The Tragedy of Y (orig. 1932) by Ellery Queen

Author:Ellery Queen [Queen, Ellery]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Private Investigators, Traditional, General
ISBN: 9781504016605
Google: sFbVCQAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1483036049
Publisher: Avon Book
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Scene 4

THE HAMLET. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8. 3 P.M.

Wednesday turned clear, but cold. The Hudson country was like a winter’s sea; the swish and wash of the winds through the dense foliage was oceanic in its sound. There was June in the trees, and November in the air.

The police car negotiated the steep grades, the iron bridge, the gravel road, the clearing, the garden road in silence. Neither District Attorney Bruno nor Inspector Thumm felt inclined to talk. Old Quacey, his upthrust hump as grotesque as ever, met them at the iron-hasped outer doors and conducted them through the main hall, with its rush-strewn floor, its vast candelabra, its knights in armor and mammoth masks of Comedy and Tragedy, to the little elevator concealed in the farther wall. A short ascent and they stepped out into Mr. Drury Lane’s private apartments.

The old actor, in a brown velveteen jacket, was standing straight as a spear before the leaping flames of his fireplace. Even in the light, with its momentary changes of accent and its fluid running shadows, they saw the worry stamped on his face. He looked haggard, decidedly not himself. He greeted them, however, with his customary courtesy, pulled a bell-cord and ordered little Falstaff to serve coffee and liqueurs, sent Quacey—who was sniffing about like an old hound—out of the room, and settled himself before the fire. “First,” he said quietly, “your news, Inspector, if there is any.”

“Plenty. We’ve tracked down this Perry’s record.”

“Record?” Lane’s eyebrows arched.

“Not a police record. I mean his past. You’ll never guess who he is—what his real name is.”

“I’m scarcely a seer, Inspector,” said Lane with a faint smile. “He isn’t the lost Dauphin, I trust?”

“The who? Listen, Mr. Lane, this is serious,” growled the Inspector. “Edgar Perry’s real name is Edgar Campion!”

Lane was quite still for a fleeting moment. “Edgar Campion,” he said after a while. “Indeed. Not the son of Mrs. Hatter’s first husband?”

“Yes! The lowdown is this: when Emily Hatter was Emily Campion, married to Tom Campion, who’s dead now, Campion already had a son by a former wife. The son is Edgar Campion. He’s therefore a half-brother to Louisa Campion—same father, different mothers.”

“Hmm.”

“What gets me,” said the District Attorney in vast discontent, “is why Campion, or Perry, should pose as a tutor and come to live in the Hatter house. Thumm says that Barbara Hatter helped him get the job——”

“That’s hooey,” said the Inspector. “I knew it the minute she said it. She didn’t know him before he got the job—I found that out. And what’s more, it’s a cinch she doesn’t know who he really is. She’s in love. Love!”

“Did Mrs. Hatter know that Edgar Perry was her stepson, Edgar Campion?” asked Lane thoughtfully.

“Nan—how could she, unless he told her? The trail showed that Perry was only six or seven years old when his father and Emily were divorced. She couldn’t have recognized him as a man of forty-four.”

“Have you spoken to him?”

“He won’t open his yap, damn him.”

“Thumm’s placed him under arrest,” remarked Bruno.

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