Read Online The King is Dead by Ellery Queen - Free Book Online

suitcases, and then they waited. There was nothing else to do, for they could find no newspapers and the magnificent leather-bound books turned out to be discouraging eighteenth-century works in French and Latin. And from the windows nothing could be seen but foliage. The Inspector occupied himself for some time searching the suite for a secret transmitter, which he was positive was planted somewhere in the sitting room; but after a while he grew tired of even this diversion and began fuming.
    â€˜Damn it, what kind of runaround is this? What are we supposed to do, rot here? I’m going downstairs, Ellery!’
    â€˜Let’s wait, Dad. All this has a purpose.’
    â€˜To starve us out!’
    But Ellery was frowning over a cigarette. ‘I wonder why we’ve been brought to the island.’
    The Inspector stared.
    â€˜Abel hires us to investigate a couple of threatening letters received, he says, through the mail. The mail undoubtedly is flown here daily from the mainland by Bendigo’s planes. If those letters came through the mail, then, they emanated from the mainland. Why, then, does Abel ask us to investigate on the island ?’
    â€˜Because he thinks the letters came from the island!’
    â€˜Exactly. Someone’s slipping them into the pouches or into the already sorted Residence or Home Office mail.’ Ellery ground out his cigarette in a Royal Sèvres dish which was probably worth more than he had in the bank. ‘Which somebody? A clerk? Secretary? Footman? Guard? Factory hand? Lab worker? For anyone like that, the Prime Minister doesn’t have to make a special trip to New York, with a side visit to Washington, to engage the services of a couple of outsiders. That kind of job could be polished off by Colonel Spring’s department in about two hours flat.’
    â€˜So it gets down to … what?’ Ellery looked up. ‘To somebody big, Dad.’
    But the Inspector was shaking his head. ‘The bigger the game, the less likelihood that Bendigo would call in an outsider.’
    â€˜That’s right.’
    â€˜That’s right? But you just said —’
    â€˜That’s right, and that’s wrong, too. So none of it sets on the stomach. In fact,’ and Ellery fumbled for another cigarette, ‘I’m positively bilious.’
    That was when the telephone tinkled and Ellery leaped to answer it, almost knocking his father down. Abel Bendigo’s calm twang said he was terribly sorry but his brother King was being a bit difficult this evening and in Abel’s considered judgement it would be a lot smarter not to press matters at the moment. If the Queens didn’t mind dining alone …?
    â€˜Of course not, Mr. Bendigo, but we’re anxious to get going on the investigation.’
    â€˜Tomorrow will be better,’ said the Yankee voice in the tones of a physician soothing a fretful patient.
    â€˜Are we to wait in these rooms for your call?’
    â€˜Oh, no, Mr. Queen. Do anything you like, go anywhere you please. I’ll find you when I want you.’ Perhaps to get by the ironical implications of this statement, the Prime Minister said hurriedly, ‘Good night,’ and hung up.
    Dinner was served in their suite from warming ovens and other portable paraphernalia by a butler and three serving-men under the cadaver’s eye of a perfect official who introduced himself as the Chief Steward of the Residence and thereafter uttered not a single word.
    It was like dining in a tomb, and the Queens did not enliven the occasion. They ate in silence, exactly what they could not afterward recall except that it was rich, saucy, and French, in keeping with the décor .
    Then, in the same nervous silence, and because there was nothing else to do, they went to bed.
    There was no note from Abel Bendigo on their plates the next morning, and the telephone failed to ring. So after breakfast Ellery proposed a tour of the