“No,” said Nikki mechanically. She shook her head at a cigaret.
Ellery scowled as he lit one. He had never known this Nikki. She was as immovable as the wall she leaned against. He wondered what Martha would say — what depths of shame and remorse she might plumb — if she knew the heavy strength of Nikki’s loyalty. But he knew he could never communicate such a thing to anyone in the world, especially to Martha. It had a mysterious, insoluble quality, like a faith, blind and so able to endure in darkness. And it occurred to him suddenly that Nikki had lost her mother very early and had never known a sister.
He sighed.
“You didn’t spot anything roughly that size about the apartment, I suppose?”
“She wouldn’t leave it lying around, Ellery.”
“I’d have dismissed it as a meaningless gift, except that he looked around so peculiarly as he slipped it into his pocket. He was surreptitious about it. It wasn’t in character. Or maybe it was. With a man of Harrison’s type, you’d have to strip away a great many layers of hardened greasepaint before you got down to him... And Martha was relieved, it seemed to me. As if she’d found it a load to carry around. I don’t understand it.”
“Where did they go afterward?” asked Nikki dully. “She didn’t get home till eleven-thirty.”
“They didn’t go anywhere. They left the Chinese Rathskeller about ten o’clock and simply drove around in a taxi until he dropped her off at Lexington and 42nd. She took another cab and went straight home. Where was she supposed to be tonight?”
“At the Music Hall catching the new Stanley Kramer picture to scout an unknown young actress she was tipped off about as a possible lead for the Greenspan play.”
“That’s taking a chance,” muttered Ellery. “Suppose Dirk asks her about it? She’s getting reckless.”
“No,” said Nikki. “Because Dirk doesn’t know she saw the picture at a private showing two weeks ago.”
“Oh,” said Ellery.
Nikki said, “It’s late, Ellery. I’d better be getting back upstairs.”
They walked slowly along the pavement, and after a moment Ellery said, “About that booklet-”
“I’ve looked high and low for it, Ellery. I’ve gone through her night table, her secretary, her vanity, her bureau drawers, hatboxes, top shelf of her clothes closet — even the linen closet, the broom closet, and under her mattress. Wherever Dirk isn’t apt to run across it. And... twice I went through her bag.”
“Incredible!” exclaimed Ellery. “She must refer to it every time she gets a code message. Unless she’s memorized all the code places, which doesn’t seem likely. Have you thought of keeping an eye on her the mornings the letters come?”
“Of course, but I can hardly follow her into her bedroom when she’s shut the door, Ellery. Or into the bathroom.”
“No.” And Ellery walked in silence. Then he said, “Nikki, I’ve got to get into the apartment.”
Nikki stopped.
“It’s got to be searched till the booklet is found. Knowing in advance where they’re to meet at any given time may mean the difference between... well, it’s obviously of the greatest importance. That code book’s in the apartment somewhere — I can’t see Martha running the risk of carrying it around with her. When is the next evening you’re sure they’ll both be out of the apartment at the same time?”
“This Saturday night. They’re going to a party at the Boylands’ in Scarsdale.”
“There’s no chance of a slip?”
“They’re being picked up by Sarah and Jim Winegard — they’re all driving up in Jim’s car. That means they’re more or less at the Winegards’ mercy for transportation back. And you know Jim. He’ll be the last one to leave.”
“All right,” said Ellery. “But let’s play it smart. Tell them I’m coming up — if they don’t mind — to clear out some manuscript correspondence with you on EQMM. Then nobody can accuse me of anything but slave-driving!... Good night.”
“Good night, Ellery.”
She looked so white and forlorn in the light of the entrance side-lamps that Ellery put his arms around her and kissed her in full view of the night doorman mopping down the lobby.
Ellery walked into the Lawrence apartment at five minutes after nine Saturday night, and at exactly nine-seven he found Martha’s code book.
Nikki had admitted him to the apartment and left him in the living room while she stepped into the adjoining study to fetch her compact. She was just reaching for it in her bag beside the typewriter when Ellery appeared smiling in the doorway and holding aloft a paper-backed little book with a brightly colored laminated cover.
“Here it is,” he said.
Nikki gaped as if he had been holding up the Gutenberg Bible.
Ellery went over to Dirk’s green leather chair and settled himself with enjoyment. He began to leaf through the book.
“No,” choked Nikki. “This is too much.”
“What?” said Ellery. “Oh. Pooh. It was nothing at all.”
“Oh, wasn’t it,” said Nikki fiercely. “Where did you find it? I’ve ransacked this apartment inside out, top to bottom, I don’t know how many times!”
“Of course you did,” said Ellery in a soothing voice, “and that’s why you didn’t find it. First principles, Nik. See Poe, Edgar Allan. Specifically The Purloined Letter.”
“An obvious place?”
“Right under your nose, sweetheart. It stood to reason that, if you couldn’t find it in any of the hiding places you’d expect it to be, it must be in the one place nobody would dream of searching.”
“But where?”
“Did you ever know a better place to hide a book than the average American bookcase?”
“On the living-room bookshelves,” gasped Nikki.
“Sandwiched between a 1934 World Almanac,” nodded Ellery, “and a copy of Darwin’s The Origin of Species. In such company this little book could stand there undetected for three generations. Aren’t you going to take a look at it?”
Nikki stalked over, head high, but craning. Ellery laughed and pulled her down, and after a moment she snuggled with a sigh into a comfortable position, and they looked the little book over together.
It was a guidebook by Carl Maas, How to Know and Enjoy New York, published in 1949 by the New American Library at thirty-five cents. The cover, which was illustrated by a photographic montage of Radio City, Times Square and New York Harbor, advertised its contents: “Where to Eat,” “What to See,” “How to Avoid the Clip Joints,” and so on. It was written as a running account of the city’s geography and places of interest, and one of its convenient features was that all place-names were printed in italic or in boldface type, making them stand out from the page.
Apparently Van Harrison had found this feature convenient, too, for here and there throughout the book certain place-names had been circled in red pencil, emphasizing them doubly.
“Confirms what we suspected,” murmured Ellery. “I don’t see a single duplication of places beginning with the same letter of the alphabet. It apparently runs once from A to Z. Let’s check the B message. That ‘Sammy’s’ of Sammy’s Bowery Follies still bothers me.”
“You passed it! Page nineteen.”
“He put a red ring around ‘Bowery Follies’ and ignored the ‘Sammy’s’ preceding it! So that’s how Martha knew that was the B-place...”
“Wait, Ellery. Here’s Chinatown on the facing page, and it’s not ringed—”