The Chinese Orange Mystery

The Man from Paris

Miss Irene Sewell, alias Llewes, came swiftly into her apartment at two o’clock in the morning, humming a waltz. She did not look like a woman who had spent several hours under the searching scrutiny of the police.

Under her arm she carried a small package done up in brown paper.

“Lucy!” she called gaily. “Lucy!” Her voice echoed through the sitting-room. But there was no answer, and with a shrug she let her mink coat slip to the floor and glided into the living-room. She turned on the light, still humming, and looked about with a slow sweep of her remarkable brown eyes. The hum ceased abruptly. An expression of suspicion disturbed her large beautiful features. A sixth sense told her subtly that something was wrong. What it was she could not conceive, and yet... Her eyes blazed, and she strode forward and yanked open the bedroom-door and snapped on the light.

Mr. Ellery Queen sat smiling in the plush chair facing the door, his legs comfortably crossed. At his elbow lay an ashtray overflowing with butts.

“Mr. Queen! What’s the meaning of this?” she demanded in her throaty voice.

“Good entrance, Miss Llewes,” said Ellery cheerfully, getting to his feet. “I mean the business. The speech wasn’t so good. Hackneyed, don’t you think?”

“I asked you,” she said sharply, “what you’re doing in my bedroom at this hour of the morning!”

“Implying, I trust, that at an earlier hour you would have no objection whatever? Thank you...” He stretched his lean arms and yawned politely. “That was a long wait, Miss Llewes. I was beginning to believe that you’d found my father a positively enchanting host.”

She clutched the back of the nearest chair, her mask stripped off. The bundle was still under her arm. “Then it was a trick,” she said slowly. “He returned Kirk’s jewels to me and kept asking me questions...” Her eyes travelled over the furniture, probing for signs of disturbance. They widened a little when she saw that the lowest drawer of the vanity was open. “Then you’ve found it,” she said with bitterness.

Ellery raised his shoulders. “Very clumsy, my dear. I should think that a woman of your experience would have chosen a more subtle hiding-place. Yes, I’ve found it; and that’s why I’ve waited in this damnably sleepy chair.”

She advanced toward him with oddly uncertain steps, as if she did not quite know what to do or say. “Well?” she murmured at last. Her peculiar progress was taking her in a sidling way to the vanity.

“The .22 isn’t there any more,” said Ellery, “so you may as well sit down, Miss Llewes.”

She went a little paler, but she said nothing and obediently turned and went to the chaise-longue, upon which she sank in a tired way.

Ellery began to pace the rug thoughtfully. “The time has come — to paraphrase the immortal Walrus — to discuss fundamentals. You’ve been playing a dangerous game, my dear. Now you’ve got to pay the price.”

“What do you want of me?” she asked huskily; there was no defiance in her voice.

Ellery cocked a shrewd eye at her. “Information. Explanation... I must say I’m inexpressibly astonished, even a little disappointed in you, Irene. No resistance beyond that instinctive groping toward the little .22? Tch, tch. I suppose you’ve decided that submission is the better part of conflict.”

“What can I say?” She leaned back, and the folds of her evening gown draped her in long clean curves. “You’ve won. I’ve been stupid. Voila!”

“Much as it goes against the gentleman in me,” murmured Ellery, “I must agree with you. You’ve not only been stupid, Irene, but criminally stupid. To keep those letters so carelessly in your bedroom! Why didn’t you put them in the wall-safe?”

“Because the wall-safe or any safe is the first place people examine,” she replied with an unnatural smile.

“The Dupin principle, eh?” Ellery shrugged. “And then, too, people like you place too great reliance upon firearms. I suppose you thought the .22 was protection enough.”

“I usually,” she murmured, “carry it in my bag.”

“But tonight, of course, you left off the lethal jewelry for purposes of your visit to Headquarters. Quite so. Perhaps I’ve been hasty in my judgment, Irene... Well, my dear, it’s late; and much as I enjoy the intimate nature of this tête-à-tête, I should relish sleep more. Why,” he snapped suddenly, “did you change your name to Llewes from Sewell?”

