Queens Full by Ellery Queen Read Free Book Online

theater just today. We’d bought some new guy-rope yesterday and I needed a sharp knife—”
    â€œI know all about your ownership of the knife,” Newby smiled. “The question isn’t who owned the knife, or even who put it in the tool chest. It’s who took it out of the chest and used it on Benedict. Miss Truslow—”
    â€œExcuse me,” Ellery said. The chief was startled into silence. “Roger, when did you tape the handle?”
    â€œTonight, after the play started. I’d used it in replacing a frayed guy-rope and I hadn’t been able to keep a good grip on it because my hands were sweaty from the heat backstage. So I wound electrician’s tape around the haft in case I had to use it again in an emergency during the performance.”
    â€œWhen did you drop it into the chest?”
    â€œNear the end of the act.”
    â€œI thought I’d made it clear, Mr. Queen!” The whiplash in the policeman’s voice was no longer lazy. “Interrupt once more and out you go.”
    â€œYes, Chief,” Ellery murmured. “Sorry, Chief.”
    Newby was quiet Then he said, “Now I want to be sure I have this right, Miss Truslow. You claim you went from the stage straight to your dressing room, you stayed there all the time Benedict was being knifed in the room right under yours, you didn’t hear a sound, you didn’t come down till after Benedict was found dying, and at no time did you touch the knife. Is that it?”
    â€œThat’s it.” Joan jumped up. “No, Roger!” She walked steadily over to the footlights. “Now let me ask you a question, Chief Newby. Why are you treating me as if you’ve decided I killed Foster Benedict?”
    â€œDidn’t you?” Newby asked.
    â€œI did not kill him!”
    â€œSomebody said you did.”
    Joan peered and blinked through the glare in her eyes. “But that’s not possible. It isn’t true. I can’t imagine anyone making up a story like that about me. Who said it?”
    â€œBenedict, in the presence of witnesses, a few seconds before he died.”
    Joan said something unintelligible. Newby and Ellery sprang to their feet. But Roger was closest, and he caught her just as her legs gave way.

ACT III. Scene 1.
    Ellery awoke at noon. He leaped for the door and took in the Record , with its familiar yellow label conveying the compliments of the Hollis. For the first time in years the Record’s front page ran a two-line banner:
    MURDER HITS WRIGHTSVILLE FAMOUS STAGE STAR SLAIN!
    The account of the crime was wordy and inaccurate. There were publicity photos of Benedict and the cast. The front page was salted with statements by Dr. Farnham, members of the audience, cast, stage crew, even police. Chief Anselm Newby’s contribution was boxed but uninformative. The Record quoted Scutney Bluefield (“The Playhouse must go on”), Archer Dullman (“No comment”), and Ellery Queen (“Any statement I might make about Benedict’s death would encroach on the authority of your excellent police chief”). There was a story on Mark Manson under a one-column cut showing him at a bar, uninjured arm holding aloft a cocktail glass (“Mr. Manson was found at the Hollis bar at a late hour last night on his discharge from Wrightsville General Hospital, in company of his manager, Archer Dullman. Asked to comment on the tragedy, Mr. Manson said, ‘Words truly fail me, sir, which is why you discover me saying it with martinis.’ With the help of this reporter, Mr. Dullman was finally able to persuade Mr. Manson to retire to his hotel room”).
    A choppy review of the first act of The Death of Don Juan showed evidence of hasty editing. What the original copy had said Ellery could only imagine.
    The sole reference in print to Joan was a cryptic “Miss Joan Truslow and Mr. Roger Fowler of the Playhouse staff could not be located for a