Ellery Queen - Cat of Many Tails

Until a quarter of 10.

Then he went home.

“Why didn’t you jump him?” cried Jimmy McKell. “And end this Grand Guignol? You’d have found a cord in his pocket!”

“Maybe we would and maybe we wouldn’t,” said the Inspector. “He’s trying to fix her habits. This may go on for a couple of weeks. She’s a toughie for him.”

“He’d certainly have one of those cords on him!”

“We can’t be sure. We’ll just have to wait. Anyway, an actual attack will put him away. A cord might slip. We can’t risk anything.” Jimmy heard Ellery’s teeth grinding.

Cazalis prowled about the neighborhood all day Wednesday; with the night, he settled down in the doorway across the street again.

But at ten minutes to 10 he left.

“He must be wondering if she ever leaves the house,” said the Inspector that night, when Celeste reported.

“I’m beginning to wonder myself,” rapped Ellery. “Celeste, what the devil is Marilyn doing?”

“Working.” Celeste sounded muffled. “On a rush job for one of her playwright customers. She says she won’t be finished with it till Saturday or Sunday.”

“He’ll go nuts,” said the McKell voice.

No one laughed, least of all the quipster.

Their nightly meetings in the dark had taken on the weightless flow of dreams. Nothing was real but the unreality they watched. They were conscious only occasionally that the City ground and grumbled somewhere below. Life was buried under their feet; they marked time above it, a treadmill experience.

On Thursday he repeated himself. Only this time he gave up at two minutes past 10.

“Later each night.”

Jimmy was fretful. “At this rate, Ellery, he’ll be seeing Celeste leave the house. I won’t have that.”

“He’s not after me, Jimmy.” Celeste was sounding shrill.

“It’s not that,” said Ellery. “It’s the regularity. If he spots Celeste coming out every night at the same time, he may get curious.”

“We’d better change the time, son.”

“Let’s do it this way: Celeste, those third-floor windows are in the Soameses’ front room, aren’t they? The room where Stanley is?”

“Yes.”

“From now on don’t leave until 10:15, and then only under certain conditions. Is your wristwatch accurate?”

“It keeps very good time.”

“Let’s synchronize.” Ellery struck a match. “I have 10:26 exactly.”

“I’m about a minute and a half off.”

He struck another match. “Fix it.” When she did, he said, “From now on be at one of those front windows every night between 10:10 and 10:15. We’ll meet you, starting tomorrow night, somewhere along First Avenue in the immediate neighborhood — tomorrow night let’s make it in front of that empty store near the corner of 30th.”

“We met there Sunday night.”

“Yes. If between 10:10 and 10:15 you see a light flash three times from one of the doorways or alleys across from 486 — we’ll use a pocket pencil flash — that will mean Cazalis has left for the night and you can come down and make your report. If you see no signal, stay upstairs. It will mean he’s still around. If he should leave between 10:10 and 10:25 you’ll get the signal between 10:25 and 10:30. If there’s no signal is those five minutes, he’ll still be around; stay put. We’ll operate on the same system till he leaves. Watch for a signal every fifteen minutes. All night if necessary.”

By MacGayn’s 5 P.M. report Friday Cazalis had still not left his apartment. It puzzled them. He did not leave until dusk. Friday night it was necessary to keep Celeste waiting until 11:15. Ellery flashed the signal himself and trailed her to the rendezvous.

“I thought that flash would never come.” Celeste was white. “He’s gone?”

“Gave up a few minutes ago.”

“I tried to get a call in all afternoon and evening but Stanley was demanding and fidgety today — he’s much better — and Marilyn stuck to her typewriter... He phoned a little after 1 P.M.”

They pressed around her in the dark.

“Paul Nostrum again. Apologized for having stood her up at the Astor, said he was taken sick suddenly and that he’s been laid up till today. He wanted her to meet him... tonight.” Celeste was trying to sound steady. “I’ve been leaping.”

“What did Marilyn say to him?”

“She refused. Said she was all tied up on a special piece of work and he’d have to get somebody else. Then he tried to date her.”

“Go on!” Inspector Queen’s voice was shaky.

“She just laughed and hung up.”

Jimmy drew her away.

“He’s getting impatient, Dad.”

“That maid of his comes back Monday.”

They milled a little.

“Celeste.”

Celeste came back, Jimmy protesting.

“How much did she actually tell him about the work she’s doing?”

“She said she couldn’t possibly be finished before tomorrow night, probably Sunday, and then she’d have to deliver it—” Celeste caught her breath. Then she said in the queerest way, “Deliver it. She did say...”

“This weekend,” said Ellery.

The Saturday sky was overcast; a glum rain fell intermittently on the City all day. It stopped at dusk and a fog settled over the streets.

The Inspector cursed and passed the word around: he did not consider an act of God sufficient for failure to keep their man covered. “If necessary, take chances. But stick with him.” He added, gratuitously: “Or else.”

It was a bad day.

The whole day was bad. During the morning Detective Hesse was seized with cramps. MacGayn put in a hurry call. “Hesse has to knock off. He’s writhing. Step on it, he’s all alone over there.” By the time Hagstrom reached Park Avenue MacGayn was gone. “I don’t know where,” gasped Hesse. “Cazalis came out at 11:05 and walked off toward Madison, MacGayn covering him. Put me in a cab before I foul myself up.” It took Hagstrom over an hour to locate MacGayn and his quarry. Cazalis had merely gone to a restaurant. He returned to his apartment immediately afterward.

But a little past 2 found Cazalis leaving in his working clothes, by way of the court. He headed for East 29th Street.

Then, shortly before 4 o’clock, Marilyn Soames walked out of 486. Celeste Phillips was with her.

The two girls hurried west on 29th Street.

The fog had not yet come down; it was still drizzling. But the sky was threatening to black out.

Visibility was poor.

Cazalis moved. He moved in a glide, very rapidly. His hands were in his pockets. He kept to the opposite side of the street. MacGayn, Hagstrom, Quigley, the Queens, Jimmy McKell followed. Singly, in pairs.

Jimmy kept mumbling. “Is Celeste out of her mind? The fool, the fool.”

The Inspector was mumbling, too. A rather stronger characterization.

They could see Cazalis’s rage. It told in his pace. He would lunge ahead, then walk, then trot, then come to a dead stop. As he followed the girls his head thrust itself forward.

“Like a cat,” said Ellery. “There’s the Cat.”

“She’s out of her mind,” whispered Jimmy.

“She’s out of her mind!” Inspector Queen was close to tears. “We set him up — we set him up all this time. His tongue is hanging out. He’d have tried it in this bad light sure. And she...”

The girls turned into Third Avenue and entered a stationery store. The man in the store began wrapping reams of paper, other articles.

It was growing quite dark.

Cazalis was beyond caution. He stood eagerly in the rain on one of the corners of Third Avenue and 29th Street before a drugstore window. The lights came on as he stood there, but he did not move.

The head was still thrust forward.

Ellery had to hang on to Jimmy’s arm.