Wallace shrugged. “All right. But you’ll bear witness, Lieutenant Keats, that I’ve tried my best to shield the lady in the case.” He raised his eyes suddenly to Ellery and Ellery saw the smile in them, a wintry shimmer. “Mr. Queen, I have the great good luck to share my employer’s wife’s bed. As the spirit moves. And the flesh being weak, and Mrs. Priam being the most attractive piece I’ve yet seen in this glorious state, I must admit that the spirit moves several times a week and has been doing so for about a year. Does that answer your question?”
“Just a minute, Wallace,” Ellery heard Keats say.
And Keats was standing before him, between him and Wallace. Keats was saying in a rapid whisper, “Queen, look, let me take it from here on in. Why don’t you get out of here?”
“Why should I?” Ellery said clearly.
Keats did not move. But then he straightened up and stepped aside.
“You’re lying, of course,” Ellery said to Wallace. “You’re counting on the fact that no decent man could ask a decent woman a question like that, and so your lie won’t be exposed. I don’t know what slimy purpose your lie serves, but I’m going to step on it right now. Keats, hand me that phone.”
And all the time he was speaking Ellery knew it was true. He had known it was true the instant the words left Wallace’s mouth. The story of the amnesia was true only so far as the superficial facts went; Wallace had prepared a blind alley for himself, using the Las Vegas police and a mediocre doctor to seal up the dead end. But this was all true. He knew it was all true and he could have throttled the man who sat halfway across the room smiling that iced smile.
“I don’t see that that would accomplish anything,” Keats was saying. “She’d only deny it. It wouldn’t prove a thing.”
“He’s lying, Keats.”
Wallace said with delicate mockery, “I’m happy to hear you take that attitude, Mr. Queen. Of course. I’m lying. May I go, Lieutenant?”