Read The Origin of Evil for Free Online Page B

line and a private wire to our house — and with an intercom system to Wallace’s room.’
    â€˜Who’s Wallace?’
    â€˜Alfred Wallace, his secretary-companion. Then — let’s see.’ Laurel frowned. ‘Oh, he’s got compartments and cubbyholes all around the chair for just about everything imaginable — magazines, cigars, his reading glasses, his toothbrush; everything he could possibly need. The chair’s built so that it can be lowered and the front raised, making a bed out of it for daytime napping or sleeping at night. Of course, he needs Alfred to help him sponge-bathe and dress and undress and so on, but he’s made himself as self-sufficient as possible — hates help of any kind, even the most essential. When I was there yesterday his typewriter had just been sent into Hollywood to be repaired and he had to dictate business memoranda to Alfred instead of doing them himself, and he was in such a foul mood because of it that even Alfred got mad. Roger in a foul mood can be awfully foul … I’m sorry, I thought you wanted to know.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜You’re not listening.’
    â€˜I am, though not with both ears.’ They were on Mulholland Drive now, and Ellery was clutching the side of the Austin to avoid being thrown clear as Laurel zoomed the little car around the hairpin curves. ‘Tell me, Laurel. Who inherits your father’s estate? I mean besides yourself?’
    â€˜Nobody. There isn’t anyone else.’
    â€˜He didn’t leave anything to Priam?’
    â€˜Why should he? Roger and Daddy were equal partners. There are some small cash bequests to people in the firm and to the household help. Everything else goes to me. So you see, Ellery,’ said Laurel, soaring over a rise, ‘I’m your big suspect.’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Ellery, ‘and you’re also Roger Priam’s new partner. Or are you?’
    â€˜My status isn’t clear. The lawyers are working on that now. Of course I don’t know anything about the jewellery business and I’m not sure I want to. Roger can’t chisel me out of anything, if that’s what’s in your mind. One of the biggest law firms in Los Angeles is protecting my interests. I must say Roger’s been surprisingly decent about that end of it — for Roger, I mean. Maybe Daddy’s death hit him harder than he expected — made him realize how important Dad was to the business and how unimportant he is. Actually, he hasn’t much to worry about. Dad trained a very good man to run things, a Mr. Foss, in case anything happened to him … Anyway, there’s one item on my agenda that takes priority over everything else. And if you won’t clear it up for me, I’ll do it myself.’
    â€˜Because you loved Leander Hill very much?’
    â€˜Yes!’
    â€˜And because, of course,’ remarked Ellery, ‘you are the big suspect?’
    Laurel’s little hands tightened on the wheel. Then they relaxed. ‘That’s the stuff, Ellery,’ she laughed. ‘Just keep firing away at the whites of our eyes. I love it. There’s the Priam place.’
    The Priam place stood on a private road, a house of dark round stones and blackish wood wedged into a fold of the hills and kept in forest gloom by a thick growth of overhanging sycamore, elm, and eucalyptus. Ellery’s first thought was that the grounds were neglected, but then he saw evidences of both old and recent pruning on the sides away from the house and he realized that nature had been coaxed into the role she was playing. The hopeless matting of leaves and boughs was deliberate; the secretive gloom was wanted. Priam had dug into the hill and pulled the trees over him. Who was it who had defied the sun?
    It was more like an isolated hunting lodge than a Hollywood house. Most of it was hidden from the view of passers-by on the main road, and by