The Spanish Cape Mystery

Chapter Ten The Gentleman from New York

“Well, Mr. Queen,” growled Inspector Moley the next morning, as the three men sat in his office at Police Headquarters in Poinsett, the county seat — a short drive of fifteen miles or so inland from Spanish Cape, “that was a fine mess you got Roush into last night. I got his report by ‘phone this morning. By rights I ought to put him back in uniform.”

“Don’t blame Roush,” said Ellery quickly. “The whole thing was done on my responsibility, Inspector. The man’s not in any way been remiss in his duty.”

“Yeah, he told me that. And he also told me that Marco’s room looks as if a herd of wildcats were let loose in there. You responsible for that, too?”

“Only in a negative way.” And Ellery told the story of the night before, beginning with the conversation he had overheard in the gardens between the Godfreys and concluding with the nocturnal visit of the three women to the dead man’s bedroom.

“Hmm. Now, that’s damned interesting. Good work, Mr. Queen. Only why didn’t you let me in on it?”

“You don’t know this young man,” remarked Judge Macklin dryly. “He’s the loneliest wolf in captivity. I daresay he kept his mouth shut because he hadn’t worked the thing out by his blasted logic. It wasn’t a mathematical ‘certainty’; merely a probability.”

“How well you read my motives,” chuckled Ellery. “Something like that, Inspector. What do you think of my little tale?”

Moley rose and looked out his iron-barred window at the placid Main Street of the little town. “I think,” he said gruffly, “it’s hot. I don’t believe there can be any doubt about what it was those three dames were lookin’ for. Marco took the three of ’em over — three silly women hankering for a little old-fashioned lovin’. Then he got the goods on them, turned on the screws, and made ’em pay through the nose. The old story. Sure they were looking for the goods... I’m convinced of it now, anyway. Y’see, I’ve been getting some dope on Marco.”

“Already?” exclaimed the Judge. “That’s fast work, Inspector.”

“Oh, it wasn’t so tough,” said Moley modestly. “Got a peach of a report in this morning’s mail. Reason it wasn’t so tough is that he’s been looked up before.”

“Oh,” said Ellery. “Then he had a record?”

Inspector Moley flipped over a bulky envelope on his desk. “Not exactly. There’s a pal of mine runs a private agency in New York, see. I got to thinking yesterday afternoon about this Marco scum. And the more I thought the more it seemed to me I’d heard that name before. It’s not a common handle at all. Then I knew where — this friend of mine had mentioned it to me only about six months ago, when I was on a visit to the big city. So I wired him, and it turned out I was right. He sent me all the dope air-mail special delivery.”

“Private investigator, eh?” said the Judge thoughtfully. “That sounds suspiciously like a jealous husband.”

“You’re right. Leonard — that’s my pal — was hired by some guy to get something on Marco. Seems this bird’s wife and Marco had become too friendly. Well, Leonard knows his business. He got enough on Marco to make that smooth weasel turn tail and fork over the letters and photos involved. Naturally, Leonard’s information doesn’t go any further than the settlement of his particular case, so I can’t tell you how or when Marco tied up with this Munn dame. But I can tell you how he tied up with Mrs. Constable, because that was one of the things Leonard found out about him under cover.”

“Then his affair with Mrs. Constable preceded these others. Hmm. By how long?”

“Only a few months. Before that there was a long list of victims. Leonard didn’t get any too much real information, you understand — all Marco’s ex-lady-friends kept their lips buttoned pretty tight. But he had enough to make Marco fade out on Leonard’s client.”

“The man must have a history of some sort,” mused Judge Macklin. “These rascals generally have.”

“Well, yes and no. He just popped out of nowhere, Leonard says, about six years ago. Leonard thinks he was Spanish, of good family, but gone to seed. He seems to have had a swell education, anyway; spoke English like a native, spouted poetry all the time — Shelley and Keats and Bryan and the rest of the love-mongers...”

“Byron, no doubt,” said Ellery. “But I applaud, Inspector. Who’d ever have suspected you of acquaintance with the amorous?”

“I know what it’s all about,” winked Moley. “As I was sayin’, he talked about rich and famous people as if he’d licked honey with ’em out of the same trough, was on familiar terms with Cannes and Monte Carlo and the Swiss Alps, and all the rest of that hooey. He showed up presumably with a lot of dough, although I think that was just part of the act. Didn’t take him long before he got into society, and after that it was easy sailin’. Liked to work the resorts — Florida, the California beaches, Bermuda. He’s left a trail behind him like a scared skunk. But try and prove anything.”

