Queens Full (19 page)

“Why isn't she still in mourning?”

“Huh?”

“She drives up here alone Saturday after wearing nothing but unrelieved black in town, and within twenty-four hours or less she's in a color-happy dress, back wearing her favorite jewelry, and having a ball for herself. It tells a great deal about Felicia de los Santos Hunt.”

“It doesn't tell me a thing,” his father retorted. “What I want to know is why she was knocked off. It wasn't robbery. And there's nothing to indicate rape, although it's true a would-be rapist might have panicked—”

“Isn't it obvious that this is part and parcel of Hunt's murder and the frame-up of John Carroll?” West broke in with bitterness. “Rape! Felicia was murdered to keep her from giving John the alibi that would get him off the hook.”

The Inspector nibbled his mustache.

“What does it take to convince you people that somebody is after Carroll's hide!”

“That sounds like sense, Dad.”

“Maybe.”

“At the least, the Hunt woman's murder is bound to give the case against Carroll a different look—Dad, before Velie phones the State Police.”

“Well?”

“Let's you and Velie and I really give this place a going over.”

“What for, Ellery?”

“For that alibi statement Felicia signed and then took back when Carroll wasn't looking. It's a long shot, but … who knows?”

Their session with the State Police took the rest of the night. It was sunrise before they got back to the city.

West asked to be dropped off at Beekman Place.

“Sam Rayfield won't thank me for waking him up, but then I haven't had any sleep at all. Who's going to tell John?”

“I will,” Ellery said.

West turned away with a grateful wave.

“So far so bad,” the Inspector said as they sped downtown. “Now all I have to do is talk the D.A.'s office into joining Rayfield in a plea to Judge Holloway, and why
I
should have to do it is beyond me!”

“You going home, Inspector?”

“Sure I'm going home, Velie! I can take Smallhauser's abuse over my own phone as well as at Headquarters. And maybe get some sleep, too. How about you, son?”

“The Tombs,” Ellery said.

He parted with Sergeant Velie at the Headquarters garage and walked over to the Criminal Courts Building. His head was muddy, and he wanted to cleanse it. He tried not to think of John Carroll.

Carroll woke up instantly at the sound of the cell door.

“Queen! How did you make out with Felicia?”

Ellery said, “We didn't.”

“She won't testify?”

“She can't testify, John. She's dead.”

It was brutal, but he knew no kinder formula. Carroll was half sitting up, leaning on an elbow, and he remained that way. His eyes kept blinking in a monotonous rhythm.

“Dead …”

“Murdered. We found her on the bedroom floor of her cottage with her head smashed in. She'd been dead for days.”

“Murdered.” Carroll blinked and blinked. “But who—?”

“There's not a clue. So far, anyway.” Ellery lit a cigaret and held it out. Carroll took it. But then he dropped it and covered his face with both hands. “I'm sorry, John.”

Carroll's hands came down. He had his lower lip in his teeth.

“I'm no coward, Queen. I faced death a hundred times in the Pacific and didn't chicken out. But a man likes to die for some purpose … I'm scared.”

Ellery looked away.

“There's got to be some way out of this!” Carroll dropped off the bunk and ran in his bare feet to the bars of the cell, to grasp them with both hands. But then he whirled and sprang at Ellery, seizing him by the arms. “That statement, that's my out, Queen! Maybe she didn't destroy it. Maybe she took it up there with her. If you can find it for me—”

“I've looked,” Ellery said gently. “And my father looked, and Sergeant Velie, too. We covered the cottage inside and out. It took us over two hours. We didn't call the local police until we were satisfied it wasn't there.”

“But it's
got
to be there! My life depends on it! Don't you see?” He shook Ellery.

“Yes, John.”

“You missed it. Maybe she put it in an obvious place, like in that story of Poe's. Did you look in her purse? Her luggage?”

“Yes, John.”

“Her suits—coats—the linings—?”

“Yes, John.”

“Her car?”

“Her car, too.”

“Maybe it was on her,” Carroll said feverishly. “On her person. Did you—? No, I suppose you wouldn't.”

