Chapter 17 The story of GI in the message department before death

Ellery stepped off the Atlantic Express to his favorite town, armed with earmuffs, mask and skis.This time, he's determined not to let any incident get in the way of his vacation.But he hadn't had time to unload all his equipment into Bill York's cabin on the barren hill when the call came.As expected, it was the head of the Wright Town Police Department, and another crime occurred. "I haven't got my hat off yet," complained Ellery. "Dakin, what's your convict doing this time? Read the arrival column in the Chronicle?" "This is a really weird case," said Chief Dakin, sounding emotionally affected. "Can I send a car over there?"

On Town Street, by the side door of the town courthouse, the lean Yankee waited anxiously.He got in with one hand on the police car, and with the other he reached out to pull Ellery. "I've been up almost all night," Dakin said hoarsely. "Remember Clint Fosdick?" "Of course. Home improvement. Around Slocum up Whistle Street. What's up with old Clint?" "Killed last night," Dakin muttered. "I could tell you who did it, but I won't. I want you to tell me." Ellery stared at the startling old gentleman.The car slid across the icy square and began to climb Dade Street. "Why not? Aren't you sure?"

"If only I could be so sure there's a place for me in Heaven," Chief Dakin shouted. "I'm not only sure who killed Clint, but how he killed Clint. More than that." , I still have solid evidence to convict him." "Then what's the problem, Dakin?" "GI," said the chief of Wright's police. "G... what?" "GI. Mr. Quinn, what do you think these two letters mean?" "Well, of course—" "The only problem is, it doesn't match up with my evidence," Dakin said, "and as long as I don't have a way to make it match up with my evidence, a smart lawyer can play with the jury, and in their A little bit of doubt was planted in his little head. Mr. Quinn, listen to me tell the facts without prejudice." The director said seriously, "You come to match GI. Remember the children named Smith? — we call them 'Presidents'."

"Smith? President?" Ellery looked puzzled. “Their dad was Jeff Smith – full name Thomas Jefferson Smith, who taught American History at Wright Township High School. Jeff and Martha Higgins were married and they had three children. Eldest son Walsh attended War, now a lawyer, but not working. Link was in the army, and then he went to medical school - recently finished his internship at Wright General Hospital. And the youngest Woody, three months He had just been recruited into the army. "Well, Clint Fosdick was courting Martha Higgins and Jeff Smith long before they were married. But Clint was eighteen years older than Martha, and had only a fourth-grade education. Grade—he couldn't even write in Spencer, and the letters had to be typed. Jeff had gone to college. Clint had no chance at all in this situation.

"But in 1937, Jeff Smith drowned in Lake Cuito Noches while leading students at summer camp. Martha became a poor widow with three starving children, and a loyal old Clint is still waiting for her...Martha married him." Dakin growled, "Clint bought that big house on Hill Drive so they could all live together. The lot with the hundred and twenty-year-old shade trees. It's like he's offering ice cream at a Sunday school picnic." The police car came to the top of the ridge and began to slide along the mountain road among the beautiful old houses in Wright Town.The director's Adam's apple trembled slightly.

"Clint did everything for those kids. He sent them to hot colleges, bought them cars, stuffed their pockets with pocket money...Martha died of the flu epidemic during the war. From there Since then, Clint has been both a father and a mother. He has never stopped loving them for a moment. "They also repay him. They call him Dad, they always remember his birthday, Father's Day and Christmas, and they go to him for any questions—like a real friend. Xiao Wu, who just joined the army Dee was as reckless as an Ayrshire cow to Ivor Crosby, but Clint always said he spoiled the boy, and they were very close indeed. Link, the doctor, had been very industrious; Clint Tet said no one's son could have been better than him. As for the oldest Walsh, he is a very easy-going guy--Clint once said he was too easy-going to survive in this world. Every other Saturday, he has to Clean up Walsh once, whether it's a poker debt or a girl from a village in the foothills. He's got to get him to the law firm on time; but Clint says there's nothing in Walsh's nature Sourness.

"He's got one of them wrong, though," said the old chief, glaring at Ellery, "because one of them poisoned him. I reckon the dear murderer should be thrown in the fryer like pork sausage— —Mr. Quinn, as long as you tell me what GI means!" "I'd love to," Ellery said patiently, "but first—" But when the car stopped in front of the snow-covered lawn of the Fosdick House, Dakin shut his mouth.They were shaking snow off their overshoes in the stained-glass foyer, and the chief of police led the way, through a spacious vestibule and a young police officer, to Clint Fosdick's library.

