One or more items
must be selected.

Processing...

The Mad Hatter's Riddle
by Dale C.
Andrews
Art by Laurie Harden

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.

"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat; "we're all mad
here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?"
said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you would not
have come here."
Lewis Carroll,
Alice in Wonderland

"It is a well known fact that anyone exposed to
Hollywood longer than six weeks goes suddenly and incurably
mad."
Ellery Queen,
The Four of Hearts

Hollywood, California, September 21,
1975

NBC Neither King nor Queen on Thursdays

by Paula Paris

The
latest Nielsens confirm a continuing slide in NBC's
Thursday-night ratings. Particularly troubling to the
Peacock brass are the numbers for the Ellery Queen skein
anchoring the 9:00 hour. While the Queen pilot played well
last spring, the weekly outings debuted middle of the pack
in September and have been sliding a bit deeper every week.
The detective opus, presented as a throwback set in the late
1940s, met with good reviews but is still searching for an
audience.
Now Universal reports
that the series is about to get a jolt of some nostalgia
caffeine. In a planned upcoming episode, based on an actual
Queen short story, "The Mad Tea Party," Hollywood legends
Bonnie Stuart and Ty Royle have been cast in leading roles.
This will be the first time in twenty-five years that the
once-married duo has appeared at all, let alone together.
Bonnie, an inveterate recluse, rarely leaves her mountain
retreat. And Ty, somewhat of a hermit himself, swore years
ago, after several notably uneven productions, that he would
rather die than return to acting.

"The Adventure of the Mad Tea
Party," originally written by Ellery Queen in 1934 and
derived from the work of Lewis Carroll, is one of the
author's most popular stories. What a vehicle to reunite
these fabled stars of yesteryear!

Upon later
reflection, Ellery Queen would think of 1975 as a transitional
year. The national disruption of Watergate had receded; Viet
Nam, with the fall of Saigon, was unalterably behind us. Rex
Stout, P.G. Wodehouse, and Thornton Wilder would leave us
behind forever. And in a year of changes, the twentieth
century, three-quarters through, would pause for a quick
breath as it prepared for the final twenty-five-year dash to
the millennium.
But such
historical ruminations were for later. On a Thursday morning
in early October, Mr. Queen was grappling with more
fundamental concerns. The cross-country flight west to Los
Angeles had been bumpy, particularly over the Rockies, and he
had been bone-weary when the cab deposited him at a Beverly
Hills address, where someone from Universal Studios (and
Ellery could not even remember who) had shouldered his bag and
showed him to the room where he had finally stumbled into bed.
But his sleep had been fitful, and by morning he still found
himself more than a little disoriented in time, thick of
tongue, and feeling every bit of his seventy years. Mr. Queen
lamented the loss of the leisurely cross-country Pullman trips
of yore and grumbled, not for the first time, how flying so
unforgivably takes the travel out of travel.

It was the smell of coffee, and
the promise of its alchemy, that finally drew Ellery out of
his room and down the long hall to the kitchen. A slender
figure looked up from the table as Ellery entered. Recognition
dawned, but slowly. As Hollywood had changed since the
nineteen thirties, so too had Jacques Butcher, who now bore
little resemblance to the young producer who, thirty-five
years before, had been the boy wonder of Magna Studios. While
still lithe, Butcher, attired in jeans and a Western shirt,
now sported a shock of snow-white hair and a cracked and ruddy
complexion that bore witness to decades of the relentless
California sun. Ellery offered his hand, but was instead
engulfed in a bear hug.
"The Boy
Wonder!" Ellery smiled, pushing himself back to at least arm's
length. "Hollywood is still treating you well, Jack."

Butcher snorted. "Hollywood has
nothing to do with it. I've been shed of this town since Magna
Studios got swallowed in the takeover bid and I retreated to
my grape arbors." Jacques Butcher appraised Ellery. "And you,
El, are also looking fit. Still writing those convoluted
whodunits?"
"No. I gave up writing
detective stories about four years ago. I still edit the
magazine. I guess it's my vineyard."

"And the inspector?"

