Philo Vance 12 Novels Complete Bundle

by S. S. Van Dine

  "Poor little Miss Muffet," he whispered, and rising went toward the front stairs. Heath preceded him, flashing his light all the way so there would be no chance of his stumbling. In the main lower hall he paused.

  "Unbolt the door, Sergeant."

  Heath obeyed with alacrity, and Vance stepped out on the sidewalk.

  "Go to the Dillards' and wait for me there," he flung back over his shoulder. And with the child clasped closely to his breast he started diagonally across 76th Street to a house on which I could make out a doctor's brass name-plate.

  CHAPTER XXV

  THE CURTAIN FALLS

  (Tuesday, April 26; 11 a.m.)

  Twenty minutes later Vance rejoined us in the Dillard drawing-room.

  "She's going to be all right," he announced, sinking into a chair and lighting a cigarette. "She was only unconscious, had fainted from shock and fright; and she was half-suffocated." His face darkened. "There were bruises on her little wrist. She probably struggled in that empty house when she failed to find Humpty Dumpty; and then the beast forced her into the closet and locked the door. No time to kill her, d' ye see. Furthermore, killing wasn't in the book. 'Little Miss Muffet' wasn't killed--merely frightened away. She'd have died, though, from lack of air. And he was safe: no one could hear her crying. . . ."

  Markham's eyes rested on Vance affectionately.

  "I'm sorry I tried to hold you back," he said simply. (For all his conventionally legal instincts, there was a fundamental bigness to his nature.) "You were right in forcing the issue, Vance. . . . And you, too, Sergeant. We owe a great deal to your determination and faith."

  Heath was embarrassed.

  "Oh, that's all right, sir. You see, Mr. Vance had me all worked up about the kid. And I like kids, sir."

  Markham turned an inquisitive look on Vance.

  "You expected to find the child alive?"

  "Yes; but drugged or stunned perhaps. I didn't think of her as dead, for that would have contravened the Bishop's joke."

  Heath had been pondering some troublous point.

  "What I can't get through my head," he said, "is why this Bishop, who's been so damn careful about everything else, should leave the door of the Drukker house unlocked."

  "We were expected to find the child," Vance told him. "Everything was made easy for us. Very considerate of the Bishop, what? But we weren't supposed to find her till to-morrow--after the papers had received the Little-Miss-Muffet notes. They were to have been our clew. But we anticipated the gentleman."

  "But why weren't the notes sent yesterday?"

  "It was no doubt the Bishop's original intention to post his poetry last night; but I imagine he decided it was best for his purpose to let the child's disappearance attract public attention first. Otherwise the relationship between Madeleine Moffat and little Miss Muffet might have been obscured."

  "Yeh!" snarled Heath through his teeth. "And by to-morrow the kid woulda been dead. No chance then of her identifying him."

  Markham looked at his watch and rose with determination.

  "There's no point in waiting for Arnesson's return. The sooner we arrest him the better." He was about to give Heath an order when Vance intervened.

  "Don't force the issue, Markham. You haven't any real evidence against the man. It's too delicate a situation for aggression. We must go carefully or we'll fail."

  "I realize that the finding of the typewriter and the note-book is not conclusive," concurred Markham. "But the identification by the child--"

  "Oh, my dear fellow! What weight would a jury attach to a frightened five-year-old girl's identification without powerful contribut'ry evidence? A clever lawyer could nullify it in five minutes. And even assuming you could make the identification hold, what would it boot you? It wouldn't connect Arnesson in any way with the Bishop murders. You could only prosecute him for attempted kidnapping,--the child's unharmed, remember. And if you should, through a legal miracle, get a doubtful conviction, Arnesson would receive at most a few years in the bastille. That wouldn't end this horror. . . . No, no. You mustn't be precipitate."

  Reluctantly Markham resumed his seat. He saw the force of Vance's argument.

  "But we can't let this thing go on," he declared ferociously. "We must stop this maniac some way."

  "Some way--yes." Vance began pacing the room restlessly. "We may be able to wangle the truth out of him by subterfuge: he doesn't know yet that we've found the child. . . . It's possible Professor Dillard could assist us--" He halted and stood looking down at the floor. "Yes! That's our one chance. We must confront Arnesson with what we know when the professor is present. The situation is sure to force an issue of some kind. The professor now will do all in his power to help convict Arnesson."

  "You believe he knows more than he had told us?"

  "Undoubtedly. I've told you so from the first. And when he hears of the Little-Miss-Muffet episode, it's not unlikely he'll supply us with the evidence we need."

  "It's a long chance." Markham was pessimistic. "But it can do no harm to try. In any event, I shall arrest Arnesson before I leave here, and hope for the best."

  A few moments later the front door opened and Professor Dillard appeared in the hall opposite the archway. He scarcely acknowledged Markham's greeting--he was scanning our faces as if trying to read the meaning of our unexpected visit. Finally he put a question.

  "You have, perhaps, thought over what I said last night?"

  "Not only have we thought it over," said Markham, "but Mr. Vance has found the thing that was disturbing you. After we left here he showed me a copy of 'The Pretenders.'"

  "Ah!" The exclamation was like a sigh of relief. "For days that play has been in my mind, poisoning every thought. . . ." He looked up fearfully. "What does it mean?"

  Vance answered the question.

  "It means, sir, that you've led us to the truth. We're waiting now for Mr. Arnesson.--And I think it would be well if we had a talk with you in the meantime. You may be able to help us."

  The old man hesitated.

  "I had hoped not to be made an instrument in the boy's conviction." His voice held a tragic paternal note. But presently his features hardened; a vindictive light shone in his eyes; and his hand tightened over the knob of his stick. "However, I can't consider my own feelings now. Come; I will do what I can."

