Philo Vance Omnibus Vol 1

by S. S. Van Dine

  "Where was the doctor?" Vance put the question. Sproot hesitated, and appeared to think.

  "He was upstairs, sir; and he came at once—"

  "Oh—upstairs! Roaming about vaguely, I presume—a little here, a little there, what?" Vance's eyes bored into the butler. "Come, come, Sproot. Where was the doctor?"

  "I think, sir, he was in Miss Sibella's room."

  "Cogito, cogito... Well, drum your encephalon a bit and try to reach a conclusion. From what sector of space did the corporeal body of Doctor Von Blon emerge after you had called him?"

  "The fact is, sir, he came out of Miss Sibella's door."

  "Well, well. Fancy that! And, such being the case, one might conclude— without too great a curfuffling of one's brains—that, preceding his issuing from that particular door, he was actually in Miss Sibella's room?"

  "I suppose so, sir."

  "Dash it all, Sproot! You know deuced well he was there."

  "Well—yes, sir."

  "And now suppose you continue with your odyssey."

  "It was more like the Iliad, if I may say so. More tragic-like, if you understand what I mean; although Mr. Rex was not exactly a Hector. However that may be sir, Doctor Von Blon came immediately—"

  "He had not heard the shot, then?"

  "Apparently not, for he seemed very much startled when he saw Mr. Rex. And Miss Sibella, who followed him into Mr. Rex's room, was startled, too."

  "Did they make any comment?"

  "As to that I couldn't say. I came downstairs at once and telephoned to Mr. Markham."

  As he spoke Ada appeared at the archway, her eyes wide.

  "Someone's been in my room," she announced, in a frightened voice. "The French doors to the balcony were partly open when I went upstairs just now, and there were dirty snow-tracks across the floor... Oh, what does it mean? Do you think—?"

  Markham had jerked himself forward.

  "You left the French doors shut when you went out?"

  "Yes, of course," she answered. "I rarely open them in winter."

  "And were they locked?"

  "I'm not sure, but I think so. They must have been locked—though how could anyone have got in unless I'd forgotten to turn the key?"

  Heath had risen and stood listening to the girl's story with grim bewilderment.

  "Probably the bird with those galoshes again," he mumbled. "I'll get Jerym himself up here this time." Markham nodded and turned back to Ada.

  "Thank you for telling us, Miss Greene. Suppose you go to some other room and wait for us. We want your room left just as you found it until we've had time to examine it."

  "I'll go to the kitchen and stay with cook. I—I don't want to be alone." And with a catch of her breath she left us.

  "Where's Doctor Von Blon now?" Markham asked Sproot.

  "With Mrs. Greene, sir."

  "Tell him we're here and would like to see him at once."

  The butler bowed and went out.

  Vance was pacing up and down, his eyes almost closed.

  "It grows madder every minute," he said. "It was insane enough without those foot-tracks and that open door. There's something devilish going on here, Markham. There's demonology and witchcraft afoot, or something strangely close to it. I say, is there anything in the Pandects or the Justinian Code relating to the proper legal procedure against diabolic possession or spiritism?"

  Before Markham could rebuke him Von Blon entered. His usual suavity had disappeared. He bowed jerkily without speaking, and smoothed his moustache nervously with an unsteady hand.

  "Sproot tells me, doctor," said Markham, "that you did not hear the shot fired in Rex's room."

  "No!" The fact seemed both to puzzle and disturb him. "I can't make it out either, for Rex's door into the hall was open."

  "You were in Miss Sibella's room, were you not?" Vance had halted, and stood studying the doctor. Von Blon lifted his eyebrows.

  "I was. Sibella had been complaining about—"

  "A sore throat or something of the kind, no doubt," finished Vance. "But that's immaterial. The fact is that neither you nor Miss Sibella heard the shot. Is that correct?"

  The doctor inclined his head. "I knew nothing of it till Sproot knocked on the door and beckoned me across the hall."

  "And Miss Sibella accompanied you into Rex's room?"

