“I’m frightfully sorry, and all that,” he murmured at length, without looking up; “but the fact is, we don’t seem to be getting any forrader. There are plausible explanations for everything and everybody. For instance, during the commission of the first crime, Doctor Garden was supposedly at the library or in a taxicab. Floyd Garden, according to his own statement, and with the partial corroboration of Mr. Hammle here, was in the dining-room and the lower hallway. Mr. Hammle himself, as well as Miss Weatherby, was in the drawing-room. Mr. Kroon explains that he was smoking somewhere on the public stairway, and left two cigarette butts there as evidence. Miss Graem, so far as we can ascertain, was in the den here, telephoning. Therefore, assuming— merely as a hypothesis—that any one here could be guilty of the murder of Swift, of the apparent attempt to murder Miss Beeton, and of the possible murder of Mrs. Garden, there is nothing tangible to substantiate an individual accusation. The performance was too clever, too well conceived, and the innocent persons seem unconsciously and involuntarily to have formed a conspiracy to aid and abet the murderer.”
Vance looked up and went on.
“Moreover, nearly every one has acted in a manner which conceivably would make him appear guilty. There have been an amazing number of accusations. Mr. Kroon was the first victim of one of these unsubstantiated accusations. Miss Graem has been pointed out to me as the culprit by several persons. Mrs. Garden last night directly accused her son. In fact, there has been a general tendency to involve various people in the criminal activities here. From the human and psychological point of view the issue has been both deliberately and unconsciously clouded, until the confusion was such that no clear-cut outline remained. And this created an atmosphere which perfectly suited the murderer’s machinations, for it made detection extremely difficult and positive proof almost impossible… And yet,” Vance added, “some one in this room is guilty.”
He rose dejectedly. I could not understand his manner: it was so unlike the man as I had always known him. All of his assurance seemed gone, and I felt that he was reluctantly admitting defeat. He turned and looked out of the window into the gathering dusk. Then he swung round quickly, and his eyes swept angrily about the room, resting for a brief moment on each one present.
“Furthermore,” he said with a staccato stress on his words, “I know who the guilty person is!”
There was an uneasy stir in the room and a short tense silence which was broken by Doctor Siefert’s cultured voice.
“If that is the case, Mr. Vance—and I do not doubt the sincerity of your statement—I think it your duty to name that person.”
Vance regarded the doctor thoughtfully for several moments before answering. Then he said in a low voice: “I think you are right, sir.” Again he paused and, lighting a fresh cigarette, moved restlessly up and down in front of the window. “First, however,” he said, stopping suddenly, “there’s something upstairs I wish to look at again—to make sure… You will all please remain here for a few minutes.” And he moved swiftly toward the door. At the threshold he hesitated and turned to the nurse. “Please come with me, Miss Beeton. I think you can help me.”
The nurse rose and followed Vance into the hall. A moment later we could hear them mounting the stairs.
A restlessness swept over those who remained below. Professor Garden got slowly to his feet and went to the window, where he stood looking out. Kroon threw a half-smoked cigarette away and, taking out his case offered it to Miss Weatherby. As they lighted their cigarettes they murmured something to each other which I could not distinguish.
Floyd Garden shifted uncomfortably in his chair and resumed his nervous habit of packing his pipe. Siefert moved around the room, pretending to inspect the etchings, and Markham’s eyes followed his every move. Hammle cleared his throat loudly several times, lighted a cigarette, and busied himself with various papers which he took from his pocket folder. Only Zalia Graem remained unruffled. She leaned her head against the back of the davenport and, closing her eyes, smoked languidly. I could have sworn there was the trace of a smile at the corners of her mouth…
Fully five minutes passed, and then the tense silence of the room was split by a woman’s frenzied and terrifying cry for help, from somewhere upstairs. As we reached the hallway the nurse came stumbling down the stairs, holding with both hands to the, bronze railing. Her face was ghastly pale, and there was a wild, frightened look in her eyes.
“Mr. Markham! Mr. Markham!” she called hysterically. “Oh, my God! The most terrible thing has happened!”
She had just reached the foot of the stairs when Markham came up to her. She stood clutching the railing for support.
“It’s Mr. Vance!” she panted excitedly. “He’s—gone!”
