Inspector Queen’s Own Case

2 Creeping Like Snail

Faces kept floating about the steamy room. All the weight had bobbed out of Jessie’s head. It felt taut and airy, like a balloon. In the nightmare she knew with curious certainty that her alarm would go off any minute. She would wake up in a solid world, jump out of bed, listen for the baby’s gurgling, shuffle into the nursery with a bright good morning...

“Sit down, Jessie.”

“What?”

It was miraculously Richard Queen. He was urging her back into the rocker, putting a glass to her dehydrated lips. He had called her Jessie, so it was still the nightmare. Or perhaps the nightmare was turning into a harmless dream.

“Drink it.”

The flow of cold water down her throat awakened her. She saw the room now as it was. The nursery was full of men peering, measuring, talking, weighing, as impersonal as salesmen — state troopers and Taugus policemen and an unshaven man without a tie whom she distantly recalled as having arrived carrying a briefcase.

“Are you feeling better now, Miss Sherwood?” That was Chief Pearl’s rumble.

“It’s just that I haven’t had any sleep,” Jessie explained. What had they been talking about when the room began to swim? She couldn’t remember. All she could remember was Chief Pearl’s bass voice, the enormous mass of him, his drilling eyes.

“All right. You went into the nursery with Mrs. Humffrey, you bent over the crib, you saw the pillow lying on the baby’s face, you grabbed it away, you saw that he had suffocated, and you automatically began to give him first aid, artificial respiration, even though you had every reason to believe he was dead.

“Now think back, Miss Sherwood. How long would you say it took you — starting from your first sight of the pillow over the baby’s face — to get past the shock and snatch that pillow off him?”

“I don’t know,” Jessie said. “It seemed like an eternity. But I suppose it wasn’t more than a second or two.”

“One or two seconds. Then you grabbed the pillow and did what with it?”

Jessie knuckled her eyes. What was the matter with him?

“I tossed it aside.”

“Tossed it where?” the Taugus police chief persisted.

“Toward the foot of the crib.”

The tieless, unshaven man said, “Would you remember exactly where at the foot of the crib the pillow landed, Miss Sherwood?”

They were all touched by the heat, that was it, Jessie decided. As if where it landed made any difference!

“Of course not,” she said acidly. “I don’t think I gave it a glance after I threw it aside. My only thought at that time was to try and revive the baby. I didn’t really think back to what I’d seen on the pillow until a long time afterward. Then it came back to me with a rush, and I realized what it meant.”

“Suppose you tell us once more just what you think you saw on that pillow, Miss Sherwood.” The tieless man said again. Had she imagined someone’s saying he was from the State’s Attorney’s office in Bridgeport?

“What I think I saw?” Jessie flared. “Are you doubting my word?”

She glanced at Richard Queen in her anger, to see if he was on their side after all. But he merely stood over her rubbing his gray stub of mustache.

“Answer the question, please.”

“I know I saw a handprint on the pillow.”

“An actual, recognizable human handprint?”

“Yes! Someone with a dirty hand had placed it on that pillow.”

“What kind of dirt, Miss Sherwood?”

“Kind? How should I know?”

“What color was it? Black? Brown? Gray?”

“I really couldn’t say. Maybe grayish. Like dust.”

“Well, was it grayish, like dust, or wasn’t it?”

“I think it was.”

“You think it was?”

“I’m not sure about the color,” Jessie said tiredly. “How can I be? My impression is that it looked like a dust print. I could be wrong about that, but I don’t think I am. That it was dirt of some kind I’m positive.”

“You say it was as if someone had placed a dirty hand on the pillow,” the tieless man said. “Placed it how, Miss Sherwood? Flat? Doubled up? Partially?”

“Perfectly flat.”

“Where on the pillow?”

“Just about in the middle.”

“Was it a clear impression? That is, could you tell unmistakably that it was a human handprint?”

“Well, it wasn’t really sharp, as I recall it. Sort of blurry — a little smudged. But it couldn’t be mistaken for anything but what it was. The print of a hand.” Jessie shut her eyes. She could see it with awful clarity. “The print was indented. I mean... there had been pressure exerted. Considerable downward pressure.” She opened her eyes, and something happened to her voice. “I mean someone with a filthy hand had pressed that pillow hard over the baby’s face, and kept pressing till he stopped breathing. That’s why I told Mr. and Mrs. Humffrey that Michael had been murdered. At first, as I say, it didn’t register. I saw it, and my brain must have tucked it away, but I wasn’t conscious of it till later. Then I told them to call the police. Why are you asking me these questions? Why don’t you just examine the pillow and see for yourselves?”

“Stand up, Miss Sherwood,” Chief Pearl growled. “Can you stand?”

“Oh, I’m all right.” Jessie got to her feet impatiently.

“Go over to the crib. Don’t touch it. Just take a look at the pillow.”

Jessie was convinced now that it was the treacherous kind of dream where you thought you’d waked up but even that thought was part of the dream. Look at the pillow! Couldn’t they look at it themselves?

Suddenly she felt a reluctance to go to the crib. That was queer, because she had seen death regularly for many years, in a thousand forms. Jessie had feared death only three times in her life, when her parents died and when she received the telegram from the War Department about Clem. So it was love, perhaps, that made the difference... because it was she who had tended his unhealed navel... because it was on her face that he had kept his bright new eyes fixed with such absolute trust while she fed him.

Let him not be there, she prayed.

“It’s all right, Jessie,” Richard Queen’s voice murmured close to her. “The little boy’s been taken away.”

He knew, God bless him.

She walked over to the crib blindly. But then she shook her head clear and looked.

The expensive pillow was at the foot of the crib, one corner doubled over where it lay against the footboard.

The lace-edged pillowcase was spotless.

Jessie frowned. “It must have flipped over when I tossed it aside.”

“Borcher, turn it over for Miss Sherwood,” Chief Pearl said.

The Taugus detective took the lace between thumb and forefinger at one corner and turned the pillow carefully over.

The other side was spotless, too.

“But I don’t understand,” Jessie said. “I saw it with my own eyes. I couldn’t possibly have been mistaken.”

“Miss Sherwood.” The voice of the man from the State’s Attorney’s office was unpleasantly polite. “You would have us believe that you had your attention fixed on this pillow for no more than a second or two, in a room illuminated only by a dim baseboard nightlight, and not only saw a handprint on the pillow, but saw it clearly enough to be able to say that it seemed made by a human hand filthy with dust?”

“I can’t help what you believe,” Jessie said. “That’s what I saw.”

“It would be a feat of observation even if we found the handprint to back it up,” the tieless man said. “But as you see, Miss Sherwood, there’s not a mark on either side of the pillow. Isn’t it possible, in your shock and excitement — and the feeble light in the room — that it was an optical illusion? Something you imagined you saw that never was here?”

“I’ve never had an optical illusion in my life. I saw it just as I’ve described it.”

“You stick to that? You don’t want to reconsider your recollection?”

“I most certainly do not.”

The tieless man seemed displeased. He and Chief Pearl conferred. The old man caught Jessie’s eye and smiled.

Then they went to the window overlooking the driveway, where a man was doing something with some bottles and a brush, and the tieless man looked out and down while the chief said something about an aluminum extension ladder.

“Ladder?” Jessie blinked over at Richard Queen.

He came quickly to her. “Just like that night last month, Jessie. The same ladder, in fact. Didn’t you notice it standing against the wall when you drove into the driveway?”

“I didn’t drive into the driveway. I left my car on the road.”

“Oh, that was your car.” His face said nothing at all.

“Then that’s how that — that monster’s hand got all dirty! The dust on the ladder while he was climbing up.” Jessie was staring at the pillow. “Why didn’t I notice that before?”

“Notice what, Jessie?” He was instantly alert.

“This isn’t the same pillow slip!”

“Isn’t the same as what?”

“As the one I saw that had the handprint on it. Inspector Queen, this is a different slip.”

The old man looked at her. Then he called his friend and the State’s Attorney’s man over.

“Miss Sherwood says she now notices that this isn’t the same pillowcase that had the handprint on it.”

“It isn’t?” Chief Pearl glanced at the tieless man. “That’s an interesting addition to the story, Merrick.”

The tieless man said to Jessie, “How can you tell?”

