The Philo Vance Megapack

by S. S. Van Dine

  Markham snorted. “I don’t complain about criticism; it’s the lurid imagination of these bright young reporters that galls me. They’re trying to turn this sordid crime into a spectacular Borgia melodrama, with passion running rampant, and mysterious influences at work, and all the pomp and trappings of a medieval romance.… You’d think even a schoolboy could see that it was only an ordinary robbery and murder of the kind that’s taking place regularly throughout the country.”

  Vance paused in the act of lighting a cigarette, and his eyebrows lifted. Turning, he regarded Markham with a look of mild incredulity. “I say! Do you really mean to tell me that your statement for the press was given out in good faith?”

  Markham looked up in surprise. “Certainly it was.… What do you mean by ‘good faith’?”

  Vance smiled indolently. “I rather thought, don’t y’ know, that your oration to the reporters was a bit of strategy to lull the real culprit into a state of false security, and to give you a clear field for investigation.”

  Markham contemplated him a moment.

  “See here, Vance,” he demanded irritably, “what are you driving at?”

  “Nothing at all—really, old fellow,” the other assured him affably. “I knew that Heath was deadly sincere about his belief in Skeel’s guilt, but it never occurred to me, d’ ye see, that you yourself actually regarded the crime as one committed by a professional burglar. I foolishly thought that you let Skeel go this morning in the hope that he would lead you somehow to the guilty person. I rather imagined you were spoofing the trusting sergeant by pretending to fall in with his silly notion.”

  “Ah, I see! Still clinging to your weird theory that a brace of villains were present, hiding in separate clothes closets, or something of the kind.” Markham made no attempt to temper his sarcasm. “A sapient idea—so much more intelligent that Heath’s!”

  “I know it’s weird. But it happens not to be any weirder than your theory of a lone yeggman.”

  “And for what reason, pray,” persisted Markham, with considerable warmth, “do you consider the yeggman theory weird?”

  “For the simple reason that it was not the crime of a professional thief at all, but the willfully deceptive act of a particularly clever man who doubtless spent weeks in its preparation.”

  Markham sank back in his chair and laughed heartily. “Vance, you have contributed the one ray of sunshine to an otherwise gloomy and depressing case.”

  Vance bowed with mock humility.

  “It gives me great pleasure,” was his dulcet rejoinder, “to be able to bring even a wisp of light into so clouded a mental atmosphere.”

  A brief silence followed. Then Markham asked, “Is this fascinating and picturesque conclusion of yours regarding the highly intellectual character of the Odell woman’s murderer based on your new and original psychological methods of deduction?” There was no mistaking the ridicule in his voice.

  “I arrived at it,” explained Vance sweetly, “by the same process of logic I used in determining the guilt of Alvin Benson’s murderer.”

  Markham smiled. “Touché!… Don’t think I’m so ungrateful as to belittle the work you did in that case. But this time, I fear, you’ve permitted your theories to lead you hopelessly astray. The present case is what the police call an open-and-shut affair.”

  “Particularly shut,” amended Vance dryly. “And both you and the police are in the distressin’ situation of waiting inactively for your suspected victim to give the game away.”

  “I’ll admit the situation is not all one could desire.” Markham spoke morosely. “But even so, I can’t see that there’s any opportunity in this affair for your recondite psychological methods. The thing’s too obvious—that’s the trouble. What we need now is evidence, not theories. If it wasn’t for the spacious and romantic imaginings of the newspaper men, public interest in the case would already have died out.”

  “Markham,” said Vance quietly, but with unwonted seriousness, “if that’s what you really believe, then you may as well drop the case now; for you’re foredoomed to failure. You think it’s an obvious crime. But let me tell you, it’s a subtle crime, if ever there was one. And it’s as clever as it is subtle. No common criminal committed it—believe me. It was done by a man of very superior intellect and astoundin’ ingenuity.”

  Vance’s assured, matter-of-fact tone had a curiously convincing quality; and Markham, restraining his impulse to scoff, assumed an air of indulgent irony.

  “Tell me,” he said, “by what cryptic mental process you arrived at so fantastic a conclusion.”

