“Son, son,” Inspector Queen was saying as they watched Marco’s body being taken down-the lab men were confiscating most of the climbing rope, including the noose, foi later examination-”anybody can get fouled up in a case like this. Don’t feel so bad. I’m as responsible as you are when you get down to it. I couldn’t believe all that evidence pointing straight to Marco, either. Yet it was pretty much open and shut from the start. Everything says it was Marco-the button dropped out of his pocket, the shoeprint in the ashes, that left-handed business, and now he commits suicide. Hanging himself is as good as a signed confession… What’s the matter, Ellery? Why the long puss again? You still aren’t satisfied?”
“Since you’re putting the direct question, I’ll have to answer you in kind,” Ellery said. “No.”
“No? Why not? What’s eating you now?”
“A number of things. For one, why Marco didn’t leave the desk catercornered. For another, the fact that his committing suicide doesn’t necessarily add up to a confession of murder, tempting as it is to think it does. Hanging himself might well have been the result of pouring that appalling quantity of alcohol into his system-and we saw how jittery and upset he was to start with-so much, in fact, that he may have gone temporarily psycho. In which condition a rope around his neck could seem the logical answer to his grief and guilt feelings about having quarreled with Julio. Not to mention-if he was innocent-panic over being framed.
“Also,” Ellery went on, “lest we forget, dad, cui bono? as a canny old gent named Cicero put it some time ago. For whose benefit? Who profits by the Importunato brothers’ deaths?”
“You know what I think?” the Inspector exploded. “I think you’re looking for any excuse not to get back to that book of yours! All right, we’ll go ask Importuna.”
“Let me do the talking, dad.”
The old man shrugged.
He had sent Importuna and Ennis into Marco’s bedroom while the technicians worked. They found the secretary drooping in a chair, but Importuna was standing lik statuary at the foot of his brother’s bed, a yard away from it; Ellery received the ludicrous impression that he might be perched on one leg, like a stork or a Far East religious fanatic. Otherwise, if the multimillionaire felt anything at the violent loss of his second brother in 24 hours, Ellery was unable to detect a sign of it. Those heavy features were modeled, beyond alteration, in bronze.
“Why don’t you sit down, Mr. Importuna?” Ellery asked. Distant as the man was, it was hard not to feel compassion for him. “We’re not insensitive to what this must mean to you.”
But Nino Importunato said, not stirring a muscle, “What do you want?” with great harshness. The espresso-colored eyes, the bitter eyes of the enemy, turned full on Ellery. Their expression, and his tone of voice, testified that something had sprung up between them, something frigid and deadly that bridged the gap and now held them fast to each other. Perhaps, Ellery thought, it’s been there all the time. Perhaps he recognized me as the adversary from the beginning.
“Who inherits your brother Julio’s estate, Mr. Importuna? And Marco’s? Since neither of them was married.”
“No one.”
“No one?”
“The conglomerate.”
“Of which you’re now sole owner?”
“Of course. I’m the last of the brothers. The last of our entire family.”
“I thought Tebaldo is a fifth cousin.”
“An old joke of Marco’s that by now Tebaldo half believes. On a visit to Italy Marco got Tebaldo’s sister pregnant. That was years ago. Marco hired Tebaldo as his valet to shut him up, at the same time that he made a settlement with the girl. The drunken fool isn’t of our blood. So if you’re asking who gains by the deaths of Julio and Marco, Mr. Queen,” Nino Importuna said, “the answer is that I do. No one else.”
Their eyes locked.
“Dad,” Ellery said, without looking at the Inspector, “at what time last night did you say Dr. Prouty thought Julio had died?”
“Around 10 o’clock, give or take a half hour. From the way he talked, I don’t think the M. E. thinks he’ll be able to narrow it down any finer.”
“Mr. Importuna,” Ellery asked politely, “would you tell us-if you don’t mind waiving your right to be silent, of course-just where you were last night between 9:30 and 10:30?”
The evenness of his voice in contrast to Importuna’s harshness gave Ellery an advantage that the multimillionaire was quick to sense. When he spoke again, it was in an equally quiet tone.
“Peter.”
Ennis had long since climbed to his feet, alerted by the sounds of battle under the exchange.
“Telephone upstairs and ask Mrs. Importuna to join us here right away. In view of the trend of the questioning, gentlemen, you won’t mind if I call my wife in on this.” He might have been referring to a trivial tidbit of gossip overheard at one of his clubs.
In no more than three minutes a chalky Tebaldo announced her arrival and rather waveringly vanished.
Virginia Whyte Importuna went directly to her husband and took her place by his side. Ellery noticed with sharp interest that she did not grope for his hand, or brush against him, or allow any part of her body to come in contact with his. She simply stood near, erect and attentive, like a soldier summoned into the commanding officer’s presence, an invisible gulf between them. Apparently she did not want for herself, or feel the need to give him, a physical reassurance. Or was it something else?
She was a natural very-light-cafe-au-lait blond with intelligent violet-blue eyes of great size, high northern European cheekbones, and a little straight nose passionately flared. Really exquisite, Ellery thought. Her beauty had an ethereal patina, almost a poetry, but he was sure that it covered a rustproof undercoating resistant to assault. What other kind of woman could cope with a man like Nino Importuna?
She wore a high-fashion dress of deceiving simplicity that set off her long legs and hourglass figure. She stood taller than her husband, even though he wore built-up shoes and she was in low heels, no doubt at his direction. Ellery judged her to be in her mid-20s. She could have passed for Importuna’s granddaughter.
“Virginia, this is Inspector Queen of police headquarters, and this is Inspector Queen’s son, Ellery Queen. Mr. Queen is an amateur criminologist who’s interested himself in our troubles. Oh, by the way, my dear, there’s been no opportunity to notify you. Marco just committed suicide.”
“Marco…?” Faintly. But that was all she said. She bounced back from her husband’s savage announcement with the speed of a rebound. Her only concession to shock was to sink into the nearest so-called chair, in the new pneumatic mode, a billowing transparent bladderlike creation inflated with air.
Importuna seemed proud of her fortitude. He moved toward her with a fond, bitter look.
“And now it seems,” he went on, “Mr. Queen’s nose is sniffing in my direction. He just asked me, Virginia, where I was last night between 9:30 and 10:30. Will you tell him?”
Virginia Importuna said immediately, “My husband and I, with four guests, were at the opera.” Her very feminine voice was deadly in its control, a musical enigma. Ellery was enthralled. He had heard of Importuna’s devotion to his wife; he was beginning to understand why. She was the fitting lady to his lordship.