"Dad's fine. He wanted to be here
for the filming, but I had to put my foot down. He's far too
frail for coast-to-coast jumps. He's still grousing over the
fact that in the series David Wayne is playing him without a
moustache." The Boy Wonder smiled as Ellery continued, "So
filming the 'Mad Tea Party' episode is what finally dragged
you back to a studio?"
"Yeah, but
it's temporary. The episode has to be ready to air in six
weeks, and that's the limit of my contract and my attention
span. When it's a wrap I'm headed back to the hills. The
producers twisted my arm when they had the brainstorm of
casting Ty and Bonnie as Spencer and Laura Lockridge in the
episode. They said they needed me on board if they had any
hope of roping in those two characters, and they kept hounding
me until I caved. I have to say, they also tempted me by
promising that you would be on board as a consultant for the
episode. That sort of clinched it for me." Butcher's smile
cracked his leather face into a thousand lines. "We had some
great fun last time around, didn't we?"

"That we did." Ellery smiled back.
"But this time let's go a little easier on the cognac."
Turning serious, Ellery continued, "The Ty and Bonnie deal
surprised me. The Spencer Lockridge part is a pretty small
role for him."
Butcher grimaced.
"I'm afraid Ty's part can't be small enough. Not to put too
fine a point on it, Ty's deep into the bottle. Remember lines?
He's lucky to remember where he is. He retired from pictures
only when he became unemployable. Those last films,
particularly that beach-blanket vampire thing, were
embarrassments. After those, he sulked off to his Arizona
ranch."
Ellery's pain was visible.
"And Bonnie?"
Jacques Butcher
brightened. "Bonnie's great; always has been, always will be."

"Still carrying a torch, Jack?"

"What? After thirty-five years?
Anyway, she's a pillar of strength. It showed in every part
she ever played. Bonnie turned her back on Hollywood at the
top of her game, and she left her public clamoring for more.
Basically, Bonnie can do anything that she sets her mind to.
Hell, she's the only reason the marriage to Ty lasted ten
years. So once she settled into her hermit phase she
reinvented herself as an investment manager. She resisted all
overtures for a comeback, but that didn't stop NBC. The
ratings for any show that manages to reunite those two will go
through the roof. That's the challenge that Universal dropped
into my lap."
"A tall order even
for the Boy Wonder," Ellery chided.

"Too tall. You know what they say,
wolves hunt in packs. So this had to be a team effort. I was
in on the hunt, but so was Rand Canyon. You would have been,
too, if you had been out here two weeks earlier."

Ellery raised an eyebrow. "Who is
Rand Canyon, and why is it that people with names like that
always seem to end up in this crazy town?"

"Actually," Butcher replied, "the
people usually precede the names. 'Starring Archibald Leach,
Leroy Scherer, and Doris Von Kappelhoff' doesn't ring like
'starring Cary Grant, Rock Hudson, and Doris Day.' And Rand
Canyon sounds a hell of a lot better on a playbill than Beryl
Snatt, which is how Momma Snatt originally sent her little boy
off into the world. When Rand hit Hollywood in the nineteen
forties he picked a name to fit his craggy aspirations, even
though the aspirations proved to be a bit north of the
reality. Rand landed some 'best buddy' parts in a couple of
horse-opera serials, but that was it. Lucky for him, though,
he hit it big in real estate. Before he retired he spent
decades moving property between rising and falling stars with
enviable finesse. And now he helps Bonnie manage her property.
Lives up there at her estate, too, although my understanding
is that they are completely platonic. As I said, Rand's forte
has always been the 'best buddy.' "

"So were the two of you also
tasked with securing Ty's agreement?" Ellery asked.

Butcher snorted and shook his
head. "No, Ty and I lost track of each other years ago, and
Rand and he never saw eye-to-eye. Luckily for us, once Bonnie
was on board, Ty fell into place like a domino. As I said, he
left Hollywood much more reluctantly than she did. But even at
that it was damned difficult getting them all here and under
one roof."
Ellery raised an
eyebrow. "So Bonnie and Ty are staying here also? Universal
sent me an address to give to the cabbie but nothing else."

Jacques Butcher smiled back. "Yep,
we've got a full house here. Ty and Bonnie had all sorts of
demands that would have made more sense in the forties than in
the seventies. The house is part of that. They originally
wanted bungalows on the Universal lot. We explained that
there's nothing like that on Hollywood lots anymore. Bonnie's
ensemble wouldn't have fit in a bungalow anyway. So we scouted
around and Rand eventually suggested this place. It's for
sale, Rand knows the realtor, and it's huge. Plus it's
furnished—the owner removed the personal items, wall hangings
and bric-a-brac stuff, but the furniture was left to help the
place look good to prospects. We put Ty in the smaller wing,
Bonnie and her folks are in the larger one. Universal agreed
to rent the place for six weeks, and there was plenty of extra
room for Rand and me to bunk here as well. And that's why
you're here and not at the Beverly Wilshire."

