Inspector Queen’s Own Case Read Free Page A

tried to think of his own wife. But Ellery’s mother had died over thirty years ago. It was like trying to recall the face of a stranger glimpsed for an instant from the other end of a dark corridor.
    Here comes the coffee …
    For a while the old man let the drum and swish of the surf wash over him, as if he were lying on the beach below the house.
    As if he were the beach, being rhythmically cleaned and emptied by the sea.
    What should he do today?
    A few miles from where Richard Queen was lying in the bed swam an island. The island was connected to the Connecticut mainland by a private causeway of handsome concrete. A fieldstone gatehouse with wood trim treated to look like bleached driftwood barred the island end of the causeway. This gatehouse was dressed in creeper ivy and climber roses, and it had a brief skirt of garden hemmed in oyster shells. A driftwood shingle above the door said:
    Nair Island
    PRIVATE PROPERTY
    Restricted
    For the Use of
    Residents & Guests
    ONLY
    Two private policemen in semi-nautical uniforms alternated at the gatehouse in twelve-hour shifts.
    Nair Island had six owners, who shared its two hundred-odd acres in roughly equal holdings. In Taugus, the town on the mainland of which the island was an administrative district, their summer retreat was known—in a sort of forelock-tugging derision—as “Million-Nair” Island.
    The six millionaires were not clubby. Each estate was partitioned from its neighbors by a high, thick fieldstone wall topped with shells and iron spikes. Each owner had his private yacht basin and fenced-off bathing beach. Each treated the road serving the six estates as if it were his alone. Their annual meetings to transact the trifling business of the community, as required by the bylaws of the Nair Island Association, were brusque affairs, almost hostile. The solder that welded the six owners together was not Christian fellowship but exclusion.
    The island was their fortress, and they were mighty people. One was a powerful United States Senator who had gone into politics from high society to protect the American way of life. Another was the octogenarian widow of a railroad magnate. Another was an international banker. A fourth was an aging philanthropist who loved the common people in the mass but could not stand them one by one. His neighbor, commanding the seaward spit of the Island, was a retired Admiral who had married the only daughter of the owner of a vast shipping fleet.
    The sixth was Alton K. Humffrey.
    Inspector Queen came downstairs shaved and dressed for the day in beige slacks, nylon sports shirt, and tan-and-white shoes. He carried his jacket over his arm.
    â€œYou’re so early, Richard.” Beck Pearl was pouring her husband’s coffee. She was in a crisp housedress, white and pink. Abe was in his uniform. “And my, all spiffed up. Did you meet a woman on the beach yesterday?”
    The old man laughed. “The day a woman messes with me.”
    â€œDon’t give me that. And don’t think Abe isn’t worried, leaving me alone in the house every day with an attractive man.”
    â€œAnd don’t think I’m not,” Abe Pearl growled. “Squattez-vous, Dick. Sleep all right?”
    â€œAll right.” He sat down opposite his friend and accepted a cup of coffee from Becky. “Aren’t you up kind of early yourself this morning, Abe?”
    â€œMy summer troubles are starting. There was a brawl during the night—some tanked-up teenagers at a beach party. Want to sit in, Dick, just for ducks?”
    The Inspector shook his head.
    â€œGo on, Richard,” Beck Pearl urged. “You’re bored. Vacations are always that way.”
    He smiled. “Working people take vacations. Not old discards like me.”
    â€œThat’s fine talk! How do you want your eggs this morning?”
    â€œJust this coffee, Becky. Thanks a lot.”
    The Pearls glanced at each other as the old