“Ellery Queen” has a split personality. It is the pseudonym of Brooklyn-born cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee, whose contrasting personalities gave a keen edge to their many years of mystery collaboration. Together they wrote a long list of novels, novelettes and short stories featuring their namesake detective, Ellery Queen. They edited over seventy anthologies and founded and edited Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Seven Edgars and a Raven attest to Ellery’s popularity.
However, Ellery Queen was more knowledgeable about crime than he was about plangonology, as the following story demonstrates. Attitudes have drastically changed since the 1940s. What contemporary collector wouldn’t give her eyeteeth to find the dolls in this story under her Christmas tree?
There is a law among storytellers, originally passed by Editors at the cries (they say) of their constituents, which states that stories about Christmas shall have Children in them. This Christmas story is no exception; indeed, misopedists will complain that we have overdone it. And we confess in advance that this is also a story about Dolls, and that Santa Claus comes into it, and even a Thief; though as to this last, whoever he was—and that was one of the questions—he was certainly not Barabbas, even parabolically.
Another section of the statute governing Christmas stories provides that they shall incline toward Sweetness and Light. The first arises, of course, from the orphans and the never-souring savor of the annual Miracle; as for Light, it will be provided at the end, as usual, by that luminous prodigy, Ellery Queen. The reader of gloomier temper will also find a large measure of Darkness, in the person and works of one who, at least in Inspector Queen’s harassed view, was surely the winged Prince of that region. His name, by the way, was not Satan, it was Comus; and this is paradox enow, since the original Comus, as everyone knows, was the god of festive joy and mirth, emotions not commonly associated with the Underworld. As Ellery struggled to embrace his phantom foe, he puzzled over this non sequitur in vain; in vain, that is, until Nikki Porter, no scorner of the obvious, suggested that he might seek the answer where any ordinary mortal would go at once. And there, to the great man’s mortification it was indeed to be found: On page 262b of Volume 6, Coleb to Damasci, of the 175th Anniversary edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. A French conjuror of that name, performing in London in the year 1789, caused his wife to vanish from the top of a table—the very first time, it appeared, that this feat, uxorial or otherwise, had been accomplished without the aid of mirrors. To track his dark adversary’s nom de nuit to its historic lair gave Ellery his only glint of satisfaction until that blessed moment when light burst all around him and exorcised the darkness, Prince and all.
But this is chaos.
Our story properly begins not with our invisible character but with our dead one.
Miss Ypson had not always been dead; au contraire. She had lived for seventy-eight years, for most of them breathing hard. As her father used to remark, “She was a very active little verb.” Miss Ypson’s father was a professor of Greek at a small Midwestern university. He had conjugated his daughter with the rather bewildered assistance of one of his brawnier students, an Iowa poultry heiress.
Professor Ypson was a man of distinction. Unlike most professors of Greek, he was a Greek professor of Greek, having been born Gerasymos Aghamos Ypsilonomon in Polykhnitos, on the island of Mytilini, “where,” he was fond of recalling on certain occasions, “burning Sappho loved and sung”—a quotation he found unfailingly useful in his extracurricular activities; and, the Hellenic ideal notwithstanding, Professor Ypson believed wholeheartedly in immoderation in all things. This hereditary and cultural background explains the professor’s interest in fatherhood—to his wife’s chagrin, for Mr. Ypson’s own breeding prowess was confined almost exclusively to the barnyards on which her income was based; he held their daughter to be nothing less than a biological miracle.
The professor’s mental processes also tended to confuse Mrs. Ypson. She never ceased to wonder why, instead of shortening his name to Ypson, her husband had not sensibly changed it to Jones. “My dear,” the professor once replied, “you are an Iowa snob.”
“But nobody,” Mrs. Ypson cried, “can spell it or pronounce it!”
“This is a cross,” murmured Professor Ypson, “which we must bear with ypsilanti.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Ypson.
There was invariably something Sibylline about his conversation. His favorite adjective for his wife was “ypsiliform,” a term, he explained, which referred to the germinal spot at one of the fecundation states in a ripening egg and which was, therefore, exquisitely à propos. Mrs. Ypson continued to look bewildered; she died at an early age.
And the professor ran off with a Kansas City variety girl of considerable talent, leaving his baptized chick to be reared by an eggish relative of her mother, named Jukes.
The only time Miss Ypson heard from her father—except when he wrote charming and erudite little notes requesting, as he termed it, lucrum—was in the fourth decade of his Odyssey, when he sent her a handsome addition to her collection, a terra-cotta play doll of Greek origin over three thousand years old which, unhappily, Miss Ypson felt duty-bound to return to the Brooklyn museum from which it had unaccountably vanished. The note accompanying her father’s gift had said, whimsically: “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.”
There was poetry behind Miss Ypson’s dolls. At her birth the professor, ever harmonious, signalized his devotion to fecundity by naming her Cytherea. This proved the Olympian irony. For, it turned out, her father’s philoprogenitiveness throbbed frustrate in her mother’s stony womb: even though Miss Ypson interred five husbands of quite adequate vigor, she remained infertile to the end of her days. Hence it is classically tragic to find her, when all passion was spent, a sweet little old lady with a vague if eager smile who, under the name of her father, pattered about a vast and echoing New York apartment, playing enthusiastically with dolls.
In the beginning they were dolls of common clay: a Billiken, a kewpie, a Kathe Kruse, a Patsy, a Foxy Grandpa, and so forth. But then, as her need increased, Miss Ypson began her fierce sack of the past.
Down into the land of Pharaoh she went for two pieces of thin desiccated board, carved and painted and with hair of strung beads, and legless—so that they might not run away—which any connoisseur will tell you are the most superb specimens of ancient Egyptian paddle doll extant, far superior to those in the British Museum, although this fact will be denied in certain quarters.
Miss Ypson unearthed a foremother of “Letitia Penn,” until her discovery held to be the oldest doll in America, having been brought to Philadelphia from England in 1699 by William Penn as a gift for a playmate of his small daughter’s. Miss Ypson’s find was a wooden-hearted “little lady” in brocade and velvet which had been sent by Sir Walter Raleigh to the first English child born in the New World. Since Virginia Dare had been born in 1587, not even the Smithsonian dared impugn Miss Ypson’s triumph.
