Face to Face (7 page)

“Miss Temple didn't leave the premises at any time Wednesday night?”

“She did not. Neither did I, so I'm in a perfect position to know.”

“That would seem to be that.” Ellery rose, and Burke followed suit. Jeanne Temple was swabbing her eyes. “Oh, one other thing, Miss Temple. Does the word ‘face' mean anything special to you?”

The girl looked blank. “Face?”

“You know, face?
f-a-c-e?”

“I can't imagine what you mean.”

“Do you recall Glory Guild's ever making a point of anyone's face? Around December first? More recently? Particularly on Wednesday?”

The secretary shook her head. “Mrs. Armando certainly never remarked about anyone's face to me. As a matter of fact, she was always rather vague about people's features; she never knew what color anyone's eyes were, things like that. She was nearsighted, and for some reason couldn't wear contact lenses, and she didn't use her ordinary eyeglasses except for reading or working. She was rather vain, you know. She did notice women's clothes, that sort of thing, but—”

“Thank you, Miss Temple.”

“That mucker,” Harry Burke muttered in the taxi. “There ought to be special laws for men like Armando. So you could get a court order to have him altered, like a dog.”

“He does have a way with women, doesn't he?” said Ellery absently. “If only we could get a lead to what she meant.”

“What who meant?”

“GeeGee. By that word she wrote. It might explain everything. It
would
explain everything.”

“How can you know that?”

“It's a feeling I have, Harry, in my northernmost bones.”

15

Dr. Susan Merckell proved disconcerting. She was entertaining some people in the huge Park Avenue apartment behind her street-level office, and she was openly annoyed at the Sunday interruption. “I can give you only a few minutes.” she said in a brusk voice as she led Ellery and Burke to a study. “Please say what you have to say, and let me get back to my guests.” She was a small woman with an hourglass figure, blunt unfeminine hands, and very little makeup. But her simply coifed blond hair was natural, and her lips were almost grossly sensual. It was not hard to think of her as a physician; she had the medical stamp of authority. “What is it you want to know today? I've already been questioned.”

“Your exact relationship with Carlos Armando,” Ellery said.

“I've already answered that one.” Her hard green eyes did not change expression. “Count Armando was the husband of one of my patients. He's come to me for treatment himself on several occasions. Next question?”

“I'm not through with the first question, Dr. Merckell. Have you ever had any relationship with Armando that might be called nonprofessional?”

“If you think I'm going to answer that, you're an imbecile.”

“Our information is that you have had.”

“Does your information include proof?” When Ellery did not reply, Dr. Merckell smiled and rose. “I thought not. Will there be anything else?”

“Please sit down, Doctor. We're not through.” She shrugged and sat down. “Do you recall where you were Wednesday night? The night before New Year's Eve?”

“I was at Park Center Hospital.”

“Doing what?”

“I was called into an emergency consultation.”

“Who was the patient?”

“A man with a laryngeal carcinoma. I don't remember his name.”

“Who called you into consultation?”

“A g.p. named Krivitz—Jay Jerome Krivitz. There was also a surgeon present, Dr. Israel Mancetti.”

“At what time Wednesday night, Doctor, did this consultation take place?”

“I got to the hospital about 11:00 o'clock. The consultation lasted over an hour.”

“You mean it was after midnight when you left?”

“What else can I mean? Over an hour from 11:00 P.M. makes it after midnight, yes. Really, gentlemen, you're wasting my time and making me neglect my guests.” Dr. Merckell rose again, and this time it was evident that she had no intention of resuming her chair. “I've been asked these questions before, as I told you.”

“But not by me,” said Ellery. “Doctor, does the word ‘face' convey anything significant to you?”

The green eyes gave him a mineral stare. “I'm a laryngologist, not a dermatologist. Is it supposed to?”

“I don't know, I'm asking. Can you recall Mrs. Armando's ever mentioning anything about someone's face, or faces in general?”

“You're either drunk or irresponsible. Even if she had, how could I possibly remember anything as trivial as that? Good day, gentlemen!”

