He could, of course, get rid of the doctor and go upstairs and knock on her door. There was always a question or two to be asked in a case like this.
He wondered what she would do.
And how she looked at six in the morning.
He played with this thought for some time.
“Ordinarily,” said the doctor, turning and reaching for a towel, “I’d have told you to go to hell. But a doctor with a respectable practice has to be cagey in this town, Mr. Queen, and Laurel started something when she began to talk about murder at Leander Hill’s death. I know your type. Publicity-happy.” He flung the towel at the bowl, picked up the vial and the plastic dish, holding them firmly. “You don’t have to watch me, Mr. Queen. I’m not going to switch containers on you. Where the devil is that detective? I haven’t had any sleep at all tonight.”
“Did anyone ever tell you, Doctor,” said Ellery through his teeth, “that you look like Charles Laughton in The Beachcomber?”
They glared at each other until a car drew up outside and Keats hurried in.
At four o’clock that afternoon Ellery pulled his rented Kaiser up before the Priam house to find Keats’s car already there. The maid with the tic, which was in an active state, showed him into the living room. Keats was standing before the fieldstone fireplace, tapping his teeth with the edge of a sheet of paper. Laurel Hill, Crowe Macgowan, and Delia Priam were seated before him in a student attitude. Their heads swiveled as Ellery came in, and it seemed to him that Laurel was coldly expectant, young Macgowan uneasy, and Delia frightened.
“Sorry, Lieutenant. I had to stop for gas. Is that the lab report?” Keats handed him the paper. Their eyes followed. When Ellery handed the paper back, their eyes went with it.
“Maybe you’d better line it up for these folks, Mr. Queen,” said the detective. “I’ll take it from there.”