“I don’t get it,” said the Inspector. “He’d be noticed? But if he was wearing ordinary clothing—”

  “Then obviously he wouldn’t need my coat,” nodded Mr. Queen.

  “Or—say! If he was wearing a uniform of some kind—say he was a Stadium attendant—”

  “Then still obviously he wouldn’t need my coat. A uniform would be a perfect guarantee that he’d pass in the crowds unnoticed.” Mr. Queen shook his head. “No, there’s only one answer to this problem. I saw it at once, of course.” He noted the Inspector’s expression and continued hastily: “And that was: If the murderer had been wearing clothes—any normal body-covering—beneath the bloodstained coat, he could have made his escape in those clothes. But since he didn’t, it can only mean that he wasn’t wearing clothes, you see, and that’s why he needed a coat not only to come to the scene of the crime, but to escape from it as well.”

  There was another silence, and finally Paula said: “Wasn’t wearing clothes? A … naked man? Why, that’s like something out of Poe!”

  “No,” smiled Mr. Queen, “merely something out of the Stadium. You see, we had a classification of gentlemen in the vicinity tonight who wore no—or nearly no—clothing. In a word, the gladiators. Or, if you choose, the pugilists.… Wait!” he said swiftly. “This is an extraordinary case, chiefly because I solved the hardest part of it almost the instant I knew there was a murder. For the instant I discovered that Brown had been stabbed, and that my coat had been stolen by a murderer who left his own behind, I knew that the murderer could have been only one of thirteen men … the thirteen living prizefighters left after Brown was killed. For you’ll recall there were fourteen fighters in the Stadium tonight—twelve distributed among six preliminary bouts, and two in the main bout.

  “Which of the thirteen living fighters had killed Brown? That was my problem from the beginning. And so I had to find my coat, because it was the only concrete connection I could discern between the murderer and his crime. And now I’ve found my coat, and now I know which of the thirteen murdered Brown.”

  Barney Hawks was speechless, his jaws agape.

  “I’m a tall, fairly broad man. In fact, I’m six feet tall,” said the great man. “And yet the murderer, in wearing my coat to make his escape, burst its seams at the arm-holes and back! That meant he was a big man, a much bigger man than I, much bigger and broader.

  “Which of the thirteen fighters on the card tonight were bigger and broader than I? Ah, but it’s been a very light card—bantamweights, welterweights, lightweights, middleweights! Therefore none of the twelve preliminary fighters could have murdered Brown. Therefore only one fighter was left—a man six and a half feet tall, extremely broad-shouldered and broad-backed, a man who had every motive—the greatest motive—to induce Mike Brown to throw the fight tonight!”

  And this time the silence was ghastly with meaning. It was broken by Jim Coyle’s lazy laugh. “If you mean me, you must be off your nut. Why, I was in that shower room taking a shower at the time Mike was bumped off!”

  “Yes, I mean you, Mr. Jim Coyle Stiletto-Wielding Couzzi,” said Mr. Queen clearly, “and the shower room was the cleverest part of your scheme. You went into the shower room in full view of all of us, with towels, shut the door, turned on the shower, slipped a pair of trousers over your bare and manly legs, grabbed Barney Hawks’s camel’s-hair coat and hat which were hanging on a peg in there, and then ducked out of the shower-room window into the alley. From there it was a matter of seconds to the street and the parking lot across the street. Of course, when you stained Hawks’s coat during the commission of your crime, you couldn’t risk coming back in it. And you had to have a coat—a buttoned coat—to cover your nakedness for the return trip. So you stole mine, for which I’m very grateful, because otherwise—Grab him, will you? My right isn’t very good,” said Mr. Queen, employing a dainty and beautiful bit of footwork to escape Coyle’s sudden homicidal lunge in his direction.

  And while Coyle went down under an avalanche of flailing arms and legs, Mr. Queen murmured apologetically to Miss Paris: “After all, darling, he is the heavyweight champion of the world.”

  Trojan Horse

  “Whom,” demanded Miss Paula Paris across the groaning board, “do you like, Mr. Queen?”

  Mr. Queen instantly mumbled: “You,” out of a mouthful of Vermont turkey, chestnut stuffing, and cranberry sauce.

  “I didn’t mean that, silly,” said Miss Paris, nevertheless pleased. “However, now that you’ve brought the subject up—will you say such pretty things when we’re married?”

