“We’ve got to go up to Wrightsville right away,” he said to Inspector Queen. “Or I’ve got to go if you can’t.”
He had drawn the Inspector onto Marsh’s terrace, away from the others. New York sparkled in the sun. It was one of the city’s rarely beautiful days. Marsh — or Marcia — had picked a good one, all right.
“I’ll go, too,” Inspector Queen said.
“No questions?”
His father shrugged.
“Am I that transparent?”
“I’m your old man.”
“It’s a wise father. What did Johnny call her?”
“What did Johnny call who?”
His failure to correct the Inspector’s grammar was significant. “Laura. The last woman in his life, wasn’t that how he put it? No, you didn’t hear him. Poor Johnny.”
“I suppose you’ll tell me what you’re talking about,” the Inspector said, “in your own sweet time, as usual.”
“I think I can suggest a lead,” Ellery said.
The old man’s ears twitched. “To Laura?”
“At least I can tell you what her last name is. Or may be.”
“Ellery, don’t play games! Plow could you possibly know her last name? All of a sudden like this?”
“Try Mann — M-a-n-n. It might be a longer name, dad — Manning, Manners, Mannheim, Mandeville, Mannix. Something like that.”
The Inspector squinted at him in absolute disbelief. Then, shaking his head, he went off to find a phone.
Ellery became conscious of his hand. There was something in it. He looked down. It was the little plastic groom. He stepped off the terrace and made for the wedding cake. Esteban was alone there, collecting used champagne glasses.
“Where are Mr. and Mrs. Marsh going on their honeymoon, Esteban?” Ellery asked. “Do you know?”
“They no go, Mr. Queen.” The houseman looked around conspiratorially. “Till next week, I think. Mrs. Marsh she’s got to close up her apartment. She do much other thing, I think. You no tell nobody?”
“Not a breathing soul,” Ellery said, and very carefully he restored the little groom to its lawful place beside its bride.
3. The Third Life
They dropped into Wrightsville with the setting sun. Inspector Queen telephoned Newby from the tiny airport lounge.
“Meet us at the Benedict house,” the Inspector told him. “Don’t bother with a police car — I mean for us. We’ll take a cab.”
Chief Newby was waiting for them at the door. He had it unlocked and waiting.
“What’s up, Inspector?”
“Ask him. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I’ve had. I couldn’t get a word out of him, and I still can’t.”
The chief looked at Ellery reproachfully.
“I’m not being coy,” Ellery grumbled. “I’ve had considerable to think through. Shall we go in?”
They went in. The house was musty-smelling, and Newby went about throwing windows open. “Anybody want a drink?” Ellery asked. When the older men refused he said, “Well, I do,” and he took an Irish neat, and another, then set the bottle down and said, “Let’s go upstairs.”
He vaulted up to Benedict’s bedroom, and waited impatiently in the doorway.
“The answer was here from the start,” he said. “That Saturday night. March twenty-eighth, wasn’t it? Almost two and a half months ago. I could have saved us a lot of wear and tear. And Faulks his miserable life... well, it’s all slops under the bridge. Come in, gents, and be seated. Don’t worry about disturbing the evidence. It isn’t the kind you can disturb.”
“What?” Newby said, vague as a fish.
“Don’t try to make anything out of it,” Inspector Queen advised him. “Not just yet, anyway. He always starts this way. You sit down and you listen. That’s what I’m going to do, Newby. I’ve had to do it a hundred times.” And the Inspector seated himself on the bedroom’s only chair, leaving the edge of the dead man’s bed to the chief, who perched himself on it gingerly with an uneasy eye on the door, as if to orient himself to the nearest exit.
“You weren’t there, Anse,” Ellery said. “I mean in Marsh’s apartment today, when he and Marcia were married. After the ceremony I found myself with the wedding cake, just the three of us—”
“The three of you?”
“The little plastic bride and groom and me.”
“Oh. Oh?”
“They were, as usual, under a canopy at the top of the cake. And the groom fell off. Do you see?”
“No.”
“It left the bride alone up there.”
“Well, sure. So what?”
“So that was wrong, wasn’t it?”
“Wrong?” Chief Newby repeated. “What was?”
“I mean, you look at the bride standing up there by herself, and it’s obvious there’s a missing element.”
“Oh. Well, naturally. The groom. Anybody would know that. Is that what you flew up from New York to tell me?”
“That is correct,” Ellery said. “To tell you that there was something missing.
“From the beginning I’ve felt that there was a crucial clue in this room, a vital element of the murder, only I couldn’t get my finger on it. Of course, when you think you can’t remember something you take it for granted that it’s something you saw, something that was there but slipped your mind. That lone little bride today told me my mistake. The clue in Johnny’s bedroom here wasn’t something I’d seen and forgotten, it was something I had not seen — something that should have been here but wasn’t. Something which my mind unconsciously groped for, failed to find, and whose omission it registered.
“Dad.”
“Yes, son?”
Ellery was at the clothes closet. “The room is exactly as it was on the night of the murder except that Johnny’s body, the contents of the nightstand, and the three women’s stolen articles of clothing aren’t here now. Correct?”
“No,” the Inspector said. “The weapon.”
“And the Three Monkeys, yes. Everything else in the bedroom is as it was. That would include this wardrobe closet of Johnny’s and its contents, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes?” His father was intent.
“So what’s in the wardrobe closet now is what we inspected on the night of the murder. Very thoroughly, I might add. Garment by garment. Remember? Even Johnny’s hats, shoes — everything.”
“Yes?” the old man said again. In the same way. Newby was still imitating a fish.
“Let’s do a repeat. Go through the closet and call out whatever you see. As you did that night. Listen hard, Anse. See if you catch it. It isn’t easy.”
Inspector Queen began with the accessory items, enumerating: neckties, four-in-hands, ascots, bow ties, scarves, in all basic colors and combinations—
“Including browns?” Ellery interrupted.
“Sure including browns. Didn’t I say ‘all’?”
“Go on.”
“Ten hats and caps—”
“Is any of them brown?”
“This brown fedora.”
“Shoes?”
“Cordovans, alligators, suèdes—”
“Never mind the leather. How about the colors?”
“Blacks, browns, grays, tans—”
“Browns and tans noted. Overcoats?”
“Navy blue double-breasted, black with a velvet collar, cashmere—”
“Which color cashmere?”
“Tan.”
“Brown family. Topcoats?”
“Charcoal, tan, chocolate—”
“Brown family again. That’s enough to make my point. Step out of the closet, dad, and go through the drawers of the bureau there, as we did on the night of the murder. Take the shirt drawers first. Do you find any shirts in shades of brown?”