The Scarlet Letters (14 page)

O· P· Q· R·

A new champion was crowned that night, but Ellery was not present at the coronation. He emerged from the Garden just as the gong inside whanged for round one and he got into a cab and went home.

He kept his hand on the envelope and the envelope in his pocket all the way.

He put on the lights and made sure the apartment door was locked and he sat down in the living room without bothering to take his hat off. He opened the envelope very carefully, and he took out what was in it.

It was a sheet of cheap yellow typewriter paper. There was nothing on the sheet but eight typewritten names. The names were all of women, and each name was followed by a date.

He read the list through three times. It was incredible. Of a piece with the incredibility of all the smart, cold-sighted, all-seeing newspapermen who knew nothing about any of this.

They were eight of the most prominent women in New York. Their likenesses were standard inclusions in the fifty-cent magazines. Their names regularly decorated the letterheads of charity fund drives. They were invariably photographed in their ermines and sables and diamond tiaras at the opening of the Metropolitan Opera season. The Horse Show could not go on without them. They owned estates in Newport and Palm Beach and the Basses-Pyrénées. The combined wealth of their husbands and their families could be reckoned not in millions but in hundreds of millions.

And to each of these women, Van Harrison had peddled romance in a private sale.

Ellery thought of what the publication of these eight names in the pertinent context of paid love would mean, and he winced. It would make the dirtiest splash in the history of New York society. Not that he held New York society in special esteem, but it had always seemed to Ellery that the great beauty of the American way was that, under it, even society people had rights. Children would be involved, and teenagers in finishing schools, and innocent relatives on their yachts and at their hundred per cent white Protestant American clubs. Not to mention husbands.

He wondered which of the eight was the woman who, by merely existing, had tied the hands of Leon Fields. Then he knew that for a silly speculation. The answer was: None. There had been nine Juliets in Van Harrison's personal stock company, and Fields had protected the ninth even from Ellery by the simple expedient of leaving her out. A gap in the dates was confirmation.

When Inspector Queen, still wild-eyed, came home from the theater where he had viewed the championship fight on the television pipeline, he found Ellery already in bed, reading manuscripts.

“What a fight,” the Inspector said, bouncing and sparring. “How'd you like it, son? Talk about Dempsey-Tunney or the second Louis-Schmeling slaughter! Ever see anything like this brawl?”

“Who won?” asked Ellery, glancing up from the page. And he felt under his pillow for the dozenth time since he had got into bed, to make sure the yellow paper was still there.

It took him almost a week–while Martha met Harrison at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central for one of their shortest rendezvous–to arrange an interview with Mrs. P—. In the process Ellery discovered how difficult it is for anyone not a feature writer or an advertising representative bearing a cigaret testimonial contract to see a leader of society. He was unable to penetrate the defenses of the social secretary, a young woman with a voice like confectionery sugar and a will as durable as the Chinese Wall. If Mr. Queen wished to see Mrs. P—, might one inquire just what Mr. Queen wished to see Mrs. P— about? Mr. Queen was sorry, but his business with Mrs. P— could not be communicated to anyone else. No, it did not involve a charity, even though he quite appreciated how happy Mrs. P— would be to receive a solicitation through the customary channels. But this involved a confidential matter. Might one inquire the nature of this confidential matter? One might, but if one were answered, the matter would no longer be confidential. Of course. Obviously. Then the sensible solution was for Mr. Queen to write Mrs. P— a letter. If Mr. Queen wrote Mrs. P— a letter, would it be necessary to state the nature of the confidential matter? Oh, yes, that would be necessary. Did Mrs. P— open her own mail? Oh, no, all correspondence was opened by the social secretary. But if the letter were marked “Personal”? Most letters were marked “Personal.” Then what was Mr. Queen's course? To disclose the nature of the confidential matter.

At this point Mr. Queen made an impolite sound.

“We seem to have arrived at an impasse,” said the social secretary sweetly. “I'm
so
sorry. Goodbye.”

