Cat of Many Tails

10

Celeste would have felt better about having to play female Janus in the Soames household if she had found Marilyn’s father a burly lecher, Mrs. Soames a shrew, Marilyn a slut, and the youngsters a pack of street rats. But the Soameses turned out insidiously nice.

Frank Pellman Soames was a skinny, squeezed-dry-looking man with the softest, burriest voice. He was a senior clerk at the main post office on Eighth Avenue at 33rd Street and he took his postal responsibilities as solemnly as if he had been called to office by the President himself. Otherwise he was inclined to make little jokes. He invariably brought something home with him after work — a candy bar, a bag of salted peanuts, a few sticks of bubble gum — to be divided among the three younger children with Rhadamanthine exactitude. Occasionally he brought Marilyn a single rosebud done up in green tissue paper. One night he showed up with a giant charlotte russe, enshrined in a cardboard box, for his wife. Mrs. Soames was appalled at his extravagance and said she just wouldn’t eat it, it would be too selfish, but her husband said something to her in a sly sotto voce and she blushed. Celeste saw her put the little carton carefully away in the ice chest. Marilyn said that in charlotte russe season her parents always got “whispery.” Next morning, when Celeste went to the chest for milk for Stanley’s breakfast, she noticed that the box was gone.

Marilyn’s mother was one of those naturally powerful women whose strength drains off in middle age, leaving raw debility behind. She had led a back-breaking, penny-balancing life and she had not had time to spare herself; besides, she was going through a trying menopause. “I’ve got change of life, falling of the room rent, varicose veins, and bad feet,” Mrs. Soames said to Celeste with grim humor, “but I’d like to see the Sutton Place lady who can bake a better berry pie,” adding, “when there’s money for berries.” Often she had to lie down from weakness, but it was impossible to keep her in bed during the day for longer than a few minutes. “You know what Dr. Ulberson said, Edna,” her husband would say anxiously. “Oh, you and your Dr. Ulberson,” she would snort. “I’ve got the week’s wash to do.” Mrs. Soames was obsessive on the subject of her laundry. She would never let Marilyn touch it. “You girls these days expect soap to do your scrubbing for you,” she would say scornfully. But to Celeste Mrs. Soames once said, “She’ll have wash enough to do in her life.” Mrs. Soames’s single self-indulgence was the radio. There was only one machine in the house, a small table model which usually occupied the center of the catchall shelf above the kitchen range; this Mrs. Soames had placed with a sigh at little Stanley’s bedside. When Celeste ruled that Stanley might listen to the radio for no more than two hours a day, at selected times — and selected those times which did not conflict with his mother’s favorite programs — Mrs. Soames looked guiltily grateful. She never missed Arthur Godfrey, she told Celeste, or Stella Dallas, Big Sister, and Double or Nothing. And she confided that “when our ship comes in, Frank’s going to get me a television set,” adding dryly, “At least, that’s what Frank says. He’s that sure one of those Irish Sweepstakes tickets he’s always buying will come through.”

Stanley was the youngest child, a thin little boy with blazing eyes and an imagination which ran to mayhem and gore. In the very beginning he was suspicious of Celeste and she could get hardly a word out of him. But late that first day, when she was giving his bony body a massage, he suddenly said: “You a real nurse?” “Well, sort of,” smiled Celeste, although her heart skipped a beat. “Nurses stick knives into you,” Stanley said glumly. “Whoever told you a story like that?” “Yitzie Frances Ellis, that’s my teacher.” “Stanley, she didn’t. And where did you get that awful nickname of ‘Yitzie’ for a perfectly nice lady teacher?” “The principal calls her that,” said Stanley indignantly. “Yitzie?” “The principal calls Miss Ellis Yitzie-Bitzie when nobody’s around.” “Stanley Soames, I don’t believe a single—” But Stanley had screwed his little head about, his eyes bugging with horror. “Lie still! What’s the matter?” “You know something, Miss Martin?” whispered Stanley. Celeste heard herself whispering back, “What, Stanley, what?” “I got green blood.” After that, Celeste digested Master Stanley’s remarks, revelations, and confidences with great quantities of salt. She often had to exercise judgment to distinguish fact from fancy.

Stanley was thoroughly familiar with the Cat. He told Celeste solemnly that he was the Cat.

Between her patient and Marilyn there were two other children: Eleanor, 9, and Billie, 13. Eleanor was a large calm child with an unhurried attitude toward life; her rather plain features were illuminated by a pair of remarkably direct eyes, and Celeste hastened to make friends with her. Billie was in junior high, a fact which he accepted philosophically. He was clever with his hands and the apartment was always turning up things he had built for his mother out of “nothing,” as Mrs. Soames said. But his father seemed disappointed. “We’ll never make a student out of Billie. His heart isn’t in it. All he does is hang around garages after school learning about motors. He can’t wait till he’s old enough to get his working papers and learn some mechanical trade. The scholars in my family are the girls.” Billie was in the weedy age, “a regular Ichabod Crane,” as Mr. Soames put it. Frank Soames was something of a reader; he generally had his nose buried in some library book and he owned a prize shelf of decrepit volumes which he hoarded from young manhood — Scott, Irving, Cooper, Eliot, Thackeray — authors whom Billie characterized as “squares”; Billie’s reading was restricted almost entirely to comic books, which he acquired in wholesale quantities by some complex barter-system incomprehensible to his father. Celeste liked Billie — his overgrown hands, his rather furtive voice.

And Marilyn was a darling; Celeste fell in love with her immediately. She was a tall girl, not pretty: her nose was a little broad and her cheekbones were pitched too steep; but her dark eyes and hair were lovely and she carried herself with a defiant swing. Celeste understood her secret sorrow: the necessity of earning a living to help her father carry the weight of the family’s needs had kept her from going on from high school to the higher education she craved. But Marilyn was no complainer; outwardly she was even serene. Celeste gathered that she had another, independent life, a vicarious one: through her work she kept in touch with a sort of malformed, teasing shadow of the creative and intellectual world. “I’m not the best manuscript typist in the business,” she told Celeste. “I get too blamed interested in what I’m typing.” Nevertheless, she had built up a good clientele. Through a former high school teacher she had got in with a young playwrights’ group whose art was, if nothing else, prolific; one of her accounts was a Columbia full professor who was engaged with writing a monumental work of scholarship, “a psychological outline of world history”; and her best client was a famous journalist author who, Mr. Soames said proudly, swore by her — “and sometimes at me,” added Marilyn. Her earnings were capricious and the importance of maintaining them kept Marilyn a little on the grim side. For the sake of her father’s self-esteem she preserved the fiction that her co-producing role in the family was a temporary one, “to tide us over the high prices.” But Celeste knew that Marilyn knew there would be no escape for many years, if ever. The boys would grow up, marry, and move off; there was Eleanor’s education to provide for — Marilyn was firm that Eleanor should go to college, “she’s really a genius. You ought to read the poetry she writes right now, at 9”; Mrs. Soames was headed for invalidism; Frank Soames was not a well man. Marilyn knew her fate and was prepared for it. Because of this she discouraged the romantic advances of several men who were pursuing her, “at least one of them,” Marilyn said with a laugh, “with honorable intentions.” Her most persistent pursuer was the journalist author — “he’s not the one. Every time I have to call for a new chapter — he writes in longhand — or deliver one I’ve typed, he chases me around his apartment with an African war club he picked up in his travels. It’s supposed to be a gag, but it’s gagging on the level. One of these days I’m going to stop running and poke him one. I’d have done it long ago if I hadn’t needed his work.” But Celeste suspected that one of these days Marilyn would stop running and not poke him one. She persuaded herself that the experience would do Marilyn good; Marilyn was a passionate girl who had kept herself, Celeste was sure of it, rigidly chaste. (It also occurred to the sophisticate that this was true of a certain Celeste Phillips as well; but at this point Miss Phillips dropped the whole subject out of her thoughts.)

