“Our apartment was ransacked in our absence. Things tossed about, drawers emptied out, jewelry and other valuables taken. How does that fit in with your little scenario?”

“He’s got a point,” Ray said. “There was even a piece or two of jewelry found in the tub with the deceased.”

“I’m sure there was,” I said. “Right where Nugent tossed it when he faked the burglary?”

Nugent stared at me. “I faked the burglary? When did I do that, right after I kidnapped the Lindbergh baby?”

I shook my head. “I have a pretty good idea how you did it,” I said. “The only real question is when you tossed the jewelry in the tub. It was a nice touch, and I wonder if you were farsighted enough to do it right after you shot Santangelo or if you had to remove the switch plate a second time later on. I’d guess the latter. The killing was an impulse thing, wasn’t it? While the cover-up took some planning.”

“You must be out of your mind.”

“Here’s what I think,” I went on. “Late Tuesday night, while your wife was asleep, you realized what you had to do. You got some of her jewelry, came in here, undid the switch plate, tossed the jewels in the tub with the corpse, and closed up again. Then Wednesday the two of you were ready to fly to London. Maybe you were already down on the street loading the bags into the taxi when you contrived to remember something, one bag you’d conveniently left behind. ‘I won’t be a minute,’ you told your wife, and it wouldn’t have taken you much longer than that. Scoop up a few valuables, spill out a few drawers, and you’re on your way again. You’d already have disposed of whatever clothing Santangelo had removed before he, uh, did what he did. In a pinch you could have tossed them out the window, leaving them for the homeless to scavenge, but I suspect you found an even safer way.”

“And what did I do with the jewels?”

“Good question,” I said. “That necklace is a beaut, Mrs. Nugent. I’ve been admiring it all night. I don’t suppose it was one of the stolen pieces?”

“I had it with me in Europe.”

“I don’t know what you’re driving at,” Nugent said, “and I don’t think you do, either. The police have a full and precise inventory of everything that was taken. You can be assured that the pieces my wife is wearing are not on it.”

“I’m sure they’re not,” I said, “but it’s good to know about the inventory. Ray, I don’t suppose you happen to have a copy of it with you, do you?”

“I do, as a matter of fact.”

“And I do if he doesn’t,” said Nugent. “What possible difference can it make?”

“Well,” I said slowly, “if we found some of the pieces on that list here in this apartment, it wouldn’t look good for Mr. Nugent, would it?”

“If he took the stuff,” Ray said, “he wouldn’t leave it here. He ain’t stupid, Bernie.”

“I could hardly tuck it in my breast pocket and carry it to London and back,” Nugent said testily, “and I wouldn’t have had time to do anything else with it, would I?”

“That’s right,” I said. “You’d have had to stash it someplace on the premises. I know what you’re going to say, Ray. After the Nugents returned, he could have transferred the goodies to a safe deposit box.”

“Words right outta my mouth, Bernie.”

“And he could have,” I said, “but I don’t think he did. Why bother, since the cops had already been in and out of the place in his absence? I think he decided the jewels were perfectly safe right where they were. Now where would that be?” I looked thoughtfully at Harlan Nugent. “Someplace where your wife wouldn’t come upon them, because she thought the burglary was genuine. Some private space of yours. A den, say.” I led the way, and damned if they didn’t all follow me. “A locked desk drawer,” I said, having located just such a drawer. “Is this where you put the jewels, Mr. Nugent?”

“What a curious fantasy.”

“I don’t suppose you’d care to open the drawer for us?”

“Nothing,” he said, “would please me more.” He opened an unlocked drawer on the opposite side of the desk and rummaged through it. “Damn it to hell,” he said.

“Is something wrong?”

“I can’t find the fucking key.”

“How convenient.”

He cursed colorfully and imaginatively. If I’d been a key and somebody talked to me like that, I’d do whatever he wanted me to do. This key, however, remained elusive.

“Bern,” Carolyn said, God bless her, “since when did you ever need a key to open a lock? Use the gifts God gave you, will you?”

“Well, I can’t do that,” I said. “We’re guests in Mr. Nugent’s home, and it’s his desk and his drawer and only he knows what’s in it. I couldn’t possibly try to open it without his permission.”

He looked at me. “You can open a lock without a key?”

“Sometimes,” I said.

“Then for God’s sake do it,” he started to say, and then I think he finally got it, and that made it perfect. “Wait a moment,” he said. “Of course you have no legal right.”

“No, sir,” I said. “We’d need your permission.”

“Which if we don’t get it, the next step’d be a court order,” Ray added.

The big shoulders sagged. “There can’t be…I can’t imagine…go ahead, damn you, open the fucking thing.”

Guess what we found?

“I completely lost my head,” Harlan Nugent said. “Just as you said, I came home that Tuesday afternoon and found Joan sprawled naked on the daybed in her studio. She was unconscious, and in an awkward, unnatural position. I took one look at her and thought she was dead.”

“Oh, darling!”

“And there were these clothes piled on the floor, as if they’d been removed in a great hurry. Her clothes, and some male clothing as well. And my eye was drawn to the bathroom door, which was closed. It’s usually open when she paints.”

“When I use acrylics, I wash my brushes in the sink.”

“I tried the door, and of course I couldn’t open it. I shouted for whoever was inside to open the door. Of course he didn’t. If he had, I think I might have torn him limb from limb.”

“So you got your gun.”

“From the locked drawer. If I’d misplaced the key a little earlier, Santangelo might be alive.” He thought about it. “No,” he decided, “I’d have broken down the door and killed him. I was completely beside myself.”

“But you remembered a way into the bathroom.”

“The switch plate, yes. And I shot him. I don’t think I even knew who he was when I pulled the trigger. I didn’t care. He’d killed the only woman I ever loved, and he was damn well going to die for it. Then I would call the police and let them take over.”

“Instead, she came back to life.”

“Thank God,” he said. “She moved an arm, she was breathing, she was alive. I didn’t know what he’d done, whether he’d knocked her unconscious or drugged her or what—”

“He sometimes gave me these pills,” she said, “that made colors a lot richer. They had a very stimulating effect on my painting, but sometimes I would get very tired and have to lie down and take a nap.”

“The swine,” Nugent said. “I can’t say I’m sorry he’s dead. It’s hard to believe the world’s a poorer place for his having left it. But I wish I hadn’t killed him. It shook me badly.”

“That’s why you were so moody in London, darling.”

“I tidied up and tried to figure out what to do next. Then Joan awoke smiling and still a little groggy, asking when I’d come in and where Luke had gone. I said I just got in and he must have let himself out. When she turned in for the night I went out and draped his clothes on the gate of the church on Amsterdam Avenue. People leave clothing there all the time, and homeless people help themselves to it. I’ve left things there before, shirts with frayed collars, trousers that have gone shiny in the seat. I must say I’ve given away things of my own that were in better shape than what I hung on the gate that night. Dirty jeans gone at the knee, a sweater rank enough to gag a billy goat—”