“Good afternoon,” said a crisp voice. “I’m Miss Curleigh. What can I do for you, please?”

  In the midst of raging bedlam Mr. Ellery Queen found himself gazing into a pair of mercurial eyes. There were other details—she was a trim young piece, for example, with masses of titian hair and curves and at least one dimple—but for the moment her eyes engaged his earnest attention. Miss Curleigh, blushing, repeated herself.

  “I beg your pardon,” said Ellery hastily, returning to the matter at hand. “Apparently in the animal kingdom there is no decent ratio between lung-power and—ah—aroma on the one hand and size on the other. We live and learn! Miss Curleigh, would it be possible to purchase a comparatively noiseless and sweet-smelling canine with frizzy brown hair, inquisitive ears at the half-cock, and crooked hind-legs?”

  Miss Curleigh frowned. Unfortunately, she was out of Irish terriers. The last litter had been gobbled up. Perhaps a Scottie—?

  Mr. Queen frowned. No, he had been specifically enjoined by Djuna, the martinet, to procure an Irish terrier; no doleful-looking, sawed-off substitute, he was sure, would do.

  “I expect,” said Miss Curleigh professionally, “to hear from our Long Island kennels tomorrow. If you’ll leave your name and address?”

  Mr. Queen, gazing into the young woman’s eyes, would be delighted to. Mr. Queen, provided with pencil and pad, hastened to indulge his delight.

  As Miss Curleigh read what he had written the mask of business fell away. “You’re not Mr. Ellery Queen!” she exclaimed with animation. “Well, I declare. I’ve heard so much about you, Mr. Queen. And you live practically around the corner, on Eighty-seventh Street! This is really thrilling. I never expected to meet—”

  “Nor I,” murmured Mr. Queen. “Nor I.”

  Miss Curleigh blushed again and automatically prodded her hair. “One of my best customers lives right across the street from you, Mr. Queen. I should say one of my most frequent customers. Perhaps you know her? A Miss Tarkle—Euphemia Tarkle? She’s in that large apartment house, you know.”

  “I’ve never had the pleasure,” said Mr. Queen absently. “What extraordinary eyes you have! I mean—Euphemia Tarkle? Dear, dear, this is a world of sudden wonders. Is she as improbable as her name?”

  “That’s unkind,” said Miss Curleigh severely, “although she is something of a character, the poor creature. A squirrely-faced old lady, and an invalid. Paralytic, you know. The queerest, frailest, tiniest little thing. Really, she’s quite mad.”

  “Somebody’s grandmother, no doubt,” said Mr. Queen whimsically, picking up his stick from the counter. “Cats?”

  “Why, Mr. Queen, however did you guess?”

  “It always is,” he said in a gloomy voice, “cats.”

  “You’d find her interesting, I’m sure,” said Miss Curleigh with eagerness.

  “And why I, Diana?”

  “The name,” said Miss Curleigh shyly, “is Marie. Well, she’s so strange, Mr. Queen. And I’ve always understood that strange people interest you.”

  “At present,” said Mr. Queen hurriedly, taking a firmer grip on his stick, “I am enjoying the fruits of idleness.”

  “But do you know what Miss Tarkle’s been doing, the mad thing?”

  “I haven’t the ghost of a notion,” said Mr. Queen with truth.

  “She’s been buying cats from me at the rate of about one a week for weeks now!”

  Mr. Queen sighed. “I see no special cause for suspicion. An ancient and invalid lady, a passion for cats—oh, they go together, I assure you. I once had an aunt like that.”

  “That’s what’s so strange about it,” said Miss Curleigh triumphantly. “She doesn’t like cats!”

  Mr. Queen blinked twice. He looked at Miss Curleigh’s pleasant little nose. Then he rather absently set his stick on the counter again. “And how do you know that, pray?”

  Miss Curleigh beamed. “Her sister told me.—Hush, Ginger! You see, Miss Tarkle is absolutely helpless with her paralysis and all, and her sister Sarah-Ann keeps house for her; they’re both of an age, I should say, and they look so much alike. Dried-up little apples of old ladies, with the same tiny features and faces like squirrels. Well, Mr. Queen, about a year ago Miss Sarah-Ann came into my shop and bought a black male cat—she hadn’t much money, she said, couldn’t buy a really expensive one; so I got just a—well, just a cat for her, you see.”

