“Could you tell whether it was a man or woman speaking?”
“No. It seemed to me that they were deliberately pitching their voices to a whisper, to avoid being overheard.”
“How long did this whispered conversation last?”
“Only a few seconds. Then it faded away.”
“As if the two holding converse were walking away from the house?”
“Exactly.”
Vance swung about quickly and faced Leland.
“What else did you happen to hear last night, Mr. Leland?”
Once again Leland hesitated, and busied himself with relighting his pipe.
“I am not sure,” he answered reluctantly. “But there was a scraping sound at the far side of the pool, toward the East Road.”
“Most interestin’.” Vance did not relax his steady gaze. “Will you describe, as nearly as possible, just what you heard.”
Leland looked down at the floor, and smoked intently for a moment.
“First,” he said, “I heard a faint grating noise, as of one piece of metal being rubbed against another—at least, such was my impression. Then all was silence for several minutes. A little later the same sound was repeated and, still later, I could distinguish a low, continuous noise, as of something heavy being dragged over a sandy surface. This noise became fainter and fainter, until finally it died away altogether.… I heard nothing more until perhaps half an hour later, when some one re-entered the house through the side door and replaced the bolt.”
“Did these noises strike you as peculiar in any way?”
“No, I cannot say that they did. We had all been told we had access to the grounds, and I took it for granted, when I heard the side door open, that some one was going out for a walk in the air. The other noises—those on the other side of the pool—were very indistinct and might have been explained in various ways. I knew, of course, that a man had been stationed at the gate on the East Road, and I suppose I assumed—without giving the matter any particular thought—that it was he whom I heard across the pool. It was not until this morning, when I learned of the disappearance of Greeff, that I attached any importance to what I had heard during the night.”
“And now, knowing that Mr. Greeff is gone, can you offer any explanation for the noises you heard?”
“No, I cannot.” Leland thought a moment. “They were not familiar sounds; and while the metallic noise might have been the creaking of the hinges of the gate, there would have been no point in Greeff’s opening the gate to make his escape, for he could very easily have climbed over, or walked round it. Moreover, the sound seemed to be much nearer to the house than the gate is. In any event, there was some one guarding the gate, and Greeff would not have chosen that avenue of escape—there are too many other ways of leaving the estate, if he really wished to do so.”
Vance nodded as if satisfied, and again strolled toward the front window.
“Did you, by any chance,” he asked casually, “hear an automobile on the East Road last night?”
“No.” Leland shook his head with emphasis. “I can assure you no car traversed the East Road in either direction up to the time I fell asleep—which, I should say, was about two o’clock in the morning.”
Vance turned leisurely at the window.
“Did Mr. Greeff,” he asked, “by any action or any remark, give you the impression that he contemplated leaving the estate?”
“Quite the contrary,” Leland returned. “He did grouse a bit about being detained here. He said it might mean the loss of some business at his office this morning; but he seemed resigned to seeing the affair through.”
“Did he have any words with any one last night?”
“No, he was in unusually good humor. He drank a bit more than is his custom, and spent most of the evening, after dinner, discussing financial matters with Stamm.”
“Any evidences of animosity between them?”
“None whatever. Stamm seemed to have forgotten completely his outburst of the night before.”
Vance walked back and stood before Leland.
“What of the other members of the party?” he asked. “How did they disport themselves after dinner?”
“Most of them went out on the terrace. Miss Stamm and I walked down to the pool, but we returned immediately—a pall seemed to hang over it. When we came back to the house, Mrs. McAdam and Miss Steele and young Tatum were sitting on the steps of the terrace, drinking some sort of punch that Trainor had made for them.”
“Where were Greeff and Stamm?”
“They were still in the library. I doubt if they had gone outdoors at all.”
Vance smoked a moment in thoughtful silence; then he resumed his chair and lay back languidly.
“Thanks awfully,” he said. “That will be all for the present.”
Leland rose.
“If I can be of any help—” he began, and then contemplated his pipe. Without finishing the sentence he went from the room.
“What do you make of it, Vance?” Markham asked with a puzzled frown, when we were alone.
“I don’t like it,” Vance returned, his eyes on the ceiling. “Too many strange things have been happening in these ancient purlieus. And it’s not like Greeff to walk out in the middle of the night.…”
At this moment some one came hurrying down from up-stairs, and a few seconds later we heard Stamm telephoning to Doctor Holliday.
“You’d better come as soon as you can,” he was saying nervously. Then, after a pause, he hung up the receiver.
Vance had risen and gone to the door.
“May we see you a moment, Mr. Stamm.” His request was practically a command.
Stamm crossed the hall and entered the drawing-room. It was obvious that he was laboring under some suppressed excitement. The muscles of his face were twitching, and his eyes were staring and restless.
Before he could speak Vance addressed him.
“We heard you phoning to the doctor. Is Mrs. Stamm ill again?”
“The same trouble,” Stamm answered. “And it’s probably my own fault. I went up to see her a while ago, and I mentioned that Greeff was missing. Then she started in with her pet hallucination. Said he was missing because the dragon had got him. Insisted she saw the dragon rise out of the pool last night and fly down toward Spuyten Duyvil.”
