The Dragon Murder Case

by S. S. Van Dine

  Heath grunted.

  “That’s all right.” He turned to Markham. “What do you want to do first, Chief? Shall I show you the lay of the land and how the swimming pool is constructed? Or do you want to ask these babies some questions?”

  Markham hesitated, and Vance spoke languidly.

  “Really, Markham, I’m rather inclined to think we should first do a bit of what you call probing. I’d jolly well like to know what preceded this alfresco bathing party, and I’d like to view the participants. The pool will keep till later; and—one can’t tell, can one?—it may take on a different significance once we have established a sort of social background for the unfortunate escapade.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me.” Markham was plainly impatient and skeptical. “The sooner we find out why we’re here at all, the better pleased I’ll be.”

  Vance’s eyes were roving desultorily about the hallway. It was panelled in Tudor style, and the furniture was dark and massive. Life-sized, faded oil portraits hung about the walls, and all the doors were heavily draped. It was a gloomy place, filled with shadows, and with a musty odor which accentuated its inherent unmodernity.

  “A perfect setting for your fears, Sergeant,” Vance mused. “There are few of these old houses left, and I’m trying to decide whether or not I’m grateful.”

  “In the meantime,” snapped Markham, “suppose we go to the drawing-room… Where is it, Sergeant?”

  Heath pointed to a curtained archway on the right, and we were about to proceed when there came the sound of soft descending footsteps on the stairs, and a voice spoke to us from the shadows.

  “Can I be of any assistance, gentlemen?”

  The tall figure of a man approached us. When he had come within the radius of flickering light thrown by the old-fashioned crystal chandelier, we discerned an unusual and, as I thought at the time, sinister person.

  He was over six feet tall, slender and wiry, and gave the impression of steely strength. He had a dark, almost swarthy, complexion, with keen calm black eyes which had something of the look of an eagle in them. His nose was markedly Roman and very narrow. His cheek-bones were high, and there were slight hollows under them. Only his mouth and chin were Nordic: his lips were thin and met in a straight line; and his deeply cleft chin was heavy and powerful. His hair, brushed straight back from a low broad forehead, seemed very black in the dim light of the hallway. His clothes were in the best of taste, subdued and well-cut, but there was a carelessness in the way he wore them which made me feel that he regarded them as a sort of compromise with an unnecessary convention.

  “My name is Leland,” he explained, when he had reached us. “I am a friend of long standing in this household, and I was a guest tonight at the time of the most unfortunate accident.”

  He spoke with peculiar precision, and I understood exactly the impression which the Sergeant had received over the telephone when Leland had first communicated with him.

  Vance had been regarding the man critically.

  “Do you live in Inwood, Mr. Leland?” he asked casually.

  The other gave a barely perceptible nod.

  “I live in a cottage in Shorakapkok, the site of the ancient Indian village, on the hillside which overlooks the old Spuyten Duyvil Creek.”

  “Near the Indian caves?”

  “Yes, just across what they now call the Shell Bed.”

  “And you have known Mr. Stamm a long time?”

  “For fifteen years.” The man hesitated. “I have accompanied him on many of his expeditions in search of tropical fish.”

  Vance kept his gaze steadily upon the strange figure.

  “And perhaps also,” he said, with a coldness which I did not then understand, “you accompanied Mr. Stamm on his expedition for lost treasure in the Caribbean? It seems I recall your name being mentioned in connection with those romantic adventures.”

  “You are right,” Leland admitted without change of expression.

  Vance turned away.

  “Quite—oh, quite. I think you may be just the person to help us with the present problem. Suppose we stagger into the drawing-room for a little chat.”

  He drew apart the heavy curtains, and the butler came swiftly forward to switch on the electric lights.

  We found ourselves in an enormous room, the ceiling of which was at least twenty feet high. A large Aubusson carpet covered the floor; and the heavy and ornate Louis-Quinze furniture, now somewhat dilapidated and faded, had been set about the walls with formal precision. The whole room had a fusty and tarnished air of desuetude and antiquity.

