"The gardenia, of course--and the bloodstains," Markham murmured.
"Oh, yes; it was quite evident. . . . And after Stamm had killed Greeff and mutilated him exactly as he had mutilated Montague, he took him down to the pot-holes in the wheelbarrow, over the sandy ground along the foot of the cliff, where he would not attract the attention of any guard that might have been stationed on the East Road."
Heath gave a gratified grunt.
"And then he left the wheelbarrow in that bunch of trees, and pussy-footed back to the house."
"Exactly, Sergeant. Moreover, the grating metallic noise that Leland heard was obviously the creaking of the rusty hinges of the vault door; and the other sound which Leland described could have been nothing but the wheelbarrow. And, despite all Stamm's caution on re-entering the house, both Leland and Trainor heard him throw the bolt."
Vance sighed.
"It was not a perfect murder, Markham, but it had the elements of perfection in it. It was a bold murder, too; for if either of the murders were solved, both would be solved. It was a double gamble--the placing of two chips, instead of one, on a selected number."
Again Markham nodded sombrely.
"That part is clear enough now," he said. "But why should the key to the vault have been found in Tatum's room?"
"That was part of Stamm's fundamental mistake. As I have said, Stamm was overcautious. He didn't have the courage to carry through his plot without building bridges. He may have had the key for years, or he may have secured it recently from Mrs. Stamm's trunk. But really, it doesn't matter. Once he had used it for his purpose, he could not throw it away, for obviously he intended to remove the diving suit from the vault when the first opportunity offered. He could have hidden the key in the meantime; but if the diving suit had been discovered in the vault by some one's tearing down a wall or breaking in the door, suspicion would immediately have fallen on him, as it was his own diving suit. Therefore, in an effort to protect himself in this remote eventuality, he probably put the key first in Greeff's room, to point suspicion to Greeff. Then, when the opportunity to murder Greeff arose, Stamm planted the key in Tatum's room. Stamm liked Leland and wanted Bernice to marry him--which, incidentally, was the primary motive for his getting rid of Montague--and he certainly would not have tried to throw suspicion on Leland. You will remember that I first searched Greeff's room--I thought that the key might be there, inasmuch as there was a possibility we would think that Greeff had merely run away. But when it was not there I looked for it in Tatum's room. Luckily we found it and didn't have to break into the vault--which I would certainly have insisted upon if there had been no other means of entering."
"But what I still don't understand, Vance," Markham persisted, "is why the key should have interested you in the first place."
"Neither do I--entirely," Vance returned. "And it's much too hot tonight to indulge in psychological analyses of my mental quirks. Let's say, for brevity, that my idea about the key was mere guesswork. As you know, the vault fascinated me because of its strategic position; and I couldn't see how else the first murder could have been so neatly accomplished unless the vault had been used in some way. It was most convenient, don't y' know. But the entire matter was far from clear in my mind. In fact, it was dashed vague. However, I thought it worth determining, and that's why I went to Mrs. Stamm and demanded to know the hiding-place of the key. I frightened her into telling me, for she didn't associate the vault with Stamm's machinations. When I discovered that the key had disappeared from its hiding-place, I was more convinced than ever that it was a factor in the solution of our problem."
"But how, in the name of Heaven," asked Markham, "did you first hit upon the idea that Stamm was the guilty person? He was the only person in the house that seemed to have a good alibi."
Vance shook his head slowly.
"No, Markham old dear; he was the only member of the party who did not have an alibi. And it was for that reason that I had my eye on him from the first--although I admit there were other possibilities. Stamm, of course, thought that he had built up a perfect alibi, at the same time hoping that the murder would pass as a mere departure. But when Montague's murder was established, Stamm's position was really weaker than that of any of the others; for he was the only one who was not standing beside the pool at the time Montague dived in. It would have been difficult for any one of the others to have murdered Montague in the circumstances, just as it would have been impossible for Stamm to have murdered him if he had actually been in a state of acute alcoholism. It was this combination of circumstances that gave me my first inkling of the truth. Naturally, Stamm couldn't have gone to the pool with the others and still have accomplished his purpose; and, reasoning from this premise, I arrived at the conclusion that it was possible for him to have feigned drunkenness by secretly disposing of his liquor, and then made his drunkenness a reality after he had returned to the house. When I learned that he had spent the entire evening on the davenport in the library, I naturally became interested in the jardinière holding the rubber-plant at the head of the davenport."