  Mr. Ellery Queen paled and, choking, set down his weapons. His precious liberty faced with this alluring menace, Mr. Queen now choked over the luscious Christmas dinner which Miss Paris had cunningly cooked with her own slim hands and served en tête-à-tête in her cosy maple and chintz dining room.

  “Oh, relax,” pouted Miss Paris. “I was joking. What makes you think I’d marry a creature who studies cutthroats and chases thieves for the enjoyment of it?”

  “Horrible fate for a woman,” Mr. Queen hastened to agree. “Besides, I’m not good enough for you.”

  “Darned tootin’ you’re not! But you haven’t answered my question. Do you think Carolina will lick USC next Sunday?”

  “Oh, the Rose Bowl game,” said Mr. Queen, discovering his appetite miraculously. “More turkey, please!… Well, if Ostermoor lives up to his reputation, the Spartans should breeze in.”

  “Really?” murmured Miss Paris. “Aren’t you forgetting that Roddy Crockett is the whole Trojan backfield?”

  “Southern California Trojans, Carolina Spartans,” said Mr. Queen thoughtfully, munching. “Spartans versus Trojans … Sort of modern gridiron Siege of Troy.”

  “Ellery Queen, that’s plagiarism or—or something! You read it in my column.”

  “Is there a Helen for the lads to battle over?” grinned Mr. Queen.

  “You’re so romantic, Queenikins. The only female involved is a very pretty, rich, and sensible coed named Joan Wing, and she isn’t the kidnaped love of any of the Spartans.”

  “Curses,” said Mr. Queen, reaching for the brandied plum pudding. “For a moment I thought I had something.”

  “But there’s a Priam of a sort, because Roddy Crockett is engaged to Joan Wing, and Joanie’s father, Pop Wing, is just about the noblest Trojan of them all.”

  “Maybe you know what you’re talking about, beautiful,” said Mr. Queen, “but I don’t.”

  “You’re positively the worst-informed man in California! Pop Wing is USC’s most enthusiastic alumnus, isn’t he?”

  “Is he?”

  “You mean you’ve never heard of Pop Wing?” asked Paula incredulously.

  “Not guilty,” said Mr. Queen. “More plum pudding, please.”

  “The Perennial Alumnus? The Boy Who Never Grew Up?”

  “Thank you,” said Mr. Queen. “I beg your pardon.”

  “The Ghost of Exposition Park and the L.A. Coliseum, who holds a life seat for all USC football games? The unofficial trainer, rubber, water boy, pep-talker, Alibi Ike, booster, and pigskin patron-in-chief to the Trojan eleven? Percy Squires ‘Pop’ Wing, Southern California ’04, the man who sleeps, eats, breathes only for Trojan victories and who married and, failing a son, created a daughter for the sole purpose of snaring USC’s best fullback in years?”

  “Peace, peace; I yield,” moaned Mr. Queen, “before the crushing brutality of the characterization. I now know Percy Squires Wing as I hope never to know anyone again.”

  “Sorry!” said Paula, rising briskly. “Because directly after you’ve filled your bottomless tummy with plum pudding we’re going Christmas calling on the great man.”

  “No!” said Mr. Queen with a shudder.

  “You want to see the Rose Bowl game, don’t you?”

  “Who doesn’t? But I haven’t been able to snag a brace of tickets for love or money.”

  “Poor Queenie,” purred Miss Paris, putting her arms about him. “You’re so helpless. Come on watch me wheedle Pop Wing out of two seats for the game!”

  The lord of the château whose towers rose from a magnificently preposterous parklike estate in Inglewood proved to be a flat-bellied youngster of middle age, almost as broad as he was tall, with a small bald head set upon small ruddy cheeks, so that at first glance Mr. Queen thought he was viewing a Catawba grape lying on a boulder.

  They came upon the millionaire seated on his hams in the center of a vast lawn, arguing fiercely with a young man who by his size—which was herculean—and his shape—which was cuneiform—and his coloring—which was coppery—could only be of the order footballis, and therefore Mr. Wing’s future son-in-law and the New Year’s Day hope of the Trojans.

  They were manipulating wickets, mallets, and croquet balls in illustration of a complex polemic which apparently concerned the surest method of frustrating the sinister quarterback of the Carolina eleven, Ostermoor.