On the old lady’s racks, in her plate-glass cases, might be seen the wealth of a thousand childhoods, and some riches—for such is the genetics of dolls—possessed by children grown. Here could be found “fashion babies” from fourteenth-century France, sacred dolls of the Orange Free State Fingo tribe, Satsuma paper dolls and court dolls from old Japan, beady-eyed “Kalifa” dolls of the Egyptian Sudan, Swedish birch-bark dolls, “Katcina” dolls of the Hopis, mammoth-tooth dolls of the Eskimos, feather dolls of the Chippewa, tumble dolls of the ancient Chinese, Coptic bone dolls, Roman dolls dedicated to Diana, pantin dolls which had been the street toys of Parisian exquisites before Madame Guillotine swept the boulevards, early Christian dolls in their crèches representing the Holy Family—to specify the merest handful of Miss Ypson’s Briarean collection. She possessed. dolls of pasteboard, dolls of animal skin, spool dolls, crab-claw dolls, eggshell dolls, cornhusk dolls, rag dolls, pine-cone dolls with moss hair, stocking dolls, dolls of bisque, dolls of palm leaf, dolls of papier-mâché, even dolls made of seed pods. There were dolls forty inches tall, and there were dolls so little Miss Ypson could hide them in her gold thimble.
Cytherea Ypson’s collection bestrode the centuries and took tribute of history. There was no greater—not the fabled playthings of Montezuma, or Victoria’s, or Eugene Field’s; not the collection at the Metropolitan, or the South Kensington, or the royal palace in old Bucharest, or anywhere outside the enchantment of little girls’ dreams.
It was made of Iowan eggs and the Attic shore, corn-fed and myrtle-clothed; and it brings us at last to Attorney John Somerset Bondling and his visit to the Queen residence one December twenty-third not so very long ago.
DECEMBER THE TWENTY-THIRD is ordinarily not a good time to seek the Queens. Inspector Richard Queen likes his Christmas old-fashioned; his turkey stuffing, for instance, calls for twenty-two hours of overall preparation, and some of its ingredients are not readily found at the corner grocer’s. And Ellery is a frustrated gift-wrapper. For a month before Christmas he turns his sleuthing genius to tracking down unusual wrapping papers, fine ribbons, and artistic stickers; and he spends the last two days creating beauty.
So it was that when Attorney John S. Bondling called, Inspector Queen was in his kitchen, swathed in a barbecue apron, up to his elbows in fines herbes, while Ellery, behind the locked door of his study, composed a secret symphony in glittering fuchsia metallic paper, forest-green moiré ribbon, and pine cones.
“It’s almost useless,” shrugged Nikki, studying Attorney Bondling’s card, which was as crackly-looking as Attorney Bondling. “You say you know the Inspector, Mr. Bondling?”
“Just tell him Bondling the estate lawyer,” said Bondling neurotically. “Park Row. He’ll know.”
“Don’t blame me,” said Nikki, “if you wind up in his stuffing. Goodness knows he’s used everything else.” And she went for Inspector Queen.
While she was gone, the study door opened noiselessly for one inch. A suspicious eye reconnoitered from the crack.
“Don’t be alarmed,” said the owner of the eyes, slipping through the crack and locking the door hastily behind him. “Can’t trust them, you know. Children, just children.”
“Children!” Attorney Bondling snarled. “You’re Ellery Queen, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Interested in youth? Christmas? Orphans, dolls, that sort of thing?” Mr. Bondling went on in a remarkably nasty way.
“I suppose so.”
“The more fool you. Ah, here’s your father. Inspector Queen—”
“Oh, that Bondling,” said the old gentleman absently, shaking his visitor’s hand. “My office called to say someone was coming up. Here, use my handkerchief; that’s a bit of turkey liver. Know my son? His secretary, Miss Porter? What’s on your mind, Mr. Bondling?”
“Inspector, I’m handling the Cytherea Ypson estate, and—”
“Cytherea Ypson,” frowned the Inspector. “Oh, yes. She died only recently.”
“Leaving me with the headache,” said Mr. Bondling bitterly, “of disposing of her Dollection.”
“Her what?” asked Ellery.
“Dolls—collection. Dollection. She coined the word.”
Ellery strolled over to his armchair.
“Do I take this down?” sighed Nikki.
“Dollection,” said Ellery.
“Spent about thirty years at it. Dolls!”
“Yes, Nikki, take it down.”
“Well, well, Mr. Bondling,” said Inspector Queen. “What’s the problem? Christmas comes but once a year, you know.”
“Will provides the Dollection be sold at auction,” grated the attorney, “and the proceeds used to set up a fund for orphan children. I’m holding the public sale right after New Year’s.”
“Dolls and orphans, eh?” said the Inspector, thinking of Javanese black pepper and Country Gentleman Seasoning Salt.
“That’s nice,” beamed Nikki.
“Oh, is it?” said Mr. Bondling softly. “Apparently, young woman, you’ve never tried to satisfy a Surrogate. I’ve administered estates for nineteen years without a whisper against me, but let an estate involve the interests of just one little fatherless child, and you’d think from the Surrogate’s attitude I was Bill Sykes himself!”
“My stuffing,” began the inspector.
“I’ve had those dolls catalogued. The result is ominous! Did you know there’s no set market for the damnable things? And aside from a few personal possessions, the Dollection constitutes the old lady’s entire estate. Sank every nickel she had in it.”
“But it should be worth a fortune,” remarked Ellery.
“To whom, Mr. Queen? Museums always want such things as free and unencumbered gifts. I tell you, except for one item, those hypothetical orphans won’t realize enough from that sale to keep them in—in bubble gum for two days!”
“Which item would that be, Mr. Bondling?”
“Number Six-seventy-four,” the lawyer snapped. “This one.”
“Number Six-seventy-four,” read Inspector Queen from the fat catalogue Bondling had fished out of a large greatcoat pocket. “The Dauphin’s Doll. Unique. Ivory figure of a boy Prince eight inches tall, clad in court dress, genuine ermine, brocade, velvet. Court sword in gold strapped to waist. Gold circlet crown surmounted by single blue brilliant diamond of finest water, weight approximately 49 carats—”
“How many carats?” exclaimed Nikki.
“Larger than the Hope and the Star of South Africa,” said Ellery, with a certain excitement.
“—appraised,” continued his father, “at one hundred and ten thousand dollars.”
“Expensive dollie.”
“Indecent!” said Nikki.
