Three times since that gold-letter day the Ides of Martius came and went, and Caesar was satisfied. And then came the fourth time.
The fourth time it was Mike who went, hurrying as fast as his asthma and flat feet would permit, to the Queen apartment.
A detective consulting a detective struck Nikki’s funnybone. And poor Mike’s manner as he looked around at the Queen walls somehow made it even funnier.
But the best was still to come.
“Ellery,” said Mike, blushing, “I have been robbed.”
“Robbed,” said Ellery with a straight face. “Robbed of what, Mike?”
“My income tax return.”
Nikki excused herself heroically. When she came back, Ellery was putting his handkerchief away.
“Forgive me, Mike,” he was saying. “My old pleurisy. Did you say your tax return has been stolen?”
“That’s what I said, and you’re healthy as a horse,” said Mike Magoon doggedly. “Oh, I don’t blame you for goin’ into hysterics. But it ain’t funny, McGee. Today’s the fourteenth of March. How am I gonna make the March fifteenth deadline?”
“Well, your—hrm! — return can’t be terribly complicated, Michael,” said Ellery gravely. “Get another blank and fill it in, and so on.”
“With what, I ask you!”
“With what?”
“You gotta have data!”
“Well, certainly. Don’t you have data?”
“No!”
“But—”
“Listen, Ellery. All my papers and records—everything I was usin’ to make out my return—it’s all been swiped!”
“Oh.”
“It was in this brief case, the whole business. It’d take me weeks to round up duplicates of my records! Meanwhile what do I say to the Collector of Internal Revenue?” And Mike, because he was an old stable-mate of Inspector Queen’s and had known Ellery when he was a cigar in the Inspector’s pocket, added: “Wise guy?”
“Ellery, that is a nuisance,” said Nikki, glancing over at the table to make sure that her own records and return were still there.
“Records and all... Where were the contents of your brief case stolen from, Mike?”
“My office. You been up there, Ellery—you know there’s three other tenants—”
“And you all use a common reception room,” Ellery nodded. “Were you in your office at the time, Mike?”
“Yes. Well, no—not exactly. Look. I better tell you the whole thing, just the way it happened. It’s got me loopin’.”
It had happened around six P.M. the previous day. Mike had been working on his tax return. Just before six he had decided to give up the struggle for the day. He had collected his canceled checks, memoranda, receipted bills and so on and had put them, together with his return, into his brief case.
“I’d just put on my overcoat,” said Mike, “when Mrs. Carson—she’s the public steno who leases the suite and rents out the offices—Mrs. Carson comes runnin’ into my office yellin’ there’s a fire in the reception room. So I run out there and, sure enough, the settee’s on fire. Somebody’d dropped a match into a wastepaper basket right next to it, and it blazed up and the settee caught fire. Well, it wasn’t much—I put it out in five minutes—then I go back to my office, pick up my hat and brief case, and amble on home.”
“And of course,” sighed Ellery, “when you got home you opened your brief case and your return and records were gone.”
“With the wind,” said Michael Magoon bitterly. “Cleaned out and a newspaper stuffed inside instead.”
“Could the transfer have been made, Mike, en route from your office to your home?”
“Impossible. I walked over from the office to the garage where I park my car, with the brief case under my arm. Then I drove home, the case next to me on the car seat.”
“You’re sure this is the same brief case?”
“Oh, sure. It’s an old one. It’s my case, all right.”
“Then it wasn’t a wholesale substitution,” said Ellery thoughtfully. “Someone opened your case on your office desk, removed its contents, substituted a newspaper, and closed the case again, all while you were putting out the fire in the reception room.”
“It must have been that Mrs. Carson,” said Nikki, wondering how the obvious could have escaped even such a pedestrian sleuth as Mike Magoon.
“How about it, Mike?” asked Ellery.
“Not a chance. She ran out in front of me and stayed with me in the reception room, runnin’ back and forth from the water-cooler to the settee with a vase she keeps on her desk. Didn’t leave my sight for a second.”
“Who else was in the suite, Mike?”
“The two other tenants. One of ’em’s a commercial artist named Vince, Leonardo Vince, a screwball if I ever saw one. The other’s a little crumb calls himself Ziggy, Jack Ziggy. He thinks I don’t know it, but he’s a bookie.”
“Didn’t Vince and Ziggy run out of their offices when you and Mrs. Carson tackled the fire?”
“Sure. But they didn’t help put it out—just stood around givin’ advice. I didn’t pay any attention to either of ’em.”
“Then it’s possible one of them—?”
“It’s possible. But I can’t be sure. Anyway, I drove right back down to the office again last night, thinkin’ maybe I’d left my tax stuff on my desk or somethin’—”
“But of course it wasn’t there.”
“I didn’t sleep last night,” said Mike miserably, “and if I could have slept, the old lady’s jawin’ would have kept me awake.”
“Have you been to the office this morning, Mike?”
“No. I came right down here, Ellery.”
“Well.” Ellery rose and began to fill his pipe. “A very unusual problem, Mike.”
“Huh?”
“Unusual!” said Nikki. “All right, Mr. Queen, I’ll bite. What’s unusual about it?”
“Why should someone steal a man’s income-tax return—the return of a man like Mike? To find out what Mike’s income was last year? With all respect to your industry, Michael, that could hardly interest anyone; and more to the point, if that was what the thief was after, he wouldn’t have to steal the return—a quick look would tell him what he wanted to know.”
“Then why,” asked Nikki, “did he steal it?”
“That,” replied Ellery, “is what makes the problem interesting. Mike.” He eyed Mike sternly. “Have you been up to anything illegal?”
“Illegal!”
Ellery chuckled. “Routine question, Michael. Of course, if you were finagling, you’d hardly report it to Uncle Sam. No.” Ellery puffed on his pipe. “The only thing that makes sense is the source of your income.”
“I don’t get it,” complained the eye.
“Now, now. After all, Mike, you’re a private dick. Your own shingle advertises the confidential nature of your work. Tell me: Which paper or papers in your brief case referred to a client or case in which secrecy is of the essence?”