Ellery Queen's Secrets of Mystery Anthology 2 Read online

  ELLERY QUEEN’S

  SECRETS OF MYSTERY

  (Anthology II)

  Ellery Queen’s Secrets of Mystery is a collection of stories selected by Ellery Queen as the best stories published in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.

  In this anthology, you are offered nine stories, with enough ambiguity to tease your wits, to baffle and fascinate your imagination, and provide suspenseful entertainment.

  Other Large Print Books

  by Ellery Queen

  MULTITUDE OF SIN

  ELLERY QUEEN’S

  CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

  (Anthology I)

  ELLERY QUEEN’S

  CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

  (Anthology II)

  SECRETS OF MYSTERY

  (Anthology I)

  ELLERY

  QUEEN’S

  Secrets

  of

  Mystery

  Anthology II

  John Curley & Associates, Inc.

  South Yarmouth, Ma.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Ellery Queen’s secrets of mystery.

  1. Detective and mystery stories, American.

  2. Detective and mystery stories, English. 3. Large

  type books. I. Queen, Ellery. II. Title. III. Title:

  Secrets of mystery.

  [PS648.D4E395 1987] 813’.0872‘08 86-32762

  ISBN 1-55504-243-0

  ISBN 1-55504-321-6 (pbk.)

  Copyright© 1979 by Davis Publications, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Published in Large Print by arrangement with Davis Publications, Inc. in the United States and territories, Canada and the rest of the world market.

  Distributed in the U.K. and Commonwealth by Magna Print Books.

  Printed in Great Britain

  COPYRIGHT NOTICES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Grateful acknowledgment is hereby made for permission to reprint the following:

  Blood Money by Phyllis Ann Karr; © 1974 by Phyllis Ann Karr; reprinted by permission of the author.

  The Lonely Habit by Brian W. Aldiss; © 1966 by Davis Publications, Inc.; reprinted by permission of Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.

  Just Like Inspector Maigret by Vincent McConnor; © 1964 by Davis Publications, Inc.; reprinted by permission of the author.

  Operation Bonaparte by James M. Ullman; © 1963 by Davis Publications, Inc.; reprinted by permission of the author.

  The Raffles Bombshell by Barry Perowne; © 1974 by Philip Atkey; reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

  Uncle from Australia by Ellery Queen; © 1965 by Ellery Queen; reprinted by permission of the author.

  Captain Leopold Gets Angry by Edward D. Hoch; © 1973 by Edward D. Hoch; reprinted by permission of the author.

  The Theft of Nick Velvet by Edward D. Hoch; © 1973 by Edward D. Hoch; reprinted by permission of the author.

  The Spy at the End of the Rainbow by Edward D. Hoch; © 1974 by Edward D. Hoch; reprinted by permission of the author.

  CONTENTS

  Phyllis Ann Karr—Blood Money

  Brian W. Aldiss—The Lonely Habit

  Vincent McConnor—Just Like Inspector Maigret

  James M. Ullman—Operation Bonaparte

  Barry Perowne—The Raffles Bombshell

  Ellery Queen—Uncle from Australia

  Edward D. Hoch—Captain Leopold Gets Angry

  Edward D. Hoch—The Theft of Nick Velvet

  Edward D. Hoch—The Spy at the End of the Rainbow

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Description

  Other Large Print Books

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Copyright Notices and Acknowledgments

  Contents

  Editor’s Note

  Phyllis Ann Karr - Blood Money

  Brian W. Aldiss - The Lonely Habit

  Vincent McConnor - Just Like Inspector Maigret

  James M. Ullman - Operation Bonaparte

  Barry Perowne - The Raffles Bombshell

  Ellery Queen - Uncle from Australia

  Edward D. Hoch - Captain Leopold Gets Angry

  Edward D. Hoch - The Theft of Nick Velvet

  Edward D. Hoch - The Spy at the End of the Rainbow

  EDITOR’S NOTE

  Dear Reader:

  Every mystery has its secret.

  Its innermost secret.

  Let us divide the crime-mystery story into two all-inclusive categories—the tale of crime with detection and the tale of crime without detection.

  In the first category—crime with detection—there are subdivisions: deductive, intuitional, and procedural detective stories, dealing with both realistic and bizarre situations, the latter including the locked room, the miracle problem, and the impossible crime; all these subgenres contain a detective, amateur or professional, or a law-enforcement agency whose common purpose is to discover the culprit and uncover the secret of the mystery.

  In the second category—crime without detection—there is obviously no sleuth, no man or woman hunter; but even when the reader knows the identity of the criminal from the beginnings there is still a secret to be penetrated and disclosed. If it is not the secret of who, it could be the secret of how, or of when or where, and often of why—why did the criminal commit the crime, why did the victim invite or cause the crime?

