Inspector Queen’s Own Case

“Three people knew it,” Richard Queen said. “You, the man, Finner. You didn’t tell Finner. Then how did Finner find out? The man must have told him.”

“That’s real touching,” Connie Coy murmured. She got up and ground the cigarette out in the ash tray on the end table. She ground it hard. “Keep going, Inspector.”

“So Finner knew the identity of both parents. If he was killed because he knew—” the old man rose, too — “then you’re in danger, Connie.”

“Me?” She swung about to face him, expressionless. “How do you figure that?”

“The only ones with reason to shut Finner’s mouth for good about the child’s parentage are the parents themselves. You’re one of them, but you have a solid alibi for the day of Finner’s murder. That leaves the other parent. It’s my belief, Connie, that Finner was murdered by the baby’s real father, and if that’s so he may well come after you, too. With Finner dead, you’re the only one left who can expose him. That’s why I want you to tell us who the father is.”

The blonde girl walked over to her grand piano. She ran her left hand soundlessly over the keys.

“Certainly you can’t have any sentiment left about him.” The Inspector spoke softly from the center of the room, above Jessie’s head. “You say he’s married. Am I right in supposing he’s also somebody prominent — someone who might be ruined if a story like this came out? A certain type of man will run amok under a fear like that. Your protection is to share your information, Connie. The more people know who he is, the safer you are. He can’t kill us all. Who is he? Tell us.”

There was another cigarette box on the piano, and the girl took a cigarette from it and put it to her mouth. She looked around. He picked up the lighter from the end table and walked over to her.

“Tell us,” he said again. He held the lighter up, but he did not finger the flint lever. She took the lighter from him and worked the lever herself.

“Arthur Dimmesdale,” Jessie said from the sofa.

The flame remained an inch from the cigarette.

“What, Jessie?” Richard Queen said, puzzled.

The book from the end table was still in Jessie’s hand. She tapped it. “I thought it sounded familiar, Richard. Arthur Dimmesdale is the name of Hester Prynne’s lover in Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter.”

“Oh, that.” Connie Coy laughed. “I picked the book up one day in a secondhand shop. I’d always meant to read it. And I’d just found out I was pregnant. A for Adultery... Hester’s lover’s name seemed like just the thing when I had to invent a husband. My mother always warned me my romantic streak would get me into trouble.”

“Only a person who’s married can commit adultery, Connie,” Jessie said. “You’re not the adulterer. He is. And now it seems he’s a murderer, too. That’s the thing to remember, isn’t it?”

“So,” Inspector Queen repeated, “who is he?”

“All right,” the blonde girl said suddenly. “I’ll tell you.”

She brought the flame of the lighter to the tip of the cigarette.

The flame seemed to explode with a sharp crack, and a black hole appeared in the middle of her forehead.

Then the hole gushed red, and the lighter fell, and the cigarette fell, and the girl fell.

She fell sidewise, glancing off the piano keys. She crashed to the floor before the brilliant clang of the keys stopped.

“Get down, Jessie!”

Jessie found herself in a crouch on the floor, with the sofa between her and the studio window. The old man was skittering like a crab toward the wall switch. Jessie heard two more explosions. Something shattered behind her.

The room plummeted into darkness.

He was pounding through the kitchen now. Undoing the latch chain.

The service door opened and closed. The sounds were definite but not loud. Before the door closed she heard the voice of the ex-detective, Giffin. And soft running steps.

Then silence.

Jessie Sherwood sat up in the dark, rested her head against the sofa seat. Her ears were ringing and it bothered her.

She shut her eyes.

But even with her eyes shut she could see him.

He had shot a gun off from the roof of the house twenty feet on the other side of the court, through the open window. The flame of the lighter had made Connie Coy’s blonde head a perfect target. A blurry-black figure against the glow of the city sky. As the girl fell. With a glinting something held in front of him. A figure vaguely male. Then she had tumbled off the sofa.

Amazing how quiet everything was.

Not really quiet. Just normal-quiet. As if there had been no man on the roof, no sharp crack, no hole in a human head. It wasn’t quiet. TV sets were going all over the place. The court was full of them. Auto sounds from the streets. Buses going by on Broadway. Not the kind of sounds they would make if they knew a girl had been shot. Not the rasp of windows, cries, questions, doors, running.

Girl shot.

Jessie came alive.

The girl...