  A young lady with red hair and a saucy nose sat cross-legged on the grass nearby, her soft blue eyes fixed on the brown face of the young man with that naked worshipfulness young ladies permit themselves to exhibit in public only when their young men have formally yielded. This, concluded Mr. Queen without difficulty, must be the daughter of the great man and Mr. Roddy Crockett’s fiancée, Joan Wing.

  Mr. Wing hissed a warning to Roddy at the sight of Mr. Queen’s unfamiliar visage, and for a moment Mr. Queen felt uncomfortably like a spy caught sneaking into the enemy’s camp. But Miss Paris hastily vouched for his devotion to the cause of Troy, and for some time there were Christmas greetings and introductions, in the course of which Mr. Queen made the acquaintance of two persons whom he recognized instantly as the hybrid genus house-guest perennialis. One was a bearded gentleman with high cheekbones and a Muscovite manner (pre-Soviet), entitled the Grand Duke Ostrov; the other was a thin, dark, whiplike female with inscrutable black eyes who went by the mildly astonishing name of Madame Mephisto.

  These two barely nodded to Miss Paris and Mr. Queen; they were listening to each word that dropped from the lips of Mr. Percy Squires Wing, their host, with the adoration of novitiates at the feet of their patron saint.

  The noble Trojan’s ruddiness of complexion, Mr. Queen pondered, came either from habitual exposure to the outdoors or from high-blood pressure; a conclusion which he discovered very soon was accurate on both counts, since Pop Wing revealed himself without urging as an Izaak Walton, a golfer, a Nimrod, a mountain climber, a polo player, and a racing yachtsman; and he was as squirmy and excitable as a small boy.

  The small-boy analogy struck Mr. Queen with greater force when the Perennial Alumnus dragged Mr. Queen off to inspect what he alarmingly called “my trophy room.” Mr. Queen’s fears were vindicated; for in a huge vaulted chamber presided over by a desiccated, gloomy, and monosyllabic old gentleman introduced fantastically as “Gabby” Huntswood, he found himself inspecting as heterogeneous and remarkable an assemblage of junk as ever existed outside a small boy’s dream of Paradise.

  Postage-stamp albums, American college banners, mounted wild-animal heads, a formidable collection of matchboxes, cigar bands, stuffed fish, World War trench helmets of all nations … all were there; and Pop Wing beamed as he exhibited these priceless treasures, scurrying from one collection to another and fondling them with such ingenuous pleasure that Mr. Queen sighed for his own lost youth.

  “Aren’t these objects too—er—valuable to be left lying around this way, Mr. Wing?” he inquired politely.

  “Hell, no. Gabby’s more jealous of their safety than I am!” shouted the great man. “Hey, Gabby?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Gabby; and he frowned suspiciously at Mr. Queen.

  “Why, Gabby made me install a burglar-alarm system. Can’t see it, but this room’s as safe as a vault.”

  “Safer,” said Gabby, glowering at Mr. Queen.

  “Think I’m crazy, Queen?”

  “No, no,” said Mr. Queen, who meant to say “Yes, yes.”

  “Lots of people do,” chuckled Pop Wing. “Let ’em. Between 1904 and 1924 I just about vegetated. But something drove me on. Know what?”

  Mr. Queen’s famous powers of deduction were unequal to the task.

  “The knowledge that I was making enough money to retire a young man and kick the world in the pants. And I did! Retired at forty-two and started doing all the things I’d never had time or money to do when I was a shaver. Collecting things. Keeps me young! Come here, Queen, and look at my prize collection.” And he pulled Mr. Queen over to a gigantic glass case and pointed gleefully, an elder Penrod gloating over a marbles haul.

  From his host’s proud tone Mr. Queen expected to gaze upon nothing less than a collection of the royal crowns of Europe. Instead, he saw a vast number of scuffed, streaked, and muddy footballs, each carefully laid upon an ebony rest, and on each a legend lettered in gold leaf. One that caught his eye read: “Rose Bowl, 1930. USC 47-Pitt 14.” The others bore similar inscriptions.

  “Wouldn’t part with ’em for a million dollars,” confided the great man. “Why, the balls in this case represent every Trojan victory for the past fifteen years!”

  “Incredible!” exclaimed Mr. Queen.

