Read Online The Killer Touch by Ellery Queen - Free Book Online

holiday. Not only that, you’ll depress me, and then I’ll drink too much and go on a bawling jag—”
    â€œI’m sorry, Joss, but—”
    â€œBut, nothing. The weather’s bad enough without you catfooting around the islands. What we need is a party.”
    It occurred to Burt that a party might be exactly what he needed to shake out more information. “You’re right, Joss. Get the boys in with their instruments—”
    â€œAnd I’ll broil pigeons, and get some more wine—” She paused. “The Keeners?”
    â€œInvite them, by all means. It won’t be a party if they don’t come.”

FOUR
    Joss managed to produce excellent wine for the dinner, and pigeons braised over the charcoals. She also arranged that Burt set opposite Mrs. Keener, with Rolf opposite Joss. Burt could see her visibly melting under the man’s attention, hypnotically reaching for her glass when Keener filled it.
    Burt devoted his attention to Mrs. Keener, and in the process grew increasingly puzzled. She seemed miserably ill at ease in a dress too small for her. Its décolletage might have been breathtaking had her cleavage not been so grotesquely distorted. Burt half-expected to hear a pop like a champagne cork coming out of a bottle, and to see Mrs. Keener shoot up to the roof. She kept squirming in her chair, plucking at her waist, and plunging a hand inside her dress to make certain adjustments when she thought Burt wasn’t watching. Though she ate only one pigeon, she seldom raised her eyes from her plate. When she did, Burt saw the sparkle of moisture inside her lids. He felt a rising excitement; watery eyes, loss of appetite, itching, all were signs of drug withdrawal. But if she really were an addict, that blew his whole theory to hell. Then he remembered something which restored it; he had delivered fourteen caps to her, and there would have been no reason for her to be deprived.
    When he tried to engage her in conversation, she answered in monosyllables without looking up. Each time she spoke, Rolf would pause in his talk with Joss, stiffen, and relax only when she finished. Finally Burt asked:
    â€œWhere did you work, Mrs. Keener, before you were married?”
    Nobody moved, but Burt could feel the air stretch taut like a balloon about to burst. Rolf pushed back his plate and asked with a half-smile:
    â€œTell me something, Burt. How does it feel to arrest a man?”
    Joss looked annoyed at this abrupt diversion of Rolf’s attention. No doubt, to her it was normal dinner conversation, everybody friendly and on a first-name basis.
    â€œThat depends, Rolf. Thieves, embezzlers, forgers, I just feel relieved. Here’s another man put out of the way before he gets dangerous, one more man stopped short of murder.”
    â€œMurder? You think all crime leads to murder?”
    Burt put his knife on his plate and weighed his words carefully. “Put it this way, Rolf. Murder is insanity. Crime of any kind is a small dose of the same thing.”
    â€œOh, I don’t agree. The profit motive—”
    â€œâ€”is an excuse they give themselves. Show me a financially successful crook, and I’ll show you a man who could have made just as much money in, say, the used-car business. Why did he turn to crime? Social protest. The hell with everybody, he says, I won’t play their stinking game. So he commits a crime and gets away with it. Why don’t they catch me? he wonders. He commits another, then another, getting bolder and bolder until he’s finally caught and tossed in the pen. Then he’s relieved as hell. See, he says to himself, I was right. Everybody’s out to get me.”
    Rolf was smiling. “And if he isn’t caught, I suppose he finally commits murder.”
    Burt shrugged. “That’s the biggest social protest of all.”
    â€œYes.” Rolf pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Interesting to meet a