The Washington Square Enigma

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  In turn he related both Rafferty’s story and the story Rafferty had received from his friend, Johnny Wilkins. Bit by bit he brought out the connection of Mazzoli, the opera singer, in the matter, and finally the concluding incidents; his own trip to the house and his forced exit through the roof trapdoor. He paused a moment here, smiling reminiscently, and then related briefly the adventure in the deserted graveyard and Harling’s later production of the genuine ruby.

  Harling had been uneasily watching Morningstar’s face during the recital, wondering at the man’s rashness in exposing Trudel’s connection with matters; worried, too, about what effect the disclosure was to have on his own safety. Yet, in spite of the utter lack of concealment displayed by Morningstar, Harling could sense an impending revelation that was to throw a new light entirely on the Washington Square enigma.

  Trudel, too, had her brows knit in a puzzled frown, and she stirred uneasily in her chair several times. But nothing occurred to interrupt the speaker.

  As Morningstar neared the adventure in the graveyard, mentioning no names, no suspects, Harling forgot his own anxiety in watching Vandervoort. The latter, as the final words came forth describing Harling’s production of the real ruby, stiffened up tightly in his chair, his right hand clenched for a second, his face fell, and for the briefest space of time, his lower jaw dropped half open. Then, like a gambler who has met with a blow from chance, he seemed to pull himself together and in a moment was again sprawling in his chair, smiling, half sneering, the same Vandervoort who had first entered the room.

  Morningstar paused after finishing his skillful outline of the complicated events which had led up to a situation apparently requiring the presence of all these men in the room. Then he resumed speaking:

  “Inspector Chapley, before I proceed with something of great interest to several gentlemen here, may I ask you to tell us all what you just told me before the guests arrived — the specific part of Mazzoli’s confession to you at Headquarters which concerns the house on Washington Square?”

  The Federal official smiled: “Gladly.” He turned to the rest. “There is nothing about the matter that needs concealment. Mazzoli managed to secure his release yesterday on high bail, but on the new testimony which was unearthed through Mr. Morningstar’s arrest of Rafferty, the opera singer was again taken into custody tonight and brought back to Headquarters.

  “When he was confronted with a copy of Rafferty’s statement,” the Inspector went on, “and realized that it could now be proved in a court of law that he himself had placed in the Bond safe three hundred counterfeits of the B-12225555 issue — serially numbered, to be sure, by extra press work — but otherwise all from the same unlawful plate — the same notes, in fact, which our Italian prisoner claims he was to receive from Mazzoli — he confessed at last and turned Government evidence on the rest of the band which has been flooding the United States with spurious fives of that issue. Mazzoli, consequently, has forced himself to admit that he is the original Silvestro Ruggieri, the engraver who did some negotiable railroad bonds and two-dollar bills some years ago.” He glanced toward Morningstar. “Does this answer your question?”

  “Not quite,” admitted the latter. “I was referring particularly to the note he received at his hotel this morning.”

  At the mention of a note, Vandervoort leaned forward in his chair; his face took on a nervous, worried look and seemed to pale a shade whiter than ever.

  “Regarding the note — yes,” returned Chapley. “Mazzoli tells us that he received a note this morning from a certain individual in Chicago, who requested him to come between noon and two o’clock today to a deserted house on Washington Square, the door of which would be left unlocked. The writer of the note practically assured Mazzoli that for a consideration of a number of counterfeit fives he could tell him the name of the man who opened Bond’s safe in Evanston and who now held the dangerous packet which would convict Mazzoli of the counterfeiting charge he had so luckily dodged.”

  Chapley paused and looked about the room. “So I believe it is plain now, gentlemen, that the police have been on the wrong track. We know that Bond went to No. 63 Delaware Place to negotiate with the crook who, Mr. Morningstar explains, was dying in the hospital all the time. We know likewise that this other individual selected that same house as a rendezvous for a meeting with Mazzoli.