The Soameses lived in a two-bedroom, five-room apartment in an ancient walkup; because they needed three sleeping rooms, the “front room” had been converted into a third bedroom, and this room served both as the girls’ bedroom and Marilyn’s workshop. “Marilyn ought to have her own room,” sighed Mrs. Soames, “but what can we do?” Billie had rigged up a partition — a drape on a long curtain pole — to cut off part of the room for Marilyn’s “office”; here she had her work table, her typewriter, her stationery, her telephone; there was a modest illusion of separate quarters. The arrangement was also necessary because Marilyn often had to work at night and Eleanor went to bed early.

The location of the telephone prompted Celeste to make an ulterior suggestion. When she arrived to take up her duties she found Stanley occupying his own bed in the boys’ room. On the plea that she could not very well share a bedroom with a boy as big as Billie — and obviously she had to be within call of her patient during the night — Celeste moved Stanley into the front bedroom, to Eleanor’s bed, and Eleanor moved to the boys’ room. “You’re sure this won’t interfere with you?” Celeste asked Marilyn anxiously; she was feeling wretched about the whole thing. But Marilyn said she had trained herself to work under impossible conditions: “With a boy like Stanley in the house you either learned how to turn your ears off or you cut your throat.” Marilyn’s easy reference to “throat” made Celeste sick; on her third day she became aware that she had been unconsciously avoiding that part of Marilyn’s generous anatomy. It was a strong throat, and in the days that followed it became for Celeste a sort of symbol, a link between the lives of all of them and the death that waited outside. She trained herself to look at it.

The transfer of Eleanor to Stanley’s bed created a problem and sharpened Celeste’s feeling of guilt. Mrs. Soames said it was “not good” for brother and sister to share a bedroom at Eleanor’s and Billie’s ages. So Billie was sent to his parents’ room and Mrs. Soames moved over to the boys’ room to sleep with Eleanor. “I feel as if I’ve created a revolution,” Celeste wailed, “upsetting your lives this way.” And when Mrs. Soames said, “Why, Miss Martin, don’t give a thought to us. We’re so grateful you could come nurse our baby,” Celeste felt like the most callous doubledealing spy. There was a small portion of consolation for her in the thought that the bed she had to sleep on in the front room, an antique cot borrowed from a neighbor, was as hard as the floor of a flagellant’s cave. On this she did penance for her chicanery. She almost angrily rejected the family’s offer of any one of their own beds in exchange.

“It’s so mean,” Celeste moaned to the Queens and Jimmy during their second-night rendezvous in a First Avenue areaway. “They’re so sweet about everything I feel like a criminal.”

“I told you she’s too peasant-like for this job,” jeered Jimmy; but in the dark he was nibbling her fingertips.

“Jimmy, they’re the nicest people. And they’re all so grateful to me. If they only knew!”

“They’d smother you with onions.” said Jimmy. “Which reminds me...”

But Ellery said, “What’s the mail situation, Celeste?”

“Marilyn goes downstairs for it first thing in the morning. Mr. Soames leaves the house before the first delivery—”

“We know that.”

“She keeps her current correspondence in a wire basket on her desk. I won’t have any trouble reading it,” said Celeste in a trembly voice.” Last night I managed to do it in the middle of the night, when Marilyn and Stanley were asleep. There are opportunities during the day, too. Sometimes Marilyn has to go out in connection with her work.”

“We know that, too,” said the Inspector grimly. Marilyn Soames’s unpredictable excursions, sometimes in the evening, were keeping them all on the edge of ulcers.

“Even if she doesn’t, she always eats lunch in the kitchen. I can even read her mail while Stanley’s awake, because of the heavy curtain.”

“Wonderful.”

“I’m glad you think s-so!” And Celeste found herself irrigating Jimmy’s dusty-blue tie.

But when she returned to the Soames flat she had color in her cheeks and she told Marilyn that the walk had done her oceans of good, really it had.

Their meeting time was set by Celeste at between 10 and 10:15. Stanley was not tucked in for the night much before 9, she said, and he rarely fell asleep until 9:30 or so. “Being in bed all the time he doesn’t need so much sleep. I can’t leave till I’m sure he’s dropped off, and then too I’ve been helping with the supper dishes.”

“You mustn’t overdo that, Miss Phillips,” said the Inspector. “They’ll get suspicious. Practical nurses don’t—”

“Practical nurses are human beings, aren’t they?” sniffed Celeste. “Mrs. Soames is a sick woman who slaves all day and if I can save her some work by doing the supper things I’m going to do it. Would it put me out of the spy union if I told you I also pitch in to the housework? Don’t worry, Inspector Queen, I shan’t give anything away. I’m quite aware of what’s at stake.”

The Inspector said feebly that he just thought he’d mention it, that was all, and Jimmy reeled off some verse that he said he had made up but which sounded remarkably like one of the Elizabethan things.

So they met at 10 o’clock or a little later, each night in a different place by prearrangement the night before. For Celeste, at least, it took on the greenish cast of fantasy. For twenty-three and a half hours a day she worked, ate, spied, and slept among the Soameses; the half hour away was a flight to the moon. Only Jimmy’s presence made it bearable; she had come to dread the taut, questioning faces of the Queens. She had to brace herself as she walked along the dark street to the appointed spot, waiting for the signal of Jimmy’s soft wolf-whistle. Then she would join them in the doorway, or under the store awning, or just inside the alley — wherever the agreed rendezvous was — and she would report the increasingly pleasant monotonies of the past twenty-four hours and answer questions about the Soames mail and the telephone calls, all the while clinging to Jimmy’s hand in the darkness; and then, feeling the pull of Jimmy’s eyes, she would run back to what had come to signify for her the endearing sanity of the little Soames world.

She did not attempt to tell them how much the aroma of Mrs. Soames’s rising bread reminded her of Mother Phillips or of how, by some witchery, Marilyn had become the best of remembered Simone.

And of how frightened, how icily frightened, she was during every moment of every waking hour, and beyond.

To tell any of them.

Especially Jimmy.

They speculated interminably. Beyond meeting Celeste each night, there was nothing else to do. Over and over they came back to the reports on Cazalis. They were exasperating. He was acting exactly as if he were Dr. Edward Cazalis, Noted Psychiatrist, and not a cunning paranoiac bent on satiating his appetite for death. He was still working with his board on occasional private case histories sent in by psychiatric stragglers. He even attended a meeting called by the Mayor at which the Queens were present. At this meeting Cazalis was studied closely by men trained in the art of dissimulation; but it was a question who was the best actor present. The psychiatrist was affably discouraging; he said again that he and his board were wasting their time; they had cracked a few of their reluctant colleagues but the remainder were adamant and nothing was to be expected of them. (And Inspector Queen reported to the Mayor with a garmented face that in the trickle of suspects turned over by Dr. Cazalis and his coworkers there was exactly none who could be the Cat.) “Haven’t you fellows made any progress at all on your end?” Cazalis asked the Inspector. When the Inspector shook his head, the big man smiled. “It’s probably someone from outside the metropolitan area.”

Ellery thought it unworthy of him.

But he was looking poorly these days, and that was provocative; thinned out, fallen in, the ice of his hair crumbling. His heavy face was sludgy and cracked; he had developed twitches under both eyes; his large hands, when they were not drumming on the nearest object, kept drifting about his person as if seeking an anchorage. Mrs. Cazalis, who was in miserable attendance, said that the work her husband had done for the City had taken too much out of him, it was her fault for having pounded at him to continue investigating. The doctor patted his wife’s hand. He was taking it easy, he said; what bothered him was that he had failed. A young man “rises above failure,” he said, an old man “sinks under it.” “Edward, I want you to go away.” But he smiled. He was considering a long rest, he said. As soon as he tied off certain “loose ends”...