16

Marta Bellina was in Los Angeles, they discovered, giving a concert.

So they went to police headquarters where, not surprisingly and Sunday notwithstanding, they found Inspector Queen floundering in a swamp of reports.

“Nothing,” the old man grunted. “Not a blasted thing anyone could call a development! What did you two find out?”

Ellery told him.

“Well, then it all washes out. I've already checked the Huppenkleimer woman's whereabouts on the night of the murder—”

“I thought you weren't interested in Huppenkleimer,” Ellery said with a grin.

“—just for exercise,” his father snapped, “and it checks with what you say she told you. The Temple girl is given an alibi by her roomie, as you just found out. Boston has cleared ex-wife Number Four, Daffy Dingle—what a name for a grown woman!—who suddenly committed herself to a nursing home in Springfield last Monday to take the cure from all those vodka martinis Armando's been pouring down her guzzle; she hasn't set foot from the premises since she went in. Ex-wife Three, Ardene Vlietland, has been with friends on a yacht cruising the Caribbean since last Saturday; I've had the Coast Guard check on the yacht, and it hasn't put in to a port since it sailed. That takes care of the ex-wives Armando's been diddling around with. And my report on Dr. Merckell confirms her consultation alibi at that hospital.”

“What about the opera singer?” asked Harry Burke.

“Marta Bellina is in L.A.”

“We know that, Inspector. But where was she last Wednesday night?”

“In San Francisco. She's been on a concert tour for the past three weeks and hasn't been back to New York since. We did an especially careful job on Bellina, because in this jet age how far is New York from anywhere? But, according to the information we've received from the California authorities, her alibi stands up.”

“Leaving,” mumbled Ellery, “the woman in the violet veil. Dad, what have you got on her?”

“A big fat nothing. Your friend Kipley seems to have it down pat. The last time a woman of that description was seen with Armando was just before Christmas. If he's been out with her since, we can't get a make on it.”

“Leaving,” Ellery mumbled again, “the woman in the violet veil.”

“Stop saying that!”

“I have to. She's the only woman Armando's been seen with who hasn't an alibi for the night of the murder.”

“Unless,” said Burke, “you find her and she does have.”

“Okay, so she's a possibility as his accomplice,” growled Inspector Queen. “So are a hundred other women, for all I know. With Armando's magic touch with the more foolish damn fools among the opposite sex, we could be on this case until NASA lands a man on Venus.”

Their last interview that day was with the magician himself. They found Armando in his widow's Park Avenue duplex with a weak bourbon and water in his manicured hand, the TV set tuned to the Ed Sullivan show. He did not offer them a drink. He did not even ask them to sit down.

“Alone at the boob tube, Count?” asked Ellery. “I expected to find some lady with a
Playboy
center spread holding your hand, condoling with you.”

“Peasant,” said Carlos Armando. “Am I never to be rid of you louts? My wife is to be buried tomorrow, and you torment me! What do you want?”

“I could ask you for the secret of your allure, but I'm afraid such secrets aren't transferable. Who's the woman in the violet veil?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, come, Armando,” said Harry Burke. “You're not playing ticky-tack-toe with a lot of gullible females. Among your various other enterprises, you've been squiring some wench in a violet veil. Quite openly, which makes you more stupid than I think you are. We want to know who she is.”

“You do.”

“You can understand English, can't you?”

“You will never force one word about the lady from my lips,” Armando said profoundly. “You are all boors where women are concerned, you Anglo-Saxons.” (“Highland Scottish in my case, old chap,” Burke murmured.) “That is why your attempts at fornication and adultery are so pitiful compared with the techniques of European men. We Europeans know what women want; you know only what
you
want. And what women want, secondly—I do not have to tell even you what they want firstly—is not to have their names thrown about in delicate affairs. I have heard American men discussing their conquests in locker rooms, clubhouses, and over brandy and cigars as if the women involved were street whores. I spit on your questions.” He actually pursed his pretty lips.

