[23] It will be remembered that in the famous Molineux poisoning case the cyanide of mercury was administered by way of a similar drug—to wit: Bromo- Seltzer.
[24] Chief Inspector O'Brien, who was in command of the entire Police Department, was, I learned later, an uncle of the Miss O'Brien who was acting officially as nurse at the Greene mansion.
[25] I recalled that Guilfoyle and Mallory were the two men who had been set to watch Tony Skeel in the Canary murder case.
[26] Vance was here referring to the chapter called "The Aesthetic Hypothesis" in Clive Bell's "Art." But, despite the somewhat slighting character of his remark, Vance was an admirer of Bell's criticisms, and had spoken to me with considerable enthusiasm of his "Since Cezanne."
[27] This was the first and only time during my entire friendship with Vance that I ever heard him use a Scriptural expletive.
[28] As I learned later, Doctor Von Blon, who was an ardent amateur photographer, often used half-gramme tablets of cyanide of potassium and there had been three of them in his dark-room when Ada had called. Several days later, when preparing to redevelop a plate, he could only find two, but had thought little of the loss until questioned by Vance.
[29] I later asked Vance to rearrange the items for me in the order of his final sequence. The distribution, which told him the truth, was as follows: 3, 4, 44, 92, 9, 2, 47, 1, 5, 32, 31, 98, 8, 81, 84, 82, 7, 10, 11, 61, 15, 16, 93, 33, 94, 76, 75, 48, 17, 38, 55, 54, 18, 39, 56, 41, 42, 28, 43, 58, 59, 83, 74, 40, 12, 34, 13, 14, 37, 22, 23, 35, 36, 19, 73, 26, 20, 21 45. 25, 46, 27, 29, 30, 57, 77, 24, 78, 79, 51, 50, 52, 53, 49, 95, 80, 85, 86, 87, 88, 60, 62, 64, 63, 66, 65, 96, 89, 67, 71, 69, 68, 70, 97, 90, 91, 72.
[30] An account of the cases of Madeleine Smith and Constance Kent may be found in Edmund Lester Pearson's "Murder at Smutty Nose"; and a record of Marie Boyer's case is included in H. B. Irving's "A Book of Remarkable Criminals." Grete Beyer was the last woman to be publicly executed in Austria.
[31] "Selbstverletzungen kommen nicht selten vor; abgesehen von solchen bei fingierten Raubanfällen, stösst man auf sie dann, wenn Entschädigungen erpresst werden sollen; so geschicht es, dass nach einer harmlosen Balgerie einer der Kämpfenden mit Verletzungen auftritt, die er damals erlitten haben will. Kenntlich sind solche Selbstverstümmelungen daran, dass die Betreffenden meistens die Operation wegen der grossen Schmerzen nicht ganz zu Ende führen, und dass es meistens Leute mit uebertrieben pietistischer Färbung und meter einsamen Lebenswandels sind."—H. Gross, "Handbuch für Untersuchungsrichter als System der Kriminalistik," I, pp. 32-34.
[32] "Dass man sich durch den Sitz der Wunde niemals täuschen lassen darf, beweisen zwei Fälle. Im Wiener Prater hatte sich ein Mann in Gegenwart mehrerer Personen getötet, indem er sich mit einem Revolver in den Hinterkopf schoss. Wären nicht die Aussagen der Zeugen vorgelegen, hätte wohl kaum jemand an einen Selbstmord geglaubt. Ein Soldat tötete sich durch einen in den Rücken gehenden Schuss aus einem Militärgewehr, ueber das er nach entsprechender Fixierung sich gelegt hatte; auch her ware aus dem Sitz der Wunde wohl haum auf Selbstmord geschlossen worden."—Ibid., II, p. 843.