  "She came in just behind me, I believe. But I told her not to touch anything, and sent her immediately back to her room. When I came out into the hall again I heard Sproot phoning the District Attorney's office, and thought I'd better wait till the police arrived. After talking over the situation with Sibella I informed Mrs. Greene of the tragedy, and remained with her until Sproot told me of your arrival."

  "You saw no one else upstairs, or heard no suspicious noise?"

  "No one—nothing. The house, in fact, was unusually quiet."

  "Do you recall if Miss Ada's door was open?"

  The doctor pondered a moment. "I don't recall—which means it was probably closed. Otherwise I would have noticed it."

  "And how is Mrs. Greene this morning?" Vance's question, put negligently, sounded curiously irrelevant. Von Blon gave a start.

  "She seemed somewhat more comfortable when I first saw her, but the news of Rex's death disturbed her considerably. When I left her just now she was complaining about the shooting pains in her spine."

  Markham had got up and now moved restlessly toward the archway.

  "The Medical Examiner will be here any minute," he said; "and I want to look over Rex's room before he arrives. You might come with us, doctor.— And you, Sproot, had better remain at the front door."

  We went upstairs quietly: I think it was in all our minds that we should not advertise our presence to Mrs. Greene. Rex's room, like all those in the Greene mansion, was spacious. It had a large window at the front and another at the side. There were no draperies to shut out the light, and the slanting midday sun of winter poured in. The walls, as Chester had once told us, were lined with books; and pamphlets and papers were piled in every available nook. The chamber resembled a student's workshop more than a bedroom.

  In front of the Tudor fire-place in the centre of the left wall—a duplication of the fire-place in Ada's room—sprawled the body of Rex Greene. His left arm was extended, but his right arm was crooked, and the fingers were tightened, as if holding some object. His domelike head was turned a little to one side; and a thin stream of blood ran down his temple to the floor from a tiny aperture over the right eye.

  Heath studied the body for several minutes.

  "He was shot standing still, Mr. Markham. He collapsed in a heap and then straightened out a little after he'd hit the floor."

  Vance was bending over the dead man with a puzzled expression.

  "Markham, there's something curious and inconsistent here," he said. "It was broad daylight when this thing happened, and the lad was shot from the front-there are even powder marks on the face. But his expression is perfectly natural. No sign of fear or astonishment—rather peaceful and unconcerned, in fact... It's incredible. The murderer and the pistol certainly weren't invisible."

  Heath nodded slowly.

  "I noticed that too, sir. It's damn' peculiar." He bent more closely over the body. "That wound looks to me like a thirty-two," he commented, turning to the doctor for confirmation.

  "Yes," said Von Blon. "It appears to have been made with the same weapon that was used against the others."

  "It was the same weapon," Vance pronounced sombrely, taking out his cigarette-case with thoughtful deliberation. "And it was the same killer who used it." He smoked a moment, his troubled gaze resting on Rex's face. "But why was it done at just this time—in the daylight, with the door open, and when there were people close at hand? Why didn't the murderer wait until night? Why did he run such a needless risk?"

  "Don't forget," Markham reminded him, "that Rex was on the point of coming to my office to tell me something."

  "But who knew he was about to i
ndulge in revelations? He was shot within ten minutes of your call—" He broke off and turned quickly to the doctor. "What telephone extensions are there in the house?"

  "There are three, I believe." Von Blon spoke easily. "There's one in Mrs. Greene's room, one in Sibella's room, and, I think, one in the kitchen. The main phone is, of course, in the lower front hall."

  "A regular central office," growled Heath. "Almost anybody coulda listened in." Suddenly he fell on his knees beside the body and unflexed the fingers of the right hand.

  "I'm afraid you won't find that cryptic drawing, Sergeant," murmured Vance. "If the murderer shot Rex in order to seal his mouth the paper will surely be gone. Anyone overhearing the phone calls, d'ye see, would have learned of the envelope he was to fetch along."

  "I guess you're right, sir. But I'm going to have a look."

