“Well, well. Another conference, eh?” He gave us a quizzical leer and threw himself into a chair beside the professor. “I thought the case had been adjudicated, so to speak. Didn’t Pardee’s suicide put finis to the affair?”
Vance looked straight into the man’s eyes. “We’ve found little Miss Muffet, Mr. Arnesson.”
The other’s eyebrows went up with sardonic amusement. “Sounds like a charade. What am I supposed to answer: ‘How’s little Jack Horner’s thumb?’ Or, should I inquire into the health of Jack Sprat?”
Vance did not relax his steady gaze. “We found her in the Drukker house, locked in a closet,” he amplified in a low, even tone.
Arnesson became serious, and an involuntary frown gathered on his forehead. But this slackening of pose was only transient. Slowly his mouth twisted into a smirk.
“You policemen are so efficient. Fancy finding little Miss Muffet so soon. Remarkable.” He wagged his head in mock admiration. “However, sooner or later it was to be expected.—And what, may I ask, is to be the next move?”
“We also found the typewriter,” pursued Vance, ignoring the question. “And Drukker’s stolen notebook.”
Arnesson was at once on his guard.
“Did you really?” He gave Vance a canny look. “Where were these telltale objects?”
“Upstairs—in the attic.”
“Aha! Housebreaking?”
“Something like that.”
“Withal,” Arnesson scoffed, “I can’t see that you have a cast-iron case against anyone. A typewriter is not like a suit of clothes that fits only one person. And who can say how Drukker’s notebook found its way into our attic?—You must do better than that, Mr. Vance.”
“There is, of course, the factor of opportunity. The Bishop is a person who could have been on hand at the time of each murder.”
“That is the flimsiest of contributory evidence,” the man countered. “It would not help much toward a conviction.”
“We might be able to show why the murderer chose the sobriquet of Bishop.”
“Ah! That unquestionably would help.” A cloud settled on Arnesson’s face, and his eyes became reminiscent. “I’d thought of that, too.”
“Oh, had you, now?” Vance watched him closely. “And there’s another piece of evidence I haven’t mentioned. Little Miss Muffet will be able to identify the man who led her to the Drukker house and forced her into the closet.”
“So! The patient has recovered?”
“Oh, quite. Doing nicely, in fact. We found her, d’ ye see, twenty-four hours before the Bishop intended us to.”
Arnesson was silent. He was staring down at his hands which, though folded, were working nervously. Finally he spoke.
“And if, in spite of everything, you were wrong… ”
“I assure you, Mr. Arnesson,” said Vance quietly, “that I know who is guilty.”
“You positively frighten me!” The man had got a grip on himself, and he retorted with biting irony. “If, by any chance, I myself were the Bishop, I’d be inclined to admit defeat… Still, it’s quite obvious that it was the Bishop who took the chessman to Mrs. Drukker at midnight; and I didn’t return home with Belle until half past twelve that night.”
“So you informed her. As I recall, you looked at your watch and told her what time it was.—Come, now: what time was it?”
“That’s correct—half past twelve.”
Vance sighed and tapped the ash from his cigarette. “I say, Mr. Arnesson, how good a chemist are you?”
“One of the best,” the man grinned. “Majored in it.—What, then?”
“When I was searching the attic this morning, I discovered a little wall closet in which someone had been distilling hydrocyanic acid from potassium ferrocyanide. There was a chemist’s gas mask on hand and all the paraphernalia. Bitter-almond odor still lurking in the vicinity.”
“Quite a treasure trove, our attic. A sort of haunt of Loki, it would seem.”
“It was just that,” returned Vance gravely, “—the den of an evil spirit.”
“Or else the laboratory of a modern Doctor Faustus…But why the cyanide, do you think?”
“Precaution, I’d say. In case of trouble the Bishop could step out of the picture painlessly. Everything in readiness, don’t y’ know.”
Arnesson nodded. “Quite a correct attitude on his part. Really decent of him, in fact. No use putting people to unnecessary bother if you’re cornered. Yes, very correct.”
