The Scarlet Letters

E· F· G·

Ellery crawled out of bed on Saturday morning to find that it was almost noon and that the life of a private eye was composed of lows as well as highs. His head felt rotten clear through and he bore it gingerly from the bathroom to the kitchen. Here he found the morning newspapers neatly waiting. On the top one, the Daily News, his father had drawn an arrow in red crayon over the figure of a man in a full front-page photo, and he had scrawled above it: “Is this resemblance coincidental, or are you the copyright owner?”

It was the flash photo of himself slammed against the wall of the alley, with Harrison and Fields locked in combat at his feet.

Ellery poured himself a cup of bitter coffee from the pot thickening on the range, and he sat down at the kitchen table to survey the damage.

The Inspector’s identification of him had been compounded of equal parts of guesswork and inside information. Nikki might do as well, but he doubted if anyone else would recognize him. The photograph was all right. His arm had come up just in time to black out the salient parts of his face. Of the two men rolling on the floor of the alley, only Leon Fields’s face was visible, but it was grotesquely twisted with pain from a blow and was hardly recognizable. Harrison sprawled above him, his face turned from the camera. The story on page three was illustrated with the photo of Harrison charging up the alley in his getaway, but even this head-on shot showed the head lowered in distorting perspective. Apparently neither photograph had been clear, for both had been hastily retouched, causing further distortion. They would make little visual impression on the public.

The story was sparse. Both combatants were named in the headlines, and the time and place were stated in the boldface type of the lead paragraph, but the man who had made off with the unconscious Fields was “unidentified” and was referred to, simply, as “the Mystery Man.” Mystery Man was being sought by the police, as was the driver of the taxi. Columnist Leon Fields had not been located for a statement; by press time he had not appeared at his home or any of his known haunts, and a spot-check of the hospitals had failed to turn him up. “Fields may be hiding out with friends.” Van Harrison’s telephone in Darien, Connecticut, did not answer; he had not gone to the Lambs Club: “The police are checking the midtown hotels.”

The cause of the fist fight was unknown. “A quick run-through of Fields’s recent columns shows no reference to Actor Van Harrison, good or bad. Harriet Loughman, Fields’s Girl Friday, refused comment, saying ‘Any statement will have to come from Mr. Fields.’”

The other newspapers carried terse news accounts of the fracas. None had any pictures, and none front-paged the story.

Ellery went into his father’s bedroom with his coffee cup and the copy of the News and used the Inspector’s direct line to Headquarters.

“I’ve been waiting for your call,” said Inspector Queen’s acid tones. “What happened last night?”

“Who’s speaking, please?”

“Your old man,” said his old man, sweetening.

“Then I’ll tell you.” And Ellery gave his father an account of the previous night’s events. “I haven’t seen the afternoon papers. What’s the latest?”

“Fields came out of hiding and issued a statement to the effect that ‘it’s a tempest in a cocktail shaker.’ He claims he stopped by Harrison’s table, Harrison was a little tight and misunderstood something he, Fields, said; that Harrison then challenged Fields to ‘come outside,’ adding a number of uncomplimentary remarks; that he, Fields, thereupon lost his temper and indicated his willingness to oblige, in the great American tradition; and so forth. He refused to say what it was that Harrison ‘misunderstood,’ and he said he had no idea who the man was who put him in a cab. ‘Just a Good Samaritan,’ he said. ‘I told him where to take me, he did it, I thanked him, and that’s the last I saw of him.’ Asked if he’d recognize the Good Samaritan if he saw him again, Fields said, ‘I doubt it. I wasn’t seeing very good at the time.’ Why’s he protecting you?”

“I don’t know,” said Ellery thoughtfully, “unless he’s so anxious to see Harrison take a pratfall he doesn’t want to hamstring me in whatever it is he thinks I’m up to. Did they find Harrison? He wasn’t fished out of the river, or anything?”

“No such luck,” said his father. “He rolled up to his house in Darien around five-thirty A.M. in his brand-new Caddy convertible and walked right into the arms of the reporters, who’d broken in and’d been waiting there all night lapping up his liquor and trying on his toupees.”

“Toupees?” Ellery was startled. “You mean that isn’t his own hair?”

“He owns only about fifty per cent of it, I’m told. He also wears a corset. They found two spares in his bureau.”

“Heavens to Betsy.”

“In fact, if they’d found a set of store teeth and a bullet hole between his eyes I’d think we were back in the Elwell case.”