  He felt under the body and then systematically went through the dead man's pockets. But he found nothing even resembling the blue envelope mentioned by Ada. At last he rose to his feet.

  "It's gone, all right."

  Then another idea occurred to him. Going hurriedly into the hall, he called down the stairs to Sproot. When the butler appeared Heath swung on him savagely.

  "Where's the private mail-box?"

  "I don't know that I exactly understand you." Sproot's answer was placid and unruffled. "There is a mail-box just inside the front door. Do you refer to that, sir?"

  "No! You know damn' well I don't. I want to know where the private—get me?—private mail-box is, in the house."

  "Perhaps you are alluding to the little silver pyx for outgoing mail on the table in the lower hall."

  "'Pyx,' is it!" The sergeant's sarcasm was stupendous. "Well, go down and bring me everything that's in this here pyx.—No! Wait a minute—I'll keep you company... Pyx!" He took Sproot by the arm and fairly dragged him from the room.

  A few moments later he returned, crestfallen. "Empty!" was his laconic announcement.

  "But don't give up hope entirely just because your cabalistic diagram has disappeared," Vance exhorted him. "I doubt if it would have helped you much. This case isn't a rebus. It's a complex mathematical formula, filled with moduli, infinitesimals, quantics, faciends, derivatives, and coefficients. Rex himself might have solved it if he hadn't been shoved off the earth so soon." His eyes wandered over the room. "And I'm not at all sure he hadn't solved it."

  Markham was growing impatient.

  "We'd better go down to the drawing-room and wait for Doctor Doremus and the men from Head-quarters," he suggested. "We can't learn anything here."

  We went out into the hall, and as we passed Ada's door Heath threw it open and stood on the threshold surveying the room. The French doors leading to the balcony were slightly ajar, and the wind from the west was flapping their green chintz curtains. On the light beige rug were several damp discoloured cracks leading round the foot of the bed to the hall door where we stood. Heath studied the marks for a moment, and then drew the door shut again.

  "They're footprints, all right," he remarked. "Someone tracked in the dirty snow from the balcony and forgot to shut the glass doors."

  We were scarcely seated in the drawing-room when there came a knocking on the front door; and Sproot admitted Snitkin and Burke.

  "You first, Burke," ordered the sergeant, as the two officers appeared.

  "Any signs of an entry over the wall?"

  "Not a one." The man's overcoat and trousers were smudged from top to bottom. "I crawled all round the top of the wall, and I'm here to tell you that nobody left any traces anywheres. If any guy got over that wall, he vaulted."

  "Fair enough.—And now you, Snitkin."

  "I got news for you." The detective spoke with overt triumph. "Somebody's walked up those outside steps to the stone balcony on the west side of the house. And he walked up 'em this morning after the snowfall at nine o'clock, for the tracks are fresh. Furthermore, they're the same size as the ones we found last time on the front walk."

  "Where do these new tracks come from?" Heath leaned forward eagerly.

  "That's the hell of it, Sergeant. They come from the front walk right below the steps to the front door; and there's no tracing 'em farther back because the front walk's been swept clean."

  "I mighta known it," grumbled Heath. "And the tracks are only going one way?"

  "That's all. They leave the walk a few feet below the front door, swing round the corner of the house, and go up the steps to the balcony. The guy who made 'em didn't come down that way."

  The sergeant puffed disappointedly on his cigar.

  "So he went up the balcony steps, entered the French doors, crossed Ada's room to the hall, did his dirty work, and then—disappeared! A sweet case this is!" He clicked his tongue with disgust.

  "The man may have gone out by the front door," suggested Markham.

  The sergeant made a wry face and bellowed for Sproot, who entered immediately.

  "Say, which way did you go upstairs when you heard the shot?"

  "I went up the servants' stairs, sir."

  "Then someone mighta gone down the front stairs at the same time without your seeing him?"

  "Yes, sir; it's quite possible."

  "That's all."

  Sproot bowed and again took up his post at the front door.

