Queens Full (17 page)

Her white skin turned ghastly.

“They'd jump to the worst possible conclusion about that night. I don't want that any more than you do, Felicia, although for a different reason. A woman in Helena's physical condition never feels very secure about her husband, no matter how faithful he is to her. A yarn like this …” Carroll set his jaw. “I love Helena, but I may have no choice. I'm no storybook hero, Felicia. I'm facing the possibility of the electric chair. That alibi is my life-insurance policy. I wouldn't be any good to Helena and the children dead.”

“Crucified,” Felicia Hunt said bitterly. “I'd be crucified! I won't do it.”

“You've got to.”

“I won't! You can't make me!”

“If I have to, I will.”

Murder glittered from her black eyes. But Carroll did not flinch, and after a moment the glitter flickered and she turned away.

“What do you want me to do?”

“I've typed out a statement. At the moment, all you have to do is sign it. I've brought a man with me to notarize your signature; he's downstairs. He has no idea what kind of document it is. I'll lock it in my safe at the office. Don't look at me that way, Felicia. I've got to protect myself now. You ought to be able to understand that.”

She said venomously, “Go call your damned notary,” and jumped off the divan.

“You'd better read the statement first.”

Carroll took a long manila envelope from his briefcase. It was unsealed, bound with a red rubber band. He removed the rubber band, opened the envelope, and took from it a folded sheet of typewriter paper. He unfolded it and handed it to her.

She read it carefully, twice. Then she laughed and handed it back.

“Pig.”

Carroll opened the door, paper in hand. “Mr. Rudin? Would you come up now, please?”

The notary appeared, mopping his pink scalp. In the other hand he clutched the leather case. He sneaked a glance at Felicia's frank figure and immediately looked away.

“This is Mrs. Felicia de los Santos Hunt, widow of the late Meredith Hunt,” Carroll said. “Do you need proof of her identity?”

“I've seen Mrs. Hunt's picture in the papers.” Rudin had a pink sort of voice, too. He opened his case and spread out on the escritoire an ink pad, several rubber stamps, and a notary's seal. From his breast pocket he produced a fountain pen as big as a cigar. “Now,” he said. “We're all set.”

Carroll laid the statement, folded except for the bottom section, on the escritoire. He kept his hand on the fold. Felicia snatched the pen from the notary and signed her name in a vicious scrawl.

When the notary was finished, Carroll slipped the paper into the manila envelope, put the red rubber band around it, and stowed the envelope in his briefcase. He rezipped the case.

“I'll see you out, Rudin.”

They passed Serafina on the stairs; she was wiping the banister with a damp cloth and she did not look at them.

In the foyer Carroll gave the little man a ten-dollar bill, relocked the street door behind him, and returned upstairs. Serafina would not give an inch; he had to walk around her.

Her mistress was lying on the divan, also turned away from him. Goya's Duchess, Carroll thought, rear view. He could hear the Indian slamming things around on the stairs.

“Thanks, Felicia.” He grinned at the swelling rump. “You've saved my life.”

She did not reply.

“I promise I won't use the statement except as a last resort.”

When she continued to ignore him, Carroll picked up his briefcase and left.

Carroll surrendered himself to the Court on the morning of the second Monday in October. In the battlefield of TV reporters, photographers, and legmen, through the log-jammed corridor, in the courtroom itself, the only thing he could think of was where the summer had gone. July, August, September seemed never to have existed. Certainly they did not occupy the same space-time as the nightmare he found himself in.

The nightmare shuttled fast, a disconnected sequence of pictures like random frames from a film. The group face of the panel, one compound jury eye and mouth, the whispering of shoes, mysterious palavers before the bench of the black-robed man suspended in midair—opening statements, questions, answers, gavels, objections … Suddenly it was Wednesday evening and Carroll was back in his cell.

He felt a childish impulse to laugh aloud and choked it off

He must have dozed, for the next thing he knew, Tully West was peering down at him as from a great height, and behind Tully West loomed a familiar figure. Carroll could not remember the cell door's opening or closing.

