It is a well-known fact that any one exposed to Hollywood longer than six weeks goes suddenly and incurably mad.

Mr. Ellery Queen groped for the bottle of Scotch on the open trunk.

�To Hollywood, city of screwballs! Drink �er down.� He guzzled what was left of the Scotch and tossed the bottle aside, resuming his packing. �California, here I go � unwept, unhonored, and unsung. And do I care?�

Alan Clark smiled that Mona Lisa smile by which you may know any member of the fraternity of Hollywood agents, fat or thin, tall or short, dewy-eyed or soiled by life. It is the sage�s, the saint�s, the cynic�s smile of pure wisdom.

�All you wacks act this way at first. Them that can take it snaps out of it. Them that can�t � they turn yellow and go squawking back East.�

�If you�re trying to arouse my ire,� growled Ellery, kicking his prostrate golf-bag, �desist, Alan. I cut my eyeteeth on the tactics of scheming agents.�

�What the hell did you expect � a Class A assignment your first week on the lot and a testimonial dinner at the Coconut Grove?�

�Work,� said Ellery unreasonably.

�Phooey,� said his agent. �It isn�t work here; it�s art. Rembrandt didn�t get his start knocking out the Sistine Chapel, did he? Give your-self a chance to learn the ropes.�

�By burying myself in that mausoleum of an office they gave me and sucking my thumbs?�

�Sure, sure,� said Clark soothingly. �Why not? It�s Magna�s dough, isn�t it? If the studio�s willing to invest six weeks� salary in you, don�t you think they know what they�re doing?�

�Are you asking me?� said Ellery, flinging things into the trunk. �Then I�m telling you. No!�

�You�ve got to get the feel of pictures, Queen, before you can wade into a script. You�re not a day-laborer. You�re a writer, an artist, a... a sensitive plant.�

�Flapdoodle, with onions on the side.�

Clark grinned and tipped his hat. �Pleased to meet you... Just the same, what�s the rush? You�ve got a future out here. You�re an idea man, and that�s what they pay off on in Hollywood. They need you.�

�Magna gives me a six-week contract with an option for renewal, the six weeks expire today, they don�t take up the option, and that means they need me. Typical Hollywood logic.�

�They just didn�t like the contract the New York office wrote. Happens out here all the time. So they let your contract lapse and now they�ll offer you a new one. You�ll see.�

�I was brought out here to do the story and dialogue on a horse opera. Have I done a single thing in six weeks? Nobody�s paid the slightest attention to me, I haven�t been able to see or talk to Jacques Butcher even once... Do you know how many times I�ve called Butcher, Alan?�

�You�ve got to have patience. Butch is the Boy Wonder of Hollywood. And you�re just another lous � another writer.�

�You can�t prove it by anything I�ve written, because I haven�t written anything. No, sir, I�m homeward bound.�

�Sure, sure,� said the agent. �Here, you left out this wine-colored polo shirt. I know how you feel. You hate our guts. You can�t trust your best friend here; he�ll use the back of your neck for a stepladder the minute you turn your head. I know. We�re twerps��

�Illogical!�

�No art��

�Synthetic!�

�Throw our dough around��

�Dog eat dog!�

�Just the same,� grinned Clark, �you�ll learn to love it. They all do. And you�ll make a hell of a lot more money writing for pictures than you ever will figuring out who wrapped a meat-cleaver around Cadwallader St. Swithin�s neck in Room 202. Take my advice, Queen, and stick around.�

�The way I figure it,� said Ellery, �the incubation period lasts six weeks. After that a man�s hopelessly infected. I�m taking it on the lam while I still have my sanity.�

�You�ve still got ten days to pick up your tickets to New York.�

�Ten days!� Ellery shuddered delicately. �If it hadn�t been for the Sperry murder I�d have been back East long ago.�

Clark stared. �I thought there was something screwy in the way Gl�cke�s been pinning medals on himself!�

�Ouch, I�ve let the cat out. Keep it under your hat, Alan. I promised Inspector Gl�cke��

The agent pulled a gust of indignation up from his shoes. �Do you mean to stand there and tell me you cracked the Sperry case and didn�t have the brains to get your pan smeared over the front page?�

�It doesn�t mean anything to me. Where the devil can I put these spiked shoes?�

�Why, with that publicity you could have walked into any studio in Hollywood and written your own ticket!� Clark became quiet, and when Ellery looked up he saw the old Mona Lisa smile. �Look,� said Clark. �I�ve got a sweet idea.�

Ellery dropped the shoes. �Now wait a minute, Alan.�

�Leave it to me. I absolutely guarantee��

�I gave Gl�cke my word, I tell you!�

�The hell with that. Well, okay, okay. I found it out somewhere else. You�ll still be the white-haired boy��

�No!�

�I think,� mused the agent, pulling his lip, �I�ll try Metro first.�

�Alan, absolutely no!�

�Maybe I can ring Paramount and Twentieth Century in on it, too. Play �em off against each other. I�ll have the Magna outfit eating out of my hand.� He slapped Ellery�s shoulder. �Why, man, I�ll get you twenty-five hundred bucks a week!�

In this moral crisis the telephone rang. Ellery fled to it.

�Mr. Queen? Hold the line, please. Mr. Butcher calling.�

Ellery said: �Mr. who?�

�Mr. Butcher.�

�Butcher!�

�Butcher!� Clark yanked his hat over his ears. �See, what did I tell you? Butcho the Great! Where�s your extension? Don�t mention dough, now. Feel him out. Boy, oh, boy!� He dashed into the bedroom.

�Mr. Queen?� said a sharp, nervous, young man�s voice in Ellery�s ear. �Jacques Butcher speaking.�

�Did you say Jacques Butcher?� mumbled Ellery.

�Tried to locate you in New York for four days. Finally got your address from your father at Police Headquarters. What are you doing in Hollywood? Drop in to see me today.�

�What am I do�� Ellery paused. �I beg your pardon?�

�What? I say, how is it you�re on the Coast? Vacation?�

�Excuse me,� said Ellery. �Is this the Jacques Butcher who is executive vice-president in charge of production at the Magna Studios in Melrose, in Hollywood, California, United States of America?� He stopped. �The planet Earth?�

There was a silence. Then: �Beg pardon?�

�You�re not the gag man?�

�What? Hello! Mr. Queen?� Another dead moment in Time, as if Mr. Butcher were fumbling with a memorandum. �Am I speaking to Ellery Queen, Queen the detective-story writer? Where the hell � Madge. Madge! Did you get me the wrong man, damn it?�

�Wait,� said Ellery hollowly. �Madge got you the right man, all right, all right. But my brain isn�t functioning at par these days, Mr. Butcher. I�m slicing �em into the rough on every drive. Did I understand you to ask if I�m in Hollywood on a vacation?�

�I don�t get this.� The edge on the sharp voice was badly blunted. �We seem to have our wires crossed. Aren�t you feeling well, Queen?�

�Well?� howled Ellery, growing red in the face. �I feel terrible! Why, you incomparable nitwit, I�ve been employed by your studio for six interminable weeks now � and you ask me if I�m here on a vacation?�

�What!� shouted the producer. �You�ve been on our lot for six weeks? Madge!�

�I�ve phoned your office twice a day, six days a week, fathead � that makes seventy-two times not counting Sundays that I�ve tried to talk to you, you misbegotten apology for an idiot�s stand-in! And you wire New York for my address!�

�Why � doesn�t � somebody tell me these things!�

�Here I�ve parked on my chassis,� roared Ellery, �in that doge�s palace your minions gave me to doze in � a month and a half, do you hear?�� losing weight, fretting my fool head off, dying by inches not a hundred feet from your office � and you look for me in New York!� Ellery�s voice grew terrible. �I�m going mad. I am mad. Do you know what, Mr. Butcher? Nuts to you. Double nuts to you!�

And he hurled the telephone majestically from him.

Clark came scurrying back, rubbing his hands. �Oh, wonderful, wonderful. We�re set. We�re in!�

�Go away,� said Ellery. Then he screeched: �What?�

�Hasn�t been done since Garbo gave her last interview to Screen Squeejees,� said the agent gleefully. �Telling Butch where he gets off! Now we�re getting somewhere.�

�No,� said Ellery, feeling his forehead, �now � we�re � getting somewhere?�

�Great guy, Butch. Biggest man in pictures. What a break! Get your lid.�

�Please. Please. Where are we going?�

�To see the Boy Wonder, of course. Come on!�

And the agent bustled out, looking delighted with life, the world, and the whole confused, thunderous march of events.

For a moment Ellery sat still.

But when he found himself putting a match on his head, sticking his hatbrim into his mouth, and rubbing a cigaret on his shoe, he made a gibbering sound and followed his personal representative from the apartment with the fogged air of one who will never understand.

Each studio in Hollywood has its Boy Wonder. But Jacques Butcher, it was admitted by even the other Boy Wonders, was the Boy Wonder of them all.

This paragon occupied a four-room bungalow office in the heart of the quadrangle of executive buildings on the Magna lot. The bungalow, thought Ellery grimly, was some unknown architectural genius�s conception of the kind of Spanish edifice a Spanish executive in charge of the production of Spanish motion pictures would erect in his native Spain amid blood, mayhem, and the belch of batteries. It was very yellow, stuccoed, Moorish, and archified; and it was tiled and roofed and patioed as no structure outside a cocaine-addicted hidalgo�s nightmare had ever been. In a word, it was colossal.

The Second Secretary�s office in the edifice, having been designed in the same faithful spirit to house females, resembled the interior of a Moorish prince�s zenana.

Ellery, scrutinizing this plaster and silken gingerbread, nodded unpleasantly. The Sultan of Production was probably lolling on an amethyst-studded throne puffing on a golden hookah and dictating to two houris in g-strings. As for Mr. Alan Clark, his manner had grown less and less enthusiastic as Mr. Queen grew more and more steel-dignified.

�Mr. Butcher will see you in a moment, Mr. Queen,� said the Second Secretary piteously. �Will you have a chair?�

�You,� said Mr. Queen with a nasty inflection, �are Madge, I presume?�

�Yes, sir.�

�Ha,� said Mr. Queen. �I will be delighted to have a chair.� And he had a chair. The Second Secretary bit her budding lip, looking as if she wanted chiefly to burst into tears.

�Maybe we�d better come back tomorrow,� whispered the agent. �If you�re going to have an antagonistic attitude��

�Let me remind you, Alan,� said Mr. Queen complacently, �that coming here was your idea. I�m really looking forward to this audience. I can see him now � burlap bags under his eyes, dressed like a Radio City typist�s conception of Robert Taylor, with a manicurist on one hand and a eunuch on the other��

�Some other time,� said Clark, rising. �I think maybe tomorrow��

�Sit down, friend,� said Mr. Queen.

Clark sat down and began to snap at his own fingernails like a tortured turtle. A door opened; he jumped up again. But it was only a washed-out male, obviously the First Secretary.

�Mr. Butcher will see you now, Mr. Queen.�

Mr. Queen smiled. The Second Secretary looked faint, the First Secretary paled, and Clark wiped his forehead.

�Nice of him,� murmured Mr. Queen. He strolled into the First Secretary�s domain. �Ah, quite like my preconception. In the worst of possible taste. Le mauvais gout.�

�Yes, Mr. Queen,� said the First Secretary. �I mean��

�By the way, what�s the proper form? Does one genuflect and kiss the royal hand, or will a deep bow from the waist suffice?�

�A kick in the pants would be more like it,� said a rueful voice. �Kamerad!�

Mr. Queen turned around. A young man was standing in the doorway holding his hands high. He wore a soiled pair of slacks, openwork sandals on bare feet, and a lumberman�s plaid shirt open at the throat. More wonderful than that, he was smoking a chipped clay pipe which fumed foully; his fingers were stained with ink; and he had not shaved his heavy young beard, judging from its vigorous sprout, in at least three days.

�I thought�� began Mr. Queen.

�I certainly rate one,� said the Boy Wonder. �Will you dish it out now, or can we talk things over first?�

Mr. Queen swallowed. �Are you Butcher?�

�Guilty. Say, that was the dumbest stunt I�ve ever seen pulled in this town, and we�ve pulled some beauties here.� He shook Ellery�s hand crisply. �Hello, Clark. You Queen�s agent?�

�Yes, Mr. Butcher,� said Clark. �Yes, sir.�

�Come in, both of you,� said the Boy Wonder, leading the way. �Don�t mind the spurious magnificence of this dump, Queen. The damned thing was wished on me. It was built by old Sigmund in the free-lunch days, when he was tossing away the stockholders� dough like a hunyak on Saturday night. I�ve tried to make my own workroom livable, anyway. Come on in.�

Ellery almost said: �Yes, sir.� He came on in.

It wasn�t fair! With his sharp green eyes and red hair and boy�s smile and beautifully disreputable clothes, Butcher looked like a normal human being. And the holy of holies! From the exterior and anteroom decoration, one had a right to anticipate lushness along Latin-Oriental lines, with tapestries and tiles and inlaid woods of precious pastels. But no drapes smothered the sun; the walls had been repaneled in clean pine; an old missionwood desk bearing the scars of golf-shoes and cigaret burns stood higgledy-piggledy in the midst of a congress of deep, honest chairs; the desk was littered with clues to toil � yellow paper covered with ink-scrawls, a clay model of a ballroom set, an old typewriter with a battered face, photographs, mimeographed scripts, a can of film; books that looked as if they were being read bristled in the pine walls; and a small portable bar beside the desk stood open, crowded with bottles, and accessible to a nervous elbow, as a bar should.

�Ripped out all the junk,� said the Boy Wonder cheerfully. �You should have seen it. Sit down, boys. Drink?�

�It isn�t fair,� moaned Mr. Queen, getting into a chair and cowering.

�What?�

�He says he needs some air,� said Alan Clark hastily.

�Shouldn�t wonder, after the raw deal he got,� said the young man, throwing open all the windows. �Have a slug of Scotch, Queen. Do you good.�

�Brandy,� said Mr. Queen faintly.

�Brandy!� The Boy Wonder looked pleased. �Now there�s a man with discriminating boozing habits. It gets your ticker after a while, but look at all the fun you have waiting for coronary thrombosis. Tell you what I�ll do with you, Queen. I�ll crack open a couple of bottles of 125-year-old Napoleon I�ve been saving for my wedding. Just between friends?�

Mr. Queen wavered between the demon of prejudice and the Boy Wonder�s grin. While he wavered, the tempter tilted a sun-scorched bottle and poured golden liquid.

It was too, too much. The would-be avenger accepted the fat glass and buried his nose in the seductive vapors of the aged cognac.

The First Secretary conferred with the Second Secretary and while the Second Secretary ran for raw eggs, Worcestershire, and tomato juice the First Secretary hauled the debaters into old Sigmund�s pre-Butcher lavatory, wheedled them into undressing, pushed them respectfully under the needle-shower, turned on the cold water, and retired under a barrage of yelps to telephone the trainer in the studio gymnasium.

They emerged from the lavatory an hour later full of tomato juice and the piety of newly converted teetotalers, looking like a pair of corpses washed up on shore. Ellery groped for the nearest chair and wound his arms about his head as if he were afraid it was going to fly away.

�What happened?� he moaned.

�I think the house fell in,� said the producer. �Howard, locate Lew Bascom. You�ll probably find him shooting craps with the grips on Stage 12.� The First Secretary vanished. �Ow, my head.�

�Alan Clark will massacre me,� said Ellery nervously. �You fiend, did you make me sign anything?�

�How should I know?� growled the Boy Wonder. Then they looked at each other and grinned.

For a time there was the silence of common suffering. Then Butcher began to stride up and down. Ellery closed his eyes, pained at this superhuman vitality. He opened them at the crackle of Butcher�s voice to find that remarkable gentleman studying him with a sharp green look. �Ellery, I want you back on the payroll.�

�Go away,� said Ellery.

�This time, I promise, you�ll work like a horse.�

�On a script?� Ellery made a face. �I don�t know a lap dissolve from a fade-in. Look, Butch, you�re a nice guy and all that, but this isn�t my racket. Let me crawl back to New York.�

The Boy Wonder grinned. �I could really care for a mugg like you; you�re an honest man. Hell, I�ve got a dozen writers on this lot who�ve forgotten more about scripts than you�ll know in a million years.�

�Then what the devil do you want me for?�

�I�ve read your books and followed your investigations for a long time. You�ve got a remarkable gift. You combine death-on-rats analysis with a creative imagination. And you�ve got a freshness of viewpoint the old-timers here, saturated in the movie tradition and technique, lost years ago. In a word, it�s my job to dig up talent, and I think you�re a natural-born plot man. Shall I keep talking?�

�When you say such pretty things?� Ellery sighed. �More.�

�Know Lew Bascom?�

�I�ve heard of him. A writer, isn�t he?�

�He thinks he is. He�s really an idea man. Picture ideas. Gets �em in hot flushes. Got his greatest notion � Warner�s bought it for twenty-five thousand and grossed two million on it � over a poker table when he was so plastered he couldn�t tell an ace from a king. The magnificent slugnut sold the idea to another writer in the game in payment of a hundred-dollar debt... Well, you�re going to work with Lew. You�ll do the treatment together.�

�What treatment?� groaned Ellery.

�Of an original he�s just sold me. It�s the business. If I turned Lew loose on it solo, he�d come up with the most fantastic yarn you ever saw � if he came up with anything at all, which is doubtful. So I want you to work out the plot with him.�

�Does he know you�re wishing a collaborator on him?� asked Ellery dryly.

�He�s probably heard it by this time; you can�t keep anything secret in a studio. But don�t worry about Lew; he�s all right. Unstable, one of Nature�s screwiest noblemen, brilliant picture mind, absolutely undependable, gambler, chippy-chaser, dipsomaniac � a swell guy.�

�Hmm,� said Ellery.

�Only don�t let him throw you. You�ll be looking for him to buckle down to work and he�ll probably be over in Las Vegas playing craps with silver dollars. When he does show up he�ll be boiled on both sides. Nobody in town remembers the last time Lew was even relatively sober... Excuse me.� Butcher snapped into his communicator: �Yes, Madge?�

The Second Secretary said wearily: �Mr. Bascom just whooshed through, Mr. Butcher, and on the way he grabbed my letter-knife again. I thought you�d like to know.�

�Did she say knife?� asked Ellery, alarmed.

A chunky man whizzed in like a fat thunderbolt. He wore shapeless clothes, and he had blown cheeks, nose like a boiled onion, frizzled mustache, irritated hair, eyelids too tired to sit up straight, and a gaudy complexion not caused by exposure to the great outdoors.

This apparition skidded to a stop, danced an intricate measure symbolizing indignation, and brandished a long letter-knife. Then he hopped across the rug to the Boy Wonder�s desk, behind which Mr. Queen sat paralyzed, and waggled the steel under the petrified Queen nose.

�See this?� he yelled.

Mr. Queen nodded. He wished he didn�t.

�Know what it is?�

Mr. Queen gulped. �A knife.�

�Know where I found it?�

Mr. Queen shook his head at this inexplicable catechism. The chunky man plunged the steel into Jacques Butcher�s desk-top. It quivered there menacingly.

�In my back!� howled Mr. Bascom. �Know who put it there � rat?�

Mr. Queen pushed his chair back an inch.

�You did, you double-crossing New York story-stealer!� bellowed Mr. Bascom; and he seized a bottle of Scotch from the Boy Wonder�s bar and wrapped his lips fiercely about its dark brown neck.

�This,� said Mr. Queen, �is certainly the second feature of an especially bad dream.�

�Just Lew,� said Butcher absently. �Always the dramatist. This happens at the start of every production. Listen, Lew, you�ve got Queen wrong � Ellery Queen, Lew Bascom.�

�How do you do,� said Mr. Queen formally.

�Lousy,� said Lew from behind the bottle.

�Queen�s just going to help you with the treatment, Lew. It�s still your job, and of course you get top billing.�

�That�s right,� said Ellery, with an ingratiating smile. �Just your little helper, Lew, old man.�

Mr. Bascom�s wet lips widened in a grin of pure camaraderie. �That�s different,� he said handsomely. �Here, pal, have a shot. Have two shots. You, too, Butch. Le�s all have two shots.�

Gentle Alan Clark, the peace and sanity of New York�s quiet streets, the milieu of normal people, seemed light-years away. Mr. Queen, hangover and all, wrested the Scotch from Mr. Bascom with the artificial courage of a desperate man.

There was a spare workroom off the Boy Wonder�s office which smelled slightly of disinfectant and was furnished with all the luxury of a flagellant monk�s cell.

�It�s where I go when I want to think,� explained Butcher. �You boys use it as your office while you�re on this assignment; I want you near me.�

Ellery, facing the prospect of being caged within the four nude walls with a gentleman whose whimsies seemed indistinguishable from homicidal mania, appealed to the Boy Wonder with mute, sad eyes. But Butcher grinned and shut the door in his face.

�All right, all right,� said Mr. Bascom irritably. �Squat and listen. You�re bein� let in on the ground floor of next year�s Academy prizewinner.�

Eying the door which led to the patio and possible escape in an emergency, Ellery squatted. Lew lay down on the floor and spat accurately through an open window, arms behind his frowsy head.

�I can see it now,� he began dreamily. �The crowds, the baby spots, the stinkin� speeches��

�Spare the build-up,� said Ellery. �Facts, please.�

�What would you say,� Lew went on in the same drifting way, �if M-G-M should all of a sudden make a picture out of Garbo�s life? Huh?�

�I�d say you ought to sell the idea to M-G-M.�

�Nah, nah, you don�t get it. And they should star Garbo in it, huh? Her own life!� Lew paused, triumphantly. �Say, what�s the matter with you, anyway? Don�t you see it � her virgin girlhood in Sweden, the meeting with Stiller the genius, Stiller�s contract in Hollywood � he takes the gawky kid along, Hollywood falls for her and gives Stiller the cold mitt, she becomes a sensation, Stiller kicks off, the Gilbert romance, the broken heart behind the dead pan � for gossakes!�

�But would Miss Garbo consent?� murmured Ellery.

