A Room to Die In Read online

  THE SHADOW OF DEATH—

  From the direction of the bathroom came a peculiar bumping, scraping sound. “Harvey?” Ann called.

  The bumping, scraping sound diminished. There was silence. “Harvey?” asked Ann again in an uncertain voice. She peered across the dark bedroom at the line of light under the bathroom door.

  The light snapped off. The door opened, very slowly. In the darkness loomed a shape darker than dark. Ann’s knees wobbled; she gasped, whirled, and ran for the front door. Behind her pounded footsteps. She clawed for the door handle and ran screaming out the door into the hall with death at her heels. . . .

  A ROOM TO DIE IN

  by

  Ellery Queen

  A SIGNET BOOK

  NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY

  TIMES Mirror

  Copyright, ©, 1965 by Ellery Queen

  All rights reserved

  Published by arrangement with Manfred B. Lee and Frederic Dannay

  SIGNET TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES REGISTERED TRADEMARK-MARCA REGISTRADA HECHO EN CHICAGO, U.S.A.

  Signet, Signet Classics, Mentor, Plume and Meridian Books

  are published by The New American Library, Inc.,

  1301 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10019

  First Printing, March, 1975

  123456789

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  Contents

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  ANN NELSON — The heiress who did not want to be foxed out of her first editions and a mint of money

  ELAINE NELSON GLUCK — Ann’s hell-raising mother—a hypochondriac beset by pills and bills

  ROLAND NELSON — A passed master of chess who controlled several squares through his knights

  PEARL NELSON — A gem of a wife who was lost in a meretricious setting

  THOMAS TARR — This strong arm of the law disarmed the ladies and dismembered the men

  JEHANE CYPRIANO — The unorthodox architecture of this doxy was based on a faulty foundation

  ALEXANDER CYPRIANO — A living stalemate whose best bet was never laid

  MARTIN JONES — A stud-driving contractor who rooked a chess player by pretending his house was his castle

  EDGAR MAUDLEY — The light-fingered but heavy-handed bibliophile who weaved a strange tale about his heirlooms

  BEN COOLEY — News photographer whose positives accentuated his negative

  HARVEY GLUCK — He lived in a kennel and died in a garret

  INSPECTOR FITZPATRICK — This matter-of-fact investigator found himself in a bloody phantasmagoria

  ARTHUR EAKINS — An insurance agent whose policy was full coverage—often with six feet of dank earth

  SHERIFF METZGER — This lumbering lawman built a strong case against a vicious criminal and sent him packing

  CHAPTER 1

  Ann Nelson taught second grade at Mar Vista Elementary School in San Francisco’s Sunset district. She lived in a third-story apartment at 6950 Granada Avenue, ten blocks from the ocean.

  Arriving home one afternoon early in March, she noticed a large, rather shabby Buick parked at the curb. In the driver’s seat sat her mother. Ann’s first impulse was to drive quickly on, but Elaine had seen her and was purposefully jabbing out her cigarette.

  Ann pulled into the parking area. Elaine got out, gave her girdle a tug, and marched briskly toward her. She was a short, not unattractive woman of forty-three—eighteen years older than Ann—plump as a robin, with a swaggering air of self-reliance. Her hair, tinted an impossible auburn-bronze, was teased into hundreds of tight curls. She wore a blue silk suit with large white buttons, a frivolous white hat, and spike-heeled blue pumps.

  Ann was taller, with casual brown hair. By contrast, she looked cool and uncomplicated.

  They greeted each other with perfunctory pecks; then Ann led the way upstairs. Elaine talked continuously. “. . . Say what you like about Frisco—sooner I get back south the better. My teeth haven’t stopped chattering since I got here, the damn fog and cold and wind . . . Last winter I was in Florida; that’s God’s country. I had the most marvelous house trailer, but I had to sell it. Wouldn’t you know! . . .”

  She stood in the middle of Ann’s living room and assessed every object in sight with a panoramic glance.

