The Philo Vance Megapack

by S. S. Van Dine

  “That’s possible, of course,” returned Markham doubtfully. “He’s touchy on the subject of that hour between eleven and noon. And he was watching you all the time like a cat.”

  “A weasel,” Vance corrected him. “Yes, I was aware of his flatterin’ scrutiny.”

  “Anyway, I can’t see that he’s helped us very much.”

  “No,” agreed Vance. “We’re not exactly forrader. But we’re at least getting some luggage aboard. Our excitable mathematical wizard has opened up some very interestin’ lines of speculation. And Mrs. Drukker is fairly teemin’ with possibilities. If we knew what both of ’em together know we might find the key to this silly business.”

  Heath had been sullen for the past hour, and had looked on at the proceedings with bored disdain. But now he drew himself up combatively.

  “I’m here to tell you, Mr. Markham, that we’re wasting our time. What’s the good of all these parleys? Sperling’s the boy we want, and when my men bring him in and put him through a little sweating, we’ll have enough material for an indictment. He was in love with the Dillard girl and was jealous of Robin—not only on account of the girl, but because Robin could shoot those red sticks straighter than he could. He had a scrap with Robin in this here room—the professor heard ’em at it; and he was down-stairs with Robin, according to the evidence, a few minutes before the murder.…”

  “And,” added Vance ironically, “his name means ‘sparrow.’ Quod erat demonstrandum. —No, Sergeant; it’s much too easy. It works out like a game of Canfield with the cards stacked; whereas this thing was planned much too carefully for suspicion to fall directly on the guilty person.”

  “I can’t see any careful planning about it,” persisted Heath. “This Sperling gets sore, picks up a bow, grabs an arrow off of the wall, follows Robin outside, shoots him through the heart, and beats it.”

  Vance sighed.

  “You’re far too forthright for this wicked world, Sergeant. If only things happened with such naïve dispatch, life would be very simple—and depressin’. But such was not the modus operandi of the Robin’s murder. First, no archer could shoot at a moving human target and strike just between the ribs over the vital spot of the heart. Secondly, there’s that fracture of Robin’s skull. He may have acquired it in falling, but it’s not likely. Thirdly, his hat was at his feet, where it wouldn’t have been if he had fallen naturally. Fourthly, the nock on the arrow is so bruised that I doubt if it would hold a string. Fifthly, Robin was facing the arrow, and during the drawing and aiming of the bow he would have had time to call out and cover himself. Sixthly.…”

  Vance paused in the act of lighting a cigarette.

  “By Jove, Sergeant! I’ve overlooked something. When a man’s stabbed in the heart there’s sure to be an immediate flow of blood, especially when the end of the weapon is larger than the shaft and there’s no adequate plug for the hole. I say! It’s quite possible that you’ll find some blood spots on the floor of the archery-room—somewhere near the door most likely.”

  Heath hesitated, but only momentarily. Experience had long since taught him that Vance’s suggestions were not to be treated cavalierly; and with a good-natured grunt he got up and disappeared toward the rear of the house.

  “I think, Vance, I begin to see what you mean,” observed Markham, with a troubled look. “But, good God! If Robin’s apparent death with a bow and arrow was merely an ex-post-facto stage-setting, then we’re confronted by something almost too diabolical to contemplate.”

  “It was the work of a maniac,” declared Vance, with unwonted sobriety. “Oh, not the conventional maniac who imagines he’s Napoleon, but a madman with a brain so colossal that he has carried sanity to a, humanly speaking, reductio ad absurdum—to a point, that is, where humor itself becomes a formula in four dimensions.”

  Markham smoked vigorously, lost in speculation.

  “I hope Heath doesn’t find anything,” he said at length.

  “Why—in Heaven’s name?” returned Vance. “If there’s no material evidence that Robin met his end in the archery-room, it’ll only make the problem more difficult legally.”

  But the material evidence was forthcoming. The Sergeant returned a few minutes later, crestfallen but excited.