“It seemed an interesting surname,” she said brightly.

“I suppose you realize that Llewes is Sewell spelled backwards?”

“Oh, that. Of course. That was how...” She sat up in alarm. “You don’t mean — you don’t think—”

“What I mean or think, dear lady, is inconsequential. I’m just a cog in the machine.”

“But it happened so long ago — years ago,” she faltered. “I assure you there wasn’t — there couldn’t be the slightest connection between the name and the—”

“That remains to be seen. Now, Miss Llewes, to get down to business. I’ve found those letters and the copy of the certificate. It’s unnecessary for me to point out that your little game has been played, and that you’ve lost.”

“Possession of those — isn’t documents the technical word, Mr. Queen?” she murmured with a sudden sparkle in her eyes — “merely establishes the proofs, you know. But you can’t eradicate from my brain the knowledge of what happened, you see. And it’s quite evident that Mr. Donald Kirk is anxious that I keep quiet. What do you say to that?”

“Awakening resistance,” chuckled Ellery. “Wrong again, my dear. Your word — the word of a woman with a long criminal record — wouldn’t stand for an instant against mine if I should testify that I found these papers in your possession. And Kirk, knowing you no longer possess them, will be willing to testify in his turn that you blackmailed him. So—”

“Oh,” smiled the woman, rising and stretching her long white arms, “but he won’t, d’ye see, Mr. Queen.”

“Resistance stretches. I apologize for the accusation of stupidity. You mean, I presume, that with or without the papers in your possession, Kirk’s only concern is to keep you silent, and that if it came to a matter of arrest and trial he couldn’t prevent your telling the story in open court?”

“How clever you are, Mr. Queen.”

“Now, now, no flattery. But let me point out in rebuttal,” said Ellery dryly, “that if it does come to a showdown in court, the story must come out anyway. And since it must come out and Kirk will be powerless to prevent its coming out, he’ll testify against you with a grim and enthusiastic vengeance, my dear, that will put that fetching body of yours behind bars — ugly American bars — for years and years and years. And what do you say to that, Irene?”

“Am I to understand,” she murmured, coming closer to him, “that you’re proposing an entente, a conspiracy of silence, Mr. Queen? That you won’t prosecute in return for my silence?”

Ellery bowed. “I beg forgiveness again; I underestimated the acuteness of your perceptions. Precisely what I’m proposing... And please don’t come any nearer, my dear, because while I can exercise stern self-control on occasion, this is not one of the occasions. I’m still human. At two o’clock in the morning my moral resistance is at its lowest ebb.”

“I could like you — very much, Mr. Queen.”

Ellery sighed and hastily retreated a step. “Ah, the Mae West influence. Dear, dear! And I’ve always said that the Hammetts and the Whitfields are wrong in their demonstrated belief that a detective has countless opportunities for indulging his sex appeal. Another credo blasted... Then it’s agreed, Miss Llewes?”

She regarded him coolly. “Agreed. And I have been a fool.”

“A fascinating fool, at any rate. Poor Kirk! He must have had the very devil of a time with you. By the way,” murmured Ellery, and his eyes belied the smile on his lips, “how well did you know that man?”

“What man?”

“The Parisian.”

“Oh!” Her mask slipped on. “Not very well.”

“Did you ever meet him?”

“Once. But he was unshaven — wore a beard, in fact. And he was foully drunk when he sold me the letters. I met him only when the letters and money changed hands. For an instant. All previous negotiations had been conducted by letter.”

“Hmm. You saw the face of the corpse, Miss Llewes, upstairs the other day.” Ellery paused. Then he continued slowly: “Could the man from Paris have been the man murdered upstairs?”

She stepped back, dazed. “You mean — that little... Good heavens!”

“Well?”

“I don’t know,” she said hurriedly, biting her lips. “I don’t know. It’s so hard to say. Without the beard... It was a bushy beard that concealed most of his features. And he was horribly seedy and dirty, a wreck. But it’s possible...”

