“Hmm.” The old man explored his snuff-box. “And what time did you get into the house?”
“Oh, long past midnight.”
“Did you know anything about Khalkis’s two visitors?”
“I? Certainly not.”
That’s funny,” said the Inspector, putting his snuff-box away. “Mr. Georg Khalkis seems to have been a sort of mysterious character himself. And you, Mrs. Sloane―where were you last Friday night?”
She licked her faded lips, blinking rapidly. “I? I was upstairs asleep. I know nothing about my brother’s visitors―nothing.”
“Asleep at what hour?”
“I retired about ten o’clock. I―I had a headache.”
“A headache. Hmm.” The Inspector whirled on Mrs. Vreeland. “And you, Mrs. Vreeland? Where and how did you spend last Friday evening?”
Mrs. Vreeland reared her large, full-curved body and smiled coquettishly. “At the opera. Inspector―at the opera.”
Ellery felt an irresistible urge to snap, “What opera?” but caught himself up sternly. There was a scent of perfume about this specimen of the fairer sex―expensive perfume, to be sure, but sprayed on with a hand that knew no restraint.
“Alone?”
“With a friend.” She smiled sweetly. “We then had a late supper at the Barbizon and I returned home about one o’clock in the morning.”
“Did you notice a light in Khalkis’s study when you came in?”
“I don’t believe I did.”
“Did you see any one at all downstairs here?”
“It was dark as the grave. I didn’t even see a ghost, Inspector.” She gurgled far in the recesses of her throat, but no one echoed her laugh. Mrs. Sloane sat up even more stiffly; it was apparent that she considered the jest ill-advised, ill-advised.
The Inspector tugged at his moustache thoughtfully; then he looked up to find Dr. Wardes’ bright brown eyes fixed on him. “Ah, yes. Dr. Wardes,” he said pleasantly. “And you?”
Dr. Wardes played with his beard. T spent the evening at the theatre, Inspector.”
“The theatre. Quite so. You came in, then, before midnight?”
“No, Inspector. I took a turn about one or two places of entertainment after the theatre. Really, I didn’t get back until well after midnight.”
“You spent the evening alone?”
“Quite.”
The old man’s shrewd little eyes glistened over his fingers as he took another pinch of snuff. Mrs. Vreeland was sitting with a frozen smile, her eyes wide open, too wide open. All the others were mildly bored. Now Inspector Queen had questioned thousands of people in his professional career, and he had developed a special policeman’s sense―an instinct for detecting faleshood. Something in Dr. Wardes’ too smooth replies, in Mrs. Vreeland’s strained pose . . . .
“I don’t believe you’re telling the truth, Doctor,” he said easily. “Of course, I understand your scruples . . . . You were with Mrs. Vreeland last Friday night, weren’t you?”
The woman gasped, and Dr. Wardes elevated his hairy eyebrows. Jan Vreeland was peering from the physician to his wife in bewilderment, his fat little face puckered with hurt and worry.
Dr. Wardes chuckled suddenly. “An excellent surmise, Inspector. And very true.” He bowed lightly to Mrs. Vreeland. “You will permit me, Mrs. Vreeland?” She tossed her head like a nervous mare. “You see, Inspector, I didn’t care to put the lady’s action in an embarrassing light. Actually, I did escort Mrs. Vreeland to the Metropolitan and later to the Barbizon―”
“See here! I don’t think―” interrupted Vreeland in a little flurry of protest.
“My dear Mr. Vreeland. It was the most innocent evening imaginable. And a very delightful one, too, I’m sure.” Dr. Wardes studied the old Dutchman’s discomforted countenance. “Mrs. Vreeland was much alone because of your protracted absences, sir; I myself have no friends in New York―it was natural for us to drift together, don’t you know.”
“Well, I don’t like it,” said Vreeland childishly. “I don’t like it at all, Lucy.” He waddled over to his wife and shook his fat little forefinger in her face, pouting. She looked faint, clutched the arms of her chair. The Inspector abruptly commanded Vreeland to keep silent, and Mrs. Vreeland sank back, shutting her eyes in mortification. Dr. Wardes shook his broad shoulders lightly. From the other side of the room Gilbert Sloane drew a sharp breath, and Mrs. Sloane’s wooden face showed a fleeting animation. The Inspector darted bright glances from one to another. His eyes fixed on the shambling figure of Demetrios Khalkis . . . .
Demmy was, except for his vacant idiotic expression, an ugly, gaunt, sproutlike counterpart of his cousin Georg Khalkis. His large blank eyes were set in a perpetual stare; his bulging lower lip hung heavily, the back of his head was almost flat, and his skull was huge and misshapen. He had been wandering noiselessly about, speaking to no one, peering myopically into the faces of the room’s occupants, his enormous hands clenching and unclenching with weird regularity.
“Here―you, Mr. Khalkis!” called the Inspector. Demmy continued his shambling circumambulation of the study. “Is he deaf?” asked the old man irritably, of no one in particular.
Joan Brett said: “No, Inspector. He just doesn’t understand English. He’s a Greek, you know.”
“Khalkis’s cousin, isn’t he?”
“That’s right,” said Alan Cheney unexpectedly. “But he’s shy up here.” He touched his own well-shaped head significantly. “Mentally, he rates as an idiot.”
“That’s extremely interesting,” said Ellery Queen mildly. “For the word “idiot” is of Greek derivation, and etymo-logically indicated merely a private ignorant person in the Hellenic social organization―idiotes in Greek. Not an imbecile at all.”
“Well, he’s an idiot in the modern English sense,” said Alan wearily. “Uncle brought him over from Athens about ten years ago―he was the last of the family strain over there. Most of the Khalkis family have been American for at least six generations. Demmy never could grasp the English language―mother says he’s illiterate even in Greek.”
“Well, I’ve got to talk to him,” said the Inspector in a sort of desperation. “Mrs. Sloane, this man is your cousin also, isn’t he?”
“Yes, Inspector. Poor dear Georg . . . . “ Her lips quivered; she seemed about to cry.
“Now, now,” said the Inspector hastily. “Do you know this lingo? I mean, can you talk Greek, or whatever it is he gabbles?”
“Enough to converse with him.”
“Please question him about his movements last Friday night.”
Mrs. Sloane sighed, rose, smoothed her gown and caught the tall, gaunt idiot by the arm, shaking him vigorously. He wheeled slowly, puzzled; he searched her face anxiously; then he smiled and took her hand in his. She said sharply, “Demetrios!” He smiled again, and she began to speak in a foreign tongue, in halting guttural accents. He laughed aloud at this, tightening his powerful grasp on her hand; his reaction was as transparent as a child’s―he was filled with glee at hearing his native language. He replied to her, in the same alien syllables, speaking with a slight lisp; but his voice was deep and grating.
Mrs. Sloane turned to the Inspector. “He says that Georg sent him to bed that night about ten o’clock.”
“His bedroom is off Khalkis’s there?”
“Yes.”
“Ask him if he heard anything from the library here after he went to bed.”
Another interchange of strange sounds. “No, he says he heard nothing. He fell asleep at once and slept soundly all night. He sleeps like a child, Inspector.”
“And he saw no one in the library?”
“But how could he, Inspector, if he was asleep?”