Calamity Town by Ellery Queen Read Free Book Online Page B

that invitation when Nora and Jim weren’t so busy getting settled; and he left as Nora said: ‘Such a mess of boxes, Jimmy!’ and Jim grunted: ‘You never know how many books you’ve got till you start packing ‘em. Ed, lug these boxes down the cellar meanwhile, huh?’
    The last thing Ellery saw was Jim and Nora in each other’s arms. Mr Queen grinned. If the bride’s house hid a calamity within its walls, the calamity was hidden superlatively well.
    * * *
    Ellery attacked his novel with energy. Except for mealtimes he remained within the sanctuary of his quarters on the top floor, the whole of which Hermy had placed at his disposal. Hermy and Pat and Ludie could hear his portable clacking away until immoral hours. He saw little of Jim and Nora, although at dinner he kept his ears alert for dissonances in the family talk. But Jim and Nora seemed happy. At the bank Jim had found waiting for him a private office with a new oak desk and a bronze plaque saying MR HAIGHT V.-PRES. Old customers dropped in to wish him luck and ask about Nora, not without a certain vulturous hope.
    The little house was popular, too. The ladies of the Hill called and called, and Nora gave them tea and smiles. Sharp eyes probed corners, looking for dust and despair; but they were disappointed, and Nora giggled over their frustrated curiosity. Hermy was very proud of her married daughter.
    So Mr Queen decided he had been an imaginative fool and that Calamity House was buried beyond resurrection. He began to make plans to invent a crime in his novel, since life was so uncooperative. And, because he liked all the characters, he was very glad.
    The twenty-ninth of October came and went, and with it the published figures of the Federal draft lottery in Washington. Jim and Carter Bradford drew high order-numbers; Mr Queen was observed to drop in at the Hollis Hotel early on the morning of the thirtieth for a New York newspaper, upon reading which he was seen by Mark Doodle’s son Grover to shrug and toss the paper away.
    The thirty-first was mad. People on the Hill answered mysterious doorbells all day. Menacing signs in colored chalk appeared on pavements. As evening came on, costumed gnomes began to flit about town, their faces painted and their arms flapping. Big sisters complained bitterly about the disappearance of various compacts and lipsticks, and many a gnome went to bed with a tingling bottom. It was all gay and nostalgic, and Mr Queen strolled about the neighborhood before dinner wishing he were young again, so that he, too, might enjoy the wicked pleasures of Hallowe’en. On his way back to the Wright house, he noticed that the Haight place next door was lit up; and on impulse he went up the walk and rang his ex-doorbell.
    But it was Pat, not Nora, who answered the door. ‘Thought you’d run out on me,’ said Pat. ‘We never see you any more.’ Ellery fed his eyes for a moment. ‘Now what?’ demanded Pat, blushing. ‘If you aren’t the wackiest man! Nora? It’s the famous author.’
    â€˜Come in!’ called Nora from the living room. He found her struggling with an armful of books, trying to pick up more from disorderly stacks on the floor.
    â€˜Here, let me help you,’ said Ellery.
    â€˜Oh, dear, no,’ said Nora. ‘You just watch us.’ And Nora plodded up the stairs.
    â€˜Nora’s turning the second bedroom upstairs into a study for Jim,’ explained Pat.
    Pat was stacking books from the floor in her arms and Ellery was idly examining titles on the half-filled bookshelves when Nora came downstairs for more books. ‘Where’s Jim, Nora?’ asked Ellery.
    â€˜At the bank,’ said Nora, stooping. ‘An awfully important director’s meeting.’ And just then a book slid off the top of the fresh pile in her arms, and another, and another, while Nora crouched there horrified at the cascade. Half the books were