The Greek Coffin Mystery

Chapter 7. Evidence

There was such work as Inspector Queen knew, better perhaps than any other executive of the New York Police Department, how to do.

In five minutes the house was again under siege, the drawing-room converted into a makeshift laboratory, the coffin with its ghastly double burden deposited on the floor. Khalkis’s library was commandeered as an assembly-hall and all exits were put under guard. The door to the drawing-room was shut, and Velie’s wide back set against its panels. Dr. Prouty, his coat, off, was busy on the floor with the second corpse. In the library, Assistant District Attorney Pepper was dialling a telephone number. Men were running mysterious errands in and out of the house.

Ellery Queen faced his father, and they smiled rather wanly at each other. “Well, one thing is sure,” said the Inspector, wetting his lips. “That inspiration of yours uncovered a murder that probably would never have been suspected otherwise.”

Til see that ghastly face in my sleep,” muttered Ellery. His eyes were a little bloodshot and he was twirling his pince-nez ceaselessly in his fingers.

The Inspector inhaled snuff with grateful breaths. “Fix him up a little, Doc,” he said to Dr. Prouty, steadily enough. T want to get that crowd in here for a possible identification.”

“I’ve got him about ready now. Where do you want to put him?”

“Better take him out of the coffin and stretch him on the floor. Thomas, get a blanket and cover up everything but his face.”

“I’ve got to get hold of some rosewater or something to drown that awful smell,” complained Dr. Prouty facetiously.

* * *

It seemed, when the preliminaries had been taken care of and the corpse of the second man hurriedly made presentable, that not one of the fearful, pallid people who filed in and out of the drawing-room could identify the dead face. Were they certain? Yes. They had never, they said, seen the man before. You, Sloane? Oh, no!―for Sloane was very, very ill; the sight had turned his stomach, and he had a little bottle of smelling-salts in his hand which he applied to his nostrils frequently. Joan Brett had looked, through eyes held steady only by a straining of her will, thoughtful. Mrs. Simms, roused out of her sick-bed, was led in by Weekes and a detective; she had no idea of what was occurring and, after one long horrified glimpse at the face of a strange dead man, promptly screeched and fainted, requiring the combined efforts of Weekes and three detectives to haul her back to her room on the upper floor.

They were all herded back into Khalkis’s library. The Inspector and Ellery hurried after, leaving Dr. Prouty alone in the drawing-room with two corpses for company. Pepper, a very excited Pepper, was waiting impatiently for them by the door.

His eyes shone. “Cracked the nut, Inspector!” he said in a low eager voice. “I knew I’d seen that face somewhere before. And I’ll tell you where you saw it―in the Rogues’ Gallery!”

“Seems likely. Who is he?”

“Well, I just called up Jordan, my old law-partner―you know, sir, before I was appointed to Sampson’s office. I had an idea I knew who the fellow was. And Jordan refreshed my memory. He was a guy by the name of Albert Grimshaw.”

“Grimshaw?” The Inspector stopped short. “Not the forger?”

Pepper smiled. “Good memory, Inspector. But that was only one of his accomplishments. I defended him about five years ago when we were Jordan Pepper. We lost, and he was sentenced to five years, says Jordan. Say, he must have just got out of the pen!”

“That’s so? Sing Sing?”

“Yes!”

They moved into the room; everybody looked at them. The Inspector said to a detective, “Hesse, scoot back to h.q. and go over the files on Albert Grimshaw, forger, in Sing Sing for the past five years.” The man disappeared. “Thomas.” Velie loomed over him. “Put somebody on the job of tracing Grimshaw’s movements since his release from stir. Find out how long ago he was let out―might have got time off for good behaviour.”

Pepper said: “I called the Chief, too, and notified him of the new development. Told me to take care of his end down here―he’s busy on that bank investigation. Anything on the body to make identification certain?”

“Not a thing. Just a few odds and ends, a couple of coins, an old empty wallet. Not even an identifying mark on his clothing.”

Ellery caught Joan Brett’s eye. “Miss Brett,” he said quietly, “I couldn’t help noticing a moment ago, when you looked at the body in the drawing-room, that . . . Do you know the man? Why did you say you had never seen him?”

Joan coloured; she stamped her foot. “Mr. Queen, that’s insulting! I shan’t―”

The Inspector said coldly: “Do you know him or don’t you?”

