A Fine and Private Place

by Ellery Queen

  Ellery looked at his father. “How did you know I found out anything at the penthouse?”

  “I haven’t had to look at your pan all these years without being able to read it occasionally.”

  “I didn’t find out anything, really. But it’s more than a hunch. It’s my considered opinion, what with this and that, that Virginia Importuna and Peter Ennis were planting a healthy set of horns on old Nino’s head. I’m ready to take my oath it’s consisted of more than a yearning glance now and then across the width of a room. Now tell me what’s revived you.”

  “Revived? Me?”

  “A few days ago you were ready to retire to an old folks’ home. Today you have a viable look. What’s been going on around here?”

  “Well, we’re working on something,” the Inspector said cautiously. “It’s actually been in the cards from the start… It’s all very hush-hush, Ellery, by direct order from the top; they could have my shield if they found out I’ve told even you.”

  “Told me what? You haven’t told me a thing!”

  “Well, it’s still pretty tentative, son-we’re inching our way along. I’ll tell you this: We won’t jump until we get the go-ahead from the D.A. Who’s going to be almighty interested, by the way, in what you just told me. It could fit like a tight shoe.”

  “But what is it?”

  To which the Inspector shook his head; and all Ellery’s blandishments could not persuade the old sleuth to expatiate.

  * * *

  This was the autumn of his discontent.

  Ellery doodled 9s; he dreamed them; he ate them like alphabet soup. He kept going over the 9 anonymous messages, searching like a monkey mother after lice for secret meanings… wondering if he should not consult a high-ranking cryptographer.

  At this he balked, and not only because of the secrecy imposed by Centre Street. Even to consider such a far-out folly, he decided, was a measure of his frustration.

  At times he felt, across the millennia of fictitious time, an empathy with the legendary son of Aegeus and Aethra as he groped through the labyrinth under the historic palace of Minos in Knossos toward a monster only dimly imagined. The trouble is, Ellery thought, I’m no Theseus, and I have no loving Ariadne to help me find the Minotaur. The number 9, unlike Ariadne’s clew, was circuitous; started at any point, it led round and round, arriving nowhere.

  He was positive of only one thing: The 9s meant something. It was inconceivable to him that they could have no meaning at all. The choice of the 9-symbolism by the prime mover of the murderous events was a pregnant fact.

  Pregnant? Pregnancy?

  For some reason the concept remained with him. He could not quite place the finger of his mind on the reason; but there it dangled, just tantalizingly out of reach.

  If the whole case was like a pregnancy, was there going to be a stillbirth? Or was the lady in the painful process of aborting? Or was she going to go to term and throw her get in some sorry delivery room, producing one of those rare little monsters the doctors tacitly allow to die?

  A 9-month monster. 9…

  Or 99?… 999?… 9,999?… 99,999?…

  Along that route lay madness.

  Meanwhile, back at 240 Centre Street, progress was being made, but inchmeal. Certain lines of investigation had now been closed off; that was considered progress, too, although not by the Police Commissioner and other exalted taskmasters. The anonymous messages had been officially written off, to Ellery’s dismay. Exhaustive inquiries into Nino Importuna’s business enemies, an impressive list, had consistently led to exhausted inquirers and nothing more. True, there was no trace as yet of the enigmatical Mr. E, who seemed to have been engulfed in some convulsion of nature. That line was being held open, but only as a matter of routine caution.

  One day late in October Inspector Queen announced to Ellery, “Son, the time’s come.”

  “For what?” Ellery mumbled. He mumbled a great deal these days.

  “Remember all that highfalutin’, complicated garbage you spilled after Julio Importunato’s murder? About the shifting of the desk, and the left-handedness business, and how Marco was being framed, and the Lord knows what else? It was great, Ellery. Only it was phony baloney. When Marco confessed to Julio’s murder by committing suicide, down the drain went your fancy deductions.”

  “Thanks, dad,” the son said. “A visit to your office these days really sets a fellow up.”

