There Was an Old Woman Read Online Free PDF

Thurlow from doing something silly?”
    Ellery lit a cigaret and puffed thoughtfully. “Assuming that Thurlow meant what he said when he threatened to get a revolver, have you any idea where he’d go to buy one?” he asked.
    â€œCornwall & Ritchey, on Madison Avenue. He has a charge there—keeps lugging home sports equipment he never uses. It’s the logical place.”
    Mr. Paxton was handed the telephone. “Call Cornwall & Ritchey and make discreet inquiries.”
    Mr. Paxton called that purple house of commerce and made discreet inquiries. When he set the telephone down, he was purple, too. “He meant it!” cried Charley. “Know what the wack’s done? He must have hotfooted it down there right from the Supreme Court Building!”
    â€œHe’s bought a gun?”
    â€œA gun? He’s bought fourteen ! ”
    â€œWhat!”
    â€œI spoke to the clerk who waited on him. Fourteen assorted pistols, revolvers, automatics,” groaned Paxton. “Said he was starting a collection of ‘modern hand weapons.’ Of course, they know Thurlow well down there. But see how cunning he’s becoming? Knew he had to give an extraordinary excuse for purchasing that number of guns. Collection! What are we going to do?”
    â€œThen he must have had a license,” reflected Ellery.
    â€œSeems he came magnificently prepared. He’s planned this for a month—that’s obvious now. Must have got his wind up in that last libel suit he lost—the one before Cliffstatter. He does have a license, a special license he snagged by pull somewhere. We’ve got to have that license revoked!”
    â€œYes, we could do that,” agreed Ellery, “but my father was right this morning—If Thurlow’s denied the legal right to own a gun, he’ll get one somewhere illegally.”
    â€œBut fourteen! With fourteen guns to play with, he’s a menace to the public safety. A few imaginary insults, and Thurlow’s likely to start a one-man purge!”
    Ellery frowned. “I can’t believe yet that it’s a serious threat, Charley. Although obviously he’s got to be watched.”
    â€œThen you’ll take over?”
    â€œOh, yes.”
    â€œWhite man!” Charley wrung Ellery’s hand. “What can I do to help?”
    â€œCan you insinuate me into the Potts Palace today without getting everybody’s wind up?”
    â€œWell, I’m expected tonight—I’ve got some legal matters to go over with the Old Woman. I could wangle you for dinner. Would tonight be too late, do you think?”
    â€œHardly. If Thurlow’s the man you say he is, he’ll be spending the afternoon fondling his fourteen instruments of death and weaving all sorts of darkly satisfactory dreams. Dinner would be splendid.”
    â€œSwell!” Charley jumped up. “I’ll pick you up at six.”

3 . . . She Didn’t Know What to Do
    â€œWe’re going to call for somebody,” announced counselor Paxton as he drove Ellery Queen downtown that evening. “I particularly wanted you to meet this person before—well, before.”
    â€œAha,” said Ellery, deducting like mad, but to himself.
    Charley Paxton parked his roadster before an apartment building in the West Seventies. He spoke to the doorman, and the doorman rang someone on the house phone. Charley paced up and down the lobby, smoking a cigaret nervously.
    Sheila Potts appeared in a swirl of summery clothes and laughter, a small slim miss with nice red hair. It seemed to Ellery that she was that peculiar product of American society, a girl of inoffensive insolence. She would insist on the rightness of things and cheerfully do wrong to make them right; she would be impatient with men who beat their breasts, and furious with the authors of their misery. (Ellery suspected that Mr. Paxton beat his breast upon occasion for the sheer glum