�Or s�pose,� continued Lew, ignoring him, �that Paramount took John and Lionel and Ethel and slung �em together in a story of their lives?�

�You�d have something there,� said Ellery.

Lew sprang to his feet. �See what I mean? Well, I�ve got a real-life yarn that�s got those licked a mile! Y�know whose lives we�re gonna make? The dizziest, grandest, greatest names in the American theatre! Those dynamos of the drama � the screwballs of the screen � the flghtin�, feudin�, first families of Hollywood!�

�I suppose,� frowned Ellery, �you mean the Royles and the Stuarts.�

�For gossakes, who else?� groaned Lew. �Get it? Get the set-up? On one side Jack Royle and his cub Ty � on the other Blythe Stuart and her daughter Bonnie. The old generation an� the new. A reg�lar four-ring circus!�

And overwhelmed by his own enthusiasm, Lew staggered out, returning a moment later from Butcher�s office with the unfinished bottle of Scotch.

Ellery sucked his lower lip. It was an idea, all right. There was enough dramatic material in the lives of the Royles and the Stuarts to make two motion pictures, with something left over for a first-class Broadway production.

Before the War, when John Royle and Blythe Stuart had dominated the New York stage, their stormy love-affair was the romantic gossip of Mayfair and Tanktown. It was like the courtship of two jungle cats. They mauled each other from Times Square to San Francisco and back again, leaving a trail of glittering performances and swollen box-offices. But no one doubted, despite their fighting, that in the end they would marry and settle down to the important business of raising a new royal family.

Astonishingly, after the furious passion of their romance, they did nothing of the kind. Something happened; gossip-writers from that day to this had skinned their noses trying to ferret out exactly what. Whatever the cause, it broke up their romance � to such an accompaniment of tears, bellows, recriminations, escapades out of pique, and bitter professions of undying enmity as to set the whole continent to buzzing.

Immediately after the d�b�cle each married some one else. Jack Royle took to his handsome bosom a brawny Oklahoma debutante who had come to New York to give the theatre a new Duse, presented Royle with a son instead, publicly horsewhipped her husband a month later for an unexplained but easily imagined reason, and died shortly after of a broken neck as the result of a fall from a horse.

Blythe Stuart eloped with her publicity man, who fathered her daughter Bonnie, stole and pawned the pearl necklace which had been presented to her by Jack during their engagement, fled to Europe as a war correspondent, and died in a Paris bistro of acute alcoholism.

When Hollywood beckoned, the Royle-Stuart feud was already in the flush of its development, its origin long forgotten in the sheer fury of the feudists� temperaments. It communicated itself to their progeny, so that the hostility of Bonnie Stuart, who already was an important screen ing�nue, for Tyler Royle, who was Magna�s leading juvenile, became scarcely less magnificent than that of their parents.

From Wilshire to Hollywood boulevards the feud raged. It was said that old Sigmund, to whom Jack and Blythe had been under contract, had died not of cerebral hemorrhage but of nervous indigestion as a result of trying to keep peace on the Magna lot; and a few prematurely gray hairs at the back of Jacques Butcher�s head were ascribed to his similarly futile efforts in the case of their respective issue. One studio wit stated that the Boy Wonder had proposed marriage to Bonnie Stuart as a last desperate measure, on the theory that love sometimes works miracles.

�That�s right,� said Ellery aloud. �Butch and Bonnie are engaged, aren�t they?�

�Is that all you got to say about my idea, for gossakes?� snarled Lew, brandishing the bottle.

After two days of trying to pin somebody into a chair within four walls, Ellery felt like a man groping with his bare hands in a goldfish bowl.

The Boy Wonder was holding all-day conferences behind locked doors, making final preparations for his widely publicized production of Growth of the Soil. The earth, it seemed, had swallowed Lew Bascom. And every effort of Ellery�s to meet the male Royles and the female Stuarts was foiled in the one case by a nasal British voice belonging to a major-domo named Louderback and in the other by an almost incomprehensible French accent on the lips of a lady named Clotilde, neither of whom seemed aware that time was marching on and on and on.

Once, it was close. Ellery was prowling the alleys of the Magna lot with Alan Clark, who was vainly trying to restore his equilibrium, when they turned the corner of �A� Street and 1st and spied a tall girl in black satin slacks and a disreputable man�s slouch hat matching pennies at the bootblack stand near the main gate with Roderick, the colored man who polished the shoes of the Magna extras.

�There�s Bonnie now,� said the agent. �The blonde babe. Ain�t she somepin�? Knock you down. Bonnie!� he shouted. �I want you to meet��

The star hastily dropped a handful of pennies, rubbed Roderick�s humped back for luck, and vaulted into a scarlet Cord roadster.

�Wait!� roared Ellery, beside himself. �Damn it all��

But the last he saw of Bonnie Stuart that day was a blinding smile over one slim shoulder as she shot the Cord around the corner of 1st and �B� Streets on two wheels.

�That�s the last straw,� stormed Ellery, hurling his Panama to the pavement. �I�m through!�

�Ever try to catch a playful fly? That�s Bonnie.�

�But why wouldn�t she��

�Look. Go see Paula Paris,� said the agent diplomatically. �Sam Vix says he made an appointment for you for today. She�ll tell you more about those doodlebugs than they know themselves.�

�Fifteen hundred a week,� mumbled Ellery.

�It�s as far as Butcher would go,� apologized Clark. �I tried to get him to raise the ante��

�I�m not complaining about the salary, you fool! Here I�ve accumulated since yesterday almost six hundred dollars on the Magna books, and I haven�t accomplished a blasted thing!�

�See Paula,� soothed Clark, patting Ellery�s back. �She�s always good for what ails you.�

So, muttering, Ellery drove up into the Hollywood hills.

He found the house almost by intuition; something told him it would be a sane, homey sort of place, and it was � white frame in a placid Colonial style surrounded by a picket fence. It stood out among the pseudo-Spanish stucco atrocities like a wimpled nun among painted wenches.

A girl at the secretary in the parlor smiled: �Miss Paris is expecting you, Mr. Queen. Go right in.� Ellery went, pursued by the stares of the crowded room. They were a motley cross-section of Hollywood�s floating population � extras down on their luck, salesmen, domestics, professional observers of the sc�ne c�l�bre. He felt impatient to meet the mysterious Miss Paris, who concocted such luscious news from this salmagundi.

But the next room was another parlor in which another young woman sat taking notes as a hungry-looking man in immaculate morning clothes whispered to her.

�The weeding-out process,� he thought, fascinated. �She�d have to be careful about libel, at that.�

And he entered the third room at a nod from the second young woman to find himself in a wall-papered chamber full of maple furniture and sunlight, with tall glass doors giving upon a flagged terrace beyond which he could see trees, flowerbeds, and a very high stone wall blanketed with poinsettias.

�How do you do, Mr. Queen,� said a pure diapason.

Perhaps his sudden emergence into the light affected his vision, for Mr. Queen indubitably blinked. Also, his ear still rang with that organ sound. But then he realized that that harmonious concord of musical tones was a human female voice, and that its owner was seated cross-kneed in a Cape Cod rocker smoking a Russian cigaret and smiling up at him.

And Mr. Queen said to himself on the instant that Paula Paris was beyond reasonable doubt the most beautiful woman he had yet met in Hollywood. No, in the world, ever, anywhere.

Now, Mr. Queen had always considered himself immune to the grand passion; even the most attractive of her sex had never meant more to him than some one to open doors for or help in and out of taxis. But at this historic moment misogyny, that crusted armor, inexplicably cracked and fell away from him, leaving him defenseless to the delicate blade.

He tried confusedly to clothe himself again in the garments of observation and analysis. There was a nose � a nose, yes, and a mouth, a white skin... yes, yes, very white, and two eyes � what could one say about them?�� an interesting straight line of gray in her black-lacquer hair... all to be sure, to be sure. He was conscious, too, of a garment � was it a Lanvin, or a Patou, or a Poirot?�� no, that was the little Belgian detective � a design in the silk gown; yes, yes, a design, and a bodice, and a softly falling skirt that dropped from the knee in long, pure, Praxitelean lines, and an aroma, or rather an effluvium, emanating from her person that was like the ghost of last year�s honeysuckle... Mr. Queen uttered a hollow inward chuckle. Honeysuckle! Damn analysis. This was a woman. No� Woman, without the procrusteanizing article. Or... was... it... the Woman?

�Here, here,� said Mr. Queen in a panic, and almost aloud. �Stop that, you damned fool.�

�If you�re through inspecting me,� said Paula Paris with a smile, rising, �suppose you be seated, Mr. Queen. Will you have a highball? Cigarets at your elbow.�

Mr. Queen sat down stiffly, feeling for the chair.

�To tell the truth,� he mumbled, �I�m... I�m sort of speechless. Paula Paris. Paris. That�s it. A remarkable name. Thank you, no highball. Beautiful! Cigaret?� He sat back, folding his arms. �Will you please say something?�

There was a dimple at the left side of her mouth when she pursed her lips � not a large, gross, ordinary dimple, but a shadow, a feather�s touch. It was visible now. �You speak awfully well for a speechless man, Mr. Queen, although I�ll admit it doesn�t quite make sense. What are you � a linguistic disciple of Dali?�

�That�s it. More please. Yahweh, thou hast given me the peace that passeth understanding.�

Ah, the concern, the faint frown, the tensing of that cool still figure. Here, for heaven�s sake! What�s the matter with you?

�Are you ill?� she asked anxiously. �Or��

�Or drunk. Drunk, you were going to say. Yes, I am drunk. No, delirious. I feel the way I felt when I stood on the north rim of the Grand Canyon looking into infinity. No, no, that�s so unfair to you. Miss Paris, if you don�t talk to me I shall go completely mad.�

She seemed amused then, and yet he felt an infinitesimal withdrawing, like the stir of a small animal in the dark. �Talk to you? I thought you wanted to talk to me.�

�No, no, that�s all so trivial now. I must hear your voice. It bathes me. God knows I need something after what I�ve been through in this bubbling vat of a town. Has any one ever told you the organ took its tonal inspiration from your voice?�

Miss Paris averted her head suddenly, and after a moment she sat down. He saw a flush creeping down her throat. �Et tu, Brute,� she laughed, and yet her eyes were strange. �Sometimes I think men say such kind things to me because�� She did not finish.

�On the contrary,� said Ellery, out of control. �You�re a gorgeous, gorgeous creature. Undoubtedly the trouble with you is an acute inferiority��

�Mr. Queen.�

He recognized it then, that eerie something in her eyes. It was fright. Before, it had seemed incredible that this poised, mature, patrician creature should be afraid of anything, let alone the mere grouping of human beings. �Crowd phobia,� Sam Vix had called it, homophobia, a morbid fear of man... Mr. Queen snapped out of it very quickly indeed. That one glimpse into terror had frightened him, too.

�Sorry. Please forgive me. I did it on a � on a bet. Very stupid of me.�

�I�m sure you did.� She kept looking at her quiet hands.

�It�s the detective in me, I suppose. I mean, this clumsy leap into analysis��

�Tell me, Mr. Queen,� she said abruptly, tamping out her cigaret. �How do you like the idea of putting the Royles and the Stuarts into a biographical film?�

Dangerous ground, then. Of course. He was an ass. �How did you know? Oh, I imagine Sam Vix told you.�

�Not at all. I have deeper channels of information.� She laughed then, and Ellery drank in the lovely sound. Superb, superb! �I know about you, you see,� she was murmuring. �Your six weeks� horror at Magna, your futile scampering about the lot there, your orgy the other day with Jacques Butcher, who�s a darling��

�I�m beginning to think you�d make a pretty good detective yourself.�

She shook her head ever so slowly and said: �Sam said you wanted information.� Ellery recognized the barrier. �Exactly what?�

�The Royles and the Stuarts.� He jumped up and began to walk around; it was not good to look at this woman too long. �What they�re like. Their lives, thoughts, secrets��

�Heavens, is that all? I�d have to take a month off, and I�m too busy for that.�

�You do know all about them, though?�

�As much as any one. Do sit down again, Mr. Queen. Please.�

Ellery looked at her then. He felt a little series of twitches in his spine. He grinned idiotically and sat down.

�The interesting question, of course,� she went on in her gentle way, �is why Jack Royle and Blythe Stuart broke their engagement before the War. And nobody knows that.�

�I understood you to know everything.�

�Not quite everything, Mr. Queen. I don�t agree, however, with those who think it was another woman, or another man, or anything as serious as that.�

�Then you do have an opinion.�

The dimple again. �Some ridiculous triviality. A lovers� spat of the most inconsequential sort.�

�With such extraordinary consequences?� asked Ellery dryly.

�Apparently you don�t know them. They�re reckless, irresponsible, charming lunatics. They�ve earned top money for over twenty years, and yet both are stony. Jack was � and is � a philanderer, gambler, a swash-buckler who indulges in the most idiotic escapades; a great actor, of course. Blythe was � and is � a lovely, electric hoyden whom every one adores. It�s simply that they�re capable of anything, from breaking an engagement for no reason at all to keeping a vendetta for over twenty years.�

�Or, I should imagine, piracy on the high seas.�

She laughed. �Jack once signed a contract with old Sigmund calling for five thousand a week, to make a picture that was scheduled to take about ten weeks� shooting time. The afternoon of the day he signed the contract he dropped fifty thousand dollars at Tia Juana. So he worked the ten weeks for nothing, borrowing money from week to week for tips, and he gave the most brilliant performance of his career. That�s Jack Royle.�

�Keep talking.�

�Blythe? She�s never worn a girdle, drinks Martinis exclusively, sleeps raw, and three years ago gave half a year�s salary to the Actors� Fund because Jack gave three months� income. And that�s Blythe.�

�I suppose the youngsters are worse than their parents. The second generation usually is.�

�Oh, definitely. It�s such a deep, sustained hatred that a psychologist, I suspect, would look for some frustration mechanism, like Love Crushed to Earth�

�But Bonnie�s engaged to Jacques Butcher!�

�I know that,� said Paula calmly. �Nevertheless � you mark my words � crushed to earth, it will rise again. Poor Butch is in for it. And I think he knows it, poor darling.�

�This boy Tyler and the girl aren�t on speaking terms?�

�Oh, but they are! Wait until you hear them. Of course, they both came up in pictures about the same time, and they�re horribly jealous of each other. A couple of months ago Ty got a newspaper splash by wrestling with a trained grizzly at one of his father�s famous parties. A few days later Bonnie adopted a panther cub as a pet and paraded it up and down the Magna lot until Ty came off a set with a gang of girls, and then somehow � quite innocently, of course � the cub came loose and began to chew at Ty�s leg. The sight of Ty running away with the little animal scampering after him quite destroyed his reputation as a he-man.�

�Playful, aren�t they?�

�You�ll love all four of them, as every one else does. In Blythe�s and Bonnie�s case, it�s probably an inheritance from Blythe�s father Tolland � that�s Bonnie�s grandfather.�

�Vix mentioned him rather profusely.�

�He�s a local character � quite mad. I don�t mean mentally. He was sane enough to amass a tremendous fortune in oil. Just gaga. He spent a million dollars on his estate on Chocolate Mountain, and he hasn�t even a caretaker to hoe the weeds. It cost him forty thousand dollars to blast away the top of a neighboring mountain peak because he didn�t like the view of it from his porch � he said it looked like the profile of a blankety-blank who had once beaten him in an oil deal.�

�Charming,� said Ellery, looking at her figure.

�He drinks cold water with a teaspoon and publishes pamphlets crammed with statistics crusading against stimulants, including tobacco and coffee and tea, and warning people that eating white bread brings you early to the grave.�

She talked on and on, and Ellery sat back and listened, more entranced by the source than the information. It was by far the pleasantest afternoon he had spent in Hollywood.

He came to with a start. There was a shadow on Paula�s face, and it was creeping higher every minute.

�Good Lord!� he said, springing up and looking at his watch. �Why didn�t you kick me out, Miss Paris? All those people waiting out there��

�My girls take care of most of them, and it�s a relief to be listened to for a change. And you�re such a splendid listener, Mr. Queen.� She rose, too, and extended her hand. �I�m afraid I haven�t been much help.�

He took her hand, and after a moment she gently withdrew it.

�Help?� said Ellery. �Oh, yes. Yes, you�ve been of tremendous service. By the way, can you suggest the surest means of treeing those four?�

�Today�s Friday. Of course. You go down to the Horseshoe Club on Wilshire Boulevard tomorrow night.�

�Horseshoe Club,� said Ellery dutifully, watching her mouth.

�Don�t you know it? It�s probably the most famous gambling place in Los Angeles. Run by Alessandro, a very clever gentleman with a very dark past. You�ll find them there.�

�Alessandro�s,� said Ellery. �Yes.�

�Let�s see.� She turned her head a little, trying to avoid his questioning eyes. �There�s no opening tomorrow night � yes, they�ll be there, I�m sure.�

�Will they let me in? I�m a stranger in town.�

�Would you like me to arrange it?� she asked demurely. �I�ll call Alessandro. He and I have an understanding.�

�You�re simply wonderful.� Then he said hastily: �I mean, so � Look, Miss Paris. Or why not Paula? Do you mind? Would you � I mean, could you bring yourself to accompany��

�Goodbye, Mr. Queen,� said Paula with a faint smile.

�But would you do me the honor��

�It�s been so nice talking to you. Drop in again.�

That damned phobia!

�I warn you,� he said grimly. �You may live to regret that invitation.�

And, a little blindly, Mr. Queen made his way to the street.

What a lovely day! he thought, breathing deeply, drinking in the lovely sky, the lovely trees, even the lovely Spanish-style houses all about that supremely lovely white-frame cottage which housed surely the loveliest self-imprisoned Juliet in the history of romantic heroines.

And suddenly he remembered Vix�s cynical remark two days before: �You�ll fall for her like all the rest.� The rest... That implied a host of admirers. Well, why not? She was delectable and piquant to the jaded male palate, like a strange condiment. And what sort of figure did he cut in this land of brown, brawny, handsome men?

The loveliness went out of everything.

Crushed, Mr. Queen crept into his car and drove away.

The seven days following that quiet evening at Alessandro�s whistled by Mr. Ellery Queen�s ears with the terrifying intimacy of bullets; it was like being caught out in No Man�s Land between two blasting armies. By the end of the week he had not only collected a smoking mass of notes but several lesions of the nervous system as well.

He was entangled in a mass of old Royle-Stuart clippings in the studio library, trying to unsnarl his notes, when he was summoned by page to Jacques Butcher�s office.

The Boy Wonder looked gaunt, but triumphant. �Mirabile dictu. We�re sitting on top of the world.�

�Peace, it�s wonderful,� grinned Lew. �It sure is.�

�They�ve agreed?� asked Ellery incredulously. �Absolutely.�

�I refuse to believe it. What did you use � hypnosis?�

�Appeal to their vanity. I knew they�d fall.�

�Blythe put up a battle,� said Lew, �but when I told her Jack didn�t want her but was holding out for Cornell, she got tongue-tied trying to say yes.�

�How about Jaunty Jack?�

�A pushover.� Lew frowned. �It was hooey about Cornell, of course. Looked to me almost as if he wanted to play opposite Blythe.�

�He has looked peaked this week,� said Ellery thoughtfully.

�Hell, he ain�t had a drink in five days. That would poop up any guy. I tell you something�s happened to Jack!�

�Let�s not pry too deeply into the ways of Providence,� said the Boy Wonder piously. �The point is � they�re in.�

�I shouldn�t imagine, Butch, you had quite so smooth a time winning the youngsters over.�

The producer shuddered. �Please... Ty finally gave in because I convinced him his public was demanding a real-life role from him � biography�s the vogue, following the Muni hits � and what could Ty Royle�s public like better than Ty Royle�s own life on the screen? Know what he said? �I�ll show �em real life,� he said, �when I get my hands around your fianc�e�s lily-white throat!��

�Sounds bad,� said Ellery.

�Doesn�t sound good,� chortled Lew.

�Bonnie,� said the Boy Wonder sadly, �Bonnie was even worse. The only condition on which she�d give in was that the script must include at least one scene in which she had to slap, scratch, and punch Ty into insensibility.�

�Who�s directing?� asked Lew.

�Probably Corsi. Swell Broadway background. And you know what he did last year with the human-interest situations in Glory Road. Why?�

�I was thinking,� said Lew dreamily; �it�s going to be a lot of fun. Corsi�s the most finicky retake artist in pictures. After two-three days of slapping Ty around to Corsi�s satisfaction for that one scene Bonnie�ll have had Ty�s pound of flesh � under her fingernails.�

The historic ceremony of the Great Signing took place on the 11th, which was the following Monday. From the preparations he heard and witnessed in the office adjoining his, Ellery thought whimsically of a landing-field, with a crippled plane circling above, and fire-apparatus and ambulances scurrying about below in readiness for the inevitable crack-up.

But, all things considered, the contracts were signed without the blazing wreckage the Boy Wonder apparently anticipated. Peace was achieved by a simple expedient: the signatories did not open their mouths. Jack Royle, dressed even more carefully than usual, stared out of Butcher�s windows until his turn came to sign; then he signed, smiled for the photographers, and quietly walked out. Blythe, eye-filling in a silver fox-trimmed suit, preserved a queenly silence. Bonnie, it was true, stared steadily at Ty�s throat throughout the ceremony, as if contemplating assault. But Ty, to whose better nature Butch had appealed beforehand, ignored the challenge in her eyes.

The trade-paper reporters and photographers were plainly disappointed.

