The Bizarre Murders, page 55
The Inspector shrugged. “I think Mr. Queen will agree with me that his clothes exist, all right, and that if they do there must have been a damn good reason for the killer’s having toted ’em off, or disposed of them.”
“Or,” murmured Ellery, “as friend Fluellen said so ungrammatically: ‘There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things.’ I beg your pardon, Inspector. I’m sure you said it much more aptly.”
Moley stared. “Say…Oh. You through, Blackie?”
“Pretty near.”
Moley picked the sheet of paper very carefully from the table and held it up for Ellery’s inspection. Judge Macklin squinted a little over Ellery’s shoulder—he had never worn glasses, and although at seventy-six his eyes were beginning to fail, he would not give in to his infirmity.
A little below and to the right of the crest was written the date and then, in a bold hand, Sunday 1 a.m. On the left there appeared, above the salutation, the legend:
Lucius Penfield, Esq.
11 Park Row
New York, N. Y.
and the salutation read: Dear Luke. The message ran:
“It’s a hell of a time to be writing a letter, but I have a couple of minutes alone now and while I’m waiting I want to tell you how I am getting on. It’s been hard to write lately because I have to be careful. You know the kind of pot I’m sitting on. I don’t want it to boil over until I am good and ready; and then let it boil! It won’t hurt me.
“Things look good and rosy, and it is only a matter of days now that I will be able to make that last sweet clean—”
And that was all. From the tail of the n ran the heavy ink-line, slashing down the creamy paper like a knife.
“Now what kind of clean-up—‘last’ clean-up—was this monkey figuring on?” asked Inspector Moley quietly. “And if that’s not something, Mr. Queen, I’m the monkey’s uncle!”
“An excellent question—” began Ellery, when an exclamation from the coroner whirled them all around.
For some time he had been regarding the corpse with a puzzled air, as if there were something about the stiff clay he could not understand. But now he had leaned over and removed the braided loop from the metal hasp on the collar of the opera cloak at the dead man’s throat, the cloak slipping off the marble shoulders, and then had placed his finger on the dead man’s chin and tilted the rigid head far up.
There was a thin deep red line in the flesh of Marco’s neck.
“Strangled!” exclaimed the Judge.
“Sure was,” said the coroner, studying the wound. “Goes all around his throat. Ragged wound at the nape of the same nature; that’s where it must have been knotted. Wire, I’d say from the looks of it. But the wire isn’t here. Did you find it, Inspector?”
“Something else to look for,” groaned Moley.
“Then Marco was attacked from the rear?” demanded Ellery, twirling his pince-nez thoughtfully.
“If you mean the corpse,” said the coroner in a rather sour tone, “yes. The strangler stood behind him, slipped the wire around his neck and under the loose collar of the cloak, pulled hard, twisted the wire in a knot at the nape of the neck…It couldn’t have taken very long.” He stooped, picked up the cloak, flung it carelessly over the dead man’s body. “Well, I’m through.”
“But even so,” protested the Inspector, “there isn’t the sign of a struggle. He’d at least have twisted back in his seat, made a pass at his assailant, something! But this bird just sat here and took it and never even turned around, from what you say,”
“Didn’t let me finish,” retorted the bony man. “He was unconscious when he was strangled.”
“Unconscious!”
“Here.” The coroner lifted the cloak and uncovered Marco’s curly black hair. He parted the hair skillfully almost at the very top of the head; a livid bruise showed through on the skin of the skull. Then he let the cloak go. “He was struck squarely on top of the parietal bone with some heavy instrument, not enough to break the bone but sufficient to cause a contusion. That put him to sleep. After that it was a simple enough matter to slip the wire under his collar and strangle him.”
“But why didn’t the murderer finish the job with his bludgeon?” muttered Judge Macklin.
The coroner sniggered. “Oh, might be lots of reasons. Maybe he didn’t like messy corpses. Or maybe he brought the wire along with him and didn’t want to waste it. I don’t know, but that’s what he did.”
“Struck him with what?” demanded Ellery. “Have you found anything, Inspector?”
