Jimmy jammed his hat on and loped out.
To Celeste the room seemed empty.
“When do I go, Mr. Queen?”
“I’ll tell you.”
Ellery went to one of the windows. Celeste settled back again, opened her bag, took out a compact. The envelope she did not touch. After a while she replaced the compact and shut her bag. She sat looking at the dark fireplace. Inspector Queen, in the study doorway, said nothing at all.
“All right, Celeste.”
About five minutes had passed. Celeste left without a word.
“Now,” exploded the Inspector, “will you tell me what you wrote in those damned notes?”
“Sure.” Ellery was watching the street. “As soon as she comes out of the house.”
They waited.
“She stopped to read the note,” said the Inspector.
“And there she goes.” Ellery strolled over to the armchair. “Why, Dad,” he said, “in Celeste’s note I instructed her to find out all she can about Jimmy McKell. In Jimmy’s note I instructed him to find out all he can about Celeste Phillips.”
Ellery relit his pipe, puffing placidly.
“You conniver,” breathed his father. “The one thing I didn’t think of, and the only thing that makes sense.”
“If Heaven drops a date, the wise man opens his mouth. Chinese proverb.”
The Inspector launched himself from the jamb, steaming around the room like Scuffy the Tugboat.
“Beautiful,” he chortled. “They’ll have to head for each other like two—” He stopped.
“Cats?” Ellery took the pipe from his mouth. “That’s just it, Dad. I don’t know. This could be brutal. But we can’t take chances. We simply mustn’t.”
“Oh, it’s ridiculous,” snapped the old man. “A couple of romantic kids.”
“I thought I detected the inspectorial nose twitch once or twice during Celeste’s true confession.”
“Well, in this business you suspect everybody at least once. But when you stop to think about it, you—”
“You what? We don’t know a thing about the Cat. The Cat may be male, female, 16, 60, white, black, brown, or purple.”
“I thought you told me a few days ago that you’d spotted something. What was it, a mirage?”
“Irony really isn’t your long suit, Dad. I didn’t mean something about the Cat himself.”
The Inspector shrugged. He started for the door.
“I meant something about the Cat’s operations.”
The old man pulled up, turned around.
“What did you say?”
“The six murders have certain elements in common.”
“Elements in common?”
Ellery nodded.
“How many?” The Inspector sounded choked.
“At least three. I can think of a fourth, too.”
His father ran back. “What, son? What are they?”
But Ellery did not answer.
After a moment the Inspector hitched his trousers up and, very pale, marched out of the room.
“Dad?”
“What?” His angry voice shot in from the foyer.
“I need more time.”
“For what? So he can wring a few more necks?”
“That was below the belt. You ought to know these things can’t be rushed sometimes.”
Ellery sprang to his feet. And he was pale, too. “Dad, they mean something. They must! But what?”
4
Ellery was nervy that weekend. For hours he occupied himself with compass, ruler, pencil, graph paper. Plotting the curves of statistical mysteries. Finally he hurled his co-ordinates into the fireplace and sent them up in smoke. Inspector Queen, coming upon him that broiling Sunday apparently warming himself at a fire, made the feeble remark that if he had to live in purgatory he was going to do something about lowering the temperature.
Ellery laughed disagreeably. “There are no fans in hell.”
And he went into his study and made a point of closing the door.
But his father followed.
“Son.”
Ellery was standing at his desk. Glaring down at the case. He had not shaved for three days; under the rank stubble his skin was green and mortal.
Looks more like a vegetable gone to seed than a man, thought his father. And he said again, “Son.”
“Dad, I’d better give up.”
The Inspector chuckled. “You know you won’t. Feel like talking?”
“If you can suggest a cheerful topic of conversation.”
The Inspector turned on the fan. “Well, there’s always the weather. By the way, heard from your — what did you call those two — Irregulars?”
Ellery shook his head.
“How about a walk in the Park? Or a bus ride?”
“Nothing new?” muttered Ellery.
“Don’t bother shaving. You won’t meet anybody you know; the City’s half-empty. What do you say, son?”
“That’s another thing.” Ellery looked out. There was a crimson hem on the sky. It brushed the buildings. “This damned weekend.”
“Now look,” said his father. “The Cat’s operated strictly on working days. No Saturday, no Sunday, and he bypassed the only holiday since he got going, Fourth of July. So we don’t have to get the jitters about the Labor Day weekend.”
“You know what New York’s like on Labor Day night.” The buildings bloodied. Twenty-four hours from now, he thought. “Bottlenecks at every road, bridge, tunnel, terminal. Everybody cramming back into town at the same time.”
“Come on, Ellery! Let’s take in a movie. Or, I’ll tell you what. We’ll rustle up a revue. I wouldn’t mind seeing a leg show tonight.”
Ellery failed to smile. “I’d only take the Cat with me. You go on and enjoy yourself, Dad. I’d be no fun at all.”
The Inspector, a sensible man, went.
But he did not go to a leg show.
With the assistance of a busman, he went downtown to Police Headquarters instead.
The dark turned cherry-colored in the heat as the French blades swished toward his neck. He held himself ready. He was calm, even happy. The tumbril below was jammed with cats knitting solemnly with silk cords of blue and salmon-pink and nodding their approval. A small cat, no larger than an ant, sat just under his nose looking up at him. This cat had black eyes. As he all but felt the flick of the knife and the clean and total pain across his neck it seemed to him the night lifted and a great light flew over everything.
Ellery opened his eyes.
His cheek throbbed where something on the desk had corrupted it and he was wondering that the screeching agony of the dream persisted past its borders when it occurred to him that the telephone in his father’s bedroom was ringing in a nasty monotone.
He got up and went into the bedroom and turned on the light.
1:45.
“Hello.” His neck ached.
“Ellery.” The Inspector’s voice stung him awake. “I’ve been ringing for ten minutes.”
“I fell asleep at my desk. What’s up, Dad? Where are you?”
“Where would I be on this line? I’ve been hanging around all evening. Still dressed?”
“Yes.”
“Meet me right away at the Park-Lester apartment house. It’s on East 84th between Fifth and Madison.”
1:45 A.M. It is therefore Labor Day. The 25th of August to the 5th of September. Eleven days. Eleven is one more than ten. Between Phillips, Simone, and Willikins, Beatrice, it was ten days. One more than ten makes...
“Ellery, you there?”
“Who is it?” His head ached abominably.
“Ever hear of Dr. Edward Cazalis?”
“Cazalis?”
“Never mind—”
“The psychiatrist?”
“Yes.”
“Impossible!”
You crept along the catwalk of a rationale while the night split into a billion tinsel fragments.
“What did you say, Ellery?”