Face to Face (6 page)

Part 2

Half Face

Physiognomy
…
may also serve us for conjecture.

L
A
B
RUYÈRE

12

Ellery opened his eyes to a creeping gray Saturday morning. His father was gone, and in the study Harry Burke was going through the morning newspaper.

“You were pounding the feathers so hard I hadn't the heart to wake you.” Burke said. The Scotsman was dressed and pinkly shaved, he had made the daybed, and the pot of coffee on Ellery's electric plate was bubbling. “I've been up for hours.”

“Didn't you sleep well?” Ellery made for the coffee pot like a man dying of thirst. He had slept in fits, dreaming over and over of a faceless face topped by Glory Guild's dyed hair, until, with daylight prying at the Venetian blinds, he had fallen asleep from exhaustion.

“Like a side of beef,” Burke said cheerfully. “That's a sleeping man's bed. My only complaint is that I couldn't find any tea in the kitchen cupboard.”

“I'll pick some up today.”

“Oh, no,” the Scotsman protested, “one night is imposition enough. I'll put up at a hotel.”

“I won't hear of it. You may have to hang around for some time, Harry, and you're no longer on an expense account. New York hotel bills have a way of escalating.”

“This is terribly kind of you, Ellery.”

“I'm a terribly kind person. What's in the paper?”

“Nothing we don't know. Although there's some background stuff on Armando in one of the columns.”

“Whose?”

“Kip Kipley's.”

Ellery set his cup down and grabbed the newspaper. He knew the Broadway columnist well; on numerous occasions Kipley had given him valuable tips. This morning's column was devoted almost entirely to the late Glory Guild's count; Ellery could imagine Armando baring his magnificent choppers. “Most of this is pretty much public property, Harry, but I have an idea Kip's holding back the real pay dirt for later developments. It gives me a thought.”

He consulted his address book and dialed Kipley's unlisted number. “Kip? Ellery Queen. Did I get you up?”

“Hell, no,” said the columnist's famous piping voice. “I'm in the middle of breakfast. I was wondering when you'd get around to me, Charlie. You're in this GeeGee business up to your belly button, aren't you?”

“Just about. Kip, I'd like to see you.”

“Any time. I keep open house.”

“Privately.”

“Sure. One o'clock at my place?”

“You have a date.” Ellery hung up. “You never know,” he said to Harry Burke. “Kipley's like that wine horn of Thor's, inexhaustible. Give me twenty minutes, Harry, and we'll have brunch and hit Kip for the inside scoop.”

13

The columnist was a tiny dark vibrant man with the profile of a doge, dressed in a heavy silk kimono of authentic manufacture. “Excuse the negligee.” Kipley said, shaking Ellery's hand limply. “I never get dressed before four o'clock. Who's this?”

Ellery introduced Burke, who submitted to a quick examination by a pair of birdy black eyes. Then he was dismissed with, “Harry Burke? Never heard,” and Kipley nodded toward the elaborate bar, where his Puerto Rican houseman was hovering—because of Kipley's column, Felipe was probably the most advertised houseman in Manhattan. The penthouse apartment was almost sterile, unfeminine to the bone; Kipley was a notorious hypochondriac and woman-dodger, with a housewife's passion for order. “What'll you have to drink?” He was also a non-drinker.

“Too early for me, thanks,” said Ellery; and Burke, sensing a clue, declined as well, although he eyed the Johnnie Walker Black Label longingly. Kipley nodded to Felipe, and the houseman vanished. It seemed to Burke that the columnist was pleased.

“Park it, gentlemen. What do you want to know?”

“Whatever you've got on Carlos Armando.” Ellery said. “And I don't mean that warmed-over rehash you ran this morning.”

The columnist chuckled. “It's all in the timing, Charlie; I don't have to tell
you.
What's in it for me?”

“Nothing I can think of.” Ellery said, “at the moment. Because as yet I don't know a thing. If I come up with anything I can let you have, Kip, you'll get your
quid pro quo.”

