Then, one beautiful night in the early spring, Ellery and Nikki learned what was wrong with the Lawrences.
It began with a Western Union messenger. He leaned on the Queen buzzer just as Nikki was tucking Ellery’s typewriter into its shroud for the day.
“It’s addressed to you, handwritten,” Nikki said, coming into the study with an envelope. “And if that’s not Martha Lawrence’s handwriting, I’m a monkey’s aunt. Why should she be writing to you?”
“You sound like a wife,” Ellery said, jiggling the cocktail shaker. The day’s dictation had not gone well and he was in no mood to be nice to anyone, especially the lone witness of his frequent exhibitions of anguish. “All right, Nikki, hand it over.”
“Don’t you want me to read it to you while you make the cocktails? After all, what’s a secretary for?”
“The cocktails are made. Give me that!”
“I don’t understand,” said Nikki without rancor as Ellery tore open the envelope. “Something awful must be happening. Of course, if you’d rather I left the room...”
But the note made them both grave.
ELLERY DEAR—
I’ve tried everything I know, which apparently isn’t enough. This can’t go on. I need help.
I’ll be on a bench in Central Park, on the main walk approaching the Mall from the 5th Ave. entrance at 72nd St., at around 9:30 tonight. If by some horrible coincidence you should see Dirk or hear from him between now and then, don’t for God’s sake breathe one word about my having asked you to meet me. He thinks I’m seeing Amy Howell at the Barbizon about a play-script.
I’ll wait till 10. Please come.
Nikki was staring at the notepaper, with its uneven scrawl. “Holy matrimony,” she said. She deliberately kicked Ellery’s desk and went over to the couch and sat down. “It’s past working hours, so you can act like a gentleman — if that’s possible of any man. I want a drink and a cigarette... Poor Mar. This marriage was going to last a thousand years, like Hitler’s Reich. You’re going to meet her, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“If it was a case, Nikki, of Dirk’s stealing something or murdering somebody—”
“How do you know it isn’t?” demanded Nikki fiercely.
“My dear child—”
“And don’t ‘my dear child’ me, Ellery Queen!”
“—this is chronic. It’s been going on for over a year. It’s simply a case of two people who started out for paradise on a raft finding the damn thing sinking under their bottoms four miles out. It happens every day. What can I do for Martha? Hold her hand? Take Dirk into St. Pat’s by the seat of the pants and read him a fatherly sermon to a playback of the Wedding March?” Ellery shook his head. “The middleman in a situation like this is sure to get it in the neck.”
“Are you through driveling?”
“I’m not driveling. It’s just that instinct tells me to stay out of this.”
“I ask you only one question,” Nikki said, rising so suddenly that part of her cocktail slopped over onto her last pair of nylons. “Are you going to meet Martha tonight, or aren’t you?”
“But it’s not fair,” protested Ellery. “She ought to go to a clergyman. I mean I haven’t made up my mind.”
“Well, I have. I’m through.”
“You’re what?”
“Through. I’m throwing up your pitiful little job. Get somebody else to finish your book. It’s no good, anyway.”
“Nikki!” He caught her at the door. “Of course, you’re right. It reeks. And I’ll go.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad, Ellery,” said Nikki softly. “There are some parts I think are positively brilliant...”
Ellery found Martha on a park bench in a deep shadow. He very nearly missed her, because she was all in black, including a veil. It was as if she had deliberately dressed to blend with the night.
She caught his hands as he sat down.
“Martha, you’re shaking.” Ellery felt that levity might help. “Isn’t that the approved opening line?”
He was wrong. Martha began to cry. She snatched her hands away and put them to her face and cried into them in a deep, dry, horrible way.
Ellery was appalled. He looked around quickly to see if anyone was watching. But the bushes behind their bench were silent and most of the people on the other benches ignored them. Tears in Central Park were no novelty to nature lovers.
“Martha, I’m sorry. I really am. Won’t you tell me what’s the matter? It can’t be as bad as all that. Things seldom are...” He went on in this dismal vein for some time. But Martha only cried more deeply, more dryly, and more horribly.
Ellery began to wish himself elsewhere. A few nearby heads had turned with indignation, then curiosity. And a large figure in a peaked cap, swinging a nightstick, had stopped strolling to stare at them very hard.
“Something wrong, bud?” boomed the large figure.
“No, no, officer,” Ellery called loudly enough for their bench neighbors to hear, too. “We’re just rehearsing a scene from our new play.” He pulled his hat brim lower.
“Yeah?” The park patrolman lumbered over quickly as heads turned everywhere within range. “When do you open? I’m sort of a confirmed theatergoer myself. Me and the wife see every show I can rustle some ducats for—”
“Next month. Broadhurst. Simply mention my name at the box office. Now if you’ll excuse us—”
“Yes, sir. But what name?”
“Alfred Lunt,” said Ellery.
“Yessir!” The patrolman stepped back respectfully. Then he said to Martha, “Good night, Miss Fontanne,” saluted, and marched off whistling.
Ellery said in a hurry, “Now, Martha—”
“I’ll be all right in a minute, Ellery. This is so stupid of me. I hadn’t the slightest intention of... It just happened...” Martha buried her face in his chest.
“Of course,” said Ellery, looking around uncomfortably. Everyone was watching the rehearsal. “You’ve kept this in a long time. Naturally. Now just pull yourself together, honey, and we’ll have a long talk.” Ellery’s left arm began to ache; Martha was jamming it against the slats. To relieve the ache he worked his arm free and draped it along the top of the bench. It touched Martha’s shoulders.
“Lovers’ quarrel?” said a voice.
Martha quivered.
Ellery turned.
Dirk Lawrence stood behind the bench.
Dirk’s hat was plastered to one side of his head and his dark features had the fixed but pendulous set of the very drunk. The reek of whisky surrounded him. The eyes under their thick black overhang were unpleasant-looking pits.
“Hello, Dirk,” said Ellery heartily. “Where’d you come from?”
“Hell,” grinned Dirk. “And I’m looking for company.”
Ellery found himself on his feet. But Martha was already between him and her husband.
“Go home, Dirk,” she said in a shrill voice. “Please go home.”
“Hell of a home. See what I mean?”
“Now look here, Dirk,” said Ellery resentfully. “If that crack about lovers wasn’t a gag, you’re a bigger damn fool than I am. This is the first time I’ve seen Martha in months. She wanted to talk something over with me—”
“In the language of the eyes, no doubt,” said Dirk Lawrence dreamily. “My little Martha. My little nymph. You know something, Brother Q? You kid me not.”
“Martha,” said Ellery, “you’d better go.”
“Yes, Martha my love, you do that,” said Dirk. “On account of I’m going to teach this dirty feist to keep his paws off another man’s wife—”