The Bishop Murder Case

by S. S. Van Dine

  “I say, didn’t you loiter a bit by the wayside?”

  “I sat down near the 79th Street entrance and smoked a cigarette.”

  For nearly half an hour Markham and Vance interrogated Pardee, but nothing more could be learned from him. As we came out into the street Arnesson hailed us from the front porch of the Dillard house and stalked forward to meet us.

  “Just heard the sad news. Got home from the university a little while ago, and the professor told me you’d gone to rag Pardee. Learn anything?” Without waiting for an answer, he ran on: “Frightful mess. I understand the entire Drukker family is wiped out. Well, well. And more storybook mumbo-jumbo to boot… Any clues?”

  “Ariadne has not yet favored us,” responded Vance. “Are you an ambassador from Crete?”

  “One never knows. Bring out your questionnaire.”

  Vance had led the way toward the wall gate, and we now stepped down on the range.

  “We’ll repair to the Drukker house first,” he said. “There’ll be a number of things to settle. I suppose you’ll look after Drukker’s affairs and the funeral arrangements.”

  Arnesson made a grimace. “Elected! I refuse, however, to attend the funeral. Obscene spectacles, funerals. But Belle and I will see to everything. Lady Mae probably left a will. We’ll have to find it. Now, where do women generally hide their wills?… ”

  Vance halted by the Dillards’ basement door and stepped into the archery room. After glancing along the door’s molding he rejoined us on the range.

  “The alley key isn’t there.—By the by, what do you know about it, Mr. Arnesson?”

  “You mean the key to yon wooden door in the fence?… Haven’t an idea on the subject. Never use the alley myself—much simpler going out the front door. No one uses it, as far as I know. Belle locked it up years ago: thought someone might sneak in off the Drive and get an arrow in the eye. I told her, let ’em get popped—serve ’em right for being interested in archery.”

  We entered the Drukker house by the rear door. Belle Dillard and Mrs. Menzel were busy in the kitchen.

  “Hallo, sis,” Arnesson greeted the girl. His cynical manner had been dropped. “Hard lines for a young ’un like you. You’d better run home now. I’ll assume command.” And taking her arm in a jocularly paternal fashion, he led her to the door.

  She hesitated and looked back at Vance.

  “Mr. Arnesson is right,” he nodded. “We’ll carry on for the present.—But just one question before you go. Did you always keep the key to the alley door hanging in the archery room?”

  “Yes—always. Why? Isn’t it there now?”

  It was Arnesson who answered, with burlesque irony. “Gone! Disappeared!—Most tragic. Some eccentric key-collector has evidently been snooping around.” When the girl had left us, he cocked an eye at Vance. “What, in the name of all that’s unholy, has a rusty key to do with the case?”

  “Perhaps nothing,” said Vance carelessly. “Let’s go to the drawin’ room. It’s more comfortable there.” He led the way down the hall. “We want you to tell us what you can about last night.”

  Arnesson took an easy chair by the front window and drew out his pipe.

  “Last night, eh?…Well, Pardee came to dinner—it’s a sort of habit with him on Fridays. Then Drukker, in the throes of quantum speculation, dropped in to pump the professor; and Pardee’s presence galled him. Showed his feelings, too, by Gad! No control. The professor broke up the contretemps by taking Drukker for an airing. Pardee moped for fifteen minutes or so, while I tried to keep awake. Then he had the goodness to depart. I looked over a few test papers…and so to bed.” He lighted his pipe. “How does that thrilling recital explain the end of poor Drukker?”

  “It doesn’t,” said Vance. “But it’s not without interest.—Did you hear Professor Dillard when he returned home?”

  “Hear him?” Arnesson chuckled. “When he hobbles about with his gouty foot, thumping his stick down and shaking the banisters, there’s no mistaking his arrival on the scene. Fact is, he was unusually noisy last night.”

  “Offhand, what do you make of these new developments?” asked Vance, after a short pause.

  “I’m somewhat foggy as to the details. The professor was not exactly phosphorescent. Sketchy, in fact. Drukker fell from the wall, like Humpty Dumpty, round ten o’clock, and was found this morning—that’s all plain. But under what conditions did Lady Mae succumb to shock? Who, or what, shocked her? And how?”