Moley went back to a niche in the rock wall, near one of the big Spanish jars, and picked up a small heavy bust. “He got socked by Columbus,” he drawled. “We found this thing on the floor behind the table, and I put it back in that niche there; it was the only empty one, so the bust must have come from there. This stone doesn’t take fingerprints, so there’s no use looking. At that, we swept up the floor of this terrace before we set foot on it; but we didn’t find a damned thing except a lot of sand and dirt blown up here by the wind. Awfully clean folks, these Godfreys, or maybe their servants were brought up right.” He replaced the bust.
“And no trace of the wire, eh?”
“Weren’t looking for it, but I got a report on every blessed morsel the boys’ve picked up around the premises that looked promising, and there wasn’t any wire. I suppose the killer took it away with him.”
“What time did this man die, sir?” asked Ellery abruptly.
The coroner looked surprised, and then surly, and then glanced at Inspector Moley; Meley nodded and the man said: “As closely as I can figure—which isn’t always as close as we like to pretend—he died between one and one-thirty a.m. Certainly not before one” o’clock this morning. And I think a half-hour’s margin is ample.”
“He did die of strangulation?”
“I said he did, didn’t I?” snapped the coroner. “I may be a country yokel, y’understand, but I know my business. Strangled. Died practically at once. That’s all. Not another mark on his body. Want an autopsy, Moley?”
“Might as well. You never know.”
“All right, but I don’t think it’s necessary. If you’re through with him I’ll have the boys cart him away.”
“I’m through. Anything else you want to know, Mr. Queen?”
Ellery drawled: “Oh, loads of things, but I’m afraid Mr. Coroner wouldn’t be of much assistance. Before you take dead Apollo away…” He knelt on the flags suddenly and putting his hand on the dead man’s ankle, tugged. But it was rooted to the spot as if it were part of the flag-stories. He looked up.
“Rigor,” said the coroner with a sneer. “What do you want?”
“I want,” replied Ellery in a patient voice, “to look at his feet.”
“His feet? Well, there they are!”
“Inspector, if you and the coroner will raise him, chair and all, please—?”
Moley and the bony man, assisted by a policeman, lifted body and chair. Ellery inclined his head and squinted up at the naked soles of the dead man’s feet.
“Clean,” he murmured. “Quite clean. I wonder—” He took a pencil from his pocket and with difficulty inserted its length between the great and index toes. He repeated the operation on all the man’s toes, and on both feet. “Not even a grain of sand. All right, gentlemen, thank you. I’ve had enough of your precious Mr. Marco—certainly of his mortal remains.” And Ellery rose and dusted off his knees and groped absently for a cigaret and stared out to sea through the opening in the walls of the Cove.
The two men set the body down and the coroner signalled to two white-clad men lolling at the head of the terrace steps.
“Well, my son,” said a voice over Ellery’s shoulder, and he turned to find Judge Macklin quietly regarding him. “What do you think?”
Ellery shrugged. “Nothing startling. It must be that the murderer undressed him. I thought the soles of his feet might show signs that he had been walking about barefoot while alive, which in a sense might have established that he had undressed himself. But his feet are much cleaner than they would be if he had actually walked about; he certainly wasn’t on the beach there in naked feet, for there’s no sand between his toes; or for that matter in shoes, either, since there are no prints—” He halted suddenly, staring at the beach with eyes that seemed to be seeing it for the first time.
“What’s the matter?”
Before Ellery could reply a gruffly patient male voice broke into speech above their heads. They all looked up. They could see the blue-clad elbow of a policeman; he was standing on the lip of the high cliff overhead, the cliff which looked down upon the terrace and the beach from the side where the house lay.
He was saying: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but ye can’t do that. Ye’ll have to go back to the house.”
They had one glimpse of her face with its unnaturally staring eyes, as she peered over the edge of the abyss gazing fiercely at the defenseless naked body of John Marco being dumped in a crate-like basket by the two white-clad men on the terrace. The marble body had strong black welts on it, where the beams of the terrace roof cast their shadows. It looked like the body of a man lashed to death—a queer illusion that was reflected by the female face glaring down at it.
