“This is a current city-wide promotion campaign,” Ellery said, turning the envelope this way and that. “Dad received a similar envelope last week, enclosing a mailing piece on the new Froehm air-conditioner.”
“Was the address in red?”
“Black. This is a puzzler, Nikki.”
“How do you mean?”
“There was more in this envelope than that single sheet of paper you saw Martha reading.”
Nikki stared at it. “It does look as if it had contained something bulky.” The empty envelope was not flat. A rectangle of creases back and front held it in a three-dimensional shape. “Maybe the pamphlet about the air-conditioner, although how he got a letter into a business firm’s envelope—”
“The Froehm brochure was one of those unfolding broadsides, which fold down into a flat piece. Nothing that flat ever made these creases, Nikki. These were made by something about three eighths of an inch thick.”
“Sounds almost like a book—”
“A booklet. In fact, these dimensions suggest a twenty-five-cent reprint edition, a paperback. You saw nothing like that in Martha’s hand, or on the table, while she was reading the message?”
“No. But she might have slipped it into the pocket of her robe when she opened the envelope. The robe she was wearing has big patch pockets, and they’re usually full of things.”
“Are you up to a little more snoopery, Nikki?”
Nikki looked at him. “You want me to search for the booklet.”
“It would help.”
“All right,” said Nikki.
“Look for a paperback about four inches by seven, and about three eighths of an inch thick.”
“Martha’s hardly likely to leave it lying around. That means I may have to go into her purse... her bureau...”
Ellery said nothing.
“I wish,” began Nikki, but she bit off the rest of it; and after a moment she said, “Do you really think it’s a — it’s an affair?”
“Looks like it,” said Ellery.
“Thursday, 4 P.M. That’s tomorrow afternoon.” Nikki clenched her gloved hands. “Why does she take such a foolish chance? Hasn’t she had enough of Dirk’s jealousy? Why doesn’t she divorce him and then do what she pleases? I’d like to get my hands on that ‘A’ — whoever he is!”
“A?” said Ellery.
“The ‘A’ that signed the message, Ellery. I’ve been beating my brains out trying to think of some man she knows whose first name begins with an A, but I can’t come up with anyone but Alex Conn and Arthur Morvyn. And Alex is a fairy and Art Morvyn has been directing Broadway plays for forty years and must be seventy if he’s a day. It can’t be either of them.”
“The A isn’t the initial of a name, Nikki.”
“It isn’t?”
“Signatures are almost invariably dropped below the message, on a line to themselves. It’s true this is a short message and the writer might have added his initial on the same line because there’s so little to it. But then he’d probably have separated the m of p.m. from the A by a dash. You told me there was a comma after p.m.”
“That’s right.”
“Then the A was part of the message, not a sign-off.” Ellery shrugged. “That’s confirmed by inference. The message undoubtedly refers to an appointment. There are two major elements to any meeting — the time and the place. The time is given as tomorrow at four. The likelihood, then, is that the A refers to the place.”
“I’m relieved,” said Nikki dryly. “I thought you were going to say it’s symbolism.”
“Symbolism?”
“A nice scarlet letter A à la Nathaniel Hawthorne. I just don’t know what to make of it, Ellery. It’s so hard to see Martha in the role of Hester Prynne! She’s just not the adulteress type.”
“Is there one?” inquired Ellery. “Anyway, we’ll know soon enough what A stands for. Probably a primitive code. What you’ve got to do tomorrow, Nikki, is tie Dirk in knots for the whole afternoon. Keep him in that apartment if you have to make love to him. If he insists on going out, delay him on some pretext to make sure Martha gets away.”
“What are you going to do, Ellery?”
“Make like a private eye and trail Martha to A — wherever A is.”
“Suppose she leaves the house in the morning?”
“We’ll have to prearrange a code of our own. Do your best to find out about when she intends to leave the apartment. Phone me forty-five minutes before. It doesn’t matter what you say to me when you call. The mere fact that you’re phoning will be my tipoff.”
B...
Nikki phoned at twenty minutes after eleven Thursday morning. She was phoning, she told Ellery, to call off their “tentative lunch date.” Dirk had his plot pretty well organized and he was starting to dictate manuscript. He planned to work right through the day.
“Wonderful,” said Ellery. “Let me talk to him, Nikki.”
Dirk sounded energetic. “Hi, Ellery! I think I’ve hit pay dirt in this one. I hope you don’t mind Nikki’s breaking your date.”
“Think nothing of it. I understand you’re really on fire, Dirk.”
“Don’t hex me, son. I have to nurse these spells.” Dirk laughed.
“How true,” mourned Ellery; and he hung up and ran.
At a few minutes past noon Ellery’s cab was cruising through Beekman Place for the third time when he saw Martha Lawrence come out of the apartment house and step into a taxi waiting at the curb. She was dressed in a mousy brown suit with black accessories and a large-brimmed black hat with a thick-meshed nose veil. The hat overshadowed her face.
Martha’s cab drove west to Park Avenue and stopped before the entrance of the Marguery. She got out, paid her driver, and entered the Open Air Pavilion.
Ellery waited two minutes. Then he went in, too.
Martha was seated at a choice table with a woman. The woman was gross and dowdy, about fifty-five years old. One of her legs protruded from under the cloth; it was elephantine.
Ellery selected a table some distance away, a little behind and to the right of the two women. The distance did not bother him; he had sharp eyes.
They had cocktails. Martha had a single whisky sour, her companion three martinis, which she tossed off in rapid succession. Ellery sighed; it looked like a long lunch.
He had to be on the alert. Martha was uneasy. She kept looking around unexpectedly, as if searching for someone she knew. Ellery worked first with the menu, then with a copy of the Herald Tribune which he had picked up on his way crosstown.
It was the dowdy woman’s treat. She had a trick of leaning toward Martha, her oily lips apart, in an attitude of rapture at Martha’s every word. She was all adoration.
Selling something, Ellery decided.
She was an old hand at it, too. She did not produce her wares until the dessert, and then carelessly.
It was a thick book of typewriter paper bound in bright pink covers and held together by fancy brass pins.
As Martha riffled it and then dropped it into her black envelope bag, the woman continued to chatter away.
She was an agent peddling a playscript. Either by accident or design, Martha had managed a legitimate excuse to explain her afternoon’s absence.