Queens Full (14 page)

Ellery reflected. Finally he said in a businesslike way, “Dad, I'll make a deal with you.”

“Deal?” his father said, bewildered. “What deal?”

“If I tell you where Harry the Actor hid those earrings, may I deliver them to the sweet child personally?”

“Well …” said the senior Queen. But then he howled, “But how can you know? You weren't even there!”

“Harry was stowing the contents of his pockets away, you said, when he took that Nijinsky jump. Where is he now, Dad?”

“Where would he be in his condition?” the old man grumbled. “In the Morgue!”

“Then the Morgue is where you'll find Lili's earrings.”

“You mean they
were
on him? But, Ellery, we searched Harry outside and—and in!”

“Tell me again what he had in his pockets.”

“Money, a dirty handkerchief, cosmetics, a racing form, a pair of dice, cigarets, matches—”

“I quote you quoting the late Actor's dying statement,” said Ellery. And he said deliberately, “‘Diamonds … in … Paradise.'”

“Diamonds in Paradise,” the Inspector repeated, wiggling his brows. “So?”

“Paradise,” said Ellery. “Pair o' dice.”

“Pair o' dice … Pair of
dice?
”

“Trick dice,” Ellery nodded. “Hollowed out. Diamonds inside. Give me a note to the Morgue property clerk, Dad,” Ellery said briskly, looking himself over in the mirror. “I mustn't keep the lady waiting.”

“Pair of dice,” his father said feebly. “But it sounded just like the word Paradise …”

“What do you expect from a dying man,” said Ellery, handing the Inspector paper and pen, “elocution lessons?”

THE CASE AGAINST CARROLL

Carboll felt the heat through his shoes as he got out of the taxi. In the swollen twilight even the Park across Fifth Avenue had a look of suffering. It made him worry again about how Helena was taking the humidity.

“What?” Carroll said, reaching for his wallet. It was a thirty-sixth-birthday present from Helena, and he usually challenged taxi drivers to identify the leather, which was elephant hide. But tonight's hack was glowering at the slender gray-stone building with its fine-boned black balconies.

“I said,” the driver said, “that's your house?”

“Yes.” Carroll immediately felt angry. The lie of convenience had its uses, but on days like this it stung. The gray-stone had been erected in the Seventies by Helena's great-grandfather, and it belonged to her.

“Air-conditioned, no doubt,” the man said, wiping out his ear. “How would you like to live in one of them de luxe East Side hotboxes on a night like this?”

“No, thank you,” Carroll said, remembering.

“I got four kids down there, not to mention my old lady. What do you think of that?”

Carroll overtipped him.

He used his key on the bronze street door with a sense of sanctuary. The day had been bad all around, especially at Hunt, West & Carroll, Attorneys-at-Law. Miss Mallowan, his secretary, had chosen this day to throw her monthly fainting spell; the new clerk had wasted three hours conscientiously looking up the wrong citations; Meredith Hunt, playing the senior partner with a heavy hand, had been at his foulest; and Tully West, ordinarily the most urbane of men, had been positively short-tempered at finding himself with only one change of shirt in the office. Trickling through the day, acidlike, had been Carroll's worry about Helena. He had telephoned twice, and she had been extra-cheery both times. When Helena sounded extra-cheery, she was covering up something.

Had she found out?

But that wasn't possible.

Unless Tully …

But Carroll shook his head, wincing. Tully West couldn't know. Tully's code coupled snooping with using the wrong fork and other major crimes.

It's the weather, Carroll decided fatuously; and he stepped into his wife's house.

Indoors, he felt a little better. The house with its crystal chandeliers, Italian marble, and shimmering floors was as cameo-cool as Helena herself—as all the Vanowens must have been, judging from the Sargents lording it over the walls. He had never stopped feeling grateful that they were all defunct except Helena. The Vanowens went back to the patroons, while he was the son of a trackwalker from the New York transit system who had been killed by a subway train while tilting a bottle on the job. Breeding had been the Vanowens' catchword; they would not have cared for Helena's choice of husband.

John Carroll deposited his hat and briefcase in the foyer closet and trudged upstairs, letting his wet palm squeak along the satiny rail.

