Free Calamity Town by Ellery Queen Page B

‘I’m very anxious to meet your sister, Jim. Is she coming out for a visit?’
    â€˜Well…I was thinking of asking her, but—’
    â€˜Now, Jim,’ said Nora. ‘You know I’ve asked you dozens of times to invite Rosemary to Wrightsville.’
    â€˜Then it’s all right with you, Nor?’ asked Jim quickly.
    â€˜All right!’ Nora laughed. ‘What’s the matter with you? Give me her address and I’ll drop her a note tonight.’
    â€˜Don’t bother, darling. I’ll write her myself.’
    When they were alone, a half hour later, Pat said to Ellery: ‘Nora was scared.’
    â€˜Yes. It’s a poser.’ Ellery circled his knees with his arms. ‘Of course, the letter that stirred Jim up this morning was the same letter he just said he got from his sister.’
    â€˜Ellery, Jim’s holding something back.’
    â€˜No question about it.’
    â€˜If his sister Rosemary just wrote about wanting to come out for a visit, or anything as trivial as that… why did Jim burn her letter? ’
    Mr Queen kept the silence for a long time. Finally he mumbled: ‘Go to bed, Patty. I want to think.’
    On November the eighth, four days after Franklin Delano Roosevelt had been elected to the Presidency of the United States for a third term, Jim Haight’s sister came to Wrightsville.

10
    Jim and the Fleshpot
    â€˜Miss Rosemary Haight,’ wrote Gladys Hemmingworth in the Society column of the Wrightsville Record , ‘was strikingly accoutered in a naturel French suedè travelling suit with sleeveless jerkin to match, a dashing jacket of platinum-fox fur topped with the jauntiest fox-trimmed archery hat of forest green, and green suède wedgies and bag…’
    Mr Ellery Queen happened to be taking a walk that morning…to the Wrightsville station. So he saw Rosemary Haight get off the train at the head of a safari bearing luggage and pose for a moment, in the sun, like a movie actress. He saw her trip over to Jim and kiss him, and turn to Nora with animation and embrace her, presenting a spruce cheek; and Mr Queen also saw the two women laugh and chatter as Jim and the safari picked up the visitor’s impedimenta and made for Jim’s car. And Mr Queen’s weather eye clouded over.
    That night, at Nora’s, he had an opportunity to test his first barometric impression. And he decided that Rosemary Haight was no bucolic maiden on an exciting journey; that she was pure metropolis, insolent and bored and trying to conceal both. Also, she was menacingly attractive. Hermy, Pat, and Nora disliked her instantly; Ellery could tell that from the extreme politeness with which they treated her. As for John F., he was charmed, spryly gallant. Hermy reproached him in the silent language of the eye. And Ellery spent a troubled night trying to put Miss Rosemary Haight together in the larger puzzle, and not succeeding.
    Jim was busy at the bank these days and, rather with relief, Ellery thought, left the problem of entertaining his sister to Nora. Dutifully Nora drove Rosemary about the countryside, showing her the ‘sights.’ It was a little difficult for Nora to sustain the charming-hostess illusion, Pat confided in Ellery, since Rosemary had a supercilious attitude towards everything and wondered ‘how in heaven’s name you can be happy in such a dull place, Mrs. H!’
    Then there was the gauntlet of the town’s ladies to run…teas for the guest, very correct with hats on in the house and white gloves, an ambitious mah-jongg party, a wiener roast on the lawn one moonlit night, a church social…The ladies were cold. Emmeline DuPré said Rosemary Haight had a streak of ‘commerce’ whatever that was, Clarice Martin thought her clothes too ‘you know,’ and Mrs Mackenzie at the Country Club said she was a born bitch and look at those silly men drooling at her! The Wright