Philo Vance Omnibus Vol 1

by S. S. Van Dine

  After Heath had given Miss O'Brien the necessary instructions, we left the house and walked toward First Avenue.

  "Good God, Vance!" said Markham huskily. "We've got to move quickly. That child's story opens up new and frightful possibilities."

  "Couldn't you get a commitment for the old woman to some sanatorium to- morrow, sir?" asked Heath.

  "On what grounds? It's a pathological case, pure and simple. We haven't a scrap of evidence."

  "I shouldn't attempt it, in any event," interposed Vance. "We mustn't be hasty. There are several conclusions to be drawn from Ada's story; and if the thing that all of us is thinking should be wrong, we'd only make matters worse by a false move. We might delay the slaughter for the time being; but we'd learn nothing. And our only hope is to find out—some way—what's at the bottom of this atrocious business."

  "Yeh? And how are we going to do that, Mr. Vance?" Heath spoke with despair.

  "I don't know now. But the Greene household is safe for to-night, anyway; and that gives us a little time. I think I'll have another talk with Von Blon. Doctors—especially the younger ones—are apt to give snap diagnoses."

  "It can certainly do no harm," agreed Markham. "And it might bring forth something suggestive. When will you tackle him?"

  Heath had hailed a taxicab, and we were headed down-town along Third Avenue.

  Vance was gazing out of the window.

  "Why not at once?" Suddenly his mood had changed. "Here we are in the Forties. And tea-time! What could be more opportune?"

  He leaned over and gave the chauffeur an order.

  In a few minutes the taxicab drew up to the kerb before Von Blon's brown- stone residence.

  The doctor received us apprehensively.

  "Nothing wrong, I hope?" he asked, trying to read our faces.

  "Oh, no," Vance answered easily. "We were passing and thought we'd drop in for a dish of tea and a medical chat."

  Von Blon studied him with a slight suspicion.

  "Very well. You gentlemen shall have both." He rang for his man. "But I can do even better. I've some old Amontillado sherry—"

  "My word!" Vance bowed ceremoniously and turned to Markham. "You see how fortune favours her punctual children?"

  The wine was brought and carefully decanted.

  Vance took up his glass and sipped it. One would have thought, from his manner, that nothing in the world at that moment was as important as the quality of the wine.

  "Ah, my dear doctor," he remarked, with some ostentation, "the blender on the sunny Andalusian slopes unquestionably had many rare and valuable butts with which to glorify this vintage. There was little need for the addition of vino dulce that year; but, then, the Spaniards always sweeten their wine, probably because the English object to the slightest dryness. And it's the English, you know, who buy all the best sherries. They have always loved their 'sherris-sack'; and many a British bard has immortalized it in song. Ben Jonson sang its praises, and so did Tom Moore and Byron. But it was Shakespeare—an ardent lover of sherry himself—who penned the greatest and most passionate panegyric to it. You remember Falstaff's 'apostrophe?—'It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery and delectable shapes...' Sherry, you probably know, doctor, was once regarded as a cure for gout and other malaises of faulty metabolism." He paused and put down his glass.

  "I wonder that you haven't prescribed this delicious sherry for Mrs. Greene long ago. I'm sure she would serve you with a writ of confiscation if she knew you had it."

  "The fact is," Von Blon returned, "I once took her a bottle, and she gave it to Chester. She doesn't care for wine. I remember my father's telling me she objected violently to her husband's well-stocked cellar."

  "Your father died, did he not, before Mrs. Greene became paralyzed?" Vance asked incuriously.

  "Yes—about a year."

  "And was yours the only diagnosis made of her case?"

  Von Blon looked at him with an air of gentle surprise.

  "Yes. I saw no necessity of calling in any of the bigwigs. The symptoms were clear-cut and conformed with the ananmesis. Furthermore, everything since then has confirmed my diagnosis."

  "And yet, doctor"—Vance spoke with great deference—"something has occurred which, from the layman's point of view, tends to cast doubt on the accuracy of that diagnosis. Therefore, I feel sure you will forgive me when I ask you quite frankly if it would not be possible to place another, and perhaps less serious, interpretation on Mrs. Greene's invalidism."

