The Four of Hearts

Chapter 12 International Mailers, Inc

Ellery, Sam Vix, and Lew Bascom were having breakfast Friday morning in the Magna commissary when Alan Clark strolled in, sat down beside them on a stool, and said to the aged waitress behind the counter: “Coffee, beautiful.”

“Oh, Alan.”

“Here I am. What’s on your mind?”

“I’ve been wondering,” said Ellery. “Just what is my status now in the studio?”

“Status?” The agent stared. “What d’ye mean? You’re on the payroll, aren’t you?”

“His conscience is havin’ an attack of the shakes,” grinned Lew. “I never saw such a guy for virtue. Like the little studio steno I was out with last night. I says to her—”

“I know,” protested Ellery, “but I was hired to work on the Royle-Stuart picture, and there is no Royle-Stuart picture any more.”

“Isn’t that too bad?” said Clark, shaking his head over the coffee. “My heart bleeds for you.”

“But what am I supposed to do, Alan? After all, I’m drawing fifteen hundred a week!”

The three men shook their heads in unison. “He’s drawing fifteen hundred a week,” said Sam Vix pityingly. “Now that’s what I call a stinking shame.”

“Look, Queen,” sighed the agent. “Was it your fault Jack Royle and Blythe got themselves purged?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with it.”

“Say, whose side are you on, anyway — labor or capital?” demanded Lew. “We writers got some rights!”

“Your contract wasn’t drawn up, if I may say so,” said Clark modestly, “by a cluck. You’ve got little Alan in there batting for you all the time, remember that. You contracted to work on a Royle-Stuart picture, and there’s nothing in that immortal document about murders.”

“That’s just the point; the picture will never be made. It’s been withdrawn from schedule. Butch announced its withdrawal only this morning.”

“What of it? Your contract calls for an eight-week guarantee. So, picture or no picture, you stay here till you collect eight weeks’ salary. Or, to put it crudely, till you’ve wrapped your bankbook around twelve thousand bucks.”

“It’s criminal,” muttered Ellery.

“Nah, it’s life,” said Clark, rising. “Now forget it. Being ashamed to draw a salary! Who ever heard of such a thing?”

“But how can I take it? I can’t just sit around here—”

“He can’t just sit around here,” exploded Lew. “Listen, drizzle-puss, I’m sittin’ around here for a lot less than fifteen hundred bucks a week!”

“Me, too,” sighed the publicity man.

“Work it out in detecting,” suggested Clark. “You’re a detective, aren’t you?”

“I could use some o’ that dough,” Lew grumbled into his raw egg-and-tomato juice. “Say, Queen, how’s about letting me have a couple o’ C’s till next Friday?”

“This is where I came in,” said the agent hurriedly. “Got to bawl out a producer; he’s knifing one of my best clients in the back.”

“Just till next Friday,” said Lew as Clark went away.

“If you let this pirate put the bee on you,” growled Sam Vix, “you’re a bigger sap than you pretend to be. Next Friday! What’s the matter with this Friday? You get paid today, you fat bastard.”

“Who asked you to butt in?” said Lew hotly. “You know I’m savin’ up for my old age. I’m gonna start a chicken farm.”

“You mean the kind that clucks ‘Daddy’?” jeered Vix. “You save for your old age! You’re not going to have an old age. Unless your stomach’s lined with chromium.”

“Anyway, I saw him first!”

“That,” said the publicity man with a grin, “was one tough break — for him. Well, so long. I work for my lousy pittance.”

“By the way, Sam,” said Ellery absently. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. Where were you last Sunday?”

“Me?” The one-eyed man looked astonished. “Over at Reed Island, making arrangements for the wedding reception.”

“I know, but when I phoned the Island after the plane was snatched Sunday, I was told you weren’t there.”

Vix scowled down at him. “What the hell you doing — taking Clark’s advice seriously?”

“No offense,” smiled Ellery. “I just thought I’d ask you before Glücke got around to it.”

“Take a tip from me and lay off that kind of chatter. It isn’t healthy.” And Vix stalked off, the black patch over his eye quivering with indignation.

“What’s the matter with him!” murmured Ellery, offering his coffee-cup to the waitress to be replenished.

Lew chuckled. “Some guys are born hatin’ spinach and other guys work up a terrific peeve if you split an infinitive. Sam’s weakness is he don’t think it’s funny to be suspected of a murder. And he thinks it’s twice as not funny in the case of a double feature.”

“Can’t a man ask an innocent question?”

“Yeah,” said Lew dryly. “Pretty soon you’ll be askin’ me an innocent question, too. Like: ‘Was that really you standin’ beside me when this masked guy hijacked Ty’s plane?’”

“Well, you can’t always believe your eyes,” said Ellery with a grin.

“Sure not. I mighta been my twin brother.”

“Have you a twin brother?” asked Ellery, startled.

“You know why I like you?” sighed Lew. “Because you’re such a pushover for a gag. Of course I ain’t got no twin brother!”

“I might have known that the Author of us all wouldn’t repeat a mistake of that magnitude,” said Ellery sadly. “Oh, Ty! Come over here and join us in some breakfast.”

Ty Royle strode over, freshly shaven but looking as if he had spent a hectic night. “Had mine, thanks. Queen, I’d like to talk to you.”

“Yes?”

Ty squatted on the stool Sam Vix had vacated, put his elbow on the counter, and ran his fingers through his hair.

“All right, all right,” grumbled Lew, getting up. “I know a stage wait when I hear one.”

“Don’t go, Lew,” said Ty wearily. “You may be able to help, too.”

Ellery and Lew exchanged glances. “Sure, kid,” said Lew, seating himself. “What’s on your mind?”

“Bonnie.”

“Oh,” said Ellery.

“What’s she pulled on you now?” asked Lew sympathetically.

“It’s that business of yesterday afternoon.” Ty fiddled with Vix’s coffee-cup. “Her saying that dad was behind the — well, the whole thing. I’ve been up all night thinking it over. I was sore as a boil at first. But I found out something about myself last night.”

“Yes?” said Ellery with a frown.

“Something’s happened to me. Since Wednesday. I don’t feel the way I used to about her. In fact, I feel... just the opposite.” He banged the cup. “Oh, what the hell’s the use of fighting myself any longer? I’m in love with her!”

“You feelin’ good?” growled Lew.

“It’s no use, Lew. I’m hooked for fair this time.”

“With all the fluffs you’ve played!”

Ty smiled wryly. “That’s almost exactly what I said to dad when I found out he’d decided he loved Blythe.”

“Yes,” murmured Ellery, “history has a fascinating way of repeating itself.” He sent Lew a warning look, and Lew nodded.

“Listen kid, it’s your imagination and this climate,” said Lew in a fatherly tone. “Jack’s death sort of knocked you out of kilter, and you know what the warm sun does to young animals. Listen to your Uncle Looey. This love stuff don’t get you anything but trouble. Take me, for instance. You don’t see me going woozy-eyed over any one dame, do you? Hell, if I had your pan I’d make Casanova look like Cousin Hiram heavin’ his first pass at the college widow!”

Ty shook his head. “No go, Lew. I don’t want any woman but Bonnie. That stuff’s out for good.”

“Well,” shrugged Lew, “it’s your funeral. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Look, Lew.” Ty seemed embarrassed. “You’re about as close to Bonnie as... I mean, I was thinking you might try to talk to her.”

Ellery shook his head violently over Ty’s shoulder.

“Who, me?” said Lew in a shocked voice. “What d’ye wanta make me, accessory to a crime? I wouldn’t have it on my conscience. I’m no John Alden. Do your own courtin’.”

“How about you, Queen? Bonnie’s convinced that dad — well, you heard her yesterday. Somebody’s got to show her how wrong she is. She obviously won’t listen to me.”

“Why don’t you let matters ride for a while?” said Ellery lightly. “Give her time to cool off. She’ll probably realize by herself, in time, that it’s all a mistake.”

“Sure, what’s the rush? Give the kid a chance to get her bearings. Besides,” said Lew, “there’s Butch.”

Ty was silent. Then he said: “Butch... Maybe you’re right. It is less than a week.”

The cashier at the commissary desk called out: “Mr. Queen, there’s a call for you on this phone.”

Ellery excused himself and went to the desk.

“Hello — Mr. Queen? This is Bonnie Stuart.”

“Oh,” said Ellery. “Yes?” He glanced at Ty, who was listening glumly as Lew waved his arms in earnest exhortation.

“I’ve something to show you,” said Bonnie strangely. “It... came this morning.”

“Oh, I see.” Then Ellery said in a loud tone: “How about lunch?”

“But can’t you come over now?”

“Sorry, I’ve something important to do. Shall we say the Derby on Vine at one o’clock?”

“I’ll be there,” said Bonnie curtly, and hung up.

Ellery strolled back to the counter. Ty interrupted Lew in the middle of a sentence. “Just the same, there’s one thing we ought to do right away.”

“What’s that?” asked Ellery.

“I’ve been thinking about those anonymous letters. I think Inspector Glücke ought to be told about them.”

“That nut stuff,” scoffed Lew. “No one but a screw-loose would mail cards to a dame when she was dead.”

Ellery lit a cigaret. “Coincidence! I’ve been giving the matter considerable thought, too. And I believe I’ve worked out a practical theory.”

“You’re a better man than I am, then,” said Ty gloomily.

“You see, there are really only two plausible inferences to be drawn from the strange fact Lew’s just mentioned — I mean, this business of mailing a letter to a dead woman. Oh, of course there’s always the possibility that the sender didn’t know Blythe was dead, but you’ll agree we can dismiss that as a huge improbability; Sam Vix and the gentlemen of the press associations have taken care of that.”

“Maybe this palooka can’t read,” said Lew.

“Is he deaf, too? Illiteracy is scarcely the answer in these days of news broadcasting via the radio. Besides, the envelopes were addressed by some one who could write. No, no, that can’t be the answer.”

“Don’t you know a gag when you hear one?” said Lew disgustedly.

“The two inferences seem to me to be all-inclusive. The first is the normal, obvious inference you’ve already voiced, Lew: that is, that the sender is a crank; that the envelopes, the cards, the whole childish business indicate the workings of a deranged mentality. It’s conceivable that such a mentality would see nothing unreasonable about continuing to send the cards even after the object of his interest has died.”

“Well, that’s my guess,” said Lew.

“And yet I get the feeling,” said Ty thoughtfully, “that while the sender of those cards may be slightly off, he isn’t just a nut.”

“A feeling,” murmured Ellery, “I share. And if he is sane, the alternate inference arises.”

“What’s that?” demanded Lew.

Ellery rose and picked up his check. “I was going to devote the morning,” he said with a smile, “to a line of investigation which would prove or disprove it. Would you care to join me, gentlemen?”

While Lew and Ty waited, mystified, Ellery borrowed the Los Angeles Classified Directory at the commissary desk and spent ten minutes poring over it.

“No luck,” he said, frowning. “I’ll try Information.” He closeted himself in one of the telephone booths, emerging a few minutes later looking pleased.

“Simpler than I expected. We’ve got one shot in the dark — thank heaven there aren’t dozens.”

“Dozens of what?” asked Ty, puzzled.

“Shots in the dark,” said Lew. “See how simple it is?”

Ellery directed Ty to drive his sport roadster down Melrose to Vine, and up Vine to Sunset, and west on Sunset to Wilcox. On Wilcox, between Selma Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard, Ellery jumped out and hurried up the steps of the new post-office, vanishing within.

Ty and Lew looked at each other.

“You got me,” said Lew. “Maybe it’s a new kind of treasure hunt.”

Ellery was gone fifteen minutes. “The postmaster,” he announced cheerfully, “says nix. I didn’t have much hope.”

“Then your idea is out?” asked Ty.

“Not at all. Visiting the Hollywood postmaster was a precaution. Drive around to Hollywood Boulevard, Ty. I think our destination’s just past Vine Street — between Vine and Argyle Avenue.”

Miraculously, they found a parking space near Hollywood’s busiest intersection.

“Now what?” said Lew.

“Now we’ll see. It’s this building. Come on.”

Ellery preceded them into the office building across the street from the bank and theatre. He consulted the directory in the lobby, nodded, and made for the elevator, Ty and Lew meekly following.

“Third,” said Ellery.

They got out at the third floor. Ellery looked cautiously about, then drew a leather case out of his pocket. He took a glittering object from the case and returned the case to his pocket.

“The idea is,” he said, “that I’m somebody in the L.A. police department and that you two are somebody’s assistants. If we don’t put up an imposing front, we’ll never get the information I’m after.”

“But how are you going to get away with whatever you’re trying to get away with?” asked Ty with a faint smile.

“Remember the Ohippi case? I had something to do with solving it, and this” — he opened his hand — “is a token of your pueblo’s gratitude, up to and including Glücke, poor devil. Honorary Deputy Commissioner’s badge. Look tough, you two, and keep your mouths shut.”

He walked down the corridor to a door with a pebbled glass front on which was daubed in unimposing black letters:

The office proved to be a box-like chamber with one streaky window, a scratched filing cabinet, a telephone, a littered desk, and a dusty chair. In the chair sat a depressed-looking man of forty-odd with thinning hair carefully plastered to his skull. He was sucking a lollipop morosely as he read a dog-eared copy of True Murder Stories.

“You Lucey?” growled Ellery, fists in his pockets.

The stick of the lollipop tilted belligerently as Mr. Lucey swung about. His fishy eyes examined the three faces.

“Yeah. So what?”

Ellery withdrew his right hand from his pocket, opened his fist, permitted the mote-choked sun to touch the gold badge in his palm for a moment, and returned the badge to his pocket.