Was he mocking them?

The metaphor remained with them.

Or had he become suspicious and was uncertainty or the fear of detection strong enough to check the continuing impulse to kill?

He might have caught sight of one of his pursuers. The detectives were sure he had not.

Still, it was possible.

Or had they left a trace of their visit to his apartment? They had worked systematically, touching and moving nothing until they had fixed in their memories the exact position and condition of each object to be touched and moved. And afterward they had restored each object to its original place.

Still, again, he may have noticed something wrong. Suppose he had set a trap? He might have had a little signal for himself, a trivial thing, unnoticeable, in the storage closet or in one of the drawers. A psychotic of a certain type might have taken such a precaution. Elaborately. They were dealing with a man whose brilliance overlapped his psychosis. In certain flights he might be prescient.

It was possible.

Dr. Cazalis’s movements were as innocent as those of a man walking across a field under the sunny sky. A patient or two a day in his office, chiefly women. An occasional consultation with other psychiatrists. Long nights when he did not step out of his apartment. Once a visit with Mrs. Cazalis to the Richardsons’. Once a concert at Carnegie, when he listened to the Franck symphony with open eyes and clenched hands; and then, curl-lipped and calm, listening with enjoyment to Bach and Mozart. Once a social evening with some professional friends and their wives.

At no time did he venture near East 29th Street and First Avenue.

It was possible.

That was the canker.

Anything was possible.

By the tenth day after the strangulation of Donald Katz, and in the sixth day of “Sue Martin’s” practical-nursing career, they were sweating. They spent most of their time now in the report room at Police Headquarters. In silence. Or, when the silence became intolerable, snapping at one another with a querulousness that made silence a relief.

What was digging new hollows in Inspector Queen’s face was the thought that Cazalis might be outwaiting them. Madmen had been known to exercise extraordinary patience. Sooner or later — Cazalis might be thinking — they would conclude that he had reached the end of his string... if only he did nothing long enough. Then they would call off their watchdogs. Sooner or later.

Was that what Cazalis was waiting for?

If, of course, he knew he was being watched.

Or, if he foresaw that this was one case in which the watchers would never be withdrawn, he might deliberately be waiting until he tired them into carelessness. And then... an opening. And he would slip into the clear.

With a tussah silk cord in his pocket.

Inspector Queen kept harrying his operatives until they hated him.

Ellery’s brain performed more desperate acrobatics. Suppose Cazalis had set a trap in his storage closet. Suppose he did know someone had been looking through his old files. Then he knew they had exposed the heart of his secret. Then he knew they knew how he chose his victims.

In such case it would not be overcrediting Cazalis’s acumen to say that he would also guess their plan. He had merely to do what Ellery was now doing: to put himself in the adversary’s place.

Then Cazalis would know that they had gone beyond Donald Katz to Marilyn Soames, and that with Marilyn Soames they had baited a trap for him.

If I were Cazalis, said Ellery, what would I do then? I would give up all thought of snaring Marilyn Soames’s card to the card of the next regularly indicated victim. Or, to play it even safer, I would skip the next regularly indicated victim to the one following on the chance that the enemy had taken out insurance as well. Which we haven’t done...

Ellery writhed. He could not forgive himself. There was no excuse, he kept saying. To have failed to take the precaution of searching Cazalis’s cards past Marilyn Soames to the next-indicated victim, and the next, and the next, and protecting them all — even if it meant going to the end of the file and having to guard a hundred young people all over the City...

If these premises were sound, Cazalis might even now be waiting for the detectives trailing him to relax their vigilance. And when they did, the Cat would slink out to strangle a tenth, unknown victim at his leisure, laughing all the while at the detectives he knew were guarding Marilyn Soames.

Ellery became quite masochistic about it.

“The best we can hope for,” he groaned, “is that Cazalis makes a move toward Marilyn. The worst, that he’s already moved against someone else. If that happens, we won’t know about it till it’s over. Unless we can keep Cazalis at the other end of the tail, Dad. We’ve got to hang on to him! How about assigning a few extra men...?”

But the Inspector shook his head. The more men, the greater the chance of giving the game away. After all, there was no reason to believe that Cazalis suspected anything. The trouble was that they were getting too nervous.

“Who’s nervous?”

“You are! And so am I! — though I wasn’t till you started your old fancy mental gymnastics!”

“Tell me it couldn’t happen that way, Dad.”

“Then why not go after those records again?”

Well, muttered Ellery, they were better off stringing along with what they had. Let well enough alone. Watchful waiting. Time will tell.

“The master of the original phrase,” snarled Jimmy McKell. “If you ask me, your morale is showing. Doesn’t anybody give a slup in bloody borscht what happens to my girl?”

That reminded them that it was time to go uptown for the nightly meeting with Celeste.

They jostled one another getting through the door.

The night of Wednesday, October 19, was uncharitable. The three men huddled in the alley entrance between two buildings on the south side of East 29th Street, near Second Avenue. There was a cutting wet wind and they kept up a little dance as they waited.

10:15.

It was the first time Celeste had been late.

They kept yapping at one another. Swearing at the wind. Jimmy would poke his head out of the alley and say under his breath, “Come onnnnnn, Celeste!” as if she were a horse.

The lights of Bellevue over on First Avenue were no comfort.

The reports on Cazalis that day had been discouraging. He had not left his apartment. Two patients had called during the afternoon, both young women. Della and Zachary Richardson had shown up at 6:30 on foot; apparently for dinner, as by 9 P.M., the time of the last report the Queens had received before leaving Headquarters, they had still not come out.

“It’s nothing, Jimmy,” Ellery kept saying. “Cazalis is safe for the night. Can’t mean a-thing. She just couldn’t get away—”

“Isn’t that Celeste now?”

She was trying not to run and not succeeding. She would walk faster and faster, then break into a trot, then slow down suddenly, then run. Her black cloth coat kept flopping around her like birds.

It was 10:35.

“Something’s up.”

“What could be?”

“She’s late. Naturally she’d hurry.” Jimmy whistled the signal; it came back all dry and blowy. “Celeste—”

“Jimmy.” She was gulping.

“What is it?” Ellery had her by both arms.

“He phoned.”

The wind had dropped and her words shrilled through the alley. Jimmy shouldered Ellery aside, put his arms around her. She was trembling.

“There’s nothing to be scared of. Stop shaking.”

She began to cry.

They waited. Jimmy kept tumbling her hair.

Finally, she stopped.

Inspector Queen said instantly: “When?”

“A few minutes past 10. I was just leaving — out in the hall with my hand on the doorknob — when I heard the phone ring. Marilyn was in the dining room with Billie and Eleanor and their father and mother and I was nearest to the front room. I ran and got the phone first. It was... I know it was. I heard his voice over the radio the day he gave his press. conference and talk. It’s low and musical and at the same time sort of sharp.”

“Cazalis,” said the Inspector. “You mean this was Dr. Edward Cazalis’s voice, Miss Phillips?” He said it as if he did not believe it at all and as if it were of the greatest importance to corroborate his disbelief.

“I tell you it was!”

“Well, now,” said the Inspector. “Just from hearing it on the radio.” But he moved closer to Celeste.

“What did he say?” This was Ellery. “Word for word!”

“I said hello, and he said hello, and then he gave me the Soames phone number and asked if that was the number and I said yes. He said, ‘Is this the public stenographer, Marilyn Soames, speaking?’ It was his voice. I said no and he said, ‘Is Miss Soames in — it is Miss Soames, isn’t it, not Mrs.? I believe she’s — the daughter of Edna and Frank Soames. I said yes. Then he said, ‘I want to talk to her, please.’ By that time Marilyn was in the room so I handed her the phone and hung around pretending I had to fix my slip.”