  Von Blon appeared greatly puzzled.

  "There is," he said, "not the slightest possibility that Mrs. Greene is suffering from any disease other than an organic paralysis of both legs— a paraplegia, in fact, of the entire lower part of the body."

  "If you were to see Mrs. Greene move her legs, what would be your mental reaction?"

  Von Blon stared at him incredulously. Then he forced a laugh.

  "My mental reaction? I'd know my liver was out of order, and that I was having hallucinations."

  "And if you knew your liver was functioning perfectly—then what?"

  "I'd immediately become a devout believer in miracles."

  Vance smiled pleasantly.

  "I sincerely hope it won't come to that. And yet so-called therapeutic miracles have happened."

  "I'll admit that medical history is filled with what the uninitiated call miraculous cures. But there is sound pathology beneath all of them. In Mrs. Greene's case, however, I can see no loophole for error. If she should move her legs, it would controvert all the known laws of physiology."

  "By the by, doctor"—Vance put the question abruptly—"are you familiar with Brugelmann's 'Ueber hysterische Dämmerzustände'?"

  "No—I can't say that I am."

  "Or with Schwarzwald's 'Ueber Hystero-Paralyse und Somnambulismus'?"

  Von Blon hesitated, and his eyes were focused intently like those of a man who is thinking rapidly.

  "I knew Schwarzwald, of course," he answered. "But I'm ignorant of the particular work you mention..." Slowly a look of amazement dawned on his face. "Good heavens You're not trying to connect the subjects of these books with Mrs. Greene's condition, are you?"

  "If I were to tell you that both of these books are in the Greene mansion, what would you say?"

  "I'd say their presence is no more relevant to the situation there than would be a copy of 'Die Leiden des jungen Werther' or Heine's 'Romanzero.'"

  "I'm sorry I can't agree with you," returned Vance politely. "They are certainly relevant to our investigation, and I had hoped you might be able to explain the connection."

  Von Blon appeared to ponder the matter, his face the picture of perplexity.

  "I wish I could help you," he said, after several moments. Then he glanced up quickly; a new light had come into his eyes. "Permit me to suggest, sir, that you are labouring under a misapprehension as to the correct scientific connotation of the words in the titles of these two books. I have had occasion to do considerable reading along psycho- analytic lines; and both Freud and Jung use the terms 'Somnambulismus' and 'Dämmerzustände' in an entirely different sense from our common use of the terms 'somnambulism' and 'twilight sleep. 'Somnambulismus,' in the terminology of psychopathology and abnormal psychology, is employed in connection with ambivalence and dual personality: it designates the actions of the submerged, or subconscious, self in cases of aphasia, amnesia, and the like. It does not refer to one's walking in one's sleep. For instance, in psychic hysteria where one loses one's memory and adopts a new personality, the subject is called a Somnambule.' It is the same as what the newspapers commonly refer to as an 'amnesia victim.'"

  He rose and went to a bookcase. After a few moments' search he took down several volumes.

  "Here we have, for example, an old monograph by Freud and Breuer, written in 1893 and entitled 'Ueber den psychischen Mechanismus der hysterische
n Phenomene.' If you care to take the trouble to read it, you will see that it is an exposition of the application of the term 'Somnambulismus' to certain temporary neurotic derangements.—And here also is Freud's 'Traumdeutung,' published in 1894, in which this terminology is explained and amplified.—In addition to these, I have here 'Nervöse Angstzustände,' by Stekel, who, though he leads one of the most important schisms in the Freudian school, uses the same nomenclature in referring to split personality." He laid the three books on the table before Vance. "You may take them along if you like. They may throw some light on the quandary you are in."

  "You are inclined to believe, then, that both Schwarzwald and Brugelmann refer to waking psychic states rather than the more common type of somnambulism?"

  "Yes, I am inclined to that belief. I know Schwarzwald was a former lecturer at the Psychopatisches Institut, in constant contact with Freud and his teachings. But, as I told you, I am not familiar with either of the books."

  "How would you account for the term 'hysteria' in both titles?"

