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The Last Woman in His Life
By Ellery Queen MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media
Copyright © 1970 Ellery Queen
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1710-7
CHAPTER 1
The First Life
And so Ellery stood there, watching the BOAC jet take the Scot away.
He was still standing alone on his island when a hand touched his.
He turned around and it was, of all people, Inspector Queen.
"El," his father said, squeezing his arm. "Come on, I'll buy you a cup of coffee."
The old boy always comes through, Ellery thought over his second cup in the airport restaurant.
"Son, you can't monkey around in this business without once in a while running into the back of your own hand," the Inspector said. "It didn't have to happen this way. You let yourself get involved with the guy. If I allowed myself that kind of foolishness I'd have had to toss my shield in years ago. Human flesh can't stand it."
Ellery raised his hand as if the other were on the Bible. "So help me Hannah, I'll never make that mistake again."
Having said this, he found his glance coming to rest on Benedict and Marsh, in man-to-man conversation at the other side of the dining room.
All men, Shaw said, mean well.
Not excluding Ellery. What was this but the familiar Chance Encounter? Time lines converging for the moment, a brief nostalgia, then everyone on his way and no harm done?
Had he but known.
It began, as such apparently meaningless reunions do, with grips, grins, and manly warmth. The pair immediately accepted Ellery's invitation to move over to the Queen table. They had not laid eyes on him, and vice versa, since Harvard.
To Inspector Queen, Marsh was just a citizen named Marsh. But he had certainly heard of Benedict — Johnny-B to the world of jet, a charter member of Raffles, fixed star of the lady columnists, crony of nobility, habitué of Monaco, Kitzbühel, and the yachting isles of Greece. January might find Benedict at the winter festival in Málaga; February in Garmisch-Partenkirchen; March in Bloemfontein for the national games; April at the Songkran Festival in Chiangmai; May in Copenhagen for the royal ballet; June at Epsom Downs for the English Oaks and at Newport and Cork for the transatlantic yacht races; July at Henley and Bayreuth; August at Mystic for the Outdoor Art Festival; September in Luxembourg for the wine; October in Turin for the auto show; November at Madison Square Garden for the horse show; and December at Makaha Beach for the surfing championships. These were only typical; Johnny-B had a hundred other entertainments up his sleeve. Ellery had always thought of him as a run-for-your-life man without the pathological stopwatch.
John Levering Benedict III toiled not (toil, he liked to argue, was man's silliest waster of time), neither did he spin except in the social whirl. He was charming without the obvious streak of rot that ran through his set, a fact that never palled on the press assigned to the Beautiful People. He was even handsome, a not common attribute of his class (in whom the vintage tended to sour) — on the slight side, below-average tall, with fine fair hair women adored stroking, and delicate hands and feet. He was, of course, sartorially ideal; year after year he sauntered onto the Ten Best-Dressed list. There was something anciently Grecian about him, a to-the-bone beauty as fine as the texture of his hair.
Johnny-B's paternal grandfather had staked out a stout chunk of the Olympic Peninsula and the timberlands around Lake Chelan to become one of the earliest lumber barons of the Pacific Northwest. His father had invested in shipping, piling Pelion on Ossa — that is to say, according to the gossip, leaving the difficulty of spending the resultant riches to Johnny. In Johnny's set it was often pointed out that with a fortune in the multimillions the feat could not easily be done; that past a certain point great wealth is hard to redistribute. That Johnny tried manfully is a matter of public record. Alimony apparently made mere dents, only enough to bruise; he had just divorced his third wife.
The leash on the runaway tendencies of Johnny Benedict was said to be Al Marsh. Marsh, too, came from a society tree, and he was luxuriously nested in his own right from birth. But he grew up to toil and spin, from choice. With Marsh it was not a question of avarice or anxiety over his wealth; he worked, said those who knew him well, because the life-style of his world bored him. Dilettantism in vacuo had no appeal for him. He had taken top honors at Harvard Law, gone on to serve a brilliant apprenticeship to a United States Supreme Court justice, and emerged into the cynical realities of Washington and New York to found a law firm of his own that, with the aid of his family's influence and connections, quietly acquired a sterling clientele and a hallmark reputation. He had offices in both cities.
Experts in such matters nominated Marsh one of the matrimonial catches of any season whatever. He was unfailingly attractive to women, whom he handled with the same tact he brought to his practice of law, and not only because he was elusive. He was a bigger man than Benedict, darkly rugged, with a smashed nose from his college wrestling days, a jaw that looked as if it had been mined in Colorado, and a naturally squinty set to the eyes — "the Marlboro type," Johnny called him affectionately — who seemed born to saddle horses and foreign cars. He had a fondness for both which he indulged when he could find the time, and a passion for flying; he piloted his own plane with a grim devotion that could only be explained by the fact that his father had died in one.
As so often happens in the case of men to whom women respond, other men did not take to Marsh easily. Some called it his aloofness, others his reserve, others his "standoffishness"; whatever it was, it caused Marsh to have a very small circle of friends. Johnny Benedict was one of the few.
