During a brief interrogation of the butler the following facts were brought out:
The house had been locked up, and Sproot had retired, at about half-past ten.
Sibella had gone to her room immediately after dinner and had remained there.
Hemming and the cook had lingered in the kitchen until shortly after eleven, at which time Sproot had heard them ascend to their rooms.
The first intimation Sproot had of Mrs. Greene's death was when the nurse sent him to draw the reception-room shades at nine that morning.
Markham dismissed him and sent for the cook. She was, it appeared, unaware of Mrs. Greene's death and of Ada's poisoning as well; and what evidence she had to give was of no importance. She had, she said, been in the kitchen or in her own room practically all of the preceding day.
Hemming was interviewed next. From the nature of the questions put to her she became suspicious almost at once. Her piercing eyes narrowed, and she gave us a look of shrewd triumph.
"You can't hoodwink me," she burst out. "The Lord's been busy with his besom again. And a good thing, too! 'The Lord preserveth all them that love him: but all the wicked shall he destroy.'"
"Will,'" corrected Vance. "And seeing that you have been so tenderly preserved, perhaps we had better inform you that both Miss Ada and Mrs. Greene have been poisoned."
He was watching the woman closely, but it took no scrutiny to see her cheeks go pale and her jaw sag. The Lord had evidently been too precipitously devastating even for this devout disciple; and her faith was insufficient to counteract her fear.
"I'm going to leave this house," she declared faintly. "I've seen enough to bear witness for the Lord."
"An excellent idea," nodded Vance. "And the sooner you go the more time you'll have to give apocryphal testimony."
Hemming rose, a bit dazed, and started for the archway. Then she quickly turned back and glared at Markham maliciously.
"But let me tell you something before I pass from the den of iniquity. That Miss Sibella is the worst of the lot, and the Lord is going to strike her down next—mark my words! There's no use to try and save her. She's—doomed!"
Vance lifted his eyebrows languidly.
"I say, Hemming, what unrighteousness has Miss Sibella been up to now?"
"The usual thing." The woman spoke with relish. "She's nothing but a hussy, if you ask me. Her carryings-on with this Doctor Von Blon have been scandalous. They're together, as thick as thieves, at all hours." She nodded her head significantly. "He came here again last night and went to her room. There's no telling what time he left."
"Fancy that, now. And how do you happen to know about it?"
"Didn't I let him in?"
"Oh, you did? What time was this?—And where was Sproot?"
"Mr. Sproot was eating his dinner, and I'd gone to the front door to take a look at the weather when the doctor walks up. 'Howdy-do, Hemming?' he says with his oily smile. And he brushes past me, nervouslike, and goes straight to Miss Sibella's room."
"Perhaps Miss Sibella was indisposed, and sent for him," suggested Vance indifferently.
"Huh!" Hemming tossed her head contemptuously, and strode from the room.
Vance rose at once and rang again for Sproot.
"Did you know Doctor Von Blon was here last night?" he asked when the butler appeared.
The man shook his head.
"No, sir. I was quite unaware of the fact."
"That's all, Sproot.—And now please tell Miss Sibella we'd like to see her."
"Yes, sir."
It was fifteen minutes before Sibella put in an appearance.
"I'm beastly lazy these days," she explained, settling herself in a large chair. "What's the party for this morning?"
Vance offered her a cigarette with an air half quizzical and half deferential.
"Before we explain our presence," he said, "please be good enough to tell us what time Doctor Von Blon left here last night?"
"At a quarter of eleven," she answered, a hostile challenge coming into her eyes.
"Thank you. And now I may tell you that both your mother and Ada have been poisoned."
"Mother and Ada poisoned?" She echoed the words vaguely, as if they were only half intelligible to her; and for several moments she sat motionless, staring stonily out of flintlike eyes. Slowly her gaze became fixed on Markham.
"I think I'll take your advice," she said. "I have a girl chum in Atlantic City... This place is really becoming too—too creepy." She forced a faint smile. "I'm off for the seashore this afternoon." For the first time the girl's nerve seemed to have deserted her.
