Ellery stopped struggling with his shirt. “Marie Carreau? Come again. Who the devil’s she? Never heard of her.”
“Oh, my God,” moaned the Inspector. “Never heard of Marie Carreau, he says! That’s what comes of raising an ignoramus. Don’t you read the papers, you idiot? She’s society, son, society!”
“Hear, hear.”
“Bluest of the blue. Pots of money. Runs official Washington. Her father’s Ambassador to France. Of French stock, dating from the Revolution. Her great-great-what-is-it and Lafayette were just like that.” The old gentleman twined his middle finger about his forefinger. “Whole damn family — uncles and cousins and nephews — all in the diplomatic service. She married her own cousin — same name — about twenty years ago. He’s dead now. No children. Never remarried, though she’s still young. She’s only about thirty-seven.” He paused for sheer lack of breath and glared at his son.
“Bravo,” chuckled Ellery, flexing his arms. “There’s the complete woman for you! That old photographic memory of yours opening again. Well, what of it? To tell the truth, I’m immensely relieved. We’re beginning to dig into some tangible mysteries. This crowd had some reason, obviously, to conceal the fact that your precious Mrs. Carreau is among those present. Ergo, when they heard an automobile roaring up tonight they bundled your precious social ranee into her bedroom. All that stuff about being afraid of visitors this time of night was pure hogwash. What gave mine host and the rest the jitters was trying to keep us from suspecting she’s here. I wonder why.”
“I can tell you that,” said the Inspector quietly. “I saw it in the newspapers before we started out on our trip three weeks ago, and you would have seen it, too, if you paid the least attention to what’s going on in the world! Mrs. Carreau is supposed to be in Europe!”
“Oho,” said Ellery softly. He took a cigarette out of his case and went over to the night table to hunt for a match. “Interesting. But not necessarily inexplicable. We’ve a famous surgeon here — perhaps the little lady has something wrong with her blue blood, or her gold-plated innards, and doesn’t want to have the world know... No, that doesn’t seem to wash. It’s more than that... Very pretty problem. Crying, eh? Perhaps she’s been kidnapped,” he said hopefully. “By our excellent host... Where in hell’s a match?”
The Inspector disdained to reply, tugging at his mustache and scowling at the floor.
Ellery opened the drawer of the night table, found a packet of matches, and whistled. “By George,” he drawled, “what a thoughtful gentleman our precious doctor is. Just look at the junk in this drawer.”
The Inspector snorted.
“There’s a man,” said Ellery admiringly, “with admirable singleness of purpose. Apparently gaming of the innocuous sort is a phobia with him, so that he can’t forbear inflicting his phobia on his guests. Here’s the complete solution to a dull weekend. A crisp new pack of cards, never opened, a book of crossword puzzles — actually virgin, by Vesta! — a checkerboard, one of those questions-and-answers books, and heaven knows what else. Even the pencil is sharpened. Well!” He sighed, closed the drawer, and lit his cigarette.
“Beautiful,” muttered the Inspector.
“Eh?”
The old gentleman started. “I was thinking out loud. The lady on the balcony, I mean. Really a gorgeous creature, El. And crying—” He shook his head. “Well, I suppose it’s all really none of our business. We’re a pair of the world’s nosiest louts.” Then he jerked his head up and some of the old wariness leapt into his gray eyes. “I forgot. Anything doing outside? Find out anything?”
Ellery deliberately lay down on the other side of the bed and crossed his feet on the footboard. He puffed smoke toward the ceiling. “Oh, you mean about the... ah... giant crab?” he said with a twinkle.
“You know damn well what I mean!” snarled the Inspector, blushing to his ears.
“Well,” drawled Ellery, “it’s problematical. Corridor was empty, and all the doors closed. No sounds. I crossed the landing noisily and went into the bathroom. Then I came out — without noise. Didn’t remain there long... By the way, do you happen to know anything about the gastronomical predilections of crustaceans?”
“Well, well?” growled the Inspector. “What’s on your mind now? You always have to say it with trimmings!”
“The point is,” murmured Ellery, “that I heard footsteps on the stairs and had to dodge back into the darkness of the corridor near our door. Couldn’t cross the landing to get into the bathroom again, or whoever it was that was coming up would have spotted me. So I watched that patch of light at the landing. It was our buxom Demeter, our nervous provider of provender, Mrs. Wheary.”
“The housekeeper? What of it? Probably going to bed. I suppose she and that lout of a scoundrel, Bones — cripes, what a name! — sleep on the attic floor upstairs.”
“Oh, no doubt. But Mrs. Wheary was not bound for blessed dreamland, I’ll tell you that. She was carrying a tray.”
“Ah!”
“A tray, I might add, heaped with comestibles.”
“Bound for Mrs. Carreau’s room, I’ll bet,” muttered the Inspector. “After all, even society women have to eat.”
“Not at all,” said Ellery dreamily. “That’s why I asked you if you knew anything about the gustatory tastes of crustaceans. I’ve never heard of a crab drinking a pitcher of cow’s milk and eating meat sandwiches on whole-wheat bread, and gulping fruit... You see, she barged right into the room next to Mrs. Carreau’s with not the faintest sign of fear. The room,” he said slyly, “into which you saw your giant crab — ah—” the Inspector threw up his hands and dug into the suitcase for his pajamas — “scuttle!”
Chapter IV
Blood on the Sun
Ellery opened his eyes and saw brilliant sunlight splashing the counterpane of the unfamiliar bed on which he lay. For a moment he did not remember where he was. There was a singed soreness in his throat and his head felt like a pumpkin. He sighed and stirred and heard his father say: “So you’re up,” in a mild voice; and he twisted his head to find the Inspector, fully dressed in clean linen, fastidious little hands clasped behind his back, staring out of the rear windows with quiet abstraction.
Ellery groaned, stretched, and crawled out of bed. He began to peel off his pajamas, yawning.
“Take a look at this,” said the Inspector, without turning.
Ellery shuffled to his father’s side. The wall with two windows between which stood their bed was at the rear of the Xavier house. What had seemed a profound black abyss the night before turned out to be a sheer drop of contorted stone; so deep and disturbing that for a moment Ellery closed his eyes against a surge of vertigo. Then he opened them again. The sun was well over the distant range; it painted microscopic details of valley and cliffside with remarkable clarity. They were so high that the still, deserted world in the cup of the mighty well was the merest miniature; fluffy clouds drifted a little below them, striving to cling to the mountain’s top.
“See it?” murmured the Inspector.
“See what?”
“Way down there, where the cliff begins to slope into the valley. At the sides of the Mountain, El.”
Then Ellery saw. Curling around the edges of Arrow Mountain, far down at the knife-edge sides where the tight green mat of vegetation abruptly ended, were little fluttering pennants of smoke.
“The fire!” exclaimed Ellery. “I’d almost got myself to the point of thinking the whole blessed thing was a nightmare.”
“Drifting around at the back, where the cliff side is,” said the Inspector thoughtfully. “All stone at the back here and the fire can’t get a grip. Nothing to feed on. Not that it does us any good.”