very softly and swiftly — a sight to rouse the poet in any man, he thought, except a tired, hot, and hungry one with a querulous sire at his side who not only grumbled but grumbled with unanswerable logic. The road along the foothills bordering the Valley had looked inviting; there was something cool — by anticipation only, he thought sadly — in a vista of green trees.
The Duesenberg bucked on in the gathering gloom.
“And not only that,” continued Inspector Queen, cocking an irritated eye upon the road ahead above a fold of the dusty scarf, “but it’s one hell of a way to top off a vacation. Trouble, just trouble! Gets me all hot and — and bothered. Damn it all, El, I worry about these things. They spoil my appetite!”
“Not mine,” said Ellery with another sigh. “I could eat a Goodyear-tire steak with French-fried gaskets and gasoline sauce right now, I’m so famished. Where the devil are we anyway?”
“Tepees. Somewhere in the United States. That’s all I know.”
“Lovely. Tepees. There’s poetic justice for you! Makes me think of venison broiling over a woodfire... Whoa, Duesey! That was a daisy, wasn’t it?” The Inspector, who at the peak of the bump had almost had his head torn off, glared; it was quite evident that to his way of thinking “daisy” was scarcely the appropriate word. “Now, now, dad. Don’t mind a little thing like that. One of the normal hazards of motoring. What you miss is the Montreal Scotch, you renegade Irishman!... Now look at that, will you?”