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while. “Specify!”
    â€œIn fact,” the Inspector replied joylessly, “they both point straight at the killer.”
    â€œThey do? At whom?”
    â€œMarco.”
    â€œHis brother ?”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œThen what’s the problem? I don’t understand, dad. You’re acting as if you’re stumped, and in the same breath you say you have a couple of clues that link the victim’s brother directly to the crime!”
    â€œThat’s correct.”
    â€œBut … For heaven’s sake, what kind of clues are they?”
    â€œThe open-and-shut kind. The real old-fashioned variety, you’d have to call ’em. The kind,” Inspector Queen said, shaking his mustache, “you mystery writers wouldn’t be caught dead putting in one of your stories in this day and age.”
    â€œAll right, you’ve whipped my interest to a bloody froth,” Ellery said in a grim voice. “Now let’s get down to cases. What—precisely—are these open-and-shut, old-fashioned, downright corny clues?”
    â€œFrom the condition in which we found Julio’s library, there’d been a fight, a violent struggle. Real donnybrook. Well, we found on the scene a button—”
    â€œWhat kind of button?”
    â€œSolid gold. Monogram MI on it.”
    â€œIdentified as Marco Importunato’s?”
    â€œIdentified as Marco Importunato’s. Threads still hanging from it. That’s clue the first.”
    â€œButton,” Ellery repeated. “Buttons-found-on-scene-of-crime went out with spats and Hoover collars. And the other clue?”
    â€œWent out with zoot suits.”
    â€œBut what is it?”
    Inspector Queen said, “A footprint.”
    â€œFootprint! You mean of a naked foot?”
    â€œOf a shoe. A man’s shoe.”
    â€œWhere was it found?”
    â€œDead man’s library. Scene of the homicide.”
    â€œBut … And you tied the print into Marco?”
    â€œWe sure did.”
    â€œA button and a footprint,” Ellery said, marveling. “In the year 1967! Well, I suppose anything’s possible. A time warp, or something. But if it’s that pat, dad, what’s bothering you?”
    â€œIt isn’t that pat.”
    â€œBut I thought you said—”
    â€œI told you. It’s very complicated.”
    â€œComplicated how? By what?”
    The old man set his empty glass on the floor, where presumably it could be more conveniently kicked. Ellery watched him with sharpening suspicion.
    â€œI’m sincerely sorry I told you anything about it,” his father said sincerely, and rose. “Let’s forget it, son. I mean, you forget it.”
    â€œThanks a heap! How do I do that? It’s apparently one of those lovely deceptive ones that only appears to be a simple case. Therefore …”
    The “Yes?” came out of the Inspector’s birdy face like an impatient twitter.
    â€œI’ve suddenly come down with a recurrence of my old enteric fever. You know, dad, the aftermath of the jezail bullet that grazed my subclavian artery and shattered my shoulder at the battle of Maiwand?”
    â€œShattered your shoulder?” his father cried. “What bullet grazed your artery? At which battle?”
    â€œI’ll consequently have to notify my publisher that there will be a slight delay in the delivery of my next book. After all, what difference can it make to anyone there? It’s probably wandering around somewhere on their schedule, hopelessly lost. Nobody in the publishing profession pays any attention whatever to a mystery writer except when banking the profits from his mean endeavors. We’re the ditchdiggers of literature.”
    â€œEllery, I don’t want to be the cause of—”
    â€œYou’ve already said that. Of course you do, or you’d have swallowed a few mouthfuls of Fabby’s well-meant swill and crept into