Inspector Queen’s Own Case

“About him and the baby’s death. It’s got to be about little Mike’s murder — she probably hasn’t even been told about the other two. And if it’s something Alton Humffrey doesn’t want us to know, then it’s something we’ve got to find out. The problem is, how to get to Sarah Humffrey...”

Jessie wanted to stay over, claiming that it would take a week to clean her house properly. But he hurried her back to the city.

They found Hugh Giffin picking disconsolately at his scar, and Al Murphy staring at the backs of his red-furred hands.

“Hospital,” Giffin said. “Nothing, Inspector. The trail goes back to Finner, and Finner only. Even Finner didn’t pay the bills directly. Connie Coy paid them with the cash Finner provided. Humffrey kept a million miles away from it.”

“Murph,” the Inspector said. “Any luck with the cabs?”

“Nope,” the ex-sergeant said gloomily. “I must have tackled every hackie stationed around Grand Central. Just didn’t hit it, that’s all. Either this Humffrey hopped a cruising cab when he followed the girl home that night, or else he used a private car.”

The old man shook his head. “He’d have felt safer taking a public carrier, Murph. Actually, all he had to do when he saw her climb into a cab with her luggage at Grand Central was take another cab, maybe on Madison or Lexington, and be driven to the general neighborhood of the apartment, then walk over. After the shooting he probably just walked away — another pedestrian out for some air.”

Murphy looked unhappy.

“It’s all right,” Inspector Queen shrugged. “We’ll just have to keep digging.”

He clapped the two men on the shoulder and sent them home.

The following night, when Johnny Kripps came up with his day’s report on Humffrey, the old man said, “I’m calling you off the tail, Johnny. Pete Angelo can take over.”

“You firing me, Inspector?” the bespectacled ex-Homicide man asked, not altogether humorously.

“At the salary you’re getting?” He grinned, not humorously either. “Johnny, have you been spotted by any of the working details?”

“I don’t think so.”

“We’ll have to start cutting corners. We’re getting nowhere. Here’s what I want you to do — I’d do it myself, but you’re the logical man for the job. Drop in at Homicide and see some of the boys. A friendly visit to your old pals, you understand.”

“Steer the talk around to the Coy and Finner cases?”

“Especially the Coy case. Find out what they’ve got. Don’t overdo it, Johnny — I don’t want to have to bail you out of 125 White Street!”

Kripps reported the next afternoon. “They’ve drawn a skunk egg, Inspector. All they had on the Finner case was that New Haven toll call, and Duane’s pooped them on that. The fact that he’s an M.D. running a private sanitarium gave them the bright idea at first that he was mixed up with Finner in the baby racket, but the more they’ve investigated Duane the cleaner he washes. Finner’s case files they’ve exhausted without a lead.”

“And Coy?” Richard Queen asked grimly.

“Believe it or not, they haven’t been able to come up with a single witness who saw a damn thing the night she got it. By the way, they think too that the killer hopped three or four roofs before he hit for ground level. Just walked down, and out, and away, probably on West End Avenue.”

The Inspector tormented his mustache.

“All they’ve got in the Coy case is the bullet they’ve taken from her head and the ones from the plaster.” Kripps shrugged. “Three slugs from the same gun. 38 Special ammo.”

“Pete dug out the gun permit information on Humffrey today,” the old man muttered. “One of the revolvers he owns is — or was — a Colt Cobra, which would fit with the ammo. But the gun is gone, Johnny. That we can be sure of. He probably dropped it in the Hudson the same night he shot Connie.”

“Quite a guy,” Kripps said unadmiringly.

“How do you know?” Jessie said.

“That he’s quite a guy, Miss Sherwood?”

“That he’s disposed of the gun?”

They looked at her.

“But Jessie,” Richard Queen protested, “possession of the weapon that fired the bullet that killed Connie Coy would be enough by itself to warrant a murder indictment. Humffrey wouldn’t be so foolish as to hold on to it. A ballistics comparison test, if we or the police got our hands on it, would mean curtains for him.”

“Clever people are often so clever they’re stupid,” Jessie said. “He might be holding on to the gun out of plain cussedness, just because he figures you think he wouldn’t. He strikes me as that type of man.”

Ex-Inspector Queen and ex-Lieutenant Kripps examined each other.

“What do you think, Johnny?”

“What have we got to lose?”

“Plenty if we get caught at it.”

“Let’s not be.”

“It might throw a scare in him, too,” the old man chuckled. “Maybe even turn up something. I should have thought of it myself! Let’s talk to Murph and Giffin and the others and see how they feel about it.”

“Feel about what?” Jessie asked. “What are you talking about, Richard?”

He grinned at her. “There’s only one way to take the bull, Jessie, and that’s by the horns. We’re going to raid Humffrey’s apartment.”