“This indecent—I mean exquisite, royal doll,” the inspector read on, “was a birthday gift from King Louis XVI of France to Louis Charles, his second son, who became dauphin at the death of his elder brother, in 1789. The little dauphin was proclaimed Louis XVII by the royalists during the French Revolution while in custody of the sans-culottes. His fate is shrouded in mystery. Romantic, historic item.”
“Le prince perdu. I’ll say,” muttered Ellery, “Mr. Bondling, is this on the level?”
“I’m an attorney, not an antiquarian,” snapped their visitor. “There are documents attached, one of them a sworn statement—holograph—by Lady Charlotte Atkyns, the English actress-friend of the Capet family—she was in France during the Revolution—on purporting to be in Lady Atkyns’s hand. It doesn’t matter, Mr. Queen. Even if the history is bad, the diamond’s good!”
“I take it this hundred-and-ten-thousand-dollar dollie constitutes the bone, as it were, or that therein lies the rub?”
“You said it!” cried Mr. Bondling, cracking his knuckles in a sort of agony. “For my money the Dauphin’s Doll is the only negotiable asset of that collection. And what’s the old lady do? She provided by will that on the day preceding Christmas the Cytherea Ypson Dollection is to be publicly displayed…on the main floor of Nash’s Department Store! The day before Christmas, gentlemen! Think of it!”
“But why?” asked Nikki, puzzled.
“Why? Who knows why? For the entertainment of New York’s army of little beggers, I suppose! Have you any notion how many peasants pass through Nash’s on the day before Christmas? My cook tells me—she’s a very religious woman—it’s like Armageddon.”
“Day before Christmas,” frowned Ellery. “That’s tomorrow.”
“It does sound chancy,” said Nikki anxiously. Then she brightened. “Oh, well, maybe Nash’s won’t cooperate, Mr. Bondling.”
“Oh, won’t they!” howled Mr. Bondling. “Why, old lady Ypson had this stunt cooked up with that gang of peasant-purveyors for years! They’ve been snapping at my heels ever since the day she was put away!”
“It’ll draw every crook in New York,” said the inspector, his gaze on the kitchen door.
“Orphans,” said Nikki. “The orphans’ interests must be protected.” She looked at her employer accusingly.
“Special measures, Dad,” he said.
“Sure, sure,” said the inspector, rising. “Don’t you worry about this, Mr. Bondling. Now, if you’ll be kind enough to excu—”
“Inspector Queen,” hissed Mr. Bondling, leaning forward tensely, “that is not all.”
“Ah,” said Ellery briskly, lighting a cigarette. “There’s a specific villain in this piece, Mr. Bondling, and you know who he is.”
“I do,” said the lawyer hollowly, “and then again I don’t. I mean, it’s Comus.”
“Comus!” the inspector screamed.
“Comus?” said Ellery slowly.
“Comus?” said Nikki. “Who dat?”
“Comus,” nodded Mr. Bondling. “First thing this morning. Marched right into my office, bold as day—must have followed me, I hadn’t got my coat off, my secretary wasn’t even in. Marched in and tossed this card on my desk.”
Ellery seized it. “The usual, Dad.”
“His trademark,” growled the inspector, his lips working.
“But the card just says ‘Comus,’ ” complained Nikki. “Who—?”
“Go on, Mr. Bondling!” thundered the inspector.
“And he calmly announced to me,” said Bondling, blotting his cheeks with an exhausted handkerchief, “that he’s going to steal the Dauphin’s Doll tomorrow, in Nash’s.”
“Oh, a maniac,” said Nikki.
“Mr. Bondling,” said the old gentleman in a terrible voice, “just what did this fellow look like?”
“Foreigner—black beard—spoke with a European accent of some sort. To tell you the truth, I was so thunderstruck I didn’t notice details. Didn’t even chase him till it was too late.”
The Queens shrugged at each other, Gallically.
“The old story,” said the inspector; the corners of his nostrils were greenish. “The brass of the colonel’s monkey, and when he does show himself nobody remembers anything but beards and foreign accents. Well, Mr. Bondling, with Comus in the game it’s serious business. Where’s the collection right now?”
“In the vaults of the Life Bank & Trust, Forty-third Street branch.”
“What time are you to move it over to Nash’s?”
“They wanted it this evening. I said nothing doing. I’ve made special arrangements with the bank, and the collection’s to be moved at seven-thirty tomorrow morning.”
“Won’t be much time to set up,” said Ellery thoughtfully, “before the store opens its doors.” He glanced at his father.
“You leave Operation Dollie to us, Mr. Bondling,” said the inspector grimly. “Better give me a buzz this afternoon.”
“I can’t tell you, Inspector, how relieved I am—”
“Are you?” said the old gentleman sourly. “What makes you think he won’t get it?”
WHEN ATTORNEY BONDLING had left, the Queens put their heads together, Ellery doing most of the talking, as usual. Finally, the inspector went into the bedroom for a session with his direct line to headquarters.
“Anybody would think,” sniffed Nikki, “you two were planning the defense of the Bastille. Who is this Comus, anyway?”
“We don’t know, Nikki,” said Ellery slowly. “Might be anybody. Began his criminal career about five years ago. He’s in the grand tradition of Lupin—a saucy, highly intelligent rascal who’s made stealing an art. He seems to take a special delight in stealing valuable things under virtually impossible conditions. Master of make-up—he’s appeared in a dozen different disguises. And he’s an uncanny mimic. Never been caught, photographed, or fingerprinted. Imaginative, daring—I’d say he’s the most dangerous thief operating in the United States.”
“If he’s never been caught,” said Nikki skeptically, “how do you know he commits these crimes?”
“You mean, and not someone else?” Ellery smiled pallidly. “The techniques mark the thefts as his work. And then, like Arsène, he leaves a card—with the name ‘Comus’ on it—on the scene of each visit.”
“Does he usually announce in advance that he’s going to swipe the crown jewels?”
“No.” Ellery frowned. “To my knowledge, this is the first such instance. Since he’s never done anything without a reason, that visit to Bondling’s office this morning must be part of his greater plan. I wonder if—”
The telephone in the living room rang clear and loud.
Nikki looked at Ellery. Ellery looked at the telephone.
“Do you suppose—?” began Nikki. But then she said, “Oh, it’s too absurd.”
“Where Comus is involved,” said Ellery wildly, “nothing is too absurd!” and he leaped for the phone. “Hello!”
