The Philo Vance Megapack

by S. S. Van Dine

  “Oh, dear, no! They’d never be apprehended if they were. But, after all, Sergeant, even an authentic fingerprint merely means that the person who made it was dallying around at some time or other. It doesn’t indicate guilt.”

  “Maybe so,” conceded Heath doggedly. “But I’m here to tell you that if I get any good honest-to-God fingerprints outa this devastated area, it’s not going so easy with the bird that made ’em.”

  Vance appeared to be shocked. “You positively terrify me, Sergeant. Henceforth I shall adopt mittens as a permanent addition to my attire. I’m always handling the furniture and the teacups and the various knickknacks in the houses where I call, don’t y’ know.”

  Markham interposed himself at this point and suggested they make a tour of inspection while waiting for the medical examiner.

  “They didn’t add anything much to the usual methods,” Heath pointed out. “Killed the girl, and then ripped things wide open.”

  The two rooms had apparently been thoroughly ransacked. Clothes and various articles were strewn about the floor. The doors of both clothes closets (there was one in each room) were open, and to judge from the chaos in the bedroom closet, it had been hurriedly searched; although the closet off the living room, which was given over to the storage of infrequently used items, appeared to have been ignored. The drawers of the dressing table and chest had been partly emptied on to the floor, and the bedclothes had been snatched away and the mattress turned back. Two chairs and a small occasional table were upset; several vases were broken, as if they had been searched and then thrown down in the wrath of disappointment; and the Marie Antoinette mirror had been broken. The escritoire was open, and its pigeonholes had been emptied in a jumbled pile upon the blotter. The doors of the Boule cabinet swung wide, and inside there was the same confusion of contents that marked the interior of the escritoire. The bronze-and-porcelain lamp on the end of the library table was lying on its side, its satin shade torn where it had struck the sharp corner of a silver bonbonnière.

  Two objects in the general disarray particularly attracted my attention—a black metal document box of the kind purchasable at any stationery store, and a large jewel case of sheet steel with a circular inset lock. The latter of these objects was destined to play a curious and sinister part in the investigation to follow.

  The document box, which was now empty, had been placed on the library table, next to the overturned lamp. Its lid was thrown back, and the key was still in the lock. In all the litter and disorganization of the room, this box seemed to be the one outstanding indication of calm and orderly activity on the part of the wrecker.

  The jewel case, on the other hand, had been violently wrenched open. It sat on the dressing table in the bedroom, dented and twisted out of shape by the terrific leverage that had been necessary to force it, and beside it lay a brass-handled, cast iron poker which had evidently been brought from the living room and used as a makeshift chisel with which to prize open the lock.

  Vance had glanced but casually at the different objects in the rooms as we made our rounds, but when he came to the dressing table, he paused abruptly. Taking out his monocle, he adjusted it carefully, and leaned over the broken jewel case.

  “Most extr’ordin’ry!” he murmured, tapping the edge of the lid with his gold pencil. “What do you make of that, Sergeant?”

  Heath had been eyeing Vance with narrowed lids as the latter bent over the dressing table.

  “What’s in your mind, Mr. Vance?” he, in turn, asked.

  “Oh, more than you could ever guess,” Vance answered lightly. “But just at the moment I was toying with the idea that this steel case was never torn open by that wholly inadequate iron poker, what?”

  Heath nodded his head approvingly. “So you, too, noticed that, did you?… And you’re dead right. That poker might’ve twisted the box a little, but it never snapped that lock.”

  He turned to Inspector Moran.

  “That’s the puzzler I’ve sent for ‘Prof’ Brenner to clean up—if he can. The jimmying of that jewel case looks to me like a high-class professional job. No Sunday school superintendent did it.”

  Vance continued for a while to study the box, but at length he turned away with a perplexed frown.

  “I say!” he commented. “Something devilish queer took place here last night.”

  “Oh, not so queer,” Heath amended. “It was a thorough job, all right, but there’s nothing mysterious about it.”

  Vance polished his monocle and put it away.

