The Devil's Cook by Ellery Queen

were located, for she passed the building every day going to work on the bus. She put on hat and coat and gloves and went down to the bus stop on the corner and caught a bus going downtown.
    At the Journal building, Fan was directed to Classified Ads. She found it without difficulty. Behind a high counter, a breasty woman asked her crisply, in a voice that defied her to do so, if she wished to place an ad.
    â€œI don’t wish to place one,” said Fanny, “but I’d like to find out the name of someone who did.”
    â€œWasn’t the name published with the ad? Can you tell me the kind of ad it was?”
    â€œIt appeared in the Personal column of the Thursday evening edition.”
    The woman’s expression immediately said that she had just been asked to commit treason.
    â€œI’m sorry . The identity of Personal placers is not revealed.”
    â€œIt’s important.”
    â€œNo, no. It’s quite impossible.”
    â€œWell,” said Fanny, stretching the facts to fit the occasion, “it is probable that whoever inserted that ad is some kind of criminal. Well, I suppose you’re honor bound to protect him.”
    â€œThere is no certainty that we know the identity of the party. We often don’t in Personals, you know.” It was now evident in the woman’s face that rules and curiosity were at odds. “Do you have a copy of the newspaper with you?”
    â€œNo, I don’t, but I can quote the ad.”
    Fanny quoted it verbatim, having a retentive memory. It was apparent at once that the woman remembered it. It was equally apparent, from the way honor rose above curiosity, that honor had won a cheap victory.
    â€œI remember the item very well,” the woman said. “It came in the mail with cash payment enclosed. I know because it came to my desk, and I arranged myself for its publication. I haven’t, of course, the least idea who sent it. Sorry I can’t help you.”
    When Fan left the Journal building, it was approaching noon and seemed a long time from her boiled egg. She decided to lunch downtown. But first she spent half an hour in, a department store resisting the temptation to buy several items she did not need. Then she went to the café in a hotel where the blue-plate special was corned beef and cabbage and little boiled potatoes sprinkled with parsley. After lunching on this, with just one martini beforehand to whet her appetite, she caught another bus and returned to The Cornish Arms.
    From the vestibule she walked directly back to Farley’s door and began to knock on it loudly, convinced that it was high time Farley was getting up if he hadn’t already done so. As it turned out he had, but only recently, for he was, although dressed, still disheveled and surly. He glared at Fanny with animosity.
    â€œStop that damn banging!” he said. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
    The order to stop banging was ex post facto , since it had necessarily stopped when he pulled the door away from her fist. So Fanny, ignoring it, slipped past into the room and turned to face him with disapproval.
    â€œI think I’m doing things that need doing, that’s what I think. While you have been sleeping and Jay has been off doing inconsequential things, I have been busy trying to discover what’s become of Terry. How do you expect to accomplish anything by lying in bed?”
    Farley fell into a chair and finger-combed his tousled hair with a temperate despair. His glare had diminished in animosity.
    â€œWhich means,” he said, “that you have been making a pest of yourself again. Fan, why don’t you have the common decency to mind your own business? What, precisely, have you been up to now?”
    â€œI’ve been downtown to the newspaper office to see if I could find out who placed the Personal, but I couldn’t They have some kind of rule against telling. They didn’t