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that. My advice to you is to tell the police everything, and the sooner the better.”
    She bit her lip.
    â€œEllery,” said Harry Burke abruptly. “I’d like to talk to you.”
    â€œWould you excuse us a moment, Miss West?” When they were in his study, behind the closed door, Ellery said, “You’ve been bursting with some kind of bombshell since that girl got here, Harry. You’re involved in this case, aren’t you?”
    â€œI am now,” Burke said unhappily. “Until a moment ago I didn’t know any more about the murder than you did. But the thing that brought me to New York originally—my first trip here—was tied up with Glory Guild. She’d made a request of the Yard which was outside the Yard’s competence, and Vail recommended me to her, as a private agent. It was a routine inquiry—I can’t see how it could have anything to do with this, although there’s always the possibility.” The Scot scowled. “The fact is, Ellery, on Wednesday night I was with the Guild woman in her apartment until a bit after eleven, on the business that brought me overseas. I made my report, and from her place I went directly to the airport. My plane took off a short time later, at 1:00 A.M . I left her alive and well.”
    â€œThen she was murdered by someone who got to her place between a few minutes past eleven, when you left her, and midnight, when Armando left Roberta West’s apartment.”
    â€œIt would seem so.” Burke seemed troubled about something, but he said nothing more.
    Ellery squinted at him. “This matter that brought you to New York—you consulted my father about it?”
    â€œYes. It required the cooperation of the New York police.”
    â€œThen that’s why dad cabled you to come back—the hunch that it might have something to do with the killing.” Ellery paused, inviting Burke to comment. But Burke did not. “He must have gone on the murder some time after it broke. Apparently when he dashed off this telephone-message note to me he hadn’t connected the West girl with the case, or still didn’t know any of the facts. These things over here are always handled on the precinct level first. Well, Harry, this puts a different complexion on things. I seem to be in it, too, like it or not.”
    Burke merely nodded.
    They returned to the living room. “All right, Miss West, I’ll stick with you,” Ellery told the girl. She was staring at them in a frightened way. “At least until we see how it shapes up. The first thing you’re going to do is tell the police the whole story. Carlos’s alibi notwithstanding, it may well be that he’s as guilty of his wife’s murder as if he committed it himself. At this point I’d say that it’s likelier than not.”
    â€œI’ll do whatever you say, Mr. Queen.” She seemed relieved.
    â€œThis Armando character is obviously devious. Whoever the woman is he’s snake-charmed into doing his dirty work for him, he’s probably been seeing her in secret—as he saw you, I take it?”
    He could barely hear her “Yes.”
    â€œAnd now he’ll be careful not to see her at all, or one of these days he’ll pretend he’s meeting her for the first time. He’s got to wait for the heat to let up. Well, we’ll see. She may be his weakness, too. At any rate, she has to be found, and I have the feeling it won’t be easy.”
    Just then the phone rang in Ellery’s study.
    â€œSon?” It was his father’s nasal rasp. “So your plane finally landed, did it? What did it do, play skipping stones all the way from London? Ellery, I’m on one beaut of a case—”
    â€œI know,” said Ellery. “Glory, Glory Hallelujah.”
    â€œSo the West girl did get to you. She was questioned by some precinct men, and I didn’t put two and two