  “Did she ask for a black tomcat?” asked Mr. Queen intently.

  “No. Any kind at all, she said; she liked them all. Then only a few days later she came back. She wanted to know if she could return him and get her money back. Because, she said, her sister Euphemia couldn’t stand having a cat about her; Euphemia just detested cats, she said with a sigh, and since she was more or less living off Euphemia’s bounty she couldn’t very well cross her, you see. I felt a little sorry for her and told her I’d take the cat back; but I suppose she changed her mind, or else her sister changed her mind, because Sarah-Ann Tarkle never came back. Anyway, that’s how I know Miss Euphemia doesn’t like cats.”

  Mr. Queen gnawed a fingernail. “Odd,” he muttered. “A veritable saga of oddness. You say this Euphemia creature has been buying ’em at the rate of one a week? What kind of cats, Miss Curleigh?”

  Miss Curleigh sighed. “Not very good ones. Of course, since she has pots of money—that’s what her sister Sarah-Ann said, anyway—I tried to sell her an Angora—I had a beauty—and a Maltese that took a ribbon at one of the shows. But she wanted just cats, she said, like the one I sold her sister. Black ones.”

  “Black….It’s possible that—”

  “Oh, she’s not at all superstitious, Mr. Queen. In some ways she’s a very weird old lady. Black tomcats with green eyes, all the same size. I thought it very queer.”

  Mr. Ellery Queen’s nostrils quivered a little, and not from the racy odor in Miss Curleigh’s Pet Shoppe, either. An old invalid lady named Tarkle who bought a black tomcat with green eyes every week!

  “Very queer indeed,” he murmured; and his gray eyes narrowed. “And how long has this remarkable business been going on?”

  “You are interested! Five weeks now, Mr. Queen. I delivered the sixth one myself only the other day.”

  “Yourself? Is she totally paralyzed?”

  “Oh, yes. She never leaves her bed; can’t walk a step. It’s been that way, she told me, for ten years now. She and Sarah-Ann hadn’t lived together up to the time she had her stroke. Now she’s absolutely dependent on her sister for everything—meals, baths, bedp…all sorts of attention.”

  “Then why,” demanded Ellery, “hasn’t she sent her sister for the cats?”

  Miss Curleigh’s mercurial eyes wavered. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “Sometimes I get the shivers. You see, she’s always telephoned me—she has a ’phone by her bed and can use her arms sufficiently to reach for it—the day she wanted the cat. It would always be the same order—black, male, green eyes, the same size as before, and as cheap as possible.” Miss Curleigh’s pleasant features hardened. “She’s something of a haggler, Miss Euphemia Tarkle is.”

  “Fantastic,” said Ellery thoughtfully. “Utterly fantastic. There’s something in the basic situation that smacks of lavenderish tragedy. Tell me: how has her sister acted on the occasions when you’ve delivered the cats?”

  “Hush, Ginger! I can’t tell you, Mr. Queen, because she hasn’t been there.”

  Ellery started. “Hasn’t been there! What do you mean? I thought you said the Euphemia woman is helpless—”

  “She is, but Sarah-Ann goes out every afternoon for some air, I suppose, or to a movie, and her sister is left alone for a few hours. It’s been at such times, I think, that she’s called me. Then, too, she always warned me to come at a certain time, and since I’ve never seen Sarah-Ann when I made the delivery I imagine she’s planned to keep her purchases a secret from her sister. I’ve been able to get in because Sarah-Ann leaves the door unlocked when she goes out. Euphemia has told me time and time again not to breathe a word about the cats to any one.”

  Ellery took his pince-nez off his nose and began to polish the shining lenses—an unfailing sign of emotion. “More and more muddled,” he muttered. “Miss Curleigh, you’ve stumbled on something—well, morbid.”

  Miss Curleigh blanched. “You don’t think—”

  “Insults already? I do think; and that’s why I’m disturbed. For instance, how on earth could she have hoped to keep knowledge of the cats she’s bought from her sister? Sarah-Ann isn’t blind, is she?”

  “Blind? Why, of course not. And Euphemia’s sight is all right, too.”

  “I was only joking. It doesn’t make sense, Miss Curleigh.”

  “Well,” said Miss Curleigh brightly, “at least I’ve given the great Mr. Queen something to think about….I’ll call you the moment an Ir—”

  Mr. Ellery Queen replaced the glasses on his nose, threw back his square shoulders, and picked up the stick again.