  Vance looked about him and shuddered.

  “Evidently not a popular rendezvous,” he commented as if to himself.

  Leland glanced at him shrewdly.

  “No,” he vouchsafed. “The room is rarely used. The household has lived in the less formal rooms at the rear ever since Joshua Stamm died. The most popular quarters are the library and the vivarium which Stamm added to the house ten years ago. He spends most of his time there.”

  “With the fish, of course,” remarked Vance.

  “They are an absorbing hobby,” Leland explained without enthusiasm.

  Vance nodded abstractedly, sat down and lighted a cigarette.

  “Since you have been so kind as to offer your assistance, Mr. Leland,” he began, “suppose you tell us just what the conditions were in the house tonight, and the various incidents that preceded the tragedy.” Then, before the other could reply, he added: “I understand from Sergeant Heath that you were rather insistent that he should take the matter in hand. Is that correct?”

  “Quite correct,” Leland replied, without the faintest trace of uneasiness. “The failure of young Montague to come to the surface after diving into the pool struck me as most peculiar. He is an excellent swimmer and an adept at various athletic sports. Furthermore, he knows every square foot of the pool; and there is practically no chance whatever that he could have struck his head on the bottom. The other side of the pool is somewhat shallow and has a sloping wall, but the near side, where the cabañas and the diving-board are, is at least twenty-five feet deep.”

  “Still,” suggested Vance, “the man may have had a cramp or a sudden concussion from the dive. Such things have happened, don’t y’ know.” His eyes were fixed languidly but appraisingly on Leland. “Just what was your object in urging a member of the Homicide Bureau to investigate the situation?”

  “Merely a question of precaution—” Leland began, but Vance interrupted him.

  “Yes, yes, to be sure. But why should you feel that caution was necess’ry in the circumstances?”

  A cynical smile appeared at the corners of the man’s mouth.

  “This is not a household,” he replied, “where life runs normally. The Stamms, as you may know, are an intensely inbred line. Joshua Stamm and his wife were first cousins, and both pairs of grandparents were also related by blood. Paresis runs in the family. There has been nothing fixed or permanent in the natures of the last two generations of Stamms, and life in this household is always pushing out at unexpected angles. The ordinary family diagrams are constantly being broken up. There is little stabilization, either physical or intellectual.”

  “Even so”—Vance, I could see, had become deeply interested in the man—“how would these facts of heredity have any bearing on Montague’s disappearance?”

  “Montague,” Leland returned in a flat voice, “was engaged to Stamm’s sister, Bernice.”

  “Ah!” Vance drew deeply on his cigarette. “You are inferring perhaps that Stamm was opposed to the engagement?”

  “I am making no inferences.” Leland took out a long-stemmed briar pipe and a pouch of tobacco. “If Stamm objected to the alliance, he made no mention of it to me. He is not the kind of man who reveals his inner thoughts or feelings. But his nature is pregnant with potentialities, and he may have hated Montague.” Deftly he filled his pipe and lighted it.

  “And are we to assume, then, that you
r calling in the police was based on—what shall we call it?—the Mendelian law of breeding as applied to the Stamms?”

  Again Leland smiled cynically.

  “No, not exactly—though it may have been a factor in rousing my suspicious curiosity.”

  “And the other factors?”

  “There has been considerable drinking here in the last twenty-four hours.”

  “Oh, yes; alcohol—that great releaser of inhibitions… But let’s forgo the academic for the time being.”

  Leland moved to the centre-table and leaned against it.

  “The personages of this particular house-party,” he said at length, “are not above gaining their ends at any cost.”

  Vance inclined his head.

  “That remark is more promising,” he commented. “Suppose you tell us briefly of these people.”

  “There are few enough of them,” Leland began. “Besides Stamm and his sister, there is a Mr. Alex Greeff, a reputed stock-broker, who unquestionably has some designs on the Stamm fortune. Then there is Kirwin Tatum, a dissipated and disreputable young ne’er-do-well, who, as far as I can make out, exists wholly by sponging on his friends. Incidentally, he has made something of an ass of himself over Bernice Stamm…”

  “And Greeff—what are his sentiments toward Miss Stamm?”

