“Ave atque vale,” said Ellery. “You dislike him, De Jong, but he’s a very estimable young man. Like all male animals, dangerous when his females are threatened... In the name of friendship, Miss Gimball, may I thank you? And now, may I inspect your hands?”
She raised her eyes slowly to his face. “My hands?” she whispered.
De Jong muttered something under his breath and stamped away.
“Under less painful circumstances,” said Ellery as he raised her hands, “this would be a pleasure of considerable proportions. If I possess an Achillean heel, Miss Gimball, it’s paradoxically my weakness for the well-kept hands of a woman. Yours, it’s needless to remark, are of the essence of manual perfection... Did I understand you to say that you are engaged to be married?”
Under his fingers he felt her palms go moist; there was the merest suggestion of a tremble in the soft flesh he was holding. “Yes. Yes.”
“Of course,” murmured Ellery, “it’s none of my business. But is it the latest mode for the wealthy young bride-to-be to eschew the symbol of plighted troth? Syrus said that God looks at pure, not full, hands; but I didn’t know our upper classes had taken up the classics.” She said nothing; her face was so pale he thought she was going to faint. Mercifully, Ellery turned to her mother. “By the way, Mrs. Gimball, I’m a hound for verifications. I noticed that your — er — husband’s hands, since we’re on the subject, showed no nicotine stains, nor were his teeth discolored. And there are no tobacco shreds in the crevices of his pockets, and no ashtrays here. It’s true, then, that he didn’t smoke?”
De Jong came back. “What’s this about smoking?” he growled.
The society woman snapped: “No, Joseph didn’t smoke. Of all the idiotic questions!” She rose and offered a limp arm to the tall man. “May we go now? All this...”
“Sure,” grunted De Jong. “I’d like you people to come back in the morning, though. Certain formalities. And I’ve just heard that the prosecutor — that’s Pollinger — wants to talk to you.”
“We’ll be back,” said Andrea in a low voice. And she shivered again, drawing her wrap more closely about her. There were pale smudges under her eyes. She glanced surreptitiously at Ellery, and quickly away.
“There’s no chance,” insisted Finch, “of suppressing the story of this... I mean, this prior marriage? It’s so terribly awkward, you know, for these people.”
De Jong shrugged; his mind seemed on other things. The three stood forlornly at the front door; Mrs. Gimball’s sharp chin was forward, although her thin shoulders sagged like weighted panniers. Then, in a rather oppressive silence, they left. Neither man spoke until the thunder of their motor died away. “Well,” said De Jong at last, “that’s that. One hell of a mess.”
“Messes,” remarked Ellery, reaching for his hat, “are what you make ’em, De Jong. This is a fascinating one, at any rate. It would delight the heart of Father Brown himself.”
“Who?” said De Jong absently. “You’re going back to New York, eh?” He made no effort to conceal his ponderous wistfulness.
“No. There are elements in this puzzle that cry for elucidation. I shouldn’t sleep if I dropped out now.”
“Oh.” De Jong turned to the table. “Well, goodnight, then.”
“Goodnight,” said Ellery pleasantly. The policeman was stowing away in a paper bag the plate on the table, with its contents. The broad back was surly and antagonistic. Ellery went out to his car whistling and drove back to the Stacy-Trent.
Mr. Ellery Queen left the hotel Sunday morning with a guilty feeling. The soft arms of his bed had betrayed him; it was after eleven.
Downtown Trenton was deserted in the young sun. He walked to the corner and turned east, crossing the street, into a narrow thoroughfare quaintly named Chancery Lane. In the middle of the block he found a long low three-story building that looked remarkably like Army barracks. Before it, on the sidewalk, there stood a tall old-fashioned lamp-post topped with lantern-glass; and on the post a square white sign announced in block letters, POLICE HQRS — NO PARKING.
He turned into the nearest doorway and found himself in a narrow dingy reception room with streaky walls, a long desk, and a low ceiling; a room beyond was crowded with green steel lockers. There was a prevailing brown decrepitude and an odor of rancid masculinity in the air that depressed him. The desk sergeant directed him to Room 26, where he found De Jong in earnest conversation with a short skinny man with pale features pinched by cleverness and dyspepsia; and Bill Angell in a chair, red-eyed and disheveled, looking as if he had neither slept nor taken his clothes off all night.
“Oh, hello,” said De Jong without enthusiasm. “Queen, meet Paul Pollinger, prosecutor of Mercer County. Where’ve you been?”
“Drinking weary childhood’s mandragora.” Ellery shook hands with the skinny man. “Anything new this morning?”
“You’ve missed the Gimball crowd. They’ve come and gone.”
“So soon? Hi, there, Bill.”
“Hello,” said Bill. He was staring at the prosecutor.
Pollinger lit a cigar. “As a matter of fact, this man Finch wants to see you at his office tomorrow morning.” He surveyed Ellery over the cocked match.
“Really?” Ellery shrugged. “Have you had the autopsy report yet, De Jong? I’m perishing of curiosity.”
“Doc told me to tell you he didn’t find any burns.”
“Burns?” frowned Pollinger. “Why burns, Mr. Queen?”
Ellery smiled. “Why not? Just one of my usual aberrations. That’s all your medico reported, De Jong?”
“Oh, nuts! What’s the diff? He did say something about the knife having been stuck into Gimball by a right-handed blow, but that’s the regular baloney.”
“And how about the envelope Wilson... Gimball — damn the fellow! — left with Bill Angell here?”
The prosecutor flipped a sheaf of documents on De Jong’s desk over with his forefinger. “You guessed it. They’re the eight policies. Revised to make Lucy Wilson the beneficiary. I imagine Gimball meant to leave them in Angell’s keeping for the further protection of Mrs. Wilson. There’s no question in my mind about his intention to tell Angell all about his other personality.”
“Maybe,” grinned De Jong, “the beneficiary change was part of a deal. He knew his wife’s brother would be hopping mad, and he figured if he threw a million bucks at ’em it would sort of smooth things over.”
Bill said nothing, but he transferred his attention from Pollinger to the chief of police. The hand on his knee was trembling.
“I think not,” observed Ellery. “No man deliberately submits himself to a life of mental torture for eight years without overwhelming emotional cause. What you say, De Jong, might be true if Gimball considered Lucy Angell a mere plaything. But he married her ten years ago, and for at least the last eight years he resisted the natural temptation to solve his problem by quietly divorcing her, or simply disappearing, when by staying he was making life a complex hell for himself.”
“He loved her,” said Bill harshly.
“Oh, unquestionably.” Ellery fished for his brier and began to stuff the bowl with tobacco. “He loved her so much that he endured a veritable Proustian life to keep her. The man wasn’t a callous libertine; his face and history show that. The worst you can say about him is that he was weak. And then compare Lucy Wilson with Jessica Gimball. You haven’t seen Lucy, Pollinger; but De Jong has, and even that ophidian pulse of his must have quickened. She’s a remarkably attractive young woman; while Jessica Gimball... Well, it’s considered unkind to refer to a lady’s wrinkles.”