“Thin Shantung?” Vance asked, without looking at her.
“Yes—the sheerest summer-weight.”
“Might easily be rolled up and placed in a pocket?”
The woman nodded vaguely. She was now staring at Vance.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “Tell me, what is it?”
“I really don’t know.” Vance spoke with kindliness. “I’m merely observing things. There is no answer as yet. It’s most puzzlin’.”
Markham had been standing in silence near the door, watching Vance with grim curiosity. Now he spoke.
“I see what you’re getting at, Vance,” he said. “The situation is damnably peculiar. I don’t know just how to take it. But, at any rate, if the indications are correct, I think we can safely assume that we are not dealing with inhuman criminals. When they came here and took Mr. Kenting to be held for ransom, they at least permitted him to get dressed, and to take with him two or three of the things a man misses most when he’s away from home.”
“Yes, yes. Of course.” Vance spoke without enthusiasm. “Most kind of them—eh, what? If true.”
“If true?” repeated Markham aggressively. “What else have you in mind?”
“My dear Markham!” protested Vance mildly. “Nothing whatever. Mind an utter blank. Evidence points in various directions. Whither go we?”
“Well, anyway,” put in Sergeant Heath, “I don’t see that there’s any reason to worry about any harm coming to the fella. It looks to me like the guys who did the job were only after the money.”
“It could be, of course, Sergeant.” Vance nodded. “But I think it is a bit early to jump to conclusions.” He gave Heath a significant look under drooped eyelids, and the Sergeant merely shrugged his shoulders and said no more.
Fleel had been watching and listening attentively, with a shrewd, judicial air.
“I think, Mr. Vance,” he said, “I know what is in your mind. Knowing the Kentings as well as I do, and knowing the circumstances in this household for a great number of years, I can assure you that it would be no shock to either of them if you were to state exactly what you think regarding this situation.”
Vance looked at the man for several seconds with the suggestion of an amused smile. At length he said: “Really, y’ know, Mr. Fleel, I don’t know exactly what I do think.”
“I beg to differ with you, sir,” the lawyer returned in a court-room manner. “And from my personal knowledge—the result of my many years of association with the Kenting family—I know that it would be heartening—I might even say, an act of mercy—if you stated frankly that you believe, as I am convinced you do, that Kaspar planned this coup himself for reasons that are only too obvious.”
Vance looked at the man with a slightly puzzled expression and then said noncommittally: “If you believe that to be the case, Mr. Fleel, what procedure would you suggest be followed? You have known the young man for a long time and are possibly in a position to know how best to handle him.”
“Personally,” answered Fleel, “I think it is about time Kaspar should be taught a rigorous lesson. And I think we shall never have a better opportunity. If Kenyon agrees, and is able to provide this preposterous sum, I would be heartily in favor of following whatever further instructions are received, and then letting the law take its course on the ground’s of extortion. Kaspar must be taught his lesson.” He turned to Kenting. “Don’t you agree with me, Kenyon?”
“I don’t know just what to say,” Kenting returned in an obvious quandary. “But somehow I feel that you are right. However, remember that we have Madelaine to consider.”
Mrs. Kenting began crying softly and dabbing her eyes.
“Still,” she demurred, “Kaspar may not have done this terrible thing at all. But if he did…”
Fleel swung round again to Vance. “Don’t you see what I meant when I asked you to state frankly your belief? It would, I am sure, greatly relieve Mrs. Kenting’s anxiety, even though she thought her husband was guilty of having planned this whole frightful affair.”
“My dear sir!” returned Vance. “I would be glad to say anything which might relieve Mrs. Kenting’s anxiety regarding the fate of her husband. But I assure you that at the present moment the evidence does not warrant extending the comfort of any such belief, either to you or to any member of the Kenting family.…”
At this moment there was an interruption. At the hall door appeared a short, middle-aged man with a sallow moon-like face, sullen in expression. Scant, colorless blond hair lay in straight long strands across his bulging pate, in an unsuccessful effort to cover up his partial baldness. He wore thick-lensed rimless glasses through which one of his watery blue eyes looked somehow different from the other, and he stared at us as if he resented our presence. He had on a shabby butler’s livery which was too big for him and emphasized his awkward posture. A cringing and subservient self-effacement marked his general attitude despite his air of insolence.
