“Now imagine,” murmured Wallace, “what paralysis from the waist down did to Priam’s need to dominate his woman. Physically he was no longer a man. And his wife was beautiful; to this day every male who meets her begins strutting like a bull. Priam knew, knowing Delia, that it was only a question of time before one of them made the grade. And then where would he be? He might not even know about it. It would be entirely out of his control. Unthinkable! So Priam worked out the solution in his warped way ― to dominate Delia by proxy.
“By God, imagine that! He deliberately picks a virile man ― the substitute for himself physically and psychologically ― and flings them at each other’s heads, letting nature take its course.”
Wallace flicked an ash into the tray on Keats’s desk. “I used to think he’d taken a leaf out of Faulkner’s Sanctuary, or Krafft-Ebing, except that I’ve come to doubt if he’s read a single book in forty-five years. No, Priam couldn’t explain all this ― to himself least of all. He’s an ignorant man; he wouldn’t even know the words. Like so many ignorant men, he’s a man of pure action. He throws his wife and hand-picked secretary together, thus performing the function of a husband vicariously, and by pretending to be deaf to what goes on with domestic regularity over his head he retains his mastery of the situation. He’s the god of the machine, gentlemen, and there is no other god but Roger Priam. That is, to Roger Priam.” Wallace blew a fat ring of cigar smoke and rose. “And now, unless there’s something else, Lieutenant, I’d like to salvage what’s left of my day off.”
Keats said in a loud voice, “Wallace, you’re a fork-tongued female of a mucking liar. I don’t believe one snicker of this dirty joke. And when I prove you’re a liar, Wallace, I’m going to leave my badge home with my wife and kids, and I’m going to haul you into some dark alley, and I’m going to kick the out of you.”
Wallace’s smile thinned. His face reassembled itself and looked suddenly old. He reached over Keats’s desk and picked up the telephone.
“Here,” he said, holding the phone out to the detective. “Or do you want me to get the number for you?”
“Scram.”
“But you want proof. Delia will admit it if you ask her in the right way, Lieutenant. Delia’s a very civilized woman.”
“Get out.”
Wallace laughed. He replaced the phone gently, adjusted his fashion-able hat on his handsome head, and walked out humming.
Keats insisted on driving Ellery home. The detective drove slowly through the five o’clock traffic.
Neither man said anything.
He had seen them for that moment in the Priam hallway, the day he had come at her summons to investigate the plague of dead frogs. Wallace had been standing close to her, far closer than a man stands to a woman unless he knows he will not be repulsed. And she had not repulsed him.
She had stood there accepting his pressure while Wallace squeezed her hand and whispered in her ear... He remembered one or two of Wallace’s glances at her, the glances of a man with a secret knowledge, glances of amused power... “/ always take the line of least resistance... He remembered the night she had hidden herself in his bedroom at the sound of her son’s and Laurel’s arrival. She had come to him that night for the purpose to which her life in the Priam house had accustomed her. Probably she had a prurient curiosity about “celebrities” or she was tired of Wallace. (And this was Wallace’s revenge?) He would have read the signs of the nymph easily enough if he had not mistaken her flabbiness for reserve―
“We’re here, Mr. Queen,” Keats was saying.
They were at the cottage.
“Oh. Thanks.” Ellery got out automatically. “Good night.”
Keats failed to drive away. Instead he said, “Isn’t that your phone ringing?”
“Yes. Why doesn’t Mrs. Williams answer it?” Ellery said with irritation. Then he laughed. “She isn’t answering it because I gave her the afternoon off. I’d better go in.”
“Wait.” Keats turned his motor off and vaulted to the road. “Maybe it’s my office. I told them I might be here.”
Ellery unlocked the front door and went in. Keats straddled the threshold.
“Hello?”
Keats saw him stiffen.
“Yes, Delia.”
Ellery listened in silence. Keats heard the vibration of the throaty tones, faint and warm and humid.
“Keats is with me now. Hide it till we get there, Delia. We’ll be right over.”
Ellery hung up.
“What does the lady want?” asked Keats.
“She says she’s just found another cardboard box. It was in the Priam mailbox on the road, apparently left there a short time ago. Priam’s name handprinted on it. She hasn’t told Priam about it, asked what she ought to do. You heard what I told her.”
“Another warning!”
Keats ran for his car.
Chapter Ten
Keats stopped his car fifty feet from the Priam mailbox and they got out and walked slowly toward it, examining the road. There were tire marks in profusion, illegibly intermingled. Near the box they found several heelmarks of a woman’s shoe, but that was all.
The door of the box hung open and the box was empty.
They walked up the driveway to the house. Keats neither rang nor knocked. The maid with the tic came hurrying toward them as he closed the door.
“Mrs. Priam said to come upstairs,” she whispered. “To her room.” She glanced over her shoulder at the closed door of Roger Priam’s den. “And not to make any noise, she said, because he’s got ears like a dog.”
“All right,” said Keats.
Muggs fled on tiptoe. The two men stood there until she had disappeared beyond the swinging door at the rear of the hall. Then they went upstairs, hugging the balustrade.
As they reached the landing, a door opposite the head of the stairs swung in. Keats and Ellery went into the room.
Delia Priam shut the door swiftly and sank back against it.
She was in brief tight shorts and a strip of sun halter. Her thighs were long and heavy and swelled to her trunk; her breasts spilled over the halter. The glossy black hair lay carelessly piled; she was barefoot ― her high-heeled shoes had been kicked off. The rattan blinds were down and in the gloom her pale eyes glowed sleepily.
Keats looked her over deliberately.
“Hello, Ellery.” She sounded relieved.
“Hello, Delia.” There was nothing in his voice, nothing at all.
“Don’t you think you’d better put something on, Mrs. Priam?” said Keats. “Any other time this would be a privilege and a pleasure, but we’re here on business.” He grinned with his lips only. “I don’t think I could think.”
She glanced down at herself, startled. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I was up on the sun deck before I walked down to the road. I’m very sorry.” She sounded angry and a little puzzled.
“No harm done, Delia,” said Ellery. “This sort of thing is all in the eye of the beholder.”
She glanced at him quickly. A frown appeared between her heavy brows.
“Is something wrong, Ellery?”
He looked at her.
The color left her face. Her hands went to her naked shoulders and she hurried past them into a dressing room, slamming the door.