by Ellery Queen
The prowler whirled about like a tiger, blinking and silent. In the brilliant light Ellery made out his features clearly as the upturned lapels of the man's coat dropped stiffly back.
It was Donald Kirk.
They measured each other for an eon, as If they could not tear their eyes away, as if they could not believe what their eyes saw. They were both shocked into silence by surprise.
"Well, well," said Ellery at last, drawing a grateful breath and advancing toward the tall motionless young man. "You do get about, don't you, Kirk? And what's the meaning of this horribly trite nocturnal visit?"
Donald relaxed completely all of a sudden, as if he could not bear the tension an instant longer. He sank into a nearby white plush chair and with trembling fingers pulled out a cigaret-case and lit a cigaret.
"Well," he said with a short despairing laugh, "here I am. Caught red-handed, Queen—and by you, of all people."
"Fate," murmured Ellery. "And a kind fate for you, my careening young bucko. A more vigorous operative might have—what's the phrase? ah, yes—plugged you first and asked questions afterward. Fortunately, having a sensitive stomach, I don't carry firearms. . . . Fearfully bad habit, Kirk, prowling about ladies' bedrooms at this time of night Get you into trouble."
And Ellery seated himself comfortably on a zibelline chaise-longue opposite the plush chair and produced his own cigaret-case and selected a cigaret with dreamy abstraction and lit it.
They smoked thoughtfully and in silence for some time, regarding each other without once lowering their eyes.
Then Ellery swallowed a mouthful of smoke and said: "I suffer a bit from insomnia, too. What do you do for it, old boy?"
Kirk sighed. "Go on. Say it."
Ellery drawled: "Care to talk?"
The young man forced a grin. "Curiously enough, I'm not in a conversational mood at the moment."
"Curiously enough, I am. Peaceful atmosphere, two intelligent young men alone, smoking—perfect background for small talk, Kirk. I've always said—a most original observation, of course—that what America needs is not so much a good five-cent cigar as the civilizing influence of inconsequential conversation. Don't you want to be civilized, you heathen?"
The publisher let smoke dribble out of his nostrils. Then he leaned forward suddenly, elbows on his knees. "You're playing with me, Queen. What d'ye want?"
"I might ask you," said Ellery dryly, "substantially the same question."
"Don't get you."
"Well, since I must be specific: What were you looking for so strenuously in Miss Irene Sewell's vanity a few moments ago?"
"I won't tell you, and that's final," snapped Kirk with a defiant flare of his pinched nostrils.
"Pity," murmured Ellery. "I seem to have lost all power of persuasion." And there was a long and pregnant silence.
"I suppose," muttered Donald at last, studying the rug, "you'll turn me in."
"I?" said Ellery with elaborate astonishment. "My dear Kirk, you grieve me. I'm not—er—official, you see. Who am I to go about making people unhappy?"
The cigaret burned down to Kirk's fingertips and he crushed the fire out between his fingers unconsciously. "You mean," he said slowly, "you'll—pass it up? Won't tell any one about it, Queen?"
"I had some such thought," drawled Ellery.
"By George, that's white of you!" Kirk sprang to his feet, a revitalized man. "Damned decent, Queen. I—I don't know quite how to thank you."
"I do."
"Oh," said the young man in a different voice, and he sat down again.
"Look here, you dithering fool," said Ellery cheerfully, flipping his cigaret-butt out one of the open windows. "Don't you think you've tortured yourself with that secret of yours just about to a sufficiency? You're essentially honest, Kirk; haven't either the flair or the technique for intrigue. Why can't you get it through that stubborn young skull of yours that the biggest mistake you've made in this miserable business was in not confiding in me?"
"I know it," muttered Donald.
"Then you've come to your senses at last? You'll tell me?"
Kirk raised haggard eyes. "No."
"But why not, man, for God's sake?"
The young man rose and began to pace the rug with hungry strides. "Because I can't. Because—" the words came reluctantly—"because it's not my secret, Queen."
"Oh, that," said Ellery quietly. "That's scarcely news to me, old chap."
Kirk stopped short. "Just what . . . You know?" There was a deep sounding of pain and tragic despair in his voice.