“What is it, Weem?” Mrs. Kenting asked, with no more than a glance in the man’s direction.
“There is a gentleman—an officer—at the front door,” the butler answered in a surly tone, “who says he wants to see Sergeant Heath.”
“What’s his name?” snapped Heath, eyeing the butler with belligerent suspicion.
The man looked at Heath morosely and answered, “He says his name is McLaughlin.”
Heath nodded curtly and looked up at Markham.
“That’s all right, Chief,” he said. “McLaughlin was the man on this beat last night, and I left word at the Bureau to send him up here as soon as they could locate him. I thought he might know something, or maybe he saw something, that would give us a line on what happened here last night.” Then he turned back to the butler. “Tell the officer to wait for me. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
“Just a moment, Weem,—have I the name right?” Vance put in. “You’re the butler here, I understand.”
The man inclined his head.
“Yes, sir,” he said, in a low rumbling voice.
“And your wife is the cook, I believe?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What time,” asked Vance, “did you and your wife go to bed last night?”
The butler hesitated a moment, and then looked shiftily at Mrs. Kenting, but her back was to him.
He transferred his weight from one foot to the other before he answered Vance.
“About eleven o’clock. Mr. Kenting had gone out, and Mrs. Kenting said she would not need me any more after ten o’clock.”
“Your quarters are at the rear of the third floor, I believe?”
“Yes,” the man returned with an abrupt, stiff nod.
“I say, Weem,” Vance went on, “did either you or your wife hear anything unusual in the house, after you had gone to your quarters?”
The man again shifted his weight.
“No,” he answered. “Everything was quiet until I went to sleep—and I didn’t wake up till Mrs. Kenting rang for coffee around six.”
“Then you didn’t hear Mr. Kenting return to the house—or any one else moving about the house between eleven o’clock last night and six this morning?”
“No, nobody—I was asleep.”
“That’s all, Weem.” Vance nodded curtly and turned away. “You’d better take the Sergeant’s message to Officer McLaughlin.”
The butler shuffled away lackadaisically.
“I think,” Vance said to Heath, “it was a good idea to get McLaughlin.… There’s really nothing more to be done up here just now. Suppose we go down and find out what he can tell us.”
“Right!” And the Sergeant started toward the door, followed by Vance, Markham, and myself.
Vance paused leisurely just before reaching the door and turned to the small writing-table at the front of the room, on which the telephone stood. He regarded it contemplatively as he approached it. Opening the two shallow drawers, he peered into them. He took up the bottle of ink which stood at the
rear of the table, just under the low stationery rack, and read the label. Setting the ink-bottle back in its place, he turned to the small wastepaper basket beside the table and bent over it.
When he rose he asked Mrs. Kenting:
“Does your husband do his writing at this table?”
“Yes, always,” the woman answered, staring at Vance with a puzzled frown.
“And never anywhere else?”
The woman shook her head slowly.
“Never,” she told him. “You see, he has very little correspondence, and that writing-table was always more than adequate for his needs.”
“But did he never need any paste or mucilage?” Vance asked. “I don’t see any here.”
“Paste?” Mrs. Kenting appeared still more puzzled. “Why, no. As a matter of fact, I don’t believe there’s any in the house.… But why—why do you ask?”
Vance looked up at the woman and smiled at her somewhat sympathetically.
“I’m merely trying to learn the truth about everything, and I beg that you forgive any questions which seem irrelevant.”
The woman made no reply, and Vance again went toward the door where Markham and Heath and I were waiting, and we all went out into the hall.
As we reached the narrow landing half-way down the stairs, Markham suddenly stopped, letting Heath proceed on his way. He took Vance by the arm, detaining him.
