Cat of Many Tails

When the refurbished man emerged, his son was gallantly applying the flame of a lighter to a cigaret held by two slim gloved fingers to two female lips of distinction. She was sleekly modish from her hairdo to her shoetips, but young — the New York woman as she would like to be, but not quite grown up to it. The Inspector had seen girls like her on Fifth Avenue in the late afternoons, alone and unapproachable, the healthy raw material of youth covered by a patina of chic. But she was never upper crust; there was no boredom in her. Vogue just graduated from Seventeen, and very beautiful.

The Inspector was confused. It was Celeste Phillips. But what had happened to her?

“Hello, Miss Phillips.” They shook hands; her grip was quick, withdrawing. She wasn’t expecting me, he thought; Ellery didn’t say I was home. “I almost didn’t recognize you.” It was incredible; less than two weeks. “Please sit down.”

Over her shoulder as she turned he glimpsed Ellery being quizzical. The Inspector recalled his description of Simone Phillip’s sister and he shrugged in reply. It was impossible to see this spick-and-span girl against the smeary background of the flat on 102nd Street. Yet she still lived there; Ellery had reached her there. Inspector Queen decided that it was the clothes. Probably borrowed for the occasion from that dress shop she models in, he thought. The rest was makeup. When she got home and returned the finery and washed her face she would be again the Cinderella he remembered. Or would she? He was really not so sure. The sunny shallows under her bright black eyes, which had replaced the purple deeps he remembered, would not blot off with a towel. And certain planes then in her face had... been buried with her sister?

By the pricking of my thumbs...

“Don’t let me interrupt anything,” said the Inspector with a smile.

“Oh, I was just telling Mr. Queen how impossible the apartment situation still is.” Her fingers were unclasping and reclasping the catch on her bag with a life of their own.

“You’re intending to move?” At the Inspector’s glance the fingers flew to a stop.

“As soon as I can find another place.”

“Yes, you’ll be starting a new life,” the Inspector nodded. “Most people do. In cases like this.” Then he said, “Did you get rid of the bed?”

“Oh, no. I sleep in it.” She said very quickly, “I’ve been sleeping on a cot for years. Simone’s bed is so comfortable. She’d want me to. And then... I’m not afraid of my sister, you see.”

“Well,” said Ellery. “That’s a good healthy attitude. Dad, I’d just about got round to the point of asking Miss Phillips why she wanted to see me.”

“I want to help, Mr. Queen.”’ She had a Vogue voice this morning, too. So careful.

“Help? In what way?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even...” She covered her distress with a Vogue smile. “I don’t understand it myself. Sometimes you feel you just have to do something. You don’t know why.”

“Why did you come, Miss Phillips?”

She twisted in the chair. But then she snapped forward and she was no longer a figure in a magazine but a very young woman stripped all but bare. “I pitied my sister terribly. She was a cripple in more ways than one. Anybody would be, chained to a bed so long. Absolutely helpless. I hated myself for not being a cripple, too. I always felt so guilty.