The Origin of Evil Page 5

"Our property line runs down the hill," Laurel said as they got out of the car, "over towards the Priams'. A little over nine additional acres meeting the Priam woods. Through the woods it's no distance at all."

  "It's a very great distance," mumbled Ellery. "About as far as from an eagle's nest to an undersea cave. True Spanish, I notice, like the missions, not the modern fakes so common out here. It must be a punishment to Delia Priam—born to this and condemned to that.

  "Oh, she's told you about that," murmured Laurel; then she took him into her house.

  It was cool with black Spanish tile underfoot and the touch of iron. There was a sunken living room forty feet long, a great fireplace set with Goya tiles, books and music and paintings and ceramics and huge jars of flowers everywhere. A tall Japanese in a white jacket came in smiling and took Ellery's hat.

  "Ichiro Sotowa," said Laurel. "Itchie's been with us for ages. This is Mr. Queen, Itchie. He's interested in the way Daddy died, too."

  The houseman's smile faded. "Bad—bad," he said, shaking his head. "Heart no good. You like a drink, sir?"

  "Not just now, thanks," said Ellery. "Just how long did you work for Mr. Hill, Ichiro?"

  "Sixteen year, sir."

  "Oh, then you don't go back to the time of ... What about that chauffeur—Simeon, was it?"

  "Shimmie shopping with Mis' Monk."

  "I meant how long Simeon's been employed here."

  "About ten years," said Laurel. "Mrs. Monk came around the same time."

  "That's that, then. All right, Laurel, let's begin."

  "Where?"

  "From the time your father had his last heart attack— the day the dog came—until his death, did he leave his bedroom?"

  "No. Itchie and I took turns nursing him. Night and day the entire week."

  "Bedroom indicated. Lead the way."

  AN HOUR AND a half later, Ellery opened the door of Leander Hill's room. Laurel was curled up in a window niche on the landing, head resting against the wall.

  "I suppose you think I'm an awful sissy," she said, without turning. "But all I can see when I'm in there is his marbly face and blue lips and the crooked way his mouth hung open . . , not my daddy at all. Nothing, I suppose."

  "Come here, Laurel."

  She jerked about. Then she jumped off the ledge and ran to him.

  Ellery shot the bedroom door.

  Laurel's eyes hunted wildly. But aside from the four-poster bed, which was disarranged, she could see nothing unusual. The spread, sheets, and quilt were peeled back, revealing the side walls of the box spring and mattress.

  "What—?"

  "The note you saw him remove from the dog's collar," Ellery said. "It was on thin paper, didn't you tell me?"

  "Very. A sort of flimsy, or onionskin."

  "White?"

  "White."

  Ellery nodded. He went over to the exposed mattress. "He was in this room for a week, Laurel, between his attack and death. During that week did he have many visitors?"

  "The Priam household. Some people from the office. A few friends."

  "Some time during that week," said Ellery, "your father decided that the note he had received was in danger of being stolen or destroyed. So he took out insurance." His finger traced on the side wall of the mattress one of the perpendicular blue lines of the ticking. "He had no tool but a dull penknife from the night table there. And I suppose he was in a hurry, afraid he might be caught at it. So the job had to be crude." Half his finger suddenly vanished. "He simply made a slit here, where the blue line meets the undyed ticking. And he slipped the paper into it, where I found it."

  "The note," breathed Laurel. "You've found the note. Let me see!"

  Ellery put his hand in his pocket. But just as he was about to withdraw it, he stopped. His eyes were on one of the windows.

  Some ten yards away there was an old walnut tree.

  "Yes?" Laurel was confused. "What's the matter?"

  "Get off the bed, yawn, smile at me if you can, and then stroll over to the door. Go out on the landing. Leave the door open."

  Her eyes widened.

  She got off the bed, yawned, stretched, showed her teeth, and went to the door. Ellery moved a little as she moved, so that he remained between her and the window.

  When she had disappeared, he casually followed. Smiling in profile at her, he shut the bedroom door.

  And sprang for the staircase.

  "Ellery—"

  "Stay here!"

  He scrambled down the black-tiled stairs, leaving Laurel with her lips parted.

