Pat was by now so bewildered that she gave herself up wholly to listening. But Carter Bradford was following with a savage intentness, hunched over the table and never taking his eyes from Ellery’s face.
“Go on!” he said. ”Go on, Queen!”
“Let’s go back,” said Mr. Queen, lighting a cigarette. ”We now know Jim’s three letters referred to a hidden, a never-mentioned, a first wife. If this woman died on New Year’s Day two or three years ago, why didn’t Jim mail the letters to his sister? More important than that, why didn’t he disclose the fact to you or Dakin when he was arrested? Why didn’t Jim tell Judge Martin, his attorney, that the letters didn’t mean Nora, for use as a possible defense in his trial? For if the first wife were in all truth dead, it would have been a simple matter to corroborate¯the attending physician’s affidavit, the death certificate, a dozen things.
“But Jim kept his mouth shut. He didn’t by so much as a sober word indicate that he’d married another woman between the time he and Nora broke up almost four years ago and the time he returned to Wrightsville to marry her. Why? Why Jim’s mysterious silence on this point?”
“Maybe,” said Pat with a shiver, “because he’d actually planned and carried out the murder of his first wife.”
“Then why didn’t he mail the letters to his sister?” argued Cart. ”Since he’d presumably written them for that eventuality?”
“Ah,” said Mr. Queen. ”The very counterpoint. So I said to myself: Is it possible that the murder Jim had planned of his first wife did not take place at the time it was supposed to?”
“You mean she was alive when Jim came back to Wrightsville?” gasped Pat.
“Not merely alive,” said Mr. Queen; he slowly ground out the butt of his cigarette in an ashtray. ”She followed Jim here.”
“The first wife?” Carter gaped.
“She came to Wrightsville?” cried Pat.
“Yes, but not as Jim’s first wife. Not as Jim’s any-wife.”
“Then who¯?”
“She came to Wrightsville,” said Ellery, “as Jim’s sister.”
Mr. Anderson came to life at the bar and began: “Landlord¯”
“Go home,” said Gus, shaking his head.
“Mead! Nepenthe!” implored Mr. Anderson.
“We don’t carry that stuff,” said Gus.
“As Jim’s sister,” whispered Pat. ”The woman Jim introduced to us as his sister, Rosemary, wasn’t his sister at all? She was his wife?”
“Yes.” Ellery motioned to Gus Olesen. But Gus had the second round ready. Mr. Anderson followed the tray with gleaming eyes. And no one spoke until Gus returned to the bar.
“But Queen,” said Carter, dazed, “how in hell can you know that?”
“Well, whose word have we that the woman who called herself Rosemary Haight was Jim Haight’s sister?” demanded Ellery. ”Only the word of Jim and Rosemary, and they’re both dead . . . However, that’s not how I know she was his first wife. I know that because I know who really killed her. And knowing who really killed her, it just isn’t possible for Rosemary to have been Jim’s sister. The only person she could have been, the only person against whom the murderer had motive, was Jim’s first wife; as you’ll see.”
“But Ellery,” said Pat, “didn’t you tell me yourself that day, by comparing the woman’s handwriting on Steve Polaris’s trucking receipt with the handwriting on the flap of the letter Jim received from ‘Rosemary Haight,’ that that proved the woman was Jim’s sister?”
“I was wrong,” said Mr. Queen, frowning. ”I was stupidly wrong. All that the two signatures proved, really, was that the same woman had written them both. That meant only that the woman who showed up here was the same woman who wrote Jim that letter which disturbed him so. I was misled by the fact that on the envelope she had signed the name ‘Rosemary Haight.’ Well, she was just using that name. I was wrong, I was stupid, and you should have caught me up, Patty. Let’s drink?”
“But if the woman who was poisoned New Year’s Eve was Jim’s first wife,” protested Carter, “why didn’t Jim’s real sister come forward after the murder? Lord knows the case had enough publicity!”
“If he had a sister,” mumbled Patty. ”If he had one!”
“Oh, he had a sister,” said Ellery wearily. ”Otherwise, why should he have written those letters to one? When he originally penned them, in planning the murder of his then-wife¯the murder he didn’t pull off¯he expected those letters to give him an appearance of innocence. He expected to send them to his real sister, Rosemary Haight. It would have to be a genuine sister to stand the searchlight of a murder investigation, or he’d really be in a mess. So Jim had a sister, all right.”
“But the papers!” said Pat. ”Cart’s right, Ellery. The papers were full of news about ‘Rosemary Haight, sister of James Haight,’ and how she died here in Wrightsville. If Jim had a real sister, Rosemary, surely she’d have come lickety-split to Wrightsville to expose the mistake?”
“Not necessarily. But the fact is¯Jim’s sister did come to Wrightsville, Patty. Whether she came to expose the mistake I can’t say; but certainly, after she’d had a talk with her brother, Jim, she decided to say nothing about her true identity. I suppose Jim made her promise to keep quiet. And she’s kept that promise.”
“I don’t follow, I don’t follow,” said Cart irritably. ”You’re like one of those fellows who keep pulling rabbits out of a hat. You mean the real Rosemary Haight’s been in Wrightsville all these months, calling herself by some other name?”
Mr. Queen shrugged. ”Who helped Jim in his trouble? The Wright family, a small group of old friends whose identities, of course, are unquestionable, myself, and . . . one other person. And that person a woman.”
“Roberta!” gasped Pat. ”Roberta Roberts, the newspaperwoman!”
“The only outsider of the sex that fits,” nodded Ellery. ”Yes, Roberta Roberts. Who else? She ‘believed’ in Jim’s innocence from the start, she fought for him, she sacrificed her job for him, and at the end¯in desperation¯she provided the car by which Jim escaped his guards at the cemetery. Yes, Roberta’s the only one who could be Jim’s sister, from the facts; it explains all the peculiarities of her conduct. I suppose ‘Roberta Roberts’ has been her professional name for years. But her real name is Rosemary Haight!”
“So that’s why she cried so at Jim’s funeral,” said Pat softly. And there was no sound but the swish of Gus Olesen’s cloth on the bar and Mr. Anderson’s troubled muttering.
“It gets clearer,” growled Cart at last. ”But what I don’t understand is why Jim’s first wife came to Wrightsville calling herself Jim’s sister.”
“And why,” added Pat, “Jim permitted the deception. It’s mad, the whole thing!”
“No,” said Ellery, “it’s frighteningly sane, if you’ll only stop to think. You ask why. I asked why, too. And when I thought about it, I saw what must have happened.” He drank deeply of the contents of the frosty glass. ”Look. Jim left almost four years ago on the eve of his wedding to Nora, as a result of their quarrel about the house. He went to New York, I should suppose desperately unhappy. But remember Jim’s character. An iron streak of independence¯that’s usually from the same lode as stubbornness and pride. They kept him from writing to Nora, from coming back to Wrightsville, from being a sensible human being; although, of course, Nora was as much to blame for not understanding how much standing on his own feet meant to a man like Jim.