Ellery Queen - Cat of Many Tails

“And there you are.” But then Ellery said in an altogether different tone, “Dad, come right home.”

“Home? I’m just starting my day, Ellery.”

“Come home.”

The Inspector dropped the phone and ran.

“What’s up?” Inspector Queen was breathing hard from his sprint up the stairs.

“Read these. They came in this morning’s mail.” The Inspector sat down slowly in the leather armchair. One envelope bore the brash imprint of the New York Extra, the address typewritten; the other was small, pinkish, and secretive-looking and it had been addressed by hand.

From the Extra envelope he took a slip of yellow scratch-pad paper.

DEAR E.Q. — What did you do, rip out your phone? Or are you looking for the Cat in Bechuanaland? I’ve been up to your place six times in the past couple of days and no answer. I’ve got to see you.

P.S. Known to the trade as “Jimmy Leggitt.” Leg-It, get it? Call me at the Extra.

“Monica McKell’s kid brother!”

“Read the other one.”

The notepaper of the second letter matched the envelope. This was elegance unaccustomed, a yearning after effect. The hand was hurried and a bit wretched.

DEAR MR. QUEEN,

I have been trying to reach you by telephone ever since the radio announced your appointment as Special Investigator of the Cat murders.

Can you possibly see me? This is not an attempt to get your autograph. Please.

Sincerely,

“Simone Phillip’s sister.” The Inspector laid the two letters down on an endtable, carefully. “Going to see them?”

“Yes. I phoned the Phillips girl at her home and I reached McKell at his paper. They both sound pretty young. I’ve seen some of McKell’s stuff on the Cat cases under the name of Leggitt, but nothing that connected him personally with any of them. Did you know Leggitt and McKell were the same man?”

“No.” The Inspector seemed disturbed by his ignorance. “I’ve seen him, of course, but in the McKell home on Park Avenue. I suppose being a legman is the thing to do just now in his set. Did they say what they wanted?”

“Celeste Phillips said she’d rather tell me in person. I told McKell if it was an interview he was after for that ragbag he works for I’d heave him out on his ear, but he assured me it was personal.”

“Both in the same morning,” muttered the Inspector. “Did either mention the other?”

“No.”

“When are they due?”

“I violated a cardinal rule of the Manual. I’m seeing them at the same time. 11 o’clock.”

“Five of! I’ve got to shower, shave, and get into clean clothes.” The old man, hurrying to his bedroom, added over his shoulder, “Hold them here. By force, if you have to.”

When the refurbished man emerged, his son was gallantly applying the flame of a lighter to a cigaret held by two slim gloved fingers to two female lips of distinction. She was sleekly modish from her hairdo to her shoetips, but young — the New York woman as she would like to be, but not quite grown up to it. The Inspector had seen girls like her on Fifth Avenue in the late afternoons, alone and unapproachable, the healthy raw material of youth covered by a patina of chic. But she was never upper crust; there was no boredom in her. Vogue just graduated from Seventeen, and very beautiful.

The Inspector was confused. It was Celeste Phillips. But what had happened to her?

“Hello, Miss Phillips.” They shook hands; her grip was quick, withdrawing. She wasn’t expecting me, he thought; Ellery didn’t say I was home. “I almost didn’t recognize you.” It was incredible; less than two weeks. “Please sit down.”

Over her shoulder as she turned he glimpsed Ellery being quizzical. The Inspector recalled his description of Simone Phillip’s sister and he shrugged in reply. It was impossible to see this spick-and-span girl against the smeary background of the flat on 102nd Street. Yet she still lived there; Ellery had reached her there. Inspector Queen decided that it was the clothes. Probably borrowed for the occasion from that dress shop she models in, he thought. The rest was makeup. When she got home and returned the finery and washed her face she would be again the Cinderella he remembered. Or would she? He was really not so sure. The sunny shallows under her bright black eyes, which had replaced the purple deeps he remembered, would not blot off with a towel. And certain planes then in her face had... been buried with her sister?

By the pricking of my thumbs...

“Don’t let me interrupt anything,” said the Inspector with a smile.

“Oh, I was just telling Mr. Queen how impossible the apartment situation still is.” Her fingers were unclasping and reclasping the catch on her bag with a life of their own.

“You’re intending to move?” At the Inspector’s glance the fingers flew to a stop.

“As soon as I can find another place.”

“Yes, you’ll be starting a new life,” the Inspector nodded. “Most people do. In cases like this.” Then he said, “Did you get rid of the bed?”

“Oh, no. I sleep in it.” She said very quickly, “I’ve been sleeping on a cot for years. Simone’s bed is so comfortable. She’d want me to. And then... I’m not afraid of my sister, you see.”

“Well,” said Ellery. “That’s a good healthy attitude. Dad, I’d just about got round to the point of asking Miss Phillips why she wanted to see me.”

“I want to help, Mr. Queen.”’ She had a Vogue voice this morning, too. So careful.

“Help? In what way?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even...” She covered her distress with a Vogue smile. “I don’t understand it myself. Sometimes you feel you just have to do something. You don’t know why.”

“Why did you come, Miss Phillips?”

She twisted in the chair. But then she snapped forward and she was no longer a figure in a magazine but a very young woman stripped all but bare. “I pitied my sister terribly. She was a cripple in more ways than one. Anybody would be, chained to a bed so long. Absolutely helpless. I hated myself for not being a cripple, too. I always felt so guilty.

“How can I explain it?” she cried. “Simone wanted to live. She was, oh, greedy about it. She was interested in everything. I had to tell her how people in the streets looked, what the sky was like on a cloudy day, the garbage men, the lines of wash across the court. She kept the radio going from morning to night. She had to know all about the movie stars and the society people, who was getting married, who was getting divorced, who was having a baby. When I went out with some man, which wasn’t too often, I had to tell her what he said, how he said it — what his line was, the passes he made, how I felt about the icky phase of going out.

“And she hated me. She was jealous. When I came home from work I used to wipe the makeup off before I stepped into the house. I never... dressed or undressed in front of her if I could help it. Only — she’d make me. She seemed to like being jealous; she’d get a kick out of it.

“And then there were other times when she’d cry and I knew she loved me very much.

“She was right,” Celeste Phillips said in a hard voice. “There was no justice in her being a cripple. It was a punishment she didn’t deserve and she was determined not to give up. She wanted to live much more than I do. Much more.

“Killing her wasn’t — wasn’t fair.

“I want to help find the one who killed her. I don’t understand it and I can’t believe yet that it really happened to us — to her... I’ve got to be part of his punishment. I can’t just stand around doing nothing. I’m not afraid or kittenish or silly. Let me help, Mr. Queen. I’ll carry your briefcase, run errands, type letters, answer your phone — anything. Whatever you say. Whatever you think I can do.”