Their relationship was not altogether personal. Johnny had inherited from his father the services of an ancient and prestigious law firm which had handled three generations of Benedict investments; but for the management of his personal affairs he relied on Marsh.
"Of course you just flew in from the moon," Ellery said. "It's about the only place, from what I hear, you've never been."
"Matter of fact, I got off the jet from London fifteen minutes ago, and Al here got off with me," Benedict said. "We had some business in London, and th-then there was that auction at S-Sotheby's."
"Which of course you had to attend."
"Please," Marsh said in a pained way. "Amend the auxiliary verb. I know of no law that compels a man to drop what Johnny just dropped for that Monet."
Benedict laughed. "Aren't you always lecturing me about spending my m-money so I've a fighting chance for a profit?" He not only stammered, he had difficulty with his r's, giving his speech a definite charm. It was hard to see a rapacious capitalist in a man who pronounced it "pwofit."
"Are you the guy who bought that thing?" Inspector Queen exclaimed. "Paid all that loot for a hunk of old canvas and a few francs' worth of paint?"
"Don't tell us what you got it for, Johnny," Ellery said. "I can't retain figures like that. I suppose you're going to convert it into a dartboard for your game room, or something equally kicky?"
Marsh signaled for the waiter. "You've been listening to Johnny's detractors. Another round, please. He really knows art."
"I really do," Benedict said, pronouncing it "weally." "So help m-me Ripley. I'd like you to see my c-collection sometime." He added politely, "You, too, Inspector Queen."
"Thanks, but include me out," the Inspector said. "My son calls me a cultural barbarian. Behind my back, of course. He's too well brought up to say it frontwards."
"As for me, Johnny," Ellery said, scowling at pater, "I don't believe I could bear it. I've never quite adjusted to the unequal distribution of wealth."
"How about the unequal distribution of brains?" Benedict retorted. "From what I've read about you and the Glory Guild case, not to m-mention all those other mental miracles you bring off, you're a second cousin of Einstein's." Something in Ellery's face drove the banter from Benedict's voice. "Have I said s-something?"
"Ellery's fagged," his father said quickly. "The Guild case was a tough one, and just before that he'd been on a round-the-world research trip in some far-out places where there's no charge for the bedbugs or trots, and that took the starch out of his hide. As a matter of fact, I've some vacation time coming, and we were thinking of taking off for a couple of weeks of peace and quiet somewhere."
"Ask Johnny," Marsh said. "He knows all the places, especially the ones that aren't listed."
"No, thanks," Ellery said. "Not Johnny's places."
"You've got the w'ong idea about me, Ellery," Benedict protested. "What's today?"
"Monday."
"No, the date."
"March twenty-third."
"Well, just before I flew to London — on the nineteenth, if you want to check — I was in Valencia for the Festival of St. Joseph. W-wild? Before that I attended the Vienna Spring Fair, and before that — the third, I think — I was in Tokyo for the dollie festival. How's that? C-cultural, wouldn't you say? Non-wastrel? Al, am I bragging again?"
"Brag on, Johnny," Marsh said. "That kind of self-puff helps your image. God knows it can use help."
Ellery remarked, "Dad and I were thinking of something less, ah, elaborate."
"Fresh air, long walks, fishing," Inspector Queen said. "Ever go fishing, Mr. Benedict? I mean in a mountain stream all by your lone, with a rod that didn't cost three hundred dollars? The simple pleasures of the poor, that's what we're after."
"Then you may call me Doc, Inspector, because I have just the prescription for you both." Benedict glanced at Marsh. "Are you with it, Al?"
"Ahead of you," Marsh chuckled. "A rowboat gets you a cabin cruiser Ellery doesn't know."
"Know?" Ellery said. "Know what?"
"I own a place up in New England," Johnny Benedict said, "that very few people are aware I h-have. Not a bit doggy, plenty of w-woods, an unpolluted stream stocked with you name it — and I've fished it with a spruce pole I cut and trimmed myself, Inspector, and had splendid luck — and a guest cottage about a quarter of a mile from the main h-house that's as private as one of d-dear Ari's deals. It's all terribly heimisch, Ellery, and I know you and your f-father would enjoy it. You're welcome to use the cottage for as long as you like. I give you my oath no one will bother you."
"Well," Ellery began, "I don't know what to say. ..."
"I do," the Inspector said promptly. "Thank you!"
"I mean, where in New England?"
Benedict and Marsh exchanged amused glances again. "Smallish town," Benedict said. "Doubt if you've heard of it, Ellery. Of no c-consequence whatsoever. W'ightsville."
"Wightsville?" Ellery stopped. "Wrightsville? You, Johnny? Own property up there?"
"For years and years."
"But I never knew!"
"Told you. I've kept it top-hush. Bought it through a dummy, just so I could have a place to let my hair d-down when I want to get away from it all, which is oftener than you'd think."
"I'm sorry, Johnny," Ellery said, beating his breast. "I've been an absolute stinker."
