“Oh, really now!” Vance was studying the butler closely. “And how did Mr. Archer take this unwonted burst of fraternal affection?”
“I doubt if he even noticed it, sir. He was studying a piece of egg-shell china under an electric bulb; and he scarcely answered Mr. Brisbane.”
“That would be like Archer,” Vance commented to Markham. “When he was absorbed in an example of Chinese ceramic art, the roof could have toppled in, and he wouldn’t have been aware of it… Do you mind if I continue with Gamble?”
Markham nodded his assent, and Vance turned again to the butler.
“As I understand it, when Mr. Brisbane had gone you and Mr. Archer were left alone in the house.”
“Why, yes, sir.” The man was breathing heavily: all of his obsequiousness had departed. “But I only stayed long enough to prepare Mr. Archer’s supper.”
“And left Mr. Archer alone?”
“Yes! He was sitting in the library downstairs reading.”
“And where did you go and how disport yourself?”
Gamble leaned forward earnestly.
“I had dinner in Childs, and then I went to a motion picture.”
“Not an exciting evening, was it, Gamble?… And what other servants are there in the house?”
For some reason the man breathed a deep sigh of relief.
“There’s only two, sir, besides myself.” His voice was steadier now. “The Chinese cook—”
“Ah, a Chinese cook, eh? How long has he been here?”
“Only a few months.”
“Go on.”
“Then there’s Miss Lake’s personal maid. And that’s all, sir—except the woman that comes twice a week to clean house.”
“When did the cook and Miss Lake’s maid leave the house yesterday?”
“Right after lunch. That’s the usual order on Wednesdays, sir.”
“And when did they return?”
“Late last night. I myself came in at eleven; and it was about half-past eleven when Myrtle—that’s the maid’s name—returned. I was just retiring—about midnight, I should say, sir—when I heard the cook sneak in.”
Vance’s eyebrows went up.
“Sneak?”
“He always sneaks, sir.” There was a note of animosity in Gamble’s voice. “He’s very sly and tricky and—and devious, sir—if you know what I mean.”
“Probably his oriental upbringing,” remarked Vance casually, with a faint smile. “So the cook sneaked in about midnight, eh?… Tell me, is it usual for the servants to stay out late Wednesdays?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then, if any one were familiar with the domestic arrangements here, he would know that he could count on the house being free from servants Wednesday nights.”
“That’s right, sir.”
Vance smoked thoughtfully a moment. Then:
“Do you know at what hour Miss Lake and Mr. Grassi came in last night?”
“I couldn’t say, sir.” Gamble shot Vance a curious look from the corner of his eye. “But it must have been very late. It was after one o’clock before I went to sleep, and neither of them had returned at that time.”
“Mr. Grassi has a key to the house?”
“Yes, sir. I had an extra one made for him at Mr. Coe’s request.”
“How long has Mr. Grassi been Mr. Coe’s guest?”
“It was a week yesterday.”
Vance was silent for a moment. His eyes, as they looked out of the east windows, were placid, but there was the suggestion of a frown on his forehead; and I knew that something was troubling him. Without change of expression he put an apparently irrelevant question to Gamble.
“Did you, by any chance, see Mr. Archer Coe after you returned to the house last night?”
“No—I didn’t see him, sir.” There was a slight hesitancy in the reply, and Vance looked toward the man quickly.
“Come, come, Gamble,” he admonished severely. “What’s on your mind?”
“Well, sir—it’s really nothing; but when I went up to bed I noticed that the library doors were open and that the lights were on. I thought, of course, that Mr. Archer was still in the library. And then I noticed the light in Mr. Archer’s bedroom here, through the keyhole—it’s quite noticeable in a dark hall as you come up the stairs, sir—and I took it for granted that he had retired. So I went back to the library and turned out the lights and shut the doors.”
“You heard no sound in here?”
“No, sir.” Gamble leaned forward and regarded Vance with staring eyes. “Do you think he was dead then?”
“Oh, undoubtedly. If you’d taken the trouble to glance through the keyhole last night, you’d have seen him just as you saw him this morning.”
