“And no trace of the wire, eh?”
“Weren’t looking for it, but I got a report on every blessed morsel the boys’ve picked up around the premises that looked promising, and there wasn’t any wire. I suppose the killer took it away with him.”
“What time did this man die, sir?” asked Ellery abruptly.
The coroner looked surprised, and then surly, and then glanced at Inspector Moley. Moley nodded and the man said: “As closely as I can figure — which isn’t always as close as we like to pretend — he died between one and one-thirty a.m. Certainly not before one o’clock this morning. And I think a half-hour’s margin is ample.”
“He did die of strangulation?”
“I said he did, didn’t I?” snapped the coroner. “I may be a country yokel, y’understand, but I know my business. Strangled. Died practically at once. That’s all. Not another mark on his body. Want an autopsy, Moley?”
“Might as well. You never know.”
“All right, but I don’t think it’s necessary. If you’re through with him I’ll have the boys cart him away.”
“I’m through. Anything else you want to know, Mr. Queen?”
Ellery drawled: “Oh, loads of things, but I’m afraid Mr. Coroner wouldn’t be of much assistance. Before you take dead Apollo away...” He knelt on the flags suddenly and, putting his hand on the dead man’s ankle, tugged. But it was rooted to the spot as if it were part of the flagstones. He looked up.
“Rigor,” said the coroner with a sneer. “What do you want?”
“I want,” replied Ellery in a patient voice, “to look at his feet.”
“His feet? Well, there they are!”
“Inspector, if you and the coroner will raise him, chair and all, please—?”
Moley and the bony man, assisted by a policeman, lifted body and chair. Ellery inclined his head and squinted up at the naked soles of the dead man’s feet.
“Clean,” he murmured. “Quite clean. I wonder—” He took a pencil from his pocket and with difficulty inserted its length between the great and index toes. He repeated the operation on all the man’s toes, and on both feet. “Not even a grain of sand. All right, gentlemen, thank you. I’ve had enough of your precious Mr. Marco — certainly of his mortal remains.” And Ellery rose and dusted off his knees and groped absently for a cigaret and stared out to sea through the opening in the walls of the Cove.
The three men set the body down and the coroner signalled to two white-clad men lolling at the head of the terrace steps.
“Well, my son,” said a voice over Ellery’s shoulder, and he turned to find Judge Macklin quietly regarding him. “What do you think?”
Ellery shrugged. “Nothing startling. It must be that the murderer undressed him. I thought the soles of his feet might show signs that he had been walking about barefoot while alive, which in a sense might have established that he had undressed himself. But his feet are much cleaner than they would be if he had actually walked about; he certainly wasn’t on the beach there in naked feet, for there’s no sand between his toes; or for that matter in shoes, either, since there are no prints—” He halted suddenly, staring at the beach with eyes that seemed to be seeing it for the first time.
“What’s the matter?”
Before Ellery could reply a gruffly patient male voice broke into speech above their heads. They all looked up. They could see the blue-clad elbow of a policeman; he was standing on the lip of the high cliff overhead, the cliff which looked down upon the terrace and the beach from the side where the house lay.
He was saying: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but ye can’t do that. Ye’ll have to go back to the house.”
They had one glimpse of her face with its unnaturally staring eyes, as she peered over the edge of the abyss gazing fiercely at the defenseless naked body of John Marco being dumped in a crate-like basket by the two white-clad men on the terrace. The marble body had strong black welts on it, where the beams of the terrace roof cast their shadows. It looked like the body of a man lashed to death — a queer illusion that was reflected by the female face glaring down at it.
It was the fat, pale, frenzied face of Mrs. Constable.
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.