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was hidden by her head. Armando probably didn’t notice it at all—he’d sure as shooting keep his hands off that body! According to the story he tells, he never even set foot in the den—just stood in the doorway, saw the blood and his wife lying over the desk, and went right to the bedroom phone to call the police. And, you know, I believe him.”
    â€œAll of which,” said Ellery, pulling on his nose, “gets us back to where we started: Just what did she mean by ‘face’?”
    â€œThat’s not where we started,” his father retorted. “We started with those missing diaries, and where they are; and while, strictly speaking, it’s none of your business, I’m softheaded enough to ask both of you: Where are they?” He poked his head out the study doorway and bellowed down, “Velie! Anything on those diaries yet?” And when the sergeant’s glum negative was bellowed back, the old man pulled his head back in and almost pleaded, “Any suggestions?”
    The two younger men were silent.
    Finally Harry Burke said, “The killer—or Armando before he phoned the police—could have taken them from the apartment.”
    â€œNot Armando—he didn’t have time enough. The woman, maybe.” Then the old man shook his head. “It wouldn’t have made sense, though. All the diaries? All the biographical material? And don’t forget, mere possession would be as dangerous as a fingerprint. Incidentally, talking of fingerprints, there aren’t any except Armando’s, Glory’s, the maid’s, and the secretary’s, Jeanne Temple’s; and the maid and the secretary sleep out.”
    â€œThen they’re here somewhere.” Burke sucked on his pipe quietly, the very figure of a proper British police officer. “Those bookshelves, Inspector. Have the books on them been individually inspected? It occurs to me that the diaries may have false and misleading covers—”
    â€œYou mean disguised as a set of my son’s books, for instance?” Ellery winced at his father’s tone. “Well, they’re not. That’s the first thing I thought of.”
    â€œHas anything been removed from this room?” Ellery asked abruptly.
    â€œLots of things,” said his father. “The body, the clock—”
    â€œThat’s two. What else?”
    â€œThe piece of paper she wrote on.”
    â€œAnd that’s three. Go on.”
    â€œGo on? Go on where? That’s all, Ellery.”
    â€œAre you sure?”
    â€œOf course I’m not sure! Velie!” the Inspector shrieked. The sergeant came thundering upstairs. “What’s been taken from the study here?”
    â€œThe body,” began Sergeant Velie, “the clock—”
    â€œNo, no, Sergeant,” Ellery said. “Something not apparently connected with the crime.”
    The sergeant scratched his head. “Like what, for instance?”
    â€œLike a three-step ladder,” said Ellery. “As I recall her, Glory Guild wasn’t more than five foot six. These bookshelves are eight feet tall. She’d need a little ladder to reach the top shelves; I can’t see her dragging a very expensive monstrosity like that elephant-hide chair over to the shelves every time she wanted to reach a book over her head, or risking her neck standing on the swivel chair. So, Sergeant, where’s the ladder?”
    Burke was staring at him. The Inspector’s mustache had lifted in a puzzled smile. Velie’s mouth hung open.
    â€œShut the flytrap, Velie, and go get it,” said the Inspector mildly; and as the sergeant left, shaking his big head, the old man said, “I forgot about the ladder. There was one in here, all right, but a detective borrowed it yesterday to look over the Dutch shelving in the dining room downstairs and didn’t bring it back. Why do you want it, Ellery? We’ve