“I wonder if these personality sidelights,” mused Ellery, “are known to a certain...”

“Would depend, I should think,” said the Inspector sedately. “Women aren’t as disillusioned by these things as men, anyway. Do you want his statement, or don’t you?”

“His statement. To be sure.”

“It was pretty much along the lines of Leon’s, except that Harrison said it was Fields who was plastered. He wouldn’t let on what the fight was about, either. Dismissed it as a mere nothing — ‘an alcoholic afflatus,’ as he put it. After he got away from the alley, he went on to say, he picked up his car at an all-night parking lot and drove around for hours ‘cooling off.’ He probably spent the night in some Westchester bar, because he was thoroughly fried when he got home. He expressed his regrets at having lost his temper and ‘hoped’ he hadn’t roughed up Mr. Fields too much. In fact, Harrison got quite expansive with the boys. Practically had them feeling his muscle. There was a bad moment when one of the reporters was so indelicate as to suggest that maybe the weight and reach differential had something to do with his glorious victory, and it almost wound up in another brawl. But in the end Harrison said he’d be only too happy to pay for any medical expenses Mr. Fields may have had to incur, and apologize to boot.”

“Worrying about an assault rap,” chuckled Ellery. “I take it Leon isn’t pressing a charge.”

“That’s right. So that’s the end of the Battle of the Alley.”

“Just one other thing, Dad. Did either man, or any of the news stories or off-the-record remarks, even hint at a possible woman in the case?”

“As far as I know, no.”

“Thank you,” said Ellery fervently; and he hung up just as the door buzzed.

It was Nikki. She rushed in crying, “Ellery! What happened?”

So Ellery soothed her and made her comfortable in the study while he retired to dress, and through the door of his bedroom repeated once more the saga of the previous night.

At the end Nikki said slowly, “I wonder if it wasn’t about Martha.”

“I don’t think so. I don’t see Fields hushing up a noisy yarn like that. It’s the sort of thing that’s — if he’ll pardon the expression — right up his alley. No, Nikki, it was something else, and I’d give a great deal to know what.”

“Why?”

“Because whatever it is, you can bank on it it’s not to Harrison’s credit. Leon deals in well-hung beef, with an odor. If we knew what it was, it might come in awfully handy... But tell me about Martha,” Ellery said, appearing in the doorway knotting his tie. “How did she take it? What did Dirk say?”

“She put on a marvelous act. But she almost overdid it, looking so blank at Harrison’s name in the paper that Dirk had to remind her she’d met him ‘once.’ She pretended such indifference that I thought Dirk gave her a queer look.” Nikki shuddered. “She must be in torture, Ellery. She doesn’t dare try to call Harrison, and she must be scared witless that he’ll try to call her. I noticed she kept within arm’s length of the phone all morning.”

“Didn’t Dirk make any comment?”

“Only that if Leon Fields had something on Harrison, he wouldn’t be in Harrison’s shoes for all the empty seats on Broadway.”

“How right he is. Well, you’d better keep your eye peeled for the next business envelope. Martha may beat you to it.”

This was a prophecy. On Monday morning Nikki hurried out of her room at the usual time, bound for the lobby and the mail, to find that Martha had already been downstairs for it and was shuffling the envelopes rapidly.

“Aren’t you the early one this morning?” Nikki said brightly. She tried desperately to keep up with the envelopes, on the lookout for the telltale red typing.

Martha smiled and dropped the letters on the foyer table. “The usual nothing,” she said indifferently. “I’ll look at them later. The coffee’s making, Nikki...”

On Tuesday morning she did the same thing.

“I don’t know what we’ll do if she keeps this up,” Nikki said over the phone Tuesday evening. “If she gets to it first, I’ll never see it.”

“Illustrating the futility of this whole damn thing,” growled Ellery. “What’s the point, Nikki? So I follow them through the alphabet and back again — and then what? I’ve been trying to do some work of my own, and this day- and nightmare is making it impossible.”

“I’m sorry,” said Nikki frigidly. “Of course you mustn’t let your work suffer. Why don’t you hire a secretary?”

“I’ve got a secretary!”

“No, I mean it, Ellery. Forget the whole thing. It is an imposition—”

“Imposition my foot. It’s a stupidity. I’d be far better off following Dirk. Less wear and tear, and surer results. That is, if the object is to keep him from knocking their heads together. Is that the object? I don’t know up from down any more.”