[33] "Es wurde zeitlich morgens dem UR. die Meldung von der Auffindung eines Ermordeten ueberbracht. An Ort und Stelle fand sich der Leichnam eines für wohlhabend geltenden Getreidehändlers M., auf dem Gesichte liegend, mit einer Schusswunde hinter dem rechten Ohre. Die Kugel war ueber dem linken Auge in Stinknochen stecken geblieben, nachdem sie das Gehirn durchdrungen hatte. Die Fundstelle der Leiche befand sich etwa in der Mitte einer weber einen ziemlich tiefen Fluss f ührenden Brücke. Am Schiusse der Lokalerhebungen und als die Leiche eben zur Obduktion fortgebracht werden sollte, fiel es dem UR. zufällig auf dass das (hölzerne und wettergraue) Brückengeländer an der Stelle, wo auf dem Boden der Leichnam lag, eine kleine und sichtlich ganz frische Beschädigung aufwies, so als ob man dort (am oberen Rande) mit einem harten, kantigen Körper heftig angestossen ware. Der Gedanke, dass dieser Umstand mit dem Morde in Zusammenhang stehe, war nicht gut von der Hand zu weisen. Ein Kahn war bald zur Stelle und am Brückenjoche befestige; nun wurde vom Kahne aus (unter der fraglichen Stelle) der Flussgrund mit Rechen an langen Stielen sorgfältig abgesucht. Nach kurzer Arbeit kam wirklich etwas Seltsames zutage: eine etwa 4 m lange starke Schnur, an deren einem Ende ein grosser Feldstein, an deren anderem Ende eine abgeschossene Pistole befestigt war, in deren Lauf die später aus dem Kopfe des M. genommene Kugel genau passte. Nun war die Sache klarer Selbstmord; der Mann hatte sich mit der aufgefundenen Vorrichtung auf die Brücke begeben, den Stein ueber das Brückengeländer gehängt und sich die Kugel hinter dem rechten Ohre ins Him gejagt. Als er getroffen war, liess er die Pistole infolge des durch den Stein bewirkten Zuges aus und diese wurde von dem schweren Steine an der Schnur ueber das Geländer und in das Wasser gezogen. Hierbei hatte die Pistole, als sie das Geländer passierte, heftig dieses angeschlagen und die betreffende Verletzung erzeugt."—Ibid., pp. 834-836.
[34] "Die Absicht kann dahin gehen, den Verdacht von sich auf jemand anderen zu wälzen, was namentlich dann Sinn hat, wenn der Täter schon im voraus annehmen durfte, dass sich der Verdacht auf ihn lenken werde. In diesem Falle erzeugt er recht auffallende, deutliche Spuren and zwar mit angezorgenen Schuhen, die von den seinigen sich wesentlich unterscheiden. Man kann, wie angestellte Versuche beweisen, in dieser Weise recht gute Spuren erzeugen."—Ibid., II, p. 667.
[35] "Ueber Gummiueberschuhe and Galoschen s. Loock; Chem. u. Phot. bei Krim. Forschungen: Düsseldorf, II, p. 56."—Ibid., II, p. 668.
[36] "Die neuesten amerikanischen Schutzvorrichtungen haben direkt mit der Kasse selbst nichts zu tun und können eigentlich an jedem Behältnisse angebracht werden. Sie bestchen aus chemischen Schutzmitteln oder Selbstschüssen und wollen die Anwesenheit eines Menschen, der den Schrank unbefugt geöffnet hat, aus sanitären oder sonst physischen Gründen unmöglich machen. Auch die juristische Seite der Frage ist zu erwägen, da man den Einbrecher doch nicht ohne weiteres töten oder an der Gesundheit schädigen darf. Nichtsdestoweniger wurde in Jahre 1902 ein Einbrucher in Berlin durch einen solchen Selbstschuss in die Stirne getoetet, der an die Panzertuere einer Kasse befestigt war. Derartige Selbstschuesse wurden such zu Morden verwendet; der Mechaniker G. Z. stellte einen Revolver in einer Kredenz auf, verband den Druecker mit der Tuere durch einer Schnur und erschoss auf diese Art seine Frau, waehrend er tatsaechlich von seinem Wornorte abwesend war. R. C. ein Budapester Kaufmann befestigte in einem, seinem Bruder gehoerigen Cigarrenkasten, eine Pistole, die helm Oeffnen des Deckels seinen Bruder durch einen Unterleibsschuss toetlich verletzte. Der Rueckschlag warf die Kiste von ihrem Standort, sodass der Moerdermechanismus zu Tage trat, ehe R. C. denselben bei Seite schaffen konnte."—Ibid., II, p. 943.
THE BISHOP MURDER CASE
First Published 1928
The Earth is a Temple where there is going on a Mystery Play, childish and poignant, ridiculous and awful enough in all conscience.—Conrad.
CONTENTS
1. "WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?"
