Philo Vance Omnibus Vol 1

by S. S. Van Dine

"Certainly I heard it—couldn't have helped hearing it. Julia's room is next to mine, and I was still awake. I jumped into my slippers and pulled on my dressing-gown; then I went out into the hall. It was dark, and I felt my way along the wall until I reached Julia's door. I opened it and looked in—didn't know who might be there waiting to pop me—and I saw her lying in bed, the front of her night-gown covered with blood. There was no one else in the room, and I went to her immediately. Just then I heard another shot which sounded as if it cane from Ada's room. I was a bit muzzy by this time—didn't know what I'd better do; and as I stood by Julia's bed in something of a funk—oh, I was in a funk all right..."

  "Can't say that I blame you," Vance encouraged him.

  Greene nodded. "A damned ticklish position to be in. Well, anyway, as I stood there, I heard someone coming down the stairs from the servants' quarters on the third floor, and recognized old Sproot's tread. He fumbled along in the dark, and I heard him enter Ada's door. Then he called to me, and I hurried over. Ada was lying in front of the dressingtable; and Sproot and I lifted her on the bed. I'd gone a bit weak in the knees; was expecting any minute to hear another shot—don't know why. Anyway, it didn't come; and then I heard Sproot's voice at the hall telephone calling up Doctor Von Blon."

  "I see nothing in your account, Greene, inconsistent with the theory of a burglar," observed Markham. "And furthermore, Feathergill, my assistant, says there were two sets of confused footprints in the snow outside the front door."

  Greene shrugged his shoulders, but did not answer.

  "By the by, Mr. Greene"—Vance had slipped down in his chair and was staring into space—"you said that when you looked into Miss Julia's room you saw her in bed. How was that? Did you turn on the light?"

  "Why, no!" The man appeared puzzled by the question. "The light was on."

  There was a flutter of interest in Vance's eyes.

  "And how about Miss Ada's room? Was the light on there also?"

  "Yes."

  Vance reached into his pocket, and, drawing out his cigarette-case, carefully and deliberately selected a cigarette. I recognized in the action an evidence of repressed inner excitement.

  "So the lights were on in both rooms. Most interestin'."

  Markham, too, recognized the eagerness beneath his apparent indifference, and regarded him expectantly.

  "And," pursued Vance, after lighting his cigarette leisurely, "how long a time would you say elapsed between the two shots?"

  Greene was obviously annoyed by this cross-examination, but he answered readily.

  "Two or three minutes—certainly no longer."

  "Still," ruminated Vance, "after you heard the first shot you rose from your bed, donned slippers and robe, went into the hall, felt along the wall to the next room, opened the door cautiously, peered inside, and then crossed the room to the bed—all this, I gather, before the second shot was fired. Is that correct?"

  "Certainly it's correct."

  "Well, well! As you say, two or three minutes. Yes, at least that. Astonishin'!" Vance turned to Markham. "Really, y' know, old man, I don't wish to influence your judgment, but I rather think you ought to accede to Mr. Greene's request to take a hand in this investigation. I too have a psychic feeling about the case. Something tells me that your eccentric burglar will prove an ignis fatuus."

  Markham eyed him with meditative curiosity. Not only had Vance's questioning of Greene interested him keenly, but he knew, as a result of long experience, that Vance would not have made the suggestion had he not had a good reason for doing so. I was in no wise surprised, therefore, when he turned to his restive visitor and said:

  "Very well, Greene, I'll see what I can do in the matter. I'll probably be at your house early this afternoon. Please see that everyone is present, as I'll want to question them."

  Greene held out a trembling hand. "The domestic roster—family and servants—will be complete when you arrive."

  He strode pompously from the room.

  Vance sighed. "Not a nice creature, Markham—not at all a nice creature. I shall never be a politician if it involves an acquaintance with such gentlemen."

  Markham seated himself at his desk with a disgruntled air.

  "Greene is highly regarded as a social—not a political—decoration," he said maliciously. "He belongs to your totem, not mine."

  "Fancy that!" Vance stretched himself luxuriously. "Still, it's you who fascinate him. Intuition tells me he is not overfond of me."

  "You did treat him a bit cavalierly. Sarcasm is not exactly a means of endearment."