“A call from an old friend,” announced a deep and hollowish male voice. “Comus.”
“Well,” said Ellery. “Hello again.”
“Did Mr. Bondling,” asked the voice jovially, “persuade you to ‘prevent’ me from stealing the Dauphin’s Doll in Nash’s tomorrow?”
“So you know Bondling’s been here.”
“No miracle involved, Queen. I followed him. Are you taking the case?”
“See here, Comus,” said Ellery. “Under ordinary circumstances I’d welcome the sporting chance to put you where you belong. But these circumstances are not ordinary. That doll represents the major asset of a future fund for orphaned children. I’d rather we didn’t play catch with it. Comus, what do you say we call this one off?”
“Shall we say,” asked the voice gently, “Nash’s Department Store—tomorrow?”
THUS THE EARLY morning of December twenty-fourth finds Messrs. Queen and Bondling, and Nikki Porter, huddled on the iron sidewalk of Forty-third Street, before the holly-decked windows of the Life Bank & Trust Company, just outside a double line of armed guards. The guards form a channel between the bank entrance and an armored truck, down which Cytherea Ypson’s Dollection flows swiftly. And all about gapes New York, stamping callously on the aged, icy face of the street, against the uncharitable Christmas wind.
Now is the winter of his discontent, and Mr. Queen curses.
“I don’t know what you’re beefing about,” moans Miss Porter. “You and Mr. Bondling are bundled up like Yukon prospectors. Look at me.”
“It’s that rat-hearted public relations tripe from Nash’s,” says Mr. Queen murderously. “They all swore themselves to secrecy, Brother Rat included. Honor! Spirit of Christmas!”
“It was all over the radio last night,” whimpers Mr. Bondling. “And in this morning’s papers.”
“I’ll cut his creep’s heart out. Here! Velie, keep those people away!”
Sergeant Velie says good-naturedly from the doorway of the bank, “You jerks stand back.” Little does the Sergeant know the fate in store for him.
“Armored trucks,” says Miss Porter bluishly. “Shotguns.”
“Nikki, Comus made a point of informing us in advance that he meant to steal the Dauphin’s Doll in Nash’s Department Store. It would be just like him to have said that in order to make it easier to steal the doll en route.”
“Why don’t they hurry?” shivers Mr. Bondling. “Ah!” Inspector Queen appears suddenly in the doorway. His hands clasp treasure. “Oh!” cries Nikki. New York whistles.
It is magnificence, an affront to democracy. But street mobs, like children, are royalists at heart.
New York whistles, and Sergeant Thomas Velie steps menacingly before Inspector Queen, Police Positive drawn, and Inspector Queen dashes across the sidewalk, between the bristling lines of guards.
Queen the Younger vanishes, to materialize an instant later at the door of the armored truck.
“It’s just immorally, hideously beautiful, Mr. Bondling,” breathes Miss Porter, sparkly-eyed.
Mr. Bondling cranes, thinly.
ENTER Santa Claus, with bell.
Santa. Oyez, oyez. Peace, good will. Is that the dollie the radio’s been yappin’ about, folks?
Mr. B. Scram.
Miss P. Why, Mr. Bondling.
Mr. B. Well, he’s got no business here. Stand back, er, Santa. Back!
Santa. What eateth you, my lean and angry friend? Have you no compassion at this season of the year?
Mr. B. Oh… Here! (Clink.) Now will you kindly…?
Santa. Mighty pretty dollie. Where they takin’ it, girlie?
Miss P. Over to Nash’s, Santa.
Mr. B. You asked for it. Officer!!!
Santa. (Hurriedly) Little present for you, girlie. Compliments of old Santy. Merry, merry.
Miss P. For me?? (EXIT Santa, rapidly, with bell.) Really, Mr. Bondling, was it necessary to…?
Mr. B. Opium for the masses! What did that flatulent faker hand you, Miss Porter? What’s in that unmentionable envelope?
Miss P. I’m sure I don’t know, but isn’t it the most touching idea? Why, it’s addressed to Ellery. Oh! Elleryyyyyy!
Mr. B. (EXIT excitedly) Where is he? You—! Officer! Where did that baby-deceiver disappear to? A Santa Claus…!
Mr. Q. (Entering on the run) Yes? Nikki, what is it? What’s happened?
Miss P. A man dressed as Santa Claus just handed me this envelope. It’s addressed to you.
Mr. Q. Note? (He snatches it, withdraws a miserable slice of paper from it on which is block-lettered in pencil a message which he reads aloud with considerable expression.) “Dear Ellery, Don’t you trust me? I said I’d steal the Dauphin in Nash’s emporium today, and that’s exactly where I’m going to do it. Yours—” Signed…
Miss P. (Craning) “Comus.” That Santa?
Mr. Q. (Sets his manly lips. An icy wind blows)
EVEN THE MASTER had to acknowledge that their defenses against Comus were ingenious.
From the Display Department of Nash’s they had requisitioned four miter-jointed counters of uniform length. These they had fitted together, and in the center of the hollow square thus formed they had erected a platform six feet high. On the counters, in plastic tiers, stretched the long lines of Miss Ypson’s babies. Atop the platform, dominant, stood a great chair of handcarved oak, filched from the Swedish Modern section of the Fine Furniture Department; and on this Valhalla-like throne, a huge and rosy rotundity, sat Sergeant Thomas Velie, of police headquarters, morosely grateful for the anonymity endowed by the scarlet suit and the jolly mask and whiskers of his appointed role.
Nor was this all. At a distance of six feet outside the counters shimmered a surrounding rampart of plate glass, borrowed in its various elements from The Glass Home of the Future display on the sixth-floor rear, and assembled to shape an eight-foot wall quoined with chrome, its glistening surfaces flawless except at one point, where a thick glass door had been installed. But the edges fitted intimately, and there was a formidable lock in the door, the key to which lay buried in Mr. Queen’s right trouser pocket.
It was 8:54 A.M. The Queens, Nikki Porter, and Attorney Bondling stood among store officials and an army of plainclothesmen on Nash’s main floor, surveying the product of their labors.
“I think that about does it,” muttered Inspector Queen at last. “Men! Positions around the glass partition.”
Twenty-four assorted gendarmes in mufti jostled one another. They took marked places about the wall, facing it and grinning up at Sergeant Velie. Sergeant Velie, from his throne, glared back.
