Double Double by Ellery Queen

Author:Ellery Queen [Queen, Ellery]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780345282897
Amazon: 034531364X
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 1979-10-11T18:30:00+00:00

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CHIEF OF POLICE Dakin, who had been decently in bed, was there by 1:45 a.m. and Prosecutor Chalanski, who had been at a party on Sky top Road, did not arrive until 2:15¯which was a valuable lesson, said Chalanski, for the good shall inherit the headaches¯”though talking about headaches . . . what was in those Manhattans? . . . this doesn’t promise much of one at all, eh, Queen?”¯and the prosecutor of Wright County shook hands limply, adding that crime seemed to follow Ellery around like a bill collector and prompting Ellery to mumble that he rather thought¯at least he hoped¯it was the other way around.

No one, with the interesting exception of Harry Toyfell, seemed to take the death of The Town Thief very seriously, at least in a social sense. Ken was immersed in his own psychological troubles; Rima was immersed in Ken; Essie Pingarn, who flew downstairs in tight rag curlers and a surprisingly elegant quilted bathrobe covered with big red roses, fainted and, on being revived by Dr. Dodd, immersed herself in the roaring waters of her faith; Mrs. Fowler, pale but showing the iron of her Puritan genes, bustled about with pots of coffee, fumbling with the control box of her earpiece and saying that the Lord had His own way of punishing shiftlessness and sin; Dr. Dodd turned very nearly cheerful, joking with Chief Dakin about his gun license, telling stories of other gunshot deaths in his experience, and generally being¯not altogether to Ellery’s surprise, for he had seen men falsely bucked up by death before¯a tower of strength; and Dakin and Chalanski handled Jacquard as if he were a card in a file. As for Harry Toyfell, he appeared like some medieval monk in a long earthcolored bathrobe and tattered carpet slippers and took his place over the hulk of his old crony, now a total wreck, with a hardbitten stoicism. Toyfell slept in a room above the garage, which was to the rear of the house and had once been a coach house; he had shuffled through the rear garden and the earth crumbs on his carpet slippers were very near his friend’s dead face.

“No, I sleep hard,” he replied to Prosecutor Chalanski. “Didn’t hear a thing till your siren woke me up.”

“Better for Jacquard if you had, maybe,” remarked Dakin.

But Toyfell shook his head. “He’d got in a bad mess one way or ‘nother,” he said. “Nick was an angry man,” he said. “All his life he was lost and couldn’t find his way out.”

“Well, he’s found it now,” said Chalanski with a laugh, turning away.

Toyfell remained out of everyone’s way, near the body.

Malvina Prentiss descended out of space with a flash. Ellery got to the window just in time to witness her landing in a rocket-shaped convertible, its iridescent silver paint reflecting the amazed street lights. Dakin’s men had roped off the area before the Dodd house; beyond pressed a crowd; and they were all gaping, police included, at the silver monster.

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