Kipley looked at him. “I take it Mr. Burke here is all right?”

“Harry's a private detective from London. He's connected with the case in a peripheral sort of way.”

“If you'd rather, Mr. Kipley, I'll leave,” Burke said without rancor. He half rose.

“Sit down, Charlie. It's just that when I spill my girlish secrets I like to know who-all's on the bugging end. So this thing has a British tie-in? Who?”

“Who's spilling whose girlish secrets?” Ellery asked, laughing. “Come on, Kip, open up. I told you we have a deal.”

“Armando.” Kipley pulled his Venetian nose. “The guy is strictly a no-goodnik. A sex-crazy maniac. And greasy as the top of a one-arm short-order cook's stove. The way he slimed up GeeGee's nest for over five years—with that stupid middle-age canary never suspecting a thing, as far as I know—is enough to make even me puke.”

“He's been two-timing her?”

“Your arithmetic stinks, Charlie. Two times whatever he can lay his itchy hands on, which is every broad within reach. He even gets nostalgic every once in a while.”

“What do you mean?”

“Goes back to one of his rejects. For instance, he's been spotted recently in some night spots with Number Seven on his hit parade—the wife before GeeGee, the Chicago meatpacking dame who got the goods on him while he was giving it to the upstairs maid and kicked him out without a dime, which was a real switch. You know, Mrs. Gertie Hodge Huppenkleimer—she dropped the Armando when she got the divorce. Gertie's living in New York now, in a fifty-thousand-a-year pad on Beekman Place, and somehow he's managed to shinny his way back into her good graces. Don't ask me how he does it. Of course, there isn't a woman who can see beyond the end of her panty-girdle; even so, life isn't
all
beddy-bye. What do they see in that jock? Unless he's found a way Krafft-Ebing or Kinsey missed.”

“The question is, what does Armando see in Mrs. Huppenkleimer?” Harry Burke put in. “While I was still on duty for the Yard, Ellery, I saw her at one of the Queen's garden parties. She has the physique of a Beefeater, topped with three-foot hats. Perhaps it's a matter of professional pride with Armando—I mean, not having succeeded in tapping her the first time round.”

“That could be his weakness,” Ellery nodded. “Who else, Kip?”

“I'm not through with his ex-wives. He's been seen squiring Numbers Three and Four—Three was Mrs. Ardene Vlietland, the one they call Piggyback, who divorced Hendrix B. Vlietland, the banker, to marry Armando—
that
one broke up after that brawl in Newport where the guests were swinging from the crystal chandeliers and throwing horseshoes at everything breakable, including two Picassos. Four was that Boston dame, the alcoholic with the race horses, Daffy Dingle; she went AA and stayed on the wagon four years, and Armando's been seen in Boston bistros here and there buying her vodka martinis by the quart—just for the hell of it, I guess.”

“Nice chap,” Burke muttered.

“The best,” said Kipley.

“The Huppenkleimer, Piggyback, Daffy,” said Ellery. “Three ex-wives. I take it you haven't exhausted the inventory, Kip?”

“Get set for this one,” said Kipley.

“I'm quivering all over.”

“GeeGee's secretary,” said Kipley. “What's-her-name—Jeanne Temple.”

“Ah, me,” said Burke.

“Oh, my,” said Ellery. “This one
is
rancid. And damned dangerous for him. Or is he the complete fool? Under Glory's nose, Kip?”

“No, this he's played cosy. He's got a kind of animal cunning that pops out once in a while. With Jeanne Temple it's been hideaways around town. Not too often. Only a dirt-hound like me would have nosed it out.”

“I haven't met the Temple woman. Is she anything to look at?”

“A pair of boobs surrounded by the usual number of arms and legs. With a face like a stepped-on egg. According to my information, he's got her tongue hanging out.”

“Our mammary culture,” murmured Ellery. “The poor European infected with the American disease. Anyone else?”

The columnist said, “I've hardly started.”

