The Case Against Carroll
Ellery Queen, 1958

Carroll felt the heat through his shoes as he got out of the taxi. In the swollen twilight even the Park across Fifth Avenue had a look of suffering. It made him even worry again about how Helena was taking the humidity.

'What?' Carroll said, reaching for his wallet. It was a thirty - sixth birthday present from Helena, and he usually challenged taxi drivers to identify the leather, which was elephant hide. But tonight's hackie was glowering at the slender graystone building with its fineboned black balconies.

'I said,' the driver said, 'that's your house?'

'Yes.' Carroll immediately felt angry. The lie of convenience had its uses, but on days like this it stung. The graystone had been erected in the Seventies by Helena's great - grandfather, and it belonged to her.

'Air - conditioned, no doubt,' the man said, wiping out his ear. 'How would you like to live in one of them de luxe East Side hotboxes on a night like this?'

'No, thank you.' Carroll said, remembering.

'I got four kids down there, not to mention my old lady. What do you think of that?'

Carroll overtipped him.

He used his key on the bronze street door with a sense of sanctuary. The day had been bad all around, especially at Hunt, West & Carroll, Attorneys - at - Law. Miss Mallowan, his secretary, had chosen this day to throw her monthly fainting spell; the new clerk had wasted three hours conscientiously looking up the wrong citations; Meredith Hunt, playing the senior partner with a heavy hand, had been at his foulest; and Tully West, ordinarily the most urbane of men, had been positively short - tempered at finding himself with only one change of shirt in the office.

And trickling through the day, acid - like, had been Carroll's worry about Helena. He had telephoned twice, and she had been extra - cheery both times. When Helena sounded extra - cheery, she was covering up something.

Had she found out?

But that wasn't possible.

Unless Tully ... But Carroll shook his head, wincing. Tully West couldn't know. His code coupled snooping with using the wrong fork and other major crimes.

It's the weather, Carroll decided fatuously; and he stepped into his wife's house.

Indoors, he felt a little better. The house with its crystal chandeliers, Italian marble, and shimmering floors was as cameo - cool as Helena herself - as all the Vanowens must have been, judging from the Sargents lording it over the walls. He had never stopped feeling grateful that they were all defunct except Helena. The Vanowens went back to the patroons, while he was the son of a track walker for the New York transit system who had been killed by a subway train while tilting a bottle on the job. Breeding had been the Vanowens' catchword; they would not have cared for Helena's choice of husband.

John Carroll deposited his hat and briefcase in the foyer closet and trudged upstairs, letting his wet palm squeak along the rail.

Helen was in the upstairs sitting - room, reading Winnie the Pooh for the umpteenth time to Breckie and Louanne.

And she was in the wheelchair again.

Carroll watched his wife's face from the archway as she told the story the children never tired of. Through the stab of angry helplessness he felt the old wonder. Her slender body was bunched, tight in defence, against the agony of her arthritis - racked legs, but that delicate face under its coif of auburn was as serene as a nun's. Only he knew what a price she paid for that serenity.

'Daddy, it's Daddy!'

Two rockets flew at him. Laden down with sleepered arms and legs, Carroll went to his wife and kissed her.

'Now, darling.' Helena said.

'How bad is it?' he growled.

'Not bad. John, you're soaked. Did you have to work so late in this swelter?'

'I suppose that's why you're in the wheelchair.'

'I've had Mrs. Poole keep dinner hot for you.'

'Mommy let us stay up because we were so good,' Louanne said. 'Now can we have the choc - o - late, Daddy?'

'We weren't so very good,' Breckie said. 'See, see, Louanne, I told you Daddy wouldn't forget!'

'We'll help you take your shower.' Helena strained forward in the wheelchair. 'Breckie, angel, your bottom's sticking out. John, really. Couldn't you have made it Life Savers today?'

'It's bad, isn't?'

'A little,' Helena admitted, smiling.

A little! Carroll thought as they all went upstairs in the elevator he had had installed two years before, when Helena's condition had become chronic. A little - when even at the best of times she had to drag about like an old woman.

He showered in full view of his admiring family, impotently aware of the health in his long, dark body.

When he pattered back to the bedroom he found a shaker of martinis and, on his bed, fresh linen and his favorite slacks and jacket.

'What's the matter, John?'

'I didn't think it showed,' Carroll said tenderly.

He kissed her on the chocolate smudge left by Breckie's fingers.

Like a character in a bad TV drama, Hunt came with the thunder and the rain.

Carroll was surprised. He was also embarrassed by the abrupt way the children stopped chattering as the lawyer's thickset figure appeared in the dining - room doorway.

'Meredith.' Carroll half rose. 'I thought you were on your way to Chicago.'

'I'm headed for La Guardia now.' Hunt said. 'Legs again, Helena?'

'Yes. Isn't it a bore?' Helena glanced at her housekeeper, who was in the foyer holding Hunt's wet things at arm's length. 'Mr. Hunt will take coffee with us, Mrs. Poole.'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'No, ma'am,' Meredith Hunt said. 'But I thank you. And the Carroll small fry. Up kind of late, aren't you?'

Breckie and Louanne edged stealthily toward their mother's chair.

'We like to wait up for our daddy.' Helena smiled, drawing them to her. 'How's Felicia, Meredith? I must call her as soon as this lets up a bit.'

'Don't. My wife is being very Latin American these days.'

Something was terribly wrong. Looking back on the day, John Carroll felt another thrill of alarm.

Helena said extra - cheerily, 'Way past your bedtime, bunny rabbits! Kiss your father and say good night to Mr. Hunt.'

She herded them out with her wheelchair. As she turned the chair into the foyer, she glanced swiftly at her husband. Then she said something crisp to Mrs. Poole, and they all disappeared behind the clang of the elevator door.

Carroll said, 'Life's little surprises. You wanted to talk to me, Meredith?'

'Definitely.' Hunt's large teeth glistened.

'Let's go up to my study.'

'I can talk here.'

Carroll looked at him. 'What's on your mind?'

'You're a crook.' Hunt said.

Carroll sat down. He reached with concentration for the crystal cigarette box on the table.

'When did you find out, Meredith?'

'I knew I was making a mistake the day I let Tully West pull that noblesse oblige act for Helena and sweet - talk me into taking you into the firm.' The burly lawyer sauntered about the dining - room, eying the marble fireplace, the paintings, the crystal cabinets, the heirloom silver. 'You can't make a blue ribbon entry out of an alley accident, I always say. The trouble with Tully and Helena, John, is that they're sentimental idiots. They really believe in democracy.'

The flame of the lighter danced very red. Carroll put the cigarette down, unlit.

'I wish you'd let me explain, Meredith.'

'So I've kept an eye on you,' Hunt said, not pausing in his stroll. 'And especially on the Eakins Trust. It's going to give me a lot of satisfaction to show my blueblood partner just how and when his mongrel protégé misappropriated twenty thousand dollars' worth of trust securities.'

'Will you let me explain?'

'Explain away. Horses? The market?' Hunt swung about. A nerve in the heavy flesh beneath his right eye was jumping. 'A woman?'

'Keep your voice down, Meredith.'

'A woman. Sure. When a man like you is married to a - '

'Don't!' Carroll said. Then he said, 'Does Tully know?'

'Not yet.'

'It was my brother Harry. He got into a dangerous mess involving some hard character and he had to get out in a hurry. He needed twenty thousand dollars to square himself, and he came to me for it.'

'And you stole it for him.'

'I told him I didn't have it. I don't have it. My take from the firm just about keeps our heads above water. It's my income that runs this house, Meredith. Or did you think I let Helena's money feed me, too? Anyway, Harry threatened to go to Helena for it.'

'And, of course,' Hunt said, showing his teeth again, 'you couldn't let him do that.'

'No,' Carroll said. 'No, Meredith, I couldn't. I don't expect you to understand why. Helena wouldn't hesitate to give me any amount I asked for, but ... Well, I had no way of borrowing a wad like that overnight except to go to you or to Tully. Tully was somewhere in northern Canada hunting, and to go to you ...' Carroll paused. When he looked up he said, 'So I took it from the Eakins Trust, proving your point.'

Meredith Hunt nodded with enjoyment.

Carroll pushed himself erect on his fists. 'I've got to ask you to give me time. I'll replace the funds by the first of the year. It won't happen again, Meredith. Harry's in Mexico, and he won't be back. It won't happen again. The first of the year.' He swallowed. 'Please.'

'Monday,' Hurt said.

'What?'

'This is Friday. I'll give you till Monday morning to make up the defalcation. You have sixty hours to keep from arrest, prison, and disbarment. If you replace the money I'll drop the matter to protect the firm. In any event, of course, you're through at the office.'

'Monday.' Carroll laughed. 'Why not tonight? It would be just as merciful.'

'You can get the money from your wife. Or from Tully, if he's stupid enough to give it to you.'

'I won't drag Helena into this!' Carroll heard his voice rising, and he pulled it down with an effort. 'Or Tully - I value his friendship too much. I got myself into this jam, and all I'm asking is the chance to get myself out.'

'That's your problem. I'm being very generous, under the circumstances.' All the lines of Hunt's well - preserved face sagged as his cold eyes flamed with sudden heat. 'Especially since the Eakins Trust isn't the only property you haven't been able to keep your hands off.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Your sex life is your own business as long as you don't poach on mine. Stay away from my wife.'

Carroll's fist caught Hunt's big chin. Hunt staggered. Then he lowered his head and came around the table like a bull. They wrestled against the table, knocking a Sevres cup to the floor.

'That's a lie,' Carroll whispered. 'I've never laid a finger on Felicia ... on any woman but Helena.'

 'I've seen Felicia look at you.' Hunt panted. His head came up, butting. Carroll fell down.

'John, Meredith.'

The wheelchair loomed in the doorway. Helena was as pale as her husband.

Carroll got to his feet. 'Go back, Helena. Go upstairs.'

'Meredith. Please leave.'

The big lawyer straightened, fumbling with his expensive silk tie. He was glaring in a sort of victory. Then he went into the foyer, took his hat and topcoat from the chair in which Mrs. Poole had deposited them, and quietly left.

