QED (19 page)

The bleached face puckered, and Ellery looked away and said, “Well!” and picked up his paddle. “Rain clouds. Let's get this relic of Hiawatha in, shall we, Miss Reynolds?”

He had to admit that Jennifer Reynolds had a case.

But there was less to be said for Sandra Burnett and Flo Pettigrew. As the week jangled on, the sound of their laughter echoing Molly's took on the shrill pitch of hysteria. And on the very night of the day Miss Reynolds gave him her confidence, Ellery found out why.

Bea and Donald Mackenzie had gone down to High Village for a session with Avdo Birobatyan at the Wrightsville Florist Shop, where a gardenia crisis had arisen. Conk and Molly had driven off somewhere to be alone, Jennifer had retired early, Essie Hunker had washed the dishes and gone to bed; and Ellery shut himself up in his room with some work he had brought up from New York.

The house was quiet at last, and he became absorbed in what he was doing. So when he heard the noise and glanced at his watch, he was surprised to find that an hour had passed.

The noise came from somewhere on the bedroom floor, and Ellery opened his door and looked up the hall. Molly's door was open and her light was on.

“Back so soon, Molly?” He paused in her doorway, smiling. She was standing in her wedding gown before the full-length mirror in her dressing room, adjusting the bridal veil. “Can't wait, I see.”

And then she turned around and he saw that she wasn't Molly Mackenzie at all, but Sandra Burnett. “I beg your pardon,” said Ellery.

Sandra's cheeks were gray under her tan. “I … just stopped by,” she said. “I thought nobody was home. I mean—” And suddenly the big girl flopped onto Molly's vanity bench and burst into tears.

“And not finding Molly here, you couldn't resist trying on her wedding dress?”

“I'm so awfully ashamed,” the girl sobbed. “But I always thought Conk and I would … Oh, you don't understand!” The gown was too small for her, and Ellery viewed its straining seams with alarm. “I'll never marry anyone else—never, never …”

“Of course you will,” said Ellery, “after you've found the right man, who obviously isn't Conk. And we won't say anything about this, Sandra, either of us. Now don't you think you'd better take that off—before Molly gets back?”

He heard the girl leave ten minutes later. The Burnetts lived only a short distance away; Sandra's flat heels pounded off down the road, as if she were running.

That was the first unusual incident of the evening. The second came much later, well after midnight. Bea and Donald Mackenzie had returned from the florist's in triumph and had gone to bed. It was a warm night, and Ellery went downstairs through the dark house and the open front door to the piazza, moving quietly. He sat down in one of the basket chairs, propped his feet on the porch railing, and soaked up the coolness.

He was still sitting there when Conk Farnham's convertible swung into the driveway and pulled up near the piazza. Ellery was about to announce himself when the motor died and the lights dimmed. He heard Molly's stifled laugh and Conk's manly, “Come here, you!” and decided that the immediate silence called for self-effacement. After a long moment Molly gasped, “No, darling, that's
all
for tonight—it's
late
,” and Ellery heard her jump out of the car and run up the driveway to the side door.

And the moment the side door clicked shut on Molly, before Conk could turn on his ignition, there was a rustle of foliage from the rhododendron bushes on the far side of the driveway, and a woman's voice said, “Conk! Wait.”

The young surgeon's surprised voice said, “Yes? Who's that?”

“Me.”

“Flo! What are you doing here this time of night?”

“I've got to talk to you. I've been waiting behind that bush for hours. Let me get in, Conk. Drive me somewhere.”

There was a pause. Then Conk said slowly, “No, Flo, I'd rather not. I've got to get home. I'm operating at eight in the morning.”

“You've been avoiding me.” Flo Pettigrew's voice sounded gurgly. “You're avoiding me now—”

“We have nothing to discuss,” Ellery heard Conk say. “I broke our engagement because I realized we'd made a mistake. Would you rather I'd gone through with it, Flo, feeling the way I did? Anyway, that was kid stuff. Why revive it now? What can possibly be the point?”

“Because I still love you.” Her voice was strangled.

“Flo, that's enough. This isn't fair to Molly.” His voice was considerably sharper. “If you don't mind—”

“Oh, Conk, you never gave us a chance! We had so much together … those firefly nights at the lake, our music, the poetry … Remember that Millay thing I told you was my own? ‘I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more.' Oh, it was prophetic! I hate you!”

