“What’s the matter with you?” cried Howard. “I’m not!”

  “Sure, Howard? Sure you’re telling me everything?”

  “My God in His sweet heaven, man,” shouted Howard, “what do you want me to do—take my skin off?”

  “Why the heat?”

  “You’re calling me a liar!”

  “Aren’t you?”

  This time Howard did not shout. He ran over to the armchair and flung himself into it, angrily.

  But Ellery persisted: “Aren’t you, Howard?”

  “Not really.” Howard’s tone was unexpectedly calm. “Naturally, we girls have our secrets. I mean secrets.” He even smiled. “But Ellery, I’ve told you every damned thing I know about the amnesia. You can take it or leave it.”

  “At this point,” said Ellery, “I’m inclined to leave it.”

  “Please.”

  Ellery looked at him quickly. He was sitting on the very edge of the armchair, grasping the arms, not smiling now, not angry, not calm—not any of the things he had done and been for the half-hour past.

  “There are some things I can’t tell, Ellery. If you knew, you’d understand why. Nobody could. They involve—” Howard stopped and slowly got up. “I’m sorry I’ve bothered you. I’ll send these duds back as soon as I get home. Would you stake me to the fare? I haven’t a dime.”

  “Howard.”

  “What?”

  Ellery went over and put his arm around Howard’s shoulders. “If I’m to help I’ve got to dig. I’ll come up.”

  Howard telephoned home again to tell the elder Van Horn that Ellery was coming up for a visit in a couple of days.

  “I thought you’d whoop,” Ellery heard Howard say with a laugh. “No, I don’t know for how long, Father. I imagine for as long as Laura can keep him interested in her cooking.”

  When he came out of the study, Ellery said to him: “I’d leave with you now, Howard, but it’s going to take me a day or so to get away.”

  “Sure. Naturally.” Howard was feeling good; he was almost bouncing.

  “Also, I’m writing a novel…”

  “Bring it with you!”

  “I’ll have to. I’m committed by contract to deliver the manuscript by a certain date, and I’m behind schedule now.”

  “I suppose I ought to feel like a skunk, Ellery—”

  “Learn to have the courage of your emotions,” chuckled Ellery. “Can you provide a typewriter in decent working order?”

  “Everything you’ll need, and the best quality. What’s more, you can have the guest house. You’ll have privacy there, yet you’ll be near me—it’s only a few yards from the main house.”

  “Sounds good. Oh, and by the way, Howard. It won’t be necessary to tell your family why I’m coming up. I’d prefer an atmosphere as free from tensions as possible.”

  “It’s going to be pretty tough fooling the old gent. He just said to me on the phone, ‘Well, it’s about time you decided to hire a bodyguard.’ He was kidding, but father’s shrewd, Ellery. I’ll bet he’s figured out already why you’re coming.”

  “Just the same, don’t say any more about it than you can help.”

  “I could tell them you had to finish your novel and I offered you a chance to do it far from the madding crowd.” Howard’s good eye clouded over. “Ellery, this may take a long time. May be months before the next attack—”

  “Or never,” said Ellery. “Hasn’t that ever occurred to you, my fine Denmarkian friend? The episodes may stop as suddenly as they started.” Howard grinned, but he looked unconvinced. “Say, how about your putting up with dad and me here at the apartment until I can get away?”

  “Meaning you’re worried about how I’ll get home.”

  “No,” said Ellery. “I mean yes.”

  “Thanks, but I’d better be getting back today, Ellery. They’ve been frantic.”

  “Of course.—You’re sure you’ll be all right.”

  “Positive. I’ve never had two attacks less than three weeks apart.” Ellery gave Howard some money and walked him downstairs to the street.

  They were shaking hands before the open door of the taxi when Ellery suddenly exclaimed: “But Howard, where the devil do I go?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I haven’t the remotest idea where you live!”

  Howard looked startled. “Didn’t I tell you?”

  “Never!”

  “Give me a piece of paper. No, wait, I’ve got a notebook—did I transfer all my things to your suit? Yes, here.”

  Howard tore a page out of a fat black notebook, scribbled on it, and was gone.

  Ellery watched the taxi until it turned the corner.