“See here, Vance,” he said aggressively, but in a subdued tone, so that no one in the room from which we had just come should overhear him. “This kidnapping doesn’t strike me as being entirely on the level. And I don’t believe you yourself think that it is.”
“Oh, my Markham!” deplored Vance. “Art thou a mind-reader?”
“Drop that,” continued Markham angrily. “Either the kidnappers have no intention of harming young Kenting, or else—as Fleel suggests—Kenting staged the whole affair and kidnapped himself.”
“I am waiting patiently for the question I fear is en route,” sighed Vance with resignation.
“What I want to know,” Markham went on doggedly, “is why you refused to offer any hope, or to admit the possibility of either of these hypotheses, when you know damn well that the mere expression of such an opinion by you would have mitigated the apprehensions of both Mrs. Kenting and the young fellow’s brother.”
Vance heaved a deep sigh and gazed at Markham a moment with a look of mock commiseration.
“Really, y’ know, Markham,” he said lightly, but with a certain seriousness, “you’re a most admirable character, but you’re far too naive for this unscrupulous world. Both you and your legal friend, Fleel, are quite wrong in your suppositions. I assure you, don’t y’ know, that I am not sufficiently cruel to extend false hopes to any one.”
“What do you mean by that, Vance?” Markham demanded.
“My word, Markham! I can mean only one thing.”
Vance continued to gaze at the District Attorney with sympathetic affection and lowered his voice.
“The chappie, I fear, is already dead.”
CHAPTER IV
A STARTLING DECLARATION
(Wednesday, July 20; 11:45 A.M.)
There was something as startling as it was ominous about Vance’s astonishing words. However, even in the dim light of the stairway I could see the serious expression on his face, and the finality of his tone convinced me that there was little or no doubt in his mind as to the truth of his words regarding Kaspar Kenting’s fate.
Markham was stunned for a moment, but he was, I could see, frankly skeptical. The various bits of evidence uncovered in Kaspar Kenting’s room seemed to point indisputably toward a very definite conclusion, which was quite the reverse of the conclusion which Vance had evidently reached. And I was sure that Markham felt as I did about it, and that he was as much surprised and confused as I at Vance’s amazing statement. Markham did not relinquish his hold on Vance’s arm. He apparently recovered his poise almost immediately and spoke in a hoarse undertone.
“You have a reason for saying that, Vance?”
“Tut, tut, my dear fellow,” Vance returned lightly “This is neither the place nor the time to discuss the matter. I’ll be quite willin’ to point out all the obvious evidence to you later on. We are not dealing here with surface indications—those are quite consistent with the pattern which has been so neatly cut out for us. We are dealing with falsifications and subtleties; and I abhor them.… We’d better wait a while, don’t y’ know. At the moment I am most anxious to hear what McLaughlin has to say to the Sergeant. Let’s descend and listen, what?”
Markham shrugged, gave Vance a nettled look, and relaxed his grip on the other’s arm.
“Have it your own way,” he grumbled. “Anyway,” he added stubbornly, “I think you’re wrong.”
“It could be, of course,” returned Vance with a nod. “Really, I’d like to believe it.”
Slowly he went down the remaining steps to the lower hallway. Markham and I followed in silence.
McLaughlin, a heavy-footed Irishman, was just entering the drawing-room in answer to a peremptory beckoning finger from the Sergeant, who had preceded him. The officer looked overgrown and abnormally muscular in his tight civilian suit of blue serge. I caught a whimsical look in Vance’s eyes as his glance followed the man through the open sliding doors.
Weem was just closing the street door, with his sullen, indifferent manner. A moment after we had reached the lower hallway, he turned and, without a glance in our direction as he passed us, went swiftly but awkwardly toward the rear of the house. Vance watched him pass from our line of vision, shook his head musingly, and then went toward the drawing-room.
