Ellery glanced absently from the little naked woman to Bill’s face, blinked, and walked around the table. He stooped over the dead man, his eyes riveted to Wilson’s fingers, caught by death as they clawed the rug... No rings. No rings. That, he thought, was good. He remained in his stooped position, unmoving except for his eyes, which went to Wilson’s chill face for the twentieth time that evening and with the same faint expression of annoyance. De Jong was saying with exultation, “So I’m getting after the car this came from right away, get me? And when I find it...”
Ellery slowly straightened up. Across the body of Joseph Wilson he looked at his friend, and for an instant teetered on the thin edge of a mad impulse. Then he looked down at the dead man again, and this time both the uncertainty and annoyance were gone from his face, leaving wonder, conviction, and pity behind. “Excuse me,” he said in a flat voice. “I’m going out for a breath of air. This stuffy room...”
De Jong, Bill stared at him. He smiled faintly and hastened out of the shack as if it had become intolerable to him. The sky was shiny black, like jet damp under an indirect light, and flecked with polka-dot stars; the air felt cool and bracing against his perspiring cheeks. Detectives stood aside to let him pass. He hurried down the muddy side-lane over the loose protecting boards with long strides.
It was hard, he thought, damned hard. And yet it was bound to come out. If it were in his power alone... As he turned into Lamberton Road a group of dark figures smoking in the shadows of the many cars now parked there fell on him, pressing forward, chattering questions. “I’m sorry, boys. I can’t talk now.”
He managed finally to shake them off. He fancied that he had seen Ella Amity’s tall figure seated on a man’s lap in one of the parked cars, and that she had calmly smiled at him as he passed. When he reached the little frame house across the road from the Marine Terminal he went inside, said something to the old man there, pressed a bill into his hand, and picked up the telephone. The old man stared at him with curiosity. He called Information, gave her a name in New York City; and while he waited he looked impatiently at his wristwatch. It was ten minutes past eleven.
It was a quarter of twelve when he returned to the shack in his Duesenberg, which he had parked near the Marine Terminal. Something seemed to have happened inside the tumbledown house, for the newspapermen were storming it, held back with curses by police and detectives. The Amity woman clutched imploringly at his arm as he slipped through the cordon, but he shook her off and quickened his pace.
Nothing had changed in the shack except the people who had invaded it. The detectives were gone. De Jong was still there, coldly and rather cynically pleased, talking in low tones to a short nondescript man with a brown face. Bill was there... and Lucy Wilson, née Angell.
Ellery recognized her instantly, after almost eleven years. She did not see him as he watched from the doorway; she was standing by the table, one slim hand on Bill’s shoulder, staring down at the floor with an expression of glazed horror. Her plain black-and-white dress was crawling with wrinkles, as strained as her face. A light coat was hung crazily over the overstuffed armchair. Her shoes were a little muddy...
She was still the handsome, vigorous creature he had known — almost as tall as her brother, with the same sound chin and black eyes, and a body as strong and pliant as a spring. Her figure had burgeoned with the years; it had grace and sap in it, and sexual beauty. Mr. Ellery Queen was no sentimentalist where women were concerned, but he felt now — as he had always felt in the past when in her presence — the pull of her sheer animal attractiveness. She had always been a woman, he recalled, who drew men to her with an easy unconscious lure that refreshed even as it eluded the grasp. There was nothing small or wantonly delicate about her; her charm was the charm of moist and generous white skin, sweet lips and eyes, and a large and undulant grace of movement... It was all fixed now, tapered to the horror in her eyes as she looked at the cold body of her husband. The contour of her breast as she leaned on Bill’s shoulder was unsteady, like a round pool shivered by a stone.
Ellery said in a low troubled voice, “Lucy Angell.”
Her head came about slowly, and for a moment her black eyes reflected nothing but the dreadful reality of the thing on the floor. Then suddenly they flashed. “Ellery Queen. I’m so glad.” She extended her free hand and he went to her and took it.
“There’s nothing I can say, of course—”
“I’m so glad you’re here. It’s so horribly, horribly... unexpected.” A tremor shook her. “My Joe dead — in this awful place. Ellery, how can that be?”
“It can’t, but it is. You must learn to face that.”
“Bill told me how you happen to be here. Ellery — stay.” He pressed her hand. She managed the ghost of a smile. Then she turned back to look down again.
Bill said coldly, “De Jong played a dirty trick. He knew I’d sent Lucy a wire. Yet he sneaked this detective of his off in a department car to Philly to wait for her, and when she got home from the movies had her hauled back here as if — as if—”
“Bill,” said Lucy gently. Ellery felt her hand warm in his own, the plain thin gold wedding-band on her fourth finger strong and unyielding against his palm. The hand on Bill’s shoulder was white with pain and as unadorned as a pine crucifix.
“I know my job, Angell,” said De Jong without rancor. “I see you’re acquainted with Mrs. Wilson, Mr. Queen. Old friends, eh?” Ellery flushed and released the warm hand. “I suppose you want to know what she says?”
Bill growled deep in his throat. But Lucy said in a steady voice without turning, “I want him to know. There’s nothing, Ellery, no explanation I can give... I’ve answered all this man’s questions. Perhaps you can convince him that I’ve told the truth.”
“My dear woman,” said De Jong, “don’t get me wrong. I know my job.” He seemed offended. “All right, Sellers; good work. Stick around.” A glance of secret understanding passed between him and the short brown man; the detective nodded without expression and went out. “Here’s the story. Mrs. Wilson says her husband left their house this morning in his Packard on one of his regular business trips. That’s the last, she says, that she saw or heard of him. He seemed all right, she says; maybe a little absent-minded, but she put it down to some business worry or other. Is that right, Mrs. Wilson?”
“Yes,” Her eyes refused to leave the dead man’s face.
“She left her house in Fairmount Park about seven tonight, just after the rain stopped — she’d had dinner at home alone — took a trolley into town, and went to the Fox to see a movie. Then she trolleyed home. My man was waiting for her, and brought her out.”
“You forgot to explain,” said Bill in a dangerous voice, “that my sister always goes to a movie on Saturday night when her husband is away.”
“That’s right,” said De Jong. “So I did. Got that, Mr. Queen? Now as to the crime.” He tapped his points off on his fingers. “She never heard of or saw this shack before — she says. Wilson never breathed a word about it to her. I mean, she says. She’s never known of any real trouble he’s been in. He’s always been good to her, and as far as she knows,” De Jong smiled, “faithful...”
“Please,” whispered Lucy. “I know what you men must think in a — in a case like this. But he was faithful to me, he was! He loved me. He loved me!”
“She doesn’t know much about his business affairs, because he was kind of secretive about them and she didn’t want to pry. She’s thirty-one, he was thirty-eight. Married ten years this past March. No children.”
“No children,” muttered Ellery, and there was the most extraordinary gladness in his eyes.