  “And stop sucking your thumb. Well, this time there’s no call for mental flip-flops. We’ve all let ourselves be euchred away from what’s been under our noses, plain as daylight at 20,000 feet, from the beginning.”

  “I must be going blind. What’s been under our noses?”

  “For one thing, the motive.”

  “The motive?”

  “For Importuna’s murder,” the Inspector said impatiently. “Aren’t you with it today, Ellery? You once threw cooey-something at me-”

  “Cui bono.”

  “That’s it. Who benefits. Right? Well, that’s so simple it hurts: The one who benefits, the only one who benefits, is Virginia Whyte Importuna. To the tune of half a billion smackers, for God’s sake. That’s a powerful lot of smackers. I guess when there’s that much moola on the line,” the Inspector philosophized, “it kind of dazzles you. Puts spots before your eyes. Anyway, as a rider to what I just said, not only did her husband’s murder put half a billion smackers in Mrs. Importuna’s pocket, but it’s a fact that he was knocked off just after she became his sole heir. The ink on his new will was hardly dry. Right?”

  “Right,” Ellery said, “but-”

  “No buts. That takes care of motive. How about opportunity, like you always put it?”

  “As I always put it,” Ellery said mechanically.

  “Like, as, what’s the difference? All right, how about opportunity? Nothing to it. Virginia could have marched into hubby’s room bigger than life any time she wanted that night. Who could have got in there easier or more naturally? Who had a better right? Okay?”

  “Okay,” Ellery said, “but that’s no argument at all. I still want to make the point-”

  “Third, the weapon. And what is it? A hunk of cast-iron sculpture that belongs to her.”

  “Which the killer went out of his way-I beg your pardon, her way-to lay hands on for the purpose subsequently displayed, the killing of Importuna. Why didn’t she leave a signed confession pinned to his pajamas? That would have been even more brilliant.”

  “Maybe the gender of your pronoun is still right,” Inspector Queen said, his forefinger alongside his nose.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “The secretary.”

  “Peter Ennis? That’s always possible, of course, especially if the D.A. can produce proof that they’ve been having an affair. On the other hand, there’s well-established testimony that he left 99 East right after their threesome dinner the night of the murder to go back to his own apartment. Is there any counterevidence connecting Ennis even indirectly with the actual crime?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You’ve been holding out on me!”

  “I shouldn’t be telling you this at all. Suppose I told you,” the Inspector said, “that we have a witness who saw Ennis drive away from in front of his brownstone shortly before 9 o’clock that night, and another witness who saw him come home around 3:30 in the morning?”

  “Has Ennis been questioned about that?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He denied having left his place at any time after he got home that evening from the Importunas’ dinner. He said he watched television for a while and then went to bed. Everybody in on the interrogation agreed he was lying in his teeth. He’s not a very convincing liar.”

  “How reliable are your witnesses?”

  “The D.A. thinks so much of them he’s ready to go for a grand jury indictment. Murder One.”

  Ellery was silent. Finally he said, “Conspiracy?”

  “Yes.”<
br />
  “Not much of a case.”

  “In how many Murder Ones do you get an eyewitness?” The Inspector shrugged. “There’ve been all sorts of howls to lay this case to rest, Ellery. From the mountaintops. At that, it may turn out to be a better case than it looks. Those two were two-timing Importuna for a fact, so they’ve got to have guilty consciences to start with. The D.A. thinks one of them may break.”

  “What about all those 9s?” Ellery murmured.

  “They’re the work of a nut. Or they’re just red herrings. Either way they don’t mean anything.”

  “What did you say?”

  “What did I say about what?”

  “Red herrings…?”

  “That’s right. What’s the matter with you?”

  “Red herrings.” Ellery’s echo sounded fevered. His father stared at him. “You know, dad, you may have put your finger on the crux of this thing? That could be exactly what they are! Nothing more or less than red herrings.”

  “That’s what I just said-”

  “But could they all be red herrings?” Ellery muttered. “So many of them? Every one of them?” He sailed out of the cracked black leather chair that had been his by right of occupancy over years of similar consultations, and he began to semaphore with his long arms. “Did I ever quote you that 17th century nonsense rhyme written by everybody’s favorite author, Anon.?