It was the fat, pale, frenzied face of Mrs. Constable.
Chapter Four
THE NOTORIOUS IMPATIENCE OF TIME AND TIDE
THEN SHE VANISHED, AND Inspector Moley said reflectively: “I wonder what’s eating her. She looked at him as if she’d never seen a man before.”
“That dangerous age,” frowned Judge Macklin. “Is she a widow?”
“Just as good as one. From the little I’ve been able to learn, she’s got a sick husband who’s been off in Arizona or some other place out West for a year or so. He’s in a sanitarium for his health. I don’t wonder. Lookin’ at that face for fifteen years or so wouldn’t make a man healthy.”
“Then her husband doesn’t know the Godfreys?” The old gentleman pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Really an unnecessary question. I got the impression before that she doesn’t know them any too well herself.”
“Is that so?” said Moley with a queer look. “Well, from what I hear, they don’t know Constable at all. Never met him and he’s never been in this house. What’s that you were saying, Mr. Queen?”
Ellery, who had been listening absently, glanced back; the two men were trudging away up the gravel road with the basket between them. They plodded under its weight, chattering cheerfully. Then he shrugged and sat down in a comfortable wicker rocker.
“What,” he said between puffs on his cigaret, “do you know about the tides here, Inspector Moley?”
“Tides? What d’ye mean? Tides?”
“Merely a hypothetical something in mind at the moment. Specific information might clarify certain, at present, nebulosities, if you follow me.”
“I’m not sure I do,” said the Inspector with a wry grin. “What’s he talking about, Judge?”
Judge Macklin grunted. “I’m blessed if I know. It’s a vicious habit of his to say something which sounds as if it might have meaning but which on examination comes to precisely nothing. Come, come, Ellery; this is serious business, not a clambake.”
“Thanks for the reminder. I asked a simple question,” replied Ellery in a hurt tone. “The tides, man, the tides. Especially the tides in this Cove. I want information about them, the more exact the better.”
“Oh,” said the Inspector. He scratched his head. “Well, I’ll tell you. I don’t know much about ’em myself, but I’ve got a lad on my force who knows this coast like the palm of his hand. Maybe he can tell you—though what, I’m damned if I know.”
“It might be wise,” sighed Ellery, “to send for him.”
Moley roared: “Sam! Get Lefty down here, will you?”
“He’s off lookin’ for them clothes!” yelled some one from the road.
“Hell, yes, I forgot. Locate him right away.”
“By the way,” demanded the Judge, “who found the body, Inspector? I never did get that straight.”
“Thunder, that’s right. It was Mrs. Godfrey. Sam,” he roared again, “get Mrs. Godfrey down here—alone! Y’see, Judge, we got the flash around half-past six this morning; and we were here in fifteen minutes. Since then it’s been nothing but headaches. I haven’t had a chance to talk to any of these folks at all, except Mrs. Godfrey, and she wasn’t in any condition to tell a straight story. Might as will clean that out right away.”
They waited in silence, brooding out over the sea. After a space Ellery glanced at his wrist-watch. It was a little past ten. And then he looked at the water sparkling in the Cove. It had risen perceptibly and had eaten a good piece of the beach.
They rose at a step on the terrace stairs. The tall dark woman was descending with painful slowness, her eyes distended as if she were a victim of goiter. The handkerchief at her wrist was limp and soggy with tears.
“Come on down,” said Inspector Moley genially. “It’s all right now, Mrs. Godfrey. There’s just a few questions—”
She was looking for him, of that they were certain. Her bulging eyes swept from side to side, moved helplessly by a power stronger than herself. And she kept coming down in spurts of slowness, as if both reluctant and eager at the same time.
“He’s gone—al—” she began in an unsteady undertone.
“We’ve taken him away,” said the Inspector gravely. “Sit down.”
She groped for a chair. And she began slowly to rock, looking meanwhile at the chair in which John Marco had been sitting.
“You told me this morning,” began the Inspector, “that it was you who found Marco’s body on the terrace. You were wearing a bathing suit. Were you going down to the beach for a swim, Mrs. Godfrey?”