"Your decision is very wise," observed Vance. "Go, by all means; and arrange to stay until we have settled this affair."
She looked at him in a spirit of indulgent irony.
"I'm afraid I can't stay so long," she said; then added: "I suppose mother and Ada are both dead."
"Only your mother," Vance told her. "Ada recovered."
"She would!" Every curve of her features expressed a fine arrogant contempt. "Common clay has great resistance, I've heard. You know, I'm the only one standing between her and the Greene millions now."
"Your sister had a very close call," Markham reprimanded her. "If we had not had a doctor on guard, you might now be the sole remaining heir to those millions."
"And that would look frightfully suspicious, wouldn't it?" Her question was disconcertingly frank. "But you may rest assured that if I had planned this affair, little Ada would not have recovered."
Before Markham could answer she switched herself out of the chair.
"Now, I'm going to pack. Enough is enough."
When she had left the room, Heath looked with doubtful inquisitiveness at Markham.
"What about it, sir? Are you going to let her leave the city? She's the only one of the Greenes who hasn't been touched."
We knew what he meant; and this spoken suggestion of the thought that had been passing through all our minds left us silent for a moment.
"We can't take the chance of forcing her to stay here," Markham returned finally. "If anything should happen..."
"I get you, sir." Heath was on his feet. "But I'm going to see that she's tailed—believe me! I'll get two good men up here who'll stick to her from the time she goes out that front door till we know where we stand." He went into the hall, and we heard him giving orders to Snitkin over the telephone.
Five minutes later Doctor Doremus arrived. He was no longer jaunty, and his greeting was almost sombre. Accompanied by Drumm and Heath he went at once to Mrs. Greene's room, while Markham and Vance and I waited downstairs. When he returned at the end of fifteen minutes he was markedly subdued, and I noticed he did not put on his hat at its usual rakish angle.
"What's the report?" Markham asked him.
"Same as Drumm's. The old girl passed out, I'd say, between one and two."
"And the strychnine was taken when?"
"Midnight, or thereabouts. But that's only a guess. Anyway, she got it along with the citrocarbonate. I tasted it on the glass."[23]
"By the by, doctor," said Vance, "when you do the autopsy can you let us have a report on the state of atrophy of the leg muscles?"
"Sure thing." Doremus was somewhat surprised by the request.
When he had gone, Markham addressed himself to Drumm.
"We'd like to talk to Ada now. How is she this morning?"
"Oh, fine!" Drumm spoke with pride. "I saw her right after I'd looked at the old lady. She's weak and a bit dried up with all the atropine I gave her, but otherwise practically normal."
"And she has not been told of her mother's death?"
"Not a word."
"She will have to know," interposed Vance; "and there's no point in keeping the fact from her any longer. It's just as well that the shock should come when we're all present."
Ada was sitting by the window when we came in, her elbows on the sill, chin in hands, gazing out into the snow-covered yard. She was startled by
our entry, and the pupils of her eyes dilated, as if with sudden fright. It was plain that the experiences she had been through had created in her a state of nervous fear.
After a brief exchange of amenities, during which both Vance and Markham strove to allay her nervousness, Markham broached the subject of the bouillon.
"We'd give a great deal," he said, "not to have to recall so painful an episode, but much depends on what you can tell us regarding yesterday morning.—You were in the drawing-room, weren't you, when the nurse called down to you?"
The girl's lips and tongue were dry, and she spoke with some difficulty.
"Yes. Mother had asked me to bring her a copy of a magazine, and I had just gone downstairs to look for it when the nurse called."
"You saw the nurse when you came upstairs?"
"Yes; she was just going toward the servants' stairway."
"There was no one in your room when you entered?" She shook her head. "Who could have been there?"
"That's what we're trying to find out, Miss Greene," replied Markham gravely. "Someone certainly put the drug in your bouillon."
She shuddered, but made no reply.
