“I have to,” Jessie heard herself say. “My legs have fallen asleep. My neck.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, as if he really were. “You may stand up.”
Jessie got to her feet. Her knees gave, and she leaned against the wall of the chute.
“In a way it was unfortunate for you that I employ a caretaker,” the millionaire droned on. “If not for Stallings’s being on the premises, I would have examined the chute last night. As it was, I had to go back to New York and find an excuse to send Stallings away. What did make you come here tonight to look the chute over?”
“Does it matter?” How light-headed she felt.
Jessie shut her eyes.
“I suppose not.”
She heard a click.
Her eyes flew open and she stared wildly. He was stepping back, his arm was coming up, it was extending, the gun was glowing softly blue at the end of it, she could see the stump of his little finger at the base of the grip, the index finger was beginning to whiten...
“Don’t kill me, Mr. Humffrey, I don’t want to die, please don’t kill me.”
“I must,” Alton Humffrey muttered.
“Don’t!” Jessie screamed, and she shut her eyes tight.
The basement rocked with the explosion.
Why, there’s no pain, Jessie thought. Isn’t that odd? There’s no pain at all. Just the roar of the gun and the smash of glass—
Glass?
She opened her eyes. Alton Humffrey’s right hand was a bloody pulp. His gun was on the floor and he was gripping his right wrist with his left hand convulsively. His mouth and nose were curled back in agony. A man’s hand, holding a smoking revolver, was just withdrawing from a broken window high in the basement wall and two other men were vaulting down the basement stairs to fling themselves on the wounded millionaire and bring him crashing to the floor.
Then an incredibly dear figure appeared at the head of the stairs and Jessie saw that it was he who had fired the shot through the basement window and he was running down the stairs like a boy with the smoking gun still in his hand and she was in his arms.
“Richard,” Jessie said.
Then she fainted.
Jessie found herself staring at a white ceiling. There was something familiar about the light fixture and the molding, and she turned her head and looked around. Of course. Her room. The nursery next door. The baby would be sleeping in a moment and the alarm would go off and she would jump out of bed...
Then she remembered.
Jessie sat up.
Mrs. Pearl was sitting in the rocker beside the bed, smiling at her.
“Beck Pearl.”
“How do you feel, Jessie?”
“All right, I guess.” Jessie looked down. Someone — she hoped it had been Beck Pearl — had removed her dress and girdle. “Did you...?”
The little woman nodded. She got up to switch off the nightlight and turn on the overhead lights.
“What time is it?” Her wristwatch was gone, too.
“About 3 a.m. You’ve had quite a sleep. Dr. Wicks gave you a needle. Don’t you remember?”
“I’m trying to, Becky. But how is it you’re here?”
“They located Abe and me at a friend’s home in Westport. When I heard about your terrible experience, I made Abe bring me along. Richard wanted to take you to a hospital, but Dr. Wicks said it wasn’t necessary. You’re sure you feel well enough to get out of bed?”
“Yes.” Jessie swung her legs to the floor stiffly. “Where’s Richard?”
“He’s still here. They all are. They don’t want to move Humffrey yet. He lost a lot of blood and they’ve got him in bed, under guard.” Beck Pearl’s soft mouth set hard. “It’s funny what good care they take of murderers. I’d have let him bleed to death.”
“Becky, you mustn’t say a thing like that.”
“You’re a nurse, Jessie,” the little woman said quietly. “I’m just a woman who’s had babies. And I have grandchildren. He murdered a baby.”
Jessie shivered.
“I’d better get dressed,” she said.
“Let me help you, dear.”
“No, please. You might tell Richard I’m up.”
Beck Pearl smiled again and went out.
It’s all over, Jessie kept telling herself as she wriggled into the girdle. It’s really all over.
He was waiting for her in the hall.
“Richard.”
He took her by the arms. “You’re sure you ought to be up?”
“You saved my life.”
“You’re so pale.”
“You saved my life, Richard,” Jessie said again.
He flushed. “You’d better sit down.”
He drew her over to the big settee opposite Alton Humffrey’s upstairs study.
How tired he looked. Tired and... something else. Disturbed?
“What were you doing here, Jessie? When I looked through that basement window and saw you standing down there facing Humffrey’s gun, I couldn’t believe my eyes.”
“I tried to phone you before I came, but I couldn’t get an answer. I couldn’t even locate Chief or Mrs. Pearl.” Jessie told him what she had found out from Sadie Smith, and how on impulse she had decided to investigate the chute when she was unable to reach him or the Taugus chief of police. “What I don’t understand, Richard, is what you were doing here. I thought you were in town chasing Henry Cullum.”
“I started to, but I ran into Johnny Kripps and Wes Polonsky.” He grinned. “They were watching Humffrey’s Park Avenue apartment on their own. That was luck, because Wes had his car. We sat around waiting for Cullum to show, so we could pump him about Mrs. Humffrey’s whereabouts, when we saw Humffrey trying to take a sneak. He was alone, and he was acting so queer we decided to tail him. He dodged around to his garage, got his car out, and headed for the West Side Highway. We tailed him all the way to Nair Island, and that was that.”
Jessie laid her head on his shoulder. “It’s all over, Richard.”
“No, it isn’t.”
His shoulder was rigid. Jessie sat up quickly.
“It isn’t?” she said. “It isn’t what, Richard?”
“Isn’t over.” He pressed his fingers to his eyes. “I don’t know how much more you can take tonight, Jessie. Can you stand a big shock?”
“Shock.” Dear God, what is it now? Jessie thought. “What’s happened!”
“We sure picked a lulu when we stuck our noses into this one. I don’t know that I’ve ever run across a case like it.”
“Like what?”
He got up and took her by the hand.
“I’ll show you, Jessie.”
Chief Pearl’s two detectives, Borcher and Tinny, were in the study. Borcher was reading a copy of Plato’s Republic with a deep frown. Tinny was napping in a leather armchair.
Both jumped up when Richard Queen opened the door. When he waved, Borcher returned to his puzzled reading and Tinny sank down and closed his eyes again.
“Over here, Jessie.”
The dirty pillowslip was spread out on Humffrey’s desk. Everything else had been removed.
“I was the one who found it,” Jessie said. “I fished it out of the nursery chute. Then he — he came in and took it away from me.”
“Then you’ve seen it.”
“Just a glance.”
“Examine it, Jessie.”
Jessie bent over the pillowslip. Now that she saw it in strong light, at leisure, it was remarkable how well she had remembered the position of the handprint in supervising the forgery.
She shook her head. “I can’t see anything special about this, Richard. Is there something on the back? I never did see the back.”