'John, what did he say to you?' Helena was as close to fear as she ever got. 'What happened?'

Carroll began to pick up the fragments of the shattered cup. But his hands were shaking so uncontrollably that he stopped.

'Oh, darling, you promised never to lose your temper again this way - .'

Carroll said nothing.

'It's not good for you.' She reached over and pulled his head down to her breast. 'Whatever he said, dearest, it's not worth ...'

He patted her, trying to pull away.

'John, come to bed?'

'No. I've got to cool off.'

'Darling - .'

'I'll walk it off.'

'But it's pouring!'

Carroll snatched his hat and topcoat from the foyer closet and plunged out of the house. He sloshed down Fifth Avenue in the rain and fog, almost running.

The next morning John Carroll got out of the taxi before the Hunt house on East 61st Street like a man dreaming. The streets had been washed clean by the downpour of the night before, and the sun was already hot, but he felt dirty and cold. He pressed the Hunt bell with a sense of doom, a vague warning of things he tried not to imagine. He shivered and jabbed at the bell again, irritably this time.

A maid with a broad Italian face finally opened the door. She led him in silence up to Felicia Hunt's rooms on the second floor. Tully West was already there, thoughtfully contemplating the postage - stamp rear garden from Felicia's picture window. West was as tall and fleshless as a Franciscan monk - an easy man with an iron - gray crewcut and unnoticeable clothes.

Carroll nodded to his partner and dropped into one of the capacious Spanish chairs Felicia surrounded herself with. 'Cross - town traffic held me up. Felicia, what's this all about?'

Felicia de los Santos was in her dramatic mood this morning. She had clothed her dark plump beauty in a violently gay gown; she was already at work fingering her talisman, a ruby - and - emerald - crusted locket that had belonged to a Bourbon queen. She was the daughter of a Latin - American diplomat of Castilian blood, she had been educated in Europe after a high - walled childhood, and she was hopelessly torn between the Spanish tradition of the submissive wife and the feminism she had found in the United States. What Felicia de los Santos had seen in Meredith Hunt, an American primitive twice her age, Carroll had never fathomed.

'Meredith is missing.' She had a charming accent.

'Missing? Isn't he in Chicago?'

'The Michaelson people say no.' Tully West's witty, rather glacial voice was not amused today. 'They phoned Felicia this morning after trying to reach our office. Meredith never got there.'

'I don't understand that.' Carroll felt his forehead; he had a pounding headache. 'He stopped by last night about half - past nine and said he was on his way to the airport.'

'He wasn't on the plane, John.' Hunt's wife seemed more nervous than alarmed. 'Tully just telephoned La Guardia.'

'All planes were grounded from about eight p.m. yesterday until three in the morning by the fog. Meredith checked in at the field all right, found his flight delayed, and left word at the desk that he'd wait around the airport. But when the fog cleared they couldn't find him.' West sat Felicia Hunt down on her silk divan, gingerly. She appealed to him with her moist black eyes as if for understanding, but he turned to Carroll. 'You say, John, he stopped by last night?'

'For just a few minutes. He didn't mention anything that would explain this.' Carroll shut his eyes.

Felicia Hunt twisted her locket. 'He's left me - deserted me.'

Tully West looked shocked. 'Meredith would as soon leave his wallet. My dear girl!'

The maid said from the doorway, 'Senora. The police.'

Carroll turned sharply.

Three men were in the doorway behind the Indian maid. One was broad and powerful; another was small, gray, and wiry; and the third was tall and young.

The broad man said, 'Mrs. Hunt? Sergeant Velie. This is Inspector Queen.' He did not bother to introduce the tall young man. 'We've got bad news for you.'

'My husband - '

'An officer found him around six thirty this morning over on East 58th, near the Queensboro Bridge, in a parked Thunderbird. He was spread across the wheel with a slug in his brain.'

She got to her feet, clutching the pendant. Then her eyes turned over and she pitched forward.

West and Carroll both caught her before their mouths could close. They hauled her onto the divan and Carroll began to chafe her hands. The maid ran to the bathroom.

'Ever the delicate touch, Velie.' the tall young man remarked from the doorway. 'Couldn't you have hit her over the head?'

Sergeant Velie ignored him. 'I forgot to mention he's dead. Who are you?'

'I'm Tully West, that's John Carroll.' West was very pale. 'We're Hunt's law partners. Mrs. Hunt phoned us this morning when her husband failed to show up in Chicago for a business appointment. He was to have taken the eleven p.m. plane - '

'That's already been checked.' The small gray man was watching the maid wave a bottle of smelling salts under Felicia Hunt's little nose. 'Hunt didn't come back home last night? Phone or anything?'

'Mrs. Hunt says not.'

'Was he supposed to be traveling alone?'

'Yes.'

'Make such trips often?'

'Yes. Hunt was outside man for the firm.'

'Was he in the habit of driving his car to airports?'

'Yes. He'd park it and pick it up on his return.'

'Carrying any valuables last night?'

'Just cash for the trip, as far as I know. And a dispatch case containing some papers and a change of linen.'

Felicia Hunt shuddered and opened her eyes. The maid eased her expertly back on the divan and slipped a pillow under her head. The widow lay there like Goya's Duchess, fingering her locket. Carroll straightened.

'Suicide.' Tully West said, and he cleared his throat. 'It was suicide?'

'Not on your tintype.' Inspector Queen said. 'Hunt was murdered, and when we identify the Colt Woodsman we found in the car, we'll know who murdered him. Until we do, any suggestions?'

Carroll glared around helplessly. Then he clapped his hand over his mouth and ran into the bathroom. They heard him gagging.

'Was Mr. Carroll unusually fond of Mr. Hunt?' asked the tall young man politely.

'No.' Tully West said. 'I mean - oh, damn it all!' 

'Detectives will be talking to you people later in the day.' The Inspector nodded at his sergeant, said, 'Come along, Ellery,' to the tall young man, and then he marched out with his old man's stiff - kneed bounce ...

* * * * *

'Come in, please.' Inspector Queen did not look up from the report he was reading.

John Carroll came into the office between Tully West and a detective. The partners' faces were gray.

'Have a seat.'

The detective left. In a rivuleted leather chair at one corner of his father's office, Ellery sprawled over a cigarette. A small fan was going behind the old man, ruffling his white hair. It made the only noise in the room.

'See here,' Tully West said frigidly. 'Mr. Carroll's been interrogated from hell to breakfast by precinct detectives, Homicide Squad men, the Deputy Chief Inspector in charge of Manhattan East, and detectives of the Homicide Bureau. He's submitted without a murmur to fingerprinting. He's spent a whole morning in the Criminal Courts Building being taken apart piece by piece by an Assistant District Attorney who apparently thinks he can parlay this case into a seat in Congress. May I suggest that you people either fish or cut bait?'

The Inspector laid aside the report. He settled back in his swivel chair, regarding the Ivy League lawyer in a friendly way. 'Any special reason, Mr. West, why you insisted on coming along this morning?'

'Why?' West's lips were jammed together. 'Is there an objection to my being here?'

'No.' The old man looked at Carroll. 'Mr. Carroll, I'm throwing away the book on this one. You'll notice there's not even a stenographer present. Maybe if we're frank with each other we can cut corners and save everybody a lot of grief. We've been on this homicide for five days now, and I'm going to tell you what we've come up with.'

'But why me?' John Carroll's voice came out all cracked.

West touched his partner's arm. 'You'll have to forgive Mr. Carroll, Inspector. He's never learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Shut up, John, and listen.'

The old man swiveled creakily to look out his dusty window. 'As far as we can reconstruct the crime. Hunt's killer must have followed him to La Guardia last Friday night. A bit past midnight Hunt reclaimed his car at the parking lot and drove off, in spite of the fact that he'd told the airline clerk at ten thirty that he'd wait around for the fog to lift. It's our theory that the killer met him at La Guardia and talked him into taking a ride, maybe on a plea of privacy. That would mean that after reclaiming his car Hunt picked the killer up and they drove off together.

'We have no way of knowing how long they cruised around before crossing the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan, but at about one forty - five a.m. a patrol car passed the Thunderbird on East 58th, parked where it was later found with Hunt's body in it. The Assistant Medical Examiner says Hunt was killed between two and four a.m. Saturday, so when the patrol car passed at a quarter to two, Hunt and his killer must have been sitting in it, still talking.

'Now.' Inspector Queen swiveled back to eye Carroll. 'Item one: Hunt was shot to death with a bullet from the Colt Woodsman .22 automatic found beside the body. That pistol, Mr. Carroll, is registered in your name.'

Carroll's face went grayer. He made an instinctive movement, but West touched his arm again.

'Item two: motive. There's nothing to indicate it could have had anything to do with Hunt's trip, or any client. Your firm's clients are conservative corporations, and the Chicago people had every reason to want Hunt to stay healthy - he was going to save them a couple of million dollars in a tax - refund suit against the government. Mr. West himself has gone over the contents of Hunt's dispatch case, and he says nothing is missing. Robbery? Hunt's secretary got him three hundred dollars from the bank Friday for his trip, and well over that amount was found in his wallet. Hunt's Movado wrist watch and jade ring were found on him.

'That's the way it stood till Monday morning. Then Hunt himself tipped us off to the motive. He wrote us a letter.'

'Hunt what?' Carroll cried.

'By way of Miss Connor, his secretary. She found it in the office mail on Monday morning. Hunt wrote it on airline stationery from La Guardia on Friday night and dropped it into a mailbox there before his killer showed up.

'It was a note to his secretary.' the Inspector went on, 'instructing her that if anything should happen to him over the week - end she was to deliver the enclosure, a sealed envelope, to the police. Miss Connor brought it right in.'

West said, 'Good old Meredith.' He looked disgusted.

'Hunt's letter to us, Mr. Carroll, says that he visited your home on Fifth Avenue before going to the airport Friday evening - tells us why, tells us about your fight ... incidentally clearing up the reason for the bruise on his mouth. So, you see, we know all about the twenty grand you lifted from that trust fund, and Hunt's ultimatum to you a few hours before he was knocked off. He even mentioned his suspicions about you and Mrs. Hunt.' The Inspector added mildly, 'That's two pretty good motives, Mr. Carroll. Care to change your statement?'

