The Judge sighed and turned away from the window.
There was a remarkable change in Inspector Moley. He was the picture of fatherly sympathy. “There, there,” he was saying in a syrupy bass, patting Stella Godfrey’s slim shoulder. “I know it’s tough. It’s a hard thing to admit, especially to strange men. But Mr. Queen and Judge Macklin and I aren’t just people, Mrs. Godfrey; in a way we’re not people at all, just the way priests aren’t. And we know how to keep our mouths shut after confessional, too. Why don’t you—? You’ll feel better if you tell some one.” He continued to pat her shoulder.
Ellery choked over his cigaret. Hypocrite! he thought with a silent chuckle.
She flung her head up. There were tears in the powder on her cheeks and lines of age had miraculously appeared about her eyes and mouth. But the mouth was firm, and her expression was not that of a woman who finds silence utterly intolerable. “Very well,” she said in a steady voice, “since you seem to know, I shan’t deny it. Yes, I was here — alone with him — last night.”
Moley’s shoulders twitched eloquently, as if to say: “How’s that for tactics?” Ellery glanced at his broad back with sad amusement. Moley had not seen the expression in the woman’s eyes nor noticed the set of her lips. Stella Godfrey had found a fresh defense somewhere in the dark storeroom of her soul. “That’s right,” murmured the Inspector. “That’s sensible, Mrs. Godfrey. You can’t hope to keep things like that a secret—”
“No,” she said coldly. “I suppose not. Tiller, of course? He must have been in his serving pantry. I’d forgotten.”
Something in her tone chilled Moley. He took out his handkerchief and rather doubtfully wiped the back of his neck, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Ellery. Ellery shrugged. “Well, what were you doin’ there, then?” asked Moley slowly.
“That,” she replied in the same cold tone, “is my affair, Inspector.”
He said with savagery: “You didn’t even knock at the door!” He seemed to realize that he had lost.
“Didn’t I? How careless of me.”
Moley swallowed hard, trying to curb his rage. “You refuse to tell me why you sneaked into a man’s room at midnight?”
“Sneaked, Inspector?”
“You lied, then, when you told me earlier today that you went to bed early! That the last time you saw Marco was when he left the bridge-table downstairs!”
“Of course. One doesn’t admit such things, Inspector.” Her knuckles were dead with the tightness of her fists.
Moley gulped, jammed a cheroot into his mouth, and struck a match. He was striving to steady himself. “All right. You won’t talk about that. But you had a fight with him, didn’t you?” She was silent. “He called you a dirty name, didn’t he?” A sickness came into her eyes, but she merely compressed her lips. “Well, how long did this go on, Mrs. Godfrey? How long were you with him?”
“I left him at ten minutes to one.”
“More than three-quarters of an hour, eh?” snarled Moley. He puffed bitter smoke, baffled. She sat quietly on the edge of the chair.
Ellery sighed again. “Er... was Marco fully dressed when you entered this room last night, Mrs. Godfrey?”
This time she had a little difficulty with her tongue. “No. I mean — not fully.”
“What was he wearing? You may be reluctant to discuss your personal affairs, Mrs. Godfrey, but this matter of his attire last night is of the most vital importance, and surely you can’t have any reason for withholding information about it. His whites — the things he’d been wearing during the evening — they were on the bed, as they are now?”
“Yes.” She was staring at her knuckles now. “He had changed into his — his trousers just before I came in, apparently. Dark gray. As we... talked, he continued dressing. It was a double-breasted oxford-gray suit, I believe, with gray accessories to match. A white shirt— Oh, I can’t remember!”
“Did you notice his hat, stick, and cloak?”
“I... yes. They were on the bed.”
“Was he completely dressed when you left him?”
“Well... yes. He had just adjusted his necktie and put on his coat.”
“Did you leave together?”
“No. I... I went out of the room first and to my own.”
“Did you see him leave, by any chance?”
“No.” Her features contracted in an involuntary spasm of pain. “After I’d gone to my own rooms — just after — I heard the sound of a door closing. I took it for granted he — he had left his room.”
Ellery nodded. “And you didn’t open your door and look out to see?”
“No!”
“Hmm. Did he tell you why he had changed into fresh clothes, Mrs. Godfrey? Or where he was going?”
“No!” Her voice had a curious ring. “He did not. But he seemed very impatient. As if he had an appointment... with some one.”
Inspector Moley snorted. “And you didn’t even have the desire to follow him, hey? Oh, no.”
“I did not, I say!” She rose suddenly. “I... I shan’t be persecuted any longer, gentlemen. As far as I’ve gone I’ve told you the truth. I was too — too heartsick to follow him, even look for him. Why, I simply can’t tell you — anybody. I... I went straight to bed, and I never saw him alive again.”
The three men weighed the timbre of her voice, calculating its sincerity, what it concealed, the depth of its emotion.
Then the Inspector said: “All right. That’s all for now.”
She went out with a stiff back, but eagerly. Her whole body expressed relief.
“And that,” remarked Ellery, “is that. She’s not ready for cracking yet, Inspector. You chose an unpropitious time. That woman hasn’t too much intellectual equipment, but there’s nothing wrong with her backbone. I tried to warn you.”
“This thing’ll have me crocked yet,” groaned Moley. “The—” For some seconds he expressed himself with violence and fluency, describing the nature, habits, temperament, and antecedents (probable) of John Marco with a comprehensiveness, lucidity, and imagery that shocked Judge Macklin and caused Ellery’s eyes to widen with admiration.
“Oh, lovely,” said Ellery warmly when Moley perforce paused for breath. “An exquisite object-lesson in invective. And now that you feel better spiritually, Inspector, how about taking advantage of Mrs. Burleigh’s invitation and ameliorating the more animal wants?”
During luncheon — a princely repast served by an under-butler, supervised by frail Mrs. Burleigh very capably, and set in the Saracenic magnificence of the “small” dining-room — Inspector Moley was the personification of gloom. His low spirits did not prevent him from making vast inroads upon the viands, although they influenced the tone of the gathering. He alternated between frowns and swallows, and with each draught of coffee sighed tumultuously. Several minor satellites, evidently recognizing the signs, preserved a tactful silence toward the foot of the board. Only Ellery and the Judge ate with complete absorption in the food, as food. They were hungry men; and before the gnawings of appetite even death must wait.