Ellery Queen's Eyewitnesses by Ellery Queen

Author:Ellery Queen [Queen, Ellery]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“That chap might have run us there in his taxi,” Dover observed sourly as he and MacGregor proceeded slowly on their way back past Mrs. Golightly’s humble abode, “if you hadn’t been so bloody rude to him. What got into you? Any fool could see he’s too thick to be anything but honest.”

MacGregor didn’t agree. “You don’t need much intelligence, sir, to alter a mileage reading. And he was giving that car a thorough cleaning. He could have been removing traces of incriminating evidence.”

“Stuff!” puffed Dover, already finding the going hard. “Besides, where’s the motive? He’d never even met What’s-his-name.”

“Bailey, sir.” MacGregor was well used to Dover’s inability to remember any name (including probably his own) for more than five minutes. “Besides, I don’t think we’re looking for that kind of motive.”

“Oh, don’t you?” sneered Dover in a poor imitation of MacGregor’s refined accent. “Well, what kind of motive are we looking for, Smartie-boots?”

“I think the murder is tied up with the car accident, sir.”

Dover paused to contemplate the young mountain which had suddenly loomed up in front of them. ’Strewth, if he’d realized that the “couple of hundred yards” was going to be straight up. . .“Of course it’s tied up with the car accident,” he growled, once he’d got his breath back. “The killer runs Whatd’yecall’im down and immobilizes him, and then gets out to finish him off with a tire lever or something. Gangsters in America are doing it all the time.”

“It’ll be just by that small red car, sir,” said MacGregor, cringing as Dover grabbed his arm and hung on. As a 240-pound weakling, the Chief Inspector wasn’t fussy about who shared the burden. “I was thinking of a slight variation, actually,” MacGregor went on, failing to appreciate that aching feet were now looming larger in Dover’s mind than violent death. “I was wondering if the murder had to be committed because of the accident. That would fit Jarrow, you see.

“Suppose he had been doing a job without his employer’s knowledge, and during the course of it accidentally knocked Mr. Bailey down. Well, to report the accident in the normal way would expose what he’d been doing and he’d get the sack. So”—even MacGregor was beginning to sound unconvinced—“he finished Bailey off. I admit it sounds a bit thin, sir, but”—MacGregor cheered up—“plenty of murders have been done for less.”

“This it?”

They had climbed almost to the top of the steep incline that was Japonica Mount and were now level with the small red car. According to its number plate it was fourteen years old and it was obvious why its owner wasn’t paying out good money to rent a garage for it.

Dover turned thankfully through the little wrought-iron gate and waddled up the path. The curtains in the front room had twitched but he stuck his finger in the bell-push and rested his weight on it.

A woman opened the door and Dover was halfway inside before he discovered, to his undisguised chagrin, that it was the wrong house.

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