Jessie turned the gas down under the coffeepot with the strangest thrill of proprietorship.
So they lunched tête-à-tête, and he told her that he had just finished arranging for an around-the-clock watch on Connie Coy’s apartment.
“But who’s watching?” Jessie asked, astonished.
“Four retired members of the Force,” he grinned. “Al Murphy and Pete Angelo signed up last night. Pete got Hughie Giffin for me this morning, and that was ex-Lieutenant of Homicide Johnny Kripps just now trying to climb through the phone. Murphy and Angelo for daytime duty, Giffin and Kripps for dark-to-dawn. And four better officers you couldn’t find between here and the west forty.”
“Connie Coy is back, then?”
“No. That’s one of the reasons I want the building covered. This way I’ll know the minute she gets home.”
When Jessie came out of the bathroom after lunch, in a housedress and with her hair bound in a scarf, she found him washing the lunch dishes.
“Here, Richard, I’ll do those.”
“You go on about your business. I’m a pearl diver from way back.”
But afterward he trailed her around the apartment in a pleased way, making a nuisance of himself.
“Haven’t you anything to do?” She was washing the living-room windows, and she suspected she had a dirt smudge on her nose. “Goodness!”
“I’ll go call Abe Pearl,” he said hastily. “Been meaning to do it all day.”
“Are you going to tell him about Finner’s death and how it ties in with the baby?”
“I called Abe on that early last week.”
“You never told me. What did he say?”
“I couldn’t repeat it.”
“Then Chief Pearl’s not so sure about my optical illusions,” Jessie couldn’t help saying.
“I’m afraid Abe’s not sure about anything any more.”
He went into the study and called Taugus police headquarters.
“Abe? Dick Queen.”
“Dick!” Abe Pearl roared. “Wait a minute.” Richard Queen heard him say, “Borcher, shut that door, will you?” and the slam of a door. “Okay, Dick—”
“I thought you were going to call me back last week.”
“Call you back? I’ve called that damn number of yours two dozen times. Don’t you ever stay home? What’s going on, Dick? Honeymoon — or something — with the Sherwood number?”
“Don’t be funny,” the old man said huffily.
“All right, all right. But you’ve tied my hands, I don’t dare buzz Centre Street for information — I’m sitting out here like a bump on a log. Come on, Dick, give!”
He told Abe Pearl about their success in tracking down the mother of the dead baby.
“I’m waiting now for the girl to get back to town, Abe. Meanwhile, I’m trying to get a line on this alleged husband of hers, Dimmesdale. What did you find out about the Humffreys? How is Mrs. Humffrey?”
“I can’t get to first base on that. This Duane is closer-mouthed than the FBI. I even got a friend of mine, a New Haven doctor who’s sent patients to the Duane sanitarium and knows Duane well, to make some wild heaves from left field, but all Jerry could learn was that they’d called in some big specialist for her.”
“How about Alton Humffrey, Abe? When did he get back from that mysterious fadeout weekend before last?”
“A week ago Sunday night, late. The help must have told him about Dr. Duane’s trying frantically to get hold of him, because my information is Humffrey turned right around and drove up to New Haven. He was back Monday morning.”
“That was Monday a week ago? The 22nd?”
“Yeah. The next day — last Tuesday — he closed up the Nair Island house and went into New York for good. The only one left is the gardener, Stallings.”
Richard Queen was silent. Then he said, “Abe, were you able to find out where Humffrey was during his two-day disappearance?”
“Nope. What the devil is this all about, Dick? It’s a lot of fog to me.”
“Move over,” the old man chuckled.
But he looked worried as he hung up.
At 4.12 p.m. the phone rang. It was the operator with a call from Washington.
“This is it, Jessie,” Richard Queen shouted. “Hello?”
Two minutes later he hung up.
“The Pentagon says that no such person as Arthur Dimmesdale — either as officer, enlisted man, draftee, or even civilian employee — is carried on the rolls of the United States Army, in Korea or anywhere else.”
“So she did make him up,” Jessie said slowly. “Poor girl.”
“I wish your poor girl would show,” he snapped. “I wish something would show!”
Something did. At 4.25 he answered the doorbell to find himself staring into the hard blue eyes of his old friend, Deputy Chief Inspector Thomas F. Mackey in charge of Manhattan East.
If Inspector Mackey’s eyes were not affable, the rest of him was. He remarked how long it had been since his last visit to 87th Street, asked after Ellery, complimented his old friend on his taste in cleaning women (Jessie, hurriedly taking her mops into the study at a glance from her confederate, felt a shiver wiggle up her spine), and did not get down to business until he was offered a drink.
“Thanks, Dick, but I’m on duty,” Inspector Mackey said awkwardly.
The old man grinned. “I’ll go quietly, Tom.”
“Don’t be a jerk. Look, Dick, you and I can talk frankly. We’re up a tree on the Finner homicide. Just a big nothing. We’ve run down hundreds of leads, mostly from those files of his. His night-spot romances have pretty much washed out. There’s something wrong. Not a whisper of anything has come in from the stools. Wherever we turn — in a case that should have been cracked in forty-eight hours — we run up against a blank wall. Dick, are you sure you told us the whole story a week ago Saturday?”
The Queen face got red. “That’s a funny question to ask me, Tom.”
His friend’s face got red, too. “I know. I’ve been debating with myself all week should I come up here. The damn thing is, I got the queerest feeling that day that you were holding something back.” He was miserable, but his glance did not waver. “Were you, Dick?”
“I’m not going to answer that, Tom!”
They stared at each other. For a moment the old man thought his equivocation had been unsuccessful. But Chief Deputy Inspector Mackey misread the emotion in his friend’s voice.
“I don’t blame you. It was a rotten question to ask a man who’s given the best part of his life to the City of New York. Forget I ever asked it, Dick. And now, before I shove off, I think I’ll take that hooker!”
When Inspector Mackey had left, Jessie came out of the study. She went over to Richard Queen, slumped in his big armchair, and put her hand on his shoulder.
“You couldn’t do anything else, Richard.”
“Jessie, I feel like a skunk.” His hand crept up and tightened over hers. “And yet I can’t turn this over to the Department. The minute I do I’m through with the case. It’s our case, Jessie, yours and mine. Nobody else wanted it...”
“Yes, Richard,” Jessie murmured.
They had had dinner and were in the living room watching television when the phone rang again. Jessie snapped off the set and glanced at her watch as the old man hurried into the study. It was almost 8.30.
“Inspector? Johnny Kripps.”
“Johnny. Did Giffin turn up to help you take over from Angelo and Murphy?”
“Hughie’s watching the front right now. I’m phoning from a drugstore on Broadway. She’s back, Inspector.”