Inspector Queen’s Own Case

“No, thanks.” The thought was nauseating. “How is Mrs. Humffrey?”

“Not too well, I’m sorry to say. Mr. Queen, whisky?”

“Nothing, thank you.”

“Aren’t you going to sit down?”

“No.”

“That has a forbidding sound,” Humffrey said with a slight smile. “Like an inspector of police.”

Richard Queen did not change expression. “May I begin?”

“By all means.” Humffrey seated himself in the baronial oak chair behind his desk, a massive handcarved piece. “Oh, one thing.” His bulbous eyes turned on Jessie, and she saw now that they were cushioned by welts she had not noticed on Nair Island. “I take it, Miss Sherwood, from your being here tonight with Mr. Queen, that you’re still pursuing your delusion about poor Michael’s death?”

“I still believe he was murdered, yes.” Jessie’s voice sounded too loud to her ears.

“Well, at least let me thank you for being so discreet. You’ll recall I asked you not to involve Mrs. Humffrey and me in further painful publicity.”

“My recollection, Mr. Humffrey, is that you threatened me.”

“Threatened?” His sparsely tufted brows went up. “I’m sorry you construed my remarks that way. But if what I said encouraged you to keep my name out of the newspapers, perhaps I should be grateful.”

“Are you through?” the old man asked.

“Forgive me, Mr. Queen.” The millionaire leaned back attentively. “You were about to say?”

“I was about to say,” the Inspector said with a note of irony, “that what I’m going to tell you will hardly come as news to you, Mr. Humffrey. You’ve read, I suppose, about the murder of a shyster lawyer named Finner in his Manhattan office on the 20th of last month? ”

“I believe I have. Nasty business. Apparently has the police baffled.”

“Yes, Finner, of course, was the man who turned the baby over to you back in June.”

“He was?”

“Come, Mr. Humffrey, you’re hardly in a position to deny it. Jessie Sherwood went along with you and Mrs. Humffrey to take charge of the child. She saw Finner at that time. So did your chauffeur, Cullum.”

“I did not deny it, Mr. Queen,” Humffrey smiled. “I was merely making some appropriate sounds.”

“On Thursday the 18th, possibly the next day, Finner got in touch with you, told you I was putting pressure on him, and asked you to be present at a meeting in his office with me and Miss Sherwood on Saturday the 20th, at 4 p.m. You agreed to come.”

“Now you’ve moved from the terra firma of fact,” Humffrey said, “into the cuckooland of speculation. Of course I can’t permit unfounded allegations to pass unchallenged. Pardon me for interrupting, Mr. Queen.”

“You deny those allegations?”

“I will not dignify them by a denial. In view of your failure to mention the slightest corroboration, none is necessary. Go on.”

“You agreed to be there,” Richard Queen continued, unmoved. “But you had a little surprise up your sleeve for Finner, Mr. Humffrey. And, I might add, for us. You went to Finner’s office that Saturday afternoon, all right, but not at four o’clock. You got there about an hour and a half early — from the contents of Finner’s stomach, according to accounts of the autopsy findings, it must have been right after Finner came up from his lunch. You picked up Finner’s letter-knife from his desk and buried it in his heart. Then you rifled his files for the folder marked ‘Humffrey’ that contained the papers and proofs of the baby’s parentage, and out you walked with it. By this time, of course, you’ve destroyed it.”

Jessie was watching Alton Humffrey’s face, fascinated. There was no twitch or flicker to indicate that the millionaire was indignant, alarmed, or even more than mildly interested.

“I can only ascribe this extraordinary fantasy to a senile imagination,” Humffrey said. “Are you accusing me — in all seriousness — of murdering this man Finner?”

“Yes.”

“You realize, of course, that without proof of any sort — an eyewitness, let us say, a fingerprint, something drearily unfantastic like that — you’re exposing yourself to a suit for criminal slander, defamation of character, and probably half a dozen other charges my attorneys will think of?”

“I’m relying on your well-known dislike for publicity to restrain them, Mr. Humffrey,” the old man said dryly. “May I proceed?”

“My dear man! Is there more?”

“Lots more.”

Humffrey waved his long white hand with its curling fingers as if he were bestowing a benediction.

“On the following Monday morning,” Richard Queen went on, “you walked into a Times Square detective agency run by a fellow named Weirhauser and hired him to shadow Miss Sherwood and me. Weirhauser reported to you that we were visiting the maternity sections of one metropolitan hospital after another, trying to match up a set of infant footprints with the hospital birth records. This went on for about a week.”

“I see,” Humffrey said.