Inspector Queen’s Own Case

She knew she should protest, send him home, or at least make up the daybed for him in the living room. But the connection between her larynx and her will seemed broken. On the edge of things lay the body of Connie Coy with the spattery hole in her forehead and the greenish roots of her gold hair slowly dyeing red. But the core of herself felt a great warmth. As long as he was here nothing like that hole and that bloody dye could happen to her. All she had to do was drift... let go... Goodness, Jessie thought dreamily, I’m getting to be a female woman.

“Can you make it by yourself all right?” he asked anxiously.

“Why do you ask?” Jessie giggled at the consternation that flooded his face. He was so easy to tease...

Later, when she was in bed, he knocked and she said, “Come in,” and he came in with a cup of warm milk and a sleeping tablet.

“Take this.”

“Yes, sir,” Jessie said obediently.

It was hard lifting her head from the pillow. He hesitated, then slipped his arm around her shoulders and sat her up. The coverlet dropped away and Jessie thought, Now, Jessie! But she really didn’t have the strength to pull it back up... And me in my most décolleté nightgown. How shameless can you get? He’ll think I purposely...

Jessie drank the milk very slowly.

“It’s hot.”

“I’m sorry. Take your time.” His voice sounded funny.

When she sank back he removed his arm as if it hurt.

“Thank you, Richard.” Is this really me? Jessie thought.

“Feeling better?” He was addressing the badly reproduced Van Gogh still-life over Gloria Sardella’s bed.

“Worlds.”

But it’s so nice... Jessie slipped under the covers, giggling again.

He went over to the window and looked out. The fire escape seemed to disturb him. He pulled the window down and locked it, lowered the Venetian blind, closed the vanes. Then he went into the bathroom.

One second, her forehead was smooth and white, the next it had a hole in it, a real hole, black and then red...

“I’ve opened the bathroom window, Jessie. I’ll leave the door to the living room open for circulation. Unless light bothers you?”

“Just don’t go away.” She began to shiver again.

“I won’t. Remember, I’ll be in the next room. At anything — for any reason — sing out.”

“Yes... The linen’s in that closet next to the kitchenette. Richard, she’s dead.”

“Go to sleep now, Jessie.”

“I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I don’t seem to have any strength at all.”

“It’s been a rough night. If you’re not better in the morning I’ll call a doctor.”

“Oh, no...”

“Oh, yes.”

The light snapped off, but she could not hear him move.

“Good night,” Jessie said drowsily.

“Sleep well, Jessie.”

He went out then, in a sort of stumble.

He didn’t look at me as if I were just any woman. He looked at me as if...

The last thing Jessie heard as she fell asleep was the scream of police sirens heading uptown.

The voice of Abe Pearl at the other end of the wire was so loud the old man glanced over at the bedroom doorway.

“Stop bellowing, Abe,” he grumbled. “I’m not deaf yet.”

“Where in the name of God have you been?” Chief Pearl demanded angrily. “I’ve been trying to reach you all night. Where you calling from?”

“Jessie Sherwood’s place in New York.”

“Look, Dick, if you want to shack up, shack up, but the least you can do is leave me her phone number so I can contact you. I didn’t start this, you did!”

“You cut that out, Abe,” Richard Queen growled. “I’m not shacked up with anybody—”

“Okay, so she’s playing hard to get — Becky, will you shut up!... Can you give me five minutes?”

“Go ahead,” he said shortly.

“I got a call tonight from New Haven, from this Dr. Duane. He’s been phoning all over creation trying to reach Humffrey again. He finally contacted me out of desperation, wanted me to run over to Nair Island and see if maybe Humffrey hadn’t gone back there — he’d tried to reach Stallings, but there was no answer. I’ve found out that Stallings had gone to a movie; anyway, he hadn’t seen or heard from Humffrey. The point is, Mrs. Humffrey is bad again, and it sounded to me like Duane’s got hold of a hot knish and would like to let go. You don’t know where Humffrey is, Dick, do you? I thought I’d check with you before calling Duane back.”

“I haven’t seen Humffrey, no,” Richard Queen said slowly. “Abe.”

“Yes?”

“What time did Humffrey leave his Park Avenue apartment today? Did Duane talk to Mrs. Lenihan?”

“She told him he’d left early this morning and didn’t say where he was going. At the time Duane called me, which was about nine tonight, Humffrey still hadn’t got back.”

“Did Cullum chauffeur him? Or did Humffrey leave alone?”

“I don’t know.” Abe Pearl paused. “Dick, what’s happened? Something happened tonight.”

“Connie Coy’s been knocked off.”

“The mother?”

When Abe Pearl heard the story, he said, “One minute, Dick. Just hang on.” The silence was prolonged. “I’m trying to piece this together—”

“It’s complicated,” Richard Queen said dryly.