Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 101, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 610 & 611, March 1993

When the murder victim is the life of every party, a hail-fellow everyone appears to like, the problem, series sleuth Denver Styx discovers, may be not too many suspects, but none at all...

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The night before the murder there had been a party. As Denver Styx tried to remember details of it, Lieutenant Horn prodded him from time to time— Which guests were there when he arrived; how did new guests act when they arrived; what gestures did they make? Denver was not sure the prodding was helpful. He preferred to present the facts in his own way, but the detective had something special on his mind and Denver was forced to go along with him.

He looked around the lieutenant’s utilitarian office and found little in it to stimulate him, few touches of civilization. Horn’s assistant sat writing down every word that was said, like a studious but unimaginative undergraduate taking notes on his lectures.

“Sam Tarn crashed the party at about ten o’clock,” he reported. “He and his wife had obviously been drinking and they just barged right past Fine.”

“He didn’t invite them in, then?”

“On the contrary, when he answered the door he said, ‘I’m sorry, Sam, but I have a few friends over tonight. Come back another time.’ ”

“And what happened then?”

“Tarn gave a sort of happy whoop and shouted, ‘A party! We’re in luck, Dolly. There’s a party.’ And the two of them swept in past Fine and into the living room. They knew more than half the guests and went about hugging and kissing them as if they hadn’t seen them for years.”

“One of the other guests said they added life to the party,” Horn suggested.

“You could put it that way. We had been having an animated conversation about trends in modern art. Tarn and his wife put a stop to that. The whole affair became a lot more boisterous than it had been before.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“I guess in a way I did. I would have preferred to go on with the discussion we had been having. There were some very intelligent people there, some of whom I’d met for the first time. They had provocative and well-informed views. The evening had been turning into one of those rare stimulating exchanges of ideas.”

“Highbrow?”

“I suppose so.”

“And Sam Tarn wrecked it.”

“He didn’t exactly wreck it. He interrupted it. He changed the whole tenor of the evening.”

“Had you met him before?”

“I had met both of them on a few social occasions informally, not to speak with at any length. I also dealt with Sam in a business way. I’d never met either at a party before. It was a revelation.”

“Did you like him?”

“I liked him the way one likes a large friendly dog with muddy paws.”

The detective laughed. “So you enjoyed the party even after Sam Tarn interrupted it.”

“He was entertaining. At one point he lined up twelve wineglasses on the table and poured different levels of wine into them. Then he played tunes on them with a spoon. He pulled it off quite well at first, clowning around to get just the right level in each glass, filling the glass to the full and drinking off the excess. He played ‘Mona Lisa’ on the glasses. Then he and his wife sang while he played. They spoiled the whole thing by putting some very objectionable lyrics to the song. He wound up with a flourish that cracked two of the glasses and shattered a third. His wife thought it was hilarious.”

“But Fine did not.”

“No, he certainly didn’t. He apparently had been anticipating something like that. His wife mopped up the mess while he restrained Tarn, who wanted to snatch the tablecloth off with one quick flip and leave everything on the table as it was. He claimed to have performed that trick successfully on stage at a children’s program. Fine wasn’t about to let him try it with a wine-drenched tablecloth and a table full of fine china and crystal.”

The detective looked over his notes and made a brief addition. When he resumed, it was with a definite objective. “Did you see any conflict between Fine and Tarn?” he asked.

“As I said, he tried to keep Tarn from coming in and he restrained him from pulling off the tablecloth.”

Horn waited.

“I suppose,” Denver continued, “that you are referring to what he said about his wife?”

“That’s it. What did you hear?”

“Others were closer than I was. What I heard from halfway across the room was Fine saying, ‘Keep your hands off my wife.’ ”

“Were those his exact words?”

“Yes.”

“But that didn’t break up the party?”

“No. It continued for more than an hour after that with Tarn clowning around as before.”

“You were the last to leave the party. Any special reason?”

“When the other guests began to leave, Fine asked me to stay until he got rid of Sam and Dolly Tarn.”

“Did he say why he picked you?”