“Sure it was empty,” began Terry, and then he stopped to look puzzled. “Say, how could Eva have heard the bird squawk if the damned thing wasn’t there?” He seized Eva by the shoulders. “Or was it? Was it in the bedroom when you went in? It wasn’t when I got there!”
Eva wrinkled her forehead. “I’m sure it wasn’t. I’d remember if it had been flying about, or if it flew out. And now that I think of it, I’m sure it wasn’t in the cage. No, it wasn’t there.”
“I’ll be damned!”
“Of course,” said Ellery half-aloud, “it’s possible the bird wasn’t actually in the room. It may have been outside, and Eva heard it from... Wait a minute.”
He ran to the bedroom. “Eva! What’s your home ’phone number?” Eva gave it to him. They heard him seize the telephone, give the number. “Hello!.. Oh. Well, let me speak to Dr. MacClure.”
Eva and Terry were in the doorway, watching, puzzled, but aware of a tightness in the atmosphere that seemed to be strangling uncertainty and squeezing out hope.
“Dr. MacClure! This is Ellery Queen.”
“Have you found her, Queen?” asked the doctor hoarsely.
“Are you alone?”
“With Venetia, my colored woman. And Kinumé. Well?”
“Yes. She’s at my apartment. Safe for the moment.”
“Thank God!”
Ellery said eagerly: “Let me speak to—”
But Dr. MacClure said in an agitated voice: “Just a second. There’s the doorbell. If I don’t return in a few moments, hang up. It may be your father or one of his men. Queen — take care of Eva!”
Ellery waited, drumming on the telephone table. In the doorway Terry and Eva crept closer together.
“It’s all right,” said Dr. MacClure with relief. “It was only that O’Mara girl. The Inspector let her go and she’s come up here for the money I promised her.”
Ellery’s face brightened. “Talk about luck! Hang on to her, Doctor. Now let me talk to Kinumé.” He waited, saying to them in a swift aside: “Keep praying, you two. Something tells me—”
Kinumé piped thinly. “’Lo? ’Lo? You got Eva?”
“Yes. Listen, Kinumé. You would like to help your Eva, would you not?”
“I help,” said Kinumé simply.
“Good! Then you must answer some questions.”
“I answer.”
“Listen carefully, think deeply.” Ellery spoke in a deliberate tone, spacing his words. “When you brought up the writing-paper to Miss Karen Monday afternoon, just before you saw Eva behind you, was the Loo-choo bird in its cage in the bedroom? You know — Loo-choo kashi-dori? In cage?”
“Kashi-dori in cage. Yes.”
It was as if Kinumé had promised him his reward in heaven. Ellery beamed with sheer joy. “Kinumé, one thing more. You know how Miss Karen was attired when she was found dead, do you not?”
“In kimono. She wearing kimono some time.”
“Yes. But what I want to know is this: How was she attired when you entered the bedroom with the writing-paper?”
“Same. In kimono.”
He looked disappointed. “How was she dressed when the door was stuck, before she sent you for the writing-paper?”
“Oi! That time she wearing dress, “Merican dress.”
“Ah! Thought so,” muttered Ellery. “Short time, too. Just a few minutes before...” He said swiftly into the telephone: “You have done well, Kinumé, and Eva thanks you. Let me speak to Dr. MacClure... Doctor?”
“Yes, yes, what is it, Queen? What have you found?”
“A good deal! Bless Kinumé. Now listen to me carefully. I can’t do this over the telephone. I want you to take Kinumé and this girl Geneva O’Mara and come down to my apartment. Do you understand?”
“Anything you say. Now?”
“This instant. Doctor, be careful. Make sure no one sees you. Do you think you can get out of the house unobserved?”
“There’s the tradesmen’s entrance in the rear,” muttered the doctor. “And the emergency stairway. It can be managed, I imagine. Do you think they’re watching me?”
“It’s conceivable. They’ll naturally figure Eva would try to get in touch with you. So be careful.”
“I will,” said the doctor grimly. And he hung up.
Ellery turned to the waiting pair. “I think,” he said lightly, “that we are about to enter that critical phase of the plot which is technically known as the dénouement. Buck up, Eva.” He patted her cheek. “And now why don’t you two relax in here while I meditate a little in the living-room?”
He went out and shut the door behind him.
Twenty minutes later Eva opened the bedroom door, Ellery opened his eyes, and Djuna opened the front door simultaneously. Eva was a little flushed, and her eyes looked saner and clearer than they had looked for days. And Terry followed her like an awkward boy, looking foolish.
“Daddy!” She ran to Dr. MacClure. Ellery pulled the two waiting women into the living-room.
“Close that door, Djuna,” he said swiftly. “Don’t be frightened, now, Kinumé. Nor you, Miss O’Mara. I want to talk to both of you.”
“What do you want, anyway?” demanded the Irish girl sullenly. “The doctor pulls me here like I’m—”
“You’ll be all right. Doctor, you weren’t followed?”
“I don’t think so. Queen, what is it? You’ve given me more hope in the last half-hour than—”
“Before this bird gets started, Doc,” interrupted Terry Ring, shuffling forward, “I want to tell you that—”
“If anybody says anything,” remarked Inspector Queen from the doorway, “it will be yours truly.”
Ice settled down, and became silence. They all shrank a little, like guilty conspirators caught in the act.
Then Ellery hurled his cigaret away. “You would show up at the wrong time!” he said angrily.
“I’ll talk to you,” said Inspector Queen without taking his eyes from Terry and Eva, who had instinctively drawn together, ‘later. Thomas, make sure this time they don’t take a walk.”
“They won’t,” said Sergeant Velie from the foyer. He shut the apartment door and set his back against it.
Dr. MacClure, looking curiously shrunken, sank into the arm-chair. “So you followed me after all.”
“It’s all right, daddy. It’s better this way,” said Eva steadily.
“We always watch the back exits, Doctor. Thomas!”
“Yep.”
“Where’s that warrant?”
“Right here.” The Sergeant shoved his bulk forward, dropped a paper into the Inspector’s hand, and retreated.
“Eva MacClure,” began the old man coldly, unfolding the paper, “I arrest you—”
“Dad.”
“I arrest you—”
“Dad. Before you go on. I want a word with Dr. MacClure.”
The Inspector’s face was livid. “And you,” he said bitterly. “To think you’d do a thing like this to your own father. Harboring a criminal in my own house. I’ll never forgive you for that, Ellery.”
“Do I get a word with Dr. MacClure,” said Ellery gently, “or don’t I?”
The Inspector glared at his son. Then he half-turned away, biting viciously on the ends of his mustache.
“Doctor,” whispered Ellery in the big man’s ear, “there’s one chance left — a desperate chance, I warn you. If I’m wrong, we’re through.”
“Are you wrong?”
Whether I am or not is in the lap of the gods. Will you gamble Eva’s immediate chances on me?”
Dr. MacClure pressed the hand lying small and still in his own. Terry Ring was watching Inspector Queen and the mountain of human flesh behind him with a lidded, cobra daring; but it was the alertness of desperation. Wherever he looked, except in Ellery’s direction, the doctor saw surrender, defeating defiance.