Kill as Directed

Kill as Directed by Ellery Queen Read Free Book Online Page A

Book: Kill as Directed by Ellery Queen Read Free Book Online
Authors: Ellery Queen
and perform miracles with dead bodies—depositing them, for example, where they don’t belong.”
    â€œIn other words, I’d better accept your proposal, or you’ll frame me for something nice and ripe.”
    â€œHarry, did I say anything like that? Or imply it? It was simply a demonstration, preliminary to this talk.”
    Dr. Harrison Brown rose, picked up the check for twenty-five thousand dollars, stored it in his wallet and put his wallet away. He left Gresham smiling.
    Outside, in the warm Fifth Avenue sunshine, Dr. Brown shivered. It was not from fear. It was from self-disgust. He had simply been unable to resist the money.

FOUR
    In time, Dr. Harrison Brown became aware of the compassion of Lieutenant Galivan, or of what he believed to be his compassion. This belief in Galivan’s compassion did not spring from any overt act on the lieutenant’s part; to the contrary. For four weeks and a fraction thereof, nothing appeared in the newspapers about Lynne Maxwell.
    To this absence of news about the dead girl Dr. Brown gave much thought. The corpse of a Greenwich Village artist found in an apartment where she did not belong would be sensational news anywhere. Then why wasn’t there one word about it in the papers? Obviously because Galivan had sat on the story. The lieutenant was wise and experienced; the lieutenant was compassionate. God bless the lieutenant, said the doctor silently. He would never again have to hear the name Lynne Maxwell.
    But he did hear it again, four weeks and a fraction after the event, on a Sunday night following an afternoon of golf at Taugus in Connecticut.
    The Greshams, members of the Taugus Country Club, had put him up for membership and he had been accepted: he could now afford it. He played golf on most Sunday afternoons, and this Sunday afternoon the fourth player was to be Dr. Alfred McGee Stone, another member of the club.
    â€œStone? I don’t know him,” Harry said.
    â€œHe’s dying to meet you,” Kurt Gresham said.
    â€œWhy?”
    Tony Mitchell said, “Maybe he thinks you’re grist for his mill.”
    â€œWhat’s his mill?”
    â€œHe’s director of the Taugus Institute.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œIt’s charity,” Karen Gresham said.
    Tony Mitchell said, “Maybe he’s heard of you , Harry. Wants to pluck you from the ranks and institutionalize you.”
    â€œNonsense,” Karen Gresham said. “These jokers are giving you the business, Harry.”
    â€œNo, really,” Kurt Gresham said. “Dr. Stone’s been asking about Harry ever since I mentioned his name.”
    Dr. Alfred McGee Stone was tall, wire-thin and bald, with a good sunburn, wolfish teeth, an Arab’s nose and rimless glasses which kept slipping down his beak. He acknowledged his introduction to Harry heartily: his clasp was powerful and a little impatient. The rest had been golf. Dr. Stone played a whale of a game, all in silence.
    But at the bar in the clubhouse afterward, they had been alone for a while and Stone said, “Harrison Brown. I’ve heard about you.”
    Harry squinted. “From whom?”
    â€œDr. Peter Alexander Gross. The astonishing Pete Gross. I understand you were one of his wonder kids.”
    â€œDr. Peter Gross! How is he?”
    â€œAs always. Indestructible.”
    Dr. Peter Alexander Gross had been his professor of surgery, one of those legendary teachers who inspire worship. Harry had never forgotten their many wonderful nights of talk.
    â€œI love that man,” Harry said simply.
    â€œHe thinks a lot of you, Brown.”
    â€œThat’s very kind of him.” I wonder, he thought, what Dr. Peter Alexander Gross would think of his wünderkind now.… Harry said abruptly, “What’s this all about, Dr. Stone?”
    Stone used a bony middle finger to push his glasses up on his bridgeless nose. “Dr. Gross and I have

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