The Four of Hearts (4 page)

He came to with a start. There was a shadow on Paula's face, and it was creeping higher every minute.

‘Good Lord!' he said, springing up and looking at his watch. ‘Why didn't you kick me out, Miss Paris? All those people waiting out there –'

‘My girls take care of most of them, and it's a relief to be listened to for a change. And you're a splendid listener, Mr. Queen.' She rose, too, and extended her hand. ‘I'm afraid I haven't been much help.'

He took her hand, and after a moment she gently withdrew it.

‘Help?' said Ellery. ‘Oh, yes. Yes, you've been of tremendous service. By the way, can you suggest the surest means of treeing those four?'

‘Today's Friday. Of course. You go down to the Horseshoe Club on Wilshire Boulevard tomorrow night.'

‘Horseshoe Club,' said Ellery dutifully, watching her mouth.

‘Don't you know it? It's probably the most famous gambling place in Los Angeles. Run by Alessandro, a very clever gentleman with a very dark past. You'll find them there.'

‘Alessandro's,' said Ellery. ‘Yes.'

‘Let's see.' She turned her head a little, trying to avoid his questioning eyes. ‘There's no opening tomorrow night – yes, they'll be there, I'm sure.'

‘Will they let me in? I'm a stranger in town.'

‘Would you like me to arrange it?' she asked demurely. ‘I'll call Alessandro. He and I have an understanding.'

‘You're simply wonderful.' Then he said hastily: ‘I mean, so – Look, Miss Paris. Or why not Paula? Do you mind? Would you – I mean, could you bring yourself to accompany –'

‘Goodbye, Mr. Queen,' said Paula with a faint smile.

‘But would you do me the honour –'

‘It's been so nice talking to you. Drop in again.'

That damned phobia!

‘I warn you,' he said grimly. ‘You may live to regret that invitation.'

And, a little blindly, Mr. Queen made his way to the street.

What a lovely day! he thought, breathing deeply, drinking in the lovely sky, the lovely trees, even the lovely Spanish-style houses all about that supremely lovely white-frame cottage which housed surely the loveliest self-imprisoned Juliet in the history of romantic heroines.

And suddenly he remembered Vix's cynical remark two days before: ‘You'll fall for her like all the rest.' The rest … That implied a host of admirers. Well, why not? She was delectable and piquant to the jaded male palate, like a strange condiment. And what sort of figure did he cut in this land of brown, brawny, handsome men?

The loveliness went out of everything.

Crushed, Mr. Queen crept into his car and drove away.

Saturday night found him in a dinner-jacket at the Horseshoe Club, cursing his wasted years of singleness and, his thoughts still hovering over a certain white-frame cottage in the Hollywood hills, not greatly caring if he cornered his quarry or not.

‘Where can I find Alessandro?' he asked a bartender.

‘In his office.' The man pointed, and Ellery skirted the horseshoe-shaped bar, threaded his way across the packed dance-floor past the orchestra stand where a swaying quadroon moaned a love-song, and entered a silk-hung passage at the terminus of which stood a chrome-steel door.

Ellery went up to it and knocked. It was opened at once by a hard-looking gentleman in tails who appropriately gave him a hard look.

‘Yeah?'

‘Alessandro?'

‘So who wants him?'

‘Oh, go away,' said Ellery, and he pushed the hard-looking gentleman aside. An apple-cheeked little man with China-blue eyes wearing a huge horseshoe-shaped diamond on his left hand smiled up at him from behind a horseshoe-shaped desk.

‘My name is Queen. Paula Paris told me to look you up.'

‘Yes, she called me.' Alessandro rose and offered his fat little hand. ‘Any friend of Paula's is welcome here.'

‘I hope,' said Ellery not too hopefully, ‘she gave me a nice reference.'

‘Very nice. You want to play, Mr. Queen? We can give you anything at any stakes – roulette, faro, baccarat, dice, chuck-a-luck, poker –'

‘I'm afraid my quarter-limit stud is too rich for your blood,' grinned Ellery. ‘I'm really here to find the Royles and the Stuarts. Are they here?'

‘They haven't turned up yet. But they will. They generally do on Saturday nights.'

‘May I wait inside?'

‘This way, Mr. Queen.' Alessandro pressed a blank wall and the wall opened, revealing a crowded, smoky, quiet room.

‘Quite a set-up,' said Ellery, amused. ‘Is all this hocus-pocus necessary?'

