The Spanish Cape Mystery

Chapter Fourteen Extraordinary Confessions of a Self-Made Maid

At Police Headquarters in Poinsett, for the first time in days, there was jubilation. The place buzzed with rumors, reporters clamored at deaf doors, members of other departments looked in upon Inspector Moley’s office where a police surgeon was ministering to the captured woman, and telephones clanged in a mad chorus. The Inspector had brushed aside a sheaf of reports which Ellery, who was the calmest person in the building, took the liberty of examining, but they contained nothing new: there was still no trace of Hollis Waring’s cruiser, or Captain Kidd and David Kummer, or — Ellery chuckled — of Pitts; and nothing to report on Lucius Penfield, despite the most careful investigation by detectives working in shifts.

When a semblance of order had been restored to the office and the surgeon had signified by an elevation of his brows that the woman was in condition to be examined, they turned their undivided attention upon her.

She was seated in a big leather chair, tightly grasping the arms. Her skin was gray and muddy. She had cropped her black curly hair close, man-fashion, but with her hat off and the false mustache removed she was very much the woman — a small and frightened woman with bleak brown eyes and little, knife-like features. She might have been thirty, or a year or so older. Even now there was a pixy beauty about her, although it was essentially hard and soiled.

“Well, Pitts, old gal,” began Moley genially, “you’re caught good and proper, aren’t you?” She said nothing, stared at the floor. “You don’t deny that you’re Pitts, Mrs. Walter Godfrey’s maid, do you?” A police stenographer was sitting at the desk, book open.

“No,” she replied in the same husky tones they had heard in the post office, “I don’t deny it.”

“Sensible! You were the one who telephoned Mrs. Laura Constable at Spanish Cape? Mr. Munn twice? And this morning Mrs. Godfrey?”

“So you tapped the wire.” She laughed. “Serves me right. Yes, I was the one.”

“You sent the Constable papers and things to me by boy from Maartens?”

“Yes.”

“You sent that stuff about Mrs. Munn to the papers?”

“Yes.”

“That’s the girl. We’ll get along fine. Now I want you to tell me what happened last Saturday night and the early hours of Sunday morning. Everything.”

For the first time she raised her bleak brown eyes to his. “And suppose I won’t?”

Moley’s jaw hardened. “Oh, but you will. You will, young lady. You’re in a tough spot. Do you know what the rap for blackmail is in this State?”

“I’m very much afraid,” said Ellery gently, “that Miss Pitts is considerably more concerned with the rap for murder, Inspector.”

Moley glared at him. The woman moistened her dry lips and her eyes slithered to Ellery’s face and down to the floor. “Let me handle this, Mr. Queen,” said Moley angrily.

“I’m sorry,” murmured Ellery, lighting a cigaret. “But perhaps I’d better clarify the situation for Miss Pitts. I’m sure she’ll see the futility of silence.

“I might begin by pointing out that I was morally certain Mrs. Godfrey’s vanished maid was your blackmailer, Inspector. It struck me when I began to realize that there was a too felicitous juxtaposition of coincidences. Pitts was seen with John Marco — by Jorum — some time during the general period of Marco’s murder. Shortly before that some one had stolen into Marco’s room, found the fragments of the false note making an appointment on the terrace, pieced them together. Coincidence? When Mrs. Godfrey rang for her maid directly after she returned to her rooms Saturday night, the maid did not respond for a long time. When she did, she pleaded illness; she seemed excited. Coincidence? This maid vanished some time during the murder-period. She took Marco’s car for her getaway. Coincidence?” The woman’s eyes flickered. “The trail to Pitts ended at Maartens. The packet of proofs sent to you, Inspector, was sent from Maartens. Coincidence? The whole blackmailing business began, as a matter of fact, directly after the disappearance of Pitts. Coincidence? John Marco had recommended Pitts to Mrs. Godfrey when Mrs. Godfrey’s former maid, for no apparent reason, suddenly left. Coincidence? But most significant of all — in all three cases involving Mrs. Constable, Mrs. Munn, and Mrs. Godfrey, one of the vital pieces of evidence against the unfortunate women was... the signed deposition of a lady’s maid!” Ellery smiled sadly. “Coincidence? Most improbable. I was sure that Pitts was the blackmailer.”