  A man had been roosting high in the walnut tree, peering in at them through Leander Hill's bedroom window from behind a screen of leaves. But the sun had been on the tree, and Ellery could have sworn the fellow was mother-naked.

  Four

  THE NAKED MAN was gone. Ellery thrashed about among the fruit and nut trees feeling like Robinson Crusoe. From the flagged piazza Ichiro gaped at him, and a chunky fellow with a florid face and a chauffeur's cap, carrying a carton of groceries, was gaping with him. Ellery found a large footprint at the margin of the orchard, splayed and deeptoed, indicating running or jumping, and it pointed directly to the woods. He darted into the underbrush and in a moment he was nosing past trees and scrub on a twisting but clear trail. There were numerous specimens of the naked print on the trail, both coming and going.

  "He's made a habit of this," Ellery mumbled. It was hot in the woods and he was soon drenched, uncomfortable, and out of temper.

  The trail ended unceremoniously in the middle of a clearing. No other footprints anywhere. The trunk of the nearest tree, an ancient, oakish-looking monster, was yards away. There were no vines.

  Ellery looked around, swabbing his neck. Then he looked up. The giant limbs of the tree covered the clearing with a thick fabric of small spiny leaves, but the lowest branch was thirty feet from the ground.

  The creature must have flapped his arms and taken oft".

  Ellery sat down on a corrupting log and wiped his face, reflecting on this latest wonder. Not that anything in Southern California ever really surprised him. But this was a little out of even God's country's class. Flying nudes! "Lost?"

  Ellery leaped. A little old man in khaki-shorts, woolen socks, and a T-shirt was smiling at him from a bush. He wore a paper topee on his head and he carried a butterfly net; a bright red case of some sort was slung over one skinny shoulder. His skin was a shriveled brown and his hands were like the bark of the big tree, but his eyes were a bright young blue and they seemed keen.

  "I'm not lost," said Ellery irritably. "I'm looking for a man."

  "I don't like the way you say that," said the old man, stepping into the clearing. "You're on the wrong track, young fellow. People mean trouble. Know anything about the Lepidoptera?"

  "Not a thing. Have you seen—?"

  "You catch 'em with this dingbat. I just bought the kit yesterday—passed a toy shop on Hollywood Boulevard

  and there it was, all new and shiny, in the window. I've caught four beauties so far." The butterfly hunter began to trot down the trail, waving his net menacingly, i

  "Wait! Have you seen anyone running through these woods?"

  "Running? Well, now, depends."

  "Depends? My dear sir, it doesn't depend on a thing! Either you saw somebody or you didn't."

  "Not necessarily," replied the little man earnestly, trotting back. "It depends on whether it's going to get him— or you—in trouble. There's too much trouble in this world, young man. What's this runner look like?"

  "I can't give you a description," snapped Ellery, "inasmuch as I didn't see enough of him to be able to. Or rather, I saw the wrong parts.—Hell. He's naked."

  "Ah," said the hunter, making an unsuccessful pass at a large, paint-splashed butterfly. "Naked, hm?"

  "And there was a lot of him."

  "There was. You wouldn't start any trouble?"

  "No, no, I won't hurt him. Just tell me which way he went."

  "I'm no
t worried about your hurting him. He's much more likely to hurt you. Powerful build, that boy. Once knew a stoker built like him—could bend a coal shovel. That was in the old Susie Belle, beating up to Alaska—"

  "You sound as if you know him."

  "Know him? I darned well ought to. He's my grandson. There he is!" cried the hunter.

  "Where?"

  But it was only the fifth butterfly, and the little old man hopped between two bushes and was gone.

  Ellery was morosely studying the last footprint in the trail when Laurel poked her head cautiously into the clearing.

  "There you are," she said with relief. "You scared the buttermilk out of me. What happened?"

  "Character spying on us from the walnut tree outside the bedroom window. I trailed him here—"

  "What did he look like?" frowned Laurel.

  "No clothes on."

  "Why, the lying mugwump!" she said angrily. "He promised on his honor he wouldn't do that any more. It's got so I have to undress in the dark."

  "So you know him, too," growled Ellery. "I thought California had a drive on these sex cases."

  "Oh, he's no sex case. He just throws gravel at my window and tries to get me to talk drool to him. I can't waste my time on somebody who's preparing for Armageddon at the age of twenty-three. Ellery, let's see that note!"