“Most interestin’.” Vance leaned against the edge of the table and looked at Stamm through half-closed eyes. “Have you yourself any more rational explanation of Greeff’s disappearance?”
“I can’t—understand it.” Stamm appeared nonplussed. “From what he said last night he had no intention of leaving the place till you gentlemen gave him permission to go. Seemed quite content to remain here.”
“By the by, did you happen to go outdoors late last night?”
Stamm looked up with considerable surprise.
“Didn’t leave the house after dinner,” he said. “Greeff and I sat in the library chatting till he went up-stairs. I had a nightcap and went to bed very soon after he did.”
“Some one,” mused Vance, “let himself out by the side door around midnight.”
“Good God! That must have been when Greeff walked out.”
“But it seems some one came back through the side door an hour or so later.”
Stamm stared with glassy eyes, and his lower lip sagged.
“You—you’re sure?” he stammered.
“Both Mr. Leland and Trainor heard the bolt being opened and closed,” Vance returned.
“Leland heard it?”
“So he told us a few minutes ago.”
A change came over Stamm. He drew himself up and made a deprecatory gesture.
“Probably some one went out for an airing.”
Vance nodded indifferently.
“That’s quite reasonable.… Sorry to have bothered you. I presume you want to return to your mother.”
Stamm nodded gratefully.
“If you don’t mind. Doctor Holliday is com
ing right over. If you want me I’ll be up-stairs.” And he hurried from the room.
When the sound of his footsteps had died out up the stairs, Vance suddenly rose and threw his cigarette into the grate.
“Come, Markham,” he said with animation, moving toward the door.
“Where are you going now?” Markham demanded.
Vance turned at the portières. His eyes were cold and hard.
“To the pot-holes,” he said quietly.
CHAPTER XVI
BLOOD AND A GARDENIA
(Monday, August 13; 10.15 a. m.)
Markham sprang to his feet.
“Good God! What do you mean?”
But Vance was already on his way to the front door, and without answering, he ran quickly down the steps and took his place at the wheel of his car. Markham and Heath, silent and, I thought, a little dazed, got into the tonneau, and I followed. Something in Vance’s manner when he mentioned the pot holes sent a chill up my spine, and I wondered vaguely—without admitting to myself the hideous suspicion that had been roused in me by his sudden decision—what it was that he hoped to learn at the scene where he had discovered Montague’s body.
We sped down the East Road, through the gate, and on toward the Clove. When we were opposite the pot-holes Vance threw on the brakes and sprang down to the ground. We followed him as he hastened to the foot of the rocks and drew himself up to the top of the low wall of the hole where Montague’s remains had been found.
He gazed over the edge a moment and then turned back to us, his face grave. He said nothing but merely made a gesture toward the hole. Heath was already climbing to the top of the wall, and Markham and I were close behind him. Then came a tense moment of silence: we were all too horrified at the sight to speak.
Heath slid down from the wall, a look of combined anger and fear on his grim face.
“Mother of God!” he mumbled, and crossed himself.
Markham stood at the foot of the wall with a faraway look of horror and bafflement. And I found it difficult, in the peaceful atmosphere of that calm summer morning, to adjust my mind and emotions to the hideous thing I had just beheld.
There, in the depths of the pot-hole, lay the crumpled dead body of Alex Greeff. His position, like that of Montague, was unnatural and distorted, as if he had been dropped from a height into this narrow rock grave. Across the left side of his head ran a gaping wound, and there were black bruises on his neck. He wore no waistcoat, and his coat was open, exposing his breast. His shirt had been ripped down the front, like the jersey of Montague’s bathing suit, and there were three long gashes in the flesh, as if a monster’s claw had torn him downward from the throat. The moment I looked at him, mutilated in exactly the same manner as Montague, all the wild stories of the dragon of the pool came back to me and froze my blood.
Markham had brought his gaze back from the distance and looked wonderingly at Vance.
“How did you know he was here?” he asked huskily.
Vance’s eyes were focused on the tip of his cigarette.
“I didn’t know,” he answered softly. “But after Stamm told us of his mother’s comment when she heard Greeff had disappeared, I thought it best to come down here.…”
“The dragon again!” Markham spoke angrily, but there was an undertone of awe in his voice. “You’re not trying to intimate, are you, that the ravings of that crazy woman are to be taken seriously?”
“No, Markham,” Vance returned mildly. “But she knows a great many things, and her predictions thus far have all been correct.”
“That’s sheer coincidence,” Markham protested. “Come, come, let’s be practical.”
“Whoever killed Greeff was certainly practical,” observed Vance.
“But, good Heavens! where do we stand now?” Markham was both baffled and irritable. “Greeff’s murder only complicates the case. We now have two hideous problems instead of one.”
“No, no, Markham.” Vance moved slowly back to the car. “I wouldn’t say that, don’t y’ know. It’s all one problem. And it’s clearer now than it was. A certain pattern is beginning to take shape—the dragon pattern.”
“Don’t talk nonsense!” Markham fairly barked the reprimand.