"Did anyone come in while you were there?" Markham continued.
"Not a soul."
Heath impatiently projected himself into the interrogation.
"And say; did you drink your soup right away?"
"No—not right away. I felt a little chilly, and I went across the hall to Julia's room to get an old Spanish shawl to put round me."
Heath made a disgusted face, and sighed noisily.
"Every time we get going on this case," he complained, "something comes along and sinks us.—If Miss Ada left the soup in here, Mr. Markham, while she went to get a shawl, then almost anybody coulda sneaked in and poisoned the stuff."
"I'm so sorry," Ada apologized, almost as though she had taken Heath's words as a criticism of her actions.
"It's not your fault, Ada," Vance assured her. "The Sergeant is unduly depressed. But tell me this: when you went into the hall did you see Miss Sibella's dog anywhere around?"
She shook her head wonderingly.
"Why, no. What has Sibella's dog to do with it?"
"He probably saved your life." And Vance explained to her how Sproot had happened to find her.
She gave a half-breathless murmur of amazement and incredulity, and fell into abstracted reverie.
"When you returned from your sister's room, did you drink your bouillon at once?" Vance asked her next.
With difficulty she brought her mind back to the question.
"Yes."
"And didn't you notice a peculiar taste?"
Not particularly. Mother always likes a lot of salt in her bouillon."
"And then what happened?"
"Nothing happened. Only, I began to feel funny. The back of my neck tightened up, and I got very warm and drowsy. My skin tingled all over, and my arms and legs seemed to get numb. I was terribly sleepy, and I lay back on the bed. That's all I remember."
"Another washout," grumbled Heath.
There was a short silence, and Vance drew his chair nearer.
"Now, Ada," he said, "you must brace yourself for more bad news... Your mother died during the night."
The girl sat motionless for a moment, and then turned to him eyes of a despairing clearness.
"Died?" she repeated. "How did she die?"
"She was poisoned—she took an overdose of strychnine."
"You mean... she committed suicide?"
This query startled us all. It expressed a possibility that had not occurred to us. After a momentary hesitation, however, Vance slowly shook his head.
"No, I hardly think so. I'm afraid the person who poisoned you also poisoned your mother."
Vance's reply seemed to stun her. Her face grew pale, and her eyes were set in a glassy stare of terror. Then presently she sighed deeply, as if from a kind of mental depletion.
"Oh, what's going to happen next? ...I'm—afraid!"
"Nothing more is going to happen," said Vance with emphasis. "Nothing more can happen. You are going to be guarded every minute. And Sibella is going this afternoon to Atlantic City for a long visit."
"I wish I could go away," she breathed pathetically.
"There will be no need of that," put in Markham. "You'll be safer in New York. We are going to keep the nurse here to look after you, and also put a man in the house day and night until everything is straightened out. Hemming is leaving to-day, but Sproot and the cook will take care of you." He rose and patted her shoulder comfortingly. "There's no possible way any one can harm you now."
As we descended into the lower hall Sproot was just admitting Doctor Von Blon.
"Good God!" he exclaimed, hastening toward us. "Sibella just phoned me about Mrs. Greene." He looked truculently at Markham, his suavity for the moment forgotten. "Why wasn't I informed, sir?"
"I saw no necessity of bothering you, doctor," Markham returned equably. "Mrs. Greene had been dead several hours when she was found. And we had our own doctor at hand."
A quick flame leaped in Von Blon's eyes.
"And am I to be forcibly kept from seeing Sibella?" he asked coldly. "She tells me she is leaving the city to-day, and has asked me to assist with her arrangements."
Markham stepped aside.
"You are free, doctor, to do whatever you desire," he said, a perceptible chill in his voice.
Von Blon bowed stiffly, and went up the stairs.
"He's sore," grinned Heath.
"No, Sergeant," Vance corrected. "He's worried—oh, deuced worried."