“The edging — Mr. Merrick, is it? The other slip was edged with a different kind of lace. Both slipcases are made of very fine batiste, but the edging of the other one was Honiton lace, while this, I think, is an Irish crochet. Anyway, it’s not the same.”

“You’re sure of this, Miss Sherwood?” Merrick demanded.

“Positive.”

“Changed,” Richard Queen remarked. “If you accept Miss Sherwood’s story, somebody removed the soiled case from the pillow afterward and substituted this clean one. It’s a break, Abe.”

The big policeman grunted, looking around the nursery. He pointed to what looked like a drawer in the wall near the door. “Is that a laundry chute, Miss Sherwood?”

“Yes.”

He went over to the wall and opened the chute door, trying to peer down. “Where does this lead to?”

“To the laundry in the basement.”

“Who does the laundry here?”

“Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Sadie Smith.”

“Sadie Smith.” Abe Pearl’s heavy brows bunched. “Who’s she? There’s nobody of that name in the house.”

“She’s an outside laundress from Norwalk. She comes in twice a week to do the hand laundry and ironing for the better things. The... baby’s diapers I’ve been doing myself.” Jessie closed her eyes. Friday was one of Mrs. Smith’s days. Tomorrow — today — she would show up, and she would wash and iron those exquisite little garments of Michael’s...

“Tinny, Borcher.” Chief Pearl’s two detectives came over. “Take a couple of men and split up. Look for a pillowcase with a lace edging, a case with a dirty handprint on it. Cover the laundry basement, hampers, linen closets, fireplaces, garbage — the likely ones first. If you don’t find it, tear the place apart.”

People with watery outlines and sounds that mixed and jangled endlessly kept floating in and out of Jessie’s awareness. She knew she had to sit there and hold on to herself in this strange world outside time, or horrible things would happen. Through it all she strained to hear little Michael’s voice, more than ever convinced by the unsubstantial quality of things that it had all happened in a dream, or a film. Sooner or later there would be a snap, the film would break, and the world would be restored to sanity and rightness.

Occasionally she felt Richard Queen’s touch on her shoulder. Once he put his palm to her forehead. His hand felt dry and cool, and Jessie looked up at him. “Please keep it there: It feels good.” But he took it away after a moment, embarrassed.

One of the fragments involved Sarah Humffrey and their attempts to question her. Jessie heard the commotion going on in the master bedroom without much interest. The frantic woman kept screaming that it was all her fault, that she had killed her baby, her blessed baby, she deserved to die, she was a monster, a criminal, let her die, oh her poor innocent baby. The men’s voices came up and through and around her self-accusing aria in discordant counterpoint, her husband’s by turns soothing, mortified, pleading, like a violin twanging the gamut; Dr. Wicks’s snappish and brittle — he’s the oboe, Jessie thought, pleased with her fancy; the insinuating trombone of Merrick, the Bridgeport man, sliding in and out of the conversation; Chief Pearl’s bass horn underscoring the whole crazy fugue. Finally the men came out, the chief and the State’s Attorney’s man bleak with anger at Dr. Wicks, Alton Humffrey almost female in his distress and irritation.

“She’s not a well woman,” the millionaire kept exclaiming in a high excited voice, oddly unlike the voice Jessie knew. “You’ve got to understand that, gentlemen... my wife has never been strong emotionally... hypersensitive... this shocking experience...”

Dr. Wicks snapped, “Mrs. Humffrey is in a dangerous state of emotional agitation. As a matter of fact, her distress is so severe that I doubt whether her judgment can be relied on. I’m speaking as her physician, gentlemen. If you insist on keeping this up, you’ll have to assume the responsibility.”

“I can’t allow it, Mr. Pearl,” Alton Humffrey said, waving his long arms. “I can’t and I won’t, do you hear?”

Abe Pearl glanced at Merrick, and Merrick shrugged.

“I know when I’m licked, I guess,” the chief growled. “All right, Doctor, put her under”; and Dr. Wicks disappeared.

Jessie heard his voice going in the other room, on and on like a go-to-sleep record for insomnia, and the clash of bedsprings as Sarah Humffrey threw herself about. Finally the sobs and shrieks stopped.

Later Jessie became aware of a shift in focus. They were back at her again. The house had been ransacked from basement to attic, it seemed, and the searchers had failed to turn up a pillowslip such as she had described, a lace-edged case with a dirty handprint on it.

Yes, the nightlight in the nursery had been quite dim. But no, she had not been mistaken. There was enough light to see the handprint by.

No, she didn’t wear glasses. Yes, she had 20/20 vision.

No, it couldn’t have been a trick of lighting, a conformation of shadows that just looked like a handprint. It was a handprint. Of a right hand.

“How do you know it was a right hand?”

“Because the thumb part of the print was on the left side.”

Someone laughed, a masculine sound halfway between a chuckle and a snort. Jessie found herself not caring at all.

“Either she was seeing things, or it’s been burned or cut to pieces and flushed down a toilet.”

“What do they have on the Island, septic tanks?”

“No, regular city sewage installations. Emptying into the Sound, like in Taugus.”

“Then we’ll never know.”

“Looks like it.”

They were just voices. But the next one had that precious quality of nearness. Strange how every time he made a sound, even an ordinary sound, she felt safer.

“It’s the big point, Abe,” Richard Queen was saying mildly. “If you don’t mind my horning in—”

“Don’t be a jackass, Dick.”

“It’s the difference between murder and accident. I wouldn’t give up on that pillowcase if I were you.”

“We aren’t even sure it exists!”

“Miss Sherwood is.”

“Hell, Dick, she could be—”

“I don’t think so, Abe.”

The voices drifted off and became a mumble. Jessie was tickled. He’s defending me, she thought gleefully. How kind of him. No one’s ever done that before. Or not for a long, long time. Then she thought: How silly can you get. He knows I’m telling the truth and he’s merely sticking to his point.

The joy went out of Jessie’s thoughts and she sat blankly, dozing.

The voices swept up suddenly, startling her. Chief Pearl sounded harassed.

“Well, what about the ladder, Dick!”

“It confirms the murder theory.”

“It does not. Mr. Humffrey put it there himself. Mr. Humffrey, would you mind telling Inspector Queen how the ladder came to be there?”

The millionaire’s exhausted voice said, “I heard a banging sound from the nursery about ten o’clock. A wind had come up from sea and pulled one of the shutters loose outside the driveway window. I was afraid the noise would wake the baby. I removed the screen, tried to secure the shutter from the nursery, and found I couldn’t reach it. Stallings and Cullum were out — they have Thursday evenings off — so I had no choice but to get the ladder out of the shed, climb up, and fix it myself. Then the baby did wake up, my wife became very nervous, and by the time we got him back to sleep I’d completely forgotten about the ladder. I can’t see that any of this has any relevance.”

“Mr. Humffrey’s right, Dick. The ladder doesn’t mean a thing.”

“It certainly doesn’t disprove murder, Abe. If this was murder, the killer simply came along and used the ladder he found standing here. And Miss Sherwood is so positive about that pillowslip—”

“Dick, for God’s sake, what do you want me to do?”

“Keep looking for the slip till you find it.”

“Mr. Humffrey, did you see a pillowslip with a handprint on it?”

“No.”

“Did you, Dr. Wicks?”

The doctor’s voice said shortly, “I’d have reported it if I had.”

“And about the only thing Mrs. Humffrey said that made sense was that she didn’t see it, either. And she was in the same room, Dick.”

“She was in the doorway,” the familiar voice said. “The footboard of the crib might have limited her range of vision. How about the servants, Abe?”

The big man made a disgusted sound. “The gardener and the chauffeur didn’t pull in till almost 1 a.m. The women know from nothing.”

“Jessie Sherwood against everybody.”

And that was her own voice. What a funny thing to have said. Jessie heard herself laugh, a shrill hoppy sort of laugh that wasn’t like her laugh at all.

Immediately the noises swooped away, leaving silence.

The next thing she knew she was lying on something softly embracing, and Dr. Wicks was forcing her to swallow the bitter contents of a spoon.

After that everything stopped.

Inspector Queen was wandering along the water’s edge when Chief Pearl came tramping down to the Humffrey beach. The sky over the sea was all pearl shell and salmon belly as the dawn turned to day.

“I’ve looked all over for you,” the Taugus policeman bellowed. “What the hell are you doing?”

