The Dragon Murder Case

by S. S. Van Dine

  “Where’d that scream come from?” he demanded. “And what does it mean?”

  Before Leland could answer Stamm raised himself to a semi-recumbent position and glowered at Vance.

  “For the love of God,” he complained irritably, “will you gentlemen get out of here! You’ve done enough damage already... Get out, I tell you! Get out!” Then he turned to Doctor Holliday. “Please go up to mother, doctor, and give her something. She’s having another attack—what with all this upheaval round the house.”

  Doctor Holliday left the room, and we could hear him mounting the stairs.

  Vance had been unimpressed by the whole episode. He stood smoking casually, his eyes resting dreamily on the man in bed.

  “Deuced sorry to have upset your household, Mr. Stamm,” he murmured. “Every one’s nerves are raw, don’t y’ know. Hope you’ll be better in the morning... We’ll toddle down-stairs—eh, what, Markham?”

  Leland looked at him gratefully and nodded.

  “I am sure that would be best,” he said, leading the way.

  We went out of the room and descended the stairs. Heath, however, remained in the hall for a moment glaring up toward the third floor.

  “Come, Sergeant,” Vance called to him. “You’re over-wrought.”

  Heath finally took his hand from his coat pocket and followed us reluctantly.

  Again in the drawing-room, Vance settled into a chair and, looking at Leland inquiringly, waited for an explanation.

  Leland took out his pipe again and slowly packed it.

  “That was Stamm’s mother, Matilda Stamm,” he said when he had got his pipe going. “She occupies the third floor of the house. She is a little unbalanced...” He made a slight but significant gesture toward his forehead. “Not dangerous, you understand, but erratic—given occasionally to hallucinations. She has queer attacks now and then, and talks incoherently.”

  “Sounds like mild paranoia,” Vance murmured. “Some hidden fear, perhaps.”

  “That is it, I imagine,” Leland returned. “A psychiatrist they had for her years ago suggested a private sanitarium, but Stamm would not hear of it. Instead he turned the third floor over to her, and there is some one with her all the time. She is in excellent physical health and is perfectly rational most of the time. But she is not permitted to go out. However, she is well taken care of, and the third floor has a large balcony and a conservatory for her diversion. She spends most of her time cultivating rare plants.”

  “How often do her attacks come?”

  “Two or three times a year, I understand, though she is always full of queer ideas about people and things. Nothing to worry about, though.”

  “And the nature of these attacks?”

  “They vary. Sometimes she talks and argues with imaginary people. At other times she becomes hysterical and babbles of events that occurred when she was a girl. Then, again, she will suddenly take violent dislikes to people, for no apparent reason, and proceed to berate and threaten them.”

  Vance nodded.

  “Typical,” he mused. Then, after several deep inhalations on his Régie, he asked in an offhand manner: “On which side of the house are Mrs. Stamm’s balcony and conservat’ry?”

  Leland’s eyes moved quickly toward Vance, and he lifted his head.

  “On the northeast corner,” he answered with a slightly rising inflection, as if his answer were purposely incomplete.

  “Ah!” Vance took his cigarette slowly from his mouth. “Overlooking the pool, eh?”

  Leland nodded. Then, after a brief hesitation, he said: “The pool has a curious hold on her fancy. It is the source of many of her hallucinations. She sits for hours gazing at it abstractedly, and the German woman who looks after her—a capable companion-nurse named Schwarz—tells me that she never goes to bed without first standing in rapt attention for several minutes at the window facing the pool.”

  “Very interestin’... By the by, Mr. Leland, do you know when the pool was constructed?”

  Leland frowned thoughtfully.

  “I cannot say exactly. I know it was built by Stamm’s grandfather—that is to say, he built the dam to broaden the water of the stream. But I doubt if he had anything in mind except a scenic improvement. It was Stamm’s father—Joshua Stamm—who put in the retaining wall on this side of the pool, to keep the water from straying too far up the hill toward the house. And it was Stamm himself who installed the filter and the gates, when he first began to use the pool for swimming. The water was not particularly free from rubbish, and he wanted some way of filtering the stream that fed it, and also of closing off the inflow, so that the pool could be cleaned out occasionally.”