  On reaching the library he paused by the sideboard and poured himself a glass of port. When he had drunk it he turned to Markham with a look of apology.

  "Forgive me. I'm not quite myself." He drew forward the little chess table and placed glasses on it for all of us. "Please overlook my discourtesy." He filled the glasses and sat down.

  We drew up chairs. There was none of us, I think, who did not feel the need of a glass of wine after the harrowing events we had just passed through.

  When we had settled ourselves the professor lifted heavy eyes to Vance, who had taken a seat opposite to him.

  "Tell me everything," he said. "Don't try to spare me."

  Vance drew out his cigarette-case.

  "First, let me ask you a question. Where was Mr. Arnesson between five and six yesterday afternoon?"

  "I--don't know." There was a reluctance in the words. "He had tea here in the library; but he went out about half past four, and I didn't see him again until dinner time."

  Vance regarded the other sympathetically for a moment, then he said:

  "We've found the typewriter on which the Bishop notes were printed. It was in an old suit-case hidden in the attic of this house."

  The professor showed no sign of being startled.

  "You were able to identify it?"

  "Beyond any doubt. Yesterday a little girl named Madeleine Moffat disappeared from the playground in the park. There was a sheet of paper in the machine, and on it had already been typed: 'Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet.'"

  Professor Dillard's head sank forward.

  "Another insane atrocity! If only I hadn't waited till last night to warn you--!" />
  "No great harm has been done," Vance hastened to inform him. "We found the child in time: she's out of danger now."

  "Ah!"

  "She had been locked in the hall-closet on the top floor of the Drukker house. We had thought she was here somewhere--which is how we came to search your attic."

  There was a silence; then the professor asked:

  "What more have you to tell me?"

  "Drukker's note-book containing his recent quantum researches was stolen from his room the night of his death. We found this note-book in the attic with the typewriter."

  "He stooped even to that?" It was not a question, but an exclamation of incredulity. "Are you sure of your conclusions? Perhaps if I had made no suggestion last night--had not sowed the seed of suspicion. . . ."

  "There can be no doubt," declared Vance softly. "Mr. Markham intends to arrest Mr. Arnesson when he returns from the university. But to be frank with you, sir: we have practically no legal evidence, and it is a question in Mr. Markham's mind whether or not the law can even hold him. The most we can hope for is a conviction for attempted kidnapping through the child's identification."

  "Ah, yes . . . the child would know." A bitterness crept into the old man's eyes. "Still, there should be some means of obtaining justice for the other crimes."

  Vance sat smoking pensively, his eyes on the wall beyond. At last he spoke with quiet gravity.

  "If Mr. Arnesson were convinced that our case against him was a strong one, he might choose suicide as a way out. That perhaps would be the most humane solution for every one."

  Markham was about to make an indignant protest, but Vance anticipated him.

  "Suicide is not an indefensible act per se. The Bible, for instance, contains many accounts of heroic suicide. What finer example of courage than Rhazis', when he threw himself from the tower to escape the yoke of Demetrius?* There was gallantry, too, in the death of Saul's sword-bearer, and in the self-hanging of Ahithophel. And surely the suicides of Samson and Judas Iscariot had virtue. History is filled with notable suicides--Brutus and Cato of Utica, Hannibal, Lucretia, Cleopatra, Seneca. . . . Nero killed himself lest he fall into the hands of Otho and the Pretorian guards. In Greece we have the famous self-destruction of Demosthenes; and Empedocles threw himself in the crater of Etna. Aristotle was the first great thinker to advance the dictum that suicide is an anti-social act, but, according to tradition, he himself took poison after the death of Alexander. And in modern times let us not forget the sublime gesture of Baron Nogi. . . ."

  * 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.

  "All that is no justification of the act," Markham retorted. "The law--"

  "Ah, yes--the law. In Chinese law every criminal condemned to death has the option of suicide. The Codex adopted by the French National Assembly at the end of the eighteenth century abolished all punishments for suicide; and in the Sachsenspiegel--the principal foundation of Teuton law--it is plainly stated that suicide is not a punishable act. Moreover, among the Donatists, Circumcellions and Patricians suicide was considered pleasing to the gods. And even in More's Utopia there was a synod to pass on the right of the individual to take his own life. . . . Law, Markham, is for the protection of society. What of a suicide that makes possible that protection? Are we to invoke a legal technicality, when, by so doing, we actually lay society open to continued danger? Is there no law higher than those on the statute books?"

  Markham was sorely troubled. He rose and walked the length of the room and back, his face dark with anxiety. When he sat down again he looked at Vance a long while, his fingers drumming with nervous indecision on the table.

  "The innocent of course must be considered," he said in a voice of discouragement. "As morally wrong as suicide is, I can see your point that at times it may be theoretically justified." (Knowing Markham as I did, I realized what this concession had cost him; and I realized, too, for the first time, how utterly hopeless he felt in the face of the scourge of horror which it was his duty to wipe out.)

  The old professor nodded understandingly.

  "Yes, there are some secrets so hideous that it is well for the world not to know them. A higher justice may often be achieved without the law taking its toll."

  As he spoke the door opened, and Arnesson stepped into the room.

  "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 tell-tale objects?"

  "Up-stairs--in the attic."

  "Aha! Housebreaking?"

  "Something like that."

  "Withal," Arnesson scoffed, "I can't see that you have a cast-iron case against any one. A typewriter is not like a suit of clothes that fits only one person. And who can say how Drukker's note-book 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 some one 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 veräcktlichsten 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."

  * "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."