Inspector Queen’s Own Case

When she came out with him, Alton Humffrey was alone in the nursery watching the bottle in the electric warmer.

“Is Michael all right?” he asked abruptly.

“He’s fine, Mr. Humffrey.”

“You’re sure it was a man?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Nothing familiar about him?” His tone was odd.

“I really can’t say,” Jessie said quietly. “I didn’t see his face at all, and the rest of him was just a black silhouette against the moonlight. Mr. Humffrey, I don’t think it was a housebreaker.”

“You don’t?” He glanced at her sharply.

“Why should a housebreaker try to enter through an upper window? The windows aren’t locked downstairs.”

Alton Humffrey did not reply. Jessie took the bottle from the warmer, sat down in the rocker, and began to feed the baby.

“Mr. Humffrey?” It was Cullum, from below.

Humffrey strode to the window. “Yes?”

“No sign of a soul,” the chauffeur said. Stallings, beside him, nodded.

“You two had better get some clothes on and stay out there for a while.” He put the nursery screen with the animal cutouts on it before the window. Jessie noticed how careful he was not to touch the window.

When he turned back his brow was all knots.

“Don’t you think you’d better call the police, Mr. Humffrey?” Jessie murmured.

“Yes,” he said.

The telephone rang on the other side of the flimsy wall and the old man was instantly awake. He heard Abe Pearl’s sleepy growl say, “Yes?” and then, not sleepily at all, “I’ll go right over. Have Tinny and Borcher meet me there.”

When Chief Pearl let himself out of his bedroom, there was the old man in the hall in his robe, waiting.

“Dick. What are you doing up?”

“I heard the phone, Abe. Trouble?”

“Something funny over on Nair Island,” the big man grunted. “Maybe you’d like to sit in on it.”

“Nair Island,” Richard Queen said. “What kind of trouble?”

“Somebody tried to break into one of those millionaires’ homes. Kid’s nursery. Might be a snatch try.”

“It wouldn’t be at the Humffreys’, would it?”

“That’s right.” Abe Pearl stared.

“Anybody hurt?”

“No, he was scared off. But how did you know, Dick?”

“I’ll be with you in three minutes.”

The Humffrey house was lit up. They found one of Abe Pearl’s men examining the ladder in the driveway and another in the nursery talking to Humffrey and the nurse. The screen was around the crib now, and Sarah Humffrey was in the rocker, gnawing her lips but quieted down.

The old man and Jessie Sherwood glanced at each other once, then looked away. He remained in the background, listening, looking around. Her color was high, and she drew her robe more closely about her. It would have to be the cotton nightgown tonight! she thought. Why didn’t I wash out the orlon?

When they had repeated their stories, Chief Pearl went to the window.

“Is that your ladder, Mr. Humffrey?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it usually kept?”

“In the tool shed where Stallings, my gardener, keeps his equipment.”

“Take a look, Borcher.”

The detective went out.

Abe Pearl turned to Jessie. “This man,” he said. “Would you know him if you saw him again, Miss Sherwood?”

“I doubt it.”

“He didn’t say anything? Make any sound?”

“I didn’t hear anything but the window being slid up little by little. When I ran in he disappeared.”

“Did you hear a car?”

“No. I mean, I don’t recall.”

“Did you or didn’t you?”

Jessie felt herself growing hot. “I tell you I don’t know!”

“That’s all right,” Chief Pearl said. “People get excited.” He turned his back on her, and Richard Queen blinked. He knew what his friend was thinking: Tag the nurse as a possible question mark. Of course, Abe didn’t know her. He was surprised to find himself thinking of her as if he had known her for a long time. “Did you hear a car drive away, Mr. Humffrey?”

“I can’t say. There was a great deal of noise here, naturally, after Miss Sherwood screamed.”

Abe Pearl nodded. “The chances are, if he came in a car, he parked on the road off your grounds. You didn’t find a note of any kind, did you?”

“No.”

Sarah Humffrey whispered, “Note?”

Her husband said sharply, “Sarah, don’t you think you’d better go to bed?”

“No, Alton, no, please. I couldn’t sleep now, anyway. I’m all right, dear.”

“Sure she is, Mr. Humffrey. Think you can answer a few questions, Mrs. Humffrey?” The chief’s tone was deferential.

“Yes. But I can’t tell you anything—”

“About your servants, I mean.”

“The servants?” Sarah Humffrey repeated.

“Just a matter of form, Mrs. Humffrey. You never know in cases like this. How many you got, and how long they been with you?”

“Our housekeeper, Mrs. Lenihan, has been with us since our marriage,” Sarah Humffrey said. “Mrs. Charbedeau, the cook, has worked for us almost ten years. Rose Healy and Marie Tompkins, the maids, are Boston girls who have been with us for a number of years.”

“How about those two old fellows out there?”