Helena was in the upstairs sitting room, reading
Winnie the Pooh
for the umpteenth time to Breckie and Louanne.

And she was in the wheelchair again.

Carroll watched his wife's face from the archway as she made the absurd Eeyore sounds the children never tired of. Through the angry stab of helplessness he felt the old wonder. Her slender body was bunched, tight in defense, against the agony of her arthritis-racked legs, but that delicate face under its coif of auburn was as serene as a nun's. Only he knew what a price she paid for that serenity.

“Daddy, it's Daddy!”

Two rockets flew at him. Laden down with sleepered arms and legs, Carroll went to his wife and kissed her.

“Now, darling,” Helena said.

“How bad is it?” he growled.

“Not bad. John, you're soaked. Did you have to work so late in this swelter?”

“I suppose that's why you're in the wheelchair.”

“I've had Mrs. Poole keep dinner hot for you.”

“Mommy let us stay up because we were so
good
,” Louanne said. “Now can we have the choc-o-late, Daddy?”

“We weren't so
very
good,” Breckie said. “See, see, Louanne, I told you Daddy wouldn't forget!”

“We'll help you take your shower.” Helena strained forward in the wheelchair. “Breckie angel, your bottom's sticking out. John, really. Couldn't you have made it Lifesavers today?”

“It's bad, isn't it?”

“A little,” Helena admitted, smiling.

A little! thought Carroll as they all went upstairs in the lift he had had installed two years before, when Helena's condition had become chronic. A little—when even at the best of times she had to drag about like an old woman. And, on crutches or in the wheelchair, refusing to let others bring up her children …

He showered in full view of his admiring family, impotently aware of the health in his long, dark body.

When he pattered back to the bedroom he found a shaker of martinis and, on his bed, fresh linen and his favorite slacks and jacket.

“What's the matter, John?”

Carroll said tenderly, “I didn't think it showed.”

He kissed her on the chocolate smudge left by Breckie's fingers.

Like a character in a bad TV drama, Hunt came with the thunder and the rain.

Carroll was surprised. He was also embarrassed by the abrupt way the children stopped chattering as the lawyer's thick-set figure appeared in the dining-room doorway.

“Meredith.” Carroll half rose. “I thought you were on your way to Chicago.”

“I'm headed for La Guardia now,” Hunt said. “Legs again, Helena?”

“Yes. Isn't it a bore?” Helena glanced at the housekeeper, who was in the foyer holding Hunt's wet things at arm's length. “Mr. Hunt will take coffee with us, Mrs. Poole.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“No, ma'am,” Meredith Hunt said. “But I thank you.
And
the Carroll small-fry. Up kind of late, aren't you?”

Breckie and Louanne edged stealthily toward their mother's chair.

“We like to wait up for our daddy.” Helena smiled, drawing them to her. “How's Felicia, Meredith? I must call her as soon as this lets up a bit.”

“Don't. My wife is being very Latin-American these days.”

Something was terribly wrong. Looking back on the day, John Carroll felt another thrill of alarm.

Helena said extra-cheerily, “Way past your bedtime, bunny rabbits! Kiss you father and say good night to Mr. Hunt.”

She herded them out with her wheelchair. As she turned the chair into the foyer, she glanced swiftly at her husband. Then she said something crisp to Mrs. Poole, and they all disappeared behind the clang of the lift door.

Carroll said, “Life's little surprises. You wanted to talk to me, Meredith?”

“Definitely.” Hunt's large teeth glistened.

“Let's go up to my study.”

“I can talk here.”

Carroll looked at him. “What's on your mind?”

“You're a crook,” Meredith Hunt said.

Carroll sat down. He reached with concentration for the crystal cigaret box on the table.

“When did you find out, Meredith?”

“I knew I was making a mistake the day I let Tully West pull that
noblesse oblige
act for Helena and sweet-talk me into taking you into the firm.” The burly lawyer sauntered about the dining room, eying the marble fireplace, the painting, the crystal cabinets, the heirloom silver. “You can't make a blue ribbon entry out of an alley accident, I always say. The trouble with Tully and Helena, John, is that they're sentimental idiots. They really believe in democracy.”