  “How did the pool get its name?” asked Vance casually.

  Leland gave a slight shrug.

  “Heaven only knows. From some old Indian tradition, probably. The Indians hereabouts originally called it by various terms—Amangaming, Amangemokdom Wikit, and sometimes Amangemokdomipek—but as a rule the shorter word, Amangaming, was used, which means, in the Lenape dialect of the Algonkians, the ‘place of the water-monster.’*When I was a child my mother always referred to the pool by that name, although at that time it was pretty generally known as the Dragon Pool, which is a fairly accurate transliteration of its original name. Many tales and superstitions grew up around it. The water-dragon—Amangemokdom* or, sometimes, Amangegach—was used as a bogy with which to frighten recalcitrant children...”

  Markham got to his feet impatiently and looked at his watch.

  “This is hardly the hour,” he complained, “for a discussion of mythology.”

  “Tut, tut, old dear,” Vance chided him pleasantly. “I say, these ethnological data are most fascinatin’. For the first time tonight we seem to be getting a little forrader. I’m beginning to understand why nearly every one in the house is filled with doubts and misgivings.”

  He smiled ingratiatingly and turned his attention again to Leland.

  “By the by,” he went on, “is Mrs. Stamm given to such distressin’ screams during her cloudy moments?”

  Again Leland hesitated, but finally answered: “Occasionally—yes.”

  “And do these screams usually have some bearing on her hallucinations regarding the pool?”

  Leland inclined his head.

  “Yes—always.” Then he added: “But she is never coherent as to the exact cause of her perturbation. I have been present when Stamm has tried to get an explanation from her, but she has never been lucid on the subject. It is as if she feared something in the future which her momentarily excited mind could not visualize. An inflamed and confused projection of the imagination, I should say—without any definite mental embodiment...”

  At this moment the curtains parted, and Doctor Holliday’s troubled face looked into the room.

  “I am glad you gentlemen are still here,” he said. “Mrs. Stamm is in an unusual frame of mind, and insists on seeing you. She is having one of her periodical attacks—nothing serious, I assure you. But she seems very much excited, and she refused to let me give her something to quiet her... I really don’t feel that I should mention these facts to you, but in the circumstances—”

  “I have explained Mrs. Stamm’s condition to these gentlemen,” Leland put in quietly.

  The doctor appeared relieved.

  “That being the case,” he went on, “I can tell you quite frankly that I am a little worried. And, as I say, she insists that she see the police—as she calls you—at once.” He paused as if uncertain. “Perhaps it might be best—if you do not mind. Since she has this idea, a talk with you might bring about the desired reaction... But I warn you that she is a bit hallucinated, and I trust that you will treat her accordingly...”

  Vance had risen.

  “We quite understand, doctor,” he said assuringly, adding significantly: “It might be better for all of us if we talked with her.”

  We retraced our way up the dimly lighted stairs, and at the second-story hallway turned up
ward to Mrs. Stamm’s quarters.

  On the third floor the doctor led the way down a wide passage, toward the rear of the house, to an open door through which a rectangular shaft of yellow light poured into the gloom of the hall. The room into which we were ushered was large and crowded with early Victorian furniture. A dark green shabby carpet covered the floor, and on the walls was faded green paper. The overstuffed satin-covered chairs had once been white and chartreuse green, but were now gray and dingy. An enormous canopied bed stood at the right of the door, draped in pink damask; and similar damask, with little of its color left, formed the long overdrapes at the window. The Nottingham-lace curtains beneath were wrinkled and soiled. Opposite the bed was a fireplace, on the hearth of which lay a collection of polished conch shells; and beside it stood a high spool what-not overladen with all manner of hideous trifles of the period. Several large faded oil paintings were suspended about the walls on wide satin ribbons which were tied in bows at the moulding.

