Read Online Where Is Bianca? by Ellery Queen - Free Book Online Page A

meeting the other—the new—man. Travers dropped in at the apartment later that night. He’d been drinking, and he acted—well—ugly. He said he ought to find Noreen and kill her, he’d be doing the world a favor. I was scared to death.”
    â€œBecause of his threat?”
    â€œWell, of course! Wouldn’t anyone be?”
    â€œThen why didn’t you report Noreen’s failure to come home? I mean right away?”
    â€œYou misunderstand me. I wasn’t scared that Travers would carry out his threat against Noreen . He always says things like that. I was afraid he’d start beating up on me . He’s quite capable of it.”
    Corrigan was getting tired of Peggy Simpson’s egocentricity. “When did you get alarmed by her faliure to show up?”
    â€œThe third day. She’d never gone off so long without at least phoning me to do something or other for her. I looked for Travers and found him and asked if he’d seen her. He looked at me as if I were a bug.”
    â€œDid he say he’d seen her?”
    â€œHe didn’t say anything. He just got up and walked out of the bar.”
    â€œWhat did you do then, Miss Simpson?”
    â€œI decided to hunt up Frances Weatherly and ask her. It wasn’t anything I looked forward to. Fran always makes me feel stupid and sort of—you know—Middle West.”
    â€œMiss Simpson,” Corrigan said. “You sought out Frances Weatherly and you asked her if she’d seen or heard from Noreen. What did she say?”
    It appeared that the playwright had a barn of a studio not far from Peggy Simpson’s apartment in the Village. Peggy had gone there in fear and trembling and had been received graciously for a change. Apparently the Weatherly woman had always regarded Peggy Simpson as “being in Noreen’s camp.”
    â€œNoreen and Miss Weatherly didn’t get along?” Corrigan asked sharply. Peggy Simpson’s reply was that “geniuses clash.” He felt like throwing up his hands. They now had to listen to a rambling analysis of the difference between Frances Weatherly’s temperament and Noreen Gardner’s. It seemed that Frances was artistically demanding and Noreen hated rehearsals. Frances would insist on Noreen’s coming to the Weatherly studio to go over lines and business endlessly, to Noreen’s irritation. According to Frances, “You are a great talent, but you haven’t any more discipline than a runaway express train.” Noreen felt that Fran was simply trying to make her life miserable. And so on and so on.
    â€œBut Noreen and Fran and Proehl made a tremendous combination. If only they’d managed to get Fran’s new play in a Fielding theater uptown, man, would the critics have seen something!”
    Corrigan tried once more to bring the girl back to the business at hand.
    â€œYou haven’t answered my question, Miss Simpson. Had Miss Weatherly seen Noreen? Did she know anything about Noreen’s whereabouts or movements since the last time you saw your roomie?”
    â€œNo,” the girl said. “In fact, at first Fran thought I was bringing her a message from Noreen. This was … let’s see … yesterday. She hadn’t seen Noreen in a week, she said. I explained that Noreen had dropped out of sight. She was very angry. Kept raving about Noreen’s ‘irresponsibility,’ things like that.”
    â€œThis new man Noreen had met,” Corrigan said, “the one who was going to do so much for her in the theater. Did you discuss him?”
    â€œFrances knew no more about him than I did. We both thought that Noreen’s meeting this man is what made her change her attitude toward all of us. Then people began to drop in—Vincent Lessard, Travers Proehl, one or two others—and Fran couldn’t talk any more. Nobody was paying any attention to me, so I slipped away. Went home