The Bishop Murder Case

by S. S. Van Dine

  “The sobriquet was inevitable,” Vance observed sympathetically. “And it was rather a nice nickname, don’t y’ know. The original Cock Robin was loved by ‘all the birds of the air,’ and they all mourned his passing.” He watched the girl closely as he spoke.

  “I know,” she nodded. “I told him that once.—And everyone liked Joseph, too. You couldn’t help liking him. He was so—so goodhearted and kind.”

  Vance again settled back in his chair; and Markham continued his questioning.

  “You mentioned, Professor, that you heard Robin and Sperling talking in the drawing room. Could you hear any of their conversation?”

  The old man shot a sidelong glance at his niece.

  “Does that question really matter, Markham?” he asked, after a moment’s hesitation.

  “It may have some very vital bearing on the situation.”

  “Perhaps.” The professor drew on his pipe thoughtfully. “On the other hand, if I answer it, I may give an erroneous impression and do a grave injustice to the living.”

  “Can you not trust me to judge that point?” Markham’s voice had become at once grave and urgent.

  There was another short silence, broken by the girl.

  “Why don’t you tell Mr. Markham what you heard, uncle? What harm can it do?”

  “I was thinking of you, Belle,” the professor answered softly. “But perhaps you are right.” He looked up reluctantly. “The fact is, Markham, Robin and Sperling were having some angry words over Belle. I heard only a little, but I gathered that each regarded the other as being guilty of playing unfair—of standing in each other’s way—”

  “Oh! They didn’t mean it,” Miss Dillard interpolated vehemently. “They were always ragging each other. There was a little jealousy between them, but I wasn’t the real cause of it. It was their archery records. You see, Raymond—Mr. Sperling—used to be the better shot; but this last year Joseph beat him at several meets, and at our last annual tournament he became the club’s champion archer.”

  “And Sperling thought, perhaps,” added Markham, “that he had correspondingly fallen in your estimation.”

  “That’s absurd!” the girl retorted hotly.

  “I think, my dear, we can leave the matter safely in Mr. Markham’s hands,” Professor Dillard said mollifyingly. Then to Markham: “Were there any other questions you cared to ask?”

  “I’d like to know anything you can tell me about Robin and Sperling—who they are; their associations; and how long you have known them.”

  “I think that Belle can enlighten you better than I. Both boys belonged to her set. I saw them only occasionally.”

  Markham turned inquiringly to the girl.

  “I’ve known both of them for years,” she said promptly. “Joseph was eight or ten years older than Raymond and lived in England up to five years ago, when his father and mother both died. He came to America and took bachelor quarters on the Drive. He had considerable money and lived idly, devoting himself to fishing and hunting and other outdoor sports. He went about in society a little, and was a nice, comfortable friend who’d always fill in at a dinner or make a fourth hand at bridge. There was nothing really much to him—in an intellectual way, you understand… ”

  She paused, as if her remarks were in some way disloyal to the dead, and Markham, sensing her feelings, asked simply, “And Sperling?”

  “He’s the son of a wealthy manufacturer of something or other—retired now. They live in Scarsdale in a beautiful country home—our archery club has its regular ranges there—and Raymond is a consulting engineer for some firm downtown; though I imagine he works merely to placate his father, for he only goes to the office two or three days a week. He’s a graduate of Boston Tech, and I met him when he was a sophomore, home on vacation. Raymond will never set the world afire, Mr. Markham, but he’s really an awfully fine type of American young man—sincere, jolly, a little bashful, and perfectly straight.”

  It was easy to picture both Robin and Sperling from the girl’s brief descriptions; and it was correspondingly difficult to connect either of them with this sinister tragedy that had brought us to the house.

  Markham sat frowning for a while. Finally he lifted his head and looked straight at the girl.

  “Tell me, Miss Dillard: have you any theory or explanation that might, in any way, account for the death of Mr. Robin?”

  “No!” The word fairly burst from her. “Who could want to kill Cock Robin? He hadn’t an enemy in the world. The whole thing is incredible. I couldn’t believe it had happened until I went and—and saw for myself. Even then it didn’t seem real.”

