“Please—Steve—take me—home,” she gasped, leaning heavily on his arm.
Inspector Queen stood aside to let them pass. There was a mournful look in his eyes as he watched them walk slowly to the main door and join the short line going out.
VI
In Which the District Attorney Turns Biographer
Inspector Richard Queen was a peculiar man. Small and wiry, thatched with grey and wrinkled in fine lines of experience, he might have been a business executive, a night-watchman, or what he chose. Certainly, in the proper raiment, his quiet figure would mold itself to any disguise.
This ready adaptability was carried out in his manner as well. Few people knew him as he was. To his associates, to his enemies, to the forlorn scraps of humanity whom he turned over to the due processes of the law, he remained ever a source of wonder. He could be theatrical when he chose, or mild, or pompous, or fatherly, or bulldogging.
But underneath, as someone has said with an over-emphatic sentimentality, the Inspector had “a heart of gold.” Inside he was harmless, and keen, and not a little hurt by the cruelties of the world. It was true that to the people who officially came under his eye he was never twice the same. He was constantly whirling into some new facet of personality. He found this to be good business; people never understood him, never knew what he was going to do or say, and consequently they were always a little afraid of him.
Now that he was alone, back in Panzer’s office, the door shut tight, his investigations temporarily halted, the true character of the man shone from his face. At this moment it was an old face—old physically, old and wise spiritually. The incident of the girl he had startled into unconsciousness was uppermost in his mind. The memory of her drawn, horrified face made him wince. Frances Ives-Pope seemed to personify everything a man of years could hope for in his own daughter. To see her shrink under the lash pained him. To see her fiancé turn fiercely in her defense made him blush.
Abstemious except for his one mild dissipation, the Inspector reached for his snuffbox with a sigh and sniffed freely. …
When there came a peremptory knock on the door, he was the chameleon again—a detective-inspector sitting at a desk and no doubt thinking clever and ponderous thoughts. In truth, he was wishing that Ellery would come back.
At his hearty “Come in!” the door swung open to admit a thin, bright-eyed man dressed in heavy overclothes, a woolen muffler wound about his neck.
“Henry!” exclaimed the Inspector, starting to his feet. “What the dickens are you doing here? I thought the doctor had ordered you to stay in bed!”
District Attorney Henry Sampson winked as he slumped into an armchair.
“Doctors,” he said didactically, “doctors give me a pain in the neck. How are tricks?”
He groaned and felt his throat gingerly. The Inspector sat down again.
“For a grown man, Henry,” he said decisively, “you’re the most unruly patient I’ve ever seen. Man alive, you’ll catch pneumonia if you don’t watch out!”
“Well,” grinned the District Attorney, “I carry a lot of insurance, so I should worry. … You haven’t answered my question.”
“Oh, yes,” grunted Queen. “Your question. How’s tricks, I think you asked? Tricks, my dear Henry, are at present in a state of complete nullity. Does that satisfy you?”
“Kindly be more explicit,” said Sampson. “Remember, I’m a sick man and my head is buzzing.”
“Henry,” said Queen, leaning forward earnestly, “I warn you that we’re in the midst of one of the toughest cases this department has ever handled. … Is your head buzzing? I’d hate to tell you what’s happening in mine!”
Sampson regarded him with a frown. “If it’s as you say—and I suppose it is—this comes at a rotten time. Election’s not so far off—an unsolved murder handled by the improper parties. …”
“Well, that’s one way of looking at it,” remarked Queen, in a low voice. “I wasn’t exactly thinking of this affair in terms of votes, Henry. A man’s been killed—and at the moment I’ll be frank enough to admit that I haven’t the slightest idea who did the job or how.”
“I accept your well-meant rebuke, Inspector,” said Sampson, in a lighter tone. “But if you’d heard what I did a few moments ago—over the telephone. …”
“One moment, my dear Watson, as Ellery would say,” chuckled Queen, with that startling change of temperament so characteristic of him. “I’ll bet I know what happened. You were at home, probably in bed. Your telephone rang. A voice began to crab, protest, gurgle, and do all the other things a voice does when its owner is excited. The voice said, ‘I won’t stand for being cooped up by the police, like a common criminal! I want that man Queen severely reprimanded! He’s a menace to personal liberty!’ And so on, in words of that general tenor. …”
“My dear fellow!” said Sampson, laughing.
“This gentleman, the owner of the protesting voice,” continued the Inspector, “is short, rather stout, wears gold-rimmed eyeglasses, has an exceedingly disagreeable feminine voice, displays a really touching concern for his family—one wife and one daughter—in the presence of possible publicity agents, and always refers to you as his ‘very good friend, District Attorney Sampson.’ Correct?”
Sampson sat staring at him. Then his keen face creased into a smile.
“Perfectly astounding, my dear Holmes!” he murmured. “Since you know so much about my friend, perhaps it would be child’s-play for you to give me his name?”
“Er—but that was the fellow, wasn’t it?” said Queen, his face scarlet. “I—Ellery, my boy! I’m glad to see you!”
Ellery had entered the room. He shook hands cordially with Sampson, who greeted him with a
