A Fine and Private Place

“Yes, but I don’t know anything about his commissioning sculptures for the place. And that’s just the kind of thing I’d know all about, because it would have been my job to take charge of such a project and follow through on it. No runs, no hits, and lots of errors, Queen. Or do you want to go another inning or two?”

“I’m beginning to think someone’s monkeying with the rules,” Ellery grumbled. “Another question or so, Ennis, and I’ll leave you in peace, which is more than I can promise myself. Did Importuna like cards? You know-poker, chemin de fer, bridge, faro, pinochle, canasta, gin-any card game at all?”

“He had absolutely no interest in cards or any other form of gambling. Except the stock market, and the way he played that it was more an art than a game of chance.”

“How about cards to tell fortunes by?”

“Fortune-telling? Somebody’s been feeding you boys LSD. Nino Importuna didn’t tell fortunes, he was too busy making them.”

“Who’s Mr. E?”

“You do hop around.” Peter stirred. “Mr. E? Now that the Importuna empire’s in the throes of liquidation, I don’t see any harm in telling you. For as long as I’ve been employed here, Mr. E has acted as Importuna’s personal, confidential business investigator-his secret agent, you might call him. Whenever the boss became interested in a new business enterprise-whether he sensed that it was on the rise, or on the skids, and in either event might be bought cheap-any business venture that looked promising, he’d send Mr. E to look into it. No matter where it happened to be. Mr. E practically lives on planes, though he does his share of camel-riding, too. He’s always reported to Mr. Importuna in person-and in private. To no one else, not even Julio and Marco.”

“What’s his name? It can hardly be just E.”

“No, the E’s an initial, I gather, but I haven’t the foggiest idea to what. Mr. Importuna never told me, the name doesn’t occur in his personal memoranda, and my work hasn’t involved me with the man beyond making appointments for him to see the big boss.”

“When Importuna wanted to get in touch with Mr. E, how did he address him? He had to address him by some name.”

“No, he didn’t. He used a code word, like a cable address. Had such code addresses in major cities all over the world. I’ve given all this information to the police, by the way. I thought they confide in you.”

“Not necessarily on this one.” Ellery sighed. “This Mr. E sounds mysterious.”

“Big business has always been a mystery to me,” Peter Ennis said. “By the way, Queen, speaking of mysteries, as long as I’ve allowed you to waste this much of my time… would you solve a mystery for me? It’s been bothering the life out of me ever since it happened, and you have a reputation for this sort of thing.”

“You won’t prove it by my performance in this case,” Ellery said. “What sort of thing?”

“It happened this past summer-back in June, I think it was. Mr. Importuna was dictating to me in here, and while he was pacing he suddenly stopped, glared at that bookshelf there, and then whirled and tore into me as if he’d caught me with my hand in his wallet. Seems I’d noticed several books standing upside down, and being a compulsively neat guy, like the fellow in The Odd Couple, I turned them right side up. Well, he really let me have it.

Turned the books back upside down and reminded me that he’d warned me never to touch anything on that particular shelf-even put the blame for a deal’s falling through on the fact that I disobeyed his order. It’s bugged me ever since. What the devil’s so special about those books that he considered them bad luck standing right side up, as in any self-respecting library?”

Ellery pounced on the reversed volumes.

“The Founding of Byzantium… MacLister… “ He read the title page and scanned the first few pages of the text; he made similar examinations of Beauregard’s The Original KKK and the Santini book, The Defeat of Pompey.

Replacing them as he had found them, Ellery riffled through some of the volumes that were stacked normally on the shelf.

He turned back to Peter, shaking his head. “Importuna was the obsessionist supreme. What a stamp collector he’d have made! Was he particularly interested in history?”

“Hell, no. As a matter of fact, he hardly read anything but market and business reports. I don’t know why he bought any of these books, except that a study’s supposed to have books.”

“There’s more to these three volumes than shelf fillers, Ennis. No mystery about it, if you start from how hipped he was on the subject of 9s. The MacLister book purports to prove by archaeological evidence that the city of Byzantium was founded in 666 b.c.”

