QED by Ellery Queen Read Free Book Online Page A

disguised:
    12/1/65
    Mum’s the word. If you tell what you know I’ll kill you, too .
    There was no signature.
    Was this a new development? Hardly. All it did was obfuscate the mystification. The letter was from a not too uncommon type—the garrulous murderer; but what was he, Ellery, supposed to “know”? Whatever it was, he ardently wished he knew it.
    He began to chew on the problem. After a while he began to look more cheerful. Obviously, his supposed knowledge was dangerous to the murderer. A yeast was therefore at work in the brew. Fear—the killer’s fear—might produce a viscid potion on which the killer would choke.
    Ellery slipped the letter into his pocket and left the house.
    He drove the station wagon to Connhaven, where he made for the Merrimac campus. Here he sought out the university museum. In the main office of the tomblike building he found waiting for him—he had telephoned ahead for the appointment—Wolcott Thorp.
    â€œYou have me all atwitter, Mr. Queen.” The curator touched Ellery’s hand with his papery paw. “And not entirely at ease. I assume you’re working on poor Godfrey’s murder. Why me?”
    â€œYou’re a suspect,” Ellery pointed out.
    â€œOf course!” And Thorp hastened to add, “Aren’t we all? If I’m acting guilty, it’s human nature.”
    â€œThat’s the trouble, or one of them.” Ellery smiled. “I’m familiar with the psychology of guilt by confrontation, even of the innocent. But that’s not what I’m here for, so stop worrying. A museum to me is what the circus is to small boys. Do you have time to show me around yours?”
    â€œOh, yes!” Thorp began to beam.
    â€œI’m curious about your particular field. It’s West Africa, isn’t it?”
    The beam became sheer sunshine. “My friend,” said Wolcott Thorp, “come with me! No, this way …”
    For the next hour Ellery was the beneficiary of the man’s genuine erudition. Ellery’s interest was by no means simulated. He had a deep-rooted feeling for antiquity and anthropology (what was it but detection of a different kind?), and he was fascinated by the artifacts Thorp showed him from what had been western Sudan and the district of Kayes on the Senegal—idols and tutelary gods, fetishes, masks, charms, headdresses of pompons used by the Mandingos to ward off the powers of evil.
    Happily inundated with information, Ellery finally interrupted the curator’s flow long enough to ask for a sheet of paper on which to make notes. The curator obliged with a piece of museum stationery; and Ellery, preparing to notate, forced himself back from the dark tribalisms of Africa.
    The inscription on the museum letterhead was arranged in two lines. The top line was simply the initials of the museum; the line below spelled out the full name: Merrimac University Museum.
    The top line … MUM.
    Thorp had excused himself for a moment; and folding the paper, clean of unnoted notes, Ellery took from his pocket the anonymous letter he had picked up from the salver that morning. He was about to insert the museum letterhead into the envelope when his attention was caught by the envelope’s scrawled salutation.
    To Ellery .
    No, that was wrong!
    To was correct enough, as he had read it, but not Ellery . The final letter had a long tail on it; this tail had been the cause of his mistaken reading. On re-examination the ry was not an ry at all; it was a straggle-tailed n .
    To Ellen .
    It was Ellen who knew something dangerous to the killer.
    It was Ellen who was being threatened.
    Wolcott Thorp, returning, was astounded to see his visitor clap a hand to his head, jam a letter into his pocket, and dart out without so much as a fare-thee-well.
    Crouched over the wheel of the station wagon, Ellery roared back to Wrightsville and the Mumford house, cursing every impediment that forced