“It’s not nonsense, old dear.” Vance got into the car. “The imprints on the bed of the pool, the talon-like marks on Montague and now on Greeff, and—above all—the curious prognostications of old Mrs. Stamm—these must all be accounted for before we can eliminate the dragon theory. An amazin’ situation.”
Markham lapsed into indignant silence as Vance started the car. Then he said with sarcasm:
“I think we’ll work this case out on anti-dragon lines.”
“That will depend entirely on the type of dragon you have in mind,” Vance returned, as he guided the car round and started back up the East Road to the Stamm estate.
When we reached the house Heath went immediately to the telephone and notified Doctor Doremus of our second gruesome find. As he hung up the receiver he turned to Markham with a look of hopeless desperation.
“I don’t know how to handle this job, Chief,” he admitted in an appealing tone.
Markham looked at him a moment and slowly nodded his head appreciatively.
“I know just how you feel, Sergeant.” He took out a cigar, carefully clipped the end, and lighted it. “The usual methods don’t seem to get us anywhere.” He was profoundly perplexed.
Vance was standing in the middle of the hall, gazing at the floor.
“No,” he murmured, without looking up. “The usual methods are futile. The roots of these two crimes go down much deeper than that. The murders are diabolical—in more than one sense; and they are closely related, in some strange way, to all the sinister factors which go to make up this household and its influences.…” He ceased speaking and turned his head toward the staircase.
Stamm and Leland were descending from the second floor, and Vance immediately approached them.
“Will you gentlemen please come into the drawing-room,” he said. “We have a bit of news for you.”
A breath of air stirred in the room: the sun had not yet reached that side of the house. Vance turned to the west window and gazed out a few moments. Then he turned back to Stamm and Leland who were standing just inside the portières.
“We have found Greeff,” he said. “He is dead—in the same pot-hole where Montague’s body was chucked.”
Stamm paled perceptibly and caught his breath. But Leland’s expression did not change. He took his pipe from his mouth.
“Murdered, of course.” His remark was half question and half statement.
“Murdered, of course.” Vance repeated the words, nodding. “A messy affair. The same sort of wounds we found on Montague. A perfect duplication of the technique, in fact.”
Stamm wavered on his feet, as if he had been struck a physical blow.
“Oh, my God!” he muttered, with a sucking intake of breath.
Leland grasped him quickly by the arm and led him to a chair.
“Sit down, Rudolf,” he said kindly. “You and I have been expecting this ever since we knew that Greeff was missing.”
Stamm slumped into the chair and sat glaring before him with unseeing eyes. Leland turned back to Vance.
“I feared all morning,” he said simply, “that Greeff did not absent himself voluntarily…Have you learned anything else?”
Vance shook his head.
“No—nothing else. But I think we’ll take a look around Greeff’s room. Do you know which one it is?”
“Yes,” Leland answered quietly. “I will be very glad to show you.”
We had barely passed over the threshold of the drawing-room door when Stamm’s strained, husky voice halted us.
“Wait a minute—wait a minute!” he called, struggling forward in his chair. “There’s something I should have told you. But I was afraid—God help me, I was afraid!”
Vance regarded the man quizzically.
�
��What is it?” he asked, in a curiously stern voice.
“It’s about last night.” Stamm’s hands clutched the arms of the chair, and he held himself rigid as he spoke. “After I had gone to my room Greeff came and tapped on my door. I opened it and let him in. He said he did not feel like sleeping and thought he would join me in another drink, if I did not mind. We talked for an hour or so—”
“About what, for instance?” interrupted Vance.
“Nothing of importance—generalities about finance, and the possibilities of a new expedition to the South Seas next spring.… Then Greeff looked at his watch. ‘It’s midnight,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll take a stroll before I turn in.’ He went out and I heard him go down to the lower hall, unbolt the side door—my room, you know, is just at the head of the stairs. I was tired and I got into bed, and—and—that’s all.”
“Why were you afraid to tell us this before?” Vance asked coldly.
“I don’t know—exactly.” Stamm relaxed and settled back in his chair. “I didn’t think anything of it last night. But when Greeff failed to put in an appearance this morning, I realized that I was the last person to see him and talk to him before he went out. I saw no reason for mentioning the fact this morning, but after what you’ve just told us—about his body being found in the pot-hole—I felt that you ought to know—”
“It’s quite all right,” Vance assured him, in a somewhat softened tone. “Your feelings are quite natural in the circumstances.”
Stamm lifted his head and gave him a grateful look.
“Would you mind asking Trainor to bring me some whisky?” he asked weakly.
“Not at all.” And Vance turned and walked into the hall.
After sending the butler to Stamm we went up-stairs. Greeff’s room was the second one from Stamm’s on the same side of the hall. The door was unlocked and we went in. As Trainor had told us, the bed had not been slept in; and the window shades were still drawn. The room was somewhat similar to Montague’s, but it was larger and more luxuriously furnished. A few toilet articles lay neatly on the dressing-table; a pongee robe and a pair of pajamas were thrown over the foot of the bed; and on a chair near the window lay Greeff’s dinner suit, in a rumpled heap. On the floor, near an end-table, was a gaping Gladstone bag.
The Philo Vance Megapack Page 178
