The Spanish Cape Mystery

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.”

“The 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 well 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?”

“I... did.”

“Well?”

She raised her eyes to his; and her eyes were suddenly a perfect blank. “Well, what, Inspector?”

“Well!” Moley was growing angry. “You know what I mean. Who’s he been fighting around with? Who might have had a reason for bumping him off?”

She half-rose. “Please, Inspector. This is very stupid. I don’t snoop in my guests’ affairs.”

Moley checked himself, eying her narrowly. “Of course. I didn’t mean that you do. But something must have happened up here, Mrs. Godfrey; murder isn’t committed out of a clear sky.”

“So far as I know, Inspector,” she said tonelessly, “nothing has happened. Naturally, I can’t know everything.”

“Have you had any guests or visitors other than the people staying here now — I mean in the past couple of weeks?”

“No.”

“Nobody at all?”

“Nobody at all.”

“There’s been no quarrel here, with Marco either the subject or otherwise one of the people involved?”

Stella Godfrey lowered her eyes. “No... I mean, I haven’t heard of any.”

“Hmm! And you’re sure no one came here to see Marco?”

“As sure as any hostess can be. We don’t have unexpected visitors at Spanish Cape, Inspector.” There was dignity in her bearing now. “And as for skulkers, Jorum keeps rather close watch. If there’d been someone, I should have heard about it.”

“Did Marco receive much mail while he was here?”

“Mail?” She grew thoughtful at that, almost a little relieved, Ellery thought. “Come to think of it, Inspector, not much. You see, when the postman delivers the mail Mrs. Burleigh, my housekeeper, brings it all to me. I sort it, and Mrs. Burleigh distributes it either to the rooms of — of members of the family or to what guests we happen to be having. That’s the way I... I know. Mr. Marco” — her voice caught — “received only two or three letters in all the time he’s been here.”

“And how long,” asked Judge Macklin gently, “has he been here, Mrs. Godfrey?”

“All... summer.”

“Ah, a quasi-permanent guest! You knew him very well, then?” The Judge’s eyes pierced hers.

“I beg your pardon?” She blinked rapidly several times. “Quite well. That is, I... we came to know him quite intimately during the past few months. We had met him early this spring in the city.”

“How’d you come to invite him?” growled Moley.

Her hands writhed. “He... he happened to mention that he loved the sea, and that he hadn’t any definite plans for the summer... I... we all liked him very much. He was jolly company, he sang Spanish songs charmingly—”

“Spanish songs? Marco,” said Ellery reflectively. “That might be... Was he Spanish, Mrs. Godfrey?”

“I... I think so. Remotely.”

“Then his nationality and the name of your summer place come under the tolerant head of coincidence. Quite so. You were saying—?”

“Well, he played tennis like an expert — we’ve several turf courts on the other side of the Cape, you know, as well as a nine-hole golf course... He played the piano and an excellent game of bridge. The ideal summer house-guest, you see—”

“Not to mention, of course,” smiled Ellery, “his personal attractiveness, a distinct asset in the case of female-heavy weekends. Yes, indeed, it’s really a sad case. And so you invited this paragon, Mrs. Godfrey, for the summer. He lived up to his glowing promise?”

Her eyes flashed angrily; then she swallowed hard and lowered them again. “Oh, quite, quite. Rosa — my daughter liked him very much.”

“Then it was Miss Godfrey who was really responsible for Marco’s presence here, Mrs. Godfrey?”

“I... I didn’t say that... exactly.”

“If I may,” murmured the Judge. “Ah — how good a game of bridge did Mr. Marco play?” The old gentleman played a fiendish game himself.

Mrs. Godfrey raised her eyebrows. “I don’t see— Excellent, as I said, Judge Macklin. He was better than any of us.”

The Judge said gently: “You generally play for high stakes?”

“No, indeed. Half a cent sometimes, most times a fifth.”

“That would be called high enough in my circle,” smiled the old gentleman. “Marco won consistently, I take it?”

“Well — I beg your pardon, Judge!” said Mrs. Godfrey coldly, rising. “Really, that’s an unpardonable insinuation. Do you think I—”

“I’m sorry. Who,” asked the Judge inflexibly, “has been his most consistent victim among those present?”

“Your choice of terms, Judge Macklin, is scarcely in the best of taste. I’ve lost a little. Mrs. Munn has lost some—”

“Sit down,” snapped Inspector Moley. “We’re getting nowhere fast. Sorry, Judge, but this isn’t a case of card-killing. These letters, now, Mrs. Godfrey. Any idea who was writing to him?”

