Mibs leaped past her into the foyer and leaned against the wall, pressing her hand to her heart.
“Shut the door,” she gasped. “Oh, shut it!”
Val shut it. “What’s the matter, Mibs?”
“Wait — till — I get my breath!”
“You poor thing. Come in here and sit down. Why, you’re shaking!”
The blonde girl sank into Rhys’s armchair, licking her pale lips. “Miss Jardin, I... I’m scared to death.”
“Nonsense,” said Val, sitting down on the arm of the chair. “Why should you be? Let me get you something.”
“No. No, I’ll be all right. It’s just that—” She looked at Val piteously. “Miss Jardin, I’m being... followed.”
“Oh,” said Val, and she got up and went to the sofa and sat down herself.
“I wish Pink were here,” whimpered the girl. “He’d know what to do. Where is he? Why hasn’t he been—”
“Pink’s off on a special sort of job,” said Val slowly. “Tell me all about it, Mibs.”
Mibs drew a quavery breath. “I’ve been nervous ever since you spoke to me Monday night about — about your father and my seeing him Monday afternoon and speaking to Mr. Spaeth... I went out to the drug store yesterday for a soda and — and I thought somebody was following me. On the way back, too. Some Hollywood wisenheimer, I thought. I didn’t see him. But last night, too. When I went home. The same thing. And now, this morning, on my way to work... Somebody’s after me, Miss Jardin!”
Val sat still, thinking. She tried to look unconcerned, but her own heart was pounding. If Mibs was being followed, that might mean... Could somebody actually be...
“We’ll have to be careful, Mibs,” she said in a tone she tried to make light.
“I’m so scared I... I...” The girl was almost hysterical.
Val went to her again and put her arms about the girl. “Have you a family, Mibs?”
Mibs was crying. “N-no. I’m all alone. I’ve only got Pink. I come from St. Lou, and I’ve been here two years and Pink’s been my only f-friend...”
“Hush. You don’t think we’d let anybody harm you, Mibs!” The girl sobbed. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do, honey,” said Val in a bright voice. “Suppose you stay with me for a few days until this blows over. I mean — I’m alone here, and you can sleep in my father’s bed, or with me if you’d like that better—”
“Oh, could I?” cried Mibs, raising a streaked face.
“Of course, silly. It will be lots of fun. You don’t even have to go back to your own place for your things. I’ve got heaps of underwear and stockings and things—”
“Can I have my meals here, too?”
“Certainly. Here, here’s an extra key. Now dry your eyes and fix yourself up and go downstairs as if nothing happened.”
“Yes,” sniffled Mibs.
“I may have to go out later, but I’m sure no one’s going to do anything to you in your own lobby!”
“No. That’s right,” said Mibs, smiling faintly.
“There! Isn’t that better? Now go wash your face.” And Val led the blonde girl to her bathroom with a reassuring laugh and a stomach that felt like one vast, painful vacuum.
“Tell you why I called you,” said Inspector Glücke to Ellery. He stooped over a small safe in his office.
“Nothing’s happened?” began Ellery quickly.
“No, no, we’re in the clear. It’s this.” The Inspector opened his safe and brought out something wrapped in tissue paper, something with the shape of a large bottle. “It was on your tip that we found it,” he said gruffly, “so you’re entitled to get in on it, King. I guess we owe you a lot.”
“What is it?” asked Ellery in an avid voice.
Glücke began carefully removing the folds of tissue. “We had quite a time searching that sewer outside Sans Souci but we finally fished this out of the muck. It got stuck near the bottom of the sewer.”
It was an Indian club, soiled and evil-smelling. A red-brown clot adhered to part of the bulging end.
“Is that,” frowned Ellery, “blood?” He flicked the clot with one fingernail.
“Nothing else but.”
“Any prints?”
“Some very old ones — just traces of ’em. Jardin’s, the girl’s.”
Ellery nodded, sucking his lower lip.
“What made you tell me to search that sewer?” asked the Inspector slowly.
“Eh? Oh — a minor reasoning process. By the way, did you find anything else of interest in the sewer?”
“Not a thing.”
Ellery shook his head.
He parked his coupé outside the gate at Sans Souci, much to Atherton Frank’s surprise. Indeed, he was even assisted by the detective on duty, who seemed oddly friendly. Frank scratched his head, swinging his half-arm in an interrogatory manner.
But no one enlightened him, and Ellery sauntered up the drive toward the Spaeth house. A sense of desolation smote him. It was like coming into the main street of a ghost-city.
But he shook his head in impatience at himself and applied his mind to the problem at hand. It was a knotty one; something told him that the key-knot was missing, the discovery of which would unravel the whole puzzle fabric.
He avoided the porte-cochère and circled the Spaeth house, trudging along under the geometric row of royal palms and wrestling with thoughts that persisted in slipping through the fingers of his brain. He mounted the terrace steps and sat down almost against the wall in Solly Spaeth’s most elaborate summer chair, putting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his palms.
A hiss brought his head up. Across the rock garden the head of Valerie Jardin protruded from the doorway of the empty Jardin study. She motioned angrily, but he shook his head, smiling. After a moment she slipped down the Jardin terrace steps and ran across to the Spaeth house.
“She’ll see you!” she whispered, darting up under the protection of the terrace awning. “Are you mad?”
“Never saner,” said Ellery. “Winni the Moocher is out stuffing her gullet. It seems she’s sick of preparing her own meals. At least that’s what the detective on duty says.”
“Did you come in through the gate?” asked Val, horrified.
“Why not?” said Ellery innocently. “Didn’t you?”
Val gazed ruefully at her ripped riding-habit. “Over the fence again. At that, Mr. King, you took an awful chance. If Ruhig should be watching—”
“He isn’t.”
“How do you know that?” asked Val suspiciously.
“Silence. I’m trying to concentrate.”
Val looked at him in a dubious way but he merely lay back in the chair, resting his neck against the back. He folded his hands across his chest. Val experienced a twinge of bafflement. He certainly was the queerest man. Concentrate? He was just snoozing!
“Better come away from here,” she said, taking a tentative step towards the stairs. “If you want to sleep, you can join Pink. He’s taking a nap back there. At least Winni won’t come back and find you.”
“Leave this comfortable chair?” murmured Ellery. “Not on your life.” He opened one eye.
“You are by all odds the most—” Val stopped, watching him in bewilderment.
The single eye, naturally invisible to her behind the tinted glasses, nevertheless contrived to communicate a certain fixity, a surface tension, to his figure. He sat up abruptly, his shoes thumping on the flagged floor.
“What’s the matter with you?” said Val, puzzled.
It was noon, and the sun poised high. Ellery rose, looking up at the awning overhead, his Adam’s apple quivering delicately. His gaze was directed toward a sliver of blinding light in the awning. He stepped on the chair and raised the blue glasses to his forehead, examining the rupture closely.