“Checking up,” muttered the Inspector. “Making sure.”

“Go on, Celeste!”

“Give her a chance, will you!” growled Jimmy.

“I heard Marilyn say yes once or twice and then she said, ‘Well, I am kind of piled up, but if it’s that kind of deal I’ll try to get it out for you by Monday, Mr. — What was your name again, sir?’ When he told her, Marilyn said, ‘I’m sorry, would you mind spelling that?’ and she spelled it after him.”

“The name.”

“Paul Nostrum. N-o-s-t-r-u-m.”

“Nostrum.” Ellery laughed.

“Then Marilyn said yes, she could call for the manuscript tomorrow, and she asked him where she was to pick it up. He said something and Marilyn said, “I’m tall and dark and I have a mashed nose and I’ll be wearing a cloth coat, big white and black checks, you can’t miss it, and a beanie. How about you?’ and after he answered she said, ‘Well, then, maybe you’d better do all the looking, Mr. Nostrum. I’ll be there. Good night,’ and she hung up.”

Ellery shook her. “Didn’t you get the address, the time?”

Jimmy shook Ellery. “Give her a chance, I said!”

“Wait, wait.” Inspector Queen pushed them both aside. “Did you get any other information, Miss Phillips?”

“Yes, Inspector. When Marilyn hung up I said as offhandedly as I could, ‘New client, Marilyn?’ and she said yes, she wondered how he knew about her, some writer she did work for must have recommended her. ‘Nostrum’ had said he was a writer in from Chicago with his new novel to see his publisher, that he’d have to revise his last few chapters and he needed them retyped in a hurry. He hadn’t been able to get a hotel accommodation and he was staying with ‘friends,’ so he’d meet her tomorrow at 5:30 in the lobby of the Astor to give her his manuscript.”

“Lobby of the Astor!” Ellery was incredulous. “He couldn’t have picked a busier spot at a busier hour in the whole City of New York.”

“You’re sure it’s the Astor, Miss Phillips.”

“That’s what Marilyn said.”

They were silent.

Finally, Ellery shrugged. “No use beating our brains out—”

“No, indeed, for time will tell,” said Jimmy. “Meanwhile what happens to our heroine? Does Celeste stay in that rat cage? Or does she show up at the Astor tomorrow in a checked coat, garnished with parsley?”

“Idiot,” Celeste rested her head on his arm.

“Celeste stays where she is. This is just his opening move. We’ll play along.”

The Inspector nodded. “What time did you say he made that call?” he asked Celeste.

“It was just about five minutes past 10, Inspector Queen.”

“You go back to the Soameses’.”

Ellery squeezed her hand. “Stick to that phone, Celeste. If there’s a call tomorrow from ‘Paul Nostrum’ — or anyone else — changing the time and place of Marilyn’s appointment, that’s one of the emergencies I mentioned. Phone Police Headquarters immediately.”

“All right.”

“Ask for Extension 2-X,” said the Inspector. “That’s a code signal that will put you right through to us.” The old man patted her arm awkwardly. “You’re a good girl.”

“Good, schmood,” muttered Jimmy. “Give me a kiss.”

They watched her walk down the windy street, not moving until she disappeared in the entrance of 486.

Then they ran toward Third Avenue, where the squad car was parked.

According to Sergeant Velie, Detective Goldberg’s 10 P.M. report had stated that at 9:26 Mr. and Mrs. Richardson, accompanied by Dr. and Mrs. Cazalis, had left the Cazalis apartment house. The two couples had strolled up Park Avenue. According to Detective Young, Goldberg’s partner, Cazalis had been in high spirits; he had laughed a great deal. The four had turned west on 84th Street, crossed Madison Avenue, and they stopped before the Park-Lester. Here the couples separated, the Cazalises walking back to Madison, turning north, and stopping in at a drugstore on the corner of 86th Street. They sat at the counter and were served hot chocolates. This was at two minutes of 10, and at 10 o’clock Goldberg had telephoned his hourly report from a coffee shop across the street.

Ellery glanced at the wall clock. “Ten after 11. What about the 11 o’clock report, Sergeant?”

“Wait,” said Sergeant Velie. “Goldie called in again at 10:20. A special.”

The Sergeant seemed to be expecting exclamations and excitement, for he paused dramatically.

But Ellery and Jimmy KcKell were doodling on pads at opposite sides of the desk and all that the Inspector said was, “Yes?”

“Goldberg said he’d no sooner got off the phone in the coffee shop at 10 when Young signaled him from across the street and Goldie walked over and saw Mrs. Cazalis sitting at the soda counter — all by her lonesome. Goldie thought he was seeing things because he doesn’t spot Cazalis any place and he says to Young, Where’s our man, where’s our man? Young points to the back of the drugstore and Goldie sees Cazalis in a booth back there, phoning. Young told Goldberg that right after Goldie left Cazalis looked at his watch like he’d all of a sudden remembered something. Young said it was a great big take and it looked phony to him, Cazalis putting on an act to fool his wife. He said a few words — like he was excusing himself — gets off the stool, and goes to the back. He looks up a number in one of the phone books oh the rack, then he goes into the booth and makes a call. Time of entry into booth: 10:04.”

“10:04,” said Ellery. “10:04.”

“That’s what I said,” said the Sergeant. “Cazalis is on the phone around ten minutes. Then he comes back to Mrs. Cazalis, drinks the rest of his hot chocolate, and they leave.

“They took a cab, Cazalis giving the hack his home address. Young tailed them in another cab and Goldie went into the drugstore. He’d noticed that the directory Young said Cazalis had looked a name up in was open on the stand, and he wanted a gander at it because nobody had used it after Cazalis. It turned out to be the Manhattan book, and it was open at the pages with...” Velie paused impressively... “with the S-O names.”

“The S-O names,” said Inspector Queen. “Did you hear that, Ellery? The S-O names.” His denture was showing.

“Would you think,” said Jimmy, drawing a set of fangs, “that a kindly old gent like that could look so much like a Brontosaurus?”

But the Inspector said genially, “Go on, Velie, go on.”

“There’s nothing more,” said the Sergeant Velie with dignity. “Goldberg said he thought that rated a hurry-up special report, so he phoned right in before leaving to go back to Park Avenue after Young.”

“Goldberg was so right,” said the Inspector. “And the 11 o’clock report?”

“The Cazalises went right home. At ten minutes to 11 their lights went out. Unless the doc is figuring on a sneak tonight, after his old woman is in dreamland—”

“Not tonight, Sergeant, not tonight,” said Ellery, smiling; “5:30 tomorrow, at the Astor.”

They saw him enter the Astor lobby through the 44th Street doorway. The time was 5:05 and they had already been there an hour. Detective Hesse was close on his tail.

Cazalis was dressed in a dark gray suit, a rather seedy dark topcoat, and a stained gray hat. He came in with several other people, as if he were one of their group, but well in the transverse corridor at the rear of the lobby he took himself off, bought a copy of the New York Post at the cigar counter, stood for a few moments glancing at the front page, and then began a strolling tour of the lobby. Moving a few feet at a time, with long pauses between.

“Making sure she hasn’t come yet,” said the Inspector.

They were on the balcony of the mezzanine, well hidden.

Cazalis kept circulating. The lobby was crowded and it was hard to keep him in sight. But Hesse had taken a central position; he had to move very little, and they knew he would not lose his man.

There were six other Headquarters men planted in the lobby.

When Cazalis had completed his tour, he edged alongside five people, men and women, who were standing near the Broadway entrance talking and laughing. He held an unlighted cigaret.

On the steps outside they caught an occasional glimpse of the broad back and accented waistline of Detective Zilgitt. He was a Negro and one of the most valuable men at Headquarters; Inspector Queen had especially detailed him to work with Hesse for the day. Zilgitt, who was a modest dresser, had rigged himself out in sharp clothes for his assignment; he looked like a Broadway character waiting for a heavy date.

