“That’s right,” nodded Mrs. Munn, smiling in a pleased way. “I was in a lot of shows. We show people always get asked to the nice places.”
Judge Macklin shambled forward and said quietly: “And you, Mrs. Constable? Of course, you’re an old friend of Mrs. Godfrey’s?”
The stout woman started and the old panic leaped, newborn, into her eyes. Mrs. Godfrey made a gasping little sound, as if she were dying.
“Y-y-yes,” whispered Mrs. Godfrey, her teeth chattering. “Oh, I’ve known Mrs. Constable—”
“For... years,” breathed Mrs. Constable in her husky monotone; her gigantic bosom heaved like a sweeping sea.
Ellery and Judge Macklin exchanged meaning glances as Inspector Moley strode in from the patio, his heavy brogans clumping on the polished floor. “Well,” he growled below his breath, “nothing doing on Marco’s clothes; that’s about settled. The boys have dragged the water near the rocks, right under the cliffs, all around the Cape. And they’ve covered every inch of the grounds and searched the highway and park in the vicinity. No duds. No duds, that’s all.” He gnawed at his lower lip as if he could not credit the reports of his men. “Why, they’ve even looked over those two bathing beaches — the public ones — on either side of the Cape. And, of course, the whole stretch of the Waring property. Thought there was a chance on those beaches — never can tell. But except for a lot of papers and lunch-boxes and footprints and such, there wasn’t a thing. I can’t understand it.”
“It’s horribly queer,” murmured Judge Macklin.
“Only one thing left for us to do.” Moley set his stubborn jaw. “They’re not goin’ to like it in this high-class dump, but I’m going to do it just the same. Those clothes simply must be here somewhere; how do I know they aren’t in the house?”
“The house? Here?”
“Sure.” Moley shrugged. “I’m having the boys search it on the q.t. There’s a back entrance and some of ’em are upstairs now, rootin’ around in the bedrooms. We’ve covered this Jorum’s shack and the garage and the boat-house and all the outbuildings already. I told ’em to pick up anything that looked promising.”
“No other developments?” asked Ellery absently.
“Not a thing. There’s still no sign of this Captain Kidd guy and David Kummer; the boat’s just disappeared. There’s a Coast Guard cutter on the job right now, and a lot of local cops are on the watch. I’ve just been shooing off a mess of reporters. Place is lousy with ’em. I’ve had ’em all kicked out... About the only lead I’ve got that looks hot is this Penfield in New York.”
“What have you done?”
“Sent one of my best men there to look him up. My man’s got authorizations with him and if necessary he’ll bring Penfield back.”
“Not if I know Penfield,” said Judge Macklin grimly. “He’s a slippery lawyer, Inspector, with plenty of gray matter. Your man won’t bring him back unless he wants to be brought back. At that, he may come along quietly if he thinks it serves his purpose or to avoid a bit of trouble. All you can do is trust in God.”
“Oh, hell,” groaned Moley. “Let’s go up to Marco’s room.”
“After you, Tiller,” said Ellery, smiling at the little man. “I think every one else may as well wait here.”
“I, sir?” murmured the valet, raising his precise little brows.
“Yes, indeed.”
They followed Tiller, who was following the glum Inspector, out of the living-room. Stony faces disappeared behind them. In an adjoining corridor they came to a spacious staircase, at which Tiller nodded, bowed to the Inspector, and led the way upstairs.
“Well?” asked Judge Macklin softly, as they raised and lowered their leaden feet. They both realized at the same instant that they had not slept the night before, and that they were sodden with fatigue. It took excruciating effort to climb the stairs.
Ellery pursed his lips and screwed up his eyes, a little red about the lids from lack of rest. “An extraordinary situation,” he muttered. “I think the plot is vaguely legible, however.”
“If you mean as it concerns the Munns and Mrs. Constable—”
“What do you make of them?”
“As personalities, not much. Munn, from what Rosa told us this morning and from what I observed just now, is a dangerous type. He’s an outdoor man, physically arrogant and quite fearless, besides having lived obviously on familiar terms with violence. But aside from these tangibles he’s a mystery. His wife...” The Judge sighed. “A common enough type, I’m afraid, but then the potentialities of even the common types are often unpredictable. She’s a hard, cheap, mercenary creature who no doubt married Munn as much for his money as for his physical attractiveness. She would be quite capable of conducting an affair du coeur under her husband’s nose... Mrs. Constable is — to me, at least — sheer fog. I can’t make her funk out at all.”
“No?”
“She’s apparently a middle-aged woman of the upper middle classes. No doubt she has a large family, grown and perhaps married, and is a good wife and mother. I should say she’s considerably more than forty, despite the testimony of Rosa Godfrey. We really should talk to her, my boy. She’s as out of place—”
“And yet she’s exactly the kind of American woman,” said Ellery quietly, “whom you will find leering at certain well-built, slim-waisted young dandies across a boulevard café table in Paris.”
“I never thought of that,” murmured the Judge. “By George, you’re right. Then you think she and Marco—”
“This,” said Ellery, “is a strange house, and it has some very strange people in it. The queerest thing about it is the presence of the Munns and Mrs. Constable.”
“Then you saw it, too,” whispered the old gentleman quickly. “She was lying — they all lied—”
“Of course,” shrugged Ellery, pausing to light a cigaret. “A good deal will be explained,” he resumed, blowing smoke, “when we find out why Mrs. Godfrey invited three perfect strangers to her summer home.” They had reached the head of the staircase and now found themselves in a wide, hushed corridor. “And why,” continued Ellery in an odd tone, eying Tiller’s perfect little back a few feet ahead as he trotted along on the deep carpet, “three perfect strangers accepted her invitation without, apparently, the slightest question!”
Chapter Six
No Man Is a Hero
“You might put it down to social ambition — at least the latter part of it,” suggested the Judge.
“You might, and then again you mightn’t.” Ellery stopped short. “What’s the matter, Tiller?”
The little man had halted in his tracks before Inspector Moley and clapped a well-manicured hand to his bland brow.
“Well, what’s eatin’ you, for cripe’s sake?” growled Moley.
Tiller seemed distressed. “I’m so sorry, sir. I’d quite forgotten.”
“Forgotten? Forgotten what?” asked Ellery swiftly, joining them in one stride, the Judge a step behind.
“The note, sir.” Tiller lowered his secretive little eyes. “It quite slipped my mind. I’m fearfully sorry, sir.”
“Note!” exclaimed Moley. He shook Tiller’s trim shoulder with violence. “What note? What the devil are you talking about?”
“If you don’t mind, sir,” said Tiller between a wince and a smile, and somehow he contrived to wriggle from under the Inspector’s heavy hand. “That hurts, sir... Why, the note I found in my own room last night, sir, when I returned from my stroll about the grounds.”
He backed against the corridor wall, a pigmy looking up apologetically at the three big men standing still before him.