  A man in the wilderness asked me, How many strawberries grow in the sea? I answered him, as I thought good, As many as red herrings grow in the wood.

  “Red herrings in the wood. The forest. Daddy, I do believe I’ve got something!”

  “I’ll tell you what you’ve got,” his father grunted. “You’ve got sunstroke.”

  “No, listen-”

  But at this juncture Sergeant Thomas Velie plunged through the Inspector’s doorway holding aloft by its sharp edges a familiar-looking envelope.

  “Would you believe it?” the sergeant shouted. “Another letter from Friend Nutsy. Special delivery this time.”

  “Impossible,” Ellery said. “Impossible!”

  But it was true. The message read: who was with virginia lunch december nine nineteen sixty-six?

  “It’s from the same crackpot,” the Inspector said in disgust. “Same hand-printed capitals, same ball-point ink, same post-office stamped envelope-”

  “And the same 9 words. Well, hardly the same,” Ellery said rapidly. “You know, dad, this could be an interesting development. If your correspondent is a crackpot, he certainly seems to be a crackpot with inside information.”

  “You mean like Nino was a semipro ballplayer, and had a golf course, and all those other interesting developments that developed to be opium dreams?”

  “Just the same, I wonder whom Virginia did lunch with on December 9, 1966. Any information on that in the file?”

  “I can’t tell you where I was on December 9, 1966,” his father said, exasperated. “How should I know where she was?”

  “Then I suggest you find out.”

  “You find out. This bird’s wasted enough of the city’s money.”

  “Then it’s all right if I go on a fishing trip vis-a-viH

  Virginia Importuna? While you mosey on over to the D.A.’s office and get him to hold off a bit on his great big prosecutional plans? Thanks, dad!”

  Ellery dashed.

  * * *

  “What’s on your mind this time, Mr. Queen?” Then Virginia smiled a little. “I mean, I know what’s on your mind-it’s always the same thing, isn’t it?-but there must be some new angle you’re working on.”

  “It’s not what I’m working on that should be concerning you, Mrs. Importuna,” Ellery said in his most Delphic tones. “It’s what the district attorney and Centre Street are working on.”

  The stunning eyes grew huge. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m going to tell you something that could get me into a great deal of trouble if it became known downtown that I’d tipped you off, Mrs. Importuna. The D.A. is preparing at this moment to haul you before a grand jury with the hope of getting an indictment against you on a murder-conspiracy charge.”

  “Conspiracy… “

  “You see, they know what’s been going on behind your husband’s back, Mrs. Importuna, between Peter Ennis and you.”

  She was quiet for so long that he began to think she had turned her ears off in shock. That, and her pallor, were the only signs of recoil from his thunderclap.

  “Mrs. Importuna?”

  A bit of pink came back to her cheeks. “Pardon me, I was thinking over my sinful life,” she said. “I suppose I can’t blame them for building up all sorts of wickednesses against me. But I didn’t kill Nino, Mr. Queen, and that’s the truth. I suppose it would be naive of me to expect that you’d believe me.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I was born with a sort of openwork mind. Full of holes, as my detractors have been known to say.” Ellery smiled at her. “But then I don’t have the obligation of the authorities to produce results for various Pooh-Bahs, up to and including the biggest Pooh-Bah of them all, the public. So don’t be too hard on the poor fellows. You must admit that the appearances, at least, favor the theory they’re working on.”

  “Why are you telling me this, Mr. Queen?”

  “Let’s say I’m not satisfied with the official theory. I’m not satisfied at all, Mrs. Importuna. Oh, I don’t doubt you and Peter have been having an affair-I’d decided that quite independently from the police. But I’m not convinced you could kill anyone in cold blood, and this was a coldblooded homicide. Of course, I could be dead wrong about you; I’ve been wrong before, and more than once. This time, though, I confess I’d like to be right.”