A chill of horror passed over me, and every one in the hall seemed stunned. I noticed—as something entirely apart from my immediate perceptions—Heath and Snitkin and Peter Quackenbush, the official police photographer, step into the hall through the main entrance. Quackenbush had his camera and tripod with him; and the three men stood calmly just inside the door, detached from the amazed group around the foot of the stairs. I vaguely wondered why they were accepting the situation with such smug indifference…
In broken phrases, interspersed with gasping sobs, the nurse was explaining to Markham.
“He went over.—Oh, God, it was horrible! He said he wanted to ask me something, and led me out into the garden. He began questioning me about Doctor Siefert, and Professor Garden, and Miss Graem. And while he talked he moved over to the parapet—you remember where he stood last night. He got up there again, and looked down. I was frightened— the way I was yesterday. And then—and then—while I was talking to him—he bent over, and I could see—oh, God!—he had lost his balance.” She stared at Markham wild-eyed. “I reached toward him…and suddenly he wasn’t there any more… He had gone over!…”
Her eyes lifted suddenly over our heads and peered past us transfixed. A sudden change came over her. Her face seemed contorted into a hideous mask. Following her horrified gaze, we instinctively turned and glanced up the hallway toward the drawing-room…
There, near the archway, looking calmly toward us, was Vance.
I have had many harrowing experiences, but the sight of Vance at that moment, after the horror I had been through, affected me more deeply than any shock I can recall. A numbness overcame me, and I could feel cold perspiration breaking out all over my body. The sound of Vance’s voice merely tended to upset me further.
“I told you last night, Miss Beeton,” he was saying, his eyes resting sternly on the nurse, “that no gambler ever quits with his first winning bet, and that in the end he always loses.” He came forward a few steps. “You won your first gamble, at long odds, when you murdered Swift. And your poisoning of Mrs. Garden with the barbital also proved a winning bet. But when you attempted to add me to your list of victims, because you suspected I knew too much—you lost. That race was fixed—you hadn’t a chance.”
Markham was glaring at Vance in angry amazement.
“What is the meaning of all this?” he fairly shouted, despite his obvious effort to suppress his excitement.
“It merely means, Markham,” explained Vance, “that I gave Miss Beeton an opportunity to push me over the parapet to what ordinarily would have been certain death. And she took that opportunity. This afternoon I arranged for Heath and Snitkin to witness the episode; and I also arranged to have it permanently recorded.”
“Recorded? Good God! What do you mean?” Markham seemed half dazed.
“Just that,” returned Vance calmly. “An official photograph taken with a special lens adapted to the semi-light—for the Sergeant’s archives.” He looked past Markham to Quackenbush. “You got the picture, I hope,” he said.
“I sure did,” the man returned with a satisfied grin. “At just the right angle too. A pippin.”
The nurse, who had been staring at Vance as if petrified, suddenly relaxed her hold on the stair raili
ng, and her hands went to her face in a gesture of hopelessness and despair. Then her hands dropped to her sides to reveal a face of haggard defeat.
“Yes!” she cried at Vance; “I tried to kill you. Why shouldn’t I? You were about to take everything—everything—away from me.”
She turned quickly and ran up the stairs. Almost simultaneously Vance dashed forward.
“Quick, quick!” he called out. “Stop her before she gets to the garden.”
But before any of us realized the significance of his words, Vance was himself on the stairs. Heath and Snitkin were just behind him, and the rest of us, stupefied, followed. As I came out on the roof, I could see Miss Beeton running toward the far end of the garden, with Vance immediately behind her. Twilight had nearly passed, and a deep dusk had settled over the city. As the girl leaped up on the parapet at the same point where Vance had stood the night before, she was like a spectral silhouette against the faintly glowing sky. And then she disappeared down into the deep shadowy abyss, just before Vance could reach her…
CHAPTER XVIII
THE SCRATCH SHEET
(Sunday, April 15; 7:15 P.M.)
A half hour later we were all seated in the den again. Heath and the detectives had gone out immediately after the final catastrophe to attend to the unpleasant details occasioned by Miss Beeton’s suicide.
Vance was once more in the chair at the desk. The tragic termination of the case seemed to have saddened him. He smoked gloomily for a few minutes. Then he spoke.
