Vance made no effort to restrain his mirth. “I certainly do think so,” he answered. “And by the by, where is the dignified Mr. Burns this evening?”
The girl tittered with embarrassment. “He’s sitting over there across the room.” She turned her head gracefully, to indicate the lone young man who had previously attracted our attention. “And he seems very unhappy, too. I can’t imagine why he came here tonight—I know he’s never been here before… Do you want to know a secret? Well, I’ll tell you, anyhow. I was never here before, either. But I really like it here. Don’t you? It’s awfully big—and noisy. And there’s so many people. Don’t you like a lot of people in one place? I think that people are terribly nice. But I’m afraid George doesn’t like it here. Maybe that’s why he’s so unhappy.”
Vance did not interrupt her. He seemed to find pleasant diversion in her inconsequential rambling.
“And oh!” she exclaimed, as if at some sudden thought of momentous importance. “I forgot to tell you: I know who you are! What do you think of that? You’re Mr. Philo Vance, aren’t you? Don’t you think I’m terribly smart to know that? I bet you don’t know how I found out. I looked at the calling card you gave me this afternoon—and there was your name! That is, Mr. Puttie looked at your card and he said that must be your name. He also got angry for a minute when I told him about the new dress I’m going to get Monday. But then, right away, he was all right again. He said that if you were that foolish, it was all right with him, and that you were born every minute. I don’t know what he meant. But that’s how I found out what your name was.” She barely paused for breath. “And oh! Mr. Puttie told me something else about you. Something very exciting. He said you were a sort of detective and got credit for all the hard work the poor policemen do. Is that really true?”
She did not wait for an answer.
“Once my brother wanted to be a policeman, but he didn’t. Anyhow, he’s hardly big enough to be a real policeman. He’s not tall like Mr. Puttie. He’s little, like me and George. And I never saw a little policeman, did you? But maybe he could have been a detective. I’ll bet he never thought of that. Or maybe they don’t have little detectives either. Can anybody be a detective if they’re too little? Or maybe you don’t know.”
Vance laughed delightedly, looking into the girl’s eyes as if baffled by her entangling digressions.
“I have known some small detectives,” he told her.
“Well, anyhow, I guess my brother didn’t know about that. Or maybe he didn’t want to be a detective. Maybe he just wanted to be a policeman because they wear uniforms… Oh, Mr. Vance! I just thought of something else. I’ll bet I know why you’re not afraid to be here tonight. They can’t arrest a detective! And they can’t arrest a policeman, either, can they? If they did, who would they have left to arrest robbers and people like that?… And speaking of my brother, he’s here tonight, too. He’s here every night.”
“Ah!” murmured Vance. “Where is he sitting?”
“Oh, I don’t mean he’s here in the dining-room,” the girl stated naively. “He works here.”
“Indeed! What does he do?”
“He has a very important job.”
“Has he been with the Domdaniel long?”
“Why, he’s been here over six months! That’s a very long time for my brother. He never seemed to like work very much. I guess he’s just a thinker. Anyhow, he says he’s never appreciated. And only today he said he was going to try to get his salary raised. But he’s afraid the boss here doesn’t appreciate him, either.”
“What might be the nature of your brother’s work?” Vance inquired.
“He works in the kitchen. He’s the dishwasher. That’s why his job is so important. Just imagine if a big cafe like this didn’t have a dishwasher! Wouldn’t it be awful? Why, you couldn’t even get a meal. How could they serve you food if all the dishes were dirty and cluttered up?”
“I must grant your argument,” Vance said. “It would be a most distressin’ situation. As you say, your brother’s job is a most important one. And incidentally, you, are the most delightfully amazing and the most perfectly natural child I’ve ever met.”
The compliment was evidently lost on her, for she returned at once to the subject of her brother. “But maybe he’s going to quit here tonight. He said he would if he didn’t get a raise. But I really don’t think he should quit, do you? And I’m going to tell him so!… I bet you don’t know where I was going just now.”
“Not to the kitchen, I hope.”
