“Who’s gagging? Your brain, my sinews―”
“Never mind. Good night.”
“Hey!” His big hand caught her in the doorway. “Don’t be so half-cocky. I’m really going birdy up here, Laurel. It’s tough squatting in this tree waiting for the big boom. How would you go about it?”
She looked at him for a long time. “Mac, don’t try to pull anything cute on me.”
“My gosh, what would I pull on you!”
“This isn’t a game, like your apeman stunt. We’re not going to have any code words in Turkish or wear disguises or meet in mysterious bistros. It’s going to be a lot of footwork and maybe nothing but blisters to show for it. If you understand that and still want to come in, all right. Anything else, I go it solo.”
“I hope you’ll put a skirt on, or at least long pants,” the giant said morosely. “Where do we start?”
“We should have started on that dead dog. Long ago. Where it came from, who owned it, how it died, and all that. But now that’s as cold as I am... I’d say, Mac,” said Laurel, leaning against the jamb with her hands in her pockets, “the arsenic. That’s fresh, and it’s something to go on. Somebody got into the kitchen over there and mixed arsenic in with Roger’s tuna. Arsenic can’t be too easy to get hold of. It must leave a trail of some sort.”
“I never thought of that. How the dickens would you go about tracing it?”
“I’ve got some ideas. But there’s one thing we ought to do before that. The tuna was poisoned in the house. So that’s the place to start looking.”
“Let’s go.” Macgowan reached for a dark blue sweater.
“Now?” Laurel sounded slightly dismayed.
“Know a better time?”
Mrs. Williams came in and stumbled over a chair. “Mr. Queen? You in here?”
“Present.”
“Then why don’t you put on a light?” She found the switch. Ellery was bunched in a corner of the sofa, feet on the picture window, looking at Hollywood. It looked like a fireworks display, popping lights in all colors. “Your dinner’s cold.”
“Leave it on the kitchen table, Mrs. Williams. You go on home.”
She sniffed. “It’s that Miss Hill and the naked man, only he’s got clothes on this evening.”
“Why didn’t you say so!” Ellery sprang from the sofa. “Laurel, Mac! Come in.”
They were smiling, but Ellery thought they both looked a little peaked. Crowe Macgowan was in a respectable suit; he even wore a tie.
“Well, well, still communing with mysterious thoughts, eh, Queen? We’re not interrupting anything momentous?”
“As far as I can see,” said Laurel, “he hasn’t moved from one spot in sixty hours. Ellery,” she said abruptly, “we have some news for you.”
“News? For me?”
“We’ve found out something.”
“I wondered why Mac was dressed,” said Ellery. “Here, sit down and tell me all about it. You two been on the trail?”
“There’s nothing to this detective racket,” said the giant, stretching his legs. “You twerps have been getting away with mayhem. Tell him, Red.”
“We decided to do a little detecting on our own―”
“That sounds to me,” murmured Ellery, “like the remark of a dissatisfied client.”
“That’s what it is.” Laurel strode around smoking a cigaret. “We’d better have an understanding, Ellery. I hired you to find a killer. I didn’t expect you to produce him in twenty-four hours necessarily, but I did expect something ― some sign of interest, maybe even a twitch or two of activity. But what have you done? You’ve sat here and smoked!”
“Not a bad system, Laurel,” said Ellery, reaching for a pipe. ‘I’ve worked that way for years.”
“Well, I don’t care for it!”
“Am I fired?”
“I didn’t say that―”
“I think all the lady wants to do,” said young Macgowan, “is give you a jab, Queen. She doesn’t think thinking is a substitute for footwork.”
“Each has its place,” Ellery said amiably ― “sit down, Laurel, won’t you? Each has its place, and thinking’s place can be very important. I’m not altogether ignorant of what’s been going on, seated though I’ve remained. Let’s see if I can’t― er― think this out for you...” He closed his eyes. “I would say,” he said after a moment, “that you two have been tracking down the arsenic with which Priam’s tuna was poisoned.” He opened his eyes. “Is that right so far?”
“That’s right,” cried Macgowan.
Laurel glared. “How did you know?”
Ellery tapped his forehead. “Never sell cerebration short. Now! What exactly have you accomplished? I look into my mental ball and I see... you and Mac... discovering a... can of... a can of rat poison in the Priam cellar.” They were open-mouthed. “Yes. Rat poison. And you found that this particular rat poison contains arsenic... arsenic, the poison which was also found in Priam’s salad. How’m I doin’?”
Laurel said feebly, “But I can’t imagine how you...”
Ellery had gone to the blondewood desk near the window and pulled a drawer open. Now he took out a card and glanced over it. “Yes. You traced the purchase of that poison, which bears the brand name of D-e-t-h hyphen o-n hyphen R-a-t-z. You discovered that this revoltingly named substance was purchased on May the thirteenth of this year at... let me see... at Kepler’s Pharmacy at 1723 North Highland.”
Laurel looked at Macgowan. He was grinning. She glared at him and then back at Ellery.
“You questioned either Mr. Kepler himself,” Ellery went on, “or his clerk, Mr. Candy ― unfortunately my crystal ball went blank at this point. But one of them told you that the can of Deth-on-Ratz was bought by a tall, handsome man whom he identified ― probably from a set of snapshots you had with you ― as Alfred Wallace. Correct, Laurel?”
Laurel said tightly, “How did you find out?”
“Why, Red, I leave these matters to those who can attend to them far more quickly and efficiently than I ― or you, Red. Or the Atomic Age Tree Boy over here. Lieutenant Keats had all that information within a few hours and he passed it along to me. Why should I saute myself in the California sun when I can sit here in comfort and think?” Laurel’s lip wiggled and Ellery burst into laughter. He shook up her hair and tilted her chin. “Just the same, that was enterprising of you, Laurel. That was all right.”
“Not so all right.” Laurel sank into a chair, tragic. “I’m sorry, Ellery. You must think I’m an imbecile.”
“Not a bit of it. It’s just that you’re impatient. This business is a matter of legs, brains, and bottoms, and you’ve got to learn to wait on the last-named with philosophy while the other two are pumping away. What else did you find out?”
“Nothing,” said Laurel miserably.
“I thought it was quite a piece,” said Crowe Macgowan. “Finding out that Alfred bought the poison that knocked Roger for a loop... that ought to mean something, Queen.”
“If you jumped to that kind of conclusion,” said Ellery dryly, “I’m afraid you’re in for a bad time. Keats found out something else.”
“What’s that?”
“It was your mother, Mac, who thought she heard mice in the cellar. It was your mother who told Wallace to buy the rat poison.”
The boy gaped, and Laurel looked down at her hands suddenly.
“Don’t be upset, Mac. No action is going to be taken. Even though the mice seem to have been imaginary ― we could find no turds or holes... The fact is, we have nothing positive. There’s no direct evidence that the arsenic in Priam’s tuna salad came from the can of rat poison in the cellar. There’s no direct evidence that either your mother or Wallace did anything but try to get rid of mice who happen not to have been there.”