Ellery queen omnibus, p.57
Ellery Queen Omnibus,
p.57
“But heavens,” said Paula, exasperated, “they are not in the car, they’re not in the dressing room, they’re not on any of us, they’re not in this box, there’s no accomplice … it’s impossible!”
“No,” muttered Mr. Queen. “Not impossible. It was done. But how? How?”
The Trojans came out fighting. They carried the pigskin slowly but surely down the field toward the Spartans’ goal line. But on the 21-yard stripe the attack stalled. The diabolical Mr. Ostermoor, all over the field, intercepted a forward past on third down with 8 yards to go, ran the ball back 51 yards, and USC was frustrated again.
The fourth quarter began with no change in the score; a feeling that was palpable settled over the crowd, a feeling that they were viewing the first Trojan defeat in its Rose Bowl history. Injuries and exhaustion had taken their toll of the Trojan team; they seemed dispirited, beaten.
“When’s he going to open up?” muttered Pop. “That trick!” And his voice rose to a roar. “Roddy! Come on!”
The Trojans drove suddenly with the desperation of a last strength. Carolina gave ground, but stubbornly. Both teams tried a kicking duel, but Ostermoor and Roddy were so evenly matched that neither side gained much through the interchange.
Then the Trojans began to take chances. A long pass—successful. Another!
“Roddy’s going to town!”
Pop Wing, sapphires forgotten, bellowed hoarsely; Gabby shrieked encouragement; Joan danced up and down; the Grand. Duke and Madame looked politely interested; even Paula felt the mass excitement stir her blood.
But Mr. Queen sat frowning in his seat, thinking and thinking, as if cerebration were a new function to him.
The Trojans clawed closer and closer to the Carolina goal line, the Spartans fighting back furiously but giving ground, unable to regain possession of the ball.
First down on Carolina’s 19-yard line, with seconds to go!
“Roddy, the kick! The kick!” shouted Pop.
The Spartans held on the first plunge. They gave a yard on the second. On the third—the inexorable hand of the big clock jerked towards the hour mark—the Spartans” left tackle smashed through USC’s line and smeared the play for a 6-yard loss. Fourth down, seconds to go, and the ball on Carolina’s 24-yard line!
“If they don’t go over next play,” screamed Pop, “the game’s lost. It’ll be Carolina’s ball and they’ll freeze it.… Roddy!” he thundered. “The kick play!”
And, as if Roddy could hear that despairing voice, the ball snapped back, the Trojan quarterback snatched it, held it ready for Roddy’s toe, his right hand between the ball and the turf.… Roddy darted up as if to kick, but as he reached the ball he scooped it from his quarterback’s hands and raced for the Carolina goal line.
“It worked!” bellowed Pop. “They expected a place kick to tie—and it worked! Make it, Roddy!”
USC spread out, blocking like demons. The Carolina team was caught completely by surprise. Roddy wove and slithered through the bewildered Spartan line and crossed the goal just as the final whistle blew.
“We win! We win!” cackled Gabby, doing a war dance.
“Yowie!” howled Pop, kissing Joan, kissing Paula, almost kissing Madame.
Mr. Queen looked up. The frown had vanished from his brow. He seemed serene, happy.
“Who won?” asked Mr. Queen genially.
But no one answered. Struggling in a mass of worshipers, Roddy was running up the field to the 50-yard line; he dashed up to the box and thrust something into Pop Wing’s hands, surrounded by almost the entire Trojan squad.
“Here it is, Pop,” panted Roddy. “The old pigskin. Another one for your collection, and a honey! Joan!”
“Oh, Roddy.”
“My boy,” began Pop, overcome by emotion; but then he stopped and hugged the dirty ball to his breast.
Roddy grinned and, kissing Joan, yelled: “Remind me that I’ve got a date to marry you tonight!” and ran off towards the Trojan dressing room followed by a howling mob.
“Ahem!” coughed Mr. Queen. “Mr. Wing, I think we’re ready to settle your little difficulty.”