“Why, you’re a good detective.” The girl’s eyes, starry and fluttering, opened wide. “That’s where I would have been going, only, Philip—that’s my brother—said they wouldn’t let me in the kitchen. But I’m going to meet him on the kitchen stairs. He said I was only putting on airs when I told him I was coming here tonight. Imagine! He wouldn’t believe me. So I said, ‘All right, I’ll show you.’ And he said, ‘If you are in the Domdaniel you meet me on the landing of the kitchen stairs at ten o’clock.’ So that’s where I was going. He was so sure I wouldn’t be here that he said if I showed him I was here by meeting him, he wouldn’t give up his job, no matter if he didn’t get his raise. And I know mother wants him to keep his job. So you see, everything will work out just fine… Oh, what time is it, Mr. Vance?”
Vance glanced at his watch.
“It’s just five minutes to ten.”
The girl rose as suddenly as she had sat down.
“I don’t care so much about fooling Philip,” she said. “But I do want to make mother happy.”
As she hurried toward the distant archway, the lonely Mr. Burns rose and followed her swiftly into the hall. Almost simultaneously the two brushed past the damask draperies of the doorway, and disappeared from view.
Vance had witnessed the young man’s pursuit of Miss Allen and nodded with benevolent satisfaction.
“Poor unhappy lad,” he remarked. “He has grasped his one fleeting opportunity of speaking alone with his inamorata. I trust he’s wise enough not to upbraid her… Ah, well! Whatever course he pursues, the goddess Aphrodite is already smiling favourably upon him, though he does not recognize her beamin’ countenance.”
I turned my attention indifferently toward the table where Mirche and Miss Del Marr had been sitting. The singer, however, had disappeared; and Mirche was scanning the dining-room with complacency. Then he strode down the aisle toward the main entrance.
As he came to our table he paused with a pompous bow, to assure himself that all was well with us, and Vance invited him to join us.
There was nothing particularly distinctive about Daniel Mirche. He was the usual politico-restaurateur type, large and somewhat ostentatious. He was at once aggressive and fawning, with a superficially polished manner. His sparse hair was slightly grey, and his eyes had a peculiar greenish cast.
Vance led the conversation easily along various lines related to Mirche’s interest in the cafe and its management. A discussion of wines and their vintages followed; and it was but a few moments before Vance had launched into one of his favourite topics—namely, the rare cognacs of the west-central Charente Departement in France—the Grande Champagne and Petite Champagne districts and the vineyards around Mainxe and Archiac.
As I glanced idly across the dining-room, I noted that Mr. Burns had returned to his table; and soon the young lady herself reappeared in the archway opposite, steering a direct course back to Mr. Puttie. She did not even glance in our direction; and from the crestfallen look of her elf-like face, I assumed that she had failed in her objective.
However, I did not apply myself for long to these reflections. My attention was caught by the unobtrusive and almost cat-like entrance of a slender, exiguous man, who moved, as if loath to attract attention, to a small table in the opposite corner of the room. This table, not far from the one at which the despondent Mr. Burns sat, was already occupied by two men whose backs were to the room; and as the newcomer took the vacant seat facing th
em, they merely nodded.
My interest in this slight figure was based on the fact that he reminded me of pictures I had seen of one of the most notorious characters of the time, named Owen. There were many unsavoury rumours regarding the man, and there had been reports that he was the guiding intelligence—or, as the cliché has it, the “master-mind”—behind certain colossal illegal organizations of gangland. To such an extent was he believed to play a leading, though surreptitious, part in the activities of the underworld that he had earned for himself the sobriquet of “Owl.”
There was a remarkable character implicit in his super-refined features. An evil character, to be sure, but one which hinted at vast, and perhaps heroic, potentialities. He had been graduated cum laude from a great university; and he recalled to my mind a brilliant painting I had once seen of Robespierre: there was the same smooth and intelligent Machiavellian expression. He was dark of hair and eye, but with a colourless, waxy complexion. The outstanding impression he gave was one of adamantine hardness: one could readily imagine him performing the duties of a Torquemada and smiling thinly as he did so.