“Ah,” frowned Ellery. “I’d hoped for a surer identification. You can’t be certain?”

“No,” she murmured in a thoughtful tone, “I can’t be certain, Mr. Queen.”

“Then I’ll bid you good night and pleasant dreams.” Ellery snatched up his coat and wriggled into it. The woman was still thoughtful, standing in the middle of the room like a draped tree. “Oh, yes! I knew I’d forgotten something.”

“Forgotten something?”

Ellery walked over to the chaise-longue and picked up the brown-paper package. “Donald Kirk’s precious antiques. Dear, dear! It would have been a beastly oversight to leave without them.”

The color ebbed out of her face. “Do you mean to say,” she demanded in a furious voice, “that you’re taking those, too? You — you brigand!”

“Lovely, my dear. Anger becomes you. But surely you didn’t think I’d leave them in your care?”

“But then I have nothing left — nothing!” She was almost sobbing in her rage. “All these weeks, months. The expense... I’ll tell the whole story! I’ll call in the press! I’ll splatter that story all over the world!”

“And spend the best part of the remainder of your life behind cold gray walls, in a narrow cell, and with coarse — I assure you it’s unreasonably coarse — cotton underwear next to your skin?” Ellery shook his head sadly. “I think not. You’re about thirty-five now, I should say—”

“Thirty-one, you beast!”

“I beg your pardon. Thirty-one. When you’re out you’ll be — let’s see— Well, in your case, considering the plenitude of your dossier, you should get—”

She flung herself on the chaise-longue, panting. “Oh, get out of here!” she screamed. “Get out! Or I’ll tear your eyes out!”

“Heavens, you’ll wake the neighbors,” said Ellery with horror; and then he smiled and Bowed and went away with the package under his arm.

He startled the night-clerk at the desk in the lobby of the Chancellor by reaching for one of the house-telephones.

“Here, man!” cried the night-clerk. “What do you think you’re doing? Don’t you know it’s almost half-past two?”

“Police,” said Ellery portentously, and the man fell back, gaping. Ellery murmured to the hotel operator: “Ring Mr. Donald Kirk on the twenty-second, please. Yes, important.” He waited, whistling a merry tune. “Who’s this? Oh, Hubbell. This is Ellery Queen... Yes, yes, man; Queen! Is Donald Kirk in?... Well, get him out of bed, then!... Ah, Kirk... No, no, nothing’s the matter. Actually, I’ve rousing good news for you. You’ll be glad I woke you up at this obscene hour. I’ve something for you — call it a little engagement gift... No, no. I’ll leave it for you at the desk. And let me tell you, Kirk, that your troubles are over. About M., I mean... Yes! Well, don’t shout my ears off, old chap. And, as far as I. L. is concerned, her claws are permanently trimmed. She won’t bother you again. Stay away from her like a good little boy and devote yourself — you lucky devil! — to the lady known as Jo. Night!”

And, chuckling, Ellery deposited the package with the clerk and marched out of the Chancellor, reeling a little from sheer fatigue but glowing with the consciousness of a good deed exceedingly well done.

Ellery astounded his father and Djuna by appearing at the Inspector’s breakfast table at the Inspector’s usual breakfast hour, which was an early hour indeed.

“Well, look who’s here,” said the old gentleman a little brokenly, because his mouth was full of eggy toast. “Sick, El? Must be something wrong to get you up this early.”

“Something right,” yawned Ellery, rubbing red-rimmed eyes. He sank into a chair with a groan.

“What time did you get in?”

“About three... Djuna, the royal oofs, if you please.”

“Oofs?” said Djuna suspiciously. “What’s them?”

“What are those, my lad; this association with the youth of 87th Street is contaminating you. Oofs, Djuna, is a sort of bastardized French for eggs. I could stomach a right good egg at the moment. Turn ’em over and slap ’em in the behind; you know — the usual style.”

Djuna grinned and vanished into the kitchen. The Inspector grunted: “Well?”

“You may well say well,” murmured Ellery, reaching for the cigarets. “I am happy to report unmitigated success.”

