“With Marco himself snipping that button off,” Inspector Queen muttered, “and slicing into his shoe accidentally, there goes the frame-up theory, Ellery. The button simply fell out of that hole in his pocket, and the shoeprint in the cigar ash showing the cut is a legitimate clue. With these admissions of his, they both place Marco in that library of Julio’s for real.”
“With every cock-eyed thing that’s happened so far, is it all right with you if I wonder?” Ellery had transferred his yanking and hauling from nose to lower lip. “Look, dad, there seem to be ifs all over this case. Let’s try to clear some of them up. Do you want to tackle Marco, or shall I?”
“I’d better do it. Importuna’s set to throw his weight around. It’s harder for him to give me the heave… Feeling a little feisty, Mr. Importunato? I don’t think-the way things look for you right now-you can afford it.”
Marco twitched. The sallow skin was beginning to show a greenish undertinge.
“Take it easy, Marco,” his brother said. “Just what do you mean, Inspector Queen?”
“It’s very simple. We know now that Marco was not framed; he’s knocked that theory out by his admissions here. But we did find his button and shoeprint in Julio’s library. In my book that places your brother Marco on the scene of the crime legitimately. So before the district attorney gets into the act, if Marco has an explanation I’d strongly advise him to give it.”
“He does not have to tell you anything,” the multimillionaire said harshly. “In fact, I’m growing very tired of this-”
“Nino.” Marco Importunato raised his head from his trembling hands. “I think I’d better.”
“I’d rather you kept quiet. At least until I can get Emerson Lundy up here.”
“Why should I yell for a lawyer, Nino?” Of a sudden he was hysterically sober. “As if I were guilty? I have nothing on my conscience! If these people think I could kill Julio… My God, Julio was jamiglia… blood brother. It’s true, Inspector Queen, that I was in Julio’s library last night. And we did have a quarrel. But-”
“What time was this, Mr. Importunato?” the Inspector asked casually, as if Marco had said something trivial.
“I don’t know exactly. It was before 9 o’clock, because I do know it wasn’t quite 9 when I left him.” The man’s blood-streaked eyes sought the Inspector’s. “Left him,” he said. “Alive and well.”
“What about the condition of the room? The broken furniture, the knocked-over lamps-”
“I don’t know a thing about that. When I walked out of Julio’s library everything was in place. We didn’t have a fist fight, for the love of Christ! It was just an argument, Inspector. Some hot talk between brothers. Julio and I argued a lot. Ask Nino. Ask anybody.”
“Marco, I want you to keep your mouth shut,” his brother said. “I order you! Do you hear me?”
“No,” Marco said hoarsely. “They think I killed Julio. I’ve got to convince them I didn’t. Ask me more questions, Inspector! Go ahead, ask me.”
“About what was this particular argument last night?”
“Business. We’ve always had a family rule that all important investment decisions of Importuna Industries have to have the unanimous agreement of Nino, Julio, and myself. If one of us says no, it’s no deal. We don’t usually have trouble agreeing. But recently Nino proposed that we set up a new corporation and buy 19,000,000 acres of Canadian Arctic land-our top geologist thinks there’s a good chance that particular area is one big oil deposit-no, Nino, I’m not going to shut up!-a bigger field than Texas and Oklahoma. And we could buy it for $1.50 an acre, so the investment isn’t very big. After checking the reports I agreed with Nino it was a good gamble. But Julio wouldn’t go along. So we didn’t have the necessary three-man agreement and we had to drop the deal. Nino was put out about it, and so was I. But-murder?” His head kept wobbling like an infant’s or a very old man’s. Whether it was a conscious expression of negation or simply a weakness of the neck muscles brought on by the sour-mash whiskey he had consumed they could not tell.
“All right,” Inspector Queen said. “So you dropped into Julio’s apartment last night and you and Julio had a fight about his turndown of the deal?”
“Not a fight! An argument. There’s a difference, you know!”
“I’m sorry, an argument. Go ahead, Mr. Importunato.”
“I thought maybe he’s in a different mood tonight, maybe I can change his mind. But no, he was still dead set against it-he’d got it into his head that either some-body’d bribed our geologist to con us out of a bundle or that, even if oil was found, it would be an economic disaster trying to handle a production and pipeline setup across thousands of miles of frozen wasteland. Anyway, one word led to another, and we wound up yelling Italian curses at each other.” Marco raised his tear-swollen face. “But Julio could never stay mad very long. All of a sudden he said, ‘Look, fratello, what are we arguing for? The hell with it, so we’ll blow 28, 29 million bucks. What’s money?’ and he laughed, so I laughed, and we shook hands across the desk, and I said good night and walked out. And that was it, Inspector Queen. I swear.”
He was sweating heavily now.
“You mean Julio gave his consent to the deal, Marco?” Nino Importuna demanded. “You didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t get the chance.”
“Just a minute, Mr. Importuna,” the Inspector said. “You didn’t come to blows, Mr. Importunato? Throw things? Break anything?”
“Julio and me? Never!”
“Mr. Importunato,” Ellery said; his father gave him a look and stepped back at once. “Did either you or your brother accidentally knock his ashtray off the desk?”
At this assault from another quarter Marco’s head snapped about. He immediately drew it in, turtle-fashion. “I don’t remember anything like that.”
“When you left him, where exactly was Julio? I mean where in the library.”
“I left him sitting behind his desk.”
“And the desk was in its usual position? Catercornered?”
“That’s right.”
“While you were in the room, did either you or your brother move the desk?”
“Move it? Why should we move it? I don’t think I even put my hand on it. And Julio never once got up from behind it.”
“And you left the library no later than 9 o’clock, you said. You seemed very sure of the time, Mr. Importunato. How come?”
Marco began to shout. “Holy Mother, don’t you people take a man’s word for anything? A chick was meeting me at my apartment at 9:15 to go swinging. I checked my watch as I was leaving Julio. I saw it was a couple minutes to 9. That gave me just time enough to change my clothes. Satisfied?” He thrust his lower lip forward.
“Change which clothes? What were you wearing when you visited Julio last night?”
The lips clamped down. His hands were gripping the arms of the chair and his knuckles were yellow-white.
“Your yachting jacket, Mr. Importunato?” Ellery said. “The crepe-soled shoes?”
“I’m not answering any more questions. You’re through here, Mister whoever-the-hell-you-are. Get out of my apartment!”
“Oh?” Ellery said. “Why the sudden clam-up?”
“Because! I can see you’ve made up your minds I’m guilty. I ought to’ve taken Nino’s advice and not opened my yap. Anything else you want to find out, you can goddam well talk to my lawyer!”
Marco Importunato got to his feet and staggered over to the bar. His brother stepped in his way, and he brushed the older man violently aside, seized the whisky bottle, threw his head back, and began to glug. Importuna and Ennis closed in on him.