Free The Origin of Evil by Ellery Queen Page B

that’s my mother, Mr. Queen.’
    â€˜I know,’ said Ellery, a bit stiffly. ‘Had Priam and Hill known each other well before they started the jewellery business, Macgowan?’
    â€˜I don’t know.’ The giant put his arm about Laurel’s waist.
    â€˜I suppose they did. They must have,’ Laurel said in a helpless way, absently removing the arm. ‘I realize now how little I know about Dad’s past.’
    â€˜Or I about Roger’s,’ said Crowe, marching two fingers up Laurel’s back. She wriggled and said, ‘Oh, stop it, Mac.’ He got up. ‘Neither of them ever talked about it.’ He went over to the other end of the platform and stretched out again.
    â€˜Apparently with reason. Leander Hill and Roger Priam had a common enemy in the old days, someone they thought was dead. He says they tried to put him out of the way, and he’s spent over twenty years tracking them down.’
    Ellery began to walk about, avoiding Crowe Macgowan’s arms.
    â€˜Dad tried to murder somebody?’ Laurel bit her thumb.
    â€˜When you yell bloody murder, Laurel,’ said Ellery, ‘you’ve got to be prepared for a certain echo of nastiness. This kind of murder,’ he said, lighting a cigarette and placing it between her lips, ‘is never nice. It’s usually rooted in pretty mucky soil. Priam means nothing to you, and your father is dead. Do you still want to go through with this? You’re my client, you know, not Mrs. Priam. At her own suggestion.’
    â€˜Did Mother come to you?’ exclaimed Macgowan.
    â€˜Yes, but we’re keeping it confidential.’
    â€˜I didn’t know she cared,’ muttered the giant.
    Ellery lit a cigarette for himself.
    Laurel was wrinkling her nose and looking a little sick.
    Ellery tossed the match overside. ‘Whoever composed that note is on a delayed murder spree. He wants revenge badly enough to have nursed it for over twenty years. A quick killing doesn’t suit him at all. He wants the men who injured him to suffer, presumably, as he’s suffered. To accomplish this he starts a private war of nerves. His strategy is all plotted. Working from the dark, he makes his first tactical move … the warning, the first of the “special meanings” he promises. Number one is — of all things — a dead pooch, number two whatever was in the box to Roger Priam — I wonder what it was, by the way! You wouldn’t know, Mac, would you?’
    â€˜I wouldn’t know anything about my mother’s husband,’ replied Macgowan.
    â€˜And he means to send other warnings with other “gifts” which have special meanings. To Priam exclusively now — Hill foxed him by dying at once. He’s a man with a fixed idea, Laurel, and an obsessive sense of injury. I really think you ought to keep out of his way. Let Priam defy him. It’s his skin, and if he needs help he knows where he can apply for it.’
    Laurel threw herself back on the platform, blowing smoke to the appliquéd sky.
    â€˜Don’t you feel you have to act like the heroine of a magazine serial?’
    Laurel did not reply.
    â€˜Laurel, drop it. Now.’
    She rolled her head. ‘I don’t care what Daddy did. People make mistakes, even commit crimes, who are decent and nice. Sometimes events force you, or other people. I knew him — as a human being — better than anyone in creation. If he and Roger Priam got into a mess, it was Roger who thought up the dirty work … The fact that he wasn’t my real father makes it even more important. I owe him everything.’ She sat up suddenly. ‘I’m not going to stay out of this, Ellery. I can’t.’
    â€˜You’ll find, Queen,’ scowled young Macgowan in the silence that followed, ‘that this is a very tough number.’
    â€˜Tough she may be, my Tarzanian friend,’ grumbled Ellery,