“Hmm. If you’ll tell me what you’re talking about, maybe I’ll understand you.”

“The situation is briefly this,” said Ellery, leaning back and blowing smoke. “I asked you to get the Llewes woman — fascinating wench! — out of the way so that I could pursue a little hunch of mine. It was obvious that she had a hold on Kirk — something she was waving over his head which was keeping that harassed young idiot quiet and which he would have given the remnants of his fortune to get back. Well, what was she waving over his head? Obviously, again, something of a tangible nature. Such being the case, I said to myself in the typical rococo style of a vanished literary era, it was in her possession and very close to her charming person. Where? Her apartment, of course. She’s too foxy and experienced a creature to get mixed up with safety-deposit vaults and the consequent records. So — you obliged me and engaged her in Centre Street chit-chat while I burgled her rooms.”

“And without a warrant, too!” gasped the Inspector. “That’s the second time, you fool. Some day you’re going to step into a nasty mess of trouble. Suppose it hadn’t been there? By the way, did you find it?”

“Certainly I found it. A Queen, as the saying goes in Centre Street, never fails.”

“Never mind how the saying goes in Centre Street,” growled the old gentleman. “You ought to hear how the saying goes in City Hall. Well, give!”

“Of course, I neglected to mention that I bumped into young Kirk on my prowl. It seems we both had something of the same brilliant idea—”

“What!”

“Don’t look so startled; it’s unbecoming. The poor boy’s desperate, or at least he was until about two-thirty this morning. I packed him off to bed and returned to Miss Llewes’s American lair and found the — ah — papuhs; and I waited for the admirable lady to return to said lair from her visit to Headquarters, where I fancy you were entertaining her with tiffin. I blush to confess that I made her see the light. Would you believe it? She even returned the loot she got from Kirk!”

“Surprising you were smart enough to think of that,” snapped the Inspector. “It broke my heart to have had to hand it over to her. Come on, come on; let’s see those — well, whatever they are.”

“That’s the funniest thing,” drawled Ellery. “I can’t for the life of me remember where I put them. I was so damned sleepy last night—”

The old gentleman glared. “What— Say, look here, El, stop making a fool out of yourself. Let’s see those papers!”

“Perhaps,” said. Ellery quietly, “it’s better that you don’t. I can tell you what’s in them and still retain the evidence.”

“But why don’t you want me to have them, for cripe’s sake?” snarled the Inspector.

“Because you’ve such a confounded loyalty to duty. They remain in my possession. So you won’t be placed in the position of succumbing to the temptation of dragging a very sad and pitiful story out into the light of day.”

The Inspector sputtered incoherently for a moment. “Why, you presumptuous young dope! I thought you were going to be a help... Well, tell me, then.”

“I must exact a promise first.”

“Exact your Aunt Tillie!”

“It’s between us exclusively? You won’t spill it to any one — the press, the Commissioner, the Chief Deputy Inspector?”

“Boy, it sure must be a honey,” said the Inspector sarcastically. “All right, I promise. Now what’s it all about?”

Ellery puffed reflectively on his cigaret. “It concerns Marcella Kirk. It’s a howling little tragedy, and it’s the sort of thing a vulture like this Llewes woman would snap up in her filthy beak.

“Marcella’s not quite as adolescent as she looks. Several years ago — in her pre-deb days — she met a man. He seems to be — or to have been — an American expatriate who’d spent most of his recent time in Paris among the wolves. But Marcella met him in New York and fell in love with him. He was apparently old enough to be her father, but she was extremely impressionable and he swept her off her feet. Anyway, with an eye on the Kirk money, I suppose, he carried her off and married her secretly in Greenwich.”

“So what?” growled the Inspector.

“It wasn’t until it was all over that Donald Kirk learned of even the existence of this man, let alone what followed. The man went by the name of Cullinan, Howard Cullinan. Kirk instituted a feverish but quiet inquiry and discovered that Cullinan was already married; had a wife in Paris.”

“Good Lord,” said the Inspector.