“Headquarters,” he said gruffly. “Few questions we want to ask you.”

“Dicks, huh.” The man took the lollipop out of his mouth. “Go peddle your eggs somewheres else. I ain’t done nothin’.”

“Climb down, buddy. What kind of business do you run?”

“Say, whadda ya think this is, Russia?” Mr. Lucey slammed the magazine down and rose, a vision of American indignation. “We run a legitimate racket, Mister, and you got no right to question me about it! Say,” he added suspiciously, “you from the Fed’ral gov’ment?”

Ellery, who had not anticipated this sturdy resistance, felt helpless. But when he heard Lew Bascom snicker his back stiffened. “You going to talk now or do we have to take you downtown?”

Mr. Lucey frowned judiciously. Then he stuck the lollipop back into his mouth. “Aw right,” he grumbled. “Though I don’t see why you gotta bother me. I’m only the agent here for the company. Why don’t you get in touch with the gen’ral manager? Our main office is in—”

“Don’t give a hoot. I asked you what kind of business you run here?”

“We take orders from folks to mail letters, packages, greeting cards — any kind o’ mailable matter — at specified dates from specified places.” He jerked his thumb toward a profusely curlicued bronze plaque on the wall. “There’s our motto: ‘Any Time, Any Where.’”

“In other words 1 could leave a dozen letters with you and you would mail one from Pasadena tomorrow, the next one next week from Washington, D.C., and so on, according to my instructions?”

“That’s the ticket. We got branch offices everywhere. But what’s this Ogpu business? Congress pass another law?”

Ellery tossed an envelope on the man’s desk. “Did you mail this envelope?”

The man looked at it, brows drawn in. Ellery watched him, trying hard to preserve the indifferent expression of the professional detective. He heard Lew and Ty breathing stertorously behind him.

“Sure thing,” said Mr. Lucey at last. “Mailed it — let’s see; Tuesday, I think it was. Tuesday late. So what?”

Ellery preened himself. His companions looked awed.

“So what?” said Ellery sternly. “Take a look at that name and address, Lucey!”

Mr. Lucey’s lollipop stick tilted again as he bridled; but he looked, and the stick dipped like the mast of a flag being struck, and his mouth opened, and the lollipop fell out.

“B-Blythe Stuart!” he stuttered. His demeanor altered instantly to one of cringing apology. “Say, Officer, I didn’t reco’nize — I didn’t know—”

“Then you mailed the others, too, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir. Yes, sir, we did.” Mr. Lucey betrayed liquid signs of an inner warmth. “Why, even now, even just now when you showed it to me, I read the name, but it sort of didn’t register... I mean I spotted it because it looked familiar. The name—”

“Don’t you read the names and addresses on mailable matter when you contract to take a job?”

“We don’t contract. I mean — no, sir, I don’t. I mean why should I? Get stuff to mail, and we mail ’em. Look, Officer, did you ever have to do the same thing day in, day out for years? Look, I don’t know nothin’ about these murders. I’m innocent. I got a wife and three kids. People just give us mail, see? Salesmen. People tryin’ to put the dog on with their customers — as if they had branches in different cities, stuff like that—”

“And husbands supposed to be in one city but actually being in another,” said Ellery. “Sure, I know. Well, keep your shirt on, Mr. Lucey; nobody’s accused you of being mixed up in this thing. We just want your co-operation.”

“Co-operation? That’s me, that’s me, Officer.”

“Tell me about this transaction. You must have records.”

The man swabbed his damp face. “Yes, sir,” he said humbly. “Just a minute while I look it up.”

The three men exchanged glances as Lucey stooped over his filing cabinet. Then they stared expectantly at the man.

“Who put this particular order through, Mr. Lucey?” asked Ellery casually. “What was the name of this customer?”

“I think,” said Lucey, red-faced as he struggled with the file, “I think... it was... somebody named Smith.”

“Oh,” said Ellery; and he heard Ty curse under his breath. “What did this fellow Smith look like?”

“Dunno,” said Lucey, panting. “He didn’t come here in person, as I remember; sent the batch of letters in a package, with a note inside and a five-dollar bill. Here it is.”

He straightened up, triumphant, waving a large manila envelope bearing a handwritten legend: “Egbert L. Smith.”

Ellery seized the envelope, took one swift look at its contents, closed it, and tucked it under his arm.

“But it’s still in our ‘Open’ file,” protested Lucey. “There’s still one letter in there to be mailed.”

“Blythe Stuart won’t need it any more. Did you have any further correspondence with this man Smith?”

“No, sir.”

“Did he ever call up, or show up in person?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, Lucey, you’ve been a great help. Keep your mouth shut about this. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Lucey eagerly.

“And if this Smith ever should write, or call up, you can get me at this number.” Ellery scribbled his name and telephone number on the man’s magazine. “Come on, boys.”

The last thing he saw as he closed the door was Mr. Lucey stooping, dazed, to pick up his fallen lollipop.

Chapter 13 Mr. Queen, Logician

They dodged guiltily around the corner and hurried down Vine Street. When they were safely hidden in a private booth at the Brown Derby they all looked relieved.

Lew was fat with laughter. “I’d like to see Glücke’s face when he hears about this,” he choked, wiping his eyes dry. “That deadpan won’t talk — much. He’ll tell his wife and his cuties and his pals. Say, I’ll bet he’s on the phone right now!”

“I’ll have to make up to Glücke some way,” said Ellery contritely. “He doesn’t even know these letters exist.”

“For God’s sake, Queen,” said Ty, “what’s in that envelope?”

Ellery took from the manila envelope a letter, sans envelope; a typewritten schedule on a letterhead of International Mailers, Inc.; and a single envelope, sealed, addressed to Blythe Stuart in the scratchy, pale blue-inked block letters of the previous messages. Attached to this envelope by a steel clip was a slip of memorandum paper, bearing a typed date.

“Mr. Egbert L. Smith’s letter,” said Ellery, scanning it slowly. Then he passed it over to Ty.

Ty read it eagerly, Lew squinting over his shoulder. The letter had been typewritten on a sheet of white “second” paper of the flimsiest, cheapest grade. It was dated the twenty-seventh of the previous month.

“Damned Borgia didn’t even sign his phony name,” muttered Ty.

“An irritating but wise precaution,” said Ellery dryly. “No handwriting, no clue. And no address. Note, too, the carefully innocuous phraseology. Neither illiterate nor erudite. With a distinct businessman flavor, as if Mr. Egbert L. Smith were exactly what he was pretending to be.”

“Say, this letter was typed on Jack Royle’s machine!” exclaimed Lew. “If what you said yesterday was true, Queen. Look at the broken serifs on those h’s and r’s. I think we ought to turn this over to Glücke pronto.”

Ellery nodded, picking up the sheet of the company stationery. “This is just Lucey’s schedule, copied verbatim from the list in Smith’s letter. Of course, the name is fictitious. And I imagine the paper will be found to be sterile of fingerprints.”

A waiter came to hover over them, and Ty said absently: “Brandy.”

Lew said: “Greetings, Gene.”

“Double drinks, Mr. Bascom?”

“Bring the bottle, for gossakes. Can’t you see I got a sucker? The fifteen-year Monnet.”

The waiter grinned and padded away.

“Let’s see,” murmured Ellery, “what the last letter in Mr. Smith’s kitbag had to say. The one that hadn’t yet been mailed.”

He ripped off one end of the sealed envelope and squeezed. A blue-backed playing-card dropped out.

The card was the ace of spades.

It was unnecessary to refer to the code sheet Ellery had found in John Royle’s dressing-room.

All the world and his wife and children knew the cartomantic significance of the ace of spades.

“Death,” said Ty nervously. “That’s... But it came — I mean it was scheduled to come— She was killed before it came.”

“Exactly the point,” said Ellery, fingering the card.

“You and your points,” snorted Lew. “How about tipping your mitt for a change?”

Ellery sat gazing at the card, and the envelope, and the memorandum slip attached to the envelope.

“One thing is sure,” said Ty, his face screwed up. “It’s the baldest kind of frame-up. Somebody had it in for Blythe and framed dad for the crime. Dad’s feud with Blythe furnished an ideal background for a frame-up, gave him a motive. And anybody could have got to that typewriter of dad’s.”

“Eh?” said Ellery absently.

“It’s true the date on this ‘Smith’s’ note — twenty-seventh of last month — ought to give us a clue to where the note was typed; I mean as between the dressing-room on the lot and our house. But, damn it, dad was always lugging the machine from one place to the other. I can’t remember in which place it was before the twenty-seventh.”

“Why did he have a typewriter, Ty?”

“To answer fan mail. He despised secretaries and liked to correspond personally with the writers of the more interesting letters he received. Hobby of his. He wouldn’t let the studio handle it at all. As a matter of fact, I do the same thing.”

“You say any one could have used his machine?”

“The whole population of Hollywood,” groaned Ty. “You know what our house was like, Lew, when dad was alive — a club for every hooch-hound in town.”

“Am I supposed to take that personally?” chuckled Lew.

“And dad’s dressing-room was a hangout for everybody on the lot. He was framed, all right — by some one who got hold of the typewriter either in the house or on the lot.” He scowled. “Somebody? It could have been anybody!”

“But what I can’t understand,” said Lew, “is why this palooka Smith planned for two letters to be mailed to Blythe after she died. That in itself would screw up a frame against Jack, because Jack was knocked off, too; and dead men send no mail. And if Jack was meant to be framed, why was he murdered? It don’t make sense.”

“That,” said Ty between his teeth, “is what I’d like to know.”

“I believe,” murmured Ellery, “we’ll get along better if we take this problem scientifically. That alternate inference I mentioned this morning, by the way, was arrived at by mere common sense. On the assumption that the writer of those addresses was sane, not a crank, it was evident that the only sane reason ascribable to the fact that a letter was mailed to Blythe after Blythe’s death was... that the writer had no control over the source of mailing.”

“I see,” said Ty slowly. “That’s what made you think of a mailing service.”

“Precisely. I stopped in at the post-office on the off-chance that the writer may have arranged to have the letters mailed directly by the postmaster. But of course that was a far-fetched possibility. The only other one was an organization which made a business of mailing letters for people.”

“But if Smith murdered Blythe and dad, why didn’t he try to get the last two letters back from that outfit around the corner before they were mailed? Lucey said himself there’s been no such attempt.”

“And lay himself wide open to future identification?” jeered Lew. “Act your age, younker.”

The waiter arrived bearing a bottle of brandy, a siphon, and three glasses. Lew rubbed his hands and seized the bottle.

“Of course,” said Ellery, “that’s perfectly true.”

“As a matter of fact, why those last two letters at all?”

Ellery leaned back, clutching the glass Lew had filled. “An important question, with an important answer. Have you noticed the date, you two, on which our friend Smith intended this last letter to be mailed — the envelope bearing the unfriendly ace of spades?”

Lew looked over his glass. Ty merely looked. The date typed on the memorandum slip clipped to the envelope containing the ace of spades was “Thursday the 28th.”

“I don’t see the point,” said Ty, frowning.

“Simple enough. What were the two cards mailed in one envelope to Blythe on Thursday the fourteenth — the envelope that arrived on Friday the fifteenth, two days before the murder?”

“I don’t recall.”

“The ten of spades and the deuce of clubs, meaning together: ‘Great trouble in two days or two weeks.’ The fact that the murders did actually occur two days after the receipt of that message was a mere coincidence. For what do we find now?” He tapped the card and envelope before him. “The ace of spades in this unmailed envelope, meaning ‘Death,’ is clearly marked for mailing on Thursday the twenty-eighth, or receipt by Blythe on Friday the twenty-ninth. So the murder of Blythe was obviously planned to occur not earlier than the twenty-ninth; or in other words she was scheduled to die, not two days, but two weeks after the Friday-the-fifteenth warning of ‘Great Trouble.’”

“A week from today,” growled Ty. “If he hadn’t changed his plans, Blythe would still be alive. And dad, too.”

“Exactly the point. For what was the murderer’s original plan? To murder Blythe — Blythe alone. Corroboration? The fact that the playing-cards were sent only to Blythe, that the ace of spades was meant to go, as you can see by the address on the envelope, only to Blythe. Also the plan included a frame-up of Jack for the murder of Blythe when it should occur — witness the use of Jack’s typewriter in the typing of the code-sheet, the planting of the code-sheet in his dressing-room.”

“Well?”

“But what actually happened? Blythe was murdered, all right — but not alone. Jack was murdered, too. What made the murderer change his plans? What made him murder not only Blythe, as originally planned, but Jack as well — the very man scheduled to take the rap for that murder?”

They were both silent, frowning back at him.

“That, as I see it, is the most significant question arising out of the whole chain of events. Answer that question and I believe you’ll be well on the road to an answer to everything.”

“Yeah, answer it,” muttered Lew into his brandy. “I still say it’s baloney.”

“But what I don’t understand,” protested Ty, “is why the date was advanced. Why did Smith hurry up his crime? It seems to me he could have waited until the ace of spades was delivered and then murdered the two of them. But he didn’t. He abandoned his own time-schedule, the whole elaborate machinery of the letters which he had set up. Why?”

“Opportunity,” said Ellery succinctly. “It’s more difficult, you know, to contrive the killing of two people than of one. And the honeymoon jaunt in your plane gave Smith an opportunity to kill both Blythe and Jack which he simply couldn’t pass up.”

“As the situation stands, then, the frame-up against dad is a flop and the murderer knows it.”

“But there’s nothing he can do about that except make an effort to get back the letters and the code list, and particularly his own telltale note in the files of the mailing company. As Lew suggested, he probably figured the relative risks involved and chose not to make the attempt.”