  “With pleasure.” Vance took a few puffs on his cigarette and lazily watched the smoke curl upward.35

  “Y’ know, Markham,” he began, in his emotionless drawl, “every genuine work of art has a quality which the critics call élan—namely, enthusiasm and spontaneity. A copy, or imitation, lacks that distinguishing characteristic; it’s too perfect, too carefully done, too exact. Even enlightened scions of the law, I fancy, are aware that there is bad drawing in Botticelli and disproportions in Rubens, what? In an original, d’ ye see, such flaws don’t matter. But an imitator never puts ’em in: he doesn’t dare—he’s too intent on getting all the details correct. The imitator works with a self-consciousness and a meticulous care which the artist, in the throes of creative labor, never exhibits. And here’s the point: there’s no way of imitating that enthusiasm and spontaneity—that élan—which an original painting possesses. However closely a copy may resemble an original, there’s a vast psychological difference between them. The copy breathes an air of insincerity, of ultra-perfection, of conscious effort.… You follow me, eh?”

  “Most instructive, my dear Ruskin.”

  Vance meekly bowed his appreciation, and proceeded pleasantly. “Now, let us consider the Odell murder. You and Heath are agreed that it is a commonplace, brutal, sordid, unimaginative crime. But, unlike you two bloodhounds on the trail, I have ignored its mere appearances and have analyzed its various factors—I have looked at it psychologically, so to speak. And I have discovered that it is not a genuine and sincere crime—that is to say, an original—but only a sophisticated, self-conscious and clever imitation, done by a skilled copyist. I grant you it is correct and typical in every detail. But just there is where it fails, don’t y’ know. Its technic is too good, its craftsmanship too perfect. The ensemble, as it were, is not convincing—it lacks élan. Aesthetically speaking, it has all the earmarks of a tour de force. Vulgarly speaking, it’s a fake.” He paused and gave Markham an engaging smile. “I trust this somewhat oracular peroration has not bored you.”

  “Pray continue,” urged Markham, with exaggerated politeness. His manner was jocular, but something in his tone led me to believe that he was seriously interested.

  “What is true of art is true of life,” Vance resumed placidly. “Every human action, d’ ye see, conveys unconsciously an impression either of genuineness or of spuriousness—of sincerity or calculation. For example, two men at table eat in a similar way, handle their knives and forks in the same fashion, and apparently do the identical things. Although the sensitive spectator cannot put his finger on the points of difference, he nonetheless senses at once which man’s breeding is genuine and instinctive and which man’s is imitative and self-conscious.”

  He blew a wreath of smoke toward the ceiling and settled more deeply into his chair.

  “Now, Markham, just what are the universally recognized features of a sordid crime of robbery and murder?… Brutality, disorder, haste, ransacked drawers, cluttered desks, broken jewel cases, rings stripped from the victim’s fingers, severed pendant chains, torn clothing, tipped-over chairs, upset lamps, broken vases, twisted draperies, strewn floors, and so forth. Such are the accepted immemorial indications—eh, what? But—consider a moment, old chap. Outside of fiction and the drama, in how many crimes do they all appear—all in perfect ordination, and without a single element to contradict the general effect? That is to say, how
many actual crimes are technically perfect in their settings?… None! And why? Simply because nothing actual in this life—nothing that is spontaneous and genuine—runs to accepted form in every detail. The law of chance and fallibility invariably steps in.”

  He made a slight indicative gesture.

  “But regard this particular crime: look at it closely. What do you find? You will perceive that its mise en scène has been staged, and its drama enacted, down to every minute detail—like a Zola novel. It is almost mathematically perfect. And therein, d’ ye see, lies the irresistible inference of its having been carefully premeditated and planned. To use an art term, it is a tickled-up crime. Therefore, its conception was not spontaneous.… And yet, don’t y’ know, I can’t point out any specific flaw; for its great flaw lies in its being flawless. And nothing flawless, my dear fellow, is natural or genuine.”

  Markham was silent for a while.

