Halfway House (9 page)

The tall man said quickly, “I ’phoned him for a confirmation. I couldn’t understand why Joe should want to change his beneficiary. Of course, strictly speaking, it was none of my affair; and I told him so at once. But Joe wasn’t angry; just nervous. Yes, he said, he meant to change his beneficiary for reasons too involved to go into at the time. He did say vaguely that Jessica was independently wealthy, didn’t need the protection of the policy, or some such rot; and he asked me to keep his intention a secret, at least until he could talk to me alone and explain.”

“And did he?” murmured Ellery.

“Unfortunately, no. I hadn’t seen or talked with him since our telephone conversation three weeks ago. I’ve the feeling he was avoiding me, perhaps to escape the necessity of explaining as he had promised. When I saw the name of the new beneficiary on the application it meant nothing at all to me, of course. And I’m afraid that after the first reaction of worry over the implication of a rift between Jessica and Joe I quite forgot the whole matter.”

“What happened after your talk?” demanded De Jong.

“He filled out the forms and mailed them to me with the policies a few days later; it took a couple of weeks to handle the matter with the other companies, but the altered policies were returned to him last Wednesday; and that’s the last of it. Until tonight.” Finch frowned. “And tonight he’s dead by someone’s hand. It’s deucedly odd.”

“We seem to be arriving at the crucial point,” said Ellery patiently, “by the most circuitous route.
Will
you please—?”

Finch stared from face to face. “You will understand,” he said uneasily, “that what I am about to tell you is merely a statement of fact. I’ve not made up my mind, and I shouldn’t care to have my position misconstrued… The significance of this change of beneficiary didn’t strike me until I walked into this hovel tonight and discovered…” He paused. “When Gimball returned his applications and policies, he indicated in the proper places that his beneficiary was to be changed from Jessica Borden Gimball to… Mrs. Lucy Wilson. Mrs. Lucy Wilson, I repeat, giving a specific address in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia!”

“Me?” said Lucy faintly. “Me? A million dollars?”

“You’re sure of that, Mr. Finch?” De Jong leaned forward in an eager attitude. “You’re not just making that up to throw dust in my eyes?”

“I suppose,” said Finch coldly, “I shouldn’t bridle at anything. I assure you I have nothing against Mrs. Wilson, whom I’ve never even seen before tonight and who is, I feel certain, the victim of a terrible misunderstanding. On the other hand, if I am to argue the point, I should think ‘making it up’, as you put it, would be quite stupid of me. The National is an institution above personalities or the possibility of individual machination.”

“Talk United States.”

Finch stared. “Nor do I see the necessity for your insulting manner. However, to proceed, the records exist, and no one, not I nor Hathaway, President of the National, nor anyone on this earth could falsify them. Besides, you will find Joseph Kent Gimball’s application, in his verifiable handwriting, both in our photostatic files and in his own policies, wherever they may be—his office safe, or his bank vault.”

The policeman nodded impatiently; his eyes were on Lucy, pinning her to her chair with a remorseless calculation. Lucy shrank back, her fingers fumbling with a button on her dress.

“That was beastly of Joe,” cried Mrs. Gimball passionately. “This… this
creature
his beneficiary, his wife… I simply refuse to believe it. It’s not the money. But the callousness, the bad taste—”

“Hysterics won’t help, dear lady,” observed Ellery. He had removed his pince-nez and was scrubbing the lenses with an absent vigor. “Tell me, Mr. Finch; you haven’t breathed a word of this beneficiary change to anyone?”

“Naturally not,” growled Finch, still offended. “Joe asked me to keep quiet about it, and I did so.”

“Of course, Gimball himself wouldn’t have told anyone,” mused Ellery. “He stood apparently at some emotional crossroad; he had taken action and was making up his mind how to break the news. You know, it all tenors snugly. Bill Angell received a wire from Wilson—I suppose we should continue to differentiate between his personalities—yesterday morning, requesting him to come here last night on a matter of extreme urgency. He was in trouble, he wired. It’s obvious he meant to tell Bill the whole story, make a clean breast of his predicament, and ask his advice as to future procedure. I don’t doubt his own mind was made up, for he
had
changed his beneficiary to Lucy. But he was probably uneasy about how she would take the revelation that he was another man altogether. What do you think, Bill?”

“I’m past thinking,” said Bill dully. “But I imagine you’re right enough.”

“And that bulky envelope he left with you Friday? Has it occurred to you that it may contain the eight policies?”

“It has.”

