The King Is Dead by Queen Ellery

Author:Queen, Ellery [Queen, Ellery]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, thriller, Crime, Classics
ISBN: 9780783892825
Amazon: 0783892829
Goodreads: 916380
Publisher: G K Hall & Co
Published: 1952-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter X.

BY WRITTEN ORDER of Abel Bendigo, the Queens were permitted that afternoon to inspect the Confidential Room. Colonel Spring himself, looking a wee bit flustered, unlocked the big steel door. The Colonel, the officer in charge of the household guards, and two armed guards went in with them and watched them as closely as if it were the bullion vault of Fort Knox.

It was a great empty-looking room painted hospital gray. There was only one door, the door through which they had entered. There were no windows at all, the walls themselves glowing with a constant, shadowless light. A frieze of solid-looking material ran around the walls near the high ceiling; this was a porous metal fabric invented by Bendigo engineers to take the place of conventional heating and air-conditioning vents and grilles. “It’s a metallic substance that actually breathes,” explained Colonel Spring, “and does away with openings.” The air in the room was mild, sweet, and fresh.

No pictures, hangings, or decorations of any kind broke the blank-ness of the walls. The floor was of some springy material, solidly inlaid, that deadened sound. The ceiling was soundproofed.

In the exact center of the Confidential Room stood a very large metal desk, with a leather swivel chair behind it. There was nothing on the desk but a telephone. A typewriter-desk, its electric typewriter exposed, faced the large desk; this one was equipped with an uncushioned metal chair. Solid banks of steel filing cases lined the walls to a height of five feet.

Above the door, and so in direct view of the occupant of the large desk, there was a functional clock. It consisted of two uncompromising gold hands and twelve unnumbered gold darts, and was imbedded in the wall And there was nothing else in the room.

“Who besides the Bendigo family, Colonel, uses this room?” asked Inspector Queen.

“No one.”

Ellery said: “Does Judah Bendigo come in here often?”

Colonel Spring cocked a brow at the officer of the guard. The officer said: “Not often, sir. He may wander in for a few minutes sometimes, but he’s never here very long.”

“When was the last time Mr. Judah visited this room?”

“I’d have to consult the records, sir.”

“Consult them.”

The officer glanced at Colonel Spring. The Colonel nodded, and the officer went away. He returned shortly with a ledger.

“About six weeks ago was the last time, sir. And a week before that, and three weeks before that.”

“Would these records show if at those times he was in this room alone?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was he?”

“No, sir. He never comes in here when the room is unoccupied. He can’t get in. No one can but Mr. King and Mr. Abel. They have the only two keys, aside from an emergency key kept in the guardroom in a wall safe. We have to open the room daily for the maids.”

“The maids, I take it, clean up under the eye of the guards?”

“And the officer on duty, sir.”

The Queens wandered about the Confidential Room for a few minutes. Ellery tried a number of filing cases, but most of them were locked.

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