“You think you’re smart, don’t you?” snarled the woman, twisting her thin lips.

“I have an appreciation,” said Ellery with a little bow, “of my own talents, Miss Pitts. And not only that, but I was also sure that I had struck a fundamental connection between Pitts and Marco. You yourself, Inspector, told me the other day that your friend Leonard of the New York private agency had scented the possibility of an accomplice working with Marco in snaring his victims. A prying lady’s-maid in three separate cases willing to testify against her mistress — naturally the different names signed to the depositions are to be construed as merely aliases — fitted perfectly with the conception of such an accomplice as a man like Marco would employ. To visualize Mrs. Godfrey’s blackmailing maid as this accomplice required no great effort of the imagination.”

“I want a lawyer,” said Pitts suddenly, half-rising.

“Sit down,” began Moley with a scowl.

“Certainly you’re entitled to the constitutional protection of legal advice, Miss Pitts,” nodded Ellery. “Have you any particular attorney in mind?”

Hope leaped into her eyes. “Yes! Lucius Penfield of New York!”

There was a shocked silence. Ellery spread his hands. “And there you are. What further proof could any one ask, Inspector? John Marco’s rascally attorney is sought by Pitts. Another coincidence?”

The woman sank back, visibly alarmed, biting her lips. “I—”

“The game’s up, my dear,” said Ellery in a kindly tone. “You may as well make a clean breast of everything.”

She kept gnawing her lips; there was a desperately calculating glitter in her brown eyes. Then she said: “I’ll make a deal with you.”

“Why, you—” Moley exploded.

Ellery placed his arm across the Inspector’s chest. “And why not, indeed? We may as well act like business people. At least there’s no harm in listening to a proposal.”

“Listen,” she said eagerly. “I’m stuck and I know it. But I can still be damned nasty. You don’t want this Godfrey scandal to come out, do you?”

“Well?” barked Moley.

“Well, you treat me right and I won’t talk. You can’t keep me from talking if I have a mind to! I’ll do it direct to the newspaper boys, or through my lawyer. You can’t stop me. Give me a break and I’ll keep quiet.”

Moley eyed her sourly, glanced at Ellery, rubbed his lips and paced up and down for a moment. “Well,” he growled at last, “I’ve got nothin’ against the Godfreys and I wouldn’t want to see them get hurt. But I’m not promising, d’ye hear? I’ll speak to the D.A. and see if we can’t get a lesser plea, or something.”

“If,” prompted Ellery gently, “you come, as they say, clean.”

“All right,” she muttered. There was a sullen look on her sharp face. “I don’t know how you knew all that, but it’s right. I was planted by Marco first with Mrs. Constable, then with Mrs. Munn, then with Mrs. Godfrey. I worked the flash-photo on the fat dame in Atlantic City during the night. I got all the dope, seeing and listening. When Mrs. Constable and Mrs. Munn came up to Spanish Cape, they recognized me at once. They knew what Mrs. Godfrey was in for, I guess, but Marco told ’em to keep their traps shut about me. I suppose they’re still afraid to spill it. Now I’ve told you the whole thing. For God’s sake, I want Luke Penfield!”

The Inspector’s eyes were shining. But he said shrewdly: “just a tool, hey? Turned the tables on your boss. Stole those papers and things from his room early Sunday mornin’ and lit out to make a little hay for yourself. Is that it?”

The woman’s dark face contorted with passion. “And why not?” she screamed. “Sure I did! They were as much mine as his! I always played stooge to him, but I held the whip-hand, and damn’ well he knew it!” She paused for breath, and then cried with a morbid sort of triumph: “Tool, eh? Like hell I was. I was his wife!”

They were stunned. Marco’s wife! The full extent of the man’s perfidy spread itself before them on the instant. They all thought with nausea of the danger Rosa Godfrey had escaped, and for the dozenth time there passed through their minds a fierce satisfaction that the man was gone, a menace removed from the world.

“His wife, huh?” said Moley thickly when he had recovered sufficiently to speak.

