And all the while they coughed, and their eyes smarted, and they sweltered in their clothes.
The Inspector could stand it no longer. “Now look here!” he shouted suddenly, startling them into rigidity. “This can’t keep on. We’ll all go batty. Why don’t you get along upstairs and duck under showers, or play tiddledywinks or something?” He waved his arms, red of face. “Why don’t you stop this milling about like a herd of cows with their tongues torn out? Go on, all of you! Git!”
Dr. Holmes sucked a white knuckle. “The ladies are afraid, Inspector.”
“Afraid! Afraid of what?”
“Well, of being alone.”
“Hmm. There’s somebody here who isn’t afraid of the devil out of hell.” Then the old gentleman softened. “Well, that’s understandable, I suppose. If you want to,” and his voice grew cynical again, “we’ll escort you all to your rooms, one by one.”
“Oh, don’t jest, Inspector,” said Mrs. Carreau wearily. “It — it’s just that it gets on one’s nerves.”
“Well, I think the Inspector’s perfectly right,” exclaimed Miss Forrest, dropping a six-month-old copy of Vanity Fair on the floor with a thud. “I’m going upstairs and drown myself in mountain water and I defy any — any two murdering rascals to stop me!”
“That’s the spirit,” said the Inspector with a shrewd glance at her. “And if you’ll all get yourselves into the same frame of mind, we’ll be a lot better off. This is the twentieth century, and it’s daytime, and you’ve all got eyes and ears, so what the deuce are you afraid of? Shoo, the lot of you!”
And so, after a while, the Queens were left alone.
They drifted out upon the terrace, shoulder to shoulder, a pair of sorely harassed and miserable men. The sun was high and it broiled the almost volcanic rocks outside until they shimmered in the heat. The vista was comfortless and devastating.
“Might’s well stew here as inside,” grunted the Inspector, and he sank into a chair. His face was streaming grime.
Ellery dropped beside him, groaning.
They sat there for a long time. The house inside was oppressively quiet. Ellery’s eyes had closed and his hands were loosely clasped on his chest as he lay slumped on his spine. They suffered the heat to fry their aching bones without vocal protest, sitting as still as they could.
The sun began to droop toward the west. It sank lower and lower and the two men sat still. The Inspector had drifted into a troubled doze; he sighed in his sleep convulsively from time to time.
Ellery’s eyes were closed, too, but he was not asleep. His brain had never been more alert. The problem... He had already gone over it in his mind a dozen times, probing for loopholes, striving to recall unimportant details, or details that might be important but did not seem to be. One never knew. There was something about the first murder, a matter of scientific fact, that kept bobbing to the surface of his thoughts. But each time he strove to catch and fix it, it slipped away only to submerge again. And then there was that knave of diamonds...
He sat up as if he had been shot, tingling in every fiber. The Inspector’s eyes flew open.
“What’s the matter?” he mumbled sleepily.
Ellery sprang from the chair and then stood still, listening. “I thought I heard...”
Alarmed, the old man rose. “Heard what?”
“In the living room.” Ellery started across the terrace toward the French windows on the other side.
There was a scuffling sound from the direction of the living room and the two men halted, tensed. Out of one of the French windows stepped Mrs. Wheary, red as a lobster, her hair wet and disheveled, a dust-cloth in her hand. She was breathing heavily.
She halted on catching sight of the two men and beckoned mysteriously. “Inspector Queen, Mr. Queen, sir. Would you mind coming—? There’s something very queer...”
They hurried to the nearest window and peered inside. But the room was empty.
“What’s queer?” said Ellery sharply.
The housekeeper pressed a grimy hand to her bosom. “I... I heard someone doing something, sir...”
“Come, come,” said the Inspector impatiently. “What’s up, Mrs. Wheary?”
“Well, sir,” she whispered, “not having anything to do, I mean cooking and such, and feeling a... a little nervous, I decided to try and straighten things up a bit on the ground floor. We’ve been that upset, you know, sir, what with... with...”
“Yes, yes?”
“Anyway, everything being so cindery and all, I thought I’d run over the furniture with a cloth and try to get things a little clean again.” She glanced nervously over her shoulder at the empty room. “I started in the dining room and was just about half through when I heard a funny sound from — from the living room here.”
“Sound?” Ellery frowned. “We didn’t hear anything.”
“It wasn’t very loud, sir. Just a sort of pecking — I can’t describe it. Anyway, I thought maybe someone might have come back to the living room for a magazine or something, you see, and was going to keep on when I thought: ‘Perhaps it’s — something else.’ So I tiptoed to the door and started to open it as softly as I could—”
“That was very brave, Mrs. Wheary.”
She blushed. “I guess I must have made some noise with the door, sir, because when I’d opened it a bit and peeped in... there wasn’t anything, you see. The noise must have scared — whoever — it was away, and he... she... oh, sir, I’m all mixed up!”
“You mean whoever it was heard you coming and beat it back through the hall door,” snapped the Inspector. “Well, is that all?”
“No, sir. I went in,” faltered Mrs. Wheary, “and almost the first thing I saw... I’ll show you.”
She stepped heavily back into the living room and the Queens followed with drawn brows.
She led them across the big room in the direction of the fireplace. Her fat forefingers shot up and pointed accusingly at the walnut-stained metal door of the wall cabinet in which the Inspector had placed for safekeeping the pack of playing cards found on Dr. Xavier’s desk the morning of the first murder.
There were scratches on the stout lock, and on the floor directly beneath lay a thin-edged fire tool from the fireplace.
“Someone’s been at the cabinet,” muttered the Inspector. “Well, I’ll be double-damned.”
He strode forward and examined the marks on the door with a professional eye. Ellery picked up the fire tool, regarded it thoughtfully for a moment, and then tossed it aside.
“Hunh,” grunted the Inspector. “Just like trying to pick the lock of a bank vault with a matchstick. But why the devil did he do it? There’s nothing in here but that pack of cards.”
“Very curious,” murmured Ellery. “Very curious. I suggest you open our little cache, dad, and see what’s to be seen.”
Mrs. Wheary stared at them with open mouth. “Do you think—” she began with an inquisitive gleam in her eyes.
“What we think, Mrs. Wheary, we think,” said the Inspector severely. “You did a good job in keeping your eyes and ears open, but now you’ve got to do an even better job keeping your mouth shut. D’ye understand?”
“Oh, yes, sir!”