I’ve wanted to chin with you for a long time now. I kept resisting the temptation, feeling stupid. Tonight...” He raised his glass and gulped.
“What’s bothering you?”
“Well... the Priam case. Of course, it’s all over―”
“What about the Priam case?”
Keats made a face. Then he set the glass down with a bang. “Queen, I’ve been over that spiel of yours ― to me at the Hollywood Division, to Priam that night in his room ― it must be a hundred times. I don’t know, I can’t explain it...”
“You mean my solution to the case?”
“It never seems to comp out as pat when I go over it as it did when you...” Keats stopped and rather deliberately turned to look at Alfred Wallace. Wallace looked back politely.
“It’s not necessary for Wallace to leave, Keats,” said Ellery with a grin. “When I said that night at Priam’s that I’d taken Wallace into my confidence, I meant just that. I took him into my confidence completely. He knows everything I know, including the answers to the questions that I take it have been giving you a bad time.”
The detective shook his head and finished what was left in his glass. When Wallace rose to refill it, Keats said, “No more now,” and Wallace sat down again.
“It’s not the kind of thing I can put my mitt on,” said the detective uncomfortably. “No mistakes. I mean mistakes that you can...” He drew on his cigaret for support, started over. “For instance, Queen, a lot of the hoopla you attributed to Priam just doesn’t fit.”