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together till after I got the early reports. Is she there now?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWell, come on over and join the party, and bring her with you. By the way, you didn’t happen to run into a man named Harry Burke on the plane coming over, did you?”
    â€œI did. And he’s with me. House guest.”
    â€œI’ll be damned,” said the Inspector. “Another of your magic acts. I’ve been waiting to hear from Burke—I suppose he’s told you I cabled him. Bring him along, too.”
    â€œWhere are you, dad?”
    â€œAt GeeGee’s Park Avenue apartment. Do you know the address?”
    â€œNo, but Burke and Miss West do.”
    â€œThat’s a fact, isn’t it?” The old man cursed and hung up.

6
    The doorman at the cooperative had a wild look in his eye. There was a patrolman conspicuously on duty in the lobby, and another in the foyer of the Guild-Armando apartment. Several detectives, including Sergeant Velie, were working their way through the penthouse duplex. Ellery left Roberta West in a small drawing room off the foyer, and at Velie’s direction he and Harry Burke went up the wrought-iron stairway to the master bedroom, where they found Inspector Queen going through a clothes closet.
    â€œOh, hello, son,” the old man said, barely looking up. “Damn it, where is it? Sorry to bring you all the way back across an ocean, Burke, but I had no choice. It’s got to be here somewhere.”
    â€œBefore we get down to cases, daddy-o,” Ellery said in a pained tone, “may I point out that you haven’t seen me for almost two months? I didn’t expect the fatted calf, but could you spare a handshake?”
    â€œOh … booshwa ,” said the Inspector crossly, falling back on the slang of his youth. “Help me find it, you two, will you?”
    â€œFind what, Inspector?” asked Burke. “What are you looking for?”
    â€œHer diaries. I’m mad for cases where they keep diaries. Her secretary, Jeanne Temple, tells me Glory-Glory kept one ever since her retirement—wrote up the events of the day every night before going to bed. By now it’s volumes. A few months ago she started working on a publishing project, an autobiography or book of memoirs or something, with the help of that gigolo husband of hers and Miss Temple, and she’s been using the diaries as reference material, where she couldn’t trust her memory or had to look up details. And that’s great, only where are they? Or it? I’m anxious to see the latest one especially, the current diary—what she wrote in it Wednesday night. If she did, that is. We’ve been searching for two days.”
    â€œThey’re all missing?” asked Ellery.
    â€œIncluding the manuscript of the autobiography.”
    â€œInspector,” said Harry Burke. “I saw her Wednesday night.”
    â€œThe hell you did. I was hoping for a break like that! It’s one of the reasons I cabled you. What time was it you left her?”
    â€œA few minutes after eleven.”
    â€œThat’s good, that’s good,” the Inspector said in an absent way. “She wasn’t excited or nervous or anything?”
    â€œNot as far as I could tell. Of course I didn’t know her very well—just the few conversations we’d had about the matter I was on for her.”
    â€œWell, those diaries are tied into this case some way, I’ll bet a cookie, or the whole kit and caboodle wouldn’t be missing. They’ve been lifted. The question is, why?”
    Ellery was looking over the Hollywood bed, with its bold satin spread and silken bolsters and gold damask draped canopy. The bed had not been slept in.
    His father caught the glance and nodded. “She never did get to bed Wednesday night.”
    â€œI take it, dad, she wasn’t killed in this room.”
    â€œNo.” The Inspector led the way past a vast