Ellery looked doubtful. “I’m afraid my culinary genius is restricted to biscuits made from prepared flour, turgid coffee, and more or less Spanish omelets. You’ve the key, of course?”
“Waring said he’d leave it,” replied the Judge solemnly, “buried one foot deep, located two paces on a diagonal from the northeast corner of the cottage. That man has a sense of humor. My dear boy, this is honest country! In all the time I’ve spent here the nearest thing to a crime I’ve encountered was when Harry Stebbins, who has a gas-station and refreshment place on the main road nearby, charged me thirty-five cents for a ham sandwich. Hell, son, nobody locks his doors down this way!”
“It won’t be long now,” remarked the Judge with a sigh of eagerness, straining his eyes through the windshield as they topped a rise in the road.
“And high time, too,” shouted Ellery. “I’m beginning to feel hungry. How about victuals? Don’t tell me your whimsical landlord left a stock of canned goods there!”
“Lord,” moaned the old gentleman, “I’d clean forgotten about that. We’ll have to stop in Wye — that’s just before you get to Spanish Cape; about two miles north of it — and lay in some provender. There! There it is now, straight ahead. I hope we find a grocer’s or market open. It can’t be more than seven.”
By great good fortune they found a yawning tradesman unloading fresh vegetables before his establishment, and Ellery staggered back to the car under full sail with a princely larder. There was some argument about who should pay; which was settled in short order by the Judge’s masterly lecture on the unwritten laws of hospitality. The two men then stowed their provisions in the built-in rumbleseat and continued their journey. This time the Judge sang Anchors Aweigh.
In three minutes they were approaching Spanish Cape. Ellery braked the car to a roll while he admired the looming rock. Through some freak of nature it was the only bit of country within sight above sea-level to any considerable degree. It lay placidly in the young sun, a sleeping giant, its plateau-like top out of range except for the fringes, which they could see were covered with trees and bushes.
“Nice, isn’t it?” roared the Judge happily. “Here, El, stop the car. Opposite that gas-station there. I want to say hello to my old friend Harry Stebbins — the brigand!”
“I suppose that chunk of inviting rubble,” murmured Ellery, steering the Duesenberg off the road onto the gravel before the Grecian-pillared structure with its heraldic red pumps, “isn’t public property? Couldn’t be. Our millionaires don’t permit such things.”
“Private as the very devil,” laughed Judge Macklin. “Where’s Harry? In more ways than one. In the first place, there’s only one way to get to it by land, and that’s up the branch-road across the highway there.” Ellery saw two massive stone pylons flanking the entrance to the branch-road across the way, slashing through the cool-looking trees of the parkland. “Park’s only a narrow piece, the branch is fenced on both sides with high barbed wire, and when you get through the park you have to proceed on the neck — just a bit of rock-road wide enough for a couple of cars. Road’s on a level, and since Spanish Cape rises, the result is a sunken highway clear through to the sea-end of the Cape. Look at those cliffs! Extend all around the Cape. How would you like to climb ’em?... In the second place, the Cape’s owned by Walter Godfrey.” He said this in a grim tone of finality, as if the mere name were sufficient explanation.
“Godfrey?” frowned Ellery. “The Wall Street Godfrey?”
“One of the... uh... many wolves of that distinguished thoroughfare,” murmured Judge Macklin. “Exclusive, too. There are several human beings on that blessed rock, I understand, but its owner isn’t numbered among ’em. In all the time I’ve spent barely a stone’s-throw from the place, I’ve never set foot on it. Not that I haven’t tried to be neighborly!”
“He doesn’t believe in the bucolic virtues?”
“Not he. Matter of fact, in one of the chattier exchanges of correspondence between Waring and me, he mentioned the same thing. He’s never been anywhere near the Godfrey... er... palace, and he’s been a neighbor of Godfrey’s for God knows how many years.”
“Maybe,” grinned Ellery, “you and your landlord aren’t hoity-toity-enough.”
“Oh, no doubt about it. In some quarters an honest judge isn’t too welcome. You see—”
“Come, come, there’s a story under your whiskers!”
“Haven’t any, and nothing of the sort. I simply mean that a man like Godfrey could scarcely have amassed a fortune on the Street in so short a time unless he took liberties with the law. I know nothing about the fellow, but I know enough about human nature to make me suspect various things.
From all I hear, he’s a queer one. Nice daughter, though. She came sailing along in a canoe one day a couple of summers ago with a blond young man, and we made quite firm friends while the young man scowled... Ah, there, Harry, you young dog! And in a bathing suit, too!”
The Judge scrambled from the Duesenberg and ran, beaming, to grasp the hand of a florid, pot-bellied, middle-aged little man in a flaming red bathing-suit and rubber shoes who had just emerged, blinking, from the office of his establishment. He was rubbing his fat red neck with a Turkish towel.
“Judge Macklin!” gasped Stebbins, dropping the towel; then he grinned from ear to ear and pumped the old man’s hand vigorously. “Sight for sore eyes, all right. Might ‘a’ known you’d be up in these parts this time o’ year. Where were you last September? And how’ve you been, sir?”
“Middling, middling, Harry. I was abroad last year. How’s Annie?”
Stebbins shook his bullet-head dolefully. “Been ailin’ bad, Judge, with her sciatica.” Ellery grasped that the unfortunate Annie was the fortunate Mrs. Stebbins.
“Tut, tut; a young woman like her! Send her my regrets and love. Harry, shake hands with Mr. Ellery Queen, a dear friend of mine.” Ellery dutifully shook the man’s hard, damp hand. “We’re spending a month on Waring’s place together. By the way, Waring isn’t here, is he?”
“Ain’t seen him since beginning of summer, Judge.”
“I see you’ve been swimming already. Aren’t you ashamed to be seen trotting along the public highways with that pot-belly of yours hanging over your knees, you young reprobate?”
Stebbins grinned sheepishly. “Well, sir, I guess I am a sight for sore eyes, at that. But then everybody does it around here, and I like a dip in the early mornin’. Public beach is deserted this time o’ day.”
“Is that the beach we passed a mile or so back?” demanded Ellery.
“Yes, Mr. Queen. There’s another on the other side — right next to Mr. Waring’s place, where you’re goin’.”
“Must be an interesting stretch of road right here,” said Ellery reflectively, “of a hot summer’s afternoon. With all the pretty girls tripping along in their bathing suits — and considering what bathing suits are this season...”
“You young men,” groaned the Judge. “As a matter of fact, I remember some of the local prudes complained to the authorities two summers ago about the near-nakedness of the bathers on the road. You see, there’s a local ordinance which permits bathers to walk on this stretch of highway in bathing costume. Anything happen, Harry?”
“Not a thing, Judge,” chuckled Stebbins. “We still do it within the law.”