She bit her lip. “It’s a dashed long story, and I didn’t see that it would do any good, since I didn’t know his name . . . .”

“The police are generally good judges of that,” said Pepper with conscientious severity. “If you know anything, Miss Brett, you can be prosecuted for withholding information.”

“Can I, indeed?” She tossed her head. “But I’m not withholding anything, Mr. Pepper. I wasn’t sure at first glance. His face was―was . . . .” She shivered. “Now that I think it over, I do recall having seen him. Once―no, twice. Although, as I said, I don’t know his name.”

“Where did you see him?” The Inspector was sharp, and he seemed not at all impressed by the fact that she was a pretty young lady.

“In this very house, Inspector.”

“Ha! When?”

“I’m coming to that, sir.” She paused deliberately, and something of her self-assurance returned. She favoured Ellery with a friendly smile, and he nodded encouragingly. “The first time I saw him was a week ago Thursday night.”

“September the thirtieth?”

“Yes. This man appeared at the door at about nine o’clock in the evening. As 1 said twice, I don’t know―”

“His name was Grimshaw, Albert Grimshaw. Go on, Miss Brett.”

“He was admitted by a maid, just as I chanced to be passing through the foyer . . . “

“What maid?” demanded the Inspector. 7 haven’t seen any maids in this house.”

“Oh!” She seemed startled. “But then―how silly of me!―of course you couldn’t have known. You see, there were two maids employed in the house, but they were both ignorant, superstitious women and they insisted on making off the day Mr. Khalkis died. We couldn’t prevail upon them to stay in what one called “a house of death, ma”am”.”

“Is that right, Weekes?”

The butler nodded dumbly.

“Go on, Miss Brett. What happened? Did you see anything further?”

Joan sighed. “Not very much, Inspector. I saw the maid go into Mr. Khalkis’s study, usher in the man Grimshaw, and then come out again. And that’s all that evening.”

“Did you see the man leave?” put in Pepper.

“No, Mr. Pepper . . . .” She lingered over the last syllable of his name and Pepper angrily turned his head away, as if to conceal an undesirable, unprosecutorlike emotion.

“And what was the second occasion on which you saw him, Miss Brett?” asked the Inspector. His eyes strayed slyly to the others; they were all listening attentively, straining forward.

“The next time I saw him was the night after―that is, a week ago Friday night.”

“By the way, Miss Brett,” interrupted Ellery with an odd inflexion, “I believe you acted as Khalkis’s secretary?”

“Right you are, Mr. Queen.”

“And Khalkis was blind and helpless?”

She made a little moue of disapproval. “Blind, but scarcely helpless. Why?”

“Well, didn’t Khalkis tell you anything Thursday about his visitor―the man to come in the evening? Didn’t he ask you to make the appointment?”

“Oh, I see! . . . No, he did not. Not a word to me about an expected visitor Thursday night. It was a complete surprise to me. In fact, it may have been as complete a surprise to Mr. Khalkis! But please let me continue.” She contrived, by the artful twitching of a dark unspoiled eyebrow, to convey maidenly annoyance. “You people interrupt so . . . . It was different on Friday. After dinner Friday night―that was the first of October, Inspector Queen―Mr. Khalkis summoned me to the library and gave me some very careful instructions. Some very careful instructions indeed, Inspector, and―”

“Come, come, Miss Brett,” said the Inspector impatiently. “Let’s have it without embroidery.”

“If you were on the witness-stand,” said Pepper with a trace of bitterness, “you’d make a distinctly undesirable witness, Miss Brett.”

“Not really?” she murmured. She heaved herself to a sitting position on Khalkis’s desk and crossed her legs, raising her skirt ever so little. “Very well. I shall be the model witness. Is this the correct pose, Mr. Pepper? . . . Mr. Khalkis told me that he expected two visitors that night. Quite late. One of them, he said, was coming incognito, so to speak―he was anxious, Mr. Khalkis said, to keep his identity secret and therefore I was to see that nobody caught a glimpse of him.*

“Curious,” muttered Ellery.