“That’s the trouble with blackmail based on adultery,” growled the Judge. “The willingness to pay is an insurance to the blackmailer of his victim’s continued silence.”

“Leonard says here,” frowned Moley, “that there was something else, but he never could put his finger on it.”

“Something else?” said Ellery alertly.

“Well... a faint trail to an accomplice. Just a suspicion. As if Marco had been working with somebody. But who or in what way he never found out.”

“Heavens, that may be immensely important,” cried Judge Macklin.

“I’m workin’ on it. To make it worse,” added the Inspector, “he was tangled up with a finagler.”

“Eh?”

“Oh, his official name is ‘lawyer,’” retorted Moley.

“Penfield!” both men cried.

“Go to the head of the class. Maybe I oughtn’t to do the gentleman an injustice. I think he’s a crook because I’m convinced no honest lawyer would have tied up with a mugg like Marco. It wasn’t as if the guy was ever up on charges, or on trial, and needed counsel. Only it was this Penfield bird who smoothed matters out for Marco with Leonard. The Spaniard didn’t even appear. Penfield called on Leonard and they had a nice chat, and Penfield said that ‘a client’ of his was being shadowed and found it all very annoying, and wouldn’t Leonard please call his dogs off? And Leonard looked at his fingernails and said there was a little matter of some letters and photos and things that were botherin’ his client, and Penfield said: ‘Dear, dear. Now isn’t that distressing!’ And then they shook hands and the next morning Leonard got all the letters and pictures back in the first mail, no sender’s address — although the package had been mailed from the Park Row post-office. And you remember Penfield’s address. Slick, hey?”

During this remarkable monologue Ellery and the Judge had glanced at each other frequently. The instant Moley paused both of them opened their mouths.

“I know, I know,” said Moley. “You’re going to say that maybe Marco didn’t have his Constable-Munn-Godfrey letters in the Godfrey house at all, and that maybe this Penfield bird has been keepin’ ’em for him.” He jabbed a button on his desk. “Well, we’ll know in a minute.”

“You mean you’ve got Penfield outside?” cried the Judge.

“This office works fast, your honor... Ah, there, Charlie. Show the gentleman in. And remember, Charlie, no rough stuff. He’s marked ‘fragile.’”

Mr. Lucius Penfield beamed from the doorway. He did not look at all fragile. He was, in fact, a very solid and chunky little man with a massive Websterian head almost entirely bald, a neat close-cropped gray mustache, and the most innocent eyes Ellery had ever seen in the face of a human being. They were large, infantile, and angelic — melting brown eyes of a beautiful luster. They twinkled merrily, as if their owner were indulging inwardly a serial jest. There was something Dickensian about him, for he was dressed very quaintly in a baggy and decrepit sack-suit that was olive-green with age and he wore a high collar and a wide cravat with a horseshoe diamond stickpin. He looked, indeed, as if he would have shrunk from stepping on a beetle.

Apparently Judge Macklin, however, entertained no such conception of him. The Judge’s long face was set in implacable lines and his eyes were as cold as twin floes.

“Well, if it isn’t Judge Alva Macklin!” exclaimed Mr. Lucius Penfield, advancing with outstretched hand. “Fancy meeting you here! Dear, dear, it’s been years, hasn’t it, Judge? How time flies.”

“Nasty habit it has,” said the Judge dryly, ignoring the hand.

“Ha, ha! Still the stormy petrel of the profession, I see. I always did say that the bar lost one of its most truly juridical minds when you retired.”

“I doubt if I shall be able conscientiously to say the same about you when you retire. That is, if you ever do. It’s likelier you’ll be disbarred first.”

“Sharp as ever, I see, Judge, ha, ha! I was saying just the other day to Judge Kinsey of General Sessions—”

“Spare the details, Penfield. This is Mr. Ellery Queen, of whom you’ve perhaps heard. I warn you to keep out of his way. And this—”

“Not the Ellery Queen?” cried the bald-headed little man; and he turned his sweet, droll eyes upon Ellery. “Dear, dear, this is an honor indeed. Quite worth the trip. I know your father very well, Mr. Queen. Most valuable man in Centre Street... And this, you were going to say, Judge, is Inspector Moley, the gentleman who’s whisked me away from my very pressing practice?”