“Hagstrom and Piggott—the door.”
Two detectives detached themselves from a group of reserves. As they marched to the glass door, Mr. Bondling plucked at the inspector’s overcoat sleeve. “Can all these men be trusted, Inspector Queen?” he whispered. “I mean, this fellow Comus—”
“Mr. Bondling,” replied the old gentleman coldly, “you do your job and let me do mine.”
“But—”
“Picked men, Mr. Bondling! I picked ’em myself.”
“Yes, yes, Inspector. I merely thought I’d—”
“Lieutenant Farber.”
A little man with watery eyes stepped forward.
“Mr. Bondling, this is Lieutenant Geronimo Farber, headquarters jewelry expert. Ellery?”
Ellery took the Dauphin’s Doll from his greatcoat pocket, but he said, “If you don’t mind, Dad, I’ll keep holding on to it.”
Somebody said, “Wow,” and then there was silence.
“Lieutenant, this doll in my son’s hand is the famous Dauphin’s Doll with the diamond crown that—”
“Don’t touch it, Lieutenant, please,” said Ellery. “I’d rather nobody touched it.”
“The doll,” continued the inspector, “has just been brought here from a bank vault which it ought never to have left, and Mr. Bondling, who’s handling the Ypson estate, claims it’s the genuine article. Lieutenant, examine the diamond and give us your opinion.”
Lieutenant Farber produced a loupe. Ellery held the dauphin securely, and Farber did not touch it.
Finally, the expert said: “I can’t pass an opinion about the doll itself, of course, but the diamond’s a beauty. Easily worth a hundred thousand dollars at the present state of the market—maybe more. Looks like a very strong setting, by the way.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant. Okay, son,” said the inspector. “Go into your waltz.”
Clutching the dauphin, Ellery strode over to the glass gate and unlocked it.
“This fellow Farber,” whispered Attorney Bondling in the inspector’s hairy ear. “Inspector, are you absolutely sure he’s—?”
“He’s really Lieutenant Farber?” The inspector controlled himself. “Mr. Bondling, I’ve known Gerry Farber for eighteen years. Calm yourself.”
Ellery was crawling perilously over the nearest counter. Then, bearing the dauphin aloft, he hurried across the floor of the enclosure to the platform.
Sergeant Velie whined, “Maestro, how in hell am I going to sit here all day without washin’ my hands?”
But Mr. Queen merely stooped and lifted from the floor a heavy little structure faced with black velvet consisting of a floor and a backdrop, with a two-armed chromium support. This object he placed on the platform directly between Sergeant Velie’s massive legs.
Carefully, he stood the Dauphin’s Doll in the velvet niche. Then he clambered back across the counter, went through the glass door, locked it with the key, and turned to examine his handiwork.
Proudly the prince’s plaything stood, the jewel in his little golden crown darting “on pale electric streams” under the concentrated tide of a dozen of the most powerful floodlights in the possession of the great store.
“Velie,” said Inspector Queen, “you’re not to touch that doll. Don’t lay a finger on it.”
The Sergeant said, “Gaaaaa.”
“You men on duty. Don’t worry about the crowds. Your job is to keep watching that doll. You’re not to take your eyes off it all day. Mr. Bondling, are you satisfied?” Mr. Bondling seemed about to say something, but then he hastily nodded. “Ellery?”
The great man smiled. “The only way he can get that bawbie,” he said, “is by spells and incantations. Raise the portcullis!”
THEN BEGAN THE interminable day, dies irae, the last shopping day before Christmas. This is traditionally the day of the inert, the procrastinating, the undecided, and the forgetful, sucked at last into the mercantile machine by the perpetual pump of Time. If there is peace upon earth, it descends only afterward; and at no time, on the part of anyone embroiled, is there good will toward men. As Miss Porter expresses it, a cat fight in a bird cage would be more Christian.
But on this December twenty-fourth, in Nash’s, the normal bedlam was augmented by the vast shrilling of thousands of Children. It may be, as the Psalmist insists, that happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them; but no bowmen surrounded Miss Ypson’s darlings this day, only detectives carrying revolvers, not a few of whom forbore to use same only by the most heroic self-discipline. In the black floods of humanity overflowing the main floor, little folks darted about like electrically charged minnows, pursued by exasperated maternal shrieks and the imprecations of those whose shins and rumps and toes were at the mercy of hot, happy little limbs; indeed, nothing was sacred, and Attorney Bondling was seen to quail and wrap his greatcoat defensively about him against the savage innocence of childhood. But the guardians of the law, having been ordered to simulate store employees, possessed no such armor; and many a man earned his citation that day for unique cause. They stood in the very millrace of the tide; it churned about them, shouting, “Dollies! Dollies!” until the very word lost its familiar meaning and became the insensate scream of a thousand Loreleis beckoning strong men to destruction below the eye-level of their diamond Light.
But they stood fast.
And Comus was thwarted. Oh, he tried. At 11:18 A.M. a tottering old man holding fast to the hand of a small boy tried to wheedle Detective Hagstrom into unlocking the glass door “so my grandson, here—he’s terrible nearsighted—can get a closer look at the pretty dollies.” Detective Hagstrom roared, “Rube!” and the old gentleman dropped the little boy’s hand violently and with remarkable agility lost himself in the crowd. A spot investigation revealed that, coming upon the boy, who had been crying for his mommy, the old gentleman had promised to find her. The little boy, whose name—he said—was Lance Morganstern, was removed to the Lost and Found Department; and everyone was satisfied that the great thief had finally launched his attack. Everyone, that is, but Ellery Queen. He seemed puzzled. When Nikki asked him why, he merely said: “Stupidity, Nikki. It’s not in character.”
At 1:46 P.M., Sergeant Velie sent up a distress signal. Inspector Queen read the message aright and signaled back: “O.K. Fifteen minutes.” Sergeant Santa C. Velie scrambled off his perch, clawed his way over the counter, and pounded urgently on the inner side of the glass door. Ellery let him out, relocking the door immediately, and the Sergeant’s redclad figure disappeared on the double in the general direction of the main-floor gentlemen’s relief station, leaving the dauphin in solitary possession of the dais.
During the sergeant’s recess Inspector Queen circulated among his men, repeating the order of the day.
