The three rooms of the Llewes suite were directly below the Kirk apartment. The door was opened in response to the Inspector’s ring by an angular maid with cubistic cheeks and an unlovely pointed nose. She began to protest in a weak whining Cockney voice, but then she saw the Sergeant and fell back gaping. The Inspector pushed past her without ceremony and strode through a small reception-foyer into a sitting-room, which was noisy with laughter and conversation. Both ceased magically.
They were all there?Dr. Kirk, Marcella, Macgowan, Berne, Jo Temple, Donald, Irene Llewes; and there were two women and a man whom the Queens had never seen before. One of the strangers was a tall flashing woman of foreign appearance who clung to Felix Berne’s arm with a queer possessive-ness. All were in evening attire.
Miss Llewes came swiftly forward, smiling. “Yes?” she said. “Yes? You see, I have guests, Inspector Queen. Perhaps another time . . . “
Macgowan and Donald Kirk were staring at the silent trio very intently.
Dr. Kirk, his old nose purple, wheeled himself furiously forward. “What’s the meaning of this latest intrusion, gentlemen? Can’t decent people ever have protection from meddling busybodies in this confounded madhouse?”
The woman had led them to a door which opened into a living-room. Donald Kirk, silent and pale, walked in like a prisoner approaching the execution chamber. And tiny Jo Temple followed him with head held high and a firm step. The Inspector frowned and was about to say something when Ellery touched his arm. So the Inspector held his tongue.
Donald did not see Jo until the door of the living-room was shut and Sergeant Velie’s expansive back was set against it.
Kirk said very slowly: “I don’t know what you mean, Inspector.” And Jo flung him a sidewise glance that was as puzzled as it was swift.
Donald jammed his hands nervously in the pockets of his tuxedo. “But I assure you?”
Quick as a flash Kirk said: “No. I’ve sold them.”
The Inspector regarded him calmly for a moment, and then went to the door. Sergeant Velie stepped aside and the old man opened the door and called out: “Miss Llewes. One moment, please.” Then the tall woman was in the room, smiling a little uncertainly, her slender brows inquiring. She was dressed in something long and curved and intimate and clinging, cut so low that the cleft between her breasts narrowed and widened with the slow surge of her breath, perfectly visible, like a crevasse on a tumbled shore uncovered periodically by the action of the surf.
The Inspector said gently: “Don’t you think you’d better step out for a few minutes, Miss Temple?”
Her tiny nose twitched a little, almost humorously. But she said nothing, nor did she release her grip on young Kirk’s hand.
Kirk blinked uncomprehendingly; and the tall woman drew herself up and blinked, too, like a green-eyed cat faintly startled. Then she smiled in response, and Ellery thought that it was the fourth-dimensional smile of the Cheshire Cat, remote and disembodied. “I beg your pardon?”
Donald licked his lips, regarding the woman apparently through a sick haze. “Confidence-woman?” he faltered. But there was something unconvincing in his hesitation; and Ellery sighed and turned away a little, blushing for the good sense of mankind. The only genuine character in the drama, he reflected, was little Miss Temple; she was being herself, not acting a part. And she was studying the tall woman with a sort of distant horror.
The tall woman said nothing. And while there was something wary in the depths of her green eyes, there was something elusive and mocking in them, too, as if she were indeed the Cheshire Cat having her enigmatic little jest with a faintly bewildered Alice.
For an instant her guard came down and she flashed a look in the direction of a door at the farther side of the room. Then she bit her lip and smiled again, and this time it was not the smile of the Cheshire Cat at all but the smile of a dying hope.