Queens Full by Ellery Queen Read Free Book Online Page B

of unemployment insurance. Dullman claims he averaged fourteen, fifteen hosts a year. He must have had a hard time keeping track. Go on, Joan.”
    â€œI was sixteen, and Foster Benedict had been my secret crush for years,” Joan said in a low voice. “When I read in the Record that he was staying at Mr. Bluefield’s I did a very silly thing. I phoned him.”
    She flushed. “You can imagine the conversation—how much I admired his work, my stage ambitions … He must have been having a dull time, because he said he’d like to meet me. I was in heaven. He began to take me out. Drives up to the lake. Moonlight readings … I certainly asked for it.”
    She sat forward nervously. “I guess it was like one of those old-time melodramas—the handsome lecher, the foolish young girl—the only thing missing was the mortgage. Would you believe that when he promised me a part in his next play I actually fell for it?” Joan laughed. And then he went away, and I wrote him some desperate love letters he didn’t bother to answer, and I didn’t see or hear from him again until last night.
    â€œAnd then when he made his royal entrance into the Playhouse, he not only didn’t remember Wrightsville, or Mr. Bluefield, he’d forgotten me, too.” She was staring into the mirror of the time-polished floor. “I was a stranger to him. Just another scalp to add to his collection. I’d meant so little to him not even my features had registered, let alone my name.”
    â€œI warned you six years ago Benedict was poison,” Roger shouted, “but would you listen? Ellery, if you knew how many times I’ve begged her to get off this acting kick and marry me—”
    â€œLet’s get to you, Rodge. I take it your evasions last night covered up a prior acquaintance with Benedict, too?”
    â€œHow could I explain without dragging Joan into it?”
    â€œThen you met him at the same time.”
    â€œI knew she was dating him—a high school kid!—and I’d read of his weakness for the young ones. I was fit to be tied. I collared him one night after he took Joan home and I warned him to lay off. I said I’d kill him, or some such juvenile big talk. He laughed in my face and I knocked him cold. He was sore as hell about it—I’d mussed up his precious profile—and he banged right down to headquarters to prefer charges of assault. That was when Dakin was chief. But then I guess Benedict had second thoughts—bad publicity, or something. Anyway, he dropped the charges and left town.”
    â€œDid the brawl get into the Record? ”
    Roger shrugged. “It was a one-day wonder.”
    â€œAnd was Joan named in the story?”
    â€œWell, yes. Some oaf at headquarters shot his mouth off. Dakin fired him.”
    Ellery shook his head. “You two are beyond belief. How did you expect to keep a thing like that from Newby? Last night when you denied having known Benedict, Joan, didn’t you notice Newby send one of his men on an errand? He’s a city-trained policeman—he wouldn’t take your word. He’d check the Record morgue and his own headquarters files. He may even have phoned the New York City police to search Benedict’s apartment—Benedict’s bragged often enough in print about his collection of feminine love letters.
    â€œSo Newby either knows already, or he’ll very soon learn, that you lied to him on a crucial question, and exactly what happened six years ago, and exactly why. Don’t you see what you’ve handed him on a silver platter?”
    Joan was mute.
    â€œFrom Newby’s viewpoint there’s a strong circumstantial case against you, Joan. Situated in the only other dressing room on that side of the theater, you had the best opportunity to kill Benedict without being seen. The weapon? You wouldn’t have had to move a step out of your way en