  “Mazzoli,” the inspector continued, “says he feared the note was a police trick, and so stayed away. Hence it’s plain that the two men who expected to meet entirely different people, met each other instead, one, perhaps, going out, and the other, coming in. Something took place, and the individual who expected to meet Mazzoli killed Bond with the convenient ornamental hat pin which was dropped in that closet by Miss Vanderhuyden. This note makes up a complete case for the regular City Police. It supplies the name of a man who was to go to this house and the hours he expected to be there — all in his own handwriting.”

  “And the name of the signer of that note, Inspector?” pressed Morningstar.

  “The name,” Chapley said gravely, “I’m convinced any jury in the land will decide is the name of the murderer of Samuel P. Bond. I was agreeably surprised tonight when I heard that name in the introductions and found that I was to be seated between its owner and the door of the library. The name, gentlemen, is Mr. Courtenay Vandervoort.”

  A profound silence followed the Inspector’s statement. Vandervoort gasped and swallowed hard several times. He looked around at the circle of faces, and stirred uneasily in his chair.

  But Morningstar’s voice broke in on the intense stillness. “I’m thinking, Vandervoort,” he said, “as the Inspector thinks — that any jury in the land that knows you had an appointment in an empty house, the same as Bond; that neither of your two respective men showed up; that one of you two was found dead with a handy weapon left behind two days before, will convict you of murder in the first or second degree. But on the old theory of heaping coals of fire on the human head, I’m going to speak out — providing you will admit part of what I shall claim — and save you from the electric chair over in the County Jail.”

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  A QUESTION IN MEDICINE

  AT THIS juncture, Vandervoort rose up on his feet and looked wildly from one face to the other. “This is all a lie,” he cried. “I did not kill Bond. I did not. I tell you I did not. I don’t care if there was a note found on Mazzoli. I don’t care if — ”

  “Sit down, if you please,” commanded Morningstar sharply. “I have said that I will clear you, Vandervoort, and I’ll do it if you will give me time — and give me facts when I ask for them. But you’ll have to be silent. Am I to have the floor or not?”

  Vandervoort remained standing for a second longer, staring desperately toward Morningstar; then he slumped down into his seat and leaned forward, tense, anxious.

  “Since my visit to 63 Delaware Place tonight,” Morningstar went on, “I am convinced that although Vandervoort was in that house, he did not kill Bond. From a certain feature of the case given me by Miss Vanderhuyden, I know that he was there, but I could not conceive of why he was there. That was a puzzler.”

  He glanced toward the ashen-faced man in the corner:

  “Vandervoort, I claim that Bond was dead when you let yourself into that house at noon today with a skeleton key to wait for Mazzoli. There is no doubt that an effectual means of getting a package of those clever but spurious fives was open to any one who might give Mazzoli the name of the man who robbed Bond’s safe in Evanston. It would be very much to the advantage of Mazzoli to go to this crook; to warn him that the fives he had taken were spurious and to pass them away from Chicago; to give him more, in fact; to do anything to avoid having the crook inadvertently trip up both Mazzoli and himself by promiscuously passing them.

  “Vandervoort,” Morningstar continued, “you knew Bond well; you were Bond’s closest friend. You felt that the safe robbery was simply a put-up job to enable Bond to get the ruby out of the
jurisdiction of the courts, and you knew furthermore that by pressing Bond, you could persuade him to give you the name of the man who did the stunt. You knew that that name would be invaluable to the man Mazzoli, if the latter were really the counterfeiter whom the police were trying to prove he was; and so, after waiting patiently day after day until Mazzoli should secure bail, the day of his freedom came. And you got ready to play him.

  “The first thing, however,” Morningstar went on, “was to bargain with Mazzoli. You happened to know that Bond owned an old rattletrap of a vacant house on Washington Square, and by the sheerest of bad luck you selected this house to mention in your note to Mazzoli. When you let yourself in there to wait for Mazzoli, who wanted to come and yet was afraid to, you found Bond’s dead body on the floor. There was a big, purple bruise on the temple of that body. It looked very much as if someone had struck Bond on the temple with a heavy instrument — perhaps the chair. But that is not the case.