Gamble appeared stunned.
“Good God, sir! And I never knew!” he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper.
Vance yawned mildly.
“Really, y’ know,” he said, “we sha’n’t hold it against you… And, by the by, there’s a question I forgot to ask. Did Mr. Brisbane Coe take a walking-stick with him when he set forth for Chicago?”
Gamble drew himself together, and gave a puzzled nod.
“Yes, sir. He never goes anywhere without a stick. He’s subject to rheumatism—”
“So he’s told me a score of times… And what kind of stick did he take with him?”
“His ivory-headed stick, sir. It’s his favorite.”
“The one with the crooked handle and the carvings?”
“Yes, sir. It’s a most unusual stick, sir. Mr. Brisbane bought it in Borneo years ago…”
“I know the stick well, Gamble. I’ve seen him carrying it on various occasions… You’re quite sure, are you, that he took this particular stick with him to Chicago?”
“Positive. I handed it to him myself at the door of the taxicab.”
“You’d swear to that?”
Gamble was as mystified as the rest of us at Vance’s insistence.
“Yes, sir!” he returned resolutely.
Vance kept his eyes on the man, and stood up. He walked very deliberately to where Gamble sat, and looked down at him searchingly.
“Gamble,”—he spoke pointedly—“did you see Mr. Brisbane Coe in this house after you returned last night?”
The butler went white, and his lips began to tremble. The question was so unexpected that even I received a distinct shock from it. Markham half rose in his chair, and Heath froze into a startled attitude, his cigar half raised to his lips. Gamble cringed beneath Vance’s steady gaze.
“No, sir—no, sir!” he cried. “Honest to God, I didn’t! I would have told you if I had.”
Vance shrugged and turned away.
“Still, he was here last night.”
Markham struck the desk noisily with his fist.
“What’s back of that remark?” he demanded. “How do you know Brisbane Coe was here last night?”
Vance looked up blandly, and said in a mild tone:
“Very simple: his ivory-headed stick is hanging over the back of one of the chairs in the lower hall.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Missing Man
(Thursday, October 11; 11.45 a.m.)
THERE WAS A momentary tense silence. Vance’s statement, with the possibilities it suggested, threw a pall of vague horror over all of us. I was watching Gamble, and again I saw the pupils of his eyes dilate. Unsteadily he rose, and bracing himself with one hand on the back of his chair, glared at Vance like a man who had seen a malignant spectre.
“You—are sure you saw the stick, sir?” he stammered, with a hideous contortion of the face. “I didn’t see it. And Mr. Brisbane never hangs his stick over the hall chair. He always puts it in the umbrella-stand. Maybe some one else—”
“Don’t be hysterical, Gamble,” Vance interrupted curtly. “Who but Mr. Brisbane himself would bring that precious stick back to the house and hang it over a chair in the hall?”
“But, Mr. Vance, sir,” the man persisted in
an awed tone, “he once reprimanded me for hanging it over a chair—he said it might fall and get broken. Why, sir, should he hang it over the chair?”
“Less noisy, perhaps, than chucking it into a brass umbrella-holder.”
Markham was leaning over the desk scowling at Vance.
“What do you mean by that?” he demanded.
Vance lifted his eyes slowly and let them rest on the District Attorney.
“I opine, my dear Markham,” he said slowly, “that brother Brisbane didn’t want any one to hear him when he returned here last night.”
“And why do you ‘opine’ any such thing?” Markham’s irritation was bordering on anger.
“There may have been sinister business afoot,” Vance returned evasively. “Brisbane started for Chicago on a night when he knew no one but Archer would be home. And then he missed his train—to speak euphemistically. He returned to the house—with his stick. And here’s his stick hanging over the back of a tufted chair…but no Brisbane. And Archer—the sole occupant of this cluttered domicile last night—has gone to his Maker in most outlandish fashion.”
“Good God, Vance!” Markham sank back in his chair. “You don’t mean that Brisbane—?”
