“I warn you,” he said grimly. “You may live to regret that invitation.”
And, a little blindly, Mr. Queen made his way to the street.
What a lovely day! he thought, breathing deeply, drinking in the lovely sky, the lovely trees, even the lovely Spanish-style houses all about that supremely lovely white-frame cottage which housed surely the loveliest self-imprisoned Juliet in the history of romantic heroines.
And suddenly he remembered Vix’s cynical remark two days before: “You’ll fall for her like all the rest.” The rest... That implied a host of admirers. Well, why not? She was delectable and piquant to the jaded male palate, like a strange condiment. And what sort of figure did he cut in this land of brown, brawny, handsome men?
The loveliness went out of everything.
Crushed, Mr. Queen crept into his car and drove away.
Saturday night found him in a dinner jacket at the Horseshoe Club, cursing his wasted years of singleness and, his thoughts still hovering over a certain white-frame cottage in the Hollywood hills, not greatly caring if he cornered his quarry or not.
“Where can I find Alessandro?” he asked a bartender.
“In his office.” The man pointed, and Ellery skirted the horseshoe-shaped bar, threaded his way across the packed dance-floor past the orchestra stand where a swaying quadroon moaned a love-song, and entered a silk-hung passage at the terminus of which stood a chrome-steel door.
Ellery went up to it and knocked. It was opened at once by a hard-looking gentlemen in tails who appropriately gave him a hard look.
“Yeah?”
“Alessandro?”
“So who wants him?”
“Oh, go away,” said Ellery, and he pushed the hard-looking gentleman aside. An apple-cheeked little man with China-blue eyes wearing a huge horseshoe-shaped diamond on his left hand smiled up at him from behind a horseshoe-shaped desk.
“My name is Queen. Paula Paris told me to look you up.”
“Yes, she called me.” Alessandro rose and offered his fat little hand. “Any friend of Paula’s is welcome here.”
“I hope,” said Ellery not too hopefully, “she gave me a nice reference.”
“Very nice. You want to play, Mr. Queen? We can give you anything at any stakes — roulette, faro, baccarat, dice, chuck-a-luck, poker—”
“I’m afraid my quarter-limit stud is too rich for your blood,” grinned Ellery. “I’m really here to find the Royles and the Stuarts. Are they here?”
“They haven’t turned up yet. But they will. They generally do on Saturday nights.”
“May I wait inside?”
“This way, Mr. Queen.” Alessandro pressed on a blank wall and the wall opened, revealing a crowded, smoky, quiet room.
“Quite a set-up,” said Ellery, amused. “Is all this hocus-pocus necessary?”
The gambler smiled. “My clients expect it. You know — Hollywood? They want a kick for their dough.”
“Weren’t you located in New York a few years ago?” asked Ellery, studying his bland, innocent features.
The little man said: “Me?” and smiled again, nodded to another hard-looking man in the secret passageway, “All right, Joe, let the gentleman through.”
“My mistake,” murmured Ellery, and he entered the gaming room.
But he had not been mistaken. Alessandro’s name was not Alessandro, and he did hail from New York, and in New York he had gathered to his rosy little self a certain fame. The gossip of Police Headquarters had ascribed his sudden disappearance from Broadway to an extraordinary run of luck, during the course of which he had badly dented four bookmakers, two dice rings, and a poker clique composed of Dopey Siciliano, an assistant District Attorney, a Municipal Court Judge, a member of the Board of Estimate, and Solly the Slob.
And here he was, running a joint in Hollywood. Well, well, thought Ellery, it’s a small world.
He wandered about the place. He saw at once that Mr. Alessandro had risen in the social scale. At one table in a booth two wooden-faced house men played seven-card stud, deuces wild, with the president of a large film company, one of Hollywood’s most famous directors, and a fabulously-paid radio comedian. The dice tables were monopolized — it was a curious thing, thought Ellery with a grin — by writers and gag men. And along the roulette tables were gathered more stars than Tillie the Toiler had ever dreamed of, registering a variety of emotions that would have delighted the hearts of the directors present had they been in a condition to appreciate their realism.
Ellery spied the elusive Lew Bascom, in a disreputable tuxedo, in the crowd about one of the wheels. He was clutching a stack of chips with one hand and the neck of a queenly brunette with the other.
“So here you are,” said Ellery. “Don’t tell me you’ve been hiding out here for three days!”
“Go ’way, pal,” said Lew, “this is my lucky night.” There was a mountain of chips before the brunette.
“Yeah,” said the brunette, glaring at Ellery.
Ellery seized Lew’s arms. “I want to talk to you.”
“Why can’t I get any peace, for gossakes? Here, toots, hang on to papa’s rent,” and he dropped his handful of chips down the gaping front of the brunette’s decolletage. “Well, well, what’s on your mind?”
“You,” said Ellery firmly, “are remaining with me until the Royles and the Stuarts arrive. Then you’re going to introduce me. And after that you may vanish in a puff of smoke for all I care.”
Lew scowled. “What day is it?”
“Saturday.”
“What the hell happened to Friday? Say, here’s Jack Royle. C’mon, that wheel ain’t gonna wait all night.”
He dragged Ellery over to a tall, handsome man with iron-gray hair who was laughing at something Alessandro was saying. It was John Royle, all right, in the flesh, thought Ellery; the merest child knew that famous profile.
“Jack, here’s a guy named Ellery Queen,” grunted Lew. “Give him your autograph and lemme get back to the wheel.”
“Mr. Queen,” said the famous baritone voice, and the famous mustache-smile appeared. “Don’t mind this lack-brain; he’s probably drunk as usual. Rudeness runs in the Stuart line. Excuse me a moment.” He said to Alessandro: “It’s all right, Alec. I’m filthy with it tonight.” The little fat man nodded curtly and walked away. “And now, Mr. Queen, how do you like working for Magna?”
“Then Butcher’s told you. Do you know how hard I’ve tried to see you in the past three days, Mr. Royle?”
The famous smile was cordial, but the famous black eyes were roving. “Louderback did say something... Three days! Three, did you say? Lord, Queen, that’s a hunch! Pardon me while I break Alessandro’s heart.”
And he hurried off to the cashier’s cage to exchange a fistful of bills for a stack of blue chips. He dived into the crowd at the roulette table.
“Five hundred on number three,” Ellery heard him chortle.
Fascinated by this scientific attack on the laws of chance, Ellery permitted Lew to wriggle away. Number 3 failed to come up. Royle smiled, glanced at the clock on the wall, noted that its hands stood at nine-five, and promptly placed stacks on numbers 9 and 5. The ball stopped on 7.
Blythe Stuart swept in, magnificent in a black evening gown, followed by a tall Hindu in tails and a turban, with a brown impassive face. Instantly she was surrounded.
“Blythe! Who’s the new boyfriend?”
“I’ll bet he’s a prince, or a rajah, or something. Leave it to Blythe.”
“Introduce me, darling!”
“Please,” protested the actress, laughing. “This is Ramdu Singh, and he’s a Swami from India or some place, and he has second sight or something, I’ll swear, because he’s told me the most amazing things about myself. The Swami is going to help me play.”