“I'd better take notes!” He actually produced his notebook and began writing.

“A two-bit would-be actress named Roberta West.” Burke paled slightly. “No money in her, but she's young and pretty—I guess the count needs relief every once in a while from the dogs. But he hasn't been seen with the West number for six, seven months, so that one's probably broken off.” Ellery and Harry Burke exchanged glances. “What's the matter, did I say something?”

“No,” said Burke.

Kipley's black eyes narrowed unpleasantly. “You two wouldn't be holding out on me, would you?”

“Yes,” Ellery said. Burke looked positively unhappy. “But we don't have the right to go into that, Kip. Anyway, the West girl's connection with the case will probably break soon. Who else?”

The columnist jotted something down on a pad at his elbow. “I didn't furnish this joint out of official handouts, Charlie. Thanks for the tip … Well, there's Marta Bellina.”

“The opera singer?”

“In person. Bellina was probably GeeGee's best friend. Armando's been crawling all over the best friend, too, and if Marta minds she's been keeping it a deep, dark secret. Women!”

“Incredible,” Burke muttered.

“Marta Bellina,” Ellery wrote. “Next?”

“Her doctor.”

“Whose doctor?” Ellery asked, glancing up.

“GeeGee's.”

Ellery looked startled.

Kipley laughed. “If Armando's a faggot he hasn't been caught at it. No, Dr. Merckell is a lady doctor—Susan Merckell, M.D.”

“The Park Avenue laryngologist who's so popular with show people?”

“The same. Handsome woman; never married. Made to order for the count. All he has to do is fake a sore throat, go to Dr. Merckell's office, and get into her examining room. My information is that during Armando's visits it's the doctor who gets examined.”

“Where do you dredge up all this muck?” asked Harry Burke in a disgusted voice.

“Do I ask you where you plant your bugs, Charlie?” the columnist asked amiably. “Then there's the broad with the veil.”

“What?” exclaimed Ellery.

“He's been seen in the company of a chick who always wears a violet veil. A thick one, so you can't make out her face.”

“Always?”

“Always.”

“How old is she?”

“Can you tell a femme's age nowadays when you can't see her puss? If the sun stopped coming up and all the power failed, there'd be one hell of a lot of happy grandmas.”

“How about the veiled woman's hair?”

“Sometimes it's blond, sometimes it's red, sometimes it's brunette. But it's the same woman in my book. With wigs … I see you two are interested in Madame X. As interested as I am. Basically, Armando is stupid. Letting himself be seen around town with a veiled dame! She might just as well be wearing a topless bathing suit. Don't you ever read my column?”

“Not as often as I'm going to from now on.” Ellery said fervently. “By the way, have you any idea when Armando was last seen with the mysterious veiled woman?”

“Before Christmas, I think. You ask like pushy questions, man. What's the date got to do with anything?”

“It's just an idea I'm working on. Is there anyone else?”

Kipley said simply, “I've run out.”

Ellery signaled to Burke. “Kip, I can't tell you how grateful I am—”

“You can take your gratitude and you know what. Give me some poop, Charlie, and we're brother Elks.”

14

They went down to police headquarters and spent the remainder of the day going through page after crammed page of Glory Guild's diaries and memoirs. For the most part the diary entries were inconsequential—guests entertained, parties attended, weekends spent; reactions to first nights, an occasional acid comment about a pop singer. The diaries were sequined with name-dropping references to the great and notorious of show business, as if the late GeeGee had never entirely outgrown her Middle West clothes. There were surprisingly few allusions to her husband, and not a syllable about Carlos's relationships, real or imagined, with other women. Either Glory Guild had been unaware of his woman-chasing or she had chosen to ignore it, at least for the record.

There was no clue in the entries to what she might have meant by “face.” Nor any mention of a veiled woman; nor even of a veil, violet or any other color.

Close examination of her memoirs—the typed parts and the notes on which they were based—proved equally barren of any references that might remotely connect with the singer's death.