Ellery sighed. “Nasty mess, as nasty as they come. Nobody else apparently knew. Not even old Dr. Kirk. Donald found Marcella alone in Greenwich — the man was out somewhere — disclosed to her what he knew, and took the poor girl away, more dead than alive. Cullinan seems to have possessed a certain amount of bravado; he shrewdly guessed that Kirk would rather hush the affair than prosecute him for bigamy. And the upshot of the sordid business was that Kirk paid him a sizeable sum to keep his mouth shut and clear out.”

“Well, even so—” muttered the Inspector, knitting his bushy brows.

“Tut, tut. The worst is yet to come; this is a story for the ages. That would have been bad enough, you understand. But Marcella kept writing Cullman letters on the sly, as she had written him before they eloped. The girl was desperate, unbalanced, on the verge of suicide. She was afraid to tell even her brother what actually had happened.”

“Oh,” said the Inspector in a low tone. “She was pregnant?”

“Exactly. Which made it an altogether different story. Cullinan naturally washed his hands of her. Marcella’s being pregnant only complicated matters for him; he’d got his cut and that’s all he was interested in. So Marcella, in a pitiable state, went to Donald with the news. You can imagine poor Kirk’s feelings.”

“I wouldn’t blame him if he’d cut that skunk’s throat,” growled the Inspector.

“Odd, isn’t it?” murmured Ellery with a queer smile. “I had the same thought... Anyway, he trumped up some story of a breakdown for the benefit of his family and friends, let this Dr. Angini in on it — he’s a very old and trusted friend — and the doctor and Kirk took Marcella away to Europe. She had her baby there, the wheels of progress being oiled by the worthy physician. Unfortunately the child was born quite healthy, and it’s still in Europe in the care of a trusted nurse.”

“So that was the hold Sewell had on Kirk,” muttered the Inspector.

“Quite a hold, eh? One the Strangler would be proud of... I don’t know precisely how she first got wind of it, but somehow she found out — probably through the intercession of some underworld intermediary — and negotiated with Cullinan, who had drifted back to Paris and was of course on his uppers, for the sale of the letters and the marriage certificate. The letters incidentally tell enough of the story to permit a complete reconstruction of what happened... Then Miss Irene Llewes came to the Hotel Chancellor, making the crossing from France for the sole purpose of squeezing Donald Kirk to within an inch of his last dollar. What happened then is history. Poor Kirk was caught properly—”

“Macgowan, of course,” said the old gentleman gloomily.

“Precisely. In the meantime Marcella, with the resilience of youth, had rehabilitated herself. No one suspected. She’d almost forgotten the whole dreary horrible business. And then Macgowan, Kirk’s best friend, suddenly realized that Donald had a beautiful grown-up sister. It developed into a romance; they were engaged. Next scene: the Llewes creature turns up and Kirk was in for it with a vengeance.”

“Doesn’t Marcella Kirk know what’s been going on?”

“Not the faintest vestige of the breath of a minute suspicion, as far as I can make out. From the internal evidence of the letters she seems to have gone half-potty from the pressure of conscience and shame — I mean during the time she was pregnant. I suppose Kirk has felt that a reopening of the mess would put the finishing touch on her. And then Macgowan, for all his worldliness, is a puritanical soul, and he comes from one of those blue-plush-and-carryall families who would insist on his breaking off the engagement at the first breath of scandal. Poor Kirk has had his hands full.”

“And the ice he gave Sewell?”

“Blackmail. It wasn’t what she had expected, but she made the best of it. Wasn’t so bad, since she’s specialized in gem swindles and probably has connections with ‘fences’ in Amsterdam... He had to give her parts of his collection, you see, because unfortunately he was in straitened circumstances when she popped onto the scene. He gave her what cash he could scrape together and then when the cash gave out — he even borrowed from Macgowan in his desperation — he gave the woman jewels from his collection. What she got makes a sizeable sack, I’ll tell you that. But then you saw it yourself.”

