She was quiet for so long that he began to think she had turned her ears off in shock. That, and her pallor, were the only signs of recoil from his thunderclap.
“Mrs. Importuna?”
A bit of pink came back to her cheeks. “Pardon me, I was thinking over my sinful life,” she said. “I suppose I can’t blame them for building up all sorts of wickednesses against me. But I didn’t kill Nino, Mr. Queen, and that’s the truth. I suppose it would be naive of me to expect that you’d believe me.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I was born with a sort of openwork mind. Full of holes, as my detractors have been known to say.” Ellery smiled at her. “But then I don’t have the obligation of the authorities to produce results for various Pooh-Bahs, up to and including the biggest Pooh-Bah of them all, the public. So don’t be too hard on the poor fellows. You must admit that the appearances, at least, favor the theory they’re working on.”
“Why are you telling me this, Mr. Queen?”
“Let’s say I’m not satisfied with the official theory. I’m not satisfied at all, Mrs. Importuna. Oh, I don’t doubt you and Peter have been having an affair-I’d decided that quite independently from the police. But I’m not convinced you could kill anyone in cold blood, and this was a coldblooded homicide. Of course, I could be dead wrong about you; I’ve been wrong before, and more than once. This time, though, I confess I’d like to be right.”
“Thank you.” Virginia’s murmur held a glissando of surprise.
“Now as to why I’m here. Whether you answer my question or not depends on whether you decide to trust me or not. I hope you’ll decide to trust me. On December 9th last, Mrs. Importuna, you had lunch with somebody. Who was it?”
She actually giggled. “What a freaky question after that buildup! Do you really expect me to remember something as trivial as a lunch date 10 months ago?”
“Try, please. It may turn out to be the reverse of trivial. It may, in fact, be vital to you.”
His solemnity seemed to impress her. For some time her eyes went away, somewhere. Finally they came back to him. “I suppose I’m an idiot, but I’ve decided you’re not trying to trick me.” Ellery chose to remain quiet. “It happens that there is a way to answer your question, Mr. Queen. For a great many years I’ve kept a diary. I haven’t missed a day since I was 14 years old. It’s always been for me-I hope you won’t laugh-an Emily Dickinson kind of thing to do. I was once absolutely convinced I was going to be the latter-day Emily, dressing only in white, and spending practically all my time in my room writing poems that would never die… Well, you’re not interested in my girlish dreams. But I do have a record of day-to-day events as they concerned me.”
“Yes,” Ellery said, “yes, that would certainly do it.”
He rose as she rose. He was holding his breath.
“I’ll be right back,” Virginia said.
She was gone for a century.
When she returned it was with an oversize diary in gold-tooled black morocco leather. It had a latch-flap-lock arrangement. Ellery had to command himself like a squad leader to keep from grabbing.
“This is my diary for 1966.”
“That’s the one, yes.”
“Do sit down again, Mr. Queen.”
She sank onto her sofa, a Duncan Phyfe, he thought, from its lyre motif; and he seated himself opposite her, trying to concentrate on the sofa to avoid being caught coveting the diary. She turned a gold key in the lock. The little key was on a gold chain.
“Let’s see, now. December what did you say, Mr. Queen?”
“The 9th.”
“9th, 9th… Here it is… Oh,” she said.
“Yes?” Ellery said lightly. “Something special about that day, Mrs. Importuna?”
“You might say so! It was the first time I had that naughty thing the Victorians used to call a tryst with Peter. A public one, at that. I seem to recall Nino was off in Europe or somewhere on business. It was a stupidly dangerous thing for us to do, but it was a little hideaway place nobody I knew patronized…”
He almost said, May I have a look at that, Mrs. Importuna? but he stopped himself on the cliff edge of importunity, aware how vulnerable she must be feeling, wondering how she had dared even to admit the existence of her diary, let alone produce it. Its contents in the wrong hands… His hands?
To his stupefaction he heard her say, “But why tell you about it, Mr. Queen? Read it for yourself.” And there it was, being placed in his hands. “Mrs. Importuna,” Ellery said. “Do you realize what you’re proposing to do? You’re offering me information that, if it turns out to be pertinent, I’m in conscience bound to pass along to my father. My father is one of the officers investigating this case. The only reason I’m given the run of these premises by the officers on duty downstairs is because of my father. And, in any event, I shan’t be able to prevent your being charged and arraigned-or in all probability even to delay matters. Do you understand that?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re still willing to let me read your entry for the day in question?”
There were delicate little butterfly bruises of worry and tension under her eyes. But the eyes themselves were unclouded.
“I didn’t kill my husband, Mr. Queen. I didn’t plot with anyone to kill him. I did fall in love with Peter Ennis, who’s a kind as well as a beautiful man. But since you already know we’re in love, how can my diary hurt us?” He opened it gently. And read:
December 9, 1966. I wonder why I keep adding to this, oh,
The few I have? And the almost addictive need to express them? Then why do I keep dwelling on the bad scenes? Sometimes I think this isn’t worth the risk. If N. were ever to find you, Diary…
He read on, immersing himself in the flow of her thoughts and feelings, analyzing her narrative of that day’s events-her meeting with Ennis in the little undistinguished restaurant, Peter’s hammering away at her to divorce Nino Importuna… all the way through her dread of what “I glimpsed in Peter’s eyes… and if his parting shot to me meant what I think it meant, the embryo’s going to turn out to be a thalidomide baby, or worse.” And her final, unsteady “and to hell with you and you and you too Mrs. Calabash. I’d better totter off and tuck my lil ole self into beddy-snooky-bye.”
He shut the leather-covered book and handed it back. Virginia inserted the key in the lock and turned the key, slipped its chain about her neck, dropped the key into the chasm between her breasts.
The diary, locked, lay in her lap. “Do you mind if we don’t talk for a while?” Ellery rose without waiting for a response and began to stroll about, rubbing the back of his neck, fingering his ear, pulling at his nose, finally resting his forehead against the edge of the tall mantelpiece at the fireplace. Virginia’s eyes followed him. She seemed to have resigned herself to whatever fate had reserved for her, and to be waiting for it in confident patience. After some time this aura of self-confidence reached Ellery and penetrated his field of concentration. He came back from the fireplace and looked down at her.
“Where do you hide your diaries, Mrs. Importuna?”
“In a very safe place,” Virginia replied. “Don’t ask me where, because I won’t tell you.”
“Does anyone know the hiding place?”
“Not a soul in this world.” She added, “Or the next.”
“Not even Peter Ennis?”
“I just said, Mr. Queen, no one.”
“There’s no possibility someone could have got his hands on this particular volume and read it?”
“No possibility. That I’d stake my life on.” She smiled. “Or is that what I’m doing, Mr. Queen? No. There’s only one master key to all the years, the one you just saw me use, and I keep the chain around my neck always, even when I bathe. Even when I sleep.”
“Your husband. Couldn’t he have…?”
“I never slept with my husband,” Virginia said in a murderous voice. “Never! When he was finished with me I