  "But, Markham, old thing, I wasn't pining for Chester's affection."

  "You think he knows, or suspects, something?" Vance gazed through the long window into the bleak sky beyond.

  "I wonder," he murmured. Then: "Is Chester, by any chance, a typical representative of the Greene family? Of recent years I've done so little mingling with the elite that I'm woefully ignorant of the East Side nabobs."

  Markham nodded reflectively.

  "I'm afraid he is. The original Greene stock was sturdy, but the present generation seems to have gone somewhat to pot. Old Tobias the Third— Chester's father—was a rugged and, in many ways, admirable character. He appears, however, to have been the last heir of the ancient Greene qualities. What's left of the family has suffered some sort of disintegration. They're not exactly soft, but tainted with patches of incipient decay, like fruit that's lain on the ground too long. Too much money and leisure, I imagine, and too little restraint. On the other hand, there's a certain intellectuality lurking in the new Greenes. They all seem to have good minds, even if futile and misdirected. In fact, I think you underestimate Chester. For all his banalities and effeminate mannerisms, he's far from being as stupid as you regard him."

  "I regard Chester as stupid! My dear Markham—my very dear Markham! You wrong me abominably. No, no. There's nothing of the anointed ass about our Chester. He's shrewder even than you think him. Those oedematous eyelids veil a pair of particularly crafty eyes. Indeed, it was largely his studied pose of fatuousness that led me to suggest that you aid and abet in the investigation."

  Markham leaned back and narrowed his eyes.

  "What's in your mind, Vance?"

  "I told you. A psychic seizure—same like Chester's subliminal visitation."

  Markham knew, by this elusive answer, that for the moment Vance had no intention of being more definite; and after a moment of scowling silence he turned to the telephone.

  "If I'm to take on this case, I'd better find out who has charge of it and get what preliminary information I can."

  He called up Inspector Moran, the commanding officer of the Detective Bureau. After a brief conversation he turned to Vance with a smile.

  "Your friend, Sergeant Heath, has the case in hand. He happened to be in the office just now, and is coming here immediately."[5]

  In less than fifteen minutes Heath arrived. Despite the fact that he had been up most of the night, he appeared unusually alert and energetic. His broad, pugnacious features were as imperturbable as ever, and his pale-blue eyes held their habitual penetrating intentness. He greeted Markham with an elaborate, though perfunctory handshake; and then, seeing Vance, relaxed his features into a good-natured smile.

  "Well, if it isn't Mr. Vance! What have you been up to, sir?"

  Vance rose and shook hands with him.

  "Alas, Sergeant, I've been immersed in the terra-cotta ornamentation of Renaissance facades, and other such trivialities, since I saw you last.[6] But I'm happy to note that crime is picking up again. It's a deuced drab world without a nice murky murder now and then, don't y' know."

  Heath cocked an eye, and turned inquiringly to the District Attorney. He had long since learned how to read between the lines of Vance's badinage.

  "It's this Greene case, Sergeant," said Markham.

  "I thought so." Heath sat down heavily, and inserted a black cigar between his lips. "But nothing's broken yet. We're rounding up all
the regulars, and looking into their alibis for last night. But it'll take several days before the check-up's complete. If the bird who did the job hadn't got scared before he grabbed the swag, we might be able to trace him through the pawnshops and fences. But something rattled him, or he wouldn't have shot up the works the way he did. And that's what makes me think he may be a new one at the racket. If he is, it'll make our job harder." He held a match in cupped hands to his cigar, and puffed furiously. "What did you want to know about the prowl, sir?"

  Markham hesitated. The Sergeant's matter-of-fact assumption that a common burglar was the culprit disconcerted him.

  "Chester Greene was here," he explained presently; "and he seems convinced that the shooting was not the work of a thief. He asked me, as a special favour, to look into the matter."

  Heath gave a derisive grunt.

  "Who but a burglar in a panic would shoot down two women?"

  "Quite so, Sergeant." It was Vance who answered. "Still, the lights were turned on in both rooms, though the women had gone to bed an hour before; and there was an interval of several minutes between the two shots."