The episode of Velie’s response to the summons of Nature caused a temporary crisis. For at the end of the specified fifteen minutes he had not returned. Nor was there a sign of him at the end of a half hour. An aide dispatched to the relief station reported back that the sergeant was not there. Fears of foul play were voiced at an emergency staff conference held then and there, and counter-measures were being planned even as, at 2:35 P.M., the familiar Santa-clad bulk of the sergeant was observed battling through the lines, pawing at his mask.
“Velie,” snarled Inspector Queen, “where have you been?”
“Eating my lunch,” growled the Sergeant’s voice, defensively. “I been taking my punishment like a gook soldier all day, Inspector, but I draw the line at starvin’ to death, even in line of duty.”
“Velie—!” choked the inspector; but then he waved his hand feebly and said, “Ellery, let him back in there.”
And that was very nearly all. The only other incident of note occurred at 4:22 P.M. A well-upholstered woman with a red face yelled, “Stop! Thief! He grabbed my pocketbook! Police!” about fifty feet from the Ypson exhibit. Ellery instantly shouted, “It’s a trick! Men, don’t take your eyes off that doll!”
“It’s Comus disguised as a woman,” exclaimed Attorney Bondling, as Inspector Queen and Detective Hesse wrestled the female figure through the mob. She was now a wonderful shade of magenta. “What are you doing?” she screamed. “Don’t arrest me!—catch that crook who stole my pocketbook!” “No dice, Comus,” said the inspector. “Wipe off that makeup.” “McComas?” said the woman loudly. “My name is Rafferty, and all these folks saw it. He was a fat man with a mustache.” “Inspector,” said Nikki Porter, making a surreptitious scientific test. “This is a female. Believe me.” And so, indeed, it proved. All agreed that the mustachioed fat man had been Comus, creating a diversion in the desperate hope that the resulting confusion would give him an opportunity to steal the little dauphin.
“Stupid, stupid,” muttered Ellery, gnawing his fingernails.
“Sure,” grinned the inspector. “We’ve got him nibbling his tail, Ellery. This was his do-or-die pitch. He’s through.”
“Frankly,” sniffed Nikki, “I’m a little disappointed.”
“Worried,” said Ellery, “would be the word for me.”
INSPECTOR QUEEN WAS too case-hardened a sinner’s nemesis to lower his guard at his most vulnerable moment. When the 5:30 bells bonged and the crowds began struggling toward the exits, he barked: “Men, stay at your posts. Keep watching that doll!” So all hands were on the qui vive even as the store emptied. The reserves kept hustling people out. Ellery, standing on an information booth, spotted bottlenecks and waved his arms.
At 5:50 P.M. the main floor was declared out of the battle zone. All stragglers had been herded out. The only persons visible were the refugees trapped by the closing bell on the upper floors, and these were pouring out of elevators and funneled by a solid line of detectives and accredited store personnel to the doors. By 6:05 they were a trickle; by 6:10 even the trickle had dried up. And the personnel itself began to disperse.
“No, men!” called Ellery sharply from his observation post. “Stay where you are till all the store employees are out!” The counter clerks had long since disappeared.
Sergeant Velie’s plaintive voice called from the other side of the glass door. “I got to get home and decorate my tree. Maestro, make with the key.”
Ellery jumped down and hurried over to release him. Detective Piggott jeered, “Going to play Santa to your kids tomorrow morning, Velie?” at which the sergeant managed even through his mask to project a four-letter word distinctly, forgetful of Miss Porter’s presence, and stamped off toward the gentleman’s relief station.
“Where you going, Velie?” asked the inspector, smiling.
“I got to get out of these x-and-dash Santy clothes somewheres, don’t I?” came back the sergeant’s mask-muffled tones, and he vanished in a thunderclap of his fellow-officers’ laughter.
“Still worried, Mr. Queen?” chuckled the inspector.
“I don’t understand it.” Ellery shook his head. “Well, Mr. Bondling, there’s your dauphin, untouched by human hands.”
“Yes. Well!” Attorney Bondling wiped his forehead happily. “I don’t profess to understand it, either, Mr. Queen. Unless it’s simply another case of an inflated reputation…” He clutched the inspector suddenly. “Those men!” he whispered. “Who are they?”
“Relax, Mr. Bondling,” said the inspector good-naturedly. “It’s just the men to move the dolls back to the bank. Wait a minute, you men! Perhaps, Mr. Bondling, we’d better see the dauphin back to the vaults ourselves.”
“Keep those fellows back,” said Ellery to the headquarters men, quietly, and he followed the inspector and Mr. Bondling into the enclosure. They pulled two of the counters apart at one corner and strolled over to the platform. The dauphin was winking at them in a friendly way. They stood looking at him.
“Cute little devil,” said the inspector.
“Seems silly now,” beamed Attorney Bondling. “Being so worried all day.”
“Comus must have had some plan,” mumbled Ellery.
“Sure,” said the inspector. “That old man disguise. And that purse-snatching act.”
“No, no, Dad. Something clever. He’s always pulled something clever.”
“Well, there’s the diamond,” said the lawyer comfortably. “He didn’t.”
“Disguise…” muttered Ellery. “It’s always been a disguise. Santa Claus costume—he used that once—this morning in front of the bank…. Did we see a Santa Claus around here today?”
“Just Velie,” said the inspector, grinning. “And I hardly think—”
“Wait a moment, please,” said Attorney Bondling in a very odd voice.
He was staring at the Dauphin’s Doll.
“Wait for what, Mr. Bondling?”
“What’s the matter?” said Ellery, also in a very odd voice.
“But…not possible…” stammered Bondling. He snatched the doll from its black velvet repository. “No!” he howled. “This isn’t the dauphin! It’s a fake—a copy!”
Something happened in Mr. Queen’s head—a little click! like the sound of a switch. And there was light.
“Some of you men!” he roared. “After Santa Claus!”
“After who, Ellery?” gasped Inspector Queen.
“Don’t stand here! Get him!” screamed Ellery, dancing up and down. “The man I just let out of here! The Santa who made for the men’s room!”
Detectives started running, wildly.
“But Ellery,” said a small voice, and Nikki found that it was her own, “that was Sergeant Velie.”
“It was not Velie, Nikki! When Velie ducked out just before two o’clock, Comus waylaid him! It was Comus who came back in Velie’s Santa Claus rig, wearing Velie’s whiskers and mask! Comus has been on this platform all afternoon!” He tore the dauphin from Attorney Bondling’s grasp. “Copy… He did it, he did it!”