  "Its presence there is in no way contradictory. Aphasia, amnesia, aphonia—and often anosmia and apnoea—are symptoms of hysteria. And hysterical paralysis is quite common. There are many cases of paralytics who have been unable to move a muscle for years, as a result of sheer hysteria."

  "Ah, exactly!" Vance picked up his glass and drained it. "That brings me to a rather unusual request I desire to make.—As you know, the papers are waxing severe in their criticism of the police and the District Attorney's office, and are accusing of negligence everyone connected with the investigation of the Greene case. Therefore Mr. Markham has decided that it might be advisable for him to possess a report of Mrs. Greene's physical condition which would carry the very highest expert authority. And I was going to suggest that, merely as a matter of formal routine, we get such a report from, let us say, Doctor Felix Oppenheimer."[21]

  Von Blon did not speak for several minutes. He sat toying nervously with his glass, his eyes fixed with intent calculation on Vance.

  "It might be well for you to have the report," he acceded at last, "if only to dispel your own doubts on the subject.—No, I have no objection to the plan. I will be very glad to make the arrangements."

  Vance rose.

  "That's very generous of you, doctor. But I must urge you to attend to it without delay."

  "I understand perfectly. I will get in touch with Doctor Oppenheimer in the morning and explain to him the official character of the situation. I'm sure he will expedite matters."

  When we were again in the taxicab Markham gave voice to his perplexity.

  "Von Blon strikes me as a particularly able and trustworthy man. And yet he has obviously gone woefully astray in regard to Mrs. Greene's illness. I fear he's in for a shock when he hears what Oppenheimer has to say after the examination."

  "Y' know, Markham," said Vance sombrely, "I'll feel infinitely bucked if we succeed in getting that report from Oppenheimer."

  "Succeed! What do you mean?"

  "'Pon my word, I don't know what I mean. I only know that there's a black terrible intrigue of some kind going on at the Greene house. And we don't yet know who's back of it. But it's someone who's watching us, who knows every move we make, and is thwarting us at every turn."

  20. THE FOURTH TRAGEDY

  (Thursday, December 2nd; forenoon)

  THE following day was one that will ever remain in my memory. Despite the fact that what happened had been foreseen by all of us, nevertheless when it actually came it left us as completely stunned as if it had been wholly unexpected. Indeed, the very horror that informed our anticipation tended to intensify the enormity of the event.

  The day broke dark and threatening. A damp chill was in the air; and the leaden skies clung close to the earth with suffocating menace. The weather was like a symbol of our gloomy spirits.

  Vance rose early, and, though he said little, I knew the case was preying on his mind. After breakfast he sat before the fire for over an hour sipping his coffee and smoking. Then he made an attempt to interest himself in an old French edition of "Till Ulenspiegel," but, failing, took down volume seven of Osler's "Modern Medicine" and turned to Buzzard's article on myelitis. For an hour he read with despairing concentration. At last he returned the book to the shelves.

  At half-past eleven Markham telephoned to inform us that he was leaving the office immediately for the Greene mansion and would stop en route to pick us up. He refused to say more, and hung up the receiver abruptly.

  It wanted ten minutes of being noon when he arrived; and his expression of grim discouragement told us more plainly than words that another tragedy had occurred.

  We had on our coats in readiness and accompanied him at once to the car.

  "And who is it this time?" asked Vance, as we swung into Park Avenue.

  "Ada." Markham spoke bitterly through his teeth.

  "I was afraid of that, after what she told us yesterday.—With poison, I suppose."

  "Yes—the morphine."

  "Still, it's an easier death than strychnine-poisoning."

  "She's not dead, thank God!" said Markham. "That is, she was still alive when Heath phoned."

  "Heath? Was he at the house?"

  "No. The nurse notified him at the Homicide Bureau, and he phoned me from there. He'll probably be at the Greenes' when we arrive."

  "You say she isn't dead?"

  "Drumm—he's the official police surgeon Moran stationed in the Narcoss Flats—got there immediately, and had managed to keep her alive up to the time the nurse phoned."

  "Sproot's signal worked all right, then?"