"It's modest — bourgeois, in fact. Down my great-grandfather's alley. He w-was a carpenter, by the way."
"But why Wrightsville, of all places?"
Benedict grinned. "You've advertised it enough."
"Well, I swan. Wrightsville happens to be my personal prescription for what periodically ails me."
"As if he didn't know," Marsh said. "He's followed your adventures, Ellery, the way Marcus Antonius followed Caesar's. Johnny's especially keen on your Wrightsville yarns. Keeps checking them for mistakes."
"This, gentlemen, is going to be the resumption of a beautiful friendship," Ellery said. "You sure we wouldn't be putting you out, Johnny?"
They went through the time-honored ritual of protest and reassurance, shook hands all around, and that evening a messenger brought an envelope that contained two keys and a scribbled note:
"Dear Sour-Puss: The smaller key is to the guest house. The other unlocks the main house, in case you want to get in there for something — grub, booze, clothing, whatever, it's always stocked. (So is the guest house, by the way, though not so bountifully.) Use anything you need or want from either place. Nobody's up there now (I have no live-in caretaker, though an old character named Morris Hunker comes out from town occasionally to keep an eye on things), and judging from the foul mood you were in today you need all the healing solitude my retreat in Wrightsville can provide. Bonne chance, and don't grouch your old man — he looks as if he can use some peace, too.
Fondly, Johnny
P.S.: I may come up there soon myself. But I won't bother you. Not unless you want to be bothered."
The Queens set down at Wrightsville Airport a few minutes past noon the next day.
The trouble with Wrightsville — and Wrightsville had developed trouble, in Ellery's view — was that it had perfidiously kept step with the twentieth century.
Where his favorite small town was concerned Ellery was a mossback conservative, practically a reactionary. He was all for Thursday night band concerts in Memorial Park, with the peanut and popcorn whistles chirping tweet-tweet like excited birds, the streets lined with gawky boys ogling self-conscious girls and people from the outlying farms in town in their town-meetin' best; and Saturday the marketing day, with the black-red mills of Low Village shut down and High Village commerce swinging.
He felt a special attachment for the Square (which was round), with its periphery of two-story frame buildings (except for the Hollis Hotel, which towered five stories, and Upham House, a three-and-attic Revolutionary-era inn); in its mathematical center the time-treated memorial to Jezreel Wright, who had founded Wrightsville on an abandoned Indian site in 1701 — a bronze statue long since turned to verdigris and festooned with so many bird droppings it looked like a modern sculpture, and at its feet a trough which had watered half a dozen generations of Wrightsville horseflesh. The Square was like a wheel with five spokes leading from its hub: State Street, Lower Main, Washington, Lincoln, Upper Dade; the grandest of these being State with its honor guard of century-old trees, the repository of the gilt-domed redbrick Town Hall and the County Court House building (how many times had he walked up the alley to the side entrance that opened into the Wrightsville police department!), the Carnegie Library across the street (where it was still possible to find books by Henty, Richard Harding Davis, and Joseph Hergesheimer!), the Chamber of Commerce building, the Wrightsville Light & Power Company, and the Northern State Telephone Company; and far from least, at the State Street entrance to Memorial Park, the Our Boys Memorial and the American Legion bandstand. About the Square in those days had been displayed some of the finest fruit of Wrightsville's heritage — the tiny gold John F. Wright, Pres. on the dusty windows of the Wrightsville National Bank, the old Bluefield Store, the "Minikin Road" on the street marker visible from the corner window of the Bon Ton, and half a dozen other names passed down from the founding families.
Upper Whistling Avenue, which crossed State Street a block northeast of the Square, led up to Hill Drive, where some of the oldest residential properties had stood (even older ones, great square black-shuttered clapboard affairs, most gone to pot even in Ellery's earliest acquaintance, occupied the farther reaches of State Street). Upper Dade ran northwest up to North Hill Drive, which had been taken over by the estates of Wrightsville's nouveaux riches (a nouveau riche, in the view of the Wrights, Bluefields, Dades, Granjons, Minikins, Livingstons, et al., being anyone who had made his pile after the administration of Rutherford B. Hayes).
Most of this was gone. The store fronts of the Square were like the façades of the commercial buildings fronting Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley running out of Hollywood, one of Ellery's favorite abominations — lofty modernisms in glass, stucco, redwood, and neon absurdly dwarfing the mean little stores that cowered behind them. The Hollis, which risked a new marquee just before World War II, had recklessly undertaken a complete face-lift, coming out contemporary and (to his mind) disgusting. The New York Department Store and the High Village Pharmacy had vanished, and the Bon Ton had taken over the entire plinth between Washington and Lincoln Streets and rebuilt from the ground up what to Ellery's sickened eye was a miniature Korvette's. The Atomic War Surplus Outlet Store was of course no more, and the eastern arc of the Square was almost all new.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Last Woman in His Life by Ellery Queen. Copyright © 1970 Ellery Queen. Excerpted by permission of MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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