  “I cannot say. He poses as the family’s financial adviser, and I know that Stamm has invested rather heavily at his suggestion. But whether or not he wishes to marry the Stamm fortune is problematical.”

  “Thanks no end… And now for the other members of the party.”

  “Mrs. McAdam—they call her Teeny—is the usual type of widow, talkative, gay, and inclined to overindulgence. Her past is unknown. She is shrewd and worldly, and has a practical eye on Stamm—always making a great fuss over him, but obviously with some ulterior motive. Young Tatum whispered to me confidentially, in a moment of drunken laxity, that Montague and this McAdam woman once lived together.”

  Vance clicked his tongue in mock disapproval.

  “I begin to sense the potentialities of the situation. Most allurin’… Any one else to complicate this delightful social mélange?”

  “Yes, a Miss Steele. Ruby is her first name. She is an intense creature, of indeterminate age, who dresses fantastically and is always playing a part of some kind. She paints pictures and sings and talks of her ‘art.’ I believe she was once on the stage… And that completes the roster—except for Montague and myself. Another woman was invited, so Stamm told me, but she sent in her regrets at the last minute.”

  “Ah! Now that’s most interestin’. Did Mr. Stamm mention her name?”

  “No, but you might ask him when the doctor gets him in shape.”

  “What of Montague?” Vance asked. “A bit of gossip regarding his proclivities and background might prove illuminatin’.”

  Leland hesitated. He knocked the ashes out of his pipe and refilled it. When he had got it going again he answered with a show of reluctance:

  “Montague was what you might call a professional handsome-man. He was an actor by profession, but he never seemed to get very far—although he was featured in one or two motion pictures in Hollywood. He always lived well, at one of the fashionable and expensive hotels. He attended first nights and was a frequenter of the east-side night-clubs. He had a decidedly pleasant manner and was, I understand, most attractive to women…” Leland paused, packed his pipe, and added: “I really know very little about the man.”

  “I recognize the type.” Vance regarded his cigarette. “However, I shouldn’t say the gathering was altogether unusual, or that the elements involved were necess’rily indicative of deliberate tragedy.”

  “No,” Leland admitted. “But it impressed me as noteworthy that practically every one present at the party tonight might have had an excellent motive for putting Montague out of the way.”

  Vance lifted his eyebrows interrogatively.

  “Yes?” he urged.

  “Well, to begin with, Stamm himself, as I have said, might have been violently opposed to Montague’s marrying his sister. He is very fond of her, and he certainly has intelligence enough to realize that the match would have been a sorry misalliance.—Young Tatum is certainly in a state of mind to murder any rival for Miss Stamm’s affections. Greeff is a man who would stop at nothing, and Montague’s marrying into the Stamm family might easily have wrecked his financial ambition to control the fortune. Or, perhaps he actually hoped to marry Bernice himself.—Then again, there was unquestionably something between Teeny McAdam and Montague—I noticed it quite plainly after Tatum had told me of their former relationship. She may have resented his deflection to another woman. Nor is she the kind that would tolerate being thrown over. Furthermore, if she really has any matrimonial designs on Stamm, she may have been afraid that Montague would spoil her prospects by telling Stamm of her past.”

  “And what about the tense bohémienne, Miss Steele?”

  A hard look came into Leland’s face as he hesitated. Then he said, with a certain sinister resolution:

  “I trust her least of them all. There was some definite friction between her and Montague. She was constantly making unpleasant remarks about him—in fact, she ridiculed him openly, and rarely addressed an ordinarily civil word to him. When Montague suggested the swim in the pool she walked with him to the cabañas, talking earnestly. I could not make out what was said, but I got a decided impression that she was berating him for something. When we came out in our bathing suits and Montague was about to take the first dive, she walked up to him with a leer and said, in a tone which I could not help overhearing, ‘I hope you never come up.’ And when Montague failed to appear her remark struck me as significant… Perhaps now you can realize—”

  “Quite—oh, quite,” Vance murmured. “I can see all the possibilities you put forth. A sweet little conclave—eh, what?” He looked up sharply. “And what about yourself, Mr. Leland? Were you, by any chance, interested in Montague’s demise?”

