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Reg returned with their drinks. Ellery paid, and Reg said, “You know, you’re a long way from port, bucko.”

Ellery winked. As Reg moved away, James asked, “What did that mean?”

“That I’ve never been here before. My friends and I gravitate toward the Salty Dog.”

Surprisingly, James said, “I like this place. No one bothers you.”

“That’s right. You must know this place well. Your parents worked here after the original Deep Dive burned down.”

“My mother worked here. My father got a job as a cook at the Blue Galleon. He was on the wagon by then.”

“Good for him.”

James smiled a chilly little smile. “You don’t have to make small talk. We’re here because we both want information.”

Ellery began to wonder if coming to the Deep Dive alone had been such a great idea. Reg was right. Hewasa long way from port. Not that anything could happen to him in a public space.

“Okay. What do you remember about that night?” he asked.

“No. First you. What does Vera think happened?”

Ellery re-revised his opinion of James. He looked pleasant enough, but there was an edge to him. He might not be a bad man, but he was not aniceman. “Vera thinks someone killed Vernon the night he was supposed to elope with my aunt.”

Glass midway to his lips, James froze. He stared over the rim at Ellery, and it was one of the weirdest, blackest looks Ellery had ever seen in a fellow human’s eyes.

James put his glass down. “That’s not correct. He wasn’t going to marry your aunt. He wasn’t going to marry anyone. He was having way too much fun to ever be satisfied with one woman. Men like that hate women.”

Ellery shrugged. “Well, you were there. I wasn’t.”

James smiled another of those tight little smiles. “That’s right.” He picked up his glass and took a long swallow.

“Then again, you were a child, and you might not have always understood what was going on.”

“I understood. I understood a lot more than anyone knew.”

“Right. I’m just going by the fact that Eudora had filled out her part of the marriage license. She mentions it in her journal. And the fact that Vernon gaveherthose gold doubloons. She gave them back to Vera the December after he disappeared. When she knew for sure he was never coming back.”

James’s lips parted, but no sound came out. For one split second, he looked stricken. But a moment later, that expression changed to blazing fury.

“You’relying,” he shouted.

But no one heard because at that instant, the door to the Deep Dive flew open and a troupe of itinerant vaudevillians entered. They seemed to be arguing with each other—loudly— possibly over the accident to their spaceship that had stranded them on Planet Earth. Never had Ellery seen so many handlebar mustaches and funny hats in one place before.

Nor had anyone else at the Deep Dive, and the newcomers had the attention of all.

“Where’d your tour bus break down?” a man at the bar called.

This was greeted by laughter up and down the rail.

“When does the Big Top open?”

“Halloween’s next week!”

“Do you know ‘Ye Cannae Shove Yer Granny Off a Bus?’” called someone else.

“Too late!” his neighbor shouted back. “Looks like someone already did!”

More laughter.