  “The murderer took Drukker’s key and came here immediately after the crime. Mrs. Drukker caught him in her son’s room. There was a scene, according to the cook, who listened from the head of the stairs; and during it Mrs. Drukker died from dilatation of the heart.”

  “Thereby relieving the gentleman of the bother of killing her.”

  “That seems clear enough,” agreed Vance. “But the reason for the murderer’s visit here is not so lucid. Can you suggest an explanation?”

  Arnesson puffed thoughtfully on his pipe. “Incomprehensible,” he muttered at length. “Drukker had no valuables, or no compromising documents. Straightforward sort of cuss—not the kind to mix in any dirty business… No possible reason for anyone prowling about his room.”

  Vance lay back and appeared to relax. “What was this quantum theory Drukker was working on?”

  “Ha! Big thing!” Arnesson became animated. “He was on the path of reconciling the Einstein-Bohr theory of radiation with the facts of interference, and of overcoming the inconsistencies inherent in Einstein’s hypothesis. His research had already led him to an abandonment of causal space-time coordination of atomic phenomena and to its replacement by a statistical description.*…Would have revolutionized physics—made him famous. Shame he was told off before he’d put his data in shape.”

  “Do you happen to know where Drukker kept the records of these computations?”

  “In a looseleaf notebook—all tabulated and indexed. Methodical and neat about everything. Even his chirography was like copperplate.”

  “You know, then, what the notebook looked like?”

  “I ought to. He showed it to me often enough. Red limp-leather cover—thin yellow pages—two or three clips on every sheet holding notations—his name gold-stamped in large letters on the binding… Poor devil! Sic transit…”

  “Where would this notebook be now?”

  “One of two places—either in the drawer of his desk in the study or else in the escritoire in his bedroom. In the daytime, of course, he worked in the study; but he fussed day and night when wrapped up in a problem. Kept an escritoire in his bedroom, where he put his current records when he retired, in case he got an inspiration to monkey with ’em during the night. Then, in the morning, back they’d go to the study. Regular machine for system.”

  Vance had been gazing lazily out of the window as Arnesson rambled on. The impression he gave was that he had scarcely heard the description of Drukker’s habits; but presently he turned and fixed Arnesson with a languid look.

  “I say,” he drawled, “would you mind toddling upstairs and fetching Drukker’s notebook? Look in both the study and the bedroom.”

  I thought I noticed an almost imperceptible hesitation on Arnesson’s part, but straightway he rose.

  “Good idea. Too valuable a document to be left lying round.” And he strode from the room.

  Markham began pacing the floor, and Heath revealed his uneasiness by puffing more energetically on his cigar. There was a tense atmosphere in the little drawing room as we waited for Arnesson’s return. Each of us was in a state of expectancy, though just what we hoped for or feared would have been difficult to define.

  In less than ten minutes Arnesson reappeared at the door. He shrugged his shoulders and held out empty hands.

  “Gone!” he announced. “Looked in every likely place—couldn’t find it.” He threw himself into a chair and relighted his pipe. “Can’t understand it… Perhaps he hid it.”

  “Perhaps,” murmured
Vance.

  Footnote

  *An important step toward the solution of these complex problems was taken a few years later by the de Broglie-Schrödinger theory as laid down in de Broglie’s Ondes et Mouvements and Schrödinger’s Abhandlungen zur Wellenmechanik.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Nemesis

  (Saturday, April 16; 1 p.m.)

  IT WAS PAST one o’clock, and Markham, Vance and I rode to the Stuyvesant Club. Heath remained at the Drukker house to carry on the routine work, to draw up his report, and to deal with the reporters who would be swarming there shortly.

  Markham was booked for a conference with the police commissioner at three o’clock; and after lunch Vance and I walked to Stieglitz’s Intimate Gallery and spent an hour at an exhibition of Georgia O’Keeffe’s floral abstractions. Later we dropped in at Aeolian Hall and sat through Debussy’s G-minor quartette. There were some Cézanne watercolors at the Montross Galleries; but by the time we had pushed our way through the late-afternoon traffic of Fifth Avenue, the light had begun to fail, and Vance ordered the chauffeur to the Stuyvesant Club, where we joined Markham for tea.

