Markham leaped to his feet as if he had been shot upward by the sudden release of a powerful steel spring. He glared at Vance, in doubt whether the other was jesting or in earnest. Simultaneously he exploded:
“What do you mean, Vance?”
Vance drew deeply again on his cigarette before answering. Then he said with a tantalizing smile:
“J’ai tué trois hommes—Ich habe drei Männer getötet—Ho ucciso tre uomini—He matado tres hombres—Három embert megöltem—Haragti sheloshah anashim. Meanin’, I killed three men.”
“Are you serious?” blurted Markham.
“Oh, quite,” answered Vance. “Do you think you can save me from the dire consequences?... Incidentally, I found Mrs. Kenting. I took her to the Doran Hospital. Not a matter of life and death, but she required immediate and competent attention. Rather upset, I should imagine, by her detention. A bit out of her mind, in fact. Frightful experience she went through. Doin’ nicely, however. Under excellent care. Should be quite herself in a few days. Can’t coordinate just yet... Oh, I say, Markham, do sit down again and take your cognac. You look positively perturbed.”
Markham obeyed automatically, like a frightened child submitting to his parent. He swallowed the brandy in one gulp.
“For the love of God, Vance,” he pleaded, “drop this silly ring-around-the-rosy stuff and talk to me like a sane human being.”
“Sorry, Markham, and all that sort of thing,” murmured Vance contritely. And then he told Markham in detail everything that had happened that night. But I thought he too greatly minimized his own part in the tragic drama. When he had finished his recital he asked somewhat coyly:
“Am I a doomed culprit, or were there what you would call extenuatin’ circumstances?—I’m horribly weak on the intricacies of the law, don’t y’ know.”
“Damn it! Forget everything,” said Markham. “If you’re really worried, I’ll get you a brass medal as big as Columbus Circle.”
“My word, what a fate!” sighed Vance.
“Have you any idea who these three men were?” Markham went on, in tense seriousness.
“Not the groggiest notion,” admitted Vance sadly. “One of them, Van Dine tells me, was watchin’ us from the footpath in the park last night. Two of the three were probably the lads McLaughlin saw in the green coupé outside the Kenting domicile Wednesday morning. The other one I have never had the exquisite pleasure of meetin’ before. I’d say, however, he had a gift for tradin’ in doubtful securities on the sly: I’ve seen bucket-shop operators who resembled him. Anyhow, Markham old dear, why fret about it tonight? They were not nice persons, not nice at all. The geniuses at Headquarters will check up on their identities...”
The front door-bell rang, and a minute later Heath entered the library. His ordinarily ruddy face was a little pale and drawn, and his right arm was in a sling. He saluted Markham and turned sheepishly to Vance.
“Your old saw-bones at the hospital told me I had to go home,” he complained. “And there’s nothing in God’s world the matter with me,” he added disgustedly. “Imagine him puttin’ this arm in a sling!—said I had to take the weight offen it, that it would heal quicker that way. And then had to go and make my other arm sore by stickin’ a needle in it!... What was the needle for, Mr. Vance?”
“Tetanus antitoxin, Sergeant,” Vance told him, smiling. “Simply has to be done, don’t y’ know, with all gunshot wounds. Nothing to cause you any discomfort, though. Reaction in a week—that’s all.”
Heath snorted. “Hell! If my gun hadn’t jammed—”
“Yes, that was a bad break, Sergeant,” nodded Markham.
“The doc wouldn’t even let me go back to the house,” grumbled Heath. “Anyway, I got the report from the local station up there. They took the three stiffs over to the morgue. The Chinese baby’ll live. Maybe we can—”
“You’ll never wangle anything out of him,” put in Vance quietly. “Your beloved hose-pipes and water-cures and telephone directories will get you nowhere. I know Chinamen. But Mrs. Kenting will have an interestin’ story to tell as soon as she’s rational again... Cheer up, Sergeant, and have some more medicine.” He poured Heath a liberal drink of his rare brandy.
