Read Online Queens Full by Ellery Queen - Free Book Online Page B

about to step onto the ladder from the landing when I heard Foster’s dressing-room door open below, and … I saw him .”
    â€œThe murderer?” Roger cried.
    Joan nodded, shuddering. “I saw him sneak out … and away.”
    â€œDid you recognize him?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œBut my God, Joan, why didn’t you tell Newby?”
    â€œBecause he’d accuse me of making it up. At that time the chief was sure I’d done it.”
    â€œBut now he knows you didn’t!”
    â€œNow I’m just plain scared, Roger.”
    â€œThat Benedict’s killer will come after you? He’s not getting the chance!” Roger cupped her chin fiercely. “You’re ending this nightmare right now, young lady. Let me get out of these work clothes, and then you’re going outside to tell Newby who murdered Benedict—and the more reporters hear it the better. Don’t move from here, Joanie. I’m only going as far as the prop room—I’ll be right back!”
    The darkness swallowed him. His rapid footsteps died away.
    Joan found herself alone on the stage.
    She was perched stiff-backed on the edge of the big Spanish chair at the base of the light cone formed by the spot. There was no other light anywhere. The dark surrounded and held her fast, like walls.
    The dark and the silence. The silence that had reassured her before now made her uneasy.
    Joan began to move her head. They were small, jerky movements. She kept probing here and there with furtive glances, over her shoulder, toward the invisible wings, out into the blackness crouching beyond the dead footlights.
    â€œRodge?” she called.
    The quaver of her own voice only brought the silence closer.
    â€œ Roger? ”
    Joan curled up in the chair suddenly, shut her eyes tight.
    And as if drawn to the place of her imprisonment by her fear, a bulky blob of something detached itself from the murky upstage formlessness and crept toward the light.
    It began to take stealthy shape.
    The shape of a man.
    Of a man with something gripped at chest level.
    A knife.
    â€œ Now! ” Ellery’s roar dropped from the catwalk far over the stage like a bomb.
    Quick as Chief Newby and his men were, Roger was quicker. He hurtled out of the wings and launched himself at the man with the knife like a swimmer at the start of a race. He hit the man at the knees and the man went over with a crash that rattled the stage. The knife went skittering off somewhere. The man kicked out viciously, and Roger fell on him and there was a sickening crack! and the man screamed, once. Then he was still.
    As soon as he could, Chief Newby hurried to the set chair. “That was as good an act as Broadway ever saw! And it took real guts, Miss Truslow.” He bent over the chair, puzzled. “Miss Truslow?”
    But Miss Truslow was no longer acting. Miss Truslow had peacefully passed out.

ACT III. Scene 4.
    One of the waitresses in the Hollis private dining room was clearing the table as the other poured their coffee.
    â€œI hope you didn’t mind my choice of menu, Joan,” Ellery was saying.
    Under the cloth her fingers were interwoven with Roger’s. “How could I mind such a lovely steak?”
    â€œI was commemorating the steak knife he lifted from the Hollis in your honor.”
    â€œIn case I forgot?” Joan laughed. “That was the longest dream of my life, Ellery. But I’m awake now, and that’s even lovelier.”
    â€œQueen, where’s the dessert you promised?” Chief Newby asked. “I’ve got a lot to do at headquarters.”
    â€œNo dessert for me,” Joan said dreamily.
    â€œLikewise,” Roger said likewise.
    â€œYou don’t eat this dessert,” the chief explained, “you listen to it. Anyway, I’m listening.”
    â€œWell, it goes like this,” Ellery began. “I kept urging Benedict, as he was dying, to tell me who stabbed him.