At 5:25 Marilyn Soames arrived.

She came hurrying into the lobby, out of breath. She paused by the florist’s shop to look around. She wore a big-checked cloth coat and a little felt cap. She carried an old simulated-leather briefcase.

Detective Johnson walked in, passed her, and mingled with the crowd. But he kept within fifteen feet of her. Detective Piggott entered the florist’s shop from Broadway; he took some time buying a carnation. He had a perfect view of both Marilyn and Cazalis through the glass walls of the shop. A little later he sauntered out into the lobby and stopped almost at the girl’s elbow, looking around as if for a familiar face. She glanced at him doubtfully and seemed about to speak to him; but when his glance passed over her she bit her lip and looked elsewhere.

Cazalis had spotted her instantly.

He began to read his newspapers. Leaning against the wall, the cigaret between his fingers still unlighted.

From where the Queens stood watching they could see his glance fixed on her face above his paper.

Marilyn had begun scanning the area within her orbit from the side of the lobby opposite to which Cazalis stood. Her glance searched slowly. When it had all but completed its half-circle, just as it was about to reach him, Cazalis lowered his newspaper, murmured something to one of the men in the group by his side, and the man produced a packet or matches, struck a match, and held the flame to the tip of Cazalis’s cigaret. For that moment Cazalis looked like one of the group.

Marilyn’s glance passed him as if he were invisible.

He inched back. Now he stood with the group between them, studying her frankly.

The Soames girl remained where she was until 5:40. Then she moved off, walking around the lobby and searching among the men who were seated. A few smiled and one said something to her. But she frowned and walked on.

As she walked, Cazalis followed.

He made no attempt to get close to her.

At times he even stood still, his eyes taking up the hunt.

He seemed to be committing her to memory — her gait, the swing of her body, the plain strong profile.

He was flushed now, breathing heavily. As if he were tremendously excited.

By ten minutes to 6 she had gone completely around the lobby and returned to her original position near the florist’s shop. Cazalis passed her. It was the closest he had come to her — he could have touched her, and Johnson and Piggott could have touched him. She actually studied his face. But this time his glance was elsewhere and he passed her briskly, as if he were going somewhere. Apparently he had given her a false description of himself, or no description at all.

He paused in the nearest doorway.

It was just inside the entrance where Detective Zilgitt waited. Zilgitt glanced at him casually and moved off the steps.

The girl’s foot began tapping. She did not look behind her and Cazalis was able to study her without subterfuge.

At 6 o’clock Marilyn straightened up and with determination began to push toward the bell captain’s desk.

Cazalis remained where he was.

A few moments later a bellboy began to call: “Mr. Nostrum. Mr. Paul Nostrum.”

Immediately Cazalis went down the steps, crossed the sidewalk, and got into a taxicab. As the cab moved away from the curb into the Broadway traffic, Detective Hesse jumped into the next cab at the stand.

At 6:10 Marilyn Soames, looking very angry, left the Astor and walked with long strides down Broadway toward 42nd Street.

Johnson and Piggott were just behind her.

“Marilyn was fit to be tied,” Celeste reported that night. “I almost kissed her when she got home, I was so relieved. But she was so mad at being stood up she didn’t notice. Mr. Soames said writers were temperamental and she’d probably get a bouquet of flowers from him as an apology, but Marilyn snapped that she wasn’t going to be blarneyed out of it, he was probably drunk in some bar and if he phoned again she’d meet him just so she could tell him where to get off.” The Inspector was annoying his mustache. “Where on earth did he go from the Astor?”

“Home.” Ellery seemed disturbed, too. “Where is Marilyn, Celeste? She hasn’t gone out again, has she?”

“She was so mad she had supper and went right to bed.”

“I’d better take a walk around and tell the boys to keep an extra eye out tonight,” muttered the Inspector.

They watched him hurry down the street.

Finally Celeste pushed away from Jimmy. “Do you think he’ll phone again, Mr. Queen?”

“I don’t know.”

“What was the idea today?”

“He’s had to play this one differently. Marilyn doesn’t go out to work, hasn’t a predictable routine. He’s probably too cagey to hang around here day after day hoping to catch a glimpse of her, so he had to use a trick to get a good look.”

“That’s... right, isn’t it. He didn’t know what Marilyn looked like.”

“Not since he spanked her rosy bottom,” said Jimmy. “Now can I have five minutes alone in this palatial hallway with my future wife? Before the bell tolls, Fairy Godfather, and I turn into a pumpkin.”

But Celeste said, “When do you think he’ll...”

“It won’t be long.” Ellery sounded remote. “Any night now, Celeste.”

And they were quiet.

“Well,” said Celeste at last.

Jimmy stirred.

“I’d better be getting back.”

“Keep checking the phone calls. And pay particular attention to Marilyn’s mail.”

“Right.”

“You’ve got to give me my five lousy minutes!” wailed Jimmy. Ellery stepped out into the street.

Inspector Queen came back before Jimmy and Celeste were finished in their hallway.

“Everything all right, Dad?”

“They’re scratching fleas.”

Afterwards, the three men went back to Headquarters. The latest word, delivered in Detective Goldberg’s 11 P.M. report, was that the Cazalises were entertaining a large number of people who had arrived in chauffeur-driven limousines. The party, Goldberg had said, was gay. Once, prowling in the court, he heard the boom of Cazalis’s laugh, accompanied by a chatter of crystal. “The doc,” Goldberg had said, “sounded just like Santa Claus.”

Friday. Saturday. Sunday.

And nothing.

The Queens were scarcely on speaking terms. Jimmy McKell found himself functioning as part peacemaker, part interpreter. He suffered the usual fate of middlemen; sometimes they both turned on him. He was beginning to wear a haunted look himself.

Even Sergeant Velie was antisocial. When he spoke at all it was in an animal growl.

Once an hour the telephone rang. Then they all leaped.

The messages varied, but their gist was the same.

Nothing.

They began to share a common loathing for the report room, which was only surpassed by their loathing for one another.

Then, on Monday, October 24, the Cat moved.

The announcement came from Detective MacGayn, who was Hesse’s partner on the regular day trick. MacGayn called only a few minutes after his hourly report, in considerable excitement, to say that their man was taking a powder. Several suitcases had just been carried out of the Cazalis apartment by the doorman. Hesse had overheard him instruct a taxi driver to wait as he had “some people going to Penn Station to catch a train.” Hesse was set to follow in another cab; MacGayn had run to phone in the news.

Inspector Queen instructed MacGayn to go immediately to Pennsylvania Station, locate Hesse and their man, and then wait at the 31st Street entrance nearest Seventh Avenue.

The squad car screamed uptown.

Once Ellery said angrily, “It isn’t possible. I don’t believe it. It’s a trick.”

Otherwise, there was no conversation.

On order, the driver cut his siren out at 23rd Street.

MacGayn was waiting for them. He had just found Hesse. Dr. and Mrs. Cazalis were standing in a crowd at the gate of a Florida train. They had been joined by Mr. and Mrs. Richardson. The gate was not yet open. Hesse was standing by.

They made their way cautiously into the station.

From the windows of the south waiting room MacGayn point out the Cazalis-Richardson group and, nearby, Hesse.

“Take Hesse’s place,” said Inspector Queen. “And send him here.”

Hesse walked in briskly a few moments later.

Ellery kept his eyes on Cazalis.

“What’s going on?” demanded the Inspector.

Hesse was worried. “I don’t know, Inspector. There’s something offbeat, but they’re a little in the clear out there and I can’t get close enough to listen in. His wife keeps arguing with him and he keeps smiling and shaking his head. The luggage has gone down. The Richardsons’, too.”

