She spoke rapidly, without raising her voice. “I―I thought it might be difficult to explain if I admitted . . . It is difficult. I―oh, I awoke at one o’clock and suddenly remembered that Mr. Knox, the executor or whatever he is, would probably want an itemization of certain―well, bonds that Mr. Khalkis owned. So I―I went downstairs to list them and―”
“At one o’clock in the morning, Miss Brett?” asked the old man dryly.
“Yes, yes. But when I saw them in the safe I realized, yes, I realized how foolish it was to do that at such an unearthly hour, so I put them back and went upstairs to bed again. That’s it, Inspector.” Rosy blotches appeared in her cheeks; she kept her eyes steadfastly on the rug. Cheney stared at her with horror; Pepper sighed.
The Inspector found Ellery at his elbow, tugging at his arm. “Well, son?” he asked in a low tone.
But Ellery spoke aloud, a little smile on his lips. “That sounds reasonable enough,” he said heartily.
His father stood very still for an instant. “Yes,” he said, ‘so it does. Ah―Miss Brett, you’re a trifle upset; you need a little diversion. Suppose you go upstairs and ask Mrs. Simms to come down at once?”
“I’ll be―very glad to,” replied Joan in the tiniest voice imaginable. She slid off the edge of the desk, flashed a damply grateful look at Ellery, and hurried out of the library.
Dr. Wardes was examining Ellery’s face in a very pensive way.
* * *
Mrs. Simms appeared in state, attired in a shrieking wrapper, Tootsie padding at her worn heels. Joan slipped into a chair near the door―and near young Alan, who did not look at her but studied the grey corona of Mrs. Simms’ head with fierce concentration.
“Ah, Mrs. Simms. Come in. Have a seat,” exclaimed the Inspector. She nodded regally and flounced into a chair. “Now, Mrs. Simms, do you remember the events of last Saturday morning, the morning Mr. Khalkis died?”
“I do,” she said, with a shudder that set in motion a vast number of fleshy ripples. “I do, sir, and I’ll remember them to my dying day.”
“I’m sure of that. Now, Mrs. Simms, tell us what happened that morning.”
Mrs. Simms raised and lowered her beefy shoulders several times, like an old rooster mustering the energy for a rousing cockadoodledoo. “I came into this room at a quarter past ten, sir, to clean up, take away the tea-things of the night before, and so on―my usual morning chores, sir. As I came through the door―”
“Er―Mrs. Simms.” Ellery’s voice was gently deferential; a little smile immediately wreathed her puffy lips. This was a nice young man! “You’ve been doing the chores yourself?” His tone implied incredulity that such an important person as Mrs. Simms should be required to do menial labour.
“Only in Mr. Khalkis’s private rooms, sir,” she hastened to explain. “You see, Mr. Khalkis had a holy horror of young maids―snippy young idiots, he used to call them. He always insisted that I straighten out his personal quarters myself.”
“Oh, then you usually put Mr. Khalkis’s bedroom in order also?”
“Yes, sir, and Mr. Demmy’s too. So I meant to be doing these chores last Saturday morning. But when I came in I―” her bosoms heaved like the sea―”I saw poor Mr. Khalkis a-lying on his desk; which is to say, sir, his head was a-lying on the desk. I thought he was asleep. So―God have mercy on me!―I touched his poor hand, and it was cold, so cold, and I tried to shake him, and then I screamed and that’s all I remember, sir, on the Book.” She regarded Ellery anxiously, as if he doubted the facts as she had stated them. “The very next thing I knew, there was Weekes here and one of the maids a-slapping and a-pum-melling my face and giving me smelling-salts and whatnot, and I saw I was upstairs in my very own bed.”
“In other words, Mrs. Simms,” said Ellery in the same deferential tone, “you really didn’t touch anything either in the library here or in the bedrooms.”
“No, sir, that I did not.”
Ellery whispered to the Inspector, and the Inspector nodded. The old man said, “Did any one in this household other than Miss Brett, Mr. Sloane, and Demetrios Khalkis see Khalkis alive last Saturday morning before he died?”
All heads shook vigorously; there was no hesitation anywhere.
“Weekes,” said the Inspector, “you’re sure you didn’t enter these rooms between nine and nine-fifteen last Saturday morning?”
The cotton-balls above Weekes’ ears trembled. “I, sir? No, sir!”
“A matter of possible moment,” murmured Ellery. “Mrs. Simms, have you touched any of these rooms since Khalkis’s death seven days ago?”
“I haven’t laid finger to them,” quavered the housekeeper. “I’ve been ill, sir.”
“And the maids who left?”
Joan said in a subdued voice: “I think I told you before, Mr. Queen, that they left the day of Mr. Khalkis’s death. They refused even to step into these rooms.”
“You, Weekes?”
“No, sir. Nothing was touched up to Tuesday, the day of the funeral, sir, and after that we were told not to touch anything.”
“Oh, admirable! Miss Brett, how about you?”
“I’ve had other things to do, Mr. Queen,” she murmured.
Ellery encompassed them all with a sweeping glance. “Has anybody at all touched these rooms since last Saturday?” No response. “Doubly admirable. In other words, this seems to be the situation. The immediate resignation of the maids left the menage shorthanded; Mrs. Simms was confined to her bed and touched nothing; the house being in an uproar, there was no one to clean up. And after the funeral on Tuesday, with the will discovered stolen, nothing was disturbed in these rooms by Mr. Pepper’s orders, I believe.*
“The undertakers worked in Mr. Khalkis’s bedroom,” ventured Joan timidly, “fixing―fixing up the body for burial.”
“And during the will search, Mr. Queen,” put in Pepper, “although we ransacked the rooms, I can assure you personally that nothing was taken away or radically disturbed.”
“I think we may discount the undertakers,” said Ellery. “Mr. Trikkala, will you check up with Mr. Khalkis here?”
“Yes, sir.” Trikkala and Demmy went into frenzied conference again, Trikkala’s questions sharp and explosive. A visible pallor spread over the imbecile’s sagging face, and he began to stammer and splutter in Greek. “He is not clear, Mr. Queen,” reported Trikkala with a frown. “He is trying to say he did not so much as set foot in either bedroom after his cousin’s death, but there is something else . . . “
“If I may presume to interrupt, sir,” put in Weekes, “I think I know what Mr. Demmy is trying to say. You see, he was so put out by Mr. Khalkis’s death, so upset, I might say, sort of like a child fearing the dead, that he refused to sleep in his old room next to Mr. Khalkis’s inside, and by Mrs. Sloane’s order we prepared one of the empty maids’ rooms upstairs.”
“He’s been staying there,” sighed Mrs. Sloane, “like a fish out of water ever since. Poor Demmy is a problem sometimes.”
“Please make sure,” said Ellery in quite a different voice. “Mr. Trikkala, ask him if he has been in the bedrooms since Saturday.”
It was not necessary for Trikkala to translate Demmy’s horrified negative. The imbecile shrank within himself and shambled to a corner, standing there, biting his nails, looking about him with the uneasy glare of a wild animal. Ellery studied him thoughtfully.
The Inspector turned to the brown-bearded English physician. “Dr. Wardes, I was speaking to Dr. Duncan Frost a few moments ago and he said that you had examined the body of Khalkis immediately after death. Is that correct?”