The New Adventures of Ellery Queen (26 page)

“That's what I had in mind,” said Miss Paris contentedly.

And so Wednesday found Miss Paris and Mr. Queen at the Polo Grounds, ensconced in a field box behind the Yankees' dugout.

Mr. Queen glowed, he reveled, he was radiant. While Inspector Queen, with the suspiciousness of all fathers, engaged Paula in exploratory conversation, Ellery filled his lap and Paula's with peanut hulls, consumed frankfurters and soda pop immoderately, made hypercritical comments on the appearance of the various athletes, derided the Yankees, extolled the Giants, evolved complicated fifty-cent bets with Detective-Sergeant Velie, of the Inspector's staff, and leaped to his feet screaming with fifty thousand other maniacs as the news came that Carl Hubbell, the beloved Meal Ticket of the Giants, would oppose Señor El Goofy Gomez, the ace of the Yankee staff, on the mound.

“Will the Yanks murder that apple today!” predicted the Sergeant, who was an incurable Yankee worshiper. “And will Goofy mow 'em down!”

“Four bits,” said Mr. Queen coldly, “say the Yanks don't score three earned runs off Carl.”

“It's a pleasure!”

“I'll take a piece of that, Sergeant,” chuckled a handsome man to the front of them, in a rail seat. “Hi, Inspector. Swell day for it, eh?”

“Jimmy Connor!” exclaimed Inspector Queen. “The old Song-and-Dance Man in person. Say, Jimmy, you never met my son, Ellery, did you? Excuse me. Miss Paris, this is the famous Jimmy Connor, God's gift to Broadway.”

“Glad to meet you, Miss Paris,” smiled the Song-and-Dance Man, sniffing at his orchidaceous lapel. “Read your
Seeing Stars
column, every day. Meet Judy Starr.”

Miss Paris smiled, and the woman beside Jimmy Connor smiled back, and just then three Yankee players strolled over to the box and began to jeer at Connor for having had to take seats behind that hated Yankee dugout.

Judy Starr was sitting oddly still. She was the famous Judy Starr who had been discovered by Florenz Ziegfeld—a second Marilyn Miller, the critics called her; dainty and pretty, with a perky profile and great honey-colored eyes, who had sung and danced her way into the heart of New York. Her day of fame was almost over now. Perhaps, thought Paula, staring at Judy's profile, that explained the pinch of her little mouth, the fine lines about her tragic eyes, the singing tension of her figure.

Perhaps. But Paula was not sure. There was immediacy, a defense against a palpable and present danger, in Judy Starr's tautness. Paula looked about. And at once her eyes narrowed.

Across the rail of the box, in the box at their left, sat a very tall, leather-skinned, silent and intent man. The man, too, was staring out at the field, in an attitude curiously like that of Judy Starr, whom he could have touched by extending his big, ropy, muscular hand across the rail. And on the man's other side there sat a woman whom Paula recognized instantly. Lotus Verne, the motion-picture actress!

Lotus Verne was a gorgeous, full-blown redhead with deep mercury-colored eyes who had come out of Northern Italy Ludovica Vernicchi, changed her name, and flashed across the Hollywood skies in a picture called
Woman of Bali
, a color film in which loving care had been lavished on the display possibilities of her dark, full, dangerous body. With fame, she had developed a passion for press agentry, borzois in pairs, and tall brown men with muscles. She was arrayed in sun yellow and she stood out among the women in the field boxes like a butterfly in a mass of grubs. By contrast little Judy Starr, in her flame-colored outfit, looked almost old and dowdy.

Paula nudged Ellery, who was critically watching the Yankees at batting practice. “Ellery,” she said softly, “who is that big, brown, attractive man in the next box?”

Lotus Verne said something to the brown man, and suddenly Judy Starr said something to the Song-and-Dance Man; and then the two women exchanged the kind of glance women use when there is no knife handy.

Ellery said absently: “Who? Oh! That's Big Bill Tree.”

“Tree!” repeated Paula. “Big Bill Tree?”

“Greatest left-handed pitcher major-league baseball ever saw,” said Mr. Queen, staring reverently at the brown man. “Six feet three inches of bull whip and muscle, with a temper as sudden as the hook on his curve ball and a change of pace that fooled the greatest sluggers of baseball for fifteen years. What a man!”

“Yes, isn't he?” smiled Miss Paris.

“Now what does that mean?” demanded Mr. Queen.