A glance at Inspector Queen's reports advanced nothing; they told less than both men already knew. The Inspector's detectives had turned over some stones and discovered various crawly things—Armando's renewed alliance with ex-wife Number Three, Ardene Piggyback Vlietland, her of the Newport catastrophe; his affairs with his wife's secretary, Jeanne Temple, and with her physician, Dr. Susan Merckell; his duet with the opera singer, Marta Bellina. But there were no reports on Number Four, the Back Bay alcoholic, Daffy Dingle, or on Number Seven, Gertie Hodge Huppenkleimer, Glory Guild's immediate predecessor.

Or, significantly, on the veiled woman.

“We'll get after
her
first off,” the Inspector said, “and I'll give Boston a call about the Dingle woman. I'm most interested in this purple-veil dame—”

“Violet,” said Ellery gravely. “It could make all the difference.”

“Get off my leg,” his father snapped. “I'm not much interested in Mrs. Huppenkleimer. She's the only wife Armando wasn't able to take for anything. I can't see a woman like that committing murder for him.”

“Still, according to Kipley, she's been going out with him again. Why?”

“Who knows why women do what they do? Maybe she's been overcome by fond memories. You chase after her if you want.”

“Which is exactly,” said Ellery, “what Harry and I are going to do.”

They tracked Gertie Huppenkleimer that night to a charity ball at the Americana. She stood out like an atom bomb in the New Mexico desert—a towering mushroom of a woman who dominated most of the thousand glittering people in the ballroom.

“Suppose I make the approach,” murmured Burke. “Gertie has a thing for Englishmen.”

“You're a Scotsman.”

“Believe me, old chap, she won't know the difference.”

Ellery watched Burke maneuver his broad shoulders toward the punch table, where Mrs. Huppenkleimer was bellowing into the ear of a captive African diplomat. A few minutes later the Scotsman was dancing with her, fitting neatly under her hat. And a few minutes after that he was back.

“Nothing to it, Ellery. We have a breakfast appointment with her for tomorrow morning. She was charmed.”

“By what?”

Burke grinned. “I told her we'd met at the Queen's garden party. I could have had her bra after that. Although, come to think of it, what the hell would I use it for?”

“A hammock,” said Ellery glumly, eyeing her awesome proportions.

They were admitted to the Beekman Place duplex at 11:00 o'clock Sunday morning by an English butler who actually sported sideburns. Madam, it appeared, was awaiting them; they followed the butler to a glassed-in terrace, where Mrs. Huppenkleimer was enthroned in an enormous basket chair before a breakfast table set for three.

“Mr. Burke, how very
nice!”
their hostess roared. “And this is your friend. I'm so happy to meet any friend of Mr. Burke's; … Ellery Queeg, did you say? …
Queen.
How gauche of me! Please sit down, Mr. Queen! And, of course, you, Mr. Burke …”

Burke launched into British social chitchat skillfully while the butler served from a king-sized steam table. Mrs. Huppenkleimer ate on the same enormous scale as the rest of her; quantities of wheat cakes, shirred eggs, sausages, kippers, toast, and coffee disappeared down her maw. Ellery, insinuating a phrase or two here and there to keep his oar in, found himself thinking of Moby Dick—she was vastly dressed in billowing white. Was Carlos Armando some sort of Captain Ahab, pursuing her out of complex notions of vengeance—bending her to his will to the ultimate point of slaughter? Or was he more like the Man-Frog Mowgli, riding Hathi the Elephant to their mutual satisfaction?

“Oh, yes.” Harry Burke was saying to her. “I've also run into Count Armando. Oh, dear, I suppose I shouldn't have mentioned him, Mrs. Huppenkleimer. Weren't you and the count once married?”

“I was, and as a count he's a phony, and there's no reason why you shouldn't, Mr. Burke,” the woman said, reaching for a cigaret with her flipper. Burke hastily snapped his lighter to the ready. She puffed, nodded, belched, and sank back in the basket chair. “Dear Carlos is such a transparent fraud,” she laughed, shaking all over. “But one can't stay mad at him. You know? Such a gallant. Though I don't think he's ever quite forgiven me for having a photographer present when I caught him with that maid. I was joking with him about it only the other night.”