McLaughlin (whom I remembered from the famous case of Alvin Benson,247 when he came to that fateful house on West 48th Street, to report the presence of a mysterious grey Cadillac) was just about to speak to the Sergeant when he heard us enter the drawing-room. Recognizing Markham, he saluted respectfully and stepped to one side, facing us and waiting for orders.
“McLaughlin,” Heath began—his tone carried that official gruffness he always displayed to his inferior officers, much to Vance’s amusement—“something damn wrong happened in this house last night—or maybe it was early this morning, to be more exact. What time are you relieved from your beat here?”
“Regular time—eight o’clock,” answered the man. “I was just fixing to go to bed an hour ago when the Inspector—”
“All right, all right,” snapped Heath. “I ordered the Department to send you up. We need a report.—Listen: where were you around six o’clock this morning?”
“Doing my duty, sir,” the officer assured Heath earnestly; “walking down the other side of the street opposite here, makin’ my regular rounds.”
“Did you see anybody, or anything, that looked suspicious?” demanded the Sergeant, thrusting his jaw forward belligerently.
The man started slightly and squinted as if trying to recall something.
“I did, at that, Sergeant!” he said. “Only I wouldn’t say as how it was suspicious at the time, although the idea passed through my mind. But there wasn’t any cause to take action.”
“What was it, McLaughlin? Shoot everything, whether you think it’s important or not.”
“Well, Sergeant, a coupé—it was a dirty green color—pulled up on this side of the street along about that time. There were two men in it, and one of the guys got out and opened the hood and took a look at the engine. I came across the street and gave the car the once-over. But everything seemed on the up-and-up, and I didn’t bother ’em. Anyhow, I stood there and watched, and pretty soon the driver got in and the coupé drove away. When it went down the block toward Columbus Avenue, the exhaust was open.… Well, Sergeant, there was nothing I could do about it then, so I went back across the street and walked on up to Broadway.”
“That all you noticed?”
“No, it ain’t, Sergeant.” McLaughlin was looking a little uncomfortable. “I was just coming round
the corner from Central Park West, back into 86th Street again, about twenty minutes later, when the same coupé went by me like hell—only, this time it was headed east instead of west—and it turned into the park—”
“How do you know it was the same coupé, McLaughlin?”
“Well, I ain’t takin’ no oath on it, Sergeant,” the officer answered; “but it was the same kinda car, and the same dirty-green color, and the exhaust was still open. And there was two guys in it, just like before, and the driver looked to me like the same big, smooth-faced guy who had his head stuck in the hood when I first crossed the street to look the situation over.” McLaughlin took a deep breath and gave the Sergeant an apprehensive look, as if he expected a reprimand.
“You didn’t see or hear anything else?” growled Heath. “It musta been pretty light at that time of the morning, with the sun up.”
“Not another thing, Sergeant,” the officer asserted, with obvious relief. “When I first seen the car I was headed toward Columbus; and I went on down to Broadway, and then swung round through 87th Street to Central Park West and over again on 86th. As I says, it took me about twenty minutes.”
“Exactly where was that coupé when you first got a squint at it?”
“Right along the curb, about a hundred feet up the street from here, toward the park.”
“Why didn’t you ask some questions of them guys in the car?”
“I told you before, there was nothing suspicious about ’em—not until they went by me, going in the other direction. When I first seen ’em I thought they was just a couple of bums goin’ home from a joy-ride. They was quiet and polite enough, and didn’t act like trouble. These guys was plenty sober, and they was total strangers to me. There wasn’t no reason to interfere with ’em—honest to God!”
Heath thought for a moment and puffed on his cigar.
“Which way did the car go when it entered the park?”
“Well, Sergeant, it went into the transverse, as if it was headed for the east side. Even if I’d wanted to grab the gorillas I wouldn’ta had time. Before I coulda got the call-box on the Avenue and talked to the fella over there, the car woulda been to hell and gone. And there was no car or taxi anywhere round that I coulda chased ’em in. Anyway, I figured they was on the level.”
The Philo Vance Megapack Page 228
