Wife or Death

by Ellery Queen

  He laughed, and Corinne was infected by it and followed suit, and just then the waitress came up with the tray, so the crisis passed.

  But it flared up again as they were leaving. Denton could feel the two gossips' eyes on his back as he went to the cashier's counter. The feeling was still there when he joined Corinne at the door. He turned around abruptly.

  Stout Ellen Wright, facing his way, was gobbling them up. Olive Haber, the skinny nurse, opposite the Wright woman, was slued all the way around and leaning out of the booth for an unobstructed view. People at nearby tables were beginning to look, too, their attention caught by the pair's curiosity.

  Denton deliberately took Corinne's arm and, holding her close, walked her out of the restaurant. On the sidewalk he released her and chuckled, "I'm sorry, Corinne. I just couldn't resist it."

  "I wish you had," she said slowly. "That wasn't very kind, Jim. Now they'll be sure we're making a fool of George."

  "Oh, come off it," Denton said. "Who's going to believe those two?"

  "Lots of people."

  "I am sorry," he said contritely. "Anyway, if I'm going to be an adulterer, I can't think of a nicer hay-partner than you."

  "Frankly, I'll take Tony Curtis," Corinne retorted. "Jim, I'm going to drop in on George. When do you have to be back?"

  "Ten-fifteen minutes. I'll drop in with you."

  There was no one in the hardware store but George Guest. He was seated on a stool behind the counter munching away.

  "Hi," he said cheerfully. "Say, honey, this chicken hits the spot. I think I'll have you pack a box lunch for me every day."

  "George," Corrine said. "I just had a nasty experience. I had a cup of coffee with Jim while he ate his lunch at Jordan's—"

  "I know what you mean, baby. I have to drink coffee across from that pan of his practically every afternoon."

  "George, I'm serious! Ellen Wright and Olive Haber—"

  Her husband made a face. "Please, Corinne. I'm eating."

  "They kept staring at us and whispering."

  George looked puzzled. "About what?"

  "Jim and me. Remember what I told you about Julian Overton's walking in on us in the men's locker room?"

  "Yeah," George said, glaring at Denton. "I've been meaning to talk to you about that, Jim. When you make advances to my wife, please use a little discretion. I don't want her to get the reputation of hanging around men's locker rooms. ■Wasn't the women's locker room available?"

  Denton grinned at him. "Corinne picked it. Seemed to know her way around as well as I did."

  "Will both of you please be serious?" Corinne cried. "You know what an old woman Julian is. And Ellen and Olive have smeared a lot of people in this town."

  "Aw, you're imagining things, honey," George said. "Anyway, who cares what those old hags say?"

  "I do, for one. I don't want to have dirt thrown at me."

  "What do you suggest?" Denton jeered. "That I put a full-page ad in the Clarion announcing that rumors of the affair between me and Mrs. George Guest are grossly exaggerated?"

  "You have a gift for making serious things look silly, Jim," snapped Corinne. "I think it's important."

  "All right. Then we'll stop speaking when we meet on the street."

  "Ill be damned if you will," George said, not lightly.

  Corinne giggled. "That would be worse! Ellen and Olive would run around town saying we'd had a lovers' quarrel."

  George slammed his lunch box shut. "Crisis over, Jim. The old gal's got her funnybone back."

  "Good," Denton said. "Then I can go back to my galleys, Amos starts sulking if I don't return on the dot of noon."

  At the office he made a resolution. His gag at Jordan's had been childish, even dangerous. Corinne was right. He knew of at least two marriages that had been wrecked by the shark's teeth of Ellen Wright and Olive Haber. He was too fond of George and Corinne Guest to endanger their happiness. And once the news came out that he and Angel had split up, any gossip linking him to Corinne would—to use a word he loathed—proliferate.

  He would simply have to stop being seen in public alone with Corinne.

  8

  On Friday afternoon Jim Denton had his usual cup of coffee with George Guest at Jordan's. The hardware man seemed uncharacteristically subdued and preoccupied.

  "Something eating you?" Denton asked idly.

  George looked startled for a moment, then put down his cup. "I always was a lousy actor. I wasn't going to say anything, Jim, but . .. Hell, I guess you ought to know. There's a story going around town—"

  "About Corinne and me? I thought we had that one licked."