Carroll's mouth was open. Then he jumped up. 'It's all a horrible misunderstanding,' he stammered. There's never been a thing between Felicia Hunt and me - .'

John.' West pulled him down. 'Inspector, Meredith Hunt was stupidly jealous of his wife. He even accused me on occasion of making passes at her. I can't speak about Mrs. Hunt's feelings, but John Carroll is the most devoted married man I know. He's crazy about his wife and children.'

'And the defalcation?'

'John's told me all about that. His no - good brother was in serious trouble and John foolishly borrowed the money from one of the trusts our firm administers to get the brute out of it. I've already replaced it from my personal funds. Any talk of theft or prosecution is ridiculous. If I'd known about Meredith's ultimatum I'd have been tempted to pop him one myself. We all have our weak moments under stress. I've known John Carroll intimately for almost ten years. I can and do vouch for his fundamental honesty.'

Ellery's voice said from his corner, 'And what exactly did Mr. Carroll tell you about this weak moment, Mr. West?'

The lawyer was startled. Then he turned around and said with a smile. 'I don't believe I'll answer that.'

'The gun,' Inspector Queen prompted.

'It's John's, Inspector, of course. He's a Reserve officer, and he likes to keep up his marksmanship. We both do a bit of target shooting now and then at a gun club we belong to down - town, and John keeps the target pistol in his desk at the office. Anyone could have lifted that Woodsman and walked off with it. The fact that John keeps it in the office is known to dozens of people.'

'I see.' The old man's tone specified nothing. 'Now let's get to last Friday night. We'll play it as if you've never been questioned, Mr. Carroll. I suppose you can establish just where you were between two and four a.m. last Saturday?'

Carroll put his head between his hands and laughed.

'Well, can you?'

'I'll try to explain again. Inspector.' Carroll said, straightening up. 'When I lose my temper, as I did with Meredith on Friday night, I get a violent physical reaction. It takes me hours sometimes to calm down. My wife knows this, and after Meredith left for La Guardia she tried to get me to go to bed. I'm sorry now I didn't take her advice! I decided instead to walk it off, and that's just what I did. I must have walked around half the night.'

'Meet anyone you know?'

'I've told you. No.'

'What time was it when you got back home?'

'I don't remember. All I know is, it was still dark.'

'Was it also still foggy?' the voice from the corner said.

Carroll jumped. 'No, it wasn't.'

Ellery said 'The fog lifted about two a.m., Mr. Carroll.'

'You're sure you can't recall the time even approximately?' Inspector Queen's tone was patience itself. 'I mean the time you got home?'

Carroll began to look stubborn. 'I just didn't notice.'

'Maybe Mrs. Carroll did?'

'My wife was asleep. I didn't wake her.'

'Item three.' the Inspector remarked. 'No alibi. And item four: fingerprints.'

'Fingerprints?' Carroll said feebly.

'John's? Where, Inspector?' Tully West asked in a sharp tone. 'You realize they wouldn't mean anything if you found them on the pistol.'

'We hardly ever find fingerprints on automatics, Mr. West. No, in Hunt's car.'

Through the roaring in his ears John Carroll thought: So that's why they fingerprinted me Monday ... He blinked as he heard the old amusement in his partner's voice.

'Surely you found other prints in the car besides John's and, I assume, Hunt's?'

The old man looked interested. 'Whose, for instance?'

'Well, there must be at least a set traceable to the attendant m the public garage where Hunt parked his car.'

'Well?'

'And, of course,' West said with a smile, 'a few of mine.'

'Yours, Mr. West?'

'Certainly. Hunt drove John and me home from the office in the Thunderbird on Thursday night - the night before the murder. So I'm going to have to insist that you fingerprint me, too.'

Inspector Queen snapped, 'Of course, Mr. West. We'll be glad to oblige,' and glanced over at the leather chair.

'I have a naive question for you, Carroll.' Ellery was studying the smoke - curl of his cigarette. 'Did you kill Meredith Hunt?'

'Hell, no,' John Carroll said. 'I haven't killed anybody since Leyte.'

'I think I'm going to advise you not to say any more, John!' Tully West rose. 'Is that all, Inspector?'

'For now. And Mr. Carroll?'

'Yes?'

'The usual - you're not to leave town. Understand?' 

John Carroll nodded slowly. 'I guess I do.'

Through the lobby of Police Headquarters, down the worn steps to the sidewalk, neither partner said anything. But when they were in a taxi speeding uptown, Carroll kicked the jump - seat and muttered, 'Tully, there's something I've got to know.'

'What's that?'

'Do you think I murdered Meredith?'

'Not a chance.'

'Do you really mean that?'

West's monkish face crinkled. 'We Wests haven't stuck our necks out since Great - grandfather West had his head blown off at Chancellorsville.'

Carroll sank back. The older man glanced out the cab window at Fourth Avenue.

'On the other hand, you don't lean your weight on a lily pad when a nice big rock is handy. My knowledge of corporation and tax law - or yours, John - isn't going to do much good if that old coot decides to jump. You may need a topflight criminal lawyer soon. I've been thinking of Sam Rayfield.'

'I see. All right, Tully, whatever you say.' Carroll studied an inflamed carbuncle on their driver's neck. 'Tully, what's the effect of this thing going to be on Helena? And on Breckie, Louanne? My God.'

He turned to the other window, lips trembling ...

A detective from the 17th Precinct made the arrest that afternoon. He and his partner appeared at the Madison Avenue offices of Hunt, West & Carroll just before five o'clock. Carroll recognized them as the men who had questioned him the previous Saturday afternoon; they were apparently the local detectives 'carrying' the case.

Miss Mallowan fainted out of season. Tully West's secretary dragged her away.

'I'd like to call my wife.' Carroll said.

'Sure, but make it snappy.'

'Listen, sweetheart.' Carroll said into the phone. He was amazed at the steadiness of his voice. 'I'm being arrested. You're not to come running down to the Tombs, do you hear? I want you to stay home and take care of the kids. Understand, Helena?'

'You listen to me.' Helena's voice was as steady as his. 'You're to let Tully handle everything. I'll tell the children you've had to go off on business. And I'll see you as soon as they'll let me. Do you understand, darling?'

Carroll licked his lips. 'Yes.'

Tully West came running out as they waited for the elevator. 'I'm getting Rayfield on this right away. And I'll keep an eye on Helena and the kids. You all right, John?'

'Oh, wonderful,' Carroll said wryly. West gripped his hand and dashed off.

The hard gray - and - green face of the Criminal Courts Building, the night in the cell, the march across the bridge from the prison wing the next morning, his arraignment in one of the chill two - story courtrooms, Helena's strained face as she labored up to kiss him, Tully West's droopy look, the soft impressive voice of Samuel Rayfield, the trap of the judge's gray mouth as he fixed bail at fifty thousand dollars ... to John Carroll, all of it jumbled into an indigestible mass. He was relieved to find himself back in the cell, and he dozed off at once.

Friday morning the pain caught up with him. Everything hurt sharply. When he was taken into the office of the court clerk, he could not bear to look at the two lawyers, or at his wife. He felt as if his clothing had been taken away.

He heard only dimly the colloquy with the clerk. It had something to do with the bail ... Suddenly Carroll realized that it was his wife who was putting up the bail bond, paying the ransom for his freedom out of the Vanowen money.

'Helena, no!'

But he voiced the cry only in his head. The next thing he knew they were marching out.

'Am I free?' Carroll asked foolishly.

'You're free, darling,' Helena whispered.

'But fifty thousand dollars,' he muttered. 'Your money ...'

'Oh, for heaven's sake, John,' West said. 'The bail is returnable on the first day of the trial, when you resubmit to the custody of the court. You know that.'

'John, dear, it's only money.'

'Helena, I didn't do it ...'

'I know, darling.'

Rayfield interposed his genial bulk between them and the lurking photographers and reporters. Somehow he got them through the barrage of flashbulbs.

As the elevator doors closed, Carroll suddenly noticed a tall man lounging in the corridor, a youngish man with bright eyes. A shock of recognition, rather unpleasant, ran through him. It was that Inspector's son, Ellery Queen. What was he doing here?

The question needled him all the way home.

Then he was safe behind the grayfront on Fifth Avenue. In the Tombs, Carroll had coddled the thought of that safety, wrapping himself in it against the cold steel and antiseptic smell. But they were still with him. When Mrs. Poole took the children tactfully off to the park, Carroll shivered and gave himself up to the martini that West handed him.

'What was it Meredith used to say about your martinis, Tully? Something about having to be a fifth - generation American to know how to mix one properly?'

'Meredith was a middle - class snob.' West raised his glass. 'Here's to him. May he never know what hit him.'

They sipped in silence.

Then Helena set her glass down. 'Tully. Just what does Mr. Rayfield think?'

'The trial won't come up until October.'

'That's not what I asked.'

'Translation.' Carroll murmured. 'What are defendant's chances?'

'Rayfield hasn't said.' West downed the rest of his drink in a gulp, something he never did.

Helena's silky brows drew the slightest bit toward each other. She said suddenly. 'John, you have some enemy you don't know about. Someone who hates you enough to commit murder with your gun. Who is it? Think, darling!'

Carroll shook his head.

'I don't believe it's that at all, Helena.' West said, pouring a refill. 'Taking John's pistol might have been an act of sheer opportunism. Whoever it was might have lifted mine if I'd left it around. Seems to me the question properly is. Who had it in for Meredith?'

Carroll said, 'Ask the police. Ask that lip - smacking little Assistant District Attorney.'

They were all quiet again.

'But it's true.' John Carroll mumbled at last. 'It's true. I've got to do something ...'

Tully West's eyes met Helena Carroll's briefly. 'Here, John. Have another martini.'

Carroll spent the weekend in seclusion. The telephone kept ringing, but Helena refused to let him be disturbed.

By Sunday night he had made up his mind. Helena heard him typing away on the portable, but when she tried to go in to him, she found the bedroom door locked.

'John! Are you all right?'

'I'll be out in a minute.'

When he unlocked the door he was tucking an envelope into his inside breast pocket. He looked calmer, as if he had won a battle.

