The Devil's Cook by Ellery Queen Read Free Book Online Page B

coffee and strawberry jam. She washed her breakfast things and put them away, and then she was ready to apply herself to the problems at hand. A minute later she was rapping briskly on Farley’s door downstairs.
    No answer—clearly, Farley was still asleep or had gone out. Of these alternatives, the former was more likely. This conclusion called for repeated and louder knocking, which Fanny was prepared to administer; but then it occurred to her that the best policy, when you wanted information, was to go to the horse’s mouth. So she moved across the hall to Jay Miles’s door and, stooping to plant an ear close to the panel, listened shamelessly. She was rewarded by the faint sound of movement within, and Fan knocked. After a moment the door was opened by Jay, who had been interrupted in the act of tying a knot in a black string tie.
    â€œHow do you do that without a mirror?” Fanny said. “It looks hard.”
    â€œIt’s easy,” Jay said. “What do you want, Fanny? I’m in a hurry.”
    â€œAre you going somewhere?”
    â€œI have a Saturday morning class.”
    â€œOh, then Terry got home all right last night.”
    â€œYour concern is commendable, but your assumption is wrong. Terry didn’t get home last night, or this morning either.”
    â€œWell, are you just going off calmly to meet a ridiculous class when your wife is missing and unaccounted for?”
    â€œExactly. What alternative would you suggest?”
    â€œDid you call the hospitals last night?”
    â€œI did. As I predicted, quite needlessly.”
    â€œIf she were my wife, I’d call the police this instant.”
    â€œIf you were and did, Terry would have your scalp. Believe me, the last thing Terry would want is the police messing around in this. How can I make you understand, Fanny? I don’t want to appear churlish, but I’d appreciate it if you would stay out of my personal affairs.”
    â€œOh, all right. I know when I’m not wanted.”
    â€œI’m sorry. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to finish dressing.”
    He shut the door quietly in Fanny’s face; and Fanny, ignored at one door and rejected at the other, climbed upstairs to her own apartment and had a third cup of the coffee. She felt by no means deflated. If Terry was Jay’s business, Ben was hers, and she was not prepared to relinquish her rights in the old devil so long as there was even a suggestion of his involvement. Or the least hope of rescuing him from his delinquency. On second thought, it was probably just as well, everything considered, to delay notifying the police.
    The Personal was what made things so confused. If Ben was involved, the Personal made no sense. Besides being too devious for Ben’s tastes, it was susceptible to detection and correct interpretation, and thereby risky. And why the ‘O.’ instead of ‘B.’, inasmuch as ‘T.M.’ was used instead of something deceptive? It made no sense whatever. Could it be, as Jay insisted, that the Personal was just a coincidence? It would surely be enlightening, Fanny thought, to know who had placed it in the paper.
    The thought became instantly a resolution to find out. It would give her something to do while Farley snored and Jay taught his class. Something constructive might come of it, although Fan had reservations. It did not do to expect too much, she had learned, because it only increased your disappointment when you got too little—or nothing.
    She was not sure that newspapers divulged the identity of users of their Personal columns. They might consider it confidential information like doctors and lawyers and the clergy. There was no point in speculating about it, however. She could learn by trying, and that was what she was going to do.
    The Personal had appeared in The Journal , the only paper in town with considerable circulation. Fanny happened to know where its offices and plant