Ellery shrugged. "If it had been your secret you would have come out with it long ago. Kirk, my lad, no man would stand by and permit the woman he loves to get a horribly distorted impression about him without taking the obvious defensive measure—unless his tongue was paralyzed by the necessity of protecting some one else."
"Then you don't know," murmured Kirk.
"Protecting some one else." Ellery looked sympathetic. "I'd scarcely be worth my salt as an observer of human beings if I couldn't perceive that the one you're protecting is—your sister Marcella."
"Good God, Queen—"
"I was right, then. Marcella, eh? . . . Does she know what threatens her, Kirk?"
"No!"
"I thought not. And you're saving her from it. Perhaps from herself. Stout fellow, Kirk. Knight-in-shining-armor business. I'd no idea lads like you still paced the earth. I suppose Kingsley was right when he said that the age of chivalry is never past so long as there's a wrong left 'unredressed.' And that, of course, is what attracts the female of the species. Your tiny Jo is apparently no exception. . . . No, no, Kirk, don't clench your fists; I'm not poking fun at you. I mean it. You're adamant in your refusal, I suppose?"
The veins at Donald's temple were angry knots. Perspiration materialized on his forehead. But he choked: "No," and said at once: "I mean—yes!" and tossed his head about like a restless horse, chafing at the rein of circumstances.
"And still I'm morally certain you were going to tell Papa Queen all about it on the night of the murder. Then we found the body and you pulled in your horns. You were going to ask my advice, weren't you, Kirk?"
"Yes, but not about—this. About this Llewes—Sewell— woman . . ."
"Ah, then the secret that concerns your sister has nothing to do with your charming Irene?" asked Ellery quickly.
"No, no, I didn't say that. Oh, good God, Queen, don't make it so hard for me. I just can't say any more."
Ellery rose and went to the open window to stare out inscrutably over the flickering dark canyon below. Then he turned and said lightly: "Since we've reached the climax of our little bout of dialectic, I suggest we get out of here before the mistress of this boudoir returns with excursions and alarums. Ready, Kirk?"
"I'm ready," said Kirk in a muffled voice.
Ellery held the door open for him and then switched off the light. In the darkness they went through the apartment to the front door and passed out into the corridor. There was no one about. They stood still for a moment.
Then Donald Kirk said: "Well, good night," in the dreariest of tones and trudged off down the corridor toward the stairs without once looking back.
Ellery watched his drooping shoulders until they vanished. He turned in a seemingly aimless motion and peered sharply out of the corner of his eyes at the turn of the corridor behind him. There had been . . . But there was nothing to be seen.
For five long minutes Ellery waited without stirring from the spot. No one turned up, no one even looked his way from the far length of the corridor. He strained his ears and kept his eyes open. . . . But the corridor was as still as a cathedral.
And so, this time without hesitation, he inserted his skeleton key in the lock of the door and swiftly reentered the Llewes suite.
But even in the isolation of the darkness there he was troubled. He had seen some one, he felt sure. And, from the tininess of the ankles, that some one who had watched them emerge from the apartment ha
d been Jo Temple.
Chapter Fourteen
THE MAN FROM PARIS
Miss Irene Sewell, alias Llewes, came swiftly into her apartment at two o'clock in the morning, humming a waltz. She did not look like a woman who has spent several hours under the searching scrutiny of the police.
Under her arm she carried a small package done up in brown paper.
"Lucy!" she called gaily. "Lucy!" Her voice echoed through the sitting-room. But there was no answer, and with a shrug she let her mink coat slip to the floor and glided into the living-room. She turned on the light, still humming, and looked about with a slow sweep of her remarkable brown eyes. The hum ceased abruptly. An expression of suspicion disturbed her large beautiful features. A sixth sense told her subtly that something was wrong. What it was she could not conceive, and yet . . . Her eyes blazed, and she strode forward and yanked open the bedroom-door and snapped on the light.
Mr. Ellery Queen sat smiling in the plush chair facing the door, his legs comfortably crossed. At his elbow lay an ashtray overflowing with butts.
"Mr. Queen! What's the meaning of this?" she demanded in her throaty voice.