"Sounds like I'll need a score
card to keep track of the players!"

Butcher grinned. "And a difficult
lot they are. The staff were even harder to pry out of the
mountains than Bonnie was. Every one of them was dead set
against filming the episode and against the trip to Hollywood,
but we had to drag them along somehow. Bonnie made it clear
that not bringing her people along was a deal breaker. So
she's here with her assistant, Charles Roethke, her personal
secretary Jerri Swanson, and her, well, 'spiritual advisor,' I
guess you'd call her. A crazy lady who calls herself 'Madame
Sojourner.' Dealing with the lot of them has been like herding
cats. Roethke and Swanson had a thing for a while, but they're
now on the outs and hardly speak to each other. Neither one of
them will have anything to do with the card reader, and she
reciprocates by treating each of them like lepers."

"Ty, I hope, travels a little
lighter?"
"Yep. He only brought
along his personal assistant, Taylor Brandt, who, by the way,
was just as insistent that Ty shouldn't film the episode. Like
everyone else, he was pretty happy with the status quo and
with Ty staying retired. So you can begin to see the mountains
that Rand and I had to move to pull this off."

Ellery glanced around the bare
walls of the kitchen and then eyed his wrist watch. "What time
are we supposed to leave for the rehearsals?"

Butcher smiled and stretched his
long arms behind his head. "I have no idea, besides the fact
that it's sometime this morning. In this town I never worry
about time and schedules. When you're supposed to be somewhere
there are always plenty of people to let you know and get you
there."
As if on cue, the door to
the kitchen swung open and a tall man with a winning smile
strode into the room. He crouched in a mock pose and swung
around, his right index finger feigning a six-gun, which he
pretended to shoot in the direction of Butcher. The man
blinked, blew the imaginary smoke from his finger, transformed
the pistol back into a hand, and extended it towards Ellery.

"Mr. Queen, it's an honor to meet
you. I'm Rand Canyon. Looks like we're going to be working
together."
As Ellery mumbled a
greeting, Rand's arms swung out in an all-inclusive gathering
gesture. "Time to hit the trail, gents," he drawled. "Everyone
else is already at the studio and our car is waiting."

"See what I mean about this town?"
Jacques Butcher said to Ellery with a conspiratorial wink.
"There's always someone there to take care of you, and I'm
going to prove it to you." Before he could react, Butcher
reached across the table and pulled Ellery's watch off his
wrist, deftly pocketing the timepiece. "This is one of my
favorite little experiments. You can have your watch back
tomorrow. By then you'll understand."

Rand Canyon rolled his eyes and
smiled. "Sorry, Mr. Queen. This is like religion for Jack—he
pulls this on everyone who will let him."

"It's Ellery," Queen muttered,
rubbing his bare left wrist. "Call me Ellery."

"Oh, by the way," Rand said, "when
I was checking on the car I found this in the front mailbox."
He held out a business envelope bearing Ellery's name in box
letters.
"No address or return
address," Ellery mused, examining the envelope. "How did it
get here?"
Rand Canyon shrugged.

"There are delivery services all
over Hollywood. It's probably from one of your fans," Jacques
Butcher chuckled. Ellery returned the smile and slid the
envelope into his inside jacket pocket.

#

Thirty
minutes later, Ellery, Jacques, and Rand stood behind a bank
of cameras on the sound stage at Universal City. Ellery
crossed his arms and looked through the cameras, the director,
and assorted staff, and admired the New England drawing room
in the glow of the stage lights. The tall, gray-haired man
dressed as the Mad Hatter was just barely recognizable to
Ellery. The years had not been kind to Ty Royle. As Ellery
watched, Ty turned to the other cast members and spoke.

"You can't take more or less when
nothing is very easy at all," he stammered.

An exasperated "Cut!" exploded
from the man with tired, stooped shoulders sitting in a
collapsible chair next to the cameras. "Mr. Royle," he
muttered through hands that Ellery surmised were burying his
face, "once again, the line is, 'You can't take less; it's
very easy to take more than nothing.' That's the way Lewis
Carroll wrote it, and that's the way you have to say it."