“At least we’ve got enough to convince Bonnie of the absurdity of her suspicions against dad. What you’ve just said proves dad was another victim, that’s all. Queen, would you—”

“Would I what?” Ellery emerged from a cavernous reverie.

“Would you tell that to Bonnie? Clear dad for me?”

Ellery rubbed his jaw. “And you, I take it?”

“Well... yes.”

“Now don’t worry about anything, Ty,” said Ellery with a sudden briskness. “Forget this mess. Go out and get some exercise. Or go on a bat for a couple of weeks. Why not take a vacation?”

“Leave Hollywood now?” Ty looked grim. “Not a chance.”

“Don’t be idiotic. You’re only in the way here.”

“Queen’s right,” said Lew. “The picture’s out, and I know Butch’ll give you a vacation. After all, he’s engaged to the girl.” He giggled.

Ty smiled and got to his feet. “Coming?”

“I think I’ll sit here and cogitate for a while.” Ellery surreptitiously glanced at his wrist-watch. “Think it over, Ty. Here, never mind the check! I’ll take care of it.”

Lew clutched the bottle to his bosom, reaching with his free hand for his hat. “My pal.”

Ty waved wearily and plodded off, followed a little erratically by Lew.

And Mr. Queen sat and cogitated with an unusually perturbed expression in his usually expressionless eyes.

Chapter 14 Mr. Queen, Misogaist

At ten minutes before one o’clock Bonnie scudded into the Brown Derby, looked about in panic, and made for Ellery’s booth with a queer little rush. She sat down and pushed herself into a corner, breathing hard.

“Here, what’s the matter?” said Ellery. “You look scared to death.”

“Oh, I am. I’m being followed!” She peeped over the partition at the door, her eyes wide.

“Clumsy,” mumbled Ellery.

“What?”

“I mean, it’s probably your imagination. Who would want to follow you?”

“I don’t know. Unless...” She stopped inexplicably, her brows almost meeting. Then she shook her head. “You’re looking especially lovely today.”

“Yet I’m positive... A big black car. A closed car.”

“You should wear bright colors all the time, Bonnie. They do remarkable things to your complexion.”

Bonnie smiled vaguely, removed her hat and gloves, and passed her hands over her face like a cat. “Never mind my complexion. It isn’t that. I just won’t wear mourning. It’s... it’s ridiculous. I’ve never believed in mourning. Black things are like a... poster. I keep fighting with Clotilde about it. She’s simply horrified.”

“Yes,” said Ellery encouragingly. She was carefully made up, very carefully indeed, to conceal her pallor and certain tiny fine lines around her eyes; her eyes were large and dark with lack of rest.

“I don’t have to go around advertising to the world that I’ve lost my mother,” said Bonnie in a low voice. “That funeral... it was a mistake. I hated it. I hate myself for having consented to it.”

“She had to be buried, Bonnie. And you know Hollywood.”

“Yes, but—” Bonnie smiled and said in a sudden gay tone: “Let’s not talk about it. May I have a drink?”

“So early in the day?”

She shrugged. “A daiquiri, please.” She began to explore her handbag.

Ellery ordered a daiquiri, and a brandy-and-soda, and watched her. She was breathing hard again, under cover of her activity. She took out her compact and examined her face in the mirror, not looking at him, not looking at what lay plainly revealed in her open bag, picking at nonexistent stragglers of honey-hued hairs, pursing her lips, applying a dab of powder to her nose. And suddenly, without looking at it, she took an envelope out of her bag and pushed it across the table to him.

“Here,” she said in a muffled voice. “Look at this.”

His hand closed over it as the waiter brought their drinks. When the waiter went away Ellery opened his hand. In it lay an envelope. Bonnie studied him anxiously.

“Our friend’s renounced the post-office pen, I see,” said Ellery. “Typewritten address this time.”

“But don’t you see?” whispered Bonnie. “It’s addressed to me!”

“I see quite clearly. When did it arrive?”

“In this morning’s mail.”

“Hollywood-posted last night, elite type, obvious characteristics three broken letters — b and d and t this time. Our friend had to use a different typewriter, since Jack’s portable has been in my possession since yesterday afternoon. All of which tends to show that the letter probably wasn’t written until last night.”

“Look... at what’s in it,” said Bonnie.

Ellery withdrew the inclosure. It was the seven of spades.

“The mysterious ‘enemy’ again,” he said lightly. “History seems on its way to being a bore... Oh.” He thrust the envelope and card into his pocket and rose suddenly. “Hello, Butch.”

The Boy Wonder was standing there, looking down at Bonnie with a queer expression.

“Hello, Bonnie,” he said.

“Hello,” said Bonnie faintly.

He stooped, and she turned her cheek. He straightened up without kissing her, his sharp eyes veiled. “Having lunch here,” he said casually. “Happened to spot you two. What’s up?”

“Bonnie,” said Ellery, “I think your estimable fiancé is jealous.”

“Yes,” said the Boy Wonder, smiling, “I think so, too.” He looked ill. There were deep circles about his eyes, and his cheeks were sunken with fatigue. “I tried to get you this morning, but Clotilde said you’d gone out.”

“Yes,” said Bonnie. “I... did.”

“You’re looking better, Bonnie.”

“Thank you.”

“Will I see you tonight?”

“Why... Why don’t you sit down with us?” said Bonnie, moving an inch on her seat.

“Yes, why don’t you?” echoed Ellery heartily.

Those sharp eyes swept over him for an instant, stopping only long enough to touch on the pocket in which Ellery had thrust the envelope. “Thanks, no,” smiled Butcher. “I’ve got to be getting back to the studio. Well, so long.”

“So long,” said Bonnie in a low voice.

He stood there for a moment more, as if hesitating over a desire to kiss her; then suddenly he smiled and nodded and walked away. They saw the droop of his shoulders as the doorman held open the door for him.

Ellery sat down and sipped at his brandy-and-soda. Bonnie jiggled her long-stemmed glass.

“Nice chap, Butch,” said Ellery.

“Yes. Isn’t he.” Then Bonnie set down her glass with a little bang and cried: “Don’t you see? Now that the cards have started coming to me...”

“Now Bonnie—”

“You don’t think,” she said in a shaky little voice, “you don’t think... I’m... to be next?”

“Next?”

“Mother got the warnings, and she— Now I’m getting them.” She tried to smile. “I’m scared silly.”

Ellery sighed. “Then you’ve changed your mind about Jack Royle’s having sent those previous letters?”

“No!”

“But, Bonnie, surely you’re not afraid of a dead man?”

“No dead man mailed this letter last night,” said Bonnie fiercely. “Oh, Jack Royle sent those other letters to mother. But this one to me...” Bonnie shivered. “I have only one enemy, Mr. Queen.”

“You mean Ty?” murmured Ellery.

“I mean Ty. He’s taking up where his father left off!”

Ellery was silent. He was powerfully tempted to demonstrate to Bonnie how unfounded her suspicions were; he would have given a good deal to dispel that look in her eyes. But he steeled himself. “You’ll have to be careful, Bonnie.”

“Then you do think—”

“Never mind what I think. But remember this. The most dangerous thing you can do is give yourself to Ty Royle.”

Bonnie closed her eyes as she gulped down the dregs of her cocktail. When she opened them they were full of fear. “What shall I do?” she whispered.

Inwardly, Ellery cursed. But he merely said: “Watch your step. Care — care. Take care. Don’t talk to Ty. Don’t have anything to do with him. Avoid him as you would a leper.”

“A leper.” Bonnie shuddered. “That’s what he is.”

“Don’t listen to his love-making,” continued Ellery, not looking at her. “He’s liable to tell you anything. Don’t believe him. Remember, Bonnie.”

“How could I forget?” Tears sprang into her eyes. She shook her head angrily and groped for her handkerchief.

“That car,” muttered Ellery. “The one that’s been following you. Don’t worry about that. The men in it are protecting you. Don’t try to get away from them, Bonnie.”

But Bonnie scarcely heard him. “What good is my life?” she said dully. “I’m left alone in the world with a crazy beast after me, and... and—”

Ellery bit his lip, saying nothing, watching her pinch her nostrils with the handkerchief. He felt very like a beast himself.

After a while he ordered two more drinks, and when they came he urged one upon her. “Now stop it, Bonnie. You’re attracting attention.”

She dabbed at her reddened eyes very quickly then, and blew her little nose, and got busy with her powder-puff; and then she took up the second cocktail and began to sip it.

“I’m a fool,” she sniffled. “It seems all I do is weep, like some silly heroine in a movie.”

“Fine, fine. That’s more like it. By the way, Bonnie, did you know that your mother and Jack Royle paid a visit to your grandfather Tolland Stuart a week ago Wednesday?”

“You mean just before their engagement was announced? Mother didn’t tell me.”

“That’s odd.”

“Isn’t it.” She frowned. “How do you know?”

“Paula Paris told me.”

“That woman! How did she know?”

“Oh, she’s really not so bad,” said Ellery lamely. “It’s just her job, Bonnie. You ought to be able to see that.”

For the first time Bonnie examined him with the naked concentration of a woman seeking beneath the surface the signs of male weakness. “Oh, I see,” she said slowly. “You’re in love with her.”

“I?” protested Ellery. “Absurd!”

Bonnie clothed the nakedness of her glance and murmured: “Sorry. I suppose it’s immaterial where she found out. I do seem to recall now that mother was away all that day. I wonder why on earth she went to see grandfather. And with... that man.”

“What’s so surprising about that? After all, she’d decided to be married, and he was her father.”

Bonnie sighed. “I suppose so, but it seems queer.”

“In what way?”

“Mother hadn’t visited or spoken to grandfather — oh, more than two or three times in the past dozen years. I myself hadn’t been in that awful house in the Chocolate Mountains before last Sunday in at least eight years — I was wearing hair-ribbons and pinafores, so you can imagine how long ago that was. Why, if I’d passed grandfather on the street before Sunday I wouldn’t have recognized him. He never came to see us, you see.”

“I’ve meant to question you about that. Just what was the reason for the coldness between your mother and your grandfather?”

“It wasn’t coldness exactly. It was... well, it’s just that grandfather’s naturally a selfish person, all wrapped up in himself. Mother used to tell me that even as a little girl she never got much affection from him. You see, my grandmother died in childbirth, when mother was born — she was an only child — and grandfather sort of... let go after that. I mean—”

“Cracked up?”

“He had a nervous breakdown, mother said. He was never quite the same after. He took grannie’s death very hard, sort of blamed mother for it. If she hadn’t been born—”

“It’s not an uncommon masculine reaction.”

“I don’t want you to think he was brutal to mother, or anything like that,” said Bonnie quickly. “He always had a sense of obligation towards her financially. He had her brought up very well, with governesses and nurses and heaps of clothes and European trips and finishing schools and all that. But when she grew up and went on the stage and got along very well by herself — why, I suppose he thought his duties as a father ended right there. And he’s never paid the slightest attention to me.”

“Then why did your mother visit him last Wednesday?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” frowned Bonnie, “unless it was to tell him about her and Jack Royle getting married. Although certainly grandfather wouldn’t care what she did; he took no interest in her first marriage, so why should he take any in her second?”

“Could it have been because your mother needed money? You said the other day she was always stony.”

Bonnie’s lip curled. “From him? Mother always said she’d beg before she’d ask him for a cent.”

Ellery sat rubbing his upper lip with the tip of his finger. Bonnie finished her cocktail.

“Bonnie,” said Ellery suddenly, “let’s do something.”

“What?”

“Let’s get ourselves a plane and fly down to the Chocolate Mountains.”

“After the horrible way he acted Sunday?” Bonnie sniffed. “No, indeed. Not even going to his own daughter’s funeral! That’s carrying eccentricity a bit too far, at least for me.”

“I have a feeling,” said Ellery, rising, “that it’s important to find out why your mother and John Royle visited him nine days ago.”

“But—”

Ellery looked down at her. “It may help, Bonnie, to clear away the fog-

Bonnie was silent. Then she tossed her head and got up. “In that case,” she said firmly, “I’m with you.”

Chapter 15 Mr. Queen, Snoop

In the light of blessed day the Law of Dreadful Night reversed itself and Tolland Stuart’s eyrie from the sun-shot air lay revealed in all its sprawling, weatherbeaten grandeur — a more fearsome scab upon the knife-edged mountain landscape than it had ever been invisible under darkness.

“It’s a simply hideous place,” shivered Bonnie, peering down as the hired airplane circled the landing-field.

“It’s not exactly another Shangri-La,” said Ellery dryly, “even though it does resemble the forbidden city at the roof of the world. Has your worthy grandfather ever visited Tibet? It might explain the geographical inspiration.”

The gloomy pile crouched lifeless beneath them. And yet there was an illusion of life in the silent stones and turrets, lying still in the center of a web of power lines and telephone cables descending airily the slopes of the mountain.

“Is it my imagination,” said Bonnie, “or does that thing down there look like a spider?”

“It’s your imagination,” replied Ellery quickly. When they trundled to a stop on the tiny field, he said to the pilot: “Wait for us. We shan’t be long,” and took Bonnie’s arm in a casual but precautionary way. He helped her to the ground and hurried her towards the rift in the woods. As they passed the hangar he noted that its doors stood open and its interior was empty.

Bonnie noticed, too. “Do you suppose grandfather’s flown off somewhere? I’d always understood he rarely left the estate.”

“More likely it’s Dr. Junius. I imagine the good leech has to do the shopping for cabbages and such. Picture yourself running a household up here!”

“And flying down to the grocer’s for a bottle of olives,” giggled Bonnie nervously.

The tree-canopied path was deserted. And when they emerged into the clearing where the house stood they saw that the front doors were shut.

