“Nothing. No, thanks.”
“Who are the lucky ladies?”
“What?”
“The women he married. Do you know?”
“Of course I know. The Benedict Saga’s always fascinated me. His first wife came out of a chorus line in Vegas. A bosomy redhead named Marcia Kemp, a sex-pot who was thick with some really rough characters until Johnny plucked her out of the state and made an honest woman of her.”
“Marcia Kemp.” The old man nodded. “I remember now. That one lasted — how long was it? Three months?”
“Closer to four. Mrs. Benedict number two was Audrey Weston, a blonde with acting ambitions who didn’t have the talent to make it on Broadway or in Hollywood. She gets a small part now and then, mostly in TV commercials. But Johnny evidently thought she was Oscar or Emmy material — for five or six months, anyway.”
“And number three?” the Inspector asked, sipping his Chivas.
“Number three,” Ellery said, “I have particular reason to recall.” He was still pacing. “Alice Tierney. The reason I paid special attention to Alice Tierney is that I’d read she came from Wrightsville. One of the columnists. Naturally that titillated me, although the name Tierney was unfamiliar to me. Or maybe that’s why. Anyway, it seems that this Tierney girl — in her news photos a rather plain-looking brunette — was a trained nurse. Johnny ran his Maserati or whatever he was driving then off a country road — it must have been around Wrightsville somewhere, though the piece didn’t say — and was laid up for a long stretch at his ‘country home,’ the story said, which I realize now must have been the main house here. If Wrightsville ever came into the stories I missed it, which is unlikely; my hunch is that Johnny paid one of his patented quid pro quos to keep the Wrightsville hideaway here out of the columns. At any rate, Nurse Tierney was hired on a sleep-in basis to take care of her famous patient, and enforced proximity to a female for several weeks, even a plain one, was apparently more than Johnny could resist. After the usual Benedict-type courtship he married the Tierney girl. That lasted the longest — nine and a half months. He was legally unhitched only a month or so ago.”
“A redheaded Vegas mob girl, a New York no-talent blonde actress, a brunette plain-Jane small-town nurse,” the Inspector mused. “Doesn’t sound as if they have much in common.”
“They do, though. They’re all huge women. Amazons.”
“Oh, one of those. The little guy who keeps shooting for Mount Everest. Must give fellows like Benedict a sense of power, like when they get behind the wheel of a souped-up car.”
“My innocent old man,” Ellery said with a grin. “I’ll have to give you a couple of sex-and-psychiatry books appropriately marked... And he’s asked all three up for the weekend, along with his lawyer, for a change of will — or at least he says so — and he’s kind of nervous about it all. You know something, dad?”
“What now?”
“I don’t like it. One bit.”
The Inspector brandished his glass. “And you know what, sonny? You’re going to quit this racing up and down like that road runner in the commercials and you’re going to sit down here and watch the Thursday night movie — right now — and this weekend you’ll keep your schnozz strictly out of your friend Benedict’s affairs — whatever they are!”
Ellery did his best, which faltered only once. On Friday evening after dinner he felt the healthful need to walk. Making an instant diagnosis, the Inspector said, “I’ll join you.” When they got outdoors Ellery turned in the direction of the hunted like a yellow hound dog. His father seized the quivering paw. “This way,” he said firmly. “We’ll go listen to the music of the brook.” “Poetry really doesn’t become you, dad. If I’d wanted to communicate with Euterpe I’d have used the stereo.” “Ellery, you’re not going down to that house!” “Now come on, dad. I’m not going to barge in on them or anything like that.” “Damn it all to hell!” shouted the old man, and he stamped back into the cottage.
When Ellery got back his father said anxiously, “Well?”
“Well what, dad?”
“What’s going on down there?”
“I thought you weren’t interested.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t interested. I said we oughtn’t to get involved.”
“House is lit up like Times Square. No sounds of girlish laughter, however. It can’t be much of a party.”
The Inspector grunted. “At least you had the sense to turn around and come back.”
But they were not to remain uninvolved. A few minutes past noon on Saturday — the old man was about to lie down for a nap — there was a knock on the door and Ellery opened it to a very tall blonde girl with the bony structure and empty face of a fashion model.
“I’m Mrs. Johnny Benedict the Two,” she said in a drawl that sounded Method-Southern to Ellery’s ears.
“Of course. You’re Audrey Weston,” Ellery said.
“That’s my professional name. May I come in?”
Ellery glanced at his father and stood aside. The Inspector came forward quickly. “I’m Richard Queen,” he said. He had always had an eye for pretty girls, and this one was prettier than most, although in a blank sort of way. Her face looked as if it had been stamped out of a mold, like a doll’s.
“Inspector Queen, isn’t it? Johnny’s told us you two were staying at the guest cottage — practically threatened to knock our heads together if we didn’t leave you alone. So, of course, here I am.” She turned her gray, almost colorless, eyes on Ellery. “Aren’t you going to offer me a drink, dahling?”
She used her eyes and hands a great deal. Someone had evidently told her that she was the Tallulah Bankhead type, and she had never got over it.
Ellery gave her a Jack Daniels and a chair, and she leaned back with her long legs crossed and a long cigaret smoldering in the long fingers with the long fingernails that held the glass. She was dressed in a floppy silk blouse in fashionably wild colors and a calfskin skirt that was more mini than most, to her cost, for it revealed shanks rather than thighs. A matching leather jacket was draped over her shoulders. “And aren’t you wondering why I disobeyed Johnny?” she drawled.
“I was sure you’d get around to it, Miss Weston,” Ellery said, smiling. “I ought to tell you right off that I’m here with my father at Johnny’s kind invitation to get away from problems. This is a problem, isn’t it?”
“If it is—” the Inspector began.
“My evening gown is missing,” Audrey Weston said.
“Missing?” the Inspector said. “A dress?”
“What do you mean missing?” Ellery said, leaning into the wind. “Mislaid?”
“Gone.”
“Stolen?”
“You want to hear about it, dahling?”
“Oh. Well. As long as you’re here...”
“That gown set me back a bundle. It’s all black sequins, an Ohrbach copy of a Givenchy original, with an absolutely illegal back and a V-front open to the bel — navel. And man, I want it back! Sure it was stolen. You don’t just mislay a gown like that. At least I don’t.”
Her speech had been accompanied by so many vehement gestures and poses that Ellery felt tired for her.
“It probably has the simplest explanation, Miss Weston. When did you see it last?”
“I wore it to dinner last night — Johnny likes formality with women around, and when in Rome, y’know... Even if the Roman is your ex.”
So she expected to get something out of Johnny-B this weekend. Probably all three of them... Ellery tucked the surmise away. As if he were on the case. Case? Which case? There was no case. Or was there?