“And she forced him to write that note to cover her up in case something went wrong,” mused the Inspector. “Smart. I s’pose the touch about asking her to marry him in the note was another little nest-egg for the future — if he ever recovered financially she’d sue him for breach of promise. But when the murder occurred and the police started nosing around, she got a little scared and generously handed Kirk over to his new lady-love. Well, well! So now where are we?”

“As regards the murder?” murmured Ellery.

“Sure.”

Ellery rose and went to the window. “I don’t know,” he said in a puzzled way. “I really don’t. And yet I have a fugitive idea—”

“Sa-a-ay!” The Inspector bounced from his chair, wildly excited. “Oh, what fools we are! Listen to this, El; just listen to this.” He began to trot about the room, hands gripped behind his back, head low. “Just struck me. It all ties in. Swell! Listen. The bird who was bumped off at the Chancellor was Marcella Kirk’s boyfriend!”

Ellery said slowly: “You’ve caught the fugitive. You think so?”

“Well, isn’t it a perfect set-up?” The Inspector waved his spindly arms about. “Here’s a man on his uppers; we can’t trace him here; Marcella’s man hung out in Paris; it’s possible... He came over here to put the screws on Kirk himself, see? Soon as he got off the boat; there was a boat from France that day... He’s desperate, see; he was afraid before, with the girl having a kid, and all that; but he needs money bad, and he’s decided to go back for more. He beats it to the Chancellor to see Kirk... Great!” Then his face fell. “But Kirk should have recognized him, if he’s the one. Maybe—”

“Curiously enough,” muttered Ellery, “Kirk never met Cullinan. He paid the man off by mail.”

“But then there’s Marcella... She fainted, didn’t you say, when she first got a look at the dead man?”

“Yes, but that may have been merely shock.”

“At the same time, if it was the Parisian guy,” mused the Inspector in a fierce undertone, “she naturally would shut up; naturally wouldn’t admit she knew him. Didn’t the Sewell woman know Cullinan by sight, either?”

“She says she saw him only once, and then under unfavorable circumstances. She can’t be sure of anything, she maintains. Yes, yes, it’s a possibility; no doubt about it.”

“I like it,” said the Inspector with a ferocious grin. “I like it, El. It ties in. First time in this blasted case I’ve got the feeling of co — co — what d’ye call it?”

“Cohesion?”

“That’s it. It’s tightened up, the whole thing. Because now we can establish a strong connection—”

“In theory,” said Ellery dryly.

“Sure. Between this dead palooka and the people, most of ’em, involved in this thing. Motive’s clear as crystal against almost any of ’em.”

“As?”

“Well, now take Donald Kirk, poor young squirt. He’s in the hotel that afternoon — I don’t doubt seeing the Sewell animal on her demand for a powwow. He knows in some way that — we’ll call him by the Paris feller’s name — that Cullinan is upstairs waiting, or is coming to see him. He dodges up the stairway from the twenty-first floor, waits for a clear field, sneaks into the anteroom, bumps off Cullinan, goes back... Then there’s Marcella. Ditto for her. And for the old walrus, Dr. Kirk. All had the same reason — to shut Cullinan’s mouth. Of course none of ’em except Donald and Marcella knew that there were two people floating around with knowledge of the affair.”

“And Macgowan?” murmured Ellery, squinting at his smoke.

“Even he’s a possibility,” said the Inspector argumentatively. “Suppose in some way he’d found out Marcella’s story but hadn’t let on? I’ll make it better! Suppose he’d found out through Cullinan himself who, let’s say, read in the papers about Macgowan’s engagement to Marcella and promptly wrote asking blackmail?”

“Superb,” said Ellery.

“So Macgowan brings this bird over from the other side and kills him in — in—”

“In his best friend’s office?” Ellery shook his head. “Doesn’t wash, dad. That’s the last place he would have selected for the job.”

“Well, all right,” grumbled the Inspector, “Macgowan’s out. But Llewes, or Sewell, or whatever the hell her name is, had a motive, too. She showed up in the office after the murder, didn’t she? Well, suppose she did that just as a sort of cover-up? She was certainly on the twenty-second floor that afternoon. Suppose she’d seen Cullinan in the anteroom — suppose she’s lying about not being able to remember what he looked like — suppose she found out from him his plan to blackmail Kirk, or Macgowan, or somebody. So what? So she kills him to cut him out of the gravy, or keep him from spoiling her game. How’s that?”