Ellery knocked; there was no answer. He knocked again. Finally, he tried the knob. It turned.

“The obvious,” he chuckled, “has a way of eluding me. Enter, Bonnie. The house, at least, won’t bite you.”

Bonnie looked doubtful; but she squared her boyish shoulders and preceded him bravely into the dim interior.

“Grandfather?” she called.

The syllables tumbled back, smothered and mocking.

“Mr. Stuart!” roared Ellery. The echo had a sneer in it. “Damn. That old man’s exasperating. Do you mind if I shake some life into him?”

“Mind?” Bonnie looked angry. “I’d like to do some shaking myself!”

“Well,” said Ellery cheerfully, “we’ll have to find him first,” and he led the way.

The living-room was empty. The kitchen, although there were bread-crumbs on the porcelain-topped table and the odor of freshly brewed tea, was also empty; so Ellery took Bonnie with him to the staircase, looking grim.

“He’s up there sulking again, I’ll bet a million. Mr. Stuart!”

No answer.

“Let me go first,” said Bonnie firmly, and she ran up the stairs.

They found the old man lying in bed, the table by his side loaded with pill-boxes, medicine bottles, atomizers, and iron-stained spoons. His toothless jaws were doggedly munching on a cold meat sandwich, and he was gulping iced tea as he glared at them quite without surprise.

“Grandfather!” cried Bonnie. “Didn’t you hear us?”

He glowered at her from under his hairy gray brows munching without a sign he had heard her.

“Grandfather!” Bonnie looked scared. “Can’t you hear me? Are you deaf?”

He stopped munching long enough to growl: “Go away,” and then he took another swallow of tea and another bite of the white bread.

Bonnie looked relieved and furious. “How can you treat me this way? Aren’t you human? What’s the matter with you?”

The hair on his cheeks and chin stopped wiggling as his jaws suddenly clamped together. Then they wiggled again as he said curtly: “What d’ye want?”

Bonnie sat down. “I want,” she said in a low voice, “a little of the affection you never gave my mother.”

Studying that aged, bitter physiognomy, Ellery was astonished to see a soft expression creep into the veined and rheumy eyes. Then the expression vanished. The old man said gruffly: “Too late now. I’m an old man. Blythe should have thought of that years ago. She never was a daughter to me.” The lisp grew more pronounced as his voice rose. “I don’t want anybody! Go away and let me alone. If that fool Junius wouldn’t hop in and out like a jack rabbit, blast him, maybe I’d get some privacy!”

Bonnie made two tight little fists of her gloves. “You don’t scare me one bit with your bellowing,” she said evenly. “You know the fault was yours, not mother’s. You never gave her the love she had a right to expect from you.”

The old man banged down his glass and hurled the remains of the sandwich from him. “You say that to me?” he howled. “What do you know about it? Did she ever bring you to me? Did she ever—”

“Did you ever show her you wanted her to?”

The bony arms wavered, then fell to the coverlet with a curious weakness. “I’m not going to argue with a snip of a girl. You’re after my money. I know what you want. My money. That’s all children and grandchildren ever want!”

“Grandfather,” gasped Bonnie, rising. “How can you say such a thing?”

“Get out, get out,” he said. “That fool Junius! Going off to Los Angeles and letting this house become a Wayside Inn. Lord knows what germs you’ve brought in here, you and this fellow. I’m a sick old man. I’m—”

“Goodbye,” said Bonnie. And she made for the door blindly.

“Wait,” said Ellery. She waited, her lips trembling. Ellery faced the old man grimly. “Your life is your own to lead as you see fit, Mr. Stuart, but a capital crime has been committed and you can’t shut yourself away from that. You’re going to answer some questions.”

“Who are you?” demanded the old man sourly.

“Never mind who I am. A week ago Wednesday — that’s nine days ago — your daughter and John Royle paid you a visit. Why?”

It seemed to him that for an instant the old man showed astonishment; but only for an instant. “So you found that out, too, did you? You must be from the police, like that idiot Glücke who was up here early in the week. Police!”

“I asked you, Mr. Stuart—”

“You want to know why they came here, hey? All right, I’ll tell you,” said the old man unexpectedly, hitching himself up in bed. “Because they wanted money, that’s why! That’s all anybody ever wants.”

“Mother asked you for money?” said Bonnie. “I don’t believe it!”

“Call me a liar, do you?” said the old man venomously. “I say she asked me for money. Not for herself, I admit. But she asked me. For the good-for-nothing Royle!”

Bonnie looked at Ellery, and Ellery looked at Bonnie. So that was it. Blythe had come to her father against all her instincts — not for herself, but for the man she loved. Bonnie looked away, staring out the window at the cold sky.

“I see,” said Ellery slowly. “And you gave it to her?”

“I must have been out of my mind that day,” grumbled the old man. “I gave Royle a check for a hundred and ten thousand dollars and I told Blythe not to bother me again. Good-for-nothing! Something about gambling debts. She wanted to marry a gambler. Well, that was her hard luck.”

“Oh, grandfather,” sobbed Bonnie, “you’re an old fraud.” She took a step toward him.

“Don’t come near me!” said the old man hastily. “You’re not sterile. Full of germs!”

“You did love her. You wanted her to be happy.”

“I wanted her to let me alone.”

“You just pretend to be hard—”

“It was the only way I could get rid of her. Why can’t people let me alone? Blythe said it would be her money some day, anyway, and all she asked was part of it before...” His hairy lips quivered. “Get out and don’t come back.”

And Bonnie hardened. “You know,” she whispered, “I believe you did give it to her just to get rid of her. Don’t worry, grandfather. I’ll get out and I’ll never come back. I’ll never speak to you again as long as you live.”

The old man waved his arms again, his sallow face livid. “I won’t die for a long time!” he yelled. “Don’t worry about that! Get out, the two of you!”

“Not yet,” said Ellery. He glanced at Bonnie. “Bonnie, would you mind going back to the plane? I’ll join you in a few minutes. I’d like to talk to your grandfather alone.”

“I can’t get away from here fast enough.” Bonnie stumbled out. Ellery heard her running down the stairs as if some one were after her.

He did not speak until the front door slammed. Then he said to the glowering old man: “Now, Mr. Stuart, answer one question.”

“I told you why Blythe and that gambler came up here,” replied the old man in a sulky voice. “I’ve got nothing more to say.”

“But my question has nothing to do with Blythe’s visit.”

“Eh? What d’ye mean?”

“I mean,” said Ellery calmly, “what were you doing last Sunday night outside this house in an aviator’s helmet?”

For a moment he thought the man would faint; the eyes rolled alarmingly, and the large bony nose twitched with a sort of nausea. “Eh?” said the old man feebly. “What did you say?”

And as he said it the faintness and alarm disappeared, and his gray beard came up belligerently. Game old cock, thought Ellery with a grudging admiration. For all his years he absorbed punishment very quickly.

“I saw you outside in the rain with a flying helmet on your head. At a time when Junius said you were up here behind a locked door.”

“Yes,” nodded the old man. “Yes, I was outside. Because I wanted to breathe God’s clean air. I was outside because there were strangers in my house.”

“In the rain?” Ellery smiled. “I thought you had certain fears about pneumonia and such.”

“I’m a sick man,” said the old man stolidly. “But I’d rather risk pneumonia than be mixed up with strangers.”

“You almost said ‘a murder,’ didn’t you? Why should you be so timid about being mixed up in this one, Mr. Stuart?”

“Any one.”

“Your own daughter’s? You don’t feel — I almost made the mistake of calling it ‘natural’ — you don’t feel a desire for vengeance?”

“I want only to be let alone.”

“And the helmet on your head — that had nothing to do with... let us say... airplanes, Mr. Stuart?”

“There are a few helmets about. They’re good protection against rain.”

“Ah, amiable now. I wonder why? People who have something to conceal generally are anxious to talk amiably, Mr. Stuart. Just what are you concealing?”

For answer the old man reached over and snatched the shotgun from its position beside the testered bed. Without speaking, he placed the shotgun in his lap. He looked at Ellery steadily.

Ellery smiled, shrugged, and strolled out.

He made a deliberate clatter as he went down the stairs, and he set one foot loudly after another on the floor of the living-room as he went to the front door. The door he banged.

But he remained inside, listening. There was no sound from above. Frowning, he looked about. That door... Tiptoeing, he crossed the living-room, opened the door carefully, glanced in, nodded, and slipped through, shutting the door behind him with the same caution.

He stood in a library, or study, vast and raftered and gloomy, like all the rooms in the house. This one, too, had a brooding atmosphere, as if it had stood too long untenanted. There was a thick layer of dust over everything, mute reflection on Dr. Junius’s housekeeping talents.

Ellery went without hesitation to the huge flat-topped desk in the center of the room, a piece of solid carved oak with an ancient patina. But he was not interested in the antiquity of Tolland Stuart’s desk; he was interested in its contents. A rapid glance about had convinced him there was no safe in the room; and the desk seemed the most likely repository for what he was seeking.

He found it in the second drawer he opened, sepultured in an unlocked green-painted steel box, although a lock with a key in it lay beside the box.

It was Tolland Stuart’s will.

Ellery read it avidly, one ear cocked for sounds from the old man’s room above.

The date on the will was nine and a half years old, and the paper was a sheet of heavy bond bearing the imprint of an old, solid banking house in Los Angeles. It was a holograph will, handwritten in ink by a crabbed fist — Ellery could visualize the old terrorist twisting his tongue in his withered cheek and refusing to allow any one at his bank to catch a glimpse of what he was writing. The will was signed with Tolland Stuart’s signature, which had been witnessed by names meaningless to Ellery, obviously employees of the bank.

The will said:

Except for an additional short paragraph in which the junior vice-president of the bank where the will had been drawn up and witnessed was named executor of the estate, there was nothing more.

Ellery replaced the document in its green box, shut the drawer, and stole out of the house.

As he stepped onto the landing-field he spied the stubby airplane which he had seen Sunday night in the nearby hangar. It was gliding down to a landing. It taxied to a stop beside the commercial plane which had flown Ellery and Bonnie up into the mountains. Dr. Junius jumped to the ground, looking like an elderly condor in the helmet which flapped about his ears.

He waved to Bonnie, who was waiting in the other plane, and hurried forward to greet Ellery.

“Paying us a visit, I see,” he said companionably. “I would be out shopping! What’s happening on the Hollywood front?”

“It’s all quiet.” Ellery paused. “We’ve just had the honor of an interview with your worthy benefactor.”

“Since your skin is still whole,” smiled the doctor, “it can’t have been so terrifying.” Then he said in quite a different tone: “Did you say ‘benefactor’?”

“Why, yes,” murmured Ellery. “Isn’t he?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” The doctor’s bright eyes retreated into their yellow sockets.

“Oh, come, Doctor.”

“No. Really.”

“Don’t tell me you’re unaware that the old crank has set aside a little something for your old age!”

Dr. Junius threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, that!” The laugh turned bitter. “Of course I’m aware of it. Why do you think I’ve buried myself up here?”

“I thought,” said Ellery dryly, “there must be a sound reason.”

“I assume he told you.”

“Mmm.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Dr. Junius, shrugging, “that I got the better of the bargain. It’s cheap at a hundred thousand, dirt cheap. Living with that old pirate and putting up with his tantrums and whims for ten years is worth closer to a million, even at a conservative estimate.”

“How did he ever come to make such an odd arrangement with you, Doctor?”

“When we met he’d just been given a rather thorough going-over by a pair of quack ‘specialists’ who’d got hold of him and were milking him for thousands in fees. They told him he had cancer of the stomach, scared him into believing he had only a year or two at the most to live.”

“You mean a deliberately false diagnosis?”

“I imagine so. I suppose they were afraid the sacred cow would stop giving milk sooner or later and thought they’d get much more out of him by concentrating their ‘services’ over a short period than by trying to pander to his hypochondria over a longer one. Anyway, some one recommended me to him, and I examined him and found he merely had ulcers. I told him so, and the quacks discreetly vanished.”

“But I still don’t see—”

“I told you you don’t know Tolland Stuart,” said the doctor grimly. “He was suspicious of them, but he couldn’t get it out of his mind that perhaps there was a cancer in his stomach. My insistence that he hadn’t, and that I could cure his ulcers very easily — he was in perfectly sound condition otherwise — gave him an idea. He remembered what the quacks had said about his having only a year or so to live. So, in view of my confidence, he engaged me to keep him alive for a minimum of ten years — he liked my honesty, he said, and if I kept him in reasonably good health five times longer than the other men had claimed he would live, I was entitled to a large fee.”

“The Chinese system. You collect during the good health of your patient.”

“Good health!” snorted Dr. Junius. “The man’s as sound as a nut. It took me only a short time to heal the ulcers, and he hasn’t had so much as a cold since.”

“But all those medicines and pills by his bed—”

“Colored water and sugar-coated anodynes. It’s a disgusting but essential therapy. I haven’t used a legitimate drug from my little pharmacy in there in eight years. I’ve got to treat him for his imaginary ailments or he’d kick me out of the house.”

“And then you wouldn’t collect your hundred thousand when he dies.”

The doctor threw up his hands. “When he dies! As far as I can tell, he’ll live to be ninety. The chances are all in favor of his surviving me, and I’ll get for my long years of martyrdom up here just two lines in an obituary column.”

“But isn’t he paying you a yearly retainer besides?”

“Oh, yes, quite handsome.” The doctor shrugged. “But unfortunately I haven’t any of it. I’d go crazy if I didn’t sneak down into L.A. once in a while. When I do, it’s only to lose money at roulette, or at the racetrack — I’ve dropped some in the stock market...”