“Yes, yes, the letters,” drawled Ellery. “Extremely important.”

“I think I can help you there,” replied Mrs. Godfrey in the same cold tone. But she sat down. “I couldn’t help noticing, you see, when I sorted the mail... The ones that came were from the same source, I think. All the envelopes were of the business type, with a business imprint in the corners. The same imprint.”

“Not from a certain Lucius Penfield,” asked Ellery grimly, “of 11 Park Row, New York City?”

Her eyes widened in genuine surprise. “Yes, that’s the name and address. I think there were three, not two. About two or three weeks apart.”

The three men exchanged glances. “When’d the last one come?” demanded Moley.

“Four or five days ago. The envelope-imprint said Attorney-at-Law, under his name.”

“Lawyer!” muttered Judge Macklin. “By George, I might have known. From the address...” He stopped short, his lids coming down in a concealing way.

“Surely that’s enough for now?” murmured Mrs. Godfrey with difficulty, rising again. “Rosa needs my attention—”

“All right,” said the Inspector sourly. “But I’ll get to the bottom of this in spite of hell and high water, Mrs. Godfrey. I’m not satisfied with your answers, I’ll tell you frankly. I think you’re being a very foolish woman. It pays in the end to tell the truth in the beginning... Sam! See that Mrs. Godfrey-gets back to the house — all right.”

Stella Godfrey scanned their faces with brief, anxious, questioning glances; then she compressed her lips, tossed her dark and handsome head, and preceded the Inspector’s man up the terrace steps.

They gazed silently after her until she disappeared.

Then Moley said: “She knows a lot more than she pretends to. God, what a pipe this racket would be if only people talked straight!”

“‘It pays in the end to tell the truth in the beginning,’” repeated Ellery reflectively. “How’s that for homely wisdom, Judge?” He chuckled. “Inspector, that was well if crudely put; it deserves an honored place in Bartlett’s. The lady’s weakening. A little pressure on the right spot...”

“This,” said Inspector Moley wearily, “is Lefty. Come on down here, Lefty. Meet Judge Macklin and Mr. Queen. Mr. Queen wants to know something about the tides around here. Find the duds yet?”

Lefty was a wiry little man with the suggestion of a roll in his gait. He had red hair, a red face, red hands, and freckles by the quart. “Not yet, sir. The boys are on the golf course now. And the draggin’ crews ‘a’ just come down from Barham... Pleased to meet ye, gentlemen. What was it ye wanted to know about the tides, sir?”

“Very nearly everything,” said Ellery. “Sit down, Lefty. Smoke? Now. You’ve known these waters for a long time?”

“Long enough, sir. I was born not three miles from here.”

“Good! How tricky are these tides?”

“Tricky? Don’t know’s they are, specially, exceptin’ in places where conditions freak ’em up a bit. Otherwise,” grinned the man, “we get a passable grade o’ tide out this way.”

“And how about the tides in this Cove, Lefty?”

“Oh.” The grin faded. “I get ye, sir. This is one of the trick spots. Queer formation of the cliffs here and that narrow openin’ play old hob with the chart.”

“Can you give me the respective tide-times for any given period?”

Lefty solemnly fished in a roomy pocket and produced a dog-eared pamphlet. “Sure, sir. I once did some work for the Coast Geodetic along in here and I know all about this Cove. What day?”

Ellery looked at his cigaret and drawled: “Last night.”

The man riffled the pages. Judge Macklin’s eyes narrowed and he directed them inquiringly at Ellery. But Ellery was studying the incoming hem of water, with its frilled edge, in a pleasant reverie.

“Well,” said Lefty, “here she is. Yesterday mornin’—”

“Begin with last night, Lefty.”

“Well, sir, high tide last night was at twelve-six.”

“A little after midnight,” said Ellery thoughtfully. “Then the tide begins to go out, so... When was the next high tide?”

Lefty grinned again. “She’s a-comin’ in now, sir. High at a quarter after twelve this afternoon.”

“And at what time was it low tide during the night?”

“Six-one this mornin’, sir.”

“I see. Tell me this, Lefty. How rapidly, as a general rule, do the tides go out in the Cove?”

Lefty scratched his red head. “Depends on the season of the year, Mr. Queen, like every place else. But she goes out fast. Soundings show a funny bottom down here, and the cliffs mess things up. Kind of sucked out, the tide is.”

