But it was Dirk who came to see Ellery.
He showed up at the Queen apartment just as Inspector Queen was sitting down to breakfast.
“Ellery?” The Inspector eyed Dirk suspiciously. “He’s still in bed, Mr. Lawrence. Someone hung one on his chin last night, and he was up half the night feeling sorry for himself. You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”
“I hung it,” said Dirk Lawrence.
The Inspector stared at him. Dirk needed a shave, his clothes were damp and wrinkled, and his dark strong face was lumpy with fatigue. “Well, you don’t look very dangerous this morning. Through that door and to your left.”
Dirk said, “Thank you,” and went through Ellery’s study to the bedroom beyond. Ellery was lying on his stomach, nuzzling an icebag.
Dirk lowered his big body into a chair beside the bed and he said, “Don’t be alarmed. My intentions this morning are strictly to crawl on my belly.”
“This is a dream,” said Ellery in a muffled voice. “At least I hope it is. It would mean I’m getting some sleep for a change. What do you want?”
“To apologize.”
“Good. Get me some coffee, will you?”
Dirk raised himself and went out. He came back with the coffeepot and two cups and saucers. He poured for both of them, lit Ellery’s cigaret, and sat down again.
“I wouldn’t say,” remarked Ellery, looking him over, “that you passed a restful night, either.”
“I walked the streets.”
“All night? In the rain?”
Dirk looked down at himself with some surprise. “Say, it rained, at that.”
“Then you haven’t been home?”
“No.”
“Haven’t you even phoned Martha?”
“She wouldn’t talk to me if I did.”
“You underestimate Martha’s capacity for being kicked in the rear. That woman is too good for you, Lawrence.”
“I know,” said Dirk humbly. “She has the patience of a setting hen. I realize now she only met you to talk about me. But that’s this morning. Last night I was plotzed.”
“I have it on the best authority,” said Ellery, sipping his coffee, “that you do pretty well when you’re not plotzed, too.”
Dirk did not answer at once. His dark skin was gray under the stubble and his eyes looked trapped. He leaned back and shut them, as Martha had done the night before.
“Have you ever had a real set-to with yourself, Ellery?” His voice was a faraway rumble.
“Yes.”
“And lost it?”
“Yes.”
“And kept losing it?”
“No,” said Ellery.
“Well, that’s the spot I’m in. I can’t explain this in rational terms, and yet I’m not irrational... at least I don’t feel I’m deluded... It sneaks in. I can’t keep it from sneaking in, Ellery. And once it’s there I can’t seem to dislodge it. It sticks, no matter how hard I try. I see Martha with another man, and I feel myself blowing. Am I making any sense?”
“Not much,” said Ellery, “but then sense isn’t the word. Call it nonsense, and I get it. What reason have you for continually questioning Martha’s fidelity? Because there must be a reason.”
“I always think there’s a reason — at the moment. This thing generates its own reasons.”
“What thing? Let’s name names.”
“This jealousy... phobia.”
“Too simple, Dirk. Call it a cuckold phobia, and you’ve got something. I don’t mean to pry, but what’s the matter with your sex life?”
Dirk’s eyes flew open, and Ellery blinked in their flash. But then the flash died, and the big man sank back in the chair again.
“That hurt?” inquired Ellery
Dirk passed his hand over his face in a curious lavatory gesture. “Look,” he said. “I’m sorry for smacking you last night. Let’s leave it at that.”
He got up.
“Down,” said Ellery. “Down, Dirk. I’m not finished with you. I happen to like your wife, and you’re giving her a rough time. This thing has to have some roots. Let’s dig... Thank you,” he said, when Dirk suddenly sat down again. “I pumped Martha last night, and between what I got out of her and what I’ve gathered from personal observation, I think what’s wrong with you, Dirk — and it’s not restricted to this jealousy business by any means! — goes way back. Do you mind if we talk about your childhood?”
“I’ll save you wear and tear,” said Dirk. “I’ll give you the facts, and if you want the medical terms I’ll give you the conclusions, too—”
“Oh, then, you’ve had psychiatric treatment.” Ellery tried not to look disappointed.
Dirk laughed. “I’ve tried analysis twice. But it didn’t do a damn thing for me but make matters worse. Oh, it wasn’t their fault. I couldn’t cooperate. Don’t ask me why. That’s part of it, I suppose.”
“Then there’s no need to go into it.” Ellery set his cup down.
“Wait, I don’t mind telling you. It makes some sort of sense.” Dirk planted his elbows on his knees and addressed the rug. “I don’t have what you’d call a normal background. No sweet dreams for me about my childhood. They’re nightmares. It can do things to you, no doubt about it.
“When I was twelve years old my father caught my mother in bed with another man. He beat the guy’s brains out with a solid brass lamp he grabbed up from the night table next to the bed.
“He was tried for murder and of course acquitted — any juror would have done the same thing under the same circumstances.
“So that was all right — for him.
“But what happened after wasn’t, especially for her and for me. Father had reserved a characteristic punishment for my mother. He refused to divorce her. He made her keep on living with him. In the same community — the same house. And he didn’t let a day go by for the rest of their lives without reminding her of what she’d done to him. Her friends wouldn’t have anything to do with her, naturally. Her own family threw her over.”
Dirk sat back and smiled. “He wasn’t going to let her go, you see. That would have been too easy on her — like killing her quick. She had to suffer slow death, à la chinoise. She’d dishonored his precious name, disgraced his seminal manhood, and betrayed their codified class... He was quite a guy, my father. I doubt to this day if the embalmer found any blood in his veins. He had that quiet kind of cruelty that’s really nasty. Everything under control, you understand, and the amenities of the Southern gentleman observed under all circumstances. When one of that kind gets his knife into you, Brother Elk, you feel pain.”
Dirk lit a cigaret and then spent some time crushing it in his saucer. “She tried suicide twice and flubbed it both times. She’d never been taught to do anything right, you see. Finally she became a lush, and that’s the way I remember my dear mother — a glassy-eyed hag reeking of lavender and old bourbon, staggering around the big house falling-down drunk.
“That’s what I grew up with.
“I hated her, and I hated him.
“So maybe Martha is my mother, and I’m my father, or something. And I say to you, as I said to the gentlemen with the couches, ‘So what?’ Knowing where it comes from hasn’t changed a thing. I still get these uncontrollable attacks of jealousy. And I don’t mind admitting they scare the hell out of me.”
Ellery got out of bed. He said, “Wait, Dirk, till I take my shower,” and he went into the bathroom.
When he came out, rubbing his hair, he said, “How are you coming on your new novel?”
Dirk stared. “I’m not.”
Ellery began to dress. “Aren’t you working at all?”
“I sit there eying my typewriter, and it eyes me right back, if that answers your question.”
“Much done?”