“I’ll be on the job tomorrow all right, Chief,” the Sergeant asserted as he put down the glass on a small table at his side. “Just imagine that young whippersnapper of an intern at the Doran Hospital tryin’ to make a Little Lord Fauntleroy outa me! A sling! ”
Vance and Markham and Heath discussed the case from various angles for perhaps a half hour longer. Markham was getting impatient.
“I’m going home,” he said finally, as he rose. “We’ll get this thing straightened out in the morning.”
Vance left his chair reluctantly.
“I sincerely hope so, Markham,” he said. “It’s not at all a particularly nice case, and the sooner you’re free of it, the better.”
“Is there anything you want me to do, Mr. Vance?” Heath’s tone was respectful, but a little weary.
Vance looked at him with commiseration.
“I want you to go home and have a good sleep... And, by the by, Sergeant, how about rounding everybody up and invitin’ them to the Purple House tomorrow, around noon?” he asked. “I’m speakin’ of Fleel, Kenyon Kenting, and Quaggy. Mrs. Falloway and her son will, I’m sure, be there, in any event.”
Heath got to his feet and grinned confidently.
“Don’t you worry, Mr. Vance,” he said. “I’ll have ’em there for you.” He went toward the door, then suddenly turned round and held out his left hand to Vance. “Much obliged, sir, for tonight—”
“Oh, please ignore it, my good Sergeant,—it was merely a slight nuisance, after all,” returned Vance, though he grasped the Sergeant’s hand warmly.
Markham and Heath departed together, and Vance again pressed the bell for Currie.
When the old man had entered the room Vance said:
“I’m turning in, Currie. That will be all for tonight.”
The butler bowed, and picked up the tray and the empty cognac glasses.
“Very good, sir. Thank you, sir. Good night, sir.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Final Scene
(Saturday, July 23; 9 a.m.)
VANCE WAS UP and dressed in good season the next morning. He seemed fairly cheerful but somewhat distrait. Before he sat down to his typical meager breakfast he went into the anteroom and telephoned to Heath. It was rather a long conversation, but no word of it reached me where I sat at the desk in the library.
As he returned to the room he said to me: “I think, Van, we’re in a position now to get somewhere with this case. The poor Sergeant!—he’s practically a ravin’ maniac this morning, with the reporters houndin’ him every minute. The news of last night’s altercation did not break soon enough for the morning editions of the papers. But the mere thought of reading of our escapade in the noon editions fills me with horror.” He sipped his Turkish coffee. “I had hoped we could clear up the beastly matter before the news vendors began giving tongue. The best place to conclude the case is in the Purple House. It’s a family gathering-place, as it were. Everyone connected with the family, don’t y’ know, is rather intimately concerned, and hopin’ for illumination...”
Late in the forenoon Markham, haggard and drawn, joined us at the apartment. He did not ask Vance any questions, for he knew it would be futile in the mood Vance was in. He did, however, greet him cordially.
“I think you’re going to get that medal, whether you like it or not,” he said, lighting a cigar and leaning against the mantel. “All three men have been definitely identified, and they have all been on the police books for years. They’ve been urgently wanted at Headquarters for a long time. Two of them have served terms: one for extortion, and the other for manslaughter. They’re Goodley Franks and Austria Rentwick—no, he didn’t come from Austria. The third man was none other than our old elusive friend, Gilt-Edge Lamarne, with a dozen aliases
—a very shrewd crook. He’s been arrested nine times, but we’ve never been able to make the charges stick. He’s kept the local boys, as well as the federal men, awake nights for years. We’ve had the goods on him for eight months now, but we couldn’t find him.”
Markham smiled at Vance with solemn satisfaction.
“It was a very fortunate affair last night, from every point of view. Everybody’s happy; only, I fear you’re about to become a hero and will have ticker-tape rained on you from the windows whenever you go down Broadway.”
“Oh, my Markham, my Markham!” wailed Vance. “I won’t have it. I’m about to sail to South America, or Alaska, or the Malay Peninsula...” He got to his feet and went to the table where he finished his old port. “Come along, Markham,” he said as he put his glass down. “Let’s get uptown and conclude this bally case before I sail for foreign parts where ticker-tape is unknown.”
