“Recommended to you,” said Ellery. “And who performed this friendly service, Mrs. Godfrey?”
She bit the back of her hand. “It’s the oddest thing,” she whispered. “I just remembered... John Marco did. He said she was a girl he knew who needed a job—”
“No doubt,” said Ellery in a dry tone. “Respectable woman, eh, Inspector? Hmm. Now, that business on the terrace couldn’t have been a bit of an act for Jorum’s benefit, could it?... Well, sir, while you’re taking arms against your local sea of troubles, I give notice that I’m perishing for slumber. Mrs. Godfrey, could you have some one guide me to that sanctuary your daughter was so kind as to offer my outraged bones?”
Chapter Eight
Of Hospitality
A ship was sinking at sea. It was a sea of red waves tumbling deep, and the ship was a toy. Colossus stood astride the prow, boldly naked, leering at the dark moon inches above his head. The ship sank and the giant vanished. An instant later his head was small and floating on quiet water, turned blindly to the black heavens. The moon shone brightly on his face; it was John Marco. Then the sea vanished and John Marco was a tiny chinaware man swimming in a glass of water. He was very stiff and dead. The clear liquid kept bathing his white enamelled body, lifting his curly hair, bumping him idly against the sides of the glass, which gradually grew opaque with a dyeing scarlet which looked like...
Mr. Ellery Queen opened his eyes in darkness, feeling thirsty.
For a moment his brain was a dizzy vacuum groping toward memory. Then memory flooded back and he sat up, licking his chops and fumbling for the lamp beside his bed.
“Can’t say that vaunted subconscious of mine has been of any assistance,” he muttered as his fingers touched the switch. The room sprang alive. His throat was parched. He pressed the button beside his bed, lit a cigaret from his case on the night-table, and lay back smoking.
He had dreamed of men and women and seas and forests and strangely animate busts of Columbus and bloody coils of wire and forging cruisers and one-eyed monsters and... John Marco. Marco in a cloak, Marco naked, Marco in white drills, Marco in tails, Marco with horns sprouting from his forehead, Marco making Hollywood love to fat women, Marco dancing adagio in tights, Marco singing in doublet and hose, Marco shouting blasphemies. But nowhere in the turbulent career of his dream had he even glimpsed a rational answer to the problem of Marco murdered. His head ached and he did not feel at all rested.
He grunted at a knock on his door and Tiller glided in with a tray bearing glasses and bottles. Tiller was smiling paternally.
“You’ve had a nice nap, I trust, sir?” he said as he set the tray down on the night-table.
“Miserable.” Ellery grimaced at the contents of the bottles. “Plain water, Tiller. I’m thirsty as the very devil.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tiller with a raising of his precise little brows, and he took the tray away and returned instanter with a carafe. “You’ll be hungry, too, sir, no doubt,” he murmured as Ellery drained his third glass. “I’ll have a tray sent up at once.”
“Good lord! What time is it?”
“Long past dinner, sir. Mrs. Godfrey said you weren’t to be distrurbed — you and Judge Macklin. It’s almost ten o’clock, sir.”
“Good for Mrs. Godfrey. Tray, eh? By George, I am hungry. Is the Judge still sleeping?”
“I fancy so, sir. He hasn’t rung.”
“‘Thou sleepest, Brutus, and yet Rome is in chains,’” said Ellery sadly. “Well, well, that’s the greatest boon of senescence. We’ll let the old gentleman have his rest; he’s earned it. Now fetch me that tray, Tiller, like a good fellow, while I wash some of this grime off my body. We must pay due reverence to God, to society, and to ourselves, you know.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tiller, blinking. “And if you’ll pardon my saying so, sir, this is the first time any gentleman in this house has quoted both Voltaire and Bacon in the same breath.” And he pattered imperturbably away, leaving Ellery staring.
Incredible Tiller! Ellery chuckled, jumped out of bed, and made for the bathroom.
When he emerged, freshly bathed and shaved, he found Tiller arranging a table with creamy napery. A huge tray filled with covered silver dishes and giving off a delicate aroma of hot food made his mouth water. He got hastily into a dressing-gown (the admirable Tiller had unpacked his bag in the lavatory interval and put away his things) and sat down to stupefy his appetite. Tiller presided with a deftness and self-effacement that proclaimed butlerage still another of his infinitely variegated accomplishments.
“Uh — not that I’m casting aspersions, you understand, Tiller, at your perfect conduct,” said Ellery at last, setting down his cup, “but isn’t this the proper function of the butler?”
“Indeed it is, sir,” murmured Tiller, busy with the dishes, “but you see, sir, the butler has given notice.”
“Notice! What’s happened?”
“Funk, I fancy, sir. He’s a reactionary, sir, and murders and such things are a little out of his line. He’s offended, too, at what he terms the ‘shockin’ coarse manners’ of Inspector Moley’s men.”
“If I know Inspector Moley,” grinned Ellery, “his notice won’t get him out of here — not until this case is cleared up. By the way, has anything special happened since my dip into oblivion?”
“Nothing, sir. Inspector Moley has gone, leaving a few of his men on duty. He asked me to tell you, sir, that he would be back in the morning.”
“Hmm. Thanks awfully. And now, Tiller, if you’ll clear this mess out... No, no, I’m perfectly capable of dressing myself! I’ve done it for some years now, and in my own way I’m as hostile to change as that butler of yours.”
When Tiller had gone, Ellery rapidly dressed himself in fresh whites and stole into the adjoining room, after a futile knock on the communicating door. Judge Macklin lay peacefully snoring in a chamber resplendent in royal blue. He was wearing rather flamboyant pajamas and his white hair stuck innocently up from his head like a halo. The old gentleman, Ellery saw, was probably good for the rest of the night; and so he stole out and went downstairs.
When Regan out of the sweetness of her nature plucked aged Gloucester’s beard, he said rather plaintively: “I am your host. With robbers’ hands my hospitable favours you should not ruffle thus.” It is not recorded that this admonishment awoke repentance in the breast of Lear’s daughter.
Mr. Ellery Queen found himself in a quandary; and not for the first time in his career. Walter Godfrey fell short of being the perfect host, and he was the type of fat little man whose facial follicles are infertile; nevertheless Ellery had eaten his food and slept, so to speak, in his bed; and to pluck — in a continuation of the figure — hairs from Godfrey’s beard was an act of sheer effrontery to the laws of hospitality.
In short, Ellery found himself perched on the horns of the usual dilemma: to eavesdrop or not to eavesdrop. Now, while eavesdropping is an affront to hospitality, it is an essential to the business of detection; and the great question in Ellery’s mind was: Was he first a guest, or was he first a detective? He decided very shortly after the opportunity presented itself that he was a guest by sufferance only, and in the face of special circumstances; wherefore he owed it to himself and to the cause of truth in which he was enlisted to listen with all the power of his keen ears. And listen he did, with enlightening result; realizing that the quest for the Holy Grail itself is not more beset with difficulties than the merest seeking after one true, unvarnished word.
It had happened quite unexpectedly, and he had had to wrestle with his conscience on the instant. He had descended into an apparently empty house; the vast cavern of the living-room was untenanted; the library, into which he poked his head, was dark; the patio was deserted. Wondering where every one was, he strolled out into the fragrant gardens, alone under a tepid moon.