“You do look beautiful,” sighed Ellery. “Too beautiful to spend the next year in jail. I wonder—”
“What?”
“Which part of Glücke’s advice to take — whether to sock you or kiss you. Which would you prefer?”
“Imagine that monster playing Cupid,” murmured Paula. “Disgusting! Why haven’t you at least phoned me?”
“Paula,” said Ellery earnestly. “You know I’m your friend. What’s behind this story?” He tapped the Monday newspaper.
“I asked a question first,” she said, showing the dimple.
Ellery stared hungrily. She looked ravishing in a silver lame hostess-gown with a trailing wrap-around skirt over Turkish trousers. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll take Glücke’s advice?”
“My dear Mr. Queen,” she said coolly, “you overestimate your capacity — and his — for inspiring fear.”
“I,” said Ellery, still staring, “am. Damned if I’m not!”
He advanced. But the lady did not retreat. She just looked at him. “I see,” she said in a pitying way, “that Hollywood’s been doing nasty things to you.”
Mr. Queen stopped dead, coloring. Then he said sharply: “We’ve strayed from the point. I want to know—”
“How it is that my column ran a story in the night-edition of the Monday paper, appearing Sunday evening, to the effect that Jack and Blythe were kidnapped on their wedding trip?”
“Don’t evade the question!”
“How masterful,” murmured Paula, looking down demurely.
“Damn it,” cried Ellery, “don’t be coy with me! You must have written that item, judging by the relative times involved, before the actual kidnapping!” Paula said nothing. “How did you know they were going to be kidnapped?”
Paula sighed. “You know, Mr. Queen, you’re a fascinating creature, but what makes you think you’ve the right to speak to me in that tone of voice?”
“Oh, my God. Paula, can’t you see the spot you’re in? Where’d you get that information?”
“I’ll give you the same answer,” replied Paula coldly, “that I gave Inspector Glücke. And that is — none of your business.”
“You’ve got to tell me. I won’t tell Glücke. But I must know.”
“I think,” said Paula, rising, “that will be all, Mr. Queen.”
“Oh, no, it won’t! You’re going to tell me if I have to—”
“I’m not responsible for the care and feeding of your detective instincts.”
“Blast my detective instincts. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“Really, Mr. Queen,” cooed Paula.
Ellery scowled. “I... I didn’t mean to say that.”
“Oh, but you did.” Paula smiled at him; there was that damned dimple again! “Are you truly worried about me?”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I meant—”
She burst into laughter suddenly and collapsed in her chair. “Oh, this is so funny!” she gasped. “The great detective. The giant intellect. The human bloodhound!”
“What’s so funny about what?” asked Ellery stiffly.
“You thinking I had something to do with those murders!” She dabbed at her eyes with a Batique handkerchief.
Ellery blushed. “That’s — absurd! I never said anything like that!”
“But that’s what you meant. I don’t think so much of your finesse, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Trying to put it on a personal basis! I ought to be furious with you... I am furious with you!” And Ellery, bewildered, saw that she was indeed furious with him.
“But I assure you—”
“It’s contemptible. You overlords, you Mussolinis, you strutting men! You were going to take the poor, psychically ill little newspaperwoman and give her a delightful free ride, weren’t you? Make love to her, sweep her off her silly feet, talk dizzy pretty nonsense — dash gallantly into a romantic attack, hoping all the time you’d find out something damning about her!”
“I should like to point out, in self-defense,” said Ellery with dignity, “that my ‘romantic attack,’ as you put it so romantically, was launched long before either Jack Royle or Blythe Stuart was murdered.”
Paula half-turned her shapely back, applying the handkerchief to her eyes, and Ellery saw her shoulders twitch convulsively. Damn him for a clumsy fool! He had made her cry.
He was about to go to her and act terribly sympathetic and powerful, when to his astonishment and chagrin she faced him and he saw that she was laughing.
“I am a fool,” he said shortly, pierced to the soul. And he stalked to the door. Laughing at him.
She flew past him to set her back against it. “Oh, darling, you are,” she choked. “No. Don’t go yet.”
“I don’t see,” he said, not mollified, but not going, “why I should stay.”
“Because I want you to.”
“Oh, I see.” Not frightfully clever, that remark. What had happened to his celebrated wits? It was bewildering.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Paula, facing him with large, soft eyes. “I’ll give you something I didn’t give that lout Glücke. Now will you stay?”
“Well...”
“There! We’re friends again.” She took him by the hand and led him back to the sofa. Ellery felt suddenly pleased with himself. Not badly handled, eh? Proved something, didn’t it? She liked him. And her hand was so warm and small. She did have tiny hands for a woman of her size. Not that she was so big! Well... she wasn’t small. But not fat. Certainly not! He didn’t like small women. He had always maintained a man cheated himself when he took to his bosom a small woman; man was entitled to a “generous measure of devotion.” Oho, not bad, that! He looked Paula over covertly. Yes, yes, generous was the word. The richness of the cornucopia and the aristocracy of a court sword. Beautiful patrician. Quite the grand lady. Queenly, you might say.
“Queenly,” he chuckled, pressing her hand ardently.
“What?” But she did not withdraw her hand.
“Oh, nothing,” said Ellery modestly. “A little pun I just thought of. Queenly... ha ha! I mean — what were you going to tell me?”
“You do talk in riddles,” sighed Paula, pulling him down with her. “I think that’s why I like you. It’s so much fun just trying to keep up.”
Ellery wondered what would happen if he let his arm — oh, casually, of course — slip around her shoulders. They did look so strong, and yet womanly; were they soft? Would she flee to the arms of her phobia? Science — yes, the pure spirit of science — made it mandatory to try the experiment.
“What,” he mumbled, trying the experiment, “happened?”
For one delicious instant she endured the reverent pressure of his arm. Her shoulders were strong and yet soft; just right, just right. Mr. Queen, in a heat of scientific ardor, squeezed. She jerked away from him like a blooded mare; then she sat still, coloring.
“I’ll tell you just this,” said Paula to her handkerchief, in a voice barely audible. “I—” And she stopped and got up and went to the nearby table and took a cigaret from a box.
Ellery was left with his arm in empty air, feeling rather foolish.
“Yes?” he said abruptly.
She sat down in the Cape Cod rocker, busy with the cigaret. “About an hour before the plane was stolen, I received a telephone call. I was told Jack and Blythe were about to be kidnapped.”
“Where was the call from?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Don’t you know?” She did not reply. “Who called?” Ellery jumped up. “Paula, did you know Jack and Blythe were going to be murdered?”