The New Adventures of Ellery Queen by Ellery Queen Read Free Book Online

like a fat snake and the blow missed. The violent effort pivoted Keith’s body completely about; the decanter slipped from his fingers and flew into the fireplace, crashing to pieces. The fragments splattered all over the fireplace, strewing the hearth, too; the little brandy that remained in the bottle hissed into the fire, blazing with a blue flame.
    â€œThat decanter,” said Dr. Reinach angrily, “was almost a hundred and fifty years old!”
    Keith stood still, his broad back to them. They could see his shoulders heaving.
    Ellery sighed with the queerest feeling. The room was shimmering as in a dream, and the whole incident seemed unreal, like a scene in a play on a stage. Were they acting? Had the scene been carefully planned? But, if so, why? What earthly purpose could they have hoped to achieve by pretending to quarrel and come to blows? The sole result had been the wanton destruction of a lovely old decanter. It didn’t make sense.
    â€œI think,” said Ellery, struggling to his feet, “that I shall go to bed before the Evil One comes down the chimney. Thank you for an altogether extraordinary evening, gentlemen. Coming, Thorne?”
    He stumbled up the stairs, followed by the lawyer, who seemed as weary as he. They separated in the cold corridor, without a word, to stumble to their respective bedrooms. From below came a heavy silence.
    It was only as he was throwing his trousers over the footrail of his bed that Ellery recalled hazily Thorne’s whispered intention hours before to visit him that night and explain the whole fantastic business. He struggled into his dressing gown and slippers and shuffled down the hall to Thorne’s room. But the lawyer was already in bed, snoring stertorously.
    Ellery dragged himself back to his room and finished undressing. He knew he would have a head the next morning; he was a notoriously poor drinker. His brain spinning, he crawled between the blankets and fell asleep almost instantly.
    He opened his eyes after a tossing, tiring sleep with the uneasy conviction that something was wrong. For a moment he was aware only of the ache in his head and the fuzzy feel of his tongue; he did not remember where he was. Then, as his glance took in the faded wallpaper, the pallid patches of sunlight on the worn blue carpet, his trousers tumbled over the footrail where he had left them the night before, memory returned; and, shivering, he consulted his wristwatch, which he had forgotten to take off on going to bed. It was five minutes to seven. He raised his head from the pillow in the frosty air of the bedroom; his nose was half-frozen. But he could detect nothing wrong; the sun looked brave if weak in his eyes; the room was quiet and exactly as he had seen it on retiring; the door was closed. He snuggled between the blankets again.
    Then he heard it. It was Thorne’s voice. It was Thorne’s voice raised in a thin faint cry, almost a wail, coming from somewhere outside the house.
    He was out of bed and at the window in his bare feet in one leap. But Thorne was not visible at this side of the house, upon which the dead woods encroached directly; so he scrambled back to slip shoes on his feet and his gown over his pajamas, darted toward the footrail and snatched his revolver out of the hip pocket of his trousers, and ran out into the corridor, heading for the stairs, the revolver in his hand.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” grumbled someone, and he turned to see Dr. Reinach’s vast skull protruding nakedly from the room next to his.
    â€œDon’t know. I heard Thorne cry out,” and Ellery pounded down the stairs and flung open the front door.
    He stopped within the doorway, gaping.
    Thorne, fully dressed, was standing ten yards in front of the house, facing Ellery obliquely, staring at something outside the range of Ellery’s vision with the most acute expression of terror on his gaunt face Ellery had ever seen on a human