“Bully for you,” said Ellery. “But, Carlos, this is not an ordinary conversation. Or affair. Your wife is dead by shooting, and not accidentally, either. And you engineered her departure—”

“I of course reject that utterly and absolutely.” Armando said hotly. “It is slanderous and insulting. I point out to you that when my wife was shot I was visiting in the apartment of Miss West. I wish I had a non-interested witness here so that I might sue you for defamation of character. Alas, I have no such witness. I can only ask you to leave my premises at once.”

Neither Ellery nor Harry Burke moved.

“He's a beauty, isn't he?” said Burke. “Sheer brass, and a yard deep. Tell me, Count, are you as much of a man with your trousers buttoned? I'd like nothing better than to square off with you and find out.”

“Are you threatening me, Mr. Burke?” Armando asked in an alarmed voice. He glanced quickly at the nearby telephone. “Unless you leave at once, I shall call the police!”

“I'm half tempted to let you find out how much good that would do you,” Ellery said. “Was the woman in the veil the love-nest birdie you charmed into shooting your wife for you, Armando? Because we're going to find her, I promise you that.”

Armando smiled. “The best of luck to you in your search, my friend,” he said softly.

Ellery stared at him, puzzled. Then he said, “Come on, Harry. I need fresh air.”

17

“Where are we going?” Roberta West asked Harry Burke.

The Scot said shyly, “I had a thought, Miss West. I hope you'll like it.”

He had phoned her on impulse late Sunday evening, after parting from Ellery, and had not only found her in but in a mood for company. They had had a late dinner in a hole-in-the-wall Italian place on Second Avenue, candlelit, with Chianti from a wicker bottle with a three-foot neck.

The taxi hit 59th Street and turned west. The streets were beautifully empty. It was a brisk, star-prickled night.

Roberta glanced at him curiously. “You seem awfully excited.”

“Perhaps I am.”

“By what, may I ask?”

“Oh, something.” Even in the dark she could have sworn that he was blushing. He added in a rush, “By you, for example.”

The girl laughed. “Is that a sample of the latest British line? Over here it went out with the bustle.”

“It's
not
a line, Miss West,” Burke said stiffly. “I've been too busy to learn any.”

“Oh,” Roberta said. And they were silent until the taxi pulled up in the plaza. Burke paid the man off, helped Roberta down, and waited until the taxi drove away. “Now what?” Roberta asked expectantly.

“Now this.” He took a delicate hold on her muskrat-covered elbow and steered her to the first of the three horse-drawn cabs waiting at the curb. “An amble around your park. That is … if you'd like?”

“What a scrumptious idea!” Roberta squealed, and hopped in, to be enveloped by the wonderful odor of horse, old harness, and oats. “Do you know something?” she exclaimed as the Scot pulled himself up beside her and began fussing with the lap robe. “In all the time I've been in New York, I've never taken a ride in one of these things.”

“Do you know something?” Burke mumbled. “In all the time I've been in London, I never have, either.”

“You mean you've never been in a hansom cab?”

“Never.”

“How wonderful!”

Later, while the carriage was clopping along in Central Park, being whooshed at by passing cars, Harry Burke's hand fumbled under the robe and found Roberta's.

Her hand was correctly cold, but she let him hold it.

Still later, on the return swing of the journey, he leaned over and, in an act of sheer desperation, pecked about for her lips and ultimately located them. They felt like rubber gaskets.

“Can't you do better than that, Miss West?” Burke muttered.

In the dark he heard her giggle. “Under the circumstances, Harry, don't you think the least you could do is call me Roberta?”

Only when he had left her outside her apartment building—she was quite firm about his not escorting her upstairs—did Burke realize that she had failed to demonstrate whether she could or could not do better.

He sighed not unhappily. He rather thought she could, and he rather thought she would.

In time.