(I have described this man at such length because he was to play a vital role in the strange record of the case I am here setting down. That night, however, I could not, by the most fantastic flight of my imagination, have associated him in any way with the almost incredible and carefree Gracie Allen. And yet these two divergent characters were soon to cross each other’s paths in the most astounding fashion.)
I was just about to dismiss the man from my mind, when I became conscious of an unusual undertone in Vance’s voice as he chatted with Mirche. With that peculiarly alert languor I had come to know so well, he was gazing at the table in the far corner where the trio of men sat.
“By the by,” he said a bit abruptly to Mirche, “isn’t that the famous ‘Owl’ Owen yonder, near the corner pillar?”
“I am not acquainted with Mr. Owen,” Mirche returned suavely. However, he turned slightly with a natural curiosity in the direction which Vance had indicated. “But it well might be,” he added after a moment’s scrutiny. “He is not unlike the pictures I have seen of Mr. Owen… If I can help you, I might be able to ascertain.”
Vance waved the suggestion aside.
“Oh, no—no,” he said. “That’s awfully good of you, and all that; but it’s of no importance, don’t y’ know.”
The members of the orchestra were returning to their places, and Vance pushed back his chair.
“I’ve had a most pleasant and edifyin’ evening,” he said to Mirche. “But really, I must be toddlin’ now.
Mirche’s polite protestations seemed genuine enough as he suggested that we remain at least until after Dixie Del Marr’s next number. “A splendid singer,” he added enthusiastically. “And a woman of rare personal charm.—She goes on at eleven, and it’s almost that now.”
But Vance pleaded urgent matters that still required his attention that night, and rose from his chair.
Mirche expressed his profound regrets, and accompanied us to the main entrance where he bade us an effusive good night.
CHAPTER VI
THE DEAD MAN
(Saturday, May 18; 11 pm.)
We descended the broad stone steps to the street and turned east. At Seventh Avenue Vance suddenly hailed a taxicab and gave the driver the District Attorney’s home address.
“Markham will probably have returned from his round of political chores by this time,” he said as we headed downtown. “He’ll doubtless twit me unmercifully for my evening’s empty adventure; but somehow I felt a strange uneasiness tonight in the spacious confines of the Domdaniel, after listening to the Sergeant’s uncompliment’ry remarks about the place last night: it was quite the same as of yore. Yet why should the toxiphorous Borgias haunt my mind as I toyed with my fricandeau and sipped my Chateau Haut-Brion? Mayhap, as the years roll by, the entanglin’ tentacles of suspicion are closin’ about my once trustin’ nature. Eheu, eheu!…”
The cab came to a jerky stop before a small apartment house, and we went at once to the District Attorney’s apartment. Markham, in his smoking jacket and slippers, greeted us with amused surprise.
“Not another wing-sandalled Hermes, I hope.”
“Nary a caduceus up my sleeve. Are you being beset by heralds?”
“More or less,” returned Markham, with a wry grimace. “The Sergeant here has just brought me a message.”
I had not been aware of Heath’s presence, but now I saw him standing in the shadow near a window. He came forward with a friendly nod.
“My word, Sergeant,” said Vance. “Wherefore?”
“I came on account of that message Mr. Markham was speakin’ about, Mr. Vance. A message from Pittsburgh.”
“Were the tidings bad?”
“Well, they weren’t what you might call good,” Heath complained. “Plenty bad, I’d say.”
“Indeed?”
“I guess I wasn’t so far wrong in the way I figured things last night… Captain Chesholm in Pittsburgh just sent me a report that one of his motorcycle boys had spotted a car running without lights on a back road, and that when the car slowed up for a sharp turn, a guy in the back seat took a couple of shots at him. The car got away, headin’ east to the main highway.”
“But, Sergeant, why should this bit of desult’ry gun-play in Pennsylvania disturb your even tenour?”
“I’ll tell you why.” Heath removed the cigar from his mouth. “The officer thought he recognized Benny the Buzzard!”
