Inspector Queen’s Own Case

“He can’t afford to, Abe. The last thing Humffrey wants is to stir up a full-scale investigation.” The Inspector looked up. “You know, this isn’t a total loss. It’s confirmed two important points. One, that he substituted the clean pillowslip that night for the dirty one, otherwise he wouldn’t have spotted the discrepancy. Two, that he didn’t destroy the dirty slip — he was all ready to believe we’d found it. We’re not licked yet!”

Jessie stared at him. “Richard, you sound as if you’re going on with this.”

“Going on with it?” He seemed puzzled. “Of course I’m going on with it, Jessie. How can I stop now? We’ve got him on the run.”

Jessie began to laugh. Something in her laugh alarmed him, and he stepped quickly to her side. But she stopped laughing as suddenly as she had started. “I’m sorry, Richard. It just struck me funny.”

“I don’t see anything funny about it,” he growled.

“I am sorry.” She touched his arm.

“Aren’t you going on with it, Jessie?” he asked grimly.

Her hand dropped to her side.

“Richard, I’m so tired... I don’t know.”

Their return to the city was a strain on both of them. He seemed depressed, resentful, frustrated — a combination of things that Jessie with her throbbing head did not attempt to analyze. When he dropped her off at 71st Street, promising to park her car in the garage, he drove off without another word.

Jessie floundered all night. For once aspirin did not help, and tension made her skin itch and prickle unmercifully. Toward morning she took a seconal and fell into a heavy sleep. She was awakened by various bumps and crashes to find the clock hands standing at five minutes to noon and Gloria Sardella dumping various bags and packages on the living room floor.

Holy Mother! Jessie thought. It’s the 30th!

She decided then and there.

“I’m going home, Richard,” Jessie said over the phone.

“So you’ve made up your mind.” And he was silent.

Jessie thought, Is it possible this is the way it’s going to end?

“I’ve sort of had my mind made up for me,” she said, trying to sound chatty. “I’d forgotten all about Gloria’s saying when she left that she’d be back on the 30th. I guess I’ve lost track of time, along with everything else. Are you there, Richard?”

“I’m here,” he said.

“I felt like such a ninny when she walked into the apartment this morning. The least I might have done was meet the boat! Of course, Gloria was awfully sweet — said I was welcome to stay as long as I wanted—”

“Why don’t you?” He was having some trouble clearing his throat.

“It wouldn’t be fair to Gloria. You know how small her apartment is. Besides, what’s the point? The whole thing’s been a mistake, Richard.” Jessie stopped, but he didn’t say anything. “Last night in Taugus was the straw that broke the lady camel’s back, I guess. I’d better go home and back to being a nurse again.”

“Jessie.”

“Yes, Richard.”

“Do we have to talk over the phone? I mean — unless you’d rather not see me any more—”

“Richard, what a silly thing to say.”

“Then can I drive you up to Rowayton?” he asked eagerly.

“If you’d like to,” Jessie murmured.

He drove so slowly that irate cars honked and swooshed around them all the way up to Connecticut.

For a while he talked about the case.

“I went over some of the boys’ reports, from when they were tailing Humffrey. Couldn’t sleep last night, anyway. I noticed something that hadn’t meant anything at the time.

“That Friday morning when Humffrey’d had his wife removed from the Duane Sanitarium, the report said that his chauffeur left town early, alone, driving the big limousine. Remember Elizabeth Currie saying that Mrs. Humffrey was taken away in a big private limousine? My hunch is that Humffrey sent Cullum up to New Haven while he stayed in town to draw us off. Cullum must have picked up the two nurses on the way, and then gone up to the sanitarium. At least, it’s a possibility. I’m going to work on that right away — today.”

“Richard, you should have told me. I’d never have let you waste all this time driving me home.”

“It can wait till I get back to the city,” he said quickly.

“What are you going to do, pump Henry Cullum?”

“Yes. If I can find out through him where Sarah Humffrey is...”

But for the most part they were silent.

In Rowayton he carried her bags into the cottage, fixed the leaky kitchen faucet, admired her zinnias, accepted her offer of coffee; but it was all done on a note of withdrawal, and Jessie’s head began to ache again.

I won’t help him, she told herself fiercely. I won’t!

He refused to let her drive him to the Darien station. He phoned for a cab instead.

Then, at the last moment, with the taxi waiting outside, he said suddenly, “Jessie, I can’t go without... without—”

“Yes?”

“Without... well, saying thank you...”

“Thank me?” You’re overdoing it, old girl, she thought in despair. How do women manage these things? “What on earth for, Richard?”

He toed her living-room rug. “For just about the two most wonderful months of my life.”