Ellery Queen - Cat of Many Tails

“He’s had to play this one differently. Marilyn doesn’t go out to work, hasn’t a predictable routine. He’s probably too cagey to hang around here day after day hoping to catch a glimpse of her, so he had to use a trick to get a good look.”

“That’s... right, isn’t it. He didn’t know what Marilyn looked like.”

“Not since he spanked her rosy bottom,” said Jimmy. “Now can I have five minutes alone in this palatial hallway with my future wife? Before the bell tolls, Fairy Godfather, and I turn into a pumpkin.”

But Celeste said, “When do you think he’ll...”

“It won’t be long.” Ellery sounded remote. “Any night now, Celeste.”

And they were quiet.

“Well,” said Celeste at last.

Jimmy stirred.

“I’d better be getting back.”

“Keep checking the phone calls. And pay particular attention to Marilyn’s mail.”

“Right.”

“You’ve got to give me my five lousy minutes!” wailed Jimmy. Ellery stepped out into the street.

Inspector Queen came back before Jimmy and Celeste were finished in their hallway.

“Everything all right, Dad?”

“They’re scratching fleas.”

Afterwards, the three men went back to Headquarters. The latest word, delivered in Detective Goldberg’s 11 P.M. report, was that the Cazalises were entertaining a large number of people who had arrived in chauffeur-driven limousines. The party, Goldberg had said, was gay. Once, prowling in the court, he heard the boom of Cazalis’s laugh, accompanied by a chatter of crystal. “The doc,” Goldberg had said, “sounded just like Santa Claus.”

Friday. Saturday. Sunday.

And nothing.

The Queens were scarcely on speaking terms. Jimmy McKell found himself functioning as part peacemaker, part interpreter. He suffered the usual fate of middlemen; sometimes they both turned on him. He was beginning to wear a haunted look himself.

Even Sergeant Velie was antisocial. When he spoke at all it was in an animal growl.

Once an hour the telephone rang. Then they all leaped.

The messages varied, but their gist was the same.

Nothing.

They began to share a common loathing for the report room, which was only surpassed by their loathing for one another.

Then, on Monday, October 24, the Cat moved.

The announcement came from Detective MacGayn, who was Hesse’s partner on the regular day trick. MacGayn called only a few minutes after his hourly report, in considerable excitement, to say that their man was taking a powder. Several suitcases had just been carried out of the Cazalis apartment by the doorman. Hesse had overheard him instruct a taxi driver to wait as he had “some people going to Penn Station to catch a train.” Hesse was set to follow in another cab; MacGayn had run to phone in the news.

Inspector Queen instructed MacGayn to go immediately to Pennsylvania Station, locate Hesse and their man, and then wait at the 31st Street entrance nearest Seventh Avenue.

The squad car screamed uptown.

Once Ellery said angrily, “It isn’t possible. I don’t believe it. It’s a trick.”

Otherwise, there was no conversation.

On order, the driver cut his siren out at 23rd Street.

MacGayn was waiting for them. He had just found Hesse. Dr. and Mrs. Cazalis were standing in a crowd at the gate of a Florida train. They had been joined by Mr. and Mrs. Richardson. The gate was not yet open. Hesse was standing by.

They made their way cautiously into the station.

From the windows of the south waiting room MacGayn point out the Cazalis-Richardson group and, nearby, Hesse.

“Take Hesse’s place,” said Inspector Queen. “And send him here.”

Hesse walked in briskly a few moments later.

Ellery kept his eyes on Cazalis.

“What’s going on?” demanded the Inspector.

Hesse was worried. “I don’t know, Inspector. There’s something offbeat, but they’re a little in the clear out there and I can’t get close enough to listen in. His wife keeps arguing with him and he keeps smiling and shaking his head. The luggage has gone down. The Richardsons’, too.”

“Oh, so they’re also going,” said Ellery.

“Looks like it.”

He was not wearing Thursday’s disreputable topcoat. His coat looked new and fashionable, he wore a smart Homburg, a small ’mum in his lapel.

“If he ever wiggles out of this one,” remarked Jimmy McKell, “he can always make himself a tidy zloty by posing as a Man of Distinction.”

But Ellery muttered, “Florida.”

The gate opened and the crowd began squeezing through.

Inspector Queen seized Hesse’s arm. “Get down there after him and stick. Take MacGayn and if anything happens send him back up. We’ll be waiting at the gate.”

Hesse hurried away.

The gate had opened late; train-departure time, according to the figures posted above the gate, was only ten minutes off.

“It’s all right, Ellery,” said the Inspector. “They won’t pull out on time.” His tone was paternal.

Ellery looked wild.

They strolled out into the shed and mingled with the people gathering before a gate marked Philadelphia Express: Newark-Trenton-Philadelphia. The stairway to the Florida train was two gates away. They kept glancing from the gateway to the big clocks.

“I told you,” said the Inspector.

“But why Florida? Suddenly!”

“He’s called Operation Necktie off,” said Jimmy.

“No.”

“Don’t you want him to?”

“Who says he’s called it off?” Ellery scowled. “He’s given up on the Soames girl, granted. Spotted something Thursday, maybe. Or figured she was too tough. Or this might be a trick to put us off guard, if he suspects something. After all, we don’t know how much he knows. We don’t know anything!.. If he doesn’t suspect, this mean he’s gone on to somebody else—”

“Somebody who he found out is vacationing in Florida,” nodded Inspector Queen.

Jimmy said, “New York papers please copy. Dateline Miami, Palm Beach, or Sarasota. Cat Hits Florida.”

“It could be,” said Ellery. “But somehow I can’t get myself to believe it. It’s something else. Some other trick.”

“What do you need, diagrams? I’ll bet he’s got those silk cords in his bags. What are you waiting for?”

“We can’t chance it.” Inspector Queen looked dour. “We just can’t. If we have to we’ll work through the Florida locals. We’ll have him watched down there and set him up on his return to New York. It means doing the whole thing over again.”

“The hell it does! Not with Celeste, Old Sleuth. I can’t wait that long, see?”

And just then MacGayn came running out of the gateway making frantic signals. The trainman was looking at his watch.

“MacGayn—”

“Get back, he’s coming back up!”

“What?”

“He’s not going!”

They scuttled into the thick of the crowd.

Cazalis appeared.

Alone.

He was smiling.

He cut diagonally across the shed toward the corner marked Taxicabs with the happy stride of a man who has accomplished something.

Hesse shuffled after him studying a timetable.

As he walked he rubbed his left ear; and MacGayn wriggled through the crowd and began to saunter along behind.

When they got back to the report at Headquarters they found a message from MacGayn.

Their man had cabbed directly home.

Now they could look back on the four weeks just past and see what had undoubtedly happened. Cazalis had out-smarted himself. Ellery pointed out that in murdering his wife’s niece and insinuating himself into the Cat case as a psychiatric consultant Cazalis had seriously hobbled himself. He had not foreseen the demands on his time; he had failed to take into account the white light in which he would have to operate. Before his murder of Lenore Richardson he had had only to deceive a submissive, trusting wife; is semi-retirement, he had moved very nearly at will and in satisfactory shadows. But now he was crippled. He had made himself accountable to officialdom. He was linked with a board of fellow-psychiatrists. Colleagues were communicating with him about their patients. His failing health was causing Mrs. Cazalis to take sharper notice of his activities. And there was the little family matter involving the Richardsons which he could scarcely ignore.