Queen’s Bureau of Investigation by Ellery Queen

who it had been.”
    â€œHow did he break your hip?” asked Ellery.
    â€œI broke it going after him.” The young officer spat out another pip. “Del walked into the house quite a while after I got Mr. Wheeler home and was fixing his head. The kid was sort of scratched up and his clothes were full of bits of twig and thorn. He said he’d been tramping through the woods. I told him what happened, showed him his hanky, and said I’d have to pull him in. Darned if he didn’t take off!—jumped clean through a window. I chased him along the edge of that ravine behind the Wheeler house, and that’s how I came to bust my hip. Tripped over a root and fell smack into the ravine. It’s a wonder I didn’t break my back.… It was Del packed me out of there. Seems he saw me tumble in and decided to turn Boy Scout.”
    Young Jorking scowled at his mummified left foot and flung the apple core at it. “Ah, it’s a mixed-up kind of case, Mr. Queen. I wish I didn’t have to testify.”
    So then Ellery went over to police headquarters and sat down in Chief Dakin’s swivel chair near the picture of J. Edgar Hoover, and he said, “Mind if I mull over this for a while, old pal?”
    â€œMull away,” grunted Dakin. The chief stood at his window studying State Street.
    Finally Ellery said, “My muller seems out of order. Did you consider any other possibilities, Dakin?”
    â€œLike fury,” said the chief of police, not unkindly. “But who would you have me pin it on? The only other ones who knew about that switch in payroll days were Wheeler himself, Mamie, Wolfert Van Horn, and Olin Keckley.
    â€œWolf Van Horn might have done it, sure, if there were a million or two involved. But I can’t see him risking the Pen at his age for a measly fifteen thousand—not with all the money he’s got. Keckley? A man like Olin might help himself from the till under certain circumstances, but armed robbery? masks? hitting folks over the head? jumping into bushes?” The chief shook his head. “Not Olin. He’d faint dead away first.”
    â€œThen one of them blabbed!”
    â€œCould be. Only they all say they didn’t.”
    â€œDamn! I’d like to get that boy off.” Ellery gnawed a knuckle. “About the payroll, Dakin. You never found any part of it, hm?”
    â€œNary a dime.”
    â€œWhere’d you look?”
    â€œWe searched the Wheeler house and grounds, and just about every other place in and out of town young Del’s known to hang around. He’s got it hid away somewhere, of course. Probably hid it right after the holdup.”
    â€œDid you search the woods?”
    â€œNear the scene, on the theory that the robber might have dropped it when Jorking chased him, or hid it as part of a plan? Yep,” said Chief Dakin, “we searched those woods east of the road with a fine-tooth comb, Mr. Queen.”
    â€œJust east of the road?”
    Dakin stared. “That’s the direction the robber took when he lit out.”
    â€œBut why not west, too? He might have doubled back across the road somewhere out of Jeep’s view!”
    Dakin shook his head. “You’re wasting your time, Mr. Queen. Supposing you even found the money. That’d be fine for Anse Wheeler, but how would it help get young Del off?”
    â€œIt’s a loose end,” said Ellery irritably. “You never know how a loose end ties in, Dakin. And anyway, I’ve covered everything else. Come on, you’re going to search with me.”
    They found the stolen Wheeler payroll in the woods not fifty yards west of the Ridge Road, on a due line from the spot where Anse Wheeler had been held up the preceding September.
    Chief Dakin was chagrined. “I feel like a dummy!”
    â€œNeedn’t,” said Ellery, intent, on his knees. “Last fall these woods were in full foliage, and to have