  “I feel so youthful, so simple, so innocent,” Vance complained lugubriously. “So many things are happenin’, and they’re bein’ manipulated so ingeniously that I can’t grasp ’em. It’s very disconcertin’, very confusin’. I don’t like it—I don’t at all like it. Most wearin’.” He sighed drearily and sipped his tea.

  “Your sorrows leave me cold,” retorted Markham. “You’ve probably spent the afternoon inspecting arquebuses and petronels at the Metropolitan Museum. If you’d had to go through what I’ve suffered—”

  “Now, don’t be cross,” Vance rebuked him. “There’s far too much emotion in the world. Passion is not going to solve this case. Cerebration is our only hope. Let us be calm and thoughtful.” His mood became serious. “Markham, this comes very near being the perfect crime. Like one of Morphy’s great chess combinations, it has been calculated a score of moves ahead. There are no clues; and even if there were, they’d probably point in the wrong direction. And yet…and yet there’s something that’s trying to break through. I feel it: sheer intuition—that is to say, nerves. There’s an inarticulate voice that wants to speak, and can’t. A dozen times I’ve sensed the presence of some struggling force, like an invisible ghost trying to make contact without revealing its identity.”

  Markham gave an exasperated sigh. “Very helpful. Do you advise calling in a medium?”

  “There’s something we’ve overlooked,” Vance went on, disregarding the sarcasm. “The case is a cipher, and the keyword is somewhere before us, but we don’t recognize it. ’Pon my soul, it’s dashed annoyin’… Let’s be orderly. Neatness—that’s our desideratum. First, Robin is killed. Next, Sprigg is shot. Then Mrs. Drukker is frightened with a black bishop. After that, Drukker is shoved over a wall. Makin’ four distinct episodes in the murderer’s extravaganza. Three of ’em were carefully planned. One—the leaving of the bishop at Mrs. Drukker’s door—was forced on the murderer, and was therefore decided on without preparation… ”

  “Clarify your reasoning on that point.”

  “Oh, my dear fellow! The conveyor of the black bishop was obviously acting in self-defense. An unexpected danger developed along his line of campaign, and he took this means of averting it. Just before Robin’s death Drukker departed from the archery room and installed himself in the arbor of the yard, where he could look into the archery room through the rear window. A little later he saw someone in the room talking to Robin. He returned to his house, and at that moment Robin’s body was thrown on the range. Mrs. Drukker saw it and at the same time she probably saw Drukker. She screamed—very natural, what? Drukker heard the scream, and told us of it later in an effort to establish an alibi for himself after we’d informed him that Robin had been killed. Thus the murderer learned that Mrs. Drukker had seen something—how much, he didn’t know. But he wasn’t taking any chances. He went to her room at midnight to silence her and took the bishop to leave beside her body as a signature. But he found the door locked and left the bishop outside, by way of warning her to say nothing on pain of death. He didn’t know that the poor woman suspected her own son.”

  “But why didn’t Drukker tell us whom he saw in the archery room with Robin?”

  “We can only assume that the person was someone whom he couldn’t conceive of as being guilty. And I’m inclined to believe he mentioned the fact to this person and thus sealed his own doom.”

  “Assuming the correctness of your theory, where does it lead us?”

  “To the one episode that wasn’t elaborately prepared in advance. And when there has been no preparation for a covert act, there is pretty sure to be a weakness in one or more of the details.—Now, please note that at the time of each of the three murders any one of the various persons in the drama could have been present. No one had an alibi. That, of course, was cleverly calculated: the murderer chose an hour when all of the actors were, so to speak, waiting in the wings. But that midnight visit! Ah! That was a different matter. There was no time to work out a perfect set of circumstances—the menace was too immediate. And what was the result? Drukker and Professor Dillard were, apparently, the only persons on hand at midnight. Arnesson and Belle Dillard were supping at the Plaza and didn’t return home until half past twelve. Pardee was hornlocked with Rubinstein over a chessboard from eleven to one. Drukker is now of course eliminated… What’s the answer?”

  “I could remind you,” returned Markham irritably, “that the alibis of the others have not been thoroughly checked.”

