Free QED by Ellery Queen Page A
Authors: Ellery Queen
upstairs except Thorp, who went to the downstairs phone, called Dr. Farnham, then called you here at headquarters. And what did Thorp tell you? That Mumford had been found, not merely dead, but murdered . Why should Thorp have leaped to the conclusion that the old manâs death was unnatural unless he already knew it?
âYou know, Newby,â Ellery said with a half smile that apologized in advance, âWolcott Thorp would have been far, far better off if heâd followed his own advice andâforgive meâkept mum.â
CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS IN DEDUCTION
Object Lesson
Ellery hurried down West 92nd Street toward the main entrance of Henry Hudson High School stealing guilty glances at his watch. Miss Carpenter had been crisply specific about place, date, and time: her home room, 109; Friday morning, April 22nd; first period (âBell at 8:40 , Mr. Queenâ). Miss Carpenter, who had come to him with an unusual request, had struck him as the sort of dedicated young person who would not take kindly to a hitch in her crusade.
Ellery broke into an undignified lope.
The project for which she had enlisted his aid was formidable even for a crusading young teacher of Social Studies on the 9th Grade Junior High level. For two months merchants of the neighborhood had been reporting stores broken into by a teen-age gang. Beyond establishing that the crimes were the work of the same boys, who were probably students at Henry Hudson High School, the police had got nowhere.
Miss Carpenter, walking home from a movie late the previous Monday night, had seen three boys dive out of a smashed bakery window and vanish into an alley. She had recognized them as Howard Ruffo, David Strager, and Joey Buell, all 15-year-old home-room students of hers. The juvenile crime problem was solved.
But not for Miss Carpenter. Instead of going to the police, Miss Carpenter had gone to Ellery, who lived on West 87th Street and was a hero to the youth of the neighborhood. Howard, David, and Joey were not hardened delinquents, she had told him, and she could not see their arrest, trial, and imprisonment as the solution to anything. True, they had substituted gang loyalty for the love and security they were denied in their unhappy slum homes, but boys who worked at after-school jobs and turned every cent in at home were hardly beyond recall, were they? And she had told him just where each boy worked, and at what.
âTheyâre only patterning their behavior after criminals because they think criminals are strong, successful, and glamorous,â Miss Carpenter had said; and what she would like him to do was visit her class and, under the pretext of giving a talk on the subject of Notorious Criminals I Have Known, paint such a picture of weak, ratting, empty, and violently ending criminality that David and Joey and Howard would see the error of their ways.
It had seemed to Ellery that this placed a rather hefty burden on his oratorical powers. Did Miss Carpenter have her principalâs permission for this project?
No, Miss Carpenter had replied bravely, she did not have Mr. Hinsdaleâs permission, and she might very well lose her job when he heard about it. âBut Iâm not going to be the one who gives those boys the first shove toward reform school and maybe eventually a life sentence!â And besides, what did Mr. Queen have to lose but an hour of his time?
So Mr. Queen had feebly said yes, he would come; and here he was, at the door of the determined young womanâs classroom ⦠seven minutes late .
Ellery braced himself and opened the door.
The moment he set foot in the room he knew he had walked in on a catastrophe.
Louise Carpenter stood tensely straight at her desk, her pretty face almost as white as the envelope she was clutching. And she was glaring at a mass of boy and girl faces so blankly, so furtively quiet that the silence sizzled.
The first thing she said to him was, âIâve been
âYou know, Newby,â Ellery said with a half smile that apologized in advance, âWolcott Thorp would have been far, far better off if heâd followed his own advice andâforgive meâkept mum.â
CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS IN DEDUCTION
Object Lesson
Ellery hurried down West 92nd Street toward the main entrance of Henry Hudson High School stealing guilty glances at his watch. Miss Carpenter had been crisply specific about place, date, and time: her home room, 109; Friday morning, April 22nd; first period (âBell at 8:40 , Mr. Queenâ). Miss Carpenter, who had come to him with an unusual request, had struck him as the sort of dedicated young person who would not take kindly to a hitch in her crusade.
Ellery broke into an undignified lope.
The project for which she had enlisted his aid was formidable even for a crusading young teacher of Social Studies on the 9th Grade Junior High level. For two months merchants of the neighborhood had been reporting stores broken into by a teen-age gang. Beyond establishing that the crimes were the work of the same boys, who were probably students at Henry Hudson High School, the police had got nowhere.
Miss Carpenter, walking home from a movie late the previous Monday night, had seen three boys dive out of a smashed bakery window and vanish into an alley. She had recognized them as Howard Ruffo, David Strager, and Joey Buell, all 15-year-old home-room students of hers. The juvenile crime problem was solved.
But not for Miss Carpenter. Instead of going to the police, Miss Carpenter had gone to Ellery, who lived on West 87th Street and was a hero to the youth of the neighborhood. Howard, David, and Joey were not hardened delinquents, she had told him, and she could not see their arrest, trial, and imprisonment as the solution to anything. True, they had substituted gang loyalty for the love and security they were denied in their unhappy slum homes, but boys who worked at after-school jobs and turned every cent in at home were hardly beyond recall, were they? And she had told him just where each boy worked, and at what.
âTheyâre only patterning their behavior after criminals because they think criminals are strong, successful, and glamorous,â Miss Carpenter had said; and what she would like him to do was visit her class and, under the pretext of giving a talk on the subject of Notorious Criminals I Have Known, paint such a picture of weak, ratting, empty, and violently ending criminality that David and Joey and Howard would see the error of their ways.
It had seemed to Ellery that this placed a rather hefty burden on his oratorical powers. Did Miss Carpenter have her principalâs permission for this project?
No, Miss Carpenter had replied bravely, she did not have Mr. Hinsdaleâs permission, and she might very well lose her job when he heard about it. âBut Iâm not going to be the one who gives those boys the first shove toward reform school and maybe eventually a life sentence!â And besides, what did Mr. Queen have to lose but an hour of his time?
So Mr. Queen had feebly said yes, he would come; and here he was, at the door of the determined young womanâs classroom ⦠seven minutes late .
Ellery braced himself and opened the door.
The moment he set foot in the room he knew he had walked in on a catastrophe.
Louise Carpenter stood tensely straight at her desk, her pretty face almost as white as the envelope she was clutching. And she was glaring at a mass of boy and girl faces so blankly, so furtively quiet that the silence sizzled.
The first thing she said to him was, âIâve been