  “If you go to work on that basis, Sergeant,” he returned carelessly, “I greatly fear you’ll run aground on a reef. And may kind Heaven bring you safe to shore!”

  CHAPTER 4

  THE PRINT OF A HAND

  (Tuesday, September 11, 9:30 A.M.)

  A few minutes after we had returned to the living room Doctor Doremus, the chief medical examiner, arrived, jaunty and energetic. Immediately in his train came three other men, one of whom carried a bulky camera and a folded tripod. These were Captain Dubois and Detective Bellamy, fingerprint experts, and Peter Quackenbush, the official photographer.

  “Well, well, well!” exclaimed Doctor Doremus. “Quite a gathering of the clans. More trouble, eh?… I wish your friends, Inspector, would choose a more respectable hour for their little differences. This early rising upsets my liver.”

  He shook hands with everybody in a brisk, businesslike manner.

  “Where’s the body?” he demanded breezily, looking about the room. He caught sight of the girl on the davenport. “Ah! A lady.”

  Stepping quickly forward, he made a rapid examination of the dead girl, scrutinizing her neck and fingers, moving her arms and head to determine the condition of rigor mortis, and finally unflexing her stiffened limbs and laying her out straight on the long cushions, preparatory to a more detailed necropsy.

  The rest of us moved toward the bedroom, and Heath motioned to the fingerprint men to follow.

  “Go over everything,” he told them. “But take a special look at this jewel case and the handle of this poker, and give that document box in the other room a close up—and—down.”

  “Right,” assented Captain Dubois. “We’ll begin in here while the doc’s busy in the other room.” And he and Bellamy set to work.

  Our interest naturally centered on the captain’s labors. For fully five minutes we watched him inspecting the twisted steel sides of the jewel case and the smooth, polished handle of the poker. He held the objects gingerly by their edges, and, placing a jeweler’s glass in his eye, flashed his pocket light on every square inch of them. At length he put them down, scowling.

  “No fingerprints here,” he announced. “Wiped clean.”

  “I mighta known it,” grumbled Heath. “It was a professional job, all right.” He turned to the other expert. “Found anything, Bellamy?”

  “Nothing to help,” was the grumpy reply. “A few old smears with dust over ’em.”

  “Looks like a washout,” Heath commented irritably; “though I’m hoping for something in the other room.”

  At this moment Doctor Doremus came into the bedroom and, taking a sheet from the bed, returned to the davenport and covered the body of the murdered girl. Then he snapped shut his case and, putting on his hat at a rakish angle, stepped forward with the air of a man in great haste to be on his way.

  “Simple case of strangulation from behind,” he said, his words running together. “Digital bruises about the front of the throat; thumb bruises in the suboccipital region. Attack must have been unexpected. A quick, competent job though deceased evidently battled a little.”

  “How do you suppose her dress became torn, Doctor?” asked Vance.

  “Oh, that? Can’t tell. She may have done it herself—instinctive motions of clutching for air.”

  “Not likely though, what?”

  “Why not? The dress was torn and the bouquet was ripped off, and the fellow who was choking her had both hands on her throat. Who els
e could’ve done it?”

  Vance shrugged his shoulders and began lighting a cigarette.

  Heath, annoyed by his apparently inconsequential interruption, put the next question.

  “Don’t those marks on the fingers mean that her rings were stripped off?”

  “Possibly. They’re fresh abrasions. Also, there’s a couple of lacerations on the left wrist and slight contusions on the thenar eminence, indicating that a bracelet may have been forcibly pulled over her hand.”

  “That fits O.K.,” pronounced Heath, with satisfaction. “And it looks like they snatched a pendant of some kind off her neck.”

  “Probably,” indifferently agreed Doctor Doremus. “The piece of chain had cut into her flesh a little behind the right shoulder.”

  “And the time?”

  “Nine or ten hours ago. Say, about eleven thirty—maybe a little before. Not after midnight, anyway.” He had been teetering restlessly on his toes. “Anything else?”

  Heath pondered.