“Not Alessandro’s?” said Ellery suddenly.

The doctor scowled at the jagged skyline. “Did you ever want something very badly?”

“Often.”

“I recognized early in my career that I wouldn’t make a go of medicine. Haven’t the proper temperament. What I’ve always wanted more than anything else, and couldn’t have for lack of money, was leisure.”

“Leisure? To what purpose?”

“Writing! I’ve got a story to tell the world. Lots of stories!” He tapped his breast. “They’re locked up in here, and they won’t come free until my mind is relieved of financial worry and I’ve got time and a sense of security.”

“But up here—”

“What about up here?” demanded Junius fiercely. “Security? Time? I’m a prisoner. I’m on my feet, from morning to night, catering to that old fool, cooking for him, wiping his nose, running his errands, cleaning his house... No. Mr. Queen, I can’t write up here. All I can do up here is run my feet off and hope he’ll break his neck some day while he’s out rabbit-hunting.”

“At least,” murmured Ellery, “you’re frank.”

The doctor looked frightened. He said hastily: “Goodbye,” and plodded off towards the tree-masked house.

“Goodbye,” said Ellery soberly, and he climbed into the waiting plane.

Chapter 16 Mr. Queen, Rat

Ellery was sitting at his kitchenette table Saturday morning clad in pajamas and robe and giving his divided attention simultaneously to a sooty slab of toast, the morning paper announcing the latest developments, which were nil, in the Royle-Stuart case, and a paperbacked book entitled Fortune Telling by Cards, when his telephone rang.

“Queen!” Ty’s voice was eager. “What did she say?”

“What did who say?”

“Bonnie. Did you fix it up for me?”

“Oh, Bonnie.” Ellery thought furiously. “Well, now, Ty, I’ve got bad news for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“She won’t believe a word of it. She’s still convinced your father wrote those notes to her mother.”

“But she can’t!” howled Ty. “It’s not reasonable. Didn’t you tell her about that mailing company and the rest of it?”

“Oh, certainly,” lied Ellery. “But you can’t expect reasonableness from a woman, Ty; a man of your experience ought to know that. Why don’t you give Bonnie up as a hopeless job?”

Ty was silent; Ellery could almost see him grinding his teeth together and sticking out his lean jaw. “I couldn’t be mistaken,” said Ty at last, in a sort of stubborn despair. “She gave herself to me too completely. She loves me. I know she does.”

“Pshaw, the girl’s an actress. Every woman has something of the mime in her, but when it’s also her profession—”

“Since when do you know so much about women? I tell you she wasn’t acting!”

“Look, Ty,” said Ellery with simulated impatience, “I’m a sorely harassed man, and I’m not at my best at this hour of the morning. You asked me, and I told you.”

“I’ve kissed too many girls in my time,” muttered Ty, “not to recognize the real thing when it’s dished out to me.”

“Thus spake Casanova,” sighed Ellery. “I still think you ought to take a vacation. Hop an Eastern plane. A whirl around Broadway’s hot spots will get Bonnie out of your system.”

“I don’t want her out of my system! Damn it, if it’s that bad I’ll face the music in person. I should have done it in the first place.”

“Wait,” said Ellery, alarmed. “Don’t go looking for trouble, Ty.”

“I know if I talk to her, take her in my arms again—”

“Do you want a knife in your back when you do? She’s been receiving letters again.”

“More?” said Ty incredulously. “But I thought we bagged the whole batch in that mailing office!”

“She showed me one that came yesterday. Addressed to her.”

“To her?”

“Yes, and with the seven of spades enclosed. ‘An Enemy.’”

“But if it was mailed Thursday night — and we know it couldn’t have come from the fellow Lucey’s office — why, that proves dad couldn’t have sent it!”

Ellery said desperately: “Oh, she knows your father couldn’t have mailed this one. It’s worse. She thinks you sent it.”

“I?” Ty sounded dazed.

“Yes, she’s convinced now the whole series of card messages has been inspired by the Royle family. The ones to Blythe by your father and now this one, apparently the first of a fresh series, by you.”

“But that’s... why, that’s mad! By me? Does she actually think I ...?”

“I told you she was past reasoning with. You’ll never rehabilitate this affair, Ty. Stop wasting your time.”

“But she mustn’t think I’m hounding her! I ought to be able to do something to convince her—”

“Don’t you know that the only truly inert material in the universe is an idea rooted in a woman’s skull? The winds do blow, but to no avail. I don’t want to seem to be changing the subject, but do you own a typewriter?”

“What?” mumbled Ty.

“I said: Do you own a typewriter?”

“Why, yes. But—”

“Where is it?”

“In my dressing-room on the lot.”

“Where are you going now?”

“To see Bonnie.”

“Ty.” Ellery winced at his own perfidy. “Don’t. Take my advice. You may be... in danger.”

“Danger? What do you mean?”

“You understand English perfectly well.”

“Look here,” said Ty sharply, “are you trying to tell me that Bonnie would... You’re joking, or crazy.”

“Will you do me one favor? Don’t talk to Bonnie until I tell you it’s safe to.”

“But I don’t understand, Queen!”

“You’ve got to promise.”

“But—”

“I can’t explain now. Have I your word?”

Ty was silent. Then he said wearily: “Oh, very well,” and hung up.

Ellery did likewise, swabbing his moist brow. A close shave. Raw apprentice himself in the laboratory of love, he was just beginning to discover what powerful magnetic properties the grand passion possessed. Damn that stubborn kid! At the same time, far and deep inside, Mr. Queen felt a great, consuming shame. Of all the black tricks he had ever played in the interests of ultimate truth, this was certainly the blackest!

Sighing, he plodded towards his kitchenette for a further perusal of the book on fortune-telling and a Star Chamber session with his own dark thoughts.

The doorbell rang.

Absently he turned about and went to the door and opened it.

And there stood Bonnie.

“Bonnie! Well, well. Come in.”

Bonnie was radiant. She flew by, hurled herself on his sofa, and looked up at him with dancing eyes.

“What a lovely day! Isn’t it? And that’s the most fetching robe you’re wearing, Mr. Queen. And I’ve just been followed by that same closed black car, and I don’t care — whoever it is — and oh, the most wonderful thing’s happened!”

Ellery closed the door slowly. What now?

Nevertheless, he managed to smile. “There’s one pleasant feature of this case, anyway — it’s thrown me into daily contact with one of the loveliest damsels of our time.”

“One of the happiest,” laughed Bonnie. “And are you trying to seduce me with that mustachioed old technique? Oh, I feel so chipper it’s indecent!” She bounced up and down on the sofa like a gleeful little girl. “Aren’t you going to ask me what it is?”

“What what is?”

“The wonderful thing that’s happened?”

“Well,” said Ellery, without elation, “what is it?”

She opened her bag. Ellery studied her. Her pixie features were ravaged to a degree that neither her present gaiety nor the art of make-up as taught by its most celebrated impresarios could conceal. There were gray hollows in her cheeks and her eyes were underscored by violet shadows. She looked like a sufferer from a serious ailment who has just been informed by her physician that she would live and get well.

She took an envelope out of her bag and offered it to him. He took it, frowning; why should the receipt of another warning note have this extraordinary effect on her spirits? Apprehension ruffled his spine as he removed the enclosed card. It was a four of spades.

He stared at it gloomily. So that was it. If he recalled the code sheet correctly...

“You needn’t go looking for the yellow sheet,” said Bonnie gaily. “I know all those meanings by heart. The four of spades means: ‘Have Nothing More to Do with a Certain Person about Whom You Are Doubtful.’ Isn’t it scrumptious?”

Ellery sat down opposite her, scrutinizing the envelope.

“You don’t look pleased,” said Bonnie. “I can’t imagine why.”

“Perhaps,” muttered Ellery, “it’s because I don’t understand in what way it’s so scrumptious.”

Bonnie’s eyes widened. “But it says: ‘Have Nothing More to Do with a Certain Person about Whom You Are Doubtful.’ Don’t you see,” she said happily. “And I thought Ty sent that card yesterday!”

Bonnie, Bonnie. Ellery felt savage. First Ty, now Bonnie. Only the meanest man in the world would even attempt to wipe that blissful look from her drawn face, the first expression of pure happiness it had exhibited in the century-long week of doubts and torments and sorrow and death.

And yet, it had to be done. It was vitally important to wipe that look off her face. For an instant Ellery toyed with the notion to tell Bonnie the truth. That would stop her, if he gauged her character accurately. But then she wouldn’t be able to keep it from Ty. And if Ty knew...

He steeled himself. “I don’t see why you’re so cheerful,” he said, injecting a sneer into his voice.

Bonnie stared. “What do you mean?”

“You said you thought Ty sent that card yesterday. Apparently you don’t think so any more. What’s made you change your mind?”

“Why, this card — the one you’re holding!”

“I fail,” said Ellery coldly, “to follow your reasoning.”

Her smile faded. “You mean you don’t see—” She tossed her head. “You’re teasing me. There’s only one person in this world I could have been, and was, doubtful about. That was Ty.”

“What of it?”

“No matter who sent this card, its meaning is plain — it warns me not to have anything more to do with Ty. Don’t you see?” she cried, her cheeks pink again. “Don’t you see that that clears Ty — that he couldn’t have sent it? Would he warn me against himself if he were behind all this?” She paused triumphantly.

“He would under certain circumstances.”

The smile flickered and went out for good. She lowered her gaze and began to pick aimlessly at the handle of her bag.

“I suppose,” she said in a small voice, “you know what you’re talking about. I’m... I’m not much at this sort of thing. It just seemed to me that...”

“He’s been terribly clever,” said Ellery in a flat tone. “He knows you suspect him, and therefore he’s sent you the one message calculated to dispel your suspicions. As it did.”

He rose, suddenly unable to endure the sight of her steady picking at the bag. At the same time he became conscious that she had raised her eyes again and was looking at him with a queer directness — a sad, sharp, questioning look that made him feel he had committed a great crime.

“You really believe that?” murmured Bonnie.

Ellery snapped: “Wait for me. I’ll prove it.” He went into his bedroom, shut the door, and quickly began to dress. Because it made things easier, he kept his mind blank.

Bonnie drove him to the Magna Studios, and when she had parked her roadster in the studio garage he said: “Where’s Ty’s dressing-room?”

“Oh,” she said.

And without another word she led him to the little tree-shaded street of the stone bungalows and up the three steps to a door with Ty’s name on it. The door was unlocked, and they went in.

A standard-sized typewriter stood on a table beside a chair. Bonnie was perfectly motionless at the door. Ellery went to the typewriter, took a sheet of clean paper from his pocket, and rapidly typed a few lines.

That he returned to Bonnie with the sheet, pulling out of his pocket the envelope which she had just received.

“Open and shut,” he said tonelessly. “Here, Bonnie, compare these specimens. Notice the b’s and d’s and t’s? Broken type.” He did not mention that, like the h’s and r’s on John Royle’s portable, the imperfect keys on Ty’s machine had been freshly — and obviously — filed to make them so. “Also elite, which is unusual for a nonportable typewriter.”

Bonnie moved then and looked, not at the paper specimens, but directly at the keys. She poked the b and examined the key, and the d, and the t. And then she said: “I see.”

“Little doubt about it. This envelope and the one that came yesterday were both addressed on this machine.”

“How did you know?” she asked, looking at him with that same queer, questioning gaze.

“It seemed likely.”

“Then there ought to be a carbon copy of the yellow code sheet, too. It wouldn’t be complete without that.”

“Clever girl.” Ellery rummaged through the table drawer. “And here it is, too! Looks like a third or fourth carbon.” He offered it for her inspection, but she kept looking at him.

“What are you going to do?” Bonnie’s voice was chill. “Expose Ty to Inspector Glücke?”

“No, no, that would be premature,” said Ellery hastily. “No real evidence for a prosecutor.” She said nothing. “Bonnie, don’t say anything about this to any one. And keep away from Ty. Do you hear?”

“I hear,” said Bonnie.

“As far away as you can.” Bonnie opened the door. “Where are you going now?” Bonnie did not answer. “Be careful!” She looked at him, once, a long hard look that had in its depths a gleam of — that was strange — fright.

Her stride lengthened. Half a block away she was running.

Ellery watched her with grim eyes. When she vanished around a corner he closed the door and sank into the chair.

“I wonder,” he thought miserably, “what the penalty is for murdering love.”

Chapter 17 “Danse Amoureuse”

Mr. Queen sat in Ty’s cool room and cogitated. He sat and cogitated for a considerable time. In many ways things were satisfactory; yes, quite satisfactory. In one important way, however, they were unquestionably not satisfactory. The most important way.

“Same old story,” reflected Mr. Queen. “Find the nut and there’s nothing to crack it with. Is it possible there’s nothing to do but wait? Think, man, think!”

Mr. Queen thought. An hour passed; another. Mr. Queen kept on thinking. But it was no use.

He got to his feet, stretching to iron the kinks out of his muscles. It all gelled; the case lay smooth and shiny and whole before his critical appetite. The problem, which he found himself unable to solve, was how to wrap his fingers around it without causing it to disintegrate into a sticky, ruined, quivering mess.

Hoping fervently for an inspiration, Mr. Queen left the bungalow and the studio and took a taxi back to his hotel. In his apartment he called the desk clerk and instructed him to have his coupe brought around from the garage. While he was gathering the various letters in his collection and placing them under the lid of John Royle’s portable typewriter, the telephone rang.

“Queen?” bellowed Inspector Glücke. “You come down to my office right away! Right away, d’ye hear?”

“Do I hear? I can’t very well help myself, Glücke.”

“I’m not saying anything now. You just get down here as fast as those smart legs of yours can carry you!”