“I want this affair stopped,” Nikki whispered. “As well as kept from Dirk. Harrison’s not right for Martha, Ellery. He’s no good. I’ve — I’ve asked around. Some way has to be found to bring her to her senses, and it has to be done before Dirk finds out. Maybe you’ll see an opportunity to break it up — somehow, some night, when they meet. Don’t you see, Ellery?”

“I see,” sighed Ellery; and in the end he agreed to trail Martha blindly on whichever days Nikki was unable to get to the mail first.

Happily for Ellery, Martha as well as Van Harrison had been thoroughly frightened by the Fields affair. Not only did Harrison refrain from sending a message for two weeks afterward, but Martha clung to hearth and husband as if they were the most desirable things in life. What those two weeks meant to her, Ellery could only imagine from Nikki’s eye-witness reports. She was evidently afraid to leave the premises, since Harrison might rashly phone, as he had done before the first letter came; at the same time she must have had to fight night and day the temptation to slip out and phone him. The result was a suspension in time; and it made of Martha a pitiful ghost, drifting about the apartment with an eager-to-please smile which she put on and took off like her bedroom slippers. Dirk seemed puzzled; he kept asking her if anything was the matter. She would murmur something about having to wait while Ella Greenspan rewrote her second act, and steal away to her bedroom at the first opportunity, as if it were too dangerous to remain under Dirk’s eye another moment.

What Harrison was waiting for was evidently the disappearance of l’affaire Alley from the newspapers. When four days passed without reference to it, the fifth letter suddenly came.

They were lucky. Martha had got the mail first, as usual, but Nikki caught a glimpse of a buff-colored business envelope with the address typed in red as Martha went into the bathroom and locked the door.

“Just try to let me know when she’s getting ready to leave the apartment,” Ellery said when Nikki phoned him at noon that day. “The appointment is probably for tomorrow. But don’t take any chances.”

The next morning Martha left the apartment at ten o’clock to drop in on Ella Greenspan, she said, and see how her author was coming along with the script. Nikki phoned Ellery as Martha was putting her hat on. They had a short conversation about a mislaid non-existent book of Nikki’s. The moment she hung up, Ellery left.

But he was too late. When he stepped out onto the observation terrace on the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building, there was no sign of either Harrison or Martha. He waited a few minutes in the lounge, and then he sought an attendant. He was careful to describe only Harrison.

“Yes, sir, the gentleman was here about fifteen minutes ago. I remember because he was joined by a lady and instead of going out to look at the view they took the elevator right down again.”

So Ellery went back home, shrugging all the way.

Nikki’s subsequent report was curious. Dirk had been reminiscently fretful from the moment the door shut on Martha. He had taken to pacing and muttering to himself while he eyed the telephone. Finally, at eleven o’clock, he had seized the Manhattan telephone book, looked up a number, and dialed.

“Mrs. Greenspan? This is Dirk Lawrence. Is my wife there?”

And Martha had been there! Dirk’s mood lightened by magic. They had an idiotic conversation and he hung up in high spirits to resume dictating.

“Cute,” remarked Ellery. “She knew he’d be suspicious when she left the house alone for the first time in a couple of weeks. She and Harrison must have had all of five precious minutes together. I wonder what they found to talk about.”

“I don’t care,” said Nikki happily. “We’ve passed E.”

“You sound like the editor of a dictionary project,” snapped Ellery. “Let me know when you get to F.”

They got to F five days later. This time Nikki had no difficulty intercepting the letter. Martha, she said, had stopped getting up early.

“Fort Try on Park — The Cloisters — at one P.M. tomorrow.”

Ellery’s car was laid up with carburetor trouble, and he decided on the 8th Avenue subway as the least painful way of reaching Manhattan’s far north. He got off at the 190th Street-Overlook Terrace station.

It lacked a few minutes of one o’clock; The Cloisters did not open to the public until one. Ellery approached the towered building cautiously. He was just in time to see Martha step from a taxi into a red Cadillac convertible and the convertible shoot away.

“I keep forgetting,” Ellery told Nikki that night, “that they’re not really interested in sightseeing. Harrison’s guidebook refers to points of contact only. I’m sorry, Nikki. Shadowing doesn’t seem to be my forte.”

“I don’t suppose it matters.” Nikki was very nervous tonight; she kept lighting cigarets and putting them down. “I saw something this evening that I don’t think I ever want to see again.”