�For gossakes,� said Lew disgustedly, when they had all left, �that�s a hell of a way to build up the conflict angle. Look at the chance we muffed, Butch!�

�Until they signed,� said the producer calmly, �I couldn�t risk one of them blowing up the whole business by backing out. You don�t fumble when you�re playing catch with dynamite, Lew.�

�Then it�s okay to shoot the works now, Butch?� asked Sam Vix.

�We�re rolling, Sam.�

Vix proceeded to roll. Exactly how it occurred Ellery did not discover � he suspected a conspiracy between the publicity man and Lew Bascom � but on Monday night Bonnie and Ty collided at the bar of the Clover Club. Lew, conveniently present, tried with suspicious gravity to effect a reconciliation �for dear old Magna.� Bonnie, who was escorted by a wealthy Argentine gentleman, flared up; Ty flared back; the Argentine gentleman resented Ty�s tone; Ty resented the Argentine gentleman�s tone; the Argentine gentleman pulled Ty�s nose vigorously; and Ty threw the Argentine gentleman over the bartender�s head into the bar mirror, which did not stand up under the strain. Whereupon Bonnie had Ty arrested for assault. Bailed out in the early hours of Tuesday morning by his father, Ty swore vengeance in the presence of half the newspapermen in Hollywood.

The Tuesday papers made Sam Vix look content. �Even Goldwyn,� he told Ellery modestly, �would be satisfied with that one.�

Paula Paris�s column gave the news to a palpitating world on Saturday morning, and on Saturday afternoon the Magna Studios doubled the guards at the main gate. The hounds were baying outside Jack Royle�s mansion in Beverly Hills; Blythe had shut herself up in her mosque of a house in Glendale, its door defended by the loose-chested, tight-lipped Clotilde; and Ty and Bonnie, playing their strange roles, granted a joint interview to the puzzled press in which they said nice things about each other and were photographed smiling into each other�s eyes.

�It�s all set,� said Sam Vix to Ellery at the end of a furious day. He wiped his face. �But, boy, oh, boy � tomorrow!�

�Isn�t Bonnie going along?� asked Ellery.

�She wanted to, but I discouraged her. I was afraid that when Ty flew her back from Reed Island, they�d strangle each other in midair.�

�It�s wonderful how cooperative Jack and Blythe have been,� beamed the Boy Wonder. �And with Ty piloting �em � is that a story, Sam?�

�Sweet mama,� grinned Lew Bascom. �Gimme that bottle.�

�Boys will handle the jamboree tomorrow at the field, Butch,� said the publicity man. �I�m hopping off for Reed Island to direct the preparations for the reception. See you tomorrow night.�

�Not me,� said Butcher hastily. �I hate these Hollywood shindigs. I�ve told Jack and Blythe my doctor advised a rest, and Bonnie understands. Driving out to Palm Springs tomorrow morning for a day in the sun. Conference Monday morning.�

At noon on Sunday Ellery and Lew Bascom drove out to the airport in Ellery�s coupe. Los Feliz Boulevard was jammed with cars crawling bumper to bumper. They wasted an hour getting to the turn-off at Riverside and another along the Los Angeles River drive through Griffith Park to the field. After fifteen minutes of trying to park his car, Ellery abandoned it and they shouldered their way through the mob.

�Too late,� groaned Lew. �There�s Erminius doing his stuff!�

Ty�s brilliant red-and-gold cabin monoplane, gleaming in the sun, was surrounded by a cordon of cursing police. The Royles and the Stuarts, arms locked about one another, bowed and smiled in the vortex of a maelstrom of photographers, radio men, and friends screaming above the blare of a brass band. Dr. Erminius, his sleek black whiskers flowing fluently in the wind, beamed on every one over his prayer-book and sidled closer to the crowded spot on which the cameras were trained.

�Swell work, Doc!� shouted some one.

�Boy, was that a ceremony?�

�Neat, neat. How about a snifter, Doc Erminius?�

�He�ll never marry me!�

�It�s like the Judgment Day,� grinned Lew. �Hey, lemme through here! Come on, Queen. Jack! Blythe!�

The band stopped playing Here Comes the Bride and swung into California, Here I Come.

�Lew! Mr. Queen! It�s all right, officer!�

�Bonnie � Bonnie Stuart! This way, please. Smile at Ty!�

�Won�t you say a few words to the radio audience, Jack?�

�Dr. Erminius, how about a few shots?�

�Yes, my son,� said the good man hastily, and stepped in front of Jack Royle.

�Jack! Blythe! Let�s take a shot of clasped hands showing those wedding rings!�

�Get those people away from that plane, damn it!�

�Miss Blythe! Miss Blythe!� shrieked a feminine voice, and a primly attired French lady of middle age elbowed her way through to the wall of police, waving an envelope frantically.

�Clotilde!� screamed Blythe. She was radiant, her arms full of flowers; her hat askew on her head. She ran over; and as she saw the envelope she gasped aloud, going pale. Then she snatched it from Clotilde�s hand over a policeman�s shoulder and tore it open. Ellery saw her close her eyes, crumple the envelope convulsively. She hurled it away.

Then she put on a smile and returned to the group before the plane.

Ellery picked his way through the fruit and flower baskets littering the ground and managed to pick up the envelope unnoticed. It was another of the post-office-written envelopes, this time sent by special delivery. Inside were the torn halves of a horseshoe-backed playing-card, the eight of spades.

Torn in half. Blythe had not torn it, Ellery was certain. Queer... He frowned and pocketed the envelope, looking about. The Frenchwoman had vanished in the mob.

�Ty! Kiss Bonnie for the newsreel!�

�Jack! Jack! Go into a clinch with the blushing bride!�

�What�s this?� yelled some one, holding aloft a handsome wicker hamper.

�Somebody sent it!� roared Jack Royle.

�Open it!�

Bonnie straightened up with two enormous thermos bottles from the hamper. �Look what I found, people!�

�Sidecars!� bellowed Jack, unscrewing the cap of one of the bottles and sniffing. �Thanks, anonymous friend. How�d you know my weakness?�

�And mine? Martinis!� screamed Blythe over the other bottle. �Isn�t that the loveliest going-away gift!�

�Toast to the bride and groom!�

The thermos bottles were hurled from hand to hand; for a few moments they were all laughing and struggling for a drink. Lew battled desperately with a large stout lady, rescued both bottles, and poured out another round in a nest of paper-cups which appeared from somewhere magically.

�Hey, save some for us,� growled Jack.

�Can�t you get drunk on love?�

�An old buck like you � d�ye need a stimulant?�

�Love � Marches � on!�

�I said save some!� howled Jack, laughing.

Lew reluctantly dropped the thermos bottles into the hamper, screwing on the caps. The hamper lay beside a pile of luggage near the plane.

Lew and Ellery were squeezed, pummeled, pushed, and mauled, stumbling over the luggage. Ellery sat down on the hamper and sighed: �No wonder Butch went to Palm Springs.�

�Who swiped my helmet?� yelled Ty Royle. �Mac! Rev �em while I get another!� And he darted into the crowd, fighting towards the nearby hangar.

�What�s going on here, the Revolution?� panted a voice. Ellery, trying to save his hat from being crushed, turned to find Alan Clark, his agent, grinning down at him.

�Just a quiet Sunday in Hollywood, Alan. They�re almost ready to take off.�

�I gotta kiss the bride, for gossakes,� shouted Lew frantically. He grabbed at Blythe, caught her, and bussed her heartily while Jack Royle, grinning, began to toss things into the cabin of the plane. Bonnie, heart-stopping in a knee-length leopard coat and Russian leopard hat, was obviously his next victim, but just then a man ran up.

�Miss Bonnie Stuart! Mr. Tyler Royle wants to see you in the hangar.�

Bonnie made a face, smiled for the benefit of the staring public, and slipped after him.

The sky was so close. Because it was falling down. Down the chute of a trillion miles. Down through the pinhole stars. Down to the gorse-covered plateau. Down on Bonnie�s head.

She pressed her palms to her eyes. �I don�t believe it. I don�t believe it.�

�Bonnie,� said Jacques Butcher.

�But it can�t be. Not Blythe. Not mother.�

�Bonnie. Darling. Please.�

�She always said she�d never grow old. She always said she�d live a million, million years.�

�Bonnie, let me take you away from here.�

�She didn�t want to die. She was afraid of death. Sometimes in the middle of the night she�d start to cry in her sleep, and I�d crawl into bed with her and she�d snuggle up to me like a baby.�

�I�ll get one of these Army pilots to fly you back to Los Angeles��

Bonnie dropped her hands. �It�s a horrid joke of some kind,� she said slowly. �You�re all in a conspiracy.�

Tyler Royle came stalking back, his face blank against the pale background of the flares.

As he passed he said: �Come on, Bonnie,� as if only he and Bonnie existed in a dark dead world.

And Bonnie turned from Butch and followed Ty with something of the otherworldly stiffness of a Zombie.

Lew Bascom came up to Butcher, who was standing still, and said hoarsely: �For gossakes, how do you get outa here?�

�You grow a pair of wings.�

�Nah,� said Lew. �I�m � pooped.� He stuck his fat face out over the gorse and made a sickish, retching sound. �Butch, I gotta get off this damn table-top. I need a drink. I need a lot o� drinks.�

�Don�t bother me.�

�I never could stand a stiff. Are they... are they��

Butcher walked away. Ty and Bonnie seemed to be floating in the weird aura of mingled flarelight and starshine. They merged with and were lost in the black figures about the resting plane.

Lew sank to the harsh grass, clutching his belly and shivering in the wind. After a moment he struggled to his feet and waddled towards an Army plane, its propeller roaring for a take-off.

�You gettin� outa here?� he shrieked.

The pilot nodded, and Lew scrambled into the rear cockpit. His hat flew off in the backwash of air. He sank low in the cockpit, trembling. The plane trundled off.

In the red-and-gold monoplane a man in flying togs was saying: �Hijacked by a pilot who made pretty sure he wouldn�t be recognized � and then this. It looks funny, Mr. Queen.�

�Funny?� scowled Ellery. �The Greeks had another word for it, Lieutenant.�

John Royle and Blythe Stuart half-sat, half-lay in upholstered swivel chairs in the cabin, across the aisle from each other. Their luggage, baskets of flowers, the wicker hamper were in the aisle between them. The lid of the hamper stood open. On the floor under Royle�s slack left hand lay the half-eaten remains of a ham sandwich. One of the thermos bottles from the hamper stood beside it. The empty cap-cup of the bottle was wedged between his thighs. His handsome features were composed. He looked as if he had fallen asleep.

The second thermos bottle had obviously fallen from Blythe�s right hand: it lay, mouth tilted up, among the bruised blossoms of a rose-basket beside her. A wad of crumpled waxed paper, the wrappings of a consumed sandwich, was in her lap. The cup of the other thermos bottle had fallen to the floor between her feet. And she, too, eyes closed, serene of face, seemed asleep.

�It�s awfully queer,� remarked the Lieutenant, studying the still cold faces, �that they should both pop off around the same time.�

�Nothing queer about it.�

�They haven�t been shot or stabbed or strangled; you can see that. Not a sign of violence. That�s why I say... Only double heart-failure isn�t � well, it�s quite a coincidence.�

�You could say,� retorted Ellery, �that a man whose skull had been bashed into turkey-hash with a sledge-hammer died of heart-failure, too. Look here, Lieutenant.�

He stooped over Royle�s body and with his thumb pressed back the lid of the right eye. The pupil was almost invisible; it had contracted to a dot.

Ellery stepped across the littered aisle and opened Blythe Stuart�s right eye.

�Highly constricted pupils,� he shrugged. �And notice that pervasive pallor � cyanosis. They both died of morphine poisoning.�

�Jack Royle and Blythe Stuart murdered?� The Lieutenant stared. �Wow!�

�Murdered.� Bonnie Stuart stood in the cabin doorway. �No. Oh, no!�

She flung herself upon her mother�s body, sobbing. Ty Royle came in then, looked down at his father. After a moment his hand felt for the cabin wall. But he did not take his eyes from that calm marble face.

Bonnie suddenly sat up, glaring at her hands where they had touched her mother�s body. Although there was no mark on her white flesh, Ellery and the Lieutenant knew what she was staring at. She was staring at the invisible stain, the impalpable taint, the cold outer-space enamel of death.

�Oh, no,� whispered Bonnie with loathing.

Ty said: �Bonnie,� futilely, and took an awkward step across the aisle towards her.

But Bonnie sprang to her feet and screamed: �Oh, no!� and, standing there, tall and distraught, her cheeks pure gray, her breast surging, she swayed and began to fold up like the bellows of an accordion. And as she crumpled in upon herself her eyes turned completely over in their sockets.

Ty caught her as she fell.

Inspector Gl�cke grunted and went to the fire, shedding his coat and rubbing his great red hands together. A man in flying togs followed him, and Dr. Junius hastily shut the outer door against a rising wind. The aviator sat quietly down in a corner. He said nothing, and Inspector Gl�cke did not introduce him.

�Let�s get you people straight now,� said Gl�cke, contracting his black brows. �You�re Miss Stuart, I suppose, and you�re Mr. Royle? You must be Butcher.�

Ty scrambled to his feet. �Well?� he said eagerly. �Have you found him?�

Bonnie cried: �Who is he?�

�No, now, all in good time. I�m half-frozen, and we�ve got a long wait, because the pilot says there�s a storm coming up. Where�s the old man?�

�Upstairs sulking,� said Ellery. �You don�t seem very glad to see me, old friend. And how did you horn into this case?�

Gl�cke grinned. �What d�ye mean? They were Angelenos, weren�t they? Say, this fire feels swell.�

�I take it you simply jumped in feet first and usurped the authority to handle the case?�

�Now don�t start anything, Queen. When we got the flash at Headquarters that Mr. Royle and Miss Stuart had been found dead � we already knew they�d been snatched � I got me a plane and flew up to that plateau. I beat the Riverside and San Bernardino County men by a hair. If you ask me, they were tickled to death to have L.A. step in and take over. It�s too big for them.�

�But not for you, eh?� murmured Ellery.

�Oh, it�s simple enough,� said the Inspector.

�Then you have found him!� cried Ty and Bonnie together.

�Not yet. But when we do, there�s our man, and that�s the end of it.�

�When you find him?� said Ellery dryly. �Don�t you mean �if�?�

�Maybe, maybe.� Gl�cke smiled. �Anyway, it�s no case for you, Queen. Just a plain, everyday manhunt.�

�How sure are you,� said Ellery, lighting a cigaret, �that it was a man?�

�You�re not suggesting it was a woman?� said the Inspector derisively.

�I�m suggesting the possibility. Miss Stuart, you and Mr. Royle saw that pilot in good light. Was it a man or woman?�

�Man,� said Ty. �Don�t be foolish. He was a man!�

�I don�t know,� sighed Bonnie, trying to concentrate. �You couldn�t really tell. Those flying togs were a man�s, but then a woman could have worn them. And you couldn�t see hair, or eyes, or even face. The goggles concealed the upper part of the face and the lower part was hidden by the turned-up collar.�

�He walked like a man,� cried Ty. �He was too tall for a woman.�

A spirited note crept into Bonnie�s voice. �Nonsense. Hollywood is full of impersonators of both sexes. And I�ll bet I�m as tall as that... creature was.�

�And nobody,� put in Ellery, �heard the creature�s voice, for the excellent reason that the creature took remarkable care not to speak. If it were a man, why the silence? He could have disguised his voice.�

�Now listen, Queen,� said Gl�cke plaintively, �stop throwing monkey-wrenches. All right, we don�t know whether it was a man or a woman. But, man or woman, we�ve got the height and build��

�Have you? Heels can be built up, and those flying suits are bulky and deceptive. No, there�s only one thing you can be sure of.�

�What�s that?�

�That the pilot can fly an airplane.�

Gl�cke growled deep in his throat. Dr. Junius coughed in the silence. �I don�t want to seem inhospitable, but... I mean, don�t you think it would be wise to take off now, before the storm breaks, Inspector?�

�Huh?� The Inspector turned cold eyes on Dr. Junius.

�I said��

�I heard what you said.� Gl�cke stared hard at the doctor�s saffron face. �What�s the matter with you? Nervous?�

�No. Certainly not,� said the doctor, backing away.

�Who are you, anyway? What are you doing here?�

�My name is Junius, and I�m a medical doctor. I live here with Mr. Stuart.�

�Where�d you come from? Did you know Blythe Stuart and Jack Royle?�

�No, indeed. I mean � I�ve seen Mr. Royle in Hollywood at times and Miss Blythe Stuart used to come here... But I haven�t seen her for several years.�

�How long have you been here?�

�Ten years. Mr. Stuart hired me to take care of him. At a very nice yearly retainer, I must say, and my own practice wasn�t terribly��

�Where�d you come from? I didn�t hear you say.�

�Buenavista, Colorado.�

�Police record?�

Dr. Junius drew himself up. �My dear sir!�

Gl�cke looked him over. �No harm done,� he said mildly. The doctor stepped back, wiping his face. �Now here�s what we�ve found. You were right, Queen, about the cause of death. The coroner of Riverside County flew up there with his sheriff, examined the bodies��

Bonnie grew pale again. Butcher said sharply: �Dr. Junius is right. We ought to clear out of here and get these kids home. You can talk to them tomorrow.�

�It�s all right,� said Bonnie in a low voice. �I�m all right, Butch.�

�As far as I�m concerned,� growled Ty, �the sooner you get started the better I�ll like it. Do you think I could sleep and eat and laugh and work while my father�s murderer is breathing free air somewhere?�

The Inspector went on, quite as if nobody had spoken: �Well, as I was saying, preliminary examination showed they both died of very large doses of morphine.�

�In the thermos bottles?� asked Ellery.

�Yes. The drinks were loaded with the stuff. The Doc couldn�t be sure without a chemical analysis, but he says there must easily have been five grains to each cocktail drink. I�m having Bronson, our chemist, analyze what�s left in the bottles as soon as he can lay his hands on them.�

�But I don�t understand,� frowned Bonnie. �We all drank from the bottles just before the take-off. Why weren�t we poisoned, too?�

�If you weren�t, it�s because the drinks were okay at that time. Does anybody remember exactly what happened to that hamper?�

�I do,� said Ellery. �I was shoved about by the crowd and was forced to sit down on the hamper immediately after the last round, when the bottles were put back. And I had my eye on that hamper every instant between the time the bottles were stowed away and the time I sat down on the hamper.�

�That�s a break. Did you sit on the hamper till this disguised pilot hijacked the plane?�

�Better than that,� said Ellery wryly. �I actually got up and handed it to him with my own hands as he got into the plane.�

�So that means the drinks were poisoned inside. We�ve got a clear line there.� Gl�cke looked pleased. �He swiped the plane, poisoned the drinks in the plane as he was stowing away the hamper, took off, waited for Jack and Blythe to drink � stuff�s practically tasteless, the coroner said, in booze � and when they passed out he just set the plane down on that plateau and beat it. No fuss, no bother, no trouble at all. Damned neat, and damned cold-blooded.�

The pilot�s predicted storm broke. A thousand demons howled, and the wind lashed at the butte, pounding the old house, banging shutters and rattling windows. Suddenly lightning crashed about the exposed mountain-top and thunder roared.

Nobody spoke. Dr. Junius shambled forward to throw another log on the fire.

The thunder rolled and rolled as if it would never stop. Ellery listened uneasily. It seemed to him that he had detected the faintest undertone in the thunder. He glanced about, but none of his companions seemed conscious of it.

The thunder ceased for a moment, and Gl�cke said: �We�ve got the whole State looking for that pilot. It�s only a question of time before we catch up with the guy.�

�But this rain,� cried Ty. �It will wipe out his trail from the plateau!�

�I know, I know, Mr. Royle,� said Gl�cke soothingly. �Don�t fret yourself. We�ll collar him. Now I want you young people to tell me something about your parents. There must be a clue somewhere in their background.�

Ellery took his hat and coat from the chair near the front door where he had dropped them and, unobserved, slipped down the hallway to the kitchen and out the kitchen door into the open.

�Where to?� asked the pilot.

�Municipal airport, L.A.�

The plane was not large, and they sat about in a cramped silence while the pilot nosed his ship sharply northwestward. He sought altitude; and soon they were flying high above a black valley, splitting the breeze to a hairline above and between the San Bernardino and San Jacinto ranges.

�What�s happened to my plane?� asked Ty, his face against a drizzle-misted window.

�It�s probably in Los Angeles by this time,� replied the Inspector. He paused. �Of course, we couldn�t leave them... it there.�

Bonnie stirred on Butcher�s motionless shoulder. �I was in a morgue once. It was a movie set. But even in make-believe... It was cold. Mother didn�t like�� She closed her eyes. �Give me a cigaret, Butch.�

He lit one for her and stuck it between her lips.

�Thanks.� She opened her eyes. �I suppose you all think I�ve been acting like such a baby. But it�s just that it�s been... a shock. It�s even worse, now that I can think again... Mother gone. It just isn�t possible.�

Without turning, Ty said harshly: �We all know how you feel.�

�Oh? Sorry.�

Ellery stared out at the stormy dark. A cluster of lights far below and ahead began to mushroom, resembling loose diamonds strewn on a black velvet cushion.

�Riverside,� said the Inspector. �We�ll pass over it soon, and after that it�s not far to the airport.�

They watched the cluster glow and grow and shrink and fade and disappear.

Ty suddenly got up. He blundered blindly up the aisle. Then he came back. �Why?� he said.

�Why, what?� asked the Inspector, surprised.

�Why was dad knocked off? Why were they both knocked off?�

�If we knew that, son, it wouldn�t be much of a case. Sit down.�

�It doesn�t make sense. Were they robbed? He had a thousand dollars in cash on him. I gave it to him only this morning as a sort � sort of wedding gift. Or � Bonnie! Was your mother carrying much money?�

�Don�t talk to me,� said Bonnie.