  Then he went back upstairs, thoughtfully, the piece of paper still in his hand.

  Howard’s already committed a crime, he thought. It’s not the “possible” crime of his amnesic state that he dreads. It’s a remembered crime, committed in his conscious state. This crime, and the circumstances surrounding it, are the “things” Howard can’t “tell”—the “secrets” which, in all conscious sincerity, he protests are irrelevant to his emotional problem. But it’s the guilt feeling involving precisely that crime that’s sent him desperately to me. Psychologically, Howard is seeking punishment for it.

  What was the crime?

  That was the first question to be answered.

  And the answer could only He in Howard’s home, in…

  Ellery glanced at the sheet of paper Howard had scribbled on.

  He very nearly dropped it.

  The address Howard had written was:

  Van Horn

  North Hill Drive

  Wrightsville

  Wrightsville!

  The squatty little railroad station in Low Village. Steep square-cobbled streets. The round Square, its ancient horse trough supporting the bird-stippled bronze of Founder Jezreel Wright. The Hollis Hotel, the High Village Pharmacy-that-used-to-be, Sol Gowdy’s Men’s Shop, the Bon Ton Department Store, William Ketcham—Insurance, the three gilt balls above the shop front of J. P. Simpson, the elegant Wrightsville National Bank, John F. Wright, Pres.

  Wheel-spoke avenues…State Street, red-brick Town Hall, the Carnegie Library and Miss Aikin, the tall obsequious elms. Lower Main, the Wrightsville Record building with the presses on display beyond the plate-glass windows, old Phinny Baker, Pettigrew’s real estate office, Al Brown’s Ice Cream Parlor, the Bijou Theater and Manager Louie Cahan…

  Hill Drive and Twin Hill Cemetery and Wrightsville Junction three miles down the line and Slocum Township and The Hot Spot on Route 16 and the smithy with the neon sign and the distant peaks of the Mahoganies.

  Old scenes flashed across his memory as he sank frowning into the worn leather armchair Howard had just vacated.

  Wrightsville…

  Where had Howard Van Horn been while Ellery observed the tragedy of Jim and Nora Haight develop?1 That had been early in the war, when Howard was living at home, by his own admission, working in an aircraft factory. Why, during Ellery’s revisit to Wrightsville not long after the war, in the case involving Captain Davy Fox, hadn’t he run across Howard’s trail then?2 True, Ellery had mixed with few Wrightsvillians during that investigation. But on his first visit, on the Haight business, he had received a great deal of local publicity; Hermione Wright had seen to that. Howard couldn’t possibly have remained ignorant of his presence in town. And North Hill Drive was a mere extension of Hill Drive, where the Wrights and the Haights lived and where Ellery had occupied, first the Haight cottage, then a guest room in the Wright house next door—perhaps ten minutes from the Van Horn place by car, certainly no longer. Now that Ellery thought of it, the very name “Van Horn” had a Wrightsville ring. He was sure he had heard old John F. mention Diedrich Van Horn on several occasions as being one of the points d’appui of the town, a civic-minded, philanthropic millionaire; and so, he seemed to recall, had Judge Eli Martin characterized him. Howard’s father could not have been one of the Wright-Martin-Willoughby set or Ellery would have met him; but that was understandable—they constituted the traditional society of Wrightsville. So the Van Horns must be of the industrial element, the tycoons, the Mitsubishis of the community—the Country Club crowd, between the traditional caste and whom the fence was unscalable. Still, Howard must have known that Ellery was living in town; and since he had not come forward, it seemed clear that he had deliberately avoided his old acquaintance of the Rue de la Huchette. Why?

  Ellery was not seriously disturbed by the question. Howard was newly in the grip of his malady in those days. Probably he had been too frightened to face the ordeal of renewing their acquaintanceship. Or very likely he had been immobilized by feelings of guilt still buried deep.

  Ellery refilled his pipe. What really bothered him was that he was Wrightsville-bound on a case for the third time. It was a disheartening coincidence. Ellery disliked coincidences. They made him uneasy. And the longer he thought about it, the uneasier he became.

  If I were superstitious, he thought, I’d say it was Fate.

