“Frank Carey did it, of course?”
The Sergeant stopped relaxing. “Heck, no, Inspector. Carey didn’t do it.”
“Velie—!”
“Well, he didn’t! When we rolled up we spot Carey right here at the front door. Place is closed for the night—just a night-light. He’s got a key. We watch him unlock the door, go in, and wham! he damn’ near falls over this Pierre. So the feeble-minded old cluck bends down and takes the knife out of Pierre’s chest and stands there in a trance lookin’ at it. He’s been standin’ like that ever since.”
“Without the knife, I hope,” said the Inspector nastily; and they went in.
And found an old man among the detectives in the posture of a question mark leaning against an oilcloth-covered table under a poster advertising Provençal, with his toothless mouth ajar and his watery old eyes fixed on the extinct garçon. The extinct garçon was still in his monkey-suit; his right palm was upturned, as if appealing for mercy, or the usual pourboire.
“Carey,” said Inspector Queen.
Old man Carey did not seem to hear. He was fascinated by Ellery; Ellery was on one knee, peering at Pierre’s eyes.
“Carey, who killed this Frenchman?”
Carey did not reply.
“Plain case of busted gut,” remarked Sergeant Velie.
“You can hardly blame him!” cried Nikki. “Framed for dope-peddling three years ago, convicted, jailed for it—and now he thinks he’s being framed for murder!”
“I wish we could get something out of him,” said the Inspector thoughtfully. “It’s a cinch Pierre stayed after closing time because he had a date with somebody.”
“His boss!” said Nikki.
“Whoever he’s been passing the snow for, Nikki.”
“Dad.” Ellery was on his feet looking down at the long dreary face that now seemed longer and drearier. “Do you recall if Pierre was ticketed as a drug addict three years ago?”
“I don’t think he was.” The Inspector looked surprised.
“Look at his eyes.”
“Say!”
“Far gone, too. If Pierre wasn’t an addict at the time of Carey’s arrest, he’d taken to the habit in the past three years: And that explains why he was murdered tonight.”
“He got dangerous,” said the Inspector grimly. “With Carey loose and Pierre pulling that boner with you tonight, the boss knew the whole Fouchet investigation would be reopened.”
Ellery nodded. “Felt he couldn’t trust Pierre any longer. Weakened by drugs, the fellow would talk as soon as the police pulled him in, and this mysterious character knew it.”
“Yeah,” said the Sergeant sagely. “Put the heat on a smecker and he squirts like whipped cream.”
But Ellery wasn’t listening. He had sat down at one of the silent tables and was staring over at the wine-bar.
M. Fouchet flew in in a strong tweed overcoat, showing a dent in his Homburg where it should not have been.
“Selling of the dope—again! This Pierre...!” hissed M. Fouchet, and he glared down at his late waiter with quite remarkable venom.
“Know anything about this job, Fouchet?” asked the Inspector courteously.
“Nothing, Monsieur l’inspecteur. I give you my word, no thing. Pierre stay late tonight. He says to me he will fix up the tables for tomorrow. He stays and—pfft! il se fait tuer!” M. Fouchet’s fat lips began to dance. “Now the bank will give me no more credit.” He sank into a chair.
“Oh? You’re not in good shape financially, Fouchet?”
“I serve escargots near Canal Street. It should be pretzels! The bank, I owe ’im five thousand dollar.”
“And that’s the way it goes,” said the Inspector sympathetically. “All right, Mr. Fouchet, go home. Where’s that cashier?”
A detective pushed Clothilde forward. Clothilde had been weeping into her make-up. But not now. Now she glared down at Pierre quite as M. Fouchet had glared. Pierre glared back.
“Clothilde?” muttered Ellery, suddenly coming out of deep reverie.
“Velie turned up something,” whispered the Inspector.
“She’s in it. She’s got something to do with it,” Nikki said excitedly to Ellery. “I knew it!”
“Clothilde,” said the Inspector, “how much do you make in this restaurant?”
“Forty-five dollar a week.”
Sergeant Velie drawled: “How much dough you got in the bank, Mademazelle?”
Clothilde glanced at the behemoth very quickly indeed. Then she began to sniffle, shaking in several places. “I ’ave no money in the bank. Oh, may be a few dollar—”
“This is your bank book, isn’t it, Clothilde?” asked the Inspector.
Clothilde stopped sniffling just as quickly as she had begun. “Where do you get that? Give it to me!”
“Uh-uh-uh,” said the Sergeant, embracing her. “Say...!”
She flung his arm off. “That is my bank book!”
“And it shows,” murmured the Inspector, “deposits totaling more than seventeen thousand dollars, Clothilde. Rich Uncle?”
“Voleurs! That is my money! I save!”
“She’s got a new savings system, Inspector,” explained the Sergeant. “Out of forty-five bucks per week, she manages to sock away, some weeks, sixty, some weeks eighty-five... It’s wonderful. How do you do it, Cloey?”
Nikki glanced at Ellery, startled. He nodded gloomily.
“Fils de lapin! Jongleur! Chienloup!” Clothilde was screaming. “All right! Some time I short-change the customer. I am cashier, non? But—nothing else!” She jabbed her elbow into Sergeant Velie’s stomach. “And take your ’and off me!”
“I got my duty, Mademazelle,” said the sergeant, but he looked a little guilty. Inspector Queen said something to him in an undertone, and the Sergeant reddened, and Clothilde came at him claws first, and detectives jumped in, and in the midst of it Ellery got up from the table and drew his father aside and said: “Come on back to Mother Carey’s.”
“What for, Ellery? I’m not through here—”
“I want to wash this thing up. Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving, poor Nikki is out on her feet—”
“Ellery,” said Nikki.
He nodded, still gloomily.
The sight of his wife turned old man Carey into a human being again, and he clung to her and blubbered that he had done nothing and they were trying to frame him for the second time only this time it was the hot seat they were steering him into. And Mrs. Carey kept nodding and picking lint off his jacket collar. And Nikki tried to look invisible.
“Where’s Velie?” grumbled the Inspector. He seemed irritated by Carey’s blubbering and the fact that Ellery had insisted on sending all the detectives home, as if this were a piece of business too delicate for the boys’ sensibilities.
“I’ve sent Velie on an errand,” Ellery replied, and then he said: “Mr. and Mrs. Carey, would you go into that room there and shut the door?” Mother Carey took her husband by the hand without a word. And when the door had closed behind them, Ellery said abruptly: “Dad, I asked you to arrest Pierre tonight. You phoned Velie to hurry right over to Fouchet’s. Velie obeyed—and found the waiter stabbed to death.”
“So?”
“Police Headquarters is on Centre Street. Fouchet’s is just off Canal. A few blocks apart.”
“Hey?”
“Didn’t it strike you as extraordinary,” murmured Ellery, “that Pierre should have been murdered so quickly? Before Velie could negotiate those few blocks?”
“You mean this boss dope peddler struck so fast to keep his man from being arrested? We went through all that before, son.”