The old man looked up. “Nothing much, Abe. Just checking to see if a boat mightn’t have beached here last night.”

Abe Pearl stared. “Why a boat?”

“Because he’d have been a fool to try his luck twice at getting past that gatehouse in a car.”

“You mean Frost?” the chief said in an odd tone.

“Who else? But there’s nothing. Tide’s almost all the way in. I should have thought of it when we got here.” He glanced at his friend. “All through at the house?”

“Yeah.”

They went up through the belt of trees side by side in silence, the big man and the small one, an invisible something between them. As they crossed the perfect lawns Chief Pearl spoke to several of his men, who were still searching the grounds.

“Keep looking till I call you off,” he ordered. “Tell the boys in the house ditto.”

They got into the black-and-white police car, and the big man turned on his ignition.

“Talk to that gateman, Peterson?” the old man asked.

“The state troopers talked to him. He didn’t see anything.” Abe Pearl grunted. “Dumb as they come, sure. But on the other hand, Dick, a man can’t see what isn’t there.”

The old man did not reply.

At the gatehouse Chief Pearl crooked his finger at Peterson. Inspector Queen listened quietly.

“All right, Peterson, let’s have it all over again,” Abe Pearl said.

The guard pushed his fleshy lips forward. “I’ll give it to you just once, Chief, then I’m getting the hell off this Island and so help me I’ll never come back! The last car that went through this gate last night before the Humffrey kid was found dead, like I told the troopers, was that Dodge coop belongs to the nurse up there, that Miss Sherwood, who came in around 12.30 a.m. Before Miss Sherwood, there was an incoming car about an hour earlier, some of old Mrs. Dandridge’s servants coming back from the Taugus movies. Before that, around 11 p.m., the Senator’s chauffeur—”

“Did a car drive through at any time since you came on duty, going in or out,” the chief interrupted, “that you didn’t recognize? Had to check?”

“No.”

Richard Queen’s voice startled Peterson. “Did anyone walk through?”

“Huh?”

“Somebody on foot? Going either way?”

“Nope.”

“But somebody could have come through on foot without your seeing him. Isn’t that so?”

“Listen, friend,” Peterson snarled, “this gatehouse is a joke. I got to sit down sometimes. I got to step into the bushes once in a while. I got to feed my face. There’s a hundred ways a guy can get onto this Island without being seen. Go look for your patsy some place else. I’m taking no fall but for nobody.”

“You know, Abe, Peterson’s right,” the old man murmured as they crossed the causeway. “Nair Island is accessible to anyone who wants to go to a little trouble. A rowboat to one of the private beaches at night... a sneak past the gate... a young fellow like Ron Frost could even have swum over from one of the Taugus beaches and got back the same way.”

His friend glanced at him. “You’re dead set that this is murder, Dick, aren’t you? And that the Frost kid pulled it?”

“I’m not dead set on anything. It’s just that I believe Jessie Sherwood saw something on that pillowslip. If it was a handprint she saw, murder is indicated. And if it was murder, young Frost is your hottest suspect.”

“Not any more he isn’t. The report came in while you were nosing around the beach for row-boat tracks. Frost can’t possibly have been on Nair Island last night.”

“Why not?”

“The baby died on the Island between 10.30 p.m. and around half-past midnight. In that two-hour period Ronald Frost was in Stamford, unconscious.”

“Unconscious?”

“He was rushed to Stamford Hospital in an ambulance from a friend’s house on Long Ridge Road about 9 p.m. He was operated on for an emergency appendectomy at 10.07 p.m., and he didn’t come out of the anesthetic till three o’clock this morning.” Abe Pearl grinned as he swung his car into the street of little beach houses. “What do you think of your Nurse Sherwood’s pillowslip yarn now?”

Richard Queen blinked.

His friend pulled up, turned off the motor, and clapped him on the back. “Cheer up, Dick! Do you have to see a murder to make time with the Sherwood number? Take her out like a man!” He sniffed mightily. “I can smell Becky’s bacon from here. Come on, Dick — hot breakfast — few hours’ shuteye—”

“I’m not hungry, Abe,” the old man said. “You go on in. I’ll sit here for a while.”

He sat there for a long time.

Jessie Sherwood braked up to the barrier and honked impatiently for Monty Burns, the day guard, to come out of the gatehouse and pass her through. It was a week after the tragedy, seven days that had dragged like years. The weekend had brought with it the first hurricane of the season; some Nair Island cellars were flooded, and fifteen-foot breakers had weakened the causeway — it was still under repair.

But it would have taken more than a hurricane to keep Nurse Sherwood on the Island that Thursday. The week had been hellish. A dozen times she had regretted giving in to Alton Humffrey’s stiffish request that she stay on to nurse his wife. The big house was too full of the dead baby, and Sarah Humffrey’s antics had Jessie’s nerves at the shrieking point. But what else could I have done? she thought. That Mrs. Humffrey was on the verge of a nervous breakdown Jessie’s professional eye told her quite without the necessity of Dr. Wicks’s warnings. Mea culpa... The inquest and funeral by themselves would have unnerved a healthy woman, let alone a guilt-ridden hysteric.

Her chief recollection of the inquest was of sweaty bodies, goggling eyes, and her own humiliation and anger. They had treated her as if she were some malicious trouble-maker, or a psychopath. By contrast Sarah Humffrey had got off lightly. Alton Humffrey, Jessie thought grimly, had seen to that.

The verdict had been death by inadvertence, an accident. Accident!

And the funeral...

The coffin had been white and woefully tiny. They had tried to keep the time and place secret, but of course there had been a leak, and the pushing, craning crowds... the shouting reporters... that hideous scene in the Taugus cemetery when Sarah Humffrey screamed like an animal and tried to jump into the grave after the little flower-covered coffin...

Jessie shuddered and leaned on the horn. Monty Burns came out of the gatehouse, hastily buttoning his tunic.

She got over the workman-cluttered causeway at last, and she was about to kick the gas pedal when a familiar gray-mustached figure stepped out from under a maple tree into the road, holding up his hand and smiling.

“Morning!”

“What are you doing here?” Jessie asked confusedly.

“Remembered it was your day off, and decided to walk off Beck Pearl’s breakfast in your direction. I’ve been waiting for you. Going anywhere in particular?”

“No.”

“How about going there together?”

“I’d love it.”

He’s got something on his mind, Jessie thought as he got in. She drove slowly north, conscious of the intentness under his smile.

Signs of hurricane damage were everywhere. Between Norwalk and Westport the shore road was still under water in places. Jessie had to detour.

“A sailboat would have been more practical!” Jessie said. “What have you been doing with yourself, Inspector Queen?”

“This and that. You know,” he said suddenly, “when you let your face relax, Jessie, you get pretty as a picture.”

“Do I, now,” Jessie laughed. She was laughing! She scaled her black straw behind her and threw her head back. “Isn’t this breeze scrumptious?”

“Lovely,” he agreed, looking at her.

“It’s making a mess of my hair, but I don’t care.”

“You have beautiful hair, Jessie. I’m glad you keep it long.”

“You like it that way?” Jessie said, pleased.

“My mother’s hair reached to her knees. Of course, in those days no women bobbed their hair but suffragettes and prostitutes. I guess I’m old-fashioned. I still prefer long hair in a woman.”

“I’m glad,” Jessie murmured. She was beginning to feel glad about everything today.

“How about lunch? I’m getting hungry.”

“So am I!” Jessie cried. “Where shall we go?”

They found an artfully bleached seafood place overlooking an inlet of the Sound. They sat behind glass and watched the spray from the still-agitated water trying to get up at them, hurtling from the pilings and dashing against the big storm window almost in their faces. They dipped steamed clams into hot butter, mounds of them, and did noble archeological work on broiled lobster, and Jessie was happy.

But with the mugs of black coffee he said abruptly, “You know, Jessie, I spent a whole day this week in Stamford. Part of it at the Stamford Hospital.”

“Stamford?”

“Part of it at the Stamford Hospital.”

“Oh.” Jessie sighed. “You saw Ronald Frost?”

“Also his hospital admission card, and the doctor who operated on him. Even talked to the people he was visiting when he got the appendix attack. I wanted to check Frost’s alibi for myself.”

“It stands up, of course.”