  “Damn it, Mr. Vance!” he blurted. “You had the dope all right.” He made no attempt to keep the admiration out of his look. “There isn’t any actual blood on the floor; but there’s a dark place on the cement where somebody’s scrubbed it with a wet rag today some time. It ain’t dry yet; and the place is right near the door, where you said. And what makes it more suspicious is that one of those rugs has been pulled over it.—But that don’t let Sperling out altogether,” he added pugnaciously. “He mighta shot Robin indoors.”

  “And then cleaned up the blood, wiped off the bow and arrow, and placed the body and the bow on the range, before making his departure?… Why?… Archery, to begin with, isn’t an indoor sport, Sergeant. And Sperling knows too much about it to attempt murder with a bow and arrow. A hit such as the one that ended Robin’s uneventful career would have been a pure fluke. Teucer himself couldn’t have achieved it with any degree of certainty—and, according to Homer, Teucer was the champion archer of the Greeks.”

  As he spoke Pardee passed down the hall on his way out. He had nearly reached the front door when Vance rose suddenly and went to the archway.

  “Oh, I say, Mr. Pardee. Just a moment, please.” The man turned with an air of gracious compliance.

  “There is one other question we’d like to ask you,” said Vance. “You mentioned seeing Mr. Sperling and Beedle leave here this morning by the wall gate. Are you sure you saw no one else use the gate?”

  “Quite sure. That is, I don’t recall any one else.”

  “I was thinking particularly of Mr. Drukker.”

  “Oh, Drukker?” Pardee shook his head with mild emphasis. “No, I would have remembered him. But you realize a dozen people might have entered and left this house without my noticing them.”

  “Quite—quite,” Vance murmured indifferently. “How good a chess player, by the by, is Mr. Drukker?”

  Pardee showed a flicker of surprise.

  “He’s not a player in the practical sense at all,” he explained with careful precision. “He’s an excellent analyst, however, and understands the theory of the game amazingly well. But he’s had little practice at actual over-the-board play.”

  When Pardee had gone Heath cocked a triumphant eye at Vance.

  “I notice, sir,” he remarked good-naturedly, “that I’m not the only one who’d like to check the hunchback’s alibi.”

  “Ah, but there’s a difference between checking an alibi, and demanding that the person himself prove it.”

  At this moment the front door was thrown open. There were heavy footsteps in the hall, and three men appeared in the archway. Two were obviously detectives, and between them stood a tall, clean-cut youth of about thirty.

  “We got him, Sergeant,” announced one of the detectives, with a grin of vicious satisfaction. “He beat it straight home from here, and was packing up when we walked in on him.”

  Sperling’s eyes swept the room with angry apprehension. Heath had planted himself before the man, and stood looking him up and down triumphantly.

  “Well, young fella, you thought you’d get away, did you?” The Sergeant’s cigar bobbed up and down between his lips as he spoke.

  The color mounted to Sperling’s cheeks, and he set his mouth stubbornly.

  “So! You’ve got nothing to say?” Heath went on, squaring his jaw ferociously. “You’re one of these silent lads, are you? Well, we’ll make you talk.” He turned to Markham. “How about it, sir? Shall I take him to Headquarters?”

  “Perhaps Mr. Sperling will not object to answering a few questions here,” said Markham quietly.

  Sperling studied the District Attorney a moment; then his gaze moved to Vance, who nodded to him encouragingly.

  “Answer questi
ons about what?” he asked, with an obvious effort at self-control. “I was preparing to go away for the week-end when these ruffians forced their way into my room; and I was brought here without a word of explanation or even an opportunity to communicate with my family. Now you talk of taking me to Police Headquarters.” He gave Heath a defiant glare. “All right, take me to Police Headquarters—and be damned to you!”

  “What time did you leave here this morning, Mr. Sperling?” Vance’s tone was soft and ingratiating, and his manner reassuring.

  “About a quarter past eleven,” the man answered. “In time to catch the 11.40 Scarsdale train from Grand Central.”

  “And Mr. Robin?”

  “I don’t know what time Robin went. He said he was going to wait for Belle—Miss Dillard. I left him in the archery-room.”

  “You saw Mr. Drukker?”

  “For a minute—yes. He was in the archery-room when Robin and I went down-stairs; but he left immediately.”

  “Through the wall gate? Or did he walk down the range?”