He helped her to the chaise. 'There's something I've never told anyone, Helena, not even you. I gave my word not to.'

'What are you talking about, darling?'

'I've had a big decision to make. Helena, I'm going to come out of this all right. All I ask you to do is stop worrying and trust me. No matter what happens, will you trust me?'

'Oh, John!'

He stooped to kiss her. 'I'll be back in a few minutes.'

He walked over to Madison Avenue and went into a deserted delicatessen store. In the telephone booth he dialed Meredith Hunt's number.

'Serafina? Mr. Carroll. Let me talk to Mrs. Hunt.'

Felicia Hunt's accent vibrated in his ear without its usual charm. 'John, are you mad? Suppose they have my telephone tapped? You know what Meredith wrote to them!'

'I also know he got it all crosseyed,' Carroll said. 'Felicia, I want to see you. Tomorrow I'm going into the office to start helping Tully salvage something from the wreckage, but on my way home I'm stopping in at your place with somebody about six thirty. Will you be there?'

She sounded exasperated. 'I can't go anywhere so soon after the funeral, you know that. Whom are you bringing?'

'No one you know.'

'John, I wish you wouldn't - .'

He hung up.

When the maid with the Indian face opened the door Carroll said, 'After you, Gunder.' and the man with him stepped nervously into the Hunt house. He was a chubby citizen with a wet pink scalp and rimless eyeglasses. He carried a small leather case.

'The Senora waits upstairs.' Serafina said sullenly.

'Get Mr. Gunder a magazine or something.' Carroll said. 'This won't take long, Gunder.'

The man seated himself on the edge of a foyer chair. Carroll hurried up the stairs, taking his briefcase with him.

Patricia Hunt was all in black. Even her stockings were black. She gave Carroll a turn; it was rather like walking in on a character drawn by Charles Addams. She wore no make - up and, for the first time since Carroll had known her, no jewelry, not even her pendant. The brilliant fingernails she usually affected were now colorless. Her fingers kept exploring her bosom petulantly.

'Meaning no disrespect to an old Spanish custom.' Carroll said, 'is this mourning - in - depth absolutely necessary, Felicia? You look like a ghost.'

'Thank you,' Felicia said spitefully. 'Always the caballero. Where I come from, John, you do certain things in certain ways. Not that I would dare show my face in the street! Reporters ... may they all rot. What do you want?'

Carroll set his briefcase down by the escritoire, went to the door, and carefully closed it. She watched him with sudden interest. He glanced about, nodded at the drawn drapes.

'How mysterious,' the widow said in a new tone. 'Are you going to kill me or kiss me?'

Carroll laughed. 'You're a nourishing dish, Felicia, but if I didn't have an appetite for you a year ago I'd hardly be likely to drool now.'

She flung herself on the divan. 'Go away,' she said sulkily. 'I loathe you.'

'Why? Because it took you too long to realize what it would mean to Senor the Ambassador, your father, if your passes at me ever got into the newspapers? You didn't loathe me when you were throwing yourself at me all over town, waylaying me in restaurants, making Meredith suspect I was fouling his nest. Have you forgotten those steaming billets - doux you kept sending me, Felicia?'

'And you protected me by saying nothing about them. Very noble, John. Now get out.'

'Yes, I protected you,' Carroll said slowly, 'but it begins to look as if I can't protect you any longer. I've told everyone - the police, the D.A., Helena, Tully, Rayfield - that I walked the streets in the rain most of the night that Meredith was shot. As far as they're concerned, right now I have no alibi for the two - hour stretch between two and four a.m. when they say he was murdered.'

She was beginning to look apprehensive.

'But now I'm afraid I'm going to have to tell them that between one o'clock and four - thirty that morning you and I were alone in this room, Felicia. That the fact is, I've had an alibi all along - you - and I kept my mouth shut about it because of how it would look if the story came out.'

She said hoarsely, 'You wouldn't.'

'Not if I can help it.' Carroll shrugged. 'For one thing, I'm quite aware that nobody, not even Helena, would believe I spent three and a half hours alone with you that night just trying to get you to talk Meredith out of ruining my life. Especially if it also came out, as might very well happen, how you'd run after me, written me those uninhibited love letters.'

Her white skin turned ghastly.

'They'd jump to the worst possible conclusion about that night. I don't want that any more than you do, Felicia, although for a different reason. A woman in Helena's physical condition never feels very secure about her husband, no matter how faithful he is to her. A yarn like this ...' Carroll set his jaw. 'I love Helena, but I have no choice. I'm no storybook hero, Felicia. I'm facing the possibility of the electric chair. That alibi is my life insurance policy. I wouldn't be any good to Helena and the children dead.'

'Crucified.' Felicia Hunt said bitterly. 'I'd be crucified! I won't do it.'

'You've got to.' 

'I won't! You can't make me!'

Murder glittered from her black eyes. But Carroll did not flinch, and after a moment the glitter flickered and she turned away.

'What do you want me to do?'

'I've typed out a statement. At the moment, all you have to do is sign it. I've brought a man with me to notarize your signature; he's downstairs. He has no idea what kind of document it is. I'll lock it in my safe at the office. Don't look at me that way, Felicia. I've got to protect myself now. You ought to be able to understand that.'

She said venomously, 'Go call your damned notary.' and jumped, off the divan.

'You'd better read the statement first.'

Carroll took a long manila envelope from his briefcase. It was unsealed, bound with a red rubber band. He opened the envelope, nd took from it a folded sheet of typewriter paper. He unfolded it and handed it to her.

She read it carefully, twice. Then she laughed and handed it back.

'Pig.'

Carroll went to the door, paper in hand, and opened it. 'Mr. under? Would you come up now, please?'

The notary appeared, mopping his pink scalp. In the other hand he clutched the leather case. He sneaked a glance at Felicia's figure and immediately looked away.

'This is Mrs. Felicia de los Santos Hunt, widow of the late Meredith Hunt,' Carroll said. 'Do you need proof of her identity?'

'I've seen Mrs. Hunt's picture in the papers.' Gunder had a pink sort of voice, too. He opened his case and spread out on the escritoire an ink pad, several rubber stamps, and a notary's seal.

From his breast pocket he produced a fountain pen as big as a cigar. 'Now,' he said. 'We're all set.'

Carroll laid the statement, folded except for the bottom section, on the escritoire. He kept his hand on the fold. Felicia snatched the pen from the notary and signed her name in a vicious scrawl.

When the notary was finished, Carroll slipped the paper into the manila envelope, put the red rubber band around it, and stowed the envelope in his briefcase. He rezipped the case.

'I'll see you out, Gunder.'

They passed Serafina on the stairs; she was wiping the banister with a damp cloth and did not look around.

In the foyer Carroll gave the little man a ten - dollar bill, relocked the street door behind him, and returned upstairs. Serafina would not give an inch; he had to walk around her.

Her mistress was lying on the divan, also turned away from him. Goya's Duchess, Carroll thought, rear view. He could hear the Indian maid slamming things around in the bathroom.

'Thanks, Felicia. You've saved my life.'

She did not reply.

'I promise I won't use the statement except as a last resort.'

When she continued to ignore him, Carroll picked up his briefcase and left.

Carroll surrendered himself to the Court on the morning of the second Monday, in October. In the battlefield of the photographer's flashbulbs, through the crowded corridor, in the courtroom, the only thing he could think of was where the summer had gone. July, August, September seemed never to have existed. Certainly they did not occupy the same space - time as the nightmare he was walking into.

The nightmare shuttled fast, a disconnected sequence of pictures like random frames from a film. The group face of the panel, one compound jury eye and mouth, the shuffling of shoes, mysterious palavers before the bench of the black - robed man suspended in midair - opening statements, questions, answers, gavels, objections ... Suddenly it was Wednesday evening and Carroll was back in his cell.

He felt a childish impulse to laugh aloud, but he choked it off.

He must have dozed, for the next thing he knew Tully West was peering down at him as from a great height, and behind peered a familiar figure. Carroll could not remember the cell door's opening or closing.

'John, you remember Ellery Queen.'

Carroll nodded. 'You gents are doing quite a job on me, Queen.'

'Not me.' Ellery said. 'I'm strictly ground observer corps.'

'Then what do you want?'

'Satisfaction.' Ellery said. 'I'm not getting it.'

Carroll glanced at his partner. 'What's this, Tully?'

'Queen came to me after the session today and expressed interest in your case.' West managed a smile. 'It struck me, John, this might be a nice time to encourage him.'

Carroll rested his head against the cell wall. For days, part of his mind had been projecting itself into the execution chamber at Sing Sing, and another part had counter - attacked with thoughts of Helena and Breckie and Louanne. He took Helena and the children to sleep with him for sheer self - preservation.

'What is it you're not satisfied about?'

'That you shot Hunt.'

Thanks,' Carroll laughed. Too bad you're not on the jury.'

'Yes,' Ellery said. 'But then I don't have the respectful jury mind. I'm not saying you didn't shoot Hunt, I'm just not convinced. Something about this case has bothered me from the start. Something about you, in fact. I wish you'd clear it up, if not for my sake than for yours. It's later than you apparently think.'

Carroll said very carefully, 'How bad is it?'

'As bad as it can be.'

'I've told Queen the whole story, John.' West's urbanity was gone; he even did a little semaphore work with his long arms. 'And I may as well tell you that Rayfield holds out damned little hope. He says today's testimony of the night man at the office building was very damaging.'

'How could it be?' Carroll cried. 'He admitted himself he couldn't positively identify as me whoever it was he let into the building that night. It wasn't me, Tully. It was somebody who deliberately tried to look like me - coat and hat like mine, my stumpy walk from that leg wound on Leyte, easily imitated things like that. And then the guy lets himself into our office and swipes my gun. I should think even a child would see I'm being had!'

'Where would a stranger get a key to your office?' Ellery asked.

'How do I know? How do I know he was even a stranger?'

After a while Carroll became conscious of the silence. He looked up angrily.

'You don't believe me. Actually, neither of you believes me.'

West said, 'It's not that, John,' and began to pace off the cell.

