“Why the devil,” said Ellery pleasantly, “don’t you mind your own business?”
Finch was ruddy to the roots of his gray hair now. “Blessed if we don’t deserve that, Queen,” he said with a wry grin. “Oh, come on, Simon; it was a rum idea in the first place.”
The lawyer’s beard trembled over the white cloth like a waterfall suddenly arrested in its course. “Queen’s no fool. If Andrea is—”
“That,” said Andrea, “is just about the last straw!”
“Be quiet, Andrea. We can talk plainly to this man. Queen, what are you after?”
Ellery blew smoke; but his eyes were bright with mockery. “What is any man after? A little home in the country, a garden, kiddies—”
“Stop clowning. You don’t fool me for a moment, Queen. You’re still nosing around that Wilson case, aren’t you?”
“Is that an interrogatory question or a rhetorical one?”
“You know what it is!”
“Well,” murmured Ellery, “it’s really none of your affair; but since you’re kind enough to ask — yes. And what has that to do with you?”
“Simon,” said Finch uneasily.
“Don’t be a jellyfish, Grosvenor. Just this. As friends of Andrea’s—”
“No friends of mine,” said Andrea in a frigid tone. But her palms were stroking the cloth and she was pale.
“—we know that it isn’t mere desire for her company that’s made you hound her this way ever since that woman was convicted up in Trenton. Now what the devil is it you want?”
“Peace,” sighed Ellery, “and a complete abruption of intercourse as far as you and I are concerned. Is that fair enough?”
“Why are you hanging around Andrea? What is it you suspect her of?”
“I think,” said Andrea grimly, “that this has gone quite far enough. You forget yourself, Senator Frueh. As for you, Ducky, I’m surprised that you would permit yourself to be... But I suppose it’s Mother again. She always could twist you around her little finger.”
“Andrea,” said the tall man miserably.
“No! And you forget, Senator, that I’m a grown woman with presumably a mind of my own. No one takes me out by force, I assure you. If I’ve chosen to spend my time with Mr. Queen that’s my business, not yours. I know what I’m doing; or if I don’t,” she added with a faint and bitter smile, “I’ll find out soon enough. Now will you please — both of you — go away and let us alone?”
“Of course, Andrea, if that’s the way you feel about it,” said the fat man, bouncing out of his chair. “I’m merely discharging my duty to your family. After this—”
Ellery rose and waited politely. No one said anything. So he murmured, “I thought your rôle was legalistic, Senator. Have you turned detective, too? If so, let me welcome you into the ranks.”
“Buffoon!” snarled Senator Frueh, tugging at his beard. “You watch your step.” He flounced off.
“I’m sorry, Andy,” said Finch, taking her hand.
“It’s not really your fault, Ducky.” She smiled at him, but withdrew her hand. He sighed, nodded to Ellery, and followed his stout companion.
“I suppose,” said Ellery, not sitting down, “you’d rather go home, Andrea? The evening must be spoiled for you.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s just begun. Shall we dance?”
Ellery let out the Duesenberg. It roared with steadily mounting violence, as if it were an ancient lion and he had tweaked its tail. It fled down the concrete road as if all the devils in hell were after it. “Whee!” squealed Andrea, holding on to her hat. “How are your reflexes, mister? I’m still young, and life is sweet.”
“I am,” Ellery assured her as he pawed around precariously for a cigaret, “a veritable tower of strength.”
“Here, stop that!” she screamed, sticking her own into his mouth. “This chariot may steer by itself, but I’d rather not chance... Not,” she said suddenly, “that I’d care.”
“Really? Care about what?”
She slumped down beside him, squinting along the spurting ribbon of road without really seeing it. “Oh, about anything. Well, let’s not get maudlin. Where are we going?”
Ellery waved the cigaret. “Does it matter? The broad highway, a lovely companion of the opposite sex, no traffic to speak of, the sun beaming heroically... I’m happy.”
“Good for you.”
“Why?” he said, glancing at her. “Aren’t you?”
“Oh, of course. Deliriously.” She closed her eyes. Ellery drove peacefully. After a while she opened her eyes and said in a gay voice, “Guess what. I found a gray hair this morning.”
“Curses! So soon? You see, Senator Frueh was right. Did you remove it?”
“Idiot. Of course I did.”
“As if,” he said dryly, “grief could be assuaged by baldness.”
“Now what is that supposed to mean? It’s cryptic.”
“Oh, it’s more than that. Tusculanarum Disputationum, in fact. If you’d spent more time learning something than being ‘finished’ at school, you’d know that that’s a pearl tossed off by Senator Cicero. It’s foolish, he remarked, to pluck out one’s hair for sorrow — as if, and so forth.”
“Oh.” She closed her eyes again. “You think I’m unhappy, don’t you?”
“My dear child, who am I to judge? But if you want my opinion, I think you’re going very rapidly to pot.”
She sat up straight with indignation. “I like that! I suppose you don’t realize that I’ve seen more of you in the past few weeks than of anyone else.”
Ellery flicked the Duesenberg around a heat-swollen crevice in the concrete. “If I’ve contributed to your unhappiness, I should be drawn and quartered. I think I know several worthy persons who would assist in the operation. But while I’m not the most cheerful companion in the world, I don’t believe it’s my influence that’s done it to you.”
“Oh, don’t you!” Andrea retorted. “You should have heard what Mother had to say on the subject last night — after I got home and she’d had the eminent Senator’s report.”
“Ah, your mother,” sighed Ellery. “No, I don’t flatter myself that that worthy dowager approves of Inspector Queen’s little boy. Just what is it she suspects me of — designs on your virtue, your bankroll, or what?”
“Don’t be coarse. It’s these little excursions.”
“Not my connection with the tragedy of Ella Amity’s Halfway House?”
“Please,” said Andrea. “Let’s forget that, shall we? No, after you took me to see Waiting for Lefty and to that settlement house on Henry Street and the city lodging-house she simply exploded. She thinks you’re poisoning my mind.”
“A not unreasonable suspicion. Has the virus worked?”
“I won’t say it hasn’t. I never realized what misery...” Andrea shivered a little and took her hat off. Her hair, glinting in the sun, began to whip about her head. “She thinks you’re simply the most terrible person in the world. Not that I care what she thinks — about you.”
“Andrea! This is so sudden. When did it happen?”
“Mother,” frowned Andrea, “is a good deal like those dreadful flying people in that Faulkner book you gave me — you know, Pylon? What was it the reporter said about them? If you squished ’em, they’d squirt cylinder oil instead of blood?”
“I fail to see the analogy. What liquid would your mother squirt?”
“Old wine — wine with a pedigree, you understand — old wine which has unaccountably and tragically turned to vinegar. Poor Mother! She’s had a bruising life; she doesn’t really know what’s happened to her.”
Ellery chuckled. “Described with remarkable point. Nevertheless, Andrea, that’s an extremely unfilial speech.”
“Mother is — well, Mother. You wouldn’t understand.”