“Huh?” said Pop, gazing with love at the filthy ball. “Oh.” His shoulders sagged. “I suppose,” he said wearily, “we’ll have to notify the police—”
“I should think,” said Mr. Queen, “that that isn’t necessary, at least just yet. May I relate a parable? It seems that the ancient city of Troy was being besieged by the Greeks, and holding out very nicely, too; so nicely that the Greeks, who were very smart people, saw that only guile would get them into the city. And so somebody among the Greeks conceived a brilliant plan, based upon a very special sort of guile; and the essence of this guile was that the Trojans should be made to do the very thing the Greeks had been unable to do themselves. You will recall that in this the Greeks were successful, since the Trojans, overcome by curiosity and the fact that the Greeks had sailed away, hauled the wooden horse with their own hands into the city and, lo! that night, when all Troy slept, the Greeks hidden within the horse crept out, and you know the rest. Very clever, the Greeks. May I have that football, Mr. Wing?”
Pop said dazedly: “Huh?”
Mr. Queen, smiling, took it from him, deflated it by opening the valve, unlaced the leather thongs, shook the limp pigskin over Pop’s cupped hands … and out plopped the eleven sapphires.
“You see,” murmured Mr. Queen, as they stared speechless at the gems in Pop Wing’s shaking hands, “the thief stole the jewel case from Pop’s coat pocket while Pop was haranguing his beloved team in the Trojan dressing room before the game. The coat was lying on a rubbing table and there was such a mob that no one noticed the thief sneak over to the table, take the case out of Pop’s coat, drop it in a corner after removing the sapphires, and edge his way to the table where the football to be used in the Rose Bowl game was lying uninflated. He loosened the laces surreptitiously, pushed the sapphires into the space between the pigskin wall and the rubber bladder, tied the laces, and left the ball apparently as he had found it.
“Think of it! All the time we were watching the game, the eleven sapphires were in this football. For one hour this spheroid has been kicked, passed, carried, fought over, sat on, smothered, grabbed, scuffed, muddied—with a king’s ransom in it!”
“But how did you know they were hidden in the ball,” gasped Paula, “and who’s the thief, you wonderful man?”
Mr. Queen lit a cigarette modestly. “With all the obvious hiding places eliminated, you see, I said to myself: ‘One of us is a thief, and the hiding place must be accessible to the thief after this game.’ And I remembered a parable and a fact. The parable I’ve told you, and the fact was that after every winning Trojan game the ball is presented to Mr. Percy Squires Wing.”
“But you can’t think—” began Pop, bewildered.
“Obviously you didn’t steal your own gems,” smiled Mr. Queen. “So you see, the thief had to be someone who could take equal advantage with you of the fact that the winning ball is presented to you. Someone who saw that there are two ways of stealing gems: to go to the gems, or to make the gems come to you.
“And so I knew that the thief was the man who, against all precedent and his taciturn nature, has been volubly imploring the Trojan team to win this football game; the man who knew that if the Trojans won the game the ball would immediately be presented to Pop Wing, and who gambled upon the Trojans; the man who saw that, with the ball given immediately to Pop Wing, he and he exclusively, custodian of Pop’s wonderful and multifarious treasures, could retrieve the sapphires safely unobserved—grab the old coot, Your Highness!—Mr. Gabby Huntswood.”
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1940 by Frederick A. Stokes Company
Copyright renewed by Ellery Queen
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to express his gratitude to Detective Story, Red Book, American, Cavalcade, and Blue Book for permission to include certain copyrighted stories which appeared in their publications as listed below:
“The Lamp of God,” “Treasure Hunt”: 1935, Detective Story
“The Hollow Dragon”: 1936, Red Book
“The House of Darkness”: 1935, American
“The Bleeding Portrait” (under the title “Beauty and the Beast”): 1937, Cavalcade
“Man Bites Dog,” “Mind Over Matter,” “Long Shot,” “Trojan Horse”: 1939, Blue Book
Cover design by Kat Lee
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1654-4
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Queen, Ellery, Ellery Queen Omnibus