  “I don’t remember—in fact, I didn’t notice.… Say, look here: what’s all this about anyway?”

  “Mr. Robin was killed this morning,” said Vance, “—at some time near eleven o’clock.”

  Sperling’s eyes seemed to start from his head.

  “Robin killed? My God!… Who—who killed him?” The man’s lips were dry, and he wetted them with his tongue.

  “We don’t know yet,” Vance answered. “He was shot through the heart with an arrow.”

  This news left Sperling stunned. His eyes traveled vaguely from side to side, and he fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette.

  Heath stepped nearer to him, and thrust out his chin.

  “Maybe you can tell us who killed him—with a bow and arrow!”

  “Why—why do you—think I know?” Sperling managed to stammer.

  “Well,” returned the Sergeant relentlessly, “you were jealous of Robin, weren’t you? You had a hot argument with him about the girl, right in this room, didn’t you? And you were alone with him just before he was croaked, weren’t you? And you’re a pretty good shot with the bow and arrow, aren’t you?—That’s why I think that maybe you know something.” He narrowed his eyes and drew his upper lip over his teeth. “Say! Come clean. Nobody else but you coulda done it. You had a fight with him over the girl, and you were the last person seen with him—only a few minutes before he was killed. And who else woulda shot him with a bow and arrow except a champeen archer—huh?… Make it easy for yourself, and spill the story. We’ve got you.”

  A strange light had gathered in Sperling’s eyes, and his body became rigid.

  “Tell me,”—he spoke in a strained, unnatural voice—“did you find the bow?”

  “Sure we found it.” Heath laughed unpleasantly. “Right where you left it—in the alley.”

  “What kind of a bow was it?” Sperling’s gaze had not moved from some distant point.

  “What kind of a bow?” repeated Heath. “A regular bow—”

  Vance, who had been watching the youth closely, interrupted.

  “I think I understand the question, Sergeant.—It was a woman’s bow, Mr. Sperling. About five-feet-six, and rather light—under thirty pounds, I should say.”

  Sperling drew a slow, deep breath, like a man steeling himself for some bitter resolution. Then his lips parted in a faint, grim smile.

  “What’s the use?” he asked listlessly. “I thought I’d have time to get away.… Yes, I killed him.”

  Heath grunted with satisfaction, and his belligerent manner at once disappeared.

  “You got more sense than I thought you had,” he said, in an almost paternal tone, nodding in a businesslike manner to the two detectives. “Take him along, boys. Use my buggy—it’s outside. And lock him up without booking him. I’ll prefer the charge when I get to the office.”

  “Come along, bo,” ordered one of the detectives, turning toward the hall.

  But Sperling did not at once obey. Instead he looked appealingly at Vance.

  “Could I—might I—” he began.

  Vance shook his head.

  “No, Mr. Sperling. It would be best if you didn’t see Miss Dillard. No use of harrowin’ her feelings just now.… Cheerio.”

  The man turned without another word and went out between his captors.

  CHAPTER VII

  VANCE REACHES A CONCLUSION

  (Saturday, April 2; 3.30 P.M.)

  When we were again alone in the drawing-room Vance rose and, stretching himself, went to the window. The scene that had just been enacted, with its startling climax, had left us all somewhat dazed. Our minds were busy, I think, with the same idea; and when Vance spoke it was as if he were voicing our thoughts.

  “We’re back in the nursery, it seems.…

  “‘I,’ said the Sparrow,

  ‘With my bow and arrow,

  I killed Cock Robin.’…

  I say, Markham; this is getting a bit thick.”

  He came slowly back to the centre-table and crushed out his cigarette. From the corner of his eye he looked at Heath.

  “Why so pensive, Sergeant? You should be singing roundelays and doing a joyous tarantella. Has not your villain confessed to the dark deed? Does it not fill you with gladness to know that the culprit will soon be languishin’ in an oubliette?”

  “To tell you the truth, Mr. Vance,” Heath admitted sullenly, “I’m not satisfied. That confession came too easy, and—well, I’ve seen a lot of guys come across, but this one somehow didn’t act like he was guilty. And that’s a fact, sir.”

