“Who’s wanted to murder Hill and Priam from the start?”
“Who?”
“Yes, who’s had that double motive throughout the case?”
Keats sat up gripping the arms of his chair. He looked at Alfred Wallace in a sickly way. “You’re kidding,” he said feebly. “This whole thing is a rib.”
“No rib, Keats,” said Ellery. “The question answers itself. The only one who had motive to kill both Hill and Priam was Charles Adam. Ditto Wallace? Then why look for two? Things equal to the same thing are equal to each other. Wallace is Adam. Refill now?”
Keats swallowed.
Wallace got up and amiably did the honors, Keats watching as if he half-expected to catch the tall man slipping a white powder into the glass. He drank, and afterward gazed glumly into the brown liquid.
“I’m not being specially obtuse,” Keats said finally. “I’m just trying to wriggle out of this logic of yours. Let’s forget logic. You say that proves this smoothie is Charles Adam. How about coincidence? Of all the millions of nose-wipers who could have been Priam’s man Friday, it turns out to be the one man in the universe who wanted to kill him. Too neat, Queen, not to say gaudy.”
“Why do you call it coincidence? There was nothing coincidental about Charles Adam’s becoming Priam’s wet nurse. Adam planned it that way.
“For twenty-five years he looked for Priam and Hill. One day he found them. Result: He became Priam’s secretary-nurse-companion... not as Adam, of course, but as a specially created character whom he christened Alfred Wallace. My guess is that Adam had more than a little to do with the sudden resignations of several of his predecessors in the job, but it remains a guess ― Wallace, quite reasonably, is close-mouthed on the subject. My guess is also that he’s been around Los Angeles far longer than the amnesic trail to Las Vegas indicated. Maybe it’s been years ― eh, Wallace?”