  “I claim,” Morningstar continued, “that Bond had been dead over eighteen hours when you came upon him today; that he did not spend last night in a downtown hotel, as might be deduced from some of his past performances; that he was killed yesterday shortly after he entered the house at three o’clock; that that bruise came from an accidental impact with the corner of the table when Bond fell to the floor. I have already explained how neither Miss Vanderhuyden nor I reached Washington Square yesterday; she on account of a motor breakdown, I on account of the big river fire. Bond went in yesterday afternoon all right, but he never came out.

  “Very well, Vandervoort, you were astounded — even terror-stricken — to find him dead. When you recovered from your shock, you were even more alarmed than ever. Your man Mazzoli didn’t seem to be showing up, but suppose that the tenor, still wearing his garb of injured innocence, had already turned over that note to the police, thus establishing the fact that one Courtenay Vandervoort had been in that deserted house as well as Bond? You paced up and down that room trying to find some way out of the mess; you entered the closet to look about. But there your foot stepped squarely on an object and crunched it into several pieces. When you examined it you found that it was a hat pin; that the green dragon’s head had been forced down a crack in the floor so tightly that even your finger couldn’t dislodge it.

  “There is no need to go into a certain old love affair of yours, nor into any peculiar motives of revenge which may have actuated you. But one thing was certain: unless you could throw suspicion of that murder on someone else, it was likely that you yourself would be taken up as the guilty one, providing Mazzoli had turned over the note to the police. Indeed, you saw that you were going to have a hard time to establish your innocence.

  “Vandervoort,” Morningstar said sternly, “you deliberately thrust that broken hat pin into the dead man’s eye, and got out of there in a hurry. You laid the identifying tail near the body, where it would be found later. The dragon’s head itself was afterwards spotted by a young police reporter, who ran right back to the very man who knew all about it, in order to get information.”

  Morningstar gazed up at the clock: “And yet there was one thing in the case the police never figured on — that the plunging of that hat pin into Bond’s eye produced no blood.”

  He stopped and gazed more steadily than ever at the shrinking man: “Now, Vandervoort, I am going to save you from the most ticklish position in your whole life if you admit the truth of what I say. If not, I dismiss the whole meeting at once, and we’ll see whether a jury will convict Harling, Miss Vanderhuyden or yourself of the crime. Which is it to be?”

  Vandervoort wet his lips several times before he spoke. Then his words came stumblingly in a low voice. “It — it — it is as you say. Sam Bond never admitted to me that that safe robbery was — was a frame-up — but I knew blamed well it must be. I’m not a fool. Moreover, Sam had talked more than once of this odd bird — this Johnny Wilkins — who lived over his Hogan saloon property ‘way out south. The fellow was an ex-cracksman, just out — out of Joliet not long ago. So I — I knew mighty well who it was that Sam had fixed the deal up with. I — I figured that if I passed his name — this Wilkins, that is — to Mazzoli — I wouldn’t be a thirty-second of an inch off the true facts. I thought Mazzoli would come — to that old house — and I found a dead man instead. My own friend! It wasn’t revenge against Trudel. I was all up in the air. I — I thought I was only complicating matters by what I did. I jammed the ornamental hat pin into his wide-open eye — and got away. I — ” His voice trailed away utterly.

  Morningstar nodded. He looked toward the other men again. “Very well,” he went on. “Due to the absence of any blood oozing from that eyeball, we have apparently a ‘murdered dead man’ — if such an anomaly may be said to exist! But absolutely the only motive for ‘murdering’ a — so to speak — man already dead, is that he has already been murdered in some still other way — which way someone has desired to cover up. At least, so ran my somewhat faulty ratiocinations up to the time I visited the police morgue today and spent some time in examining Bond’s body very closely. In fact, circumstances eventually proved that I would not have needed to examine further than just one particular region — which region had been brought to my attention by casual conversations over the telephone with a number of Bond’s friends in Evanston. I rather thought that that identical region would produce results. And it did. I found thereon — well — ” He turned to Doctor Hemingway. “And now, Doctor, I have reached the first of two points where I will need to speak to you on this Bond case.” The doctor was all attention. “First, Doctor, do you know anything about a carbuncle operation that had been performed on Samuel Bond sometime — oh — I should judge in the last year — or two years?”

