Free Greek Coffin Mystery by Ellery Queen Page A

of entertainment after the theater. Really, I didn’t get back until well after midnight.”
    “You spent the evening alone?”
    “Quite.”
    The old man’s shrewd little eyes glistened over his fingers as he took another pinch of snuff. Mrs. Vreeland was sitting with a frozen smile, her eyes wide open, too wide open. All the others were mildly bored. Now Inspector Queen had questioned thousands of people in his professional career, and he had developed a special policeman’s sense—an instinct for detecting falsehood. Something in Dr. Wardes’ too smooth replies, in Mrs. Vreeland’s strained pose. …
    “I don’t believe you’re telling the truth, Doctor,” he said easily. “Of course, I understand your scruples. … You were with Mrs. Vreeland last Friday night, weren’t you?”
    The woman gasped, and Dr. Wardes elevated his hairy eyebrows. Jan Vreeland was peering from the physician to his wife in bewilderment, his fat little face puckered with hurt and worry.
    Dr. Wardes chuckled suddenly. “An excellent surmise, Inspector. And very true.” He bowed lightly to Mrs. Vreeland. “You will permit me, Mrs. Vreeland?” She tossed her head like a nervous mare. “You see, Inspector, I didn’t care to put the lady’s action in an embarrassing light. Actually, I did escort Mrs. Vreeland to the Metropolitan and later to the Barbizon—”
    “See here! I don’t think—” interrupted Vreeland in a little flurry of protest.
    “My dear Mr. Vreeland. It was the most innocent evening imaginable. And a very delightful one, too, I’m sure.” Dr. Wardes studied the old Dutchman’s discomforted countenance. “Mrs. Vreeland was much alone because of your protracted absences, sir; I myself have no friends in New York—it was natural for us to drift together, don’t you know.”
    “Well, I don’t like it,” said Vreeland childishly. “I don’t like it at all, Lucy.” He waddled over to his wife and shook his fat little forefinger in her face, pouting. She looked faint, clutched the arms of her chair. The Inspector abruptly commanded Vreeland to keep silent, and Mrs. Vreeland sank back, shutting her eyes in mortification. Dr. Wardes shook his broad shoulders lightly. From the other side of the room Gilbert Sloane drew a sharp breath, and Mrs. Sloane’s wooden face showed a fleeting animation. The Inspector darted bright glances from one to another. His eyes fixed on the shambling figure of Demetrios Khalkis. …
    Demmy was, except for his vacant idiotic expression, an ugly, gaunt, sproutlike counterpart of his cousin Georg Khalkis. His large blank eyes were set in a perpetual stare; his bulging lower lip hung heavily, the back of his head was almost flat, and his skull was huge and misshapen. He had been wandering noiselessly about, speaking to no one, peering myopically into the faces of the room’s occupants, his enormous hands clenching and unclenching with weird regularity.
    “Here—you, Mr. Khalkis!” called the Inspector. Demmy continued his shambling circumambulation of the study. “Is he deaf?” asked the old man irritably, of no one in particular.
    Joan Brett said: “No, Inspector. He just doesn’t understand English. He’s a Greek, you know.”
    “Khalkis’ cousin, isn’t he?”
    “That’s right,” said Alan Cheney unexpectedly. “But he’s shy up here.” He touched his own well-shaped head significantly. “Mentally, he rates as an idiot.”
    “That’s extremely interesting,” said Ellery Queen mildly. “For the word ‘idiot’ is of Greek derivation, and etymologically indicated merely a private ignorant person in the Hellenic social organization— idiotes in Greek. Not an imbecile at all.”
    “Well, he’s an idiot in the modern English sense,” said Alan wearily. “Uncle brought him over from Athens about ten years ago—he was the last of the family strain over there. Most of the Khalkis family have been American for at least six generations. Demmy never could grasp