  In the 9 stories chosen for this collection, you will be challenged by many different secrets—who did it, how was it done, when did it occur, where did it take place, why did it happen? The secrets are in the hearts of the stories, in the hearts and minds of the characters:) and it is for you to investigate at the side of the detective or the author, matching wits wit for wit—or to be your own detective, probing, questing, examining…

  “Nothing is secret which shall not be made manifest.” So saith Luke, and so, in the 9 stories which follow, you can look behind the scenes, pull aside the curtains, push away the screens, peer through the veils, remove the masks, break the seals, open the doors—expose the deep, dark secrets of mystery. You will have the help of some of the greatest mystery writers and detectives of the past and present—Hoch’s Capt. in Leopold, Jeffery Rand, and Nick Velvet; Barry Perowne’s A. J. Raffles; Ellery Queen’s E.Q.—they won’t let you down, they won’t fail you.

  ELLERY QUEEN

  Phyllis Ann Karr

  Blood Money

  A tale of the Seventeenth Century, a tale of death and ruin, of greed and hate, of bloodshed and revenge and—money…

  Were I five years younger, dear husband Hal, I would have killed myself for bringing such shame upon your memory. But today, let me be content to set all the matter down in this paper, and bury it in the earth above your grave. And pray you, also, be content with this much, for there has been enough of bloodshed.

  That your father was a hard man, who should know better than you? Had his lordship your father been willing to lay aside his quarrel with Camden, this six years past come Shrovetide—had he bethought himself that his only son’s life hung in the balance—had he summoned Camden, who was the nearest surgeon—but no, having sworn to ruin Camden’s repute, he must needs sent to Saltash for Trevane, for sottish, worse-than-useless Trevane—and that when your pressing need was for physic that same night! And so now we He apart, with cold earth and sod and stone between us, when you might have been still in my bed.

  I pray you, Hal, do not judge me in haste. I have a horror of judgements which cannot be undone. This pr
esent disgrace took root when you and I were little more than children, in 1616 when your father sued and won his unjust judgement against Thomas Penhallow, and when Penhallow would have appealed, the Justice replied to him in the words King James had used to Star Chamber, that “it is better to maintain an unjust judgement, than ever to be questioning after sentence is passed.” So that Penhallow was ruined, losing house and lands and all, and it was rumoured his child starved and his wife left him because of it, too.

  Penhallow had reason enough to hate your father, Hal, but he dropped from sights and for fifteen years his lordship had no thought of him save to gloat now and again over those words of his late Majesty, words which could be turned to such convenient use.

  But some while after you were buried, your father went to work on Master Carnsew and Sir Edward, and by wearing them down he was able, last year, to buy out both their shares in the Wheal Nancy mine. And one day going to see his new mine, and standing to look on at the men who were drawn up out of the shaft, he met with one who, on stepping into the light of day, stood gazing back at his lordship. Then your father peered more closely, and saw beneath the grime and ore dust and coating of years, and knew this man to be Thomas Penhallow.

  We searched and made enquiry (for after Harkness refused to stop longer in Wilharthen House your father had made of me, though a woman, a sort of secretary; a clever economy it was for him, seeing he need pay me no more than food, gowns, and chamber in Wilharthen, which he must have provided me in any case; not could I leave him like Harkness, having nowhere to go). But all we learnt from the enquiry was that Penhallow had been three or four years in the Wheal Nancy, working as a tributer, for a share of the ore he brought to surface, and a good man for finding out new lodes; and the mine captain thought he had come from the Great Pelcoath when it filled with water, but how long he had been at Pelcoath, or where he lived before that, the mine captain could not say.

  Your father privately fed a hope that now Penhallow had seen his old and powerful enemy, he would leave of his own will; but when the man did not do so, his lordship began to cheat him of his earnings. Your father had learned well enough, Hal, the arts of juggling accounts and corrupting assayers. To my shame, I also helped him cast up his columns of false figures—there are so many little persecutions a man may put upon his daughter-in-law day by day, she living alone under his roof.

  But Penhallow did not leave—only his pile of ore grew less, which diminished your father’s profits a little. Then, in the next fortnight there was a cave-in that shut up the new tunnel, and although no men were trapped therein, yet no ore could be got from it for three days while they dug it out again. At the last, his lordship went again to see how he might have more tin out of the miners, when Penhallow’s core, having come up after their morning’s time below, and playing at quoits, a quoit flew astray and narrowly missed your father, who would believe not otherwise but that it had come in malice from Penhallow’s hand.

  Whether indeed Thomas Penhallow meant your father some bodily mischief, or your father merely chose to believe it was so, his lordship now made up his kind he must see to the man he had wronged fifteen years ago, before that man saw to him. There was a certain worthless fellow called Ned Curnow working at the Nancy, or rather signed on to draw his month’s pay, for little ore he ever brought to surface. They said that some traces in his speech and bearing shewed him to be a gentleman or gentleman’s son fallen into low estate, and scarcely a day passed but Curnow was in mischief of some sort, and often serious mischief.

  The mine captain pointed him out to your father, that same day of the quoit, and remarked he wished to turn this Curnow out of the mine. His lordship questioned the captain more closely, and ended by telling him to have the fellow come round to see him at Wilharthen House.

  Curnow did not come round until two mornings after, and being let in by Bosvannion (our new steward, Hal; old Parsons died a fortnight after you), and finding us in the parlour, he bowed, and looked at me as a man looks at a woman, past my thirtieth year as I was, and still in the mourning I have meant never to lay aside. Then, taking an apple from the bowl on the table, he sat in the oaken armchair, which used to be your favourite, and put his feet on the settle.