“Oh, so they’re also going,” said Ellery.

“Looks like it.”

He was not wearing Thursday’s disreputable topcoat. His coat looked new and fashionable, he wore a smart Homburg, a small ’mum in his lapel.

“If he ever wiggles out of this one,” remarked Jimmy McKell, “he can always make himself a tidy zloty by posing as a Man of Distinction.”

But Ellery muttered, “Florida.”

The gate opened and the crowd began squeezing through.

Inspector Queen seized Hesse’s arm. “Get down there after him and stick. Take MacGayn and if anything happens send him back up. We’ll be waiting at the gate.”

Hesse hurried away.

The gate had opened late; train-departure time, according to the figures posted above the gate, was only ten minutes off.

“It’s all right, Ellery,” said the Inspector. “They won’t pull out on time.” His tone was paternal.

Ellery looked wild.

They strolled out into the shed and mingled with the people gathering before a gate marked Philadelphia Express: Newark-Trenton-Philadelphia. The stairway to the Florida train was two gates away. They kept glancing from the gateway to the big clocks.

“I told you,” said the Inspector.

“But why Florida? Suddenly!”

“He’s called Operation Necktie off,” said Jimmy.

“No.”

“Don’t you want him to?”

“Who says he’s called it off?” Ellery scowled. “He’s given up on the Soames girl, granted. Spotted something Thursday, maybe. Or figured she was too tough. Or this might be a trick to put us off guard, if he suspects something. After all, we don’t know how much he knows. We don’t know anything!.. If he doesn’t suspect, this mean he’s gone on to somebody else—”

“Somebody who he found out is vacationing in Florida,” nodded Inspector Queen.

Jimmy said, “New York papers please copy. Dateline Miami, Palm Beach, or Sarasota. Cat Hits Florida.”

“It could be,” said Ellery. “But somehow I can’t get myself to believe it. It’s something else. Some other trick.”

“What do you need, diagrams? I’ll bet he’s got those silk cords in his bags. What are you waiting for?”

“We can’t chance it.” Inspector Queen looked dour. “We just can’t. If we have to we’ll work through the Florida locals. We’ll have him watched down there and set him up on his return to New York. It means doing the whole thing over again.”

“The hell it does! Not with Celeste, Old Sleuth. I can’t wait that long, see?”

And just then MacGayn came running out of the gateway making frantic signals. The trainman was looking at his watch.

“MacGayn—”

“Get back, he’s coming back up!”

“What?”

“He’s not going!”

They scuttled into the thick of the crowd.

Cazalis appeared.

Alone.

He was smiling.

He cut diagonally across the shed toward the corner marked Taxicabs with the happy stride of a man who has accomplished something.

Hesse shuffled after him studying a timetable.

As he walked he rubbed his left ear; and MacGayn wriggled through the crowd and began to saunter along behind.

When they got back to the report at Headquarters they found a message from MacGayn.

Their man had cabbed directly home.

Now they could look back on the four weeks just past and see what had undoubtedly happened. Cazalis had out-smarted himself. Ellery pointed out that in murdering his wife’s niece and insinuating himself into the Cat case as a psychiatric consultant Cazalis had seriously hobbled himself. He had not foreseen the demands on his time; he had failed to take into account the white light in which he would have to operate. Before his murder of Lenore Richardson he had had only to deceive a submissive, trusting wife; is semi-retirement, he had moved very nearly at will and in satisfactory shadows. But now he was crippled. He had made himself accountable to officialdom. He was linked with a board of fellow-psychiatrists. Colleagues were communicating with him about their patients. His failing health was causing Mrs. Cazalis to take sharper notice of his activities. And there was the little family matter involving the Richardsons which he could scarcely ignore.

“He strangled Stella Petrucchi and Donald Katz under difficulties,” said Ellery. “Conditions were not as favorable to him in those two murders as in the previous ones. Undoubtedly he had to run bigger risks, invent more lies to account for his absences at least in the Katz case; how he managed it in the Petrucchi case, especially on the night of the murder itself, after the Cat Riot, I’d love to know. It’s reasonable to suppose that his wife, the Richardsons, began to ask embarrassing questions.

“Significantly, it’s those three who’ve gone to Florida.

“Hesse saw Mrs. Cazalis ‘arguing’ with Cazalis at the gate to the train. It’s an argument that must have started days ago, when Cazalis first suggested the Florida trip. Because it’s a certainty Cazalis was the one who suggested it, or who saw to it that the suggestion was made.

“I’m inclined to think he worked it through his sister-in-law. Mrs. Richardson was his logical tool. In her Cazalis had an excellent argument for his wife, who must have been hard to persuade: Della could stand a rest and a change of scene after what had ‘happened,’ she leaned heavily on her sister, and so on.

“However Cazalis managed it, he got the Richardsons to leave town and his wife to accompany them. Unquestionably he explained his inability to go with them on the double ground of his remaining patients and his promise to the Mayor to clean up his end of the investigation.

“Anything to get his wife and in-laws out of the way.

“Anything to give himself freedom of movement.”

Jimmy said. “There’s still the maid.”

“He’s given her the week off,” said the Inspector.

“And now they’re all out of the way,” nodded Ellery, “he has unlimited opportunity and mobility, and the Cat can really go to work on the delightful problem of Marilyn Soames.”

And he did. Cazalis went to work on Marilyn Soames as if getting his noose around her throat was of the utmost importance to his peace of mind and he could no longer hold himself in.

He was so eager he was careless. He went back to his shabby topcoat and old felt hat; he added a motheaten gray wool muffler and scuffed shoes; but otherwise he neglected to alter his appearance and it was child’s play to keep track of him.

And he went hunting in daylight.

It was evident that he felt completely sure.

He left his apartment early on Tuesday morning, just after Detectives Hesse and MacGayn took over from Goldberg and Young. He left by way of the service entrance, slipping out into the side street and walking rapidly toward Madison Avenue as if his destination lay westward. But at Madison he veered south and walked all the way down to 59th Street. On the southeast corner he looked casually around. Then he jumped into a parked taxicab.

The taxi headed east. Hesse and MacGayn followed in separate cabs to minimize the danger of losing him.

When Cazalis’s cab turned south on Lexington Avenue the detectives tensed. It kept going south but as it did it worked its way farther eastward until it reached First Avenue.

It went straight down First Avenue to 28th Street.

Here Cazalis’s taxi made a four corner turn and drew up before Bellevue Hospital.

Cazalis got out, paid his driver. Then, briskly, he began to stride toward the hospital entrance.

The cab drove off.

Immediately Cazalis stopped, looking after the cab. It turned a corner, heading west.

He retraced his steps and walked rapidly toward 29th Street. His muffler was high around his neck and he had pulled the snapbrim of his hat over his eyes as low as it would go without looking grotesque.

His hands were in the pockets of his topcoat.

At 29th he crossed over.

He walked past 486 slowly, looking the entrance over but without stopping or changing his pace.

Once he looked up. It was a four-story building of dirty tan brick.

Once he glanced back.

A postman was trudging into 490.

Cazalis continued to amble up the street. Without pausing he strolled around the corner to Second Avenue.

But then he reappeared, coming back at a fast clip, as if he had forgotten something. Hesse barely had time to step into a doorway. MacGayn was watching from a hallway across the street, out of sight. They knew that at least one of the detectives assigned to guard Marilyn Soames was in 486, probably at the rear of the downstairs hall, in the gloom behind the staircase. Another was on MacGayn’s side of the street somewhere.

There was no danger.

No danger at all.

Still, their palms were sweating.

Cazalis strode past the house, glancing in as he passed. The postman was now in the vestibule of 486, slipping mail into the letter boxes.

Cazalis stopped before 490, looking at the number inquiringly. He fumbled in an inner pocket and produced an envelope which he consulted elaborately, glancing from time to time at the house number above the entrance, like a collector of some sort.

