Free The Golden Goose by Ellery Queen Page A

must have been the way his arms and legs were. Sort of scattered , if you know what I mean. And then, of course, he wasn’t breathing.”
    â€œDid you look closely at his face?”
    â€œNot hardly,” said Prin with a little shudder. “He was lying on his stomach, his head turned so only one side of his face showed. Anyway, it was dim in the room by that time.”
    â€œHow long were you up there?”
    â€œTwo minutes, I suppose.”
    â€œDid you touch anything?”
    â€œYou’ve already asked me that. I did not. I ran right downstairs and told everybody Uncle Slater was dead. No one would believe me.”
    â€œBy everybody you mean the people in this room now?”
    â€œExcept Coley—Mr. Collins. He didn’t come till later.”
    â€œDid anyone else go into that room between the time you found your uncle dead and the time Mr. Collins came?”
    â€œMy brother Brady. That was after I’d phoned Dr. Appleton.”
    â€œBrady.” Lieutenant Grundy looked around. “That’s you, I take it?”
    â€œRight, Lieutenant,” said Brady powerfully.
    â€œYou went upstairs to your uncle’s room?”
    â€œTo, but not in to, if you get the distinction,” said Brady.
    â€œYou didn’t actually set foot in the room?”
    â€œNot I. I had a quick look at Uncle Slater from the doorway, and came right back down.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you go in?”
    â€œI’m allergic to dead people. I break out in goose pimples.”
    â€œYou were satisfied that he was dead?”
    â€œI accepted it, but I can’t say that it gave me any satisfaction. He is dead, isn’t he?”
    â€œOh, he’s dead, all right.”
    â€œThen I can’t see why we have to keep going over and over it,” said Brother Brady crossly. “Do we have to circulate a petition to make it legal?”
    â€œIf Dr. Appleton’s right,” said Grundy grimly, “you people will need all the legality you can get.”
    â€œAnd if Dr. Appleton is not right,” piped Aunt Lallie spitefully, “I shall sue him for one million dollars.”
    The little old doctor walked over to Aunt Lallie, laughed in her face and walked back again.
    â€œLet’s not start the suing talk,” said Grundy, “not before we do a little more spadework. For instance: I want everyone here to tell me where he or she was and what he or she was doing this afternoon as nearly as he or she can remember it, which had better be the way it actually was if he or she knows what’s good for him or her. And we’ll start with … you! ” and his forefinger speared Aunt Lallie, who went very nearly blue as she jumped.
    This was the auspicious beginning of the most inauspicious interrogation thus far. No one, it seemed, had had anything significant to do, and no mnemonically linked place to do it; as a consequence, everyone had been all over the premises at one time or another during the day, and no one could be more specific than that. But Lieutenant Grundy persisted. Gradually he elicited a few statements that might vaguely be considered facts.
    Aunt Lallie had spent most of the afternoon in her room, she was sure of that, but she had been out of it once or twice for reasons that had slipped her mind. Cousin Peet had lain in the sun on the terrace, which Twig, Brady and Prin could verify; but then she had gone upstairs after talking with Prin. She had not the least idea what time that had been, time never having had any particular significance for her; and there was only her word that she had showered and admired her luscious nude self in her pier glass, for so far as she knew she had seen, and had been seen by, no one. Brady, after itchily leaving Peet on the terrace, had gone around back and knocked some golf balls around, which may have had something symbolic about it; and later, after sitting a while in the sun contemplating his navel