Inspector Queen’s Own Case

She heard herself saying in a very loud voice, “No, it wasn’t.”

Dr. Wicks turned sharply. “What did you say, Nurse?”

Mrs. Humffrey’s body swiveled on the bed as she tried to focus her swollen eyes on Jessie.

“I said, Dr. Wicks, it was not an accident.”

For a faraway moment Jessie thought Alton Humffrey was going to spring at her throat. But he merely said, “What do you mean, Miss Sherwood?”

“I mean that somebody else entered the nursery after Mrs. Humffrey went to bed.”

The tall man looked at her with burning eyes.

Jessie steeled herself and returned his look.

“That baby was murdered, Mr. Humffrey, and if you don’t call the police — this minute — I’m going to.”

2 Creeping Like Snail

Faces kept floating about the steamy room. All the weight had bobbed out of Jessie’s head. It felt taut and airy, like a balloon. In the nightmare she knew with curious certainty that her alarm would go off any minute. She would wake up in a solid world, jump out of bed, listen for the baby’s gurgling, shuffle into the nursery with a bright good morning...

“Sit down, Jessie.”

“What?”

It was miraculously Richard Queen. He was urging her back into the rocker, putting a glass to her dehydrated lips. He had called her Jessie, so it was still the nightmare. Or perhaps the nightmare was turning into a harmless dream.

“Drink it.”

The flow of cold water down her throat awakened her. She saw the room now as it was. The nursery was full of men peering, measuring, talking, weighing, as impersonal as salesmen — state troopers and Taugus policemen and an unshaven man without a tie whom she distantly recalled as having arrived carrying a briefcase.

“Are you feeling better now, Miss Sherwood?” That was Chief Pearl’s rumble.

“It’s just that I haven’t had any sleep,” Jessie explained. What had they been talking about when the room began to swim? She couldn’t remember. All she could remember was Chief Pearl’s bass voice, the enormous mass of him, his drilling eyes.

“All right. You went into the nursery with Mrs. Humffrey, you bent over the crib, you saw the pillow lying on the baby’s face, you grabbed it away, you saw that he had suffocated, and you automatically began to give him first aid, artificial respiration, even though you had every reason to believe he was dead.

“Now think back, Miss Sherwood. How long would you say it took you — starting from your first sight of the pillow over the baby’s face — to get past the shock and snatch that pillow off him?”

“I don’t know,” Jessie said. “It seemed like an eternity. But I suppose it wasn’t more than a second or two.”

“One or two seconds. Then you grabbed the pillow and did what with it?”

Jessie knuckled her eyes. What was the matter with him?

“I tossed it aside.”

“Tossed it where?” the Taugus police chief persisted.

“Toward the foot of the crib.”

The tieless, unshaven man said, “Would you remember exactly where at the foot of the crib the pillow landed, Miss Sherwood?”

They were all touched by the heat, that was it, Jessie decided. As if where it landed made any difference!

“Of course not,” she said acidly. “I don’t think I gave it a glance after I threw it aside. My only thought at that time was to try and revive the baby. I didn’t really think back to what I’d seen on the pillow until a long time afterward. Then it came back to me with a rush, and I realized what it meant.”

“Suppose you tell us once more just what you think you saw on that pillow, Miss Sherwood.” The tieless man said again. Had she imagined someone’s saying he was from the State’s Attorney’s office in Bridgeport?

“What I think I saw?” Jessie flared. “Are you doubting my word?”

She glanced at Richard Queen in her anger, to see if he was on their side after all. But he merely stood over her rubbing his gray stub of mustache.

“Answer the question, please.”

“I know I saw a handprint on the pillow.”

“An actual, recognizable human handprint?”

“Yes! Someone with a dirty hand had placed it on that pillow.”

“What kind of dirt, Miss Sherwood?”

“Kind? How should I know?”

“What color was it? Black? Brown? Gray?”

“I really couldn’t say. Maybe grayish. Like dust.”

“Well, was it grayish, like dust, or wasn’t it?”

“I think it was.”

“You think it was?”

“I’m not sure about the color,” Jessie said tiredly. “How can I be? My impression is that it looked like a dust print. I could be wrong about that, but I don’t think I am. That it was dirt of some kind I’m positive.”

“You say it was as if someone had placed a dirty hand on the pillow,” the tieless man said. “Placed it how, Miss Sherwood? Flat? Doubled up? Partially?”

“Perfectly flat.”

“Where on the pillow?”

“Just about in the middle.”

“Was it a clear impression? That is, could you tell unmistakably that it was a human handprint?”