  “Still, my dear child,” put in Professor Dillard, “the man was killed, so there must have been something in his life that you didn’t know or suspect. We’re constantly finding new stars that the old-time astronomers didn’t believe existed.”

  “I can’t believe Joseph had an enemy,” she retorted. “I won’t believe it. It’s too utterly absurd.”

  “You think, then,” asked Markham, “that it’s unlikely Sperling was in any way responsible for Robin’s death?”

  “Unlikely?” The girl’s eyes flashed. “It’s impossible!”

  “And yet, y’ know, Miss Dillard,”—it was Vance who now spoke in his lazy casual tone—“Sperling means ‘sparrow’.”

  The girl sat immobile. Her face had gone deathly pale, and her hands tightened over the arms of the chair. Then slowly, and as if with great difficulty, she nodded, and her breast began to rise and fall with her labored breathing. Suddenly she shuddered and pressed her handkerchief to her face.

  “I’m afraid!” she whispered.

  Vance rose and, going to her, touched her comfortingly on the shoulder.

  “Why are you afraid?”

  She looked up and met his eyes. They seemed to reassure her, for she forced a pitiful smile.

  “Only the other day,” she said, in a strained voice, “we were all on the archery range downstairs; and Raymond was just preparing to shoot a single American Round, when Joseph opened the basement door and stepped out on the range. There really wasn’t any danger, but Sigurd—Mr. Arnesson, you know—was sitting on the little rear balcony watching us; and when I cried ‘He! He!’ jokingly to Joseph, Sigurd leaned over and said: ‘You don’t know what a chance you’re running, young man. You’re a Cock Robin, and that archer’s a sparrow; and you remember what happened to your namesake when a Mr. Sparrow wielded the bow and arrow’—or something like that. No one paid much attention to it at the time. But now!…” Her voice trailed off into an awed murmur.

  “Come, Belle, don’t be morbid.” Professor Dillard spoke consolingly, but not without impatience. “It was merely one of Sigurd’s ill-timed witticisms. You know he’s continually sneering and jesting at realities—it’s about the only outlet he has from his constant application to abstractions.”

  “I suppose so,” the girl answered. “Of course, it was only a joke. But now it seems like some terrible prophecy.—Only,” she hastened to add, “Raymond couldn’t have done it.”

  As she spoke the library door opened suddenly, and a tall gaunt figure appeared on the threshold.

  “Sigurd!” Belle Dillard’s startled exclamation held an undeniable note of relief.

  Sigurd Arnesson, Professor Dillard’s protégé and adopted son, was a man of striking appearance—over six feet tall, wiry and erect, with a head which, at first view, appeared too large for his body. His almost yellow hair was unkempt, like a schoolboy’s; his nose was aquiline; and his jowls were lean and muscular. Though he could not have been over forty, there was a network of lines in his face. His expression was sardonically puckish; but the intense intellectual passion that lighted his blue-gray eyes belied any superficiality of nature. My initial reaction to this personality was one of liking and respect. There were depths in the man—powerful potentialities and high capabilities.

  As he entered the room that afternoon his searching eyes took us all in with a swift,
inquisitive glance. He nodded jerkily to Miss Dillard and then fixed the old professor with a look of dry amusement.

  “What, pray, has happened in this three-dimensional house? Wagons and populace without: a guardian at the portals…and when I finally overcame the Cerberus and was admitted by Pyne, two plainclothesmen hustled me up here without ceremony or explanation. Very amusing but disconcerting… Ah! I seem to recognize the district attorney. Good morning—or rather, afternoon—Mr. Markham.”

  Before Markham could return this belated greeting, Belle Dillard spoke. “Sigurd, please be serious.—Mr. Robin has been killed.”

  “ ‘Cock Robin,’ you mean. Well, well! With such a name what could the beggar expect?” He appeared wholly unmoved by the news. “Who, or what, returned him to the elements?”

  “As to who it was, we don’t know.” It was Markham who answered, in a tone of reproach for the other’s levity. “But Mr. Robin was killed with an arrow through the heart.”

