Read Online Kiss and Kill by Ellery Queen - Free Book Online

up her milk.
    â€œGood morning,” said Barney, and made for her.
    The woman straightened with a start. She stood nervously poking at her tousled hair and smoothing her wrinkled housecoat.
    â€œCould you tell me if Mr. Aiken had visitors last night?” Barney asked her. He was smiling.
    She looked relieved. “I don’t think so. I heard his basement machinery running after midnight. He wouldn’t be working down there if he had company.”
    No, thought Barney, he wasn’t working. Someone needed the noise of the machinery to drown out Aiken’s screams.
    The woman was starting inside. Barney asked smoothly: “Has anyone come during the last few days? A woman, for example, in a cream-colored Lincoln convertible?”
    Her unroughed mouth tightened and Barney knew he had lost her.
    â€œWe don’t pry into our neighbors’ business,” she said. “Excuse me ,” and she went into her house.
    On the way out of town Barney stopped at a pay phone and called the police to report that there was a dead man at Rodney Aiken’s address. He hung up before they could ask questions; he could not afford to be detained by dead bodies while there was still a live one to be found.
    â€œAnd then there were two,” Ed said bitterly as they drove south. “Liz and Claire English. The others are out of the way.”
    â€œAnd if Claire English was trying to warn the victims, she’s out of a job. Let’s go back and see if she’s come home to roost.”
    A police car was parked outside the St. Louis photographic studio. Barney and Ed walked by without turning their heads. In a drugstore phone booth a block away, Barney dialed the woman’s apartment. A male voice answered: “Hello.”
    â€œIs Claire there?”
    â€œWho’s calling?”
    A friend.”
    â€œYou’ll have to hang on, friend. I’ll get her.”
    Barney left the drugstore quickly.
    â€œThe cops have got both places staked out,” he told Ed. “The guy tried to hold me while he traced the call.”
    â€œThen the police must have her.”
    â€œI’m not sure of that. Let’s see what our friendly newspaper says.”
    The chief news of the Kiddoo murder was that there was no news. A headline proclaimed: “NO LEADS IN MYSTERY SLAYING.” According to the rehash, the photographer’s assistant, Arthur, had apparently stuck to the story Barney had given him—that he had come to check the studio and had found the body of the fat man. No mention was made of Barney and Ed; nor was there any indication that the St. Louis police had connected Kiddoo’s killing with the murders in Colorado, Indianapolis, or Detroit. Barney clucked with relief at that; nothing would endanger Liz more than a hoopla of a nationwide manhunt. The last line of the story gave him the information he was after: “Miss Claire English, owner of the studio, is still missing.”
    He folded the paper thoughtfully. “I wonder why the English babe is so shy of the cops. She could have called them for help in Colorado, Indianapolis, Chicago …”
    â€œMaybe she’s on the other side,” said Ed.
    â€œUnlikely, with the tour driver dumped in her studio. Now, of course, she can’t show her face—” He snapped his fingers suddenly. “You know what I’d do in her shoes?”
    â€œCrawl in a hole.”
    â€œYes. But I’d stick my head out once in a while to see if the coast is clear. Let’s see if we can get a room facing her studio.”
    They found a cheap hotel whose entrance was a flight of stairs between a bookstore and a restaurant. Barney asked for a room facing the street. The clerk said: “Give you three-twelve. Nope. Rented that one last night. I can let you have a third-floor rear. Good view—better than the front, in fact.”
    Barney was about to move on, but the open register on the desk caught his