Inspector Queen’s Own Case

“Get out,” he said thickly. “No, wait. Perhaps you’ll be good enough to spell out for me just what further incredible flights of your fancy, Mr. Queen, I must protect myself against. According to you, I fathered that child in a sordid affair, I murdered the child, I murdered Finner, I murdered the child’s mother. Against these insanities you have adduced just two alleged pieces of evidence — that I hired a private detective to follow you two for a week, which I have explained, and that I was seen in Grand Central Terminal last Monday watching for Chicago trains, which I deny. What else have you?”

“You were in the Nair Island house on the night of the baby’s murder.”

“I was in the Nair Island house on the night of the baby’s accidental death,” the millionaire said coolly. “A coroner’s jury supports my version of the slight difference in our phraseology. What else?”

“You had the strongest motive of anyone in the world to remove the folder marked ‘Humffrey’ from Finner’s filing cabinet and destroy it.”

“I cannot grant even the existence of such a folder,” Humffrey smiled. “Can you prove it? What else?”

“You have no alibi for the afternoon of Finner’s murder.”

“You state an assumption as a fact. But even if your assumption were a fact — neither have ten thousand other men. What else, Mr. Queen?”

“You have no alibi for the evening of Connie Coy’s murder.”

“I can only repeat my previous comment. Anything else?”

“Well, we’re working on you,” the old man drawled. “A whole group of us.”

“A whole group?” Humffrey pushed his chair back.

“Oh, yes. I’ve recruited a force of men like myself, Mr. Humffrey, retired police officers who’ve become very interested in this case. So, you see, it wouldn’t do you the least good to kill Miss Sherwood and me, as you tried to do Monday night. Those men know the whole story... and you don’t know who they are. Come, Jessie.”

All Jessie could think of was that her back was to him; she could almost hear the blast of doom exploding behind her as she went to the door. But nothing happened. Alton Humffrey simply sat in the baronial chair at his desk, thinking.

“One moment.” The millionaire came slowly around the desk toward them.

Richard Queen moved over to block the doorway. Humffrey stopped a few feet away, so close Jessie could smell the after-shave lotion on his gaunt cheeks.

“After reflection, Mr. Queen,” he said good-humoredly, “I must conclude that you and your aging cronies have exactly nothing.”

“Then you’ve got exactly nothing to worry about, Mr. Humffrey.”

“We’re in a sort of stalemate, aren’t we? I won’t go to the police to make you stop annoying me, because I prefer being annoyed in private rather than in public. You won’t go to the police with your fantastic story, because your activities could land you in jail. It looks as if you and I are going to have to grin and bear each other. By the way, that is a gun you’re carrying under your left armpit, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” the old man said, showing his denture for a moment. “And I imagine you have a permit for the gun you decided not to take out of that drawer a few minutes ago.”

“Now your imagination is back within bounds, Mr. Queen,” the millionaire smiled.

“He pointed a gun at me once, Richard,” Jessie said in a piping voice. “The night I came back from New York to find the baby dead. Even after I identified myself he kept pointing it at me. For a minute I thought he was going to shoot me.”

“Perhaps I should have.” With those eyes turned on her, Jessie felt absurdly like running. Something womanish insinuated itself into Humffrey’s voice, taunting and cruel. “I’ve given you considerable thought, Miss Sherwood. But now I’ve solved you. You’re that most dismal of people, her brother’s keeper. Good night.”

Late that night Richard Queen snapped to the five silent old men, “It’s going to be rough. He’s an ice-cold customer, and smart. He’s not going to be stampeded into anything stupid. As I said the other night, our best bet is to go backwards. We’ve got to tie him in with the Coy girl. They must have had a love nest somewhere before he dropped her and she moved to 88th Street. Maybe there’s a record of his having paid her rent or hospital bills. We’ve got to find witnesses who saw them together — in restaurants, nightclubs, hideaways, rooming houses, motels...”

He talked until two in the morning to the attentive men. Jessie fell asleep on his shoulder. He did not disturb her.

New York came back from its holiday weekend. Autumn set in suddenly. Children prepared to return to school. Department stores were jammed. Another hurricane threat petered out. A sensational bank robbery in Queens seized the headlines, elbowing out the dwindling followup stories on the Finner and Coy cases.

Alton Humffrey was followed wherever he went. But his comings and goings were exemplary. The homes of friends, the ballet, his attorneys’ offices, Wall Street, the Harvard Club. He did no entertaining.

They discussed a wire tap. Johnny Kripps was for it.