Chapter 2 Words of extortion department money

If extortion is a language, it must have a peculiar accent.However, it still has the advantage over other expressions that it is a lingua franca that everyone can understand. This also includes Sicilians.Mrs. Alfredo has been crying all day long since she heard the hiss. This, Ellery thought, was the most unlikely victim he had ever seen.Mrs. Alfredo was as fat as a tortellini, with a skin as weathered as the ancient city of Parma, and hard-working hands that looked as if they had been marinated in Chianti.She appeared to be the landlord of a tenement on West Fifty Street, New York, with an outstanding mortgage.Blackmailed?How is this possible?

Later, however, he heard that Mrs. Alfredo had a daughter named Lucia, and that Lucia had participated in "Tosca".The Metropolitan Opera audience is said to have responded enthusiastically to Lucia's "For Art, For Love."Now Ellery at last sensed the reason for the blackmailer's sinister tone. Lucia's future hangs in the balance. "Mrs. Alfredo, what is he blackmailing on?" he asked. It all started abroad.Mrs. Alfredo had been a cook in her youth.One summer her employer took her to England, where she met an Englishman and married him.Treacherous Albion!In less than a month, Alfred disappeared without a trace, taking all her savings with her.To make matters worse, although she later claimed all the money back, she learned that the sanctimonious Alfred had another wife who claimed to be his predecessor, which turned out to be true in the end.Worst of all, the poor woman found herself inevitably pregnant with Alfred's flesh and blood.That's when she started calling herself Mrs. Alfredo and fled back to her native land from Bloomsbury.She pretended to be a widow and kept the secret of the bigamy secret, only telling Lucia.In prehistoric days when a widow's pennies could buy a house, she bought this dilapidated house on West Fifty Street.Now it is the mainstay of her life and all hope of Lucia's opera career.

"I was always terrified that Lucia's secret would be revealed," she wailed to Ellery, "but then a friend from Bloomsbury wrote to me that Alfred was dead. So Lucia Thea and I put our disgrace behind us. Till now, sir. Now it's going to be made public, if I don't pay." The rude letter had been slipped under her bedroom door.The price of keeping silent about Lucia's illegal status was five thousand dollars. "How did they know, Mr. Quinn? We never told anyone—never!" The letter demanded that the money be placed on the second floor of her house, under the detachable stair posts.

"The tenants did it," snapped Ellery. "Mrs. Alfredo, how many tenants do you have?" "Three. Mr. Collins, and—" "Have you got five thousand dollars, Mrs. Alfredo?" "Yes. I wouldn't pay the blackmailer—I saved it for Lucia's voice lessons. If I paid the money now, Maestro Zagiore wouldn't give Lucia any more lessons! But if not Pay the money, and the news about me and Lucia will be out in a minute. Lucia will be heartbroken, sir, and her career will be ruined. She cried several times for it." "Young hearts can be broken a few times, and a career supported by real talent and learning is hard to destroy. Listen to me, Mrs. Alfredo, don't pay."

"I won't pay." Mrs. Alfredo nodded in agreement, her voice sly, "Because you're going to catch him right away, right?" The next morning, Ellery, Mrs. Alfredo's newest lodger, had just woken up on one of her down-cushioned beds to the sound of seductive singing. "Ah, bright day," that's Qiao Qiaosang's song, "we'll see a wisp of smoke rise..." The piano sounded as if it had served with Captain Pinkerton on the American gunboat Abraham Lincoln, but the vocals pierced through the old walls, as sweet and bright as freshly minted coins.Ellery got up and dressed, pretending to be a struggling writer who had just arrived from Kansas City.By the time he went downstairs to Mrs. Alfredo's restaurant, he had already decided in his mind that Lucia deserved a chance to give it her all.

At breakfast, he met the beautiful Lucia and the three lackluster tenants.Mr. Arnold is a small, old-fashioned-looking clerk, like a second-hand bookstore clerk-which is his occupation; Mr. Bordeaux is of medium height, fat, chattering like a French wine salesman, which is also his Occupation; Mr. Collins was tall, strong, foul-mouthed, and if he hadn't learned that he was a taxi driver, Ellery would have given his honor police certificate.The attitudes of the three were very friendly, and they took turns to greet Lucia and compliment Mrs. Alfredo on the scrambled peppers with eggs, and then they each left——Mr. Mr. Collins drives his battered cab - each with an aura of perfect innocence.