�It�s not that,� said Gl�cke. �Their personal belongings weren�t touched.�

�Then why?� cried Ty. �Why? Is he a lunatic?�

�Sit down, Ty,� said the Boy Wonder wearily.

�Wait!� His bloodshot eyes narrowed. �Could it have been an accident? I mean, could it have been that only one of them was meant to be killed, that the other one was a victim of some��

�Since you�re discussing it,� drawled Ellery, �Suppose you discuss it systematically.�

�What do you mean?�

�I think motive is the keystone of this case.�

�Yeah?� said the Inspector. �Why?�

�Simply because there doesn�t seem to be any.�

Gl�cke looked annoyed. Ty suddenly sat down and lit a cigaret. His eyes did not leave Ellery�s face. �Go on. You�ve got an idea about this thing.�

�He�s a crazy galoot,� growled Gl�cke, �but I admit he�s got something besides sand in his skull.�

�Well, look.� Ellery put his elbows on his knees. �Let�s begin in the proper place. Among the things I�ve observed in the past few weeks, Ty, is that your father never drank anything but Sidecars. Is that right?�

�Brandy, too. He liked brandy.�

�Well, of course. A Sidecar is nothing but brandy with Cointreau and a little lemon juice added. And as for your mother, Bonnie, she seemed exclusively fond of dry Martinis.�

�Yes.�

�I seem to recall, in fact, that she recently made some disparaging remark about Sidecars, which would indicate she disliked them. Is that true?�

�She detested them.�

�And dad couldn�t stand Martinis, either,� growled Ty. �So what?�

�So this. Some one � obviously the murderer; it could scarcely have been coincidence; the exact means of murder wouldn�t have been left to chance � some one sends Blythe and Jack a going-away hamper and lo! inside are two thermos bottles and lo! in one of them is a quart of Sidecars and in the other an equal quantity of Martinis.�

�If you mean,� said Butch with a frown, �that in sending those bottles the murderer betrayed an intimate knowledge of Blythe�s and Jack�s liquor preferences, Ellery, I�m afraid you won�t get far. Everybody in Hollywood knew that Blythe liked Martinis and Jack Sidecars.�

Inspector Gl�cke looked pleased.

But Ellery smiled. �I didn�t mean that. I�m attacking Ty�s accident theory, improbable as it is, just to get it out of the way. It lends itself to logical disproof.

�For if, as seems indisputable, the donor of that hamper knew that Blythe liked Martinis and Jack Sidecars, then the dosing of each bottle of heavenly dew with a lethal amount of morphine means that each drinker � Jack, the drinker of Sidecars, Blythe, the drinker of Martinis � was intended to be poisoned. Had only Blythe been marked for death, only the bottle of Martinis would have been poisoned. And similarly if Jack were to be the sole victim.� He sighed. �I�m afraid we�re faced with no alternative. Neither your father, Ty, nor your mother, Bonnie, was intended ever to come out of that plane alive. It�s the clearest case of a deliberate double-killing.�

�And where does all this folderol get you?� scowled Gl�cke.

�I�m sure I don�t know. One rarely does at this stage of the game.�

�I thought,� put in the Boy Wonder shortly, �you began to talk about motive.�

�Oh, that.� Ellery shrugged. �If the same motive applied to both of them, as seems likely, it�s even more mystifying.�

�But what could it be?� cried Bonnie. �Mother wouldn�t have harmed a fly.�

Ellery did not reply. He looked out the window at the swirling darkness.

The Inspector said suddenly: �Miss Stuart, is your father alive?�

�He died when I was an infant.�

�Your mother never remarried?�

�No.�

�Any...� The Inspector hesitated. Then he said delicately: �Did she have any... romantic attachments?�

�Mother?� Bonnie laughed. �Don�t be absurd.� And she turned her face away.

�How about your father, Royle? Your ma�s dead, too, isn�t she?�

�Yes.�

�Well, from all I�ve heard,� said the Inspector, clearing his throat, �your dad was sort of a lady�s man. Could there be some woman floating around who had � well, who thought she had good reason to get sore when Jack Royle announced he was going to marry Blythe Stuart?�

�How should I know? I wasn�t dad�s nursemaid.�

�Then there could be such a woman?�

�There could,� snapped Ty, �but I don�t think there is. Dad was no angel, but he knew women, he knew the world, and underneath he was a right guy. The few affairs I know about ended without a fuss. He never lied to his women, and they always knew exactly what they were letting themselves in for. You�re a million miles wrong, Gl�cke. Besides, this job was pulled by a man.�

�Hmm,� said the Inspector, and he slumped back. He did not seem immovably persuaded.

�I suggest,� said Ellery, �we eliminate. The usual attack in theorizing about motive is to ask who stands to gain by the murder. I believe we�ll make faster progress if we ask who stands to lose.

�Let�s start with the principals, you, Ty, and you, Bonnie. Obviously, of every one involved you two have sustained the greatest possible loss. You�ve lost your sole surviving parents, to whom you were plainly tremendously attached.�

Bonnie bit her lip, staring out the window. Ty crushed the burning tip of his cigaret out in his fingers.

�The studio?� Ellery shrugged. �Don�t look so startled, Butch; logic knows no sentiment. The studio has suffered a large monetary loss: it has lost forever the services of two popular, money-making stars. To bring it closer home, your own unit suffers a direct and intimate loss: the big production we�ve been working on together will have to be abandoned.�

�Wait a minute,� said Gl�cke. �How about a studio feud? Any contract trouble with another studio, Butcher? Know anybody who wouldn�t mind seeing Magna�s two big stars out of pictures?�

�Oh, don�t be a fool, Inspector,� snapped Butch. �This is Hollywood, not mediaeval Italy.�

�It didn�t seem likely,� grunted Gl�cke.

�To continue,� said Ellery, glancing at the Inspector with amusement. �The agency holding contracts for Jack�s and Blythe�s personal services � I believe it�s Alan Clark�s outfit � also loses.

�So that, in a sense, every one connected with Jack and Blythe personally and professionally stands to lose a great deal.�

�You�re a help.�

�But good Lord, Ellery,� protested Butch, �it stands to reason somebody gains by this crime.�

�From a monetary standpoint? Well, let�s see. Did Jack or Blythe leave much of an estate?�

�Mother left practically nothing,� said Bonnie lifelessly. �Even her jewels were paste. She lived up to every cent she earned.�

�How about Jack, Ty?�

Ty�s lip curled. �What do you think? You saw those IOU�s.�

�How about insurance?� asked the Inspector. �Or trust funds? You Hollywood actors are always salting it away in insurance companies.�

�Mother,� said Bonnie tightly, �didn�t believe in insurance or annuities. She didn�t know the value of money at all. I was always making up shortages in her checking account.�

�Dad took out a hundred-thousand-dollar policy once,� said Ty. �It was in force until the second premium came due. He said to hell with it � he had to go to the racetrack that afternoon.�

�But for Pete�s sake,� exclaimed the Inspector, �there�s got to be an angle somewhere. If it wasn�t gain, then revenge. Something! I�m beginning to think this guy Park better be tagged right away, at that.�

�Well,� said Ty coldly, �how about Alessandro and those IOU�s?�

�But they turned up in your father�s possession,� said Ellery. �If he hadn�t paid up, do you think Alessandro would have returned the IOU�s?�

�I don�t know anything about that,� muttered Ty. �All I ask is: Where would dad get a hundred and ten thousand?�

�You�re absolutely sure,� said Gl�cke slowly, �he couldn�t lay his hands on that much, huh?�

�Of course not!�

The Inspector rubbed his jaw. �Alessandro�s real handle is Joe DiSangri, and he�s been mixed up in a lot of monkey-business in New York. He used to be one of Al�s hoods, too, way back.� Then he shook his head. �But it doesn�t smell like a gang kill. Poisoned drinks! If Joe DiSangri wanted to rub out a welcher, he�d use lead. It�s in his blood.�

�Times have changed,� snarled Ty. �That�s a hell of a reason to lay off the skunk! Do I have to look him up myself?�

�Oh, we�ll check him.�

�At any rate,� said Ellery, �did Joe DiSangri, alias Alessandro, also kill Bonnie�s mother because your father welched on a gambling debt?�

Bonnie said passionately: �I knew it would only lead to trouble. I knew it. Why did she have to do it?�

Ty colored and turned aside. Gl�cke gnawed a fingernail. And kept looking at Bonnie and Ty.

The pilot opened his door and said: �We�re here.�

They looked down. The field was blackly alive, heaving with people.

Bonnie blanched and groped for Butch�s hand. �It... it looks like a � like something big and dead and a lot of little black ants running all over it.�

�Bonnie, you�ve been a trump so far. This won�t last long. Don�t spoil it. Keep your chin up.�

�But I can�t! All those millions of staring eyes�� She held on to his hand tightly.

�Now, Miss Stuart, take it easy,� said the Inspector, getting to his feet. �You�ve got to face it. We�re here��

�Are we?� said Ty bitterly. �I�d say we were nowhere. And that we�d got there damned fast.�

�That�s why I pointed out,� murmured Ellery, �that when we found out why Jack and Blythe were poisoned � when we got a clear line on the motive � we�d crack this case wide open.�

On Wednesday the twentieth the only completely peaceful persons in the City of Los Angeles and environs were John Royle and Blythe Stuart: they were dead.

It had been a mad three days. Reporters; cameramen, of the journalistic, artistic, and candid varieties, aging ladies of the motion picture press; State police and men of Inspector Gl�cke�s Homicide Detail; stars; producers; directors looking for inspiration; embalmers; preachers; debtors; mortuary salesmen; lawyers; radio announcers; real estate men; thousands of glamour-struck worshipers at the shrine of the dead pair � all milled and shouted and shoved and popped in and out and made the waking hours � there were few sleeping ones � of Bonnie and Ty an animated nightmare.

�Might as well have planned services for the Bowl,� cried Ty, disheveled, unshaven, purple-eyed from lack of rest. �For God�s sake, somebody, can�t I even send the old man out decently?�

�He was a public figure in life, Ty,� said Ellery soothingly. �You couldn�t expect the public to ignore him in death.�

�That kind of death?�

�Any kind of death.�

�They�re vultures!�

�Murder brings out the worst in people. Think of what poor Bonnie�s going through in Glendale.�

�Yes,� scowled Ty. �I guess... it�s pretty tough on a woman.� Then he said: �Queen, I�ve got to talk to her.�

�Yes, Ty?� Ellery tried not to show surprise.

�It�s terribly important.�

�It�s going to be hard, arranging a quiet meeting now.�

�I�ve got to.�

They met at three o�clock in the morning at an undistinguished little caf� tucked away in a blind alley off Melrose Street, miraculously unpursued � Ty wearing dark blue glasses and Bonnie a heavy nose-veil that revealed little more than her pale lips and chin.

Ellery and the Boy Wonder stood guard outside the booth in which they sat.

�Sorry, Bonnie,� said Ty abruptly, �to bring you out at a time like this. But there�s something we�ve got to discuss.�

�Yes?� Bonnie�s voice startled him; it was flat, brassy, devoid of life or feeling.

�Bonnie, you�re ill.�

�I�m all right.�

�Queen � Butch � somebody should have told me.�

�I�m all right. It�s just the thought of... Wednesday.� He saw her lips quiver beneath the veil.

Ty played with a glass of Scotch. �Bonnie... I�ve never asked a favor of you, have I?�

�You?�

�I�m... I suppose you�ll think I�m a fool, getting sentimental this way.�

�You sentimental?� Bonnie�s lips curved this time.

�What I want you to do...� Ty put the glass down. �It�s not for me. It isn�t even for my dad exclusively. It�s as much for your mother as for dad.�

Her hands crept off the table and disappeared. �Come to the point, please.�

He blurted: �I think they ought to have a double funeral.�

She was silent.

�I tell you it�s not for dad. It�s for both of them. I�ve been thinking things over since Sunday. Bonnie, they were in love. Before... I didn�t think so. I thought there was something else behind it � I don�t know what. But now... They died together. Don�t you see?�

She was silent.

�They were kept apart so many years,� said Ty. �And then to be knocked off just before... I know I�m an idiot to be talking this way. But I can�t get over the feeling that dad � yes, and your mother � would have wanted to be buried together, too.�

She was silent for so long that Ty thought something had happened to her. But just as he was about to touch her in alarm, she moved. Her hands appeared and pushed the veil back from her face. And she looked and looked and looked at him out of her dark-shadowed eyes, not speaking, not changing her expression; just looking.

Then she said simply: �All right, Ty,� and rose.

�Thanks!�

�It�s mother I�m thinking of.�

Neither said another word. They went home by different routes � Ty in Ellery�s coupe to Beverly Hills, Bonnie in the Boy Wonder�s limousine to Glendale.

Whether it was because of the story in the paper or because banishing indecision meant seeing Paula Paris again, Mr. Ellery Queen concluded a three-day struggle with himself by driving on Thursday morning to the white house in the hills.

And there, in one of the waiting-rooms intently conning Paula�s Seeing Stars column in the previous Sunday�s night-edition of the Monday morning paper, sat Inspector Gl�cke. When he saw Ellery he quickly stuffed the paper into his pocket.

�Are you one of Miss Paris�s doting public, too?� asked Ellery, trying to conceal his own copy of the same edition.

�Hullo, Queen.� Then the Inspector growled: �What�s the use of beating around the bush? I see you�ve spotted that column. Darned funny, I call it.�

�Not at all! Some mistake, no doubt.�

�Sure, that�s why you�re here, no doubt. This dame�s got some tall explaining to do. Give me the runaround since Monday, will she? I�ll break her damned neck!�

�Please,� said Ellery frigidly. �Miss Paris is a lady. Don�t speak of her as if she were one of your policewomen.�

�So she�s hooked you, too,� snarled Gl�cke. �Listen, Queen, this isn�t the first time I�ve locked horns with her. Whenever she comes up with something important and I ask her � in a nice way, mind you � to come down to HQ for a chin, I get the same old baloney about her not being able to leave this house, this crowd phobia of hers��

�I�ll thank you,� snapped Ellery, �to stop insulting her.�

�I�ve subpoenaed her from Dan to Beersheba time after time and she always wriggles out, blast her. Doctor�s affidavits � God knows what! I�ll show her up for a phony some day, mark my words. Crowd phobia!�

�Meanwhile,� said Ellery nastily, �the mountain again approaches Mohammed. By the way, what�s doing?�

�No trace of that pilot yet. But it�s only a question of time. My own hunch is he cached a plane somewhere near that plateau, maybe on the plateau itself. Then when he grounded Ty�s plane he simply walked over to his own ship and flew off. You don�t leave much of a trail in thin air.�

�Hmm. I see Dr. Polk has confirmed my guess as to the cause of death officially.�

�Autopsy showed an almost equal amount of morphine, a little over five grains, in each body. That means, Doc says, that a hell of a lot of morphine was dropped into those thermos bottles. Also some stuff Bronson calls sodium allurate, a new barbiturate compound � puts you rockababy.�

�No wonder there was no struggle,� muttered Ellery.

�Polk says the morphine and sodium allurate would put �em to sleep in less than five minutes. While they were sleeping that terrific dose of morphine began to get in its licks, and they must have died in less than a half-hour.�

�I suppose Jack went first, and Blythe thought he was merely dozing. The soporific performed an important function. You see that? While the first victim, whichever it was, was apparently asleep although really dying or dead the second one, unsuspicious because of that sleeping appearance of the other, would drink from the other thermos bottle. The allurate was a precaution � just in case they didn�t both drink at the same time. Damned clever.�

�Clever or not, it did the trick. Death by respiratory paralysis Polk calls it. The hell of it is we can�t trace the stuff. Sodium allurate�s now available in any drug store, and you know what a cinch it is to lay your hands on morphine.�

�Anything new?�

�Well,� said Gl�cke bashfully, �I�m not saying � much. I tried tracing the sender of that hamper, but no dice; we found the place it came from, but the order was mailed in and they threw away the letter. Phony name, of course. The plane�s sterile; the only fingerprints are Jack�s and Blythe�s and Ty�s � this guy must have worn gloves throughout. On the other hand...�

�Yes? You�re eating my heart out.�

�Well, we sort of got a line on Jack�s lady-friends. I swear he was a man, that billy-goat! Got a couple of interesting leads.� The Inspector chuckled. �From the way the gals in this town are running for cover you�d think��

�I�m not in the mood for love,� said Ellery somberly. �How about this man Park? Not a word about him in the news.�

�Oh, he�s dead.�

�What!�

�Committed suicide. It�ll be in tonight�s papers. We found his duds intact in the cheap flophouse in Hollywood where he bedded down, with a note saying he was dying anyway, he was no good to his wife and crippled boy back East, who are on relief, he hadn�t earned enough to keep his own body and soul together for years, and so he was throwing himself to the tuna.�

�Oh,� said Ellery. �Then you didn�t find his body?�

�Listen, my large-brained friend,� grinned Gl�cke. �If you think that suicide note is a phony, forget it. We verified the handwriting. For another thing, we�ve definitely established the old guy couldn�t fly a plane.�

Ellery shrugged. �By the way, do something for me after you get through boiling Miss Paris in oil.�

�What?� demanded the Inspector suspiciously.

�Put a night-and-day tail on Bonnie.�

�Bonnie Stuart? What the hell for?�

�Blamed if I know. It must be my Psyche sniffing.� Then he added quite without humor: �Don�t neglect that, Gl�cke. It may be of the essence, as our French friends say.�

Just then one of Paula Paris�s secretaries said with an impish smile: �Will you come in now, Inspector?�

Mr. Queen, even as he drove away from Paula�s house admiring his own charms in thought, felt a premonitory chill. He had the feeling that he had not heard quite everything.

The infallibility of his intuition was demonstrated the instant he stepped into Jacques Butcher�s office. The Boy Wonder was reading Paula�s column in a grim silence, while Sam Vix tried to look unhappy and Lew Bascom conducted a monologue shrewdly designed to distract the Boy Wonder�s mind.

�I�m like the Phoenix,� Lew was chattering. �It�s won�erful how I rise outa my own ashes. We�ll go ahead with the original plans for the picture, see, only we�ll have Bonnie and Ty double for Blythe and Jack, an���

�Can it, Lew,� warned Sam Vix.

�Here�s the mastermind,� said Lew. �Looka here, Queen. Don�t you think��

Without taking his eyes from the newsprint, Butch said curtly: �It�s impossible. For one thing, Bonnie and Ty wouldn�t do it, and I wouldn�t blame them. For another, the Hays office would crack down. Too much notoriety already. Hollywood�s always sensitive about murders.�

�What�s the matter, Butch?� demanded Ellery.

Butch looked up then, and Ellery was startled at the expression on his face. �Nothing much,� he said with an ugly laugh. �Just another little scoop of Paula Paris�s.�

�Oh, you mean that Monday column?�

�Who said anything about Monday? This is today�s paper.�

�Today?� Ellery looked blank.

�Today. Paula says here that Ty and Bonnie are on their way to honeymoonland.�

�What!�

�Aw, don�t believe what that halfwit writes,� said Lew. �Here, Butch, have a drink.�

�But I just saw Paula,� cried Ellery, �and she didn�t say anything about that!�

�Maybe,� said Vix dryly, �she thinks you can read.�

Butch shrugged. �I guess I had to wake up some time. I think I�ve known all along that Bonnie and I... She�s crazy about Ty; if I hadn�t been so blind I�d have realized all that bickering covered up something deep.� He smiled and poured himself a water-glass full of gin. �Prosit!�

�It�s a dirty trick,� mumbled Lew. �She can�t do that to my pal.�

�Do they know you know?� asked Ellery abruptly.

�I guess not. What difference does it make?�

�Where are they now?�

�I just had a call from Bonnie, gay as a lark � I mean, considering. They�re going to the Horseshoe Club to play cops and robbers with Alessandro. Good luck to �em.�

Ellery departed in haste. He found Bonnie�s scarlet roadster parked outside the Horseshoe Club; the interior was depressingly deserted, with charwomen scrubbing up the marks of the expensive shoes of Hollywood�s elite and one bartender listlessly wiping glasses.

Bonnie and Ty were leaning side by side over the horseshoe-shaped desk in Alessandro�s office, and Alessandro sat quietly before them, drumming a tune with his fingers.

�This seems to be my bad day,� he remarked dryly when he saw Ellery. �It�s all right, Joe; these folks don�t pack rods. Well, shoot. What�s on your mind?�

�Hello, Mr. Queen,� cried Bonnie. She looked lovely and fresh in a tailored gabardine suit and a crimson jellyroll of a hat tipped on her honey hair; her cheeks were pink with excitement. �We were just asking Mr. Alessandro about those IOU�s.�

So they didn�t know yet, Ellery thought. He grinned: �Coincidence. That�s why I�m here, too.�

�You and Inspector Gl�cke,� chuckled the little fat gambler. �The flattie! Only he was here Monday.�

�I don�t care about that,� barked Ty. �You admit my dad owed you a hundred and ten thousand dollars?�

�Sure I admit it. It�s true.�

�Then how is it those IOU�s were found on his body?�

�Because,� said Alessandro gently, �he paid up.�

�Oh, he did, did he? When?�

�On Thursday the fourteenth � just a week ago.�

�And with what?�

�With good stiff American dough. Thousand-buck bills.�

�You�re a liar.�

The man called Joe growled. But Alessandro smiled. �I�ve stood a lot from you people,� he said amiably, �you and your folks, get me? I ought to give Joe here the office to slug you for that crack, Royle. Only your old man just got his, and maybe you�re a little excited.�

�You and your gorillas don�t scare me.�

�So you think maybe I had something to do with those murders, hey?� Alessandro snarled. �I warn you, Royle, lay off. I run a clean joint and I got a reputation in this town. Lay off, if you know what�s good for you!�

Bonnie sucked in her breath. But then her eyes snapped and she snatched an envelope from her purse and tossed it on the desk. �Maybe you can explain this!�

Ellery goggled as he saw Alessandro take a blue-backed playing-card out of the envelope and stare at it. One of those cryptic messages! He groaned inwardly. They had utterly slipped his mind. He was growing senile.

