“Celeste?”
Ellery did not reply.
“I know,” said Jimmy. “This is something out of H. G. Wells. An unknown gas drifts into the earth’s atmosphere out of interstellar space and everybody in the world goes fay. Including the great Ellery Queen. Why, Queen,” he snarled, “she came here to help you find the killer of Simone!”
“Who, it develops, wasn’t her sister and had deliberately held her in peonage for years.”
“Give me air. Sweet, sane air.”
“I’m not saying it’s so, Jimmy. But by the same token can you say it isn’t?”
“Damned right I can! That kid is as pure as I was till I stumbled into this Siberian Casbah this-morning and got polluted! Besides, I thought you were looking for the Cat — seven-times strangler!”
“Ellery.” Inspector Queen came back to the table. He had apparently fought an engagement with himself and won it. Or lost it. “It’s out of the question. Not that girl.”
“Now there’s a man,” shouted Jimmy, “who’s still got one toenail on the ground!”
Ellery stared into his cooling coffee. “Jimmy, have you ever heard of the ABC theory of multiple murder?”
“The what?”
“X wants to kill D. X’s motive isn’t apparent, but if he killed D in the ordinary way the police investigation would disclose eventually that the only person, or most likely person, with motive to kill D was X. X’s problem is, How can he kill D and gain his object without having his motive stand out? X sees that one way to accomplish this is by surrounding D’s murder with a smokescreen of other murders, deliberately committed with the same technique in order to tie them up as a series of interrelated crimes. Consequently, X first murders A, B, and C... wholly innocent people, you understand, with whom he’s not in the least involved. Only then does he murder D.
“The effect of this is to make the murder of D appear merely a single link in a chain of crimes. The police will not be looking for someone with motive against D, they will look for someone with motive against A, B, C, and D. But since X had no motive whatever for murdering A, B, and C, his motive against D is either overlooked or ignored. At least, that’s the theory.”
“How to become a detective in one easy lesson,” said Jimmy McKell. “In a series of murders, last one with motive is It and leave my fee in the hypodermic needle, please.”
“Not quite,” said Ellery, without rancor. “X is smarter than that. To stop at the one murder which incriminates him, he realizes, is to bring it into exactly the prominence he has been trying to avoid by making it one of a series. Therefore, X follows the relevant murder of D with the irrelevant murders of E, F, and G — and H and I and J, if necessary. He kills as many nonsignificant persons as he feels will successfully obfuscate his motive against the significant one.”
“Pushing my way through the thicket of scholarly language,” grinned Jimmy, “I now get it. This 23-year-old she-gorilla with the detachable chassis, this fiend in human form, strangles Abernethy, the Smith babe, O’Reilly, Monica, Beatrice Willikins, and little Lenore Richardson just so she can sandwich in the bumpoff of her crippled cousin Simone. Queen, have you seen a good doctor lately?”
“Celeste gave up five years of her life to Simone,” said Ellery patiently. “She faced the prospect of giving up — how many more? Ten? Twenty? Simone might have lived on and on. Evidently Celeste had given her excellent care; the medical report indicates no bedsores, for example, the prevention of which in such cases requires constant attention.
“But Celeste wants desperately to make something of herself. Celeste would like to get away from the cheerless and limiting environment to which Simone’s existence condemns her. Celeste is also young, pretty, and hot-blooded, and her life with Simone is frustrating emotionally. On top of all this, Celeste finds one night — not last week, but last May, let’s say — a young fortune, which Simone has kept a secret from her all these years and possession of which would enable Celeste to satisfy her needs and wants for a considerable period. Only one thing stands in the way of possessing it — and putting it to use — and that’s her cousin Simone. She can’t bring herself to leave a helpless invalid—”
“So she kills her,” chuckled Jimmy. “Along with six other folks.”
“We’ve obviously hypothesized a person of confused motivations and personality—”
“I take it back. You don’t need a checkup, Queen. You need a checkdown. From the scalp.”
“Jimmy, I haven’t said Celeste killed Simone and the others. I haven’t even indicated an opinion as to its likelihood. I’m putting the known facts together in one possible way. In a shambles that’s already seen seven people slaughtered and for all we know may eventually include a great many more, would you have me ignore Celeste simply because she’s young and attractive?”
“Attractive. If what you’re ‘hypothesizing’ about Celeste is true, she’s a maniac.”
“Read yesterday’s interview with Dr. Edward Cazalis, Noted Psychiatrist. A maniac — of a very deceptive type — is exactly what Noted Psychiatrist is looking for, and I must say he makes out a convincing case.”
“I am the type maniac,” said Jimmy through his large teeth, “who can take just so much sanity. Watch out below!” And he went over the breakfast table as if it were the edge of a pool.
But Ellery was on his feet and to one side rather more quickly, and Jimmy McKell landed on his nose in a splash of tepid coffee.
“I must say that was silly, Jimmy. Are you all right?”
“Leggo, you character assassin!” yelled Jimmy, swinging.
“Here, sonny-boy.” The Inspector caught Jimmy’s arm. “You’ve been reading too many of Ellery’s books.”
Jimmy shook off the Inspector’s hand. He was livid. “Queen, you get somebody else to do your stooling. I’m through. And what’s more, I’m going to tell Celeste what she’s up against. Yes, and how you suckered me into collecting your garbage for you! And if she upchucks at the mere proximity of McKell, it’ll be no more than the yokel deserves!”
“Please don’t do that, Jimmy.”
“Why not?”
“Our agreement.”
“Produce it in writing. What did you buy, Mephisto — my soul?”
“No one forced you into this, Jimmy. You came to me, offered your services, I accepted them on explicit conditions. Remember that, Jimmy?”
Jimmy glowered.
“Granted it’s a quadrillion-to-one shot. Just on that remote possibility, will you keep your mouth shut?”
“Do you know what you’re asking me to do?”
“Keep your promise.”
“I’m in love with her.”
“Oh,” said Ellery. “That’s really too bad.”
The Inspector exclaimed: “So soon?”
Jimmy laughed. “Did they clock it in your day, Inspector?”
“Jimmy. You haven’t answered my question.”
When the doorbell rang.
The Queens looked at each other quickly.
“Who is it?” called the Inspector.
“Celeste Phillips.”
But it was James Guymer McKell who reached the door first, swooping down like a stork.
“Jimmy. You didn’t tell me you were—”
His long arms dropped around her.
“Jimmy.” She straggled, laughing.
“I want you to be the last to know,” snarled Jimmy McKell. “I love you.”
“Jimmy, what...!”
He kissed her angrily on the lips and took off, sailing down the stairs.
“Come in, Celeste,” said Ellery.
Celeste went crimson. She came in fumbling for her compact. Her lipstick was smeared and she kept looking at it in her mirror.