  “You deny even the remote possibility of a common thief having murdered the girl?” he asked at length; and now there was no hint of sarcasm in his voice.

  “If a common thief did it,” contended Vance, “then there’s no science of psychology, there are no philosophic truths, and there are no laws of art. If it was a genuine crime of robbery, then, by the same token, there is no difference whatever between an old master and a clever technician’s copy.”

  “You’d entirely eliminate robbery as the motive, I take it.”

  “The robbery,” Vance affirmed, “was only a manufactured detail. The fact that the crime was committed by a highly astute person indicates unquestionably that there was a far more potent motive behind it. Any man capable of so ingenious and clever a piece of deception is obviously a person of education and imagination; and he most certainly would not have run the stupendous risk of killing a woman unless he had feared some overwhelming disaster—unless, indeed, her continuing to live would have caused him greater mental anguish, and would have put him in greater jeopardy, even than the crime itself. Between two colossal dangers, he chose the murder as the lesser.”

  Markham did not speak at once; he seemed lost in reflection. But presently he turned and, fixing Vance with a dubious stare, said, “What about that chiselled jewel box? A professional burglar’s jimmy wielded by an experienced hand doesn’t fit into your aesthetic hypothesis—it is, in fact, diametrically opposed to such a theory.”

  “I know it only too well.” Vance nodded slowly. “And I’ve been harried and hectored by that steel chisel ever since I beheld the evidence of its work that first morning.… Markham, that chisel is the one genuine note in an otherwise spurious performance. It’s as if the real artist had come along at the moment the copyist had finished his faked picture, and painted in a single small object with the hand of a master.”

  “But doesn’t that bring us back inevitably to Skeel?”

  “Skeel—ah, yes. That’s the explanation, no doubt; but not the way you conceive it. Skeel ripped the box open—I don’t question that; but—deuce take it!—it’s the only thing he did do; it’s the only thing that was left for him to do. That’s why he got only a ring which La Belle Marguerite was not wearing that night. All her other baubles—to wit, those that adorned her—had been stripped from her and were gone.”

  “Why are you so positive on this point?”

  “The poker, man—the poker!… Don’t you see? That amateurish assault upon the jewel case with a cast iron coal prodder couldn’t have been made after the case had been prized open—it would have had to be made before. And that seemingly insane attempt to break steel with cast iron was part of the stage setting. The real culprit didn’t care if he got the case open or not. He merely wanted it to look as if he had tried to get it open; so he used the poker and then left it lying beside the dented box.”

  “I see what you mean.” This point, I think, impressed Markham more strongly than any other Vance had raised; for the presence of the poker on the dressing table had not been explained away either by Heath or Inspector Brenner.… “Is that the reason you questioned Skeel as if he might have been present when your other visitor was there?”

  “Exactly. By the evidence of the jewel case I knew he either was in the apartment when the bogus crime of robbery was being staged, or else had come upon the scene when it was over and the stage director had cleared out.… From his reactions to my questions I rather fancy he was present.”

  “Hiding in the closet?”

  “Yes. That would account for the closet not having been disturbed. As I see it, it wasn’t ransacked, for the simple and rather grotesque reason that the elegant Skeel was locked within. How else could that one clothes press have escaped the rifling activities of the pseudoburglar? He wouldn’t have omitted it deliberately, and he was far too thoroughgoing to have overlooked it accidentally. Then there are the fingerprints on the knob.…”

  Vance lightly tapped on the arm of his chair.

  “I tell you, Markham old dear, you simply must build your conception of the crime on this hypothesis and proceed accordingly. If you don’t, each edifice you rear will come toppling about your ears.”

  CHAPTER 15

  FOUR POSSIBILITIES

  (Wednesday, September 12; evening)

  When Vance finished speaking, there was a long silence. Markham, impressed by the other’s earnestness, sat in a brown study. His ideas had been shaken. The theory of Skeel’s guilt, to which he had clung from the moment of the identification of the fingerprints, had, it must be admitted, not entirely satisfied him, although he had been able to suggest no alternative. Now Vance had categorically repudiated this theory and at the same time had advanced another which, despite its indefiniteness, had nevertheless taken into account all the physical points of the case; and Markham, at first antagonistic, had found himself, almost against his will, becoming more and more sympathetic to this new point of view.