He sat up quickly.

“John, you remember Ellery Queen,” said West.

Carroll nodded. “You fellows are doing quite a job on me, Queen.”

“Not me,” Ellery said. “I'm strictly ground observer corps.”

“One of the few advantages of being in my position is that a man can be blunt,” Carroll said. “What do you want?”

“Satisfaction,” Ellery said. “I'm not getting it.”

Carroll glanced at his partner. “What's this, Tully?”

“Queen came to me after the session today and expressed interest in your case.” West managed a smile. “It struck me, John, this might be a nice time to encourage him.”

Carroll rested his head against the cell wall. For days part of his mind had been projecting itself into the execution chamber at Sing Sing, and another part had counterattacked with thoughts of Helena and Breckie and Louanne. He took Helena and the children to sleep with him for sheer self-preservation.

“What is it you're not satisfied about?”

“That you shot Hunt.”

“Thanks,” Carroll said and laughed. “Too bad you're not on the jury.”

“Yes,” Ellery said. “But then I don't have the respectful jury mind. I'm not saying you didn't shoot Hunt; I'm just not convinced. Something about this case has bothered me from the start. Something about you, in fact. I wish you'd clear it up, if not for my sake then for yours. It's later than you apparently think.”

Carroll said very carefully, “How bad is it?”

“As bad as it can be.”

“I've told Queen the whole story, John.” West's urbanity was gone; he even did a little semaphore work with his long arms. “And I may as well tell you that Rayfield holds out very little hope. He says today's testimony of the night man at the office building was very damaging.”

“How could it be?” Carroll cried. “He admitted himself he couldn't positively identify as me whoever it was he let into the building that night. It wasn't me, Tully. It was somebody who deliberately tried to look like me—coat and hat like mine, my stumpy walk from that leg wound on Leyte, easily imitated things like that. And then the guy lets himself into our office and swipes my gun. I should think even a child would see I'm being had!”

“Where would a stranger get a key to your office?” Ellery asked.

“How do I know? How do I know he was even a stranger?”

After a while Carroll became conscious of the silence. He looked up angrily.

“You don't believe me. Actually, neither of you believes me.”

West said, “It's not that, John,” unhappily, and began to pace off the cell.

“Look,” Ellery said. “West tells me you've hinted at certain important information that for some unimaginable reason you've been holding back. If it can do anything to clear you, Carroll, I'd advise you to toss it into the pot right now.”

A prisoner shouted somewhere. West stopped in his tracks. Carroll put his head between his hands.

“I did something that Friday night that can clear me, yes.

“What!” West cried.

“But it's open to all sorts of misinterpretation, chiefly nasty.”

“Nastier than the execution chamber at Sing Sing?” Ellery murmured.

West said, “A woman,” with a remote distaste.

“That's right, Tully.” Carroll did not look at Ellery, feeling vaguely offended at his indelicacy. “And I promised her I wouldn't use this except as a last resort. It wasn't for her sake, God knows. I've kept my mouth shut because of Helena. Helena loves me, but she's a woman, and a sick woman at that. If she shouldn't believe me …”

“Let me get this straight,” Ellery said. “You were with this other woman during the murder period? You can prove an alibi?”

“Yes.”

“And he keeps quiet about it!” West dropped to the steel bunk beside his friend. “John, how many kinds of idiot are you? Don't you have any faith in Helena at all? What happened? Who's the woman?”

“Felicia.”

“Oh,” West said.

“Mrs. Hunt?” Ellery said sharply.

“That's right. I wandered around in the rain that night trying to figure out how I was going to stop Meredith from disclosing that twenty-thousand-dollar lunacy and having me arrested. That's when I thought of Felicia. She'd always been able to get anything out of Meredith that she wanted. I phoned her from a pay station and asked if I couldn't come right over … I was pretty panicky, I guess …” His voice petered out.

“Well, well?” West muttered.

“She was still up, reading in bed. When I told her what it was about, she said to come. She let me in herself. The maid was asleep, I suppose—anyway, I didn't see Serafina.”

