Ellery took her into the foyer. “You look very pretty in the morning.”
Nikki looked bewildered.
“Martha still asleep?”
“Yes,” Nikki whispered.
“I think this crisis is past. But it can’t go on much longer. I’m going to have to talk to Martha.”
“Here?”
“Hardly.”
“I don’t think she’ll talk to you, Ellery. She’s so far committed... and especially after last night...”
“She’s going to come to me.”
“She won’t.”
“She will. At her next meeting she’ll catch a glimpse of me. She’ll be scared. She’ll come, all right... In that kind of climate, I have a fighting chance to talk some sense into her.” Ellery added slowly, “It may be our last chance.”
The following week Nikki tipped Ellery off that the G letter had arrived.
“How’s it been going, Nikki?”
“All right. Martha hasn’t been able to go out because of her face. At first she wouldn’t talk to him, and he’s been quiet as a mouse. But he’s tried to make up to her in his own way. He sent her a box of gardenias yesterday. They’re her favorite flowers. That did it. Women are such fools!”
“Do you think she’ll keep the appointment?”
“I don’t know. The swelling’s down... I suppose so.”
“Don’t bother phoning me when she leaves. I’ll just chance it. The worst that can happen is that I’ll have a visit with General Grant.”
Harrison had set the time for two in the afternoon of the next day. It was a fine day, and Ellery walked over to Riverside Drive, striding.
But the nurses were out with their baby carriages, and assorted children, many children, were playing on the grass overlooking the West Side Highway and the Hudson. Two women were clucking over a red-faced lump in a carriage, the lump evidently being one of the newly made ones.
Ellery scowled at the little products of love. The day wasn’t so fine after all. He found himself wishing he were on the trail of a nice, clean murder.
He took a bus the rest of the way.
He got off at 122nd Street and crossed over from the Riverside Church to the paved plaza before Grant’s Tomb. The plaza, the steps were deserted. He looked at his watch. Five minutes of two.
He went in boldly, hoping to surprise them. But the Tomb was empty, too.
The marble floor sent his footsteps echoing through the building. He leaned on the railing and looked down at the historic remains a dozen feet below. Ulysses Simpson Grant had been lying here since 1897, and he had been dead fifteen years before that. Julia Dent Grant’s tenure was newer, but still fifty years old. You’re dead a long time, Ellery thought, and nobody much cares. I’ll have to bring Dirk here for a lesson in historical perspective.
He heard a car horn outside and he went quickly out of the Tomb. He stopped between two of the pillars above the stone steps, shading his eyes against the glare.
The red convertible was at the curb of the plaza. Van Harrison’s Homburg and broad back were visible at the wheel. He was honking at a cab parked on the east side of the Drive. As Ellery glanced over, the cab drove away. It unveiled Martha, on the sidewalk.
She had to wait for the traffic signal. She was dressed gaily today, in something flowered, with bright colors, and a big picture hat. She was holding the floppy brim against the breeze with one hand and waving with the other.
Ellery stepped out of the shadows of the pillars and onto the apron of the stairs, and he deliberately waved back.
She spotted him instantly. Her hand stopped flapping; she half-turned, as if to run.
Harrison honked again, surprised. Then he turned his head.
Ellery ran down the steps, waving cheerfully. “Hi, Martha!”
She changed her mind and came hurrying across the Drive, clutching her hat. Now that the die was cast, she was trying to beat him to the convertible.
Ellery allowed her to get there first. But he came on quickly enough to immobilize them.
Harrison had jumped out and was saying something to her in a swift undertone. He turned, smiling, as Ellery came up.
“Why, Ellery.” Martha was smiling, too. She was very pale. “I’ve never pictured you visiting tombs, except on a case.”
“There are all sorts of cases.” Ellery glanced at the actor in the expectant manner of one waiting to be introduced.
“Oh. This is Van Harrison. Ellery Queen.”
“How d’you do.” Harrison squeezed, hard.
“Strong handshake, Mr. Harrison,” said Ellery, waving his fingers. “Impressive. Well, I don’t want to hold you up, Martha. Happy to have met you, Mr. Harrison—”
“I wanted to talk to Mr. Harrison about a part,” said Martha pathetically. “In the play I’m doing this fall. He was kind enough to meet me—”
“Of course, Martha. See you!”
“Can I drop you off somewhere?” asked the actor, still smiling.
“No, no, don’t bother. I’d only be in the way.” Ellery walked off, waving.
When he looked back, the convertible was gone.
She pressed the buzzer of the Queen apartment before ten the following morning.
“Come in, Martha,” said Ellery soberly.
She was hatless, in a housedress. It was a Bonwit’s housedress, but a housedress nevertheless. She sat down on the very edge of the sofa.
“I’m supposed to be out marketing,” she said rapidly. “I can’t stay. Ellery, you’ve got to forget you saw me yesterday with Van Harrison.” Her blue eyes were almost black this morning.
“Why?” asked Ellery.
“You know why. Dirk would— He mustn’t know.”
“Oh, that. He won’t learn it from me, Martha.”
She rose at once, relief written all over her. “I had to ask you. I couldn’t leave it to chance. You understand that, don’t you, Ellery?”
“Yes. But about the more important things I’m completely in the dark.” He made no attempt to rise.
“Ellery, I really can’t stay—”
“It won’t take long, Martha. Merely long enough to answer one question: Just what do you think you’re doing?” Her lips receded; a total withdrawal, like the retreat of a turtle. “It isn’t really as presumptuous a question as it sounds. I’m not exactly a rubberneck bystander, Martha. You came to me once — it seems a long time ago — to help you with Dirk. I didn’t expect you’d do the one thing that makes help impossible.”
“I know.” The words came out of her as from a long distance. “But... there are some things you can’t explain.”
“Even to me, Martha? I’ve listened to a great many secrets in my time. I don’t recall ever having violated a confidence. I like helping people; it gives me a bonus for being. And I especially like helping people I like. I liked you very much, Martha, because I thought you were sturdy and forthright and honest. I’d like to go back to liking you — and incidentally, to avert a tragedy.”
“Just because I made a date to meet an actor in an out-of-the-way place?” He could barely make out the words. “You know why I did it, Ellery. Dirk—”
“Was it for the same reason that you met the same actor in that hotel room, and on The Bowery, and in Chinatown — and other places?”
He thought she was going to faint. She actually felt for the sofa. But then she drew herself up, her lips came together again, the dark of her blue eyes became darker; and Ellery sighed.
“Martha, I’m not sitting in judgment. I only want to help. All right, Dirk’s driven you into the arms of another man. You’re in love with Van Harrison, or you think you are. Maybe you went off the deep end on the rebound, after a particularly nasty set-to with Dirk. And now that you’re in it... Is it that you regret the affair already but don’t know how to get out of it? Harrison acting tough and your hands tied because if you break if off he may blab it around town, even fling it in Dirk’s teeth? Is that it, Martha? If it is, I’ll handle Van Harrison, and I guarantee that Dirk won’t ever hear of it.”