The Devil's Cook by Ellery Queen

nitwit, it won’t wash. I don’t even come close to fitting Terry’s prescription. Wrong ingredients entirely. I’m too poor, too runty, too ugly. And incidentally, if I may say so, too smart.”
    â€œHow about Otis? What kind of prescription did he fit?”
    â€œOtis was a joke. Otis was a comedian. All he gave was laughs, and what he got was nothing. Everybody knew the score except Otis. That’s the trouble with these scientific types. They leave their brains in the laboratory. They’d be better off if they were born without glands.”
    â€œWell, you mustn’t call yourself unpleasant names. I won’t have it. No one can deny that you are poor, but you are not runty and ugly.”
    â€œAs another runt, you’re prejudiced. Not that you’re ugly, I hasten to add. On the contrary, you’re lovely and sexy. Would you like to recline?”
    â€œWhat I would like and what I would do are two different things. Behave yourself, Ben. In my opinion, you are just as brainy and glandular as Otis ever was.”
    â€œTrue. My brains, however, are Machiavellian.”
    â€œDamn it, Ben, you have a positive talent for leading me off the point. The point is, Terry’s been gone since Friday, everyone’s worried, and what are you going to do about it?”
    â€œI?” His eyes widened, then narrowed. “Me? Nothing. Why should I? What could I?”
    â€œYou could explain where you’ve been, to start with. Besides, what do you mean by running off without a word to me about it? You know very well I’ve decided to marry you as soon as you get your doctorate and show signs of amounting to something. I won’t have you running all over the place without restraint. Tell me at once where you have been.”
    â€œI respectfully decline to answer on the grounds that anything I say you’ll use to incriminate me.”
    â€œYou mean you won’t tell me?”
    â€œThat’s it.”
    â€œVery well. It’s plain that I can’t help you if you won’t let me. You can explain to the police.”
    â€œThe police!” His voice had sharpened, and his grip tightened on her hand. “What do the police have to do with it?”
    â€œJay and Farley have gone down to headquarters to report Terry missing, and some sort of investigation is bound to be made.”
    â€œWhy did they want to do such an idiotic thing? Well, I have nothing to say to the police. They can damn well let me alone.”
    â€œThey can, but it is doubtful that they will. We will all have to answer their questions.”
    â€œDon’t worry, Fan. I can take care of myself.”
    They sat side by side on the bed. Ben’s grip had relaxed, and her hand was comfortably, in his, at home. She felt alarmingly warm and susceptible, and she had a strong notion that it would be wiser and safer, if less interesting, to devise a distraction. After all, if she was beginning to think along certain lines, it was more than likely that he was already ahead of her.
    â€œHave you had dinner?” she said. “I have some tenderloin left. Would you like some?”
    â€œNo, thanks. I’m not hungry.”
    They continued to sit, undistracted.
    Damn it, she thought, what has become of Jay and Farley? What could be keeping them?

12
    Trouble was keeping them.
    Jay had had little or no experience with police stations, and he was not sure of the protocol in the present case. There was, however, a man in uniform on duty behind a high counter, and it was apparent that he was expected to appeal here if he hoped to proceed at all. He had an idea that there must be a Bureau of Missing Persons somewhere that specialized in finding folk who were lost, strayed, or stolen; the most that would be done at present, he suspected, was the recording of a few statistics, vital and otherwise, and the phony reassurance of some cynical bureaucrat who would assume at once that Terry,