Ty threw his outrageous hat to the
floor. "The damned line makes no sense. No sense at all," he
snorted.
Across the set, a figure
dressed as a door mouse removed its mask, revealing
still-golden locks, and suddenly became Bonnie Stuart. Bonnie
crossed the set towards Ty, as Ellery stared transfixed. The
loveliness of her youth had not diminished; it had matured
into a jewel even more precious. Images of pre-war Hollywood
flashed through his mind, a hundred memories of things gone
from the world, but still a part of his. He wiped an errant
tear, shook the sepia memories from his head, and watched as
Bonnie Stuart wrapped a loving arm around Ty Royle, all the
while explaining that everything was just fine, that it always
was, and that it always would be.

"My God," Ellery thought, stunned.
"They're in love."

#

The man in
the collapsible chair sighed and called out, "Break! Back on
the set in fifteen minutes." Ellery began picking his way
through the cameras and cables.

"Ellery," Bonnie enthused when she
saw him, offering a cheek, "you are a treat for sore eyes."

Ty grinned awkwardly, looking
totally uncomfortable in his Mad Hatter attire. He extended a
thin, dry hand and muttered, "Good to see you again, Queen."

But before Ellery could offer more
than a perfunctory greeting, a young NBC page was at his elbow
explaining that a conference on script changes was about to
begin.
Bonnie smiled as Ellery
stammered an apology while being dragged away. "Don't worry,"
she called after him. "There will be plenty of time for us to
catch up this evening. I'm . . . " and she paused, "actually
Ty and I are hosting a little soirée at the house where we're
all staying. We'll expect you promptly at six o'clock for
cocktails and a buffet dinner in the parlor. This will be such
fun!"

#

In fact,
Ellery had seldom seen a sorrier soirée. Bonnie's secretary,
Jerri Swanson, a pretty young thing with long brown hair, had
spent the evening sulking on the sofa, nursing a drink,
dabbing at the corner of her eyes with a handkerchief, and
staring daggers at tall, thin, and elegant Charles Roethke,
Bonnie's assistant, across the room. Charles and Taylor Brandt
fawned respectively over Bonnie and Ty and were uniformly
ignored by each. And Madame Sojourner, who had, Ellery had
come to understand from Jacques, a scant fifteen months
before, miraculously ascended from working the checkout line
at a Piggly Wiggly in Clarinda, Iowa, swirled about the room
in layers of multicolored silk wrappings, warning everyone in
her ambit of things that only she could see. Through it all,
Bonnie and Ty stared into each others' eyes, oblivious.

Early on, Ellery had embarked on
shuttle diplomacy, moving from person to person in hopes of
generating something approaching cocktail-hour banter. He
eventually forsook the task as hopeless and retreated to a
large velvet couch where Madame Sojourner cornered him and
proceeded to wax eloquent on the length of his lifeline.
Unimaginably to Ellery, things progressed from bad to worse.

Bonnie stood, tapped her champagne
flute with a fork, and waited for the room to quiet. She
smiled nervously and spoke. "These last few days," she
stammered, blinking and edging next to Ty for support, "have
been a whirlwind. Being here in Hollywood again, and being
with Ty—" she glanced up adoringly before continuing— "I, well
. . . I certainly thought I'd never act again. And certainly
not with Ty." She reached tentatively for his hand and
continued, "But as it turns out, I can't thank Jacques and
Rand enough for insisting that I . . . that we do this. Ty and
I, well, it's been years and we really don't even know why
we..." She stopped, at a loss for words, sniffed into her
handkerchief, and looked up imploringly at Ty, who broke the
silence. Still holding her hand, he smiled, brushed the gray
shock of hair from his eyes, and gazed out across the room.
Ellery marveled that he suddenly seemed to shed ten years.

"Bonnie and I," Ty announced
sheepishly, "are going to be married."

"Again!" Bonnie giggled. "And
we're moving back to Hollywood!"

Behind Ellery someone gagged,
several breaths were quickly drawn in, and Jerri Swanson's
plate dropped, scattering lasagna and boiled shrimp on the
floor. The room froze in awkward silence for a long moment
before Ellery stood, cleared his throat, and offered
congratulations, quickly followed by Jacques and Rand, and
then, as the dam finally broke, by the others in the room. It
was long minutes later that Jacques Butcher caught Ellery's
eye and the two slipped out of the room.