2. ON THE ARCHERY RANGE
3. A PROPHECY RECALLED
4. A MYSTERIOUS NOTE
5. A WOMAN'S SCREAM
6. "'I,' SAID THE SPARROW"
7. VANCE REACHES A CONCLUSION
8. ACT TWO
9. THE TENSOR FORMULA
10. A REFUSAL OF AID
11. THE STOLEN REVOLVER
12. A MIDNIGHT CALL
13. IN THE BISHOP'S SHADOW
14. A GAME OF CHESS
15. AN INTERVIEW WITH PARDEE
16. ACT THREE
17. AN ALL-NIGHT LIGHT
18. THE WALL IN THE PARK
19. THE RED NOTE-BOOK
20. THE NEMESIS
21. MATHEMATICS AND MURDER
22. THE HOUSE OF CARDS
23. A STARTLING DISCOVERY
24. THE LAST ACT
25. THE CURTAIN FALLS
26. HEATH ASKS A QUESTION
CHARACTERS OF THE BOOK
PHILO VANCE
J
OHN F.-X. MARKHAM: District Attorney of New York County.
ERNEST HEATH: Sergeant of the Homicide Bureau.
PROFESSOR BERTRAND DILLARD: A famous physicist.
BELLE DILLARD: His niece.
SIGURD ARNESSON: His adopted son: an associate professor of mathematics.
PYNE: The Dillard butler.
BEEDLE: The Dillard cook.
ADOLPH DRUKKER: Scientist and author.
MRS. OTTO DRUKKER: His mother.
GRETE MENZEL: The Drukker cook.
JOHN PARDEE: Mathematician and chess expert: inventor of the Pardee gambit.
J. C. ROBIN: Sportsman and champion archer.
RAYMOND SPERLING: Civil Engineer.
JOHN E. SPRIGG: Senior at Columbia University.
DR. WHITNEY BARSTEAD: An eminent neurologist.
QUINAN: Police Reporter of the World.
MADELEINE MOFFAT
CHIEF INSPECTOR O'BRIEN: Of the Police Department of New York City.
WILLIAM M. MORAN: Commanding Officer of the Detective Bureau.
CAPTAIN PITTS: Of the Homicide Bureau.
GUILFOYLE: Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
SNITKIN: Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
HENNESSEY: Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
EMERY: Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
BURKE: Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
CAPTAIN DUBOIS: Finger-print expert.
DR. EMANUEL DOREMUS: Medical Examiner.
SWACKER: Secretary to the District Attorney.
CURRIE: Vance's valet.
1. "WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?"
(Saturday, April 2; noon)
Of all the criminal cases in which Philo Vance participated as an unofficial investigator, the most sinister, the most bizarre, the seemingly most incomprehensible, and certainly the most terrifying, was the one that followed the famous Greene murders.[1] The orgy of horror at the old Greene mansion had been brought to its astounding close in December; and after the Christmas holidays Vance had gone to Switzerland for the winter sports. Returning to New York at the end of February he had thrown himself into some literary work he had long had in mind—the uniform translation of the principal fragments of Menander found in the Egyptian papyri during the early years of the present century; and for over a month he had devoted himself sedulously to this thankless task.
Whether or not he would have completed the translations, even had his labors not been interrupted, I do not know; for Vance was a man of cultural ardencies, in whom the spirit of research and intellectual adventure was constantly at odds with the drudgery necessary to scholastic creation. I remember that only the preceding year he had begun writing a life of Xenophon—the result of an enthusiasm inherited from his university days when he had first read the Anabasis and the Memorabilia—and had lost interest in it at the point where Xenophon's historic march led the Ten Thousand back to the sea. However, the fact remains that Vance's translation of Menander was rudely interrupted in early April; and for weeks he became absorbed in a criminal mystery which threw the entire country into a state of gruesome excitement.
This new criminal investigation, in which he acted as a kind of amicus curiae for John F.-X. Markham, the District Attorney of New York, at once became known as the Bishop murder case. The designation—the result of our journalistic instinct to attach labels to every cause célèbre—was, in a sense, a misnomer. There was nothing ecclesiastical about that ghoulish saturnalia of crime which set an entire community to reading the "Mother Goose Melodies" with fearful apprehension;[2] and no one of the name of Bishop was, as far as I know, even remotely connected with the monstrous events which bore that appellation. But, withal, the word "Bishop" was appropriate, for it was an alias used by the murderer for the grimmest of purposes. Incidentally it was this name that eventually led Vance to the almost incredible truth, and ended one of the most ghastly multiple crimes in police history.