“Ah, then there’s a considerable difference between the depths in here at low tide and at high?”

“Sure, sir. That’s a shelvin’ beach, as you see; drops fast. Some spring tides the high covers the third step down there leadin’ from the terrace to the sand. Difference in depth might be as much as nine, ten feet sometimes.”

“That seems like a lot of feet.”

“Consid’able, sir. More than anywhere along here. But that’s nothin’ compared to the tidefall up at, say, Eastport, Maine. Goes eighteen feet ‘n’ more there! And in the Bay of Fundy it’s forty-five — granddaddy of ’em all, I guess. Then there’s—”

“Peace, peace; I’m convinced. Since you seem omniscient, at least in so far as dynamic oceanography is concerned, suppose you tell us, Lefty,” murmured Ellery, “how much of this beach must have been uncovered at one o’clock or so this morning.”

For the first time Judge Macklin and Inspector Moley grasped the end Ellery had in view. The Judge whipped his long legs into a twist and gazed intently at the creeping water.

Lefty pursed his lips and studied the Cove; then his lips moved silently, as if he were computing something. “Well, sir,” he said at last, “you have to take a lot of things into consideration. But, figurin’ it as close as I can, takin’ into account the fact that at this time o’ year at high tide there’s about two feet of beach left uncovered, I’d say that at one this mornin’ there must have been at least eighteen, maybe nineteen feet of beach out of water. I told ye she goes out fast in here. At half-past one maybe more’n thirty. This Cove plays hell with the chart.”

Ellery clapped the man’s shoulder resoundingly. “Excellent! That’s all, Lefty, and many thanks. You’ve cleared up a pretty point.”

“Glad to’ve been of help, sir. Anything else, Chief?”

Moley shook his head absently and the detective went away. “So what?” demanded Moley after a while.

Ellery rose and went down the terrace steps leading to the beach. But he did not set foot upon the sand. “By the way, Inspector, I’m correct in assuming that there are only two ways of getting to this terrace: by way of the main path up there, and by way of this Cove?”

“Sure! Easy enough to see.”

“I like corroboration. Now then—”

“Much as I dislike argument,” murmured Judge Macklin, “may I point out that there are cliffs on each side of the terrace, my boy?”

“But they’re forty feet or more high here,” retorted Ellery. “Are you contending that some one may have jumped forty feet from the top of one of these cliffs onto the terrace or beach, which is even farther below?”

“Not quite. But there are such things as ropes, and to let oneself down—”

“Nothing to tie a rope to up there,” snapped Inspector Moley. “No trees or boulders on either side for at least two hundred yards.”

“But how,” protested the Judge mildly, “about an accomplice to hold the rope?”

“Oh, come,” said Ellery with impatience. “It’s you who are being the sophist now, dear Solon. Of course I’d thought of such a patent possibility. But why on earth should any one take that devious route in reaching the terrace when there are the path and the stairs? It isn’t guarded, you know; and at night the shadows of the cliffs would make it quite dark.”

“There’s the noise. That’s gravel on that path.”

“True, but a man would make just as much noise scraping and bumping down forty feet of striated rock if he were lowered on a rope. And it would be a much more suspicious noise to the intended victim than the mere sounds of footsteps on gravel.”

“Not if they were this Captain Kidd’s footsteps,” chuckled the Judge.

“My dear boy, I’ve no doubt you’re perfectly right. I’m merely clarifying an issue which it seems to me requires clarification. You yourself are always preaching that everything must be taken into account.”

Ellery grunted, appeased. “Very well, then. There are two avenues of approach to the terrace: the path above, and the Cove below. Now we know that John Marco was alive on this terrace at one o’clock this morning. We know that from his own testimony — he set the time down at the heading of the letter he began to write to this man Penfield. Incidentally, there can’t be any doubt about the fact that he did write it at one o’clock this morning; he set the date down, too.”

“That’s right,” nodded Moley.

“Now, even assuming his watch was wrong, the error could not have exceeded at the utmost a half-hour, and the probabilities are all against it’s having been as much as that, if anything at all. The coroner set down the time of death, which was virtually instantaneous, as between one and one-thirty. So far, then, we check all along the line.” He paused to gaze over the placid little beach.

“But what of it?” growled the Inspector.

“He’s obviously trying to establish the time the murderer came,” murmured the Judge. “Go on, Ellery.”