“But Mr. Queen,” whispered Attorney Bondling, “his voice. He spoke to us…in Sergeant Velie’s voice.”
“Yes, Ellery,” Nikki heard herself saying.
“I told you yesterday Comus is a great mimic, Nikki Lieutenant Farber! Is Farber still here?”
The jewelry expert, who had been gaping from a distance, shook his head and shuffled into the enclosure.
“Lieutenant,” said Ellery in a strangled voice. “Examine this diamond…. I mean, is it a diamond?”
Inspector Queen removed his hands from his face and said froggily, “Well, Gerry?”
Lieutenant Farber squinted once through his loupe. “The hell you say. It’s strass—”
“It’s what?” said the inspector piteously.
“Strass, Dick—lead glass—paste. Beautiful job of imitation—as nice as I’ve ever seen.”
“Lead me to that Santa Claus,” whispered Inspector Queen.
But Santa Claus was being led to him. Struggling in the grip of a dozen detectives, his red coat ripped off, his red pants around his ankles, but his whiskery mask still on his face, came a large shouting man.
“But I tell you,” he was roaring, “I’m Sergeant Tom Velie! Just take the mask off—that’s all!”
“It’s a pleasure,” growled Detective Hagstrom, trying to break their prisoner’s arm, “we’re reservin’ for the inspector.”
“Hold him, boys,” whispered the inspector. He struck like a cobra. His hand came away with Santa’s face.
And there, indeed, was Sergeant Velie.
“Why, it’s Velie,” said the inspector wonderingly.
“I only told you that a thousand times,” said the sergeant, folding his great hairy arms across his great hairy chest. “Now, who’s the so-and-so who tried to bust my arm?” Then he said, “My pants!” and as Miss Porter turned delicately away, Detective Hagstrom humbly stooped and raised Sergeant Velie’s pants.
“Never mind that,” said a cold, remote voice.
It was the master, himself.
“Yeah?” said Sergeant Velie.
“Velie, weren’t you attacked when you went to the men’s room just before two?”
“Do I look like the attackable type?”
“You did go to lunch?—in person?”
“And a lousy lunch it was.”
“It was you up here among the dolls all afternoon?”
“Nobody else, Maestro. Now, my friends, I want action. Fast patter. What’s this all about? Before,” said Sergeant Velie softly, “I lose my temper.”
While divers headquarters orators delivered impromptu periods before the silent sergeant, Inspector Richard Queen spoke.
“Ellery. Son. How in the name of the second sin did he do it?”
“Pa,” replied the master, “you got me.”
DECK THE HALL with boughs of holly, but not if your name is Queen on the evening of a certain December twenty-fourth. If your name is Queen on that lamentable evening you are seated in the living room of a New York apartment uttering no falalas but staring miserably into a somber fire. And you have company. The guest list is short but select. It numbers two, a Miss Porter and a Sergeant Velie, and they are no comfort.
No, no ancient Yuletide carol is being trolled; only the silence sings.
Wail in your crypt, Cytherea Ypson; all was for nought; your little dauphin’s treasure lies not in the empty coffers of the orphans but in the hot clutch of one who took his evil inspiration from a long-crumbled specialist in vanishments.
Fact: Lieutenant Geronimo Farber of police headquarters had examined the diamond in the genuine dauphin’s crown a matter of seconds before it was conveyed to its sanctuary in the enclosure. Lieutenant Farber had pronounced the diamond a diamond, and not merely a diamond, but a diamond worth in his opinion over one hundred thousand dollars.
Fact: It was this genuine diamond and this genuine Dauphin’s Doll which Ellery with his own hands had carried into the glass-enclosed fortress and deposited between the authenticated Sergeant Velie’s verified feet.
Fact: All day—specifically, between the moment the dauphin had been deposited in his niche until the moment he was discovered to be a fraud; that is, during the total period in which a theft-and-substitution was even theoretically possible—no person whatsoever, male or female, adult or child, had set foot within the enclosure except Sergeant Thomas Velie, alias Santa Claus; and some dozens of persons with police training and specific instructions, not to mention the Queens themselves, Miss Porter, and Attorney Bondling, testified unqualifiedly that Sergeant Velie had not touched the doll, at any time, all day.
Fact: All those deputized to watch the doll swore that they had done so without lapse or hindrance the everlasting day; moreover, that at no time had anything touched the doll—human or mechanical—either from inside or outside the enclosure.
Fact: Despite all the foregoing, at the end of the day they had found the real dauphin gone and a worthless copy in its place.
“It’s brilliantly, unthinkably clever,” said Ellery at last “A master illusion. For, of course, it was an illusion….”
“Witchcraft,” groaned the inspector.
“Mass mesmerism,” suggested Nikki Porter.
“Mass bird gravel,” growled the sergeant.
Two hours later Ellery spoke again.
“So Comus had a worthless copy of the dauphin all ready for the switch,” he muttered. “It’s a world famous dollie, been illustrated countless times, minutely described, photographed…. All ready for the switch, but how did he make it? How? How?”
“You said that,” said the sergeant, “once or forty-two times.”
“The bells are tolling,” sighed Nikki, “but for whom? Not for us.” And indeed, while they slumped there, Time, which Seneca named father of truth, had crossed the threshold of Christmas; and Nikki looked alarmed, for as that glorious song of old came upon the midnight clear, a great light spread from Ellery’s eyes and beatified the whole contorted countenance, so that peace sat there, the peace that approximated understanding; and he threw back that noble head and laughed with the merriment of an innocent child.
“Hey,” said Sergeant Velie, staring.
“Son,” began Inspector Queen, half-rising from his armchair; when the telephone rang.
“Beautiful!” roared Ellery. “Oh, exquisite! How did Comus make the switch, eh? Nikki—”
“From somewhere,” said Nikki, handing him the telephone receiver, “a voice is calling, and if you ask me it’s saying ‘Comus.’ Why not ask him?”
“Comus,” whispered the inspector, shrinking.
“Comus,” echoed the sergeant, baffled.
“Comus?” said Ellery heartily. “How nice. Hello there! Congratulations.”
“Why, thank you,” said the familiar deep and hollow voice. “I called to express my appreciation for a wonderful day’s sport and to wish you the merriest kind of Yule tide.”
“You anticipate a rather merry Christmas yourself, I take it.”
“Laeti triumphantes,” said Comus jovially.
