Which Way to Die? by Ellery Queen Read Free Book Online Page B

are solid plate glass with ventilator louvers only a mouse could get through. They don’t open; with air-conditioning they don’t have to.”
    Corrigan suddenly remembered why the building had bothered him. He had never been in it before, but it had been pointed out to him years ago.
    â€œThis used to be Marty Martello’s penthouse!”
    â€œRight,” Frank said with a twisted grin. “Back in the days of gang wars, when a fortress was a must for the top bananas. But since the Cosa Nostra has outlawed that sort of thing, the big boys don’t need such protection anymore. Marty sold the building about three years ago and bought that big estate of his on the Hudson. I read about it in a feature article at the time he made the move.”
    Corrigan stared at him. “So this place was your idea?”
    â€œSure. When old Narwald and Fellows were discussing where to hide us out for a couple of weeks, I remembered the article and suggested they find out if the penthouse was vacant. It was, and they rented it through an intermediary.” He looked delighted with himself. “What a joke on Martello!”
    â€œDidn’t it occur to you that since he planned the place, he knows the layout of the building thoroughly? Maybe he’s got a trick or two up his sleeve you know nothing about” He squinted at Gerry Alstrom. “You’re both supposed to be geniuses. Why didn’t you think of that when Frank didn’t?”
    Young Alstorm’s lip curled. “We conferred on it, fuzz. Anybody with an ounce of the gray stuff would figure Marty planned it to be impregnable. Anyway, we’ve got the psychological advantage. Would he even dream that we’re holing up in the very place he built?”
    â€œYou’re wasting your breath on him, Gerry,” Frank said. He snickered again.
    I’ll have to get out of here, Corrigan thought, before I bang their pinheads together. At the same time he had to admit—to himself—that for a would-be assassin to get to the roof apartment in this setup would be very difficult, if not impossible. And Martello had seen to it that no one could draw a bead on him from a nearby rooftop. He had made a careful note of the buildings in the neighborhood, and there was not a roof within rifle range that, with normal precautions, could be used as a vantage point for a shot. The tallest building in the area was a nine-story apartment house directly across the street from the side that he had mentally tagged as the “back yard.” The flower bed running all around the place served as a psychological deterrent from stepping close to the wall. And only from close to the wall would anyone be visible to a sniper stationed on the roof of the nine-story building.
    A phone rang in the apartment, and Norma went to answer it. She was just hanging up when they joined her in the living room.
    â€œDad and Mrs. Grant and the two lawyers,” she said. “They’re down on eleven.”
    Chuck Baer closed the toggle switch in the foyer which allowed the elevator to be hauled down to eleven. A few moments later he trailed John Alstrom, Elizabeth Grant, and Narwald and Fellows into the living room.
    Corrigan waited. When they had traded clichés with Norma, he said curtly, “Did you people drive here directly from Ossining?”
    They looked at him, surprised by his tone. Narwald said, “Why, yes, certainly.”
    â€œEven after I told you that Martello and a carful of his hoods were waiting outside the prison?”
    The lawyers seemed startled. Fellows pushed manicured fingers through his gray mane. “You said you had run them off, Captain Corrigan. Naturally we thought …”
    He could not keep the disgust out of his voice. “And I was starting to think you’d worked out a pretty good security setup. Don’t you realize what you’ve just done? You’ve blown the whole thing. You bank on