“Now that,” said Ellery warmly, “is news. Tiller, you’re manna from an otherwise sterile heaven. What note precisely? Certainly a man of your... er... attainments wouldn’t have neglected to observe certain minutiae in which we might conceivably be interested.”
“Yes, sir,” murmured Tiller. “I did observe certain... er... minutiae, as you say, sir; and they struck me, if I may presume to say so, sir, as rather odd.” He paused to lick his thin lips and peer slyly up at them.
“Come, come, Tiller,” said the Judge impatiently, “this note was addressed to you? I assume it had something of importance to say, or something relevant to this nasty business, if you bring the matter up at all.”
“Whether it concerned something of importance or relevance, sir,” murmured the valet, “I’m sorry I cannot say. For you see, sir, the note was not addressed to me. I mention it only because it was addressed to — Mr. John Marco.”
“Marco!” burst out the Inspector. “Then how the deuce did it come to be left in your room?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, sir. But I’ll tell you about it and then you may judge for yourself. It was nine-thirty or so when I returned to the house — I have my quarters on the ground floor, sir, in the servants’ wing — and I went directly to my room. I found the note pinned with a common pin to the exterior of the inside breast pocket of my mess jacket, where I could not avoid seeing it. Because you see, sir, at nine-thirty or so every evening I change into my mess jacket and wait about until the gentlemen who are visiting at the house come upstairs for one thing or another, to serve them drinks if they should so desire. The butler, of course, attends to such matters on the ground floor. So, you see—”
“That’s a custom here, Tiller?” asked Ellery slowly.
“Yes, sir. I’ve done it ever since I came here, on Mrs. Godfrey’s instructions.”
“Everybody in the house knows of this custom?”
“Oh, yes, sir. It is my duty to inform all the gentlemen-guests as soon as they arrive.”
“And you don’t wear your mess jacket before nine-thirty in the evening?”
“No, sir. Until then I am attired as you see me, in dark clothing.”
“Hmm. That’s interesting... Well, go on, Tiller.”
Tiller bowed. “Yes, sir. To proceed. I naturally unpinned the note — it was in a sealed envelope — and looked at the legend on the envelope—”
“Legend? Tiller, you’re priceless. How did you know there was a note inside? You didn’t tear open the envelope, I trust?”
“I felt it,” replied Tiller gravely. “It was house stationery, sir — at least, the envelope was. On it was typewritten the words: For Mr. John Marco. Personal. Important. Deliver Privately TONIGHT. Those are the exact words, sir; I remember perfectly. The word ‘tonight’ was underscored and in capital letters.”
“You’ve no idea, I suppose,” frowned the Judge, “at what time approximately that note was pinned to your mess jacket, Tiller?”
“I believe I have, sir,” said the astonishing little man promptly. “Yes, indeed, sir. Some time after Mrs. Godfrey and her guests had had their dinner — a matter of minutes — I had occasion to go to my room and to my wardrobe closet. I happened to brush against my mess jacket in the closet and it flipped open, as you might say, sir, by accident. I’m sure that had the note been there then I should have noticed it.”
“What time was dinner over?” growled Moley.
“A bit after seven-thirty, sir; perhaps twenty-five to eight.”
“You left your room right after that?”
“Yes, sir, and I wasn’t back until nine-thirty, when I found the note.”
“The note was placed there, then,” muttered Ellery, “roughly between a quarter of eight and nine-thirty. It’s too bad we can’t determine exactly who wandered away from that bridge-table and when... What then, Tiller? What did you do?”
“I took the note, sir, and went looking for Mr. Marco. But when I saw him at play in the living-room — he had just returned, you will remember, sir, from the terrace — I decided to respect the admonition on the envelope and wait until I could see him privately. I hung about in the patio, waiting; and finally, during a game, I fancy, in which he was dummy, Mr. Marco strolled out for a breath of air. I handed him the note at once and he read it. I saw his face change and a very wicked smile come into his eyes. Then he re-read it, and I thought he looked a bit—” Tiller cast about delicately for the word — “a bit puzzled. But he shrugged, flung me a bill, and... er... growled that I was not to mention the note to any one. Then he went back to the game. I returned upstairs to wait on the gentlemen with my portable bar.”
“What did he do with the note?” demanded the Inspector.
“He crumpled it and jammed it into one of his coat-pockets, sir.”
“That explains his impatience to quit the game, perhaps,” murmured Ellery. “Remarkable, Tiller! Don’t know what we’d do without you.”
“Thank you, sir. Very kind of you, I’m sure. Will that be all?”
“Not by a long shot,” said Moley grimly. “Trail along with us to Marco’s room, Tiller. Something tells me there’s more where that came from!”
A plainclothesman had his legs hooked about the feet of a chair tilted against a door at the extreme east end of the corridor.
“Anything doing, Roush?” demanded the Inspector.
The man spat lazily out an open window at the end of the corridor and shook his head. “Dead as hell, Chief. They’re keepin’ away from here.”
“That’s sensible,” said Moley dryly. “Stand aside, Roush. I want a look at Mr. Marco’s boodwawr.” He turned the knob and pushed open the door.
The elaborate living-room downstairs should have prepared them. As it was, they stared at what passed for a guest-room at Spanish Cape. It might have been a king’s bedchamber. It was all done in the best Spanish style, and it possessed an undeniable flavor — the flavor of old things in dark wood and wrought iron and raw color. The bed was a gigantic four-poster surmounted by a royal tester, from which fell drapes of heavy tapestried cloth. The posts, the bed, the secretary, the chairs, the bureau, the tables were hardily carved; a huge affair of chain and wrought iron and glass cunningly shaped like candles furnished the chief overhead illumination. There were two genuine candles, monsters in wax, on the bureau ensconced in beautiful iron holders. A stone fireplace which, from its fire-licked appearance, had seen good round service supported a mantelpiece of gargantuan proportions, hewn out of a single log.
“Old Godfrey does himself proud, doesn’t he?” murmured Ellery, stepping into the room. “And all for what? For a plainly undesirable guest who gets himself separated from his worthless life, with all the attendant annoyances to his host. Inconsiderate of Marco, to say the least. At that, he must have shown to advantage in this magnificent setting. There is something vaguely Spanish about him even in death. Put him in long hose and doublet...”
“Put him six feet under would be more like it,” grunted Inspector Moley. “Let’s not dawdle, Mr. Queen. From what Roush tells me, he’s spoken to the maids and they say none of them disturbed this room today. We got here so quickly they didn’t have a chance, and Roush has been roostin’ by this door since a quarter to seven. So it ought to be about like what it was last night, when Marco came back up here after the bridge-game.”
“Unless some one got in here during the night,” pointed out Judge Macklin with a worried air. “I wonder now—” He stepped forward and thrust his long neck toward the bed. Its spread had been removed, for it was not in evidence, and the corner of the sheet and the gay monogrammed quilt had been turned down — apparently by a maid the night before, in anticipation of the guest’s retirement. But the pillow was large and square and fat and uncrushed, and there was no impression of a human body under the tester. Flung carelessly on the quilt there was a white, slightly rumpled linen suit, a white shirt, an oyster-colored four-in-hand, a suit of two-piece underwear, a crumpled handkerchief, and a pair of white silk socks. All had obviously been worn. On the floor near the bed stood a pair of men’s white calfskin shoes. “Is this the costume Marco was wearing all last evening, Tiller?” demanded the old gentleman.