"That's where Clint's housekeeper, Lettie Dowling, found him last night. She heard the clink of chairs and ran in." It was an oak-walled, dark, old-fashioned room with a high ceiling and admirably decorated.But Ellery finds the musty silence these days distasteful. He saw at once where the body had been lying—an overturned leather swivel chair behind the table, and the oriental rug underneath was wrinkled as if someone had scratched it in pain. Among the piles of paper on the table was an overturned cocktail glass.On a nearby tray is a jug filled with a colorless liquid.Ellery leaned over and sniffed.

"That's right, the poison is in the cocktail." Chief Dakin nodded, "Clint used to be a teetotaler like me. But since Martha's death, he has developed a desire for martinis. At night in the library, he could sit and think how alone he was without her, and drink heavily." "Who made the wine?" Ellery asked sharply. "There is no clue here. Clint adjusted it himself. Let me give you some more clues." Dakin said listlessly, "The housekeeper, Old Letty's room is next to the kitchen. It was very early yesterday morning - six fifteen Min—Letty got out of bed after a sleepless night with a cold to get some aspirin. She heard a banging sound in the liquor store and opened the door a crack. There was a bottle Walsh brought to Clint on Wednesday night. Gin, almost full. Through the half-open kitchen door, Letty saw one of the Smith brothers tinkering with a bottle of rum. She said he held a small bottle like a medicine bottle; she also clearly Saw his face.

"Then she heard Clint's voice. Clint went downstairs to the kitchen to make his morning coffee—earlier than usual, but he knew Letty was ill. She heard Clint ask what the kid was doing, The child muttered a word and went upstairs. But Letty saw him put the gin bottle back quickly when he heard Clint approaching, and stuffed the medicine bottle--she said it was empty--into the In the pocket of the bathrobe. Mr. Quinn, I have the 'pill bottle' here. I dug it out of the backyard garbage late last night. If the garbage truck was not delayed by the heavy snow yesterday afternoon, it would not be there. Then The bottle contained poison - if it was full like Letty said, it would be enough to kill the whole village. Conhaven's lab said it was the same poison that was in the bottle of wine, and his fingerprints were on the poison bottle Come on. I caught the devil right."

