“Drawn by my garter belt. You knew just where you were going.”
“Unconsciously, maybe. Shall we press our luck?”
“Last one in is a dirty name,” said the Sergeant, unbending and they plunged into the noisy breakers of 102nd Street.
“I wonder how my female ex-Irregular is getting along.”
“Say, I heard about that. That was a pretty smart trick.”
“Not so smart. The shortest collaboration on record. — Hold it, Velie.”
Ellery stopped to fish for a cigaret. The Sergeant dutifully struck a match, saying, “Where?”
“In that doorway behind me. Almost missed him.”
The flame snuffed out and Sergeant Velie said in a loud voice, “Darn it all, old man, let’s pet on over here,” and they moved around a frantic hopscotch game toward the building line. The big man pinned. “Hell, it’s Pigpott.” He struck another match near the doorway and Ellery bent over.
“Evening, evening,” said the detective from somewhere. “I saw you two amateurs coming a block away.”
“Is there a law against it?” demanded Sergeant Velie. “What are you working tonight, Piggo? Yeah, I’ll have one.” He took a cigaret from Ellery.
“Watch it! Here he comes.”
Ellery and the Sergeant jumped into the doorway beside the Headquarters man. A tall fellow had come out of an unlighted vestibule halfway up the street, on the side. He began pushing his way through the children.
“I’ve been tailing him all night,” said the detective.
“On whose orders, Piggott?”
“Your old man’s.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“All week. Hesse and I are divvying him.”
“Didn’t the Inspector tell you?” asked Sergeant Velie.
“I’ve hardly seen him this week.”
“It’s nothing exciting,” said the detective. “Just satisfying the taxpayers, the Inspector said.”
“How’s he been spending his time?”
“Walking and standing still.”
“Up here much?”
“Till last night.”
“What’s he been up to in that vestibule tonight?”
“Watching the entrance of the girl’s house across the street.”
Ellery nodded. Then he said, “Is she home?”
“We all pulled in here about a half hour ago. She spent the evening in the 42nd Street Library. Reference Room. So that’s where we were, too. Then he tailed her here, and I tailed him, and here we are.”
“Has he gone in there?”
“No, sir.”
“He hasn’t approached her, spoken to her?”
“Hell, she didn’t know he was following her. It’s been kind of like a Humphrey Bogart movie, at that. Johnson’s been tailing her. He’s been in the back court across the street since we pulled in here.”
“Sounds like a Canarsie clambake.” Then the Sergeant said swiftly, “Piggo, get lost.”
The tall man was coming directly toward their doorway.
“Well, well,” said Ellery, stepping out. “Hi.”
“I thought I’d save you some wear and tear.” Jimmy McKell stood innerbraced, looking from Ellery to Sergeant Velie and back again. Behind them, the doorway was empty. “What’s the significant idea?”
“Idea?” said Ellery, considering it.
“I saw you two rubberheels sneak into this doorway. What are you doing, watching Celeste Phillips?”
“Not me,” said Ellery. “Were you, Sergeant?”
“I wouldn’t do a thing like that,” said the Sergeant.
“Very funny.” Jimmy McKell kept looking at them. “Why don’t you ask me what I’m doing here?”
“All right, Jimmy. What are you doing here?”
“The same thing you are.” Jimmy excavated a cigaret, brushed off the linty detritus, and stuck it like a flag between his lips. His tone was amiable, however. “Only my angle is maybe different. I’m told there’s somebody doing the town collecting necks. Now that woman has one of the prettiest head supports in Christendom.” He lit the cigaret.
“Protecting her, huh?” said the Sergeant. “You play long shots, reporter.”
“Two-Million-to-One McKell, they call me.” Jimmy tossed the match; it glanced off Velie’s ear. “Well, I’ll be seeing you. If that’s my kismet.” He began to walk away.
“Jimmy, wait.”
“For what?”
“What do you say we drop in on her?”
Jimmy sauntered back. “For what?”
“I’ve been meaning to have a talk with you two.”
“For what?”
“You’re both entitled to an explanation, Jimmy.”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me. My nose knows.”
“No kidding.”
“I’m not. It really does.”
“I don’t blame you for being griped—”
“Hell, who’s griped? What’s a little thing like being suspected of seven murders? I mean between pals?” He stepped close all at once and Sergeant Velie stirred. Jimmy’s lips were out. “Queen, that was the most two-faced, poisonous deal since the days of the Medicis. To sick me onto Celeste and Celeste onto me. I ought to boff you for that.”
The Sergeant said, “Here.”
“Take that ham hock off me.”
“It’s all right, Sergeant.” Ellery was preoccupied and morose. “But Jimmy, I had to make some test.”
“Some test is right.”
“Yes, it was on the silly side. But you both came to me at such a convenient moment. I couldn’t close my eyes to the possibility that one of you—”
“Is the Cat.” Jimmy laughed.
“We’re not dealing with normality.”
“Do I look abnormal? Does Celeste?”
“Not to my eyes, no. But then I don’t have psychiatric vision.” Ellery grinned. “And dementia, for example, is a youthful disease.”
“Praecox McKell. Well, they called me a lot worse in the late Hot War.”
“Jimmy, I never really believed it. I don’t believe it now.”
“But there’s always the mathematical chance.”
“Come on, let’s drop in on Celeste.”
“I take it if I refuse,” said Jimmy, not budging, “Charley the Anthropoid here will pinch me?”
“I’ll pinch you,” said Sergeant Velie. “Where it hurts.”
“See what I mean?” said Jimmy bitterly. “We’re just not compatible.” And he strode away, breaking up the hopscotch game and pursued by the curses of little children.
“Let him go, Velie.”
After a few moments Detective Piggott’s voice said, “There goes my bread and butter. Night, Brother Elks.” When they looked around, Piggott was gone.
“So he’s been watching Celeste to save her from the Cat,” said Ellery as they began to cross the street.
“In a swine’s eyeball,”
“Oh, Jimmy means it, Sergeant. At least he thinks he does.”
“What is he, feebleminded?”
“Hardly.” Ellery laughed. “But he’s suffering from a severe attack of what our friend Cazalis might call — though I doubt it — confusional inanity. Otherwise known as the love psychosis.”
The Sergeant grunted. They stopped before the tenement and he looked around casually. “You know what I think, Maestro?”
“After that double wingback map of Manhattan of yours I wouldn’t even attempt a guess.”
“Go ahead and horse,” said the Sergeant. “But I think you put a bee in his buzzer.”
“Explain.”
“I think maybe McKell thinks maybe Celeste is the Cat.”
Ellery glanced up at the behemoth as if he had never really seen him before.
“You know what I think, Velie?”
“What?”
“I think you’re right.” And, looking slightly ill, he said, “Let’s go in.”
The hall was cheaply dim and pungent. A boy and a girl jumped apart as Ellery and Velie walked in; they had been clutching each other in the shadows beside the staircase. “Oh, thank you, I had such a lovely time,” said the girl, running up the stairs. The boy smirked. “I ain’t complaining, Carole.” He slouched out, winking at the two men.