“What’s happened now?”

“She was away all afternoon. Dirk was very upset. He dictated hardly a line. I didn’t hear what alibi she prepared for herself, but whatever it was it didn’t satisfy him. He kept making calls to various places where she might be, and of course he didn’t get her or turn up anyone who’d seen her. When she came home... I think,” Nikki said, “I need a drink.”

Ellery gave her straight Scotch. She took the glass, but then she put it down. “No, that’s what he did. It doesn’t solve a thing... He jumped on Martha before she could peel her gloves off. Where had she been, what man had she been with this time — he had the goods on her — she hadn’t been where she’d said she was going — now he knew he’d been right all along... You can imagine.

“Or rather,” said Nikki, staring into the recent past, “you can’t. Dirk can be the sweetest guy in the world one minute and the most loathsome the next. He has a foul tongue when he gets these attacks, Ellery, and I mean foul. Some of the things he said to Martha tonight — if any man said them to me, husband or no husband, I’d kill him.”

“But if they were true?” said Ellery.

“They couldn’t be true. Even if she’s doing all the unspeakable things he accuses her of, they’re not true the way he means them. Martha isn’t a whore, Ellery. Whatever she’s doing with Van Harrison, it’s because she thinks she’s in love with him. That makes the difference. Maybe no man can see that it would, but it does... And then,” said Nikki, a great many decibels lower, “Dirk beat her.”

“Beat her?”

“He hit her a tremendous blow on the side of the head and she fell down. Her earlobe started to bleed; she was dazed and tried to get up. He hit her again... with his fist this time. And this time she stayed down. She... she didn’t make a sound. Didn’t cry out, or whimper, or anything. She just took it. As if her tongue had been cut out. As if she was afraid that if she made the slightest sound, he’d kill her.”

Nikki started to cry. “You can’t imagine how awful he looked,” she wailed. “You can’t imagine. His face was the face of a maniac. I was so frightened. I thought of the gun in his bureau drawer, and I kept saying to myself that if he hit her once more I’d snatch it out and shoot him. But he ran into the study and slammed the door...

“I wanted to phone you right away, but I had to take care of Martha. I bathed her face and head and undressed her and got her into bed, and all the time she didn’t say a word, Ellery. And I didn’t know what to say, either... It wasn’t till I gave her a sleeping pill that she said — do you know what she said, Ellery?”

“What did she say?”

“‘Lock me in, Nikki.’”

Ellery wiped her face and sat down and took her hand. “I locked her in, and I pocketed the key. Then I went to the study. I don’t know what I was going to do... But I found him stretched out in the armchair, dead to the world. He’d swallowed most of a fifth of Scotch in about fifteen minutes. So I locked him in, too. And I grabbed a cab and came over here, and now I’ve got to get back. Maybe he’ll be sick and wake up, or something...”

“I’m going back with you,” said Ellery grimly.

But the Lawrence apartment was quiet. Martha was sleeping heavily in the bedroom. Dirk was where Nikki had left him, snoring in drunken sleep.

“You go to bed, Nikki. I think you’d better sleep with Martha. And just to be on the safe side, keep the door locked.”

Nikki clung to him. “Ellery, I wish you didn’t have to leave.”

“I’m not going to leave.”

“What are you going to do?” Nikki whispered.

“Stick with Dirk till he comes to. Till I can find out how far this has gone in his so-called mind.”

He kissed her and waited until he heard the key turn in the bedroom door.

Then he went back to the study.

Dirk awoke at dawn. He gave a strangled snort, and Ellery heard the creak of the armchair springs.

Ellery got off the living-room couch and went to the doorway between the two rooms. Dirk was swaying on his feet in the half-light, hands to his cheeks, shaking his head as if he had water in his ears.

“No,” said Ellery, “you didn’t dream it.”

Dirk’s face came out of his hands like an explosion. His body contracted in a curve.

“Nerves, old man?”

“What are you doing here?” Dirk’s voice was a croak.

“Oh, come on, you can write better dialogue than that. What do you suppose I’m doing here? I left a perfectly good secretary on deposit. I didn’t expect to get back a screaming hysteric.”

“She told you about it.” Dirk dropped into the chair.

“Did you think she’d keep it a secret? You scared the wadding out of her, Dirk. I came back to protect her, since for some unimaginable reason she refuses to leave. But that doesn’t settle the question of Martha.”