  “Yes, sir, right after every game they win the team presents old Pop Wing with the pigskin. What a collection!” And the millionaire gazed worshipfully at the unlovely oblate spheroids.

  “They must think the world of you at USC.”

  “Well, I’ve sort of been of service to my Alma Mater,” said Pop Wing modestly, “especially in football. Wing Athletic Scholarship, you know; Wing Dorm for varsity athletes; and so on. I’ve scouted prep schools for years, personally; turned up some mighty fine varsity material. Coach is a good friend of mine. I guess,” and he drew a happy breath, “I can have just about what I damn well ask for at the old school!”

  “Including football tickets?” said Mr. Queen quickly, seizing his opportunity. “Must be marvelous to have that kind of drag. I’ve been trying for days to get tickets for the game.”

  The great man surveyed him. “What was your college?”

  “Harvard,” said Mr. Queen apologetically. “But I yield to no man in my ardent admiration of the Trojans. Darn it, I did want to watch Roddy Crockett mop up those Spartan upstarts.”

  “You did, huh?” said Pop Wing. “Say, how about you and Miss Paris being my guests at the Rose Bowl Sunday?”

  “Couldn’t think of it—” began Mr. Queen mendaciously, already savoring the joy of having beaten Miss Paris, so to speak, to the turnstiles.

  “Won’t hear another word.” Mr. Wing embraced Mr. Queen. “Say, long as you’ll be with us, I’ll let you in on a little secret.”

  “Secret?” wondered Mr. Queen.

  “Rod and Joan,” whispered the millionaire, “are going to be married right after the Trojans win next Sunday!”

  “Congratulations. He seems like a fine boy.”

  “None better. Hasn’t got a cent, you understand—worked his way through—but he’s graduating in January and … shucks! he’s the greatest fullback the old school ever turned out. We’ll find something for him to do. Yes, sir, Roddy’s last game …” The great man sighed. Then he brightened. “Anyway, I’ve got a hundred-thousand-dollar surprise for my Joanie that ought to make her go right out and raise another triple-threat man for the Trojans!”

  “A—how much of a surprise?” asked Mr. Queen feebly.

  But the great man looked mysterious. “Let’s go back and finish cooking that boy Ostermoor’s goose!”

  New Year’s Day was warm and sunny; and Mr. Queen felt strange as he prepared to pick up Paula Paris and escort her to the Wing estate, from which their party was to proceed to the Pasadena stadium. In his quaint Eastern fashion, he was accustomed to don a mountain of sweater, scarf, and overcoat when he went to a football game; and here he was en route in a sports jacket!

  “California, thy name is Iconoclast,” muttered Mr. Queen, and he drove through already agitated Hollywood streets to Miss Paris’s house.

  “Heavens,” said Paula, “you can’t barge in on Pop Wing that way.”

  “What way?”

  “Minus the Trojan colors. We’ve got to keep on the old darlin’s good side, at least until we’re safely in the stadium. Here!” And with a few deft twists of two lady’s handkerchiefs Paula manufactured a breast-pocket kerchief for him in cardinal and gold.

  “I see you’ve done yourself up pretty brown,” said Mr. Queen, not unadmiringly; for Paula’s figure was the secret envy of many better-advertised Hollywood ladies, and it was clad devastatingly in a cardinal-and-gold creation that was a cross between a suit and a dirndl, to Mr. Queen’s inexperienced eye, and it was topped off with a perky, feathery hat perched nervously on her blue-black hair, concealing one bright eye.

  “Wait till you see Joan,” said Miss Paris, rewarding him with a kiss. “She’s been calling me all week about her clothes problem. It’s not every day a girl’s called on to buy an outfit that goes equally well with a football game and a wedding.” And as Mr. Queen drove off towards Inglewood she added thoughtfully: “I wonder what that awful creature will wear. Probably a turban and seven veils.”

  “What creature?”

  “Madame Mephisto. Only her real name is Suzie Lucadamo, and she quit a dumpy little magic and mind-reading vaudeville act to set herself up in Seattle as a seeress—you know, ‘We positively guarantee to pierce the veil of the Unknown’? Pop met her in Seattle in November during the USC-Washington game. She wangled a Christmas-week invitation out of him for the purpose, I suppose, of looking over the rich Hollywood sucker field without cost to herself.”