“Yes. It was a legitimate emergency appendectomy, and from the times involved, Frost couldn’t physically have been on Nair Island when the baby died.”

“Lucky emergency.” Jessie frowned out the window. “For him, I mean.”

“Very,” Richard Queen said dryly. “Because he was the one who made that first attempt on the night of July 4th.”

“He admitted it?” Jessie cried.

“Not in so many words — why should he? — but I’m convinced from what he said and how he said it that he was the man that night, all right. God knows what he thought he was trying to do — I don’t think he knew, or knows, himself. He was drunk as a lord. Anyway, Jessie, that’s that. As far as the murder is concerned, Frost is out.”

Jessie picked up her coffee mug, set it down again. “Are you trying to tell me you don’t think it was murder after all, Inspector Queen?”

He stirred his coffee carefully. “How about dropping this Inspector Queen stuff, Jessie? If you and I are going to see a lot of each other—”

“I didn’t know we were,” Jessie murmured. I’ll really have to go into the ladies’ room and fix my hair, she thought. I must look like the Wild Woman of Borneo. “But of course, if you’d like... Richard...”

“Make it Dick.” He beamed. “That’s what my friends call me.”

“Oh, but I like Richard ever so much better.”

His beam died. “I guess Dick sounds pretty young at that.”

“I didn’t mean that. It has nothing to do with age. Goodness!” Jessie prodded her hair. “And don’t change the subject. Was it or wasn’t it murder? And don’t tell me the coroner’s jury called it an accident!”

“Well, look at it from their viewpoint,” he said mildly. “Your testimony about that dim night-light, for instance. Those couple of seconds you’d mentioned as being the maximum period you had the handprint in view, for another. And on top of that, Jessie, your detailed description of the print. You’ll have to admit, with the pillowslip not produced, it takes a bit of believing.”

Jessie felt tired suddenly.

“I could only testify to what I saw. What happened to that pillowslip?”

“Probably destroyed. Or disposed of in some way.”

“But by whom?”

“By somebody in the house.”

“But that’s ridiculous!” Jessie was appalled.

“If you start from the existence of the handprint, it’s the logical conclusion.”

“But who in the Humffrey house would do a thing like that, Richard?”

He shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Jessie said, “You do believe me, don’t you? Somebody has to...”

“Of course I believe you, Jessie,” he said gently. “And that’s where I’m jumping off from.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had a talk with Abe Pearl last night. Abe’s the salt of the earth, and he was a good big-city cop, but maybe he isn’t as good a judge of character as I am.” He grinned. “Your character, anyway.”

But Jessie did not smile back. “In other words, Chief Pearl has made up his mind not to believe my story, either.”

“Abe’s not prepared to kick up a fuss about a murder when there’s nothing concrete to back it up. And then, of course, the inquest jury did bring in a verdict of accidental death. Put that together with Frost’s alibi for last Thursday night, and you see the spot Abe’s in.”

“What you’re trying to tell me,” Jessie said bitterly, “is that he’s dropping the case.”

“Yes.” Richard Queen rubbed his jaw. “That’s why I informed the Pearls last night that they’d soon be losing their star boarder.”

“You’re going to leave?” And suddenly the spray on the window made an empty sound, and the lobster began to weigh heavily. “Where are you going?”

“Back to New York.”

“Oh.” Jessie was silent. “But I thought you said—”

He nodded wryly. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the case and I’ve decided New York is the place to start an investigation. Somebody has to do something about this business. Abe can’t, the Humffrey’s won’t — who else is there but me? I have nothing to do with myself, anyway.”

Tears sprang into Jessie’s eyes. “I’m so glad. So glad, Richard.”

“In fact...” He was looking at her across the table with the oddest expression. “I was hoping you’d go with me.”

“Me?”

“You could help in lots of ways,” he said awkwardly. He fumbled with his cup.

Jessie’s heart beat faster. Now don’t be foolish, she kept saying to herself. He’s just being kind. Or... after all, what do I really know about him? Maybe...

“I think I’d have to know in what ways, Richard,” she said slowly. “For one thing, I’ve promised to stay on at Nair Island for a while to keep an eye on Mrs. Humffrey—”

“Let Humffrey get another nurse.”

“No, I gave my word.”

“But how long—?”

“Let’s talk about it in the car,” Jessie said abruptly. “If I’m getting into something, I want to know just what it is. Do you mind?”

He leaned forward suddenly and took her hand. “You’re quite a woman, Jessie. Did anyone ever tell you that?”

“And none of your blarney!” Jessie laughed as she withdrew her hand and rose. “I’ll meet you in the car.”

Richard Queen watched her make her way among the empty tables toward the rest rooms. She walks like a young girl, he thought. A young girl...

He signaled the waitress and caught himself staring at his hand.

He pulled it quickly down and out of sight.

In the end, it was Alton Humffrey’s wife who made up Jessie’s mind. The following Tuesday — it was the 16th of August — Sarah Humffrey slipped out of her bedroom while Jessie was in the kitchen fixing a tray, ran down to the Humffrey beach in her nightgown, waded out into the Sound, and tried to drown herself. She might have succeeded if Henry Cullum had not been on the dock tinkering with the engine of the Humffrey cruiser. The white-haired chauffeur jumped in and pulled the hysterical woman out. She was screaming that she wanted to die.

Dr. Wicks put her under deep sedation and spoke to her husband grimly.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to face it, Mr. Humffrey. Your wife is a damned sick woman, and I’m not the doctor for her. She needs specialized help. This obsession of hers that she killed the baby, these hysterical feelings of guilt about the pillow, now an attempt at suicide — I’m over my depth.”

Alton Humffrey seemed all loosened, as if the binder that held him together was crumbling away. Jessie had never seen him so pale and depressed.

“Your wife is on the edge of a mental collapse,” Dr. Wicks went on, blotting the freckles on his bald spot. “In her unstable condition, in view of what happened here, this house is the last place in the world she ought to be. If you’ll take my advice—”

“What you’re trying to tell me, I believe, is that I ought to put Mrs. Humffrey in a sanitarium?”

“Er, yes. I know a very good one up in Massachusetts. In Great Barrington. The psychiatrist in charge has an excellent reputation—”

“And can he keep his mouth shut?” the millionaire said. “This running down into the water business... if the newspapers should get wind of it—”

Dr. Wicks’s lips flattened. “I wouldn’t recommend him otherwise, Mr. Humffrey. I know how you feel about publicity.”

“A psychiatrist, you say?”

“One of the soundest.”

“I’ll have to think about it.” And Humffrey rose with an imperious gesture of dismissal.

The physician was red-faced when he came into the adjoining bedroom for a final look at his patient. He snapped some instructions to Jessie and left.

It was Dr. Wicks’s last visit to Sarah Humffrey.

On Wednesday afternoon Jessie heard the door open and looked up from her patient’s bedside to see Alton Humffrey crooking a bony forefinger at her.

“Can you leave her for a few minutes, Miss Sherwood?”

“I’ve just had to give her another hypo.”

“Come into my study, please.”

She followed him across the hall to the study. He indicated an armchair, and Jessie sat down. He went to the picture window and stood there, his back to her.

“Miss Sherwood, I’m closing this house.”

“Oh?” Jessie said.

“I’ve been considering the move for some time. Stallings will stay on as caretaker. Henry and Mrs. Lenihan will go along with me to the New York apartment. I’m sending Mrs. Charbedeau and the maids back to the Concord house. The best part of the summer is gone, anyway.”

“You’re intending to spend most of your time in New York?”

“All winter, I should think.”

“The change ought to be good for Mrs. Humffrey.”

“Mrs. Humffrey is not coming with me.” His voice was nasally casual. “I’m sending her to a sanitarium.”

“I’m glad,” Jessie said. “She needs sanitarium care badly. I heard Dr. Wicks telling you yesterday about a place in Great Barrington—”

“Wicks.” The narrow shoulders twitched. “In matters as important as this, Miss Sherwood, one doesn’t rely on the Wickses of this world. No, she’s not going to Great Barrington.”

It’s the psychiatry that’s scared you off, Jessie thought. “May I ask which sanitarium you’ve picked out, Mr. Humffrey?” She tried to keep her voice as casual as his.

She thought his long body gathered itself in. But then she decided she had been mistaken. When he turned he was smiling faintly.

