“Why, he’s fainted!” exclaimed Judge Macklin.
“Not ‘he’, sir,” said the soft voice of Tiller from behind. “The mustache is false. In a manner of speaking, sir, he’s a she — as I believe the Inspector, sir, has just discovered.” He tittered decorously behind his hand.
“A woman?” gasped the Judge.
“Had me fooled, all right,” said the Inspector triumphantly, rising. “But here’s the goods in her pocket, by God. We’ve done it!”
“Good make-up,” muttered Ellery. “But the characteristic movement of the hips gave her away. This is Mrs. Godfrey’s ex-maid, Tiller?”
“I knew her by the mole, sir,” murmured Tiller. “Dear, dear, how easily some persons stoop to sin! Yes, sir, this is Pitts.”
Chapter Fourteen
Extraordinary Confessions of a Self-Made Maid
At Police Headquarters in Poinsett, for the first time in days, there was jubilation. The place buzzed with rumors, reporters clamored at deaf doors, members of other departments looked in upon Inspector Moley’s office where a police surgeon was ministering to the captured woman, and telephones clanged in a mad chorus. The Inspector had brushed aside a sheaf of reports which Ellery, who was the calmest person in the building, took the liberty of examining, but they contained nothing new: there was still no trace of Hollis Waring’s cruiser, or Captain Kidd and David Kummer, or — Ellery chuckled — of Pitts; and nothing to report on Lucius Penfield, despite the most careful investigation by detectives working in shifts.
When a semblance of order had been restored to the office and the surgeon had signified by an elevation of his brows that the woman was in condition to be examined, they turned their undivided attention upon her.
She was seated in a big leather chair, tightly grasping the arms. Her skin was gray and muddy. She had cropped her black curly hair close, man-fashion, but with her hat off and the false mustache removed she was very much the woman — a small and frightened woman with bleak brown eyes and little, knife-like features. She might have been thirty, or a year or so older. Even now there was a pixy beauty about her, although it was essentially hard and soiled.
“Well, Pitts, old gal,” began Moley genially, “you’re caught good and proper, aren’t you?” She said nothing, stared at the floor. “You don’t deny that you’re Pitts, Mrs. Walter Godfrey’s maid, do you?” A police stenographer was sitting at the desk, book open.
“No,” she replied in the same husky tones they had heard in the post office, “I don’t deny it.”
“Sensible! You were the one who telephoned Mrs. Laura Constable at Spanish Cape? Mr. Munn twice? And this morning Mrs. Godfrey?”
“So you tapped the wire.” She laughed. “Serves me right. Yes, I was the one.”
“You sent the Constable papers and things to me by boy from Maartens?”
“Yes.”
“You sent that stuff about Mrs. Munn to the papers?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the girl. We’ll get along fine. Now I want you to tell me what happened last Saturday night and the early hours of Sunday morning. Everything.”
For the first time she raised her bleak brown eyes to his. “And suppose I won’t?”
Moley’s jaw hardened. “Oh, but you will. You will, young lady. You’re in a tough spot. Do you know what the rap for blackmail is in this State?”
“I’m very much afraid,” said Ellery gently, “that Miss Pitts is considerably more concerned with the rap for murder, Inspector.”
Moley glared at him. The woman moistened her dry lips and her eyes slithered to Ellery’s face and down to the floor. “Let me handle this, Mr. Queen,” said Moley angrily.
“I’m sorry,” murmured Ellery, lighting a cigaret. “But perhaps I’d better clarify the situation for Miss Pitts. I’m sure she’ll see the futility of silence.
“I might begin by pointing out that I was morally certain Mrs. Godfrey’s vanished maid was your blackmailer, Inspector. It struck me when I began to realize that there was a too felicitous juxtaposition of coincidences. Pitts was seen with John Marco — by Jorum — some time during the general period of Marco’s murder. Shortly before that some one had stolen into Marco’s room, found the fragments of the false note making an appointment on the terrace, pieced them together. Coincidence? When Mrs. Godfrey rang for her maid directly after she returned to her rooms Saturday night, the maid did not respond for a long time. When she did, she pleaded illness; she seemed excited. Coincidence? This maid vanished some time during the murder-period. She took Marco’s car for her getaway. Coincidence?” The woman’s eyes flickered. “The trail to Pitts ended at Maartens. The packet of proofs sent to you, Inspector, was sent from Maartens. Coincidence? The whole blackmailing business began, as a matter of fact, directly after the disappearance of Pitts. Coincidence? John Marco had recommended Pitts to Mrs. Godfrey when Mrs. Godfrey’s former maid, for no apparent reason, suddenly left. Coincidence? But most significant of all — in all three cases involving Mrs. Constable, Mrs. Munn, and Mrs. Godfrey, one of the vital pieces of evidence against the unfortunate women was... the signed deposition of a lady’s maid!” Ellery smiled sadly. “Coincidence? Most improbable. I was sure that Pitts was the blackmailer.”
“You think you’re smart, don’t you?” snarled the woman, twisting her thin lips.
“I have an appreciation,” said Ellery with a little bow, “of my own talents, Miss Pitts. And not only that, but I was also sure that I had struck a fundamental connection between Pitts and Marco. You yourself, Inspector, told me the other day that your friend Leonard of the New York private agency had scented the possibility of an accomplice working with Marco in snaring his victims. A prying lady’s-maid in three separate cases willing to testify against her mistress — naturally the different names signed to the depositions are to be construed as merely aliases — fitted perfectly with the conception of such an accomplice as a man like Marco would employ. To visualize Mrs. Godfrey’s blackmailing maid as this accomplice required no great effort of the imagination.”
“I want a lawyer,” said Pitts suddenly, half-rising.
“Sit down,” began Moley with a scowl.
“Certainly you’re entitled to the constitutional protection of legal advice, Miss Pitts,” nodded Ellery. “Have you any particular attorney in mind?”
Hope leaped into her eyes. “Yes! Lucius Penfield of New York!”
There was a shocked silence. Ellery spread his hands. “And there you are. What further proof could any one ask, Inspector? John Marco’s rascally attorney is sought by Pitts. Another coincidence?”
The woman sank back, visibly alarmed, biting her lips. “I—”
“The game’s up, my dear,” said Ellery in a kindly tone. “You may as well make a clean breast of everything.”
She kept gnawing her lips; there was a desperately calculating glitter in her brown eyes. Then she said: “I’ll make a deal with you.”
“Why, you—” Moley exploded.
Ellery placed his arm across the Inspector’s chest. “And why not, indeed? We may as well act like business people. At least there’s no harm in listening to a proposal.”
“Listen,” she said eagerly. “I’m stuck and I know it. But I can still be damned nasty. You don’t want this Godfrey scandal to come out, do you?”
“Well?” barked Moley.
“Well, you treat me right and I won’t talk. You can’t keep me from talking if I have a mind to! I’ll do it direct to the newspaper boys, or through my lawyer. You can’t stop me. Give me a break and I’ll keep quiet.”
Moley eyed her sourly, glanced at Ellery, rubbed his lips and paced up and down for a moment. “Well,” he growled at last, “I’ve got nothin’ against the Godfreys and I wouldn’t want to see them get hurt. But I’m not promising, d’ye hear? I’ll speak to the D.A. and see if we can’t get a lesser plea, or something.”