The Garden Murder Case

by S. S. Van Dine

  “I saw her first opposite the den door. She went to the hall closet where the hats and wraps are kept, and then came back to stand in the archway until the race was over. After that I didn’t notice her either coming or going, as I had turned to shut off the radio.”

  “And what about Floyd Garden?” asked Vance. “You remember he followed Swift out of the room. Did you notice which way they went, or what they did?”

  “As I remember, Floyd put his arm around Swift and led him into the dining room. After a few moments they came out. Swift seemed to be pushing Floyd away from him, and then he disappeared down the hall toward the stairs. Floyd stood outside the dining room door for several minutes, looking after his cousin, and then went down the hall after him; but he must have changed his mind, for he came back into the drawing room in short order.”

  “And you saw no one else in the hall?”

  Hammle shook his head ponderously. “No. No one else.”

  “Very good.” Vance took a deep inhalation on his cigarette. “And now let’s go to the roof-garden, figuratively speaking. You were in the garden, waiting for a train, when the nurse was almost suffocated with bromine gas in the vault. The door into the passageway was open, and if you had been looking in that direction you could easily have seen who passed up and down the corridor.” Vance looked at the man significantly. “And I have a feelin’ you were looking through that door, Mr. Hammle. Your reaction of astonishment when we came out on the roof was a bit overdone. And you couldn’t have seen much of the city from where you had been standing, don’t y’ know.”

  Hammle cleared his throat, and grinned.

  “You have me there, Vance,” he admitted with familiar good humor. “Since I couldn’t make my train, I thought I’d satisfy my curiosity and stick around for a while to see what happened. I went out on the roof and stood where I could look through the door into the passageway—I wanted to see who was going to get hell next, and what would come of it all.”

  “Thanks for your honesty.” Vance’s face was coldly formal. “Please tell us now exactly what you saw through that doorway while you were waiting, as you’ve confessed, for something to happen.”

  Again Hammle cleared his throat.

  “Well, Vance, to tell you the truth, it wasn’t very much. Just people coming and going. First I saw Garden go up the passageway toward the study; and almost immediately he went back downstairs. Then Zalia Graem passed the door on her way to the study. Five or ten minutes later the detective—Heath, I think his name is—went by the door, carrying a coat over his arm. A little later—two or three minutes, I should say—Zalia Graem and the nurse passed each other in the passageway, Zalia going toward the stairs, and the nurse toward the study. A couple of minutes after that Floyd Garden passed the door on his way to the study again—”

  “Just a minute,” Vance interrupted. “You didn’t see the nurse return downstairs after she passed Miss Graem in the passageway?”

  Hammle shook his head emphatically. “No. Absolutely not. The first person I saw after the two girls was Floyd Garden going toward the study. And he came back past the door in a minute or so…”

  “You’re quite sure your chronology is accurate?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Vance seemed satisfied and nodded.

  “That much checks accurately with the facts as I know them,” he said. “But are you sure no one else passed the door, either coming or going, during that time?”

  “I would swear to that.”

  Vance took another deep puff on his cigarette.

  “One more thing, Mr. Hammle: while you were out there in the garden, did anyone come out on the roof from the terrace gate?”

  “Absolutely not. I didn’t see anybody at all on the roof.”

  “And when Garden had returned downstairs, what then?”

  “I saw you come to the window and look out into the garden. I was afraid I might be seen, and the minute you turned away I went over to the far corner of the garden, by the gate. The next thing I knew, you gentlemen were coming out on the roof with the nurse.”

  Vance moved forward from the desk against which he had been resting.

  “Thank you, Mr. Hammle. You’ve told me exactly what I wanted to know. It may interest you to learn that the nurse informed us she was struck over the head in the passageway, on leaving the study, and forced into the vault which was full of bromine fumes.”

  Hammle’s jaw dropped and his eyes opened. He grasped the arms of his chair and got slowly to his feet.

  “Good Gad!” he exclaimed. “So that’s what it was! Who could have done it?”