“Really?” said Burke. “You're seeing him again, Mrs. Huppenkleimer? I think that's awfully decent of you. Letting bygones be bygones, I mean, and all that.”

“Why shouldn't I see him again? There's nothing Carlos can get out of me that I'm not willing to give him, is there? Of course,” she said thoughtful as a cow, “with this mess he's in I may have to drop him for good. We'll see.” She reached for a piece of cinnamon toast that had escaped her earlier and began to masticate it, the cigaret smoldering between the heavily jeweled fingers of her other hand. “I certainly can't afford to become involved.”

“You mean in his wife's death?”

“I mean in his wife's murder,” the woman said grimly, and flicked the crust to the fat blond cocker waiting for it.

Ellery had a sudden revelation. Gertie Huppenkleimer, in spite of appearances, was nobody's fool. For one thing, she had kept switching her glance on and off him all the while she was talking to Harry Burke—not inquiringly, but as if she had known all along who “Ellery Queeg” was.

He made a decision.

“I'm afraid we've eaten your delicious breakfast under false pretenses, Mrs. Huppenkleimer,” Ellery said. “What we're doing here is investigating Mrs. Armando's murder.” Burke looked pained.

“Everybody tries to take advantage of poor me.” Gertie said calmly. “Go ahead and investigate—Mr. What-Was-It? I haven't a thing to hide.”

“Queen,” Ellery said. “I'm glad you haven't, Mrs. Huppenkleimer, because that makes it easier for me to ask you where you spent the half hour before midnight of this past Wednesday.”

“The night before New Year's Eve. Let me see … Oh, yes! I attended a United Nations reception for the new ambassador from whatever-it-is, some Southeast Asian country. Afterwards a group of us went down to one of those places—what do they call them? disco-something—the one on Sheridan Square, in the Village.”

“What time did you leave the U.N. reception?”

“About 10:30.” The shrewd eyes, imbedded in fat, took Ellery in. “Am I suspected in the Guild murder? That would be too funny.”

“What's funny about it, Mrs. Huppenkleimer?”

“Why would I want to shoot Carlos's wife? To marry him again? Once was enough, thank you. He amuses me, and I'm perfectly satisfied with the present arrangement, or I was until this thing came up. The whole idea is ridiculous.”

Suddenly, it was.

“You went directly from the reception, in a group of people, to Greenwich Village?”

“That's correct.”

“Did you leave the discothèque at any time?”

“No, Mr. Queen.” She was smiling a big fat smile.

“And at what time did the Village party break up?”

“After three in the morning. Sorry to disappoint you.” The smile was swallowed by abdominal laughter.

“This business is mainly disappointments, Mrs. Huppenkleimer. We'll have you checked out, of course.”

“Of course.” She was still laughing at him. But when she turned to Harry Burke, it was with a gargantuan baby pout. “As for you, Mr. Burke, shame! I really fell for that Queen's garden-party line, and I don't mean Mr. Queen.”

“Oh, I was there,” said Burke gallantly. “Keeping an eye on the jewelry.”

“And you would have made such a wonderful lord.” Mrs. Huppenkleimer sighed. “Hawkins”—what else could her butler be called? Ellery thought—“show these gentlemen out.”

They found Jeanne Temple in an apartment building on East 49th Street where, from the card under the bell in the lobby, she shared an apartment with a girl named Virginia Whiting. It consisted of one bedroom, a kitchenette, and a living room; the bedroom and kitchenette were tiny, the living room large. The apartment was nondescriptly furnished and in bachelor-girl disorder. Both girls were dressed in Capri slacks and jersey tops; both were barefoot. The Whiting girl, who was rather pretty, had vivacious gray eyes; but Jeanne Temple was a plain mouse, her only attribute of note being an astonishing bust which taxed the jersey to its limit.