He stood there bowing, a beaming little gentleman surveying them all with swift, laughing, jovial glances.

“Sit down, Penfield,” said Moley pleasantly enough. “I want to talk to you.”

“So your man gave me to understand,” said Penfield, promptly accepting the chair. “Something to do with a former client of mine, I believe? Mr. John Marco. Most unfortunate case. I’ve been reading about his demise in the New York papers. You see—”

“Oh, so Marco was a client of yours?”

“Dear, dear, this is all very distressing to me, Inspector. I trust we’re — so to speak — in camera? I may talk freely?”

“And,” said the Inspector grimly, “how. That’s why I’ve had you brought down to Poinsett.”

“Had me brought down?” Penfield’s arching brows arched just a trifle more than usual. “That sounds most unpleasant, Inspector. I take it I’m not under arrest — ha, ha? For I assure you the moment your detective explained—”

“Let’s cut the soft soap, Penfield,” said Moley curtly. “There’s a connection between you and this dead man, and I want to know what it is.”

“But I was about to explain,” said the little man indulgently. “You police officers are so precipitate! An attorney, as Judge Macklin can tell you, is a servant of his clients. I’ve had many clients in my... ah... rather extensive practice, Inspector; I haven’t been able to choose as carefully as I should have preferred, perhaps. Consequently, it’s my sad duty to relate that John Marco wasn’t the — ah — most desirable of characters. Rather an odorous person, in fact. But that’s really all I can tell you about him.”

“Oh, so that’s your angle, is it?” growled the Inspector. “In just what way was he your client?”

Penfield’s pudgy hand, adorned with two diamond rings, described a vague arc. “In various ways. He... ah... called upon me from time to time for advice on business matters.”

“What business matters?”

“That,” said the little man regretfully, “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to state, Inspector. An attorney’s duty to his client, you know... Even death—”

“But he’s been murdered!”

“That,” sighed Penfield, “is most unfortunate for him.”

There was a silence. Then Judge Macklin remarked: “I thought you were a criminal lawyer, Penfield. What’s this about business?”

“Times have changed, Judge,” replied Penfield sadly, “since you retired. And a man must live, mustn’t he? You can’t imagine what a struggle it is these days.”

“I think with a great effort I can. In your case, I mean. And you seem to have developed an extraordinary streak of ethics, Penfield, since the last time we met.”

“Development, Judge, sheer development,” smiled the little man. “Who am I to be uninfluenced by the trend of the times? A new deal in the profession...”

“Rats,” said the judge.

Ellery did not take his eyes off the man’s mobile face. It was in constant motion — the eyes, the lips, the brows, the wrinkling skin. A beam of sunlight striking through the window illuminated the shiny top of his head with the effect of a halo. Remarkable creature! thought Ellery. And a dangerous adversary.

“When’d you see this Marco last?” barked Moley.

Penfield placed the tips of his fingers together. “Let me see, now... Oh, yes! It was in April, Inspector. And now he’s dead. Well, sir, that’s just another token of the incorruptibility of the fates; eh, Mr. Queen? A bad actor... death. Very pat. The murderous criminal slips through the fingers of our courts for twenty years on technicalities, and then one day he steps on a banana-peel and breaks his neck. It’s a sad commentary on our juridical system.”

“What about?”

“Eh? Oh, I beg your pardon, Inspector. What did he come to see me about in April? Yes, yes, to be sure. One of our — ah — business conferences. I gave him the best possible advice.”

“And that was?”

“To change his ways, Inspector. I was always lecturing him; a likable chap, really, despite his weaknesses. But he wouldn’t listen, poor fellow, and now look at him.”

“How did you know he was a bad actor, Penfield? If your relationship with him was so damned innocent?”

“Intuition, my dear Inspector,” sighed the lawyer. “One can’t practise criminal law in the courts of New York State for thirty years without developing an uncanny sixth sense, as it were, about the criminal mind. I assure you it was no more—”

“You’ll never get anywhere this way with friend Penfield,” said Judge Macklin with a grim smile. “He can keep this up for hours. I’ve heard him do it myself, Inspector. I suggest you come to the point.”

Moley glared at his visitor, jerked open a drawer, snatched something out of it, and slammed it down across his desk in front of the little man’s chair. “Read that.”

