Inspector Queen’s Own Case

“Wouldn’t you like to walk off your dinner?”

So finally they were alone in Jessie’s little garden. Abe Pearl was wandering in Coventry somewhere along the waterfront, and his wife was in Jessie’s kitchen banging dishes around to show that she wasn’t listening through the kitchen window.

And now that they were alone together, there seemed to be nothing to say. That same peculiar silence dropped between them.

So Jessie picked some dwarf zinnias, and Richard Queen sat in the white basket chair under the dogwood tree watching the sun on her hair.

If he doesn’t say something soon I’ll shriek, Jessie thought. I can’t go on picking zinnias forever.

But he kept saying absolutely nothing.

So then the flowers were tumbling to the ground, and Jessie heard herself crying, “Richard, what in heaven’s name is the matter with you?”

“Matter?” he said with a start. “With me, Jessie?”

“Do I have to propose to you?”

“Prop...” The sound came out of his mouth like a bite of hot potato. “Propose?”

“Yes!” Jessie wept. “I’ve waited and waited, and all you ever do is pull a grim face and feel sorry for yourself. I’m a woman, Richard, don’t you know that? And you’re a man — though you don’t seem to know that either — and we’re both lonely, and I think we l-love each other...”

He was on his feet, clutching his collar and looking dazed. “You mean... you’d marry me, Jessie? Marry me?”

“What do you think I’m proposing, Richard Queen, a game of Scrabble?”

He took a step toward her.

And stopped, swallowing hard. “But Jessie, I’m an old man—”

“Oh, fish! You’re an old fool!”

So he came to her.

A long time later — the sun was going down, and the Pearls had long since vanished — Richard Queen’s arm shifted from Jessie Sherwood’s shoulders to her waist, and he muttered blissfully, “I wonder what Ellery’s going to say.”