Calamity Town

“What do you mean?” asked Pat quickly.

“I mean that ain’t the important point, Miss Wright.” And this time Dakin’s voice was quite, quite chill. Its chill deepened the chill in the room. ”The important point is: Who had control of the distribution of the drinks? Answer me that! Because the one who handed that cocktail out?that’s got to be the one who poisoned it!”

Bravo, bumpkin, thought Mr. Queen. You’re wasting your smartness on the desert air . . . You don’t know what I know, but you’ve hit the essential point just the same. You ought to capitalize your talents . . .

“You handed ‘em out, James Haight,” said Chief Dakin. ”No poison-er’d have dropped rat-killer in one of those drinks and left it to Almighty God to decide who’d pick up the poisoned one! No, sir. It don’t make sense. Your wife got that poisoned cocktail, and you was the one handed it to her. Wasn’t you?”

And now they were all breathing heavily like swimmers in a surf, and Jim’s eyes were red liquid holes.

“Yes, I did hand it to her!” he yelled. ”Does that satisfy your damn snooping disposition?”

“A-plenty,” said the Chief mildly. ”Only thing is, Mr. Haight, you didn’t know one thing. You went out of the living room to make more drinks, or fetch another bottle, or something. You didn’t know your sister, Rosemary, was going to yell for another drink, and you didn’t know that your wife, who you figured would drink the whole glassful, would just take a couple of sips and then your sister would pull the glass out of her hand and guzzle the rest down. So instead of killing your wife, you killed your sister!”

Jim said hoarsely: “Of course you can’t believe I planned or did anything like that, Dakin.”

Dakin shrugged. ”Mr. Haight, I only know what my good horse sense tells me. The facts say you, and only you, had the?what do they call it??the opportunity. So maybe you won’t have what they call motive?I dunno. Do you?”

It was a disarming question?man to man. Mr. Queen was quite bathed in admiration. This was finesse exquisite.

Jim muttered: “You want to know why I should try to murder my wife four months after our marriage. Go to hell.”

“That’s no answer. Mr. Wright, can you help us out? Do you know of any reason?”

John F. gripped the arms of his chair, glancing at Hermy. But there was no help there, only horror.

“My daughter Nora,” mumbled John F., “inherited a hundred thousand dollars?her grandfather’s legacy?when she married Jim. If Nora died . . . Jim would get it.”

Jim sat down, slowly, looking around, around.

Chief Dakin beckoned to Prosecutor Bradford. They left the room.

Five minutes later they returned, Carter paler than pale, staring straight before him, avoiding their eyes.

“Mr. Haight,” said Chief Dakin gravely, “I’ll have to ask you not to try to leave Wrightsville.”

Bradford’s work, thought Ellery. But not from compassion. From duty. There was no legal case yet. Damning circumstances, yes; but no case.

There would be a case, though. Glancing over the whole lean, shambling countryman that was Chief of Police Dakin, Mr. Queen knew there would be a case and that, pending the proverbial miracle, James Haight was not long for the free streets of Wrightsville.

Chapter 15

Nora Talks

At first all Wrightsville could talk about was the fact itself. The delicious fact. A body. A corpse. At the Wrights’. At the Wrights’! The snooty, stuck-up, we’re-better-than-you-are First Family!

Poison.

Imagine. Just imagine. Who’d have thought? And so soon after, too. Remember that wedding?

The woman. Who was she? Jim Haight’s sister. Rosalie?Rose-Marie? No, Rosemary. Well, it doesn’t make any difference. She’s dead. I saw her once. Tricked up. You felt something about her. Not nice. My dear, I was telling my husband only the other day . . .

So it’s murder. Rosemary Haight, that woman from heaven knows where, she got a mess of poison in a Manhattan cocktail, and it was really meant for Nora Haight. There it is right in Frank Lloyd’s paper . . . Frank was there.

Drinking. Wild party. Fell down dead. Foaming at the mouth. Shh, the children! . . . Cinch Frank Lloyd hasn’t told the whole story . . . Of course not. After all. The Record’s a family newspaper!

Four-sixty Hill Drive. Calamity House. Don’t you remember? That story in the Record years ago? First Jim Haight ran away from his own wedding, leaving Nora Wright looking silly?and the house all built and furnished and everything! Then that Mr. Whozis from Where? Anyway, he dropped dead just as he was going to buy it from John F. Wright. And now?a murder in it!

Say, I wouldn’t set foot in that jinxed house for all the money in John F.’s vaults!

Bess, did you hear? They say . . . 

For some days Wrightsville could talk about nothing but the fact.

* * *

Siege was laid, and Mr. Ellery “Smith” Queen found himself inadvertently a soldier of the defending force.

People streamed up and down the Hill like trekking ants, pausing outside the Wright and Haight houses to pick up some luscious leaf-crumb and bear it triumphantly down into the town. Emmeline DuPre was never so popular. Right next door! Emmy, what do you know?

Emmy told them. Emmy’s porch became a hiring hall for the masses. If a face showed at a window of either house, there was a rush and a gasp.

“What’s happening to us?” moaned Hermione. ”No, I won’t answer the phone!”

Lola said grimly: “We’re a Chamber of Horrors. Some Madame Tus-saud’ll start charging admission soon!” Since the morning of New Year’s Day, Lola had not left. She shared Pat’s room. At night she silently washed her underwear and stockings in Pat’s bathroom. She would accept nothing from her family. Her meals she took with Jim in the “unlucky” house.

Lola was the only member of the family to show herself out of doors the first few days of January. On January second she said something to Emmy DuPre which turned Emmy pale and sent her scuttling back to her porch like an elderly crab in a panic. ”We’re waxworks,” said Lola. ”Jack the Ripper multiplied by seven. Look at the damn body snatchers!”

Alberta Manaskas had vanished in a Lithuanian dither, so Lola cooked Jim’s meals.

Jim said nothing. He went to the bank as usual.

John F. said nothing. He went to the bank. In the bank father-in-law and son-in-law said nothing to each other.

Hermy haunted her room, putting handkerchiefs to her little nose.

Nora was in a tossing fever most of the time, wailing to see Jim, being horridly sick, keeping her pillow blue with tears.

Carter Bradford shut himself up in his office at the County Courthouse. Large plain men came and went, and at certain times of the day he conferred in pointed secrecy with Chief of Police Dakin.

Through all this Mr. Queen moved silently, keeping out of everyone’s way. Frank Lloyd had been right. There was talk about “that man Smith?who is he?” There were other remarks, more dangerous. He noted them all in his notebook, labeled “The Mysterious Stranger?a Suspect.”