“And all this spells what?”
“To the Ruysdaels there is only one cardinal sin: getting into the clutches of the yellow press. If you must have a scandal, have it quietly. That’s all there is to it. Her fears have been dominated by something tangible, my boy. She tangled with a scoundrel. The scoundrel possessed proofs. I believe it’s as simple as that.”
“Bravo,” chuckled Ellery. “A wabbly dissertation in social psychology. And not especially original. Conclusion doesn’t follow naturally from the facts. However, the scoundrel did have proofs. Once you visualized him as a scoundrel, you see, it almost inevitably followed that he would have proofs. I tackled it that way and saved myself a lot of fancywork. Working on the theory that he had proofs, everything fell patly into place. Mrs. Godfrey’s frantic perturbation and stubborn unwillingness to talk — that, I grant you, is probably a sign of her inheritance — Mrs. Constable’s frozen funk, Mrs. Munn’s watchfulness and crude deceptions... When I realized that both Mrs. Constable and Mrs. Munn had been commanded to come here — that was an elementary deduction — it followed that they, too, had somewhere along the line fallen prey to Marco’s genius for feminine entanglements. And if they were so prompt in obeying his commands, they were afraid, too.
Afraid, obviously, of his proofs. All three of them were afraid of his proofs.”
“Letters, of course,” muttered the Judge.
Ellery waved his hand. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever they are, these women consider them frightfully important. But there’s something even more interesting about the situation. Has it occurred to you to wonder why Marco wanted Mrs. Constable and Mrs. Munn here?”
“The sadistic impulse, I suppose. But no— With a man of Marco’s calibre...”
“There, you see?” said Ellery sadly. “That’s the sort of mess psychology gets you into. Sadism! No, no, Solon; something much less subtle than that... Blackmail.”
Judge Macklin stared. “Thunder, yes! I’m fogged tonight. Love-letters-blackmail. They go together, true enough.”
“Precisely. And getting the three victims together suggests that the gentleman was setting himself for — what?”
“The ‘clean-up’ he began to write about to Penfield in that letter when he was murdered!”
Ellery frowned. “From that point, it was child’s play. These women have been desperate, the three of them. Marco would not be a piker; not he, from what we’ve been able to piece together about him. If he demanded blackmail, it must have run into money. He may have been too greedy; probably was. The result was a temporary stalemate, during which some one obligingly snuffed out his worthless life. But the proofs — the letters, whatever they are — still existed. Where were they?” Ellery lit another cigaret. “I saw then that these women would take any chance to get them back. They would move heaven and earth to find them. The most logical place to search would be Marco’s room. Consequently,” he sighed, “I suggested that friend Roush indulge his need for slumber.”
“I hadn’t thought of blackmail,” confessed the old gentleman, “but I did see — after the event — what these women must have been looking for in Marco’s room. Good heavens!” He sat up suddenly in bed.
“What’s the matter?”
“Mrs. Godfrey! Certainly she wouldn’t allow an opportunity like this one, tonight, to pass! Was she present when you dropped the hint about the room’s being left unguarded?”
“She was.”
“Then she’ll be looking—”
“She has, Oscar, she has,” said Ellery mildly. He rose and stretched his arms. “Lord, I’m fagged! I believe I’ll go back to bed. And you’d better do the same.”
“You mean,” cried the Judge, “that Mrs. Godfrey has already searched the room next door tonight?”
“At exactly one o’clock this morning, my dear sir. Odd — just twenty-four hours after her most prominent guest departed this life. Oh, well, that’s just a delicate touch of Mother Coincidence’s. I was at that convenient balcony-window. I will say that she was more scrupulous about it than the impetuous Mrs. Munn. Left the place neat as whisky.”
“Then she’s found them!”
“No,” said Ellery, going to the communicating door, “she has not.”
“But that means—”
“That means they aren’t there.”
The Judge gnawed his upper lip in exasperation. “But how in the name of the thousand devils can you know that so positively?”
“Because,” said Ellery with a sweet smile, opening the door, “at twelve-thirty precisely I searched the room myself. Now, now, Solon, you’ll work yourself into a fever. Off to sleep with you! You’ll need all the rest you can get. I have the feeling that tomorrow will bring a celestial display of fireworks.”
Chapter Ten
The Gentleman from New York
“Well, Mr. Queen,” growled Inspector Moley the next morning, as the three men sat in his office at Police Headquarters in Poinsett, the county seat — a short drive of fifteen miles or so inland from Spanish Cape, “that was a fine mess you got Roush into last night. I got his report by ‘phone this morning. By rights I ought to put him back in uniform.”
“Don’t blame Roush,” said Ellery quickly. “The whole thing was done on my responsibility, Inspector. The man’s not in any way been remiss in his duty.”
“Yeah, he told me that. And he also told me that Marco’s room looks as if a herd of wildcats were let loose in there. You responsible for that, too?”
“Only in a negative way.” And Ellery told the story of the night before, beginning with the conversation he had overheard in the gardens between the Godfreys and concluding with the nocturnal visit of the three women to the dead man’s bedroom.
“Hmm. Now, that’s damned interesting. Good work, Mr. Queen. Only why didn’t you let me in on it?”
“You don’t know this young man,” remarked Judge Macklin dryly. “He’s the loneliest wolf in captivity. I daresay he kept his mouth shut because he hadn’t worked the thing out by his blasted logic. It wasn’t a mathematical ‘certainty’; merely a probability.”
“How well you read my motives,” chuckled Ellery. “Something like that, Inspector. What do you think of my little tale?”
Moley rose and looked out his iron-barred window at the placid Main Street of the little town. “I think,” he said gruffly, “it’s hot. I don’t believe there can be any doubt about what it was those three dames were lookin’ for. Marco took the three of ’em over — three silly women hankering for a little old-fashioned lovin’. Then he got the goods on them, turned on the screws, and made ’em pay through the nose. The old story. Sure they were looking for the goods... I’m convinced of it now, anyway. Y’see, I’ve been getting some dope on Marco.”
“Already?” exclaimed the Judge. “That’s fast work, Inspector.”
“Oh, it wasn’t so tough,” said Moley modestly. “Got a peach of a report in this morning’s mail. Reason it wasn’t so tough is that he’s been looked up before.”
“Oh,” said Ellery. “Then he had a record?”