“If,” prompted Ellery gently, “you come, as they say, clean.”
“All right,” she muttered. There was a sullen look on her sharp face. “I don’t know how you knew all that, but it’s right. I was planted by Marco first with Mrs. Constable, then with Mrs. Munn, then with Mrs. Godfrey. I worked the flash-photo on the fat dame in Atlantic City during the night. I got all the dope, seeing and listening. When Mrs. Constable and Mrs. Munn came up to Spanish Cape, they recognized me at once. They knew what Mrs. Godfrey was in for, I guess, but Marco told ’em to keep their traps shut about me. I suppose they’re still afraid to spill it. Now I’ve told you the whole thing. For God’s sake, I want Luke Penfield!”
The Inspector’s eyes were shining. But he said shrewdly: “just a tool, hey? Turned the tables on your boss. Stole those papers and things from his room early Sunday mornin’ and lit out to make a little hay for yourself. Is that it?”
The woman’s dark face contorted with passion. “And why not?” she screamed. “Sure I did! They were as much mine as his! I always played stooge to him, but I held the whip-hand, and damn’ well he knew it!” She paused for breath, and then cried with a morbid sort of triumph: “Tool, eh? Like hell I was. I was his wife!”
They were stunned. Marco’s wife! The full extent of the man’s perfidy spread itself before them on the instant. They all thought with nausea of the danger Rosa Godfrey had escaped, and for the dozenth time there passed through their minds a fierce satisfaction that the man was gone, a menace removed from the world.
“His wife, huh?” said Moley thickly when he had recovered sufficiently to speak.
“Yes, his wife,” she said in a bitter voice. “Not much to look at now, maybe, but once I had my girlish figure and a face that wouldn’t stop a clock. We were married four years ago in Miami. He was down there playing gig to some millionaire widow and I was on the make myself. We hooked up right away. He liked my style. He liked my style so damned well I made him marry me to enjoy it. I guess I’m the only woman he’s ever met that got the best of him... We’ve played lots of games since. This lady’s-maid racket was his idea, a recent development. I never did like it. But we made some dough...” They let her talk. She was gripping the arms of the chair now, staring into space. “One little deal, then we’d knock off for a vacation and shoot the works. Then another deal when the money was gone. That’s the way it went. With Marco dead I was in a hole. No funds, and a tight spot. I have to live, don’t I? If he hadn’t been so lousy greedy he’d probably be alive today. Whoever bumped him off did a good job. God knows I’m no angel, but he was the worst skunk ever lived. I’d come to hate his guts. And, low as I am, no woman likes to see her own husband making love to other women. He always said it was business, but he enjoyed himself, damn his soul!”
Moley went to her, stood before her. She broke off and looked up at him, startled. “So you twisted that wire around his neck,” he said harshly, “to get rid of him and cash in for yourself!”
She sprang to her feet, shrieking. “I didn’t! I knew you’d think that! That was what I was afraid of. I couldn’t hope to make a dumb cop understand.” She seized Ellery’s arm, clawing at his sleeve. “Listen. You seem to have a brain. Tell him he’s wrong! I may have wanted to — to kill Marco, but I didn’t. I swear I didn’t! But I couldn’t stay there and be found out. If I’d forgotten about money I’d have made it. Oh, I don’t know what I’m saying...”
She was utterly unnerved. Ellery took her gently by the arm and forced her back in the chair. She cowered in a corner, sobbing. “I think,” he said in a soothing voice, “we can guarantee you at least a fighting chance to prove your innocence — if you are innocent, Mrs. Marco.”
“Oh, I am...”
“That remains to be seen. What made you go to his room Saturday night?”
She said in the choked muffled voice they had heard over the telephone: “I saw Mrs. Godfrey go in. Maybe I was a little jealous. And then, too, I hadn’t had a chance to talk to — to Marco in private for a couple of days and I wanted to know how he was making out with the three women. He was supposed to be all set for the big clean-up.”
She paused, sniffling, and the Judge muttered to Ellery: “Apparently she didn’t know of Marco’s intention to run away with Rosa. Could he really have been contemplating bigamy? The scoundrel!”
“I don’t think so,” said Ellery sotto voce. “He wouldn’t have taken the risk. Marriage wasn’t what he was thinking of... Go on, Mrs. Marco!”
“Anyway, I watched and a few minutes before one I saw Mrs. Godfrey come out.” She took her hands from her face and sat up, staring dully at Ellery. “I was just going to slip into his room when I saw him come out. I was afraid to stop him, talk to him, because I thought some one might see us. He looked as if he were going somewhere. All dressed up. I couldn’t understand it... I went into his room to wait for him to come back. Then I saw the scraps of paper in the fireplace and fished them out. I went into the bathroom with them so that if somebody came in I wouldn’t be caught. When I read what the note said I guess I saw red. I hadn’t known anything about this Rosa girl. There wasn’t supposed to be any monkey-business with her. I saw that he must have been mixing pleasure with business...” Her hands clenched.
“Yes?” said Inspector Moley with sudden kindliness. “We understand how you must have felt, catching him two-timin’ you. So you went down to the terrace to spy on him, hey?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “After I got Mrs. Godfrey to let me off — I said I was sick. I wanted to see with my own eyes. The house was quiet — it was pretty late...”
“What time was this?”
“When I got down to the terrace near the head of the steps it was just about twenty minutes after one. I—” She gulped. “He was dead. I saw that right away. He was sitting so still, with his back to me. The moon was shining on his neck; I saw the red line below his hair.” She shuddered. “But it wasn’t that, it wasn’t that. He... he was naked. Naked!” She began to sob again.
Ellery started. “What do you mean? When you saw him? Quick! What do you mean?”
But she continued as if she had not heard. “I went down the steps to the terrace, to the table. I guess I was in a daze. I seem to remember that there was a sheet of paper in front of him and that one of his hands hung down toward the floor with a pen in it. But I was too scared to... to... Then all of a sudden I heard footsteps. On the gravel coming down. I saw what I was in for. I couldn’t get out without being seen by whoever was coming toward the terrace. I had to think fast. In the moonlight I had a chance... I put the stick in the other hand and the hat on his head, and I put the cloak around his shoulders and snapped it at the neck, to hide the... the red line.” She was gazing with fascinated horror through them at the moonlit scene. “The cloak would hide the fact that he was undressed, I was sure. I waited until the footsteps were near and then I began to talk — anything that came to my head — tried to make believe he’d made a pass at me and acting modest and sore. I knew whoever it was was listening. Then I ran up the steps... I saw him hiding near the head of the stairs but made out I didn’t notice. It was Jorum. I knew Jorum wouldn’t go down after hearing that, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I ran back to the house, got the bundle of papers and photos out of Marco’s room — he kept them hidden in the wardrobe closet-went to my own room, packed my bag and things, and then I stole down to the garage and took his car and went away. I had a key to the ignition. Why shouldn’t I have? I was... his wife, wasn’t I?”