“Tut, tut! There you go jumping at conclusions again…” Vance spoke in an offhand manner, but he could not entirely disguise his deep concern over the situation. He began walking up and down, his hands sunk deep in his coat pockets. “I can understand Brisbane’s presence here last night,” he murmured as if to himself, “but I can’t understand the presence of his stick here this morning. It’s very curious—it doesn’t fit into the picture. Even if he had not taken the Lake Shore Limited to Chicago, there were other trains later on. The Iroquois goes about midnight, and there’s another slow train around twelve-thirty…”
Heath took his cigar from his mouth.
“How do you know the bird didn’t take one of those trains—that is, supposing he’d missed the Lake Shore Limited?”
“By the stick in the lower hall, Sergeant.”
“Couldn’t a guy forget his stick?”
“Not Brisbane Coe—and certainly not in the circumstances…”
“What circumstances?” cut in Markham.
“That’s what I don’t know exactly.” Vance made a wry face. “But I begin to see a method in all this seeming madness; and that stick downstairs stands out like some terrible and accusing error…”
He stopped abruptly, and suddenly swinging about, went toward the door.
“I’ll be back in a minute. There’s a possibility…” He passed swiftly into the hall.
Heath looked disgustedly at Markham.
“What’s he got on his mind, sir?”
“I couldn’t tell you, Sergeant.” Markham was even more puzzled than Heath.
“Well, sir, if you ask me,” the Sergeant submitted surlily, “I think Mr. Vance is leaning too heavily on that stick. We’ve only got this guy’s word”—he jerked his thumb toward Gamble—“that he took it with him in the first place. And until we know definitely that he didn’t go to Chicago, we’re stirring up a lot of trouble for nothing.”
Markham, I felt, was inclined to agree, but he made no comment.
Presently Vance returned to the room, smoking abstractedly. His face was crestfallen.
“He’s not there,” he announced. “I thought Brisbane might be in his room. But the shades are up; and the bed hasn’t been slept in; and the lights are out.” He sat down wearily. “His room’s empty.”
The Sergeant planted himself in front of Vance.
“Look here, Mr. Vance, even if he did miss the Lake Shore Limited, he’s probably on his way to Chicago. Anybody might forget a stick. His suit-case ain’t here—”
Vance leaped to his feet.
“The suit-case—that’s it! What would he have done with the suit-case if he had not taken the early train and had intended to go on to Chicago later…?”
“He’d have checked it in the station, wouldn’t he?” asked Heath contemptuously.
“Exactly!” Vance wheeled to Gamble. “Describe that suit-case.”
“It was quite an ordinary case, sir,” the man replied in a dazed tone. “Black seal-skin, leather lined, with rounded corners, and the initials ‘B. C.’ in gold letters on one end.”
Vance turned back to Heath.
“Can you check on that in the parcel room at the station, Sergeant? It’s important.”
Heath looked interrogatively toward Markham, and received a significant nod.
“Sure I can,” he said. He beckoned Snitkin with a jerk of the head. “Got the dope?”
The detective grinned.
“Hell, yes,” he rumbled. “A cinch.”
“Then hop to it,” ordered Heath. “And phone me pronto… Make it snappy.”
Snitkin disappeared from the room with an alacrity that seemed out of all keeping with his bulk.
Markham drummed nervously on the desk and fixed a sombre, inquisitive gaze on Vance who was now standing by one of the east windows looking meditatively out into the October sunshine.
“Where do you think Brisbane Coe fits into this affair?” he asked.
“I don’t know—I’m not sure.” Vance spoke quietly, without turning. “But many strange things happened here last night. Certain plans went awry. Events overlapped one another. Nothing happened on schedule. And until we know more of the preliminaries, we’ll merely go on plunging around in the dark.”
“But Brisbane Coe,” persisted Markham.
Vance turned slowly back to the room.
“There has always been bad blood between Archer and Brisbane, for some reason. I’ve never understood it. It wasn’t merely the antagonism of similar temperaments. It went deeper than that… By the by, maybe Miss Lake could enlighten us while we’re waiting for Snitkin’s call… I say, Gamble; ask the young lady to be good enough to join us here.”
