Tiller nodded brightly. “Yes, sir. The note.”
“Ah! That was his reason for driving you from the room?”
“I fancy so, sir.” Tiller sighed. “In fact, I’m almost sure of it. For as I went to the door I saw him tear the note, envelope and all, and hurl it into that fireplace there, where I had kindled a small fire earlier in the evening!”
With one accord the three big men bounded to the fireplace, their eyes alight with anticipation. Tiller stood still where he was, respectfully watching. Then, as they flung themselves to their knees and began to scrabble about in the little heap of cold ashes in the grate, he cleared his throat, blinked several times, and moved quietly over to the large wardrobe closet on the farther side of the room. He opened the door and began to poke about inside.
“What a break if—” began Moley in a mutter.
“Careful,” cried Ellery. “It’s still possible — if they’re only partially burned they’ll be brittle...”
Five minutes later the three brushed off their grimy hands, frowning deeply. There was nothing.
“All burned up,” snarled the Inspector. “What a break is right, damn it all—”
“Just a second.” Ellery sprang to his feet and looked about quickly. “It doesn’t seem to me as if those ashes in the grate are the residue of paper. Certainly not sufficient to account for...” He stopped short, eying Tiller sharply. The little man was calmly closing the door of the closet. “What the devil are you up to now, Tiller?”
“Why, checking up on Mr. Marco’s wardrobe, sir,” replied Tiller modestly. “It occurred to me that you might wish to know if anything is missing besides the garments I itemized a few moments ago.”
Ellery gaped at him. Then he chuckled: “Tiller, come to my bosom. We could easily be boon companions. And is anything missing?”
“No, sir,” said Tiller, almost regretfully.
“You’re positive?”
“Quite. You see, sir, I’ve come to know Mr. Marco’s wardrobe very thoroughly indeed. If you’d care to have me look through the bureau—”
“There’s an idea. Do.” And Ellery turned away to scan the room again, as if he were searching for something, while Tiller — a smile of satisfaction on his bland little face — trotted over to the ornately carved bureau and began to open drawers. Inspector Moley sauntered quietly over to watch him.
A glance passed between Ellery and Judge Macklin, and without a word they began a separate but complementary search of the bedroom. They worked in silence; the only audible sounds came from the opening and shutting of drawers.
“Nothing,” reported Tiller sadly at last, shutting the bottom drawer of the bureau. “Nothing that should not be here. And nothing missing. I’m sorry, sir.”
“You say that as if it were your fault,” drawled Ellery, moving toward the bathroom, the door of which stood open. “Good idea, though, Tiller—” He disappeared into the bathroom.
“Not even a letter in the damned thing,” scowled Moley. “Careful jigger, he must have been. Well, I guess that’s all for—”
Ellery’s voice, strangely cold, interrupted. They looked around to find him standing, straight and stern, in the bathroom doorway. He was staring at Filler’s expressionless face. “Tiller,” he said, flatly and without inflection.
“Yes, sir?” The little man’s brows went up inquiringly.
“You lied, didn’t you, about not having read the contents of the note you delivered to Mr. Marco?”
Something glittered in Tiller’s eyes and the tips of his ears went slowly red. “I beg your pardon, sir?” he said quietly.
Their eyes locked. Then Ellery sighed. “I beg yours. But I had to know. You didn’t return to this room after Marco sent you away last night?”
“I did not, sir,” replied the valet in the same quiet tone.
“You went to bed?”
“I did, sir. I returned to the pantry first to make sure there were no other calls. You see, sir, there were still Mr. Munn and Mr. Cort, and I thought Mr. Kummer. I did not know at the time that Mr. Kummer had been kidnapped. But there was nothing, and so I went downstairs to my own quarters and to bed.”
“And what time was it when you left this room at Marco’s order?”
“I should say at almost exactly midnight, sir.”
Ellery sighed again and jerked his head at Inspector Moley and Judge Macklin. Puzzled, the two men went to him.
“By the way, Tiller, I suppose you saw Mr. Munn, and later Mrs. Munn, go to their rooms on this floor?”
“Mr. Munn, sir, at about eleven-thirty. I did not see Mrs. Munn.”
“I see.” Ellery stepped aside. “There, gentlemen,” he said absently, “is your note.”
At first all they saw was a litter of shaving things on the rim of the washbowl — a brush encrusted with dry white lather, a safety-razor, a small bottle of green lotion and a can of shaving powder. But Ellery used his thumb and they went in and saw the note lying on the covered toilet-seat.
It was composed of tiny scraps of creamy paper — the same kind of stationery they had seen lying on the round terrace-table. There were many ragged little pieces, all of them wrinkled, most of them charred at the edges, and some — from the gaps in the rectangle — missing. For the scraps had been painstakingly put together, torn edge fitted against tom edge, by some one who obviously had fished them out of the fireplace.
A disorderly pile of other cream-colored scraps lay on the tiled floor beside the toilet-bowl.
“Don’t bother with that stuff on the floor,” directed Ellery. “It’s the fragments of the envelope, pretty badly burned. Read the note.”
“Did you put those pieces together?” demanded the Judge.
“I?” Ellery shrugged. “That’s precisely how I found them.”
The two older men stooped over the bowl. The message, fragmentary though it was, was still startlingly intelligible. There was no date, no salutation. The message had been typewritten, and what remained of it read:
.....et me on ter......ight
at I.......k. It’s v..........ust
see you........ne. I will.......e, too.
Please don’t fa..........
“Rosa!” gasped the Judge. “That... that’s incredible. It can’t be— Why, it just isn’t physically possible!”
“Screwy,” muttered Inspector Moley. “It’s all screwy. The whole damn’ case is screwy.”
“I can’t understand — Funny.”
“Excruciatingly” remarked Ellery dryly. “At least, Marco must have found it so. For, you see, by obeying its instructions he walked headfirst into the well-known arms of death.”
“You think this is a case of cause and effect?” demanded the Judge. “The note led him to his death?”
“That should be easily determined.”
“It seems plain enough,” frowned the old gentleman. “‘Meet me on the terrace tonight at 1 o’clock. It’s v—’ — yes, yes! — ‘very important. I must see you—’ — I suppose — ‘alone. I will—’ — let’s see, now — ‘be alone, too,’ in all probability. The rest is easy: ‘Please, please don’t fail me. Rosa.’”
“There’s one young lady,” said the Inspector grimly, starting for the door, “I want to talk to right away.” Then he turned around slowly. “Say, it just hit me. Who the deuce put those torn pieces together? Maybe it was Tiller. If—”
“Tiller told the truth,” said Ellery, polishing the lenses of his pince-nez absently. “I’m sure of that. Besides, had Tiller been the one who put the pieces together, he wouldn’t have been so stupid as to leave them where they would be found. He’s a very brainy little gentleman. No, no; forget Tiller.