“Wasn’t it?” Joan said. “Very well, then. I was also to admit these two persons myself, and to see that the servants were out of the way. After admitting them I was to go to bed―just like that, upon my word! Naturally, when Mr. Khalkis added that the nature of his business with these two gentlemen was extremely private, I asked no questions and followed orders like the perfect secretary I’ve always been. Charming bit o” fluff, eh, Lord Higgin-botham?”

The Inspector frowned, and Joan looked down demurely. “The visitors arrived at eleven,” she went on, “and one of them, I saw at once, was the man who had called by himself the previous evening―the man you say was named Grimshaw. The other, the mysterious gentleman, was bundled up to the eyes; I couldn’t see his face. I did get the impression that he was middle-aged or older, but that’s really all I can tell you about him, Inspector.”

Inspector Queen sniffed. “That mysterious gentleman, as you say, may be mighty important from our standpoint, Miss Brett. Can’t you give us a better description? How was he dressed?”

Joan swung one leg reflectively. “He was wearing an overcoat and he kept his bowler on his head all the time, but I can’t even recall the style or colour of the coat. And that’s really all I can tell you about your―” she shuddered, “about your awful Mr. Grimshaw.”

The Inspector shook his head; he was distinctly not pleased. “But we’re not talking about Grimshaw now, Miss Brett! Come now. There must be something else about this second man. Didn’t anything happen that night that might be significant―anything at all that would help us to get to that fellow?”

“Oh, heavens.” She laughed and kicked out with her slim feet. “You guardians of law and order are so persistent. Very well―if you consider the incident of Mrs. Simms’ cat significant . . . .”

Ellery looked interested. “Mrs. Simms’ cat, Miss Brett? There’s a fascinating thought! Yes, it might very well be significant. Give us the gory details, Miss Brett.”

“Well, Mrs. Simms owns a shameless hussy of a cat. Tootsie, she’s called. Tootsie’s always poking her cold little nose into places where good little cats should not be poking their cold little noses. Er―you grasp the idea, Mr. Queen?” She saw an ominous glint in the Inspector’s eye, sighed and said penitently, “Really, Inspector, I’m―I’m not being a silly boor. I’m just―oh everything’s so higgledy-piggledy.” She was silent then, and they saw something―fear, nervousness, a suspicion of dread―in her charming blue eyes. “It’s my nerves, I suppose,” she said wearily. “And when I’m nervous, I become perverse, and I giggle like a callow baggage . . . . This is exactly what happened,” she said abruptly. “The unknown man, the man bundled up to the eyes, stepped into the foyer first when I opened the door. Grimshaw was a little behind and to one side of him. Mrs. Simms’ cat, which generally remains in Mrs. Simms’ bedroom upstairs, had, unnoticed by me, promenaded downstairs into the foyer and had laid down directly in the path of the front door. As I opened the door and the mysterious man started to step in, he stopped suddenly with one foot in mid-air, almost falling in his effort to avoid stepping on the cat, which lay quite cunningly on the rug washing its face, and without making a sound. It wasn’t really until I saw the man’s almost acrobatic effort to avoid stepping on little Tootsie―typically Simmsian name for a cat, don’t you think?―that I noticed Tootsie at all. Then, of course, I prodded her out of the way; Grimshaw stepped in, and he said: “Khalkis expects us,” and I led the way to the library. And that’s the incident of Mrs. Simms’ cat.”

“Not intensely productive,” confessed Ellery. “And this bundled man―did he say anything?”

“Do you know, he was the rudest person,” said Joan with a little frown. “Not only didn’t he say one solitary word―after all, he could have seen that I wasn’t a slavey―but when I led the way to the library door and was about to knock, he actually jostled me away from the door and opened it himself! He didn’t knock, and he and Grimshaw slipped inside and shut the door in my face. I was so angry I could have chewed a tea-cup.”

“Shocking,” murmured Ellery. “You’re sure, then, that he didn’t utter a word?”

“Positive, Mr. Queen. As I say, I was angry and began to go upstairs.” It was at this moment that Miss Joan Brett betrayed evidences of a very lively temper. Something in what she was about to say touched springs of rancour within her, for her brilliant eyes smouldered and she threw a glance of extreme bitterness in the direction of young Alan Cheney, who slouched against a wall not ten feet away, hands plunged in his pockets. “I heard a key fumbling and scratching against the vestibule door, which is always kept locked. I turned around on the stairs and, lo and behold! whom should I see tottering into the foyer but Mr. Alan Cheney, quite, quite muzzy.”