“666 b.c.?” For a moment Peter Ennis looked blank. Then light dawned. “Upside down, 666 becomes 999!”

Ellery nodded. “You reverted it to 666 by turning it right side up. That’s about as idolatrous a crime as you can commit against a 9-worshiper, tampering with his mystique.

“The Santini book similarly. It’s about the defeat of Pompey by the Parthian emperor Mithridates in 66 b.c. The 66 should have read 99 in Importuna’s view; that’s the way he set it, but with the temerity of ignorance you turned it back around to the invidious-even worse, meaningless-66. No wonder he blew his top.

“The case of The Original KKK is of especially enchanting interest. The original Ku Klux Klan was formed the year after the Civil War ended, 1866. If you turn the volume upside down, every mention of 1866 comes out 9981. Add the integers making up 9981-9, 9, 8, and 1-and you get 27; and 2 plus 7 comes down to that old black magic 9. Upside down the number 1866 represented to Nino the almost perfect number, like the date of his birth. By putting The Original KKK back right side up, you changed every one of its beautiful 9981s into 1866s, which add up to a mere 21, or 2 plus 1, or 3. Now 3 has been the magic number for a great many folks for thousands of years, but it didn’t happen to be the number that turned your boss on. Only 9 could do that. I’m surprised he didn’t fire you on the spot.”

Peter waved faintly. “I’m dreaming this. The man was mad.”

“Somebody said-who was it?-the Tristram Shandy man, Sterne, that’s it-that madness is consistent, which is more than can be said of reason; or words to that effect. Do you want to see,” Ellery demanded, “how the consistency of Importuna’s kind of madness operated? Here’s a book on the same shelf, The Landing of the Pilgrims. Standing right side up. Any particular reason for that? Oh, yes! The landing at Plymouth Rock took place Anno Domini 1620. The number 1620 is made up of 1 and 6 and 2 and 0, which total that indispensable 9. The number 1620 is also evenly divisible by 9, to the tune of 180 times. But 180 is 1 plus 8 plus 0, which gives you 9 again! Can’t you see Importuna rubbing his hands in glee?”

“Truthfully,” Peter muttered, “no. You really couldn’t call him the gleeful type.”

“You’re nit-picking. Well, look at this one, Peter-may I call you Peter? I feel as if I’ve known you for a long time. Magna Carta at Runnymede, it’s called. Hardly necessary to look inside. King John reluctantly signed the Great Charter, as every schoolboy knows, in the year 1215. Add, and what do you get? 1, 2, 1, and 5 give you 9. And is 1215 divisible by 9? You bet your sweet bippy-it produces the quotient 135. And 135? Why, 1 and 3 and 5-again-make 9. Another 9-victory for the great tycoon.

“Or this fellow, Peter, also at attention in the orthodox position. The Establishment of the Roman Empire. Done to his historic glory by Augustus Caesar after his victory at Actium four years earlier. Date of his establishment of the principate? 27 b.c. Good old 27. Doesn’t produce quite the best results, but they’re not bad. 2 and 7, of course, make 9. And 27 is evenly divided by 9. True, it doesn’t give you a quotient of 9, but then you can’t have everything, can you?

“The fact is, Peter,” Ellery said, “every last book on this shelf, either in its upside down or its rightside up position, is relevant to Importuna’s mystical belief in the happy powers of 9. That’s why he warned you not to touch any of them. That’s why he got so angry when you did.”

“I knew he considered 9 his good-luck number,” Peter said, “but this…! It’s mumbo jumbo!”

“Oh, I don’t know. You said something before about his accusing you of having caused a deal to fall through. Tell me, Peter, what if anything happened after Importuna restored that trinity of history books to the 9-favoring position? Because I’m sure, Importuna having been the man he was, he didn’t let the failure of the deal go at that, once he knew why it had failed.”

“You’re right enough about that. He immediately set up a transatlantic conference call and arranged to make the other parties a new offer.”

“What happened?”

“He raised the deal from the dead.”