When it was all over and the last reporter had been forcibly ejected, the Inspector motioned one of his men to the door of the lantern-lighted patio, rubbed his forehead wearily, and said in the most conversational of voices: “Well, Cort, how about it?”
The young man glared at Moley out of red-rimmed eyes. “She didn’t do it. She didn’t!”
“Who didn’t do what?”
It was deep night now, and the flaring Spanish torches, cunningly electrical, cast long splashes of light over the flagstones. Rosa cowered in a chair.
“Rosa. She didn’t push her over. I swear, Inspector!”
“Push—” Moley stared, and then burst into a guffaw. “Who said anything about Mrs. Constable’s being pushed over, Cort? I want the straight of it, just for the record. I’ve got to make a report, you know.”
“You mean,” muttered the young man, “you don’t believe it was — murder?”
“Now, now, never mind what I believe. What happened? Were you with Miss Godfrey when—”
“Yes!” said Cort eagerly. “All the time. That’s why I say—”
“He was not,” said Rosa in a tired voice. “Stop it, Earle. You’ll only make matters worse. I was alone when it — it happened.”
“For God’s sake, Earle,” growled Walter Godfrey, his ugly face a gargoyle of worry, “tell the truth. This is getting... getting...” He wiped his face, although it was quite chilly.
Cort gulped. “As long as she — I’d been looking for her, you see.”
“Again?” smiled the Inspector.
“Yes. I didn’t feel much like — well, anything. Somebody — I think it was Munn there — told me he’d seen her strolling about on the links, so I went there. When I came out of that patch of brush near the — the spot, I saw Rosa.”
“Well?”
“She was leaning over the edge. I couldn’t understand. I yelled to her and she didn’t even hear me. Then she threw herself back and fell on the grass and began to cry. When I got there I looked over and saw the body lying on the rocks below. That’s all.”
“And you, Miss Godfrey?” Moley smiled again. “This is, as I say, just for the record.”
“It’s as Earle says.” She rubbed her lips with the back of her hand and stared down at her rouged skin. “That’s the way he found me. I heard him shout, but I was... petrified.” She shuddered and continued quickly: “I’d been out hitting a few golf balls about by myself. It’s been so — so deadly around here since... Then I grew tired and thought I’d stroll out to the cliff to lie down and just — well, lie down. I wanted to be alone. But I’d no sooner stepped out of the tangle of woods and brush that’s one of the hazards when I... saw her.”
“Yes, yes,” said Judge Macklin eagerly. “That’s most important, my dear. Was she alone? What did you see?”
“I suppose she was alone. I didn’t notice anything — else. Just her. She was standing with her back to me, facing the sea. She was so close to the edge of the cliff that I... I became frightened. I was afraid to move, to shout, to do anything. I was afraid that if I made a sudden sound she’d be startled and lose her balance. So I just stood there, watching her. She seemed like a — oh, I know all this is silly and hysterical!”
“No, Miss Godfrey,” said Ellery gravely. “Go on. Tell us everything you saw and felt.”
She plucked at her tweed skirt. “It was uncanny. It was! It was getting darker. She stood there so still and black against the sky she looked like a — well,” cried Rosa, “a stone statue! Then I suppose I must have gone a little cuckoo myself, because I remember thinking that she — the whole scene-looked like something out of a movie, as if it had been... well, planned. You know, with an eye to effects of light and shade. Of course, that was merely hysteria.”
“Now, Miss G.,” said Inspector Moley genially, “that’s all very well, but how about Mrs. Constable? Exactly what happened to her?”
Rosa sat very still. “Then... She just disappeared. She was standing there like a statue, as I said. The next thing I knew she had thrown up her arms and, with a sort of — of scream, fell forward over the edge. Vanished. I... I heard the thud when she struck the... Oh, I’ll never forget that as long as I live!” She twisted about in her chair, her mouth working, and blindly groped for her mother’s hand. Mrs. Godfrey, who seemed frozen, patted her stiffly.
There was a silence. Then Moley said: “Anybody else see anything? Hear anything?”
“No,” said Cort. “I mean,” he muttered, “I didn’t.”
No one else replied. Moley turned on his heel and said to Ellery and the Judge out of the corner of his mouth: “Let’s go, gents.”
They went upstairs in a straggling line, each occupied with his own thoughts. In the corridor outside Mrs. Constable’s room they found two men waiting in the uniform of the Department of Public Welfare, with the familiar and slightly macabre-looking crate at their feet. Moley opened the door with a grunt and the others followed.
The coroner was just replacing the sheet. He straightened and turned with a sour glance. The body made a mountainous heap on the bed. There were blots of blood on the sheet.
“Well, Blackie?” said Moley.
The thin bony man went to the door and said something to the men outside. They trooped in, set the basket down, and turned to the bed. Ellery and the Judge instinctively looked away; when they looked back the bed was empty, the crate full, and the two uniformed men were wiping their brows. No one spoke until they left.
“Well,” said the coroner. He was angry; red spots glowed in his cadaverous cheeks. “What the hell do you think I am, a magician? Well! She’s dead, that’s all. Died as a result of her fall. Broke her back in two, as a matter of fact, besides doing a little damage to her skull and legs. Well! You birds make me sick.”
“What’s eatin’ you?” grumbled Moley. “No bullet-wound, no knife-cut — nothing like that?”
“No!”
“That’s good,” said Moley slowly, rubbing his hands. “That’s swell. Clear case, gentlemen. Mrs. Constable faced ruin — her particular brand of hell, what with a dying husband, a middle-class laced-up-the-back background, and the rest of it. She wouldn’t go to her hubby for the hush-hush, and she didn’t have the dough herself. So, as soon as she heard from me that the letters and stuff had been delivered to me — too bad, but what the devil! — she took the only way out she could see.”
“You mean she committed suicide?” demanded the Judge.
“Smack on the button, your honor.”
“For once,” snarled the coroner, snapping his bag shut with a vicious gesture, “you’re talking sense. That’s just what I figure. There’s no physical evidence of foul play.”
“Possible,” murmured Judge Macklin. “Emotionally unstable, her world crashing about her ears, in the dangerous age for a female... yes, yes, quite possible.”
“Besides,” said Moley with an odd accent of satisfaction, “if this Rosa girl is telling the truth — and certainly she’s clear on all counts — it just couldn’t have been anything else but suicide.”
“Oh, yes, it could,” drawled Ellery.
“Hey?” Moley started.
“If you want to start an argument, Inspector... and speaking theoretically, I repeat: Yes, it could.”
“Why, man, there wasn’t a soul within fifty feet of that woman when she took the dive! She wasn’t shot at, that’s a cinch, and there isn’t any knife-wound. So there you are. Cripe, it’s a pleasure to write it off with so little trouble!” But he continued to eye Ellery with a broad doubt on his face.
“Pleasures differ. Doctor, the woman landed on her back, did she not?”
The coroner picked up his bag and scowled. “Do I have to answer this fella?” he asked complainingly of Moley. “All he does is ask fool questions. Didn’t like him the minute I saw him.”