Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 4, No. 1. Whole No. 8, January 1943

How she’d married Philip Newton back in ’29 when he was a promising young architect and she was an heiress just out of finishing school. How the fortune she was heiress to went fooey like all the others and her father took the quick way out. How the architect business went all to hell with no building going on and just when things were worst she had a baby. And then how Philip started drinking, and finally— Well, anyways, there it was.

They’d both pulled themselves together now. She was making enough as a nurse to keep the kid (she was too proud to take alimony), and Philip was doing fine in this arty photographic line he’d taken up. A Newton photograph was The Thing to Have in the smart Hollywood set. But they couldn’t come together again, not while he was such a success. If she went to him, he’d think she was begging; if he came to her, she’d think he was being noble. And Beverly Benson had set her cap for him.

Then this agent Harvey Madison (that’s Dopey), who had known them both when, decided to try and fix things. He brought Snow White to this party; neither of them knew the other would be here. And it was a party and it was Christmas, and some of their happiest memories were Christmases together. I guess that’s pretty much true of everybody. So she felt everything all over again, only—

“You don’t know what it’s done for me to tell you this. Please don’t feel hurt; but in that uniform and everything you don’t seem quite like a person. I can talk and feel free. And this has been hurting me all night and I had to say it.”

I wanted to take the two of them and knock their heads together; only first off I had to find that emerald and ruby necklace. It isn’t my job to heal broken hearts. I was feeling O.K. now, so we went back to the others.

Only they weren’t there. There wasn’t anybody in the room but only the drunk. I guessed where Mickey and Dopey were: stripped and being searched.

“Who’s that?” I asked Snow White.

She looked at the Little Pig. “Poor fellow. He’s been going through torture tonight too. That’s Bela Strauss.”

“Bella’s a woman’s name.”

“He’s part Hungarian.” (I guess that might explain anything.) “He comes from Vienna. They brought him out here to write music for pictures because his name is Strauss. But he’s a very serious composer — you know, like…” and she said some tongue twisters that didn’t mean anything to me. “They think because his name is Strauss he can write all sorts of pretty dance tunes, and they won’t let him write anything else. It’s made him all twisted and unhappy, and he drinks too much.”

“I can see that.” I walked over and shook him. The sailor cap fell off. He stirred and looked up at me. I think it was the uniform that got him. He sat up sharp and said something in I guess German. Then he thought around a while and found some words in English.