The postman emerged from 486, shuffled up the street, turned into 482.

Cazalis walked directly into 486.

Detective Quigley in the hall saw him look over the letter boxes.

He studied Soames box briefly. The paper name plate bore the name Soames and the apartment number 3B. There was mail in the box. He made no attempt to touch the box.

Quigley was having a bad time. The mail was delivered at the same time every morning and it was Marilyn Soames’s habit to come downstairs for it within ten minutes of the regular delivery.

Quigley fingered his holster.

Suddenly Cazalis opened the inner door and walked into the hall.

The detective crouched in the blackest corner behind the stairs.

He heard the big man’s step, saw the thick legs pass and disappear. He did not dare to make the slightest movement.

Cazalis walked up the hall, opened the back door. The door closed quietly.

Quigley shifted his position.

Hesse ran in and joined him under the stairs.

“In the court.”

“Casing it.” Then Hesse whispered, “Somebody coming down the stairs, Quig.”

“The girl!”

She went into the vestibule, unlocked the Soames box.

Marilyn wore an old bathrobe; her hair was in curlers.

She took out the mail, stood there shuffling letters.

They heard the snick of the rear door.

Cazalis, and he saw her.

The men said afterward they expected the Cat case to be written off then and there. The setup was ideal: the victim in the vestibule in a bathrobe, bound to come back into the gloomy hall in a matter of seconds; no one about; the street outside almost deserted; the court for an emergency getaway.

They were disappointed. Hesse said, “Hell, he’d probably have tried to drag her behind the stairs, the way he did O’Reilly over in Chelsea. Where Quigley and I were parked. The crazy bastard must have had a premonition.”

But Ellery shook his head. “Habit,” he said. “And caution. He’s a night worker. Probably didn’t even have a cord along.”

“I wish we had as standard equipment X-ray eyes,” mumbled Inspector Queen.

Cazalis stood there at the end of the hall, pale eyes burning.

In the vestibule Marilyn was reading a letter. Her flattish nose, her cheekbones, chin, were tacked against the glass of the street door.

She stood there three minutes.

Cazalis did not move.

Finally, she opened the inner door and ran upstairs.

The old boards rattled.

Hesse and Quigley heard him let his breath go.

Then Cazalis walked down the hall.

Dejected. Furious. They could tell by the slope of his thick shoulders, the mauls of his fists.

He went out into the street.

He was back after dark, watching the entrance of 486 from a hallway across the street.

Until a quarter of 10.

Then he went home.

“Why didn’t you jump him?” cried Jimmy McKell. “And end this Grand Guignol? You’d have found a cord in his pocket!”

“Maybe we would and maybe we wouldn’t,” said the Inspector. “He’s trying to fix her habits. This may go on for a couple of weeks. She’s a toughie for him.”

“He’d certainly have one of those cords on him!”

“We can’t be sure. We’ll just have to wait. Anyway, an actual attack will put him away. A cord might slip. We can’t risk anything.” Jimmy heard Ellery’s teeth grinding.

Cazalis prowled about the neighborhood all day Wednesday; with the night, he settled down in the doorway across the street again.

But at ten minutes to 10 he left.

“He must be wondering if she ever leaves the house,” said the Inspector that night, when Celeste reported.

“I’m beginning to wonder myself,” rapped Ellery. “Celeste, what the devil is Marilyn doing?”

“Working.” Celeste sounded muffled. “On a rush job for one of her playwright customers. She says she won’t be finished with it till Saturday or Sunday.”

“He’ll go nuts,” said the McKell voice.

No one laughed, least of all the quipster.

Their nightly meetings in the dark had taken on the weightless flow of dreams. Nothing was real but the unreality they watched. They were conscious only occasionally that the City ground and grumbled somewhere below. Life was buried under their feet; they marked time above it, a treadmill experience.

On Thursday he repeated himself. Only this time he gave up at two minutes past 10.

“Later each night.”

Jimmy was fretful. “At this rate, Ellery, he’ll be seeing Celeste leave the house. I won’t have that.”

“He’s not after me, Jimmy.” Celeste was sounding shrill.

“It’s not that,” said Ellery. “It’s the regularity. If he spots Celeste coming out every night at the same time, he may get curious.”

“We’d better change the time, son.”

“Let’s do it this way: Celeste, those third-floor windows are in the Soameses’ front room, aren’t they? The room where Stanley is?”

“Yes.”

“From now on don’t leave until 10:15, and then only under certain conditions. Is your wristwatch accurate?”

“It keeps very good time.”

“Let’s synchronize.” Ellery struck a match. “I have 10:26 exactly.”

“I’m about a minute and a half off.”

He struck another match. “Fix it.” When she did, he said, “From now on be at one of those front windows every night between 10:10 and 10:15. We’ll meet you, starting tomorrow night, somewhere along First Avenue in the immediate neighborhood — tomorrow night let’s make it in front of that empty store near the corner of 30th.”

“We met there Sunday night.”

“Yes. If between 10:10 and 10:15 you see a light flash three times from one of the doorways or alleys across from 486 — we’ll use a pocket pencil flash — that will mean Cazalis has left for the night and you can come down and make your report. If you see no signal, stay upstairs. It will mean he’s still around. If he should leave between 10:10 and 10:25 you’ll get the signal between 10:25 and 10:30. If there’s no signal is those five minutes, he’ll still be around; stay put. We’ll operate on the same system till he leaves. Watch for a signal every fifteen minutes. All night if necessary.”

By MacGayn’s 5 P.M. report Friday Cazalis had still not left his apartment. It puzzled them. He did not leave until dusk. Friday night it was necessary to keep Celeste waiting until 11:15. Ellery flashed the signal himself and trailed her to the rendezvous.

“I thought that flash would never come.” Celeste was white. “He’s gone?”

“Gave up a few minutes ago.”

“I tried to get a call in all afternoon and evening but Stanley was demanding and fidgety today — he’s much better — and Marilyn stuck to her typewriter... He phoned a little after 1 P.M.”

They pressed around her in the dark.

“Paul Nostrum again. Apologized for having stood her up at the Astor, said he was taken sick suddenly and that he’s been laid up till today. He wanted her to meet him... tonight.” Celeste was trying to sound steady. “I’ve been leaping.”

“What did Marilyn say to him?”

“She refused. Said she was all tied up on a special piece of work and he’d have to get somebody else. Then he tried to date her.”

“Go on!” Inspector Queen’s voice was shaky.

“She just laughed and hung up.”

Jimmy drew her away.

“He’s getting impatient, Dad.”

“That maid of his comes back Monday.”

They milled a little.

“Celeste.”

Celeste came back, Jimmy protesting.

“How much did she actually tell him about the work she’s doing?”

“She said she couldn’t possibly be finished before tomorrow night, probably Sunday, and then she’d have to deliver it—” Celeste caught her breath. Then she said in the queerest way, “Deliver it. She did say...”

“This weekend,” said Ellery.

The Saturday sky was overcast; a glum rain fell intermittently on the City all day. It stopped at dusk and a fog settled over the streets.

The Inspector cursed and passed the word around: he did not consider an act of God sufficient for failure to keep their man covered. “If necessary, take chances. But stick with him.” He added, gratuitously: “Or else.”

It was a bad day.

The whole day was bad. During the morning Detective Hesse was seized with cramps. MacGayn put in a hurry call. “Hesse has to knock off. He’s writhing. Step on it, he’s all alone over there.” By the time Hagstrom reached Park Avenue MacGayn was gone. “I don’t know where,” gasped Hesse. “Cazalis came out at 11:05 and walked off toward Madison, MacGayn covering him. Put me in a cab before I foul myself up.” It took Hagstrom over an hour to locate MacGayn and his quarry. Cazalis had merely gone to a restaurant. He returned to his apartment immediately afterward.

