“Well,” said Moley in a hushed voice, “this looks good, Mr. Queen.”
Mr. Queen said nothing for some time; he was frowning and tapping his lips with the edge of his pince-nez. Then he murmured: “I believe we should enlist the services of Tiller.”
“Tiller!”
“Oh, it’s almost mandatory, if this turns out as I anticipate it will. If it doesn’t there’s no harm done. You needn’t tell him anything vital. Tiller’s one of those rare birds of passage who can exist on the minutest crumb of information.”
Moley stroked his chin. “Well, this is your party, and I s’pose you know what you’re doing.” He gave brusque orders and went upstairs to supervise the now all-important mailing operation.
“There’s only one thing that worries me,” confessed Inspector Moley as they sat back in the tonneau of the big black police car late that afternoon speeding toward Maartens. He glanced at the neat, bowler-topped head of Tiller, who was seated beside the driver before them, and instinctively lowered his voice. “And that’s the photos, deposition, letters, or whatever the hell this blackmailer’s got on Mrs. G. How do we know he hasn’t cached ’em somewhere? We may nab him, but then the proofs may slip through our fingers.”
“Conscience?” said Ellery over his cigaret. “I thought, Inspector, that you rather anticipated catching Marco’s murderer this afternoon. On the plausible theory that — if he was killed for the papers — the present possessor of the papers is the murderer. Don’t tell me you’re suddenly distressed about the feelings of our hostess.”
“Well,” grumbled Moley, “it is a nasty mess for her, and she’s a nice woman underneath. I wouldn’t want to give her any unnecessary heartache.”
“There isn’t much danger of missing those documents,” said Judge Macklin, shaking his head. “They’re much too valuable to that creature to leave lying about. Besides, he knows that if this is a trap — which I greatly doubt, judging from his reactions over the telephone — he has no hope of collecting, anyway. He’s utterly desperate now, now that the Constable and Munn attacks failed. No, no, that threat was for effect only. If you catch him, Inspector, you’ll find the documents on his person.”
They had slipped out of Spanish Cape unobtrusively, on the Inspector’s insistence, and at his orders all vigilance there had apparently been relaxed. A drab-colored but powerful car followed them, filled with men in plain clothes, but another just as drab and quite as powerful lurked in the main road outside Spanish Cape, ready for any contingency. Conversations with the Maartens police had insured instant surveillance of the general post-office building in that city. The clerks had been put on their guard and carefully instructed. The package, filled with dummy bonds, but externally faithful to the blackmailer’s instructions, had been ostentatiously posted in Wye, the nearest town, with other mail by a servant, and permitted to go through the post in the ordinary course. Inspector Moley had left nothing whatever to chance.
The two cars unloaded their passengers several blocks from the Maartens post office. The detectives in the second car made their way singly toward the big marble building, in ten minutes surrounding it with an invisible cordon. Inspector Moley and his companions entered the building secretly through a rear entrance. Tiller, his bright little eyes inquisitive, was stationed in a corner of the large general-delivery cage and given precise instructions.
“The instant you see any one you recognize,” concluded Ellery, “give the clerk the signal. He’ll do the rest. Or give it to us. The clerk will know from the name.”
“Yes, sir,” murmured Tiller. “You mean some one connected with the case?”
“Verily. And don’t slip, Tiller; not if you value your life. Inspector Moley is setting enormous store by this afternoon. Keep out of sight but where you can see the faces of the people coming to the window. Our quarry might run like hell on seeing you.”
“You may rely on me,” said Tiller gravely; and he took up his position in the cage. Moley, the Judge, and Ellery concealed themselves behind a partition near a door, set chairs for themselves, and kept their eyes glued upon three unused slots in the wall. Several detectives were stationed in the large room, scribbling at the tables, making out interminable and meaningless money-order blanks. Occasionally one of them walked out into the street, to be replaced instantly by another detective from the outside. Moley inspected his forces with a critical eye, but he could find nothing wrong. The trap was set, it looked perfectly innocent, and there was nothing to do but wait for the victim.
They waited for an hour and twenty minutes, growing tenser with each jerk of the big clock’s hand on the wall. The ordinary business of the post office went on, people passed in and out, stamps and money-orders and parcels passed through the windows, the Postal Savings window was in constant use, long queues of customers formed and vanished and formed again.
Moley’s cheroot had long since gone out; it stuck between his jaws like a snag at low tide. There was no conversation.
And yet, when the moment came, for all their tension and alertness it almost passed them by. The deception was so nearly perfect. Had it not been for the clerk and Tiller — precautions for which Inspector Moley was heartily thankful afterward — precious time would have been wasted during which considerable confusion might have ensued, permitting the intended victim’s escape.
At only ten minutes before the closing hour, when the post office was thronged with homegoing business people, a small thin dark-faced man walked in from the street and made for the General Delivery window. He was dressed quietly; he had a tiny black mustache and a mole under his left eye on the most prominent part of his cheekbone. He took his place in the long line and moved up from time to time like a mouse. If there was anything noticeable about him it was his gait: he walked with a slight hip-swaying motion that was very odd. But otherwise he was a colorless creature who would be swallowed in any crowd.
When the man before him had stepped away from the window he advanced, placed one small dark hand on the ledge, and said in a husky voice, as if he had a cold in his throat: “Anything for J. P. Marcus?”
The three men, peering through the slots, saw the clerk scratch his right ear and turn aside. At the same instant Tiller’s head appeared from around the corner and he whispered: “No mistake. Disguised, sir! But that’s the one.”
The clerk’s signal and Tiller’s whisper brought them to their feet, galvanized. Moley strode to the door, whipped it open noiselessly, and raised his right arm. He was visible to passersby in the street through the huge plate-glass windows. At the same instant the clerk turned back to the window with a small flattish package done up in brown paper, addressed in ink and its stamps properly canceled. The small dark man grasped the package in his thin hand and, stepping aside from the window, half-turned.
He looked up, belatedly warned by a sixth sense, to find himself in a room filled with silent, staring people. He was surrounded by a solid wall of grim men, slowly closing in on him. A curious pallor spread over his face.
“What’s in that package, Mr. Marcus?” asked Inspector Moley pleasantly, clamping his left hand on the man’s shoulder, the right buried deep in his coat-pocket.
The brown parcel slipped out of the thin hand and fell to the floor. The dark man swayed and followed it, crumbling almost in sections. Moley stooped swiftly and slapped at the breast-pocket. A comical expression of stupefaction spread over his face.