"But, Vance," protested Markham, "if you were so certain from the first that the crime was rational and commonplace, why all the silly pother about a dragon?"
"It was not silly. There was always the remote possibility that some strange fish, or sea-monster, had been responsible for Montague's death. Even the greatest zoologists understand but little about aquatic life: it is positively amazin' how meagre our knowledge of under-water creatures really is. The breeding of the Betta, for instance, has been going on for decades, and with all our experimentation with this labyrinth family, no one knows whether the Betta pugnax is a nest-builder or a mouthbreeder. Mrs. Stamm was quite right when she ridiculed scientific knowledge of submarine life. And you must not forget, Markham, that Stamm was an ardent fish hunter, and that he brought back to this country all kinds of rare specimens about which practically nothing is known. Scientifically, the superstition of the pool could not be ignored. But, I admit, I did not take the matter very seriously. I clung childishly to the trodden paths, for life has a most disappointin' way of proving commonplace and rational when we are hopin' most passionately for the bizarre and supernatural. Anyway, I thought it worth while to inspect Stamm's collection of fish. But I was more or less familiar with all his exhibits; so I descended to the realm of simple, understandable things, and tested the soil in the jardinière."
"And incidentally," Markham commented, with a slow smile, "you lingered over the fish and the other plants so as not to give Stamm any idea of what you were really after in the rubber-plant pot."
Vance smiled back.
"It may be, don't y' know. . . . How about another magnum of Pol Roger?" And he rang for Currie.
It was less than a year after these two sinister murders at the old Dragon Pool, with their sequence of tragedies, that Leland and Bernice Stamm were married. They were both strong and, in many ways, remarkable characters; but the memory of the tragedies affected them too deeply for them to remain in Inwood. They built a home in the hills of Westchester, and went there to live. Vance and I visited them shortly after their marriage.
The old Stamm residence was never occupied again, and the estate was acquired by the city and added to what is now Inwood Hill Park. The house was torn down, and only the crumbling stones of its foundation remain. But the two square stone posts of the entrance gate, which marked the beginning of the driveway from Bolton Road, are still standing. The old Dragon Pool exists no more. The stream that fed it was diverted into Spuyten Duyvil Creek. Its semi-artificial bed has been filled in, and what was once the basin of the Dragon Pool is now overgrown with wild vegetation. It would be difficult today even to trace the course of the old stream or to determine the former boundaries of that sinister and tragic pool.
After the final tragedy and the breaking up of the century-old traditions of the Stamm estate, I often wondered what became of Trainor, the butler, when the doors of the ancient ma
nsion had been closed for all time. Why the memory of the fellow should have remained in my mind, I cannot say; but there was in him something at once ghost-like and corporeal, something both pathetic and offensive, which made a strong impression on me. I was, therefore, glad when I recently ran into him.
Vance and I were visiting a tropical-fish shop in East 34th Street; and there, behind the counter, half hidden by the tanks, was Trainor.
He recognized Vance at once, and shook his head lugubriously as we approached him.
"I'm not doing so well with my Scatophagus here," he repined. "Not the proper conditions--if you know what I mean, sir."
THE END
The Garden Murder Case (1935)
A Philo Vance Story
by
S. S. Van Dine
* * *
An two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind.
--Much Ado About Nothing.