  "Whose grandson is he?"

  "Grandson? Mr. Collier's."

  "Mr. Collier wouldn't be a little skinny old gent with a face like a sun-dried fig?"

  "That's right."

  "And just who is Mr. Collier?"

  "Delia Priam's father. He lives with the Priams."

  "Her father." You couldn't keep her out of anything. "But if this Peeping Tom is Delia Priam's father's grandson, then he must be—"

  "Didn't Delia tell you," asked Laurel with a soupçon of malice, "that she has a twenty-three year old son? His name is Crowe Macgowan. Delia's child by her first husband. Roger's stepson. But let's not waste any time on him—"

  "How does he disappear into thin air? He pulled that miracle right here."

  "Oh, that." Laurel looked straight up. So Ellery looked straight up, too. But all he could see was a leafy ceiling where the great oak branched ten yards over his head.

  "Mac!" said Laurel sharply. "Show your face."

  To Ellery's amazement, a large young male face appeared in the middle of the green mass thirty feet from the ground. On the face there was a formidable scowl.

  "Laurel, who is this guy?"

  "You come down here."

  "Is he a reporter?"

  "Heavens, no," said Laurel disgustedly. "He's Ellery Queen."

  'Who?

  "Ellery Queen."

  "You're kidding!"

  "I wouldn't have time."

  "Say. I'll be right down."

  The face vanished. At once something materialized where it had been and hurtled to the ground, missing Ellery's nose by inches. It was a rope ladder. A massive male leg broke the green ceiling, then another, then a whole young man, and in a moment the tree man was standing on the ground on the exact spot where the trail of naked footprints ended.

  "I'm certainly thrilled to meet you!"

  Ellery's hand was seized and the bones broken before he could cry out. At least, they felt broken. It was a bad day for the Master's self-respect: he could not decide which had the most powerful hands, Roger Priam, Alfred Wallace, or the awesome brute trying to pulverize him. Delia's son towered six inches above him, a handsome giant with an impossible spread of shoulder, an unbelievable minimum of waist, the muscular development of Mr. America, the skin of a Hawaiian—all of which was on view except a negligible area covered by a brown loincloth—and a grin that made Ellery feel positively aged.

  "I thought you were a newshound, Mr. Queen. Can't stand those guys—they've made my life miserable. But what are we standing here for? Come on up to the house."

  "Some other time, Mac," said Laurel coldly, taking Ellery's arm.

  "Oh, that murder foolishness. Why don't you relax, Laur?"

  "I don't think I'd be exactly welcome at your stepfather's, Mac," said Ellery.

  "You've already had the pleasure? But I meant come up to my house."

  "He really means *up,' Ellery," sighed Laurel. "All right, let's get it over with. You wouldn't believe it secondhand."

  "House? Up?" Feebly Ellery glanced aloft; and to his horror the young giant nodded and sprang up the rope ladder, beckoning them hospitably to follow.

  IT REALLY WAS a house, high in the tree. A one-room house, to be sure, and not commodious, but it had four walls and a thatched roof, a sound floor, a beamed ceiling, two windows, and a platform from which the ladder dangled—this dangerous-looking perch young Macgowan referred to cheerfully as his "porch," and perfectly safe if you didn't fall off.

  The tree, he explained, was Quercus agrifolia, with a bole circumference of eighteen feet, and "watch those leaves, Mr. Queen, they bite." Ellery, who was gingerly digging several of the spiny little devils out of his shirt, nodded sourly. But the structure was built on a foundation of foot-thick boughs and seemed solid enough underfoot.

  He poked his head indoors at his host's invitation and gaped like- a tourist. Every foot of wall- and floor-space was occupied by—it was the only phrase Ellery could muster—aids to tree-living.

  "Sorry I can't entertain you inside," said the young man, "but three of us would bug it out a bit. We'd better sit on the porch. Anybody like a drink? Bourbon? Scotch?" Without waiting for a reply Macgowan bent double and slithered into his house. Various liquid sounds followed.

  "Laurel, why don't they put the poor kid away?" whispered Ellery.

  "You have to have grounds."

  "What do you call this?" cried Ellery. "Sanity?"