He went toward the door, with Markham and me following him.
“You think we can finish the case today?” Markham looked skeptical.
“Oh, quite. It was, in fact, finished long ago.” Vance stopped with his hand on the knob and smiled cheerfully. “But, knowin’ your passionate adoration for legal evidence, I have waited till now.”
Markham studied Vance for a moment, and said nothing. In silence we went out and descended the stairs to the street.
We arrived at the Kenting residence, Vance driving us there in his car, fifteen minutes before noon. Weem took our hats and made a surly gesture toward the drawing room. Sergeant Heath and Snitkin were already there.
A little later Fleel and Kenyon Kenting arrived together, followed almost immediately by Porter Quaggy. They had barely seated themselves when old Mrs. Falloway, supported by her son Fraim, came down the front stairs and joined us.
“I’m so anxious about Madelaine,” Mrs. Falloway said. “How is she, Mr. Vance?”
“I received a telephone call from the hospital shortly before I came here,” he replied, addressing himself to the others in the room, as well as to the old woman who, with Fraim’s help, had now seated herself comfortably at one end of the small sofa. “Mrs. Kenting is doing even better today than I would have expected. She is still somewhat irrational—which is quite natural, considering the frightful experience she has been through—but I can assure you that she will be home in two or three days, fully recovered and in her normal mind.”
He sat down by the window leisurely, and lighted a cigarette.
“And I imagine she will have a most interestin’ tale to unfold,” he went on. “Y’ know, it was not intended that she return.”
He moved slightly in his chair.
“The truth is, this was not a kidnapping case at all. The authorities were expected to accept it in that light, but the murderer made too many errors—his fault lay in trying to be excessively clever. I think I can reconstruct most of the events in their chronological order. Someone wanted money—wanted it rather desperately, in fact—and all the means for an easy acquisition were at hand. The plot was as simple as it was cowardly. But the plotter met a snag when some of the early steps failed rather dismally, and a new and bolder procedure and technique became necess’ry. A damnable new technique, but one that was equally encumbered by the grave possibility of error. The errors developed almost inevitably, for the human brain, however clever, has its limitations. But the person who mapped out the plot was blinded and confused by a passionate desire for the money. Everything was sordid...”
Again Vance shifted his position slightly and drew deeply on his cigarette, expelling the smoke in curling ribbons, as he went on.
“There is no doubt whatever that Kaspar Kenting made an appointment for the early morning hours, after he had returned from his evening’s entertainment at the casino with Mr. Quaggy. He came in and went to his room, changed his suit and his shoes, and kept that appointment. It was a vital matter to him, as he was deeply in debt and undoubtedly expected some sort of practical solution of his problem to result from this meeting. The two mysterious and objectionable gentlemen whom Mrs. Kenting described to us as callers here earlier in the week were quite harmless creatures, but avid for the money Kaspar owed them. One of them was a book-maker, the other a shady fellow who ran a sub-rosa gambling house—I rather suspected their identity from the first, and verified it this morning: I happened to recognize one of the men through Mrs. Kenting’s description.
“When Kaspar left this house early Wednesday morning, he was met at the appointed place not by the person with whom he had made his appointment, but by others whom he had never seen before. They struck him over the head before he so much as realized that anything was amiss, threw him into a coupé, and then drove off with him to the East River and disposed of him, hoping he would not be found too soon. It was straight, brutal murder. And the persons who committed that murder had been hired for that purpose and had been instructed accordingly. You will understand that the plotter at the source never intended anything less than murder for the victim—since there was grave risk in letting him live to point an accusing finger later... The slender Chinaman—the lobby-gow of the gang, who now has concussion of the brain from the Sergeant’s blow last night—then returned to the house here, placed the ladder against the window—it had been left here previously for just that purpose—entered the room through the window, and set the stage according to instructions, taking the toothbrush, the comb, and the pajamas, and pinning the note to the windowsill, generally leaving mute but spurious indications that Kaspar Kenting had kidnapped himself in order to collect the money he needed to straighten out his debts. Kaspar’s keeping of the appointment at such an hour naturally implied that the rendezvous was with someone he thought could help him. I found the pajamas and toothbrush, unused, in the Lord Street house last night. It was the Chinaman that Mrs. Kenting heard moving about in her husband’s room at dawn Wednesday. He was arranging the details in which he had been instructed.”