“Mmm,” said Ellery. “Shall I take a toothbrush and pajamas?”

“You ought to be in clink, damn you. Step on it!”

“As a matter of fact, I was on my way, Glücke—”

“You’d double-cross your own father,” roared the Inspector. “I give you a half-hour. Not a minute more!” He hung up.

Ellery frowned, sighed, snapped down the lid of the typewriter, went downstairs, got into his coupe, and headed for downtown Los Angeles.

“Well?” said Mr. Queen, precisely a half-hour later.

Inspector Glücke sat behind his desk blowing out his hard cheeks and contriving to look both vexed and wounded at once. Also, he breathed hard and angrily.

“What’s that you’ve got there?” he growled, pointing to the typewriter.

“I asked first,” said Ellery coyly.

“Sit down and don’t be so damned funny. Did you see Paula Paris’s paper today?”

“No.”

“Can’t you read English, or aren’t our newspapers classy enough for you? After all, you are a literary man.”

“Ha, ha,” said Ellery. “That, I take it, was meant to positively gore me. You see how much I love you, darling? I even split an infinitive with you! Come on, spill.” Glücke hurled a newspaper at Ellery. Ellery caught it, raising his brows, and began to read a passage marked in red pencil in Paula Paris’s column.

“What you got to say for yourself?”

“I say she’s wonderful,” said Ellery dreamily. “My lady Paula! A woman with brains. Glücke, tell me truthfully: Have you ever met a woman who combined intellect, beauty, and charm so perfectly?”

The Inspector smote his desk with the flat of his hand, making things jump and tremble. “You think you’re damned cute — you and that pest of a newspaperwoman! Queen, I don’t mind telling you I’m raving mad. Raving! When I read that piece I had a good mind to issue a warrant for your arrest. I mean it!”

“Looking for a goat, eh?” said Ellery sympathetically.

“Collecting all those letters! Holding out on me all week! Posing as a Headquarters dick!”

“You’ve worked fast,” said Ellery with admiration. “All she says here, after all, is that Blythe Stuart was receiving anonymous letters and that they were mailed through the agency of a mailing service. Good work, Glücke.”

“Don’t salve me! There’s only one mailing service in town, and I had this guy Lucey on the carpet just a while ago. He told me all about you — recognized you from his description. And you left your name and hotel phone number with him. The cheek of it! That proved his story. I suppose the other two were Ty Royle and Lew Bascom, from Lucey’s description.”

“Wonderful.”

“I’ve been having the Stuart house searched — no letters — so I know you have ’em.” The Inspector looked as if he were about to cry. “To think you’d pull a lousy trick like that on me.” He jumped up and shouted: “Fork over!”

Ellery frowned. “Nevertheless, the inevitability of secrets finally coming to rest in Paula’s column is beginning to give me the willies. Where the devil does she get her information?”

“I don’t care,” yelled Glücke. “I didn’t even call her this morning on it — what the hell good would it do? Listen, Queen, are you going to give me those letters or do I have to slap you in the can?”

“Oh, the letters.” Ellery kicked the typewriter between his legs. “You’ll find them in here, with the cards and the machine the scoundrel used to type his code sheet, and his letter to International Mailers.”

“Cards? Code sheet?” gaped Glücke. “Machine? Whose machine?”

“Jack Royle’s.”

The Inspector sank back, feeling his brow. “All right,” he choked. “Let’s have the story. I’m just in charge of the Homicide Detail. Just give me a break, a handout.” He bellowed: “Damn it, man, give!”

Ellery gave, chuckling. He launched into a long exposition, beginning at the beginning — the very beginning, which was his acquisition of the first two cards from Blythe Stuart herself in Jack Royle’s house — and concluding with the story of the new series of letters sent to Bonnie.

The Inspector sat glowering at the typewriter, the yellow sheets, the cards, the envelopes.

“And when I found that the two letters to Bonnie were typed on Ty’s machine,” shrugged Ellery, “that was the end of it. Honestly, Glücke, I was on my way to give you all this stuff when you phoned me.”

The Inspector rose, grunting, and took a turn about the room. Then he summoned his secretary. “Take all this stuff down to Bronson and have him check it, along with the fingerprint detail.” When the man left, he resumed his pacing.

Finally, he sat down. “To tell you the truth,” he confessed, “it doesn’t mean an awful lot to me. That letter signed Smith is a phony, of course; just a neat way of wiping out the trail to himself. The only thing I get out of the whole set-up is that the original plan was to bump Blythe off, and that something happened to make this Smith give Jack the works, too.”

“The essential point,” murmured Ellery.

“But why was Jack knocked off? Why were the warnings sent at all?” The Inspector waved his arms. “And what’s the idea of starting on Bonnie Stuart now? Say!” His eyes narrowed. “So that’s why you had me put a day-and-night tail on her!”

“If you’ll recall, I asked you to have her watched before the first warning was sent to her.”

“Then why—”

“Call it a hunch. The cards to Bonnie later confirmed it.”

“So now she’s elected,” muttered Glücke. “No savvy.”

“Have you seen her today?”

“I tried to locate her when I found out about the anonymous letters, but she’s not home, and my men haven’t reported. Matter of fact, Royle isn’t around, either.”

A chilly finger pressed on Ellery’s spine. “You haven’t been able to locate Ty?”

“Nope.” The Inspector looked startled. “Say, you don’t think he’s behind these letters? That he’s the one—!” He jumped up again. “Sure! You say yourself these last messages to Bonnie were typed on his machine!” He grabbed his phone. “Miller! Hop down to the Magna Studios on the double and bring back the typewriter in Ty Royle’s dressing-room. Careful with it — prints.” He hung up, rubbing his hands. “We’ll have to go easy, of course. Proving he sent the cards doesn’t prove he pulled the double murder. But just the same it’s a start. Motive galore—”

“You mean he killed his father, too?”

Glücke looked uncomfortable. “Well, I said we’d go easy. There’s a lot of questions to clear up. Keep this under your hat, Queen, while I start the ball rolling.”

“Oh, I will,” said Ellery dryly.

The Inspector grinned and hurried out. Ellery mused over a cigaret. When the Inspector came back he was beaming.

“We’ll locate him in short order, of course. Then a day-and-night tail without his knowledge. I’m having his house fine-combed. Maybe we’ll turn up something on the morphine and sodium allurate, too — check over his movements for a couple of weeks, drug purchases, and so on. It’s a start; it’s a start.”

“Of course, you know Ty physically couldn’t have been that masked pilot,” Ellery pointed out.

“Sure not, but he could have hired some one as a blind. Swell blind, too, having himself held up with a gun and tied like a rooster. With the girl as witness, too.”

Ellery sighed. “I hesitate to dampen your enthusiasm, Glücke, but you’re all wrong.”

“Hey? Wrong? How’s that?” Glücke looked startled.

“Ty never wrote those letters — no, any more than Jack wrote the ones that came to Blythe.”

The Inspector sucked his finger. “How come?” He looked disappointed.

“You might examine,” drawled Ellery, “the faces of the h and r keys on this machine.”

Glücke did so, frowning. The frown disappeared magically, to be replaced by a scowl. “Filed!”

“Exactly. And when you examine Ty’s typewriter, you’ll find that the b and d and t are similarly filed. There could be only one purpose in a deliberate mutilation of typewriter keys — identification of the machine from a sample of its writing. Well, who would want Jack Royle’s machine to be easily identified as the machine which typed the code sheet behind the anonymous letters? Jack Royle? Hardly, if he was sending them. And the same goes for Ty and his machine.”

“I know, I know,” said Glücke irritably. “Framed, by God.”

“So we can be sure of several things. First, that Jack Royle did not send those card messages to Blythe. Second, that Ty Royle did not send those card messages to Bonnie. And third — this follows a pattern of probability — from the fact that the same method of mutilation was used on both machines, filing of keys, a conclusion that the same person mutilated both, and consequently the same person sent both series of messages.”

“But a frame of two men!”

“See what we have. Originally a plan to murder Blythe, and in doing so to frame Jack for the murder by the device of sending those otherwise infantile messages, leaving a trail to them through Jack’s typewriter.”

“But Jack was killed, too.”

“Yes, but we also know the murderer had to change his original plans. Somehow that change necessitated the killing of Jack and the abandonment of the frame-up against him by virtue of the very fact that he had to be murdered.”

“But the cards kept coming.”

“Because the murderer had set up the machinery for having them mailed and didn’t want to risk stopping it. Think now, Glücke. We have a change of plan. Jack’s murder. Then the cards start coming to Bonnie. Had the original plans been followed through, it’s reasonable to assume that Jack would continue to be framed. But with Jack dead, some one else must be framed for the threats against Bonnie. Who? Well, we know now it’s Ty being framed for those threats. It all adds up to one thing.”

“Keep talking,” said the Inspector intently.

“Some one is using the Royle-Stuart feud as a motive background for his crime. He’s throwing you a ready-made motive. So the feud can’t be the motive at all.”

“The pilot!”

Ellery looked thoughtful. “Any trace of the pilot yet?”

“Damned shadow simply vanished. We’re still plugging along on it. I’ve sort of become discouraged myself.” He eyed Ellery. “Did you know I’ve cleared Alessandro?”

“Cleared?” Ellery elevated his brows.

“That hundred and ten grand Jack owed him was really paid. No doubt about it.”

“Was there ever any?”

The Inspector looked suspicious. “You knew it!”

“As a matter of fact, I did. How did you find out?”

“Checked over bank accounts. Found that Jack had cashed a check for a hundred and ten thousand dollars in the bank on the morning of Thursday, the fourteenth.”

“Not his bank, surely; they wouldn’t honor a check of that size for him so quickly. Tolland Stuart’s bank?”

“How’d you know that?” exploded Glücke.

“Guessed. I do know the check was signed by old man Stuart and was dated the thirteenth. I know because I asked the terrible-tempered old coot just yesterday.”

“How come Stuart forked over all that dough to Jack? Jack didn’t mean anything to him. Or did he?”

“I think not. It was Blythe’s work. She took Jack with her that Wednesday to see her father, pleaded for the money for Jack’s sake, not for her own. He says he gave it to her to get rid of both of them.”

“Sounds screwy enough to be true. Even if it wasn’t the reason, the signature’s genuine; we know the old gent did make out a check for that amount.”

“Anything else turn up?”

“Nope. Our leads on Jack’s lady-friends petered out; every one of ’em had an alibi. And the poison — not a trace.” Ellery drummed on the arm of his chair. Glücke scowled. “But this frame-up, now. If Ty’s being framed, this last card was an awful dumb one to send the girl! What kind of cluck are we dealing with, anyway?”

“A cluck who puts morphine into people’s cocktails and sends ’em dumb messages. Perplexing, isn’t it?”

“Maybe,” muttered the Inspector hopefully, “maybe there’s a lead in this fortune-telling stuff after all. I do know Blythe was a little cracked on the subject, like most of the wacky dames out here.”

“No self-respecting fortune-teller would tolerate the salmagundi of which that yellow code sheet is the recipe.”

“Come again?”

“I’ve been delving into the occult art. The little I’ve read convinces me that those cards simply couldn’t have been sent by a professional fortune-teller, or even by one who knew much about fortune-telling.”

“You mean those meanings for each card were just made up?”

“Oh, the meanings are authentic enough, one by one. The only liberty the poisoner took that I could find was in the meaning of the nine of clubs, which in one system of divination means ‘warning.’ Our friend Egbert improved that; he made it ‘last warning.’ Otherwise, the meanings can be found in any work on the subject.

“The trouble is that the ones on the yellow sheet represent a haphazard mixture of meanings from a number of different systems — there are lots of them, you know. Some from the fifty-two card system, some from the thirty-two, one from the so-called ‘tableau of twenty-one’ system; and so on. Also, no account is taken of the different meanings for upright cards as against reversed; there’s no mention of specific methods such as Incantation, Oracle, Old English, Romany, Witch, Gypsy; or of specific arrangement, such as Rows of Nine, Lover’s Tableau, Lucky Horseshoe, Pyramid, Wheel of Fortune. Also, the tearing of a card in two to reverse its meaning — absolute innovation on the part of friend Egbert; can’t find it mentioned anywhere. Also—”

“For God’s sake, I’ve had enough hocus-pocus!” cried the Inspector, seizing his head.

“I trust,” said Ellery, “I’ve made my point?”

“The whole damned thing,” groaned Glücke, “adds up to one beautiful headache.”

“La vie,” said Ellery philosophically, and he strolled out.

He made straight for the Hollywood hills, like a faithful homing-pigeon. The very sight of the white frame house calmed his ruffled spirit and laid a blanket over his tossing thoughts.

Paula kept him cooling his heels for twenty minutes, succeeding admirably in undoing all the good work achieved by her house.

“You can’t do that to me,” he said in reproach, when her secretary sent him in. He devoured her with his eyes. She was gowned in something svelte and clinging; she looked delectable. Remarkable how every time he saw her he discovered something new to admire! Her left eyelid, now; there was a tiny mole on it. Simply adorable. Gave her eyes interest, character. He seized her hands.

“Can’t do what to you?” Paula murmured.

“Keep me waiting. Paula, you look so tasty I could eat you.”

“Cannibal.” She laughed, squeezing his hands. “What can you expect if you don’t tell a lady in advance you’re coming?”

“What difference does that make?”

“Difference! Are you really as stupid as you sound? Don’t you know that every woman looks forward to an excuse to change her dress?”

“Oh, that. You don’t have to primp for me.”

“I’m not primping for you! This is one of my oldest rags—”

“The ancient plaint. And you’re using lipstick. I don’t like lipstick.”