The butler went out, and we could hear him mounting the stairs to the third floor.
Five minutes later Hilda Lake came swinging into the room, dressed in a dazzling yellow bouclé sport suit.
“Sorry to have kept you waiting and all the usual amenities,” she said, sitting down and crossing her knees; “but I hadn’t quite finished doffing my golf togs when the far-from-admirable Crichton summoned me. Anyway, I should be furious with you. Why was I denied my muffins and tea?”
Vance apologized.
“We’ve been using Gamble a bit intensively.”
“Oh, he’s full of the family’s scandals. I sincerely hope he never takes it into his head to turn blackmailer. He’d impoverish us… Did you get many racy items from him?”
“Alas, no!” Vance sighed with simulated lugubriousness. “The fact is, Gamble has been passionately upholding the honor of the Coes.”
Hilda Lake looked at Gamble with comical amazement.
“You positively stagger me, Gamble. I’ll speak to Uncle Brisbane today and have your wages raised.”
“In the meantime,” said Vance, “I’m sure you’re hungry… Gamble, take tea and muffins to Miss Lake’s quarters.” The man, who had been standing in the door, bowed and disappeared; and Vance turned pleasantly back to Miss Lake. “By the time your breakfast is ready we will let you return to your rooms.” Then he added with a serious mien. “There are a few questions we’d like you to answer.”
She gave Vance a cold look, and waited with imperturbable calm.
“What was the cause,” he asked, “of the animosity between Archer and Brisbane Coe?”
“Oh, that!” A cynical smile curled her lips. “Money—nothing else. Old Major Coe left everything to Uncle Archer. Uncle Brisbane had only an allowance—until Uncle Archer should die. Then the money was to go to him. The situation naturally irked him, and he got pretty nasty about it at times. It amused me no end,—I was in the same predicament. The fact is, I’ve often been tempted to make an alliance with Uncle Brisbane for the purpose of murdering Uncle Archer. Together we could ha
ve got away with it, don’t you think?”
“I’m sure you could—even alone,” Vance returned lightly. “What held you back?”
“My unspeakable golf score. I’ve needed all my time and energy to improve my game.”
“Most distressin’,” sighed Vance. “And now some one has killed Uncle Archer for you.”
“I’m sure it’s my reward for virtue.” Though her tone was hard, there was an undercurrent of bitter passion in it. “Or perhaps,” she added, “Uncle Brisbane went ahead on his own.”
“That might bear looking into,” smiled Vance. “The only difficulty is that Gamble tells us Mr. Brisbane hopped to Chicago at five-thirty last evening.”
The woman’s eyes flickered—there was little doubt that Vance’s statement had been unexpected; but she replied almost at once.
“That doesn’t mean anything. Uncle Brisbane has dabbled enough in criminology to prepare a perfect alibi in the event he himself contemplated a flutter in crime.”
Vance regarded her amiably before speaking again.
“What takes him on those periodical trips to Chicago?” he asked with sudden seriousness.
Hilda Lake shrugged.
“Heaven knows. He never mentioned the matter to me and I never asked.” She leaned forward. “Perhaps it’s a lady!” she exclaimed in a taunting tone. “If he told any one, that person was Uncle Archer. And I’m afraid it’s too late to get any information from that quarter now.”
“Yes, a bit too late,” agreed Vance. He sat down on the edge of the desk and clasped his hands around one knee. “But let us suppose that after Mr. Brisbane announced his intention of going to Chicago last evening, he remained in New York all night. What would you say to that?”
Hilda Lake scrutinized Vance shrewdly for a time before replying. Then she answered gravely:
“In that case you may eliminate Uncle Brisbane as a suspect. He’s much too smooth and canny to leave any such loopholes. He has a very tricky and clever mind—too many persons underestimate him—and if he planned a murder, I’m sure he’d arrange it so as to escape detection.” She paused momentarily. “Did Uncle Brisbane remain in New York last night?”
“I don’t know,” Vance responded candidly. “I was merely indulging in suppositions.”
The Kennel Murder Case Page 7
