“I know,” said Keats, showing his teeth without dropping the cigaret, “you wish you were back in New York among the boys in the big league. Just the same, there’s something screwy about Wallace, too. And I thought, Mr. Queen, having so little to cheer you up with today, I’d cut out the fancy stuff and try a smash through.the center of the line. I haven’t talked to Wallace. How about doing it now?”
“You’ve got him here?” exclaimed Ellery.
“Waiting in the next room. Just a polite invitation to come down to the station here and have a chat. He didn’t seem to mind ― said it was his day off anyway. I’ve got one of the boys keeping him from getting bored.”
Ellery pulled a chair into a shadowed corner of the office and snapped, “Produce.”
Alfred Wallace came in with a smile, the immaculate man unaffected by the Fahrenheit woes of lesser mortals. His white hair had a foaming wave to it; he carried a debonair slouch hat; there was a small purple aster in his lapel.
“Mr. Queen,” said Wallace pleasantly. “So you’re the reason Lieutenant Keats has kept me waiting over an hour.”
“I’m afraid so.” Ellery did not rise.
But Keats was polite. “Sorry about that, Mr. Wallace. Here, have this chair... But you can’t always time yourself in a murder investigation.”
“You mean what may be a murder investigation, Lieutenant,” said Wallace, seating himself, crossing his legs, and setting his hat precisely on his knee. “Or has something new come up?”
“Something new could come up, Mr. Wallace, if you’ll answer a few questions.”