Dirk got up again. “Where is she?”

“Suppose I told you she’s on a slab at the Morgue.”

“Look, Ellery, I’m in no condition for jokes.”

“Suppose I told you it isn’t a joke.”

Dirk’s jaw wigwagged before anything came out. “You mean I — you mean she—”

“Suppose I told you that second sock to her head broke her neck.”

Dirk laughed. He went over to the desk and picked up the bottle of Scotch. He held it up critically to the brightening light. “You sonofabitch,” he said. “You had me going. It wasn’t her head I hit the second time. It was her shoulder.” He drained the bottle. It dropped from his fingers and he collapsed in the armchair and covered his face again. “How is she?”

“Last I saw, she was sleeping.” Dirk began to get up. “Relax. Nikki’s sleeping with her, and she locked the door. At Martha’s request.” Dirk sank back again. “How do you like it, champ? Proud of yourself?” Ellery came in and picked up the empty bottle and looked at it. “Is there anything more pitiful — and useless — than morning-after remorse? You don’t even have the satisfaction of knowing that you beat her up drunk.”

Dirk said nothing.

“Dirk.” Ellery placed the bottle carefully on the desk. “What’s this all about?”

“I told you!”

“Do you expect me to believe you can’t control these emotional binges?”

“I don’t expect you to believe anything. Let me alone.”

“It’s not safe. You’re getting dangerous.”

“All right, I know, I’m sorry, I’ll crawl on my navel,” said Dirk bitterly. “But this time it wasn’t my imagination. She’s seeing somebody, Ellery.”

“Any proof of that?” Ellery asked crisply.

“Not your kind, no. But she got careless yesterday. For the first time she didn’t bother to go where she’d said she was going. She forgot to cover herself.” Dirk jumped up and began to stride about. “I don’t make out a good case. I lose control and rage and throw my weight around. Okay, I’m all wrapped up in myself and nobody loves a breast-beater — or a wife-beater — and Martha’s pink and sweet and has a soft voice and I’m seeing things. But suppose I’m not! Suppose she isn’t what everybody thinks she is... what I thought she was when I married her. Then what?”

“Then,” said Ellery, “if you can prove it, you say: Sorry, my error; and you bow out.”

“Is that what you’d do if your wife was sleeping with another man?”

“It’s your wife we’re discussing. And if she is, you don’t know it. And even if she is — how clean is your nose?”

“What do you mean?” Dirk looked ugly. “I haven’t given the time of day to another woman since I met Martha!”

“Pull your jaw back in. I’m willing to take your word for it. But a husband’s catting around isn’t the only reason a wife gets itchy feet. Maybe you’ve accused Martha so often of being unfaithful when she wasn’t that she’s decided she might as well be.”

Dirk looked trapped.

“It’s probably still not too late, Dirk. Maybe she is seeing another man, but that doesn’t mean she’s gone the limit. She’s still in love with you or she’d have walked out on you long ago. If I were you, I’d have another go at a good analyst and meanwhile I’d try my damnedest to save what’s left of my marriage. You’re not going to do it with your fists.”

To himself Ellery said, And may God have mercy on my soul.

He left Dirk staring at the wall and shut the study door quietly. And there was Nikki, her red hair tumbled about her face, clutching her robe at the throat.

Ellery took her into the foyer. “You look very pretty in the morning.”

Nikki looked bewildered.

“Martha still asleep?”

“Yes,” Nikki whispered.

“I think this crisis is past. But it can’t go on much longer. I’m going to have to talk to Martha.”

“Here?”

“Hardly.”

“I don’t think she’ll talk to you, Ellery. She’s so far committed... and especially after last night...”

“She’s going to come to me.”

“She won’t.”

“She will. At her next meeting she’ll catch a glimpse of me. She’ll be scared. She’ll come, all right... In that kind of climate, I have a fighting chance to talk some sense into her.” Ellery added slowly, “It may be our last chance.”

The following week Nikki tipped Ellery off that the G letter had arrived.

“How’s it been going, Nikki?”

“All right. Martha hasn’t been able to go out because of her face. At first she wouldn’t talk to him, and he’s been quiet as a mouse. But he’s tried to make up to her in his own way. He sent her a box of gardenias yesterday. They’re her favorite flowers. That did it. Women are such fools!”

“Do you think she’ll keep the appointment?”

“I don’t know. The swelling’s down... I suppose so.”