  “I guess that’s all, doc,” he decided. “I’ll get the body to the mortuary right away. Let’s have the postmortem as soon as you can.”

  “You’ll get a report in the morning.” And despite his apparent eagerness to be off, Doctor Doremus stepped into the bedroom and shook hands with Heath and Markham and Inspector Moran before he hurried out.

  Heath followed him to the door, and I heard him direct the officer outside to telephone the Department of Public Welfare to send an ambulance at once for the girl’s body.

  “I positively adore that official archiater of yours,” Vance said to Markham. “Such detachment! Here are you stewing most distressingly over the passing of one damsel fair and frail, and that blithe medicus is worrying only over a sluggish liver brought on by early rising.”

  “What has he to be upset over?” complained Markham. “The newspapers are not riding him with spurs.… And by the way, what was the point of your questions about the torn dress?”

  Vance lazily inspected the tip of his cigarette. “Consider,” he said. “The lady was evidently taken by surprise; for, had there been a struggle beforehand, she would not have been strangled from behind while sitting down. Therefore, her gown and corsage were undoubtedly intact at the time she was seized. But, despite the conclusion of your dashing Paracelsus, the damage to her toilet was not of a nature that could have been self-inflicted in her struggle for air. If she had felt the constriction of the gown across her breast, she would have snatched the bodice itself by putting her fingers inside the band. But, if you noticed, her bodice was intact; the only thing that had been torn was the deep lace flounce on the outside; and it had been torn, or rather ripped, by a strong lateral pull; whereas, in the circumstances, any wrench on her part would have been downward or outward.”

  Inspector Moran was listening intently, but Heath seemed restless and impatient; apparently he regarded the torn gown as irrelevant to the simple main issue.

  “Moreover,” Vance went on, “there is the corsage. If she herself had torn it off while being strangled, it would doubtless have fallen to the floor; for, remember, she offered considerable resistance. Her body was twisted sidewise; her knee was drawn up, and one slipper had been kicked off. Now, no bunch of silken posies is going to remain in a lady’s lap during such a commotion. Even when ladies sit still, their gloves and handbags and handkerchiefs and programs and serviettes are forever sliding off of their laps onto the floor, don’t y’ know.”

  “But if your argument’s correct,” protested Markham, “then, the tearing of the lace and the snatching off of the corsage could have been done only after she was dead. And I can’t see any object in such senseless vandalism.”

  “Neither can I,” sighed Vance. “It’s all devilish queer.”

  Heath looked up at him sharply. “That’s the second time you’ve said that. But there’s nothing what you’d call queer about this mess. It is a straightaway case.” He spoke with an overtone of insistence, like a man arguing against his own insecurity of opinion. “The dress might’ve been torn almost anytime,” he went on stubbornly. “And the flower might’ve got caught in the lace of her skirt so it couldn’t roll off.”

  “And how would you explain the jewel case, Sergeant?” asked Vance.

  “Well, the fellow might’ve tried the poker and then, finding it wouldn’t work, used his jimmy.”

  “If he had the efficient jimmy,” countered Vance, “why did he go to the trouble of bringing the silly poker from the living room?”

  The sergeant shook his head perplexedly.

  “You never can tell why some of these crooks act the way they do.”

  “Tut, tut!” Vance chided him. “There should be no such word as never in the bright lexicon of detecting.”

  Heath regarded him sharply. “Was there anything else that struck you as queer?” His subtle doubts were welling up again.

  “Well, there’s the lamp on the table in the other room.”

  We were standing near the archway between the two rooms, and Heath turned quickly and looked blankly at the fallen lamp.

  “I don t see anything queer about that.”

  “It has been upset—eh, what?” suggested Vance.

  “What if it has?” Health was frankly puzzled. “Damn near everything in this apartment has been knocked crooked.”