  “Sit down,” said Ann. “I’ll fix you a drink.”

  Elaine perched on the edge of a chair. “With a job like yours,” she said gaily, “I’m surprised you keep liquor in the house.”

  Ann smiled grimly at the ancient taunt. “Scotch or bourbon?”

  Elaine wasn’t sure. Ann showed her the bottles, which she had picked out of a bin at the supermarket. Elaine read the labels and winced. “I’ll stick to the Scotch; it’s safer.”

  “I’m not all that particular,” said Ann.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” protested Elaine. “I know as well as the next one that a schoolteacher’s salary doesn’t extend to Jack Daniel.”

  “I make out well enough.”

  “I envy you your fortitude. I’d go stark raving mad the first day. The first hour.”

  Ann’s smile was becoming brittle. “It’s not all that bad. Second-graders are pretty amenable.”

  “On the rocks with a squeeze of lemon. Or bitters, if you have any.”

  Ann brought ice from the refrigerator. Elaine jumped to the window and looked out into the street. Then she walked over to the counter that separated living room from kitchen and eased herself up on a stool. With quizzical eyes she watched Ann squeeze lemon juice into her glass. “I thought sure I’d find you married. At least going through the motions.”

  Ann made no comment. She handed Elaine a glass and poured soda into her own. Elaine drank, ruminated a moment, then turned wry eyes on Ann. “My feelings are hurt. It’s been three years since I’ve seen you. And you don’t even say you’re glad to see me!”

  “It’s certainly been a long time,” said Ann. “What have you been doing?”

  “Oh . . . taking care of myself. I get the most dismal streaking headaches. Honestly, nothing seems to help. I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on every kind of treatment imaginable. I’ve been to three of the best doctors in Los Angeles. They look wise, give me some pills, and send a big bill. But night after night it’s the same old story—as if somebody hit me with a hammer. Right here.” Elaine rubbed her temples.

  “Will you have more Scotch?” asked Ann.

  Elaine shook her head. “I think not.” She primly pushed her glass aside. “I suppose you never see Larry?”

  Larry was Ann’s ex-husband, an oboist of some reputation. “I think he’s in Cleveland, playing with the Symphony.”

  Elaine screwed up her face. “The awful sounds that man used to make!”

  Ann gave a noncommittal shrug. It was her conviction that Elaine, motivated partly by dislike for Larry, partly by sheer deviltry, had broken up the marriage. Ann could now recall the situation with dispassion, even a kind of humor. Larry had displayed a ridiculous tendency toward breast-beating; she probably had lost very little. Still, at the time . . .

  Elaine absently reached for her glass. Finding it empty she twitched her mouth in a moue of surprise. Ann politely poured more Scotch. “I suppose you’re still married to what’s-his-name . . . Gluck?”

  “I see Harvey off
and on,” Elaine acknowledged. “He wants me to move back to Glendale, but”—she gave her head a sage shake—“uh-uh. I’ve had it with Harvey, unless he gives up those vile kennels.” She sipped the Scotch. “Do you ever see your father?”

  Years of practice had schooled Ann in the most subtle shadings of Elaine’s voice. She asked, “What do you want with him?”

  “You haven’t seen Roland, then?”

  “About a year ago I had dinner with him and his wife. Then, let’s see—in August?—July or August I happened to be in Sausalito and I ran into him on the waterfront. He and Pearl were separated, and Roland was living out in the country. I don’t know what he’s doing now.”

  “You lack all sense of duty toward either Daddy or Mommy,” declared Elaine.

  Ann laughed grimly. “I certainly lack something. If it hadn’t been for Grandmother, I’d have lacked a lot more.”

  Elaine sniffed. “Well, it’s not kind to say so, but you must know you were an accident. Heavens, I was just a kid. And after your father and I separated . . . well, I had my career to think of.”

  “Career? What career?”

  “I’ve tried everything.”

  “That’s a fact.”