Professor Dillard had sat during this sinister dialogue with one hand pressed to his eyes, as though in pain. Now he turned sorrowfully to the man he had fathered for so many years.
“Many great men, Sigurd, have justified suicide—” he began; but Arnesson cut him short with a cynical laugh.
“Faugh! Suicide needs no justification. Nietzsche laid the bugaboo of voluntary death. ‘Auf eine stolze Art sterben, wenn es nicht mehr möglich ist, auf eine stolze Art zu leben. Der Tod unter den verächtlichsten Bedingungen, ein unfreier Tod, ein Tod zur unrechten Zeit ist ein Feiglings-Tod. Wir haben es nicht in der Hand, zu verhindern, geboren zu werden: aber wir können diesen Fehler—denn bisweilen ist es ein Fehler—wieder gut machen. Wenn man sich abschafft, tut man die achtungswürdigste Sache, die es giebt: man verdient beinahe damit, zu leben.’*—Memorized that passage from Götzen-Dämmerung in my youth. Never forgot it. A sound doctrine.”
“Nietzsche had many famous predecessors who also upheld suicide,” supplemented Vance. “Zeno the Stoic left us a passionate dithyramb defending voluntary death. And Tacitus, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Cato, Kant, Fichte, Diderot, Voltaire, and Rousseau all wrote apologias for suicide. Schopenhauer protested bitterly against the fact that suicide was regarded as a crime in England… And yet, I wonder if the subject can be formulated. Somehow I feel that it’s too personal a matter for academic discussion.”
The professor agreed sadly. “No one can know what goes on in the human heart in that last dark hour.”
During this discussion Markham had been growing impatient and uneasy; and Heath, though at first rigid and watchful, had begun to unbend. I could not see that Vance had made the slightest progress; and I was driven to the conclusion that he had failed signally in accomplishing his purpose of ensnaring Arnesson. However, he did not appear in the least perturbed. I even got the impression that he was satisfied with the way things were going. But I did notice that, despite his outer calm, he was intently alert. His feet were drawn back and poised; and every muscle in his body was taut. I began to wonder what the outcome of this terrible conference would be.
The end came swiftly. A short silence followed the professor’s remark. Then Arnesson spoke.
“You say you know who the Bishop is, Mr. Vance. That being the case, why all this palaver?”
“There was no great haste.” Vance was almost casual. “And there was the hope of tying up a few loose ends—hung juries are so unsatisfact’ry, don’t y’ know… Then, again, this port is excellent.”
“The port?… Ah, yes.” Arnesson glanced at our glasses and turned an injured look on the professor. “Since when have I been a teetotaler, sir?”
The other gave a start, hesitated, and rose. “I’m sorry, Sigurd. It didn’t occur to me…you never drink in the forenoon.” He went to the sideboard and, filling another glass, placed it, with an unsteady hand, before Arnesson. Then he refilled the other glasses.
No sooner had he resumed his seat than Vance uttered an exclamation of surprise. He had half risen and was leaning forward, his hands resting on the edge of the table, his eyes fixed with astonishment on the mantel at the end of the room.
“My word! I never noticed that before… Extr’ordin’ry!”
So unexpected and startling had been his action, and so tense was the atmosphere, that involuntarily we swung about and looked in the direction of his fascinated gaze.
“A Cellini plaque!” he exclaimed. “The Nymph of Fontainebleau! Berenson told me it was destroyed in the
seventeenth century. I’ve seen its companion piece in the Louvre… ”
A red flush of angry indignation mounted to Markham’s cheeks; and for myself I must say that, familiar as I was with Vance’s idiosyncrasies and intellectual passion for rare antiques, I had never before known him to exhibit such indefensible bad taste. It seemed unbelievable that he would have let himself be distracted by an objet d’art in such a tragic hour.
Professor Dillard frowned at him with consternation.
“You’ve chosen a strange time, sir, to indulge your enthusiasm for art,” was his scathing comment.
Vance appeared abashed and chagrined. He sank back in his seat, avoiding our eyes, and began turning the stem of his glass between his fingers.
“You are quite right, sir,” he murmured. “I owe you an apology.”
