A Fine and Private Place

brother accidentally knock his ashtray off the desk?”

At this assault from another quarter Marco’s head snapped about. He immediately drew it in, turtle-fashion. “I don’t remember anything like that.”

“When you left him, where exactly was Julio? I mean where in the library.”

“I left him sitting behind his desk.”

“And the desk was in its usual position? Catercornered?”

“That’s right.”

“While you were in the room, did either you or your brother move the desk?”

“Move it? Why should we move it? I don’t think I even put my hand on it. And Julio never once got up from behind it.”

“And you left the library no later than 9 o’clock, you said. You seemed very sure of the time, Mr. Importunato. How come?”

Marco began to shout. “Holy Mother, don’t you people take a man’s word for anything? A chick was meeting me at my apartment at 9:15 to go swinging. I checked my watch as I was leaving Julio. I saw it was a couple minutes to 9. That gave me just time enough to change my clothes. Satisfied?” He thrust his lower lip forward.

“Change which clothes? What were you wearing when you visited Julio last night?”

The lips clamped down. His hands were gripping the arms of the chair and his knuckles were yellow- white.

“Your yachting jacket, Mr. Importunato?” Ellery said. “The crepe-soled shoes?”

“I’m not answering any more questions. You’re through here, Mister whoever-the-hell-you-are. Get out of my apartment!”

“Oh?” Ellery said. “Why the sudden clam-up?”

“Because! I can see you’ve made up your minds I’m guilty. I ought to’ve taken Nino’s advice and not opened my yap. Anything else you want to find out, you can goddam well talk to my lawyer!”

Marco Importunato got to his feet and staggered over to the bar. His brother stepped in his way, and he brushed the older man violently aside, seized the whisky bottle, threw his head back, and began to glug. Importuna and Ennis closed in on him.

Under cover of the ensuing scuffle the Inspector, sotto, said, “What do you think, Ellery? The button could have fallen out of his pocket without his knowing. And the ashtray could have been shoved off the desk and Marco’s foot stepped on the ashes.”

“But the moving of the desk, dad. With Marco the killer it makes no sense. Suppose he’s lying and he did move it. Why? Well, its effect is to make the murder appear as if it could have been committed by a left-handed man. And Marco’s left-handed. So was he trying to implicate himself?” Ellery shook his head. “I feel like a yoyo. At the moment I’m inclined to believe him. Somebody else moved that desk. Unless… “

He stopped.

“Unless what, son?”

“I see,” Ellery said. “That is, I think I see… It’s certainly a possibility.”

“What is?”

“Dad, let’s go back to Julio’s library. And call for a man to meet us there on the double with a dusting kit.”

* * *

Nino Importuna and Peter Ennis rejoined the Queens in the dead man’s library not long after. They had remained behind in Marco’s apartment to quiet him. The Inspector was resting in an easy chair; he looked tired. Ellery stood at the desk.

“We finally got him into bed.” Ennis was evidently ruffled; he was brushing his clothes with unnecessarily powerful strokes. “I sincerely hope he stays there! Marco’s a bit of a handful when he’s loaded.”

“Tebaldo will take care of him,” the multimillionaire said brusquely. “Mr. Queen, is there an end to this day? I’m beginning to feel persecuted. What is it now?”

“This business of the desk, Mr. Importuna.” Ellery was staring at it; it was as they had left it, in the catercornered position. “With the desk catercornered, and on the assumption that Julio was sitting up in the swivel chair behind it facing his assailant, it wouldn’t have been possible for whoever killed him, as I pointed out earlier, to have delivered a left-hand blow to the side of Julio’s head where the wound is. Unless the killer struck a backhand blow, which is theoretically possible, I suppose, but I strongly question whether anyone outside a Mr. America contest could have used that poker backhandedly with sufficient force and certainly with such deadly aim as to have left that very deep and fatal wound--especially in view of the fact that the attack consisted of a single blow. No, we have to conclude that if Marco, say, had been at the striking end of the poker the wound would have been found on the opposite side of Julio’s head from where it actually landed. Unless”-and Ellery swung about suddenly-”unless our assumption is wrong and Julio was not facing his assailant at the instant of impact.’’’’

“I don’t see-” Importuna began.

“Hold it!” the Inspector yawped. “How exactly do you figure that, son?”

“Suppose Julio-while facing the other man in the natural vis-a-vis position-anticipated the blow. A split second before the poker came down, suppose he tried to dodge and succeeded only in swiveling his chair 180°. So that when the blow landed he was turned completely about, facing the corner, with the back of his head presented to the descending poker, instead of the front, as we’ve been assuming. Then the poker would have struck the opposite side of his head!” Ellery was striding irritably about. “Where the devil is that fingerprint man?”

“I’ll be damned,” his father breathed; and he repeated it. Then he shook his head. “And none of us saw it! But Ellery, why a fingerprint man?”

“To test a theory that grows out of the point I just made.

As the chair swiveled around with Julio trying to escape the poker, isn’t it likely that he’d have thrown his arms forward instinctively to keep from toppling from the chair? And, if that happened, I don’t see how Julio’s hands could have avoided making contact with those walls that meet in the corner.” Ellery squeezed behind the desk. “Just about here, I’d estimate-Ah, here he is! Over here, please-Maglie, isn’t it?”

“But we dusted everything, Mr. Queen.” The tech man was tieless, unshaven, and he was wearing a badly creased and grimy white shirt. His long face said he had been summoned from before his TV set and a bottle of beer. “What’s the problem, Inspector Queen?”

The old man waved a dragging hand. “In that corner, Maglie. On the walls. Ellery ‘11 show you.”

And several minutes later they were staring at two large, smudged palm prints, shoulder high to a seated man, each print about a foot from where the two walls met, and each tilted at the finger ends toward the other.

Nobody said a word until the fingerprint man packed up and left.

“Good as a photo,” the Inspector said; he had perked up considerably, and he was trying, not altogether successfully, to keep a chortle out of his voice. “That’s what happened, all right! With Julio’s back to the killer, the head wound is just where it would be if the strike had come from the killer’s left side. No ifs about it, Julio was killed by a left-handed man-not just possibly anymore, but positively. That, Mr. Importuna, I’m sorry to say, along with the gold button and the shoeprint, points to your brother Marco again, only this time a lot stronger than before.”

“Wait, wait,” Nino Importuna said thickly. “You don’t answer important questions. Why wasn’t Julio left that way-I mean the way he died, facing the corner? Why was his body turned around so that his face fell forward on the desk?”

“If you weren’t so upset, Mr. Importuna,” Ellery said, “you’d be able to answer that yourself. We’re hypothesizing now that, by the weight of the evidence, your brother Marco was Julio’s murderer. Marco’s just struck the lethal blow and he’s looking down at Julio’s unexpectedly reversed head, crushed in on the side that unmistakably betrays a left-hand blow. And he, Marco, is left-handed. Murderers don’t want to be caught, Mr. Importuno, at least not consciously. So Marco turns Julio’s body around to face him. In the face-to-face position, as indeed we’ve been assuming until now, a left-hand blow appears impossible. Isn’t that reason enough for Marco not to have left Julio to be found in the about-face position?”