Alessandro shrugged. �It comes from the Club, all right. So what?�

�That,� growled Ty, �is what we�re trying to find out.�

The gambler shook his head. �No dice. Anybody could get hold of our cards. Hundreds play here every week, and we give dozens of packs away as souvenirs.�

�I imagine,� said Ellery hurriedly, �Alessandro is right. We�re not learning anything here. Coming, you two?�

He herded them out before they could protest, and the instant they were in Bonnie�s roadster he snapped: �Bonnie, let me see that envelope.�

Bonnie gave it to him. He studied it intently, then put it into his pocket.

�Here, I want that,� said Bonnie. �It�s important. It�s a clue.�

�You�re a better man than I am for spotting it as such,� said Ellery. �I�ll keep it, if you don�t mind � as I happen to have kept the others. Oh, I�m an idiot!�

Bonnie almost ran over a Russian wolfhound. �You!� she cried. �Then it was you��

�Yes, yes,� said Ellery impatiently. �I fancy I�m better qualified for all my forgetfulness. Magna Studios, Bonnie.�

Ty, who was scarcely listening, muttered: �He�s lying. It couldn�t be anything but a lie.�

�What?�

�Alessandro. We�ve only got his word that those IOU�s were paid. Suppose dad refused to pay, or what�s more likely pointed out how impossible it was for him to pay? It would have been pie for Alessandro to get one of his plug-uglies to play the pilot and after poisoning dad and Blythe put the torn IOU�s into dad�s pocket.�

�But why, Ty?� frowned Bonnie.

�Because he�d know he�d never get his money anyway. Because knowing that, he�d want revenge. And planting the IOU�s on dad would make it seem to the police as if the money was paid, in that way eliminating in their minds any possible motive on Alessandro�s part.�

�A little subtle,� said Ellery, �but conceivable.�

�But even if that�s so,� said Bonnie, �why mother? Don�t you see, Ty, that�s the thing that confuses everything? Why was mother poisoned, too?�

�I don�t know,� said Ty doggedly. �All I know is dad couldn�t possibly have laid his hands on a hundred and ten grand. He had no money, and nowhere to get any.�

�By the way,� remarked Ellery casually, �did you people know that in today�s column Paula Paris hints you two have made up rather thoroughly?�

Bonnie went slowly pale, and Ty blinked several times. Bonnie pulled up to a curb and said: �What?�

�She says you�re well on your way to love and kisses.�

Bonnie looked for a moment as if she was going to have a crying spell again. But then her chin came up and she turned on Ty furiously. �And you promised me!�

�But, Bonnie�� began Ty, still blinking.

�You � fiend!�

�Bonnie! You certainly don�t think��

�Don�t speak to me, you publicity hound,� said Bonnie with a sick, heavy, hot loathing.

That was the start of an extraordinary day, and every one was thoroughly miserable; and when they got to the Boy Wonder�s office Bonnie went to him and deliberately kissed his mouth and then took up the phone and asked Madge to get Paula Paris on the wire.

Butch looked bewilderedly from Bonnie to Ty; both their faces were red with anger.

�Miss Paris? This is Bonnie Stuart speaking. I�ve just heard that, with your usual cleverness, you�ve found out that Ty Royle and I are going to be married, or something as foul and lying as that.�

�I�m afraid I don�t understand,� murmured Paula.

�If you don�t want to be sued for libel you�ll please print a retraction of that story at once!�

�But, Bonnie, I had it on excellent authority��

�No doubt. Well, I detest him as much as I detest you for listening to him!�

�But I don�t understand. Ty Royle��

�You heard me, Miss Paris.� Bonnie slammed the phone down and glared at Ty.

�Well, well,� chuckled Lew. �This is like old times, for gossakes. Now about that picture��

�Then it isn�t true?� asked Butcher slowly.

�Of course not! And as far as this contemptible � person is concerned...�

Ty turned on his heel and walked out. Ellery hurried after him. �You didn�t give that story to Paula?�

�What do you think I am?�

�Hmm. Very pretty scene.� Ellery glanced at him sidewise. �I shouldn�t be surprised if she did it herself.�

�What!� exploded Ty. He stopped short. �Well, by God, maybe you�re right. She�s been stringing me along. I see it all now � the whole thing, leading me on just so she could turn around and slap me down the way she�s always done. What a rotten trick!�

�That�s women for you,� sighed Ellery.

�I thought at first it was that damned Frenchwoman. She�s the only other one who could possibly have overheard.�

�Oh, then you did get cuddly?�

�Well... But it�s over now � finished! I�m through with that scheming little double-crosser for good!�

�Nobly resolved,� said Ellery heartily. �Man�s much better off alone. Where are you going now?�

�Hell, I don�t know.� They were standing before a row of pretty little stone bungalows. �That�s funny. Here�s dad�s old dressing-room. Force of habit, eh?� Ty muttered: �If you don�t mind, Queen, I think I�ll sort of go in alone.�

�Not a bit of it,� said Ellery, taking his arm. �We�ve both been made fools of, so we ought to pool our misery.�

And he went into John Royle�s studio bungalow with Ty.

And found the key to the code.

He found it by accident, merely because he was in the dead man�s room and it occurred to him that no one had disturbed it since the elder Royle�s death. There was even a soiled towel, with the stains of makeup on it, lying on the make-up table beside a new-looking portable typewriter.

So Ellery poked about while Ty lay down on the couch and stared stonily at the oyster-white ceiling; and almost the first thing Ellery found in the table drawer was a creased and crumpled sheet of ordinary yellow paper, 8 � by 11 inches in size, one side blank and the other well-filled with typewritten words.

And Ellery took one look at the capitalized, underscored heading: meaning of the cards, and let out a whoop that brought Ty to his feet.

�What is it? What�s the matter?�

�I�ve found it!� yelled Ellery. �Of all the colossal breaks. The cards! All typed out. Thanks, kind Fates. Yes, here�s the whole thing... Wait a minute. Is it possible��

Ty frowned over the sheet. Ellery whipped the cover off the portable typewriter, rummaged until he found a sheet of blank stationery, pushed it under the carriage, and began rapidly to type, referring to the crumpled yellow paper from time to time. And as he typed, the gladness went out of his face, and it became dark with thought.

He got up, replaced the cover of the typewriter, put the papers carefully into his pocket, picked up the machine, and said in a flat voice: �Come along, Ty.�

They found Bonnie and the Boy Wonder in each other�s arms, Bonnie�s face still stormy and Butch looking wildly happy. Lew sat grinning at them both, like a benevolent satyr.

�We come bearing news,� said Ellery. �Unhand her, Butch. This requires confabulation.�

�Whassa matter?� asked Lew suspiciously.

�Plenty. I don�t know whether you know it or not, Butch, but Ty and Bonnie do. Blythe for some time before last Sunday had been receiving anonymous messages.�

�I didn�t know that,� said Butch slowly.

�What kind?� frowned Lew. �Threats?�

�Plain envelopes addressed in block letters by obviously a post-office pen, mailed in Hollywood, and containing nothing but playing-cards.� He took out his wallet and tossed over a small bundle of envelopes bound by an elastic. Butch and Lew examined them incredulously.

�Horseshoe Club,� muttered Lew.

�But what do they mean?� demanded Butch. �Bonnie, why didn�t you tell me?�

�I didn�t think they were important.�

�I�m more to blame. I�ve been carrying these things around in my pocket and didn�t once think of them after Sunday. But just now,� said Ellery, �I found the key to those cards.�

He laid down on Butcher�s desk the yellow sheet. Lew and Butch and Bonnie read it with blank faces.

�I don�t understand,� murmured Bonnie. �It looks like some kind of fortune-telling.�

�It told a remarkably grim fortune,� drawled Ellery. �This � you might call it a codex � tells what each card sent through the mail means.� He picked up the envelopes. �The first envelope Blythe received was mailed on the eleventh of this month and delivered on the twelfth. That was nine days ago, or five days before the murders. And what was in the envelope? Two playing-cards � the knave and seven of spades.�

Automatically they craned at the yellow sheet. The meaning assigned to both the knave and seven of spades was: �An Enemy.�

�Two enemies, then,� said Ellery. �Just as if some one had written: �Watch yourself. We�re both after you.��

�Two � enemies?� said Bonnie damply. There was horror in her eyes as she glanced, as if against her will, at Ty�s pale face. �Two!�

�The second envelope arrived on Friday the fifteenth. And it contained two cards also � the ten of spades and the two of clubs. And what do they mean?�

��Great Trouble,�� muttered Ty. �That�s the spade ten. And �In Two Days or Two Weeks� on the deuce of clubs.�

�Two days,� cried Bonnie. �Friday the fifteenth � and mother was murdered on Sunday the seventeenth!�

�And on Sunday the seventeenth, at the field,� continued Ellery, �I saw Clotilde deliver the third envelope. I picked it up after your mother, Bonnie, threw it away. It was this � the eight of spades, torn in half. If you�ll refer to that note at the bottom of the sheet, you�ll see that the meaning is intended to become reversed when a card is torn in half. Consequently the message becomes � only a few minutes before the plane is hijacked and the murder occurs: �Threatened Danger Will not Be Warded Off!��

�This,� said Butcher pallidly, �is the most childish nonsense I�ve ever heard of. It�s completely incredible.�

�Yet here it is.� Ellery shrugged. �And just now Bonnie gave me the last message � the nine of clubs enclosed, meaning: �Last Warning.� That seems the most incredible nonsense of all, Butch, since this �warning� was sent to Blythe two days after her death.�

The Boy Wonder looked angry. �It was bad enough before, but this... Damn it, how can you credit such stuff? But if we must... it does look as if whoever mailed this last letter didn�t know Blythe was dead, doesn�t it? And since all the letters were obviously the work of the same person, I can�t see the relevance of any of it.�

�It�s ridiculous,� jeered Lew. �Plain nut stuff.� Nevertheless he asked: �Say, where�d you find this sheet?�

�In Jack Royle�s dressing-room.� Ellery took the cover off the portable typewriter. �And what�s more, if you�ll examine this sample of typewriting I just made on this machine and compare it with the typing on the yellow sheet, you�ll find that the small h�s and r�s, for instance, have identically broken serifs. Identically broken,� he repeated with a sudden thoughtful note; and he seized a paperweight sunglass on Butcher�s desk and examined the keys in question. Freshly filed! But he put the glass down and merely said: �There�s no doubt about it. This code-sheet was typed on Jack Royle�s typewriter. It was your dad�s, Ty?�

Ty said: �Yes. Yes, of course,� and turned away.

�Jack?� repeated Butch in a dazed voice.

Lew snarled: �Aw, go on. What would Jack want to play games for?� but the snarl was somehow unconvincing. He glanced uneasily at Bonnie.

Bonnie said huskily: �On Jack Royle�s typewriter... You�re sure of that?�

�Absolutely. Those broken keys are as good as fingerprints.�

�Ty Royle, did you hear that?� asked Bonnie of his back, her eyes flashing. �Did you?�

�What do you want?� muttered Ty, without turning.

�What do I want?� screamed Bonnie. �I want you to turn around and look me in the face! Your father typed that sheet � your father sent those notes with the cards in them to mother � your father killed my mother!�

He turned then, defensively, his face sullen. �You�re hysterical or you�d know that�s a stupid, silly accusation.�

�Is it?� cried Bonnie. �I knew there was something funny about his repentance, about proposing marriage to mother after so many years of hating her. Now I know he was lying all the time, playing a game � yes, Lew, but a horrible one!�� covering himself up against the time when he expected to � to murder her. The engagement, the wedding, it was all a trap! He hired somebody to pretend to kidnap them and then poisoned my mother with his own foul hands!�

�And himself, too, I suppose?� said Ty savagely.

�Yes, because when he realized what an awful thing he�d done he had the first decent impulse of his life and put an end to it!�

�I�m not going to fight with you, Bonnie,� said Ty in a low voice.

�Enemies... two enemies! Well, why not? You and your father! The neat little love scene yesterday... oh, you think you�re clever, too. You know he killed my mother and you�re trying to cover him up. For all I know you may have helped him plan it � you murderer!�

Ty made two fists and then opened them. He rubbed the back of one hand for a moment as if it itched, or pained, him. Then without a word he walked out of the office.

Bonnie flew, weeping, into Butcher�s arms.

But later, when she got home and Clotilde let her in, and she crept up to her room and without undressing lay down on her bed, Bonnie wondered at herself in a dark corner of her aching head. Was it really true? Could it really be? Had he been acting yesterday when he said he loved her? Suspicions were horrible. She could have sworn... And yet there it was. The facts were all against him. Who could have told Paula Paris about their reconciliation? Only Ty. And after she had begged him not to! And then, finding that sheet... You couldn�t wipe out years and years of hatred just by uttering three one-syllable words.

Oh, Ty, you monster!

Bonnie remained in her room, shut against the world, sleepless, sick, and empty. The night passed, and it was a long night peopled with so many shadows that at three o�clock in the morning, railing at her nerves and yet twitchy with morbid thoughts, she got up and switched on all the lights. She did not close her eyes the whole night.

At eight she admitted Clotilde, who was frantic.

�Oh, Bonnie, you shall make yourself ill! See, I have brought p�tit d�jeuner. Galettes et marmelade��

�No, thanks, �Tilde,� said Bonnie wearily. �More letters?�

She dipped into the heap of envelopes on the tray. �Dear Bonnie Stuart: My heart goes out to you in your grief, and I want to tell you how much I feel for you...� Words. Why couldn�t people let her alone? And yet that was ungrateful. They were dears, and they had loved Blythe so...

Her heart stopped.

There was an envelope � it looked so horribly familiar... She tore an end off with shaking fingers. But no, it couldn�t be. This one was addressed in typewriting, sloppily. But the envelope, the Hollywood postmark...

A blue playing-card dropped out. The seven of spades.

Nothing more.

Clotilde stared at her open-mouthed. �Mais ch�rie, il semble que tu��

Bonnie breathed: �Go away, �Tilde.�

The seven of spades. Again... �An Enemy�...

Bonnie dropped the card and envelope as if they were foul, slimy things. And for the first time in her life, as she crouched in her tumbled bed with Clotilde gaping at her, she felt weak with pure fright.

An enemy. Ty... Ty was her only enemy.

Before Ellery left the Magna lot he went on impulse, still toting Jack Royle�s typewriter, to the studio street where the stars� stone bungalows were and quietly let himself into Blythe Stuart�s dressing-room.

And there, as he had half-expected, he found a carbon copy on yellow paper of the �Meaning of the Cards.� In a drawer, hidden away.

So Blythe had known what the cards meant! Ellery had been positive her too casual dismissal of the letters had covered a frightened knowledge.

He slipped out and made for the nearest public telephone.

�Paula? Ellery Queen.�

�How nice! And so soon, too.� Her voice was happy.

�I suppose,� said Ellery abruptly, �it�s useless for me to ask where you learned about Ty and Bonnie.�

�Quite useless, Sir Snoop.�

�I imagine it was that Clotilde � it couldn�t have been any one else. There�s loyal service for you!�

�You won�t pump me, my dear Mr. Queen,� she said; but from something defensive in her tone Ellery knew he had guessed the truth.

�Or why you didn�t tell me this morning when I saw you. However, this is all beside the point. Paula, would you say Jack Royle killed Blythe Stuart � that his change of heart, the engagement, the wedding, were all part of a careful, murderous scheme to take his revenge on her?�

�That,� said Paula crisply, �is the silliest theory of the crime I�ve heard yet. Why, Jack couldn�t possibly... Is it yours?�

�Bonnie Stuart�s.�

�Oh.� She sighed. �The poor child gave me Hail Columbia over the phone a few moments ago. I suppose running that yarn was a rotten trick, so soon after the funeral. But that�s the trouble with newspaper work. You can�t be nice, and efficient, too.�

�Look, Paula. Will you do me one enormous favor? Print that retraction of the reconciliation story Bonnie demanded. Right away.�

�Why?� Her voice was instantly curious.

�Because I ask you to.�

�Ouch! You are possessive, aren�t you?�

�Forget personalities or your job. This is � vital. Do you know the derivation of that word? Paula, you must. Swing back into the old line � their furious feud from childhood, how they detest each other, how the death of their parents has driven them farther apart. Feed them raw meat. Keep them fighting.�

Paula said slowly: �Just why do you want to keep those poor mixed-up kids apart?�

�Because,� said Ellery, �they�re in love.�

�How logical you are! Or are you a misogamist with a mission in the world? Keep them apart because they�re in love? Why?�

�Because,� replied Ellery grimly, �it happens to be very, very dangerous for them to be in love.�

�Oh.� Then Paula said with a catch in her voice. �Aren�t we all?� and hung up.

Ellery, Sam Vix, and Lew Bascom were having breakfast Friday morning in the Magna commissary when Alan Clark strolled in, sat down beside them on a stool, and said to the aged waitress behind the counter: �Coffee, beautiful.�

�Oh, Alan.�

�Here I am. What�s on your mind?�

�I�ve been wondering,� said Ellery. �Just what is my status now in the studio?�

�Status?� The agent stared. �What d�ye mean? You�re on the payroll, aren�t you?�

�His conscience is havin� an attack of the shakes,� grinned Lew. �I never saw such a guy for virtue. Like the little studio steno I was out with last night. I says to her��

�I know,� protested Ellery, �but I was hired to work on the Royle-Stuart picture, and there is no Royle-Stuart picture any more.�

�Isn�t that too bad?� said Clark, shaking his head over the coffee. �My heart bleeds for you.�

�But what am I supposed to do, Alan? After all, I�m drawing fifteen hundred a week!�

The three men shook their heads in unison. �He�s drawing fifteen hundred a week,� said Sam Vix pityingly. �Now that�s what I call a stinking shame.�

�Look, Queen,� sighed the agent. �Was it your fault Jack Royle and Blythe got themselves purged?�

�I don�t see what that has to do with it.�

�Say, whose side are you on, anyway � labor or capital?� demanded Lew. �We writers got some rights!�

�Your contract wasn�t drawn up, if I may say so,� said Clark modestly, �by a cluck. You�ve got little Alan in there batting for you all the time, remember that. You contracted to work on a Royle-Stuart picture, and there�s nothing in that immortal document about murders.�

�That�s just the point; the picture will never be made. It�s been withdrawn from schedule. Butch announced its withdrawal only this morning.�

�What of it? Your contract calls for an eight-week guarantee. So, picture or no picture, you stay here till you collect eight weeks� salary. Or, to put it crudely, till you�ve wrapped your bankbook around twelve thousand bucks.�

�It�s criminal,� muttered Ellery.

�Nah, it�s life,� said Clark, rising. �Now forget it. Being ashamed to draw a salary! Who ever heard of such a thing?�

�But how can I take it? I can�t just sit around here��

�He can�t just sit around here,� exploded Lew. �Listen, drizzle-puss, I�m sittin� around here for a lot less than fifteen hundred bucks a week!�

�Me, too,� sighed the publicity man.

�Work it out in detecting,� suggested Clark. �You�re a detective, aren�t you?�

�I could use some o� that dough,� Lew grumbled into his raw egg-and-tomato juice. �Say, Queen, how�s about letting me have a couple o� C�s till next Friday?�

�This is where I came in,� said the agent hurriedly. �Got to bawl out a producer; he�s knifing one of my best clients in the back.�

�Just till next Friday,� said Lew as Clark went away.

�If you let this pirate put the bee on you,� growled Sam Vix, �you�re a bigger sap than you pretend to be. Next Friday! What�s the matter with this Friday? You get paid today, you fat bastard.�

�Who asked you to butt in?� said Lew hotly. �You know I�m savin� up for my old age. I�m gonna start a chicken farm.�

�You mean the kind that clucks �Daddy�?� jeered Vix. �You save for your old age! You�re not going to have an old age. Unless your stomach�s lined with chromium.�

�Anyway, I saw him first!�

�That,� said the publicity man with a grin, �was one tough break � for him. Well, so long. I work for my lousy pittance.�

�By the way, Sam,� said Ellery absently. �I�ve been meaning to ask you. Where were you last Sunday?�

�Me?� The one-eyed man looked astonished. �Over at Reed Island, making arrangements for the wedding reception.�

�I know, but when I phoned the Island after the plane was snatched Sunday, I was told you weren�t there.�

Vix scowled down at him. �What the hell you doing � taking Clark�s advice seriously?�

�No offense,� smiled Ellery. �I just thought I�d ask you before Gl�cke got around to it.�

�Take a tip from me and lay off that kind of chatter. It isn�t healthy.� And Vix stalked off, the black patch over his eye quivering with indignation.

�What�s the matter with him!� murmured Ellery, offering his coffee-cup to the waitress to be replenished.

Lew chuckled. �Some guys are born hatin� spinach and other guys work up a terrific peeve if you split an infinitive. Sam�s weakness is he don�t think it�s funny to be suspected of a murder. And he thinks it�s twice as not funny in the case of a double feature.�

�Can�t a man ask an innocent question?�

�Yeah,� said Lew dryly. �Pretty soon you�ll be askin� me an innocent question, too. Like: �Was that really you standin� beside me when this masked guy hijacked Ty�s plane?��

�Well, you can�t always believe your eyes,� said Ellery with a grin.

�Sure not. I mighta been my twin brother.�

�Have you a twin brother?� asked Ellery, startled.