Mr. Lucius Penfield permitted himself to look surprised, smiled deprecatingly, took a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles out of his breast-pocket, set them on the tip of his nose, picked up the paper gingerly, and scanned it. He scanned it very carefully. Then he set it down, removed his spectacles, returned them to his pocket, and leaned back in the chair.

“Well?”

“This is apparently,” murmured Penfield, “a letter begun by the deceased and addressed to me. I deduce, from the abrupt manner in which it is interrupted, that death intervened and that therefore his last living thoughts were of me. Dear, dear, that’s most touching, Inspector. A tender tribute, and I thank you for having permitted me to see it. What can I say? I’m too moved for words.” He actually dug into his trousers for a handkerchief and blew his nose.

“Buffoon,” said Judge Macklin softly.

Inspector Moley’s fist crashed on his desk; he sprang to his feet. “You’re not going to get out of this as easily as all that!” he roared. “I know that you and Marco corresponded regularly this summer! I know that you fixed at least one attempted extortion case when the going got too hot for both of you. I know—”

“You seem to know a good deal,” said Penfield gently. “Elucidate.”

“My friend Dave Leonard of the Metropolitan Agency has written me all about you; see? So don’t think you’re pulling the wool over my eyes with all this confidential business-matter talk!”

“Hmm. You haven’t been idle, I see,” murmured the little man with a beaming glance of admiration. “Yes, Marco and I did correspond this summer, that’s true. And I did call on Leonard — charming fellow — a few months ago in the interests of my client. But...”

“What’s this clean-up Marco started to write you about?” shouted Moley.

“Dear, dear, Inspector, there’s no cause for violence. And I really can’t hope to interpret Marco’s thoughts. I don’t know what he meant. He was quite mad, poor chap.”

The Inspector opened his mouth, closed it again, glared at Penfield, and then turned and stamped savagely to the window, fighting for self-control. Penfield sat with a sad expectant smile.

“Uh — tell me, Mr. Penfield,” drawled Ellery. The lawyer’s head swung about, a trifle warily. But he was still smiling. “Did John Marco leave a will?”

Penfield blinked. “Will? I wouldn’t know, Mr. Queen. I never drew up such a document for him. Of course, some other attorney may have. I don’t bother with such things.”

“Did he own any property? Would you say he has left an estate?”

The smile faded, and for the first time the man’s urbanity deserted him. He seemed to feel that a trap lurked somewhere in Ellery’s question. He eyed Ellery closely before replying. “Estate? I don’t know. As I say, our relationship was not... ah—” He paused, at a loss for words.

“The reason I ask,” murmured Ellery, toying with his pince-nez, “is that I had a notion he might have consigned certain documents of value to your care. After all, as you say, the lawyer-client relationship is more or less sacred.”

“More or less,” remarked the Judge.

“Documents of value?” echoed Penfield slowly. “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand, Mr. Queen. You mean bonds, stock certificates, things like that?”

Ellery did not reply at once. He breathed on the lenses, scrubbed them thoughtfully, and then placed the glasses on his nose. During the entire operation Lucius Penfield watched with respectful absorption. Then Ellery said lightly: “Do you know a Mrs. Laura Constable?”

“Constable? Constable? I don’t believe I do.”

“Joseph A. Munn? Mrs. Munn, the former Cecilia Ball, actress?”

“Oh, oh!” said Penfield. “You mean the people staying at the Godfrey house currently? I thought I’d heard their names before. No, I can’t say I’ve had the pleasure, ha, ha!”

“Marco didn’t write you about them?”

Penfield pursed his red lips. It was evident that he was struggling with several doubts, engendered by the fact that he did not know how much Ellery knew. His angelic eyes flicked over Ellery’s face three times before he replied: “I’ve a shockingly bad memory, Mr. Queen. I can’t recall whether he did or not.”

“Hmm. By the way, to your knowledge did Marco cultivate the hobby of amateur photography? Quite the thing these days. I just wondered...”

The lawyer blinked, and Moley turned around with a frown. But Judge Macklin kept his frosty gaze steadily upon the little lawyer’s face.

“You do jump about so, don’t you, Mr. Queen?” murmured Penfield at last with a wry smile. “Photography? He may have. I wouldn’t know.”

“At least he left no photographs with you?”

“Certainly not,” said the little man instantly. “Certainly not.”

Ellery glanced at Inspector Moley. “I believe, Inspector, that there’s no point in detaining Mr. Penfield further. He obviously — ah — can’t help us. Very nice of you to have taken the trouble of coming down here, Mr. Penfield.”