  “Well, well, so you could.” Vance lay back indolently and sent a long regular series of smoke rings toward the ceiling. Suddenly his body tensed, and with meticulous care he leaned over and put out his cigarette. Then he glanced at his watch and got to his feet. He fixed Markham with a quizzical look.

  “Allons, mon vieux. It’s not yet six. Here’s where Arnesson makes himself useful.”

  “What now?” expostulated Markham.

  “Your own suggestion,” Vance replied, taking him by the arm and leading him toward the door. “We’re going to check Pardee’s alibi.”

  Half an hour later we were seated with the professor and Arnesson in the Dillard library.

  “We’ve come on a somewhat unusual errand,” explained Vance, “but it may have a vital bearing on our investigation.” He took out his wallet and unfolded a sheet of paper. “Here’s a document, Mr. Arnesson, I wish you’d glance over. It’s a copy of the official scoresheet of the chess game between Pardee and Rubinstein. Very interestin’. I’ve toyed with it a bit, but I’d like your expert analysis of it. The first part of the game is usual enough, but the play after the adjournment rather appeals to me.”

  Arnesson took the paper and studied it with cynical amusement.

  “Aha! The inglorious record of Pardee’s Waterloo, eh?”

  “What’s the meaning of this, Markham?” asked Professor Dillard contemptuously. “Do you hope to run a murderer to earth by dillydallying over a chess game?”

  “Mr. Vance hoped something could be learned from it.”

  “Fiddlesticks!” The professor poured himself another glass of port and, opening a book, ignored us completely.

  Arnesson was absorbed in the notations of the chess score. “Something a bit queer here,” he muttered. “The time’s askew. Let’s see… The scoresheet shows that, up to the time of adjournment, White—that is, Pardee—had played one hour and forty-five minutes, and Black, or Rubinstein, one hour and fifty-eight minutes. So far, so good. Thirty moves. Quite in order. But the time at the end of the game, when Pardee resigned, totals two hours and thirty minutes for White, and three hours and thirty-two minutes for Black—which means that, during the second session of the game, White consumed only forty-five minutes whereas Black used up one hour and thirty-four minutes.”

  Vance nodded. “Exactly. There were two hours and nineteen minutes of play beg
inning at eleven p.m., which carried the game to one nineteen a.m. And Rubinstein’s moves during that time took forty-nine minutes longer than Pardee’s.—Can you make out what happened?”

  Arnesson pursed his lips and squinted at the notations. “It’s not clear. I’d need time.”

  “Suppose,” Vance suggested, “we set up the game in the adjourned position and play it through. I’d like your opinion on the tactics.”

  Arnesson rose jerkily and went to the little chess table in the corner. “Good idea.” He emptied the men from the box. “Let’s see now… Oho! A black bishop is missing. When do I get it back, by the way?” He gave Vance a plaintive leer. “Never mind. We don’t need it here. One black bishop was swapped.” And he proceeded to arrange the men to accord with the position of the game at the time of adjournment. Then he sat down and studied the setup.

  “It doesn’t strike me as a particularly unfavorable position for Pardee,” ventured Vance.

  “Me either. Can’t see why he lost the game. Looks drawish to me.” After a moment Arnesson referred to the scoresheet. “We’ll run through the play and find out where the trouble lay.” He made half a dozen moves, then, after several minutes’ study, gave a grunt. “Ha! This is rather deep stuff of Rubinstein’s. Amazing combination he began working up here. Subtle, by Gad! As I know Rubinstein, it took him a long time to figure it out. Slow, plodding chap.”

  “It’s possible, isn’t it,” suggested Vance, “that the working out of that combination explains the discrepancy in time between Black and White?”

  “Oh, undoubtedly. Rubinstein must have been in good form not to have made the discrepancy greater. Planning the combination took him all of forty-five minutes—or I’m a duffer.”

  “At what hour, would you say,” asked Vance carelessly, “did Rubinstein use up that forty-five minutes?”

  “Well, let’s see. The play began at eleven: six moves before the combination started… Oh, say, somewhere between half past eleven and half past twelve… Yes, just about. Thirty moves before the adjournment: six moves beginning at eleven—that makes thirty-six: then on the forty-fourth move Rubinstein moved his pawn to Bishop-7-check, and Pardee resigned… Yes—the working out of the combination was between eleven-thirty and twelve-thirty.”