A Study in Terror

Ellery’s Legman Reports

Grant Ames, III, lay on Ellery’s sofa balancing the glass on his chest, exhausted. “I went forth an eager beaver. I return a wreck.”

“From only two interviews?”

“A party is one thing―you can escape behind a patio plant. But alone, trapped inside four walls…”

Ellery, still in pajamas, crouched over his typewriter and scratched the foundations of a magnificent beard. He typed four more words and stopped.

“The interviews bore no fruit?”

“Two gardensful, one decked in spring green, the other in autumnal purple. But with price tags on the goodies.”

“Marriage might be your salvation.”

The idler shuddered. “If masochism is one of your vices, old buddy, we’ll discuss it. But later, when I get my strength back.”

“You’re sure neither put the journal in your car?”

“Madge Short thinks Sherlock is some kind of new hair-do. And Katherine Lambert―Kat’s not a bad kitten from the neck down. She paints, you know. Re-did a loft in the Village. Very intense. The coiled-spring type. You sit there waiting to get the broken end in your eye.”

“They may have put you on,” Ellery said brutally. “You wouldn’t be hard to fool.”

“I satisfied myself,” Grant said with dignity. “I asked subtle questions. Deep. Searching.”

“Such as?”

“Such as, ‘Kat, did you put a manuscript addressed to Ellery Queen into the seat of my car at Lita’s bash the other day?’ ”

“And she replied?”

Grant shrugged. “It came in the form of a counter-question―’Who’s Ellery Queen?’ ”

“Have I asked you to leave lately?”

“Let’s be kind to each other, friend.” Grant paused to drink deeply. “I’m not reporting total failure. I’ve merely cut the field in half. I shall go doggedly forward. Beyond the Bronx lies New Rochelle.”

“Who lives there?”

“Rachel Hager. Third on my list. And then there’s Pagan Kelly, a Bennington chick whom you can find in almost any picket line whose protest is silly.”

“Two suspects,” Ellery said. “But don’t rush into it. Go off somewhere and ponder your attack.”

“You mean you want me to dawdle?”

“Isn’t that what you do best? But not in my apartment. I’ve got to get this story finished.”

“Did you finish the journal?” the playboy asked, not stirring.

“I’m busy with my own mystery.”

“Have you gone far enough to spot the killer?”

“Brother,” Ellery said, “I haven’t spotted the murderer in my own story yet.”

“Then I’ll leave you to your labors. Oh. Suppose we never find out who sent you the manuscript?”

“I think I’d manage to survive.”

“Where did you get your reputation?” the young man asked nastily. He left.

Ellery’s brain dangled, like a foot that has fallen asleep. The typewriter key’s looked a thousand yards away. Vagrant thoughts began to creep into the vacuum. How was dad getting along in Bermuda? What were the latest sales figures on his last book? He did not have to ask himself who had sent the manuscript by way of Grant Ames, III. He already knew the answer to that. So, by a natural process, he began to wonder about the identity of Sherlock Holmes’s visitor from Paris (he had peeked ahead).

After a short battle, which he lost, he went into the bedroom. He plucked Dr. Watson’s journal from the floor, where he had left it, and stretched out on his bed to read on.