Read Online The Golden Goose by Ellery Queen - Free Book Online

about the actual situation as I could while I still had freedom of movement.”
    â€œWe both did,” added Prin, and she clamped an armlock on Coley. “And don’t let him tell you different, Lieutenant.”
    â€œI have no intention of interfering with Mr. Collins’s or your exercise of free speech,” replied Grundy, who seemed affected at last by the prevailing semantic elegance. “Inasmuch as you’ve both just admitted the doc’s charges are true. It will look even worse for you two if we find that he’s also right in suspecting that Slater O’Shea did not die of natural causes.”
    â€œYes,” piped Dr. Appleton, still doing his little dance. “And an autopsy will prove me right!”
    Cousin Twig, who had been edging stealthily out of the line of fire, started with violence at the word “autopsy.” He coughed just a little and advanced a half step. “Excuse me,” Twig said. “We probably have never adequately expressed our appreciation for your unselfish devotion to the professional care of Uncle Slater, Dr. Appleton, but you have my word—speaking for our entire little family—that we are grateful, sir, grateful beyond words, which is why we never expressed it. What I mean is—”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” growled Lieutenant Grundy, who seemed to have developed a dislike for Twig, not a difficult thing to do. And the truth was, his fawning speech to Dr. Appleton sounded like one great sneer, an unfortunate effect which Twig had not merely not intended but was wholly unaware of.
    â€œWhat I mean,” said Twig hurriedly, “is that we wouldn’t hurt Dr. Appleton for anything in the world, in view of our great debt to him—”
    â€œWhich reminds me,” said Dr. Appleton nastily. “Slater didn’t pay my last two bills.”
    â€œI mean,” continued Twig, his voice rising—here it comes, thought Prin; Twig can never keep his true feelings under cover for very long—“I mean, hurt Dr. Appleton or not hurt Dr. Appleton, to hell with this autopsy business! The answer is no! No autopsy! We forbid it!”
    â€œSo that’s it,” said Lieutenant Grundy, and Prin could have sworn she heard his rattles. “Well, let me tell you something, bud. If we find evidence of homicide, or even the suspicion of evidence of homicide, that uncle of yours is going to find himself on an autopsy table whether you forbid it or not!”
    â€œSpeaking purely in the spirit of science, Lieutenant,” said Coley, “I am all for it. How else can we prove that this once reasonably functioning disciple of Aesculapius is fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf?”
    â€œThat’s about it,” said Lieutenant Grundy. “I’ve hacked around this nuthouse long enough. Now I operate! You filberts go on in there and wait. Boatner, you come along with me.”
    Prin was startled to hear this strange name tossed suddenly into the conversation; but then she saw that the lieutenant was addressing the other plainclothes-man. Since entering the house with Grundy he had held up the lace-curtained front door, saying nothing and doing nothing—almost, as it were, being nothing. Prin could never afterward recall him in any way—as a face, for example, or as a voice, or as an influence on events to even a micrometric degree. If Boatner was important to Grundy, Grundy concealed it with cunning. Prin never saw him look at Boatner, even when speaking to him; and soon no one else looked at him, either.
    Now he followed Grundy up the stairs, and Dr. Appleton sank into a hall chair, wearily livid. Prin, Coley and Twig went into the living room, where Aunt Lallie, Peet and Brady were pretending to be mice with a cat loose on the premises.
    Aunt Lallie did not approve of Coley Collins (“on principal,” as Prin had told him, “since you don’t pay dividends”), and her