  "Well, it looks like that's what happened, sir," Heath commented to Markham. "Only how did he get in and out of the grounds without being seen? That's what I want to know."

  Vance was standing by the window gazing out upon the river.

  "There's something dashed unconvincing about those recurrent spoors in the snow. Our eccentric culprit is altogether too careless with his feet and too careful with his hands. He doesn't leave a finger-print or any other sign of his presence except those foot-tracks—all nice and tidy and staring us in the face. But they don't square with the rest of this fantastic business."

  Heath stared hopelessly at the floor. He was patently of Vance's opinion; but the dogged thoroughness of his nature asserted itself, and presently he looked up with a forced show of energy.

  "Go and phone Captain Jerym, Snitkin, and tell him I wish he'd hustle out here to look at some carpet-tracks. Then make measurements of those footprints on the balcony steps.—And you, Burke, take up a post in the upper hall, and don't let anyone go into the two front west rooms."

  15. THE MURDERER IN THE HOUSE

  (Tuesday, November 30th; 12.30 p.m.)

  WHEN Snitkin and Burke had gone Vance turned from the window and strolled to where the doctor was sitting.

  "I think it might be well," he said quietly, "if the exact whereabouts of everyone in the house preceding and during the shooting was determined.— We know, doctor, that you arrived here at about quarter past ten. How long were you with Mrs. Greene?"

  Von Blon drew himself up and gave Vance a resentful stare. But quickly his manner changed and he answered courteously:

  "I sat with her for perhaps half an hour; then I went to Sibella's room— a little before eleven, I should say—and remained there until Sproot called me."

  "And was Miss Sibella with you in the room all the time?"

  "Yes-the entire time."

  "Thank you."

  Vance returned to the window, and Heath, who had been watching the doctor belligerently, took his cigar from his mouth and cocked his head at Markham.

  "You know, sir, I was just thinking over the inspector's suggestion about planting someone in the house to keep an eye on things. How would it be if we got rid of this nurse that's here now, and put in one of our own women from Head-quarters?"

  Von Blon looked up with eager approval.

  "An excellent plan!" he exclaimed.

  "Very well, Sergeant," agreed Markham. "You attend to it."

  "Your woman can begin to-night," Von Blon told Heath. "I'll meet you here whenever you say, and give her instructions. There's nothing very technical for her to do."

  Heath made a notation in a battered notebook.
>
  "I'll meet you here, say, at six o'clock. How's that?"

  "That will suit me perfectly." Von Blon rose. "And now, if I can be of no more service..."

  "That's quite all right, doctor," said Markham. "Go right ahead."

  But instead of immediately leaving the house Von Blon went upstairs, and we heard him knock on Sibella's door. A few minutes later he came down again and passed on to the front door without a glance in our direction.

  In the meantime Snitkin had come in and informed the sergeant that Captain Jerym was leaving Police Headquarters at once and would arrive within half an hour. He had then gone outside to make his measurements of the footprints on the balcony steps.

  "And now," suggested Markham, "I think we might see Mrs. Greene. It's possible she heard something..."

  Vance roused himself from apparent lethargy.

  "By all means. But first let us get a few facts in hand. I long to hear where the nurse was during the half-hour preceding Rex's demise. And I could bear to know if the old lady was alone immediately following the firing of the revolver.—Why not have our Miss Nightingale on the tapis before we brave the invalid's imprecations?"

  Markham concurred, and Heath sent Sproot to summon her.

  The nurse came in with an air of professional detachment; but her roseate cheeks had paled perceptibly since we last saw her.

  "Miss Craven"—Vance's manner was easy and businesslike—"will you please tell us exactly what you were doing between half-past ten and half-past eleven this morning?"

  "I was in my room on the third floor," she answered. "I went there when the doctor arrived a little after ten, and remained until he called me to bring Mrs. Greene's bouillon. Then I returned to my room and stayed until the doctor again summoned me to sit with Mrs. Greene while he was with you gentlemen."

  "When you were in your room, was the door open?"