'Look,' Ellery said. 'West tells me you've hinted at certain important information that for some unimaginable reason you've been holding back. If it can do anything to clear you, Carroll, I'd advise you to toss it into the pot now.'

A prisoner shouted somewhere. West stopped in his tracks. Carroll put his head between his hands.

'I did something that Friday night that can clear me, yes.'

'What!' West cried.

'But it's open to all sorts of misinterpretation, chiefly nasty.'

'Nastier than the execution chamber at Sing Sing?'

West said, 'A woman,' with a remote distaste.

'That's right, Tully.' Carroll did not look at Ellery, feeling vaguely offended at his indelicacy. 'And I promised her I wouldn't use this except as a last resort. It wasn't for her sake, God knows. I've kept my mouth shut because of Helena. Helena loves me, but she's a woman, and a sick woman at that. If she shouldn't believe me .. .'

'Let me get this straight,' Ellery said. 'You were with this other woman during the murder period? You can actually prove an alibi?'

'Yes.'

'And he keeps quiet about it!' West dropped to the steel bunk beside his friend. 'John, how many kinds of idiot are you? Don't you have any faith in Helena at all? What happened? Who's the woman?'

'Felicia.'

West said, 'Oh.'

'Mrs. Hunt?' Ellery said sharply.

'That's right. I wandered around in the rain that night trying to figure out how I was going to stop Meredith from disclosing that twenty thousand dollar lunacy and having me arrested. That's when I thought of Felicia. She'd always been able to get anything out of Meredith that she wanted. I phoned her from a pay station and asked if I couldn't come right over.' Carroll muttered, 'I was pretty panicky, I guess ...' His voice petered out.

'Well, well?' West said.

'She was still up, reading in bed. When I told her what it was about, she said to come over. She let me in herself. The maid was asleep, I suppose - anyway, I didn't see Serafina.'

'And the time?' Ellery demanded.

'It was just about one a.m. when I got there. I left at four thirty.' Carroll laughed. 'Now you know why I've kept quiet about this. Can I expect my wife to believe that I spent three and a half hours in the middle of the night alone with Felicia in her bedroom - and she in a sheer nightgown and peekaboo negligee, by God! - just talking? And not getting anywhere, I might add.'

'Three and a half hours?' Ellery's brows went up.

'Felicia didn't see any reason why she should save my neck. Charming character.' Carroll's shoulders sloped. 'Well, I told you what it would sound like. I'm sure I'd doubt the story myself.'

'How much of the time did you have to fight for your honor?' West murmured. 'If I didn't know John so well, Queen, I'd be skeptical, too. Felicia's had a mad thing for him. But he's always been allergic to her. I suppose, John, she was willing to make a deal?'

'Something like that.'

'One night of amour in return for her influence on dear Meredith in your behalf. Yes, that would be Felicia's little libido at work. But Helena ...' West frowned. 'Quite a situation at that.'

Ellery said, 'It will have to be risked. Carroll, will Mrs. Hunt support your alibi in court?'

'She'd find it pretty tough to deny her own signature. I had her sign a full statement before a notary.'

'Good. Where is the statement?'

'In my safe at the office. It's in a plain manila envelope marked "Confidential" and bound around with a red rubber band.'

'I suggest you give West permission to open your safe, and I'd like to go along as security. Right now.'

Carroll bit his lip. Then, abruptly, he nodded.

'Do you know the combination. West?'

'Unless John's changed it. It's one of those letter - combination safes in which you can make the combination any word you want. John, is the combination word still "Helena"?'

'No. I've changed the damn thing four times this summer. The word now is "rescue".'

'And that,' West said solemnly, 'is sheer poetry. Well, John, if the open - sesame that Queen lugs around in his wallet should work again in this Bastille, we'll be back with you shortly.'

They were as good as West's word. Less than ninety minutes later the guard admitted them once more to Carroll's cell. Ellery had the manila envelope in his hand. He tossed the envelope to the bunk.

'All right, Carroll, let's hear it.'

'You haven't opened it?'

'I'd rather you did that yourself.'

Carroll picked up the envelope. He slipped the red rubber band off and around his wrist and, with an effort, inserted his fingers into the envelope.

West said, 'John. What's the matter?'

'Is this a gag?' Carroll was frantic. His fingers kept clawing around inside the envelope.

'Gag?'

'It's empty! The statement's not here!'

Ellery took the envelope from Carroll's shaking hand, squeezed it open, and peered inside. 'When did you see the contents last?'

'I opened the safe several times this summer to make sure the envelope was still there, but I never thought to examine it. I just took it for granted ...' Carroll sprang from the bunk. 'Nobody could have got into that safe - nobody! Not even my secretary. Nobody knew the combination words!'

'John, John.' West was shaking him.

'But how in God's name ... Unless the safe was broken into! Was it broken into, Queen?'

'No sign of it.'

'Then I don't understand!'

'One thing at a time.' Ellery took Carroll's other arm and they got him back on the bunk. 'The loss isn't necessarily fatal. All you have to do is make sure Mrs. Hunt takes the stand and repeats her statement under oath. She'd have been called to testify, anyway, once the written statement had been placed in evidence. Isn't that right. West?'

'Yes. I'll get hold of Felicia right off.'

Carroll was gnawing his fingernails. 'Maybe she won't agree, Tully. Maybe ...'

'She'll agree.' West was grim. 'Queen, would you come with me? This is one interview I prefer an unbiased witness for. Keep your shirt on, John.'

They were back in Carroll's cell with the first grays of dawn. Carroll, who had dropped off to sleep, sat up stupidly. Then he jerked wide - awake. His partner's monkish flesh had acquired a flabbiness he had never seen before.

Carroll's glance darted to the tall shadow in the corner of the cell.

'What's wrong now?' Carroll chattered. 'What's happened?' 

'I'm afraid ... the absolute worst.' Ellery's voice was full of trouble. 'The Hunt house is closed down, Carroll. I'm sorry. Felicia Hunt seems to have disappeared.'

That was a bad time for John Carroll. Ellery and West had to do some hard and fast talking to keep him from going to pieces altogether. They talked and talked through the brightening gloom and the tinny sounds of the prison coming to life.

'Hopeless. It's hopeless,' Carroll kept muttering.

'No.' Ellery said. 'It only looks hopeless, Carroll. The Fancy Dan who weaves an elaborate shroud for somebody else more often than not winds up occupying it himself. The clever boys trip over their own cleverness. There's a complex pattern here, and it's getting more tangled by the hour. That's good, Carroll. It's not hopeless at all.'

But Carroll only shook his head.

West was circling the cell like a frustrated hawk. 'On the other hand, Queen, let's face the facts. John has lost his alibi - the only thing that could surely save him.'

'Only temporarily.'

'We've got to get that alibi back!'

'We will. Stop running around in circles. West. You're making me nervous. The obvious step is to find that woman.'

West looked helpless. 'But where do I start? Will you help, Queen?'

Ellery grinned. 'I've been hoping you'd ask me that. If Carroll's agreeable, I'd be glad to. Want me to help, Carroll?'

The man on the bunk roused himself. 'Want you? I'd take the devil himself! The question is. What can you do?'

'This and that. Here, have a smoke.' Ellery jabbed a cigarette between Carroll's swollen lips. 'West, you look beat. How about going home and catching some sleep? Oh, and give my father a ring, will you? Tell him about this Felicia Hunt development and ask him for me to hop right on it.'

When West had gone, Ellery seated himself on the bunk. For a moment he watched Carroll smoke. Then he said, 'Carroll.'

'What?'

'Stop feeling sorry for yourself and listen to me. First, let's try to track down that business of the missing alibi statement. Go back to the time when you approached Felicia to sign it. Where did the meeting take place? When? Give me every fact you can remember, and then dig for some you've forgotten.'

He listened closely. When Carroll was finished, Ellery nodded.

'It's about as I figured. After Mrs. Hunt signed the statement and Gunder notarized her signature and went away, you left with the envelope in your briefcase and instead of going home you returned to your office. You never once, you say, let go of the briefcase. In the office you placed the envelope in your safe without checking its contents, locked the safe, and adjusted the dial to a new combination word. And on the three or four subsequent occasions when you checked on the envelope, you claim nobody could have removed the statement from it while you had the safe open, or discovered the new combinations you kept setting.

'When the envelope finally was taken from the safe, the only hands not your own to touch it were mine, last night. And I'll vouch for the fact that the statement couldn't have been stolen from me or lost from the envelope on the way over here.' Ellery tapped the manila envelope still in Carroll's hand. 'So, this was empty when I took it from the safe. Carroll, it's been empty for months. It was empty before you ever put it in the safe.'

Carroll looked at it, dazed.

'Only one conclusion possible.' Ellery lit another cigarette for him, and one for himself. 'The only time the envelope was not actually in your physical possession, or in the safe, or in my hands, was for a couple of minutes in the Hunt house the night Felicia signed the statement. You say that after she signed and Gunder notarized her signature, you slipped the statement into the envelope and the envelope into your briefcase, that you then took Gunder downstairs to pay him off and see him out. During that couple of minutes the briefcase with its contents were out of your sight and control. Therefore that's when the great disappearance took place. And since Mrs. Hunt was the only one in the room with the briefcase ...'

'Felicia?'

'Nobody else. Why should she have taken the statement she had just signed, Carroll? Any idea?'

'She double - crossed me, damn her,' Carroll said in a thick voice. 'And now she's ducked out to avoid having to tell the story under oath.'

'We'll get her to duck right back in if we have to extradite her from Little America.' Ellery rose and squeezed Carroll's shoulder. 'Hang in, Johnny.'

Felicia Hunt's whereabouts remained a mystery for as long as it took Ellery to go from the Tombs to Police Headquarters. His father had just come into the office and he was elbow - deep in reports.

'Yes, West phoned me,' the Inspector said, without looking up. 'If he'd hung on, I'd have been able to tell him in three minutes where Felicia Hunt is. Blast it all, where's that Grierson affidavit!'

Ellery waited patiently.

'Well?' he said at last. 'I'm still hanging.'

