Эллери Куин - Blow Hot, Blow Cold

“Are you brazenly confessing that you and Stanley were alone in the alley in the middle of the night?” Mae Walters cried.

“Yes, Mae,” Nancy said. “I suppose I’d better confess everything. I said we only smoked and talked, but... wow-ee! It was love among the garbage cans, that’s what it was. I’m sorry, David, but Stanley simply swept me off my feet.”

“That’s all right,” David said. “Everyone is entitled to a little adultery now and then.”

“Oh, now, that’s too much!” Stanley protested. “You know perfectly well, David, that nothing like that happened at all. Honestly , Mae.”

“Didn’t it?” said Mae. “I’ll have to think about it for a while.”

“Please let’s stop horsing around,” Masters said. “Mrs. Howell, what time was it when you saw Larry Connor leaving his house?”

“I can’t say exactly, but it must have been around midnight. We came home from the party about eleven, and David and I discussed a number of things, and then David went to sleep and I went outside. I sat on the front steps for a while, and after that walked down as far as the Connors’ drive. It was then that the garage door opened suddenly and Larry backed out in his car.”

“You spoke to him?”

“Yes.”

“Did he sound upset?”

“He only sounded sad. He said what a nice night it was, with the stars and all, and that he was going downtown to sleep in his office. He said he hoped I’d remember what he’d told me at the party about him and Lila, because he wanted me to know the truth.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes.”

“And I believe you said you drove down to his office this afternoon to try to find him?”

“That’s right. David and Jack had gone off to play golf, and I had nothing to do. So I went to Larry’s office. The front and back doors were both locked, and I got no answer to my knocks. As I told you, however, his car was parked in the little space off the alley. I assumed that he had walked off some place close. Now, I admit, Lieutenant, I doubt it.”

“So do I. It’s queer about the car, though. If he was running, why didn’t he take it?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. Perhaps you can find out.”

Masters turned to Jack Richmond. “Now you, Doctor. Did you go to bed immediately?”

“No such luck,” Jack said. “I was called out on a maternity case. A little past one A.M., it was. It turned out the patient’s labor was prolonged, and I spent a couple of hours at the hospital waiting until I could deliver her. When I got home again I flopped into bed. I’m afraid I noticed nothing here to excite my curiosity, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“It is. Thanks.”

The coroner came around the corner of the house, followed by two policemen, one in plainclothes, the other in uniform. Masters went to intercept them. Then he returned to the terrace. The officials went into the house.

“That’s all for now,” Masters said. “You folks have had a rough time. You’d better go on home.”

He turned away at once and followed the coroner and the two police officers, presenting a rear view that would have instilled neither confidence in the innocent nor alarm in the guilty.

He left an hour later, with the coroner already gone and the pair of policemen winding up their work and securing the house. Evening of the long summer’s day was drawing to a close, and Masters drove the short distance downtown with his headlights turned on. He made for the business block that housed Larry Connor’s accounting office, turned into the alley behind it, and parked in the small area where Larry Connor’s Buick still stood.

He got out of his car and went over to the Buick. The windows were rolled up and the four doors locked. He peered through the front window on the driver’s side, but everything seemed normal. On the shelf formed by the top of the dash lay an open box of Kleenex, one of the tissues protruding from the slot. On the front seat beside the wheel was a crumpled cigaret pack. Nothing else.

Masters straightened, wincing at the stab of one of the minor back pains he had developed with the years, and walked over to the rear door of the building. It was locked, as reported. He trudged around, via the alley and the side streets, to the street door and tried it. Locked, all right. The lock looked capable. It would not open to any of the keys he carried, and breaking down the door seemed an arbitrary exercise of the police power. The landlord of the building would have a key, and Masters happened to know who he was. He went across the street to the hotel and used one of the public phones in the lobby.

The owner, whose name was Beyer, sounded unhappy on hearing Masters’s request. But he agreed to come right over.

“Come to the alley door,” Masters said.

He bought a ten-cent cigar before returning to his post. He did not light the cigar. He chewed it ruminatively, like a cow, as he leaned against a front fender of his car and waited. Beyer arrived with his keys in twenty minutes.

“Exactly what’s the reason for this, Lieutenant?”

“Mr. Connor came here last night,” Masters said. “His car is still parked here, as you can see. But he hasn’t been seen since. We thought it might be a good idea to look into it.”

“I don’t like to trespass on the business premises of my tenants.”

“I won’t disturb anything without cause.”

Beyer unlocked the door and stepped aside to let Masters go in first. Standing quietly in heat and stuffy darkness for a moment, Masters could hear nothing but Beyer’s breathing, and see nothing but a vaguely bulky object ahead of him.

“There’s a light switch on the wall beside the door,” Beyers said. “To your left.”

Masters groped for it. A pair of fluorescent tubes flickered and came alive near the ceiling. He was standing in a small cluttered room containing several large cartons and, lined against a wall, three metal filing cabinets. Obviously a storeroom for old records on their way to retirement. Ahead of him, in the wall he was facing, was a door with a pane of frosted glass.

“What’s the layout here?” Masters said.

“Three rooms in a row, back to front,” Beyer said. “The one past that glass door, the middle one, is Mr. Connor’s private office. Beyond that, just off the street, is a reception room where his secretary has her desk.”

“I see.”

Masters was now aware of a reluctance that savored almost of dread. He did not want to open the frosted glass door, which clearly he must. He found himself delaying the act, looking deliberately around the storeroom, into the cartons and filing cabinets. Finally he took himself in hand and opened the door. It swung inward, propelling a trail of light from the storeroom that picked out of the darkness the corner of a desk and the back of a chair beyond it. Masters reached in and found a switch, and a brilliant fluorescent ceiling fixture fluttered on, and in its light Masters saw what he had expected and dreaded.

“You don’t have to stay any longer,” he said to Beyer. “Just leave me your master key. We’ll take over here.”

“Why? What do you mean?” the man asked nervously.

Beyer peered over Masters’s shoulder. He fell back with a gasp.

“Mr. Connor appears to be dead,” Masters said. “That is Connor, isn’t it?”

“My God, yes! But how did it happen, Lieutenant?”

“Looks like a suicide.”

“This is terrible! Such a fine young fellow! Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Yes, Mr. Beyer. You can clear out and let me get to work.”

He gently shut the communicating door to the storeroom in Beyer’s face. After a moment he heard the man leave by the alley door.