"Hist!" says Ellery. "I ain't told him how much I know. Let's get off where he can't hear. Back in the bushes there."
And when we've circled the lodge and put some shrubbery between us and the road Ellery consents to open up.
"They're tryin' to do away with Sister Maggie," says he. "You know who she is—Mrs. Andres Zosco?"
"But I thought she was Myrtle Mapes," says I.
"Ah, that's only her screen name," says Ellery. "It was Maggie Bean back in Shelby, where we come from. And she was Maggie Bean when she went to New York and got that job as a stenog. in old Zosco's office. It was him that gave her a chance to act in the movies, you know. Guess she made good, eh? And then Zosco got so stuck on her that he married her. Well, that was all right, too. Course, he's an old pill, but he's got all kinds of dough. Rollin' in it. Maggie's done a lot for the fam'ly, too. Gave me a flivver all for myself last Christmas; took me out of the commission house and started me in at high school again. She's right there with the check book, Maggie.
"That's what makes them other Zoscos so sore—that Brother Jake and his wife. See? They'd planned all along comin' in for most of his pile themselves. Most likely meant to put him out of the way. But when they comes on and finds the new wife—Well, the game is blocked. It would go to her. So they starts right in to get rid of Maggie. I hadn't been in the house a day before I'd doped that out. I knew there was a plot on to do Maggie."
"You don't say!" says I. "How?"
"Slow poison, I expect," says Ellery. "In her coffee, maybe. Anyway, it had begun to work. Maggie was mopin' around. I found her cryin'. I spotted Jake Zosco right off. You can tell just by lookin' at him that he's that kind. Besides, he acts suspicious. Always prowlin' around restless. Then there's the butler. He's in it, too. I caught him and Jake whisperin' together. I don't know how many more. Some of the maids, maybe, and most likely a few men on the outside. They might be plannin' to stage a jewel robbery with a double murder and lay it all onto unknown burglars. Get me?"
"Uh-huh!" says I. "But how much have you got on Brother Jake? And how did you come to get him locked up here?"
"Oh, I had the goods on Jake, all right," says Ellery. "After I saw him confabbin' with that crook butler the other night I shadows him constant. I was on his trail when he sneaks down here after dinner. I saw him unlock the lodge house. I heard him fumblin' around inside. Then I slips up and locks him in. Half an hour later down comes the butler and two others of the gang, but when they sees me they beats it. I expect they'd try to rescue him, if they thought he was there. And they may find out any minute."