“Well, it won’t take genius to determine that—”

“Mrs. Wilson,” said De Jong rudely. “Look at me.”

Lucy obeyed as if mesmerized; the bewilderment, the pain, the shock had not yet drained away from her sweet, strong features.

Bill growled: “I don’t like that tone of yours, De Jong.”

“Then lump it. Mrs. Wilson, did you know that Gimball was insured?”

“I?” she faltered. “I knew? No, really I didn’t… Joe didn’t carry any insurance. I’m sure he didn’t. I once asked him why, and he said he didn’t believe in such things.”

“Not the reason at all, of course,” drawled Ellery. “Insurance as Joe Wilson meant a medical examination, the signing of documents. And a man living constantly in the fear that his double life might be exposed would avoid signing his name whenever possible. That explains why he didn’t carry a checking account—a remote risk, but he must have been in the last stages of nervous exhaustion over the constant strain of maintaining the deception. I daresay he wrote as little as he could get by with.”

“You not only knew he carried insurance, Mrs. Wilson,” snapped De Jong, glaring at Ellery, “but maybe you persuaded him to change his beneficiary from Mrs. Gimball to yourself, hey?”

“De Jong—” warned Bill, stepping forward.

“Keep quiet, you!” The three people from New York were frozen. All at once something menacing had invaded the shabby room. De Jong’s face was very red, and the arteries in his temples bulged.

“I don’t know what you mean,” whispered Lucy. “I’ve told you I didn’t know he was anybody… I mean, anybody but Joe Wilson. How could I know about this lady?”

De Jong sneered, his nostrils derisive. Then he stepped to the side-door, opened it, crooked his finger. The small brown man who had brought Lucy to the shack came in, blinking a little in the light. “Sellers, tell me again for the benefit of these good people what you did when you drove up to Mrs. Wilson’s house in Philly last night.”

“I found the house, all right, got out of my car, and rang the bell,” replied the detective in a tired voice. “No answer. House dark. Just a private house, see? I waited on the porch a while, then I thought I’d take a look around. The back door was locked, like the front; cellar, too. I nosed around the garage. Doors shut. Iron staple across the door rusted and broken, no lock there at all. I opened the doors and switched on the light. Two-car garage, empty. Closed the doors again and went back to the porch and waited until Mrs. Wilson came—”

“That’s all, Sellers,” said De Jong; and the brown man went out. “Well, Mrs. Wilson, you didn’t drive into town to see that movie; you said yourself you took the trolley. Then where’s your car?”

“My car?” echoed Lucy feebly. “Why, that can’t be. He—he must have looked in the wrong garage. I was out driving by myself a bit yesterday afternoon and got back in the rain and put the car into the garage and closed the door myself. It was there. It
is
there.”

“Not if Sellers says it isn’t. Don’t know what happened to it, do you, Mrs. Wilson?”

“I just told you—”

“What make and year is it?”

“Not another word, Lu,” said Bill quietly. He strode forward until he stood chest to chest with the big policeman, and for a moment they glared into each other’s eyes. “De Jong, I don’t like the damned nasty implications in those questions of yours, d’ye understand? I forbid my sister to say another word.”

De Jong considered him in silence; then he smiled crookedly. “Now, hold your horses, Mr. Angell. You know this is just routine stuff. I’m not accusing anybody. Just trying to get at the facts.”

“Very laudable.” Bill turned abruptly to Lucy. “Come on, Lu; we’re getting out of here. Ellery, I’m sorry; but this bird’s just impossible. I’ll see you tomorrow here in Trenton—if you’re still with us.”

“I’ll be here,” said Ellery.

Bill helped Lucy into her coat and then led her like a child to the door.

“Just a moment, please,” said Andrea Gimball.

Bill stood still, the tips of his ears reddening. Lucy looked at the young girl in ermine as if she were seeing her for the first time, with a dazed curiosity. Andrea went to her and took her large soft hand. “I want you to know,” she said steadily, avoiding Bill’s eyes, “that I’m frightfully sorry about… everything. We’re not monsters, really we’re not. Please forgive us, my dear, if we’ve—we’ve said anything to hurt you. You’re a very brave and unfortunate woman.”

“Oh, thank you,” murmured Lucy. Her eyes filled with tears and she turned and ran out.

“Andrea!” said Mrs. Gimball in a shocked, furious voice. “How dare you—how can you—”

“Miss Gimball,” said Bill in a low voice. She looked at him then, and for a time he did not speak. “I won’t forget this.” He turned on his heel and followed Lucy. The door banged, and a moment later they heard Bill’s Pontiac puffing off in the direction of Camden. There was a defiant snort to the exhaust, and De Jong was white with rage. He lit a cigar with a trembling hand.

