spend it, or to transfer it to another hiding place, or to repackage it if for no other reason?â
Ellery grinned without much humor. He said simply: âIf he didnât come back for the payroll when there was every reason for him to do so, and no risk, logically it can only have been because he couldnât come back. And thatâs why Iâve had you wheeled into this private room,â Ellery said, turning to the young policeman trussed up on the hospital bed, âso you could face the man youâve victimized and the woman youâve crucified and the boy youâve tried to throw to the dogs, Jeepâyes, and the honest cop who trained you and trusted you and whoâs looking at you now and seeing you, Iâm sure, really for the first time.
âYouâre the only one of those involved, Jorking, who physically could not get back to that cache in the woods.
âYou learned about the change in the payroll day through Chief Dakin, who assigned you the job of tailing Mr. Wheeler in your prowl car. But you didnât tail Mr. Wheeler in your prowl car that morning, Jorkingâyou were already on your selected site, as you had been the week before, lurking behind your ambush, your police car hidden off the road somewhere.
âYou assaulted Mr. Wheeler from behind and you saw to it that that silk handkerchief of Delâsâexplaining how Del âlostâ itâremained in Mr. Wheelerâs grip. If he hadnât ripped it off your face you would have left it in or near his hand. And while he was still unconscious, you darted into the woods and hastily buried the package of moneyâbecause you were playing two roles at the moment and time was precious just thenâintending to come back for it later in the day, or the next day, when the coast would be clear. Only on taking Mr. Wheeler back to his home and solemnly arresting Delbert for the crime you had committed, the boy bolted, you chased him, you broke your hip, and they rushed you to the hospital where youâve been immobilized in a cast ever since! Youâre not only a thief, Jeep, youâre a disgrace to an undervalued profession, and Iâm going to hang around in Wrightsville long enough to see you immobilized in the clink.â
When Ellery turned from the frozen man in the bed, he realized that he wasâin a queer senseâquite alone. Chief Dakin was facing the wall. Mamie Hood Wheeler sat crying joyfully in a sphere of her own. And above her Anse Wheeler, so pale with excitement that he was sky-blue, thumped Del Hood repeatedly on the chest, and Del Hood, with wild friendliness, was giving his stepfather back thump for thump.
So Ellery went away, quietly.
SWINDLE DEPT.
Double Your Money
If Theodore F. Grooss had decided to run for Mayor of New York, he would have carried all of the West Eighties between the park and the river by a record plurality, and possiblyâin timeâthe rest of the city as well. Fortunately for the traditional parties, however, Groossâs forte was not politics but finance. He was the peopleâs champion of sound money in the era of inflation. In a day when the dollar bought little more than fifty centsâ worth of anything, Groossâs genius found a way to restore it to its par excellence. His solution was wonderful: He made each dollar, like the ameba, reproduce itself. For this feat, which he performed regularly for the benefit of all comers, he was known to some of his fervid constituents as âthe Wizard of Amsterdam Avenue,â but most of them called him, with homely grandeur, âDouble-Your-Moneyâ Grooss.
What Ellery called him is not to be printed.
Ellery first heard about Theodore F. Grooss from Mr. Joe Belcassazzi, head of the maintenance department of the three-story brownstone on West Eighty-seventh Street where the Queens reside. Mr. Belcassazzi, whose only investments heretofore had been in pasta for his large and
Ellery grinned without much humor. He said simply: âIf he didnât come back for the payroll when there was every reason for him to do so, and no risk, logically it can only have been because he couldnât come back. And thatâs why Iâve had you wheeled into this private room,â Ellery said, turning to the young policeman trussed up on the hospital bed, âso you could face the man youâve victimized and the woman youâve crucified and the boy youâve tried to throw to the dogs, Jeepâyes, and the honest cop who trained you and trusted you and whoâs looking at you now and seeing you, Iâm sure, really for the first time.
âYouâre the only one of those involved, Jorking, who physically could not get back to that cache in the woods.
âYou learned about the change in the payroll day through Chief Dakin, who assigned you the job of tailing Mr. Wheeler in your prowl car. But you didnât tail Mr. Wheeler in your prowl car that morning, Jorkingâyou were already on your selected site, as you had been the week before, lurking behind your ambush, your police car hidden off the road somewhere.
âYou assaulted Mr. Wheeler from behind and you saw to it that that silk handkerchief of Delâsâexplaining how Del âlostâ itâremained in Mr. Wheelerâs grip. If he hadnât ripped it off your face you would have left it in or near his hand. And while he was still unconscious, you darted into the woods and hastily buried the package of moneyâbecause you were playing two roles at the moment and time was precious just thenâintending to come back for it later in the day, or the next day, when the coast would be clear. Only on taking Mr. Wheeler back to his home and solemnly arresting Delbert for the crime you had committed, the boy bolted, you chased him, you broke your hip, and they rushed you to the hospital where youâve been immobilized in a cast ever since! Youâre not only a thief, Jeep, youâre a disgrace to an undervalued profession, and Iâm going to hang around in Wrightsville long enough to see you immobilized in the clink.â
When Ellery turned from the frozen man in the bed, he realized that he wasâin a queer senseâquite alone. Chief Dakin was facing the wall. Mamie Hood Wheeler sat crying joyfully in a sphere of her own. And above her Anse Wheeler, so pale with excitement that he was sky-blue, thumped Del Hood repeatedly on the chest, and Del Hood, with wild friendliness, was giving his stepfather back thump for thump.
So Ellery went away, quietly.
SWINDLE DEPT.
Double Your Money
If Theodore F. Grooss had decided to run for Mayor of New York, he would have carried all of the West Eighties between the park and the river by a record plurality, and possiblyâin timeâthe rest of the city as well. Fortunately for the traditional parties, however, Groossâs forte was not politics but finance. He was the peopleâs champion of sound money in the era of inflation. In a day when the dollar bought little more than fifty centsâ worth of anything, Groossâs genius found a way to restore it to its par excellence. His solution was wonderful: He made each dollar, like the ameba, reproduce itself. For this feat, which he performed regularly for the benefit of all comers, he was known to some of his fervid constituents as âthe Wizard of Amsterdam Avenue,â but most of them called him, with homely grandeur, âDouble-Your-Moneyâ Grooss.
What Ellery called him is not to be printed.
Ellery first heard about Theodore F. Grooss from Mr. Joe Belcassazzi, head of the maintenance department of the three-story brownstone on West Eighty-seventh Street where the Queens reside. Mr. Belcassazzi, whose only investments heretofore had been in pasta for his large and
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