“Drink, Mrs. Priam?”
“Delia doesn’t drink,” said Laurel in the same warm, friendly voice. Two jets spurted from her nostrils.
“Thank you, darling. It goes to my head, Mr. Queen.”
And you wouldn’t let anything go to your head, wherefore it stands to reason, thought Ellery, that one way to get at you is to pour a few extra-dry Martinis down that red gullet... He was surprised at himself. A married woman, obviously a lady, and her husband was a cripple. But that wading walk was something to see.
“Laurel was about to leave. The facts interest me, but I’m in Hollywood to do a book...”
The shirring of her blouse rose and fell. He moved off to the picture window, making her turn her head.
“If, however, you have something to contribute, Mrs. Priam...” He suspected there would be no book for some time.
Delia Priam’s story penetrated imperfectly. Ellery found it hard to concentrate. He tended to lose himself in details. The curves of her blouse. The promise of her skirt, which molded her strongly below the waist. Her large, shapely hands rested precisely in the middle of her lap, like compass points. “ Mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs...” Right out of Browning’s Renaissance. She would have brought joy to the dying Bishop of Saint Praxed’s.
“Mr. Queen?”
Ellery said guiltily, “You mean, Mrs. Priam, the same day Leander Hill received the dead dog?”