Read Online Drury Lane’s Last Case by Ellery Queen - Free Book Online Page B

of this wing have not yet been placed on exhibition; the collection was delivered only a few weeks ago, after we had shut down.” The Inspector leaned against a wall near the door and looked bored. “Now here,” continued Dr. Choate in a Chautauqua voice, strolling over to the nearest cabinet, “is an item——”
    â€œSay!” exclaimed the Inspector sharply. “What the devil’s happened to that cabinet over there?”
    Dr. Choate and Gordon Rowe wheeled like startled birds of passage. Patience felt her breath come thickly.
    The Inspector was pointing to a case in the centre of the room, quite like the others in appearance; but it differed from the others in a signal respect. Its glass top had been shattered and only a few fragments of jagged glass clung to the frame!

5
    The Jaggard Case
    The expressions of acute alarm on the face of the curator and the young man turned instantly to relief.
    â€œPhew!” said Rowe. “Go easy on my heart, Inspector. I thought for a moment something was really wrong. Just an accident we had yesterday, that’s all.”
    Patience and the Inspector exchanged very rapid and illuminated glances. “An accident, hey?” said the Inspector. “Well, well. Glad I decided to soak in a little of your culture at that, Doc. What d’ye mean ‘accident,’ Rowe?”
    â€œOh, I assure you that’s all it was,” smiled the curator. “No significance at all. It’s really Mr. Rowe’s story. He was working in the reading-room next door yesterday afternoon and had occasion to come in here to consult one of the Saxon books. It was he who found the glass top of this case shattered.”
    â€œYou see,” explained Rowe, “the workmen finished this room only yesterday morning, and I’ve no doubt in coming back for a forgotten tool or something one of them accidentally poked in the glass. Nothing to get excited about.”
    â€œJust when yesterday did you discover this, Mr. Rowe?” asked Patience slowly. And this time there was nothing personal in her glance.
    â€œOh, I should imagine about five-thirty.”
    â€œAnd what time did your visiting delegation from Indiana leave, Dr. Choate, did you say?” she continued. She had quite lost her smile.
    Dr. Choate seemed nettled. “Oh, I assure you it’s nothing! And I really didn’t say, Miss Thumm. The school-teachers left at five, I believe.”
    â€œAnd the glass was crashed in at five-thirty, Mr. Rowe?”
    The young man stared at her. “Miss Sherlocka! I really don’t know. Are you a detectress?”
    â€œCut the comedy, younker,” said the Inspector, coming forward; but he said it without rancour and indeed seemed to have regained his good humour. “How’s that? You must have heard the glass breaking.”
    Rowe shook his head sadly. “But I didn’t, Inspector. You see, the door to the Saxon Room from the reading-room was closed, and then I’m usually so absorbed in what I’m doing you could set a bomb off under my chair and I wouldn’t blink an eye. So the accident might have happened any time at all yesterday afternoon, you see.”
    â€œHmm,” said the Inspector. He went over to the shattered case and peered in. “Anything stolen?”
    Dr. Choate laughed heartily. “Come now, Inspector, we’re not children, you know. Naturally it occurred to us that some one might have sneaked in here—there’s another door over there, as you can see, which leads into the main corridor, making this room fairly accessible—and made off with one of the three very valuable volumes in the case. But they’re still there, as you can see.”
    The Thumms stared down at the broken cabinet. Its bottom was lined with soft black velvet; three oblong depressions had been artfully built into the velvet, and in each depression reposed a single book, large bulky volumes