'What? Oh!' Inspector Queen leaned back. 'All I did was phone Smallhauser at the D.A.'s office. It seems a couple of days before Carroll's trial started - last Saturday morning - Hunt's widow showed up at the D.A.'s all tricked out in that ghastly mourning she wears, with her doctor in tow. The doctor told Smallhauser Mrs. Hunt was in a dangerously nervous state and couldn't face the ordeal of the trial. He wanted her to get away from the city. Seems she'd bought a cottage up in northern Westchester this summer and a few days up there by herself were just what the M.D. ordered, and was it all right with the D.A.? Well, Smallhauser didn't like it, but he figured that with the cottage having a phone he could always get her back to town in a couple of hours. So he said okay, and she gave her maid a week off and went up there Saturday afternoon. What's the hassle?'

Ellery told him. His father listened suspiciously.

'So that's what West was being so mysterious about,' he exclaimed. 'An alibi! The D.A.'s going to love this.'

'So will Rayfield. He doesn't know about it yet, either.'

The Inspector cocked a sharpening eye. 'What's your stake in this pot?'

'The right.' Ellery said piously. 'And seeing that it prevails.'

His father grunted and reached for the telephone. When he set it down, he had a Mt. Kisco number scribbled on his pad.

'Here, you call her.' he said. 'I'm working the other side of the street. And don't use a city phone for a toll call! You know where to find a booth.'

Ellery was back in front of his father's desk in forty - five minutes.

'What now?' Inspector Queen said. .'! was just on my way to the Bullpen.'

'She doesn't answer.'

'Who doesn't answer?'

'The Hunt lady.' Ellery said. 'Remember the case? I've phoned at five - minute intervals for almost an hour. Either she's gone into an early hibernation, or she's back in Central America charming the hidalgos.'

'Or she just isn't answering her phone. Look, son, I'm up to my lowers this morning. The case is out of my hands, anyway. Keep calling. She'll answer sooner or later.'

Ellery tried all day, slipping in and out of the courtroom every half hour. At a little past three the Assistant District Attorney rested his case, and on the request of the defense Judge Joseph H. Holloway adjourned the trial until the next morning.

Ellery managed to be looking elsewhere when John Carroll was taken from the courtroom. Carroll walked as if his knees were giving way. But as the room cleared, Ellery caught Tully West's eye. West, who was stooping over Helena Carroll in distress, nodded and after a moment came over.

'What about Felicia? She'll testify, won't she?'

Ellery glanced over at the reporters surrounding the portly figure of Rayfield. Some were glancing back, noses in the wind.

'We can't talk here, West. Can you get away?'

'I'll have to take Helena home first.' West was braced, like a man set for a blow. 'Where?'

'My father's office as soon as you can make it.'

'What about Rayfield?'

'Better not say anything to him those newsmen can overhear. We can get in touch with him tonight.'

It was nearly five o'clock before the tall lawyer hurried into the Inspector's office. He looked haunted.

'Sorry, Helena went to pieces on me. I had to tell her all about John's alibi. Now she's more confused than ever. Damn it, why didn't John trust her in the first place?' West wiped his face. He said slowly. 'And now I suppose you'll tell me Felicia refuses to cooperate.'

'I almost wish that were it.' Ellery was looking haggard himself. 'West, I've been phoning since eight thirty this morning. I tried again only ten minutes ago. She doesn't answer.'

'She isn't there?'

'Maybe.' Inspector Queen was looking annoyed. 'Ellery, why the devil won't you ask the help of the state police? We could have a report on her in an hour.

'No.' Ellery got up. 'West, do you have your car?'

'I cabbed down.'

Ellery glanced at his father. The old man threw up his hands and stamped out.

'I ought to have my head examined! Velie, get me a car.'

They drove out of the city on Saw Mill River Parkway, Sergeant Velie at the wheel and Inspector Queen beside him nursing his grouch. Behind them, from opposite windows, Ellery and West studied the scenery. They were studying it long after darkness fell.

The sergeant turned the unmarked squad car off the Parkway near Mt. Kisco.

'Pull up at that gas station.' They were the first words the Inspector had uttered since leaving the city.

'Stony Ride Road?' the attendant said. 'That's up between here and Bedford Hills. Dirt road that goes way off to hell and gone. Who you looking for?'

'The Hunt place.'

'Hunt? Never heard.'

Ellery stuck his head out. 'How about Santos?'

'Santos. Yeah, dame of that name bought the old Meeker place this summer. You follow along here about a mile and a half ...'

'Using her maiden name.' West said as they drove away. 'Meredith would have loved that.'

The Queens said nothing.

Stony Ride Road climbed and twisted and swooped back, jolting their teeth. The darkness was impressive. They saw only two houses in three miles. A mile beyond the second, they found Felicia Hunt's cottage. Sergeant Velie very nearly drove past it. Its windows were as black as the night itself.

Velie swung the car between two mossy pillars into a crushed - stone driveway.

'No, Velie, stop here and shine your brights dead on the house.' The Inspector sounded troubled.

'She's gone,' West growled. 'She's gone or she never came here at all! What am I going to tell John?'

Ellery borrowed the sergeant's flash and got out. The Inspector put his small hand on Tully West's arm.

'No, Mr. West, we'll wait here.' Trouble was in his look, too.

It was a verdigrised fieldstone cottage with rusty wood trim and a darkly shingled roof, cuddled against wild woods. Ellery played his flash on the door. They saw him extend his foot and toe the door, and they saw it swing back.

He went into the house, flash first. A moment later the hall lit up.

He was in the house exactly two minutes.

At the sight of his face Inspector Queen and Sergeant Velie jumped from the car and ran past him and into the cottage.

Ellery said, 'You can tell John to forget his alibi. West. She's in there - dead.'

Felicia Hunt was lying on the bedroom floor face down, which was unfortunate. The back of her head had been crushed, and the bloody shards of the heavy stoneware vase that had crushed it strewed the floor around her. In the debris were some stiff chrysanthemums, looking like big dead insects. One of them had fallen on her open right palm.

West swallowed and retreated rapidly to the hall.

She had been dressed in a rainbow - striped frock of some iridescent material when death caught her. Jewels glittered on her hands and arms and neck. There were pomponned scuffs on her feet, her legs were bare, and the dead lips and cheeks and eyes showed no trace of make - up.

'She's been dead at least four days, maybe five.' Inspector Queen said. 'What do you make it, Velie?'

'Nearer four,' the big sergeant said. 'Last Sunday some time, I'd say. Inspector..' He glanced with longing at the tightly closed windows.

'Better not, Velie.'

The two men rose. They had touched nothing but the body, and that with profound care.

Ellery stood watching them morosely.

'Find anything, son?'

'No. That rain the other night wiped out any tire tracks or footprints that might have been left. Some spoiling food in the refrigerator, and her car is in the garage behind the house. No sign of robbery.' Ellery added suddenly, 'Doesn't something about her strike you as queer?'

'Yeah,' Sergeant Velie said. 'That posy in her hand ought to be a lily.'

'Spare us, Velie! What, Ellery?'

'The way she's dressed.'

They stared down at her. Tully West came back to the doorway, still swallowing.

The sergeant said, 'Looks like she was expecting somebody, the way she's all dolled up.'

'That's just what it doesn't look like,' Inspector Queen snapped. 'A woman as formally brought up as this one, who's expecting somebody, puts on shoes and stockings, Velie - doesn't go around barelegged and wearing bedroom slippers. She hadn't even made up her face or polished her nails. She was expecting nobody. What about the way she's dressed, Ellery?'

'Why isn't she still in mourning?'

'Huh?'

'She drives up here alone Saturday after wearing nothing but unrelieved black in town, and within twenty - four hours or less she's in a color - happy dress, back wearing her favorite jewelry, and having a ball for herself. It tells a great deal about Felicia de los Santos Hunt.'

'It doesn't tell me a thing,' his father retorted. 'What I want to know is why she was knocked off. It wasn't robbery. And there's nothing to indicate rape, although it's true a would - be rapist might have panicked - '

'Isn't it obvious that this is part and parcel of Hunt's murder and the frame - up of John Carroll?' West broke in with bitterness. 'Rape! Felicia was murdered to keep her from giving John the alibi that would get him off the hook.'

The Inspector nibbled his mustache.

'What does it take to convince you people that somebody is after Carroll's hide!'

'That sounds like sense, Dad.'

'Maybe.'

'At the least, the Hunt woman's murder is bound to give the case against Carroll a different look - Dad, before Velie phones the state police.'

'Well?'

'Let's you and Velie and I really give this place a going over.'

'What for, Ellery?'

'For that alibi statement Felicia signed and then took back when Carroll wasn't looking. It's a long shot, but ... who knows?'

Their session with the state police took the rest of the night. It was sunrise before they got back to the city.

West asked to be dropped off at Beekman Place.

'Sam Rayfield won't thank me for waking him up, but then I haven't had any sleep at all. Who's going to tell John?'

'I will,' Ellery said.

West turned away with a grateful wave.

'So far so bad,' the Inspector said as they sped downtown. 'Now all I have to do is talk the D.A.'s office into joining Rayfield in a plea to Judge Holloway, and why I should have to do it is beyond me!'

'You going home, Inspector?'

'Sure I'm going home, Velie! I can take Smallhauser's abuse over my own phone as well as at Headquarters. And maybe get some sleep, too. How about you, son?'

'The Tombs,' Ellery said.

He parted with Sergeant Velie at the Headquarters garage and walked over to the Criminal courts Building. His head was muddy, and he wanted to cleanse it. He tried not to think of John Carroll.

Carroll woke up instantly at the sound of the cell door.

'Queen! How did you make out with Felicia?'

Ellery said, 'We didn't.'

'She won't testify?'

'She can't testify. John, she's dead.'

It was brutal, but he knew no kinder formula. Carroll was half sitting up, leaning on an elbow, and he remained that way. His eyes kept blinking in a monotonous rhythm.

'Dead ...'

'Murdered.' Carroll blinked the bedroom floor of her cottage with her head smashed in. She'd been dead for days.'

'Murdered.' Carroll blinked and blinked. 'But who -?'

'There's not a clue. So far, anyway.' Ellery lit a cigarette and held it out. Carroll took it. But then he dropped it and covered his face with both hands. 'I'm sorry, John,' Ellery said.