  Elaine rose, smoothing the blue suit over her torso. Years ago, at Santa Monica High, she had been a cute redhead, full of mischief, ginger, and zip. She had been cheerleader, jitterbug champion, general hell-raiser. How and why she had ever cast her lot with Roland Nelson—scrounger, iconoclast, bum, and sometime chess player—was a mystery Ann had never resolved.

  Elaine had decided to sulk. “I must say I expected you to show a little more warmth. You’ve got every bit of your father’s egotism. Here I’ve come all the way north, groped my way through this miserable city . . .”

  Ann could think of nothing to say. Above all, she must be careful to avoid the slightest proffer of hospitality. Elaine was deft at converting a halfhearted “look in on us sometime” to three weeks in the master bedroom.

  “Well,” snapped Elaine, “what is your father’s address? I want to talk to him.”

  “Why?” Ann was surprised enough to ask.

  Elaine smiled. “If the truth be known, dear Bobo has come into money, and I want what he owes me— which is plenty.”

  “How in the world would Daddy come into money?” Ann asked, bewildered.

  “Haven’t you heard? His wife died.”

  “No!”

  “Yep. What was her name . . . Pearl? Anyway, they were never divorced, and he inherited. As easy as that.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Ann. “I liked her.” She gave Elaine a puzzled look. “Where did you learn all this?”

  Elaine laughed brightly. “Don’t you worry; I keep my ear to the ground. You do have his address?”

  “When I spoke to him he was living in Inisfail. No telephone. He’d become a hermit of sorts.”

  “Where in the world is Inisfail?”

  “Cross the Golden Gate Bridge, keep on the freeway into San Rafael. Then ask or check a map, because it’s off the main highway. Toward the ocean. The address is five sixty Neville Road.”

  Elaine noted it on the back of an envelope. Ann watched her write. “You’re just wasting your time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Roland won’t be anxious to share his wealth with you. Or me. Or anyone.”

  Elaine pursed her lips in a thoughtful smile. “I think he will. In fact, I know he will. Or I’ll make his life so utterly unbearable—”

  “You’ve got a point,” said Ann. “But I don’t think it’ll work.”

  “We’ll see.” Elaine drained her glass. A moment later she left. Ann watched from the window as her mother crossed the sidewalk and got into her car. She looked up before she shut the door, flipping her hand in jaunty farewell. The engine started with a burst of blue exhaust.

  The car lurched off, around the corner, and out of sight, and Ann was left in a mood of dark depression.

  CHAPTER 2

  A month later, out of long habit Ann sent her mother a birthday card, addressing it “828 Pemberton Avenue, North Hollywood.” Motivated by a mixture of malice and curiosity, she wrote at the bottom Any luck with Roland?

  In due course the envelope came back, stamped No forwarding address. Ann tossed it into the waste-basket.

  A week later she passed her own twenty-sixth birthday. Before she knew it she’d be thirty. Unmarried, a schoolteacher to boot. Unpleasant visions of loneliness began to take shape in her mind. But she mustn’t panic; that would be the surest way to frighten off the few eligible bachelors she knew.

  What she needed was a change, Ann decided. Scenery, friends, profession, outlook—everything! A completely new life . . . Easier said than done, however. She had no talent for frugality; her savings were modest. Enough to take her to Mexico, or perhaps even Europe for a couple of months, since her teacher’s salary continued through the summer. But returning to the apartment, to the second grade at Mar Vista—what a dreadful anticlimax! . . . Of course, there was always the Peace Corps. Ann gave the idea serious consideration. But was she really that dedicated? Probably not.

  About this time she met Jim Llewellyn at a party and fell madly, instantly, in love. There were problems, naturally. Jim was married. His wife was hell on wheels, Jim said; they had occupied separate bedrooms now for two months. The only consideration that deterred him from divorce—and he meant it, he said—was the two kids. There was an affair that persisted until Jim’s wife telephoned Ann and wistfully asked if they could have a talk. Ann said, “Yes, of course,” in a tremulous voice; and presently Dorothy Llewellyn appeared—an obviously decent woman whose basic deficiency seemed to be her looks: she was as homely as a coal scuttle.