“It takes greatness to escort a lady like Lotus Verne to a ball game,” said Paula, “to find your wife sitting within spitting distance in the next box, and to carry it off as well as your muscular friend Mr. Tree is doing.”

“That's right,” said Queen softly. “Judy Starr
is
Mrs. Bill Tree.”

He groaned as Joe DiMaggio hit a ball to the clubhouse clock.

“Funny,” said Miss Paris, her clever eyes inspecting in turn the four people before her: Lotus Verne, the Hollywood siren; Big Bill Tree, the ex-baseball pitcher; Judy Starr, Tree's wife; and Jimmy Connor, the Song-and-Dance Man, Mrs. Tree's escort. Two couples, two boxes … and no sign of recognition. “Funny,” murmured Miss Paris. “From the way Tree courted Judy you'd have thought the marriage would outlast eternity. He snatched her from under Jimmy Connor's nose one night at the Winter Garden, drove her up to Greenwich at eighty miles an hour, and married her before she could catch her breath.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Queen politely. “Come on, you Giants!” he yelled, as the Giants trotted out for batting practice.

“And then something happened,” continued Miss Paris reflectively. “Tree went to Hollywood to make a baseball picture, met Lotus Verne, and the wench took the overgrown country boy the way the overgrown country boy had taken Judy Starr. What a fall was there, my baseball-minded friend.”

“What a wallop!” cried Mr. Queen enthusiastically, as Mel Ott hit one that bounced off the right-field fence.

“And Big Bill yammered for a divorce, and Judy refused to give it to him because she loved him, I suppose,” said Paula softly. “And now this. How interesting.”

Big Bill Tree twisted in his seat a little; and Judy Starr was still and pale, staring out of her tragic, honey-colored eyes at the Yankee bat boy and giving him unwarranted delusions of grandeur. Jimmy Connor continued to exchange sarcastic greetings with Yankee players, but his eyes kept shifting back to Judy's face. And beautiful Lotus Verne's arm crept about Tree's shoulders.

“I don't like it,” murmured Miss Paris a little later.

“You don't like it?” said Mr. Queen. “Why, the game hasn't even started.”

“I don't mean your game, silly. I mean the quadrangular situation in front of us.”

“Look, darling,” said Mr. Queen. “I flew three thousand miles to see a ball game. There's only one angle that interests me—the view from this box of the greatest li'l ol' baseball tussle within the memory of gaffers. I yearn, I strain, I hunger to see it. Play with your quadrangle, but leave me to my baseball.”

“I've always been psychic,” said Miss Paris, paying no attention. “This is—bad. Something's going to happen.”

Mr. Queen grinned. “I know what. The deluge. See what's coming.”

Someone in the grandstand had recognized the celebrities, and a sea of people was rushing down on the two boxes. They thronged the aisle behind the boxes, waving pencils and papers, and pleading. Big Bill Tree and Lotus Verne ignored their pleas for autographs; but Judy Starr with a curious eagerness signed paper after paper with the yellow pencils thrust at her by people leaning over the rail. Good-naturedly Jimmy Connor scrawled his signature, too.

“Little Judy,” sighed Miss Paris, setting her natural straw straight as an autograph-hunter knocked it over her eyes, “is flustered and unhappy. Moistening the tip of your pencil with your tongue is scarcely a mark of poise. Seated next to her Lotus-bound husband, she hardly knows what she's doing, poor thing.”

“Neither do I,” growled Mr. Queen, fending off an octopus which turned out to be eight pleading arms offering scorecards.

Big Bill sneezed, groped for a handkerchief, and held it to his nose, which was red and swollen. “Hey, Mac,” he called irritably to a red-coated usher. “Do somethin' about this mob, huh?” He sneezed again. “Damn this hay fever!”

“The touch of earth,” said Miss Paris. “But definitely attractive.”

“Should 'a' seen Big Bill the day he pitched that World Series final against the Tigers,” chuckled Sergeant Velie. “He was sure attractive that day. Pitched a no-hit shutout!”

Inspector Queen said: “Ever hear the story behind that final game, Miss Paris? The night before, a gambler named Sure Shot McCoy, who represented a betting syndicate, called on Big Bill and laid down fifty grand in spot cash in return for Bill's promise to throw the next day's game. Bill took the money, told his manager the whole story, donated the bribe to a fund for sick ball players, and the next day shut out the Tigers without a hit.”

“Byronic, too,” murmured Miss Paris.

