“I hope the disillusionment won’t make you stop the practice,” chuckled Ellery. “As a matter of fact, I’m not unfamiliar with your own exploits. Nasty spill you took at Meadowbrook two weeks ago. Papers were full of it.”
Jones grimaced. “Lousy pony. Bad blood somewhere. Blood tells in polo ponies as well as human beings. First time I’ve ever broken anything at the game. Lucky it wasn’t a leg.”
“Shall we sit down?” said Finch fretfully. “Miss Zachary, we are not to be disturbed. I was telling Mr. Queen,” he continued when they were seated, “what we had decided.”
“I don’t quite know why I’m honored with all this attention,” remarked Ellery. “It’s a little overwhelming. My blood isn’t bad, Mr. Jones, but it’s of the common variety, and I can’t help wondering if I’m a little out of my class this morning.”
Andrea Gimball stirred. Out of the corner of his eye Ellery noticed that, under the skilful make-up, she was an extraordinarily worried young woman. She had not once glanced at young Jones since their entrance into the office; and as for Jones, there was a pettish line between his thick brows that was curiously unlover-like. They sat stiffly side by side like children angry at each other.
“Before you proceed, Finch,” announced Senator Frueh in a gruff voice, “I want Queen to understand I’m not in favor of this.”
“Of what?” smiled Ellery.
“Of this deliberate confusion of motives,” snapped the bearded lawyer. “Finch has an axe to grind for his blasted company; and we’ve another entirely different. I agreed, Finch, as I told you last night, only because Jessica and you insisted. If Jessica took my advice — and Andrea’s — which she won’t, she’d keep strictly out of this stinking tangle.”
“No,” said Mrs. Gimball in a low voice. “That woman robbed me of everything — my good name, Joe’s love. I’ll fight. I’ve always permitted everyone to step over me — father, Joe, even Andrea. This time I’m going to defend myself.”
Ellery thought that the woman was stretching the probabilities a little. He could not visualize her as she painted herself. “But there’s very little you can do, Mrs. Gimball,” he said. “There’s no doubt whatever concerning Lucy’s — I mean Mrs. Wilson’s legal status. She was his lawful wife. The fact that she was his wife under an assumed name doesn’t alter the case at all.”
“I’ve been telling mother that,” murmured Andrea. “It can’t lead to anything but more notoriety. Mother, won’t you please—?”
Jessica Gimball’s lips compressed. Some strange quality in the undertones of her voice made them silent. “That woman,” she said, “killed Joe.”
“Oh, I see,” said Ellery gravely. “I see. And on what basis do you make this accusation, Mrs. Gimball?”
“I know it. I feel it.”
“I’m afraid,” he replied in dry tones, “that our courts won’t take cognizance of such evidence.”
“Please, Jessica,” said Grosvenor Finch with a frown. “Look here, Queen. Mrs. Gimball is naturally not herself. Of course hers is no reason at all. But I speak now for the company. The point is that the National Life as such has no personal motive against this woman which might strike anyone as persecutive. It’s interested only in determining the facts.”
“And since I am also,” drawled Ellery, “presumably an objective agent aiming at the same goal, you want my puny assistance?”
“Please. Let me finish. Let me state Hathaway’s position; he would have been here to talk to you himself, except that he’s ill. Mrs. Wilson became the beneficiary of one of our policy-holders a matter of mere days before his death by violence. True, he created her his beneficiary himself, but there is no proof that she did not beguile or coerce him into making the change.”
“Nor proof that she did.”
“Very true, very true. Nevertheless, the contingency from our standpoint exists. Now, this contract calls for payment of one million dollars to the new beneficiary. There are peculiar contributory circumstances. The new beneficiary was the secret wife of the insured — at least secret from point of view of his real identity. If she suddenly discovered his perfidy, even granting a genuine love for him prior to that discovery, she would be inhuman if her love did not turn to hate. Add the fact that she was his beneficiary to the tune of a million — that’s omitting completely the possibility that her hatred led her to wheedle him into altering his beneficiary — we have a dual motive for murder. Surely you see our position?”
Senator Frueh stirred restlessly in his chair as he fingered his beard. Ellery said apologetically, “I could make out almost as strong a theory — forgive me — to implicate Mrs. Gimball. Discovering that her husband was married to another woman, that indeed she had never been his legal wife, that moreover he had heaped the last indignity upon her of making this other woman his beneficiary... Voilà.”
“But the point is that Mrs. Wilson is the beneficiary and the million does go to her. As I say, in the face of these circumstances, the National would be remiss in its duty to its policyholders if it did not hold up payment of the policy pending an investigation.”
“Why come to me? Surely you have your own corps of trained investigators?”
“Oh, of course.” Finch paused delicately. “But there the personal element enters. I feel that an outside agent, specially employed for the purpose, could be depended upon to exercise more — er — discretion. And then you were on the scene from the beginning...”
Ellery drummed lightly on the arm of his chair. Their eyes watched him. “You know,” he said at last, “this is an odd position for me. This woman whom you propose to pillory is the sister of an old chum. I really should be in the other camp. The only element of your request that appeals to me is that you’re interested not in a preconceived result but in simply fixing the truth. You could depend upon my discretion, Finch, but not my silence.”
“What d’ye mean by that?” demanded Senator Frueh.
“Well, it logically follows, doesn’t it? In my pitiful way I try to live up to my Messianic complex. If I should discover the truth, I can’t guarantee that it will be a respecter of persons, you see.”
Finch rummaged in the papers before him, extracted one, uncapped his fountain-pen, and began to write. “All the National wants,” he said quietly, “is reasonable proof that Lucy Wilson did or did not murder or cause to be murdered her husband.” He blotted what he had written, rose, circled his desk. “Will this do as a retainer, Mr. Queen?”
Ellery blinked. The piece of paper was a cheque, and above Finch’s signature in its distinctive green ink there was stamped the sum of five thousand dollars. “Very handsome,” he murmured. “But suppose we defer the question of remuneration until I’ve had a chance to look around a bit. I haven’t quite decided, you see.”
Finch’s face fell. “As you wish, of course.”
“A question or two, please. Mrs. Gimball, have you any idea what the present condition of your — of Gimball’s estate is?”
“Estate?” she repeated blankly, almost as if she were annoyed.
“Joe was a poor business man,” said Andrea bitterly. “He had nothing in his own name. Poor in that as in everything else.”
“If it’s his will you’re after,” grunted the lawyer, “I can tell you that he leaves everything to Jessica Borden Gimball. But since he’s left virtually nothing but debts and his insurance, under the circumstances that’s a rather cynical bequest.”