  “Miss Curleigh, I’m an incurable meddler in the affairs of others. How would you like to help me meddle in the affairs of the mysterious Tarkle sisters?”

  Scarlet spots appeared in Miss Curleigh’s cheeks. “You’re not serious?” she cried.

  “Quite.”

  “I’d love to! What am I to do?”

  “Suppose you take me up to the Tarkle apartment and introduce me as a customer. Let’s say that the cat you sold Miss Tarkle the other day had really been promised to me, that as a stubborn fancier of felines I won’t take any other, and that you’ll have to have hers back and give her another. Anything to permit me to see and talk to her. It’s mid-afternoon, so Sarah-Ann is probably in a movie theatre somewhere languishing after Clark Gable. What do you say?”

  Miss Curleigh flung him a ravishing smile. “I say it’s—it’s too magnificent for words. One minute while I powder my nose and get some one to tend the shop, Mr. Queen. I wouldn’t miss this for anything!”

  Ten minutes later they stood before the front door to Apartment 5-C of the Amsterdam Arms, a rather faded building, gazing in silence at two full quart-bottles of milk on the corridor floor. Miss Curleigh looked troubled, and Mr. Queen stooped. When he straightened he looked troubled, too.

  “Yesterday’s and today’s,” he muttered, and he put his hand on the doorknob and turned. The door was locked. “I thought you said her sister leaves the door unlocked when she goes out?”

  “Perhaps she’s in,” said Miss Curleigh uncertainly. “Or, if she’s out, that she’s forgotten to take the latch off.”

  Ellery pressed the bell-button. There was no reply. He rang again. Then he called loudly: “Miss Tarkle, are you there?”

  “I can’t understand it,” said Miss Curleigh with a nervous laugh. “She really should hear you. It’s only a three-room apartment, and both the bedroom and the living room are directly off the sides of a little foyer on the other side of the door. The kitchen’s straight ahead.”

  Ellery called again, shouting. After a white he put his ear to the door. The rather dilapidated hall, the illpainted door…

  Miss Curleigh’s extraordinary eyes were frightened silver lamps. She said in the queerest voice? “Oh, Mr. Queen. Something dreadful’s happened.”

  “Let’s hunt up the superintendent,” said Ellery quietly.

  They found Potter, Sup’t in a metal frame before a door on the ground floor. Miss Curleigh was breathing in little gusts. Ellery rang the bell.

  A short fat woman with enormous forearms flecked with suds opened the door. She wiped her red hands on a dirty apron sad brushed a strand of bedraggled gray hair from her sagging face. “Well?” she demanded stolidly.

  “Mrs. Potter?”

  “That’s right. We ain’t got no empty apartments. The doorman could ’a’ told you—”

  Miss Curleigh reddened. Ellery said hastily: “Oh, We’re not apartment hunting, Mrs. Potter. Is the superintendent in?”

  “No, he’s not,” she said suspiciously, “He’s got a part time job at the chemical works in Long Island City and he never gets home till ha’-past three. What you want?”

  “I’m sure you’ll do nicely, Mrs. Potter, This young lady and I can’t seem to get an answer from Apartment 5-C. We’re calling on Miss Tarkle, you see.”

  The fat woman scowled. “Ain’t the door open? Generally is this time o’ day. The spry one’s out, but the paralysed one—”

  “It’s locked, Mrs. Potter, and there’s no answer to the bell or to our cries.”

  “Now ain’t that funny,” shrilled the fat woman, staring at Miss Curleigh. “I can’t see—Miss Euphemia’s a cripple; she never goes out. Maybe the poor thing’s threw a fit!”

  “I trust not. When did you see Miss Sarah-Ann last?”

  “The spry one? Let’s see, now. Why, two days ago. And, come to think of it, I ain’t seen the cripple for two days, neither.”

  “Heavens,” whispered Miss Curleigh, thinking of the two milk-bottles. “Two days!”

  “Oh, you do see Miss Euphemia occasionally?” asked Ellery grimly.

  “Yes, sir.” Mrs. Potter began to wring her red hands as if she were still over the tub. “Every once in a while she calls me up by ’phone in the afternoon if her sister’s out to take somethin’ out to the incinerator, or do somethin’ for her. The other day it was to mail a letter for her. She—she gives me somethin’ once in a while. But it’s been two days now….”