* * *
CONTENTS
I. THE TROJAN HORSES
II. DOMESTIC REVELATIONS
III. THE RIVERMONT RACES
IV. THE FIRST TRAGEDY
V. A SEARCH IN THE VAULT
VI. AN INTERRUPTED INTERVIEW
VII. EVIDENCE OF MURDER
VIII. DISCONNECTED WIRES
IX. TWO CIGARETTE STUBS
X. THE $10,000 BET
XI. THE SECOND REVOLVER
XII. POISON GAS
XIII. THE AZURE STAR
XIV. RADIOACTIVE SODIUM
XV. THREE VISITORS
XVI. THROUGH THE GARDEN DOOR
XVII. AN UNEXPECTED SHOT
XVIII. THE SCRATCH SHEET
CHARACTERS OF THE BOOK PHILO VANCE JOHN F.-X. MARKHAM District Attorney of New York County. ERNEST HEATH Sergeant of the Homicide Bureau. EPHRAIM GARDEN Professor of chemistry. MARTHA GARDEN Professor Garden's wife. FLOYD GARDEN Their son. WOODE SWIFT Nephew of the Gardens. ZALIA GRAEM Young sportswoman, and friend of Floyd Garden. LOWE HAMMLE An elderly follower of horse-racing. MADGE WEATHERBY A woman with dramatic aspirations. CECIL KROON Another of Floyd Garden's friends. BERNICE BEETON A nurse in the Garden home. DOCTOR MILES SIEFERT The Gardens' family physician. SNEED The Garden butler. HENNESSEY Detective of the Homicide Bureau. SNITKIN Detective of the Homicide Bureau. SULLIVAN Detective of the Homicide Bureau. BURKE Detective of the Homicide Bureau. DOCTOR EMANUEL DOREMUS Medical Examiner. CAPTAIN DUBOIS Finger-print expert. DETECTIVE BELLAMY Finger-print expert. PETER QUACKENBUSH Official photographer. JACOB HANNIX A book-maker. CURRIE Vance's valet.
* * *
THE GARDEN MURDER CASE
CHAPTER I
THE TROJAN HORSES
(Friday, April 13; 10 p.m.)
There were two reasons why the terrible and, in many ways, incredible Garden murder case--which took place in the early spring following the spectacular Casino murder case* (*"The Casino Murder Case" [1934])--was so designated. In the first place, the scene of this tragedy was the penthouse home of Professor Ephraim Garden, the great experimental chemist of Stuyvesant University; and secondly, the exact situs criminis was the beautiful private roof-garden over the apartment itself.
It was both a peculiar and implausible affair, and one so cleverly planned that only by the merest accident--or, perhaps I should say a fortuitous intervention--was it discovered at all. Despite the fact that the circumstances preceding the crime were entirely in Philo Vance's favor, I cannot help regarding it as one of his greatest triumphs in criminal investigation and deduction; for it was his quick uncanny judgments, his ability to read human nature, and his tremendous flair for the significant undercurrents of the so-called trivia of life, that led him to the truth.
The Garden murder case involved a curious and anomalous mixture of passion, avarice, ambition and horse-racing. There was an admixture of hate, also; but this potent and blinding element was, I imagine, an understandable outgrowth of the other factors. However, the case was amazing in its subtleties, its daring, its thought-out mechanism, and its sheer psychological excitation.
The beginning of the case came on the night of April 13. It was one of those mild evenings that we often experience in early spring following a spell of harsh dampness, when all the remaining traces of winter finally capitulate to the inevitable seasonal changes. There was a mellow softness in the air, a sudden perfume from the burgeoning life of nature--the kind of atmosphere that makes one lackadaisical and wistful, and, at the same time, stimulates one's imagination.
I mention this seemingly irrelevant fact because I have good reason to believe these meteorological conditions had much to do with the startling events that were imminent that night and which were to break forth, in all their horror, before another twenty-four hours had passed.
