The Player on the Other Side by Ellery Queen Page A

losing patience. At little things, never the big ones.’
    â€˜Oh?’
    â€˜A door banging somewhere. Mustard on a sandwich when she’d ordered it without mustard — goodness! she never notices what she eats. But how she carried on about that mustard. And then there was that silly card —?’
    A shooting thrill, much like a bolt of lightning, almost lifted the old man out of the chair. ‘Silly card?’ he said. ‘What do you mean, Miss Sullivan?’
    â€˜I saved it.’ Miss Sullivan began opening drawers. ‘It’s here somewhere … Why, she’d just come in and taken the mail out of her bag — she always brings her mail from home to the office — and settled down as usual to go through it. All of a sudden she made a kind of tsst ! —’
    â€˜ Tsst? ’
    â€˜ Tsst! ’ Miss Sullivan corrected him, repeating the exclamation point he had left out. ‘And she hurled the card and envelope to the floor. The floor — Emily! Here it is.’ She handed the plain white envelope to Inspector Queen, who took from it the five-sided white card bearing the H.
    After a while the Inspector looked up. ‘Did Miss York happen to say why this bothered her so much?’
    â€˜Oh, I don’t think it bothered her at all. Not the card . More the nuisance of it, I’m sure. You see, I know her.’ Scanning his face, Miss Sullivan apparently read doubt there. ‘I mean, had it really bothered her — the thing in itself — she’d have called me over to look or made phone calls, or … or any number of things. She threw it like that because it wasn’t important, you see, not because it was.’ She said again, ‘I know her.’
    â€˜Did she discuss this with you at all?’
    â€˜Well, of course I picked it up and said, “What on earth, Emily —?” and she’ — the young smooth one behind the bleached old eyes puckered with remembered hurt — ‘and she was sharp, quite sharp, with me. What she said was, “Let me alone! — please.” And it wasn’t a very big “please,” so I knew she was already sorry for being sharp, that she wasn’t troubled about the card, only annoyed with it.’
    â€˜Then why did you keep it?’ he asked, because he had to.
    â€˜Oh … that’s me all over,’ Miss Sullivan laughed. ‘Always pick up a glove because one day I might find the mate. That card isn’t a thing, Inspector, if you really look at it. It’s a piece of a thing, strikes me. So the other piece must be around somewhere.’
    â€˜You ought to meet my son,’ said the Inspector suddenly, heartily. Then before she could answer he asked, ‘And so Miss York didn’t even attempt to guess what this might be?’
    â€˜I mentioned it at lunch,’ she said, her voice infused with the shyness she had felt all the time, ‘and all she said was, “Oh, it’s a ridiculous advertising teaser,” and I could see she didn’t want to talk about it. It could be a puzzle of some kind, don’t you think?’
    â€˜Could be,’ said the Inspector, and he slipped the card into the envelope and the envelope into his pocket, not hurrying, not asking permission. Her eyes followed it, but she made no protest. He rose and said flatly, ‘I’m coming back.’
    â€˜Oh, dear, Inspector. Surely you’ve squeezed out the last possible drop?’
    â€˜I mean, Miss Sullivan,’ said the Inspector, ‘I’m coming back when this is over.’
    â€˜Oh! Please do,’ and the one inside twinkled unabashed in Miss Sullivan’s clean-wash eyes. ‘Please do. ’

12
    Divergent Attack
    They met in the park at young Nathaniel York’s memorial plaque. It was quite dark. Tom Archer, for all that it was a warm night, without a threat of rain, carried a trench coat.
    â€˜Hello, guardian