“That,” said Crowe Macgowan, taking the sheet, “is the unfunniest gag of the century.” He frowned over it.
“Not just that.” Laurel shook her head. “Warning number one. Murder. Revenge. Special meanings... It― it has a long curly mustache on it. Next week Uncle Tom’s Cabin” She looked around with a laugh. “Even in Hollywood.”
“Why’d the old scout take it seriously?” Crowe watched Laurel a little anxiously.
Ellery took the sheet from him and folded it carefully. “Melodrama is a matter of atmosphere and expression. Pick up any Los Angeles newspaper and you’ll find three news stories running serially, any one of which would make this one look like a work by Einstein. But they’re real because they’re couched in everyday terms. What makes this note incredible is not the contents. It’s the wording.”
“The wording?”
“It’s painful. Actually archaic in spots. As if it were composed by someone who wears a ruff, or a tricorn. Someone who speaks a different kind of English. Or writes it. It has a... bouquet, an archive smell. A something that would never have been put into it purely for deception, for instance... like the ransom note writers who deliberately misspell words and mix their tenses to give the impression of illiteracy. And yet ― I don’t know.” Ellery slipped the note into his pocket. “It’s the strangest mixture of genuineness and contrivance. I don’t understand it.”
“Maybe,” suggested the young man, putting his arm carelessly around Laurel’s shoulders, “maybe it’s the work of some psycho foreigner. It reads like somebody translating from another language.”
“Possible.” Ellery sucked his lower lip. Then he shrugged. “Anyway, Laurel, there’s something to go on. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather discuss this―?”
“You mean because it involves Roger?” Laurel laughed again, removing Macgowan’s paw. “Mac isn’t one of Roger’s more ardent admirers, Ellery. It’s all right.”
“What did he do now?” growled Roger Priam’s stepson.