“No trouble at all,” cried Penfield, his good humor returning in a twinkling. He bounced out of the chair. “Is there anything else, Inspector?”

Moley grunted helplessly: “Beat it.”

A thin watch popped into Penfield’s hand. “Dear, dear, I’ll have to hurry if I want to catch the next ’plane out of Crossley Field. Well, gentlemen, sorry I couldn’t have been of service.” He shook hands with Ellery, bowed to the Judge, tactfully ignored Inspector Moley, and backed to the door. “Nice to have seen you again, Judge Macklin. I’ll be sure to send your regards to Kinsey. And, of course, I shall be glad to tell Inspector Queen, Mr. Queen, that I saw—”

He was still talking and beaming and bowing when the door closed upon his sweet, angelic eyes.

“That man,” said Judge Macklin grimly, still looking at the door, “has talked juries out of convicting at least a hundred professional murderers. He has bribed witnesses and intimidated others who were honest. He has commanded judges. He has deliberately destroyed evidence. He once smashed the promising career of a young assistant district attorney by involving him in a patently framed scandal with a notorious woman of the underworld on the eve of a murder-trial... And you expected to get something out of him!” Moley’s lips moved soundlessly. “My advice to you, Inspector, is to forget the man ever existed. He’s much too slick for an honest policeman. And if he is involved in Marco’s death somewhere you may be sure you’ll never discover the connection or get proof.”

Inspector Moley clumped out to his deskman’s office to see that his orders had been executed. Mr. Lucius Penfield, whether he anticipated it or not, was returning to New York with what is professionally known as a “tail.”

As they were driving back to Spanish Cape, the Judge said suddenly: “I don’t believe it, Ellery. The man’s too clever for that.”

Ellery, who had been steering the Duesenberg abstractedly, said: “What are you talking about?” Penfield’s departure seemed to have infected Moley’s office with the virus of newslessness. Reports had come pouring in which told precisely nothing. The coroner had inspected John Marco’s lifeless clay inside and out and sent word that he had nothing to add to his original opinion concerning the cause of Marco’s death. There had been a bulletin from the Coast Guard, and numerous reports of “progress” from local officers all along the coast: to the effect that no one had yet even glimpsed Hollis Waring’s stolen cruiser, that no man of Captain Kidd’s unusual description had been seen anywhere along the seaboard since the night of the murder, and David Kummer’s body had not yet been washed ashore. It had all been very depressing, and the two men had left Moley fuming in a stew of impotence.

“I mean the notion that Penfield is in possession of those letters,” muttered the Judge.

“Oh, is that worrying you?”

“He’s too smooth to touch anything like that with his own fair hands, Ellery.”

“On the contrary, I should think he’d have got his hands on the documents the very first thing if he’d been able.”

“No, no. Not Penfield. He might advise, instruct, but he wouldn’t handle personally. His knowledge of Marco’s criminality would be sufficient hold for him — and that’s a power over Marco he could carry about in his head.”

Ellery said nothing.

He brought the Duesenberg to a halt before the Grecian pillars opposite the entrance to Spanish Cape. Harry Stebbins’s belly pushed open the door of the gasoline establishment.

“If it ain’t the Judge! And Mr. Queen.” Stebbins rested his arms confidentially on the door of the Duesenberg. “I see ye scootin’ in and out o’ Spanish Cape yesterday. Ain’t it awful about that murder? One o’ th’ troopers was tellin’ me...”

“Quite horrible,” said the Judge absently.

“Think they’ll find the critter that did it? I hear this Marco was all naked when they found him. What’s the world comin’ to, that’s what I want to know. But I always said—”

“We’re staying at the Cape now, Harry, so you needn’t bother about a housekeeper for us. Thank you just the same.”

“Stayin’ with the Godfreys?” gasped Stebbins. “Lord-a-mighty!” He stared as if at demigods. “Well, now,” he said, wiping his oily hands on his overalls. “Well, now if that don’t beat all hell. And I was just talkin’ to Annie last night about a woman. She said—”

“We’d love to stay and hear the opinions of Mrs. Stebbins,” said Ellery hastily, “which I’ve no doubt are fascinating, but we’re in something of a hurry, Stebbins. Stopped to ask you a question or two. How late were you open Saturday night?”

The Judge glanced at him, puzzled. Stebbins scratched his head. “Why, I’m open all night Saturdays, Mr. Queen. That’s our big night. All that traffic comin’ up from Wayland — the amusement park ten mile’ or so south, ye know — and all.”

