“It is quite possible,” Leland returned, without taking his troubled gaze from the carpet. Then he added: “The sound certainly seemed to come from just that point.”
Vance studied the man for some time without speaking. Then he said:
“Thanks awfully.… I’d like to have a bit of a chat with Tatum. Would you mind asking him to come here?… Oh, and please don’t make any mention to him—or to any of the others—for the present, of what you have just learned.”
Leland moved uneasily, drew himself together, and studied Vance inquisitively.
“As you wish,” he answered, and hesitated. “You found the key to the vault in Tatum’s room:—do you think, perhaps, it was he who went to the vault last night?”
“I really couldn’t say,” Vance replied coldly.
Leland turned and started from the room; but he halted at the portières and looked round.
“May I inquire,” he asked, “whether you left the vault door unlocked?”
“I took the precaution of relocking it,” Vance informed him, in an offhand manner. After a slight pause he added: “I have the key in my pocket. I intend to keep it until this investigation is brought to a satisfact’ry close.”
Leland regarded him for a moment in silence. Then he nodded slowly.
“I am glad of that. I think that is wise.” He turned and walked across the hall toward the library.
When Tatum entered the drawing-room it was obvious that he was in a sullen, defiant mood. He did not greet any of us, but stood inside the door, looking us over with smouldering, cynical eyes.
Vance rose as he entered the room and, moving to the centre-table, beckoned to him peremptorily. When the man had swaggered to the table Vance took the vault key from his pocket and laid it down before the other’s gaze.
“Did you ever see that key?” he asked.
Tatum looked at the key with a smirk, studied it for a few moments, and shrugged.
“No, I never saw it before,” he replied flatly. “Any mystery attached to it?”
“A bit of a mystery,” Vance told him, picking up the key and resuming his seat. “We found it in your room this morning.”
“Maybe it’s the key to the situation,” Tatum sneered, with cold, half-closed eyes.
“Yes, yes, of course.… Quite.” Vance smiled faintly. “But, as I’ve said, it was found in your room.”
The man smoked a minute, without moving. Then he raised his hand and took his cigarette from his lips. (I particularly noted that his fingers were as steady as steel.)
“What of it?” he asked, with exaggerated indifference. “You will probably find plenty of junk in the rooms of this rotting old house.” He turned to Vance with a hard mirthless smile which barely contorted the corners of his mouth. “You know, I don’t live here—I’m only a guest. Am I supposed to be frightened, or have the jitters, or go into hysterics, because you found an old rusty key in my room upstairs?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Vance assured him lightly. “You’re acting in the most highly approved manner.”
“Well, where do we go from here?” Tatum’s tone was contemptuous.
“Figuratively speaking, we go to the vault.” Vance spoke with unusual mildness.
Tatum appeared puzzled. “What vault?”
“The ancestral vault of the Stamms.”
“And where might that be?”
“Just the other side of the pool, hidden in the spruce trees, beyond the little cement walk.”
Again Tatum’s eyes narrowed, and the contours of his face formed into a rigid defensive mask.
“Are you trying to spoof me?” he asked, in a metallic voice.
“No, no,” Vance assured him. “I’m merely answering your question.… I say, don’t you know about the vault?”
Tatum shifted his eyes and grinned.
“Never saw it and never heard of it.” Suddenly he wheeled round, crushed out his cigarette, and glared truculently at Vance. “What’s the idea?” he demanded. (His nerves seemed to have snapped.) “Are you trying to pin something on me?”
Vance studied the man indifferently for a while and then shook his head.
“Not even a gardenia,” he replied sweetly.
Tatum started, and his eyes closed to mere slits.
“I know what you mean by that!” His face paled, and his long flat fingers began to twitch. “Greeff was wearing a gardenia last night, wasn’t he? Maybe you’re going to tell me that you also found a gardenia in my room.”
Vance seemed puzzled for a moment at the man’s words, but in an instant his face cleared.
“No,” he said, “the gardenia was not in your room. But really, y’ know, the possible presence of Greeff’s posy in your boudoir shouldn’t be so upsetting—unless, of course, Greeff has met with foul play.”
