He looked at his father. “You knew about the desk, too.”
Inspector Queen nodded. “That’s why I was anxious to get you in on this, Ellery. This kind of extra-smart frame is up your alley, not ours.”
“I think,” Nino Importuna rasped, “I do not understand.”
“Somebody not only had it in for your brother Julio, Mr. Importuna,” Ellery said, “but apparently he’s out to do your brother Marco dirt as well. Or at least he didn’t shrink from setting Marco up for the rap, which hardly classifies him as a friend. Who hated Julio? And possibly Marco as well? Enough to murder the one and frame the other for it?”
“I already told Inspector Queen and the other police officials who’ve been here today, Mr. Queen, about Julio in that respect. I can’t even imagine it in Julio’s case. He was like a fat and frisky dog, a Saint Bernard puppy bumping into things in his play, knocking people over with his affection. He had no meanness, no wish to hurt anyone. Full of fun and jokes and good nature. Generous with money, always helping people. A pious man-”
“You’re describing a saint, Mr. Importuna,” Ellery murmured. “But his portrait in this apartment suggests that the saint did have a few weaknesses. Gambling, for one.”
“If you’re supposing that he was in financial difficulties with, say, the Mafia, or anyone in the world of violence, Mr. Queen, that would be very amusing. I assure you he was not. And if Julio had been, Marco and I would have bailed him out a hundred times over.” The soft lips were actually smiling.
“Women, for another,” Ellery said.
“Oh, yes, women,” Nino Importuna said with a shrug. “Julio had many women. By the time he was finished with them, they were richer and happier.”
“Women sometimes have husbands, Mr. Importuna. Jealous ones.”
“Julio didn’t play around with married women,” the multimillionaire said sharply. “This has always been strictly forbidden in our family. The sanctity of the marriage vows was lashed into us from childhood. Julio would have been as likely to rape a nun as bed another man’s wife.”
“What about your business empire, Mr. Importuna? You three could hardly have risen to where you are without having stepped on a great many toes-without, in fact, having ruined some lives. Was Julio a saint in your business affairs, too?”
The lips lifted again. “You don’t hesitate to speak your mind, Mr. Queen, do you?”
“Not when murder is involved.”
The multimillionaire nodded. “A dedicated man, I see. No, Mr. Queen, Julio didn’t care for big business. As he often remarked, he would have been happier as a venditore di generi alimentari, selling pasta and tomatoes and cutting cheese all day. I don’t deny what you say. To make great sums of money in the international marketplace one must be-how do you say?-inumano… spietato… without feeling. Marco and I, mostly I, have been spietato when it was necessary. I never asked Julio to join us in such things, and he would have said no if I asked. I kept him clean for the sake of his peace of mind-for the sake of his soul, he’d say, laughing. As I said, a pious, a good, man. Everyone, everyone loved him.”
“Not everyone, I’m afraid,” Ellery said. “We know of at least one dissenter. And Marco, Mr. Importuna? Does everyone love Marco, too?”
The massive head shook, whether negatively or in irritation at the question Ellery could not decide. He said something softly and rapidly in Italian that Ellery could not catch. Observing Importuna’s extraordinary eyes, he thought that perhaps it was just as well.
“I think,” Inspector Queen remarked suddenly, “we’ll mosey on over across the hall, Mr. Importuna, and have ourselves an overdue session with your brother Marco.”
If his surroundings bespoke the man, Ellery ruminated en route, Marco Importunato was the mad sophisticate of the three brothers. His apartment was as unlike Julio’s as the era of Andy Warhol differed from Michelangelo’s Florence. Every ornamental sign of the late Victorian had been removed, rebuilt, or concealed. They passed through stark white cubical rooms, like stripped hospital wards, except for the floors, which met the feet with assaults of raw and clashing colors. The occasional expected artifact of the unexpected smote the eye-a writhing piece of furniture in an improbable material; an isolated assembly of articulated junkyard sculpture; or, as on one of the walls, a gigantic Texaco pump leaning out into the room like the Tower of Pisa, about to topple onto the pop art-lover’s head. In one small room Ellery paused to admire a triumph of modernity over camp, a faithful reproduction of Whistler’s Arrangement in Grey and Black-faithful, that is, except that the old lady’s hand grasped a rather heroic banana. Another room was apparently given over to psychedelic performances of light; Ellery saw equipment-floods, spots, wheels, pinpoint lights that could be played on an organlike instrument-that must have required enough wiring for 10,000 watts. It struck him that Marco was the type of Playboy New Yorker who rushes out to buy a Maserati Ghibli because he is impressed with its capability to accelerate from zero to 100 mph in 19.8 seconds and heads straight for the West Side highway during the evening rush hour to try it out.
They found the owner of all these contemporary riches in an orthodox combined gymnasium and game room adjoining his private quarters. He was dressed in puce gym tights and he was sitting cross-legged on a trampoline clutching a highball glass of what looked and smelled like straight sour-mash whisky. The ebony-and-lucite bar nearby, evidently dragged in from elsewhere, showed ring traces of numerous antecedent libations.
“Nino.” He crawled off the trampoline balancing the glass. “Thank God. Do you know I’ve been trying and trying to reach you? I’ve called Virginia I don’t know how many times. Where have you been? My God, Nino, if ever I needed you it’s been today. Most awful day of my life.” Marco Importunato stumbled into his brother’s arms, slopping whisky over both of them.
He began quite frankly to sob.
“Peter,” Importuna said. As usual, there was nothing to be told from his tone, not annoyance or embarrassment or distaste, not even concern.
Ennis hurried forward. Between them they hauled Marco backward to a chair, Importuna taking the glass from him. Ennis grabbed a bar towel and began to dab at Importuna’s jacket.
“Never mind,” the multimillionaire said. “He’s drunk, as you can see, Inspector Queen. I think you’d better question him another time.”
“No, sir, I’ll question him now, if you don’t mind,” the Inspector said. He stooped over the weeping man. “Mr. Importunato, do you remember me from this afternoon?”
Importunato grunted.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Sure I know who you are,” Marco said with peevish clarity. “What kind of a question is that? Anyway? You’re a cop. Inspector somebody.”
“Queen. This is Ellery Queen, my son. I’m sorry we’ve had to keep you waiting all day-”
“Damn right. Right, Nino? That’s why I’m sloshed. Waiting for their damn questions and nothing to think about but poor old Julio. That poor slob. Never hurt a fly. Gimme my glass back.”
His brother said, “No more, Marco.”
Marco staggered upright and lunged for it. Importuna stepped in his way. The younger man clung to him, weeping again.
“What do you expect to get out of him in this condition?” Importuna said to the Inspector.
The Inspector said, “You never know. And I can’t wait for him to sober up.”
“But what can he know about Julio’s death?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Importuna. That’s what I have to find out.”
Ellery was taking the opportunity to evaluate the man in the gym tights. Where Nino was squat and powerful, and Julio had been large and soft, the middle brother was slight, weak boned, almost phthisical. His olive skin had a bleached look, as if it had been too long deprived of sun. There were deep anxiety lines around his mouth and bloodshot eyes.