  George shook his head. "If that's making the rounds, it's bypassed me. This is worse, Jim."

  Denton's brows went up. "What's worse?"

  "You know Maury Hefner?"

  "Sure. We ran a piece about him this week. He's in the hospital for a capon operation. What about old Maury?"

  "Well, you know he goes to our church, I'm on the sick committee, and I went to visit him last night." George hesitated.

  "So? Come on, George, spit it out! What is it?"

  "Well, you know how a hospital is," George mumbled. "A rumor spreads like a brushfire."

  "I know how our hospital is," Denton said dryly, "with Olive Haber a floor nurse there. What's she saying now?"

  "Well.., it's about Angel."

  "Angel." Denton stared. "What about Angel?"

  "Somebody—I suppose it was the Haber witch—started a rumor that Angel isn't really away visiting her parents."

  Denton deliberately finished his coffee before he said, "And Where's she supposed to be?"

  George squirmed. "A few big-mouths are yapping that the police ought to be checking her whereabouts." He added quickly, "Not Maury. The old man just told me what he heard. As a matter of fact, he was steaming mad. He thinks a lot of you."

  "Good for him." Denton laughed, but the laugh was bitter. "So they're saying I buried Angel in the cellar, eh?"

  "Nothing like that, Jim!" George was red in the face now. "I mean—well, anyway, they'll stop running off at the mouth when Angel gets back. When do you expect her?"

  Denton was silent. Then he said, "George, she didn't really go to visit her parents. She isn't coming back." "Wow," said George softly. "Jim, where is she?" "I don't know where the hell she is. She ran off with some guy."

  It was George's turn to be silent. Finally he said, "I don't know what to say, Jim."

  "Congratulate me," Denton laughed. "I suppose I shouldn't have put it out that she was visiting pa and ma, but—Well, I don't know, George, I've never liked to air my personal affairs—even to you, and you're the closest friend I have—and it seemed a good way to keep the talk down till Angel let me know where she was and what her plans are. It happened some time during the night after we got home from the Wyatts' party. She left me a 'Dear Jim' note and took off."

  George gulped the rest of his coffee down. "You know who the man is?"

  "Nope. Do you?"

  "Me?" George spluttered. "How would I know?"

  "Cut the coy act, George. Everybody in Ridgemore knows what a chaser Angel is. Even though the husband's supposed to be the last to know, I kept pretty well up to date. I must have slipped on this last one. Can you fill me in?"

  "Well—" George looked as if he were going to be sick. "Well, of course I've heard gossip from time to time about Angel, but I never paid any attention to it—"

  "Name names," Denton said shortly.

  "Jim, I'd rather not. Look, this is as embarrassing as hell—"

  "It's embarrassing to me, too. But less embarrassing than having people think I'm a wife-murderer! I suppose you knew of her affair with Arnold Long?"

  "There was some talk at the time," George admitted.

  "And Ralph Crosby?"

  "Yes . . ."

  "That's where I lost track," Denton said grimly. "If I knew who replaced Crosby, maybe I could locate her and stop the rumors. Do you know who the
incumbent is?"

  George lit a cigaret with a rather shaky hand. "At the Hallowe'en Ball there was some whispering about Angel's throwing Crosby over. The general conclusion was that some other guy pushed him aside. But nobody seemed to know who."

  Denton looked his friend in the eye. "But you do, George?"

  "I thought I knew who the new man was, but I'm sure now I was mistaken."

  "Who is here?

  "I'd rather not mention his name, Jim." George scowled. "Look, I may as well tell you the story. About midnight on the night of the ball, I went outside to my car to get some cigarets from the glove compartment. And I saw Angel and this guy necking in the back seat of a car on the lot. That's about it."

  Denton regarded his friend moodily. "Why won't you give me his name, George?"

  "Because he can't be the man, I tell you! Hell, Jim, I never even mentioned it to Corinne. If I thought it would help you, I'd tell you in a shot. But this fellow couldn't have eloped with Angel. He's still in Ridgemore."