The flame of the lighter shivered. Carroll put the cigaret down unlit.

“I wish you'd let me explain, Meredith.”

“So I've kept an eye on you,” Hunt said, not pausing in his stroll. “And especially on the Eakins Trust. It's going to give me a lot of satisfaction to show my blueblood partner just how and when his mongrel protégé misappropriated twenty thousand dollars' worth of trust securities.”

“Will you let me explain?”

“Explain away. Horses? The market?” Hunt swung about. A nerve in the heavy flesh beneath his right eye was jumping. “A woman?”

“Keep your voice down, Meredith.”

“A woman. Sure. When a man like you is married to a—”

“Don't!” Carroll said. Then he said, “Does Tully know?”

“Not yet.”

“It was my brother Harry. He got into a dangerous mess involving some hard characters, and he had to get out in a hurry. He needed twenty thousand dollars to square himself, and he came to me for it.”

“And you stole it for him.”

“I told him I didn't have it. I don't have it. My take from the firm just about keeps our heads above water. It's my income runs this house, Meredith. Or did you think I let Helena's money feed me, too? Anyway, Harry threatened to go to Helena for it.”

“And, of course,” Hunt said, showing his teeth again, “you couldn't let him do that.”

“No,” Carroll said. “No, Meredith, I couldn't. I don't expect you to understand why. Helena wouldn't hesitate to give me any amount I asked for, but … Well, I had no way of borrowing a wad like that overnight except to go to you and/or Tully. Tully was somewhere in northern Canada hunting, and to go to you …” Carroll paused. When he looked up he said, “So I took it from the Eakins Trust, proving your point.”

Meredith Hunt nodded with enjoyment.

Carroll pushed himself erect on his fists. “I've got to ask you to give me time. I'll replace the funds by the first of the year. It won't happen again, Meredith. Harry's in Mexico, and he won't be back. It won't happen again. The first of the year.” He swallowed. “Please,” he said.

“Monday,” Hunt said.

“What?”

“This is Friday. I'll give you till Monday morning to make up the defalcation. You have sixty hours to keep from arrest, prison, and disbarment. If you replace the money I'll drop the matter to protect the firm. In any event, of course, you're through at the office.”

“Monday.” Carroll laughed. “Why not tonight? It would be just as merciful.”

“You can get the money from your wife. Or from Tully, if he's stupid enough to give it to you.”

“I won't drag Helena into this!” Carroll heard his voice rising, and he pulled it down with an effort. “Or Tully—I value his friendship too much. I got myself into this jam, and all I'm asking is the chance to get myself out.”

“That's your problem. I'm being very generous, under the circumstances.” All the lines of Hunt's well-preserved face sagged as his cold eyes flamed with sudden heat. “Especially since the Eakins Trust isn't the only property you haven't been able to keep your hands off.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Your sex life is your own business as long as you don't poach on mine. Stay away from my wife.”

Carroll's fist caught Hunt on the right side of the mouth. Blood trickled down Hunt's big chin, and he staggered. Then he lowered his head and came around the table like a bull. They wrestled against the table, knocking a Sèvres cup to the floor.

“That's a lie,” Carroll whispered. “I've never laid a finger on Felicia … on any woman but Helena.”

“I've seen Felicia look at you,” Hunt panted. His head came up, butting. Carroll fell down.

“
John. Meredith
.”

The wheelchair was in the doorway. Helena was as pale as her husband.

Carroll got to his feet. “Go back, Helena. Go upstairs.”

“Meredith. Please leave.”

The big lawyer straightened, fumbling his expensive silk tie. He was glaring in a sort of victory. Then he went into the foyer, took his hat and topcoat from the chair in which Mrs. Poole had deposited them, and quietly left.

“John, what did he say to you?” Helena was as close to fear as she ever got. “What happened?”

Carroll began to pick up the fragments of the shattered cup. But his hands were shaking so uncontrollably that he had to stop.

“Oh, darling, you promised never to lose your temper again this way—”

Carroll said nothing.

“It's not good for you.” She reached over and pulled his head down to her breast. “Whatever he said, dearest, it's not worth …”