“Now if Marco was down here, alive, at one o’clock or so this morning, at what time did his murderer come?” asked Ellery, nodding his approval at the old gentleman. “That’s a vital question, naturally. Well, we can make genuine progress toward answering it. For we have Marco’s own word for the fact that it was he who came first.”

“Whoa!” said Moley. “Not so fast. How do you figure that?”

“Why, man, he said so — in practically so many words — in his letter!”

“You’ll have to show me,” said Moley stubbornly.

Ellery sighed. “Didn’t he write that he had a ‘few minutes alone’? Obviously he wouldn’t have written that had some one been with him. In fact, he stated that he was waiting for somebody. The only argument that would invalidate that would be to establish the falsity of the letter. But you maintain there’s no question whatever about the authenticity of the handwriting as Marco’s, and I’m quite eager to accept your word for it. Because it helps my argument. If Marco was alone and alive at one o’clock, then his murderer had not yet come.” He paused as the Inspector stared. Through the rift in the cliffs the nose of a large rowboat was pushing into sight. It was full of men and peculiar-looking apparatus which trailed over the sides of the boat to disappear in the blue depths of the water. They were dragging the sea-bottom about the cliffs of Spanish Cape, looking for John Marco’s clothing.

“Now our tidal expert,” continued Ellery, without taking his eyes from the boat, “tells us that at one o’clock this morning something like eighteen feet of beach were above water. But I’ve just shown that at one o’clock this morning Marco was still alive.”

“So what?” said the Inspector after a while.

“Well, you saw that beach this morning, Inspector!” exclaimed Ellery, flinging his arm forward. “Even at the time Judge Macklin and I came here, a couple of hours ago, there were from twenty-five to thirty feet of beach exposed. You didn’t see any impressions in the sand, did you?”

“Can’t say I remember any.”

“There weren’t. Then there weren’t any impressions in the sand last night between one and one-thirty, either! The tide had kept steadily ebbing, receding farther and farther from the terrace. The water, then, had no chance after one o’clock to wash away any footprints which might have been imbedded in that eighteen-foot stretch of sand extending seaward from the foot of the steps down there. Nor did it rain last night; and what wind there was could scarcely have smoothed away any footprints in this sheltered place, protected as it is by forty-foot walls of sheer rock.”

“Go on, son, go on,” said the Judge quickly.

“Now, observe. Had Marco’s murderer come to the terrace by way of the beach down there, he couldn’t have avoided leaving prints of some kind in the sand, since I’ve just shown that he must have arrived after one o’clock — at a time when more than eighteen feet of beach were uncovered. But there are no prints in the sand. Therefore the murderer of Marco didn’t come to the terrace by way of the beach!”

There was a large silence, broken only by the shouts of the draggers in the boat and the lap of wavelets on the beach.

“So that’s what you were driving at.” Inspector Moley nodded gloomily. “That’s straight arguing, Mr. Queen, but hell! I could have told you the same thing myself without all that folderol. It stood to reason that—”

“It stood to reason that, since there are only two ways to the terrace and the beach way has been eliminated, the murderer must therefore have come by land, by the path there. Certainly, Inspector! That stood to reason after reasoning. It did not merely stand to reason. Nothing stands to reason until it can be demonstrated logically that alternatives do not stand to reason.” Moley threw his hands into the air. “Yes, Marco’s murderer came from the path up there; can’t be any doubt about that. It’s something to start with.”

“Precious little,” grumbled Moley. Then he eyed Ellery rather slyly. “You think, then, that the killer came from the house?”

Ellery shrugged. “The path is — the path. The people in that Spanish excrescence are, by the very nature of things, proximate suspects. But the path also leads from the road across the rock-neck, and the road across the rock-neck leads from the road through the park, and the road through the park—”

“Leads from the main highway. Yeah, I know,” said Moley disconsolately.

“The whole world could have bumped him off, including myself. Nuts and bolts. Let’s go on up to the house.”

As they strolled after the Inspector, who was mumbling to himself, Ellery absently polishing the lenses of his pince-nez, Judge Macklin muttered: “For that matter, the murderer left the scene of the crime by the path, too. It’s quite impossible that he should have been able to hurdle a minimum of eighteen feet of sand. When he killed Marco he didn’t go near the water, or we would have found his footprints.”

