Эллери Куин - The Door Between

Inspector Queen was saying: “Miss MacClure.”

Eva glanced up. He was standing before her, smiling, and there was a man with an inky pad and some small sheets of marked paper beside him.

It had come. It had come! What was he saying? She tried desperately to concentrate.

“Now don’t be alarmed, Miss MacClure. This is going to be very helpful to us.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Terry Ring come out of the bedroom. The Inspector had come out of the bedroom, too. Eva sent one full glance at the brown man, and looked quickly away. He knew; the Inspector knew. No, the Inspector couldn’t; he didn’t have her fingerprints yet. But Terry Ring remembered what she had said about the bird and the stones. He knew.

“In your confused state,” said the Inspector, patting her shoulder, “you must have touched some things in the bedroom; and certainly you handled many objects in this room. We can discount this room, because you say no one went through it all the time you were in here. But the bedroom is important.”

“Yes,” said Eva stiffly.

“Now we have found some fingerprints in the bedroom — several different sets — and we must find out whose prints they are. We must find out which are Miss Leith’s, which are the Japanese woman’s, which are yours, and so on. What’s left over may be... You see?”

“What about mine?” asked the brown man, winking.

“Oh, we’ll take yours, too,” chuckled the Inspector. “Although I know darned well you didn’t leave any. I wouldn’t want you as a murderer.” They laughed together, heartily.

She held out her hands, trying to keep them from trembling, and the fingerprint man did things very swiftly with them. It was all over in an incredibly short time, and Eva stared at the ten inky patterns on the two sheets of marked paper.

“So those are my fingerprints,” she thought. It was all over. It was all over. She was so exhausted she could not even cry. She could only sit there and watch the little Inspector patter off with his men, and feel Terry Ring’s terrifying smile transfixing her from above.

Eva had just decided that she must never breathe a word about her handling of the scissors to anyone — not to Dick, not to Dr. MacClure, not even to Terry Ring. Perhaps he didn’t remember. Perhaps she hadn’t really got her fingerprints on the half-scissors at all. Perhaps no one would ever find out.

Then she heard the voice, and it was so welcome and so anxious and so warm with distress that it poured over Eva like a balm, soothing her and making her legs tremble with reaction.

Everything would be all right. Now everything must be all right. It was Dick. She needn’t worry any longer about Terry Ring or Inspector Queen or anyone.

She stretched her arms out to him and he dropped to the couch beside her, his handsome face puckered with worry and tenderness. She knew everyone was looking — Terry Ring, too; she saw him looking — but she didn’t care. She burrowed into Dr. Scott’s arms like a child, rubbing her nose on his chest.

“It’s all right, darling,” he was saying over and over. “Take it easy. It’s all right.”

“Oh, Dick,” she sighed, and burrowed some more. She was glad, inside, that Terry Ring was looking. She had her own man, now, to take care of her. He needn’t think he was almighty. This was her family, now, her very own. He was a stranger. She put up her face and kissed Dr. Scott. Terry Ring smiled.

The doctor sat crooning his song of reassurance over her and Eva felt peaceful. Nothing could go wrong now.

“For God’s sake, Eva, what happened?” whispered Dr. Scott at last. “I can’t believe it. It’s too damned unreal.”

It was not all right. Not any more. She had forgotten. She was a fool ever to have thought, even for a second, that her troubles were over. “What happened?” What happened? What happened was that she had lost Dick forever.

Eva sat up slowly. “Nothing, Dick. It’s just— Someone’s murdered Karen. Nothing at all!”

“You poor kid.” His doctor’s eyes were looking her over. “Why don’t you cry it out?” He seemed to feel that her calmness was unnatural. If he only knew!

“I’ve cried already. Don’t worry about me, Dick. I won’t make a fool of myself.”

“I want you to make a fool of yourself. You’ll feel better. You mustn’t forget, darling — there’s your father.”

Yes, thought Eva; there was Dr. MacClure. There was Dr. MacClure.

“You’ve got to be ready for him. This is going to be a terrible shock to him. When he comes, it’s you who’ll have to comfort him.”

“I know, Dick. I’ll be all right.”

“They’ve notified him already. I’ve been talking to that Inspector. They got the Panthia on the wire. He won’t be here before Wednesday morning... Eva.”

“Yes, Dick.”

“You aren’t listening.”

“Oh, I am, Dick, I am!”

“I don’t know what it was — something bothered me after you left, something made me restless and I couldn’t sleep. I thought I’d come down here and pick you up... Eva.”

“Yes, Dick.”

She felt his arms tighten about her. “I want you to do something for me. And for yourself.”

She pushed away a little, staring up into his eyes.

“I want you to marry me right away. To-night.”

Marry him! How she had wanted to this afternoon — how she wanted to now, this instant, without even getting up from the couch!

“Silly. We have no license.” How could she talk so calmly?

“To-morrow then. We’ll go down to City Hall to-morrow.”

“But—?”

“You can do it all in one. We’ll be married before your father gets back. Quietly... darling.”

Eva thought desperately. How tell him things had changed since the afternoon? He would want to know why. And she didn’t want ever to have to tell him. There was a noose around her neck. All it needed was someone — Inspector Queen, that huge and frightening Sergeant Velie — to come along and yank it tight. But if she married Dick now, the noose would tighten around his dear neck, too. She couldn’t drag him into her own troubles. The scandal, the papers, all the sucking leeches...

A voice said to her inside: “Tell him. Everything. He’ll understand. He’ll believe you. He’ll stand by you.”

But would he? After all, it did look black against her — if you knew the facts. But Terry Ring knew the facts, and he... But she was in his power, that was it. He had some axe of his own to grind. She was a pawn to him — he didn’t really believe her innocent. How could anyone? How could Dick, if he knew? It just wasn’t possible for anyone else to have killed Karen. Terry Ring had said so. It would be too much to expect even from a lover — perfect faith in the face of the most damning facts. And she would never be able to bear Dick’s standing by her if he thought her a murderess.

Everything was against her. That time she had had an argument with Karen... over what? She did not remember. But it was a bitter argument, and Elsie — Karen’s former white maid — had overheard. Of course they would dig up Elsie; they would dig up everyone who had ever been connected with Karen... Then there was the time — only a few months ago — when Dr. MacClure had had his understanding with Karen. Eva had been against it. Eva had always thought Karen strange. She had never liked Karen; everyone knew that. When you analysed it, there was too much shut-in about her, too much mystery, an air of hidden things; and hidden things were so often shameful. And Karen had known. They had always been polite to each other after the Leith-MacClure engagement was settled; but it had been a women’s politeness, sharp and acid underneath. Suppose they found—