“Masterly,” murmured Ellery, “as are your speculations about the others. In classic terminology you’ve put your finger on probably an epic motive. But there’s just one little element which puts the damper on the boodle of ’em, especially if the motive is what you claim it to be.”

“What?”

“The fact that the murderer turned everything backwards. I might add,” continued Ellery reflectively, “another. The fact, too, that the murderer thrust those Impi spears up the dead man’s clothes.”

“Well, even so,” said the Inspector irritably, “I don’t see that because we don’t know why the killer did those fool things it cuts out my theory. Might still fit.”

“Conceivable.”

“But you don’t think so?”

Ellery stared out at the sky over 87th Street. “Sometimes I get a furtive glimpse of what might be the last outpost of the truth. It’s the damnedest thing. Keeps eluding me, like a piece of wet soap in the dark. Or like a dream you’ve forgotten but are conscious of. That’s all I can say.”

They were silent for a long time. Djuna made a cheerful clatter at the kitchen-stove. “Oofs!” he cried.

The Inspector said stubbornly: “I can’t trust your glimpses, or whatever y’call ’em. I’ve got to be sure. El, I tell you this is the first really hot lead we’ve had in this case.” He went to the telephone and dialed Police Headquarters. “Hello. This is Inspector Queen. Get me my deskman... ’Lo! Billy? Listen, I want you to get a cable off to the Prefect of Police in Paris right away. Take it down. Message: ‘Send me full information Howard Cullinan, American believed in Paris. Telephoto on way for verification.’ Sign my name and rush it... What’s that?”

The Inspector bent over the instrument with a sudden jerk, a startled look springing into his small hard eyes.

Ellery, at the window, turned about with a frown.

The old man listened for what seemed ages. Then he rapped: “Swell. Cut off. I’ve got to work fast.” He broke the connection and feverishly dialed Operator.

“What’s up?” demanded Ellery curiously.

“Hello! Get me the Hotel Chancellor desk... Can’t stop, El. Something big’s broken at last. Better throw your things on. Quick. Into your pants.” Ellery stared, and then without a word ran into the bedroom, throwing off his dressing-gown as he ran. “Hello! Desk-clerk, Chancellor? This is Inspector Richard Queen, Police Headquarters... Sergeant Velie of the Homicide Squad is there, isn’t he?... Fine, let me talk to him... Hello! Thomas? Queen. Listen. I just got the flash from h.q. Don’t hold the boy... No, don’t, you big lummox! Let him finish that little job of his... Don’t ask questions, idiot! Did you check with the local telegraph office to make sure he isn’t a ringer of some kind?... Good. Now get this. Give the boy the bag, as if it’s on the level, see? Then let him follow his instructions and take it down to Grand Central, where he’s supposed to meet this party. Follow the boy and nab the one who picks the bag up from the boy. Go easy, Thomas; this may be the wind-up... No, no! Don’t stop to examine the bag. It’ll be safe enough. If you hold the kid up too long this bird’ll get suspicious... Right. Scoot! I’ll be down at Grand Central in less than fifteen minutes.”

The Inspector slammed the receiver and yelled: “Ready?”

“For the love of Peter,” panted Ellery from the bedroom, “what d’ye think I am — a fireman? What is this, anyway?” He appeared in the living-room doorway in unlaced shoes, trousers with hanging suspenders, unbuttoned shirt, necktie in hand. Djuna gaped from the kitchen.

“Grab your hat and coat and finish dressing in the cab!” shouted the Inspector, yanking Ellery toward the foyer. “Come on!” And he dived through the door.

Ellery made a strangled sound and scrambled after, the tongues of his oxfords flapping dismally.

“But the oofs?” moaned Djuna.

There was no answer except the thunder of feet running down the stairs.