  “Perhaps more than any of the others,” Leland answered with grim frankness. “I disliked the man intensely, and I considered it an outrage that he was to marry Bernice. I not only told her so, but I also expressed my opinion to her brother.”

  “And why,” pursued Vance dulcetly, “should you take the matter so much to heart?”

  Leland shifted his position on the edge of the table and took his pipe slowly from his mouth.

  “Miss Stamm is a very fine and unusual young woman.” He spoke with slow deliberation, as if carefully choosing his words. “I admire her greatly. I have known her since she was a child, and during the past few years we have become very good friends. I simply did not think that Montague was good enough for her.” He paused and was about to continue, but changed his mind.

  Vance had been watching the man closely.

  “You’re quite lucid, don’t y’ know, Mr. Leland,” he murmured, nodding slowly and looking vaguely at the ceiling. “Yes—quite so. I apprehend that you had an excellent motive for doing away with the dashing Mr. Montague…”

  At this moment there came an unexpected interruption. The portières of the drawing-room had been left parted, and suddenly we heard rapid footsteps on the stairs. We turned toward the door, and a moment later a tall, spectacular woman thrust herself excitedly into the room.

  She was perhaps thirty-five years old, with an unusually pallid face and crimson lips. Her dark hair was parted in the middle and smoothed back over her ears into a knot at the back of her neck. She wore a long black chiffon gown which seemed to have been cut in one piece and moulded to her figure. The only touches of color in her costume were supplied by her jade jewelry. She wore long pendant jade earrings, a triple jade bead necklace, jade bracelets, several jade rings, and a large carved jade brooch.

  As she entered the room her eyes were fixed blazingly on Leland, and she took a few steps toward him. There was a tiger-like menace in her attitude. Then she cast a quick glance at the rest of us,
but immediately brought her gaze back to Leland, who stood regarding her with quizzical imperturbability. Slowly she raised her arm and pointed at him, at the same time leaning toward him and narrowing her eyes.

  “There’s the man!” she cried passionately, in a deep resonant voice.

  Vance had risen lazily to his feet and reached for his monocle. Adjusting it, he regarded the woman mildly but critically.

  “Thanks awfully,” he drawled. “We have met Mr. Leland informally. But we haven’t yet had the pleasure—”

  “My name is Steele,” she cut in almost viciously. “Ruby Steele. And I could hear some of the things that were being said about me by this man. They are all lies. He is only trying to shield himself—to focus suspicion on others.”

  She turned her fiery eyes from Vance back to Leland and again lifted an accusing finger.

  “He’s the man that’s responsible for Sanford Montague’s death. It was he who planned and accomplished it. He hated Monty, for he himself is in love with Bernice Stamm. And he told Monty to keep away from Bernice, or he would kill him. Monty told me that himself. Ever since I came to this house yesterday morning, I have had a clutching feeling here”—she pressed her hands dramatically against her bosom—“that some terrible thing was going to happen—that this man would carry out his threat.” She made a theatrical gesture of tragedy, interlocking her fingers and carrying them to her forehead. “And he has done it!… Oh, he is sly! He is shrewd—”

  “Just how, may I ask,” put in Vance, in a cool, unemotional voice, “did Mr. Leland accomplish this feat?”

  The woman swung toward him disdainfully.

  “The technique of crime,” she replied throatily, and with exaggerated hauteur, “is not within my province. You should be able to find out how he did it. You’re policemen, aren’t you? It was this man who telephoned to you. He’s sly, I tell you! He thought that if anything suspicious were discovered when poor Monty’s body was found, you’d eliminate him as the murderer because he had telephoned to you.”

  “Very interestin’,” nodded Vance, with a touch of irony. “So you formally accuse Mr. Leland of deliberately planning Mr. Montague’s death?”