  “A pertinent question,” returned Vance casually. “Who could have done it, indeed? However, the details of your secret observations from the garden have corroborated my private suspicions, and it’s possible I may be able to answer your question before long. Please sit down again.”

  Hammle shot Vance an apprehensive look and resumed his seat. Vance turned from the man and looked out of the window at the darkening sky. Then he swung about to Markham. A sudden change had come over his expression, and I knew, by his look, that some deep conflict was going on within him.

  “The time has come to proceed, Markham,” he said reluctantly. Then he went to the door and called Garden.

  The man came from the drawing room immediately. He seemed nervous, and eyed Vance with inquisitive anxiety.

  “Will you be so good as to tell everyone to come into the den?” Vance requested.

  With a barely perceptible nod Garden turned back up the hall; and Vance crossed the room and seated himself at the desk.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  An Unexpected Shot

  (Sunday, April 15; 6:20 p. m.)

  ZALIA GRAEM WAS the first to enter the den. There was a strained, almost tragic look on her drawn face. She glanced at Vance appealingly and seated herself without a word. She was followed by Miss Weatherby and Kroon, who sat down uneasily beside her on the davenport. Floyd Garden and his father came in together. The professor appeared dazed, and the lines on his face seemed to have deepened during the past twenty-four hours. Miss Beeton was just behind them and stopped hesitantly in the doorway, looking uncertainly at Vance.

  “Did you want me too?” she asked diffidently.

  “I think it might be best, Miss Beeton,” said Vance. “We may need your help.”

  She gave him a nod of acquiescence and, stepping into the room, sat down near the door.

  At that moment the front door bell rang, and Burke ushered Doctor Siefert into the den.

  “I just got your message, Mr. Vance, and came right over.” He looked about the room questioningly and then brought his eyes back to Vance.

  “I thought you might care to be present,” Vance said, “in case we can reach some conclusion about the situation here. I know you are personally interested. Otherwise I wouldn’t have telephoned you.”

  “I’m glad you did,” said Siefert blandly, and walked across to a chair before the desk.

  Vance lighted a cigarette with slow deliberation, his eyes moving aimlessly about the room. There was a tension over the assembled group. But as future events indicated, no one could have known what was in Vance’s mind or his reason for bringing them all together.

  The taut silence was broken by Vance’s voice. He spoke casually, but with a curious emphasis.

  “I have asked you all to come here this afternoon in the hope that we could clear up the very tragic situation that exists. Yesterday Woode Swift was murdered in the vault upstairs. A few hours later I found Miss Beeton locked in the same vault, half suffocated. Last night, as you all know by now, Mrs. Garden died from what we have every reason to believe was an overdose of barbital prescribed by Doctor Siefert. There can be no question that these three occurrences are closely related—that the same hand participated in them all. The pattern and the logic of the situation point indisputably to that assumption. There was, no doubt, a diabolical reason for each act of the murderer—and t
he reason was fundamentally the same in each instance. Unfortunately, the stage setting for this multiple crime was so confused that it facilitated every step of the murderer’s plan, and at the same time tended to disperse suspicion among many people who were entirely innocent.”

  Vance paused for a moment.

  “Luckily, I was present when the first murder was committed, and I have since been able to segregate the various facts connected with the crime. In that process of segregation I may have seemed unreasonable and, perhaps, harsh to several persons present. And during the process of my brief investigation, it has been necess’ry for me to withhold any expression of my personal opinions for fear of providing the perpetrator with an untimely warning. This, of course, would have proved fatal, for so cleverly was the whole plot conceived, so fortuitous were many of the circumstances connected with it, that we would never have succeeded in bringing the crime home to the true culprit. Consequently, an interplay of suspicion between the innocent members and guests of this household was essential. If I have offended anyone or seemed unjust, I trust that, in view of the abnormal and terrible circumstances, I may be forgiven—”

  He was interrupted by the startling sound of a shot ominously like that of the day before. Everyone in the room stood up quickly, aghast at the sudden detonation. Everyone except Vance. And before anyone could speak, his calm authoritative voice was saying:

  “There is no need for alarm. Please sit down. I expressly arranged that shot for all of you to hear—it will have an important bearing on the case…”

  Burke appeared suddenly at the door.