"Good entrance, Miss Llewes," said Ellery cheerfully, getting to his feet. "I mean the business. The speech wasn't so good. Hackneyed, don't you think?"
"I asked you," she said sharply, "what you're doing in my bedroom at this hour of the morning!"
"Implying, I trust, that at an earlier hour you would have no objection whatever? Thank you. . . ." He stretched his lean arms and yawned politely. "That was a long wait, Miss Llewes. I was beginning to believe that you'd found my father a positively enchanting host."
She clutched the back of the nearest chair, her mask stripped off. The bundle was still under her arm. "Then it was a trick," she said slowly. "He returned Kirk's jewels to me and kept asking me questions. . . ." Her eyes travelled over the furniture, probing for signs of disturbance. They widened a little when she saw that the lowest drawer of the vanity was open. "Then you've found it," she said with bitterness.
Ellery raised his shoulders. "Very clumsy, my dear. I should think that a woman of your experience would have chosen a more subtle hiding-place. Yes, I've found it; and that's why I've waited in this damnably sleepy chair."
She advanced toward him with oddly uncertain steps, as if she did not quite know what to do or say. "Well?" she murmured at last. Her peculiar progress was taking her in a sidling way to the vanity.
"The .22 isn't there any more," said Ellery, "so you may as well sit down, Miss Llewes."
She went a little paler, but she said nothing and obediently turned and went to the chaise-longue, upon which she sank in a tired way.
Ellery began to pace the rug thoughtfully. "The time has come—to paraphrase the immortal Walrus—to discuss fundamentals. You've been playing a dangerous game, my dear. Now you've got to pay the price."
"What do you want of me?" she asked huskily; there was no defiance in her voice.
Ellery cocked a shrewd eye at her. "Information. Explanation. ... I must say I'm inexpressibly astonished, even a little disappointed in you, Irene. No resistance beyond that instinctive groping toward the little .22? Teh, tch. I suppose you've decided that submission is the better part of conflict."
"What can I say?" She leaned back, and the folds of her evening gown draped her in long clean curves. "You've won. I've been stupid. Voila!"
"Much as it goes against the gentleman in me," murmured Ellery, "I must agree with you. You've not only been stupid, Irene, but criminally stupid. To keep those letters so carelessly in your bedroom! Why didn't you put them in the wall-safe?"
"Because the wall-safe or any safe is the first place people examine," she replied with an unnatural smile.
"The Dupin principle, eh?" Ellery shrugged. "And then, too, people like you place too great reliance upon firearms. I suppose you thought the .22 was protection enough."
"I usually," she murmured, "carry it in my bag."
"But tonight, of course, you left off the lethal jewelry for purposes of your visit to Headquarters. Quite so. Perhaps I've been, hasty in my judgment, Irene. . . . Well, my dear, it's late; and much as I enjoy the intimate nature of this tête-à-tête, I should relish sleep more. Why," he snapped suddenly, "did you change your name to Llewes from Sewell?"
"It seemed an interesting surname," she said brightly.
"I suppose you realize that Llewes is Sewell spelled backwards?"
"Oh, that. Of course. That was how . . ." She sat up in alarm. "You don't mean—you don't think—"
"What I mean or think, dear lady, is inconsequential. I'm just a cog in the machine."
"But it happened so long ago—years ago," she faltered. "I assure you there wasn't—there couldn't be the slightest connection between the name and the—"
"That remains to be seen. Now, Miss Llewes, to get down to business. I've found those letters and the copy of the certificate. It's unnecessary for me to point out that your little game has been played, and that you've lost."
"Possession of those—isn't documents the technical word, Mr. Queen?" she murmured with a sudden sparkle in her eyes—"merely establishes the proofs, you know. But you can't eradicate from my brain the knowledge of what happened, you see. And it's quite evident that Mr. Donald Kirk is anxious that I keep quiet. What do you say to that?"
"Awakening resistance," chuckled Ellery. "Wrong again, my dear. Your word—the word of a woman with a long criminal record—wouldn't stand for an instant against mine if I should testify that I found these papers in your possession. And Kirk, knowing you no longer possess them, will be willing to testify in his turn that you blackmailed him. So—"
"Oh," smiled the woman, rising and stretching her long white arms, "but he won't, d'ye see, Mr. Queen."