“We would and we did.” Ellery's arms ached. He wished Carroll would let go.

“How about that big ruby-and-emerald pendant she was so hipped on? The alibi statement was only a single sheet of paper. She might have wadded it up and hidden it in the locket part. Did you look there while you were searching the body?”

“Yes, John. All we found in the locket were two photos, Spanish-looking elderly people. Her parents, I suppose.”

Carroll released him. Ellery rubbed his arms.

“How about books?” Carroll mumbled. “Felicia was always reading some trashy novel or other. She might have slipped it between two pages—”

“There were eleven books in the house, seven magazines. I went through them myself.”

In the cold cell Carroll wiped the perspiration from his cheeks.

“Desk with a false compartment? … Cellar? … Is there an attic? … Did you search the garage?”

He went on and on. Ellery waited for him to run down.

When Carroll was finally quiet, Ellery called the guard. His last glimpse of the young lawyer was of a spread-eagled figure, motionless on the bunk, eyes shut. All Ellery could think of was a corpse.

Judge Joseph N. Holloway shook his head. He was a gray-skinned, frozen-eyed veteran of the criminal courts, known to practicing members of the New York bar as Old Steel-guts.

“I didn't come down to my chambers an hour early on a Monday morning, Counselor Rayfield, for the pleasure of listening to your mellifluous voice. That pleasure palled on me a long time ago. I granted an adjournment Friday morning because of the Hunt woman's murder, but do you have any evidence to warrant a further postponement? So far I've heard nothing but a lot of booshwah.”

Assistant District Attorney Smallhauser nodded admiringly. Judge Holloway's fondness for the slang of his youth—indulged in only
in camera
, of course—was trifled with at the peril of the trifler. “Booshwah is
le mot juste
for it, Your Honor. I apologize for being a party to this frivolous waste of your time.”

Samuel Rayfield favored the murderous little assistant D.A. with a head-shrinking glance and clamped his teeth more firmly about his cold cigar. “Come off it, Joe,” he said to Judge Holloway. “This is a man's life we're playing footsie with. We're not privileged to kick him to death simply because he acted like a damn fool in holding back his alibi. All I want this adjournment for is time to look for that alibi statement the Hunt woman signed when she was alive enough to write.”

Judge Holloway's dentures gleamed toward Smallhauser.

“The alibi statement your client
says
the Hunt woman signed,” the little D.A. said with his prim smile.

The Judge's dentures promptly turned to Rayfield.

“I've got the notary, Rudin, to attest to the fact that she signed it,” the portly lawyer snapped.

“That she signed some paper, yes. But you people admit yourselves that Carroll concealed the text of the paper from Rudin. For all Rudin knows he might have been notarizing the woman's signature to the lease of a new dog house.” The little D.A. turned his smile on the Judge. “I'm bound to say, Your Honor, this whole thing smells more and more to me like a stall.”

“Come around some time when you've put on long pants and I'll show you what a real stall smells like, Smallhauser!” the famous lawyer said. “Joe, I'm not stalling. There's a chance she didn't destroy the statement. Not much of one, I admit, but I wouldn't sleep nights if I thought I hadn't exhausted every avenue of investigation in Carroll's behalf.”

“You wouldn't lose half of a strangled snore,” the Judge said with enjoyment. “Look, Sam, it's all conjecture, and you know it. You can't even show that Mrs. Hunt stole that alleged statement of hers from Carroll in the first place.”

“Ellery Queen showed—”

“I know what Ellery Queen showed. He showed his usual talent for making something out of nothing. Ellery's idea of proof!” The old jurist snorted. “And even if the Hunt woman did steal an alibi statement from Carroll, what did she steal it for if not to flush it down a toilet? And even if she held on to it, where is it? The Queens didn't find it in her Westchester cottage. You ransacked her New York house over the weekend. You got a court order to examine her safe deposit box. You questioned her maid and the people in Carroll's office and God knows whom else, without result. Be reasonable, Sam. That alibi statement either never existed or, if it did, it doesn't exist any more. I can't predicate a postponement on the defendant's unsupported allegation of alibi.”