“And the orphans?”
“They have my best wishes. But I won’t detain you, Ellery. If you’ll look at the doormat outside your apartment door, you’ll find, on it—in the spirit of the season—a little gift, with the compliments of Comus. Will you remember me to Inspector Queen and to Attorney Bondling?”
Ellery hung up, smiling.
On the doormat he found the true Dauphin’s Doll, intact except for a contemptible detail. The jewel in the little golden crown was missing.
“IT WAS,” said Ellery later, over pastrami sandwiches, “a fundamentally simple problem. All great illusions are. A valuable object is placed in full view in the heart of an impenetrable enclosure, it is watched hawkishly by dozens of thoroughly screened and reliable trained persons, it is never out of their view, it is not once touched by human hand or any other agency, and yet, at the expiration of the danger period, it is gone—exchanged for a worthless copy. Wonderful. Amazing. It defies the imagination. Actually, it’s susceptible—like all magical hocus-pocus—to immediate solution if only one is able—as I was not—to ignore the wonder and stick to the fact. But then, the wonder is there for precisely that purpose: to stand in the way of the fact.
“What is the fact?” continued Ellery, helping himself to a dill pickle. “The fact is that between the time the doll was placed on the exhibit platform and the time the theft was discovered no one and no thing touched it. Therefore between the time the doll was placed on the platform and the time the theft was discovered the dauphin could not have been stolen. It follows, simply and inevitably, that the dauphin must have been stolen outside that period.
“Before the period began? No. I placed the authentic dauphin inside the enclosure with my own hands; at or about the beginning of the period, then, no hand but mine had touched the doll—not even, you’ll recall, Lieutenant Farber’s. Then the dauphin must have been stolen after the period closed.”
Ellery brandished half the pickle. “And who,” he demanded solemnly, “is the only one besides myself who handled that doll after the period closed and before Lieutenant Farber pronounced the diamond to be paste? The only one?”
The inspector and the sergeant exchanged puzzled glances, and Nikki looked blank.
“Why, Mr. Bondling,” said Nikki, “and he doesn’t count.”
“He counts very much, Nikki,” said Ellery, reaching for the mustard, “because the facts say Bondling stole the dauphin at that time.”
“Bondling!” The inspector paled.
“I don’t get it,” complained Sergeant Velie.
“Ellery, you must be wrong,” said Nikki. “At the time Mr. Bondling grabbed the doll off the platform, the theft had already taken place. It was the worthless copy he picked up.”
“That,” said Ellery, reaching for another sandwich, “was the focal point of his illusion. How do we know it was the worthless copy he picked up? Why, he said so. Simple, eh? He said so, and like the dumb bunnies we were, we took his unsupported word as gospel.”
“That’s right!” mumbled his father. “We didn’t actually examine the doll till quite a few seconds later.”
“Exactly,” said Ellery in a munchy voice. “There was a short period of beautiful confusion, as Bondling knew there would be. I yelled to the boys to follow and grab Santa Claus—I mean the sergeant, here. The detectives were momentarily demoralized. You, Dad, were stunned. Nikki looked as if the roof had fallen in. I essayed an excited explanation. Some detectives ran; others milled around. And while all this was happening—during those few moments when nobody was watching the genuine doll in Bondling’s hand because everyone thought it was a fake—Bondling calmly slipped it into one of his greatcoat pockets and from the other produced the worthless copy which he’d been carrying there all day. When I did turn back to him, it was the copy I grabbed from his hand. And his illusion was complete.
“I know,” said Ellery dryly, “it’s rather on the let-down side. That’s why illusionists guard their professional secrets so closely; knowledge is disenchantment. No doubt the incredulous amazement aroused in his periwigged London audience by Comus the French conjuror’s dematerialization of his wife from the top of a table would have suffered the same fate if he’d revealed the trap door through which she had dropped. A good trick, like a good woman, is best in the dark. Sergeant, have another pastrami.”
“Seems like funny chow to be eating early Christmas morning,” said the sergeant, reaching. Then he stopped. Then he said, “Bondling,” and shook his head.
“Now that we know it was Bondling,” said the inspector, who had recovered a little, “it’s a cinch to get that diamond back. He hasn’t had time to dispose of it yet. I’ll just give downtown a buzz—”
“Wait. Dad” said Ellery.
“Wait for what?”
“Whom are you going to sic the hounds on?”
“What?”
“You’re going to call headquarters, get a warrant, and so on. Who’s your man?”
The inspector felt his head. “Why… Bondling, didn’t you say?”
“It might be wise,” said Ellery, thoughtfully searching with his tongue for a pickle seed, “to specify his alias.”
“Alias?” said Nikki. “Does he have one?”
“What alias, son?”
“Comus.”
“Comus!”
“Comus?”
“Oh, come off it,” said Nikki, pouring herself a shot of coffee, straight, for she was in training for the inspector’s Christmas dinner. “How could Bondling be Comus when Bondling was with us all day?—and Comus kept making disguised appearances all over the place…that Santa who gave me the note in front of the bank—the old man who kidnapped Lance Morganstern—the fat man with the mustache who snatched Mrs. Rafferty’s purse.”
“Yeah,” said the sergeant. “How?”
“These illusions die hard,” said Ellery. “Wasn’t it Comus who phoned a few minutes ago to rag me about the theft? Wasn’t it Comus who said he’d left the stolen dauphin—minus the diamond—on our doormat? Therefore Comus is Bondling.
“I told you Comus never does anything without a good reason,” said Ellery. “Why did ‘Comus’ announce to ‘Bondling’ that he was going to steal the Dauphin’s Doll? Bondling told us that—putting the finger on his alter ego—because he wanted us to believe he and Comus were separate individuals. He wanted us to watch for Comus and take Bondling for granted. In tactical execution of this strategy Bondling provided us with three ‘Comus’ appearances during the day—obviously confederates.
“Yes,” said Ellery, “I think Dad, you’ll find on backtracking that the great thief you’ve been trying to catch for five years has been a respectable estate attorney on Park Row all the time, shedding his quiddities and his quillets at night in favor of the soft shoe and the dark lantern. And now he’ll have to exchange them all for a number and a grilled door. Well, well, it couldn’t have happened at a more appropriate season; there’s an old English proverb that says the Devil makes his Christmas pie of lawyer’s tongues. Nikki, pass the pastrami.”