Where Is Bianca? by Ellery Queen Read Free Book Online Page B

of a newspaper and learns that a girl of Nancy’s size and age is in the morgue.”
    â€œBut this time is different.”
    â€œThis time she came by invitation.”
    â€œYours?”
    â€œWho else?”
    â€œWhy?” Corrigan asked.
    â€œBecause one of the morgue men remembered a detail. Last time Anna Gavin was here and we were trying to get her out of our hair, the old girl mentioned a birthmark. A growth on Nancy’s right shoulder, just above the shoulderblade. That was a new note.”
    â€œI don’t remember anything about a growth on Jane Doe’s shoulder.”
    â€œBecause there isn’t any,” retorted the pathologist. “But there is something—at that exact spot. It’s a surgical scar, very faint, almost indistinguishable. The kind of scar that might have been left by a G.P. who removed the growth in his office, depriving some impoverished surgeon of a fee.”
    Corrigan stared at him. “That doesn’t make Jane Doe Nancy Gavin in my book, Doc.”
    â€œThat’s your business. Mine is to mention it.”
    â€œOf course, it’s possible.”
    Samuelson said nothing. He seemed miffed.
    â€œSomewhere along the line one of Nancy’s men may have given her a few dollars to get herself deblemished. One of the choosier kind.”
    â€œI point out,” said Doc Samuelson, “that Jane Doe is in the correct age range. I’ve already checked with Vital Statistics on the Gavin girl’s birth record.”
    â€œI wonder,” said Corrigan, paying no attention to the pathologist’s stiff tone, “how reliable anything the old woman says is.”
    â€œI wouldn’t know. You’re the great detective.”
    â€œOh, come off it, Doc.”
    Samuelson seemed mollified. “Who knows what the old woman knows or doesn’t know? She’s probably anile. A bundle of short circuits. Her liver and kidneys are undoubtedly shot—”
    â€œAll I’m concerned with is her brain.”
    â€œYou heard her. The persistent certainty that the girl is dead, based on no facts whatever. But this business of the growth … it’s not the same thing. I’m inclined to believe it.”
    â€œSo am I. When can I expect a report?”
    â€œWhen I get around to it.”
    â€œI’m in a hurry, Doc.”
    â€œThat,” said Samuelson, “is the story of my life.”
    At the door Corrigan said, “By the way, I’d appreciate it if you stalled off the newsmen. There’s been no leak yet that Bianca Fielding Lessard may be involved. Play the Jane Doe bit for all it’s worth.”
    â€œWhat do you think I am,” the pathologist said, “a first-year man? Go peddle your papers, Tim, and let me get back to work.”
    Back at his office near the Main Office Squadroom, Corrigan sought out his typewriter. In the streets below, the homegoing rush hour was in full cry, but not for cops. The old building on Centre Street whirred and jangled as if it were ten o’clock in the morning. Corrigan was so used to it that he did not even hear the noise.
    He typed out his report and addressed it to the Inspector who was his immediate superior. The report concluded with: “Assignment of at least two detectives will immediately be made for the purpose of tracing said Nancy Gavin from the time of her alleged disappearance.”
    Corrigan pulled the sheet from his typewriter, signed it, and reached for the telephone.
    Chuck Baer seemed short of breath, as if he had left his office, heard the ringing of his phone, and rushed back to answer it.
    â€œWhat’s up, Tim?”
    â€œVincent Lessard may still be your client instead of a sitting duck.”
    â€œTalk English. There’s a new wrinkle in Jane Doe’s ID?”
    â€œThat’s right. Bianca Fielding Lessard may not be in the morgue after all.”
    â€œHow come? What about that Mayan