In the next three days–during which his notebook dutifully recorded a meeting of the lovers at the information desk of Pennsylvania Station–Ellery tried variations on the direct approach. At a great toll in energy and ingenuity, he discovered Mrs. P—'s agenda for a certain afternoon. He followed her from appointment to appointment, looking for any slit of an opening. But members of the higher echelons of society apparently were never alone except when they went to the bathroom, and as the day wore on Ellery began to wonder if even that was true. In the end he was grabbed by a precinct detective, who had been dispatched at the call of Mrs. P—'s chauffeur. It took Ellery forty-five minutes in a dingy stationhouse, and a call to Police Headquarters, to convince the desk sergeant that he was not Lightfingered Louie, the Terror of Park Avenue.

Ellery solved the problem at a stroke–one of those inspirations which distinguish the truly great from the ordinary mortal. He spent the fourth day rummaging in secondhand bookshops in the Times Square district. Finding what he was looking for at the end of the afternoon, he scribbled his name and telephone number on it, enclosed it in an envelope, addressed the envelope to Mrs. P— at her Park Avenue address, and mailed it at the West 43rd Street post office. It was a tattered, foxed old theater program of William Shakespeare's
Romeo and Juliet
, starring Mr. Van Harrison.

The next morning Ellery remained sensibly at home, but within reach of the phone.

The call came at eleven o'clock, which Ellery assumed was a few minutes past Mrs. P—'s rising hour.

“Mr. Queen?” asked the sugary voice, glacéed o'er with mystification.

“Yes?” said Mr. Queen courteously.

“This is Mrs. P—'s secretary speaking. Mrs. P— will see you at four o'clock this afternoon.”

Mrs. P— was far handsomer than her photographs which always attempted to make her look ten years younger than she was and always succeeded in making her look ten years older. In life she was a striking woman of middle age with vigorous flesh and a very youthful eye, which as Ellery was ushered into her triplex apartment began to snap like a new-laid fire.

She received him in her famous drawing room, which had been reproduced in four colors on a double spread in
Life.

“I'm not to be disturbed,” she said to the butler, and when the butler closed the door she locked it and tucked the key in her bosom. Then she turned, and she said, “Well?” Her voice was iced, and there was no apprehension in it, just a distant contempt.

“I take it,” said Ellery, “that the playbill I sent you, Mrs. P—, had considerable meaning for you?”

She said again: “Well?”

“Believe me, I understand your position. You had to see me, but you don't know how much I know. Mrs. P—,” said Ellery gently, “I know it all.”

“How much?” asked Mrs. P—, and now the contempt in her voice was not distant at all.

“This interview is going to cost you a great deal, Mrs. P—.”

And Mrs. P— said again: “How much?”

“It's going to cost you all the courage you possess.”

Mrs. P— looked at him, long and hard. Some of the fire went out of her eyes then, and they became obscured behind a smoky bewilderment.

“Sit down, please. No, in this chair, facing me. What
is
your name?”

“Queen.”

“I don't believe–” she began doubtfully.

“Ellery Queen.”

“Have we ever met?”

“No, Mrs. P—. I'm a writer of detective stories.”

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I have no time to read. A writer of detective stories? I don't understand.”

“I'm here in a quite different capacity. My father is connected with the New York police–”

“Police!” She stiffened.

“Don't be alarmed. I sometimes work on a criminal case. It may be in the course of the regular police investigation, or it may be in a private inquiry. I don't accept fees; I'm strictly an amateur. I work on two kinds of cases: those that interest me for their technical difficulty, or those that arouse my indignation. The case I'm currently engaged in investigating, Mrs. P—, is a peculiar combination of both. My indignation is at the boiling point, and the technical feature of the case consists in the fact that I'm trying, not to solve a crime, but to prevent one.”

Her eyes did not leave his face all the while he spoke. But when he had finished they wavered, and she asked in a careful voice, “How does all this concern me?”

“You could help me rid society of a dangerous pest and perhaps save a life. Two lives.”

And now her eyes steadied again. “And exactly how,” she asked, “would I do that?”

