Inspector Queen’s Own Case

“Last Sunday evening, Weirhauser reported to you that we had presumably found what we’d been looking for. Our hospital find had taken us to an apartment house on West 88th Street, where we asked a lot of questions about a tenant named Connie Coy. Connie Coy, Mr. Humffrey.”

“You pause significantly. Is the name supposed to mean something to me?” the millionaire asked.

“Weirhauser told you that Connie Coy was out of town filling a singing engagement in a Chicago nightclub, but that she was expected back soon. You then gave Weirhauser a clumsy story about being on the wrong tack and called him off the job.”

The room turned stifling suddenly. Jessie sat very still.

“And for this allegation, Mr. Queen, you’re also drawing on your imagination?”

“No,” the old man said, smiling for the first time. “For this one, Mr. Humffrey, I have an affidavit sworn to and signed by George Weirhauser. Would you care to see it? I have it right here in my pocket.”

“I’m tempted to say no,” Humffrey murmured. “But as a man who has played poker with Harvard undergraduates in his day — yes, I think I would care to see it.”

Inspector Queen promptly took a folded paper out of his pocket and laid it on the desk.

Jessie almost protested aloud. She fully expected the millionaire to pounce on the paper and tear it to pieces. But he merely reached for it, unfolded it, read it through, folded it again, and politely handed it back.

“Of course, I don’t know this man Weirhauser’s signature from yours, Mr. Queen,” he said, clasping his bony hands behind his head. “However, since you seem to have got to him, it doesn’t really matter. By the way, even if this is a legitimate affidavit its contents aren’t necessarily unchallengeable. I fancy Weirhauser hasn’t too sweet a reputation, and if it became a matter of his word against mine...”

“Then you’re denying this, too?”

“For legal purposes — if it should ever come to that, which considering your extra-legal activities, Mr. Queen, I strongly doubt — for legal purposes, as I say, I should obviously prefer to let my attorneys answer your question. But as among the three of us here,” and he smiled coldly, “I see no harm in admitting that yes, I engaged a detective to follow you and Miss Sherwood last week, simply to see what mischief you two were up to. I’d gathered from what Miss Sherwood let drop, that night she left my home on Nair Island, that you and she were bent on following up her hysterical belief that the baby was murdered; and I felt — in my wife’s protection, if not in mine — that I was justified in keeping myself informed. When my man’s report indicated that you were chasing some will-o’-the-wisp involving a woman I had never heard of, I of course lost interest. My only regret is that in hiring Weirhauser I seem to have made a mistake. I detest mistakes, Mr. Queen, particularly my own.” He turned his thin smile on Jessie; and in spite of herself, she stiffened. “My worst mistake, Miss Sherwood, apparently was in hiring you. Why couldn’t you have let the whole distressing affair drop?”

“Because I loved that baby,” Jessie cried, “and he was murdered, Mr. Humffrey.”

Humffrey shook his head. “There’s no reasoning with a woman, is there, Mr. Queen? But go on.”

The old man had been waiting patiently. “I believe you just said you lost interest when you found out we were on the trail of a woman you’d never heard of, Mr. Humffrey. Is that your position? That you never knew Connie Coy, the nightclub singer?”

“Yes, Mr. Queen,” the millionaire said gently, “that is my position.”

“Then I can’t understand your activities the day after you fired Weirhauser. Last Sunday night Weirhauser told you we were asking questions about the Coy girl and that she was expected back soon from Chicago. The next day — this past Monday, Mr. Humffrey — you spent the entire day and a good deal of the evening at Grand Central Terminal watching the arrival of trains from Chicago. Why would you have done that if you didn’t know Connie Coy and had no interest in her?”

Humffrey was silent. For the first time a slight frown drew his brows toward each other. Then he said, “I think I’m beginning to be bored with this conversation, Mr. Queen. Of course I was not in Grand Central Terminal that day, to watch the Chicago trains or for any other absurd purpose.”

“That’s funny,” the old man retorted. “A redcap and a clerk at one of the newsstands have identified a Stamford, Connecticut news photo of you as that of a man they saw hanging around the Chicago incoming train gates at Grand Central all day.”

The millionaire stared at him.

Richard Queen stared back.

“Now you annoy me, Mr. Queen,” Humffrey said icily. “Your so-called identifications don’t impress me at all. You must know, from your days as a competent police officer, how unsatisfactory such identifications are. I must really ask you to excuse me.”

He rose.