Another grim, ironic smile moved the muscles of Tatum’s mouth.
“He met with foul play all right—the same as Montague. Greeff didn’t run away; and there are too many people round here that would be glad to see him smeared out.”
“And you’re one of those people, aren’t you?” Vance returned dulcetly.
“Sure I am.” Tatum thrust out his jaw, and his eyes became venomous. “But that doesn’t mean that I did it.”
“No, that doesn’t mean that you did it.” Vance rose and waved his hand in dismissal. “That will be all for the present. But, if I were you, I would control my musical impulses. Leland might decide that you too were due for a bit of killin’.”
Tatum grinned viciously.
“That half-breed!” And, with an awkward gesture of contempt, he went from the room.
“A hard-bitten character,” Markham commented when the man was out of hearing.
“True,” Vance nodded. “But shrewd.”
“It seems to me,” said Markham, rising, and pacing nervously up and down, “that if we could learn who managed to get the vault key from old Mrs. Stamm’s trunk, we’d know a lot more about the deviltry that went on here last night.”
Vance shook his head.
“I doubt if the key has been in the trunk for years. It may never have been there, Markham. The hiding of the key, and all the secrecy, may be just another hallucination on Mrs. Stamm’s part—an hallucination closely connected with the dragon.…”
“But why, in Heaven’s name, was the key in Tatum’s room? Tatum struck me as telling the truth when he said he’d never seen it before.”
Vance gave Markham a quick, curious look.
“The chap was certainly convincing.…”
Markham halted and looked down at Vance.
“I can’t see any way of tackling this case,” he remarked despondently. “Every factor in it that we try to touch turns out to be a sort of Fata Morgana. There’s nothing tangible to take hold of. The situation even precludes plausible theorizing.”
“Don’t give way to discouragement, old dear,” Vance consoled him. “It’s not as Cimmerian as it appears. The whole difficulty is that we’ve been attacking the problem from a too rational and ordin’ry point of view. We’ve been trying to make a conventional peg fit into a sinister and bizarre hole. There are extr’ordin’ry elements in this case.…”
“Damn it, Vance!” Markham uttered the expletive with unwonted passion. “You’re not reverting to that incredible dragon theory, I hope.”
Before Vance could reply there was the sound of a car swinging into the parking-space before the house; and a minute later Snitkin threw open the front door and led Doctor Doremus into the drawing-room.
“Another body, eh?” the Medical Examiner grumbled, with a casual wave of the hand in greeting.
“Can’t you get all of your corpses together at one time, Sergeant?… Well, where is it? And what’s all the excitement?” He grinned at Heath with sardonic good-humor. “Your dragon again?”
Vance rose.
“It looks that way,” he said soberly.
“What!” Doremus was puzzled. “Well, where’s the
new victim?”
“In the same pot-hole.” Vance took his hat and went into the hall.
Doremus squinted, and followed without a word.
The Sergeant ordered Snitkin to join us, and once again we drove round the house and down the East Road. At the pot-holes we stood back while Doremus looked over the wall into the shallow chasm beyond. After a cursory glance he slid back to the ground, and turned to us. There was a strange, startled look on his face: he had completely lost his cynicism and jauntiness.
“Good Gad! Good Gad!” he repeated. “What kind of a case is this?” He compressed his lips and made a jerky motion in Heath’s direction. “Get him out,” he ordered in a strained tone.
Snitkin and the Sergeant lifted Greeff’s body from the pot-hole and laid it on the ground.
After a brief examination Doremus stood up and looked toward Markham.
“The same as that fellow yesterday,” he said. “Same wounds exactly. Same fracture of the skull; same three scratches down his chest; same discoloration on his throat. Ripped wide open, bashed over the left side of the head, and strangled.… Only,” he added, “he hasn’t been dead as long as the other one.” He made a grimace at Heath. “That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?”
“How would twelve o’clock last night fit?” asked Vance.
