Read Online The Finishing Stroke by Ellery Queen - Free Book Online Page A

‘Who’s the modest sender?’
    He turned the package this way and that, searching for a clue to its donor. But there was none.
    Chill invaded the room.
    â€˜Oh, piffle,’ John said suddenly. ‘Someone’s kind enough to give me a present, and we all stand around looking as if we expect it to blow up.’ He tore off the wrappings, revealing an unmarked white box. Removing the lid, he found a number of objects nested there, each swathed in red tissue paper. Upon them lay a plain white card with some typing on it.
    John read it aloud, frowning.

    â€˜What the deuce,’ John said. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’
    â€˜Just gibble-gobble,’ Ellen said. ‘What’s it supposed to mean?’
    Ellery said abruptly, ‘May I see that, John?’
    They clustered around, reading the queer doggerel over Ellery’s shoulder.
    â€˜ “Your true love,” ’ he mused. ‘I don’t see whom that could mean except you, Rusty. Didn’t you send this?’
    â€˜No,’ Rusty said. ‘I have a middleclass weakness for signing my name.’
    â€˜You, Mr. Craig?’
    â€˜No, no.’
    Ellery said quietly, ‘See what they are, John.’
    John took the box over to the refectory table and lifted out the topmost object with extreme care. But then, violently, he tore off the tissue paper.
    The object was a small hand-carving of lustrous brown sandalwood on a simple wooden base. It had been carved in the shape of an ox, with delicately sweeping horns.
    â€˜Looks Oriental,’ Ellery muttered.
    Rusty shook her head. ‘East Indian, I’d say.’
    Ellery turned the little ox over and nodded. The words MADE IN INDIA were stamped into the base.
    â€˜Take that larger thing out next, John.’
    John removed it from the box, but this time it was Ellery who stripped away the tissue.
    It was a house, as advertised – a sort of doll’s house, rather crudely made. It was constructed with a certain ingenuity of miniature blocks painted red, to simulate brickwork. Its roof, of tiny bits of black slate, lay on the upper storey a trifle askew. Ellery removed it, exposing the upper storey. There were little rooms and hallways and a flight of stairs leading up from the ground floor.
    â€˜ “An unfinished house,” ’ Ellery pointed out. ‘This little doorway has a door missing up here on the upper floor, and see down here.’ On the ground floor, in one of the outer walls, a window was missing.
    â€˜But what does it mean?’ Ellen demanded.
    Ellery shrugged. There was no furniture in the toy house, and he turned the whole thing upside down, looking for a maker’s mark, some clue to its origin. There was none.
    â€˜Home-made, undoubtedly. Well, let’s have a look at that last thing, John – what did it say? A camel?’
    It was a tiny camel, two-humped and heavy – Ellery guessed it was of some lead alloy, like the toy soldiers of an earlier generation – on to which a skin of grey and white enamel had been baked. As in the case of the little house, there was no clue to its make or origin.
    â€˜Mediterranean, I think,’ Rusty said.
    â€˜More likely Asiatic,’ Ellery said. ‘The two-humped camel is Bactrian, not Arabian. Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter where these things came from, although someone’s gone to the devil of a lot of trouble for the sake of whatever it is he has in mind. I wonder what the juxtaposition of these three objects is supposed to convey …’
    â€˜Lunacy,’ Dr. Dark said promptly.
    â€˜I don’t think so, Doctor, tempting as the suggestion is. The verse seems a bit too lucid. By the way, has anyone seen any of these things before?’
    There was a general shaking of heads.
    â€˜I don’t get this at all,’ John said angrily.
    â€˜I do!’ Olivette Brown cried. ‘There’s a spirit-influence at work. I