“Mr. Queen! I’ll bet you still wear long underwear.”

“A woman’s lips are infinitely more attractive in their natural state.” He pulled her toward him.

“Well, it stays on,” said Paula hurriedly, backing away. “Oh, you infuriate me! I always say to myself I’m going to be as cool and remote as a queen with you, and you always manage to make me feel like a silly little girl on her first date. Sit down, you beast, and tell me why you’ve come.”

“To see you,” said Ellery tenderly.

“Don’t give me that. You never had a decent, honest, uncomplicated impulse in your life. What is it this time?”

“Uh... there was a little matter of an item in your column today. I mean, about those letters—”

“I knew it! You are a beast.”

“You don’t begin to fathom how true that is.”

“You’re not even polite. You might lie about it, just once. Make me think you’ve come for no other reason than to see me.”

“But that is the reason. In fact,” said Ellery, brightening, “the letter business was just an excuse. That’s what it was, an excuse.”

She sniffed. “You needing an excuse for anything!”

“Paula, did I ever tell you how beautiful you are? You’re the woman I’ve dreamed about since the days when I mooned over movie actresses. The perfect supplement to my soul. I think—”

“You think?” she breathed.

Ellery ran his finger under his collar. “I think it’s warm in here.”

“Oh.”

“Warm in here, all right. Where are your cigarets? Ah. My brand, too. You’re a jewel.” He nervously lit a cigaret.

“You were about to say?”

“I was about to say? Oh, yes. That item in your column about the letters to Blythe.”

“Oh,” she said again.

“Where’d you dig up that nugget?”

She sighed. “Nothing up my sleeve. One of my informants was told about your visit to International Mailers, Inc., by a friend of a friend of your friend Mr. Lucey. And so it got to me, as almost everything that happens in this town does. I put two and two together—”

“And got three.”

“Oh, no, a cool and accurate four. The description was too, too perfect. A lean and hungry galoot with a rapacious glint in his eye. Besides, you left your name.” She eyed him curiously. “What’s it all about?”

He told her. She listened in a perfect quiet. When he had finished she reached for a cigaret. He held a match to it and she thanked him with a glance. Then she frowned into space.

“It’s a frame-up, of course. But why did you ask me to keep peppering away in my column at the Ty-Bonnie feud?”

“Don’t you know?”

“If Bonnie’s in danger, it seems to me that Ty, being innocent She stopped. “Look here, Ellery Queen, you’ve got something up your sleeve!”

“No, no,” said Ellery hastily.

“You just told me yourself you’ve done everything short of kidnapping to keep those two apart. Why?”

“A... whim. At any rate, if I must say so myself, I think I’ve done it very well.”

“Oh, have you? Well, I don’t know why you’ve done it, but I don’t think you’ve done it well, Mister.”

“Eh?”

“You’ve handled that part of it very badly.”

Ellery regarded her with some annoyance. “I have, have I? Tell me, my omniscient Minerva, how you would have handled it?”

She gazed at him, her beautiful eyes mocking. “How true to type,” she murmured. “Such magnificent sarcasm arising from such magnificent egoism. The great man himself condescending to listen to a mere layman. And a woman, at that. Oh, Ellery, sometimes I think you’re either the smartest man in the world or the dumbest!”

Ellery’s cheeks took on a strong reddish cast. “That’s not fair,” he said angrily. “I admit I’ve been a good deal of an ass in my conduct towards you, but as far as the Ty-Bonnie situation is concerned—”

“You’ve been even more of an ass, darling.”

“Damn it all,” cried Ellery, springing to his feet, “where? How? You’re the most exasperating female I’ve ever known!”

“In the first place, Mr. Queen,” smiled Paula, “don’t shout at me.”

“Sorry! But—”

“In the second place, you should have asked my advice, confided in me—”

“In you?” said Ellery bitterly. “When you could have cleared up that business of the mess at the airport so easily?”

“That was different. A question of professional ethics—”

“There’s a woman’s logic for you! That was different, she says. Let me tell you, Paula, it was precisely the same in principle. Besides, why should I confide in you? What reason have I to believe—” He stopped very suddenly.

“For that,” said Paula with a glint in her eye, “you’ll suffer. No. I think I’ll give you the benefit of my wisdom after all. It may reduce the swelling above your ears. You bungled that Ty-Bonnie situation because you don’t know women.”

“What has that to do with it?”

“Well, Bonnie’s very much the woman, and from what you’ve told me about the exact nature of your lies and her reaction to them... Mr. Queen, you are due to get the surprise of your life, I think very shortly.”

“I think,” said Mr. Queen nastily, “you’re talking through your hat.”

“Brr! don’t we look mean! Smile, darling. Come, come. You look as if you wanted to eat me up, all right — but not from amorous motives.”

“Paula,” said Mr. Queen through his teeth, “I can stand just so much and no more. You need a lesson. Even the rat stands and fights at last.”

“Such a humble metaphor!”

“Paula,” thundered Mr. Queen, “I challenge you!”

“My, how formal,” smiled Paula. “Touch a man’s vanity and you send it screaming into the night. Challenge me to what?”

Mr. Queen seated himself again, smiling a wintry smile. “To tell me who killed Jack Royle and Blythe Stuart.” Nevertheless, his eyes were curiously intent.

She raised her brows. “Don’t you know — you, who know everything?”

“I asked you. Have you figured it out?”

“How tedious.” She wrinkled her little nose. “Oh, I imagine I could guess if I wanted to.”

“Guess.” Ellery sneered. “Of course, it wouldn’t stand to reason. I mean, that’s the point. A woman doesn’t reason. She guesses.”

“And you, you great big powerful man, you’ve arrived at it by simply herculean efforts of the mind, haven’t you?”

“Who is it?” said Ellery.

“You tell me first.”

“Good Lord, Paula, you sound like Fanny Brice doing Baby Snooks!”

“Why should I trust you?” murmured Paula. “You’d only claim it was your guess, too. Only you wouldn’t use the word ‘guess.’ You’d say ‘ratiocination,’ or something like that.”

“But for Pete’s sake,” said Ellery irritably. “I don’t do these things by guesswork. It’s a science with me!”

“Nothing doing.” Again mockery. “You write your name down — the name you’ve guessed — and I’ll do the same, and we’ll exchange papers.”

“Very well,” groaned Ellery. “You’ve disrupted my whole intellectual life. It’s childish, but you’ve got to be taught that lesson I mentioned.”

Paula laughed, and procured two sheets of stationery, and gave him a pencil, and turned her back and wrote something quickly on her paper. Ellery hesitated. Then, with heavy strokes, he wrote a name, too. His eyes were veiled as she turned around.

“Wait,” said Ellery. “I have an improvement to suggest. Get two envelopes.”

She looked perplexed, but obeyed.

“Put yours in that envelope, and I’ll put mine in this.”

“But why?”

“Do as I say.”

She shrugged and sealed the envelope over her sheet. Ellery did likewise. Then he stowed her envelope away in his wallet and handed his envelope to her.

“Not to be opened,” he said grimly, “until our friend’s ears are pinned back.”

She laughed again. “Then I’m afraid they’ll never be opened.”

“Why?”

“Because,” said Paula, “the criminal will never be caught.”

“Is that so?” said Ellery softly.

“Oh, I know it’s so,” murmured Paula.

They looked at each other for a long time in silence. The mockery in her eyes had deepened.

“And what makes you so sure?” asked Ellery at last.

“No proof. Not a shred of evidence you could take into court. Unless you’ve been holding out on me.”

“If I snap the trap,” said Ellery with bright eyes, “on friend Egbert, will you admit you were wrong?”

“That would prove me wrong, wouldn’t it?” she murmured. “But you won’t.”

“Willing to stake something on that?”

“Certainly. If you’ll assure me,” she looked at him through her long lashes, “you’ve got no evidence at this moment.”

“I haven’t.”

“Then I can’t lose — unless the creature goes completely haywire and confesses for no reason at all.”

“I have an idea,” said Ellery, “this creature won’t do any such thing. You’ll bet, eh?”

“Anything you say.”

“Anything?”

She lowered her lashes. “Well... that’s a broad term. Anything within reason.”

“Would it be reasonable,” murmured Ellery, “to make the loser take the winner out to the Horseshoe Club?”

Once before he had seen that terrified glimmer in her eyes. It almost made him contrite. But not quite. And then it passed very quickly.

“No guts,” jeered Ellery. “If that disgusting term may be applied to a lady’s anatomy. Well, I knew you wouldn’t.”

“I didn’t... say... I wouldn’t.”

“Then it’s a bet!”

She began to laugh softly. “Anyway, there’s not the slightest danger of your winning.”

“Either a bet’s a bet, or it isn’t.”

“And either a bet has two hazards, or it’s no bet either. What are you giving up if you lose, as you will?”

“Probably my...”

Something new leaped into Paula’s eyes, and it was not terror. “Your what?” she asked swiftly.

“Uh—”

“What were you going to say?”

“You know, Paula,” said Ellery, avoiding her eager gaze, “I really have you to thank for my solution of this case.”

“But you were about to say—”

“You were the one who supplied me with the vital clues.” His tone dried out and became impersonal. “The two vital clues.”

“Ellery Queen, I could shake you! Who cares about that?”

“Consequently,” said Ellery in the same dry way, “I’ll be grateful to you for those tips all my life.”

“All your life?” said Paula tenderly. “All your life?”

And she went slowly up to him and stood so close that the sweet odor of her filled his nose, and his head began to swim, and he began to back away like a dog sniffing danger.

“All your life?” she whispered. “Oh, Ellery...”

One of the telephones on her desk rang.

“Damn!” cried Paula, stamping her foot; and she ran to the desk.

Mr. Queen wiped his damp cheeks with his handkerchief.

“Yes?” said Paula impatiently into the telephone. And then she said nothing at all. As she listened everything live went out of her face, leaving it as blank and set as a papier-mâché mask. She hung up in the same odd silence.

“Paula, what’s the matter?”

She sank into the Cape Cod chair. “I knew your modus operandi was wrong, and I was sure Bonnie saw through your transparent masculine tactics. But I never thought—”

“Bonnie?” Ellery stiffened. “What’s happened?”

“My dear Mr. Know-It-All, prepare for a shock.” Paula smiled vaguely. “You’ve been trying to keep Bonnie and Ty at each other’s throats. Why? You’ve got to tell me.”

“So that a — certain person should see, believe, and be content.” Ellery gnawed his lip. “Paula, for heaven’s sake. Don’t torment me. Who was that, and what did he say?”

“That was a friend of mine, a U.P. man. I’m afraid your certain person, unless afflicted by total paralysis, including eyes and ears, will in a matter of minutes learn the awful truth.”

“What awful truth?” asked Ellery hoarsely.

“An hour ago Bonnie Stuart, hanging onto Ty Royle’s neck as if she were afraid he’d fly away, gave an interview to the press — called ’em all in to her house in Glendale — in which she made a certain announcement to the world.”

“Announcement?” Ellery said feebly. “What announcement?”

“To the effect that tomorrow, Sunday the twenty-fourth, she, Bonita Stuart, intended to become Mrs. Tyler Royle.”

“My God!” howled Ellery and he dived for the door.

Chapter 18 The Sorcerer’s Apprentices

Ellery, scraping the fender of his coupe in his haste to park outside Bonnie’s house in Glendale, caught sight of three men, patently detectives, speaking to a tall familiar figure who had just descended from a police car.

“Glücke! Is anything... has anything—”

“What brings you here?

“I just heard the news. Is she still alive? There’s been no attack on her?”

“Attack? Alive? Who are you talking about?”

“Bonnie Stuart.”

“Of course not.” The Inspector grunted. “Say, what’s the matter with you? I just got the flash myself.”

“Thank the Lord.” Ellery swabbed his neck. “Glücke, you’ll have to put a cordon around this house. As many men as you can scrape up.”

“Cordon? But I’ve got three men—”

“Not enough. I want the place surrounded. I want it so well guarded that not even a mouse will get through. But it mustn’t be obvious. The men are to stay out of sight. Get those flatfeet off this sidewalk!”

“Sure, but—”

“But nothing.” Ellery raced for the gate.

Inspector Glücke ran back to the police car, rasped something, and pounded the pavement to the gate again. The police car shot away, and the three detectives strolled off.

Glücke caught up with Ellery, puffing. “What’s this all about?”

“Something’s wrong somewhere. Of all the idiotic stunts!”

The buxom, mousy Clotilde admitted them, her woman’s black eyes sparkling with romantic excitement.

“Oh, but Messieurs, they cannot be—”

“Oh, but Ma’m’selle, they can, and they shall be,” said Ellery rudely. “Ty! Bonnie!”

A muffled noise came from the nearest room, and he and the Inspector hurried towards its source. They burst into the drawing-room to find young Mr. Royle and his fiancée, considerably disheveled, disengaging themselves from each other’s arms. Mr. Royle’s mouth looked as if it were bleeding all round. But it was only Bonnie’s lip rouge.

“So here you are,” said Ellery. “What the devil’s the idea?”

“Oh, it’s you,” said Mr. Royle, in a grim tone, removing his lady’s hands from about his neck.

“Hell of a mess,” said Ellery, glaring at them. “Can’t you two keep out of each other’s hair for so much as two consecutive days? And if you can’t, can’t you at least keep your pretty mouths shut? Did you have to shout your goo-goo to the whole damned world?”

Mr. Royle rose purposefully from the sofa.

“Ty, your mouth,” said Bonnie. “Oh, there’s the Inspector. Inspector Glücke, I demand—”

“I think,” said Ty in the same grim tone, “I know how to handle the situation.”