�You know why I like you?� sighed Lew. �Because you�re such a pushover for a gag. Of course I ain�t got no twin brother!�

�I might have known that the Author of us all wouldn�t repeat a mistake of that magnitude,� said Ellery sadly. �Oh, Ty! Come over here and join us in some breakfast.�

Ty Royle strode over, freshly shaven but looking as if he had spent a hectic night. �Had mine, thanks. Queen, I�d like to talk to you.�

�Yes?�

Ty squatted on the stool Sam Vix had vacated, put his elbow on the counter, and ran his fingers through his hair.

�All right, all right,� grumbled Lew, getting up. �I know a stage wait when I hear one.�

�Don�t go, Lew,� said Ty wearily. �You may be able to help, too.�

Ellery and Lew exchanged glances. �Sure, kid,� said Lew, seating himself. �What�s on your mind?�

�Bonnie.�

�Oh,� said Ellery.

�What�s she pulled on you now?� asked Lew sympathetically.

�It�s that business of yesterday afternoon.� Ty fiddled with Vix�s coffee-cup. �Her saying that dad was behind the � well, the whole thing. I�ve been up all night thinking it over. I was sore as a boil at first. But I found out something about myself last night.�

�Yes?� said Ellery with a frown.

�Something�s happened to me. Since Wednesday. I don�t feel the way I used to about her. In fact, I feel... just the opposite.� He banged the cup. �Oh, what the hell�s the use of fighting myself any longer? I�m in love with her!�

�You feelin� good?� growled Lew.

�It�s no use, Lew. I�m hooked for fair this time.�

�With all the fluffs you�ve played!�

Ty smiled wryly. �That�s almost exactly what I said to dad when I found out he�d decided he loved Blythe.�

�Yes,� murmured Ellery, �history has a fascinating way of repeating itself.� He sent Lew a warning look, and Lew nodded.

�Listen kid, it�s your imagination and this climate,� said Lew in a fatherly tone. �Jack�s death sort of knocked you out of kilter, and you know what the warm sun does to young animals. Listen to your Uncle Looey. This love stuff don�t get you anything but trouble. Take me, for instance. You don�t see me going woozy-eyed over any one dame, do you? Hell, if I had your pan I�d make Casanova look like Cousin Hiram heavin� his first pass at the college widow!�

Ty shook his head. �No go, Lew. I don�t want any woman but Bonnie. That stuff�s out for good.�

�Well,� shrugged Lew, �it�s your funeral. Don�t say I didn�t warn you.�

�Look, Lew.� Ty seemed embarrassed. �You�re about as close to Bonnie as... I mean, I was thinking you might try to talk to her.�

Ellery shook his head violently over Ty�s shoulder.

�Who, me?� said Lew in a shocked voice. �What d�ye wanta make me, accessory to a crime? I wouldn�t have it on my conscience. I�m no John Alden. Do your own courtin�.�

�How about you, Queen? Bonnie�s convinced that dad � well, you heard her yesterday. Somebody�s got to show her how wrong she is. She obviously won�t listen to me.�

�Why don�t you let matters ride for a while?� said Ellery lightly. �Give her time to cool off. She�ll probably realize by herself, in time, that it�s all a mistake.�

�Sure, what�s the rush? Give the kid a chance to get her bearings. Besides,� said Lew, �there�s Butch.�

Ty was silent. Then he said: �Butch... Maybe you�re right. It is less than a week.�

The cashier at the commissary desk called out: �Mr. Queen, there�s a call for you on this phone.�

Ellery excused himself and went to the desk.

�Hello � Mr. Queen? This is Bonnie Stuart.�

�Oh,� said Ellery. �Yes?� He glanced at Ty, who was listening glumly as Lew waved his arms in earnest exhortation.

�I�ve something to show you,� said Bonnie strangely. �It... came this morning.�

�Oh, I see.� Then Ellery said in a loud tone: �How about lunch?�

�But can�t you come over now?�

�Sorry, I�ve something important to do. Shall we say the Derby on Vine at one o�clock?�

�I�ll be there,� said Bonnie curtly, and hung up.

Ellery strolled back to the counter. Ty interrupted Lew in the middle of a sentence. �Just the same, there�s one thing we ought to do right away.�

�What�s that?� asked Ellery.

�I�ve been thinking about those anonymous letters. I think Inspector Gl�cke ought to be told about them.�

�That nut stuff,� scoffed Lew. �No one but a screw-loose would mail cards to a dame when she was dead.�

Ellery lit a cigaret. �Coincidence! I�ve been giving the matter considerable thought, too. And I believe I�ve worked out a practical theory.�

�You�re a better man than I am, then,� said Ty gloomily.

�You see, there are really only two plausible inferences to be drawn from the strange fact Lew�s just mentioned � I mean, this business of mailing a letter to a dead woman. Oh, of course there�s always the possibility that the sender didn�t know Blythe was dead, but you�ll agree we can dismiss that as a huge improbability; Sam Vix and the gentlemen of the press associations have taken care of that.�

�Maybe this palooka can�t read,� said Lew.

�Is he deaf, too? Illiteracy is scarcely the answer in these days of news broadcasting via the radio. Besides, the envelopes were addressed by some one who could write. No, no, that can�t be the answer.�

�Don�t you know a gag when you hear one?� said Lew disgustedly.

�The two inferences seem to me to be all-inclusive. The first is the normal, obvious inference you�ve already voiced, Lew: that is, that the sender is a crank; that the envelopes, the cards, the whole childish business indicate the workings of a deranged mentality. It�s conceivable that such a mentality would see nothing unreasonable about continuing to send the cards even after the object of his interest has died.�

�Well, that�s my guess,� said Lew.

�And yet I get the feeling,� said Ty thoughtfully, �that while the sender of those cards may be slightly off, he isn�t just a nut.�

�A feeling,� murmured Ellery, �I share. And if he is sane, the alternate inference arises.�

�What�s that?� demanded Lew.

Ellery rose and picked up his check. �I was going to devote the morning,� he said with a smile, �to a line of investigation which would prove or disprove it. Would you care to join me, gentlemen?�

They dodged guiltily around the corner and hurried down Vine Street. When they were safely hidden in a private booth at the Brown Derby they all looked relieved.

Lew was fat with laughter. �I�d like to see Gl�cke�s face when he hears about this,� he choked, wiping his eyes dry. �That deadpan won�t talk � much. He�ll tell his wife and his cuties and his pals. Say, I�ll bet he�s on the phone right now!�

�I�ll have to make up to Gl�cke some way,� said Ellery contritely. �He doesn�t even know these letters exist.�

�For God�s sake, Queen,� said Ty, �what�s in that envelope?�

Ellery took from the manila envelope a letter, sans envelope; a typewritten schedule on a letterhead of International Mailers, Inc.; and a single envelope, sealed, addressed to Blythe Stuart in the scratchy, pale blue-inked block letters of the previous messages. Attached to this envelope by a steel clip was a slip of memorandum paper, bearing a typed date.

�Mr. Egbert L. Smith�s letter,� said Ellery, scanning it slowly. Then he passed it over to Ty.

Ty read it eagerly, Lew squinting over his shoulder. The letter had been typewritten on a sheet of white �second� paper of the flimsiest, cheapest grade. It was dated the twenty-seventh of the previous month.

�Damned Borgia didn�t even sign his phony name,� muttered Ty.

�An irritating but wise precaution,� said Ellery dryly. �No handwriting, no clue. And no address. Note, too, the carefully innocuous phraseology. Neither illiterate nor erudite. With a distinct businessman flavor, as if Mr. Egbert L. Smith were exactly what he was pretending to be.�

�Say, this letter was typed on Jack Royle�s machine!� exclaimed Lew. �If what you said yesterday was true, Queen. Look at the broken serifs on those h�s and r�s. I think we ought to turn this over to Gl�cke pronto.�

Ellery nodded, picking up the sheet of the company stationery. �This is just Lucey�s schedule, copied verbatim from the list in Smith�s letter. Of course, the name is fictitious. And I imagine the paper will be found to be sterile of fingerprints.�

A waiter came to hover over them, and Ty said absently: �Brandy.�

Lew said: �Greetings, Gene.�

�Double drinks, Mr. Bascom?�

�Bring the bottle, for gossakes. Can�t you see I got a sucker? The fifteen-year Monnet.�

The waiter grinned and padded away.

�Let�s see,� murmured Ellery, �what the last letter in Mr. Smith�s kitbag had to say. The one that hadn�t yet been mailed.�

He ripped off one end of the sealed envelope and squeezed. A blue-backed playing-card dropped out.

The card was the ace of spades.

At ten minutes before one o�clock Bonnie scudded into the Brown Derby, looked about in panic, and made for Ellery�s booth with a queer little rush. She sat down and pushed herself into a corner, breathing hard.

�Here, what�s the matter?� said Ellery. �You look scared to death.�

�Oh, I am. I�m being followed!� She peeped over the partition at the door, her eyes wide.

�Clumsy,� mumbled Ellery.

�What?�

�I mean, it�s probably your imagination. Who would want to follow you?�

�I don�t know. Unless...� She stopped inexplicably, her brows almost meeting. Then she shook her head. �You�re looking especially lovely today.�

�Yet I�m positive... A big black car. A closed car.�

�You should wear bright colors all the time, Bonnie. They do remarkable things to your complexion.�

Bonnie smiled vaguely, removed her hat and gloves, and passed her hands over her face like a cat. �Never mind my complexion. It isn�t that. I just won�t wear mourning. It�s... it�s ridiculous. I�ve never believed in mourning. Black things are like a... poster. I keep fighting with Clotilde about it. She�s simply horrified.�

�Yes,� said Ellery encouragingly. She was carefully made up, very carefully indeed, to conceal her pallor and certain tiny fine lines around her eyes; her eyes were large and dark with lack of rest.

�I don�t have to go around advertising to the world that I�ve lost my mother,� said Bonnie in a low voice. �That funeral... it was a mistake. I hated it. I hate myself for having consented to it.�

�She had to be buried, Bonnie. And you know Hollywood.�

�Yes, but�� Bonnie smiled and said in a sudden gay tone: �Let�s not talk about it. May I have a drink?�

�So early in the day?�

She shrugged. �A daiquiri, please.� She began to explore her handbag.

Ellery ordered a daiquiri, and a brandy-and-soda, and watched her. She was breathing hard again, under cover of her activity. She took out her compact and examined her face in the mirror, not looking at him, not looking at what lay plainly revealed in her open bag, picking at nonexistent stragglers of honey-hued hairs, pursing her lips, applying a dab of powder to her nose. And suddenly, without looking at it, she took an envelope out of her bag and pushed it across the table to him.

�Here,� she said in a muffled voice. �Look at this.�

His hand closed over it as the waiter brought their drinks. When the waiter went away Ellery opened his hand. In it lay an envelope. Bonnie studied him anxiously.

�Our friend�s renounced the post-office pen, I see,� said Ellery. �Typewritten address this time.�

�But don�t you see?� whispered Bonnie. �It�s addressed to me!�

�I see quite clearly. When did it arrive?�

�In this morning�s mail.�

�Hollywood-posted last night, elite type, obvious characteristics three broken letters � b and d and t this time. Our friend had to use a different typewriter, since Jack�s portable has been in my possession since yesterday afternoon. All of which tends to show that the letter probably wasn�t written until last night.�

�Look... at what�s in it,� said Bonnie.

Ellery withdrew the inclosure. It was the seven of spades.

�The mysterious �enemy� again,� he said lightly. �History seems on its way to being a bore... Oh.� He thrust the envelope and card into his pocket and rose suddenly. �Hello, Butch.�

In the light of blessed day the Law of Dreadful Night reversed itself and Tolland Stuart�s eyrie from the sun-shot air lay revealed in all its sprawling, weatherbeaten grandeur � a more fearsome scab upon the knife-edged mountain landscape than it had ever been invisible under darkness.

�It�s a simply hideous place,� shivered Bonnie, peering down as the hired airplane circled the landing-field.

�It�s not exactly another Shangri-La,� said Ellery dryly, �even though it does resemble the forbidden city at the roof of the world. Has your worthy grandfather ever visited Tibet? It might explain the geographical inspiration.�

The gloomy pile crouched lifeless beneath them. And yet there was an illusion of life in the silent stones and turrets, lying still in the center of a web of power lines and telephone cables descending airily the slopes of the mountain.

�Is it my imagination,� said Bonnie, �or does that thing down there look like a spider?�

�It�s your imagination,� replied Ellery quickly. When they trundled to a stop on the tiny field, he said to the pilot: �Wait for us. We shan�t be long,� and took Bonnie�s arm in a casual but precautionary way. He helped her to the ground and hurried her towards the rift in the woods. As they passed the hangar he noted that its doors stood open and its interior was empty.

Bonnie noticed, too. �Do you suppose grandfather�s flown off somewhere? I�d always understood he rarely left the estate.�

�More likely it�s Dr. Junius. I imagine the good leech has to do the shopping for cabbages and such. Picture yourself running a household up here!�

�And flying down to the grocer�s for a bottle of olives,� giggled Bonnie nervously.

The tree-canopied path was deserted. And when they emerged into the clearing where the house stood they saw that the front doors were shut.

Ellery knocked; there was no answer. He knocked again. Finally, he tried the knob. It turned.

�The obvious,� he chuckled, �has a way of eluding me. Enter, Bonnie. The house, at least, won�t bite you.�

Bonnie looked doubtful; but she squared her boyish shoulders and preceded him bravely into the dim interior.

�Grandfather?� she called.

The syllables tumbled back, smothered and mocking.

�Mr. Stuart!� roared Ellery. The echo had a sneer in it. �Damn. That old man�s exasperating. Do you mind if I shake some life into him?�

�Mind?� Bonnie looked angry. �I�d like to do some shaking myself!�

�Well,� said Ellery cheerfully, �we�ll have to find him first,� and he led the way.

The living-room was empty. The kitchen, although there were bread-crumbs on the porcelain-topped table and the odor of freshly brewed tea, was also empty; so Ellery took Bonnie with him to the staircase, looking grim.

�He�s up there sulking again, I�ll bet a million. Mr. Stuart!�

No answer.

�Let me go first,� said Bonnie firmly, and she ran up the stairs.

Ellery was sitting at his kitchenette table Saturday morning clad in pajamas and robe and giving his divided attention simultaneously to a sooty slab of toast, the morning paper announcing the latest developments, which were nil, in the Royle-Stuart case, and a paperbacked book entitled Fortune Telling by Cards, when his telephone rang.

�Queen!� Ty�s voice was eager. �What did she say?�

�What did who say?�

�Bonnie. Did you fix it up for me?�

�Oh, Bonnie.� Ellery thought furiously. �Well, now, Ty, I�ve got bad news for you.�

�What do you mean?�

�She won�t believe a word of it. She�s still convinced your father wrote those notes to her mother.�

�But she can�t!� howled Ty. �It�s not reasonable. Didn�t you tell her about that mailing company and the rest of it?�

�Oh, certainly,� lied Ellery. �But you can�t expect reasonableness from a woman, Ty; a man of your experience ought to know that. Why don�t you give Bonnie up as a hopeless job?�

Ty was silent; Ellery could almost see him grinding his teeth together and sticking out his lean jaw. �I couldn�t be mistaken,� said Ty at last, in a sort of stubborn despair. �She gave herself to me too completely. She loves me. I know she does.�

�Pshaw, the girl�s an actress. Every woman has something of the mime in her, but when it�s also her profession��

�Since when do you know so much about women? I tell you she wasn�t acting!�

�Look, Ty,� said Ellery with simulated impatience, �I�m a sorely harassed man, and I�m not at my best at this hour of the morning. You asked me, and I told you.�

�I�ve kissed too many girls in my time,� muttered Ty, �not to recognize the real thing when it�s dished out to me.�

�Thus spake Casanova,� sighed Ellery. �I still think you ought to take a vacation. Hop an Eastern plane. A whirl around Broadway�s hot spots will get Bonnie out of your system.�

�I don�t want her out of my system! Damn it, if it�s that bad I�ll face the music in person. I should have done it in the first place.�

�Wait,� said Ellery, alarmed. �Don�t go looking for trouble, Ty.�

�I know if I talk to her, take her in my arms again��

�Do you want a knife in your back when you do? She�s been receiving letters again.�

�More?� said Ty incredulously. �But I thought we bagged the whole batch in that mailing office!�

�She showed me one that came yesterday. Addressed to her.�

�To her?�

�Yes, and with the seven of spades enclosed. �An Enemy.��

�But if it was mailed Thursday night � and we know it couldn�t have come from the fellow Lucey�s office � why, that proves dad couldn�t have sent it!�

Ellery said desperately: �Oh, she knows your father couldn�t have mailed this one. It�s worse. She thinks you sent it.�

�I?� Ty sounded dazed.

�Yes, she�s convinced now the whole series of card messages has been inspired by the Royle family. The ones to Blythe by your father and now this one, apparently the first of a fresh series, by you.�

�But that�s... why, that�s mad! By me? Does she actually think I ...?�

�I told you she was past reasoning with. You�ll never rehabilitate this affair, Ty. Stop wasting your time.�

�But she mustn�t think I�m hounding her! I ought to be able to do something to convince her��

�Don�t you know that the only truly inert material in the universe is an idea rooted in a woman�s skull? The winds do blow, but to no avail. I don�t want to seem to be changing the subject, but do you own a typewriter?�

�What?� mumbled Ty.

�I said: Do you own a typewriter?�

�Why, yes. But��

�Where is it?�

�In my dressing-room on the lot.�

�Where are you going now?�

�To see Bonnie.�

�Ty.� Ellery winced at his own perfidy. �Don�t. Take my advice. You may be... in danger.�

�Danger? What do you mean?�

�You understand English perfectly well.�

�Look here,� said Ty sharply, �are you trying to tell me that Bonnie would... You�re joking, or crazy.�

�Will you do me one favor? Don�t talk to Bonnie until I tell you it�s safe to.�

�But I don�t understand, Queen!�

�You�ve got to promise.�

�But��

�I can�t explain now. Have I your word?�

Ty was silent. Then he said wearily: �Oh, very well,� and hung up.

Ellery did likewise, swabbing his moist brow. A close shave. Raw apprentice himself in the laboratory of love, he was just beginning to discover what powerful magnetic properties the grand passion possessed. Damn that stubborn kid! At the same time, far and deep inside, Mr. Queen felt a great, consuming shame. Of all the black tricks he had ever played in the interests of ultimate truth, this was certainly the blackest!

Sighing, he plodded towards his kitchenette for a further perusal of the book on fortune-telling and a Star Chamber session with his own dark thoughts.

The doorbell rang.

Absently he turned about and went to the door and opened it.

And there stood Bonnie.

Mr. Queen sat in Ty�s cool room and cogitated. He sat and cogitated for a considerable time. In many ways things were satisfactory; yes, quite satisfactory. In one important way, however, they were unquestionably not satisfactory. The most important way.

�Same old story,� reflected Mr. Queen. �Find the nut and there�s nothing to crack it with. Is it possible there�s nothing to do but wait? Think, man, think!�

Mr. Queen thought. An hour passed; another. Mr. Queen kept on thinking. But it was no use.

He got to his feet, stretching to iron the kinks out of his muscles. It all gelled; the case lay smooth and shiny and whole before his critical appetite. The problem, which he found himself unable to solve, was how to wrap his fingers around it without causing it to disintegrate into a sticky, ruined, quivering mess.

Hoping fervently for an inspiration, Mr. Queen left the bungalow and the studio and took a taxi back to his hotel. In his apartment he called the desk clerk and instructed him to have his coupe brought around from the garage. While he was gathering the various letters in his collection and placing them under the lid of John Royle�s portable typewriter, the telephone rang.

�Queen?� bellowed Inspector Gl�cke. �You come down to my office right away! Right away, d�ye hear?�

�Do I hear? I can�t very well help myself, Gl�cke.�

�I�m not saying anything now. You just get down here as fast as those smart legs of yours can carry you!�

�Mmm,� said Ellery. �Shall I take a toothbrush and pajamas?�

�You ought to be in clink, damn you. Step on it!�

�As a matter of fact, I was on my way, Gl�cke��

�You�d double-cross your own father,� roared the Inspector. �I give you a half-hour. Not a minute more!� He hung up.

Ellery frowned, sighed, snapped down the lid of the typewriter, went downstairs, got into his coupe, and headed for downtown Los Angeles.

Ellery, scraping the fender of his coupe in his haste to park outside Bonnie�s house in Glendale, caught sight of three men, patently detectives, speaking to a tall familiar figure who had just descended from a police car.

�Gl�cke! Is anything... has anything��

�What brings you here?

�I just heard the news. Is she still alive? There�s been no attack on her?�

�Attack? Alive? Who are you talking about?�

�Bonnie Stuart.�

�Of course not.� The Inspector grunted. �Say, what�s the matter with you? I just got the flash myself.�

�Thank the Lord.� Ellery swabbed his neck. �Gl�cke, you�ll have to put a cordon around this house. As many men as you can scrape up.�

�Cordon? But I�ve got three men��

�Not enough. I want the place surrounded. I want it so well guarded that not even a mouse will get through. But it mustn�t be obvious. The men are to stay out of sight. Get those flatfeet off this sidewalk!�

�Sure, but��

�But nothing.� Ellery raced for the gate.

Inspector Gl�cke ran back to the police car, rasped something, and pounded the pavement to the gate again. The police car shot away, and the three detectives strolled off.

Gl�cke caught up with Ellery, puffing. �What�s this all about?�

�Something�s wrong somewhere. Of all the idiotic stunts!�

The buxom, mousy Clotilde admitted them, her woman�s black eyes sparkling with romantic excitement.