The gambler smiled. ‘My clients expect it. You know – Hollywood? They want a kick for their dough.'

‘Weren't you located in New York a few years ago?' asked Ellery, studying his bland, innocent features.

The little man said: ‘Me?' and smiled again, nodded to another hard-looking man in the secret passage-way. ‘All right, Joe, let the gentleman through.'

‘My mistake,' murmured Ellery, and he entered the gaming room.

But he had not been mistaken. Alessandro's name was not Alessandro, and he did hail from New York, and in New York he had gathered to his rosy little self a certain fame. The gossip of Police Headquarters had ascribed his sudden disappearance from Broadway to an extraordinary run of luck, during the course of which he had badly dented four bookmakers, two dice rings, and a poker clique composed of Dopey Siciliano, an assistant District Attorney, a Municipal Court Judge, a member of the Board of Estimate, and Solly the Slob.

And here he was, running a joint in Hollywood. Well, well, thought Ellery, it's a small world.

He wandered about the place. He saw at once that Mr. Alessandro had risen in the social scale. At one table in a booth two wooden-faced house men played seven-card stud, deuces wild, with the president of a large film company, one of Hollywood's most famous directors, and a fabulously-paid radio comedian. The dice tables were monopolized – it was a curious thing, thought Ellery with a grin – by writers and gag men. And along the roulette tables were gathered more stars than Tillie the Toiler had ever dreamed on, registering a variety of emotions that would have delighted the hearts of the directors present had they been in a condition to appreciate their realism.

Ellery spied the elusive Lew Bascom, in a disreputable tuxedo, in the crowd about one of the wheels. He was clutching a stack of chips with one hand and the neck of a queenly brunette with the other.

‘So here you are,' said Ellery. ‘Don't tell me you've been hiding out here for three days!'

‘Go 'way, pal,' said Lew, ‘this is my lucky night.' There was a mountain of chips before the brunette.

‘Yeah,' said the brunette, glaring at Ellery.

Ellery seized Lew's arms. ‘I want to talk to you.'

‘Why can't I get any peace, for gossakes? Here, toots, hang on to papa's rent,' and he dropped his handful of chips down the gaping front of the brunette's décolletage. ‘Well, well, what's on your mind?'

‘You,' said Ellery firmly, ‘are remaining with me until the Royles and the Stuarts arrive. Then you're going to introduce me. And after that you may vanish in a puff of smoke for all I care.'

Lew scowled. ‘What day is it?'

‘Saturday.'

‘What the hell happened to Friday? Say, here's Jack Royle. C'mon, that wheel ain't gonna wait all night.'

He dragged Ellery over to a tall, handsome man with iron-grey hair who was laughing at something Alessandro was saying. It was John Royle, all right, in the flesh, thought Ellery; the merest child knew that famous profile.

‘Jack, here's a guy named Ellery Queen,' grunted Lew. ‘Give him your autograph and lemme get back to the wheel.'

‘Mr. Queen,' said the famous baritone voice, and the famous moustache-smile appeared. ‘Don't mind this lack-brain; he's probably drunk as usual. Rudeness runs in the Stuart line. Excuse me a moment.' He said to Alessandro: ‘It's all right, Alec. I'm filthy with it tonight.' The little fat man nodded curtly and walked away. ‘And now, Mr. Queen, how do you like working for Magna?'

‘Then Butcher's told you. Do you know how hard I've tried to see you in the past three days, Mr. Royle?'

The famous smile was cordial, but the famous black eyes were roving. ‘Louderback did say something … Three days! Three, did you say? Lord, Queen, that's a hunch. Pardon me while I break Alessandro's heart.'

And he hurried off to the cashier's cage to exchange a fistful of bills for a stack of blue chips. He dived into the crowd at the roulette table.

‘Five hundred on number three,' Ellery heard him chortle.

Fascinated by this scientific attack on the laws of chance, Ellery permitted Lew to wriggle away. Number 3 failed to come up. Royle smiled, glanced at the clock on the wall, noted that its hands stood at nine-five, and promptly placed stacks on number 9 and 5. The ball stopped on 7.

Blythe Stuart swept in, magnificent in a black evening gown, followed by a tall Hindu in tails and a turban, with a brown impassive face. Instantly she was surrounded.

‘Blythe! Who's the new boy-friend?'

‘I'll bet he's a prince, or a rajah, or something. Leave it to Blythe.'