  Strangely enough, in each of the previous Wrightsville investigations, circumstances had nudged him into the same unsatisfying speculations. He wondered, as he had wondered before, if there might not be a pattern in all this, a pattern too large to be discerned by the human eye. Certainly it was odd that, while he had brought the Haight and the Fox cases to successful solutions, the nature of each had compelled him to suppress the truth, so that the world outside regarded his Wrightsville ventures as among his more conspicuous failures.

  And now this Van Horn business…

  Damn Wrightsville and all its works!

  Ellery thrust Howard’s address into a pocket of his smoking jacket and loaded his pipe irritably.

  But then he caught himself wondering what had ever happened to Alberta Manaskas and if Emmy DuPré would invite him this time to discuss the Arts in the coolth of the evening, and he grinned.

  1 Calamity Town, by Ellery Queen; Little, Brown & Co., 1942.

  2 The Murderer Is a Fox, by Ellery Queen; Little, Brown & Co., 1945.

  The Second Day

  AS THE TRAIN SCUTTLED away toward Slocum Ellery thought, It isn’t so different.

  There weren’t so many horse droppings in the gravel and some of the stoop-shouldered frame houses around the station had disappeared; the latticework of a block of stores going up made an unfamiliar arabesque in the old fresco; the smithy with the neon sign was now a garage with a neon sign; Phil’s Diner, which had been a reconditioned castoff of the Wrightsville Traction Company, was a grand new thing of blue-awninged chrome. But through the open doorway of the stationmaster’s office the bald dome of Gabby Warrum shone in welcome; it seemed as if the same dusty-footed, blue-jeaned urchin sat on the same rusty hand truck under the station eaves chewing the same bubble gum and staring with the same relentless vacancy; and the surrounding countryside had not changed in contour, only in coloration, for this was Wrightsville putting on its war paint for the Indian summer.

  There were the same fields, the same hills, the same sky.

  Ellery caught himself breathing.

  That was the sweet thing about Wrightsville, he thought, setting his suitcase down on the platform and looking around for Howard. It struck even the passer-by as home. It was easy to understand why Howard in Paris ten years before had seemed provincial. Whether like Linda Fox you liked Wrightsville, or like Lola Wright you loathed it, if you had been born here and raised here you took Wrightsville with you to the fourth corner and the seventh sea.

  Where’s Howard?

  Ellery wandered to the east end of the platform. From here he could see up Upper Whistling Avenue, which ambled through Low Village to within one square of the Square and then turned elegant and marched sedately into the land of milk and honey, even unto the place of the Canaanite. He wondered if Miss Sally’s Tea Roome in town was still serving pineapple marshmallow nut mousses to the Wrightsville bon ton; if you could still smell the delectable olio of pepper, kerosene, coffee beans, rubber boots, vinegar and cheese in Sidney Gotch’s General Store; if at Danceland in the Grove on Saturday nights careworn mothers still beat the brush seeking their young; if…

  “Mr. Queen?”

  Ellery turned around to find a terrifying station wagon beside him with a smiling girl behind its wheel.

  Someone he’d once met in Wrightsville, no doubt. She had a vaguely familiar look.

  But then he saw D. VAN HORN gilt-lettered on the door.

  Howard hadn’t mentioned a sister, damn him! And a pretty one, at that.

  “Miss Van Horn?”

  The girl looked surprised. “I ought to feel crushed. Didn’t Howard mention me?”

  “If he did,” quoth Mr. Queen gallantly, “I was out to lunch. Why didn’t he say he had a beautiful sister?”

  “Sister.” She threw back her head and laughed. “I’m not Howard’s sister, Mr. Queen. I’m his mother.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Well…his stepmother.”

  “You’re Mrs. Van Horn?” exclaimed Ellery.

  “It’s the family joke.” She looked mischievous. “And I’ve been in awe of you so long, Mr. Queen, I just couldn’t resist cutting you down to my size.”

  “In awe of me?”

  “Howard said you were nice. Don’t you know you’re a famous personality, Mr. Queen? Diedrich’s got all your books—my husband thinks you’re the greatest mystery writer in the world—but I’ve had a secret crush on you for years. I once saw you in Low Village driving through with Patricia Wright in her convertible, and I thought she was the luckiest girl in America. Mr. Queen, is that your suitcase over there?”