“Yes.”
Ellery said gently: “At six-thirty in the morning?”
She looked up at him with an expression of vacant surprise, as if she had just noticed him. “Why, you’re Mr.—Mr.—”
“Queen.”
“Yes. The detective. Aren’t you?” And she began to laugh. Suddenly she covered her face with her hands. “Why can’t you all go away,” she said with a muffled sob, “and let us alone? What’s done is done. He’s—dead, that’s all. Can you bring him back?”
“Would you,” asked Judge Macklin dryly, “want to bring him back, Mrs. Godfrey?”
“No, oh, good God, no,” she whispered. “Not for anything. It’s better, this way. I—I’m glad he’s…” Then she took her hands from her face and they saw fear in her eyes. “I didn’t mean that,” she said quickly. “I’m upset—”
“At six-thirty in the morning, Mrs. Godfrey?” murmured Ellery, as if nothing had happened.
“Oh.” She shaded her eyes against the sun in a gesture of hopeless weariness. “Yes, that’s quite right. I’ve done it for years. I’m an early riser. I’ve never been able to understand women who lie in bed until ten and eleven o’clock.” She spoke vaguely, her thoughts apparently elsewhere. Then pain and awareness crept into her voice. “My brother and I—”
“Yes, Mrs. Godfrey?” prompted the Inspector eagerly.
“We generally came down together,” she whispered. “David is—was—”
“Is, Mrs. Godfrey. Until we learn differently.”
“David and I of-often went swimming together before seven. I’ve always loved the sea and David, of course, w-is athletic; he swims like a fish. We’re the only two in our family that way; my husband detests the water, and Rosa has never learned to swim. She had a bad scare as a child—almost drowned; and refused to learn after that.” She spoke dreamily, as if something veiled impelled her to the irrelevant explanation. Her voice broke. “This morning I went down alone—”
“You knew your brother was missing, then,” murmured Ellery.
“No, oh, no, I didn’t! I knocked at the door of his bedroom but there was no answer, so I thought he’d already gone down to the beach. I—I didn’t know he hadn’t been home all night. I retired early last night with a—” She paused, and a veil came over her eyes. “I wasn’t feeling well. Well, earlier than usual. So I didn’t know Rosa and David were missing. I went down to the terrace. Then I—I saw him there, sitting at that table in a cloak with his back turned to me. I said: ‘Good morning,’ or something as inconsequential, but he didn’t turn.” Her features were convulsed with, horror. “I went past him, looked back at his face—something made me turn…” She shuddered and stopped.
“Did you touch anything—anything at all?” asked Ellery sharply.
“Heavens, no!” she cried. “I—I’d sooner have died myself. How could any one—” She shuddered again, her whole body shaking with repulsion. “I screamed. Jorum came running—Jorum is my husband’s man-of-all-work…I think I fainted. The next thing I knew you gentlemen were here—the police, I mean.”
“Well,” said the Inspector. There was a large silence. She sat chewing the hem of her wet handkerchief.
Even in grief there was a youth, a springiness, in her body that belied Rosa; it seemed impossible that this woman should have a grown daughter. Ellery studied the curve of her slim waist. “By the way, Mrs. Godfrey. This swimming habit of yours. Does—er—weather deter you?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she murmured in dull surprise.
“You come down at six-thirty every morning for a dip, rain or shine?”
“Oh, that.” She tossed her head indifferently. “Of course. I love the sea in rainy weather. It’s warm and it…it prickles your skin.”
“The remark of a true hedonist,” said Ellery with a smile. “I know precisely how you feel. However, it didn’t rain last night so I fancy the whole matter’s irrelevant.”
Inspector Moley passed his hand over his lips and chin in a peculiar gesture. “Look here, Mrs. Godfrey, there’s no sense sparring around. A man’s been murdered who’s been a house-guest of yours, and people aren’t murdered just to put a little spice in a weekend. What do you know about this business?”
“I?”
“You invited Marco here, didn’t you? Or did your husband?”