  “Most fitting.” Arnesson sat down on the arm of a chair and extended his long legs. “What could be more appropriate than that Cock Robin should die from an arrow shot from the bow of—”

  “Sigurd!” Belle Dillard cut him short. “Haven’t you joked enough about that? You know that Raymond didn’t do it.”

  “Of course, sis.” The man looked at her somewhat wistfully. “I was thinking of Mr. Robin’s ornithological progenitor.” He turned slowly to Markham. “So it’s a real murder mystery, is it—with a corpse, and clues, and all the trappings? May I be entrusted with the tale?”

  Markham gave him a brief outline of the situation, to which he listened with rapt interest. When the account was ended, he asked, “Was there no bow found on the range?”

  “Ah!” Vance, for the first time since the man’s arrival, roused himself from seeming lethargy and answered for Markham. “A most pertinent question, Mr. Arnesson.—Yes, a bow was found just outside of the basement window, barely ten feet from the body.”

  “That, of course, simplifies matters,” said Arnesson, with a note of disappointment. “It’s only a question now of taking the fingerprints.”

  “Unfortunately the bow has been handled,” explained Markham. “Professor Dillard picked it up and brought it into the house.”

  Arnesson turned to the older man curiously. “What impulse, sir, directed you to do that?”

  “Impulse? My dear Sigurd, I didn’t analyze my emotions. But it struck me that the bow was a vital piece of evidence, and I placed it in the basement as a precautionary measure until the police arrived.”

  Arnesson made a wry face and cocked one eye humorously.

  “That sounds like what our psychoanalytical friends would call a suppression-censor explanation. I wonder what submerged idea was actually in your mind… ”

  There was a knock at the door, and Burke put his head inside. “Doc Doremus is waiting for you downstairs, Chief. He’s finished his examination.”

  Markham rose and excused himself.

  “I sha’n’t bother you people any more just at present. There’s considerable preliminary routine work to be done. But I must ask you to remain upstairs for the time being. I’ll see you again before I go.”

  Doremus was teetering impatiently on his toes when we joined him in the drawing room.

  “Nothing complicated about it,” he began before Markham had a chance to speak. “Our sporty friend was killed by an arrow with a mighty sharp point entering his heart through the fourth intercostal space. Lot of force behind it. Plenty of hemorrhage inside and out. He’s been dead about two hours, I should say, making the time of his death around half past eleven. That’s only guesswork, however. No signs of a struggle—no marks on his clothes or abrasions on his hands. Death supervened most likely without his knowing what it was all about. He got a nasty bump, though, where his head hit the rough cement when he fell—”

  “Now, that’s very interestin’.” Vance’s drawling voice cut in on the medical examiner’s staccato report. “How serious a ‘bump’ was it, Doctor?”

  Doremus blinked and eyed Vance with some astonishment.

  “Bad enough to fracture the skull. I couldn’t feel it, of course, but there was a large hematoma over the occipital region, dried blood in the nostrils and the ears, and unequal pupils, indicating a fracture of the vault. I’ll know more about it after the autopsy.” He turned back to the district attorney. “Anything else?”

  “I think not, Doctor. Only let us have your postmortem report as soon as possible.”

  “You’ll have it tonight. The sergeant’s already phoned for the wagon.” And shaking hands with all of us, he hurried away.

  Heath had stood glowering in the background. “Well, that don’t get us anywheres, sir,” he complained, chewing viciously on his cigar.

  “Don’t be downhearted, Sergeant,” Vance chided him. “That blow on the back of the head is worthy of your profoundest consideration. I’m of the opinion it wasn’t entirely due to the fall, don’t y’ know.”

  The sergeant was unimpressed by this observation. “What’s more, Mr. Markham,” he went on, “there wasn’t any fingerprints on either the bow or the arrow. Dubois says they looked as though they’d both been wiped clean. There were a few smears on the end of the bow where the old gentleman picked it up, but not another sign of a print.”

  Markham smoked awhile in gloomy silence. “What about the handle on the gate leading to the street? And the knob on the door to the alley between the apartment houses?”

  “Nothing!” Heath snorted his disgust. “Both of rough, rusty iron that wouldn’t take a print.”