“It’s a convalescent home, really — that’s all nonsense about her need for psychiatric treatment. Mrs. Humffrey is in a highly nervous state, that’s all. What she requires is complete rest and privacy in secluded surroundings, and I’m told there’s no better place in the East for that than the Duane Sanitarium in New Haven.”

Jessie nodded. She knew several nurses who had worked there — one, Elizabeth Currie, had been on Dr. Samuel Duane’s nursing staff for eight years. The sanitarium was an elaborate closet for distinguished skeletons, restricted to a rigidly classified clientele at exclusive rates. It was surrounded by a tall brick wall topped with four-foot pickets ending in lance points, and it was patrolled by a private police force.

Exactly the sort of place Alton Humffrey would choose! Jessie thought. Once Sarah Humffrey was safely inside Dr. Duane’s luxurious prison, her husband could relax. Dr. Duane’s guards could smell a reporter miles away.

“When is Mrs. Humffrey leaving?” Jessie asked.

“This evening. Dr. Duane is calling for her personally in a sanitarium limousine, with a nurse in attendance.”

“Has Mrs. Humffrey been told?” At the millionaire’s frown, Jessie added hastily, “The reason I ask, Mr. Humffrey, is that I’ve got to know just how to handle preparing her to go away—”

“I haven’t told her, no. Dr. Duane prefers that I break the news when he’s present.”

“You’ll be going out with her?”

“I don’t know. That will depend entirely on Duane.” His wedge of face lengthened. “You’ll keep all this confidential, of course, Miss Sherwood.”

“Of course.”

He went over to his desk, sat down, and began to write a check. She watched his long white fingers at their deliberate work, the little finger curled in hiding, as secretive as the rest of him.

“I suppose this means,” Jessie said, “that you want me to leave as soon as possible.”

“Oh, nothing like that. You’re entirely welcome to stay on for a few days. The staff isn’t leaving until next week some time.”

“I’m a restless sort, Mr. Humffrey. It’s kind of you, but I think I’ll go tomorrow morning.”

“As you wish.”

He blotted the check carefully and reached over to lay it on the desk near her.

“Oh, but Mr. Humffrey,” Jessie protested. “This is far too much. You’re paid up through last week—”

“I see no reason why you should be penalized by my sudden decision about Mrs. Humffrey,” he said, smiling. “So I’ve paid you for a full week, and I’ve added a little something in appreciation of all you’ve done for Mrs. Humffrey and Michael.”

“A little something.” Jessie shook her head. The bonus was five hundred dollars. “You’re awfully kind, Mr. Humffrey, but I really can’t accept this.”

“Heavens, Miss Sherwood. Why not?” He seemed genuinely surprised.

“Well...” Her hands felt clammy. But she looked straight at him. “Frankly, Mr. Humffrey, I’d rather not be under obligation to you.”

“I don’t understand.” Now his tone was icy.

“It’s hard too...” Jessie stopped. There was no way to say it but to say it. But somehow she could not. “If I felt differently about little Michael, I could take this. As it is, I’d rather not.”

He made it easy for her. “You mean if you felt differently about the cause of his death?”

“Yes, Mr. Humffrey.”

The four whole fingers drummed on the desk, their maimed companion curled tightly. Then he leaned back in his leather chair.

“You still don’t agree it was an accident, Miss Sherwood.”

“It was murder,” Jessie said. “That baby was deliberately and wickedly smothered to death with the pillow in the pillowcase that’s disappeared.”

“But no pillowcase has disappeared.”

“Oh, yes, it has. They just haven’t found it.”

“My dear Miss Sherwood.” His tone was patient. “The case has been thoroughly investigated. The coroner’s jury brought in a verdict of accidental death. The police are satisfied it was an accident, and so am I. How can you set yourself up as the sole dissenting judge?”

“I saw the pillow with the handprint, Mr. Humffrey,” Jessie said quietly. “No one else did.”

“Obviously you were mistaken.”

“I was not mistaken.”

“There’s not a scintilla of evidence — I believe that’s the approved phrase — to back your opinion up.”

“It’s not an opinion, Mr. Humffrey. It’s a fact. I know what I saw.”

“Show me one competent person who agrees with you—”

“Richard Queen.”

Humffrey arched his sparse brows. “Who?”

“Chief Pearl’s friend. He used to be an inspector in the New York police department. He believes me.”

The millionaire shrugged. “These old fellows have nothing to do but poke their noses into other people’s affairs. He was probably retired for senility.”

“He’s only sixty-three, and he’s in complete possession of his faculties, I assure you!” Jessie bit her lip; Humffrey was regarding her with amusement. “Anyway, Inspector Queen agrees with me it was murder, and we’re going to—”

Jessie stopped.

“Yes?” Alton Humffrey no longer looked amused. “You and this man are going to what, Miss Sherwood?”

“Nothing.” Jessie jumped up nervously. “I’ll have to be getting back to Mrs. Humffrey—”

“Miss Sherwood.” He had his hands flat on the desk. For a moment Jessie had the queerest feeling that he was going to spring at her. She remembered having had the same feeling about him once before. “Do you suppose for an instant that if I thought the child was murdered I’d let the case drop?”

“I’m sure I can’t answer that, Mr. Humffrey.” She was actually backing away. When she realized it, she stopped herself. “Please, I must go to Mrs. Humffrey. But I do wish you’d tear up this check and make out another simply for the amount you owe me.”

But his eyes kept bulging and burning. “Don’t you know what that baby meant to me, Miss Sherwood?”

“I’m sure he meant everything to you,” Jessie said desperately. “But... you force me to say this... now that little Michael’s dead you want the whole thing buried, along with his remains. You’d rather see the case written off as an accidental death than involve your family name in a murder case. I don’t understand people like you, Mr. Humffrey. There are some things in this world a lot worse than getting your name bandied about by the common people. Letting a baby killer get off scot free is one of them.”

“Are you finished?” Alton Humffrey said.

“Yes,” Jessie whispered.

“No, wait, Miss Sherwood. Before you go.”

Jessie turned at the door, praying for escape.

“You know my wife’s condition.” The nasal tones dripped venom. “I don’t know what it is you and this man Queen are up to, but if through any act of yours my wife gets worse or my name is exposed to further public humiliation, you will account to me. To me. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly.” Jessie’s throat was dry. “May I go now, Mr. Humffrey?”

“By all means.”

She fled those unwinking pop-eyes, fixed on her like something in a museum.

Ten minutes later Jessie was on the phone, crying. “Richard, please ask Mrs. Pearl if I can come over tonight. I don’t care where I stay. I’ll sleep in my car or bed down on the floor. Anywhere! But I won’t stay in this house another night.”

Inspector Queen was waiting for her on the other side of the causeway in Beck Pearl’s Plymouth. He got out, waving wildly, as Jessie pulled up.

“Jessie! You all right?”

“Oh, Richard, I’m so glad to see you.”

“But what happened?”

“Nothing, really. Mr. Humffrey’s sent his wife to a sanitarium and discharged me, and I’m afraid I let on that you and I weren’t going to let the case drop, and he sort of threatened me—”

“He did, did he?” the old man said grimly.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking of me. I’ve never acted this way before in my life. Mrs. Pearl must be having visions of some hysterical female throwing fits all over her rug—”

“You don’t know Beck Pearl.”

“I’d go back home — I have a little house in Rowayton — but I rented it to some summer people till after Labor Day. I’m so ashamed, Richard. I’ll go to a motel or some place for the night—”

“Becky says if I don’t bring you right over I don’t have to come back myself. You follow me, Jessie!”

In the plain sanity of the Pearls’ little beach cottage Jessie felt safe for the first time in weeks. Mrs. Pearl looked into her eyes and smiled approvingly at Richard Queen, and Chief Pearl blundered about making her feel as if she were an honored guest.

“You’re not really an ogre after all, Mr. Pearl,” Jessie told him. “Do you know I was afraid of you?”

The big man glanced guiltily at his wife.

“Did he bully you?” Beck Pearl looked at her husband.

“I’ll get your bag out of your car, Miss Sherwood.” Abe Pearl went out hurriedly.

“Put it up in Richard’s room, Abe!”