  The doctor adjusted his eyeglasses. He looked about him, puzzled: “Why — of course I do — considering that I did the operation! At Frances Willard Hospital, Evanston.”

  “It was,” Morningstar put in, “the standard operation, I take it?”

  “Quite,” the doctor admitted, still puzzledly. “A fairly deep and fairly large vertical incision in the back of the neck, and a long, horizontal incision running circumferentially, one might say, for the five or six inches of its length. Then the laying of the four flaps back, the enucleation of the carbuncle, the cleaning of the flaps well, the packing of them and the putting of them together with drains inserted. In fact,” he added, a bit frowningly, “it doesn’t seem to me to be particularly Sherlockholmesian to survey a typical carbuncle operation site — the very crisscross incision scars — and deduce that — ”

  Morningstar laughed: “Quite right, Doctor. But that is not the important phase of the matter. What I want to particularly ask, Doctor, is if that operation left Bond with any particular disorder of sensation in that region?”

  The doctor looked at Morningstar searchingly: “Well, you have evidently been talking to his friends and relatives, so there should be quite nothing that I can tell you. But you want, presumably, an official answer — so here you are. Yes, the operation left the entire back of his neck anaesthetic. Without any sensation. Without any capability, that is, of perceiving sensorial stimuli. This disturbed area ran for some distance down below the top of his collar, around his neck in both directions almost to a line dropping — say — from each of his ears, and up the back of his head — on the actual scalp a short ways. Which, my dear sir, is nothing new whatsoever! Such an operation plays havoc with the nerve supply. Blood circulation is returned to the region — yes — but sensation not. Not for a while, that is. Until about a couple of years, when new junctions and nerve paths bring about a second-degree tactual sense.”

  “He could not feel the touch of a feather back there, then?”

  “Why — he could not feel pin pricks nor anything,” the doctor said. “He had a complete anaesthesia — particularly at the site of the scar.”

  “I see. And did he tell anybody — so far as you know — that he had lost all sensation in the bac
k of his neck — and lower rear scalp?”

  The doctor made a grimace: “Samuel Bond was my friend — but I nevertheless had to go to him and insist upon his ceasing to dilate on his quite common neurological disturbance. I had to point out to him that it seemed to reflect upon my surgical skill. That such anaesthesia was present more or less at the site of all carbuncle operations. But — alas — it was the only operation he’d ever had! And he buttonholed everybody he knew and told them of it — how he’d been saved from death. Recounted in detail his recovery, and described in full the strange and mysterious results it had left him with. Club members, tailors, housemaids, new acquaintances, bus conductors — Lord knows who didn’t hear the story. Everybody who ever contacted Samuel Bond learned soon that he’d had a carbuncle operation and was devoid of all sensation in the back of his neck, and so forth and so on — ad deficiendum! Is that all, Mr. Morningstar? I ask because I — I would like to leave. I have a case in the Frances Willard Hospital which I learned, just before leaving Evanston, isn’t doing so well, and — ”

  Morningstar shook his head: “No, Doctor. Do remain! I’ll make it quite snappy.”

  He turned to the rest:

  “Well, you folks have heard this medical testimony. So there isn’t much more to explain there. After at least three of Bond’s friends recounted to me this quaint disability which provided him with so much conversational fuel, I proceeded to look in and upon that region. Since a dead man had been ‘murdered’ to conceal — as I then strangely thought — the site and method of his real despatching. And I found a slight double puncture to the left of where those two vicious scars crossed — a double puncture on a central white swelling surrounded by a well-defined purple area. For, as the doctor here has just told you, circulation was not impaired there — just sensation.” Morningstar paused. “With which discovery — and that was absolutely all I found on Bond’s entire body — I went straight to No. 63 Delaware Place, expecting to get admittance, but the officers there refused me point-blank. I managed later to slip in anyway, and I proceeded to search that whole room with my electric searchlight, not forgetting the closet as well. And I found — ” he turned to Trudel — ”Miss Vanderhuyden, will you get me the paper package which we locked in the wall safe? And as quickly as possible? The doctor here wants — to get away.”