  “I say, Markham,” observed Vance, “you’re going at this thing the wrong way. Naturally there’d be no fingerprints. Really, y’ know, one doesn’t carefully produce a playlet and then leave all the stage props in full view of the audience. What we’ve got to learn is why this particular impresario decided to indulge in silly theatricals.”

  “It ain’t as easy as that, Mr. Vance,” submitted Heath bitterly.

  “Did I intimate it was easy? No, Sergeant, it’s deucedly difficult. And it’s worse than difficult: it’s subtle and obscure and…fiendish.”

  Footnote

  *The book referred to by Professor Dillard was the great work which appeared two years later, “The Atomic Structure of Radiant Energy,” a mathematical emendation of Planck’s quantum theory refuting the classical axiom of the continuity of all physical processes, as contained in Maximus Tyrius’ Oύδέ ένταΰθα ή φύσιϚ μεταπηδά άθρόωϚ.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A Mysterious Note

  (Saturday, April 2; 2 p.m.)

  MARKHAM SAT DOWN resolutely before the center table. “Suppose, Sergeant, we overhaul the two servants now.”

  Heath stepped into the hall and gave an order to one of his men. A few moments later a tall, somber, disjointed man entered and stood at respectful attention.

  “This is the butler, sir,” explained the sergeant. “Named Pyne.”

  Markham studied the man appraisingly. He was perhaps sixty years old. His features were markedly acromegalic; and this distortion extended to his entire figure. His hands were large, and his feet broad and misshapen. His clothes, though neatly pressed, fitted him badly; and his high clerical collar was several sizes too large for him. His eyes, beneath gray, bushy eyebrows, were pale and watery, and his mouth was a mere slit in an unhealthily puffy face. Despite his utter lack of physical prepossession, however, he gave one the impression of shrewd competency.

  “So you are the Dillard butler,” mused Markham. “How long have you been with the family, Pyne?”

  “Going on ten years, sir.”

  “You came, then, just after Professor Dillard resigned his chair at the university?”

  “I believe so, sir.” The man’s voice was deep and rumbling.

  “What do you know of the tragedy that occurred here this morning?” Though Markham put the question suddenly, in the hope, I imagine, of surprisi
ng some admission, Pyne received it with the utmost stoicism.

  “Nothing whatever, sir. I was unaware that anything had happened until Professor Dillard called to me from the library and asked me to look for Mr. Sperling.”

  “He told you of the tragedy then?”

  “He said: ‘Mr. Robin has been murdered, and I wish you’d find Mr. Sperling for me.’—That was all, sir.”

  “You’re sure he said ‘murdered,’ Pyne?” interjected Vance.

  For the first time the butler hesitated, and an added astuteness crept into his look.

  “Yes, sir—I’m sure he did. ‘Murdered’ is what he said.”

  “And did you see the body of Mr. Robin when you pushed your search?” pursued Vance, his eyes idly tracing a design on the wall.

  Again there was a brief hesitation.

  “Yes, sir. I opened the basement door to look out on the archery range, and there I saw the poor young gentleman… ”

  “A great shock it must have given you, Pyne,” Vance observed dryly. “Did you, by any hap, touch the poor young gentleman’s body?—or the arrow, perhaps?—or the bow?”

  Pyne’s watery eyes glistened for a moment. “No—of course not, sir… Why should I, sir?”

  “Why, indeed?” Vance sighed wearily. “But you saw the bow?”

  The man squinted, as if for purposes of mental visualization.

  “I couldn’t say, sir. Perhaps, yes; perhaps, no. I don’t recall.”

  Vance seemed to lose all interest in him; and Markham resumed the interrogation.

  “I understand, Pyne, that Mr. Drukker called here this morning about half past nine. Did you see him?”

  “Yes, sir. He always uses the basement door; and he said good morning to me as he passed the butler’s pantry at the head of the steps.”

  “He returned the same way he came?”

  “I suppose so, sir—though I was upstairs when he went. He lives in the house at the rear—”

  “I know.” Markham leaned forward. “I presume it was you who admitted Mr. Robin and Mr. Sperling this morning.”