“I asked all of you to stay because I felt you were entitled to an explanation of the terrible events that have taken place here, and to hear why it was necess’ry for me to conduct the investigation in the manner I did. To begin with, I knew from the first that I was dealing with a very shrewd and unscrupulous person, and I knew it was some one who was in the house yesterday afternoon. Therefore, until I had some convincing proof of that person’s guilt, it was imperative for me to appear to doubt every one present. Only in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion and recrimination—in which I myself appeared to be as much at sea as any one else—was it possible to create in the murderer that feeling of security which I felt would lead to his final undoing.
“I was inclined to suspect Miss Beeton almost from the first, for, although every one here had, through some act, drawn suspicion upon himself, only the nurse had the time and the unhampered opportunity to commit the initial crime. She was entirely unobserved when she put her plan into execution; and so thoroughly familiar was she with every arrangement of the household, that she had no difficulty in timing her every step so as to insure this essential privacy. Subsequent events and circumstances added irresistibly to my suspicion of her. For instance, when Mr. Floyd Garden informed me where the key to the vault was kept, I sent her to see if it was in place, without indicating to her where its place was, in order to ascertain if she knew where the key hung. Only some one who knew exactly how to get into the vault at a moment’s notice could have been guilty of killing Swift. Of course, the fact that she did know was not definite proof of her guilt, as there were others who knew; but at least it was a minor factor in the case against her. If she had not known where the key was kept, she would have been automatically eliminated. My request that she look for the key was made with such casualness and seeming indifference that it apparently gave her no inkling of my ulterior motive.
“Incidentally, one of my great difficulties in the case has been to act in such a way, at all times, that her suspicions would not be aroused at any point. This was essential because, as I have said, I could hope to substantiate my theory of her guilt only by making her feel sufficiently secure to do or say something which would give her away.
“Her motive was not clear at first, and, unfortunately, I thought that by Swift’s death alone she had accomplished her purpose. But after my talk with Doctor Siefert this morning, I was able to understand fully her whole hideous plot. Doctor Siefert pointed out definitely her interest in Floyd Garden, although I had had hints of it before. For instance, Floyd Garden was the only person here about whom she spoke to me with admiration. Her motive was based on a colossal ambition—the desire for financial security, ease and luxury; and mixed with this over-weaning desire was a strange twisted love. These facts became clear to me only today.”
Vance glanced at young Garden.
“It was you she wanted,” he continued. “And I believe her self-assurance was such that she did not doubt for a minute that she would be successful in attaining her goal.”
Garden sprang to his feet.
“Good God, Vance!” he exclaimed. “You’re right. I see the thing now. She has been making up to me for a long time; and, to be honest with you, I may have said and done things which she could have construed as encouragement—God help me!” He sat down again in dejected embarrassment.
“No one can blame you,” Vance said kindly. “She was one of the shrewdest women I have ever encountered. But the point of it all is, she did not want only you—she wanted the Garden fortune as well. That’s why, having learned that Swift would share in the inheritance, she decided to eliminate him and leave you sole beneficiary. But this murder did not, by any means, constitute the whole of her scheme.”
Vance again addressed us in general.
“Her whole terrible plot was clarified by some other facts that Doctor Siefert brought out this morning during my talk with him. The death, either now or later, of Mrs. Garden was also an important integer of that plot; and Mrs. Garden’s physical condition had, for some time, shown certain symptoms of poisoning. Of late these symptoms have increased in intensity. Doctor Siefert informed me that Miss Beeton had been a laborat’ry assistant to Professor Garden during his experiments with radioactive sodium, and had often come to the apartment here for the purpose of typing notes and attending to other duties which could not conveniently be performed at the University. Doctor Siefert also informed me that she had actually entered the household here about two months ago, to take personal charge of Mrs. Garden’s case. She had, however, continued to assist Professor Garden occasionally in his work and naturally had access to the radioactive sodium he had begun to produce; and it was since she had come here to live that Mrs. Garden’s condition had grown worse—the result undoubtedly of the fact that Miss Beeton had greater and more frequent opportunities for administering the radioactive sodium to Mrs. Garden. Her decision to eliminate Mrs. Garden, so that Floyd Garden would inherit her money, undoubtedly came shortly after she had become the professor’s assistant and had, through her visits to the apartment, become acquainted with Floyd Garden and familiar with the various domestic arrangements here.”