  Ellery pulled something out of his pocket and cupped it in his palm before the fat woman’s tired eyes. “Mrs. Potter,” he said sternly, “I want to get into that apartment. There’s something wrong. Give me your master-key.”

  “P-p-police!” she stammered, staring at the shield. Then suddenly she fluttered off and returned to thrust a key into Ellery’s hand. “Oh, I wish Mr. Potter was home!” she wailed. You won’t—”

  “Not a word about this to any one, Mrs. Potter.”

  They left the woman gaping loose-tongued and frightened after them, and took the self-service elevator back to the fifth floor. Miss Curleigh was white to the lips; she looked a little sick.

  “Perhaps,” said Ellery kindly, inserting the key into the lock, “you had better not come in with me, Miss Curleigh. It might be unpleasant. I—” He stopped abruptly, his figure crouching.

  Somebody was on the other side of the door.

  There was the unmistakable sound of running feet, accompanied by an uneven scraping, as if something were being dragged. Ellery twisted the key and turned the knob in a flash, Miss Curleigh panting at his shoulder. The door moved a half-inch and stuck. The feet retreated.

  “Barricaded the door,” growled Ellery. “Stand back; Miss Curleigh.” He flung himself sidewise at the door. There was a splintering crash and the door shot inward, a broken chair toppling over backward. “Too late—”

  “The fire-escape!” screamed Miss Curleigh. “In the bedroom. To the left!”

  He darted into a large narrow room with twin beds and an air of disorder and made for an open window. But there was no one to be seen on the fire-escape. He looked up: an iron ladder curved and vanished a few feet overhead.

  “Whoever it is got away by the roof, I’m afraid,” he muttered, pulling his head back and lighting a cigaret. “Smoke? Now, then, let’s have a look about. No bloodshed, apparently. This may be a pig-in-the-poke after all. See anything interesting?”

  Miss Curleigh pointed a shaking finger. “That’s her—her bed. The messy one. But where is she?”

  The other bed was neatly made up, its lace spread undisturbed. But Miss Euphemia Tarkle’s was in a state of turmoil. The sheets had been ripped away and its mattress slashed open; some of the ticking was on the floor. The pillows had been torn to pieces. A depression in the center of the mattress indicated where the missing invalid had lain.

  Ellery stood still, studying the bed. Then he made the rounds of the closets, opening doors, poking about, and closing them again. Followed closely by Miss Curleigh, who had developed an alarming habit of looking over her right shoulder, he glanced briefly into the living room, the kitchen, and the bathroom. But there was no one in the apartment. And, except for Miss Tarkle’s bed, nothing apparently had been disturbed. The place was ghastly, somehow. It was as if violence had visited it in the midst of a cloistered silence; a tray full of dishes, cutlery, and half-finished food lay on the floor, almost under the bed.

  Miss Curleigh shivered and edged closer to Ellery. “It’s so—so deserted here,” she said, moistening her lips. “Where’s Miss Euphemia? And her sister? And who was that—that creature who barred the door?”

  “What’s more to the point,” murmured Ellery, gazing at the tray of food, “where are the seven black cats?”

  “Sev—”

  “Sarah-Ann’s lone beauty, and Euphemia’s six. Where are they?”

  “Perhaps,” said Miss Curleigh hopefully, “they jumped out the window when that man—”

  “Perhaps. And don’t say ‘man.’ We just don’t know.” He looked irritably about. “If they did, it was a moment ago, because the catch on the window has been forced, indicating that the window has been closed and consequently that the cats might have—” He stopped short. “Who’s there?” he called sharply, whirling.

  “It’s me,” said a timid voice, and Mrs. Potter appeared hesitantly in the foyer. Her tired eyes were luminous with fear and curiosity. “Where’s—”

  “Gone,” He stared at the slovenly woman. “You’re sure you didn’t see Miss Euphemia or her sister today?”

  “Nor yesterday. I—”

  “There was no ambulance in this neighborhood within the past two days?”

  Mrs. Potter went chalky. “Oh, no, sir I can’t understand how she got out. She couldn’t walk a step. If she’d been carried, some one would have noticed. The doorman, sure. I just asked him. But nobody did. I know everythin’ goes on—”