It was the flash photo of himself slammed against the wall of the alley, with Harrison and Fields locked in combat at his feet.
Ellery poured himself a cup of bitter coffee from the pot thickening on the range, and he sat down at the kitchen table to survey the damage.
The Inspector’s identification of him had been compounded of equal parts of guesswork and inside information. Nikki might do as well, but he doubted if anyone else would recognize him. The photograph was all right. His arm had come up just in time to black out the salient parts of his face. Of the two men rolling on the floor of the alley, only Leon Fields’s face was visible, but it was grotesquely twisted with pain from a blow and was hardly recognizable. Harrison sprawled above him, his face turned from the camera. The story on page three was illustrated with the photo of Harrison charging up the alley in his getaway, but even this head-on shot showed the head lowered in distorting perspective. Apparently neither photograph had been clear, for both had been hastily retouched, causing further distortion. They would make little visual impression on the public.
The story was sparse. Both combatants were named in the headlines, and the time and place were stated in the boldface type of the lead paragraph, but the man who had made off with the unconscious Fields was “unidentified” and was referred to, simply, as “the Mystery Man.” Mystery Man was being sought by the police, as was the driver of the taxi. Columnist Leon Fields had not been located for a statement; by press time he had not appeared at his home or any of his known haunts, and a spot-check of the hospitals had failed to turn him up. “Fields may be hiding out with friends.” Van Harrison’s telephone in Darien, Connecticut, did not answer; he had not gone to the Lambs Club: “The police are checking the midtown hotels.”
The cause of the fist fight was unknown. “A quick run-through of Fields’s recent columns shows no reference to Actor Van Harrison, good or bad. Harriet Loughman, Fields’s Girl Friday, refused comment, saying ‘Any statement will have to come from Mr. Fields.’”
The other newspapers carried terse news accounts of the fracas. None had any pictures, and none front-paged the story.
Ellery went into his father’s bedroom with his coffee cup and the copy of the News and used the Inspector’s direct line to Headquarters.
“I’ve been waiting for your call,” said Inspector Queen’s acid tones. “What happened last night?”
“Who’s speaking, please?”
“Your old man,” said his old man, sweetening.
“Then I’ll tell you.” And Ellery gave his father an account of the previous night’s events. “I haven’t seen the afternoon papers. What’s the latest?”
“Fields came out of hiding and issued a statement to the effect that ‘it’s a tempest in a cocktail shaker.’ He claims he stopped by Harrison’s table, Harrison was a little tight and misunderstood something he, Fields, said; that Harrison then challenged Fields to ‘come outside,’ adding a number of uncomplimentary remarks; that he, Fields, thereupon lost his temper and indicated his willingness to oblige, in the great American tradition; and so forth. He refused to say what it was that Harrison ‘misunderstood,’ and he said he had no idea who the man was who put him in a cab. ‘Just a Good Samaritan,’ he said. ‘I told him where to take me, he did it, I thanked him, and that’s the last I saw of him.’ Asked if he’d recognize the Good Samaritan if he saw him again, Fields said, ‘I doubt it. I wasn’t seeing very good at the time.’ Why’s he protecting you?”
“I don’t know,” said Ellery thoughtfully, “unless he’s so anxious to see Harrison take a pratfall he doesn’t want to hamstring me in whatever it is he thinks I’m up to. Did they find Harrison? He wasn’t fished out of the river, or anything?”
“No such luck,” said his father. “He rolled up to his house in Darien around five-thirty A.M. in his brand-new Caddy convertible and walked right into the arms of the reporters, who’d broken in and’d been waiting there all night lapping up his liquor and trying on his toupees.”
“Toupees?” Ellery was startled. “You mean that isn’t his own hair?”
“He owns only about fifty per cent of it, I’m told. He also wears a corset. They found two spares in his bureau.”
“Heavens to Betsy.”
“In fact, if they’d found a set of store teeth and a bullet hole between his eyes I’d think we were back in the Elwell case.”
“I wonder if these personality sidelights,” mused Ellery, “are known to a certain...”
“Would depend, I should think,” said the Inspector sedately. “Women aren’t as disillusioned by these things as men, anyway. Do you want his statement, or don’t you?”
“His statement. To be sure.”
“It was pretty much along the lines of Leon’s, except that Harrison said it was Fields who was plastered. He wouldn’t let on what the fight was about, either. Dismissed it as a mere nothing — ‘an alcoholic afflatus,’ as he put it. After he got away from the alley, he went on to say, he picked up his car at an all-night parking lot and drove around for hours ‘cooling off.’ He probably spent the night in some Westchester bar, because he was thoroughly fried when he got home. He expressed his regrets at having lost his temper and ‘hoped’ he hadn’t roughed up Mr. Fields too much. In fact, Harrison got quite expansive with the boys. Practically had them feeling his muscle. There was a bad moment when one of the reporters was so indelicate as to suggest that maybe the weight and reach differential had something to do with his glorious victory, and it almost wound up in another brawl. But in the end Harrison said he’d be only too happy to pay for any medical expenses Mr. Fields may have had to incur, and apologize to boot.”
“Worrying about an assault rap,” chuckled Ellery. “I take it Leon isn’t pressing a charge.”
“That’s right. So that’s the end of the Battle of the Alley.”
“Just one other thing, Dad. Did either man, or any of the news stories or off-the-record remarks, even hint at a possible woman in the case?”
“As far as I know, no.”
“Thank you,” said Ellery fervently; and he hung up just as the door buzzed.
It was Nikki. She rushed in crying, “Ellery! What happened?”
So Ellery soothed her and made her comfortable in the study while he retired to dress, and through the door of his bedroom repeated once more the saga of the previous night.
At the end Nikki said slowly, “I wonder if it wasn’t about Martha.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t see Fields hushing up a noisy yarn like that. It’s the sort of thing that’s — if he’ll pardon the expression — right up his alley. No, Nikki, it was something else, and I’d give a great deal to know what.”
“Why?”
“Because whatever it is, you can bank on it it’s not to Harrison’s credit. Leon deals in well-hung beef, with an odor. If we knew what it was, it might come in awfully handy... But tell me about Martha,” Ellery said, appearing in the doorway knotting his tie. “How did she take it? What did Dirk say?”
“She put on a marvelous act. But she almost overdid it, looking so blank at Harrison’s name in the paper that Dirk had to remind her she’d met him ‘once.’ She pretended such indifference that I thought Dirk gave her a queer look.” Nikki shuddered. “She must be in torture, Ellery. She doesn’t dare try to call Harrison, and she must be scared witless that he’ll try to call her. I noticed she kept within arm’s length of the phone all morning.”