“
Ave atque vale
,” said Ellery. “You dislike him, De Jong, but he’s a very estimable young man. Like all male animals, dangerous when his females are threatened… In the name of friendship, Miss Gimball, may I thank you? And now, may I inspect your hands?”

She raised her eyes slowly to his face. “My hands?” she whispered.

De Jong muttered something under his breath and stamped away.

“Under less painful circumstances,” said Ellery as he raised her hands, “this would be a pleasure of considerable proportions. If I possess an Achillean heel, Miss Gimball, it’s paradoxically my weakness for the well-kept hands of a woman. Yours, it’s needless to remark, are of the essence of manual perfection… Did I understand you to say that you are engaged to be married?”

Under his fingers he felt her palms go moist; there was the merest suggestion of a tremble in the soft flesh he was holding. “Yes. Yes.”

“Of course,” murmured Ellery, “it’s none of my business. But is it the latest mode for the wealthy young bride-to-be to eschew the symbol of plighted troth? Syrus said that God looks at pure, not full, hands; but I didn’t know our upper classes had taken up the classics.” She said nothing; her face was so pale he thought she was going to faint. Mercifully, Ellery turned to her mother. “By the way, Mrs. Gimball, I’m a hound for verifications. I noticed that your—er—husband’s hands, since we’re on the subject, showed no nicotine stains, nor were his teeth discolored. And there are no tobacco shreds in the crevices of his pockets, and no ashtrays here. It’s true, then, that he didn’t smoke?”

De Jong came back. “What’s this about smoking?” he growled.

The society woman snapped: “No, Joseph didn’t smoke. Of all the idiotic questions!” She rose and offered a limp arm to the tall man. “May we go now? All this…”

“Sure,” grunted De Jong. “I’d like you people to come back in the morning, though. Certain formalities. And I’ve just heard that the prosecutor—that’s Pollinger—wants to talk to you.”

“We’ll be back,” said Andrea in a low voice. And she shivered again, drawing her wrap more closely about her. There were pale smudges under her eyes. She glanced surreptitiously at Ellery, and quickly away.

“There’s no chance,” insisted Finch, “of suppressing the story of this… I mean, this prior marriage? It’s so terribly awkward, you know, for these people.”

De Jong shrugged; his mind seemed on other things. The three stood forlornly at the front door; Mrs. Gimball’s sharp chin was forward, although her thin shoulders sagged like weighted panniers. Then, in a rather oppressive silence, they left. Neither man spoke until the thunder of their motor died away. “Well,” said De Jong at last, “that’s that. One hell of a mess.”

“Messes,” remarked Ellery, reaching for his hat, “are what you make ’em, De Jong. This is a fascinating one, at any rate. It would delight the heart of Father Brown himself.”

“Who?” said De Jong absently. “You’re going back to New York, eh?” He made no effort to conceal his ponderous wistfulness.

“No. There are elements in this puzzle that cry for elucidation. I shouldn’t sleep if I dropped out now.”

“Oh.” De Jong turned to the table. “Well, goodnight, then.”

“Goodnight,” said Ellery pleasantly. The policeman was stowing away in a paper bag the plate on the table, with its contents. The broad back was surly and antagonistic. Ellery went out to his car whistling and drove back to the Stacy-Trent.

Mr. Ellery Queen left the hotel Sunday morning with a guilty feeling. The soft arms of his bed had betrayed him; it was after eleven.

Downtown Trenton was deserted in the young sun. He walked to the corner and turned east, crossing the street, into a narrow thoroughfare quaintly named Chancery Lane. In the middle of the block he found a long low three-story building that looked remarkably like Army barracks. Before it, on the sidewalk, there stood a tall old-fashioned lamp-post topped with lantern-glass; and on the post a square white sign announced in block letters, POLICE HQRS—NO PARKING.

He turned into the nearest doorway and found himself in a narrow dingy reception room with streaky walls, a long desk, and a low ceiling; a room beyond was crowded with green steel lockers. There was a prevailing brown decrepitude and an odor of rancid masculinity in the air that depressed him. The desk sergeant directed him to Room 26, where he found De Jong in earnest conversation with a short skinny man with pale features pinched by cleverness and dyspepsia; and Bill Angell in a chair, red-eyed and disheveled, looking as if he had neither slept nor taken his clothes off all night.