“What?” mumbled Ty.
“I said: Do you own a typewriter?”
“Why, yes. But—”
“Where is it?”
“In my dressing-room on the lot.”
“Where are you going now?”
“To see Bonnie.”
“Ty.” Ellery winced at his own perfidy. “Don’t. Take my advice. You may be... in danger.”
“Danger? What do you mean?”
“You understand English perfectly well.”
“Look here,” said Ty sharply, “are you trying to tell me that Bonnie would... You’re joking, or crazy.”
“Will you do me one favor? Don’t talk to Bonnie until I tell you it’s safe to.”
“But I don’t understand, Queen!”
“You’ve got to promise.”
“But—”
“I can’t explain now. Have I your word?”
Ty was silent. Then he said wearily: “Oh, very well,” and hung up.
Ellery did likewise, swabbing his moist brow. A close shave. Raw apprentice himself in the laboratory of love, he was just beginning to discover what powerful magnetic properties the grand passion possessed. Damn that stubborn kid! At the same time, far and deep inside, Mr. Queen felt a great, consuming shame. Of all the black tricks he had ever played in the interests of ultimate truth, this was certainly the blackest!
Sighing, he plodded towards his kitchenette for a further perusal of the book on fortune-telling and a Star Chamber session with his own dark thoughts.
The doorbell rang.
Absently he turned about and went to the door and opened it.
And there stood Bonnie.
“Bonnie! Well, well. Come in.”
Bonnie was radiant. She flew by, hurled herself on his sofa, and looked up at him with dancing eyes.
“What a lovely day! Isn’t it? And that’s the most fetching robe you’re wearing, Mr. Queen. And I’ve just been followed by that same closed black car, and I don’t care — whoever it is — and oh, the most wonderful thing’s happened!”
Ellery closed the door slowly. What now?
Nevertheless, he managed to smile. “There’s one pleasant feature of this case, anyway — it’s thrown me into daily contact with one of the loveliest damsels of our time.”
“One of the happiest,” laughed Bonnie. “And are you trying to seduce me with that mustachioed old technique? Oh, I feel so chipper it’s indecent!” She bounced up and down on the sofa like a gleeful little girl. “Aren’t you going to ask me what it is?”
“What what is?”
“The wonderful thing that’s happened?”
“Well,” said Ellery, without elation, “what is it?”
She opened her bag. Ellery studied her. Her pixie features were ravaged to a degree that neither her present gaiety nor the art of make-up as taught by its most celebrated impresarios could conceal. There were gray hollows in her cheeks and her eyes were underscored by violet shadows. She looked like a sufferer from a serious ailment who has just been informed by her physician that she would live and get well.
She took an envelope out of her bag and offered it to him. He took it, frowning; why should the receipt of another warning note have this extraordinary effect on her spirits? Apprehension ruffled his spine as he removed the enclosed card. It was a four of spades.
He stared at it gloomily. So that was it. If he recalled the code sheet correctly...
“You needn’t go looking for the yellow sheet,” said Bonnie gaily. “I know all those meanings by heart. The four of spades means: ‘Have Nothing More to Do with a Certain Person about Whom You Are Doubtful.’ Isn’t it scrumptious?”
Ellery sat down opposite her, scrutinizing the envelope.
“You don’t look pleased,” said Bonnie. “I can’t imagine why.”
“Perhaps,” muttered Ellery, “it’s because I don’t understand in what way it’s so scrumptious.”
Bonnie’s eyes widened. “But it says: ‘Have Nothing More to Do with a Certain Person about Whom You Are Doubtful.’ Don’t you see,” she said happily. “And I thought Ty sent that card yesterday!”
Bonnie, Bonnie. Ellery felt savage. First Ty, now Bonnie. Only the meanest man in the world would even attempt to wipe that blissful look from her drawn face, the first expression of pure happiness it had exhibited in the century-long week of doubts and torments and sorrow and death.
And yet, it had to be done. It was vitally important to wipe that look off her face. For an instant Ellery toyed with the notion to tell Bonnie the truth. That would stop her, if he gauged her character accurately. But then she wouldn’t be able to keep it from Ty. And if Ty knew...
He steeled himself. “I don’t see why you’re so cheerful,” he said, injecting a sneer into his voice.
Bonnie stared. “What do you mean?”
“You said you thought Ty sent that card yesterday. Apparently you don’t think so any more. What’s made you change your mind?”
“Why, this card — the one you’re holding!”
“I fail,” said Ellery coldly, “to follow your reasoning.”
Her smile faded. “You mean you don’t see—” She tossed her head. “You’re teasing me. There’s only one person in this world I could have been, and was, doubtful about. That was Ty.”
“What of it?”
“No matter who sent this card, its meaning is plain — it warns me not to have anything more to do with Ty. Don’t you see?” she cried, her cheeks pink again. “Don’t you see that that clears Ty — that he couldn’t have sent it? Would he warn me against himself if he were behind all this?” She paused triumphantly.
“He would under certain circumstances.”
The smile flickered and went out for good. She lowered her gaze and began to pick aimlessly at the handle of her bag.
“I suppose,” she said in a small voice, “you know what you’re talking about. I’m... I’m not much at this sort of thing. It just seemed to me that...”
“He’s been terribly clever,” said Ellery in a flat tone. “He knows you suspect him, and therefore he’s sent you the one message calculated to dispel your suspicions. As it did.”
He rose, suddenly unable to endure the sight of her steady picking at the bag. At the same time he became conscious that she had raised her eyes again and was looking at him with a queer directness — a sad, sharp, questioning look that made him feel he had committed a great crime.
“You really believe that?” murmured Bonnie.
Ellery snapped: “Wait for me. I’ll prove it.” He went into his bedroom, shut the door, and quickly began to dress. Because it made things easier, he kept his mind blank.
Bonnie drove him to the Magna Studios, and when she had parked her roadster in the studio garage he said: “Where’s Ty’s dressing-room?”
“Oh,” she said.
And without another word she led him to the little tree-shaded street of the stone bungalows and up the three steps to a door with Ty’s name on it. The door was unlocked, and they went in.
A standard-sized typewriter stood on a table beside a chair. Bonnie was perfectly motionless at the door. Ellery went to the typewriter, took a sheet of clean paper from his pocket, and rapidly typed a few lines.
That he returned to Bonnie with the sheet, pulling out of his pocket the envelope which she had just received.
“Open and shut,” he said tonelessly. “Here, Bonnie, compare these specimens. Notice the b’s and d’s and t’s? Broken type.” He did not mention that, like the h’s and r’s on John Royle’s portable, the imperfect keys on Ty’s machine had been freshly — and obviously — filed to make them so. “Also elite, which is unusual for a nonportable typewriter.”