Cop Out by Ellery Queen Page A

muttered. “That could figure. If he kept his face covered he might also be careful not to leave his fingerprints around … if he was, say, a housebreaker.”
    â€œIn New Bradford?” Ellen actually smiled. “You’re making like a detective again, Officer. Why would a sneakthief in this town worry about fingerprints?”
    â€œI admit it’s a lot likelier one of them, the way we’ve been figuring. But why gloves? All three of them came here tonight barehanded …”
    Malone looked surprised at the destination of his train of thought. He set the icebag on the floor carefully and slipped off his shoes and put his fingers to his lips and got up, not like an exhausted man now. He went to the door and listened. When he came back he got down on one knee and said in a whisper, “Ellen, you’ve kept telling me it was a man hit you. Why a man?”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œWhy’ve you been saying the one who hit you was a man?”
    Ellen frowned. “I don’t know. His jacket, the pants—”
    â€œThat doesn’t make a man. Not these days. These days you can hardly tell some women and men apart. A woman can put on a pair of slacks and a man-style jacket and with her hair squashed down by that tight stocking you wouldn’t be able to tell, not from the front and while you were falling from a hit on the head. But there’s two things about a woman would be a dead giveaway if they weren’t disguised some way and that’s her hands and feet!
    â€œThat’s why she wore the men’s overshoes on a dry day and men’s gloves. She was taking out insurance in case she was spotted. Remember Hinch saying downstairs he and this Goldie went into town today? Ellen, it’s Goldie who’s doublecrossing the other two. She must have given Hinch the slip in town and come here on her own.
    â€œShe’s the one knocked you out. She lifted that bag, and it’s a cinch she hid it somewhere before she went back to the cabin. It adds up, because she’s been trying like mad to sell Furia that we stole it. Yes, sir. That’s it!”
    Malone was feeling the small triumph. He craved Ellen’s adoration. He wanted her to say, You’ve redeemed yourself in my eyes, my darling, you’re my very own hero, you sure can overcome, I feel safe again.
    But all Ellen said was, “All right, Loney, she’s got it. How does that help us?”
    And of course she’s right.
    Malone got back up and began to pad about. “That’s the problem. What else have we got to work on? Nothing. So we’ve got to make use of it some way. How?”
    â€œThat is the question,” Ellen said. She did not sound anything but beat. Her head sank back against the end of the bed.
    But Malone’s second wind continued to blow. It was something. It was a light where everything before had been black as the inside of the old gravity well out back that hadn’t been used in fifty years and was full of green slime, like Furia must be.
    â€œMaybe if we accuse her of it in front of the other two,” Ellen murmured.
    â€œNo, that wouldn’t work. She’s smart, she’s got Furia around her little finger, he’ll believe anything she says. She mustn’t even suspect we suspect her, Ellen, or she might get Furia to knock us off. I wouldn’t put it past her. Deep down she’s worse than he is.”
    â€œCould we make a deal with her …?”
    â€œWhat have we got to offer? That we’ll tell Furia? Even if it put a doubt in his mind we can’t prove it to him, and she’d talk him out of it. Up to now, Ellen, she’s held him back. She wouldn’t hold him back any more.” Malone looked down at her. “The way it shapes up, we’ll have to somehow find out or figure out where she’s hiding it.”
    â€œYou do that.”
    â€œEllen, we can’t give up.”
    â€œWho’s