  It was an agreeable start to any case, and Ellery hopped in beside Sally Van Horn feeling very important, very male, and absurdly envious of Diedrich Van Horn.

  As they drove away from the station, Sally said: “Howard was so miserable at the prospect of driving into town with his face all mashed up that I made him stay home. I’m sorry now I didn’t make him come! Imagine not even mentioning me.”

  “Simple justice compels me to exonerate the knave,” said Ellery. “Howard mentioned you emphatically. It’s just that I wasn’t quite prepared—”

  “To find me so young?”

  “Er, something like that.”

  “It throws most people. I suppose it’s because marrying Dieds gave me a son older than I am! You don’t know my husband, do you?”

  “Never had the pleasure.”

  “You don’t think of Dieds in terms of years. He’s immense and powerful and so wonderfully young. And,” Sally added with the lightest touch of defiance, “handsome.”

  “I’m sure of that. Howard’s disgustingly like a Greek god himself.”

  “Oh, there’s no resemblance between them at all. They’re built along the same lines, but Dieds is black and ugly as an old butternut.”

  “You just said he was handsome.”

  “He is. When I want to make him mad I tell him he’s the ugliest handsome man I ever saw.”

  “There seems,” chuckled Ellery, “to be a slight paradox involved.”

  “That’s what Diedrich says. So then I tell him he’s the handsomest ugly man I ever saw, and he beams again.”

  Ellery liked her. It was not hard to grasp how a man of solidity and character, as he judged Diedrich Van Horn to be, could have fallen in love with her. Although he took Sally to be twenty-eight or twenty-nine, she had the look, the figure, the laugh, the glow of eighteen. At Van Horn’s age, and with a vigor probably untapped through many years of loneliness, this could be an irresistible magnet. But Howard’s father, from all reports, was also a man of seasoned horse sense; Sally’s youth might pull him emotionally, but he would want—and know he wanted—more in a wife than a companion of his bed. Ellery saw how Sally might have seemed to satisfy this want, too. Her look was also gracious, her figure was rich as well as young, her laugh had wisdom, her glow a promise of fire. She was intelligent and, for all her warm quick friendliness, Ellery felt a certain reserve under the surface. Her frankness was natural and charming, like a child’s; and yet her smile seemed old and sad. In fact, Ellery thought as they chatted, Sally’s smile was the most provocative thing about her, the supreme contradiction in a personality that appealed by contradiction. He wondered again where he had seen her before, and when…The more he studied her, as she drove along, talking pleasantly and unaffectedly, the more he was able to understand how Van Horn could have abdicated his bachelordom without a regret.

  “Mr. Queen?” She was looking at him.

  “Sorry,” said Ellery quickly. “I’m afraid I didn’t catch that last.”

  “You’ve been looking at Wrightsville and probably wishing I’d stop twittering in your ear.”

  Ellery stared. “We’re on Hill Drive!” he exclaimed. “How on earth did we get here so fast? Didn’t we drive through town?”

  “Of course we did. Where were you? Oh, I know. You were thinking of your novel.”

  “Heaven forbid,” said Ellery. “I was thinking of you.”

  “Of me? Oh, dear. Howard didn’t warn me about that part of you.”

  “I was thinking that Mr. Van Horn is undoubtedly the most envied husband in Wrightsville.”

  She glanced at him swiftly. “What a nice thing to say.”

  “I mean it.”

  Her glance went back to the road and he noticed that her cheek was growing pink. “Thank you…I don’t always feel myself adequate.”

  “Part of your charm.”

  “No, seriously.”

  “I said it seriously.”

  “You did?” She was astonished.

  Ellery liked her very much.

  “Before we get to the house, Mr. Queen—”

  “Ellery,” said Ellery, “is the preferred term.”

  The pink deepened, and he thought she was uncomfortable.

  “Of course,” Ellery went on, “you can keep on calling me Mr. Queen, but I’m going to tell your husband the very first thing that I’ve fallen in love with you. Yes! And then I’m going to bury myself in that guest house Howard waved before my nose and work like mad substituting literature for life…What were you about to say, Sally?”