Vance turned his eyes to Professor Garden.
“And you too, sir,” he said, “were, as I see it, one of her intended victims. When she planned to shoot Swift I believe she planned a double murder—that is, you and Swift were to be shot at the same time. But, luckily, you had not returned to your study yesterday afternoon at the time fixed for the double shooting, and her original plan had to be revised.”
“But—but,” stammered the professor, “how could she have killed me and Woody too?”
“The disconnected buzzer wires gave me the answer this morning,” explained Vance. “Her scheme was both simple and bold. She knew that, if she followed Swift upstairs before the big race, she would have no difficulty in enticing him into the vault on some pretext or other— especially in view of the fact that he had shown a marked interest in her. Her intention was to shoot him in the vault, just as she did, and then go into the study and shoot you. Swift’s body would then have been placed in the study, with the revolver in his hand. It would appear like murder and suicide. As for the possibility of the shot in the study being heard downstairs, I imagine she had tested that out beforehand under the very conditions obtaining yesterday afternoon. Personally, I am of the opinion that a shot in the study could not be heard down here during the noise and excitement of a race broadcast, with the study door and
windows shut. For the rest, her original plan would have proceeded just as her revised one did. She would merely have fired two blanks out of the bedroom window instead of one. In the event that you should have guessed her intent when she entered the study, and tried to summon help, she had previously disconnected the wires of the buzzer just behind your chair at the desk.”
“But, good Lord!” exclaimed Floyd Garden in an awed tone. “It was she herself who told Sneed about the buzzer being out of order.”
“Precisely. She made it a point to be the one to discover that fact, in order to draw suspicion entirely away from herself; for the natural assumption, she must have reasoned, would be that the person who had disconnected the wires for some criminal purpose would be the last one to call attention to them. It was a bold move, but it was quite in keeping with her technique throughout.”
Vance paused. After a moment he went on.
“As I say, her plan had to be revised somewhat because Doctor Garden had not returned. She had chosen the Rivermont Handicap as the background for her manoeuvres, for she knew Swift was placing a large bet on the race—and if he lost, it would give credence to the theory of suicide. As for the shooting of Doctor Garden, that would, of course, be attributed to his attempt to thwart his nephew’s suicide. And, in a way, Doctor Garden’s absence helped her, though it required quick thinking on her part to cover up this unexpected gap in her well-laid plans. Instead of placing Swift in the study, as she originally intended, she placed him in his chair on the roof. She carefully wiped up the blood in the vault so that no trace of it remained on the floor. A nurse with operating-room experience in removing blood from sponges, instruments, operating table and floor, would have known how. Then she came down and fired a blank shell out of the bedroom window just as soon as the outcome of the race had been declared official. Substantiatin’ suicide.
“Of course, one of her chief difficulties was the disposal of the second revolver—the one she fired down here. She was confronted with the necessity either of getting rid of the revolver—which was quite impossible in the circumstances—or of hiding it safely till she could remove it from the apartment; for there was always the danger that it might be discovered and the whole technique of the plot be revealed. Since she was the person apparently least under suspicion, she probably considered that placing it temporarily in the pocket of her own top-coat, would be sufficiently safe. It was not an ideal hiding-place; but I have little doubt that she was frustrated in an attempt to hide it somewhere on the roof or on the terrace upstairs, until she could take it away at her convenience without being observed. She had no opportunity to hide the revolver upstairs after we had first gone to the roof and discovered Swift’s body. However, I think it was her intention to do just this when Miss Weatherby saw her on the stairs and resentfully called my attention to the fact. Naturally, Miss Beeton denied having been on the stairs at all. And the significance of the situation did not occur to me at the moment; but I believe that she had the revolver on her person at the time Miss Weatherby saw her. She evidently thought she would have sufficient time while I was in the den, to run to the roof and hide the revolver; but when she had barely started upstairs, Miss Weatherby came unexpectedly out of the drawing-room with the intention of going to the garden herself. It was immediately after that, no doubt, that she dropped the revolver into her coat pocket in the hall closet…”
The Philo Vance Megapack Page 223