#

In retreat
in the first-floor library, Ellery exhaled long as Jacques
Butcher poured scotch into two tumblers and handed one to
Ellery.
"I can't tell you how much
I wish I was in a hotel," Ellery groaned. "What was that all
about anyway?"
Jacques settled
into a leather chair across from Ellery. "I suppose," he said,
"it was about change. Jerri and Charles have carved out a
decent life working for Bonnie. And, God knows, that Sojourner
character has certainly landed on easy street. The same goes
for Taylor Brandt, Ty's assistant. And every one of those
apple carts just tipped over. Bonnie's people kept saying they
were only concerned for her health, that a trip back to
Hollywood couldn't turn out well, but I suspect they were much
more concerned with anything that might destroy their
comfortable cocoons. Probably it was the same with Taylor
Brandt. In fact," and Jacques paused uneasily, "rumor has it
that Taylor and Ty may actually be a little more than just
friends. Anyway, I don't think any of them is looking forward
to this pending marriage."
Ellery
put down his drink as something rustled in his inner jacket
pocket. He reached in and pulled out the envelope, still
unopened, that he had pocketed that morning. "I had forgotten
about this," he snorted as he opened the envelope and pulled
out a single sheet of paper. Ellery's eyebrows knotted as he
read.
Across the room Jacques
Butcher watched inquiringly until Ellery finally shook his
head and handed the sheet to him. "What, pray tell, do you
make of this?"
Butcher proceeded
to read out loud the typewritten poem on the sheet of paper.

EAGER EYE AND WILLING
EAR

Tunnels for hares
Red garb for the
guard,
Insolent Cheshire,
Poems—quite
hard.

Rehearsals, intriguing
"Eat me" (your
fill)
"Quite curious," thought Alice
Until she fell
ill.

In just the beginning the
Red King's
asleep.
"Enough of that subject,"
Dumpty yells 'fore
his leap.

No chance to succeed with
One there,
alone.
Chances are better
Having two on the
throne.

A warning, in verse,
No time to
ignore
Completed, we stand
Entirely
restored!

Synergistic solutions from lessons of
yore.

"What's
this all about?" Butcher asked incredulously. "Is this
something from Alice in Wonderland?"

"I don't think so," said Ellery.
"It appears to derive from Lewis Carroll, but I think it's a
pastiche of some sort." Ellery puzzled over the page for a few
minutes and then his eyes widened and he laughed in amazement.
"I'll be right back," he said. "I need to get something from
my room."
When Ellery returned he
carried a volume, The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll, under
his arm. He sat down again and asked, "Are you a fan of
Carroll?"
"As a kid, I suppose.
Not recently," Butcher responded.

"Lewis Carroll," Ellery continued
"was the pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a
mathematician who wrote both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
and Through the Looking-Glass. Dodgson denied that either book
was written with a real Alice in mind, but there is a poem
near the end of Through the Looking-Glass that belies that
denial." Ellery thumbed through the volume, located a page
containing a poem, and pushed the book towards Butcher.
"Carroll's poem has no title, but the fifth line is the title
of this poem: 'Eager Eye and Willing Ear.' And do you know
what was particularly famous about this untitled poem?"

Butcher shook his head.

"The poem is famous," Ellery
continued, "because it is an acrostic. If you read down the
first letter of each line it reveals the name of the real
Alice: Alice Pleasance Liddell. So, Jack, tell me: Applying
the same formula, what does this poem reveal to us?"

Jacques Butcher studied the poem
and emitted a low whistle. "Read down," he said, "the first
letter of each line spells out 'trip required no chances.' "
He shook his head in bewilderment as though trying to clear
cobwebs. "But what does this have to do with anything?"

"I'm damned if I know," Ellery
replied. "The poem alludes to the works of Carroll. And the
references to the desirability of two people working together
rather than apart, that could be relevant to the re-pairing of
Ty and Bonnie in the 'Mad Tea Party' episode. You've already
explained the effort it took to get them to agree to this, and
that everyone around them was dead set against the plan and
the trip to Hollywood. The acrostic might be addressing
this—it advises that, in fact, the 'trip required no chances.'
But the obvious question remains 'So what?' Bonnie and Ty are
here. We are about to film. Who would construct something this
elaborate, after the fact, and then send it to me?"

"You've got me," Butcher replied.

"Ahh, well," Ellery sighed. "It's
probably just someone's idea of a joke." Ellery folded the
paper and returned it to his pocket. "Let's take a look at
those script changes."