Carroll's hands came down. He had his lower lip in his teeth.

'I'm no coward. Queen. I faced death a hundred times in the Pacific and didn't chicken out. But a man likes to die for some purpose ... I'm scared.'

Ellery looked away.

'There's got to be some way out of this!' Carroll dropped off the bunk and ran in his bare feet to the bars of the cell, to grasp them with both hands. But then he whirled and sprang at Ellery, seizing him by the arms. 'That statement - that's my out, Queen! Maybe she didn't destroy it. Maybe she took it up there with her. If you can find it for me - '

'I've looked,' Ellery said gently. 'And my father looked, and Sergeant Velie, too. We covered the cottage inside and out. It took us over two hours. We didn't call the local police until we were satisfied it wasn't there.'

'But it's got to be there! My life depends on it! Don't you see?' He shook Ellery.

'Yes, John.'

'You missed it. Maybe she put it in an obvious place, like in that story of Poe's. Did you look in her purse? Her luggage?'

'Yes, John.'

'Her suits - coats - the linings -?'

'Yes, John.'

'Her car -?'

'And her car.'

'Then maybe it was on her.' Carroll said feverishly. 'On her person. Did you ...? No, I suppose you wouldn't.'

'We would and we did.' Ellery's arms ached. He wished Carroll would let go.

'How about that big ruby - and - emerald locket she was so hipped on? The alibi statement was only a single sheet of paper. She might have wadded it up and hidden it in the locket. Did you look there while you were searching the body?'

'Yes, John. All we found in the locket were two photos, Spanish - looking elderly people. Her parents, I suppose.'

Carroll released him. Ellery rubbed his arms.

'How about books?' Carroll mumbled. 'Felicia was always reading some trashy novel or other. She might have slipped it between two pages - '

'There were eleven books in the house, seven magazines. I went through them myself.'

In the cold cell Carroll wiped the perspiration from his cheeks.

'Desk with a false compartment? ,.. Cellar? ... Is there an attic? ... Did you search the garage?'

He went on and on. Ellery waited for him to run down.

When Carroll was finally quiet, Ellery called the guard. His last glimpse of the young lawyer was of a spreadeagled figure,  motionless on the bunk, eyes shut. All Ellery could think of was a corpse.

* * * * *

Judge Joseph H. Holloway shook his head. He was a gray - skinned, frozen - eyed old - timer of the criminal courts, known to practising members of the New York bar as Old Steelguts.

'I didn't come down to my chambers an hour early on a Monday morning, Counselor Rayfield, for the pleasure of listening to your mellifluous voice. That pleasure palled on me a long time ago. I granted an adjournment Friday morning because of the Hunt woman's murder, but do you have any evidence to warrant a further postponement? So far I've heard nothing but a lot of booshwah.'

Assistant District Attorney Smallhauser nodded admiringly. Judge Holloway's fondness for the slang of his youth - indulged in only in camera of course - was trifled with at the peril of the trifler. 'Booshwah is le mot juste for it. Your Honor. I apologize for being a party to this frivolous waste of your time.'

Samuel Rayfield favored the murderous little Assistant D.A. with a head - shrinking glance and clamped his teeth more firmly about his cold cigar. 'Come off it, Joe,' he said to Judge Holloway. 'This is a man's life we're playing with. We're not privileged to kick him to death simply because he acted like a damn fool in holding back his alibi. All I want this adjournment for is time to look for that alibi statement the Hunt woman signed when she was alive enough to write.'

Judge Holloway's dentures gleamed towards Smallhauser.

'The alibi statement your client says the Hunt woman signed,' the little D.A. said with his prim smile.

The Judge's dentures promptly turned to Rayfield.

'I've got the notary, Gunder, to attest to the fact that she signed it,' the portly lawyer snapped.

'That she signed some paper, yes. But you people admit yourselves that Carroll concealed the text of the paper from Gunder. For all Gunder knows he might have been notarizing the woman's signature to the lease of a new dog house.' The little D.A. turned his smile on the Judge. 'I'm bound to say, Your Honor, this whole thing smells more and more to me like a stall.'

'Come around some time when you've put on long pants and I'll show you what a real stall smells like, Smallhauser!' the famous lawyer said. 'Joe, I'm not stalling. There's a chance she didn't destroy the statement. Not much of one, I admit, but I wouldn't sleep nights if I thought I hadn't exhausted every avenue of investigation in Carroll's behalf.'

'You wouldn't lose half of a strangled snore,' the Judge said with enjoyment. 'Look, Sam, it's all conjecture, and you know it. You can't even show that Mrs. Hunt stole that alleged statement of hers from Carroll in the first place.'

'Ellery Queen showed - '

'I know what Ellery Queen showed. He showed his usual talent for making something out of nothing. Ellery's idea of proof!' The old jurist snorted. 'And even if the Hunt woman did steal an alibi statement from Carroll, what did she steal it for if not to burn it or flush it down a toilet? And even if she held on to it, where is it? The Queens didn't find it in her Westchester cottage. You yourself ransacked her New York house over the week - end. You got a court order to examine her safe deposit box. You questioned her maid and the people in Carroll's office and God knows who else - all without result. Be reasonable, Sam! That alibi statement either never existed or, if it did, it doesn't exist any more. I can't predicate a postponement on the defendant's unsupported allegation of alibi. You know I can't.'

'Of course, if you'd like to put Carroll on the stand,' Smallhauser said with a grin, 'so I can cross - examine him - '

Rayfield ignored him. 'All right, Joe. But you can't deny that Hunt's wife has also been murdered. That's a fact, and in evidence of it we can produce a corpse. And I don't believe in coincidences. When a man's murder is followed by his wife's murder, I say the two are connected. The connection in this case is obvious. The murder of Felicia Hunt was committed in order to blow up Carroll's alibi for the murder of Meredith Hunt and to cement Carroll's conviction. How can his trial proceed with this area unexplored? I tell you, Joe, this man is being framed by somebody who's committed two murders in order to pull the frame off! Give us time to explore.'

'I remember once sitting here listening to Ellery Queen,' Judge Holloway said glumly. 'You're beginning to sound like his echo. Sam, evidence is what trials are ruled by, and evidence is what you ain't got. Motion denied. My courtroom, gentlemen, ten o'clock on the nose.'

Ellery got the answer that Thursday afternoon in the half - empty courtroom while the jury was out deliberating John Carroll's fate.

It came to him after an agonizing appraisal of the facts as he saw them. He had gone over them countless times before. This time - in the lightning flash he had begun to think would never strike again - he saw it.

By good luck, at the time it came, he was alone. Carroll had been taken back to the Tombs, and his wife and the two lawyers had gone with him so that he would not have to sweat the waiting out alone.

A sickish feeling invaded Ellery's stomach. He got up and went out and found the nearest men's room.

When he returned to the courtroom, Tully West was waiting for him.

'Helena wants to talk to you.' West's face was green, too.

'No.'

'I beg your pardon?'

Ellery shook his head clear. 'I mean - yes, of course.'

West misunderstood. 'I don't blame you. I wish I were anywhere else myself. Rayfield was smart - he bowed out for "coffee".'

Carroll was being held in a detention room under guard. Ellery was surprised at his calm, even gentle, look. It was Helena Carroll's eyes that were wild. He was trying to console her.

'Honey, honey, it's going to come out all right. They won't convict an innocent man.'

'Why are they taking so long? They've been out five hours!'

'That's a good sign, Helena,' West said. 'The longer they take, the better John's chances are.'

She saw Ellery then, and she struggled to her feet and was at him so swiftly that he almost stepped back.

'I thought you were supposed to be so marvelous at these things! You haven't done anything for John - anything.'

Carroll tried to draw her back, but she shook him off. Her pain - etched face was livid.

'I don't care, John! You should have hired a real detective while there was still time. I wanted you to - I begged you and Tully not to rely on somebody so close to the police!'

'Helena, really.' West was embarrassed.

Ellery said stonily, 'No, Mrs. Carroll is quite right. I wish I had never got mixed up in it.'

She was staring at him intently. 'That almost sounds as if ...'

'As if what, Helena?' West was trying to humor her, get her away.

'As if he knows. Tully, he does. Look at his face!' She clawed at Ellery. 'You know, and you won't say anything! You talk, do you hear? Tell me! Who's behind this?'

West was flabbergasted. With surprise John Carroll studied Ellery's face for a moment, then he went to the barred window and stood there rigidly.

'Who?' His wife was weeping now. 'Who?'

But Ellery was as rigid as Carroll. 'I'm sorry, Mrs. Carroll. I can't save your husband. It's too late.'

'Too late,' she said hysterically. 'How can you say it's too late when - '

'Helena.' West took the little woman by the arms and forcibly sat her down. Then he turned to Ellery, his lean face dark. 'What's this all about. Queen? You sound as if you're covering up for someone. Are you?'

Ellery glanced past the angry lawyer to the motionless man at the window.

'I'll leave it up to John,' he said. 'Shall I answer him, John?'

For a moment it seemed as if Carroll had not heard. But then he turned, and there was something about him - a dignity, a finality - that quieted Tully West and Helen Carroll and sent their glances seeking each other. Carroll replied clearly, 'No.'

Looking out over the prison yard from the Warden's office, Ellery thought he had never seen a lovelier spring night sky, or a sadder one. A man should die on a stormy night, with all Nature protesting. This, he thought, this is cruel and unusual punishment.

He sought the Warden's clock.

Carroll had fourteen minutes of life left.

The Warden's door opened and closed behind him. Ellery did not turn around. He thought he knew who it was. He had been half expecting his father for an hour.

'Ellery, I looked for you at the Death House.'

'I was down there before. Dad. Had a long talk with Carroll. I thought you'd be here long ago.'

'I wasn't intending to come at all. It isn't my business. I did my part of it. Or maybe that's why I'm here. After a lifetime of this sort of thing, I'm still not hardened to it... Ellery.'

'Yes, Dad.'

'It's Helena Carroll. She's hounded and haunted me. She's with West. I drove them up. Mrs. Carroll thinks I have some drag with you. Do I?'

Ellery said from the window, 'In practically everything. Dad. But not in this.'