“Midnight, eh?” Doremus bent down over Greeff’s body and again tested the rigor mortis. “That’d make it about twelve hours.… Right.” He stood up and wrote out a removal blank. As he handed it to the Sergeant he said: “There was nothing found at the autopsy of the other fellow that changed what I told you yesterday, but you’d better get this one down to the morgue right away—I’ll have time this afternoon to autopsy him.” (I had never seen Doremus so serious.) “And I’m driving back again by Payson Avenue. I’m getting to believe in that dragon of yours, Sergeant.… Damn queer,” he muttered, as he walked to the road and got into his car. “That’s no way to kill a man. And two of ’em!… I saw that stuff in the morning papers about Dragonfish.195 Good Gad, what a story!” He released the brakes, letting his car roll down the road, and drove off toward Spuyten Duyvil.
Leaving Snitkin to watch Greeff’s body, we returned to the house.
“And now what’s to be done?” Markham asked hopelessly, as we entered the front door.
“Oh, that’s clearly indicated, don’t y’ know,” Vance replied. “I’m going to take a peep at Stamm’s fish collection. Really, you’d better come along. Tropicals are fascinatin’, Markham.” He turned to Trainor, who had taken Snitkin’s place at the door. “Ask Mr. Stamm if we may see him.”
Trainor glared at Vance fearfully; then drew himself up rigidly and went down the hall.
“See here, Vance,” Markham protested irritably, “what’s the point of this? We have serious work to do, and you talk of inspecting a fish collection! Two men have been murdered—”
“I’m sure,” Vance interrupted, “that you’ll find the fish highly educational.…”
At this moment Stamm came out from the library and strode toward us.
“Would you be so good as to act as our cicerone, among your aquaria?” Vance asked him.
Stamm evinced considerable surprise.
“Why, yes,” he said, with an intonation of forced politeness. “Of course—of course. I’d be delighted. Come this way.” And he turned and walked back toward the library.
CHAPTER XVIII
PISCATORIAL LORE
(Monday, August 13; 12.15 p. m.)
The library was an unusually large room, severely but comfortably furnished in the Jacobean style, with great tiers of books reaching from the floor to the ceiling. There were windows to the east and west, and, in the north wall, facing us, was a large archway which led to the aquaria and terrarium beyond.
Leland was sitting on the davenport with one of the volumes of the Eumorphopoulos collection of ceramics on his knees. In one corner, at a small card-table, sat Mrs. McAdam and Tatum, a cribbage board between them. There was no one else in the room. All three looked up curiously as we entered, but made no comment.
Stamm led the way across the library and into the first aquarium. This room was even larger than the library, and had an enormous skylight as well as a row of high windows along both walls to the east and west. Beyond, through a second archway was still another aquarium, similar to the first; and beyond that was the terrarium with windows on three sides.
The aquarium in which we stood was lined with fish tanks of all sizes, reaching to the base of the high windows; and half-way between the walls, running the entire length of the room, were two double rows of additional tanks, set on a long metal rack.
There were more than a hundred such tanks in the room, ranging in capacity from five to one hundred gallons.
Stamm, beginning at the tank nearest the door, on the left, led us about the room commenting on his living treasures. He pointed out the various types of Platypœcilus maculatus—pulcher, ruber, auratus, sanguineus, and niger; various Xiphophorus hellerii (the Mexican Swordtail) and the Red Helleri (a cross between the Swordtail and the Red Platy); Mollienisia latipinna, with their dotted mother-of-pearl sides; and Black Mollies, perfectly line-bred to enhance their original black mottled coloring. His collection of the genus Barbus was extensive: he had beautiful specimens of the opalescent red-finned oligolepis; the rosy conchonius; the lateristriga, with its chameleon-like golden, black and carmine coloring; the black-banded pentazona; the silvery ticto; and many others. After these came the species of the genus Rasbora, especially heteromorpha and tæniata; and still further were beautiful specimens of the Characinidæ, particularly of the sub-family Tetragonopterinæ—the Yellow, Red, Glass, Bronze, and Flag Tetras, and the Hemigrammus ocellifer, or Head and Tail Light fish.