“Don’t bother phoning me when she leaves. I’ll just chance it. The worst that can happen is that I’ll have a visit with General Grant.”

Harrison had set the time for two in the afternoon of the next day. It was a fine day, and Ellery walked over to Riverside Drive, striding.

But the nurses were out with their baby carriages, and assorted children, many children, were playing on the grass overlooking the West Side Highway and the Hudson. Two women were clucking over a red-faced lump in a carriage, the lump evidently being one of the newly made ones.

Ellery scowled at the little products of love. The day wasn’t so fine after all. He found himself wishing he were on the trail of a nice, clean murder.

He took a bus the rest of the way.

He got off at 122nd Street and crossed over from the Riverside Church to the paved plaza before Grant’s Tomb. The plaza, the steps were deserted. He looked at his watch. Five minutes of two.

He went in boldly, hoping to surprise them. But the Tomb was empty, too.

The marble floor sent his footsteps echoing through the building. He leaned on the railing and looked down at the historic remains a dozen feet below. Ulysses Simpson Grant had been lying here since 1897, and he had been dead fifteen years before that. Julia Dent Grant’s tenure was newer, but still fifty years old. You’re dead a long time, Ellery thought, and nobody much cares. I’ll have to bring Dirk here for a lesson in historical perspective.

He heard a car horn outside and he went quickly out of the Tomb. He stopped between two of the pillars above the stone steps, shading his eyes against the glare.

The red convertible was at the curb of the plaza. Van Harrison’s Homburg and broad back were visible at the wheel. He was honking at a cab parked on the east side of the Drive. As Ellery glanced over, the cab drove away. It unveiled Martha, on the sidewalk.

She had to wait for the traffic signal. She was dressed gaily today, in something flowered, with bright colors, and a big picture hat. She was holding the floppy brim against the breeze with one hand and waving with the other.

Ellery stepped out of the shadows of the pillars and onto the apron of the stairs, and he deliberately waved back.

She spotted him instantly. Her hand stopped flapping; she half-turned, as if to run.

Harrison honked again, surprised. Then he turned his head.

Ellery ran down the steps, waving cheerfully. “Hi, Martha!”

She changed her mind and came hurrying across the Drive, clutching her hat. Now that the die was cast, she was trying to beat him to the convertible.

Ellery allowed her to get there first. But he came on quickly enough to immobilize them.

Harrison had jumped out and was saying something to her in a swift undertone. He turned, smiling, as Ellery came up.

“Why, Ellery.” Martha was smiling, too. She was very pale. “I’ve never pictured you visiting tombs, except on a case.”

“There are all sorts of cases.” Ellery glanced at the actor in the expectant manner of one waiting to be introduced.

“Oh. This is Van Harrison. Ellery Queen.”

“How d’you do.” Harrison squeezed, hard.

“Strong handshake, Mr. Harrison,” said Ellery, waving his fingers. “Impressive. Well, I don’t want to hold you up, Martha. Happy to have met you, Mr. Harrison—”

“I wanted to talk to Mr. Harrison about a part,” said Martha pathetically. “In the play I’m doing this fall. He was kind enough to meet me—”

“Of course, Martha. See you!”

“Can I drop you off somewhere?” asked the actor, still smiling.

“No, no, don’t bother. I’d only be in the way.” Ellery walked off, waving.

When he looked back, the convertible was gone.

She pressed the buzzer of the Queen apartment before ten the following morning.

“Come in, Martha,” said Ellery soberly.

She was hatless, in a housedress. It was a Bonwit’s housedress, but a housedress nevertheless. She sat down on the very edge of the sofa.

“I’m supposed to be out marketing,” she said rapidly. “I can’t stay. Ellery, you’ve got to forget you saw me yesterday with Van Harrison.” Her blue eyes were almost black this morning.

“Why?” asked Ellery.

“You know why. Dirk would— He mustn’t know.”

“Oh, that. He won’t learn it from me, Martha.”

She rose at once, relief written all over her. “I had to ask you. I couldn’t leave it to chance. You understand that, don’t you, Ellery?”

“Yes. But about the more important things I’m completely in the dark.” He made no attempt to rise.

“Ellery, I really can’t stay—”

“It won’t take long, Martha. Merely long enough to answer one question: Just what do you think you’re doing?” Her lips receded; a total withdrawal, like the retreat of a turtle. “It isn’t really as presumptuous a question as it sounds. I’m not exactly a rubberneck bystander, Martha. You came to me once — it seems a long time ago — to help you with Dirk. I didn’t expect you’d do the one thing that makes help impossible.”