  Ann was stricken with guilt, and felt a fool as well. Not only a fool, but a cheap, vulgar, common little tramp. She assured Dorothy Llewellyn that the episode was at an end. The woman sadly confessed that this was a yearly task, this herding Jim back to the fold. “I know I’m not pretty—but he begged me to marry him, and I did. I’ve kept my part of the bargain. I suppose in time he’ll get over this—this . . .” She hesitated over the word.

  “Philandering,” said Ann.

  Dorothy departed, and Ann’s depression became more acute than ever. Jim Llewellyn never called again.

  During May, Ann definitely decided not to renew her contact with the Mar Vista Elementary School. Or almost definitely.

  On the evening of Thursday, May 30, Ann had barely arrived home when her doorbell rang. She answered, to find in the corridor a serious young man in a dark blue uniform. The insigne on his arm read Deputy Sheriff, County of San Francisco.

  “Miss Nelson?”

  Ann nodded.

  “May I come in?”

  Ann stepped back; the deputy entered. He seemed ill at ease. “I’ve come on a very unpleasant errand,” he said, looking everywhere but at Ann.

  “Oh? What have I done?”

  “Nothing, far as I know. The fact is, I’m the bearer of bad news.”

  Ann waited.

  “It concerns your father.”

  “Oh? He’s had an . . . accident?”

  “Worse than that.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “I’m afraid so, Miss Nelson.”

  Ann went thoughtfully to her kitchen cabinet. “Can I pour you a glass of sherry?”

  “No, thanks.” He added earnestly, “But by all means have one yourself.”

  Ann smiled in wan amusement. “I’m not about to collapse. I usually have a glass of sherry when I come home.”

  The deputy raised his eyebrows a trifle. “I see.” It was obvious that he didn’t.

  Ann returned to the living room. “How did it happen?”

  “I don’t have the details. I understand he was shot.”

  Ann stared. “Shot? With a gun?”

  “So I understand.”

  “You mean . . . an accident? Or did somebody murder him?”

  The deputy shook h
is head. “I honestly don’t know. If you telephone Inspector Thomas Tarr, at the Marin County sheriff’s office, he’ll give you the details. The number is Glenwood 4-4010.”

  Ann went to the telephone. “Are you sure you won’t have some sherry?”

  “No, thanks.” He was no longer solicitous. He said in a formal voice, “If everything’s all right, I’ll be going.”

  Ann said, “I’m not cold-blooded; it’s simply that my father and I weren’t at all close.”

  “I’ll be going along, then.”

  He departed. Ann dialed GL 44010 and asked to speak to Inspector Thomas Tarr. An easy, rather husky, voice said, “Tarr speaking.”

  “This is Ann Nelson. I’ve just heard about my father.”

  Tarr’s voice turned grave. “Oh, yes, Miss Nelson. A very bad business.”

  “What happened?”

  “This morning your father was found dead at his home. We haven’t completed our investigation yet, but the circumstances seem to indicate suicide.”

  Ann stared unbelievingly at the telephone receiver. “Did you say suicide?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “There doesn’t seem to be any other explanation.”

  “I still don’t believe it. When did it happen?”

  Tarr’s voice became cautious. “I don’t have a definite report. He’s been dead several days, at least.”

  “It’s fantastic,” said Ann. “Anyone who knew my father . . . it’s incredible”

  “He never spoke of suicide?”

  “Never. Although—”

  “He did mention it, then.”

  “No.” Ann’s voice took on an edge. “When I last saw him I thought he seemed preoccupied. But this was months ago, and he’d just separated from his wife.”

  “He was depressed?”

  “Not to the point of suicide. He said something about being in a state of ‘transition,’ but I don’t pretend to understand what he meant.”

  “He seems to have been a strange man.”