  “At any rate,” submitted Markham hopefully, “his preposterous confession will damp the newspapers’ curiosity and give us a free field to push our investigation. This case is going to make an ungodly noise; but as long as the reporters think the guilty person is jailed, they won’t be bothering us for news of ‘developments.’”

  “I’m not saying he ain’t guilty,” asserted Heath pugnaciously, obviously arguing against his own convictions. “We certainly had the goods on him, and he mighta realized it and spilled the works, thinking it would go easier with him at the trial. Maybe he’s not so dumb, after all.”

  “It won’t do, Sergeant,” said Vance. “The lad’s mental workin’s were deucedly simple. He knew Robin was waiting to see Miss Dillard, and he also knew she’d non-suited him, so to speak, last night. Sperling evidently didn’t have a high opinion of Robin; and when he heard of the gentleman’s death at the hands of some one who wielded a short, light bow, he jumped to the conclusion that Robin had overstepped the bounds of propriety in his wooing, and received a righteous shaft through the heart. There was then nothing for our noble, mid-Victorian sparrow to do but slap his own manly bosom and proclaim: ‘Ecce homo!’… It’s most distressin’.”

  “Well, anyhow,” grumbled Heath, “I’m not going to turn him loose. If Mr. Markham don’t want to prosecute, that’s up to him.”

  Markham looked at the Sergeant tolerantly. He realized the strain the man was under, and it was in keeping with his bigness of nature that he took no offence at the other’s words.

  “Perhaps, however, Sergeant,” he said kindly, “you’ll not object to continuing the investigation with me, even if I don’t decide to prosecute Sperling.”

  Heath was at once contrite. He got up briskly and, going to Markham, held out his hand.

  “You know it, sir!”

  Markham took the offered hand, and rose with a gracious smile.

  “I’ll leave things with you, then, for the time being. I’ve some work to do at the office, and I told Swacker to wait for me.”86 He moved dispiritedly toward the hall. “I’ll explain the situation to Miss Dillard and the professor before I go.—Anything special in mind, Sergeant?”

  “Well, sir, I think I’ll take a good look for that rag that was used to wipe up the floor down-stairs. And while I’m at it I’ll go over the archery-room with a fine-tooth comb. Also, I’ll put the screws
to the cook and the butler again—especially the cook. She musta been mighty close at hand when the dirty work was going on.… Then the regular routine stuff—inquiries in the neighborhood and that sorta thing.”

  “Let me know the results. I’ll be at the Stuyvesant Club later today and tomorrow afternoon.”

  Vance had joined Markham in the archway.

  “I say, old man,” he remarked, as we went toward the stairs; “don’t minimize the importance of that cryptic note left in the mail-box. I’ve a strong psychic suspicion that it may be the key to the nursery. You’d better ask Professor Dillard and his niece if ‘Bishop’ has any provocative significance for them. That diocesan signature has a meaning.”

  “I’m not so sure,” returned Markham dubiously. “It appears utterly meaningless to me. But I’ll follow your suggestion.”

  Neither the professor nor Miss Dillard, however, could recall any personal association with the word Bishop; and the professor was inclined to agree with Markham that the note was without any significant bearing on the case.

  “It strikes me,” he said, “as a piece of juvenile melodrama. It isn’t likely that the person who killed Robin would adopt a vague pseudonym and write notes about his crime. I’m not acquainted with criminals, but such conduct doesn’t impress me as logical.”

  “But the crime itself was illogical,” ventured Vance pleasantly.

  “One can’t speak of a thing being illogical, sir,” returned the professor tartly, “when one is ignorant of the very premises of a syllogism.”

  “Exactly.” Vance’s tone was studiously courteous. “Therefore, the note itself may not be without logic.”

  Markham tactfully changed the subject.

  “What I came particularly to tell you, professor, is that Mr. Sperling called a short time ago and, when informed of Mr. Robin’s death, confessed to having done it himself.…”

  “Raymond confessed!” gasped Miss Dillard.

  Markham looked at the girl sympathetically.

  “To be quite frank, I didn’t believe Mr. Sperling. Some mistaken idea of chivalry undoubtedly led him to admit the crime.”