a bit more, Officer; that’s it-and we’ve got the desk back to where it customarily stands… catercornered, as you see, with the swivel chair virtually boxed in in what’s now a triangular space behind the desk. Leaving hardly enough room at either end for anyone to get behind it. In fact, it must have been a tight squeeze for Mr. Importunato, with his bulk, when he wanted to sit down there. Isn’t that so, Mr. Ennis?”
Peter Ennis’s embarrassment was embarrassing. “I really don’t know what to say, Mr. Queen. Of course this is the way the desk’s always stood. I can’t imagine why I didn’t notice it had been shifted about from the catercornered position. Unless it was because of the shock… “
“That may well be it,” Ellery said pleasantly. “And you, Mr. Importuna? Apparently the shift has escaped you, too.”
“Mr. Importuna rarely comes down here-” Ennis began quickly.
“I can talk for myself, Peter,” Nino Importuna said, and the younger man flushed again. “I did notice the desk had been moved, Mr. Queen. The moment I walked in here. But I thought the police had moved it during their first investigation.” The eyes were illegible. “Does it make a difference? Do you see a meaning in it?”
“Every difference makes a difference,” Ellery said. “And yes, I see a meaning in it, Mr. Importuna. Like the button and the shoeprint-”
“Button? Shoeprint?” The multimillionaire stared. “Which button? Whose shoeprint? No one has told me-”
The Inspector enlightened him with a remarkable lack of reticence. The old man’s eyes were equally difficult to read.
“The button and the shoeprint were plants to incriminate your brother Marco, Mr. Importuna,” Ellery explained. “The shifting of Julio’s desk appears to have had a similar motivation. Marco is left-handed. From the position of the desk when Julio’s body was found-parallel to the rear wall-and judging from which side of Julio’s head received the blow, could the blow have been struck by a left-handed man? Yes, it could. So again we have an indication of Marco’s guilt. Or at least no incompatibility with the concept.
“But now we know that the placement of the desk was also a plant. Because what happens when the desk is returned to its usual position, to the catercornered position in which it actually stood when the blow was struck? In this position it would have been impossible for a left-handed blow to have been delivered to the side of Julio’s head on which we find the killing wound, as the merest consideration shows. There simply isn’t enough room to swing the poker and hit that side of the head. The killer must have realized this and, in order to make the supposition of a left-handed blow possible, he had to shift the desk.
“So now,” Ellery said, “not only is the button suspect, not only is the shoeprint suspect, but the left-handedness is suspect, too. In short, all the evidence against Marco is suspect. Which will come as a great relief to Marco, I’m sure, but leaves us without a lead.”
He looked at his father. “You knew about the desk, too.”
Inspector Queen nodded. “That’s why I was anxious to get you in on this, Ellery. This kind of extra-smart frame is up your alley, not ours.”
“I think,” Nino Importuna rasped, “I do not understand.”
“Somebody not only had it in for your brother Julio, Mr. Importuna,” Ellery said, “but apparently he’s out to do your brother Marco dirt as well. Or at least he didn’t shrink from setting Marco up for the rap, which hardly classifies him as a friend. Who hated Julio? And possibly Marco as well? Enough to murder the one and frame the other for it?”
“I already told Inspector Queen and the other police officials who’ve been here today, Mr. Queen, about Julio in that respect. I can’t even imagine it in Julio’s case. He was like a fat and frisky dog, a Saint Bernard puppy bumping into things in his play, knocking people over with his affection. He had no meanness, no wish to hurt anyone. Full of fun and jokes and good nature. Generous with money, always helping people. A pious man-”
“You’re describing a saint, Mr. Importuna,” Ellery murmured. “But his portrait in this apartment suggests that the saint did have a few weaknesses. Gambling, for one.”
“If you’re supposing that he was in financial difficulties with, say, the Mafia, or anyone in the world of violence, Mr. Queen, that would be very amusing. I assure you he was not. And if Julio had been, Marco and I would have bailed him out a hundred times over.” The soft lips were actually smiling.
“Women, for another,” Ellery said.
“Oh, yes, women,” Nino Importuna said with a shrug. “Julio had many women. By the time he was finished with them, they were richer and happier.”
“Women sometimes have husbands, Mr. Importuna. Jealous ones.”
“Julio didn’t play around with married women,” the multimillionaire said sharply. “This has always been strictly forbidden in our family. The sanctity of the marriage vows was lashed into us from childhood. Julio would have been as likely to rape a nun as bed another man’s wife.”
“What about your business empire, Mr. Importuna? You three could hardly have risen to where you are without having stepped on a great many toes-without, in fact, having ruined some lives. Was Julio a saint in your business affairs, too?”
The lips lifted again. “You don’t hesitate to speak your mind, Mr. Queen, do you?”
“Not when murder is involved.”
The multimillionaire nodded. “A dedicated man, I see. No, Mr. Queen, Julio didn’t care for big business. As he often remarked, he would have been happier as a
“Not everyone, I’m afraid,” Ellery said. “We know of at least one dissenter. And Marco, Mr. Importuna? Does everyone love Marco, too?”
The massive head shook, whether negatively or in irritation at the question Ellery could not decide. He said something softly and rapidly in Italian that Ellery could not catch. Observing Importuna’s extraordinary eyes, he thought that perhaps it was just as well.
“I think,” Inspector Queen remarked suddenly, “we’ll mosey on over across the hall, Mr. Importuna, and have ourselves an overdue session with your brother Marco.”
If his surroundings bespoke the man, Ellery ruminated en route, Marco Importunato was the mad sophisticate of the three brothers. His apartment was as unlike Julio’s as the era of Andy Warhol differed from Michelangelo’s Florence. Every ornamental sign of the late Victorian had been removed, rebuilt, or concealed. They passed through stark white cubical rooms, like stripped hospital wards, except for the floors, which met the feet with assaults of raw and clashing colors. The occasional expected artifact of the unexpected smote the eye-a writhing piece of furniture in an improbable material; an isolated assembly of articulated junkyard sculpture; or, as on one of the walls, a gigantic Texaco pump leaning out into the room like the Tower of Pisa, about to topple onto the pop art- lover’s head. In one small room Ellery paused to admire a triumph of modernity over camp, a faithful reproduction of Whistler’s
They found the owner of all these contemporary riches in an orthodox combined gymnasium and game room adjoining his private quarters. He was dressed in puce gym tights and he was sitting cross-legged on a trampoline clutching a highball glass of what looked and smelled like straight sour-mash whisky. The ebony-and-lucite bar nearby, evidently dragged in from elsewhere, showed ring traces of numerous antecedent libations.
“Nino.” He crawled off the trampoline balancing the glass. “Thank God. Do you know I’ve been trying and trying