Shortly after noon that day Hemming departed forever from the Greene mansion; and Sibella took the three-fifteen o'clock train for Atlantic City. Of the original household, only Ada and Sproot and Mrs. Mannheim were left. However, Heath gave orders for Miss O'Brien to remain on duty indefinitely and keep an eye on everything that happened; and, in addition to this protection, a detective was stationed in the house to augment the nurse's watch.
22. THE SHADOWY FIGURE
(Friday, December 3rd; 6 p.m.)
AT six o'clock that evening Markham called another informal conference at the Stuyvesant Club. Not only were Inspector Moran and Heath present, but Chief Inspector O'Brien dropped in on his way home from the office.[24]
The afternoon papers had been merciless in their criticism of the police for its unsuccessful handling of the investigation. Markham, after consulting with Heath and Doremus, had explained the death of Mrs. Greene to the reporters as "the result of an overdose of strychnine—a stimulant she had been taking regularly under her physician's orders." Swacker had typed copies of the item so there would be no mistake as to its exact wording; and the announcement ended by saying: "There is no evidence to show that the drug was not self-administered as the result of error." But although the reporters composed their news stories in strict accord with Markham's report, they interpolated subtle intimations of deliberate murder, so that the reader was left with little doubt as to the true state of affairs. The unsuccessful attempt to poison Ada had been kept a strict official secret. But this suppressed item had not been needed to inflame the public's morbid imagination to an almost unprecedented degree.
Both Markham and Heath had begun to show the strain of their futile efforts to solve the affair; and one glance at Inspector Moran, as he sank heavily into a chair beside the District Attorney, was enough to make one realize that a corroding worry had undermined his habitual equanimity. Even Vance revealed signs of tensity and uneasiness; but with him it was an eager alertness, rather than worry, that marked any deviation from normality in his attitude.
As soon as we were assembled that evening Heath briefly epitomized the case. He went over the various lines of investigation, and enumerated the precautions that had been taken. When he had finished, and before anyone could make a comment, he turned to Chief Inspector O'Brien and said:
"There's plenty of things, sir, we might've done in any ordin
ary case. We could've searched the house for the gun and the poison like the narcotic squad goes through a single room or small apartment—punching the mattresses, tearing up the carpets, and sounding the woodwork—but in the Greene house it would've taken a coupla months. And even if we'd found the stuff, what good would it have done us? The guy that's tearing things wide open in that dump isn't going to stop just because we take his dinky thirty-two away from him, or grab his poison. After Chester or Rex was shot we could've arrested all the rest of the family and put 'em through a third degree. But there's too much noise in the papers now every time we give anybody the works; and it ain't exactly healthy for us to grill a family like the Greenes. They've got too much money and pull; they'd have had a whole battalion of high-class lawyers smearing us with suits and injunctions and God knows what. And if we'd just held 'em as material witnesses, they'd have got out in forty-eight hours on habeas-corpus actions. Then, again, we might've planted a bunch of huskies in the house. But we couldn't keep a garrison there indefinitely, and the minute they'd have been called off, the dirty work would've begun. Believe me, Inspector, we've been up against it good and plenty."
O'Brien grunted and tugged at his white cropped moustache.
"What the Sergeant says is perfectly true," Moran remarked. "Most of the ordinary methods of action and investigation have been denied us. We're obviously dealing with an inside family affair."
"Moreover," added Vance, "we're dealing with an extr'ordin'rily clever plot—something that has been thought out and planned down to the minutest detail, and elaborately covered up at every point. Everything has been staked-even life itself—on the outcome. Only a supreme hatred and an exalted hope could have inspired the crimes. And against such attributes, d'ye see, the ordin'ry means of prevention are utterly useless."
"A family affair!" repeated O'Brien heavily, who apparently was still pondering over Inspector Moran's statement. "It don't look to me as though there's much of the family left. I'd say, on the evidence, that some outsider was trying to wipe the family out." He gave Heath a glowering look. "What have you done about the servants? You're not scared to monkey with them, are you? You could have arrested one of 'em a long time ago and stopped the yapping of the newspapers for a time, anyway."
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