  "I know all that." Heath spoke impatiently. "But if an amachoor did the job, we can't tell exactly what did happen upstairs there last night. When a bird loses his head—"

  "Ah! There's the rub. When a thief loses his head, d'ye see, he isn't apt to go from room to room turning on the lights, even assuming he knows where and how to turn them on. And he certainly isn't going to dally around for several minutes in a black hall between such fantastic operations, especially after he has shot someone and alarmed the house, what? It doesn't look like panic to me; it looks strangely like design. Moreover, why should this precious amateur of yours be cavorting about the boudoirs upstairs when the loot was in the dining-room below?"

  "We'll learn all about that when we've got our man," countered Heath doggedly.

  "The point is, Sergeant," put in Markham, "I've given Mr. Greene my promise to look into the matter, and I wanted to get what details I could from you. You understand, of course," he added mollifyingly, "that I shall not interfere with your activities in any way. Whatever the outcome of the case, your department will receive entire credit."

  "Oh, that's all right, sir." Experience had taught Heath that he had nothing to fear in the way of lost kudos when working with Markham. "But I don't think, in spite of Mr. Vance's ideas, that you'll find much in the Greene case to warrant attention."

  "Perhaps not," Markham admitted. "However, I've committed myself, and I think I'll run out this afternoon and look over the situation, if you'll give me the lie of die land."

  "There isn't much to tell." Heath chewed on his cigar cogitatingly. "A Doctor Von Blon—the Greene family physician—phoned Headquarters about midnight. I'd just got in from an up-town stick-up call, and I hopped out to the house with a couple of the boys from the Bureau. I found the two women, like you know, one dead and the other unconscious—both shot. I phoned, Doc Doremus,[7] and then looked the place over. Mr. Feathergill came along and lent a hand; but we didn't find much of anything. The fellow that did the job musta got in by the front door some way, for there was a set of footprints in the snow coming and going, besides Doctor Von Blon's. But the snow was too flaky to get any good impressions. It stopped snowing along about eleven o'clock last night; and there's no doubt that the prints belonged to the burglar, for no one else, except the doctor, had come or gone after the storm."

  "An amateur housebreaker with a front-door key to the Greene mansion," murmured Vance. "Extr'ordin'ry!"

  "I'm not saying he had a key, sir," protested Heath. "I'm simply telling you what we found. The door mighta been unlatched by mistake; or someone mighta opened it for him."

  "Go on with the story, Sergeant," urged Markham, giving Vance a reproving look.

  "Well, after Doc Doremus got there and made an examination of the older woman's body and inspected the younger one's wound, I questioned all the family and the servants—a butler, two maids, and a cook. Chester Greene and the butler were the only ones who had heard the first shot, which was fired about half-past eleven. But the second shot roused old Mrs. Greene— her room adjoins the younger daughter's. The rest of the household had slept through all the excitement; but this Chester fellow had woke 'em all up by the time I got there. I talked to all of 'em, but nobody knew anything. After a coupla hours I left a man inside and another outside, and came away. Then I set the usual machinery going; and this morning Captain Dubois went over the place the best he could for finger-prints. Doc Doremus has got the body for an autopsy, and we'll get a report to-night. But there'll be nothing helpful from that quarter. She was fired on from in front at close range—almost a contact shot. And the other woman—the young one—was all powder-marked, and her night-gown was burnt. She was shot from behind.—That's about all the dope."

  "Have you been able to get any sort of a statement from the younger one?"

  "Not yet. She was unconscious last night, and this morning she was too weak to talk. But the doctor—Von Blon—said we could probably question her this afternoon. We may get something out of her, in case she got a look at the bird before he shot her."

  "That suggests something to me, Sergeant." Vance had been listening passively to the recital, but now he drew in his legs, and lifted himself a little. "Did any member of the Greene household possess a gun?"

  Heath gave him a sharp look.

  "This Chester Greene said he had an old .32 revolver he used to keep in a desk drawer in his bedroom."

  "Oh, did he, now? And did you see the gun?"

  "I asked him for it, but he couldn't find it. Said he hadn't seen it for years, but that probably it was around somewheres. Promised to dig it up for me to-day."