“I know.” The words came out of her as from a long distance. “But... there are some things you can’t explain.”

“Even to me, Martha? I’ve listened to a great many secrets in my time. I don’t recall ever having violated a confidence. I like helping people; it gives me a bonus for being. And I especially like helping people I like. I liked you very much, Martha, because I thought you were sturdy and forthright and honest. I’d like to go back to liking you — and incidentally, to avert a tragedy.”

“Just because I made a date to meet an actor in an out-of-the-way place?” He could barely make out the words. “You know why I did it, Ellery. Dirk—”

“Was it for the same reason that you met the same actor in that hotel room, and on The Bowery, and in Chinatown — and other places?”

He thought she was going to faint. She actually felt for the sofa. But then she drew herself up, her lips came together again, the dark of her blue eyes became darker; and Ellery sighed.

“Martha, I’m not sitting in judgment. I only want to help. All right, Dirk’s driven you into the arms of another man. You’re in love with Van Harrison, or you think you are. Maybe you went off the deep end on the rebound, after a particularly nasty set-to with Dirk. And now that you’re in it... Is it that you regret the affair already but don’t know how to get out of it? Harrison acting tough and your hands tied because if you break if off he may blab it around town, even fling it in Dirk’s teeth? Is that it, Martha? If it is, I’ll handle Van Harrison, and I guarantee that Dirk won’t ever hear of it.”

“No! You stay away from him!”

“From whom, Martha?”

“From — from Van!”

“Then you are in love with him. At least tell me this, Martha: Why are you hanging on to Dirk? Are you afraid that if you asked him for a divorce—?”

“Let me alone!”

Ellery was still sitting there when the clatter of Martha’s feet had died away.

He sat there for an hour, a slash of worry dividing his eyes.

Then he went to the phone and called the Lawrence apartment.

“Ellery?” It was Nikki who answered. “I... can’t talk now. Dirk’s up to his ears in this thing. It’s really going beautifully—”

“Whenever you can, Nikki.”

Nikki arrived within the hour.

“What’s the matter?” She was scared.

“Sit down, Nik.”

“But what is it?”

Ellery walked up and down as he told her of Martha’s visit.

“Nikki,” he said to her upturned face, “I’ve spent a lot of time this morning thinking that talk over. Up to now I’ve been inclined to treat this business as an annoyance. I won’t make that mistake from here on in. It’s a lot more serious than I thought.”

“Why do you say that? Why more serious?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Nikki was bewildered.

Ellery went to the window and stared down at 87th Street. “Doesn’t sound much like me, does it? No logic in it. No facts. Just feelings. Ghastly experience for a practical man...”

“But how could it be more serious?”

Ellery turned back. “Oh, in lots of ways,” he said lightly. “But let’s get back on firmer ground. It’s going to be a race against time. Sooner or later Dirk’s bound to smell out just what’s going on. He’s nose-down right now. It’s more than ever your job, Nikki, to fight a delaying action. He’s hot on this book?”

“Yes.”

“Keep those study fires burning. Drive him. Pamper him. Flatter him — tell him he’s the greatest mystery writer since Poe and that he’s producing a world classic that will outlive The Murders in the Rue Morgue. If he has another spell and beats Martha up again, shut your eyes and stop your ears. Above all, don’t give him any reason to get rid of you. If you’re out of the apartment, we’re through. Of course, wherever you can, cover up for Martha. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

“Personally,” said Ellery, “I don’t give a damn about Dirk Lawrence. I’m tired of self-pitying neurotics. I’m no mental healer. Dirk’s brought this on himself. If he insists on going to hell on a shingle, I’ll respectfully tip my hat as he whizzes by.

“But Martha’s a different story. I like her all over again. She’s headed for trouble from Dirk, from Harrison, from God knows whom else or what. I want to help her more than ever and she’s going to get help whether she wants it or not.”

“Thank you,” whispered Nikki.

“And there’s only one way we can help her — by breaking up this dirty business with Harrison. Crack it wide open and manage to do it without letting it get back to Dirk.”

“But how, Ellery? Even if you broke it up, how could you shut Harrison’s mouth?”

“That little problem,” said Ellery, “is what I propose to go to work on, effective immediately.”