Vance was unimpressed.
“In the circumst’nces, it could hardly have been a very definite identification.”
“That’s exactly what I told the Sergeant.” Markham nodded approvingly. “During the next few weeks we’ll be getting reports that Pellinzi has been seen in every state in the Union.”
“Maybe,” persisted Heath. “But the way this car was travellin’ fits in with my idea perfect. The Buzzard coulda hit New York this morning if he’d come straight from Nomenica. But by circling down to Pennsylvania and coming east from there, he probably figured he would avoid a lot of trouble.”
“Personally,” Markham said, “I’m convinced the fellow will stay clear of New York.” His tone was tantamount to a criticism of the Sergeant’s anxiety.
Heath felt the rebuff.
“I hope I haven’t bothered you by coming here tonight, Chief. I knew you had a couple of appointments this evening, and I thought you’d still be up.”
Markham relented.
“Your coming here was quite all right,” he said reassuringly. “I’m always happy to see you, Sergeant. Sit down and help yourself from the decanter… Perhaps Mr. Vance himself is seeking an audience for his information regarding the arch of Mirche’s eyebrows and other horrendous details of his sojourn to the Domdaniel… How about it, Vance? Have you a bedtime story of goblins with which to regale us?”
Heath had relaxed in a chair and poured himself a drink. Vance, too, reached for his favourite brandy.
“I’m deuced sorry, Markham old dear,” he drawled. “I have no fantasies to unfold—not even one about a mysterious fleeing auto. But I shall try to match the Sergeant’s inspiration with a yarn of a wood-nymph and a perfume-sniffer; of a xanthous Lorelei who sings from a podium instead of from a rocky crag; of a sleek owner of a caravanserai, and an empty office screened with mysterious grilles; of an ivy-covered postern, and an owl without feathers… Could you bear to hearken to the chantin’ of my runes?”
“My resistance is low.”
Vance stretched his legs before him.
“Well, imprimis,” he began, “a most charming and astonishing young woman joined us at our table this evening for a few minutes—a child whose spinning brain, much like a pinwheel, radiated the most colourful sparks, and whose spirit was as guileless as an infant’s.”
“The wood-nymph of whom you prated in your preamble?”
“Yes—none other. I saw her first this afternoon in a sha
dy nook in Riverdale. And she was at the Domdaniel tonight, accompanied by a johnnie named Puttie, with whom she was baiting the true swain of her heart—a Mr. Burns. He, too, was present tonight, but at a distance, and alone—and glowering unhappily.”
“Your encounter with her in the afternoon suggests more interesting possibilities,” Markham commented listlessly.
“Perhaps you’re right, old dear. The fact is, the lady was alone when I intruded into her woodland bower. But she accepted my encroachment quite simply. She even offered to read my palm.—It seems that some haruspex named Delpha taught her the lines of the hand—”
“Delpha?” Heath cut in sharply. “You mean the fortune-teller who does business under that phony name?”
“It could be,” said Vance. “This Delpha, I gathered, deals in palmistry, astrology, and numerology, and other allied didos. Do you know the seeress, Sergeant?”
“I’ll say I do. I know her husband Tony, too. They’re connected in some queer way with a lot of wrong guys in the underworld. They’re tipsters, jewelry touts—what you might call spies for stick-ups. But you can’t get the goods on ’em. Their name’s Tofana; and they run a flashy joint for suckers… Delpha!” he snorted. “Plain Rosie she is to the neighbours. She may get by for a while longer; but I’ll nail her some day.”
“You positively astound me, Sergeant. I simply can’t imagine my sylvan fairy—who, by the by, is a working girl in the In-O-Scent perfume factory on week-days—having aught to do with the darksome witch of your description.”
“I can,” said Heath. “That’s old Rosa Tofana’s neatest stall—surrounding herself with young innocents. And while she’s putting up the sweet, stainless front, old Tony is probably cooking up some deviltry, or picking pockets, or moll-buzzing, or dope-peddling in another part of town. Slick guy, Tony—can do ’most anything.”
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