A Fine and Private Place

husband know that the valuable sculpture was a gift to his wife from his secretary?”

“No, he didn’t! I lied to him! I told him I bought it for myself!” Her shining hair seemed suddenly in disarray; she looked oddly undressed. “You’re a cruel man, Mr. Queen, do you know that? Nino was jealous. I didn’t have the easiest marriage in the world. There are circumstances about my marriage that-”

She stopped.

“Yes?” Ellery prodded her gently.

But she was shaking her locks, smiling. “You’re also smart as all get-out, Mr. Queen. I don’t believe I’m going to continue this conversation.” She rose and walked over to the door. “Crump will see you out.”

She pulled on the bell rope.

“I’m sorry I’ve upset you, Mrs. Importuna. If you knew me better, you’d know I’m really not cruel, just death on rats. Would you mind telling me one thing more?”

“It depends on what it is.”

“Sculptures, like paintings, are usually titled. Does the sculpture Peter Ennis gave you have a name?”

“Yes. What was it again? Something icky… It’s inscribed on the base of the stand-a little plaque… “ She frowned; but then the frown lifted like fog and her face turned sunny. At that moment she was extraordinarily innocent in her loveliness. “I remember! Newborn Child Emerging.”

Ennis, you dog, Ellery thought.

* * *

Crump did not see Ellery out. His stately British march said that he had every intention of doing so, but Ellery stopped him after ten paces. “I want to talk to Mr. Ennis before I leave. Is he in?”

“I can see, sir.” Unexpectedly, Crump’s tone suggested that he thought it a jolly idea.

“Please do.”

Crump knew all about them, then, and of course he disapproved. There was no more straitlaced lot than the old-fashioned servitor class, in the front rank of whom stood the butlers.

“Mr. Ennis states that he is too busy, sir.”

“By a coincidence, I’m busy, too. We’ll be busy together. Which way, Crump?”

“Mr. Ennis states, sir… “ Crump’s tone this time suggested occupational regret, a what-can-I-do-sir-I-can-only- follow-orders apologia.

“I’ll take you off the hook, Crump. Where is he?”

“Thank you, sir. This way, Mr. Queen.”

He led Ellery briskly, with visible enjoyment, to Nino Importuna’s den. There, enthroned in his late employer’s chair behind the Medici table, sat the handsome confidential secretary; he was up to his elbows in files and documents. Peter Ennis looked away from his paper work and expressed annoyance without hesitation.

“I told Crump to tell you I was too busy to see you, Queen. I simply haven’t the time to go over the same dreary old ground with you. Crump, I’ll have to report you to Mrs. Importuna for this.”

“Then you’ll be persecuting an innocent man,” Ellery said in his best amicus curiae manner. “Crump performed his duty with the fidelity of any Englishman. I had to use muscle to get him to bring me here. Verbal muscle, of course. I don’t believe you’ll be needed further, Crump; thank you. May I sit down, Ennis? This will take some time. No? I get the feeling you’d rather not talk to me.”

“All right,” Peter said, shrugging. “I don’t have to put up with you, Queen; I’m doing this only to get rid of you. You’ve no official status-I can’t imagine how you wea-seled your way up here, the way that lobby’s patrolled.”

“It’s all in the wrist action.” Eilery seated himself in the squat, lumpily carved visitor’s chair and immediately wished he hadn’t. “Whoever selected this chair had a bit of the old Inquisition spirit in him. Importuna, I suppose. Speaking of whom: Did he have an old friend, someone going all the way back to his boyhood, who grew up to become a justice of the United States Supreme Court?”

“If he did, he never mentioned it to me.”

“Then let me put it this way: To your knowledge, did Importuna ever communicate-by letter, phone, Pony Express, however-with any justice of the Supreme Court?”

“To my knowledge? No.”

“Did any justice of the Supreme Court ever communicate with him?”

Peter grinned. “You’re cool, man, you know that? You don’t let go. No, not to my knowledge. What’s this about a Supreme Court justice?”

“Did he play semipro baseball as a young man? Under the name of Nino Importuna, Tullio Importunato, or some other name?”

“Baseball? Nino Importuna?” Peter’s grin widened. “If you’d known him, Queen, you’d realize what a ridiculous question that is.”

“Ridiculous or not, you haven’t answered it.”

“He failed to mention any such terrible secret of his past, at least to me. And I’ve never run across anything in his personal files to indicate it.” The grin faded as Peter stared across the table. “I believe you’re serious.”

“Does Binghamton, New York, strike a bell?”

“In connection with Mr. Importuna? Binghamton? Not a tinkle.”

Ellery mumbled to himself. Finally he said, “Now tell me he doesn’t-didn’t-own a rancho in Palm Springs, California.”

“That he does-did.”

“Really? You mean I’ve struck something at last?” Ellery hitched forward. “A property with a private golf course attached?”

“Golf course? Who on earth told you that?”

“Is there a golf course on the Palm Springs property!”

“Jumping down my throat will get you nowhere, Queen. You can’t blame me for being surprised by such a question. You people haven’t done your homework on Nino Importuna, have you? He’d no more consider setting foot on a golf course than becoming den mother of the neighborhood Girl Scouts. Considered golf a criminal waste of a grown man’s time, especially a businessman. No, Nino didn’t own a golf course in Palm Springs, or anywhere else. He didn’t own a set of clubs. In fact, I don’t believe he even knew how to play.”

Ellery was pinching the tip of his nose to inflict “the pain that kills pain.”

“Did you ever happen to see a cat-o’-nine-tails in Importuna’s effects?”

“See a what?”

“We’ve received a tip that Nino Importuna was rather fond of whips and whippings. How say you, Mr. Confidential Secretary?”

Peter threw his head back. “I wasn’t that confidential, I assure you!” Then he stopped laughing. “If you’ve got to pry into his sexual hang-ups, you’ve come to the wrong boy. The obvious source would be his wife, but I hope-in fact, I’m pretty sure-she’ll spit in your eye.”

“I had a conversation with Mrs. Importuna just now, and from something she let drop I gathered that their marital-sex relationship wasn’t exactly-”

“I’m not going to discuss what isn’t my business,” Peter said loftily, “or yours. Please.”

“Was Importuna a chaser? You should certainly know something about that.”

“Chaser? Why, he was imp-” He stopped, stricken.

“Impotent?” Ellery said softly.

“I shouldn’t have blurted that out! It could only have concerned Mrs. Importuna. Won’t you forget I said it? But, of course, you won’t.”

“But of course. How do you know Importuna was impotent? Did he tell you? No, a man doesn’t reveal a thing like that about himself to a younger, virile man, especially a little Napoleon like Nino Importuna. So you probably found out about it from his wife. Right?”

“I’m not saying another word on the subject!”

Ellery waved the subject away with instant amiability. “Here’s one that shouldn’t strain your milk: Did Importuna commission some sculptor to do the 9 Muses for his villa in Lugano? By the way, he did own a villa in Lugano, didn’t he?”