A Room to Die In by Jack Vance, Ellery Queen Read Free Book Online

under a reef of cloud, producing a strange watery light, the color
of weak tea. Ann felt cross and restless.
    She mixed
herself a highball and, dropping onto the couch, stared out the window. She
almost wished that she had accepted Tarr’s invitation. Though, considering the
circumstances . . . Inspector Thomas Tarr—Ann curled her lip, half in
amusement, half in disdain—a blond, affable, woman-chasing lout. Though the
affability might be only an act to lull wrongdoers. And suspects. There was no
use deceiving herself. Until the whole truth about her father’s death was
known, she was a suspect—of blackmail, at least.
    She ruminated
upon the events of the day. Tarr had refused to consider any other possibility
than suicide. Ann conceded that his case looked unshakable. It would be gratifying
to prove him wrong, or at least to demonstrate that suicide was not the only
possibility. She reviewed in her mind the various locked-room situations of
which she had read. None of the devices, illusions, or gimmicks seemed
applicable. The door and the window could not be manipulated from the outside.
Walls, floor, and ceiling were unquestionably sound. No one could possibly have
been hidden within the room, to make his exit after Tarr arrived. The
fireplace? Ann tried to imagine a long mechanical arm lowered ingeniously down
the chimney, thrust across the room, finally to fire a bullet into Roland
Nelson’s brain. Fantasy . . . Here was a startling idea: suppose Inspector
Tarr, Sergeant Ryan, and Martin Jones had banded together to kill Roland
Nelson! As Sherlock Homes had pointed out, when the possibilities had been
eliminated, what remained, no matter how improbable, must be truth. Still—Ann
told herself regretfully—suicide looked like the answer. Accident? Of course
that was always possible.
    Ann put aside
her conjectures. They were fruitless as well as tiring. Let Tarr worry about
it; he was paid to do so. Except that Tarr was too amiable to worry—in notable
contrast to the boorish Martin Jones. Ann wondered if Jones was married. If so,
God help his wife! . . .
    That made her
think of her own marriage to the hypersensitive Larry. A mollycoddle. Though,
to be sure, her mother had brought out the worst in him. A more virile
man—Martin Jones, for instance—would very quickly have set things straight with
Elaine.
    The thought of
Elaine prompted Ann to reach for the telephone. She dialed Operator and put in
a call to Mrs. Harvey Gluck, at 828 Pemberton Avenue, North Hollywood. A
peevish voice answered the ring: Mrs. Harvey Gluck was no longer residing
there. She had taken off several months before, leaving no forwarding address.
Ann shifted the call to Mr. Harvey Gluck, in Glendale. The connection was made,
the phone rang. No answer.
    Ann replaced the
receiver and went back to staring out the window. The sun had dropped from
sight; the underside of the clouds burned with gold, deepening to persimmon as
she watched. The room dimmed. Ann rose, switched on the lights, and mixed
another highball.
    She thought of
dinner, but the idea of cooking . . . Now, as a wealthy woman, she could call a
cab and dine at any restaurant in the city. If she chose. She did not choose;
it seemed a sordid thing to do, so soon after her father’s death—the source of
her good fortune.
    She had never
really been fond of her father, aware always of his subsurface streak of
cruelty. “Cruelty” was not the word. “Callousness” was better—though it still
failed to describe Roland Nelson and his devil-take-the-hindmost attitude. He
had asked no quarter from life, and he gave none: a mocking, cynical man,
austere, flamboyant, disliked by some women, irresistible to others . . .
    Jehane Cypriano.
Ann’s subconscious tossed up the name. She sipped her highball reflectively.
Roland Nelson would be attracted. But what of the woman’s husband? He looked
like a tyrant. What of Jehane herself?
    The telephone
rang. Telepathy might well have been at