Torchy and Vee Part 30

"Slow poison, I expect," says Ellery. "In her coffee, maybe. Anyway, it had begun to work. Maggie was mopin' around. I found her cryin'. I spotted Jake Zosco right off. You can tell just by lookin' at him that he's that kind. Besides, he acts suspicious. Always prowlin' around restless. Then there's the butler. He's in it, too. I caught him and Jake whisperin' together. I don't know how many more. Some of the maids, maybe, and most likely a few men on the outside. They might be plannin'

to stage a jewel robbery with a double murder and lay it all onto unknown burglars. Get me?"

"Uh-huh!" says I. "But how much have you got on Brother Jake? And how did you come to get him locked up here?"

"Oh, I had the goods on Jake, all right," says Ellery. "After I saw him confabbin' with that crook butler the other night I shadows him constant. I was on his trail when he sneaks down here after dinner. I saw him unlock the lodge house. I heard him fumblin' around inside. Then I slips up and locks him in. Half an hour later down comes the butler and two others of the gang, but when they sees me they beats it. I expect they'd try to rescue him, if they thought he was there. And they may find out any minute."

"That's right," says I. "Lucky I came out just as I did. There's only one thing to do."

"What's that?" asks Ellery.

"Lug Jake up to the house, confront him with the butler, tell 'em they're both pinched, and give 'em the third degree," says I. "You'll see. One or the other will break down and tell the whole plot."

"Say!" gasps Ellery. "Wouldn't that be slick! Just the way they do in the movie dramas, eh?"

I had to smother a chuckle when that came out, for I'd already recognized some of the symptoms of a motion picture mind while Ellery was sketchin' out this wild tale.

"Go to the movies much down in Shelby?" I asks.

"Most every night," says Ellery. "I used to even before Maggie got into the game. Begun goin' when I was 'leven. At first I was strong for this Wild West stuff, but no more. Give me a good crook drama with a big punch in every reel. They're showin' some corkers lately. I've seen 'em about all. That's how I come to get wise to this plot of Jake Zosco's.

Come on! Got your wrist irons ready for him?"

"Oh, I never use the bracelets unless I have to," says I. "I expect he'll toddle along meek enough when he sees the two of us."

I hadn't overstated the case much at that. Course, Jake Zosco has developed more or less of a grouch durin' his 36 hours of solitary confinement, but when Ellery orders him to march out with his hands up he comes right along.

"What foolishness now, you young rough necker?" he demands.

"You'll soon find out how foolish it is," says Ellery. "You're in the hands of the law."

"Wha-a-at!" gasps Jake. "For such a little thing as that? It--it can't be. Who says it of me?"

"Isn't this your hat?" says I, handin' him the hail-proof kelly. "It is, eh? Then you're the one. Come on, now. Right up to the house."

"It's a foolishness," he protests. "In Saginaw it couldn't be done."

All the way up the hill he mutters and grumbles but he keeps on going.

Not until he gets near enough to get a glimpse of all the people in the drawin'-room does he balk.

"Matilda and all!" says he. "Why couldn't we go in by the back?"

"Nothing doin'," says Ellery, flouris.h.i.+ng his knife. "You're goin' to face the music, you are."

"That's the way to talk to him, Ellery," says I. "But if you don't mind I think I'd better take charge of him from now on."

"Sure thing," says Ellery. "He's your prisoner."

"Then in you go, Jake," says I. "And don't forget about keepin' the hands up. Now!"

Say, you should have seen that bunch when our high tragedy trio marches in; Ellery with his butcher knife on one side; me on the other; and leadin' in the center Mr. Jake Zosco, his arms above his head, his dinner coat all dusty and wrinkled, and a two days' stubble of whiskers decoratin' his face.

It was Mrs. Jake who got her breath first and swooped down on her little man with wild cries of "Oh, Jake! My own Jakey at last!" And in another second his head is all tangled up with the pearl ropes.

Next Andres Zosco comes to. "What is it, a holdup act?" he asks.

"Ellery, what you doing with that knife? What's it all about, somebody?"

That seems to be my cue, so I steps to the front. "Sorry, Mr. Zosco,"

says I, "but Ellery has discovered a deep laid plot."

"Eh?" says Zosco, gawpin'.

"To do away with you and your wife," I goes on. "He says your brother Jake is in it, and Mrs. Jake, and the butler, and maybe a lot of others.

Isn't that right, Ellery?"

"Yep," says Ellery. "They're all crooks."

"What confounded tommyrot!" says Zosco. "Why--why, Jake wouldn't hurt a fly."

"Tell what you saw, Ellery," I prompts.

"I heard 'em plottin'," says Ellery. "Anyway, I saw Jake and the butler whisperin' on the sly. And they planned to meet down at the lodge with the others. I think that dago chauffeur was one. But I foiled 'em. I followed Jake when he sneaked into the lodge house and locked him in.

Then I wrote to the chief detective at Headquarters and they sent out this sleuth to help me round 'em up." He finishes by wavin' at me triumphant.

And you might know that would get a chuckle out of Mr. Robert. "Oh, yes!" says he. "Detective Sergeant Torchy!"

Meanwhile Andres Zosco is starin' from one to the other of us and scratchin' his head puzzled. "I can't get a word of sense out of it all," says he. "Not a word. Jake, let's hear from you. Where have you been since night before last after dinner?"

Jake pries himself loose from the billowy embrace and advances sheepish.

"Why--why," says he, "I was locked in that fool lodge house."

"You were, eh?" says Zosco. "But how did that happen? What did you go in there for?"

"Aw, if you must know, Andy, it--it was pinochle," he growls. "It ain't a crime, is it, a little game?"

"What about the butler, though, and the others?" insists Zosco.

"Why," says Jake, "they was goin' to be in it, too. Can't play pinochle alone, can you? And in a place like this where there's nothing goin' on but silly billiards, or that bridge auction, a feller's gotta find some amus.e.m.e.nt, ain't he? Saginaw they comes to the house 'most every night--Hoffmeyer and Raditz and----"

"Yes, I know," breaks in Zosco. "So that was the plot, was it, Ellery?"

Ellery registers scorn. "Huh!" says he. "Don't let him put over any such fish tale on you. Ask him about the slow poison in Maggie's coffee, and stealin' the jewels, and--and all the rest."

"Why, Ellery!" gasps Mrs. Zosco.

"Didn't I catch you snifflin'?" demands Ellery. "And ain't you been mopin' around?"

"Oh!" says she. "But that was before Andy had promised to let me play the lead in his new eight-reel feature, 'The Singed Moth.' I've been chipper enough since, haven't I, Andy, dear?"

"Slow poison!" echoes Zosco. "Jewel stealing! Murder plots! Boy, where did you get such stuff in your head?"