“Mrs. Pearl, I won’t hear of it—”

“You’ll have Richard’s room, Abe and Richard will sleep in our room, and I’ll take the daybed down here. It’s the most comfortable bed in the house.”

“Oh, no—”

“That’s the way it’s going to be,” Mrs. Pearl said firmly. “Now I’m going to fix you and Richard some supper. Then Abe and I are going to the movies...”

When the Pearls were gone, Jessie said softly, “You’re lucky to have such friends, Richard.”

“You like them.”

“They’re absolute darlings.”

“I’m glad,” he said simply. “Now you tackle this casserole, or Becky will feel terrible. Abe says she can do more things with clams than a Siwash Indian.”

Afterward, Jessie washed the dishes in Beck Pearl’s tiny kitchen and Richard Queen dried them and put them away, while he told her about his summer with the Pearls and never once referred to what had brought her flying to him. Jessie listened mistily. I mustn’t feel so happy about this, she kept thinking. I’ll just build myself up to another letdown, the way I did with Clem... It was hard to keep from comparing them, hard and unfair. It had been so many years ago. Clem had been so much younger — tall and self-sufficient, with quick surgeon’s fingers and his eyes always tired-looking. Thinking about him even now, when he had been dead such a long time, Jessie felt her pulse quicken... This, this was so different. Working over a kitchen sink and drainboard side by side. She couldn’t visualize herself doing that with Clem. Clem had meant excitement, a life of high spots and crises, and long stretches of loneliness. This quiet man, with his fine-boned face and gray brush of mustache, his reserve of strength and knowledge about ordinary people — it was hard to think of anything they couldn’t do together, the everyday little things that made up a life. And she could be very proud of him, she knew that instinctively. Proud and complete... I mustn’t let myself run on this way! Jessie thought despairingly.

“You’re tired,” Richard Queen said, looking at her. “I think, Jessie, I’m going to send you to bed.”

“Oh, no,” Jessie cried. “I’m enjoying this so much. I want to tell you everything that’s happened in the past few days, Richard. Please.”

“All right. But just for a few minutes. Then up you go.”

He put the dish towel over the towel bar to dry, and they went into the little living room. He sat her down in the most comfortable chair, lit her cigarettete for her, and listened noncommittally while she told him about Sarah Humffrey’s suicide attempt and the substance of her conversation with Alton Humffrey. He made no comment beyond, “He’s a queer duck, all right,” and then he said, “Time’s up, Miss Sherwood.”

“But aren’t we going to talk about your plans?”

“Not tonight.”

“Then how about mine?”

He laughed. “I’ve made six-foot police sergeants shake in my time, but I guess I’ll never learn how to handle a woman. All right, Jessie, shoot.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“I know that.”

“You don’t!” Jessie said, piqued.

“I’m not flattered,” he said dryly. “I didn’t do it. It’s Alton Humffrey who’s made up your mind.”

“Well, it’s true I don’t like to be threatened,” Jessie said, pinching her skirt down, “but that’s not the only reason.”

“The baby.”

“And other reasons.”

The old man looked at her searchingly. “It might not be a picnic, Jessie.” He got up suddenly and began to walk about. “In fact, I’m wondering if I haven’t let you in for something risky out of plain selfishness. This is a very peculiar case. Why was the baby murdered? While Frost was a suspect, with his inheritance motive, it made some sort of crazy sense. With Frost eliminated, the Humffrey fortune doesn’t seem to be involved. So the motive must lie in a different direction. Do you see a lead, Jessie?”

“I’ve thought about it, too,” Jessie said quietly. “The only thing I can think of is that it must be connected with Michael’s adoption.”

“Ah,” the Inspector said, and he sat down again, eagerly. “You saw that. Where does it take you, Jessie?”

“It may have something to do with the real parents. You know, Richard, neither side knows who the other side is. The whole adoption was handled by a lawyer acting for both sides.”

He nodded. “A lawyer named A. Burt Finner. That was his name, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Do you know him?”

“I know of him. He’s a clever shyster who specializes in black-marketing babies for people who either can’t swing a legitimate adoption or for some reason would rather handle it under the counter. If Humffrey’s had dealings with him, it’s probably because Finner guarantees no trouble and no publicity. The important thing, Jessie, is that Finner knows the real parentage of that baby. So that’s where we start.”

“With Finner?”

“With Finner.”

“But if the real parents don’t know who got Michael—”

“One step at a time,” Richard Queen said. “We’ll go into the city in the morning. Meanwhile, you’re going to bed.”

He got up and took her hand.

Jessie giggled. “You make me feel like a little girl. Don’t I have any say about things like where I’m going to stay?”

“Not a word,” he said firmly. “You’re staying at my apartment in town.”

“Inspector Queen,” Jessie murmured. “I’m going to do no such thing.”

Even his neck reddened. “I mean I’ll go to the Y or some place. Ellery isn’t due back from abroad for a long time yet—”

“Silly. I’m hardly at the age when I’m worried about my reputation.” Jessie giggled again, enjoying his embarrassment. “But I wouldn’t dream of putting you out of your own home.”

“I’d come up every morning and have breakfast with you—”

“No, Richard,” Jessie said softly. “I have loads of friends in New York, nurses who live alone in little apartments and don’t particularly like it. But... thank you. So much.”

He looked so forlorn that Jessie impulsively squeezed his hand. Then she ran upstairs.

For some reason he felt very good suddenly. He walked about the cottage with long strides, smiling at his thoughts and occasionally glancing at the ceiling, until the Pearls came home.

Jessie spent nearly an hour Thursday morning on the telephone, running up New York City toll calls.

“I’m in luck,” she told Richard Queen. “Belle Berman, she’s a supervisor I know, wants me to move right in with her. And Gloria Sardella, a nurse I took my training with, is leaving tomorrow on her vacation. She’s going on a six-week cruise, and she’s offered me her apartment.”

“Where are the two places?”

“Belle’s down in the Village — West 11th Street. Gloria’s place is on 71st Street off Broadway, in a remodeled walk-up.”

“The Sardella apartment,” he said promptly.

“That’s my thought, because I’ll get Gloria to sublet it to me for whatever her rent is, whereas Belle wouldn’t hear of my sharing expenses.” Jessie looked at him. “What’s your reason, Richard?”

“Geography,” he said sheepishly. “I’m on West 87th. We’d be less than a mile apart.”

“You want to watch this man, Jessie,” Beck Pearl said. “He’s a regular wolf.”

“Don’t I know it!”

He mumbled something about having to pack, and beat a retreat.

Jessie phoned her friend again to arrange for her stay in the West 71st Street apartment, paid for the calls over Mrs. Pearl’s protests, and at last they were off in Jessie’s car, Beck Pearl waving from her doorway like a happy relative.

“She’s such a lamb,” Jessie said, turning into the Taugus road that led to the Merritt Parkway. “And so is Abe Pearl. Do you know what he said to me this morning before he left?”

“What?”

“He said you were a changed man since — well, since the Fourth of July. He seemed tickled to death, Richard. The Pearls have been very worried about you.”

He seemed flustered and pleased. “A man needs an interest in life.”

“Yes. This case—”

“Who’s talking about the case?”

“You know, I do believe you are a wolf!”

They chattered happily all the way into New York.

Jessie had decided to take her coupé into the city because Richard Queen had no car, and his son’s car was in summer storage. “What good is an assistant without a car?” she had said. “It isn’t as if you still had a police driver at your disposal, Richard. My jalopy may come in handy.”

“All right, if you’ll let me pay the garage bills.”

“Richard Queen. Nobody pays my bills but me!”

They stopped at the old brownstone on West 87th Street to drop his bags. Jessie got one whiff of the Queen apartment and threw the windows wide. She aired the beds, inspected the kitchen with horror, and began opening closets.

“What are you looking for?” he asked feebly.

“Fresh linen, a vacuum cleaner. You have to sleep here tonight! Who takes care of your apartment, anyway?”

“A Mrs. Fabrikant. She’s supposed to have come in once a week—”

“She hasn’t stuck her nose in this place for two months. You go on — make your phone calls, or whatever you have to do. I’ll make your bed and straighten up a bit. First chance I get I’ll do a thorough housecleaning. Imagine your son coming home to this!”

He retreated to Ellery’s study with a warm feeling. He did not even think about the blank space on his bedroom wall, where his direct line to Headquarters used to be.