“Flo, you'll wake the house. Please take your hand off my car. I've got to get some sleep.”

“You fool, you fool! Do you really believe that anyone as
childish
as Molly—?” The rest was smothered by the roar of the engine. The convertible backed rapidly out of the drive; in the glare of the headlights Ellery caught a glimpse of the thin pale face of Flo Pettigrew. Then the lights were gone, and Ellery clumped noisily into the house, rather hoping that the girl in the driveway could hear him.

The day before the wedding Molly had Sandra and Flo and five other girls in for brunch—“my last yak-party,” Molly laughed. The yakking was vigorous—her father, home for lunch with Ellery on the side terrace, remarked that it sounded more like old man Hunker's barnyard at feeding time.

Molly insisted on dragging her friends out to the terrace to meet the author from New York, and Ellery spent a busy five minutes fending off the lion hunters and trying at the same time to read the faces of Flo Pettigrew and Sandra Burnett. But the poetess and the outdoor girl were quite unreadable. Both girls were a little pinched about the mouth, that was all. If anyone was nervous, it was the bride-to-be. Molly seemed tense and distracted in her vivacity. Ellery wondered if she had overheard the painful passage in the driveway the night before. And then he recalled that Molly had been nervous all the previous afternoon, too.

“Look at the time!” Molly cried. “Girls, you'll simply have to excuse us now. We're to meet Conk at the church—Dr. Highmount's running us through the rehearsal for the Bishop. Sandra, Flo, do the honors for me, will you, dears? Then come up and talk to me while I change.—And Daddy, don't forget, you're
not
to go back to the office. Mother said!”

Molly fled.

Sandra and Flo saw the girls to their cars while Ellery and his host finished their lunch. Essie Hunker was just serving the coffee when it happened.

Jennifer Reynolds appeared in the terrace doorway, pale as the tablecloth. “Donald, Molly's just had hysterics upstairs. I'm afraid she's fainted, too. You'd better come quickly.”

“
Molly?
”

Molly's father ran, and Jennifer ran after him.

Ellery caught Molly's bridesmaids on the piazza, waving to the last departing car. He seized Sandra's arm. “Phone Conk Farnham—he's just up the road, isn't he? He must be home now, dressing for the rehearsal. Tell him to come right over. Something's wrong with Molly.”

“Wrong!”

He caught one flash in Flo Pettigrew's eye, and then he ran back into the house and bounded upstairs. He heard Sandra excitedly jiggling the phone in the foyer as he reached Molly's bedroom.

Molly was lying in a heap on her dressing-room floor, her eyes closed, her cheeks chalky. Bea and Donald Mackenzie were on their knees trying to revive her. Bea was chafing the girl's left hand.

“Rub her other hand, Donald! Don't just squat there like a toad!”

“I can't get her fist open,” groaned Molly's father. He began to massage Molly's right wrist. “Molly—baby—”

“Wake up, Molly!” Bea wailed. “Oh, dear, it's all this excitement today. I told her not to have those silly girls in—”

“Where's a doctor? Call a doctor!” Donald said.

Jennifer hurried in from the bathroom with a glass of water.

“He's already called,” said Ellery cheerfully. “Here, let me get her onto the bed. You two parental idiots get out of the way. Mrs. Mackenzie, throw those windows wide open. Never mind the water, Miss Reynolds—she'd strangle. You hold her head way back while I lift. That's it …”

Ellery was still working unsuccessfully over Molly when Conk Farnham rushed in, his tie hanging unmade and lather still clinging to his cheeks.

“Out,” he said hoarsely. “Everybody.”

“But darling,
you?
” moaned Bea. “Conk, you
mustn't
—not the day before your
wedding
—”

He shut the door in her face.

Ten minutes later, Conk reappeared. “No, no, Bea, she's all right. She's out of it now. She's had some sort of shock—I can't get a thing out of her. What the deuce happened?”

“I don't know! Let me see my baby!” Bea said.

“Come in, but for heaven's sake don't excite her.”

Molly was lying flat on her back in bed, covered to the chin and staring up at the ceiling. A little color had come into her cheeks, but her brown eyes were glassy with fear.