The next three days are irrelevant.Ellery searched the rooms of Mr. Arnold, Mr. Bordeaux, and Mr. Collins thoroughly.He privately called these three tenants ABC, and he searched for them day and night.He discussed books with Mr. Arnold, wines with Mr. Bordeaux, and all sorts of things with Mr. Collins.He tries to appease a heartbroken Lucia; he also wants Mrs. Alfredo to turn over the note and her story to the police.Although he had already thought of an appropriate explanation, Mrs. Alfredo immediately fell into a state of hysteria.He had no choice but to suggest that she put a note on the stairpost, saying that it would take a few more days to raise enough money.It was something she did.Ellery deliberately didn't keep a vigil that night, but just made arrangements to ensure that outside visitors would leave traces.The next day, the note disappeared without a trace.Ellery had done all he could in a case of this kind, and all he had learned was that the blackmailer was among Mr. Arnold, the bookstore clerk, Mr. Bordeaux, the wine salesman, and Mr. Collins, the taxi driver. this fact.But he knew this from the beginning.

However, the beginning of the fourth day was earth-shattering.Mrs. Alfredo's hands beat his bedroom door excitedly, showing her desperation. "My Lucia! She locked herself in her room! She won't answer me! She's probably dead!" Ellery calmed Mrs. Alfredo, who was in a frenzy, and rushed to the hall.Three heads poked out from the three doors respectively. "Is something wrong?" Mr. Arnold yelled. "Is it on fire?" cried M. de Bordeaux. "What's the matter?" roared Mr. Collins. Ellery tried to open Lucia's door, which was barred from the inside.He knocked on the door, but there was no answer.He listened, but heard nothing.

"Dr. Santley!" moaned Mrs. Alfred. "I'll call the doctor!" "Go ahead," said Ellery. "Collins, help me break down this door." "Let me do it," said the strong Mr. Collins. But this old door is like a wall of iron and steel. "Fire axe!" bellowed M. Bordeaux.He sprinted down the stairs after Mrs. Alfredo, his slippers clattering. "Here." Panting, Mr. Arnold brought up a chair. "Let's look in through the fan window." He hurriedly stepped on the chair and looked in through the transom above the door. Bed. She's not feeling well—she's just laying there—"

"Is there blood, Arnold?" Ellery asked eagerly. "No. But there's a box of sweets, and a can of something..." "Oh no," Ellery moaned, "can you read the label?" "By the rectangular window," Mr. Arnold rolled his Adam's apple, "it looks like... rat poison." At this moment, Mr. Bordeaux returned with the fire ax and Mrs. Alfredo, followed by a gentleman in an undershirt who looked very excited and looked exactly like Arturo Toscanini.Everyone swarmed in and found that Lucia had mixed rat poison into chocolate, swallowed it bravely, and attempted to commit suicide.

"Too much, too much," said Dr. Santelli, "and her stomach couldn't take it, and she threw it up!" Then the doctor called in Ellery and Mrs. Alfredo, and said, "Lu Sia, dear, open your eyes..." "Mom," Lucia trembled. "Baby," cried Mrs. Alfredo. But Ellery firmly pushed her mother aside. "Lucia, Cosmopolitan needs you - trust me! Don't do this stupid thing again. And there's no need to, because I now know exactly which tenant is blackmailing your mother. I think I I can assure you that he will never do it again." Then Ellery said to the man silently holding the suitcase: "My client has decided not to sue if you're smart enough to keep it a secret. But I have to say one more thing before you go: you're going to be a A successful blackmailer is far from being a successful blackmailer, because you are too careless." "Careless?" the man with the suitcase said sullenly. "Oh, criminal carelessness. Mrs. Alfredo and Lucia told no one of this illicit union, so the blackmailers must have heard it from the bigamist himself. But since Alfred Born in England, died in England—then, you see, there was a good chance the blackmailer was also British. "You've done your best to cover it up, but there was a flurry of commotion this morning and you slipped. Only the English would call a rectangular transom a 'fan window', call chocolate a 'sugar', and call a pot of poison It's a 'listening' poison. And if you're ever going to try your hand at this vile business again, in spite of your old business of selling books--Mr. Arnold, watch your words!"