“That’s it.”
Ellery got up and went to the window. Through the glass, darkly, he saw the old landscape again.
“Lieutenant.” He turned suddenly. “Did you check Roger Priam’s paralysis?”
Keats smiled. “Got quite a file on that if you want to read a lot of medical mumbo jumbo. The sources are some of the biggest specialists in the United States. But if you want it in plain American shorthand, his condition is on the level and it’s hopeless. By the way, they were never able to get anything out of Priam about his previous medical history, if that’s what you had in mind.”
“You’re disgustingly thorough, Keats. I wish I could find the heart to congratulate you. Now tell me you couldn’t find anything on Alfred Wallace and I’ll crown you.”
Keats picked up an inkstand and offered it to Ellery. “Start crowning.”
“Nothing on Wallace either?”
“That’s right.” Keats spat little dry sprigs of tobacco. “All I could dig up about Mr. Alfred W. dates from the day Priam hired him, just over a year ago.”
“Why, that can’t be!” exploded Ellery. “Not three in the same case.”
“He’s not an Angeleno, I’m pretty well convinced of that. But I can’t tell you what he is. I’m still working on it.”
“But... it’s such a short time ago, Keats!”
“I know,” said Keats, showing his teeth without dropping the cigaret, “you wish you were back in New York among the boys in the big league. Just the same, there’s something screwy about Wallace, too. And I thought, Mr. Queen, having so little to cheer you up with today, I’d cut out the fancy stuff and try a smash through.the center of the line. I haven’t talked to Wallace. How about doing it now?”
“You’ve got him here?” exclaimed Ellery.
“Waiting in the next room. Just a polite invitation to come down to the station here and have a chat. He didn’t seem to mind ― said it was his day off anyway. I’ve got one of the boys keeping him from getting bored.”
Ellery pulled a chair into a shadowed corner of the office and snapped, “Produce.”
Alfred Wallace came in with a smile, the immaculate man unaffected by the Fahrenheit woes of lesser mortals. His white hair had a foaming wave to it; he carried a debonair slouch hat; there was a small purple aster in his lapel.
“Mr. Queen,” said Wallace pleasantly. “So you’re the reason Lieutenant Keats has kept me waiting over an hour.”
“I’m afraid so.” Ellery did not rise.
But Keats was polite. “Sorry about that, Mr. Wallace. Here, have this chair... But you can’t always time yourself in a murder investigation.”
“You mean what may be a murder investigation, Lieutenant,” said Wallace, seating himself, crossing his legs, and setting his hat precisely on his knee. “Or has something new come up?”
“Something new could come up, Mr. Wallace, if you’ll answer a few questions.”
“Me?” Wallace raised his handsome brows. “Is that why you’ve placed this chair where the sun hits my face?” He seemed amused.
Keats silently pulled the cord of the Venetian blind.
“Thanks, Lieutenant. I’ll be glad to answer any questions you ask. If, of course, I can.”
“I don’t think you’ll have any trouble answering this one, Mr. Wallace: Where do you come from?”
“Ah.” Wallace looked thoughtful. “Now that’s just the kind of question, Lieutenant, I can’t answer.”
“You mean you won’t answer.”
“I mean I can’t answer.”
“You don’t know where you come from, I suppose.”
“Exactly.”
“If that’s going to be Mr. Wallace’s attitude,” said Ellery from his corner, “I think we can terminate the interview.”
“You misunderstand me, Mr. Queen. I’m not being obstructive.” Wallace sounded earnest. “I can’t tell you gentlemen where I come from because I don’t know myself. I’m one of those interesting cases you read about in the papers. An amnesia victim.”
Keats glanced at Ellery. Then he rose. “Okay, Wallace. That’s all.”
“But that’s not all, Lieutenant. This isn’t something I can’t prove. In fact, now that you’ve brought it up, I insist on proving it. You’re making a recording of this, of course? I would like this to go into the record.”
Keats waved his hand. His eyes were intent and a little admiring.
“One day about a year and a half ago ― the exact date was January the sixteenth of last year ― I found myself in Las Vegas, Nevada, on a street corner,” said Alfred Wallace calmly. “I had no idea what my name was, where I came from, how I had got there. I was dressed in filthy clothing which didn’t fit me and I was rather banged up. I looked through my pockets and found nothing ― no wallet, no letters, no identification of any kind. There was no money, not even coins. I went up to a policeman and told him of the fix I was in, and he took me to a police station. They asked me questions and had a doctor in to examine me. The doctor’s name was Dr. James V. Cutbill, and his address was 515 North Fifth Street, Las Vegas. Have you got that, Lieutenant?
“Dr. Cutbill said I was obviously a man of education and good background, about fifty years old or possibly older. He said it looked like amnesia to him. I was in perfect physical condition, and from my speech a North American. Unfortunately, Dr. Cutbill said, there were no identifying marks of any kind on my body and no operation scars, though he did say I’d had my tonsils and adenoids out probably as a child. This, of course, was no clue. There were some fillings in my teeth, of good quality, he thought, but I’d had no major dental work done. The police photographed me and sent my picture and a description to all Missing Persons Bureaus in the United States. There must be one on file in Los Angeles, Lieutenant Keats.”
Keats grew fiery red. “I’ll check that,” he growled. “And lots more.”
“I’m sure you will, Lieutenant,” said Wallace with a smile. “The Las Vegas police fixed me up with some clean clothes and found me a job as a handyman in a motel, where I got my board and a place to sleep, and a few dollars a week. The name of the motel is the 711, on Route 91 just north of town. I worked there for about a month, saving my pay. The Las Vegas police told me no one of my description was listed as missing anywhere in the country. So I gave up the job and hitchhiked into California.
“In April of last year I found myself in Los Angeles. I stayed at the Y, the Downtown Branch on South Hope Street; I’m surprised you didn’t run across my name on their register, Lieutenant, or haven’t you tried to trace me? ― and I got busy looking for employment. I’d found out I could operate a typewriter and knew shorthand, that I was good at figures ― apparently I’d had business training of some sort as well as a rather extensive education ― and when I saw an ad for a secretarial companion-nurse job to an incapacitated businessman, I answered it. I told Mr. Priam the whole story, just as I’ve told it to you. It seems he’d been having trouble keeping people in recent years and, after checking back on my story, he took me on for a month’s trial. And here,” said Wallace with the same smile, “here I am, still on the job.”
“Priam took you on without references?” said Keats, doodling. “How desperate was he?”
“As desperate as he could be, Lieutenant. And then Mr. Priam prides himself on being a judge of character. I was really glad of that, because to this day I’m not entirely sure what my character is.”
Ellery lit a cigaret. Wallace watched the flame of the match critically. When Ellery blew the flame out, Wallace smiled again. But immediately Ellery said, “How did you come to take the name Alfred Wallace if you remembered nothing about your past? Or did you remember that?”