Inspector Moley flipped over a bulky envelope on his desk. “Not exactly. There’s a pal of mine runs a private agency in New York, see. I got to thinking yesterday afternoon about this Marco scum. And the more I thought the more it seemed to me I’d heard that name before. It’s not a common handle at all. Then I knew where — this friend of mine had mentioned it to me only about six months ago, when I was on a visit to the big city. So I wired him, and it turned out I was right. He sent me all the dope air-mail special delivery.”
“Private investigator, eh?” said the Judge thoughtfully. “That sounds suspiciously like a jealous husband.”
“You’re right. Leonard — that’s my pal — was hired by some guy to get something on Marco. Seems this bird’s wife and Marco had become too friendly. Well, Leonard knows his business. He got enough on Marco to make that smooth weasel turn tail and fork over the letters and photos involved. Naturally, Leonard’s information doesn’t go any further than the settlement of his particular case, so I can’t tell you how or when Marco tied up with this Munn dame. But I can tell you how he tied up with Mrs. Constable, because that was one of the things Leonard found out about him under cover.”
“Then his affair with Mrs. Constable preceded these others. Hmm. By how long?”
“Only a few months. Before that there was a long list of victims. Leonard didn’t get any too much real information, you understand — all Marco’s ex-lady-friends kept their lips buttoned pretty tight. But he had enough to make Marco fade out on Leonard’s client.”
“The man must have a history of some sort,” mused Judge Macklin. “These rascals generally have.”
“Well, yes and no. He just popped out of nowhere, Leonard says, about six years ago. Leonard thinks he was Spanish, of good family, but gone to seed. He seems to have had a swell education, anyway; spoke English like a native, spouted poetry all the time — Shelley and Keats and Bryan and the rest of the love-mongers...”
“Byron, no doubt,” said Ellery. “But I applaud, Inspector. Who’d ever have suspected you of acquaintance with the amorous?”
“I know what it’s all about,” winked Moley. “As I was sayin’, he talked about rich and famous people as if he’d licked honey with ’em out of the same trough, was on familiar terms with Cannes and Monte Carlo and the Swiss Alps, and all the rest of that hooey. He showed up presumably with a lot of dough, although I think that was just part of the act. Didn’t take him long before he got into society, and after that it was easy sailin’. Liked to work the resorts — Florida, the California beaches, Bermuda. He’s left a trail behind him like a scared skunk. But try and prove anything.”
“That’s the trouble with blackmail based on adultery,” growled the Judge. “The willingness to pay is an insurance to the blackmailer of his victim’s continued silence.”
“Leonard says here,” frowned Moley, “that there was something else, but he never could put his finger on it.”
“Something else?” said Ellery alertly.
“Well... a faint trail to an accomplice. Just a suspicion. As if Marco had been working with somebody. But who or in what way he never found out.”
“Heavens, that may be immensely important,” cried Judge Macklin.
“I’m workin’ on it. To make it worse,” added the Inspector, “he was tangled up with a finagler.”
“Eh?”
“Oh, his official name is ‘lawyer,’” retorted Moley.
“Penfield!” both men cried.
“Go to the head of the class. Maybe I oughtn’t to do the gentleman an injustice. I think he’s a crook because I’m convinced no honest lawyer would have tied up with a mugg like Marco. It wasn’t as if the guy was ever up on charges, or on trial, and needed counsel. Only it was this Penfield bird who smoothed matters out for Marco with Leonard. The Spaniard didn’t even appear. Penfield called on Leonard and they had a nice chat, and Penfield said that ‘a client’ of his was being shadowed and found it all very annoying, and wouldn’t Leonard please call his dogs off? And Leonard looked at his fingernails and said there was a little matter of some letters and photos and things that were botherin’ his client, and Penfield said: ‘Dear, dear. Now isn’t that distressing!’ And then they shook hands and the next morning Leonard got all the letters and pictures back in the first mail, no sender’s address — although the package had been mailed from the Park Row post-office. And you remember Penfield’s address. Slick, hey?”
During this remarkable monologue Ellery and the Judge had glanced at each other frequently. The instant Moley paused both of them opened their mouths.
“I know, I know,” said Moley. “You’re going to say that maybe Marco didn’t have his Constable-Munn-Godfrey letters in the Godfrey house at all, and that maybe this Penfield bird has been keepin’ ’em for him.” He jabbed a button on his desk. “Well, we’ll know in a minute.”
“You mean you’ve got Penfield outside?” cried the Judge.
“This office works fast, your honor... Ah, there, Charlie. Show the gentleman in. And remember, Charlie, no rough stuff. He’s marked ‘fragile.’”
Mr. Lucius Penfield beamed from the doorway. He did not look at all fragile. He was, in fact, a very solid and chunky little man with a massive Websterian head almost entirely bald, a neat close-cropped gray mustache, and the most innocent eyes Ellery had ever seen in the face of a human being. They were large, infantile, and angelic — melting brown eyes of a beautiful luster. They twinkled merrily, as if their owner were indulging inwardly a serial jest. There was something Dickensian about him, for he was dressed very quaintly in a baggy and decrepit sack-suit that was olive-green with age and he wore a high collar and a wide cravat with a horseshoe diamond stickpin. He looked, indeed, as if he would have shrunk from stepping on a beetle.
Apparently Judge Macklin, however, entertained no such conception of him. The Judge’s long face was set in implacable lines and his eyes were as cold as twin floes.
“Well, if it isn’t Judge Alva Macklin!” exclaimed Mr. Lucius Penfield, advancing with outstretched hand. “Fancy meeting you here! Dear, dear, it’s been years, hasn’t it, Judge? How time flies.”
“Nasty habit it has,” said the Judge dryly, ignoring the hand.
“Ha, ha! Still the stormy petrel of the profession, I see. I always did say that the bar lost one of its most truly juridical minds when you retired.”
“I doubt if I shall be able conscientiously to say the same about you when you retire. That is, if you ever do. It’s likelier you’ll be disbarred first.”
“Sharp as ever, I see, Judge, ha, ha! I was saying just the other day to Judge Kinsey of General Sessions—”
“Spare the details, Penfield. This is Mr. Ellery Queen, of whom you’ve perhaps heard. I warn you to keep out of his way. And this—”
“Not the Ellery Queen?” cried the bald-headed little man; and he turned his sweet, droll eyes upon Ellery. “Dear, dear, this is an honor indeed. Quite worth the trip. I know your father very well, Mr. Queen. Most valuable man in Centre Street... And this, you were going to say, Judge, is Inspector Moley, the gentleman who’s whisked me away from my very pressing practice?”
He stood there bowing, a beaming little gentleman surveying them all with swift, laughing, jovial glances.
“Sit down, Penfield,” said Moley pleasantly enough. “I want to talk to you.”
“So your man gave me to understand,” said Penfield, promptly accepting the chair. “Something to do with a former client of mine, I believe? Mr. John Marco. Most unfortunate case. I’ve been reading about his demise in the New York papers. You see—”