18

It is universal police procedure to stake out detectives at the funeral in a murder case, on the magnetic theory that the murderer will be drawn to his victim for the last possible time. Inspector Queen dutifully had his men at the Long Island cemetery. Ellery passed the departmental rites up; he lacked the traditional police mentality. As far as he was concerned, he knew the murderer—if not in deed, then in inspiration; besides, he had no stomach for Armando's playacting this morning. And it was beyond belief that the woman in the violet veil would put in an appearance. Armando would see to that.

“He might have telephoned to warn her off,” Harry Burke said over their late breakfast. “Haven't I heard rumors about an occasional discreet official wiretap in your marvelous country?”

“I see no evil and I hear no evil,” proclaimed Ellery from behind a mouthful of scrambled eggs and Canadian bacon. “Besides, I doubt Armando would be so careless. If I gauge our boy correctly, Violet Veil has had her orders for a long time. I'm much more interested in today's will reading.”

“Who's going to be there?”

“The only one we haven't met is Selma Pilter, Glory's old manager. Which reminds me, Harry. We'd better try to get a make on her.”

He reached for the extension phone on the cupboard and dialed a number.

“Felipe? Is there any chance that Mr. Kipley is out of the hay? This is Ellery Queen.”

“I go see,” said Felipe noncommittally.

“Marvelous
country,” Burke murmured, glancing at his watch.

The columnist's voice shrilled in Ellery's ear. “God damn it, man, don't you ever sleep? What's with the Guild case? A break?”

“I'm afraid not. I just need some information.”

“Some more information, you mean. When do I get my
pro quo?”

“In time, in time, Kip,” Ellery soothed him. “Do you have anything on Glory's manager? Selma Pilter?”

“Do I have anything on the Sphinx? Not a speck of dirt, if that's what you're after. And if you think the count's been tossing Selma around, forget it. Even he draws a line. She's an Egyptian mummy.”

“How old is she, Kip?”

“Four thousand, if you've got twenty-twenty. In her sixties, if you're blind. She used to be a singer herself. A long time ago. Never made it, quit, and turned to the percentage racket. Damned good at it, too. She made Glory a millionaire.”

“I know that. Is there anything else about her I ought to know?”

“Well, she and Glory were a tight twosome. They never had the troubles most temperamental artistes have with their managers. Selma couldn't be a threat to other women, which was one reason; the other was that she's a real cool operator. What else? Aside from agenting, she keeps pretty much to herself. If she has a life of her own, she hides it under her falsies. She's a deep one.”

“How do you mean?”

“Deep. Don't you understand English?”

“Thanks, Kip.”

“When am I going to have to thank you, Charlie?”

They were a little early for the will-reading appointment. William Maloney Wasser turned out to be a large, portly, outwardly calm man with a polka-dot bow tie and a tic. The tic seemed to fascinate Harry Burke.

“No, I can't say I knew Glory Guild really well,” the lawyer said as they waited for the funeral party in his office. “My dealings with her were mainly through Selma Pilter—who, by the way, is one of the smartest businesswomen I've ever had anything to do with. It was Selma who recommended my firm to Glory when Glory was looking around for somebody to handle her affairs. Selma's steered a number of her clients my way.”

“Then I take it you haven't been Glory's lawyer long?”

“About fifteen years.”

“Oh. Didn't she have a lawyer before you?”

“Willis Fenniman, of Fenniman and Gouch. But old Will died, and Glory didn't like Gouch—she used to say they didn't make music together.” Wasser seemed more amused than irritated by the interrogation. “Do I understand, Mr. Queen, that I'm being grilled in a murder case?”

“Habit, Mr. Wasser. Forgive me. Besides, you've already been looked up. The police department has found you and your firm lily-pure and clean-o.”

Wasser chuckled, and then his secretary announced the arrival of the funeral party. Before he could instruct her to show the party in, Ellery said hurriedly, “One thing, Mr. Wasser. Does the word ‘face' have any special meaning for you?”

The lawyer looked blank. “Is it supposed to?”

“F-a-c-e.”

“You mean in the context of this case?”

“That's right.”

Wasser shook his head.