“Why are you after me, Mr. Queen?” the blonde cried. “What are you, out to get me or something? All right, I read that foul book a good long time, and the second one I hardly glanced at. But it all comes out the same at the end, because I was fast asleep long before whoever killed Johnny killed him.”
Newby pounced. “How do you know when Benedict was killed, Miss Weston? No one here mentioned it.”
She was stricken. “Didn’t...? Well... I mean, I just assumed...”
He let it go. “Did you happen to see anyone on your trip downstairs or on your way back up? Either time?”
“Nobody. The bedroom doors were all shut, by the way, as far as I could see. I naturally thought everyone but me was asleep.”
Newby said suddenly, “How about you, Miss Kemp?”
But she was ready for him. “How about me?”
“Did you fall right asleep when you went up to bed?”
“I wish I could say I did,” the redhead answered, “but something tells me when you’ve got nothing to hide in a case like this it’s better to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I’d had a real snootful down here and I didn’t think I’d make it to the hay, I was so rocky. But I no sooner hit the bed than I was wide awake—”
“Hold it. What time was it when you left to go to bed?”
“I was in no condition to tell time, Chief. All I know is it was after Audrey went upstairs.”
“How long after?”
Marcia Kemp shrugged.
“I can tell you,” Alice Tierney said, “It was close to two thirty.”
“You li’l ol’ timekeeper, you,” the redhead growled. “Anyway, my head was spinning, and I thought food might settle my stomach down, so I went downstairs to the kitchen and made myself a dry chicken sandwich and a cup of warm milk and brought them back up to my room. Grandpa there spotted the plate with the crumbs on it and the dirty glass when he woke me up a while back. Tell ’em, Grandpa.”
“I saw the plate and the glass, yes,” Inspector Queen said. He had been standing by the French doors overlooking the terrace, keeping himself out of the way.
“See?” Marcia said. She was wearing a shortie nightgown under her negligee, and the negligee kept coming apart. Ellery found himself wishing she would fasten it so that he could keep his mind on the testimony. Under the translucent stuffs she appeared like a giant flower about to burst into blossom. “The warm milk must have done it because after a while I corked off. I didn’t know a blessed other thing until old fuzz there woke me up.”
“Did you happen to see anyone during your trip to the kitchen and back?”
“No.”
“I suppose you didn’t hear anything around the time of the murder, either?”
“You’re not catching me, buster. I don’t know when the time of the murder was. Anyway, I didn’t hear anything any time.”
Alice Tierney’s difficulty had been the alcohol, too. “I’m not much of a drinker,” the Wrightsville ex-nurse said, “and I’d had a few too many last night. I went up to my room after Marcia, and when I couldn’t fall asleep I crawled to the bathroom for something for my head. I couldn’t find aspirin or anything in the medicine chest, so I went to the downstairs lavatory where I’d noticed some Bufferin during the day. I swallowed a couple and went back to my room. The Bufferin didn’t help much, so I tried cold compresses. Finally out of desperation I took a sleeping pill from a bottle I found in the medicine chest — I hate sleeping pills, I’ve had too much experience with them — and that did it. I went out cold.” Like Audrey and Marcia, Alice had seen no one and heard nothing.
“Funny,” Chief Newby remarked. “With all that cross traffic up and down the stairs last night, you’d think somebody would have run into somebody. How about you, Mr. Marsh? What did you go traipsing downstairs for?”
“I didn’t. Once I got to my room I stayed there. I had more than my quota last night, too, especially after Johnny went up to bed. I don’t think I was conscious for two minutes after my head hit the pillow. The next thing I knew Ellery was shaking me.”
“What time did you go up to bed?”
“I don’t know exactly. My impression is it was right after Alice Tierney, but I’m fuzzy about it.”
“No, that’s right,” the Wrightsville girl said.
“And you, Miss Smith?”
Challenged by name Miss Smith started, slopping what was left in her snifter. “I can’t imagine why you should question me at all! I don’t think I ever said more than a hello to Mr. Benedict when he visited Mr. Marsh’s office.”
“Did you leave your room last night after you went to bed?”
“I did not!”
“Did you hear anything that might help us, Miss Smith? Try to remember.”
“I told Mr. Queen before you got here, Chief Newby, I sleep very soundly.” (“Like the dead,” Ellery reminded her silently.) “I thought I might have a busy day Sunday and I need my sleep if I’m to function efficiently. After all, I wasn’t invited to this house as a guest. I’m here only because I’m Mr. Marsh’s secretary.”
“Miss Smith can’t have anything to do with this,” Marsh said. He said it rather harshly, Ellery thought. “I don’t mean to tell you your business, Chief, but isn’t all this a waste of time? Johnny must have been killed by some housebreaker who got in during the night to steal something and lost his head when Johnny woke up and surprised him.”
“I wish it were that simple, Mr. Marsh.” Newby glanced at Ellery. Ellery promptly went out and came back with the sequined gown, the wig, and the evening gloves.
“Since you’re all Mrs. Benedicts,” Ellery said to the ex-wives, “from here on in I’m going to make it easier on us by addressing you by your given names. Audrey, you came to me yesterday afternoon to report the theft of a gown from your room. Is this the one?”
He offered the black dress to the blonde. She examined it suspiciously. Then she got up slowly and fitted it to herself. “It looks like it... I suppose it is... yes. Where did you find it?”
Ellery took it from her.
“Marcia, is this the wig you told me yesterday somebody stole from your room?”
“You know it. If there’s another green wig in this town I’ll eat it.” The redhead slipped it over her boyish crop. “This is it, all right.”
“Alice, these evening gloves?”
“There was a slight nick in the forefinger of the left hand,” the brunette said. “Yes, here it is. These are mine, Mr. Queen. But who had them?”
“We don’t know who had them,” Newby said, “but we know where they wound up. We found them in Benedict’s bedroom, near his body.”
This remark produced an almost weighable silence.
“But what does it mean?” Alice exclaimed. “Why should somebody steal my gloves and then leave them practically on Johnny’s corpse?”
“Or my evening gown?”
“Or my kook wig?”
“I don’t understand any part of this.” Marsh was back at the bar, but he was paying no attention to the glass in his hand. “This sort of thing is your dish of blood, Ellery. What’s it all about? Or don’t you agree a burglar, or maybe a tramp—?”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” Ellery said. “There is a bit of sense to be made out of it, though, Al, and that’s where you come in.”
“Me?”
“Anse, do you mind?”
Newby shook his head. “You know more about this setup than I do, Ellery. Forget the protocol.”
“Then let me shortcut this,” Ellery said. “I was out on the terrace listening when Johnny made that speech last night about his intention to write a new will. I assume, Al, that since you were the lawyer who drafted Johnny’s original will — the one extant when he came up here the other day — and the purpose of the weekend was to write a new will, you brought a copy of the old one along with you?”