When he went back to the bedroom he found Jessie moaning. “It’s hopeless. Take hours to do just this room properly.”

“Why, it looks as clean as a hospital room,” he exclaimed. “How’d you do it so fast?”

“Well, you’ll be able to sleep here without getting cholera, but that’s about all,” Jessie grumbled. “Fast? A nurse does everything fast. Did you get that man Finner?”

“Finally, after about a dozen calls. He’ll be in all afternoon, he said. I didn’t fix a time, Jessie, because I don’t know how long you’ll take getting settled.”

“Forget about me. I can’t get into Gloria’s place until four-thirty or a quarter of five, anyway. She’s on an eight-to-four case.”

“But she’s going away tomorrow!” he said, astonished.

“Nurses don’t live like people. Let me wash some of this grime off, and I’ll be right with you to tackle Mr. Finner.”

“You’re going to tackle some lunch at the Biltmore first. With cocktails.”

“Oh, wonderful. I’m hungry as a wolf.”

“I thought I was the wolf,” he said gaily.

“There are she-wolves, aren’t there?”

He found himself whistling like a boy to the homey sound of splashing from the bathroom.

The building was on East 49th Street, an old-timer six stories high with a clanky self-service elevator. His name was on the directory in the narrow lobby: Finner, A. Burt 622.

“Jessie, let me do most of the talking.”

“As if I’d know what to say!” Then Jessie thought of something. “I wonder, Richard...”

“What about?” he asked quickly.

“When we drove out to that rendezvous near Pelham the morning we picked up the baby, Finner drove right up behind where we were parked. I’d gone along to take charge of the baby. Finner may recognize me.”

“Not likely, but I’m glad you remembered to tell me.” He looked thoughtful. “All right, we’ll use it just on the chance. And, Jessie.”

“Yes?” Her heart was beginning to thump.

“It’s going to cut some corners for us if Finner thinks I’m still with the Department. Don’t act surprised if I make like a police officer.”

“Yes, sir,” Jessie said meekly.

Six-twenty-two was on the top floor at the other end of the corridor from the elevator. The corridor had dirty tan walls, and there was a smell of old floor polish and must.

The old man smiled at her, then suddenly opened the door.

A. Burt Finner half rose behind the desk in the small office, scowling.

“Come in, Miss Sherwood,” Richard Queen snapped. “It’s all right, he won’t bite you. He’s an old dog at this game, aren’t you, Finner?”

Jessie stepped into the office gingerly. She did not have to act scared. She was.

The fat man crashed back in his swivel chair. As far as Jessie could recall, he was wearing the same wrinkled blue suit and sweaty white shirt he had driven up in that morning near Pelham. The dingy office was stale with his odor. There was nothing in the room but a burn-scarred metal desk, a sad-looking imitation leather chair, a costumer leaning to one side with a dirty felt hat hanging from it, an old four-unit filing cabinet with a lock, and the swivel chair creaking under Finner’s weight. No rug, nothing on the walls but a large calendar put out by a baby foods company showing a healthy-looking infant in a diaper. The blind on the single window was limp and streaked. The walls were the same grubby tan shade as the corridor, only dirtier.

Richard Queen shut the door, took Jessie by the arm, and steered her over to the unoccupied chair.

“Have a seat, miss,” he said. He looked coldly at the fat man. “Now.”

“Wait a minute.” A. Burt Finner’s little pale-blue eyes went from Jessie to the old man and back to Jessie. He seemed puzzled. My face looks familiar to him, Jessie thought, but he can’t place it. She wondered why she was so nervous. He was just a fat man, not at all dangerous-looking. Maybe it’s his professional relations with women, she thought. He doesn’t leer; he’s seen it all. “What is this? Who are you people?”

“I phoned you two-three hours ago,” the old man said. “Remember the $64,000 word I dropped, Finner?”

“What word?”

“Humffrey.”

The moon face widened. “Oh, yes. And I told you I didn’t know what you were talking about.”

“But to drop in, anyway, you’d be here all afternoon.” Richard Queen stared at him with contempt. “Well, here we are, Finner. You’re up to your fat face in real jam this time, aren’t you?”

“Who are you?” Finner asked slowly.

“The name is Queen.” He brought out a small flat leather case and flipped it open. A gold shield glittered for a moment in the sunshine struggling through the dusty window.

Finner blinked.

The old man put the case back in his pocket.

“Inspector’s shield,” Finner said. “Well, well, this is a real pleasure, Inspector. And this lady is—?”

The pale eyes turned on Jessie again. Jessie tried not to fumble with her skirt.

“Don’t you recognize her, Finner?”

“No.” The fat man was worried. He immediately broke into a smile. “Should I, Inspector?”

“I’d say so,” Inspector Queen remarked dryly, “seeing that she’s the baby nurse who was in the Humffrey car that day.”

“What car, what day, what baby?” Finner asked amiably. “And that about somebody named Humffrey. I don’t know anybody named Humffrey.”

“Counselor, you and I will get along a lot chummier if you cut out the mullarkey and start recollecting your sins. Miss Sherwood, is this the man you saw pull up behind the Humffrey limousine on a deserted back road near Pelham on Friday morning, June 3rd, behind the wheel of a Chewy, and hand over to Mr. Alton K. Humffrey of Nair Island, Connecticut, a blue blanket wrapped around a week-old baby?”

“That’s the man, Inspector Queen!” Jessie said shakily. She wondered if she ought to point at the fat lawyer, the way they did in movie courtrooms, but she decided against it.

“The lady is mistaken.” Finner beamed, and cleared his throat. “She never saw me in any such place at any such time doing any such thing.”

“How can you lie like that?” Jessie cried indignantly. “I saw you with my own two eyes, and you’re not exactly an ordinary-looking man!”

“I’ve built a whole career, miss,” the fat man remarked, “on being just that. However, my memory could be failing. Got anything else to give it a jab, Inspector? Like, say, a corroborating witness?”

“Three, Finner,” Inspector Queen said, as if he were enjoying himself. “Mr. and Mrs. Humffrey are two, and their chauffeur — white-haired party with rosy cheeks — he’s the third.”

“The chauffeur driving the Humffrey car that morning, you mean?” Finner said reflectively.

“That’s right.”

“But how do you know he’d corroborate this lady’s identification, Inspector? I don’t see him here.”

“Well, we can soon find out. Mind if I use your phone?”

Finner said, “Skip it.” He sucked his rubbery lower lip, frowning, then swiveled to clasp his hands behind his overlapping folds of neck and stare out the window. “Supposing I was weak-skulled enough to admit having been there that day,” he asked the window, “then what, Inspector?”

Jessie glanced at Richard Queen. But he shook his head.

“You mean, Finner, what do I have?”

“Put it any way you want.”

“Well, it’s like this. You work deals with an angle. You specialize in unmarried mothers. You shop around for a buyer, you arrange for the girl to give birth in a hospital under a false name, with a phony background, you pay the girl — with the buyer’s money — and you take possession of the baby when the mother is discharged from the hospital. Then you turn the baby over to your buyer, collect the balance of your fee, probably furnish a forged birth certificate, and you’re ready for the next client. It’s a sweet racket, Finner, and the sweetest part of it is that everybody involved has a vested interest in protecting you. You see, I’ve been looking you up.”

“I haven’t heard a thing,” Finner said, still to the window, “and I’m listening with both pink ears.”

“I’m not passing judgment on the dirty way you earn those fins you scatter around the night spots, Finner,” Richard Queen said. “Some day the boys are going to prove it on you. But if it’s the black-market baby rap you’re worrying about, right now I’m not interested in you at all. I’m after other game.”

“What do you mean?” Finner spun about so suddenly the spring under his chair squealed.

“You’re going to tell me who the Humffrey baby’s real parents are.”

Finner stared at him. “Are you kidding?”

“Tell me, Finner,” the old man said.

Jessie held her breath.

The fat man laughed. “Even supposing this junkie jive you been popping around the premises were the McCoy, Inspector — and I’m not admitting a goddam thing — why should I tell? An operator in a racket like that — I’m told — works on a confidential basis. Run off at the tonsils and you’re out of business. You know that.”

“I know you’re in this up to your top chin, Finner,” Richard Queen smiled. “Of course you know the baby’s dead.”