“Yes, his wife,” she said in a bitter voice. “Not much to look at now, maybe, but once I had my girlish figure and a face that wouldn’t stop a clock. We were married four years ago in Miami. He was down there playing gig to some millionaire widow and I was on the make myself. We hooked up right away. He liked my style. He liked my style so damned well I made him marry me to enjoy it. I guess I’m the only woman he’s ever met that got the best of him... We’ve played lots of games since. This lady’s-maid racket was his idea, a recent development. I never did like it. But we made some dough...” They let her talk. She was gripping the arms of the chair now, staring into space. “One little deal, then we’d knock off for a vacation and shoot the works. Then another deal when the money was gone. That’s the way it went. With Marco dead I was in a hole. No funds, and a tight spot. I have to live, don’t I? If he hadn’t been so lousy greedy he’d probably be alive today. Whoever bumped him off did a good job. God knows I’m no angel, but he was the worst skunk ever lived. I’d come to hate his guts. And, low as I am, no woman likes to see her own husband making love to other women. He always said it was business, but he enjoyed himself, damn his soul!”

Moley went to her, stood before her. She broke off and looked up at him, startled. “So you twisted that wire around his neck,” he said harshly, “to get rid of him and cash in for yourself!”

She sprang to her feet, shrieking. “I didn’t! I knew you’d think that! That was what I was afraid of. I couldn’t hope to make a dumb cop understand.” She seized Ellery’s arm, clawing at his sleeve. “Listen. You seem to have a brain. Tell him he’s wrong! I may have wanted to — to kill Marco, but I didn’t. I swear I didn’t! But I couldn’t stay there and be found out. If I’d forgotten about money I’d have made it. Oh, I don’t know what I’m saying...”

She was utterly unnerved. Ellery took her gently by the arm and forced her back in the chair. She cowered in a corner, sobbing. “I think,” he said in a soothing voice, “we can guarantee you at least a fighting chance to prove your innocence — if you are innocent, Mrs. Marco.”

“Oh, I am...”

“That remains to be seen. What made you go to his room Saturday night?”

She said in the choked muffled voice they had heard over the telephone: “I saw Mrs. Godfrey go in. Maybe I was a little jealous. And then, too, I hadn’t had a chance to talk to — to Marco in private for a couple of days and I wanted to know how he was making out with the three women. He was supposed to be all set for the big clean-up.”

She paused, sniffling, and the Judge muttered to Ellery: “Apparently she didn’t know of Marco’s intention to run away with Rosa. Could he really have been contemplating bigamy? The scoundrel!”

“I don’t think so,” said Ellery sotto voce. “He wouldn’t have taken the risk. Marriage wasn’t what he was thinking of... Go on, Mrs. Marco!”

“Anyway, I watched and a few minutes before one I saw Mrs. Godfrey come out.” She took her hands from her face and sat up, staring dully at Ellery. “I was just going to slip into his room when I saw him come out. I was afraid to stop him, talk to him, because I thought some one might see us. He looked as if he were going somewhere. All dressed up. I couldn’t understand it... I went into his room to wait for him to come back. Then I saw the scraps of paper in the fireplace and fished them out. I went into the bathroom with them so that if somebody came in I wouldn’t be caught. When I read what the note said I guess I saw red. I hadn’t known anything about this Rosa girl. There wasn’t supposed to be any monkey-business with her. I saw that he must have been mixing pleasure with business...” Her hands clenched.

“Yes?” said Inspector Moley with sudden kindliness. “We understand how you must have felt, catching him two-timin’ you. So you went down to the terrace to spy on him, hey?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “After I got Mrs. Godfrey to let me off — I said I was sick. I wanted to see with my own eyes. The house was quiet — it was pretty late...”

“What time was this?”

“When I got down to the terrace near the head of the steps it was just about twenty minutes after one. I—” She gulped. “He was dead. I saw that right away. He was sitting so still, with his back to me. The moon was shining on his neck; I saw the red line below his hair.” She shuddered. “But it wasn’t that, it wasn’t that. He... he was naked. Naked!” She began to sob again.