  “Damn it, Vance!” he said. “I’m not in the least convinced by your theatrical theory. And yet, I feel a curious undercurrent of plausibility in your analyses.… I wonder—”

  He turned sharply, and scrutinized the other steadfastly for a moment.

  “Look here! Have you anyone in mind as the protagonist of the drama you’ve outlined?”

  “’Pon my word, I haven’t the slightest notion as to who killed the lady,” Vance assured him. “But if you are ever to find the murderer, you must look for a shrewd, superior man with nerves of iron, who was in imminent danger of being irremediably ruined by the girl—a man of inherent cruelty and vindictiveness; a supreme egoist; a fatalist more or less; and, I’m inclined to believe, something of a madman.”

  “Mad!”

  “Oh, not a lunatic, just a madman, a perfectly normal, logical, calculating madman—same as you and I and Van here. Only, our hobbies are harmless, d’ ye see. This chap’s mania is outside your preposterously revered law. That’s why you’re after him. If his aberration were stamp collecting or golf, you wouldn’t give him a second thought. But his perfectly rational penchant for eliminating déclassées ladies who bothered him fills you with horror; it’s not your hobby. Consequently, you have a hot yearning to flay him alive.”

  “I’ll admit,” said Markham coolly, “that a homicidal mania is my idea of madness.”

  “But he didn’t have a homicidal mania, Markham old thing. You miss all the fine distinctions in psychology. This man was annoyed by a certain person, and set to work, masterfully and reasonably, to do away with the source of his annoyance. And he did it with surpassin’ cleverness. To be sure, his act was a bit grisly. But when, if ever, you get your hands on him, you’ll be amazed to find how normal he is. And able, too—oh, able no end.”

  Again Markham lapsed into a long, thoughtful silence. At last he spoke.

  “The only trouble with your ingenious deductions is that they don’t accord with the known circumstances of the case. And facts, my dear Vance, are still regarded by a few of us old-fashioned lawyers as more or less conclusive.”

  “Why
this needless confession of your shortcomings?” inquired Vance whimsically. Then, after a moment: “Let me have the facts which appear to you antagonistic to my deductions.”

  “Well, there are only four men of the type you describe who could have had any remote reason for murdering the Odell woman. Heath’s scouts went into her history pretty thoroughly, and for over two years—that is, since her appearance in the ‘Follies’—the only personae gratae at her apartment have been Mannix, Doctor Lindquist, Pop Cleaver, and, of course, Spotswoode. The Canary was a bit exclusive, it seems; and no other man got near enough to her even to be considered as a possible murderer.”

  “It appears, then, that you have a complete quartet to draw on.” Vance’s tone was apathetic. “What do you crave—a regiment?”

  “No,” answered Markham patiently. “I crave only one logical possibility. But Mannix was through with the girl over a year ago; Cleaver and Spotswoode both have watertight alibis; and that leaves only Doctor Lindquist, whom I can’t exactly picture as a strangler and meretricious burglar, despite his irascibility. Moreover, he, too, has an alibi; and it may be a genuine one.”

  Vance wagged his head. “There’s something positively pathetic about the childlike faith of the legal mind.”

  “It does cling to rationality at times, doesn’t it?” observed Markham.

  “My dear fellow!” Vance rebuked him. “The presumption implied in that remark is most immodest. If you could distinguish between rationality and irrationality you wouldn’t be a lawyer—you’d be a god.… No; you’re going at this thing the wrong way. The real factors in the case are not what you call the known circumstances, but the unknown quantities—the human x’s, so to speak—the personalities, or natures, of your quartet.”

  He lit a fresh cigarette, and lay back, closing his eyes.

  “Tell me what you know of these four cavalieri serventi—you say Heath has turned in his report. Who were their mamas? What do they eat for breakfast? Are they susceptible to poison ivy?… Let’s have Spotswoode’s dossier first. Do you know anything about him?”