“You mean you don’t close at all?”

“That’s the ticket, sir. I take my snooze Saturday afternoons, when I get a lad from Wye to relieve me — I live on’y a couple hundred yards away from here. But I’m back around eight an’ keep the old place runnin’ through the night. The boy’ll be back any time now to give me a breather. Annie’ll be waitin’ with a nice hot—”

“No doubt, Mr. Stebbins; that’s one of the delights of married life, I hear. But tell me — is it generally known that this gasoline station remains open all Saturday night?”

“Well, sir, there’s that sign right on the post there. An’ since I been doin’ it nigh on twelve years,” chuckled Stebbins, “I guess folks sort o’ come to know it.”

“Hmm. And were you here yourself Saturday night?”

“Oh, sure. I just told ye that. See, I—”

“Were you outside here around one o’clock in the morning?”

The pot-bellied man looked blank. “One o’clock. Well, now... Hard to say. Matter o’ fact, Mr. Queen, I had a busy night Saturday night. Caught me sort of unaware. Don’t know where all the cars come from all of a sudden, but they all seemed to run out o’ gas at the same time. Took in a good bit o’ change...”

“But were you?”

“Guess I must ‘a’ been. I was runnin’ in and out of the office all night. Why?”

Ellery sent his thumb whistling over his shoulder. “Do you think you would have noticed any one coming out of the Spanish Cape road there across the way?”

“Oh!” Stebbins regarded them shrewdly. “So that’s the ticket. Well, sir, I guess I would of an ordinary night. My lights here are pretty bright an’ they shine right on those two stone things. But Saturday night...” He shook his head. “Rush didn’t let up till near three in the mornin’. My oil-rack’s inside, I had to keep on goin’ in to make change... Some one might have come out, sir.”

“You’re sure,” muttered Ellery, “you didn’t actually see somebody?”

Stebbins shook his head. “Can’t say one way or t’other. Might ‘a’ been.”

Ellery sighed. “Too bad. I’d more or less hoped for something definite.” He reached for his brake, thought better of it, and twisted about again. “By the way, where do the Godfrey chauffeurs get their gas and oil, Stebbins? Here?”

“Yes, sir. I carry just about the finest grade of—”

“Oh, to be sure. Many thanks, Stebbins.” He released his brake and yanked on the wheel, heading the car for the stone pylons across the road.

“Now why,” demanded the Judge as they purred along the road through the park in the cool shade, “did you ask those questions?”

Ellery shrugged. “Nothing cosmic. Too bad Stebbins didn’t notice. If he had, he would have clinched matters. We proved yesterday that the killer made his escape by the land side. Where could he have gone if he didn’t come out by this road? Unless he threw himself off the cliffs it wouldn’t be possible to get out any other way but from the main-road exit back there. Couldn’t even dodge through the park here — that high wire fence would be unscalable to any creature but a cat. Had Stebbins said no one emerged opposite his station, we should have proved more or less satisfactorily that the killer had escaped — to the house.”

“I don’t see why you even questioned it,” said the old gentleman. “You go to the most unconscionable lengths to ‘prove’ a virtual fact! Certainly now we know enough about the basic situation to make it highly improbable that this was an outside job.”

“You never know anything until you’ve proved it right.”

“Nonsense. You can’t order life mathematically,” retorted the Judge. “Most of the time you ‘know’ things without factual evidence.”

“I’m Coleridge’s ‘thought-benighted skeptic’,” said Ellery unhappily. “I question everything. Sometimes I even question the results of my own thinking. My mental life is very involved.” He sighed again.

The Judge snorted, and neither man spoke again until the Duesenberg rolled to a stop before the mansion.

Young Cort was lounging in the doorway to the patio, looking sullen. Beyond him they could see Rosa lying in a deck-chair, in an abbreviated bathing-suit, sunning herself. No one else was about.

“’Lo,” said Cort without conviction. “Any news?”

“Not yet,” murmured the Judge.

“Martial law still, eh?” A scowl darkened the young man’s brown face. “This is beginning to get on my nerves. I’m a working man, did you know that? Can’t get out of this damned place. Those detectives are all over the scenery, blast ’em. I’ll swear one of them wanted to follow me into the bathroom this morning; I could see the yearning in his eyes... There was a call for you a couple of minutes ago, Queen.”