  Denton spent an uneventful weekend, and the first two days of the following week were equally without fireworks. On Wednesday afternoon, however, ten days after Angel's departure, he got home at 4 o'clock to find Chief August Spile waiting for him on the front porch.

  Ridgemore's chief of police was Jim Denton's age; they had been high school classmates. He looked ten years older. A big man, he had let himself grow to fat; his enormous belly jiggled when he moved, and the back of his neck looked like a roll of liverwurst. His face was a blown-up red balloon; he was three-quarters naked-skulled; and he had heavy-lidded little eyes that made people unacquainted with him think of him as slow-witted, if not stupid. Chief August Spile was neither. He was a shrewd, able and honest officer who would have arrested his own grandmother if the facts warranted.

  "Hi, Augie," Denton said. Spile's boyhood friends called him Augie; friends of more recent vintage knew him as Gus. "What's up?"

  "Jim." Chief Spile had a soft, almost womanish voice. It fooled a lot of people. Now it held a curiously mixed note of reluctance and stubbornness.'" Got to talk to you."

  Here it comes, thought Denton. "All right, Augie," he said pleasantly, and he unlocked the front door and waved the police chief in. He led the way into his living room. "Beer? Maybe a shot?"

  "No, thanks." Spile stood still, looking around.

  "Well, at least take a load off your feet." It was an old joke between them, but this time the chief did not react. He merely nodded and lowered himself ponderously into the heaviest chair in the room. Denton sat down on the sofa and said, "Well?"

  "Dropped by to ask about your wife, Jim," Spile said.

  "She's not here." Denton did not pretend surprise at the question.

  "I know she ain't. That's why I'm asking. Where is she?"

  "Don't you read the Clarion, Augie?" Poor Augie, Denton thought. May as well make him sweat a little—and wondered why he wanted to.

  Spile took out a huge handkerchief and ran it over his bald head. "You wrote she's visiting her folks, Mr. and Mrs. Stanislaus Koblowski, in Titusville, Pennsylvania. You also told it around town. Jim, she ain't."

  "She ain't?" Denton grinned.

  "Jim, this ain't a joke. Some bad rumors in town. The D.A.'s asked me to check."

  "He did, did he?" Denton said, suddenly grim. "Are you sure our D.A, didn't start them?"

  The chief began to blink. "I don't get you."

  "Oh, come off it, Augie. You know Ralph Crosby's got such a yen for Angel he makes a drunken slob of himself every time he spots her."

  "Well, now," Spile said, still blinking. "Any gossip I hear's got no bearing on the matter at hand. Jim, I don't like asking you these questions—"

  Denton softened, finding no pleasure in his game. "Sure you don't, Augie. I know the position you're in. You've got to follow up any aberration of the D.A.'s. How about laying it on the line?"

  August Spile sighed with relief. "I phoned the Titusville police this morning. They phoned back a while ago. Your wife ain't visiting her parents, and they ain't expecting her. Matter of fact, they ain't seen her in years. Haven't even had a letter in six months."

  Denton threw up his hands. "Okay, Augie. As the lawyers say, I'll stipulate that she isn't visiting her parents."

  "Did a little more checking, too, Jim. Unless you drive, you know the only way to get out of this town is by bus or one of Mac's taxis—the nearest rail stop being twenty miles away and the nearest airport 'most a hundred. Job Troy down at the depot swears she never bought a bus ticket. And according to Mac, he's got no record that any of his cabs drove her anywhere. He says he certainly didn't."

  "You don't have to spin out your case like some cop on TV," Denton said. "I put that social note in the paper to save myself some grief and buy some time. My wife ran off with another man."

  The chiefs heavy lids opened slightly. "Who?"

  "I don't know, Augie. She left a note saying she was leaving me, packed a suitcase and took off in the middle of the night of the Hallowe'en Ball. I'd guess somewhere around four A.M. I'm not sure, because I was asleep."

  "Her getting out of bed, dressing, packing a suitcase didn't wake you?"

  "We've been sleeping in separate rooms for a long, long time, my friend," Denton said gently.

  "Oh." The big man was silent. "Can I see that note, Jim?"

  "Sure thing." Denton jumped up.

  He paused.