In a series of tanks down the centre of the room Stamm pointed with pride to his specimens of the Cichlidæ—Cichlasoma facetum, severum, nigrofasciatum, festivum (the Flag Cichlid), urophthalmus, aureum, and so on. He also showed us several specimens of that enigmatical Symphysodon discus, about which so little is known, either as to its sex distinction or its habits.
“I’m working on this species,” Stamm said, proudly indicating the blue-green brassy specimens. “They are closely related to the Pterophyllum and are the only one of their genus. I’ll surprise the old-time aquarists yet.”
“Have you succeeded in breeding any of the Pterophyllum?” Vance asked with interest.
Stamm chuckled.
“I was one of the first aquarists in the country to find out that secret.… Look here.” He pointed to an enormous tank of at least one hundred gallons. “That’s the explanation. Plenty of swimming space, with heavy-stemmed Sagittaria for the eggs, and a good warm temperature.” (There were many beautiful specimens in the tank, some of them twelve inches from dorsal to anal fin.)
He moved along the west wall, talking proudly and fluently of his fish, with the enthusiasm of a fanatic. Before we had completed the circuit he had shown us specimens of the Æquidens portalegrensis (the Blue Acara); tiny transparent glass fish (Ambassis lala); many species of Panchax, especially lineatus and the rare Nigerian species, grahami; a pair of pike-like Belonesox belizanus; the usual Danio malabaricus; such mouthbreeders as Haplochromis multicolor, Astatotilapia moffati, Tilapia heudeloti, and Etroplus maculatus; labyrinthine fishes, such as Osphromenus, Macropodus, Anabas, and Ctenopoma; and hundreds of Lebistes reticulatus.
Stamm waved his hand at this last large tank contemptuously.
“Scalare fodder,” he muttered.
“Still,” said Vance, “despite their commonness, there aren’t many fish among the tropicals more beautiful than the Guppies.”
Stamm snorted and moved on toward the room beyond.
“In here are the fish that really count,” he said.
This second aquarium was similar to the one we had just quitted and contained quite as many tanks, but they were arranged differently.
“Here, for instance,” said Stamm
, standing before a tank at the right, “is the Monodactylus argenteus.”
“Brakish water, of course,” Vance remarked.
“Oh, yes.” Stamm shot him a curious look. “Many of the tanks in this room are really marine aquaria, and, of course, I use brakish water also for my Toxotes jaculator—the Shooting Fish—and the Mugil oligolepis.”
Vance leaned over the tank that Stamm had indicated.
“The Mugil oligolepis resembles the Barb, but it has two dorsals instead of one,” he observed.
“Quite right.” Stamm again looked at him curiously. “You’ve spent some time with fish yourself, haven’t you?”
“Oh, I’ve dabbled a bit,” returned Vance, moving on.
“Here are some of my best,” Stamm said, going to a series of tanks in the middle of the room. And he pointed out to us some Colossoma nigripinnis, Mylossoma duriventris, and Metynnis roosevelti.
“How do you manage to keep these rare Characins in such apparently good condition?” Vance asked.
“Ah, that’s my secret,” returned Stamm with a shrewd smile. “High temperatures, of course, and large tanks and live food…and other things,” he added enigmatically, turning to another series of tanks along the west wall. “But here are a few fish about which even less is known.” He put his hands in his pockets and regarded the tanks with satisfaction. “These are the Hatchet Fishes: the Gasteropelecus sternicla, the Carnegiella strigata, and the Thoracocharax securis. The so-called experts will tell you that the breeding habits of these species are not known, and that they cannot be bred in aquaria. Tommy-rot! I’ve done it successfully.” He moved further down the room. “Here’s an interesting one.” He tapped on the front wall of a particularly attractive tank. “The Blow Fish—Tetrodon cucutia. Watch this.”
He took one of the fish out of the water in a small net, and it inflated itself into the shape of a ball.
“Curious idea,” Stamm commented, “—blowing oneself up to keep from being swallowed.”
“Oh, quite human, I should say,” Vance returned dryly. “All our politicians do the same thing.” Stamm grinned.
The Philo Vance Megapack Page 180