"Obviously there's one more question left," Ellery said, "GI. That's—" Dakin carefully took out an uncreased piece of paper from his coat pocket. "Clint was going through the store's accounts for the month over a cocktail. He must have known he was going to die; the poison worked fast. The moment he knew he had been poisoned, he must have known who it was." Fuck. He probably saw the same scene as Letty when he went to make coffee yesterday morning. He must have been confused then, but he knew it the second he realized what he had swallowed. So in his Before dying, Clint grabbed his ballpoint pen and wrote the murderer on the letter paper in a child's typeface. Then he fell down with the chair and died on the ground like a poisoned dog." "GI." Ellery held out his hand. Officer Dakin handed the note to Ellery. It was an ordinary company bill.Beneath the words "Clint Fosdick, Home Furnishings, Hilltop Village, Term: Thirty Days," were two letters in trembling handwriting. "GI," Ellery repeated, "you said they were all in the military, right?" "That's right." "They were at home yesterday morning?" "Link had a few days off from the hospital. Little Woody was leaving for Camp Hale. Walsh's been staying here." Ellery was silent, staring at Clint Fosdick's dying message.Then he said: "Does the guilty man know he's finished?" "No, Letty didn't tell anyone but me what she saw, and because of the paper, I didn't. I pretended all three brothers were suspect." "Well," said Ellery, "what did we call them, Dakin?—can I talk to the presidents?" The guards brought in three tall young men, pale and in desperate need of sleep and shaving.They were clearly brothers, with dark skin, dark brown eyes, and huddled bodies. One of them has a different baby face than the two brothers and wears a rumpled U.S. Army uniform. He's Private Woody Smith.Private Smith's brown eyes were full of masked fear and confusion, and his childish lips quivered. The second looked like someone from the hospital, with bleached hands—obviously it was Link Smith, an intern.He described it as haggard, restrained all sharp edges, and was very quiet.Ellery could have sworn this man had cried. Then the third one is the lawyer brother Walsh--the easy-going Walsh, his face is getting darker and his body is getting weaker.Wash Smith stood there with a feeble smile, like a professional comedian thrown into tragedy, desperate to come up with a joke. "GI," muttered Ellery. "That's what your stepfather wrote. Private Smith, what do you think it means?" "What can I do," whispered the boy in uniform, "turn himself in because he wrote GI? I'm not going to kill Papa—why should I kill Papa?" "Dakin, what motive did Private Smith have for killing Dad?" Ellery asked. Dakin said hoarsely: "Because he may not want to wait for Clint to die naturally, and then get the assets left to the three Smith brothers in the will." "Get away from me!" the boy screamed. "Woody," his brother Link said softly. "GI," Ellery said. "Dr. Link, that's related to your field, isn't it? GI—gastroenterology?" The young trainee's tired eyes widened. "Are you serious? Of course, to study internal medicine you have to cover gastroenterology. Last spring, at my dad's insistence, I cured him of the stomach flu, although I couldn't let the hospital find out...and of course I can get it Poison. The only problem is, I didn't kill him." "But how do you explain GI, Dr. Smith?" Ellery insisted. The intern shrugged. "If Dad thought I poisoned him, he'd write my name down, and that would make sense. GI doesn't make sense, at least not to me." "Not for me either," cried Wash Smith, as if impatient to wait. So Ellery took a look at his brother who was a lawyer. "Gin begins with the letters GI. It was the bottle of gin that was poisoned, Mr. Smith—I hear you brought it home to Mr. Fosdick." "Of course, he asked me to take it." The eldest brother said bitterly, "but how can you lock who? Link is right, whoever Clint thinks poisoned him, doesn't it Should the person's name be written down?" Ellery smiled ruefully.He has been thinking about this question for some time.Nothing could be seen on Chief Dakin's face. Suddenly, Ellery stopped smiling, as if aware that he had drunk poison. "president." He said, "President! Gentlemen, I hear that your biological father was named after President Thomas Jefferson. Did he name you three after the President?" "Yes," said Wash Smith blankly. "Three greatest presidents in his opinion. I follow Washington." "I'm with Lincoln," said Dr. Link Smith. "I'm with Woodrow Wilson." Private Woody's voice trembled. Afterwards, the three of them said in unison, "Why do you ask this?" But Ellery's reply was only: "Thank you. Could you please leave this room?" After their bodyguards led the three Smith brothers out of the room, Ellery said to Dakin: "Now I can tell you, old Kling Who is he to accuse him of murder?" "I'm listening," said Commissioner Dakin. Ellery looked at the fallen chair, and it seemed the old man who had tipped it over was still with them, still clutching a pen, trying to write on the bill. "Because Dr. Smith was right," Ellery said. "Detective novels are always fond of fancy wordplay, but in real life, that doesn't happen. If a man miraculously forces his dying brain Leaving a message on a piece of paper, he does not write something cryptic or pretentious. If he knows who did it, his efforts must have but one purpose: to convey the message as directly as possible. Write When he scribbled the letters GI, Clint Fosdick wanted to do only one thing: name the killer." But Dakin's expression didn't change. "GI isn't even part of their name, Mr. Quinn. You think I can't think of that?" "Clint is in trouble, Dakin. Assuming it was Wash Smith who poisoned him, Clint may find that if he writes about Wash or Washington, he's probably exhausted after the first letter— He knew he was going to die soon. But if he could only write the W for Washington, that W could just as well be for Woody Jr., whose name follows President Wilson. So, to avoid misunderstanding, Clint wrote the poisoned full name of the person." "Full name?" The police chief blinked. "Thomas Jefferson Smith named his three sons Presidential names. So the children's full names, like Jeff Smith's full name, began with these Presidential names. In fact, Private Smith was called Wo Dee, apparently full name is Woodrow Wilson Smith. Doctor Link Smith's full name must be Abraham Lincoln Smith. A for Abraham or L for Lincoln, W for Woodrow (or Wilson) - all with GI sorry. "But what about Wash Smith, who was named after Washington?" Ellery said. His inheritance? That's what you're looking for, Dakin—it was the brother Letty, Dorian saw poisoning in the gin bottle yesterday morning too, wasn't he? Was it his fingerprints? On the poison bottle?" "Yes," said the Wright Chief of Police slowly, "Wash is indeed my man. But Mr. Quinn, Clint wrote GI—and Walsh's name, George Washington Smith , starting with GE." "That's the point," said Ellery, squeezing Dakin's arm. "Dakin, poor old Clint finished the G without a hitch, but he died after writing the E."