  As we entered, a tall, capable-looking gray-haired woman, in a Hoover apron, stepped aside to make way for us.

  “You had better remain, Mrs. Schwarz,” the doctor suggested as we passed her.

  On the far side of the room, near the window, stood Mrs. Stamm; and the sight of her sent a strange chill through me. She was leaning with both hands on the back of a chair, her head thrust forward in an attitude of fearful expectancy. Even in the brilliant light of the room her eyes seemed to contain a fiery quality. She was a small, slender woman, but she gave forth an irresistible impression of great strength and vitality, as if every sinew in her body were like whipcord; and her large-boned hands, as they grasped the back of the chair, were more like a man’s than a woman’s. (The idea occurred to me that she could easily have lifted the chair and swung it about.) Her nose was Roman and pinched; and her mouth was a long slit distorted into a sardonic smile. Her hair was gray, streaked with black, and was tucked back over prominent ears. She wore a faded red silk kimono which trailed the floor, showing only the toes of her knitted slippers.

  Doctor Holliday made a brief, nervous presentation which Mrs. Stamm did not even acknowledge. She stood gazing at us with that twisted smile, as if gloating over something that only she herself knew. Then, after several moments’ scrutiny, the smile faded from her mouth, and a look of terrifying hardness came into her face. Her lips parted, and the blazing light in her eyes grew brighter.

  “The dragon did it!” were her first words to us. “I tell you the dragon did it! There’s nothing more you can do about it!”

  “What dragon, Mrs. Stamm?” asked Vance quietly.

  “What dragon, indeed!” She gave a scornful hollow laugh. “The dragon that lives down there in the pool below my window.” She pointed vaguely with her hand. “Why do you think it’s called the Dragon Pool? I’ll tell you why. Because it’s the home of the dragon—the old water-dragon that guards the lives and the fortunes of the Stamms. When any danger threatens my family the dragon arises in his wrath.”

  “And what makes you think”—Vance’s voice was mild and sympathetic—“that the dragon exercised his tutelary powers tonight?”

  “Oh, I know, I know!” A shrewd fanatical light came into her eyes, and again that hideous smile appeared on her lips. “I sit here alone in this room, year in and year out; yet I know all that is going on. They try to keep things from me, but they can’t. I know all that has happened the last two days—I am aware of all the intrigues that are gathering about my house. And when I heard strange voices a while ago, I came to the top of the stairs and listened. I heard what my poor son said. Sanford Montague dived into the pool—and he didn’t come up! He couldn’t come up—he will never come up! The dragon killed him—caught him beneath the water and held him there and killed him.”

  “But Mr. Montague was not an enemy,” Vance suggested mildly. “Why should the protective deity of your family kill him?”

  “Mr. Montague was an enemy,” the woman declared, pushing the chair aside and stepping forward. “He had fascinated my little girl and planned to marry her. But he wasn’t worthy of her. He was always lying to her, and when her back was turned he was having affairs with other women. Oh, I’ve witnessed much these last two days!”

  “I see what you mean,” nodded Vance. “But is it not possible that, after all, the dragon is only a myth?”

  “A myth?” The woman spoke with the calmness of conviction. “No, he’s no myth. I’ve seen him too often. I saw him as a child. And when I was a young girl I talked with many people who had seen him. The old Indians in the village saw him too. They used to tell me about him when I would go to their huts. And in the long summer twilights I would sit on the top of the cliff and watch for him to come out of the pool, for water-dragons always come out after sundown. And sometimes, when the shadows were deep over the hills and the mists came drifting down the river, he would rise from the water and fly away—yonder—to the north. And then I would sit up all night at my window, when my governess thought I was asleep, and wait for his return; for I knew he was a friend and would protect me; and I was afraid to go to sleep until he had come back to our pool. But sometimes, when I waited for him on the cliff, he wouldn’t come out of the pool at all, but would just ripple the water a little to let me know he was there. And those were the nights when I could sleep, for I didn’t have to sit up and wait for his return.”

