The Four Johns by Ellery Queen Page B

Johns. Let’s face facts.”
    â€œAs many as you like. I am without sensitivity.”
    â€œOur ‘John,’ now. Suppose he’s married. Or has some other reason for wanting to keep his affair with Mary secret.”
    John Viviano stopped in his tracks. “So?”
    â€œSo, when I come around asking questions about Mary, he denies everything.”
    The photographer said in an ugly voice, “So?”
    â€œYou won’t be offended if I ask where you were last Friday evening?”
    â€œI will not be offended, no. But I will decline to answer.”
    â€œI only want to eliminate the name John Viviano from my list,” Mervyn said humbly.
    â€œYour solicitude frightens me. These other Johns—who are they?”
    â€œJohn Boce, John Thompson, John Pilgrim.”
    â€œYou have eliminated them?”
    â€œNot yet.”
    Viviano showed his teeth in a wolfish grin. “You’re an imbecile, Gray. Whoever Mary went off with, he would not be here, would he? Hence why ask me about Friday night?”
    â€œI’d still like to know.”
    The grin practically slavered. “My friend, I cannot tell you. Delicacy forbids. We are two red-blooded Americans. If I suggest that Friday night I enjoyed the company of a beautiful woman—not Mary—you will understand?”
    â€œCan you give me her name?”
    â€œWhat do you take me for?” asked the photographer loftily.
    Mervyn bade John Viviano farewell.
    He drove slowly back across the bridge to Berkeley. At a San Pablo Avenue drive-in he ordered a cheeseburger, and gloomily chewed it and the events of the day. They added up to zero. Evasions from John Boce, polite obstinacy from John Thompson, mock-gallantry from John Viviano. Leaving John Pilgrim.
    Recalling the empty wine bottles in Pilgrim’s cottage, Mervyn crossed the street to a liquor store and bought a bottle of cheap sherry. Then he drove back to 1909½-A Milton Street.
    There was a battered Lambretta motorcycle parked outside, and he could hear guitar chords in a plaintive random progression. He was in luck. Mervyn knocked, and the door opened.
    â€œJohn Pilgrim?” Mervyn said eagerly.
    â€œI’m Pilgrim. Yes?” John Pilgrim was a big, lean, lithe young man with a formidable face, broken-nosed and jut-jawed and intent as an animal’s. His skin was sallow and there was a little gray in his short black bristly hair. He wore coffee-colored corduroys, much stained, a shirt that had once been maroon, and scuffed black moccasins. While Mervyn was ready to concede him a certain virile magnetism, he found it hard to understand Mary Hazelwood’s interest.
    â€œI’m Mervyn Gray. Friend of Mary Hazelwood’s?”
    â€œAre you the guy who telephoned the other night?” Pilgrim growled.
    â€œWhich other night?”
    â€œSaturday. Around twelve.”
    Mervyn remembered; John Boce had called Pilgrim from Oleg Malinski’s. “That was somebody else.”
    â€œThis sudden popularity,” Pilgrim said, still growling. “Why?”
    Mervyn was suddenly tired and disgusted. But he managed to say patiently, “Mary took off for parts unknown Friday night with a fellow named John. There was some speculation it might have been you.”
    The intent eyes looked Mervyn over, apparently decided he was harmless. “That’s one speculation you can kiss good-bye.”
    â€œI just wanted to make sure,” Mervyn said. He glanced down at his paper sack. “Say, I’ve got a bottle of sherry here. Do you imbibe?”
    Pilgrim said promptly, “Come on in.”
    Mervyn followed him into the living room. On the studio couch sat a young woman, with Mother Earth hips and a narrow waist; she wore her hair in bangs. She glanced at Mervyn once, then bent over her guitar. The chords resumed sadly.
    John Pilgrim fetched two glasses from the kitchen; he paid no attention to the woman guitarist. Mervyn