“Joan!” muttered Alan reproachfully.

“Muzzy?” repeated the Inspector in bewilderment.

Joan nodded emphatically. “Yes, Inspector, muzzy. I might say―squiffy. Or pot-valiant. Or maudlin. Obfuscated. I believe there are some three hundred English colloquialisms for the condition in which I saw Mr. Cheney that night. In a word, drunk as a lord!”

“Is this true, Cheney?” demanded the Inspector.

Alan grinned in a feeble way. “Shouldn’t be surprised, Inspector. When I’m on a bat I generally forget home and country. I don’t remember, but if Joan says it’s so―well, then, it’s so.”

“Oh, it’s true enough, Inspector,” snapped Joan, tossing her head. “He was foully, disgustingly drunk―slobbering all over himself.” She glared at him. “I was afraid that in his despicable condition he would raise a row. Mr. Khalkis had said he wanted no noise, no commotion, so I―well, I had very little choice, don’t you see? Mr. Cheney grinned at me in his characteristically muddled fashion, and I ran down, grasped his arm very firmly, and marched him upstairs before he could rouse the household.”

Delphina Sloane was sitting very haughtily on the edge of her chair, looking from her son to Joan. “Really, Miss Brett,” she said icily, “I see no excuse for this disgraceful . . . “

“Please!” The Inspector focused his sharp eyes on Mrs. Sloane and she promptly shut her mouth. “Go on, Miss Brett.” Alan, against the wall, seemed to be praying for the floor to give way and remove him peremptorily from the scene.

Joan twisted the fabric of her skirt. “Perhaps,” she said in a less impassioned voice, “I shouldn’t have . . . . At any rate,” she continued, raising her head and looking defiantly at the Inspector, “I took Mr. Cheney upstairs to his room and―and saw to it that he went to bed.”

“Joan Brett!” gasped Mrs. Sloane in an outraged whimper. “Alan Cheney! Do you two mean to admit―”

“I didn’t undress him, Mrs. Sloane,” said Joan coldly, “if that’s what you’re insinuating. I just scolded him”―her tone implied that this was more properly the province of a mother than of a mere secretary―”and he quieted down, to be sure, almost at once. He quieted down, that is to say, only to become―become very nastily sick after I tucked him in . . . “

“You’re straying from the point,” said the Inspector sharply. “Did you see anything more of the two visitors?”

Her voice was low now; she seemed absorbed in studying the design of the rug at her feet. “No. I went downstairs to fetch some―some raw eggs; I thought they might jog Mr. Cheney up a bit. On my way to the kitchen, I had to pass by the study here, and I noticed that there was no light from the crack under the door. I assumed that the visitors had left while I’d been upstairs and that Mr. Khalkis had gone to bed.”

“When you passed the door, as you say―how long a period had elapsed from the time when you admitted the two men?”

“Difficult to judge, Inspector. Perhaps a half-hour or more.”

“And you didn’t see the two men again?”

“No, Inspector.”

“And you’re certain this was last Friday night―that is, the night before Khalkis died?”

“Yes, Inspector Queen.”

There was complete silence then of an increasingly embarrassing depth. Joan sat biting her red lips, looking at no one. Alan Cheney, from the expression on his face, was in agony. Mrs. Sloane, her slight figure stiff as the Red Queen’s, tightened her faded unattractive features. Nacio Suiza, sprawled in a chair across the room, sighed with ennui; his dark Vandyke pointed accusingly at the floor. Gilbert Sloane sniffed his salts. Mrs. Vreeland stared Medusa-like at her husband’s rosy old cheeks. The atmosphere was anything but cheerful; and Dr. Wardes, buried in a study as deep and brown as his beard, seemed affected by the general moroseness. Even Woodruff looked depressed.

Ellery’s cool voice brought their eyes up. “Miss Brett, exactly who was in this house last Friday night?”

“I really can’t say, Mr. Queen. The two maids, of course, had been sent to bed, Mrs. Simms had retired, and Weekes was out―his night off, apparently. Aside from Mr―Mr. Cheney, I can’t account for any one else.”

“Well, we’ll find out soon enough,” grunted the Inspector. “Mr. Sloane!” He raised his voice, and Sloane almost let the tiny coloured bottle slip from his startled fingers. “Where were you last Friday night?”