Vance continued in a matter-of-fact voice.
“So far the plot was working nicely. The first setback occurred after the arrival in the mail of the ransom note with the instructions to take the money to the tree. The scheme of the murderer to collect the money from the tree was thwarted, makin’ necess’ry further steps. The same day Mrs. Kenting was approached for an appointment, perhaps with a promise of news of her husband—obviously by someone she trusted, for she went out alone at ten o’clock that night to keep the appointment. She was awaited—possibly just inside Central Park—by the same hard gentlemen who had done away with her husband. But instead of meeting with the same fate as Kaspar Kenting, she was taken to the house on Lord Street I visited last night, and held there as a sort of hostage. I rather imagine, don’t y’ know, that the perpetrator of this fiendish scheme had not yet been able to pay the price demanded for the neat performance of Kaspar’s killing, thereby irking the hired assassins. The lady still alive was a very definite menace to the schemer, since she would be able, if released, to tell with whom she had made the appointment. She was, so to speak, a threat held over one criminal by another criminal who was a bit more clever.
“Mrs. Kenting undoubtedly used, that evening, a certain kind of perfume—emerald—because it had been given to her by the person with whom she had the rendezvous. Surely, being a blonde, she knew better than to use it as her personal choice. That will explain to you gentlemen why I asked you so seemingly irrelevant a question the night before last... Incidentally,” he added calmly, “I happen to know who gave Mrs. Kenting that Courtet’s emerald.”
There was a slight stir, but Vance went on without a pause:
“Poor Kaspar! He was a weak chappie, and the price for his own murder was being wangled out of him without his realizing it. Through the gem collection of old Karl Kenting, of course. He was depleting that collection regularly at the subtle instigation of someone else, someone who took the gems and gave him practically nothing compared to what they were actually worth, hopin’ to turn them ov
er at an outrageous profit. But semiprecious stones are not so easy to dispose of through illegitimate channels. They really need a collector to appreciate them—and collectors have grown rather exactin’ regarding the origin of their purchases. A shady transaction of this nature would naturally require time, and the now-defunct henchmen who were waiting for settlement were becoming annoyed. Most of the really valuable stones, which I am sure the collection contained originally, were no longer there when I glanced over the cases the other morning. I am quite certain that the balas ruby I found in the poor fellow’s dinner coat was brought back because the purchaser would not give him what he thought it was worth—Kaspar probably mistook the stone for a real ruby. There were black opals missing from the collection, also exhibits of jade, which Karl Kenting must undoubtedly have included in the collection; and yesterday morning the absence of a large piece of alexandrite was discovered—”
Fraim Falloway suddenly leaped to his feet, glaring at Vance with the eyes of a maniac. There was an abnormal color in the young man’s face, and he was shaking from head to foot.
“I didn’t do it!” he screamed hysterically. “I didn’t have Kaspar killed! I tell you I didn’t—I didn’t! And you think I’d hurt Madelaine! You’re a devil. I didn’t do it, I say! You have no right to accuse me.” He reached down quickly and picked up a small, but heavy, bronze statue of Antinoüs on the table beside him. But Heath, who was standing at his side, was even quicker than Falloway. He grasped the youth’s shoulder with his free arm, just as the other lifted the statue to hurl at Vance. The figurine fell harmlessly to the floor, and Heath forced young Falloway back into his chair.
“Put your pulse-warmers on him, Snitkin,” he ordered.
Snitkin, standing just behind Fraim Falloway’s chair, leaned over and deftly manacled the youth, who sank back limply in his chair, breathing heavily.
Mrs. Falloway, who had sat stoically throughout the entire unexpected scene in the drawing room, now looked up quickly as Snitkin placed the handcuffs on her son. She leaned forward with horror in her eyes. I thought for a moment she was going to speak, but she made no comment.
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