“I think I would. Believe it or not, I had a mother once.”
Andrea did not speak for a long time. “Grandfather,” she said at last in a dreamy voice. “Let’s see, now. Yes, of course. All you’d squeeze out of his poor broken body would be leucocytes. Not a trace of red left in him.”
“How about Ducky? You know him better than I do.”
“He should be easy,” said Andrea, sucking the tip of her forefinger. “Ducky, Ducky... Port! No, that’s wine again. Yes! Spirits of camphor. Doesn’t that sound awful?”
“Sickening. Why camphor?”
“Oh, Ducky’s so right. I suppose you don’t see what I mean. My mind — such as it is — always associates camphor with stuffy YMCA bedrooms and colds in the head. Don’t ask me why. It must have been poor conditioning as a child.”
“Andrea, I believe you’re tight. Only alcohol would link that bloated plutocrat with the YMCA.”
“Don’t be foul. You know I don’t drink. That’s why mother’s so shocked; I’m the old-fashioned girl on a sudden bender. Now: Tolstoy.”
“Who?”
“The Senator. I once saw a drawing of Tolstoy that reminded me of him. That obscene beard! He takes better care of it than a woman does of her new permanent. Of course you know what he has in his veins?”
“Tomato juice?”
“No! Pure formaldehyde. If he ever felt an honest emotion, it’s been pickled stiff for forty years. And that,” she sighed, “is the end of the story. What shall we talk about now?”
“Wait a minute,” said Ellery. “How about friend Jones?”
She was very quiet for a moment. “I’d rather not... I haven’t seen Burke for two weeks.”
“Good heavens. If I’ve been the cause of breaking up the social alliance of the century—”
“Please. I’m not fooling. Burke and I are—” She stopped and rested her head against the top of the seat, staring down the road.
“Definitely?”
“Is anything definite in this world? Once — I was so sure. He seemed everything a girl could wish for in a man. Big — I’ve always had a weakness for big men — not too handsome, built like Max Baer, perfect manners...”
“He didn’t impress me,” said Ellery dryly, “as a prince of breeding.”
“He — he was a little upset. Good family, loads of money...”
“And utterly devoid of gray matter.”
“You would say something nasty. Well, I suppose it’s true. I see now that all that was a silly girl’s notion. Those things don’t count, do they?”
“I don’t believe they do.”
“Once—” she smiled a queer, pained little smile — “I wasn’t much better myself, you see.”
Ellery drove for some time in silence. Andrea’s lids drooped again. The miles slid into the gullet of the Duesenberg and spewed out behind in a smooth and soporific stream. Ellery stirred. “You’ve forgotten yourself.”
“What?”
“If someone — Bill Angell, for example — should step on you, to continue the nauseating metaphor...”
“Oh.” After a moment she laughed. “I may as well judge myself nobly; no one else does. The milk of human kindness.”
“Slightly curdled?” asked Ellery in a gentle voice.
She sat up swiftly. “Now, just what does that mean, Ellery Queen?”
“Don’t you know?”
“And why Bill Angell?”
Ellery shrugged. “I beg your pardon. I thought we were playing according to the established rules of honesty, but I see I was mistaken.” He kept looking at the road. She kept looking at his calm, immobile profile. And finally her lips quivered and she looked away. “Corking day, isn’t it?” observed Ellery at last.
“Yes.” Her voice was low.
“Sky blue. Countryside green. Road oyster-white. Cows brown and red — when you see ’em.” He paused. “When you see ’em.”
“I don’t—”
“I said. When you see ’em. Not everybody does, you know.”
She was so quiet that he thought she had not heard; he glanced quickly at her. Her cheeks were whiter than the road. The strands of blond hair curling madly about her face seemed to be straining away from the wind. And her fingers plucked steadily at the hat in her lap.
“Where,” she asked in a thick undertone, “are you taking me?”
“Where would you like to go?”
Her eyes flashed. She half rose in the seat; the wind clutched at her, and she grasped the top of the windshield for support. “Stop the car! Stop the car, I say!”
Obediently the Duesenberg rolled toward the soft shoulder of the road and, after a while, came to a stop.
“Here we are,” said Ellery gently. “Now what?”
“Turn around!” she cried. “Where are you going? Where are you taking me?”
“To visit someone,” he said in a quiet way, “who hasn’t your visual advantages. I doubt if this unfortunate can glimpse a bit of sky larger than you could cover with this small palm of yours. I thought it might be kind if someone played the vicarious eye today... for her.”
“For her?” she whispered. He took her hand; it lay limp and cold between his palms.
They sat that way for many minutes. Occasionally, a car rushed by; once a large young man in the horizon-blue uniform of the New Jersey State Police slowed up as his motorcycle whizzed past, looked back, scratched his head, and sped on again. The sun was hot in the motionless car; a film of perspiration sprang up on Andrea’s forehead and little nose. Then her eyes fell, and she pulled back her hand. She did not speak.
Ellery threw the Duesenberg into gear again and the big car moved off, continuing in the direction in which they had been going. There was a faint and anxious line between his brows.
The Amazon in uniform stared at them, heaved aside, and motioned to someone in the dark corridor with a hand as large and abrupt as a traffic officer’s.
They heard Lucy’s feet before they saw her. The sound was a dreadful shuffle, slow, scraping, funereal. They had to strain their eyes as the shuffle became louder. In their nostrils was an indescribable, disagreeable odor: it seemed composed of fragments of smells coarsely blended: carbolic acid, sour bread, starch, old shoes, and the stench of wash.
Then Lucy came in. Her lifeless eyes flickered a little as she blinked at them standing behind the steel-mesh partition, clutching at the mesh like monkeys in a zoo but not chattering, so fixed and quiet that they might have been spectators at a play.
The shuffle quickened; she came to them in her clumsy prison shoes, hands outstretched a little. “I’m so glad. This is so good of you.” Her eyes, deep-set and framed in violet pain, touched Andrea’s set face almost shyly. “Both of you,” she said softly. It was hard to look at her. It was as if she had been run through a wringer and all the sap and vigor of her generous body squeezed out. Her dark skin was olive no longer, but slate, an earthy color that suggested death rather than life.
Andrea groped for her voice before she found it. “Hello,” she said, trying to smile. “Hello, Lucy Wilson.”
“How are you, Lucy? You’re looking well,” said Ellery, striving to make the lie sound natural.
“I’m all right, thank you. Very well. I—” She paused; a spasm of lightning terror flashed over her features like the shadow of a hunted thing. Then it was gone. “Isn’t Bill coming?”
“I’m sure he is. When did you see him last?”
“Yesterday.” Her bloodless fingers gripped the steel mesh; behind it her face looked like a poor engraving made from an already engraved photograph, overlaid with a double screen. “Yesterday. He comes every day. Poor Bill. He looks so badly, Ellery. Can’t you do anything with him? He really shouldn’t worry so.” Her voice drifted off. It was strange, as if everything she said were an afterthought, lying ready on the thin verge of her consciousness to be uttered as a defense against her real, her deeply hidden thoughts.