“You can that kind of talk,” said Beau in a hard voice. “You might get hurt. You heard the story!”
“Nishe shtory, Mis’er Queen,” leered De Carlos, “but it won’t go. No, shir, it’sh fan — fantastic. Sure she killed Margo — she’sh guilty ash hell, Mis’er Queen. Whadda you care, anywaysh? Tha’sh not the point. Tha’sh—”
Beau spanned the space between him and De Carlos in a split second. He grabbed De Carlos by the throat.
Ellery said: “Hold it, Brains,” and Beau relaxed his grip sheepishly. De Carlos stared up at him, frightened.
“No sense in going off half-cocked,” said Ellery smoothly. “You’ll have to excuse my partner, Mr. De Carlos. He’s had a trying night.”
“Got no call shtrangling people,” muttered De Carlos, feeling his Adam’s-apple.
“You were about to say?”
De Carlos struggled out of the chair, eying Beau warily. “You gen’l’men been jockeyed out of a lot o’ money by Kerrie — by shome one killing Margo.” He shook his forefinger at Ellery. “’S a shame, I shay. Y’oughta be recom — recompenshed, I shay. An’ Edmund De Carlos’s the man to do it! Good frien’s, huh? I make it up to you, huh?”
“Huh,” said Beau. “The piece of cheese. And we’re the rats. I didn’t get it, and I still don’t. What’s the gag, Blackbeard?”
“No gag, gen’l’men! Oh, coursh if I do somethin’ for you, you gotta do somethin’ for me. Tha’sh on’y fair, hey?” He peered anxiously at them. “Hey?”
“Hey, hey,” said Ellery, with a warning glance at Beau. “I should say. Now, as I understand it, you’re worried over our loss in the Margo deal, and you’d like to make it up to us financially. In return for your little contribution to our agency account you want us to do something for you in return. And what might that be, Mr. De Carlos?”
De Carlos beamed. “’S a pleasure to do bushiness with you, Mis’er Rummell. Why, you gotta do nothin’, shee. Tha’sh what I shaid before. I’m payin’ you not to inveshtigate a cashe! You shtep out. ’Way, way out. You forget you ever heard of Cadmus Cole, or the Cole eshtate, or... or anything. Shee what I mean?”
Beau growled deep in his throat, but Ellery rose quickly and came forward to step between the two men. He kicked Beau’s shin not gently with his left heel and took De Carlos’s arm.
“I think we understand, Mr. De Carlos,” he said with a leer to match their visitor’s. “You feel we’ve been snooping about a bit too freely, and you’d breathe more easily if we directed our agency energies elsewhere. How much did you say our stepping out was worth to you?”
“I didn’t shay.” De Carlos peered up at him with a bleary shrewdness. “Shall we shay — ten thoushand dollars?”
“Come, come, Mr. De Carlos. We’d have made a good deal more than that in the Margo Cole deal.”
“De Carlos-boy’sh bein’ held up, held up,” De Carlos grunted. “Now don’ hoi’ me up, gen’l’men. Fifteen.”
“Now you’re bruising my feelings, Mr. De Carlos.”
“Aw ri’,” grumbled De Carlos, “shall we shay twen’y thoushand?”
“Shall we rather say twenty-five, Mr. De Carlos?”
De Carlos muttered to himself. Finally he growled: “’S a deal. Twen’y-fi’ thoushand. Robbersh!”
“Just-business,” Ellery assured him. “Now how is this little payment to be made? Cash, I trust?”
“Cash! I don’t carry that mush cash aroun’ me,” said De Carlos irritably. “Give you a sheck.”
“Checks bounce,” reflected Mr. Queen.
“Well, thish one won’t! An’ if it doesh, you’re protected. You don’t have to go through with our ’greement.”
“Before that logic we bow. A check it shall be. Chair, Mr. De Carlos?”
He helped the reeling man around the desk and sat him down in the swivel-chair, reaching over to switch on the powerful desk-lamp.
De Carlos fumbled in his clothes and brought out a checkbook. He opened it, stared at the last stub morosely, then groped in his pockets again. Finally his hand emerged with a fountain-pen.
He unscrewed the cap, pushed it onto the other end of the pen, leaned over and, tucking his tongue in one cheek, began laboriously to write out a check.
If he had taken a bomb from his pocket Mr. Queen and Mr. Rummell could not have been so startled.
Their eyes fixed in a fascinated amazement at the pen in De Carlos’s lax, blundering fingers.
It was a black hard-rubber fountain-pen, fat and scarred, and it was trimmed in gold.
On the cap, etching-sharp in the bold light of the lamp, there were certain curious scratchy marks and dents in an arced pattern — a familiar pattern, a pattern Messrs. Queen and Rummell had seen twice before... once earlier that evening in Room 1726 at the Villanoy on the pencil they had found behind the radiator, and once months before in that very office, at that very desk.
The identical pen.
Under the identical circumstances.
It was Cadmus Cole’s fountain-pen!
Part Five
XVI. The Empty Mouth
Cadmus Cole’s fountain-pen! What was it doing in De Carlos’s possession?
Ellery raised his eyebrows to Beau. They drifted off to a corner of the office as De Carlos, at the desk, struggled to control his hand.
“You’re sure it’s the same one?” whispered Beau.
“Positive, although we’ve always got a check-up against those microphotographs.”
“Cole’s pen!” mumbled Beau. “The same pen he used to write out that check for fifteen grand when he originally hired us. It might have a simple explanation, El. Maybe De Carlos just appropriated it after Cole cashed in.”
Ellery shrugged. “There’s one way of finding out. De Carlos is just drunk enough to be off guard, and if we asked him he’s apt to tell the truth. Let me handle this.”
He went back to the desk and rested his palms on it, smiling down at the writing man.
“There!” said De Carlos with a bubbly sigh. “Twen’y-fi’ thoushand dollarsh, Mis’er Rummell.” He sat back limply in the swivel-chair, waving the check like a flag to dry the ink. “Shay! How’d I know you’ll keep your wor’, gen’l’men?”
“You don’t,” replied Ellery with a smile.
“You doublecrosh me,” said De Carlos furiously, reeling to his feet, “an’ I’ll... I’ll—”
Ellery took the check gently from the man’s slack fingers. “Is that friendly? We’re a reputable agency, Mr. De Carlos. Word’s our bond. Yes, twenty-five thousand, signed Edmund De Carlos — correct, Mr. De Carlos, and thank you!”
“’S all ri’,” said De Carlos, forgetting his suspicions and trying to bow. He almost fell on his face. Beau caught him and straightened him up none too carefully. “Thanksh, Mis’er Queen. ’S mighty rocky weather we’re having. An’ now I’ll be on my way.”
He put the black fountain-pen back into his pocket. Beau watched it disappear with the expression of a fox watching a rabbit vanish in a hole.
Ellery grasped De Carlos’s other arm and he and Beau began to steer the bearded man to the door.
“By the way, Mr. De Carlos,” said Ellery respectfully, “you’re just the man to help me out.”
De Carlos stopped short, weaving. “Yesh?” he said, blinking at Ellery.
“Mr. De Carlos, I have a hobby — you know, hobby? I collect little personal mementoes of famous people. Not expensive things, you know — the homelier and more personal the better I like them.”