#

Ellery and
Jacques were lost in the script when Rand eventually entered
the library. He smiled and shook his head. "Seems like I'm
still the babysitter for you two. This week's Ellery Queen
episode is on in a few minutes. I think it's the one about the
elevator murder. Wouldn't want to miss that," he enthused.
Reaching for the phone at the bar, Rand continued, "Just
enough time to take care of this." Lifting the phone, he
dialed and after a few seconds spoke into the receiver.
"Hello, Jerri? Rand here. Ty asked me to call and let Bonnie
know he's not up to working on the script any more tonight.
Said to give her his love and tell her that he will see her
tomorrow."
Rand hung up the phone
and busied himself at the bar. "Voilà," he exclaimed after a
few seconds as a wall of books across from Ellery and Jacques
slid back, revealing a television console. Rand turned on the
television and settled onto the couch next to Ellery just as
the TV Ellery Queen intoned, "In a few minutes this newspaper
publisher will become an obituary notice." For the next hour
Queen watched, with growing embarrassment, as Jim Hutton
proceeded to piece together faster than Ellery could why a
dying man, alone in an elevator, would push the sixth- and
fifth-floor buttons before he expired.

At the end of the episode, Jacques
Butcher rose from his chair, and stretched and yawned
simultaneously. Rand Canyon crossed the room, turned off the
television, and pushed the button sliding the bookshelves back
across the television alcove. "Well, I didn't figure out who
did it. How about you, Ellery?" Queen shook his head, his
embarrassment persisting. Jacques waved a languorous hand and
excused himself for the evening. It was not until Ellery and
Rand were themselves headed back toward their rooms that all
Hell broke lose.
Walking down the
deserted hallway, Ellery and Rand were confronted by Jacques,
who approached them with a troubled look on his face.

"Nobody seems to know where Bonnie
is," he muttered. He glanced at Rand. "She got your message
but, according to Jerri, she decided to go to Ty's room anyway
and hasn't come back."
"Perhaps,"
Ellery offered delicately, "this is a personal matter?"

"Maybe, but no one is answering
Ty's phone. I'm going to take a look."

Wordlessly, Ellery and Rand fell
in step as the threesome crossed the entryway, climbed the
circular staircase to the second floor, and proceeded to Ty
Royle's room at the end of the corridor. It was the sight of
the half-ajar door that precipitated the first shiver of
trepidation at the nape of Ellery Queen's neck.

Jacques eased the door open as the
three men gasped in unison. Ty Royle was lying on the bed in a
silk dressing gown. A small bullet hole, surrounded by a good
deal of blood, flared like a flower from the center of his
chest. Jacques rushed to Ty's side and, in an effort Ellery
recognized immediately as doomed, began feeling for a pulse as
Rand Canyon grabbed for the phone next to the bed.

Queen took a deep breath, shook
his head, and resorted to instincts. He walked the
circumference of the room, checked the closet, peered beneath
the bed, and then slowly began a trek back down the hall,
testing each of the locked doors along the way. At the
second-floor foyer he bent, examined the slick marble floor,
and then began a slow descent down the winding stairs. At the
foot of the staircase he found what he had missed before—a red
pool behind and slightly to the left of the first step. Slowly
Ellery raised his eyes across the foyer toward a closet door,
also ajar. With trepidation he crossed the foyer and pushed
the closet open with the toe of his shoe.

Inside, lying on the floor in her
own pool of blood, was Bonnie Stuart. Ellery pinched the
bridge of his nose and squinted, as if to ward off the
gathering storm of the headache building behind his eyes. The
figure on the floor gagged, drew in a ragged breath, and
Ellery, shocked back to his senses, bolted for the nearest
telephone. . . .

Ellery Queen characters copyright
©2009 by the Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee Literary
Property Trusts; story ©2009 by Dale C.Andrews. Used with
permission.

Be sure to read the exciting conclusion in
our September/October issue, on sale now.

To keep these great mystery stories coming
all year long ... Subscribe
now

Ellery Queen's Mystery
Magazine:
The Jury
Box | EQMM
Author Index | Writers'
Guidelines | About
EQMM | EQMM
Home

The Mystery
Place:
Readers'
Forum | Order | Links | Contact Us
| Customer
Service | Home

Alfred Hitchcock's
Mystery Magazine

Privacy Statement
Copyright © 2008 Penny Publications. All Rights
Reserved.