“It’s important to check up on De Carlos’s story about Cole’s personal effects. He said they were in some trunks at the Cole house in Tarrytown. You’d better make sure De Carlos told the truth about that.”
“Yeah, but the pencil! I tell you—”
Ellery frowned. “I have the feeling we oughtn’t to jump at conclusions, Beau. There’s a good deal to weigh and examine and mull over. Meanwhile, I want you to dig into De Carlos’s past. Question old-timers in the Street. Find out as much about him as you can. There must be some people who remember him from the days — 1919, 1920, or whenever it was — when De Carlos was running Cole’s market operations, before Cole retired to his yacht.”
“But why?”
“Never mind why,” said Mr. Queen. “Do it. And... oh, yes. One thing more — perhaps the most important of all.”
“What’s that?”
“Find out if De Carlos has ever been married.”
“Find out if De Carlos has ever been married? Of all the cock-eyed assignments! What’s the point?”
“It may be the point.”
“You’re too much for me. Say! Cole’s will actually stated that De Carlos was a bachelor, so there’s your answer.”
“I’d rather have it from a more objective authority,” murmured Mr. Queen. “Check it.”
“I wish, you’d taken that pen away from him!”
“Yes, the pen.” Mr. Queen’s tone was damp. Something about the pen seemed to trouble him. Then he shrugged. “Let’s forget remote considerations and discuss things nearer home. What happened tonight after I left you at the hotel?”
Beau told him.
Ellery began to walk about. “I don’t like one thing. I don’t like the spot we’ve put dad in with your use of my name. He’s done too much already in the way of suppressing facts. Beau, we’ve got to spill the truth before the newspapers get hold of it by themselves and ride dad out of the Department.”
“Damn the mess!” roared Beau, jumping up. Then he sat down again, looking foolish. “It’s getting too involved for me. You’re right. I’ll have to face the music. Kerrie—”
“You’ve got to tell her, Beau. And about the other thing—”
“No!” Beau glared. “That’s the one thing I won’t tell. And you keep your mouth shut, too. Don’t you realize what it would mean if we told about that? We’d be handing her over to the chair on a platter!”
Ellery gnawed his lower lip. “Dad’s convinced, you say, that her story is a fabrication?”
“Yeah. You’ve got to admit, from his angle, it’s a pretty tall yarn.”
They were silent.
Finally Ellery said: “Well, clean up this business of the name, anyway. I’m going home to catch up on some sleep, and I’d advise you to do the same, because you’re in for a busy day.”
“Yeah,” mumbled Beau. He stared at the floor as if he saw something of unique interest there.
Beau faced the new day with a scowl. Times Square at dawn is not a gay place.
The place matched his mood; and yet, as he watched Ellery’s nighthawk cab drum off uptown, he felt a certain elation, too. Beau had spawned an idea in the office upstairs, and it was growing with abnormal rapidity. It was such an amazing idea that he had decided to keep it to himself. If Ellery could be mysterious, why couldn’t he?
He weighed the idea, turning it over, and the more he weighed it in the cool of early morning, on the deserted sidewalk in Times Square, a cigaret drooping from his lips, the more it staggered him.
If it was so... yes, it could wait. He could always pull it out of his hat. Meanwhile, there was a mess to be cleaned. That name business. Kerrie. How could he tell her?
He walked east towards the Villanoy, his heels raising echoes on the empty pavement.
The first thing to do was dodge the reporters. They had camped in the Villanoy lobby all night. If he knew reporters, they were there still, stretched out on the divans among a litter of cigaret ends and the butts of sandwiches.
He entered the hotel by way of the Service Entrance, roused a night-man, a bill exchanged hands, and the man took him up, surreptitiously, to the seventeenth floor.
One of Inspector Queen’s men, a detective named Piggott, who had known Beau when he used to visit his father at Headquarters in knee-pants and with barked knees showing, was perched on a chair which leaned against the wall next to the door of 1724. Piggott opened one eye and said, without smiling: “Hello, Mr. Queen.”
Beau grinned and jammed a cigar into the detective’s mouth. He entered 1724 without knocking.
Sergeant Velie was napping in the armchair by the window. He came awake instantly, like a cat.
“Oh, it’s you.” The Sergeant settled back and closed his eyes again.
Beau opened the bedroom door. The shades were drawn and Kerrie was curled up in a ball on one of the twin beds, under blankets. He could hear her deep, regular breathing. Vi, fully dressed as she lay on the other bed, raised her head with a start. When she saw Beau she slipped off the bed and tiptoed out to join Beau in the sitting room. She closed the door softly behind her.
Her eyes were red-rimmed and her white skin looked pasty, flabby. She said to him: “Calling on your wife for a change?”
“How is she?”
“All right, no thanks to you. The doc gave her a shot of something and after a while she fell asleep.”
“That’s good. That’s good.” Beau was nervous; he began walking about.
Vi looked at him. “If you want to go in there, I can’t stop you. You’re her husband.”
“No, no, let her sleep. Good for her. You’re aces, Vi. We’ve got a lot to thank you for.”
“Never mind the baloney,” said Vi. “You’re a first-class rat, do you know that?”
“Hey.” Beau turned round slowly. “What is this?”
“You know damn’ well.” Vi sat down on the edge of a chair and looked him over with a. deliberate insolence. “You let that poor kid take the rap for you, and you didn’t have the gumption to stay with her while she was taking it!”
“What goes on here?” Beau flushed deeply.
Vi glanced at the huge figure of Sergeant Velie lying still in the armchair.
“Never mind him! What was that last crack supposed to mean?”
“I don’t think you’d want the big boy hearing what I had in mind.”
“Don’t worry — he’s listening! Come on, Velie, can the act.” The Sergeant opened his eyes. “Now out with it! What’s on your virgin mind now?”
“You asked for it,” said Vi calmly, but she went pale. “I say you were in that room across the court. I say you fired those shots through the window at the Cole woman. I say you threw Kerrie’s .22 into this room. That’s what I say!”
She sat very still suddenly. Beau was glaring down at her with such ferocity that her lower lip began to tremble. She glanced swiftly towards the Sergeant, in a panic.
The Sergeant rose. “Listen, boy—”
“Keep out of this, Velie. You think I bumped off Margo and then framed Kerrie for the job, do you?” Beau spoke very quietly, standing over Vi with his arms dangling.
“Yes!” The cry burst from Vi’s lips, defiant through her fear.
“And I suppose you planted that idea in Kerrie’s head, too? You did, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t have to. The idea was already there.”
“You — doublecrossing — liar!”
“Ask her,” said Vi with a glance of hate; but she shrank. “It was all so pat, your leaving her the way you did. Kerrie had to realize that. She does! She fights against it, but she does. She loves you — God only knows why. She ought to curse the day she ever set eyes on you!”