"Resistance stretches. I apologize for the accusation of stupidity. You mean, I presume, that with or without the papers in your possession, Kirk's only concern is to keep you silent, and that if it came to a matter of arrest and trial he couldn't prevent your telling the story in open court?"
"How clever you are, Mr. Queen."
"Now, now, no flattery. But let me point out in rebuttal," said Ellery dryly, "that if it does come to a showdown in court, the story must come out anyway. And since it must come out and Kirk will be powerless to prevent its coming out, he'll testify against you with a grim and enthusiastic vengeance, my dear, that will put that fetching body of yours behind bars-—ugly American bars—for years and years and years. And what do you say to that, Irene?"
"Am I to understand," she murmured, coming closer to him, "that you're proposing an entente, a conspiracy of silence, Mr. Queen? That you won't prosecute in return for my silence?"
Ellery bowed. "I beg forgiveness again; I underestimated the acuteness of your perceptions. Precisely what I'm proposing. . . . And please don't come any nearer, my dear, because while I can exercise stern self-control on occasion, this is not one of the occasions. I'm still human. At two o'clock in the morning my moral resistance is at its lowest ebb."
"I could like you—very much, Mr. Queen."
Ellery sighed and hastily retreated a step. "Ah, the Mae West influence. Dear, dearl! And I've always said that the Hammetts and the Whitfields are wrong in their demonstrated belief that a detective has countless opportunities for indulging his sex appeal. Another credo blasted. . . . Then it's agreed, Miss Llewes?"
She regarded him coolly. "Agreed. And I have been a fool."
"A fascinating fool, at any rate. Poor Kirk! He must have had the very devil of a time with you. By the way," murmured Ellery, and his eyes belied the smile on his lips, "how well did you know that man?"
"What man?"
"The Parisian."
"Oh!" Her mask slipped on. "Not very well."
"Did you ever meet him?"
"Once. But he was unshaven—wore a beard, in fact. And he was foully drunk when he sold me the letters. I met him only when the letters and money changed hands. For an instant.
All previous negotiations bad been conducted by letter."
"Hmm. You saw the face of the corpse, Miss Llewes, upstairs the other day." Ellery paused. Then he continued slowly: "Could the man from Paris have been the man murdered upstairs?"
She stepped back, dazed. "You mean—that little . . . Good heavens!"
"Well?"
"I don't know," she said hurriedly, biting her lips. "I don't know. It's so hard to say. Without the beard ... It was a bushy beard that concealed most of his features. And he was horribly seedy and dirty, a wreck. But it's possible. . . ."
"Ah," frowned Ellery. "I'd hoped for a surer identification. You can't be certain?"
"No," she murmured in a thoughtful tone, "I can't be certain, Mr. Queen."
"Then I'll bid you good night and pleasant dreams." Ellery snatched up his coat and wriggled into it. The woman was still thoughtful, standing in the middle of the room like a draped tree. "Oh, yes! I knew I'd forgotten something."
"Forgotten something?"
Ellery walked over to the chaise-longue and picked up the brown-paper package. "Donald Kirk's precious antiques. Dear, dear! It would have been a beastly oversight to leave without them."
The color ebbed out of her face. "Do you mean to say," she demanded in a furious voice, "that you're taking those, too? You—you brigand!"
"Lovely, my dear. Anger becomes you. But surely you didn't think I'd leave them in your care?"
"But then I have nothing left—nothing!" She was almost sobbing in her rage. "All these weeks, months. The expense . . . I'll tell the whole story! I'll call in the press! I'll splatter that story all over the world!"
"And spend the best part of the remainder of your life behind cold gray walls, in a narrow cell, and with coarse—I assure you it's unreasonably coarse—cotton underwear next to your skin?" Ellery shook his head sadly. "I think not You're about thirty-five now, I should say—"
'Thirty-one, you beast!"
"I beg your pardon. Thirty-one. When you're out you'll be —let's see— Well, in your case, considering the plenitude of your dossier, you should get—"