“There was?” Ellery jumped out of the car, followed by the old gentleman. A uniformed chauffeur ran up and drove the car off. “From whom?”

“I think it was Inspector Moley on the wire... Oh, Mrs. Burleigh!” The ancient little housekeeper was passing on the balcony above. “Wasn’t that Moley calling Mr. Queen a while ago?”

“Yes, sir. He said to call right back, too, as soon as you got here, Mr. Queen.”

“Back in a jiffy,” cried Ellery, and he dashed across the patio to vanish under the Moorish archway. The Judge went slowly into the flagged court and sat down beside Rosa with a thankful groan. Young Cort rubbed his back against the stucco wall of the patio, watching with an expression of the most sulky stubbornness.

“Well?” Rosa asked in a low voice.

“Nothing, my dear.”

They sat in silence for a while, soaking up the sun. The tall powerful figure of Joseph Munn sauntered out of the house, followed a moment later by a bored detective. Munn was in bathing-trunks; his massive torso was burned a deep brown. The Judge examined the man’s face through half-closed eyes. He had never seen a face, he thought, so perfectly controlled, and with so little effort. Suddenly he was reminded of another face, seen hazily through the dusty windows of many years. There was no similarity of feature, but a startling similarity of expression. The face had belonged to a notorious criminal, a man wanted in a dozen States for rape, murder, bank-robbery, and a score of lesser crimes. The Judge had studied that face while a vitriolic district attorney excoriated its owner before a hostile jury; he had watched it when the angry verdict had come in; he had watched it while he pronounced sentence of death. It had never once changed expression... Joseph A. Munn possessed the same gift of smoothly frozen imperturbability. Not even his eyes were an index to his thoughts; they were hard and half-concealed in screwing wrinkles developed through a lifetime of peering through vast distances in the glare of a torrid sun.

“Mornin’, Judge,” said Munn in his deep voice, very pleasantly. Then he grinned for an instant. “That’s a good one. ‘Mornin’, Judge!’ Well, what’s doing, sir?”

“Very little,” murmured the old gentleman. “From the way things are going, Mr. Munn, I should say the killer has an excellent chance of remaining a free and unknown agent.”

“Too bad. I didn’t like this Marco hombre, but that’s no call for murder. Live and let live is my motto. Down where I come from they settle things in the open when they do want action.”

“The Argentine, eh?”

“And vicinity. Great country, Judge. Think I’m goin’ back there. Never thought I would, but I realize now there’s nothing in this big-city stuff. I’ll take the wife down there with me soon as I can get away. She’ll go over big,” he chuckled, “with the vaqueros.”

“Do you think Mrs. Munn would care for that sort of life?” asked the Judge in a dry tone.

The chuckle died. “Mrs. Munn,” said the big man, “is going to have a chance to learn to like it.” Then he lit a cigaret and said: “Be seein’ you. Don’t take it so hard, Miss Godfrey. No man’s worth it — to a girl like you... Well! Guess I’ll go down for a swim.” He waved his muscular hand in a friendly way and strolled toward the exit from the patio. The sun gleamed on his bronzed torso. Rosa and the Judge stared after him. He paused to say something to young Cort, who still stood sullen guard at the doorway, shrugged his big shoulders, and stepped out of the patio. The detective sauntered after him, yawning.

“He gives me the creeps,” said Rosa, wincing. “There’s something about that American Firpo that—”

Ellery came striding into the court, his heels ringing against the flags. His eyes were bright and there was unusual color in his lean cheeks. The Judge half-rose from the chair.

“Have they found—?”

“Eh? Oh, Moley called to say that he’d just had the latest report on Pitts.”

“Pitts!” exclaimed Rosa. “They’ve caught her?”

“Nothing quite so exciting. She’s vanished very expertly, that lady’s-maid of your mother’s, Miss Godfrey. But they have found the car she escaped in. Fifty miles or so north. Near the railway station in Maartens.”

“Marco’s roadster!”

“Yes. Abandoned. No clue in the car itself, but its location gives them something to work on.” He lit a cigaret and gazed at it with burning eyes.

“Is that all?” said the Judge, sinking back.

“It’s enough,” murmured Ellery, “to give me the most astounding thought. Irrelevant as the very devil. And,” his face darkened, “disturbing. Mark my words, Judge, we’re in for it now with a vengeance!”

“In for what?”

“That,” said Ellery, “remains to be seen.”