“Darling, what happened? What happened to my baby?”

“Nothing, mother. Excitement, I suppose …”

Bea crooned over her.

“Donald,” Conk said. “Do you have a sedative in the house?”

“Well, there's some sleeping pills in my medicine chest. Walt Flacker gave them to me for my insomnia a couple of weeks ago.” He mentioned the brand.

“Even better. Warm a little milk and dissolve two tablets in it.” Donald Mackenzie hurried out, and Conk went over to the bed and stroked Molly's bright hair. “I'm going to give you a soporific, young lady, and you're going to take it and like it.”

“Oh, Conk, no,” Molly whispered. “The rehearsal …”

“Hang the rehearsal. If you don't get some rest right now, there won't even be a wedding. Don't you want to be pronounced Mrs. Conklin Farnham tomorrow?”

“
Don't say that!
” Molly twisted into her pillow, sobbing.

Conk looked down at her, a crease between his eyes. Then he said pleasantly, “Bea, I think the caterer's people are downstairs waiting for you—I passed them on my way up. I'll stay with my patient till Donald brings up the milk. The rest of you—d'ye mind?”

Ellery was pacing the foyer when Donald Mackenzie came heavily downstairs again, followed by Jen Reynolds.

“How is she?”

“She drank the milk … I don't get it.” Molly's father sank into the tapestried chair beside the foyer table.

“She still hasn't given an explanation?”

“No. There's something wrong, Mr. Queen—awfully wrong. But why won't Molly tell us?”

“There's nothing wrong, Donald,” said the Englishwoman nervously. “Don't say things like that.”

Ellery went to the front door and looked out. Bea Mackenzie was on the lawn talking to the caterer's decorators and glancing anxiously up at Molly's windows. Flo Pettigrew and Sandra Burnett were on the piazza, hands in their laps. He came back and said, “I disagree, Miss Reynolds. I think Mr. Mackenzie's right. Something caused that shock, and it wasn't just excitement.”

“But Molly's one of the lucky ones!” cried Jennifer, as if Ellery had betrayed a sacred principle of hers.

Molly's father said between his teeth, “Something happened between the time she left the girls down here and the time she got to her room. You were upstairs, Jen. Did you hear or see anything?”

“All I know about it, Donald, is that I was in my room when I heard Molly laughing and crying in the most peculiar way. I ran out and met Beatrice in the hall—she'd heard it, too. We ran in together and found Molly in her dressing room. She was having hysterics. Then her eyes rolled up and she fainted.”

Donald Mackenzie looked at Ellery. “I don't like this at all,” he said slowly. “Maybe I'm looking for trouble, but do you suppose, Mr. Queen, you could find out what's behind this?”

“Are you sure,” asked Ellery, “that you want me to?”

“Yes,” said Molly's father; and his jaw set.

Ellery turned to Jennifer Reynolds. “There was no one else in the room when you and Mrs. Mackenzie found Molly?”

“No, Mr. Queen.”

“Nothing out of place? Lying on the floor?”

“I don't recall anything.”

“Could she have had a phone call?”

“I heard no ring, Mr. Queen.”

“I had one a few minutes ago,” said Mackenzie. “But it's the only one I know of.”

“Maybe a message of some kind. Did Molly get any mail this morning? A letter that perhaps she didn't open till she got upstairs?”

“Yes,” said Molly's father suddenly. “When I got home for lunch I saw an envelope addressed to Molly lying in the tray here.”

Ellery glanced at the salver on the foyer table. There was nothing on it. “Picked it up on her way upstairs. That may have been it, Mr. Mackenzie. Do you remember whom the letter was from?”

“I didn't look.”

“What's this about a letter?” Conk Farnham came down the stairs, buttoning his collar.

Mackenzie told him. Conk shook his head. “I don't see how it can have been anything like that.”

“How's Molly?” asked Jennifer.

“Corked off. She went out like a light.” Conk went to the door and stared out at the two girls.

“I think,” said Ellery, “we'd better look for the letter.”

He found the envelope in the wastebasket in Molly's dressing room. It was lying on top of the heap, not even crumpled. And it was empty.

Ellery examined the envelope carefully, and his lean face lengthened.