“And the time?” Ellery demanded.

“It was just about one
A
.
M
. when I got there. I left at four-thirty.” Carroll laughed. “Now you know why I've kept quiet about this. Can I expect my wife to believe that I spent three and a half hours in the middle of the night alone with Felicia in her bedroom—and she in a sheer nightgown and peekaboo negligee, by God!—just talking? And not getting anywhere, I might add.”

“Three and a half hours?” Ellery's brows were way up.

“Felicia didn't see any reason why she should save my neck. Charming character.” Carroll's shoulders sloped. “Well, I told you what it would sound like. I'm sure I'd doubt the story myself.”

“How much of the time did you have to fight for your honor?” West murmured. “If I didn't know John so well, Queen, I'd be skeptical, too. Felicia's had a mad thing for him. But he's always been allergic to her. I suppose, John, she was willing to make a deal that night?”

“Something like that.”

“One night of amour in return for her influence on dear Meredith in your behalf. Yes, that would be Felicia's steamy little libido at work. But Helena …” West frowned. “Quite a situation at that.”

Ellery said, “It will have to be risked. Carroll, will Mrs. Hunt support your alibi in court?”

“She'd find it pretty tough to deny her own signature. I had her sign a full statement before a notary.”

“Good. Where is the statement?”

“In my safe at the office. It's in a plain manila envelope, marked ‘Confidential' and bound around with a red rubber band.”

“I suggest you give West permission to open your safe, and I'd like to go along as security. Right now.”

Carroll bit his lip. Then, abruptly, he nodded.

“Do you know the combination, West?”

“Unless John's changed it. It's one of those letter-combination safes in which you can make the combination any word you want. John, is the combination word still ‘Helena'?”

“No. I've changed the damn thing four times this summer. The word is now ‘rescue.'”

“And that,” West said solemnly, “is sheer poetry. Well, John, if the open-sesame Queen lugs around in his wallet should work again in this Bastille, we'll be back here shortly.”

They were as good as West's word. Less than ninety minutes later the guard readmitted them to Carroll's cell. Ellery had the manila envelope in his hand. He tossed the envelope to the bunk.

“All right, Carroll, let's hear it.”

“You haven't opened it?”

“I'd rather you did that yourself.”

Carroll picked up the envelope. He slipped the red rubber band off and around his wrist and, with an effort, inserted his fingers into the envelope.

West said, “John. What's the matter?”

“Is this a gag?” Carroll's fingers kept clawing around in the envelope.

“Gag?”

“It's empty! The statement's not here!”

Ellery looked interested. He took the envelope from Carroll's frantic hand, squeezed it open, and peered inside. “When did you see the contents last?”

“I opened the safe several times this summer to make sure the envelope was still there, but I never thought to examine it. I just took it for granted …” Carroll sprang from the bunk. “Nobody could have got into that safe—nobody! Not even my secretary. Nobody knew the combination words!”

“John, John.” West was shaking him.

“But how in God's name … Unless the safe was broken into! Was it broken into, Queen?”

“No sign of it.”

“Then I don't understand!”

“One thing at a time.” Ellery took his other arm and they got him back on the bunk. “The loss isn't necessarily fatal, Carroll. All you have to do is make sure Mrs. Hunt takes the stand and repeats her statement under oath. She'd have been called to testify, anyway, once the written statement had been placed in evidence. Isn't that right, West?”

“Yes. I'll get hold of Felicia right off.”

Carroll was gnawing his fingernails. “Maybe she won't agree, Tully. Maybe …”

“She'll agree.” West sounded grim. “Queen, would you come with me? This is one interview I prefer an unbiased witness for. Keep your shirt on, John.”

They were back in Carroll's cell with the first grays of dawn. Carroll, who had dropped off to sleep, sat up stupidly. Then he jerked wide awake. His partner's monkish flesh had acquired a flabbiness he had never seen before. Carroll's glance darted to the tall shadow in the corner of the cell.