‘Introduce me, darling!'

‘Please,' protested the actress, laughing. ‘This is Ramdu Singh, and he's a Swami from India or some place, and he has second sight or something, I'll swear, because he's told me the most amazing things about myself. The Swami is going to help me play.'

‘How thrilling!'

‘Lew darling!' cried Blythe, spying him. ‘Get out of the way and let me show you how to lick that thing. Come along, Mr. Singh!'

Lew looked the Swami over blearily and shrugged. ‘It's your cashee, Blythe.'

A Russian director gave the actress his chair and the Swami took his place behind it, ignoring the stares of the crowd. The croupier looked a little startled and glanced at Alessandro who shrugged, smiled, and moved off.

‘Place your bets,' said the croupier.

At this moment, across the table, the eyes of John Royle and Blythe Stuart met. And without a flicker they passed on.

With an enigmatic expression Royle placed a bet. The Swami whispered in Blythe Stuart's ear and she made no move to play, as if he had advised lying low until his psyche could smell out the probabilities. The wheel spun, the ball clacked to a stop on a number, the croupier began raking up the chips.

‘I beg your pardon,' said John Royle politely, and he took the outstretched rake from the croupier's hand and poked it across the table at the Swami's turban. The turban fell off the Swami's head. His skull gleamed in the strong light – hairless, polished, pinkish-white.

The ‘Hindu' dived frantically for the turban. Someone gasped. Blythe Stuart gaped at the naked pink scalp.

Royle handed the rake back to the croupier with a bow. ‘This,' he said in an amiable tone, ‘is Arthur William Park, the actor. You remember his Polonius, Sergei, in the Menzies
Hamlet
in 1920? An excellent performance, then – as now.'

Park straightened up, murder in his eyes.

‘Sorry, old man,' murmured Royle. ‘I know you're down on your luck, but I can't permit my … friends to be victimized.'

‘You're riding high, Royle,' said Park thickly, his cheeks muddy under the make-up. ‘Wait till you're sixty-five, unable to get a decent part, sick as a dying dog, with a wife and crippled son to support. Wait.'

Alessandro signalled to two of his men.

‘Come on, fella,' said one of them.

‘Just a moment,' said Blythe Stuart in a low voice. Her hazel eyes blazed like Indian topaz. ‘Alessandro, call a policeman.'

‘Now, take it easy, Miss Stuart,' said Alessandro swiftly. ‘I don't want any trouble here –'

Park cried out and tried to run; the two men caught him by his skinny arms. ‘No! Please!'

Royle's smile faded. ‘Don't take it out on this poor fellow, just because you're angry with me. Let him go.'

‘I won't be publicly humiliated!'

‘Mother! What's the matter?' Bonnie Blythe, dazzling in an ermine cape, her golden curls iridescent in the light, appeared on Jacques Butcher's arm. She shook it off and ran to Blythe.

‘Oh, darling, this beast put this man up to pretending to be a Swami, and he brought me here and – and the beast unmasked the Swami as an actor or something,' sobbed Blythe, melting into tears at the sight of a compassionate face, ‘and I've never been so humiliated in my life.' Then she stamped her foot. ‘Alessandro, will you call a policeman or must I? I'll have them both arrested!'

‘Darling. Don't,' said Bonnie gently, her arm about her mother's shoulders. ‘The man looks pretty much down in the mouth to me. I don't think you'd enjoy seeing him in jail.' She nodded to Alessandro over her mother's sleek coiffure, and the gambler sighed with relief and signalled to his men, who hurried the man out. ‘But as for Mr. John Royle,' continued Bonnie, her glance hardening, ‘that's – different.'

‘Bonnie,' said the Boy Wonder warningly.

‘No, Butch. It's time he was told –'

‘My dear Bonnie,' said Royle with a queer smile, ‘I assure you I didn't put Park up to his masquerade. That was his own idea.'

‘Don't tell
me
,' sobbed Blythe. ‘I know
you
, John Royle. Oh, I could kill you!'

And she gathered her sweeping skirts about her and ran out of the gaming room, crying bitterly. Bonnie ran after her, followed by the Boy Wonder, whose face was red with embarrassment.

Royle shrugged with a braggadocio that did not quite come off. He pressed some bills into Lew Bascom's hand, nodding towards the door. Lew waddled out with the money.

‘Place your bets,' said the croupier wearily.