“Oh, at the Galleries,” Sloane replied hastily. “Working late. I work there very often into the small hours.”

“Anybody with you?”

“No, no! I was quite alone!”

“Hmm.” The old man explored his snuff-box. “And what time did you get into the house?”

“Oh, long past midnight.”

“Did you know anything about Khalkis’s two visitors?”

“I? Certainly not.”

That’s funny,” said the Inspector, putting his snuff-box away. “Mr. Georg Khalkis seems to have been a sort of mysterious character himself. And you, Mrs. Sloane―where were you last Friday night?”

She licked her faded lips, blinking rapidly. “I? I was upstairs asleep. I know nothing about my brother’s visitors―nothing.”

“Asleep at what hour?”

“I retired about ten o’clock. I―I had a headache.”

“A headache. Hmm.” The Inspector whirled on Mrs. Vreeland. “And you, Mrs. Vreeland? Where and how did you spend last Friday evening?”

Mrs. Vreeland reared her large, full-curved body and smiled coquettishly. “At the opera. Inspector―at the opera.”

Ellery felt an irresistible urge to snap, “What opera?” but caught himself up sternly. There was a scent of perfume about this specimen of the fairer sex―expensive perfume, to be sure, but sprayed on with a hand that knew no restraint.

“Alone?”

“With a friend.” She smiled sweetly. “We then had a late supper at the Barbizon and I returned home about one o’clock in the morning.”

“Did you notice a light in Khalkis’s study when you came in?”

“I don’t believe I did.”

“Did you see any one at all downstairs here?”

“It was dark as the grave. I didn’t even see a ghost, Inspector.” She gurgled far in the recesses of her throat, but no one echoed her laugh. Mrs. Sloane sat up even more stiffly; it was apparent that she considered the jest ill-advised, ill-advised.

The Inspector tugged at his moustache thoughtfully; then he looked up to find Dr. Wardes’ bright brown eyes fixed on him. “Ah, yes. Dr. Wardes,” he said pleasantly. “And you?”

Dr. Wardes played with his beard. T spent the evening at the theatre, Inspector.”

“The theatre. Quite so. You came in, then, before midnight?”

“No, Inspector. I took a turn about one or two places of entertainment after the theatre. Really, I didn’t get back until well after midnight.”

“You spent the evening alone?”

“Quite.”

The old man’s shrewd little eyes glistened over his fingers as he took another pinch of snuff. Mrs. Vreeland was sitting with a frozen smile, her eyes wide open, too wide open. All the others were mildly bored. Now Inspector Queen had questioned thousands of people in his professional career, and he had developed a special policeman’s sense―an instinct for detecting faleshood. Something in Dr. Wardes’ too smooth replies, in Mrs. Vreeland’s strained pose . . . .

“I don’t believe you’re telling the truth, Doctor,” he said easily. “Of course, I understand your scruples . . . . You were with Mrs. Vreeland last Friday night, weren’t you?”

The woman gasped, and Dr. Wardes elevated his hairy eyebrows. Jan Vreeland was peering from the physician to his wife in bewilderment, his fat little face puckered with hurt and worry.

Dr. Wardes chuckled suddenly. “An excellent surmise, Inspector. And very true.” He bowed lightly to Mrs. Vreeland. “You will permit me, Mrs. Vreeland?” She tossed her head like a nervous mare. “You see, Inspector, I didn’t care to put the lady’s action in an embarrassing light. Actually, I did escort Mrs. Vreeland to the Metropolitan and later to the Barbizon―”

“See here! I don’t think―” interrupted Vreeland in a little flurry of protest.

“My dear Mr. Vreeland. It was the most innocent evening imaginable. And a very delightful one, too, I’m sure.” Dr. Wardes studied the old Dutchman’s discomforted countenance. “Mrs. Vreeland was much alone because of your protracted absences, sir; I myself have no friends in New York―it was natural for us to drift together, don’t you know.”