  Three weeks before, this vagabond had been whipt through the streets of Saltash, and stood in the pillory, and cared not who knew it, and yet he bore himself as if Walharthen were an ale-house, and your father his drinking companion. Only to me, Hal, did Curnow shew respect. I sat on and sewed. Your father had brought me far enough into his confidence that, though he did not tell me in so many words all that was in his heart, he cared little whether I went or whether I remained.

  His lordship told Curnow of the enquiries he had made. “It was only by the grace of Sir Edward Chilwidden,” said he, “that you were not banished to the galleys when you would not say the name of your home parish, and it is only the lightest thread holds you from the Stannary Gaol now.”

  “Send me up, then,” said Curnow, “to galleys or gaol, whichever you will.”

  The rogue had washed his face, I think, before coming up, and perhaps even his hair, which fell long and golden on his shoulders; but his beard was untrimmed and the rags he wore left the dust of the mine on all they touched, and he was like a man who has lost all joy and desire and hope, so that he no longer cares how long he lives or when he dies.

  I too, Hal, I had lost all joy, all desire and hope, and there have come lines into my face, and silver hairs amongst the chestnut. I would look very seldom in my glass but that it was your gift to me.

  So your father talked for some minutes to Curnow, sounding him, as I have seen him sound the mettle of a mare before buying, or the honesty of a judge before bribing, whilst Curnow sat and ate his apple. The colour of Curnow’s eyes was between green and grey, and he looked at your father as I think he might look at a long deep shaft in the mine.

  At length his lordship came to the point, and offered Curnow fifteen pounds for doing away with, for killing Thomas Penhallow.

  Curnow put back his head and laughed. “So I am to murder a man,” he said, “and be paid for ‘t, too. How if I were to go to the magistrates with this tale?”

  His lordship replied that “I have the magistrates in my purse, and the judges, too.”

  Curnow threw the core of his apple into the fire. “I misdoubt it,” said he, “if you pay them in proportion as you offer to pay me.”

  Then they haggled over the money as if Penhallow had been a pound of fish or a pile of ore, and at last Curnow settled for twenty-five pounds. His lordship gave him ten, and told him to return when he had done it, and to come at night. Curnow bowed to me again in leaving us, and looked once more into my eyes, as a man looks at a woman. I dropt my eyes to my seam. (Your father had money enough, Hal; I could have sewed with good thread, that was not forever knotting and breaking.)

  I had no power to stop this thing, Hal, but what great difference was there, after all, between how your father had dealt with Thomas Penhallow fifteen years ago and how he would deal with him now? In any case, whatever we keep hid from outsiders and strangers, it is no life to go about in ignorance and suspicion of those under the same roof with you, those on whom you depend, and I judged it better I should know, than only suspect.

  This was why I sat up with your father into the night, to see the play run out to its end. His lordship had sent the steward on some errand to Launceston, and ordered Betty to her room an hour before sunset, to stay there all the night as punishment for some fault he pretended she had made in sweeping her kitchen, all so that we would be alone. And I much thought he meant to settle all likelihood of Curnow ever telling of the crime he had committed.

  There had come no word nor even rumour from the mine during the day, and we did not know whether Curnow would return on this night or another—or indeed, I thought, ever. Your father sat and studied over his accounts. You remember how he loved his accounts, Hal; as others love their coin, and more, for there was e
ver the hope of catching some mistake I had made in casting them up, for which he might take me to task. I nodded over my book, and as the hours passed I rose to pour out a glass of wine from the silver bottle which had been your mother’s pride.

  “I would advise you against it, Margery,” said your father grimly.

  I smelled the wine, it was hippocras, sleep-heavy with many spices. I brought back the glassful and set it at his elbow, rather than my own. He did not drink. “Why did you not find some means of killing Penhallow by your own hand?” I asked.

  “Penhallow would not have trusted himself near enough my hand,” said your father. “Nor would I have trusted myself near his.”

  “Perhaps Ned Curnow will not trust himself near your hand again, neither,” said I, measuring my words.

  “I took the man’s measure,” said his lordship. “There is fifteen pounds in the balance. He will come.”

  I thought that your father had but applied his own scale to Curnow, while that insolent man with neither hope nor desire nor fear in his grey-green eyes had likely taken better measure of his lordship. But I did not speak this thought, and so we waited.

  Somewhat after midnight a storm broke, and, thinking Curnow would not come, I might have sought my bed; but every moment I delayed would lengthen out into another moment, and yet another, and so I sat on, scarce thinkings with my book open in my lap.

  You father had laid aside even his accounts, and all was still, excepting only the thunder and rain without. A mouse ventured into the middle of the floor. Your father said, “We must find another cat,” and at the sound of his voice the mouse scurried away.

  Close on to one, Curnow came, knocking at the door in the pattern they had arranged. His lordship sent me with a rushlight to bring in his hireling. Curnow was wrapped in a ragged sodden cloaks and trailed mud and filth wherever he stepped, yet on seeing me, he gave me a greeting which shewed he had indeed had gentle breeding once.