Chapter 34 Chapter Thirty-Three The Truth Comes Out

By this stage, a serious rift had developed between father and son.The police officer's state of mind is understandable: he was full of sorrow, hesitation, and feeling that he was about to die, so he was holding back his anger at Ellery, but Ellery just kept silent and didn't move at all. move.Knowing that something was wrong, the old man felt at a loss, so he produced a very characteristic reaction: he lost his temper and roared like thunder, making those subordinates uneasy, but in fact, his anger was always aimed at his humble Of the son who hangs his head. During the day, he made several gestures to leave the office.It was only at such moments that Ellery moved; and the friction between father and son grew.

"You must not go. You must stay here. I beg you." On one occasion, the officer ignored it and left; Ellery, who had been sitting by the telephone like a hound ready to go, was so nervous that he bit the skin of his lip and bled, but the officer was not very determined. , finally went back and forth, blushed, scolded endlessly, but still stayed with his son inexplicably. Ellery's face immediately lightened; and he sat down by the telephone again, with the same concentration as before, only now he could devote all his energy to the apparently daunting task of waiting. , wait...every certain time, there is always a call.The police officer had no idea who was calling or what they were calling for, but Ellery grabbed the receiver every time the telex rang, as if he were a prisoner on death row and the phone It was a pardon for a stay of execution.Each time he looks disappointed; listens seriously, nods, says something incomprehensible, and hangs up.

Once, the police officer wanted to find Inspector Willie, and found that this always loyal inspector had not reported to the headquarters since last night.It was too serious, the old man blushed and his neck was thick with anger, which portended the inspector's bad luck.But he learned his lesson and didn't say anything; Ellery probably felt a little bit offended by his father's suspicion, so he didn't answer him.Throughout that afternoon the Inspector needed to speak to some of his detectives on matters unrelated to the Greenshaw case; and to his great surprise several of these men were precisely The people he trusted most—Harstrom, Pigott, Rhett—have somehow disappeared without a trace.

Ellery said calmly: "Willie and the rest of them are out on important missions. It's my order." Because he couldn't bear to let the old man continue to suffer. "Your order!" The police officer managed to utter these words.He was full of anger, and his seven orifices were filled with anger, "Who are you following someone's tail," he said with all his might. Ellery nodded; kept his eyes on the phone. Every hour, every half hour, there was a mysterious phone call, a report to Ellery.At last the Inspector, with force of will, reined in his fury—by which time the danger of an open confrontation between father and son was over—and pulled himself together to deal with a mass of routine.Time passed quickly; Ellery ordered lunch to be brought up; father and son ate in silence, Ellery's hand never far from the phone.

For dinner, they still ate in the police officer's office—they had no appetite, just mechanical movements, eating in the dark.Neither father nor son thought of turning on the lights; it was dark and the constable got bored and quit his job. Suddenly, in the locked room, Ellery resumed his old feelings and began to speak.He spoke with a sharpness and certainty, as if the words he said had been distilled after many hours of calm thought.As he talked, the police officer's anger disappeared completely, and a rare expression of surprise appeared on his old-fashioned face.He kept talking to himself: "I can't believe it. It's impossible. How could it be?"

By the time Ellery finished speaking, there was a flash of guilt in the officer's eyes.But it was only for a moment; he immediately brightened up, and from then on, he was equally absorbed in the telephone, as if it were a psychic treasure. When it was normal off-duty time, the police officer summoned the secretary and issued a mysterious instruction.The secretary left. Within fifteen minutes, in the corridors of Police Headquarters, rumors had spread, intentionally or not, that Officer Quinn had left off duty—that he had in fact returned home to recharge his batteries for the A duel with James Knox's lawyers.

In fact, Officer Quinn was still sitting in his dark office, guarding the telephone with Ellery, which was now connected to the telephone operator of the police station through a dedicated line. Outside the door, next to the roadside, there was a police car parked. There were two people sitting in the car, and the engine had been running all afternoon. It seemed that they waited with the same steely patience as the two lords who lived deep in the tall buildings of the gray stone buildings with closed doors and black ancient dragons. It was past midnight when the call finally came. Quinn and his son sprinted as soon as they started.The phone rang harshly.Ellery grabbed the receiver and called into it, "Hello?"

Someone on the phone answered in a buzzing voice. "Coming!" Ellery yelled, throwing down the phone. "To Knox's house, Dad!" They rushed out of the sheriff's office, putting on their overcoats as they ran.Downstairs, into the waiting car, Ellery gave the order firmly, and the car went into a sprint... Black Nose turned north and sped away, the siren blaring. Ellery's orders, however, were not to James Knox's house on Riverside Drive.The car turned onto Fifty-fourth Street—the street between the church and the Khalkis house.A few blocks away, the sirens stopped.The rubber tires of the car rolled silently into the dark street and leaned against the curb without a sound. Ellery and the police officer jumped out of the car in a second.Father and son did not hesitate to hide in the shadows at the basement entrance of the empty Knox house next door to Khalkis's... They moved like ghosts, without a sound.Inspector Willie's thick back and broad shoulders emerged from the shadows beneath the crumbling steps.A flash of lightning shot at Quinn and his son, and then turned off immediately. The inspector said in a low voice: "Inside. Move quickly. My men are all in ambush. Can't run away. Quick, sir!"