“Well, I don’t like it,” said Vreeland childishly. “I don’t like it at all, Lucy.” He waddled over to his wife and shook his fat little forefinger in her face, pouting. She looked faint, clutched the arms of her chair. The Inspector abruptly commanded Vreeland to keep silent, and Mrs. Vreeland sank back, shutting her eyes in mortification. Dr. Wardes shook his broad shoulders lightly. From the other side of the room Gilbert Sloane drew a sharp breath, and Mrs. Sloane’s wooden face showed a fleeting animation. The Inspector darted bright glances from one to another. His eyes fixed on the shambling figure of Demetrios Khalkis . . . .

Demmy was, except for his vacant idiotic expression, an ugly, gaunt, sproutlike counterpart of his cousin Georg Khalkis. His large blank eyes were set in a perpetual stare; his bulging lower lip hung heavily, the back of his head was almost flat, and his skull was huge and misshapen. He had been wandering noiselessly about, speaking to no one, peering myopically into the faces of the room’s occupants, his enormous hands clenching and unclenching with weird regularity.

“Here―you, Mr. Khalkis!” called the Inspector. Demmy continued his shambling circumambulation of the study. “Is he deaf?” asked the old man irritably, of no one in particular.

Joan Brett said: “No, Inspector. He just doesn’t understand English. He’s a Greek, you know.”

“Khalkis’s cousin, isn’t he?”

“That’s right,” said Alan Cheney unexpectedly. “But he’s shy up here.” He touched his own well-shaped head significantly. “Mentally, he rates as an idiot.”

“That’s extremely interesting,” said Ellery Queen mildly. “For the word “idiot” is of Greek derivation, and etymo-logically indicated merely a private ignorant person in the Hellenic social organization―idiotes in Greek. Not an imbecile at all.”

“Well, he’s an idiot in the modern English sense,” said Alan wearily. “Uncle brought him over from Athens about ten years ago―he was the last of the family strain over there. Most of the Khalkis family have been American for at least six generations. Demmy never could grasp the English language―mother says he’s illiterate even in Greek.”

“Well, I’ve got to talk to him,” said the Inspector in a sort of desperation. “Mrs. Sloane, this man is your cousin also, isn’t he?”

“Yes, Inspector. Poor dear Georg . . . . “ Her lips quivered; she seemed about to cry.

“Now, now,” said the Inspector hastily. “Do you know this lingo? I mean, can you talk Greek, or whatever it is he gabbles?”

“Enough to converse with him.”

“Please question him about his movements last Friday night.”

Mrs. Sloane sighed, rose, smoothed her gown and caught the tall, gaunt idiot by the arm, shaking him vigorously. He wheeled slowly, puzzled; he searched her face anxiously; then he smiled and took her hand in his. She said sharply, “Demetrios!” He smiled again, and she began to speak in a foreign tongue, in halting guttural accents. He laughed aloud at this, tightening his powerful grasp on her hand; his reaction was as transparent as a child’s―he was filled with glee at hearing his native language. He replied to her, in the same alien syllables, speaking with a slight lisp; but his voice was deep and grating.

Mrs. Sloane turned to the Inspector. “He says that Georg sent him to bed that night about ten o’clock.”

“His bedroom is off Khalkis’s there?”

“Yes.”

“Ask him if he heard anything from the library here after he went to bed.”

Another interchange of strange sounds. “No, he says he heard nothing. He fell asleep at once and slept soundly all night. He sleeps like a child, Inspector.”

“And he saw no one in the library?”

“But how could he, Inspector, if he was asleep?”

Demmy was peering from his cousin to the Inspector in a pleased, yet confused sort of way. The old man nodded. “Thanks, Mrs. Sloane. That’s all right now.”

The Inspector went to the desk, picked up the dial telephone, and dialled a number. “Hello! Queen speaking . . . . Listen, Fred, what’s the name of that Greek interpreter who hangs around the Criminal Courts Building? . . . What? Trikkala? T-r-i-k-k-a-l-a? . . . Okay. Locate him right away and send him over to Eleven East Fifty-fourth Street. Tell him to ask for me.”

He banged the instrument back on the desk. “Please wait for me here, all of you,” he said, beckoned to Ellery and Pepper, nodded laconically to Sergeant Velie, and strode to the door. Demmy’s staring eyes followed the figures of the three men in a childishly astonished way.

They mounted the carpeted stairs, and at Pepper’s gesture turned to the right. He indicated a door not far from the head of the stairs, and the Inspector knocked. A woman’s voice, fat with tears, gurgled: “Who’s there?” in frightened tones.