Ellery started. “What do you mean? When you saw him? Quick! What do you mean?”

But she continued as if she had not heard. “I went down the steps to the terrace, to the table. I guess I was in a daze. I seem to remember that there was a sheet of paper in front of him and that one of his hands hung down toward the floor with a pen in it. But I was too scared to... to... Then all of a sudden I heard footsteps. On the gravel coming down. I saw what I was in for. I couldn’t get out without being seen by whoever was coming toward the terrace. I had to think fast. In the moonlight I had a chance... I put the stick in the other hand and the hat on his head, and I put the cloak around his shoulders and snapped it at the neck, to hide the... the red line.” She was gazing with fascinated horror through them at the moonlit scene. “The cloak would hide the fact that he was undressed, I was sure. I waited until the footsteps were near and then I began to talk — anything that came to my head — tried to make believe he’d made a pass at me and acting modest and sore. I knew whoever it was was listening. Then I ran up the steps... I saw him hiding near the head of the stairs but made out I didn’t notice. It was Jorum. I knew Jorum wouldn’t go down after hearing that, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I ran back to the house, got the bundle of papers and photos out of Marco’s room — he kept them hidden in the wardrobe closet-went to my own room, packed my bag and things, and then I stole down to the garage and took his car and went away. I had a key to the ignition. Why shouldn’t I have? I was... his wife, wasn’t I?”

“If you were innocent,” said Moley sternly, “didn’t you realize that by running away you were making it look bad for yourself?”

“I had to get away,” she said desperately. “I was afraid they’d find out. I went right away because if Jorum saw he was dead he’d have raised an alarm and I wouldn’t have been able to get out of the grounds. And then there were those papers.”

Moley scratched his ear, frowning. There was the unmistakable ring of truth in the woman’s voice and story. True, he had an excellent circumstantial case against her, the stenographic report of her story safely made, but... He glanced at Ellery’s face as that lean young man turned away for an instant, and he was startled.

Ellery whirled about, sprang to the woman’s side, grasped her arm. She cried out, shrinking back. “You’ve got to be more explicit!” he said fiercely. “You say that when you first saw Marco on the terrace he was stark naked?”

“Yes,” she quavered.

“Where was his hat?”

“Why, on the table. His cane, too.”

“And the cloak?”

“Cloak?” The woman’s eyes widened with genuine surprise. “I didn’t say his cape was on the table. Or did I? I’m so mixed up—”

Ellery slowly released her arm. There was an agony of hope in his gray eyes. “Oh, it wasn’t on the table,” he said in a strangled voice. “Where was it — on the flagstones of the terrace? But of course. That’s where it must have been when the murderer threw it down to undress him.” His eyes were glassy now, glaring in their concentration on her lips.

She was bewildered. “No. It wasn’t on the terrace at all. I mean — what’s all the fuss about? Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it! I didn’t mean anything! I see you think—” Her voice had risen to a scream again.

“Never mind what I think,” panted Ellery, gripping her arm again. He shook her so violently that she gasped and her head flopped back. “Tell me! Where was it? How did it get there?”

“When I read the note upstairs, in his room,” she muttered, her face grayer than before, “I didn’t want to take the chance of going down to the terrace empty-handed. I wanted an excuse for being there if somebody caught me. I saw his cape lying on the bed; he’d forgotten to take it with him, I guess.” Something hotly fierce flared into Ellery’s face. “I picked it up and took it down with me, to say that he had sent me for it — if somebody should stop me. Nobody did. When I saw he was naked I was — was glad I had it to put over him...”

But Ellery had flung her arm from him and stepped back, drawing a breath from his toes. Moley, the Judge, the stenographer looked at him with puzzled, almost frightened, eyes. He seemed to be swelling, to have filled out suddenly.

He stood very still, gazing over the woman’s head at the blank wall of Moley’s office. Then, very slowly, his fingers dipped into his pocket and came out with a cigaret.

“The cape,” he said, so low they barely heard the words. “Yes, the cape... The missing piece.” He crushed the cigaret in his hand and spun about, eyes shining madly. “By God, gentlemen, I’ve got it!”