There Was an Old Woman by Ellery Queen Page B

leaped from his borrowed bed and ran to one of the windows overlooking the front lawn. The sun was high now, in a hot blue sky, and it glared down upon a swarm of men. They surrounded the Shoe, near the base of which the inspector stood at Day. There was a great deal of shouting.
    Ellery threw on his clothes and raced downstairs. “Dad! What’s the trouble?” he cried, on the run.
    But the Inspector was too busy to reply.
    Then Ellery saw that this was not a mob, but a group of reporters and newspaper photographers engaged—if a trifle zealously—in the underpaid exercise of their duty.
    â€œAh, here’s the Master Mind!”
    â€œMaybe he’s got a tongue.”
    â€œWhat’s the lowdown, Hawkshaw?”
    â€œYour old man’s all of a sudden got a stiff upper lip.”
    â€œSay, there’s nothing lenient about the lower one, either!”
    â€œLoosen up, you guys. What are you holding so tight?”
    â€œWhat gives here at six A.M .?”
    Ellery shook his head good-humoredly, pushing his way through the crowd.
    The Inspector seized him. “Ellery, tell these doubting Thomases the truth, will you? They won’t believe me. Tell ’em the truth so I can be rid of ’em and get back to work—God help me!”
    â€œGentlemen, it’s a fact,” said Ellery Queen. The murmurs ceased.
    â€œIt’s a fact,” a reporter said at last, in a hushed voice.
    â€œA real, live, fourteen-carat duel?”
    â€œRight here, under the oxford?”
    â€œPistols at twenty paces and that kind of stuff?”
    â€œHey, if they wore velvet pants I’ll go out of my mind!”
    â€œNah, Thurlow had on that lousy old tweed suit of his—”
    â€œAnd poor Bob Potts wore a beige gabardine—wasn’t that what Inspector Queen said?”
    â€œNuts. I’d rather it was velvet pants.”
    â€œBut, my God—”
    â€œListen, Jack, not even the readers of your rag’ll believe this popeyed peep show!”
    â€œWhat do I give a damn whether they believe it or not? I’m paid to report what happened.”
    â€œMe, I’m talking this over with the boss.”
    â€œHold it, men—here comes the Old Woman.”
    She appeared from the front door and marched towards the marble steps, flanked on one side by Dr. Innis and on the other by Sergeant Thomas Velie. Each escort, in his own fashion, was pleading with her.
    The reporters and cameramen deserted the Queens shamelessly. In a twinkling they had raced across the lawn and set up shop at the foot of the steps.
    â€œBloomin’ heroes,” said Ellery. He was squinting at the Old Woman, disturbed.
    There was no sign of grief on that face; only rage. The jet snake’s eyes had not wept; they had kept the shape and color of their reptilian nature. “Get off my property!” she screamed.
    Cameras were raised high; men fired questions at her.
    If these intrepid explorers of the news had the wit, thought Ellery, they would shrink and flee before an old woman who accepted her young son’s bloody murder without emotion and grew hysterical over a transitory trespass on the scene of his death. Such a woman was capable of anything.
    â€œIt’s the first peep out of her today,” remarked the Inspector. “We’d better get on over there. She may blow her top any minute.”
    The Queens hurried toward the house. But before they could reach the steps, Cornelia Potts blew, and blew in an unexpected manner.
    One moment she was standing there like an angry pouter pigeon, glaring down at her tormentors; the next her claws had flashed into a recess in the overlapping folds of her taffeta skirt and emerged with a revolver. It was absurd, but there it was: an old lady, seventy years old, pointing a revolver at a group of men.
    Somebody said: “Hey,” indignantly; then they grew very quiet.
    It was a long-barreled revolver alive with blue fires