But a little past 2 found Cazalis leaving in his working clothes, by way of the court. He headed for East 29th Street.

Then, shortly before 4 o’clock, Marilyn Soames walked out of 486. Celeste Phillips was with her.

The two girls hurried west on 29th Street.

The fog had not yet come down; it was still drizzling. But the sky was threatening to black out.

Visibility was poor.

Cazalis moved. He moved in a glide, very rapidly. His hands were in his pockets. He kept to the opposite side of the street. MacGayn, Hagstrom, Quigley, the Queens, Jimmy McKell followed. Singly, in pairs.

Jimmy kept mumbling. “Is Celeste out of her mind? The fool, the fool.”

The Inspector was mumbling, too. A rather stronger characterization.

They could see Cazalis’s rage. It told in his pace. He would lunge ahead, then walk, then trot, then come to a dead stop. As he followed the girls his head thrust itself forward.

“Like a cat,” said Ellery. “There’s the Cat.”

“She’s out of her mind,” whispered Jimmy.

“She’s out of her mind!” Inspector Queen was close to tears. “We set him up — we set him up all this time. His tongue is hanging out. He’d have tried it in this bad light sure. And she...”

The girls turned into Third Avenue and entered a stationery store. The man in the store began wrapping reams of paper, other articles.

It was growing quite dark.

Cazalis was beyond caution. He stood eagerly in the rain on one of the corners of Third Avenue and 29th Street before a drugstore window. The lights came on as he stood there, but he did not move.

The head was still thrust forward.

Ellery had to hang on to Jimmy’s arm.

“He won’t try anything while Celeste is with her. Too many people on the streets, Jimmy. Too much traffic. Take it easy.”

The girls came out of the store. Marilyn carried a large package.

She was smiling.

They walked back the way they had come.

For a moment, fifty feet from the tenement, it looked as if Cazalis were going to take the plunge. The drizzle had thickened and the girls were running for the vestibule, laughing. Cazalis gathered himself, actually jumped into the gutter.

But a car drove up to the curb before 490 and three men got out. They stood on the opposite pavement, shouting to one another in the rain, arguing hotly about something.

Cazalis stepped back. The girls disappeared into 486. He walked heavily down the street, stepped into a hallway opposite the Soames building.

Goldberg and Young arrived to take over from MacGayn and Hagstrom.

They worked in close, for the fog had descended.

Cazalis lingered all evening, not moving except to change hallways when someone headed for the one he occupied.

Once he chose Young’s, and the detective was within fifteen feet of him for over a half hour.

A few minutes after 11 o’clock he gave up. His bulky figure plunged along in the fog, chin on his breast. They saw him pass from their own observation post near Second Avenue and, a few seconds later, Goldberg and Young.

The three vanished going west.

With some grimness, Inspector Queen insisted on flashing the all-clear signal to Celeste himself.

The meeting place for the night was a dim-walled bar-and-grill on First Avenue between 30th and 31st Streets. They had used it once before; it was crowded, smoky, and mindful of the rights of man.

Celeste came in and sat down without waiting for anything she said, “I couldn’t help it. When she ran out of onionskin second sheets and said she was walking over to Third Avenue for some, I almost died. I knew he wouldn’t dare try anything if somebody was with her. Now give me ten demerits.”

Jimmy glared. “Are you out of your everloving mind?”

“Did he follow us?” She was bloodless tonight, very nervous. Ellery idly noticed her hands. They were cracked and red; her nails were chewed-looking. There was something else about her, too, but it insisted on being elusive.

What was it?

“He followed you,” said the Inspector. Then he said, “Miss Phillips, nothing would have happened to her.” He said, “Miss Phillips, this case has cost the City of New York I don’t know how many tens of thousands of dollars and months of work. Today by acting like an irresponsible moron you undid every last bit of it. We may never get as good a chance again. It could mean not getting him at all. Today he was desperate. If she’d been alone, he’d have jumped. I can’t tell you how put out I am with you. In fact, Miss Phillips, I’m not irreverent when I say I wish to God Almighty I’d never seen or heard of you.”

Jimmy started to get up.

Celeste pulled him down, rested her cheeks on his shoulder. “Inspector, I just couldn’t find the strength to let her walk out into that street alone. What do I do now?”

The old man raised his glass of beer with shaking hands and drained it.

“Celeste.” What was it?

“Yes, Mr. Queen.” Jimmy’s clutch tightened and she smiled up at him.

“You’re not to do that again.”

“I can’t promise that, Mr. Queen.”

“You did promise it.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“We can’t pull you out now. We can’t disturb the status quo. He may try another trick tomorrow.”

“I wouldn’t leave. I couldn’t.”

“Won’t you promise not to interfere?”

Jimmy touched her face.

“This may all be over by tomorrow night. He hasn’t the remotest chance of hurting her. She’s covered, so is he. Let him get that cord out, make one move toward her, and he’ll be jumped by four armed men.

Did Marilyn finish the play she’s typing?”

“No, she was too exhausted tonight. She has a few more hours’ work on it tomorrow. She says she’s going to sleep late, so that means she won’t have it done till late afternoon.”

“She’s to deliver it immediately?”

“The writer is waiting for it. It’s overdue now.”

“Where does he live?”

“The Village.”

“Weather forecast for tomorrow is more rain. It will be dark or almost dark when she leaves the house. He’ll make his pitch either on East 29th Street or in the Village. One day more, Celeste, and we can bury this with the rest of our bad dreams. Won’t you let her go alone?”

“I’ll try.”

What was it?

Inspector Queen snarled, “Another beer!”

“You’re making this awfully tough, Celeste. Did you leave Marilyn all right?”

“She’s gone to bed. They all have. Mr. and Mrs. Soames and Billie and Eleanor are going to church early tomorrow.”

“Good night.” Ellery’s chin angular. “I’d hate to think you let us down.”

Jimmy said, “Cheese it. The aborigine.”

The waiter slapped a beer down before the Inspector. He lisped, “What’s for the lady?”

“Nothing,” said Jimmy. “Remove yourself.”

“Listen, pally, this is a going concern. She drinks, or you do your smooching someplace else.”

Jimmy slowly uncoiled. “Listen yourself, no-brow—”

The Inspector barked, “On your way.”

The waiter looked surprised and backed off.

“Go on back, baby,” crooned Jimmy. “I would have a word or two with our associates here.”

“Jimmy, kiss me?”

“Here?”

“I don’t care.”

He kissed her. The waiter glowered rom afar.

Celeste ran.

The fog swallowed her.

Jimmy got up to lean over the Queens with a bitter expression. He opened his mouth.

But Ellery said, “Isn’t that Young?” He was squinting through the murk.

They jerked about like rabbits.

The detective was in the open doorway. His glance darted along the bar, from booth to booth. There were deep yellowish lines around his mouth.

Ellery laid a bill on their table.

They got up.

Young spotted them. He was breathing through his mouth.

“Now listen, Inspector, listen.” There was sweat on his upper lip. “It’s this goddam fog, you can’t see your hand in front of your face in this goddam fog. Goldberg and I were right on his tail when all of a sudden he doubled back on us. Back east. Back here. Like he got the urge again and decided to make a night of it. He looked crazy-mad. I don’t know if he saw us or not. I don’t think so.” Young inhaled. “We lost him in the fog. Goldie’s out there roaming around, looking for him. I’ve been looking for you.”

“He headed back here and you lost him.”

Inspector Queen’s cheeks were damp and hardening plaster.

Now I remember.

“That checked coat,” said Ellery mechanically.

“What?” said his father.

“She was so upset tonight she put it on instead of her own. He’s loose and Celeste is out there in Marilyn’s coat.”

They tumbled after Jimmy McKell into the fog.