Read Online And on the Eighth Day by Ellery Queen - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ellery Queen
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sun, his skin was very pale.”
The sudden intrusion of this bit of description made Ellery start. He looked closely at the old man and thought he understood. That through-seeing gaze was looking at events happening again, happening now.
“He then confessed. ‘The washing goes slowly,’ Belyar said. ‘And it is hateful to me to wear clothes which are not fresh and clean. I took what is mine by right. For it was the work of my own hands.’ ”
The heretic. One in fifty years!
“The Crownsil found him guilty, but it might not pass sentence. That heavy duty is the task of the Teacher. It was from my lips, then, that Belyar the Weaver heard his punishment for breaking the law of the community. I declared that he be given a piece of silver, and food and water sufficient for two days’ sustenance, and that he be then driven into the desert, never to return on pain of death.”
A piece of silver? It was the first mention of money Ellery had heard in Quenan.
“Never to return on pain of death, Teacher?” he said. “And was not the decree—sending Belyar into the desert with food and water for only two days—tantamount to sentence of death?”
“That is as it may be.” The old man’s face was set in stone. Then it softened. “It was within my power to decree Belyar’s death directly. Yet in my weakness I found that I could not. Such a thing had not happened in my lifetime.”
He went on to say that only strict obedience to their laws kept them a community, and that once the Weaver had broken the law he could not be permitted to remain in Quenan; there was no room for one whose continuing presence would ever remind the people of his awful act in stealing from his brothers. Nor could he be sent out into the world, for fear that he might bring the world down upon them. Thus banishment to the desert and almost certain death.
“He did not come back, or try to come back? Was his body never found?”
The old man sighed. “He was not seen or heard of again. And since his banishment there has been no crime in Quenan.” And he fell silent.
What had become of the pale-skinned thief? Did he stagger about the desert until he fell and died of hunger and thirst, to be covered by the shifting sands? Or had some Indian or desert rat killed him for the sake of his silver piece? It was even possible that he had been found in time by a ranchero , or that by some miracle of good fortune and hardihood he had made his way to one of the cities of the plain or the seacoast. And there he would have taken up his life—in the era of the Beef Trust and the Sugar Trust and the Robber Barons; in the days when “that dirty little coward that shot Mister Howard” was entertaining the customers of his Leadville gambling hell with the tale of how he, Robert Ford, had put a bullet from an improved Colt .45 clean through the head of “Mister Howard”—Jesse James; when every Western town was rimmed with cribs offering raw sex for sale along with rotgut whisky … How long would Belyar and his piece of silver have survived in such a civilization? How could life in the Garden of Eden have prepared him for it?
Death directly, Ellery mused, would have been far more merciful. But the old man could not have known that.
And … “there has been no crime in Quenan” since.
That was something to think about!
“Then what is this great trouble which is written?” Ellery asked.
“I do not know,” said the Teacher. “It is not written what it is, only that it will come.” And he sighed again, heavily. “Until your coming, Elroï, I had thought it might be tire, or flood, or a shaking of the earth, or drought, or a plague of locusts, or a great sickness. Now, with your talk of crime … Can it be? I ask, can it be the evil of man of which it is written?
“My heart is sore,” the old man went on, staring into the darkness. “For, ask myself what I will, I cannot think of a crime to come so great as to be in the Book. What sin can
The sudden intrusion of this bit of description made Ellery start. He looked closely at the old man and thought he understood. That through-seeing gaze was looking at events happening again, happening now.
“He then confessed. ‘The washing goes slowly,’ Belyar said. ‘And it is hateful to me to wear clothes which are not fresh and clean. I took what is mine by right. For it was the work of my own hands.’ ”
The heretic. One in fifty years!
“The Crownsil found him guilty, but it might not pass sentence. That heavy duty is the task of the Teacher. It was from my lips, then, that Belyar the Weaver heard his punishment for breaking the law of the community. I declared that he be given a piece of silver, and food and water sufficient for two days’ sustenance, and that he be then driven into the desert, never to return on pain of death.”
A piece of silver? It was the first mention of money Ellery had heard in Quenan.
“Never to return on pain of death, Teacher?” he said. “And was not the decree—sending Belyar into the desert with food and water for only two days—tantamount to sentence of death?”
“That is as it may be.” The old man’s face was set in stone. Then it softened. “It was within my power to decree Belyar’s death directly. Yet in my weakness I found that I could not. Such a thing had not happened in my lifetime.”
He went on to say that only strict obedience to their laws kept them a community, and that once the Weaver had broken the law he could not be permitted to remain in Quenan; there was no room for one whose continuing presence would ever remind the people of his awful act in stealing from his brothers. Nor could he be sent out into the world, for fear that he might bring the world down upon them. Thus banishment to the desert and almost certain death.
“He did not come back, or try to come back? Was his body never found?”
The old man sighed. “He was not seen or heard of again. And since his banishment there has been no crime in Quenan.” And he fell silent.
What had become of the pale-skinned thief? Did he stagger about the desert until he fell and died of hunger and thirst, to be covered by the shifting sands? Or had some Indian or desert rat killed him for the sake of his silver piece? It was even possible that he had been found in time by a ranchero , or that by some miracle of good fortune and hardihood he had made his way to one of the cities of the plain or the seacoast. And there he would have taken up his life—in the era of the Beef Trust and the Sugar Trust and the Robber Barons; in the days when “that dirty little coward that shot Mister Howard” was entertaining the customers of his Leadville gambling hell with the tale of how he, Robert Ford, had put a bullet from an improved Colt .45 clean through the head of “Mister Howard”—Jesse James; when every Western town was rimmed with cribs offering raw sex for sale along with rotgut whisky … How long would Belyar and his piece of silver have survived in such a civilization? How could life in the Garden of Eden have prepared him for it?
Death directly, Ellery mused, would have been far more merciful. But the old man could not have known that.
And … “there has been no crime in Quenan” since.
That was something to think about!
“Then what is this great trouble which is written?” Ellery asked.
“I do not know,” said the Teacher. “It is not written what it is, only that it will come.” And he sighed again, heavily. “Until your coming, Elroï, I had thought it might be tire, or flood, or a shaking of the earth, or drought, or a plague of locusts, or a great sickness. Now, with your talk of crime … Can it be? I ask, can it be the evil of man of which it is written?
“My heart is sore,” the old man went on, staring into the darkness. “For, ask myself what I will, I cannot think of a crime to come so great as to be in the Book. What sin can
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