“Of course, if you'd like to put Carroll on the stand,” Smallhauser said with a grin, “so I can cross-examine him—

Rayfield ignored him. “All right, Joe. But you can't deny that Hunt's wife has also been murdered. That's a fact in evidence of which we can produce a corpse. And I don't believe in coincidences. When a man's murder is followed by his wife's murder, I say the two are connected. The connection in this case is obvious. The murder of Felicia Hunt was committed in order to blow up Carroll's alibi for the murder of Meredith Hunt and cement Carroll's conviction. How can his trial proceed with this area unexplored? I tell you, Joe, this man is being framed by somebody who's committed two murders in order to pull the frame off! Give us time to explore.”

“I remember once sitting here listening to Ellery Queen,” Judge Holloway said, exploring his denture for a breakfast tidbit. “You're beginning to sound like his echo. Sam, evidence is what trials are ruled by, and evidence is what you ain't got. Motion denied. My courtroom, gentlemen, ten o'clock on the nose.”

Ellery got the answer that Thursday afternoon in the half-empty courtroom while the jury was out deliberating John Carroll's fate.

It came to him after an agonizing reappraisal of the facts as he knew them. He had gone over them times without number before. This time, in the lightning flash he had begun to think would never strike again, he saw it.

By good luck, at the time it came he was alone. Carroll had been taken back to the Tombs, and his wife and the two lawyers had gone with him so that he would not have to sweat out the waiting alone.

A sickish feeling invaded Ellery's stomach. He got up and went out and found the nearest men's room.

When he returned to the courtroom, Tully West was waiting for him.

“Helena wants to talk to you.” West's face was green, too.

“No.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Ellery shook his head clear. “I mean—yes, of course.”

West misunderstood. “I don't blame you. I wish I were anywhere else myself. Rayfield was smart—he bowed out for ‘coffee.'”

Carroll was being held in a detention room under guard. Ellery was surprised at his calm, even gentle, look. It was Helena Carroll's eyes that were wild. He was holding her hands, trying to console her.

“Honey, honey, it's going to come out all right. They won't convict an innocent man.”

“Why are they taking so
long?
They've been out five hours!”

“That's a good sign, Helena,” West said. “The longer they take, the better John's chances are.”

She saw Ellery then, and she struggled to her feet and was at him so swiftly that he almost stepped back.

“I thought you were supposed to be so marvelous at these things! You haven't done anything for John—anything.”

Carroll tried to draw her back, but she shook him off. Her pain-etched face was livid

“I don't care, John! You should have hired a real detective while there was still time. I wanted you to—I
begged
you and Tully not to rely on somebody so close to the police!”

“Helena, really.” West was embarrassed.

Ellery said stonily, “No, Mrs. Carroll is quite right. I was the wrong man for this, although not for the reason you give, Mrs. Carroll. I wish I had never got mixed up in it.”

She was staring at him intently. “That almost sounds as if …

“As if what, Helena?” West was trying to humor her, get her away.

“As if he knows.
Tully, he does
. Look at his face!” She clawed at Ellery. “You know, and you won't say anything! You talk, do you hear? Tell me!
Who's behind this?
”

West was flabbergasted. With surprise John Carroll studied Ellery's face for a moment, then he went to the barred window and stood there rigidly.

“Who?” His wife was weeping now. “Who?”

But Ellery was as rigid as Carroll., “I'm sorry, Mrs. Carroll. I can't save your husband. It's too late.”

“Too late,” she said hysterically. “How can you say it's too late when—”

“Helena.” West took the little woman by the arms and forcibly sat her down. Then he turned to Ellery, his lean face dark. “What's this all about, Queen? You sound as if you're covering up for someone. Are you?”

Ellery glanced past the angry lawyer to the motionless man at the window.

“I'll leave it up to John,” he said. “Shall I answer him, John?”

For a moment it seemed as if Carroll had not heard. But then he turned, and there was something about him—a dignity, a finality—that quieted Tully West and Helena Carroll and sent their glances seeking each other.