The King is Dead by Ellery Queen

Dr. Akst immediately rose, too. Abel followed his tall brother through one door, and the doctor, the lawyer, and the physicist trooped out through another. The Queens watched them leave, fascinated. It was exactly as if the long dinner had been a scene in a play, with everyone an actor and the curtain coming down to disperse them in their private identities, each registering relief in his own fashion.
    As Ellery drew Karla Bendigo’s chair back, his eyes met his father’s over her satiny red hair.
    In three hours, with all the principals present, not one word had been said about the reason for the Queens’ presence on Bendigo Island.
    â€˜Shall we go, gentlemen?’
    King’s wife took their arms.
    At the door, Ellery looked back.
    Side by side at the littered table sat Max’l and Judah Bendigo. The ex-wrestler was still stuffing himself, and the silent Bendigo brother was pouring another glassful of cognac with an air of concentration and a hand that remained steady.

5
    Karla’s apartment was on another planet, a gentle world of birds and flowers, with casements overlooking the gardens and a small fireplace burning aromatic logs. Water-colours splashed the walls, glass winked in the firelight, and everything was bright and warm and friendly.
    A maid, not a flunkey in livery, served coffee and brandy. Karla took neither; she sipped an iced liqueur.
    â€˜Coffee keeps me awake. Brandy —’ she shrugged — ‘I find I have lost my taste for it.’
    â€˜Your brother-in-law’s influence?’ suggested the Inspector delicately.
    â€˜We can do nothing with Judah.’
    â€˜Why’, asked Ellery, ‘does Judah drink?’
    â€˜Why does anyone drink? … Rest your feet on the footstool, Inspector Queen. Dinner was exhausting, I know. Immanuel Peabody is a fascinating raconteur, but he has never learned that the pinnacle of brilliance in story-telling is knowing when to stop. Dr. Storm is a pig. One of the world’s great internists, but a pig nevertheless. Am I being dreadful? It is such a relief to allow myself to be a woman on occasion, and gossip.’
    The sadness in her eyes interested Ellery. He wondered how much Karla Bendigo knew of the threats against her husband’s life, if she knew anything at all.
    The Inspector was apparently wondering, too, because he said, ‘Your husband bowled me over, Mrs. Bendigo. One of the most dynamic men I’ve ever met.’
    â€˜That is so characteristic, Inspector!’ She was pleased. ‘I mean, your feeling that. It is the invariable reaction of everyone who meets Kane.’
    â€˜Who meets whom?’ Ellery asked.
    â€˜Kane.’
    â€˜Kane?’
    â€˜Oh, I forgot,’ she laughed. ‘Kane is my husband’s name. K-a-n-e.’
    â€˜Then the name King—’
    â€˜Is not properly his name at all. We are playthings of the press, n’est-ce pas? The newspapers referred to Kane so long and so often as “the Munitions King” that he began to use the word “king” as a name. In the beginning it was a family joke, but somehow it has hung on.’
    â€˜Does his brother Judah address him as King?’ asked Ellery. ‘I don’t believe I heard Judah utter a word all evening.’
    She shrugged. ‘Judah took it up with as much enthusiasm as he ever shows for anything. Judah’s affinity for cognac often leads him into childish irony. He uses “King” as if it were a — a title. Even Abel has fallen into the habit. I am the only one who still addresses my husband by his given name.’
    Ellery began to perceive a ground for the sadness in her eyes.
    She told the story of how she and her husband had met.
    It was in an ultra-fashionable restaurant in Paris under characteristic Bendigo circumstances. They were at adjacent tables, each in a large dinner party. She had noticed the big, dark, Byronic-locked man with the flashing black