And I believe that the season, with all its subtle innuendoes, was the real explanation of the change that came over Vance himself during his investigation of the crime. Up to that time I had never considered Vance a man of any deep personal emotion, except in so far as children and animals and his intimate masculine friendships were concerned. He had always impressed me as a man so highly mentalized, so cynical and impersonal in his attitude toward life, that an irrational human weakness like romance would be alien to his nature. But in the course of his deft inquiry into the murders in Professor Garden's penthouse, I saw, for the first time, another and softer side of his character. Vance was never a happy man in the conventional sense; but after the Garden murder case there were evidences of an even deeper loneliness in his sensitive nature.
But these sentimental side-lights perhaps do not matter in the reportorial account of the astonishing history I am here setting down, and I doubt if they should have been mentioned at all but for the fact that they gave an added inspiration and impetus to the energy Vance exerted and the risks he ran in bringing the murderer to justice.
As I have said, the case opened--so far as Vance was concerned with it-- on the night of April 13. John F.-X. Markham, then District Attorney of New York County, had dined with Vance at his apartment in East 38th Street. The dinner had been excellent--as all of Vance's dinners were-- and at ten o'clock the three of us were sitting in the comfortable library, sipping Napoléon 1809--that famous and exquisite cognac brandy of the First Empire.* (*I realize that this statement will call forth considerable doubt, for real Napoléon brandy is practically unknown in America. But Vance had obtained a case in France; and Lawton Mackall, an exacting connoisseur, has assured me that, contrary to the existing notion among experts, there are at least eight hundred cases of this brandy in a warehouse in Cognac at the present day.)
Vance and Markham had been discussing crime waves in a desultory manner. There had been a mild disagreement, Vance discounting the theory that crime waves are calculable, and holding that crime is entirely personal and therefore incompatible with generalizations or laws. The conversation had then drifted round to the bored young people of post-war decadence who had, for the sheer excitement of it, organized crime clubs whose members tried their hand at murders wherein nothing was to be gained materially. The Loeb-Leopold case naturally was mentioned, and also a more recent and equally vicious case that had just come to light in one of the leading western cities.
It was in the midst of this discussion that Currie, Vance's old English butler and major-domo, appeared at the library door. I noticed that he seemed nervous and ill at ease as he waited for Vance to finish speaking; and I think Vance, too, sensed something unusual in the man's attitude, for he stopped speaking rather abruptly and turned.
"What is it, Currie? Have you seen a ghost, or are there burglars in the house?"
"I have just had a telephone call, sir," the old man answered, endeavoring to restrain the excitement in his voice.
"Not bad news from abroad?" Vance asked sympathetically.
"Oh, no, sir; it wasn't anything for me. There was a gentleman on the phone--"
Vance lifted his eyebrows and smiled faintly. "A gentleman, Currie?"
"He spoke like a gentleman, sir. He was certainl
y no ordinary person. He had a cultured voice, sir, and--"
"Since your instinct has gone so far," Vance interrupted, "perhaps you can tell me the gentleman's age?"
"I should say he was middle-aged, or perhaps a little beyond," Currie ventured. "His voice sounded mature and dignified and judicial."
"Excellent!" Vance crushed out his cigarette. "And what was the object of this dignified, middle-aged gentleman's call? Did he ask to speak to me or give you his name?"
A worried look came into Currie's eyes as he shook head.
"No, sir. That's the strange part of it. He said he did not wish to speak to you personally, and he would not tell me his name. But he asked me to give you a message. He was very precise about it and made me write it down word for word and then repeat it. And the moment I had done so he hung up the receiver." Currie stepped forward. "Here's the message, sir." And he held out one of the small memorandum sheets Vance always kept at his telephone.
Vance took it and nodded a dismissal. Then he adjusted his monocle and held the slip of paper under the light of the table lamp. Markham and I both watched him closely, for the incident was unusual, to say the least. After a hasty reading of the paper he gazed off into space, and a clouded look came into his eyes. He read the message again, with more care, and sank back into his chair.
"My word!" he murmured. "Most extr'ordin'ry. It's quite intelligible, however, don't y' know. But I'm dashed if I can see the connection..."
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