“Mrs. Simms? This is Inspector Queen. May I come in a minute?”

“Who? Who? Oh, yes! Just a moment, sir, just a moment!” They heard a hasty bed-creak, a rustling accompanied by lusty feminine exhalations of breath, and a weak panting, “Come in, sir. Come in.”

The Inspector sighed, opened the door, and the three men entered the room to find themselves confronted by an awesome apparition. An old shawl was draped about Mrs. Simms’ bulging shoulders. Her grey hair was dishevelled―stiff strands stuck out all over her head, so that it faintly resembled the crowned head of the Statue of Liberty. Her face was puffy and red, and blotched with tears, and her matronly bosoms were heaving energetically as she rocked herself in an old-fashioned rocker. Carpet slippers covered her large swollen feet. And at those battered feet reposed an ancient Persian cat―evidently the adventurous Tootsie.

The three men walked in solemnly, and Mrs. Simms looked at them with such affrighted bovine eyes that Ellery gulped.

“How do you feel now, Mrs. Simms?” asked the Inspector amiably. sOh, terrible, sir, terrible.” Mrs. Simms rocked faster. “Who was that dreadful dead creature in the drawing-room, sir? He―it gave me the unholy creeps!”

“Oh, then you never saw that man before?”

“I?” she shrieked. “Heaven above! I? Mother of God, no!”

“All right, all right,” said the Inspector hurriedly. “Now, Mrs. Simms, do you recall last Friday night?”

Her damp handkerchief paused at her nose and a saner look came into her eye. “Last Friday night? The night before―before Mr. Khalkis died? I do, sir.”

“That’s very good, Mrs. Simms, very good. I understand you went to bed early―is that correct?”

“Indeed it is, sir. Mr. Khalkis himself told me to.”

“Did he tell you anything else?”

“Why, nothing important, sir, if that’s what you’re driving at.” Mrs. Simms blew her nose. “He just called me into the study and―”

“He called you in?”

“Well, I mean he rang for me. There’s a buzzer on his desk which leads to the kitchen downstairs.”

“What time was this?”

“Time? Let me see.” She puckered her old lips thoughtfully. “I’d say about a quarter to eleven.”

“At night, of course?”

“Well, of all things! Of course. And when I came in he told me to fetch him at once a percolator of water, three cups and saucers, some tea-balls, cream, lemon, and sugar. At once, he said.”

“Was he alone when you entered the library?”

“Oh, yes, sir. All alone, the poor creature sitting at his desk so nice and straight . . . . To think―just to think that―”

“Now, don’t think, Mrs. Simms,” said the Inspector. “And then what happened?”

She dabbed at her eyes. “I brought the tea-things right away and set them down on the tabouret by his desk. He asked me if I had brought everything he’d ordered―”

“Now, that’s queer,” muttered Ellery.

“Not at all, sir. He couldn’t see, you see. So he said in a sharper voice―he looked a mite nervous, it seemed to me, if you ask, sir, which you didn’t―he said to me, “Mrs. Simms, I want you to go to bed at once. Do you understand?” So I said, “Yes, Mr. Khalkis,” and I went right up to my room and to bed. And that’s all, sir.”

“He said nothing to you about having guests that night?”

“Me, sir? Oh, no, sir.” Mrs. Simms blew her nose again and then thrashed it about vigorously with her handkerchief. “Although I did think he might be having company of sorts, considering the three cups and all. But it wasn’t my place to ask, you see.”

“Of course not. So you didn’t see any visitors that night?”

“No, sir. I went right up to my room and to bed, as I said. I was that tired, sir, having had a bad day with rheumatics. My rheumatics―”

Tootsie rose, yawned, and began to wash her face.

“Yes, yes. We quite understand. That’s all for now, Mrs. Simms, and thank you very much,” said the Inspector, and they hastily left the room. Ellery was thoughtful as they descended the stairs; Pepper looked at him curiously and said, “You think . . . “

“My dear Pepper,” said Ellery, ‘that is the curse of my composition. I’m always thinking. I’m pursued by what Byron in Childe Harold―you recall that magnificent first canto?―saw fit to call, “The blight of life―the demon Thought”.”

“Well,” said Pepper dubiously, ‘there’s something in that.”