�Oh, but Messieurs, they cannot be��

�Oh, but Ma�m�selle, they can, and they shall be,� said Ellery rudely. �Ty! Bonnie!�

A muffled noise came from the nearest room, and he and the Inspector hurried towards its source. They burst into the drawing-room to find young Mr. Royle and his fianc�e, considerably disheveled, disengaging themselves from each other�s arms. Mr. Royle�s mouth looked as if it were bleeding all round. But it was only Bonnie�s lip rouge.

�So here you are,� said Ellery. �What the devil�s the idea?�

�Oh, it�s you,� said Mr. Royle, in a grim tone, removing his lady�s hands from about his neck.

�Hell of a mess,� said Ellery, glaring at them. �Can�t you two keep out of each other�s hair for so much as two consecutive days? And if you can�t, can�t you at least keep your pretty mouths shut? Did you have to shout your goo-goo to the whole damned world?�

Mr. Royle rose purposefully from the sofa.

�Ty, your mouth,� said Bonnie. �Oh, there�s the Inspector. Inspector Gl�cke, I demand��

�I think,� said Ty in the same grim tone, �I know how to handle the situation.�

�Oh, you do,� said Ellery bitterly. �That�s what comes of dealing with a couple of empty-headed kids who��

A bomb exploded against his chin. It exploded, and little colored stars all gold and blue and scarlet, dancing like mad, filled the range of his vision, and the World swam languidly, and the next thing he knew it was a long long time after and he was lying on the floor blinking up at the chandelier and wondering when the war had broken out. The ceiling was insubstantial, too, heaving and rippling like a spread sail in a gale.

And he heard Ty blowing on his knuckles and saying in a hot, faraway voice: �There�s your man, Inspector!�

�Don�t be a jackass,� said the Inspector�s voice remotely. �Come on, Queen, get up. You�ll dirty your nice pants.�

�Where am I?� murmured Mr. Queen.

�He is, too!� shrieked Bonnie. �Sock him again, Ty. The sneaky devil!� Squinting for better visibility, Mr. Queen received a wavering impression of two slim ankles, a billowing skirt like a smaller sail, and a tiny stamping alligator. No, it was an alligator shoe. �I knew there was something wrong! When he took me to Ty�s dressing-room... oh, it was so pat! That typewriter, and his smart �deductions,� and Ty would never have sent me that warning against himself if he were the one, and then I saw with my own eyes how that b and d and t were filed down, so I knew Ty wouldn�t do that if he really sent them, and everything.� Bonnie paused for breath, but not for long. �You see? He was lying all the time! And so I went right to Ty, that�s what I did, and��

It went on and on, and Mr. Queen lay there surveying the ceiling. Why did it shift and sway so? He had it. It was an earthquake, a temblor. California was doing the Big Apple!

�Yes,� growled Ty, �and we compared notes � should have done it a long time ago � and, Inspector, you�d be amazed at the things this fellow told us separately. Why, he actually tried to get each one of us to believe the other was a killer!�

�Yes, he told me��

�The damned murderer told me��

It went on and on and on. Somebody was making a fuss about something, Mr. Queen decided, but for the life of him he could not make out what it was. He groaned, trying to rise.

�Come on, come on,� said Gl�cke in the most unfeeling way. �It was just a clout on the whiskers. Not that you don�t deserve it, you lone wolf, you.� And the detestable creature actually chuckled as he hauled Mr. Queen to a sitting position. �How you feeling? Terrible, I hope.�

�My jaw is broken,� mumbled Mr. Queen, waggling the organ in question. �Ooh, my head.� He struggled to his feet.

�Try to tell Bonnie I sent those notes, hey?� snarled Ty, cocking his fist again.

�Why would he do that,� cried Bonnie triumphantly, linking her arms about her hero�s neck, �if he didn�t send them himself? Answer that one!�

�Well, I had a reason,� said Ellery shortly. �Where�s a mirror?�

He wobbled to the mirror in the hall and examined his physiognomy. As he tenderly surveyed the damage, which was concentrated in a rapidly swelling heliotrope lump at the point of his chin, the doorbell rang and Clotilde hurried past him to admit two men. To Ellery�s foggy gaze one was slow and grim and the other quick and excited. He rubbed his eyes and leaned against the wall, dizzy.

�Let �em through,� he muttered. �Gl�cke, didn�t I tell you��

Apparently the Inspector had the same notion, for he hurried out to talk to his men.

The slow one went slowly past Ellery, with no sign of recognition, into the drawing-room; and the quick one went quickly. Mr. Queen, satisfied that his jaw was still in one piece, tottered to the drawing-room doorway and closed his eyes.

The slow one stood just inside the room, looking at Bonnie. Looking. There was a sort of permanent flush under the top-most layer of his skin.

�It�s Butch,� said Bonnie faintly.

�Oh, say, Butch,� began Ty in a defiant mutter. �We were going to tell you, call you, sort of��

�The hell with that!� yelled the quick one. �I don�t care a hoot about how you two bedbugs conduct your private lives, but I�ll be damned if I see why you played such a dirty trick on your own studio!�

�Lay off, you,� said Ty. �Butch, we really owe you��

�Lay off?� Sam Vix glared out of his one eye. �He says lay off. Listen, me fine bucko, you haven�t got a private life, see? You�re a piece of property, like this house. You belong to Magna Studios, see? When Magna says jump��

�Oh, go away, Sam,� said Bonnie. She took one step towards the Boy Wonder, who stood exactly where he had stopped on entering the room and was still regarding her with that fixed and awful sadness of a man who sees the coffin-lid being screwed down over the face of his child, or mother, or sweetheart.

�Butch dear.� Bonnie pinched her dress. �We were both so excited... You know, I think, how I�ve always felt towards you. I never really told you I loved you, did I, Butch? Oh, I know I�ve treated you shamefully, and you�ve been a perfect angel about everything. But something happened today... Ty is the only man I�ll ever love, Butch, and I�m going to marry him just as quickly as I can.�

Jacques Butcher took off his hat, looked around, put on his hat, and then sat down. He did not cross his legs, but sat stiffly, like a ventriloquist�s dummy; and as he began to talk the only part of his face that moved was his lips.

�I�m sorry to have to intrude at such a time,� he said, and stopped. Then he started again. �I wouldn�t have come at all. Only Louis Selvin asked me to. Louis is � well, a little put out. Especially by you, Ty.�

�Oh, Butch�� began Bonnie, but she stopped helplessly.

�By me?� said Ty.

Butcher cleared his throat. �Damn it all, I wouldn�t � I�ve got to talk to you not as myself but as vice-president of Magna, Ty. I�ve just come from a long talk with Selvin. As president of Magna he feels it his duty to warn you � not to get married.�

Ty blinked. �You don�t mean to tell me he�s going to hold me to that ridiculous marriage clause in my contract!�

�Marriage clause?� Bonnie stared. �Ty! What marriage clause?�

�Oh, Selvin stuck an anti-marriage clause into my contract the last time,� said Ty disgustedly. �Prevents me from getting married.�

�Sure, why not?� said Vix. �Great lover. You don�t think the studio�s going to build you up into a national fem-killer and let you spoil it by getting hitched!�

�I didn�t know that, Ty,� said Bonnie, distressed. �You didn�t tell me.�

�Forgot all about it. Anyway, it doesn�t make any difference. Louis X. Selvin isn�t going to tell me how to run my life!�

�Selvin asked me to point out,� said Butcher in his cold, flat voice, �that you�ll breach your contract if you marry Bonnie.�

�The hell with Selvin! There are plenty of other studios in Hollywood.�

�All Hollywood studios respect one another�s star-contracts,� said Butcher drearily. �If you breach a Magna contract you�re through, Ty.�

�Then I�m through!� Ty waved his arms angrily.

�But, Ty,� cried Bonnie, �you can�t! I won�t let you throw away your career. We can wait. Maybe when you sign your next contract��

�I don�t want to wait. I�ve waited long enough. I�m marrying you tomorrow, and if Selvin doesn�t like it he can go to hell.�

�No, Ty!�

�No more arguments.� Ty turned away with a stubborn, final gesture.

�All right, then,� said Butcher in the same dreary way. �Louis anticipated that you might be stubborn. He could break you, Ty, but he admits you�re too valuable a piece of property. So he�s prepared to dicker.�

�Oh, he is, is he?�

�But he warns you that his proposal is final. Take it or leave it.�

�What proposal?� said Ty abruptly.

�If you insist on being married to Bonnie, he�s willing to waive the anti-marriage clause. But only on the following conditions. First, you are to let Magna handle the details of your wedding. Second, after your wedding you and Bonnie are to co-star in a picture biography of Jack and Blythe, taking the roles of your parents.�

�Wait a minute, wait a minute,� said Ty. �Does that wedding stunt mean a lot of this noisy publicity?�

�It means whatever Magna wants to do.�

�And the picture � does that mean the murders, too?� asked Bonnie, looking ill at the very thought.

�The story,� said Butcher, �is entirely up to me. You will have nothing to say about it.�

�Oh, yes, we have,� shouted Ty. �We say no � right now!�

Butcher rose. �I�m sorry. I�ll tell Selvin.

�No � wait, Butch,� cried Bonnie. She ran over to Ty and shook him. �Ty, please. You can�t throw everything away like this. If � if you�re stubborn I won�t marry you!�

�Let �em make monkeys out of us with one of those studio weddings?� growled Ty. �Make us put dad and Blythe on the screen in God knows what? Nothing doing.�

�Ty, you�ve got to. I don�t like it any more than you do; you know that. I�m fed up with � with all this. But we�ve got to look to the future, darling. Neither of us has anything. You can�t throw up the only thing we�ve got. It won�t be so bad. The wedding won�t take long, and then we�ll go away somewhere by ourselves��

Ty glowered at the rug. He lifted his head and said sharply to Butcher: �If we go through with this, do we get a rest? A vacation? A honeymoon without brass bands?�

�Hell, no,� said Vix quickly. �We can use that honeymoon swell. We can��

�Please, Sam,� said Butcher. Vix fell silent. �Yes, I can promise you that, Ty. Our wedding, your honeymoon. We realize that you�re both upset, not yourselves, won�t be able to do your best work immediately. So you may have as long for your honeymoon as you feel you need.�

�And privacy!�

�And privacy.�

Ty looked at Bonnie, and Bonnie looked pleadingly at Ty. Finally Ty said: �All right. It�s a deal.�

The Boy Wonder said: �Revised contracts will be in your hands in the morning. Sam here will handle all the details of the wedding.� He turned on his heel and quietly went to the door. At the door he hesitated; then he turned around. �I�ll convey my congratulations � tomorrow.� And he walked out.

�Swell,� said Sam Vix briskly. �Now look. You want to tie the knot tomorrow?�

�Yes,� sighed Ty, sitting down. �Anything. Just get out of here.�

�I�ve figured it all out on the way down. Here�s the angle. We use the Jack-Blythe marriage as a model, see?�

�Oh,� began Bonnie. Then she said: �Yes.�

�Only we smear it on, see? Go the whole hog. You won�t be married on the field. You�ll��

�You mean another airplane shindig?� growled Ty.

�Yeah, sure. Only we�ll get old Doc Erminius to hitch you in your plane. Get it? Wedding over the field. In the air. Microphones for everybody in the plane. Broadcast through a radio telephone hook-up via the field station right to the thousands on the field as the plane circles it. Do it right, and with that Jack-Blythe background it�ll be the biggest stunt this or any other town ever saw!�

�My God,� yelled Ty, rising, �if you think��

�Go on, Sam, get out of here,� said Bonnie hurriedly, pushing him. �It�ll be all right. I promise. Go on now.�

Vix grinned and said: �Sure. Got plenty to do. Be seein� you,� and he dashed out.

�Ty Royle, you listen to me,� said Bonnie fiercely. �I hate it. But we�re caught, and we�re going to do it. I don�t want to hear another word out of you. It�s settled, do you hear? Whatever they want!�

Ellery detached himself from the support of the doorway and said dryly: �Now that all the masterminds have had their say, may I have mine?�

Ty recovered a little of his color, or perhaps it was the Scotch. At any rate, he said: �I don�t believe it. You�re trying to frighten us with a bogey-man.�

�Doesn�t want us to be married?� said Bonnie in a daze. �You mean mother... too? That that��

�It�s nonsense,� scoffed Ty. �I�m through listening to you, anyway, Queen. All you�ve ever done to me is mix me up.�

�You poor fool,� said Ellery. �You don�t know what I�ve done to you. You don�t know what I�ve done for you. How can people be so blind?�

�That�s me,� said the Inspector. �Not just blind; stiff. Queen, talk some sense, will you? Give me facts, not a lot of curly little fancies.�

�Facts, eh?� Ellery glowered. �Very well, I�ll give you��

The front doorbell rang. Bonnie called wearily: �Clotilde, see who it is.� But Ellery and the Inspector jostled each other crowding through the doorway. They pushed the Frenchwoman out of their way. Ty and Bonnie stared after them as if the two men were insane.

Ellery jerked open the door. A stout lady, hatless but wearing a broadtail coat over a flowered house-dress, stood indignantly on the Welcome mat trying to shake off the grip of one of Glucke�s detectives.

�You let go of me!� panted the lady. �Of all things! And all I wanted to do��

�In or out?� asked the detective of his superior.

Gl�cke looked helplessly at Ellery, who said: �I daresay we may invite the lady in.� He stared at the woman with unmoving eyes. �Yes, Madam?�

�Of course,� sniffed Madam, �if a person can�t be neighborly...�

Bonnie asked from behind them: �What is it? Who is it?�

�Oh, Miss Stuart,� gushed the stout lady instantly, barging between Ellery and the Inspector and bobbing before Bonnie in a ponderous figure that was almost a curtsy. �You do look just the way you look in pictures. I�ve always remarked to my husband that you�re one of the loveliest��

�Yes, yes, thank you,� said Bonnie hurriedly. �I�m a little busy just now��

�What�s on your mind, Madam?� demanded Inspector Gl�cke. For some reason of his own Ellery kept watching the stout lady�s hands.

�Well, I hope you won�t think I�m intruding, Miss Stuart, but the funniest thing just happened. I�m Mrs. Stroock � you know, the big yellow house around the corner? Well, a few minutes ago my doorbell rang and the second maid answered it after a delay and there was nobody there, but an envelope was lying on my mat outside the door, and it wasn�t for me at all, but was addressed to you, Miss Stuart, and to Mr. Royle, and I thought to myself: �Isn�t that the queerest mistake?� Because after all your address is plain enough, and the names of our streets are so different��

�Yes, yes, envelope,� said Ellery impatiently, extending his hand. �May I have it, please?�

�I beg your pardon,� said Mrs. Stroock with a glare. �This happens to be Miss Stuart�s letter, not yours, whoever you are, and you aren�t Mr. Royle, I know that. Anyway, Miss Stuart,� she said, turning to Bonnie again, all smiles, �here it is, and I assure you I ran over here just as fast as I could, which isn�t fast,� she giggled, �because my doctor says I am running the least bit to flesh these days. How do you keep your figure? I�ve always said that you��

�Thank you, Mrs. Stroock,� said Bonnie. �May I?�

The stout lady regretfully took an envelope out of her coat pocket and permitted Bonnie to take it from her. �And may I congratulate you on your engagement to Mr. Royle? I just heard the announcement over the radio. I�m sure it�s the nicest, sweetest thing for two young people��

�Thank you,� murmured Bonnie. She was staring with a sort of horror at the envelope.

�By the way,� said Ellery, �did you or your maid see the person who rang your bell, Mrs. Stroock?�

�No, indeed. When Mercy went to the door there was nobody there.�

�Hmm. Thank you again, Mrs. Stroock.� Ellery shut the door politely in the stout lady�s face. She sniffed again and marched down the steps, followed to the gate by the detective, who watched her until she turned the corner and then drifted away.

�Thank you,� said Bonnie for the fourth time in a stricken voice to the closed door.

Ellery took the envelope from her fingers and, frowning, returned to the drawing-room. Inspector Gl�cke gently took Bonnie�s arm.

Ty said: �What�s the matter now?�

Ellery opened the too familiar envelope, addressed in pencilled block letters to �Miss Bonnie Stuart and Mr. Tyler Royle� � no stamp, no other writing except Bonnie�s address � and out tumbled two playing-cards with the blue-backed design.

�The... four of hearts?� said Bonnie faintly.

Ty snatched both cards. �Four of hearts? And the ace of spades!� He went to Bonnie and pulled her close to him suddenly.

�I told you this morning, Gl�cke, we were dealing with a playful creature,� remarked Ellery. He stared at the cards in Ty�s fist. �Perhaps now you�ll believe me.�

�The ace of spades,� said the Inspector, as if he could not credit the evidence of his own eyesight.

�What does it mean?� asked Bonnie piteously.

�It means,� said Ellery, �that the interview you two gave the press today has already borne fruit. I suppose the extras have been on the streets for an hour, and you heard that awful woman mention the radio. Our friend Egbert was in such haste to get this message to you he refused to wait for the regular mails, which would have brought the cards Monday, or even a special delivery, which would have brought them some time tomorrow.�

�But what�s it mean?�

�As an intelligible message?� Ellery shrugged. �Together the cards say: �Bonnie Stuart and Tyler Royle, break your engagement or prepare to die.��

The Inspector made a sound deep in his throat and nervously looked about the room.

Bonnie was pale, too; paler than Ty. Her hand crept into his.

�Then it is true,� she whispered. �There is a pattern. Ty, what are we going to do?�

�The reason,� Mr. Queen remarked, �that Egbert delivered this message in such haste is that Monday � obviously � will be too late. Even tomorrow may be too late. I trust you get his implication?�

Ty sat down on the sofa, his shoulders sagging. He said wearily: �I get it, all right. It�s true, and we�re not to marry, and if we do it�s curtains for us. So I guess we�ve got to satisfy everybody� Butch, the studio, Egbert L. Smith � and drop our marriage plans.�

Bonnie moaned: �Oh, Ty...�

�Why kid ourselves, honey?� Ty scowled. �If I was the only one concerned, I�d say the hell with Egbert. But I�m not; you�re in it, too. I won�t marry you and lay you wide open to an attack on your life.�

�Oh, you are stupid!� cried Bonnie, stamping. �Don�t you see that isn�t so? I received threats even before we announced our plans. Those threats were mailed to me. The only time you were threatened was just now, after we�d announced our intention to be married!�

�Hurrah for the female intelligence,� said Ellery. �I�m afraid Bonnie scores there, Ty. That�s perfectly true. I refrained from mentioning it before, but I can�t hold it back any longer. All my efforts to keep you two apart have been exerted in your behalf, Ty, not Bonnie�s. It�s your life that�s involved in this association with Bonnie. Bonnie�s life, with or without you, has been in danger from the day her mother died.�

Ty looked confused. �And I socked you!�

�Marry Bonnie and you�re on the spot. Don�t marry Bonnie and you�re not on the spot. But she is whether you marry her or not. It�s a pretty thought.�

�In again, out again.� Ty grinned a twisted grin. �I�ve given up trying to make sense out of this thing. If what you say is true, we�re going to be married. I�m not going to let her face this alone. Let that sneaking son try to kill me � let him try.�

�No, Ty,� said Bonnie miserably. �I can�t have you doing that. I can�t. Why should you endanger your life? I don�t pretend to understand it, either, but how can I let you share a danger that�s apparently directed at me alone?�

�You,� said Ty, �are marrying me tomorrow, and no arguments.�

�Oh, Ty,� whispered Bonnie, creeping into his arms. �I�d hoped you�d say that. I am afraid.�

Inspector Gl�cke was prowling about in a baffled sort of way. �If we only knew who it was,� he muttered. �If we knew, we might be able to do something.�

�Oh, but we do know,� said Ellery. He looked up at their exclamations. �I forgot you didn�t know. I do, of course, and I tell you we can do nothing��

��Of course,� he says!� shouted the Inspector. He pounced on Ellery and shook him. �Who is it?�

�Yes,� said Ty in a funny voice. �Who is it, Queen?�

�Please, Gl�cke. Just knowing who it is doesn�t solve this problem.� He began to pace up and down, restlessly.

�Why not?�

�Because there�s not an atom of evidence to bring into court. The case wouldn�t get past a Grand Jury, if it ever got to a Grand Jury at all. It would be thrown out for lack of evidence, and you�d have missed your chance to pin the crimes on the one who committed them.�

�But, good God, man,� cried Ty, �we can�t just sit around here waiting for the fellow to attack. We�ve got to do something to trim his claws!�

�Let me think,� said Ellery irritably. �You�re making too much noise, all of you.�

He walked up and down, head bent. There was no sound at all except the sound of his march about the room.

�Look,� interrupted the Inspector. �A cop has just as great a responsibility protecting life as investigating death. You say you know who�s behind all this, Queen. All right. Let�s go to this bird, tell him we know, warn him he�ll be watched until the day he dies by a squad of detectives on twenty-four-hour duty. He�d be a bigger fool than any one could be if he didn�t give up his plans then and there.�

�I�ve thought of that, of course,� said Ellery crossly. �But it has one nasty drawback. It means Egbert will never hang for the murder of Jack and Blythe; and if there�s one little fellow I�d have no objection to seeing hanged, it�s Egbert.�

�If it means safety for Bonnie,� said Ty, �let him go. Let him go! Gl�cke�s right.�

�Or why couldn�t we,� began Bonnie, and stopped. �That�s it! Why couldn�t Ty and I be married right this minute and then vanish? Go off somewhere without anybody�s knowing where. Anybody. Then we�d be safe!�

�And go through the rest of a long life looking over your shoulder every time you heard a sound behind you?� asked Ellery. And then he stared at Bonnie. �Of course! That�s it. Vanish! Exactly. Exactly. Force his hand. He�d have to...� His voice trailed off and he began to run madly, like an ant, his lips moving silently.

�Have to what?� demanded the Inspector.