“The plaque, incidentally,” the professor added, by way of mitigating the severity of his rebuke, “is merely a copy of the Louvre piece.”
Vance, as if to hide his confusion, raised his wine to his lips. It was a highly unpleasant moment: everyone’s nerves were on edge; and, in automatic imitation of his action we lifted our glasses, too.
Vance gave a swift glance across the table and, rising, went to the front window, where he stood, his back to the room. So unaccountable was his hasty departure that I turned and watched him wonderingly. Almost at the same moment the edge of the table was thrust violently against my side, and simultaneously there came a crash of glassware.
I leapt to my feet and gazed down with horror at the inert body sprawled forward in the chair opposite, one arm and shoulder flung across the table. A short silence of dismay and bewilderment followed. Each of us seemed momentarily paralyzed. Markham stood like a graven image, his eyes fastened on the table; and Heath, staring and speechless, clung rigidly to the back of his chair.
“Good Gad!”
It was Arnesson’s astonished ejaculation that snapped the tension. Markham went quickly round the table and bent over Professor Dillard’s body.
“Call a doctor, Arnesson,” he ordered.
Vance turned wearily from the window and sank into a chair.
“Nothing can be done for him,” he said, with a deep sigh of fatigue. “He prepared for a swift and painless death when he distilled his cyanide.—The Bishop case is over.”
Markham was glaring at him with dazed incomprehension.
“Oh, I’ve half-suspected the truth ever since Pardee’s death,” Vance went on, in answer to the other’s unspoken question. “But I wasn’t sure of it until last night when he went out of his way to hang the guilt on Mr. Arnesson.”
“Eh? What’s that?” Arnesson turned from the telephone.
“Oh, yes,” nodded Vance. “You were to pay the penalty. You’d been chosen from the first as the victim. He even suggested the possibility of your guilt to us.”
Arnesson did not seem as surprised as one would have expected.
“I knew the professor hated me,” he said. “He was intensely jealous of my interest in Belle. And he was losing his intellectual grip—I’ve seen that for months. I’ve done all the work on his new book, and he’s resented every academic honor paid me. I’ve had an idea he was back of all this deviltry; but I wasn’t sure. I didn’t think, though, he’d try to send me to the electric chair.”
Vance got up and, going to Arnesson, held out his hand.
“There was no danger of that.—And I want to apologize for the way I’ve treated you this past half hour. Merely a matter of tactics. Y’ see, we hadn’t any real evidence, and I was hopin’ to force his hand.”
Arnesson grinned somberly.
“No apology necessary, old son. I knew you didn’t have your eye on me. When you began riding me, I saw it was only technique. Didn’t know what you were after, but I followed your cues the best I could. Hope I didn’t bungle the job.”
“No, no. You turned the trick.”
“Did I?” Arnesson frowned with deep perplexity. “But what I don’t understand is why he should have taken the cyanide when he thought it was I you suspected.”
“That particular point we’ll never know,” said Vance. “Maybe he feared the girl’s identification. Or he may have seen through my deception. Perhaps he suddenly revolted at the idea of shouldering you with the onus… As he himself said, no one knows what goes on in the human heart during the last dark hour.”
Arnesson did not move. He was looking straight into Vance’s eye with penetrating shrewdness.
“Oh, well,” he said at length, “we’ll let it go at that… Anyway, thanks!”
Footnotes
*I admit that the name of Rhazis was unfamiliar to me; and when I looked it up later, I found that the episode to which Vance referred does not appear in the Anglican Bible, but in the second book of Maccabees in the Apocrypha.
*“One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. The death which takes place in the most contemptible circumstances, the death that is not free, the death which occurs at the wrong time, is the death of a coward. We have not the power to prevent ourselves from being born; but this error—for sometimes it is an error—can be rectified if we choose. The man who does away with himself, performs the most estimable of deeds; he almost deserves to live for having done so.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Heath Asks a Question
(Tuesday, April 26; 4 p.m.)
WHEN MARKHAM AND Vance and I departed from the Dillard house an hour later, I thought the Bishop affair was over. And it was over as far as the public was concerned. But there was another revelation to come; and it was, in a way, the most astounding of all the facts that had been brought to light that day.
