He got up and took her hand.
Jessie giggled. “You make me feel like a little girl. Don’t I have any say about things like where I’m going to stay?”
“Not a word,” he said firmly. “You’re staying at my apartment in town.”
“Inspector Queen,” Jessie murmured. “I’m going to do no such thing.”
Even his neck reddened. “I mean I’ll go to the Y or some place. Ellery isn’t due back from abroad for a long time yet—”
“Silly. I’m hardly at the age when I’m worried about my reputation.” Jessie giggled again, enjoying his embarrassment. “But I wouldn’t dream of putting you out of your own home.”
“I’d come up every morning and have breakfast with you—”
“No, Richard,” Jessie said softly. “I have loads of friends in New York, nurses who live alone in little apartments and don’t particularly like it. But... thank you. So much.”
He looked so forlorn that Jessie impulsively squeezed his hand. Then she ran upstairs.
For some reason he felt very good suddenly. He walked about the cottage with long strides, smiling at his thoughts and occasionally glancing at the ceiling, until the Pearls came home.
Jessie spent nearly an hour Thursday morning on the telephone, running up New York City toll calls.
“I’m in luck,” she told Richard Queen. “Belle Berman, she’s a supervisor I know, wants me to move right in with her. And Gloria Sardella, a nurse I took my training with, is leaving tomorrow on her vacation. She’s going on a six-week cruise, and she’s offered me her apartment.”
“Where are the two places?”
“Belle’s down in the Village — West 11th Street. Gloria’s place is on 71st Street off Broadway, in a remodeled walk-up.”
“The Sardella apartment,” he said promptly.
“That’s my thought, because I’ll get Gloria to sublet it to me for whatever her rent is, whereas Belle wouldn’t hear of my sharing expenses.” Jessie looked at him. “What’s your reason, Richard?”
“Geography,” he said sheepishly. “I’m on West 87th. We’d be less than a mile apart.”
“You want to watch this man, Jessie,” Beck Pearl said. “He’s a regular wolf.”
“Don’t I know it!”
He mumbled something about having to pack, and beat a retreat.
Jessie phoned her friend again to arrange for her stay in the West 71st Street apartment, paid for the calls over Mrs. Pearl’s protests, and at last they were off in Jessie’s car, Beck Pearl waving from her doorway like a happy relative.
“She’s such a lamb,” Jessie said, turning into the Taugus road that led to the Merritt Parkway. “And so is Abe Pearl. Do you know what he said to me this morning before he left?”
“What?”
“He said you were a changed man since — well, since the Fourth of July. He seemed tickled to death, Richard. The Pearls have been very worried about you.”
He seemed flustered and pleased. “A man needs an interest in life.”
“Yes. This case—”
“Who’s talking about the case?”
“You know, I do believe you are a wolf!”
They chattered happily all the way into New York.
Jessie had decided to take her coupé into the city because Richard Queen had no car, and his son’s car was in summer storage. “What good is an assistant without a car?” she had said. “It isn’t as if you still had a police driver at your disposal, Richard. My jalopy may come in handy.”
“All right, if you’ll let me pay the garage bills.”
“Richard Queen. Nobody pays my bills but me!”
They stopped at the old brownstone on West 87th Street to drop his bags. Jessie got one whiff of the Queen apartment and threw the windows wide. She aired the beds, inspected the kitchen with horror, and began opening closets.
“What are you looking for?” he asked feebly.
“Fresh linen, a vacuum cleaner. You have to sleep here tonight! Who takes care of your apartment, anyway?”
“A Mrs. Fabrikant. She’s supposed to have come in once a week—”
“She hasn’t stuck her nose in this place for two months. You go on — make your phone calls, or whatever you have to do. I’ll make your bed and straighten up a bit. First chance I get I’ll do a thorough housecleaning. Imagine your son coming home to this!”
He retreated to Ellery’s study with a warm feeling. He did not even think about the blank space on his bedroom wall, where his direct line to Headquarters used to be.
When he went back to the bedroom he found Jessie moaning. “It’s hopeless. Take hours to do just this room properly.”
“Why, it looks as clean as a hospital room,” he exclaimed. “How’d you do it so fast?”
“Well, you’ll be able to sleep here without getting cholera, but that’s about all,” Jessie grumbled. “Fast? A nurse does everything fast. Did you get that man Finner?”
“Finally, after about a dozen calls. He’ll be in all afternoon, he said. I didn’t fix a time, Jessie, because I don’t know how long you’ll take getting settled.”
“Forget about me. I can’t get into Gloria’s place until four-thirty or a quarter of five, anyway. She’s on an eight-to-four case.”
“But she’s going away tomorrow!” he said, astonished.
“Nurses don’t live like people. Let me wash some of this grime off, and I’ll be right with you to tackle Mr. Finner.”
“You’re going to tackle some lunch at the Biltmore first. With cocktails.”
“Oh, wonderful. I’m hungry as a wolf.”
“I thought I was the wolf,” he said gaily.
“There are she-wolves, aren’t there?”
He found himself whistling like a boy to the homey sound of splashing from the bathroom.
The building was on East 49th Street, an old-timer six stories high with a clanky self-service elevator. His name was on the directory in the narrow lobby: Finner, A. Burt 622.
“Jessie, let me do most of the talking.”
“As if I’d know what to say!” Then Jessie thought of something. “I wonder, Richard...”
“What about?” he asked quickly.
“When we drove out to that rendezvous near Pelham the morning we picked up the baby, Finner drove right up behind where we were parked. I’d gone along to take charge of the baby. Finner may recognize me.”
“Not likely, but I’m glad you remembered to tell me.” He looked thoughtful. “All right, we’ll use it just on the chance. And, Jessie.”
“Yes?” Her heart was beginning to thump.
“It’s going to cut some corners for us if Finner thinks I’m still with the Department. Don’t act surprised if I make like a police officer.”
“Yes, sir,” Jessie said meekly.
Six-twenty-two was on the top floor at the other end of the corridor from the elevator. The corridor had dirty tan walls, and there was a smell of old floor polish and must.
The old man smiled at her, then suddenly opened the door.
A. Burt Finner half rose behind the desk in the small office, scowling.
“Come in, Miss Sherwood,” Richard Queen snapped. “It’s all right, he won’t bite you. He’s an old dog at this game, aren’t you, Finner?”
Jessie stepped into the office gingerly. She did not have to act scared. She was.
The fat man crashed back in his swivel chair. As far as Jessie could recall, he was wearing the same wrinkled blue suit and sweaty white shirt he had driven up in that morning near Pelham. The dingy office was stale with his odor. There was nothing in the room but a burn-scarred metal desk, a sad-looking imitation leather chair, a costumer leaning to one side with a dirty felt hat hanging from it, an old four-unit filing cabinet with a lock, and the swivel chair creaking under Finner’s weight. No rug, nothing on the walls but a large calendar put out by a baby foods company showing a healthy-looking infant in a diaper. The blind on the single window was limp and streaked. The walls were the same grubby tan shade as the corridor, only dirtier.