“Oh, you do,” said Ellery bitterly. “That’s what comes of dealing with a couple of empty-headed kids who—”

A bomb exploded against his chin. It exploded, and little colored stars all gold and blue and scarlet, dancing like mad, filled the range of his vision, and the World swam languidly, and the next thing he knew it was a long long time after and he was lying on the floor blinking up at the chandelier and wondering when the war had broken out. The ceiling was insubstantial, too, heaving and rippling like a spread sail in a gale.

And he heard Ty blowing on his knuckles and saying in a hot, faraway voice: “There’s your man, Inspector!”

“Don’t be a jackass,” said the Inspector’s voice remotely. “Come on, Queen, get up. You’ll dirty your nice pants.”

“Where am I?” murmured Mr. Queen.

“He is, too!” shrieked Bonnie. “Sock him again, Ty. The sneaky devil!” Squinting for better visibility, Mr. Queen received a wavering impression of two slim ankles, a billowing skirt like a smaller sail, and a tiny stamping alligator. No, it was an alligator shoe. “I knew there was something wrong! When he took me to Ty’s dressing-room... oh, it was so pat! That typewriter, and his smart ‘deductions,’ and Ty would never have sent me that warning against himself if he were the one, and then I saw with my own eyes how that b and d and t were filed down, so I knew Ty wouldn’t do that if he really sent them, and everything.” Bonnie paused for breath, but not for long. “You see? He was lying all the time! And so I went right to Ty, that’s what I did, and—”

It went on and on, and Mr. Queen lay there surveying the ceiling. Why did it shift and sway so? He had it. It was an earthquake, a temblor. California was doing the Big Apple!

“Yes,” growled Ty, “and we compared notes — should have done it a long time ago — and, Inspector, you’d be amazed at the things this fellow told us separately. Why, he actually tried to get each one of us to believe the other was a killer!”

“Yes, he told me—”

“The damned murderer told me—”

It went on and on and on. Somebody was making a fuss about something, Mr. Queen decided, but for the life of him he could not make out what it was. He groaned, trying to rise.

“Come on, come on,” said Glücke in the most unfeeling way. “It was just a clout on the whiskers. Not that you don’t deserve it, you lone wolf, you.” And the detestable creature actually chuckled as he hauled Mr. Queen to a sitting position. “How you feeling? Terrible, I hope.”

“My jaw is broken,” mumbled Mr. Queen, waggling the organ in question. “Ooh, my head.” He struggled to his feet.

“Try to tell Bonnie I sent those notes, hey?” snarled Ty, cocking his fist again.

“Why would he do that,” cried Bonnie triumphantly, linking her arms about her hero’s neck, “if he didn’t send them himself? Answer that one!”

“Well, I had a reason,” said Ellery shortly. “Where’s a mirror?”

He wobbled to the mirror in the hall and examined his physiognomy. As he tenderly surveyed the damage, which was concentrated in a rapidly swelling heliotrope lump at the point of his chin, the doorbell rang and Clotilde hurried past him to admit two men. To Ellery’s foggy gaze one was slow and grim and the other quick and excited. He rubbed his eyes and leaned against the wall, dizzy.

“Let ’em through,” he muttered. “Glücke, didn’t I tell you—”

Apparently the Inspector had the same notion, for he hurried out to talk to his men.

The slow one went slowly past Ellery, with no sign of recognition, into the drawing-room; and the quick one went quickly. Mr. Queen, satisfied that his jaw was still in one piece, tottered to the drawing-room doorway and closed his eyes.

The slow one stood just inside the room, looking at Bonnie. Looking. There was a sort of permanent flush under the top-most layer of his skin.

“It’s Butch,” said Bonnie faintly.

“Oh, say, Butch,” began Ty in a defiant mutter. “We were going to tell you, call you, sort of—”

“The hell with that!” yelled the quick one. “I don’t care a hoot about how you two bedbugs conduct your private lives, but I’ll be damned if I see why you played such a dirty trick on your own studio!”

“Lay off, you,” said Ty. “Butch, we really owe you—”

“Lay off?” Sam Vix glared out of his one eye. “He says lay off. Listen, me fine bucko, you haven’t got a private life, see? You’re a piece of property, like this house. You belong to Magna Studios, see? When Magna says jump—”

“Oh, go away, Sam,” said Bonnie. She took one step towards the Boy Wonder, who stood exactly where he had stopped on entering the room and was still regarding her with that fixed and awful sadness of a man who sees the coffin-lid being screwed down over the face of his child, or mother, or sweetheart.

“Butch dear.” Bonnie pinched her dress. “We were both so excited... You know, I think, how I’ve always felt towards you. I never really told you I loved you, did I, Butch? Oh, I know I’ve treated you shamefully, and you’ve been a perfect angel about everything. But something happened today... Ty is the only man I’ll ever love, Butch, and I’m going to marry him just as quickly as I can.”

Jacques Butcher took off his hat, looked around, put on his hat, and then sat down. He did not cross his legs, but sat stiffly, like a ventriloquist’s dummy; and as he began to talk the only part of his face that moved was his lips.

“I’m sorry to have to intrude at such a time,” he said, and stopped. Then he started again. “I wouldn’t have come at all. Only Louis Selvin asked me to. Louis is — well, a little put out. Especially by you, Ty.”

“Oh, Butch—” began Bonnie, but she stopped helplessly.

“By me?” said Ty.

Butcher cleared his throat. “Damn it all, I wouldn’t — I’ve got to talk to you not as myself but as vice-president of Magna, Ty. I’ve just come from a long talk with Selvin. As president of Magna he feels it his duty to warn you — not to get married.”

Ty blinked. “You don’t mean to tell me he’s going to hold me to that ridiculous marriage clause in my contract!”

“Marriage clause?” Bonnie stared. “Ty! What marriage clause?”

“Oh, Selvin stuck an anti-marriage clause into my contract the last time,” said Ty disgustedly. “Prevents me from getting married.”

“Sure, why not?” said Vix. “Great lover. You don’t think the studio’s going to build you up into a national fem-killer and let you spoil it by getting hitched!”

“I didn’t know that, Ty,” said Bonnie, distressed. “You didn’t tell me.”

“Forgot all about it. Anyway, it doesn’t make any difference. Louis X. Selvin isn’t going to tell me how to run my life!”

“Selvin asked me to point out,” said Butcher in his cold, flat voice, “that you’ll breach your contract if you marry Bonnie.”

“The hell with Selvin! There are plenty of other studios in Hollywood.”

“All Hollywood studios respect one another’s star-contracts,” said Butcher drearily. “If you breach a Magna contract you’re through, Ty.”

“Then I’m through!” Ty waved his arms angrily.

“But, Ty,” cried Bonnie, “you can’t! I won’t let you throw away your career. We can wait. Maybe when you sign your next contract—”

“I don’t want to wait. I’ve waited long enough. I’m marrying you tomorrow, and if Selvin doesn’t like it he can go to hell.”

“No, Ty!”

“No more arguments.” Ty turned away with a stubborn, final gesture.

“All right, then,” said Butcher in the same dreary way. “Louis anticipated that you might be stubborn. He could break you, Ty, but he admits you’re too valuable a piece of property. So he’s prepared to dicker.”

“Oh, he is, is he?”

“But he warns you that his proposal is final. Take it or leave it.”

“What proposal?” said Ty abruptly.

“If you insist on being married to Bonnie, he’s willing to waive the anti-marriage clause. But only on the following conditions. First, you are to let Magna handle the details of your wedding. Second, after your wedding you and Bonnie are to co-star in a picture biography of Jack and Blythe, taking the roles of your parents.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” said Ty. “Does that wedding stunt mean a lot of this noisy publicity?”

“It means whatever Magna wants to do.”

“And the picture — does that mean the murders, too?” asked Bonnie, looking ill at the very thought.

“The story,” said Butcher, “is entirely up to me. You will have nothing to say about it.”

“Oh, yes, we have,” shouted Ty. “We say no — right now!”

Butcher rose. “I’m sorry. I’ll tell Selvin.

“No — wait, Butch,” cried Bonnie. She ran over to Ty and shook him. “Ty, please. You can’t throw everything away like this. If — if you’re stubborn I won’t marry you!”

“Let ’em make monkeys out of us with one of those studio weddings?” growled Ty. “Make us put dad and Blythe on the screen in God knows what? Nothing doing.”

“Ty, you’ve got to. I don’t like it any more than you do; you know that. I’m fed up with — with all this. But we’ve got to look to the future, darling. Neither of us has anything. You can’t throw up the only thing we’ve got. It won’t be so bad. The wedding won’t take long, and then we’ll go away somewhere by ourselves—”

Ty glowered at the rug. He lifted his head and said sharply to Butcher: “If we go through with this, do we get a rest? A vacation? A honeymoon without brass bands?”

“Hell, no,” said Vix quickly. “We can use that honeymoon swell. We can—”

“Please, Sam,” said Butcher. Vix fell silent. “Yes, I can promise you that, Ty. Our wedding, your honeymoon. We realize that you’re both upset, not yourselves, won’t be able to do your best work immediately. So you may have as long for your honeymoon as you feel you need.”

“And privacy!”

“And privacy.”

Ty looked at Bonnie, and Bonnie looked pleadingly at Ty. Finally Ty said: “All right. It’s a deal.”

The Boy Wonder said: “Revised contracts will be in your hands in the morning. Sam here will handle all the details of the wedding.” He turned on his heel and quietly went to the door. At the door he hesitated; then he turned around. “I’ll convey my congratulations — tomorrow.” And he walked out.

“Swell,” said Sam Vix briskly. “Now look. You want to tie the knot tomorrow?”

“Yes,” sighed Ty, sitting down. “Anything. Just get out of here.”

“I’ve figured it all out on the way down. Here’s the angle. We use the Jack-Blythe marriage as a model, see?”

“Oh,” began Bonnie. Then she said: “Yes.”

“Only we smear it on, see? Go the whole hog. You won’t be married on the field. You’ll—”

“You mean another airplane shindig?” growled Ty.

“Yeah, sure. Only we’ll get old Doc Erminius to hitch you in your plane. Get it? Wedding over the field. In the air. Microphones for everybody in the plane. Broadcast through a radio telephone hook-up via the field station right to the thousands on the field as the plane circles it. Do it right, and with that Jack-Blythe background it’ll be the biggest stunt this or any other town ever saw!”

“My God,” yelled Ty, rising, “if you think—”

“Go on, Sam, get out of here,” said Bonnie hurriedly, pushing him. “It’ll be all right. I promise. Go on now.”

Vix grinned and said: “Sure. Got plenty to do. Be seein’ you,” and he dashed out.

“Ty Royle, you listen to me,” said Bonnie fiercely. “I hate it. But we’re caught, and we’re going to do it. I don’t want to hear another word out of you. It’s settled, do you hear? Whatever they want!”

Ellery detached himself from the support of the doorway and said dryly: “Now that all the masterminds have had their say, may I have mine?”

Inspector Glücke came in with him. He said, frowning: “I don’t know. I’m not sure I like it. What do you think, Queen?”

“I don’t give a damn what anybody thinks,” said Ty, going over to a liquor cabinet. “Will you guys please clear out and leave Bonnie and me alone?”

“I think,” said Ellery grimly, “that I’ll find myself a nice deep hole, crawl into it, and pull it after me. I don’t want to be around when the explosion comes.”

“Explosion? What are you talking about?” said Ty, tossing off a quick one. “You and your riddles!”

“Oh, this is a lovely one. Don’t you realize yet what you’ve done?” cried Ellery. “Announcing your marriage was bad enough, but now this! Spare me these Hollywood heroes and heroines.”

“But I don’t understand,” frowned Bonnie. “What have we done? We’ve only decided to get married. That’s our right, and it’s nobody’s business, either!” Her lip trembled. “Oh, Ty,” she wailed, “and it was going to be so beautiful, too.”

“You’ll find out very shortly whose business it is,” snapped Ellery.

“What’s this all about?” demanded Glücke.

“You’re like the sorcerer’s apprentice, you two, except that you’re a pair. Sorcerer goes away and you start fiddling with things you don’t understand — dangerous things. Result, grief. And plenty of it!”

“What grief?” growled Ty.

“You’ve done the worst thing you could have done. You’ve just agreed to do the one thing, in fact, that’s absolutely fatal to both of you.”

“Will you get to the point?”

“I’ll get to the point. Oh, yes. I’ll get to the point. Hasn’t it occurred to either of you that you’re the designs in a pattern?”

“Pattern?” said Bonnie, bewildered.

“A pattern formed by you and Ty and your mother and Ty’s father. Hang it all, it’s so obvious it simply shrieks.” Ellery raced up and down the room, muttering. Then he waved his arms. “I’m not going to launch into a long analysis now. I’m just going to open your eyes to a fundamental fact. What happened to Blythe and Jack when they married? What happened to them, eh? Only an hour after they married?”

Intelligence leaped into Inspector Glücke’s eyes; and Ty and Bonnie gaped.

“Ah, you see it now. They were both murdered, that’s what happened. Then what? Bonnie gets warnings, winding up with one which tells her in so many words to have nothing more to do with Ty. What does that mean? It means lay off — no touch — hands off. And what do you idiots do? You promptly decide to be married — in such loud tones that the whole world will know not only the fact but the manner, too, in a matter of hours!”

“You mean—” began Bonnie, licking her lips. She whirled on Ty and buried her face in his coat. “Oh, Ty.”

“I mean,” said Ellery tightly, “that the pattern is repeating itself. I mean that if you marry tomorrow the same thing will happen to you that happened to Jack and Blythe. I mean that you’ve just signed your death warrant — that’s what I mean!”