  Mrs. Stamm’s voice, as she related these strange imaginary things, was poetic in its intensity. She stood before us, her arms hanging calmly at her sides, her eyes, which now seemed to have become misty, gazing past us over our heads.

  “That’s all very interestin’,” Vance murmured politely; but I noticed that he kept a steady, appraising gaze on the woman from beneath partly lowered eyelids. “However, could not all that you have told us be accounted for by the romantic imaginings of a child? After all, don’t y’ know, the existence of dragons scarcely fits in with the conceptions of modern science.”

  “Modern science—bah!” She turned scornful eyes on Vance and spoke with almost vitriolic bitterness. “Science—science, indeed! A pleasant word to cover man’s ignorance. What does any man know of the laws of birth and growth and life and death? What does any man know of what goes on under the water? And the greater part of the world is water—unfathomable depths of water. My son collects a few specimens of fish from the mouths of rivers and from shallow streams—but has he ever plumbed the depths of the vast oceans? Can he say that no monsters dwell in those depths? And even the few fish he has caught are mysteries to him. Neither he nor any other fish collector knows anything about them... Don’t talk to me of science, young man. I know what these old eyes have seen!”

  “All that you say is quite true,” Vance concurred, in a low voice. “But even admitting that some giant flying fish inhabits this pool from time to time, are you not attributing to him too great an intelligence—too great an insight into the affairs of your household?”

  “How,” she retorted contemptuously, “can any one gauge the intelligence of creatures of whom one knows nothing? Man flatters himself by assuming that no creature can have a greater intelligence than his own.”

  Vance smiled faintly.

  “You are no lover of humanity, I perceive.”

  “I hate humanity,” the woman declared bitterly. “This would be a cleaner, better world if mankind had been omitted from the scheme of things.”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” Vance’s tone suddenly changed, and he spoke with a certain decisive positivity. “But may I ask—the hour is getting rather late, y’ know—just why you insisted on seeing us?”

  The woman stiffened and leaned forward. The intense hysterical look came back into her eyes, and her hands flexed at her sides.

  “You’re the police—aren’t you?—and you’re here trying to find out things... I wanted to tell you how Mr. Montague lost his life. Listen to me! He was killed by the dragon—do you understand that? He was killed by the dragon! No one in this house ha
d anything to do with his death—no one!... That’s what I wanted to tell you.” Her voice rose as she spoke, and there was a terrific passion in her words.

  Vance’s steady gaze did not leave her.

  “But why, Mrs. Stamm,” he asked, “do you assume that we think some one here had a hand in Montague’s death?”

  “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t think so,” she retorted angrily, with an artful gleam in her eyes.

  “Was what you heard your son say, just before you screamed,” Vance asked, “the first inkling you had of the tragedy?”

  “Yes!” The word was an ejaculation. But she added more calmly: “I have known for days that tragedy was hanging over this house.”

  “Then why did you scream, Mrs. Stamm?”

  “I was startled—and terrified, perhaps—when I realized what the dragon had done.”

  “But how could you possibly have known,” argued Vance, “that it was the dragon who was responsible for Montague’s disappearance under the water?”

  Again the woman’s mouth twisted into a sardonic smile.

  “Because of what I had heard and seen earlier tonight.”

  “Ah!”

  “Oh, yes! About an hour ago I was standing by the window here, looking down at the pool—for some reason I was unable to sleep and had gotten out of bed. Suddenly I saw a great shape against the sky, and I heard the familiar flutter of wings coming nearer...nearer... And then I saw the dragon sweep over the tree-tops and down before the face of the cliff opposite. And I saw him dive into the pool with a great splash, and I saw the white spray rise from the water where he had disappeared... And then all was silence again. The dragon had returned to his home.”

  Vance walked to the window and looked out.

  “It’s pretty dark,” he commented. “I’m dashed if I can see the cliff from here—or even the water.”