  "Apparently. And I want to say, Vance, that I'm damned grateful to you for that suggestion to have a doctor on hand."

  When we arrived at the Greene mansion Heath, who had been watching for us, opened the door.

  "She ain't dead," he greeted us in a stage whisper; and then drew us into the reception-room to explain his secretive manner. "Nobody in the house except Sproot and O'Brien knows about this poisoning yet. Sproot found her, and then pulled down all the front curtains in this room—which was the signal agreed on. When Doc Drumm hopped across Sproot was waiting with the door open, and took him upstairs without anybody seeing him. The doc sent for O'Brien, and after they'd worked on the girl for a while he told her to notify the Bureau. They're both up in the room now with the doors locked."

  "You did right in keeping the thing quiet," Markham told him. "If Ada recovers we can hush it up and perhaps learn something from her."

  "That's what I was thinking, sir. I told Sproot I'd wring his scrawny neck if he spilled anything to anybody."

  "And," added Vance, "he bowed politely and said 'Yes, sir.'"

  "You bet your life he did!"

  "Where is the rest of the household at present?" Markham asked.

  "Miss Sibella's in her room. She had breakfast in bed at half-past ten and told the maid she was going back to sleep. The old lady's also asleep. The maid and the cook are in the back of the house somewhere."

  "Has Von Blon been here this morning?" put in Vance.

  "Sure he's been here—he comes regular. O'Brien said he called at ten, sat with the old lady about an hour, and then went away."

  "And he hasn't been notified about the morphine?"

  "What's the use? Drumm's a good doctor, and Von Blon might blab about it to Sibella or somebody."

  "Quite right." Vance nodded his approval.

  We re-entered the hall and divested ourselves of our wraps.

  "While we're waiting for Doctor Drumm," said Markham, "we might as well find out what Sproot knows."

  We went into the drawing-room, and Heath yanked the bell-cord. The old butler came directly and stood before us without the slightest trace of emotion. His imperturbability struck me as inhuman.

  Markham beckoned him to come nearer.

  "Now, Sproot, tell us exactly what took place."

  "I was in the kitchen resting, sir"—the man's voice
was as wooden as usual—"and I was just looking at the clock and thinking I would resume my duties, when the bell of Miss Ada's room rang. Each bell, you understand, sir—"

  "Never mind that! What time was it?"

  "It was exactly eleven o'clock. And, as I said, Miss Ada's bell rang. I went right upstairs and knocked on her door; but, as there was no answer, I took the liberty of opening it and looking into the room. Miss Ada was lying on the bed; but it was not a natural attitude—if you understand what I mean. And then I noticed a very peculiar thing, sir. Miss Sibella's little dog was on the bed—"

  "Was there a chair or stool by the bed?" interrupted Vance.

  "Yes, sir, I believe there was. An ottoman."

  "So the dog could have climbed on the bed unassisted?"

  "Oh, yes, sir."

  "Very good. Continue."

  "Well, the dog was on the bed, and he looked like he was standing on his hind legs playing with the bell-cord. But the peculiar thing was that his hind legs were on Miss Ada's face, and she didn't seem to even notice it. Inwardly I was a bit startled; and I went to the bed and picked up the dog. Then I discovered that several threads of the silk tassel on the end of the cord had got caught between his teeth; and-would you believe it, sir?-it was him who had really rung Miss Ada's bell..."

  "Amazin'," murmured Vance. "What then, Sproot?"

  "I shook the young lady, although I had little hope of waking her after Miss Sibella's dog had been trampling over her face without her knowing it. Then I came downstairs and drew the curtains in the reception-room as I had been instructed to do in case of an emergency. When the doctor arrived I showed him to Miss Ada's room."

  "And that's all you know?"

  "Everything, sir."

  "Thank you, Sproot." Markham rose impatiently.

  "And now you might let Doctor Drumm know that we are here."

  It was the nurse, however, who came to the drawing-room a few minutes later. She was a medium-sized, well-built woman of thirty-five, with shrewd brown eyes, a thin mouth, and a firm chin, and a general air of competency. She greeted Heath with a companionable wave of the hand and bowed to the rest of us with aloof formality.