  "Wait a minute," he said slowly. "She left the note on her pillow. After I read it I tossed it into the wastebasket beside the vanity. It must have been burned. The cleaning woman I hired empties the baskets into the trash burner."

  "Oh," Chief Spile said again, but this time the vowel sounded different—it was softer, longer-drawn out. "Can you remember what it said, Jim?" He added, "Exactly?"

  "Sure I can," Denton said irritably. " 'Dear James, I'm leaving you and Ridgemore forever—' no, not forever, for good '—and please don't try to find me. I'll write to let you know where to send the rest of my things.' And her name, 'Angel.' That was it, Augie. Short and sour."

  The chief said heavily, "Nothing there about another man."

  "That was a matter of deduction. You see, I overheard her making plans to elope with some s.o.b.—oh, hell," Denton said disgustedly, "I suppose I'd better start from the beginning."

  He related what had occurred on the night of the ball, including the comments about Angel and Ralph Crosby he had happened to overhear Ellen Wright and Olive Haber exchanging, the snatch of conversation he had heard between Angel and the unknown man in the dark, during the power failure, at the Wyatts' party afterward, his trouble with Crosby before they left, and his discussion with Angel about a divorce on their drive home.

  Chief Spile pursed his sausage-like lips. "And you have no idea at all, Jim, who this man might be?"

  "Not the slightest. I knew from the conversation in the dark that it had to be some man at the Wyatts' that night, but I checked every man who was there, and not one of them was missing from town. Of course, it's always possible he drove her to a train or bus in some other town, then drove back to Ridgemore, intending to join her later."

  "Could be." Spile heaved himself to his feet. "Well, let's mark time for a while, Jim, and see if you hear from her. You'll let me know the minute you do?"

  "Of course."

  "Meantime I’ll just sit on what you told me. You don't have to worry about its getting spread all over town." "Thanks, Augie."

  After the police chief left, Denton poured himself an over-generous drink and sat down in his living room with the glass between his hands and his elbows resting on his knees. The whole thing was ridiculous. Augie Spile questioning him like that! Angel wasn't the first woman who'd walked out on her husband in the middle of the night. Anyone would think he'd murdered her or something. Damn Crosby and his frustrated libido! There was something sick about the man. Who was the injured party, anyway?

  What I ought to do, Denton thought savagely, is haul that tr
ouble-making horse's ass out of his office and punch his vindictive head off.

  Instead, he gulped down the drink and reached for another.

  Denton watched the week go by with growing uneasiness. There was no word from Angel. On Thursday Augie Spile called him up to ask if he had heard from her; when Denton told the chief that he had not, Spile hung up with a grunt.

  On Friday the nightmare began.

  Denton was just locking the Clarion office a few minutes after three when Chief Spile came out of the courthouse across the square and yelled, "Hey!" Denton waited as Spile jiggled his belly up to him. The chief was puffing, and he looked sad and angry.

  "Got a few minutes?"

  "I usually meet George Guest around this time for coffee, Augie. What's up?"

  "You'll have to tell him you won't be able to make it today. It's on the way."

  "On the way?"

  "To the hospital."

  "What's at the hospital?" Denton drew his brews together.

  "You coming?"

  He stared at his old friend. For now it occurred to him that Augie Spile had not once used his name. Something serious had happened. Something ... At this point Denton shut his mind down tight.

  He stopped in at the hardware store to tell a staring George Guest that coffee was out for the day, and accompanied the police chief in total silence the one long block to the county hospital.

  District Attorney Crosby was waiting for them in the lobby. He ignored Denton. "You tell him anything, Chief?"

  "Nope."

  'Tell me what?" asked Denton slowly.

  The district attorney turned to him then.

  Denton had not laid eyes on the man since the night of the Wyatts' party. His first thought was that Crosby was still brooding over the crack on the jaw; the yellow-green bruise was still visible. But then he changed his mind. Crosby's fleshy face wore a queerly withered look, as if someone had held it forcibly down in a pan of astringent; the lines at the corners of his rather feminine mouth might have been slashed there by a scalpel.

  It was not sullen resentment at all. It was grief.

  Grief?

  Crosby cleared his throat—almost, Denton thought wildly, as if he were preparing to approach the bench. "We think," he said in an acid-bitter voice, "we've found your wife."