“Dead, uh?” Finner squinted along the top of his desk and hunched down to blow some dust off. With fascination, Jessie watched his fat lips working. “Seem to recall reading about some baby named Humffrey up in Connecticut being found suffocated in his crib. Was that the same baby you’re trying to hook me up to, Inspector?”

“That’s the one.”

“Tough. I got a soft spot for kids. Got three of my own. But so what? It was an accident, wasn’t it?”

“It was a murder, Finner.”

Finner’s bulk came up like a whale surfacing. “The hell you say. I read the papers, too. Coroner’s jury brought in a verdict of accidental death. The case is closed. What you trying to pull on me, Inspector?”

“It was a murder, Finner.”

Finner swallowed. He picked up a steel letter-knife from his desk, made as if to clean his fingernails, put the knife down again.

“New evidence?”

Richard Queen said nothing. He merely kept looking at the fat man’s fat hands.

Finner’s hands vanished below the level of the desk.

“Look, Inspector,” he said rapidly. “You got me on something of a spot here. Without incriminating myself in any degree, you understand, maybe I can get some information for you. About the kid’s real parents, I mean. One of my contacts might...”

“I don’t care what you call yourself, Counselor. I want those names.”

“Tell you what. What’s today? — Thursday. Maybe I can do even better for you, Inspector. I’m not promising, see, but maybe.”

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe my contact can get them right here in my office for you.”

The old man’s lips drew back. “That would be just dandy, Finner. When?”

“Say this Saturday. That’s the 20th. Four p.m. okay with you?”

“When the building’s empty, eh? Nothing like a deserted office building for a little get-together, I always say.”

“With me murder is strictly sucker.” Finner was breathing noisily. “If I pull this off for you, Inspector, no cross-up? I got your word?”

“No deals, Finner. But co-operation never hurt anybody.” Richard Queen looked down at Jessie Sherwood. “That’s it, Miss Sherwood. Thanks for the make.”

“The make?” Jessie said, bewildered.

“The identification.” He poked her to her feet. “You come through for me Saturday afternoon, Finner.”

Finner nodded sadly.

Jessie phoned Richard Queen Friday morning from Gloria Sardella’s apartment to say that she would be busy all day getting her friend off on the cruise and herself settled. When he pressed her to meet him for dinner Jessie hesitated, then asked him to phone her later in the day. He called promptly at five o’clock and she said she was so fagged she would be poor company. She was going to make a sandwich and go to bed. Did he mind very much?

“Seems to me I haven’t seen you for years,” he complained.

Jessie laughed uncertainly.

“It’s been a long day, and it’s going to be a longer evening,” he said. “At least let me take you to breakfast tomorrow morning.”

“Make it lunch,” Jessie said, “and it’s a date... I admit I’m a little nervous about tomorrow, Richard. Maybe having to shake the hand that pressed the pillow over Michael’s little face...”

“Not much chance of that.”

“What do you mean? Finner said—”

“I know what Finner said,” he retorted. “That guff about getting them down to his office Saturday was a stall. Finner wants time to put the screws on them, see what information he can squeeze out of them.”

“But if he doesn’t produce them tomorrow—”

“He’ll either produce them or he’ll produce their names. In the end, A. Burt Finner will protect A. Burt Finner. What time tomorrow, Jessie?”

“Make it one-ish.”

“That late?” He sounded dismayed.

“Why, your appointment isn’t until four o’clock. How many hours do you usually take for lunch?”

He hung up, feeling deserted. He had spent most of the day down at Centre Street, wandering into the Squad Room, leafing through recent copies of General Orders to see who had been cited, commended, promoted — gabbing with old cronies in the Central Office bureaus and squads in the Annex at the corner of Broome Street. They had been glad to see him, but he had come away miserable. Friday was the working officer’s busiest day of the week, and he had had the sickening feeling that he was in the way.

The Queen apartment was no sanctuary. It seemed to him dull and empty.

What did men on the shelf do with their days and nights? the old man wondered. How many newspapers could you read? How many movies could you see? How many hours could you spend on a Central Park bench watching cooing humans and pigeons? How long could you hang around men you’d worked with who were still active, before you got into their hair and they began to show it?

Richard Queen went to bed Friday night at a quarter past nine, wishing fiercely it were four o’clock Saturday afternoon.

He muttered: “Now I don’t know what I’m going to run into. You remember what I told you.”

“But why can’t I go in with you, Richard?” Jessie whispered.

“We’re tangling with a lot of unknowns. The chances are Finner’s in there all alone, but a detective’s life is full of surprises.”

“I’m some assistant,” she said disconsolately.

“You listen to me, Jessie. I’ll go in and you’ll wait here at the end of the hall. Keep the cage slide open so the elevator can’t get away from you, just in case. If I think it’s all right, I’ll signal you from the doorway. Otherwise stay out of sight. If you hear anything that sounds like trouble, get out quick.”

“You just watch me!”

“You hear me, Jessie?”

“You’d better go.”

“You won’t forget?” He looked up the corridor. “If you got hurt, Jessie, I’d never forgive myself.”

“Funny,” Jessie said with a shaky laugh. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

He stared at her. Then he grinned, pressed her hand, and walked quickly up the hall.

She saw him stop before 622, put his ear to the door. After a moment he straightened and knocked. He immediately tried the door. It gave, and he went in.

The door did not close at once.

But then, suddenly, it did.

The office building made a pocket of silence in the noisy world.

The door stayed closed.

Now don’t be a goop, Jessie told herself. This is the kind of thing he’s done all his life. He couldn’t have become a veteran police officer without learning how to handle violence. Anyway, there’s nothing to be afraid of. The fat man is certainly harmless; he’d run like a rabbit rather than risk his skin. The other... the others, whoever they are... they’re probably more scared right now than I am.

But her heart kept galloping.

He’d been so awkwardly high-spirited when he called for her at Gloria’s, and over lunch. Like a boy on a heavy date. And looking so spruce. He’d pressed his suit and his tan-and-white shoes gleamed. And he’d shown up with a corsage of mignonette for her.

“The florist thought I was crazy,” he had said, embarrassed. “Seems nobody buys mignonette for corsages any more. But I remember how my wife used to love it...”

She had not had the heart to tell him that the greenish mignonette was just the wrong thing for the green linen suit she was wearing. Or that a woman wasn’t necessarily thrilled by being given flowers loved by a dead wife, even one dead thirty years. She had exclaimed over the corsage while pinning it on, and then she had gone into Gloria’s bedroom and changed her hat, with which the mignonette clashed, too.

The trouble is, Jessie thought, it isn’t really me. It’s just that he’s rediscovered the world of women.

In the solitude of Gloria Sardella’s two disordered rooms yesterday, the dismal thought had come to her like a headache. Any woman could have done it. Any woman could still do it. Any other woman...

What was going on in there?

Jessie strained. But she could hear nothing except the tumult of the 49th Street traffic.

She had spent a miserable day and night examining herself. How could she have maneuvered herself into a sublet apartment in New York... New York, which she loathed!... into an adventure with a man she hardly knew? And that call from Belle Berman — “What’s this I hear about you and some man, Jessie?” Gloria, of course, who had met him Thursday after the visit to Finner’s office. And Gloria’s probing afterward... Endlessly Jessie had debated phoning him to say it was all a mistake, they were both too old for this sort of thing, let’s part good friends and I’ll go back to my bedpans and catheters and you to sunning yourself on a beach...

Oh, I oughtn’t to be here! Jessie told herself. I ought to be coming onto a maternity case, checking the chart, being oh so cheery to Mrs. Jones, wondering if my feet will hold out till the midnight relief while she yakkety-yaks about her nine hours of labor and how she’ll make that husband of hers pay through the nose for what she’s been through...

He was in the hall.

Jessie started. She hadn’t even heard the door of 622 open.

He was standing in the hall and he was beckoning to her.

Jessie hurried to him.

He was all tightened up, careful. His eyes had a tight careful look, too. He had the door open no more than an inch, his hand on the knob holding it that way.

“Yes, Richard?” Jessie whispered breathlessly. “It’s all right for me to go in?”

“That depends on you, Jessie.” Even his voice was on the alert. “On how much you can take.”

“What? Isn’t Finner in there?”

“He’s in there, all right. He’s dead.”