  “Ah! But there’s a reason for most of the other things having been disturbed—like the drawers and pigeonholes and closets and vases. They all indicate a search; they’re consistent with a raid for loot. But that lamp, now, d’ ye see, doesn’t fit into the picture. It’s a false note. It was standing on the opposite end of the table to where the murder was committed, at least five feet away; and it couldn’t possibly have been knocked over in the struggle.… No, it won’t do. It’s got no business being upset, any more than that pretty mirror over the gate-legged table has any business being broken. That’s why it’s queer.”

  “What about those chairs and the little table?” asked Heath, pointing to two small gilded chairs which had been overturned, and a fragile tip-table that lay on its side near the piano.

  “Oh, they fit into the ensemble,” returned Vance. “They’re all light pieces of furniture which could easily have been knocked over, or thrown aside, by the hasty gentleman who rifled these rooms.”

  “The lamp might’ve been knocked over in the same way,” argued Heath. Vance shook his head. “Not tenable, Sergeant. It has a solid bronze base and isn’t at all top-heavy; and, being set well back on the table, it wasn’t in anyone’s way.… That lamp was upset deliberately.”

  The sergeant was silent for a while. Experience had taught him not to underestimate Vance’s observations; and, I must confess, as I looked at the lamp lying on its side on the end of the library table, well removed from any of the other disordered objects in the room, Vance’s argument seemed to possess considerable force. I tried hard to fit it into a hasty reconstruction of the crime but was utterly unable to do so.

  “Anything else that don’t seem to fit into the picture?” Heath at length asked.

  Vance pointed with his cigarette toward the clothes closet in the living room. This closet was alongside of the foyer, in the corner near the Boule cabinet, directly opposite to the end of the davenport.

  “You might let your mind dally a moment with the condition of that clothes press,” suggested Vance carelessly. “You will note that, though the door’s ajar, the contents have not been touched. And it’s about the only area in the apartment that hasn’t been disturbed.”

  Heath walked over and looked into the closet.

  “Well, anyway, I’ll admit that’s queer,” he finally conceded.

  Vance had followed him indolently and stood gazing over his shoulder.

  “And my word!” he exclaimed suddenly. “The key’s on the inside of the lock. Fancy that, now! One can’t lock a closet door with the key on the inside—can one, Sergeant?”

  “The key may not mean anything,” Heath observe
d hopefully. “Maybe the door was never locked. Anyhow, we’ll find out about that pretty soon. I’m holding the maid outside, and I’m going to have her on the carpet as soon as the captain finishes his job here.”

  He turned to Dubois, who, having completed his search for fingerprints in the bedroom, was now inspecting the piano.

  “Any luck yet?”

  The captain shook his head.

  “Gloves,” he answered succinctly.

  “Same here,” supplemented Bellamy gruffly, on his knees before the escritoire.

  Vance, with a sardonic smile, turned and walked to the window, where he stood looking out and smoking placidly, as if his entire interest in the case had evaporated.

  At this moment the door from the main hall opened, and a short, thin little man, with gray hair and a scraggly gray beard, stepped inside and stood blinking against the vivid sunlight.

  “Good morning, Professor,” Heath greeted the newcomer. “Glad to see you. I’ve got something nifty, right in your line.”

  Deputy Inspector Conrad Brenner was one of that small army of obscure, but highly capable, experts who are connected with the New York Police Department, and who are constantly being consulted on abstruse technical problems, but whose names and achievements rarely get into the public prints. His specialty was locks and burglars’ tools; and I doubt if, even among those exhaustively painstaking criminologists of the University of Lausanne, there was a more accurate reader of the evidential signs left by the implements of housebreakers. In appearance and bearing he was like a withered little college professor.30 His black, unpressed suit was old-fashioned in cut; and he wore a very high stiff collar, like a fin-de-siècle clergyman, with a narrow black string tie. His gold-rimmed spectacles were so thick-lensed that the pupils of his eyes gave the impression of acute belladonna poisoning.

  When Heath had spoken to him, he merely stood staring with a sort of detached expectancy; he seemed utterly unaware that there was anyone else in the room. The sergeant, evidently familiar with the little man’s idiosyncrasies of manner, did not wait for a response, but started at once for the bedroom.