“I beg your pardon?” gasped Kerrie.
“Never mind.” Mr. Queen smiled in a satisfied way.
“Beau, what does he mean?”
Beau told her. She was bewildered. “But I don’t—”
Mr. Queen took her hand. “Don’t try. While you’re here don’t answer too many questions and have a nice rest. Jails are really awfully good places to rest in.”
She smiled back faintly. “I’ll remember that — the next one I’m in.”
“I promise you you won’t be in this one long!”
“Thanks, Mr. Queen.”
“The name is Ellery, Miss Shawn.”
“Kerrie, Ellery.”
“Charmed! By the way, Beau and I have a lot of explaining to do. Do you think you can wait?”
“Whatever Beau says.”
Beau kissed her again, and they left quickly.
“Such faith,” observed Mr. Queen, “should be deserved.”
Beau did not reply in words. But his eyes and jaw said something that silenced Mr. Queen.
They found Inspector Queen with Lloyd. Goossens, elbow-deep in records. Both men seemed worried.
“Well, they’re in order,” said the Inspector disgustedly. “Every last one of ’em genuine. I don’t understand it at all!”
“Nor do I,” said Goossens, sucking nervously on his empty pipe. He stared from Beau to Ellery. “Which is which, Inspector?”
“There’s the real Ellery Queen,” snapped the Inspector, “and this varmint who passed himself off as Queen is Beau Rummell, my son’s partner. I wouldn’t blame you if you took a poke at both of ’em, Mr. Goossens.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that now,” said Goossens sadly, shaking hands with Ellery. “Some day you gentle men must tell me why you deceived me. At the moment this business about Margo Cole, or rather Ann Bloomer, has me rather floored.”
“You’re sure the identification papers are in order?”
“Positive. See for yourself. I’ve brought Miss Shawn’s along, too, for comparison.”
“How do we know she isn’t an impostor, too?” demanded Inspector Queen suddenly.
Beau bridled. “In her case the record’s clear! Besides, there’s a photo of her when she was a kid of ten or so—”
“I don’t like it,” growled the old man. “It upsets the whole cart.”
“My heart bleeds for you,” said Beau with a grin.
The Inspector eyed him peculiarly. “Oh, I don’t mean about the case against her. Finding out that the woman who claimed to be Margo Cole was an impostor doesn’t really change Kerrie Shawn’s motive, if Kerrie Shawn thought the woman was Margo Cole. Or even if she knew, the motive still holds. In that case she’d rely on the woman’s imposture never coming out. It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
The Inspector failed to reply.
“What bothers me,” said Goossens, “is my position as executor and trustee in this matter. And being paired with this man De Carlos doesn’t... ah... improve matters.” He ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “All that money handed over to this Bloomer woman out of Cole’s estate—”
“You can’t be held responsible for that,” said Mr. Queen. “We all made the same mistake. Because the proofs of identity were genuine, we assumed the person presenting them was their owner.”
“Oh, I’m safe enough legally,” said the lawyer. “It isn’t that, Mr. Queen. There will be lots of newspaper talk, a scandal — it won’t do my firm’s reputation any good, you know; may very well scare away future clients. Well, that’s my problem, not yours.”
“Talking about legal considerations,” remarked Beau, “there’s the estate itself, Goossens. The real Margo Cole must be searched for. Kerrie’s back in the picture as an heiress — with a charge of murder hanging over her. The Surrogate won’t like these little developments—”
Goossens looked unhappy. “Yes, yes, I’m aware of that.” He frowned. “By the way, Mr. Queen, you know that technically you disobeyed the testator’s instructions in having Mr. Rummell impersonate you. You had no right to give Mr. Rummell a job to do which you were personally hired to accomplish.”
“If you mean,” said Beau, “that we’ll give back the fifteen grand, my friend — take another whiff!”
“No, no,” said the lawyer with a nervous smile. “I shan’t press the point. But under the circumstances, I think the firm of Ellery Queen, Inc. will have to bow out of the case.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Mr. Queen.
“The Surrogate won’t like that little business, Mr. Queen. I imagine he’ll insist on my engaging a new firm, or doing the job myself.”
“You mean of beginning a search for Margo Cole all over again, now that the Bloomer woman has been exposed?”
“Yes.”
“We stand,” said Mr. Queen firmly, “upon our rights.”
Goossens laughed. “I don’t believe you have any. However, it’s probably a dead issue. Dead issue — very good!”
Mr. Queen politely laughed, too. “What’s that?”
“I mean — Margo Cole is probably dead. She must be. So it’s a tempest in a teapot.”
“Very possible,” admitted Mr. Queen.
“Well... I suppose, Inspector, you want to hang on to these records for a while?”
“Yes, leave them here.”
The lawyer nodded glumly and left.
“Bad case of cold feet,” remarked the Inspector. “Well, I suppose he is in a jam.” He sat down at his desk and began to finger his little figurine of Bertillon. “As I am. Beau, you and Kerrie are lucky this happened now. It smudges up our case, and the D.A.’s frankly sorry he advised such a quick arrest. And yesterday be wanted to arrest you, too!”
“On what charge?”
“Accessory to the murder.” The old man paused, then said quietly: “I talked him out of it. I know you didn’t have anything to do with it — not because the facts aren’t against it, but because of a lot of things the law won’t recognize as evidence.”
“But Beau couldn’t possibly have committed that murder,” protested Mr. Queen with an outraged chuckle.
“I’m not talking about the murder,” said his father shortly. “I said accessory.”
“Thanks, pop,” said Beau dryly.
“Just the same, my own hands aren’t too clean. The Commissioner is thinking of taking me off the case. Now, with this new development...” He shook his head.
“It seems to me,” observed Mr. Queen, “that we’re moving in concentric circles. Let’s tackle this thing logically.”
The Inspector brightened visibly. “You see daylight?’”
“Brilliantly.”
“Then you don’t believe Kerrie Shawn shot the Bloomer woman?”
“I do not.”
The Inspector sank back. “You’re prejudiced!”
“Not a bit of it. I have reasons for thinking her innocent.”
“Reasons? What reasons? The Lord knows I’m a reasonable man. But if you can explain away the circumstances of this crime — except by some cock-and-bull story like the one Kerrie Shawn tells — I’ll eat your hat in Madison Square Garden with catsup and mayonnaise!”
“I may take you up on that,” said Mr. Queen; and he rose and began to walk up and down, frowning at the floor. “We must begin from the new fact: that the woman who represented herself as Margo Cole, bearing genuine proofs of Margo-Cole identity, as it were, is a proved impostor named Ann Bloomer.
“Now, with this woman an impostor, the question arises: Where is the real niece of Cadmus Cole, the real daughter of Huntley Cole and Nadine Malloy Cole — the Margo Cole Ann Bloomer pretended to be?
“You’ll admit there are two inclusive possibilities: that either the real Margo Cole is alive, today, or she is dead.