“Oh, that! Quite true. I’m afraid the Inspector’s disappointment is justified. There’s nothing of a cosmic nature derivative from my monologue a moment ago. But it did need clarification...” Ellery sighed. “I can’t get the fact of Marco’s nudity out of my mind. It’s been running through this old brain like a Wagnerian leit motif. Judge, there’s a subtle point hidden there!”

“Subtlety’s what you make it, my son,” asserted Judge Macklin, taking long reflective strides. “More probably the answer’s of the very essence of simplicity. I confess it’s a trying riddle. Why any man or woman should deliberately undress his victim—” He shook his head.

“Hmm. It must have been rather a job, at that,” mused Ellery. “Have you ever tried to disrobe an unconscious or sleeping person? I have, and you may take my word for it it’s not as easy as it sounds. There are all manner of arms and legs and things that get in the way. Yes, yes, a job. A job that wouldn’t have been undertaken, especially at such a time, without a definite and utterly essential end in view. Of course, he could have taken everything off Marco without removing the cloak; cloak has no sleeves to interfere. Or else he took the cloak off, undressed Marco, and then put the cloak back on again. But why undress him at all? For that matter, why undress him and leave the cloak about him? And now that I think of it, even if Marco was gripping the stick while writing, the murderer must have taken it out of Marco’s right hand in order to undress him. That means he put it back in Marco’s hand again — an inane procedure. But there must have been a reason. Why? For effect? For confusion? I’m beginning to get a headache.”

Judge Macklin pursed his lips. “On the surface, admittedly, it doesn’t make sense, especially the undressing part; at least it doesn’t make normal sense. Ellery, it’s a genuine effort for me to keep from thinking of a diseased mind, of abnormal psychology, of perversion.”

“If the killer were a woman—” began Ellery dreamily.

“Nonsense,” snapped the old gentleman. “You can’t believe that!”

“Oh, can’t I?” jeered Ellery. “I notice you were thinking along somewhat the same lines yourself. It’s not at all outside the realm of possibility. You’re a pure old churchman, and all that, but this may be simply a case for a psychopathist. If it is, there’s a discarded mistress with a sex-mania in the offing...”

“You’ve a nasty mind,” growled the Judge.

“I’ve a logical mind,” retorted Ellery. “At the same time, I’ll admit that there are a few facts floating about which don’t precisely tenon with the psychopathic theory — chiefly certain omissions on the part of the murderer... or murderess, as you prefer.” Then he sighed. “Well! What’s the dirt on friend Penfield?”

“Eh?” cried the Judge, stopping short.

“Penfield,” drawled Ellery. “Surely you remember Penfield, Lucius Penfield, attorney-at-law, 11 Park Row, New York City? It was childishly evident back there that you were emulating Melancholy, sitting ‘with eyes upraised, as one inspired.’ Suppose you remain true to Will Collins and ‘pour through the mellow horn’ your ‘pensive soul.’”

“Mellow horn your foot! Sometimes you’re infuriating,” said the Judge grumpily. “Is my face as legible as that? I was once known, sub rosa, as the Sphinx. I wasn’t melancholy, though; merely gratified at the sudden apprehension of a fugitive memory. I remembered.”

“Remembered what?”

“It happened a good many years ago. Ten or more. I was... er... rather prominent in the extra-legal activities of the Bar Association at that time. Frequently there were irritating little matters of house-cleaning. I had the doubtful pleasure of meeting Mr. Lucius Penfield in connection with one particularly odoriferous investigation. Theretofore I had known the gentleman by reputation only. And a smelly one it was.”

“Ah!”

“‘Faugh’ would be more like it,” said the Judge dryly. “He was up on charges brought by an indignant brotherhood of fellow-attorneys. If it’s the same Penfield, of course... Anyway, he was charged with conduct unbecoming a lawyer. Specifically, and less politely, with conspiring to cause witnesses to perjure their testimony; with doling out substantial bribes to rival jurymen; and a number of other activities quite as pleasant.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing; the legal fraternity had let indignation run away with better sense, and they didn’t have the goods on him. His defense was masterly, as usual. The disbarment proceedings were dropped... I could orate all day, my son, on the subject of Mr. Lucius Penfield. Memory becomes fresher with each passing instant.”

“So John Marco was corresponding with a rotten egg, eh?” muttered Ellery. “And from the familiarity of the salutation, he didn’t mind the odor at all. Tell me all you know about Penfield, will you?”

“It may be summed up in a common phrase,” said Judge Macklin with a bitter twist of his lips. “Luke Penfield’s the biggest scoundrel unhanged!”