“Why do you ask?”
“Because I take it you’re Mrs. Miles Senter and, if you are,” said Ellery regretfully, “it’s my melancholy job to inform you that your husband has just stopped a bullet upstairs. And now would you mind answering my question, Mrs. Senter?”
“No one.”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“Is Miles dead?”
“I couldn’t wait for the returns. So you’ve seen no one, Mrs. Senter. In that case, may I ask—?”
“You needn’t,” said Dorothy Senter. “I shot him.”
When Inspector Queen arrived, there was blood in his sleepy eyes. “You can take this homicidal high life,” he snorted to his son, “but I’m old enough to be your father. Couldn’t you have let the local men handle this?”
Ellery said thoughtfully, “I thought it was a case that called for more elevated skull-work,” and the Inspector immediately looked wakeful. Ellery followed him about, remaining thoughtful.
In proper course Dorothy Senter and Nikki Porter had hysterics and got over them, Inspector Queen had settled what facts there were to his peculiar satisfaction, men came and went, telephones rang and were silent, and at last they waited upon the pleasure of old Dr. Grand. At a few minutes before 2 A.M. Dr. Grand opened the door of Miles Senter’s bedroom, drying his hands on a monogrammed towel. “Nothing to it,” he chirruped. “It’s going to give him an interesting part in what hair he’s got left, and that’s about all, gentlemen. Wonderful constitutions, these Senters. Takes a lot to kill ’em.” Then he saw Dorothy Senter’s face, and his own changed. “Short as you can make it, Inspector Queen.” He stepped aside.
There was an odd illusion of headlessness in the man who lay on the great testered bed, but when they came near they saw that it was only the effect of bandages against the pillows and a face from which all color had been washed.
Miles Senter looked at his wife with a sort of feeble eagerness, but after a moment the eagerness died and he shut his eyes.
“Mr. Senter,” said Inspector Queen, “can you tell us what happened?”
“I don’t know. I had been talking to my secretary, Mr. Hart, and I sent him downstairs to wait for Mr. Queen. I was alone. The door opened. I was about to turn around when something exploded and everything went black.”
“Then you didn’t see who fired at you?”
“No.” The man on the bed sounded remote.
“Well, then, Mrs. Senter,” said the Inspector, “suppose you tell your husband what you told me.”
Miles Senter opened his eyes quickly.
Dorothy Senter said in a high singsong, “I left the house after dinner saying I was going to visit some friends. I walked over to Central Park and sat down on a bench. After a while I got up and walked some more. Then I walked back to the house. It was almost midnight. I went up to my room, passing Miles’s sitting room. He was in there talking to Harry Hart; they didn’t hear me. I waited till Harry went downstairs. Then I got a gun from my room that I have had for a long time and I went to Miles’s room and I shot him.” The man on the bed made a slight movement, then he was still again. “I ran down the backstairs to the garden. I saw the boathouse. I threw the gun as far as I could out into the water and I ran to the boathouse and stayed in there. I don’t know why.”
Miles Senter was squinting, as if the light hurt him.
“And now about the gun, Mrs. Senter,” said the Inspector, swabbing his face. “A .22 revolver, didn’t you tell me?”
“Yes.”
“The kind that has a cylinder that turns—that holds the bullets? That’s the kind it was, Mrs. Senter?”
“Yes. But I threw it into the river.”
“And a .22, you said,” said the Inspector, reaming his collar. “That’s really interesting, Mrs. Senter. Because when my son found your husband on the floor, he also found the shell of the cartridge. Mrs. Senter, revolvers don’t eject shells on being fired; the shell stays in the chamber. It’s automatics that eject shells, Mrs. Senter. And another interesting thing... this shell didn’t come from a .22, it came from a .38. So I regret to say you’ve been lying your head off, Mrs. Senter, and now what I would like to know is: Whom are you covering up?”
Dorothy gripped the footrail of her husband’s bed.
“I’ll tell you whom she’s covering up,” said her husband, staring at the canopy of his tester. “She’s covering up my brother David. Instead of going to Westport, David hid somewhere and then shot me. And Dorothy saw him do it. And because she’s crazy in love with him—”
“Harry, no!” screamed Dorothy.
But Miles Senter’s secretary was shaking his head. “It’s no use, Dotty. I can’t let this go on. Senter, David isn’t the man. I am.”
Miles Senter involuntarily raised himself. He stared at Harry Hart as if for the first time he was aware of more than a suit of clothes. In that stare he seemed to see everything at once, like a camera. When the wounded man sank back he turned his face away.
Hart was pale to the roots of his crew cut. “We tried our best to avoid it. But how can you stop a thing like that? It happened, and there it was. I wanted to tell you—”
“But there was always the salary,” said the man on the bed. “Eh, Harry?”
Hart went on with an effort. “Dorothy thinks I tried to kill you tonight because of it. That’s why she said she did it herself.”
“Noble.”
The other man was silent.
“So this has all been for love, Harry?”
“All for love,” said Hart steadily.
“Touching. But I’m a business man, Harry. I have the commercial mind. The way I see it, you knew I’d willed my estate to Dorothy. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of idle luxury—that’s what I think you were after, Harry, and all that stood in the way was a simple-minded husband who’s losing his hair. One shot, and the problem was solved—”
“If it only were,” said a voice; and, startled, they looked around, even Senter. But it was Ellery, looking thoughtful still. “Harry Hart is unquestionably a talented fellow, Mr. Senter, but to have shot you tonight he’d have to have been a wizard. Hart was coming up the stairs down there between Nikki Porter and me when we heard the report of the gun over our heads. So maybe it’s true love, after all... Human interest in quantity, Dad, but homicidally a famine. Could we have been right in the first place?”
“Looks like it,” said Inspector Queen grouchily. “Well, Mr. Senter, I think you’ve had enough of us for one night, and Dr. Grand’s looking fidgety. We shan’t disturb you again unless we get a line on your brother.”
“My brother?” repeated Miles Senter painfully.
“On your death, I understand, Senter Pharmaceuticals goes to David Senter by the will of your father. And from what I’ve heard of Senter Pharmaceuticals, that’s a goal worth shooting for... so to speak. I’m afraid, Mr. Senter, we’re going to have to start looking for your brother.”
That was an unmarked night, and when Nikki drifted into the garden she had no idea how much time had passed, if time had passed at all, except that the darkness was grayer, a boiling grayness that reduced everything to a glutenous mass, tasteless and unrecognizable. She groped for one of the bamboo chairs and a human hand clamped on her wrist.
Nikki squealed.
“It’s only me,” said a voice; and after a moment Nikki made out the long lines of Ellery, lying on the bamboo chaise on one elbow. “Nikki—”
“You fool,” said Nikki angrily. “Does failure bring out the card in you?”