  "Don't hang any fond hopes on his finding it, Sergeant." Vance looked at Markham musingly. "I begin to comprehend the basis of Chester's psychic perturbation. I fear he's a crass materialist after all...Sad, sad."

  "You think he missed the gun, and took fright?"

  "Well—something like that...perhaps. One can't tell. It's deuced confusin'." He turned an indolent eye on the Sergeant. "By the by, what sort of gun did your burglar use?"

  Heath gave a gruff, uneasy laugh.

  "You score there, Mr. Vance. I've got both bullets—thirty-two's, fired from a revolver, not an automatic. But you're not trying to intimate—"

  "Tut, tut, Sergeant. Like Goethe, I'm merely seeking for more illumination, if one may translate Licht—"

  Markham interrupted this garrulous evasion.

  "I'm going to the Greene house after lunch, Sergeant. Can you come along?"

  "Sure I can, sir. I was going out anyway."

  "Good." Markham brought forth a box of cigars. "Meet me here at two... And take a couple of these Perfectos before you go."

  Heath selected the cigars, and put them carefully into his breast pocket. At the door he turned with a bantering grin.

  "You coming along with us, Mr. Vance—to guide our erring footsteps, as they say?"

  "Nothing could keep me away," declared Vance.

  3. AT THE GREENE MANSION

  (Tuesday, November 9th; 2.30 p.m.)

  THE Greene Mansion—as it was commonly referred to by New Yorkers—was a relic of the city's ancien regime. It had stood for three generations at the eastern extremity of 53rd Street, two of its oriel windows actually overhanging the murky waters of the East River. The lot upon which the house was built extended through the entire block—a distance of two hundred feet—and had an equal frontage on the cross-streets. The character of the neighbourhood had changed radically since the early days; but the spirit of commercial advancement had left the domicile of the Greenes untouched. It was an oasis of idealism and calm in the midst of moiling commercial enterprise; and one of the stipulations in old Tobias Greene's last will and testament had been that the mansion should stand intact for at least a quarter of a century after his death, as a monument to him and his ancestors. One of his last acts o
n earth was to erect a high stone wall about the entire property, with a great double iron gateway opening on 53rd Street and a postern-gate for tradesmen giving on 52nd Street.

  The mansion itself was two and a half stories high, surmounted by gabled spires and chimney clusters. It was what architects call, with a certain intonation of contempt, a "château flamboyant"; but no derogatory appellation could detract from the quiet dignity and the air of feudal traditionalism that emanated from its great rectangular blocks of grey limestone. The house was sixteenth-century Gothic in style, with more than a suspicion of the new Italian ornament in its parts; and the pinnacles and shelves suggested the Byzantine, But for all its diversity of detail, it was not flowery, and would have held no deep attraction for the Freemason architects of the Middle Ages. It was not "bookish" in effect; it exuded the very essence of the old.

  In the front yard were maples and clipped evergreens, interspersed with hydrangea and lilac bushes; and at the rear was a row of weeping willows overhanging the river. Along the herring-bone-bond brick walls were high quick-set hedges of hawthorn; and the inner sides of the encircling wall were covered with compact escaliers. To the west of the house an asphalt driveway led to a double garage at the rear—an addition built by the newer generation of Greenes. But here too were boxwood hedgerows which cloaked the driveway's modernity.

  As we entered the grounds that grey November afternoon an atmosphere of foreboding bleakness seemed to have settled over the estate. The trees and shrubs were all bare, except the evergreens, which were laden with patches of snow. The trellises stood stripped along the walls, like clinging black skeletons; and, save for the front walk, which had been hastily and imperfectly swept, the grounds were piled high with irregular snow-drifts. The grey of the mansion's masonry was almost the colour of the brooding overcast sky; and I felt a premonitory chill of eeriness pass over me as we mounted the shallow steps that led to the high front door, with its pointed pediment above the deeply arched entrance.

  Sproot, the butler—a little old man with white hair and a heavily seamed capriform face—admitted us with silent, funereal dignity (he had evidently been apprised of our coming); and we were ushered at once into the great gloomy drawing-room whose heavily curtained windows overlooked the river. A few moments later Chester Greene came in and greeted Markham fulsomely. Heath and Vance and me he included in a single supercilious nod.