Read Halfway House for Free Online Page A

Queen; couldn’t have put it better myself. But when it’s all added up, what the devil have you got?”
    “More,” retorted Ellery, “than you apparently realize. You have a house in which the occupant neither slept nor ate—a place with extraordinarily few of the characteristics of a dwelling and all the indications of… a transient shelter, a wayside convenience, the merest stopover. Moreover, from various signs you can deduce the quality of the occupant. This fawn rug is the only one of the accouterments here which doesn’t date from the squatter era—much too regal and costly. I should say whoever has been using this place picked it up somewhere second-hand at a respectable price. A concession to sheer luxury in taste—that’s significant, don’t you think? This tendency to Sybaritism is borne out by the clothes on that rack, by the curtains on the windows—rich stuffs, but badly hung… the masculine touch, of course. Finally, the interior is almost meticulously clean; there isn’t a speck of dirt or ashes anywhere on the rug, the fireplace is clean as the proverbial whistle, no dust visible to the prying eye. What kind of man does all this paint?”
    Bill turned from the window; his eyes were rimmed with red. “It doesn’t paint Joe Wilson,” he said harshly.
    “No,” said Ellery. “It certainly does not.”
    De Jong’s smile faded. “But that doesn’t jibe with what Wilson told Angell over the ’phone today—that nobody but himself knew about this place!”
    “Nevertheless,” said Ellery in a queer tone, “I think that another man entirely is involved.”
    The voices were loud outside. De Jong scrubbed his chin and looked thoughtful. He said: “That sounds like the goddamned press,” and went away.
    “Now let’s see,” said Ellery softly, “what friend De Jong has found in poor Wilson’s pockets.”
    The pile on the table was composed of the usual assortment of odds and ends a man carries about with him: a bunch of keys; a worn wallet which contained two hundred and thirty-six dollars in bills—Ellery glanced at Bill, who still stared out the window; a number of miscellaneous scraps of paper; several registered-letter receipts; a driver’s license in Wilson’s name; and two snapshots of a very pretty woman standing before an unpretentious little frame house. Ellery recognized her as Bill’s sister Lucy, more buxom than he remembered her, but still the warm and vivid creature he had known in his university days. There was a receipted bill from a Philadelphia gas company; a fountain pen; and a few empty old envelopes addressed to Wilson on the backs of which were various numerical computations. Ellery picked up a bankbook and opened it; it had been issued by a leading Philadelphia savings bank and it indicated a balance of a little over four thousand dollars.
    “The saving sort, I see,” he remarked to Bill’s motionless back. “There hasn’t been a withdrawal in years. And although the deposits are modest, they’re quite steady.”
    “Yes,” said Bill without turning, “he saved his money. I think he had some money in the Postal Savings, too. Lucy really hasn’t lacked anything for a woman married to a man in Joe’s position.”
    “Did he own any bonds or stocks?”
    “My dear Ellery, you forget we’re the lower middle class in the fifth year of the Depression.”
    “My error. How about a checking account? I don’t see a checkbook.”
    “No. No, he didn’t have one.” Bill paused. “He always said he didn’t need one in his business.”
    “How very odd,” said Ellery in a tone touched with astonishment. “It’s—” Then he stopped and looked over the pile of articles again. But there was nothing more.
    He picked up the fountain-pen, unscrewed its cap, and tried to write on one of the papers. “Hmm. Pen’s run dry. Clarifies that business of where the gift card was written. Certainly not here. No pencils on him, pen’s empty, and I’m sure from my