“By charging Van Harrison with extortion and seeing that he pays the penalty for his crime.” Ellery went on before she could reply. “I'm entirely aware of the thoughts that must be going through your mind. You see the spectacle of yourself hounded by reporters and cameramen, held up to public ridicule, disgraced in the eyes of your family, dropped by your friends, and–most important–the object of your husband's bitterness and anger. You see scandal and divorce. In other words, you see your life wrecked, and you probably think me insane to believe you would agree to collaborate in your own ruin.

“But Mrs. P—, none of that would be necessary. You must have heard of the famous Madame X case. I think it may be possible for your name never to appear. No one will ever know your identity as the complainant except possibly the presiding justice, whose discretion I'm sure you wouldn't question.

“No, before you say anything,” Ellery went on, “I think you ought to know, at least in general terms, where my interest lies. It's a personal one. I have two friends, and they're married to each other. They're relatively young, bright, nice, and until recently at least very much in love. There's been only one complication in their married life until a short time ago. The husband suffers from a jealousy complex. He's been trying hard to overcome it. Of course, there have been difficult times because of it. But, given time and their attachment to each other, plus intelligence of a high order on both sides, they would have straightened out their lives.

“Unfortunately, just at the wrong time, along came this man Harrison. The woman in the case has independent means–she's wealthy. He seduced her. I have reason to believe, quite aside from what I know of his former relationship with … you, let us say, that he charmed her into this affair simply for the money he could get out of her.

“They have been meeting frequently and clandestinely for some time now. I'm convinced that the woman regrets her mistake and that she would like to terminate the relationship, but fear that Harrison might tell her husband about it in retaliation or, more characteristically, see that it got to his ears through someone else, is immobilizing her.

“She's in a really desperate spot, Mrs. P—. If her husband, with his jealousy phobia, should find out, there will almost certainly be a tragedy. At best it would result in the complete ruin of two lives well worth saving, at the worst in murder.

“Harrison is a criminal. He's far more of a thief than the man who burgles your safe, far more of a menace to society than the gangster who shoots to kill. He ought to be put where he can't prey on women and wreck lives like a drunken driver on a crowded street. You have it in your power to see this done. Your friendship with Van Harrison came to an end only a few months ago.

“There's very little time left to my friend, the wife. Her husband is beginning to sense what's going on. Once it takes full hold, he won't sleep until he finds out everything.

“If you prosecute Harrison now, it will take him out of circulation. He will hardly talk about one woman when he is trying to defend himself against the charge of having extorted money from another with whom he had the identical relationship.

“That's my case, Mrs. P—, presented,” Ellery said wryly, “by a sort of
amicus curiae
in the interest of common decency. Will you do it?”

Mrs. P— had been listening quietly, with no expression on her face except attentiveness. When Ellery had finished, she smiled.

“What makes you think he extorted money from me?”

“I beg your pardon?” said Ellery.

“And why do you say,” continued Mrs. P—, “that he seduced your friend's wife? I don't think you know much about women, Mr. Queen. If my case was a criterion, your friend's wife went into it with both eyes wide open. Very few women over the age of twenty-one in this year of grace are seduced. Van is giving her something she apparently hasn't got from her husband–the excitement of knowing that she's the only woman alive. He has that faculty, Mr. Queen. In a real sense, it can't even be called false. He's a great actor and, amusing as it must sound, he lives his roles. I consider myself a lucky woman to have known him.

“As for his wrecking lives, again I have only my case to go on. He didn't wreck my life, Mr. Queen, he enriched it. If this woman's life is wrecked, it will be her fault, not Van's. She knew her husband was emotionally unstable when she agreed to have the affair. If anything happens now, she'll have brought it on herself. It's Van I feel sorry for, not her.

“Van extorted nothing from me. The money I gave him was given freely, as a gift. If he were the criminal you make him out to be, he'd have tried to blackmail me afterward. He hasn't done so. Perhaps it's because he's too clever, or because he can always find another woman, I don't know. But the fact remains he's taken nothing from me that I wasn't willing to give. If I have any regret at all, it's that our affair didn't last longer. We stopped it by mutual consent because it was growing dangerous. If I thought it could be resumed with safety tomorrow–and Van were willing–I'd be the happiest woman in the world.