“No, I don't mind Virginia's being present,” the Temple girl said. She looked thirty, although Ellery suspected she was younger. There was fear in the muddy brown eyes behind the aluminum-frame glasses. “In fact, I'd rather she …”

“Take it easy, Jeannie,” said the other girl. “You've got nothing to worry about.”

“I know it,” Glory Guild's secretary burst out, “but
they
don't seem to. Why can't you people let me alone? I've told everything I know—”

“Not everything, Miss Temple,” Ellery said.

The droopy skin yellowed. “I don't know what you mean.”

“I'm referring to you and Carlos Armando.”

The yellow began to burn. “Me and Carl—Count Armando?”

“Your relationship with him.”

“What do you mean?” she asked excitedly. “Did he tell you—?”

“Our information is that you and Armando were having an affair behind Mrs. Armando's back.”

“That's not true.”

“I'm afraid it is. You've been seen with Armando in hideaway restaurants and bars, Miss Temple, on a number of occasions. Men like Armando don't take their wives' secretaries out secretly in order to give them dictation.”

“Miss Temple.” said Harry Burke gently. “We're not interested in blackening your reputation. What we're after are the facts.”

She was silent, the hands in her lap clutching each other. And then she looked up. “All right, we've been having an affair,” she said faintly. “I … I don't know, really, how I got into it. It just seemed to happen. I've tried to break it off, but he wouldn't let me. He's kept threatening me, saying he'd see to it I lost my job. I haven't known what to do. I like—liked my job, and Mrs. Armando paid me well, and treated me nicely, well, most of the time … I've felt so guilty … He wouldn't let me alone after that first time…”

“We know what a swine he is,” Burke growled.

Ellery frowned at this unprofessional remark. But it seemed to do something to Jeanne Temple, as if she sensed that Burke was an ally. After that she addressed all her answers to him, in a sort of gratitude. Virginia Whiting sat quietly by; of course she had known about the affair—Jeanne could hardly have kept it a secret from her.

Ellery said abruptly, “Did
you
know Carlos Armando, Miss Whiting?”

The gray-eyed girl was surprised. “Me? Hardly! I've seen him in the apartment here—twice, I think. But it was only for just long enough to get out of the way and go to the movies.”

He found himself rather liking her.

“Did he ever make a pass at you?”

“Once, while Jeannie was getting her face on in the bathroom,” Virginia Whiting said grimly. “I've been taking karate lessons, and I gave him a sample. He didn't try it the second time.”

Jeanne Temple's mouth was open. “You never told me that, Virginia.”

“There's a lot of things I've never told you, Jeannie. Including what a patsy I thought you were to let that wolf get his paws on you in the first place.”

“I know.” Jeanne said, “I know what a fool I've been.”

“Did Armando ever say anything about marrying you?” Ellery asked her.

“No.”

“I mean, if you got rid of his wife for him?”

Her eyes flashed at that. “Certainly not!” she cried. “What do you think I am, Mr. Queen? Is that what the police are thinking?”

“The thought,” said Ellery, “has crossed a few minds. He never made such a proposal? Even hinted at it?”

“No.
And if he had, I'd have—I'd have gone straight to Mrs. Armando and told her everything!” She was trembling. Virginia Whiting took her hand, and she began to cry.

“I'm sorry if I've upset you, Miss Temple. There isn't much more. How did you spend the evening of December thirtieth—last Wednesday?”

“But I've been all through that with the detectives—”

“Let's go through it once more, shall we?”

“I'm Jeannie's alibi,” said the Whiting girl calmly. “We had dinner together that evening. Neither of us left the apartment—I'd turned down a date because I had a big one coming up the next night, New Year's Eve. Jeannie and I watched television together all evening. We saw the 11:00 o'clock news, then part of the Johnny Carson show. It was a few minutes past the 12:00 o'clock break when we turned the set off and went to bed. At the same time. Together.”