  “Thank you.” Virginia’s murmur held a glissando of surprise.

  “Now as to why I’m here. Whether you answer my question or not depends on whether you decide to trust me or not. I hope you’ll decide to trust me. On December 9th last, Mrs. Importuna, you had lunch with somebody. Who was it?”

  She actually giggled. “What a freaky question after that buildup! Do you really expect me to remember something as trivial as a lunch date 10 months ago?”

  “Try, please. It may turn out to be the reverse of trivial. It may, in fact, be vital to you.”

  His solemnity seemed to impress her. For some time her eyes went away, somewhere. Finally they came back to him. “I suppose I’m an idiot, but I’ve decided you’re not trying to trick me.” Ellery chose to remain quiet. “It happens that there is a way to answer your question, Mr. Queen. For a great many years I’ve kept a diary. I haven’t missed a day since I was 14 years old. It’s always been for me-I hope you won’t laugh-an Emily Dickinson kind of thing to do. I was once absolutely convinced I was going to be the latter-day Emily, dressing only in white, and spending practically all my time in my room writing poems that would never die… Well, you’re not interested in my girlish dreams. But I do have a record of day-to-day events as they concerned me.”

  “Yes,” Ellery said, “yes, that would certainly do it.”

  He rose as she rose. He was holding his breath.

  “I’ll be right back,” Virginia said.

  She was gone for a century.

  When she returned it was with an oversize diary in gold-tooled black morocco leather. It had a latch-flap-lock arrangement. Ellery had to command himself like a squad leader to keep from grabbing.

  “This is my diary for 1966.”

  “That’s the one, yes.”

  “Do sit down again, Mr. Queen.”

  She sank onto her sofa, a Duncan Phyfe, he thought, from its lyre motif; and he seated himself opposite her, trying to concentrate on the sofa to avoid being caught coveting the diary. She turned a gold key in the lock. The little key was on a gold chain.

  “Let’s see, now. December what did you say, Mr. Queen?”

  “The 9th.”

  “9th, 9th… Here it is… Oh,” she said. “That day.”

  “Yes?” Ellery said ligh
tly. “Something special about that day, Mrs. Importuna?”

  “You might say so! It was the first time I had that naughty thing the Victorians used to call a tryst with Peter. A public one, at that. I seem to recall Nino was off in Europe or somewhere on business. It was a stupidly dangerous thing for us to do, but it was a little hideaway place nobody I knew patronized…”

  He almost said, May I have a look at that, Mrs. Importuna? but he stopped himself on the cliff edge of importunity, aware how vulnerable she must be feeling, wondering how she had dared even to admit the existence of her diary, let alone produce it. Its contents in the wrong hands… His hands?

  To his stupefaction he heard her say, “But why tell you about it, Mr. Queen? Read it for yourself.” And there it was, being placed in his hands. “Mrs. Importuna,” Ellery said. “Do you realize what you’re proposing to do? You’re offering me information that, if it turns out to be pertinent, I’m in conscience bound to pass along to my father. My father is one of the officers investigating this case. The only reason I’m given the run of these premises by the officers on duty downstairs is because of my father. And, in any event, I shan’t be able to prevent your being charged and arraigned-or in all probability even to delay matters. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re still willing to let me read your entry for the day in question?”

  There were delicate little butterfly bruises of worry and tension under her eyes. But the eyes themselves were unclouded.

  “I didn’t kill my husband, Mr. Queen. I didn’t plot with anyone to kill him. I did fall in love with Peter Ennis, who’s a kind as well as a beautiful man. But since you already know we’re in love, how can my diary hurt us?” He opened it gently. And read:

  December 9, 1966. I wonder why I keep adding to this, oh, construction. This higgledy-piggledy, slam-bang architecture of feelings… hopes, disappointments, terrors, joys, the lot. Is it because of the joys?

  The few I have? And the almost addictive need to express them? Then why do I keep dwelling on the bad scenes? Sometimes I think this isn’t worth the risk. If N. were ever to find you, Diary…