“You know everybody here but Faulks,” Inspector Queen said. “Foxy, this is my son Ellery. In case you’re interested.”
“Oh, yes, it’s a great pleasure, I’m sure, Mr. Queen.” Foxy clearly decided not to offer his hand for fear of a rebuff. He had a dark, intimate voice suitable for a sex movie. For the next few minutes he kept sneaking glances at the civilian Queen.
“We were just discussing Miss Kemp’s marriage to Mr. Faulks,” the Inspector said, settling back in his aged swivel chair. “You notice, Ellery, I use her maiden name. She prefers it that way. Don’t you, Mrs. Faulks — I mean, Miss Kemp?”
“It’s usual in show business,” the redhead said. The flush on her face seemed too deep for street makeup. “But I still don’t get... Bern, why don’t you say something?”
“Yeah, sweetie.” Her husband shifted his feet; he had refused a chair, as if to be better prepared for flight. “Yeah, Inspector. We don’t understand—”
“Why I asked you two down here?” The Inspector showed his dentures like the Big Bad Wolf. “For one thing, Mrs. Faulks, how come you didn’t tell Chief Newby when he was questioning you up in Wrightsville that you were married again? You’d have saved us the trouble of digging the information out for ourselves.”
“I didn’t think it had anything to do with... well, Johnny and all,” the big showgirl burbled.
“No? Mr. Marsh,” the Inspector said, turning his smile on the attorney, “has Mrs. Faulks — as Marcia Kemp — been receiving a thousand dollars a week from Mr. Benedict since their divorce, and if so has she been cashing or depositing the checks, according to your records?”
“She certainly has.” Marsh raised his attaché case. “I have every canceled voucher that went through Miss Kemp’s bank right here — each made out to ‘Marcia Kemp’ and endorsed ‘Marcia Kemp’ in her verifiable handwriting.”
“These canceled vouchers cover the whole period since the date of her undisclosed marriage to Faulks?”
“Yes. Up to and including the week of Johnny’s death.”
“Did she ever notify Benedict, or you as Benedict’s lawyer, that she was remarrying or had remarried and that therefore under the terms of her agreement with Benedict the thousand-dollar weekly checks should stop, since she was no longer legally entitled to them?”
“She did not.”
“How about that, Mrs. Faulks? That constitutes fraudulent acceptance in my book. I think the District Attorney’s office is going to see it the same way, if Mr. Marsh decides to press charges on behalf of the Benedict estate.”
“If I may put in a word?” Faulks said elegantly, and as if he were a mere bystander. Marcia sent him a long, green, dangerous look. “I never saw that agreement, so of course I had no way of knowing that Marcia’s accepting the grand per week was illegal—”
Marcia made the very lightest choking noise.
“—but you got to understand, Inspector, my wife doesn’t know about such things, she can’t hope to cope — hope to cope! I’m a poet and don’t know it! — with a bigshot mouthpiece, I mean lawyer, like Mr. Marsh; she’s got no head for the smart stuff at all, she’d probably forgotten all about that clause, like you do when Mr. Right comes along — hey, baby?” He fondled her neck, smiling down. She nodded, and his hand found itself fondling the atmosphere.
“You’ve got an understanding husband, Mrs. Faulks,” the Inspector said approvingly. “But I think it would be easier on you if you talked for yourself. You’ll notice there’s no stenographer present, none of this is being taped, and you haven’t been charged formally with any crime. Our main interest is the Benedict murder; and while I’m not making promises, if it turns out this remarriage of yours had nothing to do with the homicide you’ll probably be able to work something out about that money. What’s your feeling, Mr. Marsh?”
“Of course I can’t promise anything, either. I certainly can’t commit the estate to overlooking Mrs. Faulks’s having collected money from my late client under circumstances that look dangerously like fraud. But it’s true, Inspector, that my chief concern is the murder, too. Cooperation on Mrs. Faulks’s part will naturally influence my attitude.”
“Look, bud, who’s bulling who?” Marcia demanded bitterly. “What are you going to do, Al, take it out of me in blood a pint at a time? I’m dead busted and I haven’t got a job. My husband’s broke, too. So I couldn’t pay that money back if I wanted to. Sure, you can haul me up on criminal charges, Inspector, and the way things have been going for me you know what? I wouldn’t give a hairy hoot in hell if you did. It’s also a rap your D.A. might find it tough to make stick in court. Bern here knows some real sharpie lawyers.”
“Speaking of Bern here,” Ellery said from the wall he was supporting at the rear of the office, “where did you happen to be, Bern, on the night of Saturday — Sunday, March twenty-eight — twenty-nine?”
“It’s a funny thing you should ask that,” Marcia’s husband said in his sexy voice. “It so happens I can answer that quick like a bunny, which ain’t — isn’t such an easy shmear, as I don’t have to tell you gentlemen. On the night of Saturday — Sunday, March twenty-eight — twenty-nine, it so happens I was one of six fellas picked up in a raid on a little private game we were engaging in in a hotel room off Times Square. I don’t know what those meathead cops were thinking of, making a big deal out of a friendly poker session, just passing the time, you understand, like the boys do on Saturday night, have a few beers, a couple pastrami sandwiches—”
“I’m not interested in the menu,” Inspector Queen snarled; he was glaring at Sergeant Velie, who was attempting the difficult feat of making himself look like a dwarf for having failed to check out the Fox’s alibi beforehand. “What precinct did you wind up in?”
“I don’t know the number. It’s the one in the West Forties.”
“You don’t know the number. Faulks, you know the numbers of the Manhattan precincts better than I do — you’ve spent half your life in them! Velie, what are you waiting for?” Sergeant Velie nodded hastily and jumped out of the office. “Sergeant Velie’s gone to do a little checking. You don’t mind waiting?”
Dad, dad, Ellery said in his head, as an ironist you’re still pounding a beat. It was a lost cause, he saw, and saw that the Inspector saw it, too. Mr. Faulks was breathing without strain, as confident of the outcome of the sergeant’s telephone call as a roulette dealer presiding over a fixed wheel. True, there was a trace of anxiety on his wife’s face; Faulks even patted her hand, which was larger than his; but this could be accounted for by a certain lack of communication between the recently marrieds. Once, when Marcia said something to him in a low voice, he made a fist and tapped her affectionately on the chin.
When the sergeant returned to whisper into the Inspector’s ear, Ellery detected the twitch in his father’s mustache and saw his fears confirmed: the mustache twitch was an unfailing sign of inspectorial disappointment.
“Okay, Foxy, you can take off with the missus.” Their speedy crossing to the Inspector’s door was a thing of antelope grace. “Oh, just one thing,” the Inspector said to the antelopes. “I don’t want either of you even going over to Brooklyn without checking with my office first.”
“He was picked up that night as he claims?” Ellery asked when the pair fled.
“Well, yes,” Sergeant Velie said, trying to pass the episode off as immaterial. “There’d been a lot of heat from upstairs about Times Square gambling when that Congressman who’s always kicking up a storm sounded off for the TV — seems one of his campaign contributors got rooked in a crooked crap game and yelled for mama — so the word came while you were on vacation, Inspector, to crack down, which the Gambling Squad did. That’s how come Foxy got caught in that hotel. A stool gave the tip-off, but by the time the Squad got there the lookout had flashed the signal and the boys broke in to find Foxy and his lodge brothers playing a hot game of penny ante. The lookout must have been their bagman, too, because the detectives didn’t find any big bills on the players or the premises. Anyway, the six were held for a couple hours at the station house and let go. That included Foxy Faulks. He was at the precinct between midnight about and two A.M. He couldn’t have got to Wrightsville by three-o-three without a spaceship.”