  "Don't blame you, Mr. Queen," said the big fellow amiably, appearing with two chilled glasses. "Appearances are against me. But that's because you people live in a world of fantasy." He thrust a long arm into the house and it came out with another glass.

  "Fantasy. We." Ellery gulped a third of the contents of his glass. "You, of course, live in a world of reality?"

  "Do we have to?" asked Laurel wearily. "If he gets started on this, Ellery, we'll be here till sundown. That note—"

  "I'm the only realist I know," said the giant, lying down at the edge of his porch and kicking his powerful legs in space. "Because, look. What are you people doing? Living in the same old houses, reading the same old newspapers, going to the same old movies or looking at the same old television, walking on the same old sidewalks, riding in the same old new cars. That's a dream world, don't you realize it? What price business-as-usual? What price, well, sky-writing, Jacques Fath, Double-Crostics, murder? Do you get my point?"

  "Can't say it's entirely clear, Mac," said Ellery, swallowing the second third. He realized for the first time that his glass contained bourbon, which he loathed. However.

  "We are living," said young Mr. Macgowan, "in the crisis of the disease commonly called human history. You mess around with your piddling murders while mankind is being set up for the biggest homicide since the Flood. The atom bomb is already fuddy-duddy. Now it's hydrogen bombs, guaranteed to make the nuclear chain reaction —or whatever the hell it is—look like a Fourth of July firecracker. Stuff that can poison all the drinking water on a continent. Nerve gases that paralyze and kill. Germs there's no protection against. And only God knows what else. They won't use it? My friend, those words constitute the epitaph of Man. Somebody'll pull the cork in a place like Yugoslavia or Iran or Korea and, whoosh! that'll be that.

  "It's all going to go," said Macgowan, waving his glass at the invisible world below. "Cities uninhabitable. Crop soil poisoned for a hundred years. Domestic animals going wild. Insects multiplying. Balance of nature upset. Ruins and plagues and millions of square miles radioactive and maybe most of the earth's atmosphere. The roads crack, the lines sag, the machines rust, the libraries mildew, the buzzards fatten, and the forest primeval creep
s over Hollywood and Vine, which maybe isn't such a bad idea. But there you'll have it. Thirty thousand years of primate development knocked over like a sleeping duck. Civilization atomized and annihilated. Yes, there'll be some survivors—I'm going to be one of them. But what are we going to have to do? Why, go back where we came from, brother—to the trees. That's logic, isn't it? So here I am. All ready for it."

  "Now let's have the note," said Laurel.

  "In a moment." Ellery polished off the last third, shuddering. "Very logical, Mac, except for one or two items."

  "Such as?" said Crowe Macgowan courteously. "Here, let me give you a refill."

  "No, thanks, not just now. Why, such as these." Ellery pointed to a network of cables winging from some hidden spot to the roof of Macgowan's tree house. "For a chap who's written off thirty thousand years of primate development you don't seem to mind tapping the main power line for such things as—" he craned, surveying the interior—"electric lights, a small electric range and refrigerator, and similar primitive devices; not to mention—" he indicated a maze of pipes—"running water, a compact little privy connected with—I assume—a septic tank buried somewhere below, and so on. These things—forgive me, Mac—blow bugs through your logic. The only essential differences between your house and your stepfather's are that yours is smaller and thirty feet in the air."

  "Just being .practical," shrugged the giant. "It's my opinion it’ll happen any day now. But I can be wrong—it may not come till next year. I'm just taking advantage of the civilized comforts while they're still available. But you'll notice I have a .22 rifle hanging there, a couple of .45s, and when my ammunition runs out or I can't rustle any more there's a bow that'll bring down any deer that survives the party. I practice daily. And I'm getting pretty good running around these treetops—"

  "Which reminds me," said Laurel. "Use your own trees after this, will you, Mac? I'm no prude, but a girl likes her privacy sometimes. Really, Ellery—"

  "Macgowan," said Ellery, eying their host, "what's the pitch?"

  "Pitch? I've just told you."

  "I know what you've just told me, and it's already out the, other ear. What character are you playing? And in what script by whom?" Ellery set the glass down and got to his feet. The effect he was trying to achieve was slightly spoiled, as he almost fell off the porch. He jumped to the side of the house, a little green. "I've been to Hollywood before."