Dead silence enveloped them. “And what time was that?” asked Ellery in a soft voice.
“A couple of minutes after Mr. Cort left.” Her thin white hand strayed to her hair and she smiled with a sort of nervous coquetry. “He asked Mrs. Godfrey to take his hand, and then he excused himself and went out into the patio.”
“You have a good memory, haven’t you, Mrs. Munn?” grunted Moley.
“Oh, swell — I mean, a very good memory. Joe — Mr. Munn always says to to me—"
“Where’d you go exactly, Cort?” demanded Moley abruptly.
Something flickered in the young man’s hazel eyes. “Oh, I wandered about the grounds. I called for Rosa several times, but there was no answer.”
“Did you come back before Marco quit the game?”
“Well...”
“I beg your pardon, sir, but I believe I can tell you that,” said a soft pleasant male voice from a far doorway, and they turned, startled, toward the sound. A little man dressed in decorously-cut black stood there in a half-bowed attitude that was at once obsequious and self-possessed. He was a colorless midge with tiny hands and feet and a perfectly smooth face that suggested in a vague, elusive way — the bland skin, the faint elongation of the eyes — Oriental blood. But he spoke facile, cultured English and his sober clothes had a London look about them. “Eurasian far back,” thought Ellery.
“And who are you?” growled the Inspector.
“Tiller, you get back where you belong!” shouted Walter Godfrey furiously, advancing upon the little man in black with pudgy doubled fists. “Who asked you to volunteer information? Speak when you’re spoken to!”
The little man said apologetically: “Of course, Mr. Godfrey,” and turned to go; but there was an amused gleam in his eye.
“Here, here, come back here,” said Moley hastily. “And I’ll thank you, Mr. Godfrey, not to interfere.”
“Tiller, I warn you—” snarled the millionaire.
The little man hesitated. Moley said in an even voice: “Come back here, Tiller.” Godfrey shrugged suddenly and retreated to a huge armorial chair in a corner of the room. The little man advanced with silent steps. “Just who are you?”
“I am the house valet, sir.”
“Mr. Godfrey’s, too?”
“No, sir, Mr. Godfrey does not employ the services of a personal valet. Mrs. Godfrey employs me to attend the wants of the gentlemen who visit Spanish Cape.”
Moley fixed him with an expectant eye. “All right. Now what were you going to say?”
Earle Cort glared at him for an instant and then turned away, smoothing his blond hair with a nervous brown hand. Mrs. Godfrey fumbled with her handkerchief. The little man said: “I can tell you about Mr. Cort and Mr. Marco last night, sir. You see—”
“Tiller,” whispered Stella Godfrey, “you’re discharged.”
“Yes, Madam.”
“Oh, no, he isn’t,” said Moley. “Not until this murder is cleared up. What about Mr. Cort and Mr. Marco, Tiller?”
The valet cleared his throat and spoke quietly, his almost-almond eyes fixed upon two crossed Saracen swords on the opposite wall. “It is my custom,” he began in a quaint way, “to take a breath of air in the evening after my dinner, sir. Generally the gentlemen have all been attended to by that time, and I have an hour or so to myself. Sometimes I drop into Mr. Jorum’s cottage for a pipe and chat—”
“The gardener?”
“Quite so, sir. Mr. Jorum has a cottage of his own on the grounds. Last night, while Mrs. Godfrey and her guests were at the bridge table, I walked down to Mr. Jorum’s place as usual, sir. We talked for a while and then I wandered off by myself. I thought I might stroll down to the terrace—”
“Why?” asked Moley quickly.
Tiller looked blank. “I beg your pardon? Oh, no special reason, sir. I like it there; it’s so restful. I hadn’t expected to find any one there. Naturally I know my place, if I may say so, sir...”
“But you did find some one there?”
“Yes, sir. Mr. Cort and Mr. Marco.”
“What time was this?”
“I should say at about a few minutes past nine, sir.”
“Were they talking? Did you hear what they said?”
“Yes, sir. They were... er... quarreling, sir.”
“And you listened, damn you,” said young Cort bitterly. “A spy!”
“No, sir,” murmured Tiller in a distressed voice. “I couldn’t help hearing, you and Mr. Marco were speaking so loudly.”
“You could have gone away, damn you!”
“I was afraid you might hear—”
“Never mind that,” rasped the Inspector. “What were they quarreling about, Tiller?”
“Miss Rosa, sir.”
“Rosa!” gasped Mrs. Godfrey. She turned wide, shocked eyes upon her daughter, who went slowly crimson.
“All right, all right,” said young Cort thickly. “I suppose it’s got to come out, now that that rotten little meddler’s spilled the beans. I did lace it into that damned gigolo, good and hot! I told him if ever he laid a hand on Rosa again, I’d—”
“You’d what?” asked Moley softly, as Cort paused.
“I believe,” murmured Tiller, “Mr. Cort mentioned something about a sound thrashing.”
“Oh.” Moley was disappointed. “Marco was annoying Miss Godfrey, then, Cort?”
“Rosa,” whispered Mrs. Godfrey, “you never told me—”
“Oh, you’re impossible, all of you!” cried Rosa, springing to her feet. “And as for you, Mr. Smart-Alec Cort, don’t ever speak to me again! What right did you have to — to quarrel with John... yes, John!... about me? He did not annoy me! Any lib — anything that may have passed between us was with my permission, you may be sure!”
“Rosa,” began the young man miserably, “it’s just that—”
“Don’t speak to me!” Her blue eyes flashed anger and defiance, and she held her head with something very like pride. “If you must know, all of you — yes, and you, too, mother! — John had asked me to marry him!”
“Mar—” Mrs. Godfrey gasped. “And you—”
Rosa said more quietly: “I... well, I’d practically accepted. Not in so many words, but...”
The most remarkable thing happened. Mrs. Constable moved in her chair and said in a husky voice — the first time she had spoken since early morning: “The devil. The cunning, filthy, heartless devil. I saw it coming. You were blind, Mrs. Godfrey. If I had a daughter— He used all his old tricks...” Then she stopped abruptly. Her frozen features had not even twitched.
Something like fear crept into Rosa’s eyes. Rosa’s mother was staring with a hand over her mouth, staring at the tall dark young woman who was her daughter as if she were seeing her for the first time.
Young Cort’s face was gray, but he said with dignity: “I don’t believe Miss Godfrey knew quite what she was letting herself in for, Inspector. I may as well tell you, because if I don’t, Tiller will — since he seems to have hung about near the terrace long enough to hear the whole messy business.
“Marco told me in the course of our argument what Miss Godfrey has just told you: that he had proposed to her just Friday and that she had virtually accepted him, and that he was so sure of the outcome he had made all his plans. He was going to run off with her next week and be married.” He winced a little.
Rosa faltered: “I never— He shouldn’t—”
“He said,” continued Cort quietly, “that it didn’t matter if I told Mr. Godfrey and Mrs. Godfrey and the whole world; they loved each other and nothing would stop them. Besides, he said, Rosa would do anything he suggested. I was a meddling young fool, he said, and an upstart and barely out of diapers. He said a lot of other things not quite so mild. Is that right, Tiller?”