�Try to murder them, of course... Yes, he would. Let�s see now. If we pulled the stunt��

�Try to murder us?� repeated Bonnie, blinking.

Ellery stopped racing. �Yes,� he said briskly. �That�s exactly what we�ll do. We�ll jockey this bird into the position of trying to murder you. If the compulsion is strong enough � and I think we can make it strong enough � he must try to murder you... Bonnie.� Ellery�s eyes were shining. �Would you be willing to run the risk of an open attack on your life if by running that risk we stood a good chance of catching your mother�s murderer red-handed?�

�You mean,� said Bonnie slowly, �that if it were successful I�d be free? Ty and I � we�d both be free?�

�Free as the air.�

�Oh, yes. Oh, yes, I�ll do anything for that!�

�Not so fast,� said Ty. �What�s the plan?�

�To go through with the announced marriage, to utilize it as a trap for the murderer.�

�And use Bonnie as a guinea-pig? Nuts.�

�But I tell you Bonnie�s life is in danger in any event,� said Ellery impatiently. �Even if she�s surrounded by armed guards day and night, do you want her to spend the rest of her life waiting for the ax to fall? I assure you, Ty, it�s either Egbert or Bonnie. Take my word for that. The creature�s gone too far to stop now. His plans make it mandatory for Bonnie to die.�

�It�s a hell of a decision to make,� muttered Ty.

�Ty, will you listen to me? I tell you it�s the safest course in the long run. Don�t you see that by setting a trap we force his hand? We make him attempt Bonnie�s life when we want him to, under conditions we have established � yes, lure him unsuspecting right into a spot where we know what he�ll do and be prepared for him. By taking the bold step we reduce the danger to a minimum. Don�t you see?�

�How do you know,� said Gl�cke intently, �he�ll attack?�

�He�s got to. He can�t wait too long; I�m positive of that, never mind how. If part of our plan is to announce that immediately after the wedding tomorrow Bonnie and Ty are taking off for an unknown destination, to be gone an indefinite length of time, he must attack; I know he must. He can�t let Bonnie, living, vanish; he�ll have to try to kill her tomorrow or give up his whole plan.�

�Why shouldn�t he give up his whole plan?�

�Because,� said Ellery grimly, �he�s already killed two people in pursuance of his objective. Because we�ll give him another opportunity he can�t pass up. Because he�s desperate, and cold-blooded, and his motive � to him � is overwhelming.�

�Motive? What motive? I thought he was crazy.�

�Yes, what motive?� asked Bonnie tensely. �Nobody could possibly have a reason for killing me.�

�Obviously some one has, as this last message indicates. Let�s not go down byroads now. The big point is: Are you game to try?�

Bonnie laid her head on Ty�s shoulder. Ty twisted his head to look down at her. She smiled back at him faintly.

�All right, Queen,� said Ty. �Let�s go.�

Time, which had been floating by, suddenly took on weight and speed. Ellery kept looking at his wristwatch in despair as he went into the details of his plan, instructing Ty and Bonnie over and over in their roles.

�Remember, Ty, you�ll have to handle all the arrangements; Gl�cke and I can�t possibly appear in this. In fact, we�ll stay as far away from you as we can until tomorrow. Have you a gun?�

�No.�

�Gl�cke, give him yours.� The Inspector handed his automatic over to Ty, who examined it expertly and dropped it into his jacket pocket. �Now what�s your story to the press?�

�Bonnie has received a warning to break our engagement, but we both agree it�s the work of some crank and intend to be married at once. I show the cards.�

�Right. Not a word about our real plans to any one. In a half-hour call Erminius and engage him to perform the ceremony. Bonnie.�

Bonnie peeped out from the cradle of Ty�s arms.

�You�re all right?�

�I�m feeling fine,� said Bonnie.

�Good girl! Now do a little of that acting Butch pays you for. You�re happy � just the proper combination of happiness and grief. You�re marrying Ty because you love him, and you also know that Blythe and Jack must be happy somewhere knowing what you�re about to do. The feud is over, never to be resurrected. You�ve got all that?�

�Yes,� said Bonnie in a shaky little voice.

�By George, I feel like a director!� Ellery grinned with a confidence he did not feel and stuck his hand out to Ty. �Good luck. By this time tomorrow night the nightmare will be over.�

�Don�t worry about us, Queen,� said Ty, shaking hands soberly. �We�ll come through. Only � get into that plane!�

Gl�cke said abruptly: �Stay here. Send for your duds, Ty. Don�t leave this house. It�s surrounded right now, but I�ll send two men in here to watch from a hiding-place � just in case. Don�t do anything foolish, like those heroes you play in the movies. At the first suspicion of trouble, yell like the devil.�

�I�ll take care of that part of it,� said Bonnie with a grimace; then she tried to smile, and they shook hands all around, and Ellery and the Inspector slipped out by the back way.

The field was the surface of a bubbling pot when they landed. Police were using their night-sticks. Men with cameras and men with notebooks were fighting openly to break through the cordon.

Ellery, one whisker askew, cooing over Bonnie, saw Inspector Gl�cke in a small army of detectives gesticulating near the hangar; and he grinned with the satisfaction of sheer survival.

�It�s all right, Bonnie,� he said. �It�s all over now. You�ve got nothing more to worry about. That�s right. Cry it out. It�s all right.�

�Just wait,� growled Ty. �Wait till I get this damned thing standing still.�

�I�m waiting,� sobbed Bonnie. �Oh, Ty, I�m waiting!� And she shuddered over the palpable sight of a small leggy figure tumbling end over end through empty air, like a dead bug.

The Inspector hurried them into the hangar, out of sight of the frenzied crowd. He was red-faced and voluble, and he grinned all over as he pumped Ty�s hand, and Ellery�s hand, and Bonnie�s hand, and listened to details, and shouted instructions, and swore it had all come in like a movie. Outside a police plane managed to find a space clear enough for a take-off; it headed northeast on the funereal mission of locating and gathering the splattered remains of the one who had sought escape and found death.

Ty seized Bonnie and began shoving through the crowd of detectives to the hangar door.

�Here, where are you going?� demanded Ellery, grabbing his arm.

�Taking Bonnie home. Can�t you see the poor kid�s ready to collapse? Here, you men, get us off this field!�

�You wouldn�t run out on me now, Bonnie?� smiled Ellery, chucking her chin. �Come on, square your shoulders and get set for another sky-ride.�

�Another?� yelled Ty. �What now, for the love of Mike? Haven�t you had enough sky-riding for one day?�

�No,� said Ellery, �I have not.� He began to rip off his false whiskers, glancing inquiringly at the Inspector; and the Inspector nodded with a certain grimness, and before Ty could open his mouth to protest he and Bonnie were hurried onto the field and through lanes of police into a large transport plane drawn up on the line with its motor spitting.

�Hey, for God�s sake!� shouted a reporter. �Gl�cke! Give us a break. Gl�cke!�

�Ty!�

�Bonnie!�

But the Inspector shook his head, and followed Ty and Bonnie into the plane; and there, huddled in a pale-faced group, were several familiar faces.

They were looking at Ty and Bonnie, and Ty and Bonnie were looking at them; and Gl�cke hauled Ellery in and said something in a low voice to the pilot.

And then they all stared at the rushing, congested field as the plane took off and headed southeast.

And there was an interval in time in which the only sound was the asthmatic breathing of the old man in the bed.

And then he muttered: �Lew? My cousin Lew Bascom?�

And Dr. Junius kept blinking, saying nothing.

But Ellery said: �Yes, Mr. Stuart, your cousin Lew Bascom, who conceived and was well on his way to executing a brilliant reversal of the usual procedure in murdering to-gain-a-fortune. A strange creature, Lew. Always broke, too erratic to settle down and put his undeniable talents to a humdrum and sustained economic use, Lew planned murder as the easy way. Of course it was the hard way, but you could never have convinced a man like Lew of that.

�Lew was no sentimentalist, and naturally he was cracked. All deliberate killers are out of plumb somewhere. But the rift in his psychological make-up did not prevent him from seeing that a man stood a much better chance of getting away with murder if he concealed the motive. Usually, in murders for gain through inheritance, the rich man is killed first, to insure the passing of the estate. Then the heir or heirs are eliminated, the estate passing legally from one to the other until finally, with no one left but the last legal heir, it becomes his property. There are numerous cases on record of such crimes. But the trouble with them, as many murderers have discovered to their sorrow, is that the method leaves a plain motive trail.

�It was too plain for Lew. If your daughter Blythe were killed while her father Tolland Stuart remained alive, he saw that the real motive for her murder would be a hopeless enigma to the police. Originally, of course, he hoped the frame-up of Jack Royle would provide an instant motive to the police. But even when he had to kill Jack and destroy the force of his own frame-up, he still felt safe; Tolland Stuart was still alive. Then he planned to kill Bonnie, and again it would seem as if Bonnie�s death had been a result of the Royle-Stuart feud; the whole childish business of the card-messages had only this purpose � to lay a trail which led back to the Royles. And all the while Tolland Stuart would live, not suspecting that it was his death, and not the deaths of his daughter and granddaughter, that was the ultimate goal of the murderer.�

�Oh, grandfather!� said Bonnie, and she went to him and sat down on the bed. He sank back on the pillows, exhausted.

�He meant to kill me, then?� mumbled the old man.

�I think not, Mr. Stuart. I think � I know � he meant to let Nature take her course. You are an old man... Well, we�ll get to that in a moment.

�Now for element two � opportunity. How had Lew Bascom committed the murders at the airport? That took a bit of figuring.�

�That�s right, too,� said Alan Clark suddenly, from his position between Sam Vix and silent, grim Jacques Butcher. �Lew was with you and me last Sunday, Ellery, when this fake pilot made off with the plane. So Lew couldn�t possibly have been that pilot. I don�t understand.�

�True, Alan; he couldn�t have been the kidnapper of the plane. I saw that, if I could clear the kidnapper of complicity in the murder, I could pin the actual poisoning by a stringent process of elimination on Lew.

�Well, who was the kidnapper? One thing I knew beyond question, as you�ve just pointed out; whoever the kidnapper was, he wasn�t Lew.�

�How did you know,� asked Inspector Gl�cke, �that he mightn�t have been Bascom�s accomplice? That�s the way I would figure it.�

�No, he couldn�t have been Lew�s accomplice, either, Inspector. Paula Paris gave me the necessary information � the first of the two clues which I got through her.�

�The Paris woman? You mean she�s mixed up in this, too?�

�Lord, no! But Paula was tipped off to the kidnapping before it happened by some one who phoned her from the airport � she didn�t tell you that, but she told it to me. Who could have known of the kidnapping and phoned Paula before it took place? Only the person who planned, or was involved in the plan, to do it. But this person, in tipping off Paula, made no secret of his identity � she admitted that to me, although she wouldn�t for ethical reasons divulge the name.�

�The interfering little snoop!� snarled Gl�cke. �I�ll break her now. Suppressing evidence!�

�Oh, no, you won�t,� said Ellery. �Before we�re finished you�ll thank her, Gl�cke; if not for her this case would never have been solved.

�Now, if the kidnapper had been involved in the murders as Lew�s accomplice, would he have revealed his identity to a newspaperwoman, especially before the crime occurred? Absurd. And if he had been the criminal himself � not Lew � would he have revealed himself to Paula, putting himself in her power? Utterly incredible. No, indeed; his telephone call to her, his willingness to let her know who he was, indicated that he had no idea murder was about to occur, eliminated him either as the poisoner or as the poisoner�s accomplice; or even, for that matter, as a kidnapper.�

�This gets worse and worse,� groaned Gl�cke. �Say that again?�

�I�ll get around to it,� grinned Ellery. �For the moment let me push along on the Lew tack. I was satisfied that the kidnapper wasn�t involved in the murders in any way. That meant he didn�t poison the thermos bottles.

�If the kidnapper didn�t, who did? Well, who could have? The bottles were all right when the last round of cocktails was drunk before the plane � obvious from the fact that no one who drank, and many did, suffered any ill effects. Therefore the morphine-sodium allurate mixture must have been slipped into the bottle after the last round was poured.

�Exactly when? Well, it wasn�t done in the plane, because we�ve eliminated Jack, Blythe, and the kidnapper as the possible murderers, and they were the only three who entered the plane between the last round of drinks and the take-off. Then the bottles were poisoned before the hamper was stowed away in the plane, but after the last round. But after the last round I myself sat on that hamper, and I got up only to hand it to the kidnapper when he was stowing the luggage away in the plane.

�So you see,� murmured Ellery, �I arrived by sheer elimination to only one conceivable time and only one conceivable person. The bottles must have been poisoned between the time the last round was poured and the time I sat down on the hamper. Who suggested the last round? Lew Bascom. Who immediately after returned the bottles to the hamper? Lew Bascom. Therefore it must have been Lew Bascom who dropped the poison into the bottles, probably as he was screwing the caps back on after pouring the last round.�

The Inspector grunted a little crossly.

�So both elements � motive and opportunity � pointed to Lew as the only possible criminal. But what proof did I have that would satisfy a court? Absolutely none. I had achieved the truth through a process of reasoning; there was no confirmatory evidence. Therefore Lew had to be caught red-handed, trapped into giving himself away. Which occurred today.�

�But who the hell was the kidnapper?� asked Butch.

�I said, you�ll recall, that he wasn�t even that, really. Had the kidnapper seriously intended to spirit Jack and Blythe away by force, hold them for ransom, or whatever, would he have told a newspaperwoman first? Naturally not. So I saw that it wasn�t intended to be a real kidnapping at all. The wraith we were chasing had staged a fake kidnapping!�

�Fake?� shouted Gl�cke. �The hell you say! After we�ve worn our eyes out looking for him?�

�Of course, Inspector. For who would stage a kidnapping and inform a famous newspaper columnist about it in advance? Only some one who was interested in a news story, publicity. And who could have been interested in a publicity splash centering about Jack Royle and Blythe Stuart?� Ellery grinned. �Come on, Sam; talk. You�re caught with the goods.�

Vix grew very pale. He gulped, his one eye rolling wildly, looking for an avenue of escape.

The Inspector gasped: �You? Why, you ornery, one-eyed baboon��

�Peace,� sighed Ellery. �Who can quell the instincts of the buzzard or the dyed-in-the-wool publicity man? It was the opportunity of a lifetime, wasn�t it, Sam?�

�Yeah,� said Vix with difficulty.

�The marriage of two world-famous figures, the gigantic splash of that airport send-off... why, if those two were thought to be kidnapped, the Magna picture Butch was going to make would get a million dollars� worth of publicity.�

�A million dollars� worth of misery to me, as it turned out,� groaned Vix. �It was to be a surprise; I didn�t even tell Butch. I figured I�d let on to Jack and Blythe once we were safely away, and then we�d hide out somewhere for a few days. They wanted a little peace and quiet, anyway... Oh, nuts. When I turned around and saw those two dead, my stomach turned over. I knew I was in the worst kind of jam. If I gave myself up and told the truth, nobody�d believe me, certainly not a one-cylinder flattie like Gl�cke. I could see myself tagged for a twin killing and going out by the aerial route, kicking. What could I do? I set the plane down on the first flat place I could find and took it on the lam.�

�You,� said Inspector Gl�cke venomously, �are going up on charges. I�ll give you publicity!�

�Take it easy, Inspector,� growled Jacques Butcher. �Why make the studio suffer? It was a dumb stunt, but Sam can�t be considered in any way responsible for what happened; if there�d been no murder there wouldn�t have been any harm done. He�ll take his rap in the papers, anyway; and you�ve got your man.�

�Not only have you got your man,� said Ellery pleasantly, �but if you�re a good doggie, Gl�cke, maybe I�ll give you something else.�

�Isn�t this nightmare over yet?� Gl�cke threw up his hands.

When Ellery turned the key in his apartment door Sunday night, and let himself in, and shut the door, and flung aside his hat and coat, and sank into his deepest chair, it was with a spent feeling. His bones ached, and so did his head. It was a relief just to sit there in the quiet living-room thinking of nothing at all.

He always felt this way at the conclusion of a case � tired, sluggish, his vital energies sapped.

Inspector Gl�cke had been gruff with praises again; and there had been invitations, and thanks, and a warm kiss on the lips from Bonnie, and a silent handshake from Ty. But he had fled to be alone.

He closed his eyes.

To be alone?

That wasn�t quite true. Damn, analyzing again! But this time his mind dwelt on a more pleasant subject than murder. Just what was his feeling for Paula Paris? Was he sorry for her because she was psychologically frustrated, because she shut herself up in those sequestered rooms of hers and denied the world the excitement of her company? Pity? No, not pity, really. To be truthful about it, he rather enjoyed the feeling when he went to see her that they were alone, that the world was shut out. Why was that?

He groaned, his head beginning to throb where it had only ached dully before. He was mooning like an adolescent boy. Tormenting himself this way! Why think? What was the good of thinking? The really happy people didn�t have a thought in their heads. That�s why they were happy.

He rose with a sigh and stripped off his jacket; and as he did so his wallet fell out. He stooped to pick it up and suddenly recalled what was in it. That envelope. Queer how he had forgotten it in the excitement of the last twenty-four hours!

He took the envelope out of the wallet, fingering its creamy vellum face with appreciation. Good quality. Quality, that was it. She represented a special, unique assortment of human values, the tender and shy and lovable ones, the ones that appealed mutely to the best in a man.

He smiled as he tore the envelope open. Had she really guessed who had murdered Jack Royle and Blythe Stuart?

In her free, clear script was written: �Dear Stupid: It�s inconceivable to you that a mere woman could do by intuition what it�s taken you Siegfriedian writhings of the intellect to achieve. Of course it�s Lew Bascom. Paula.�

Damn her clever eyes! he thought angrily. She needn�t have been so brash about it. He seized the telephone.

�Paula. This is Ellery. I�ve just read your note��

�Mr. Queen,� murmured Paula. �Back from the wars. I suppose I should offer you the congratulations owing to the victor?�

�Oh, that. We were lucky it all went off so well. But Paula, about this note��

�It�s hardly necessary for me to open your envelope now.�

�But I�ve opened yours, and I must say you made an excellent stab in the dark. But how��

�You might also,� said Paula�s organ voice, �congratulate me for having made it.�

�Well, of course. Congratulations. But that�s not the point. Guessing! That�s the point. Where does it get you? Nowhere.�

�Aren�t you being incoherent?� Paula laughed. �It gets you the answer. Nor is it entirely a matter of guesswork, O Omniscience. There was reason behind it.�

�Reason? Oh, come now.�

�It�s true. I didn�t understand why Lew did it � his motives and things; the murder of Jack didn�t fit in... you�ll have to explain those things to me��

�But you just said,� growled Ellery, �you had a reason.�

�A feminine sort of reason.� Paula paused. �But do we have to discuss it over the phone?�

�Tell me!�

�Yes, sir. You see, I did know the kind of person Lew was, and it struck me that Lew�s character exactly matched the character of the crime.�

�What? What�s that?�

�Well, Lew was an idea man, wasn�t he? He conceived brilliantly, executed poorly � that was characteristic not only of him but of his work, too.�

�What of it?�

�But the whole crime, if you stop to think of it, as I did, was exactly like that � brilliantly conceived and poorly executed!�

�You mean to say,� spluttered Ellery, �that that sort of dishwater is what you call reasoning?�

�Oh, but it�s so true. Have you stopped,� said Paula sweetly, �to think it out? The playing-card scheme was very, very clever � a true Lew Bascom idea; but it was also fantastic and devious, and wasn�t it carried out shoddily? Lew all over. Then the frame-up of Jack, followed by the frame-up of Ty... two frame-ups that didn�t jibe at all. And that clumsy device of filing those typewriter keys! Poor execution.�

�Lord,� groaned Ellery.

�Oh, dozens of indications. That hamper with the bottles of cocktails. Suppose it hadn�t been delivered? Suppose, if it were delivered in that crush, it weren�t taken along? Or suppose Jack and Blythe were too wrapped up in each other, even if it were taken along, to bother about a drink? Or suppose only one of them drank? So awfully chancy, Ellery; so poorly thought out. Now Jacques Butcher, had he been the criminal, would never��

�All right, all right,� said Ellery. �I�m convinced � yes, I�m not. You saw a clever idea with fantastic overtones and poor craftsmanship, and because Lew was that way you said it was Lew. I�ll have to recommend the method to Gl�cke; he�ll be delighted. Now, Miss Paris, how about paying off that bet of ours?�

�The bet,� said Paula damply.

�Yes, the bet! You said I�d never catch the criminal. Well, I have caught him, so I�ve won, and you�ve got to take me out tonight to the Horseshoe Club.�

�Oh!� And Paula fell silent. He could sense her panic over the wires. �But... but that wasn�t the bet,� she said at last in a desperate voice. �The bet was that you�d bring him to justice, into court. You didn�t. He committed suicide, he tried to escape and his parachute didn�t open��

�Oh, no, you don�t,� said Ellery firmly. �You don�t welch on me, Miss Paris. You lost that bet, and you�re going to pay off.�

�But Ellery,� she wailed, �I can�t! I... I haven�t set foot outside my house for years and years! You don�t know how the very thought of it makes me shrivel up inside��

�You�re taking me to the Club tonight.�

�I think... I�d faint, or something. I know it sounds silly to a normal person,� she cried, �but why can�t people understand? They�d understand if I had measles. It�s something in me that�s sick, only it doesn�t happen to be organic. This fear of people��

�Get dressed.�

�But I�ve got nothing to wear,� she said triumphantly. �I mean, no evening gowns. I�ve never had occasion to wear them. Or even � I�ve no wrap, no � no nothing.�

�I�m dressing now. I�ll be at your house at eight-thirty.�

�Ellery, no!�

�Eight-thirty.�

�Please! Oh, please, Ellery��

�Eight-thirty,� repeated Mr. Queen inflexibly, and he hung up.