Laurel phoned once to seek, not give, information. She was worried about Macgowan.
“He just sits and broods, Ellery. You’d think with what’s happening in Korea he’d be going around saying I told you so. Instead of which I can’t get him to open his big mouth.”
“The world of fantasy is catching up with Crowe, and it’s probably a painful experience. There’s nothing new at the Priams’?”
“It’s quiet. Ellery, what do you suppose this lull means?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m so confused these days!” Laurel’s was something of a wail, too. “Sometimes I think what’s going on in the world makes all this silly and unimportant. And I suppose in one way it is. But then I think, no, it’s not silly and it is important. Aggressive war is murder, too, and you don’t take that lying down. You have to fight it on every front, starting with the picayune personal ones. Or else you go down.”
“Yes,” said Ellery with a sigh, “that makes sense. I only wish this particular front weren’t so... fluid, Laurel. You might say we’ve got a pretty good General Staff, and a bang-up army behind us, but our Intelligence is weak. We have no idea where and when the next attack is coming, in what form and strength ― or the meaning of the enemy’s strategy. All we can do is sit tight and keep on the alert.”
Laurel said quickly, “Bless you,” and she hung up quickly, too.
The Enemy’s next attack came during the night of July 6–7. It was, surprisingly, Crowe Macgowan who notified Ellery. His call came at a little after one in the morning, as Ellery was about to go to bed.
“Queen. Something screwy just happened. I thought you’d want to know.” Macgowan sounded tired, not like himself at all. “What, Mac?”
“The library’s been broken in to. One of the windows. Seems like a case of ordinary housebreaking, but I dunno.”
“The library? Anything taken?”
“Not as far as I can see.”
“Don’t touch anything. I’ll be over in ten minutes.”
Ellery rang up Keats’s home, got a sleepy “What, again?” from the detective, and ran.
He found young Macgowan waiting for him in the Priam driveway. There were lights on upstairs and down, but Roger Priam’s French windows off the terrace were dark.
“Before you go in, maybe I’d better explain the setup...”
“Who’s in there now?”
“Delia and Alfred.”
“Go on. But make it snappy, Mac.”
“Last couple of nights I’ve been sleeping in my old room here at the house―”
“What? No more tree?”
“You wanted it presto, didn’t you?” growled the giant. “I hit the sack early tonight, but I couldn’t seem to sleep. Long, time later I heard sounds from downstairs. Seemed like the library; my room’s right over it. I thought maybe it was Gramp and I felt a yen to talk to him. So I got up and went down the hall and at the top of the stairs I called, ‘Gramp?’ No answer, and it was quiet down there. Something made me go back up the hall and look in the old gent’s room. He wasn’t there; bed hadn’t been slept in. So I went back to the head of the stairs and there was Wallace.”
“Wallace?” repeated Ellery.
“In a robe. He said he’d heard a noise and was just going to go downstairs.” Macgowan sounded odd; his eyes were hard in the moonlight. “But you know something, Queen? I got a queer feeling as I spotted Wallace at the head of those stairs. I couldn’t make up my mind whether he was about to go down... or had just come up.”
He stared at Ellery defiantly.
A car was tearing up the road.
Ellery said, “Life is full of these dangling participles, Mac. Did you find your grandfather?”
“No. Maybe I’d better take a look in the woods.” Crowe sounded casual. “Gramp often takes a walk in the middle of the night. You know how it is when you’re old.”
“Yes.” Ellery watched Delia’s son stride off, pulling a flashlight from his pocket as he went.
Keats’s car slammed to a stop a foot from Ellery’s rear. “Hi.”
“What is it this time?” Keats had a leather jacket on over an undershirt, and he sounded sore.
Ellery told him, and they went in.
Delia Priam was going through the library desk, looking baffled. She was in a brown monkish negligee of some thick-napped material, girdled by a heavy brass chain. Her hair hung down her back and there were purplish shadows, almost welts, under her eyes. Alfred Wallace, in a Paisley dressing gown, was seated comfortably in a club chair, smoking a cigaret.
Delia turned, and Wallace rose, as the two men came into the library, but neither said anything.
Keats went directly to the only open window. He examined the sash about the catch without touching it.
“Jimmied. Have any of you touched this window?”
“I’m afraid,” said Wallace, “we all did.”
Keats mumbled something impolite and went out. A few moments later Ellery heard him outside, below the open window, and saw the beam of his flash.
Ellery looked around. It was the kind of library he liked; this was one room in which the prevailing Priam gloom was mellow. Leather shone, and the black oak paneling was a friendly background for the books. Books from floor to ceiling on all four walls, and a fieldstone fireplace with a used look. It was a spacious room, and the lamps were good.
“Nothing missing, Delia?”
She shook her head. “I can’t understand it.” She turned away, pulling her robe closer about her.
“Crowe and I probably scared him off.” Alfred Wallace sat down again, exhaling smoke.
“Your father’s stamp albums?” Ellery suggested to Delia’s back. He had no idea why he thought of old Collier’s treasures, except that they might be valuable.
“As far as I know, they haven’t been touched.”
Ellery wandered about the room.
“By the way, Crowe tells me Mr. Collier hasn’t been to bed. Have you any idea where he is, Delia?”
“No.” She wheeled on him, eyes flashing. “My father and I don’t check up on each other. And I can’t recall, Mr. Queen, that I ever gave you permission to call me by my first name. Suppose you stop it.”
Ellery looked at her with a smile. After a moment she turned away again. Wallace continued to smoke.
Ellery resumed his ambling.
When Keats returned he said shortly, “There’s nothing out there. Have you got anything?”
“I think so,” said Ellery. He was squatting before the fireplace. “Look here.”
Delia Priam turned at that, and Wallace. i The fireplace grate held the remains of a wood fire. It had burned away to a fine ash. On the ashes lay a heat-crimped and badly charred object of no recognizable shape.
“Feel the ashes to the side, Keats.”
“Stony cold.”
“Now the ashes under that charred thing.”
The detective snatched his hand away. “Still hot!”
Ellery said to Delia, “Was there a wood fire in this grate tonight... Mrs. Priam?”
“No. There was one in the morning, but it burned out by noon.”
“This object was just burned here, Keats. On top of the cold ashes.”
The lieutenant wrapped a handkerchief around his hand and cautiously removed the charred thing. He laid it on the hearth.
“What was it?”
“A book, Keats.”
“Book?” Keats glanced around at the walls. “I wonder if―”
“Can’t tell any more. Pages all burned away and what’s left of the binding shows nothing.”
“It must have been a special binding.” Most of the volumes on the shelves were leatherbound. “Don’t they stamp the titles into these fancy jobs?” Keats prodded the remains of the book, turning it over. “Ought to be some indication left.”