  “Was that all right, Mr. Vance?”

  “Quite all right,” Vance told him. “The same revolver and blanks?”

  “Sure, just like you told me. And from where you said. Wasn’t it like you wanted it?”

  “Yes, precisely,” nodded Vance. “Thanks, Burke.”

  The detective grinned broadly and moved away down the hall.

  “That shot, I believe,” resumed Vance, sweeping his eyes lazily over those present, “was similar to the one we heard yesterday afternoon—the one that summoned us to Swift’s dead body. It may interest you to know that the shot just fired by Detective Burke was fired from the same revolver, with the same cartridges, that the murderer used yesterday—and from about the same spot.”

  “But this shot sounded as if it were fired down here somewhere,” cut in Siefert.

  “Exactly,” said Vance with satisfaction. “It was fired from one of the windows on this floor.”

  “But I understood that the shot yesterday came from upstairs.” Siefert looked perplexed.

  “That was the general, but erroneous, assumption,” explained Vance. “Actually it did not. Yesterday, because of the open roof door and the stairway, and the closed door of the room from which the shot was fired, and mainly because we were psychologically keyed to the idea of a shot from the roof, it gave us all the impression of coming from the garden. We were misled by our manifest, but unformulated, fears.”

  “By George, you’re right, Vance!” It was Floyd Garden who spoke almost excitedly. “I remember wondering at the time of the shot where it could have come from, but naturally my mind went immediately to Woody, and I assumed it came from the garden.”

  Zalia Graem turned quickly to Vance.

  “The shot yesterday didn’t sound to me as if it came from the garden. When I came out of the den I wondered why you were all hurrying upstairs.”

  Vance returned her gaze squarely.

  “No, it must have sounded much closer to you,” he said. “But why didn’t you mention that important fact yesterday when I talked with you about the crime?”

  “I—don’t know,” the girl stammered. “When I saw Woody dead up there, I naturally thought I’d been mistaken.”

  “But you couldn’t have been mistaken,” returned Vance, half under his breath. His eyes drifted off into space again. “And after the revolver had been fired yesterday from a downstairs window, it was surreptitiously placed in the pocket of Miss Beeton’s top-coat in the hall closet. Had it been fired from upstairs it could have been hidden to far better advantage somewhere on the roof or in the study. Sergeant Heath, having searched both upstairs and down, later found it in the hall closet.” He turned again to the girl. “By the by, Miss Graem, didn’t you go to that closet after answering your telephone call here in the den?”

  The girl gasped.

  “How—how did you know?”

  “You were seen there,” explained Vance. “You must remember that the hall closet is visible from one end of the drawing room.”

  “Oh!” Zalia Graem swung around angrily to Hammle. “So it was you who told him!”

  “It was my duty,” returned Hammle, drawing himself up righteously.

  The girl turned back to Vance with flashing eyes.

  “I’ll tell you why I went to the hall closet. I went to get a handkerchief I had left in my handbag. Does that make me a murderer?”

  “No. Oh, no.” Vance shook his head and sighed. “Thank you for the explanation… And will you be so good as to tell me exactly what you did last night when you answered Mrs. Garden’s summons?”

  Professor Garden, who had been sitting with bowed head, apparently paying no attention to anyone, suddenly looked up and let his hollow eyes rest on the girl with a slight show of animation.

  Zalia Graem glared defiantly at Vance.

  “I asked Mrs. Garden what I could do for her, and she requested me to fill the water glass on the little table beside her bed. I went into the bathroom and filled it; then I arranged her pillows and asked her if there was anything else she wanted. She thanked me and shook her head; and I returned to the drawing room.”