The Inspector, very calm and steady now, nodded; and Willie gently pushed open the door leading to the cellar. He paused at the entrance to the basement, and another figure appeared out of nowhere.Quinn and his son took two flashlights from this man without saying a word.According to the police officer's order, Willie and Ellery each covered their flashlights with handkerchiefs, and the three tiptoed into the desolate basement.The inspector led the way, as familiar as a cat.The light of their flashlights seemed to be there, just enough to illuminate the way.They crept silently across the floor, past the ghostly furnace, and up the basement stairs.At the end of the stairs, Willie stopped again; he bit his ear with another man who was waiting there, then turned back silently and waved, leading him into the dark hall on the ground floor.

They tiptoed, and as soon as they entered the corridor, they all stopped abruptly, holding their breath.Somewhere ahead, there was obviously a faint light shining through the gap between the upper and lower cracks of a door. Ellery touched Inspector Willie's arm lightly.Willie brought the huge head closer.Ellery whispered something.Unable to see, Willy smiled disapprovingly in the darkness, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a barreled revolver. He drew an infinitely small circle with the flashlight downwards—immediately, several black shadows gathered together, moving very lightly.Willie conversed in a low voice with another man who sounded like Detective Pigott.

It seems that all exits are blocked... These few shadows, under the command of the inspector, moved towards the faint light.They stopped.Willie took a deep breath, called Pigott and another detective—Ritter, as he could tell from his slender figure—to his side, and shouted, "Damn it!" So the three men, the hulking Willie in the middle, charged at the door, which collapsed like splintered planks, and they rushed into the room.Ellery and the police officer hastily followed; they spread apart, the flashlights were no longer blinded, and formed a strong light, which suddenly revealed a frozen figure-this was the target of their pursuit ——In the middle of this dusty room with no furniture——this person was using a small flashlight just now, aiming at two identical oil paintings lying flat on the floor, studying carefully... At this moment, everyone was silent; then, a sudden explosion broke out.From the belly that covered the figure from top to bottom, there was a howl, like the roar and whine of a wild beast; the figure twisted around like a leopard, and the snow-white hand swiftly took out the blue-blue color from the pocket. automatic pistol.Desperately desperate. The masked guest stared blankly at the tall Ellery Queen, aiming at him with uncanny accuracy from the crowd at the entrance.It was too late, but soon, a finger was hooked on the trigger of the automatic pistol; at the same time, the revolvers of several detectives also fired in unison.Inspector Willie, with an angry face and a livid face, charged at the masked passenger at the speed of an express train...the masked passenger collapsed to the ground like a pile of waste paper. Startled suddenly, Ellery Quinn snorted softly, opened her eyes wide, and fell at her father's stiff feet. Ten minutes later, the light of the flashlight illuminated the same venue, but the scene was as peaceful as it was violent just now.Ellery lay on the filthy floor, covered with several detective coats.The poised Dr. Duncan Fullerstead leaned over Ellery.Sergeant Quinn, white as a cloud, cold and stern and vulnerable as porcelain, stood behind the doctor, staring, without blinking, into Ellery's bloodless face.No one spoke; not even the people surrounding the hideously shaped body on the floor in the center of the room that had shot Ellery. Dr. Fullerstead turned his head: "I can't shoot correctly. He's fine. There's a little flesh injury on his shoulder. Here, he's awake." The police officer finally breathed a sigh of relief.Ellery opened his eyes a little, then closed them again with pain, and reached for his left shoulder, where he found the bandage.The officer squatted beside him. "Ellery, boy—you're not hurt. How do you feel?" Ellery forced a smile.He struggled to stand up, and there were two gentle and considerate hands beside him to support him. "Why!" he said in surprise, "how do you do, Doctor. When did you come?" He looked around, and his eyes met with the silent group of detectives who were densely packed.He staggered toward them, and Inspector Willie stood by, murmuring apologetically like a child.Ellery grabbed Willie by the shoulders with his right hand, leaned close to him, and looked toward the body on the floor.There was no look of victory in his eyes, but only deep sadness, which mingled vaguely with the torchlight, dust, indifferent crowd, and dark shadows. "Dead?" he asked, licking his lips. "Four bullets through the gut," Willie murmured. "Did long ago." Ellery nodded; his eyes shifted to two open paintings, still lying pitifully in the pile of ashes where they had just been placed. "Well," he said with a humorless wry smile, "we've found them at last," and here he looked again at the dead man. "You miscalculated, you miscalculated, sir. You're like Napoleon." , won every battle, lost only the last battle.” He stared at the dead man's open eyes for a moment, shuddered, and turned to see the inspector beside him; the little old man was looking at him with hawk-like eyes. Ellery smiled faintly: "Okay, Dad, we can release poor old Knox now. He voluntarily made a sacrifice, and it was all for nothing... The real murderer is now lying on Knox in the ashes on the floor of the house. The whole thing was done by this lone wolf—the racketeer, the thief, the murderer . . . " Together they looked down at the dead man.The dead man on the floor looked at them as if they were alive—there was indeed a sneer that would never disappear on his ghastly face—the man was Deputy Attorney Pepper.