Heath joined us at the district attorney’s office after lunch, for there were several delicate official matters to be discussed; and later that afternoon Vance reviewed the entire case, explaining many of its obscure points.
“Arnesson has already suggested the motive for these insane crimes,” he began. “The professor knew that his position in the world of science was being usurped by the younger man. His mind had begun to lose its force and penetration; and he realized that his new book on atomic structure was being made possible only through Arnesson’s help. A colossal hate grew up in him for his foster son; Arnesson became in his eyes a kind of monster whom he himself, like Frankenstein, had created, and who was now rising to destroy him. And this intellectual enmity was augmented by a primitive emotional jealousy. For ten years he had centered in Belle Dillard the accumulated affection of a life of solit’ry bachelorhood—she represented his one hold on everyday existence—and when he saw that Arnesson was likely to take her from him, his hatred and resentment were doubled in intensity.”
“The motive is understandable,” said Markham. “But it does not explain the crimes.”
“The motive acted as a spark to the dry powder of his pent-up emotions. In looking about for a means to destroy Arnesson, he hit upon the diabolical jest of the Bishop murders. These murders gave relief to his repressions; they met his psychic need for violent expression; and at the same time they answered the dark question in his mind how he could dispose of Arnesson and keep Belle Dillard for himself.”
“But why,” Markham asked, “didn’t he merely murder Arnesson and have done with it?”
“You overlook the psychological aspects of the situation. The professor’s mind had disintegrated through long intense repression. Nature was demanding an outlet. And it was his passionate hatred of Arnesson that brought the pressure to an explosion point. The two impulses were thus combined. In committing the murders, he was not only relieving his inhibitions but he was also venting his wrath against Arnesson, for Arnesson, d’ ye see, was to pay the penalty. Such a revenge was more potent, and hence more satisfying, than the mere killing of the man would have been—it was the great grim joke behind the lesser jokes of the murders themselves…
“However, this fiendish scheme had one great disadvantage, though the professor did not s
ee it. It laid the affair open to psychological analysis; and at the outset I was able to postulate a mathematician as the criminal agent. The difficulty of naming the murderer lay in the fact that nearly every possible suspect was a mathematician. The only one I knew to be innocent was Arnesson, for he was the only one who consistently maintained a psychic balance—that is, who constantly discharged the emotions arising from his protracted abstruse speculations. A general sadistic and cynical attitude that is volubly expressed, and a violent homicidal outburst, are psychologically equivalent. Giving full rein to one’s cynicism as one goes along produces a normal outlet and maintains an emotional equilibrium. Cynical, scoffing men are always safe, for they are farthest removed from sporadic physical outbreaks; whereas the man who represses his sadism and accumulates his cynicism beneath a grave and stoical exterior is always liable to dangerous fulminations. This is why I knew Arnesson was incapable of the Bishop murders and why I suggested your letting him help us with the investigation. As he admitted, he suspected the professor; and his request to assist us was, I believe, actuated by a desire to keep posted so that he could better protect Belle Dillard and himself in case his suspicions should prove correct.”
“That sounds reasonable,” acceded Markham. “But where did Dillard get his fantastic ideas for the murders?”
“The Mother Goose motif was probably suggested to him when he heard Arnesson jestingly tell Robin to beware of an arrow from Sperling’s bow. He saw in that remark a means of venting his hatred against the man who had made it; and he bided his time. The opportunity to stage the crime came shortly after. When he saw Sperling pass up the street that morning, he knew that Robin was alone in the archery room. So he went below, engaged Robin in conversation, struck him over the head, drove a shaft into his heart, and shoved him out on the range. He then wiped up the blood, destroyed the cloth, posted his notes at the corner, put one in the house letterbox, returned to the library, and called up this office. One unforeseen factor cropped up, however:—Pyne was in Arnesson’s room when the professor said he went out on the balcony. But no harm came of it, for though Pyne knew something was amiss when he caught the professor lying, he certainly didn’t suspect the old gentleman of being a murderer. The crime was a decided success.”
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