  Professor Garden’s eyes clouded again, and he sank back in his chair, once more oblivious to his surroundings.

  “Thank you,” murmured Vance, nodding to Miss Graem and turning to the nurse. “Miss Beeton,” he asked, “when you returned last night, was the bedroom window which opens on the balcony bolted?”

  The nurse seemed surprised at the question. But when she answered, it was in a calm, professional tone.

  “I didn’t notice. But I know it was bolted when I went out—Mrs. Garden always insisted on it. I’m sorry I didn’t look at the window when I returned. Does it really matter?”

  “No, not particularly.” Vance then addressed Kroon. “I understand you took Miss Weatherby out on the balcony last night. What were you doing there during the ten minutes you remained outside?”

  Kroon bristled. “If you must know, we were fighting about Miss Fruemon—”

  “We were not!” Miss Weatherby’s shrill voice put in. “I was merely asking Cecil—”

  “That’s quite all right.” Vance interrupted the woman sharply and waved his hand deprecatingly. “Questions or recriminations—it really doesn’t matter, don’t y’ know.” He turned leisurely to Floyd Garden. “I say, Garden, when you left the drawing room yesterday afternoon, to follow Swift on your errand of mercy, as it were, after he had given you his bet on Equanimity, where did you go with him?”

  “I led him into the dining room.” The man was at once troubled and aggressive. “I argued with him for a while, and then he came out and went down the hall to the stairs. I watched him for a couple of minutes, wondering what else I might do about it, for, to tell you the truth, I didn’t want him to listen in on the race upstairs. I was pretty damned sure Equanimity wouldn’t win, and he didn’t know I hadn’t placed his bet. I was rather worried about what he might do. For a minute I thought of following him upstairs, but changed my mind. I decided there was nothing more to be done about it except to hope for the best. So I returned to the drawing room.”

  Vance lowered his eyes to the desk and was silent for several moments, smoking meditatively.

  “I’m frightfully sorry, and all that,” he murmured at length, without looking up; “but the fact is, we don’t seem to be getting any forrader. There are plausible explana
tions for everything and everybody. For instance, during the commission of the first crime, Doctor Garden was supposedly at the library or in a taxicab. Floyd Garden, according to his own statement, and with the partial corroboration of Mr. Hammle here, was in the dining room and the lower hallway. Mr. Hammle himself, as well as Miss Weatherby, was in the drawing room. Mr. Kroon explains that he was smoking somewhere on the public stairway, and left two cigarette butts there as evidence. Miss Graem, so far as we can ascertain, was in the den here, telephoning. Therefore assuming—merely as a hypothesis—that anyone here could be guilty of the murder of Swift, of the apparent attempt to murder Miss Beeton, and of the possible murder of Mrs. Garden, there is nothing tangible to substantiate an individual accusation. The performance was too clever, too well conceived, and the innocent persons seem unconsciously and involuntarily to have formed a conspiracy to aid and abet the murderer.”

  Vance looked up and went on. “Moreover, nearly everyone has acted in a manner which conceivably would make him appear guilty. There have been an amazing number of accusations. Mr. Kroon was the first victim of one of these unsubstantiated accusations. Miss Graem has been pointed out to me as the culprit by several persons. Mrs. Garden last night directly accused her son. In fact, there has been a general tendency to involve various people in the criminal activities here. From the human and psychological point of view the issue has been both deliberately and unconsciously clouded, until the confusion was such that no clear-cut outline remained. And this created an atmosphere which perfectly suited the murderer’s machinations, for it made detection extremely difficult and positive proof almost impossible… And yet,” Vance added, “someone in this room is guilty.”

  He rose dejectedly. I could not understand his manner: it was so unlike the man as I had always known him. All of his assurance seemed gone, and I felt that he was reluctantly admitting defeat. He turned and looked out of the window into the gathering dusk. Then he swung round quickly, and his eyes swept angrily about the room, resting for a brief moment on each one present.