“So then Sure Shot, badly bent,” grinned the Inspector, “called on Bill for the payoff. Bill knocked him down two flights of stairs.”

“Wasn't that dangerous?”

“I guess,” smiled the Inspector, “you could say so. That's why you see that plug-ugly with the smashed nose sitting over there right behind Tree's box. He's Mr. Terrible Turk, late of Cicero, and since that night Big Bill's shadow. You don't see Mr. Turk's right hand, because Mr. Turk's right hand is holding onto an automatic under his jacket. You'll notice, too, that Mr. Turk hasn't for a second taken his eyes off that pasty-cheeked customer eight rows up, whose name is Sure Shot McCoy.”

Paula stared. “But what a silly thing for Tree to do!”

“Well, yes,” drawled Inspector Queen, “seeing that when he popped Mr. McCoy Big Bill snapped two of the carpal bones of his pitching wrist and wrote finis to his baseball career.”

Big Bill Tree hauled himself to his feet, whispered something to the Verne woman, who smiled coyly, and left his box. His bodyguard, Turk, jumped up; but the big man shook his head, waved aside a crowd of people, and vaulted up the concrete steps toward the rear of the grandstand.

And then Judy Starr said something bitter and hot and desperate across the rail to the woman her husband had brought to the Polo Grounds. Lotus Verne's mercurial eyes glittered, and she replied in a careless, insulting voice that made Bill Tree's wife sit up stiffly. Jimmy Connor began to tell the one about Walter Winchell and the Seven Dwarfs … loudly and fast.

The Verne woman began to paint her rich lips with short, vicious strokes of her orange lipstick; and Judy Starr's flame kid glove tightened on the rail between them.

And after a while Big Bill returned and sat down again. Judy said something to Jimmy Connor, and the Song-and-Dance Man slid over one seat to his right, and Judy slipped into Connor's seat; so that between her and her husband there was now not only the box rail but an empty chair as well.

Lotus Verne put her arm about Tree's shoulders again.

Tree's wife fumbled inside her flame suède bag. She said suddenly: “Jimmy, buy me a frankfurter.”

Connor ordered a dozen. Big Bill scowled. He jumped up and ordered some, too. Connor tossed the vendor two one-dollar bills and waved him away.

A new sea deluged the two boxes, and Tree turned round, annoyed. “All right, all right, Mac,” he growled at the red-coat struggling with the pressing mob. “We don't want a riot here. I'll take six. Just six. Let's have 'em.”

There was a rush that almost upset the attendant. The rail behind the boxes was a solid line of fluttering hands, arms, and scorecards.

“Mr. Tree—said—six!” panted the usher; and he grabbed a pencil and card from one of the outstretched hands and gave them to Tree. The overflow of pleaders spread to the next box. Judy Starr smiled her best professional smile and reached for a pencil and card. A group of players on the field, seeing what was happening, ran over to the field rail and handed her scorecards, too, so that she had to set her half-consumed frankfurter down on the empty seat beside her. Big Bill set his frankfurter down on the same empty seat; he licked the pencil long and absently and began to inscribe his name in the stiff, laborious hand of a man unused to writing.

The attendant howled: “That's six, now! Mr. Tree said just six, so that's all!” as if God himself had said six; and the crowd groaned, and Big Bill waved his immense paw and reached over to the empty seat in the other box to lay hold of his half-eaten frankfurter. But his wife's hand got there first and fumbled round; and it came up with Tree's frankfurter. The big brown man almost spoke to her then; but he did not, and he picked up the remaining frankfurter, stuffed it into his mouth, and chewed away, but not as if he enjoyed its taste.

Mr. Ellery Queen was looking at the four people before him with a puzzled, worried expression. Then he caught Miss Paula Paris's amused glance and blushed angrily.

The groundkeepers had just left the field and the senior umpire was dusting off the plate to the roar of the crowd when Lotus Verne, who thought a double play was something by Eugene O'Neill, flashed a strange look at Big Bill Tree.

“Bill! Don't you feel well?”

The big ex-pitcher, a sickly blue beneath his tanned skin, put his hand to his eyes and shook his head as if to clear it.

“It's the hot dog,” snapped Lotus. “No more for you!”

Tree blinked and began to say something, but just then Carl Hubbell completed his warming-up, Crosetti marched to the plate, Harry Danning tossed the ball to his second-baseman, who flipped it to Hubbell and trotted back to his position yipping like a terrier.

The voice of the crowd exploded in one ear-splitting burst. And then silence.