'I don't understand you,' the Inspector said heavily. 'If you have information that would save Carroll, how can you keep buttoned up now? - here? All right, you saw something we didn't. Is it my job you're worried about, because I helped put Carroll on this spot? If you know something that proves his innocence, the hell with me.'

'I'm not thinking of you.'

'Then you can only be thinking of Carroll. He's protecting somebody, he's willing to go to the Chair for it, and you're helping him do it. Ellery, you can't do that.' The old man clutched his arm. 'There's still a few minutes. The Warden's got an open line to the Governor's office.'

But Ellery shook his head.

Inspector Queen stared at his son's set profile for a moment. Then he went over to a chair and sat down, and father and son waited.

At 11:04 the lights suddenly dimmed. Both men stiffened. The office brightened. At 11:07 it happened again. And again at 11:12.

After that there was no change. Ellery turned away from the window, rumbling for his cigarettes.

'Do you have a light, Dad?'

The old man struck a match for him. Ellery nodded and sat down beside him.

'Who's going to tell her?' his father said suddenly.

'You are,' Ellery said. 'I can't.'

Inspector Queen rose. 'Live and learn,' he said.

'Dad - '

The opening of the door interrupted them. Ellery got to his feet. The Warden's face was as haggard as theirs. He was wiping it with a damp handkerchief.

'I never get used to it,' he said, 'never ... He went very peacefully. Not trouble at all.'

Ellery said, 'Yes, he would.'

'He gave me a message for you, by the way.'

'Thanking him, I suppose,' Inspector Queen said bitterly.

'Why, yes. Inspector,' the Warden said. 'He said to tell your son how grateful he was. What on earth did he mean?'

'Don't ask him,' the Inspector said. 'My son's constituted himself a one - man subcommittee of the Almighty. Where you going to wait for me, Ellery?' he demanded as they left the Warden's office. 'I mean while I do the dirty work?'

Ellery said stiffly, 'Take Helena Carroll and Tully West back to the city first.'

'Just tell me one thing, what was Carroll "grateful" to you for? Who'd you help him cover up?'

Ellery shook his head. 'I'll see you at home afterward.'

* * * * *

'Well?' the old man said. He had got into his frayed bathrobe and slippers, and he was nursing a cup of stale coffee with his puffy hands. He looked exhausted. 'And it had better be good.'

'Oh, it's good,' Ellery said. 'If good is the word.' He had not undressed, had not even removed his topcoat. He sat there as he had come in from the long drive to wait for his father. He stared at the blank Queen wall. 'It was a slip of the tongue. I remembered it. It wouldn't have made any difference if the slip had never been made, or if I'd forgotten it altogether. Any difference to Carroll, I mean. He was sunk from the start. I couldn't save him. Dad. He'd had it.'

'What slip?' the old man demanded. 'Of whose tongue? Or was I deaf as well as blind?'

'I was the only one who heard it. It had to go with Felicia Hunt. Her husband dies and she goes into Spanish mourning, total and unadorned. But when she gets off by herself in that hillside cottage, back on go the gay clothes, her favorite jewelry. By herself, mind you - alone. Safe from all eyes, even her maid's.'

Ellery stared harder at the blank wall. 'When we got back to town after finding her body, I went directly to the Tombs to tell Carroll about the murder in Westchester of the only human being who could give him an alibi. Carroll was frantic. His mind went back to the alibi statement she had signed and then taken from his briefcase, unknown to him at the time. It was all he could think of, naturally. If that piece of paper existed, if she had hidden it instead of destroying it, he could still be saved. He kept pounding at me. Maybe she'd hidden it in her luggage, her car, a secret drawer. He went on and on. And one of the places he mentioned as a possible hiding place of the statement was the locket of the ruby - and - emerald pendant Felicia Hunt was so fond of. "Did you look there?" he asked me. "While you were searching the body?".'

Ellery flung aside a cigarette he had never lit. 'That question of his was what I finally remembered.'

'He knew she was wearing the pendant ...'

'Exactly, when no one could have known except ourselves when we found her - and the one who had murdered her there five days earlier.'

He sank deeper into his coat. 'It was a blow, but there it was - John Carroll had murdered Felicia Hunt. He'd had the opportunity, of course. You and Velie agreed that the latest she could have been murdered was the preceding Sunday. And on that Sunday Carroll was still free on bail. It wasn't until the next morning, Monday, that he had to resubmit to the custody of the court for the commencement of his trial.'

'But it doesn't add up,' Inspector Queen spluttered. 'The Hunt woman's testimony would get him an acquittal. Why should Carroll have knocked off the only witness who could give him his alibi?'

'Just what I asked myself. And the only answer that made sense was: Carroll must have had reason to believe that when Felicia took the stand in court, she was going to tell the truth.'

'Truth? The truth about what?'

'About Carroll's alibi being false.'

'False?'

'Yes. And from his standpoint, of course, that would compel him to kill her. To protect the alibi.'

'But without her he had no alibi, true or false!'

'Correct,' Ellery said softly, 'but when Carroll drove up to Westchester he didn't know that. At that time he thought he had her signed statement locked in his office safe. He didn't learn until days after he had killed her - when West and I opened the safe and found the envelope empty - that he no longer had possession of the alibi statement, hadn't had possession for months, in fact - that, as I pointed out to him, Felicia Hunt must have taken it from his briefcase while he was downstairs showing the notary out. No wonder he almost collapsed.'

'I'll be damned,' the Inspector said. 'I'll be double - damned.'

Ellery shrugged. 'If Carroll's alibi for Meredith Hunt's murder was a phony, then the case against him stood as charged. The alibi was the only thing that gave him the appearance of innocence. If in fact he had no alibi, everything pointed to his guilt of Hunt's murder, as the jury rightfully decided.

'Carroll filled in the details for me earlier tonight in the Death House.' Ellery's glance went back to the wall. 'He said that when he left his house that rainy night after Hunt's ultimatum, to walk off his anger, the fog gave him a slight lease on hope. Maybe Hunt's plane was grounded and Hunt was still within reach. He phoned La Guardia and found that all flights had been delayed for a few hours. On the chance that Hunt was hanging around the airport, Carroll stopped in at his office and got his target pistol. He had some vague idea, he said, of threatening Hunt into a change of heart.

'He took a cab to La Guardia, found Hunt waiting for the fog to clear, and persuaded him to get his car from the parking lot so that they could talk in privacy. Eventually Hunt meandered back to Manhattan and parked on East 58th Street. The talk in the car became a violent quarrel. Carroll's hair - trigger temper went off, and he shot Hunt. He left Hunt in the Thunderbird and stumbled back home in the rain.

'The next morning, when we called on Mrs. Hunt to announce her husband's killing and found Carroll and West there, and you mentioned that the killer had left his gun in Hunt's car. Carroll was sick. Remember he ran into the bathroom? He wasn't acting that time. For the first time he realized that, in his fury and panic, he'd completely forgotten about the gun.

'As a lawyer,' Ellery went on, 'he knew what a powerful circumstantial case loomed against him, and that the only thing that could save him was an equally powerful alibi. He saw only one possible way to get it. He had never destroyed the love letters Felicia Hunt had written him during her infatuation. And he knew her dread of scandal. So he fabricated a statement out of the whole cloth about having spent the murder period in her bedroom "pleading" with her to intercede with her husband, and he took the statement to her. He didn't have to spell out his threat. Felicia understood clearly enough the implication of his proposal ... that if she didn't give him the phony alibi he needed, he would publish her love letters and ruin her with her strait - laced Latin - American family and compatriots. She signed.'

'But why didn't Carroll produce the alibi right away, Ellery? What was his point in holding it back?'

'The legal mind again. If he produced it during the investigation, even if it served to clear him, the case would still be open on the books and later he might find himself back in it up to his ears. But if he stood trial for Hunt's murder and then produced the fake alibi and was acquitted - he was safe from the law forever by the rule of double jeopardy. He couldn't be tried again for Hunt's killing after that even if the alibi should at some future date be exposed as a fake.

'He knew from the beginning,' Ellery continued, 'that Felicia Hunt was the weak spot in his plan. She was neurotic and he was terribly afraid she might wilt under pressure when he needed her most. As the trial approached, Carroll told me, he got more and more nervous about her. So the day before it was scheduled to start, he decided to talk to her again. Learning that she'd gone into retreat up in Westchester, he found an excuse to get away from his family and drove up to the cottage. His worst fears were realized. She told him that she had changed her mind. Scandal or no scandal, she wasn't going to testify falsely under oath and lay herself open to perjury. What she didn't tell him - it might possibly have saved her life if she had - was that she'd stolen and destroyed the alibi statement he had forced her to sign months before.

'Carroll grabbed the nearest heavy object and hit her over the head with it. Now at least, he consoled himself, she wouldn't be able to repudiate her signed statement, which he thought was in his office safe.'

'And you've kept all this to yourself,' his father muttered. 'Why, Ellery? You certainly didn't owe Carroll anything.'

Ellery turned from the wall. He looked desperately tired.

'No, I didn't owe Carroll anything ... a man with a completely cockeyed moral sense ... too proud to live on his wife's money, yet capable of stealing twenty thousand dollars ... a faithful husband who nevertheless kept the love letters of a woman he despised for their possible future value to him ... a man with a strange streak of honesty who was capable of playing a scene like an accomplished actor ... a loving father who let himself murder two people.

'No, I didn't owe him anything,' Ellery said, 'but he wasn't the only one involved. And no one knew that better than Carroll. The afternoon that the answer came to me, while we were waiting for the jury to come in, I told Mrs. Carroll I couldn't save her husband, that it was too late. Carroll was the only one present who knew what I meant. He knew I meant it was too late for him, that I couldn't save him because I knew he was guilty. And when I put it up to him, he gave me to understand that I wasn't to give him away. It wasn't for his own sake - he knew the verdict the jury was going to bring in. He knew he was already a dead man.

'And so I respected his last request. I couldn't save him, but I could save his family's memories of him. This way Helena Carroll and little Breck and Louanne will always think John Carroll died the victim of a miscarriage of justice.' Ellery shucked his topcoat and headed for his bedroom. 'How could I deny them that comfort?'