The series of uncanny and apparently unrelated events which constituted the Bishop murder case and drove all thought of Menander and Greek monostichs from Vance's mind, began on the morning of April 2, less than five months after the double shooting of Julia and Ada Greene. It was one of those warm luxurious spring days which sometimes bless New York in early April; and Vance was breakfasting in his little roof garden atop his apartment in East 38th Street. It was nearly noon—for Vance worked or read until all hours, and was a late riser—and the sun, beating down from a clear blue sky, cast a mantle of introspective lethargy over the city. Vance sprawled in an easy chair, his breakfast on a low table beside him, gazing with cynical, regretful eyes down at the treetops in the rear yard.
I knew what was in his mind. It was his custom each spring to go to France; and it had long since come to him to think, as it came to George Moore, that Paris and May were one. But the great trek of the post-war American nouveaux riches to Paris had spoiled his pleasure in this annual pilgrimage; and, only the day before, he had informed me that we were to remain in New York for the summer.
For years I had been Vance's friend and legal adviser—a kind of monetary steward and agent-companion. I had quitted my father's law firm of Van Dine, Davis & Van Dine to devote myself wholly to his interests—a post I found far more congenial than that of general attorney in a stuffy office—and though my own bachelor quarters were in a hotel on the West Side, I spent most of my time at Vance's apartment.
I had arrived early that morning, long before Vance was up, and, having gone over the first-of-the-month accounts, now sat smoking my pipe idly as he breakfasted.
"Y' know, Van," he said to me, in his emotionless drawl; "the prospect of spring and summer in New York is neither excitin' nor romantic. It's going to be a beastly bore. But it'll be less annoyin' than travelin' in Europe with the vulgar hordes of tourists jostlin' one at every turn. . . . It's very distressin'."
Little did he suspect what the next few weeks held in store for him. Had he known I doubt if even the prospect of an old pre-war spring in Paris would have taken him away; for his insatiable mind liked nothing better than a complicated problem; and even as he spoke to me that morning the gods that presided over his destiny were preparing for him a strange and fascinating enigma—one which was to stir the nation deeply and add a new and terrible chapter to the annals of crime.
Vance had scarcely poured his second cup of coffee when Currie, his old English butler and general factotum, appeared at the French doors bearing a portable telephone.
"It's Mr. Markham, sir," the old man said apologetically. "As he seemed rather urgent, I took the liberty of informing him you were in." He plugged the telephone into a baseboard switch, and set the instrument on the breakfast table.
"Quite right, Currie," Vance murmured, taking off the receiver. "Anything to break this deuced monotony." Then he spoke to Markham. "I say, old man, don't you ever sleep? I'm in the midst of an omelette aux fines herbes. Will you join me? Or do you merely crave the music of my voice—?"
He broke off abruptly, and the bantering look on his lean features disappeared. Vance was a marked Nordic type, with a long, sharply chiselled face; gray, wide-set eyes; a narrow aquiline nose; and a straight oval chin. His mouth, too, was firm and clean-cut, but it held a look of cynical cruelty which was more Mediterranean than Nordic. His face was strong and attractive, though not exactly handsome. It was the face of a thinker and recluse; and its very severity—at once studious and introspective—acted as a barrier between him and his fellows.
Though he was immobile by nature and sedulously schooled in the repression of his emotions, I noticed that, as he listened to Markham on the phone that morning, he could not entirely disguise his eager interest in what was being told him. A slight frown ruffled his brow; and his eyes reflected his inner amazement. From time to time he gave vent to a murmured "Amazin'!" or "My word!" or "Most extr'ordin'ry!"—his favorite expletives—and when at the end of several minutes he spoke to Markham, a curious excitement marked his manner.
; "Oh, by all means!" he said. "I shouldn't miss it for all the lost comedies of Menander. . . . It sounds mad. . . . I'll don fitting raiment immediately. . . . Au revoir."
Replacing the receiver, he rang for Currie.
"My gray tweeds," he ordered. "A sombre tie, and my black Homburg hat." Then he returned to his omelet with a preoccupied air.
After a few moments he looked at me quizzically.
"What might you know of archery, Van?" he asked.
I knew nothing of archery, save that it consisted of shooting arrows at targets, and I confessed as much.
"You're not exactly revealin', don't y' know." He lighted one of his Régie cigarettes indolently. "However, we're in for a little flutter of toxophily, it seems. I'm no leading authority on the subject myself, but I did a bit of potting with the bow at Oxford. It's not a passionately excitin' pastime—much duller than golf and fully as complicated." He smoked a while dreamily. "I say, Van; fetch me Doctor Elmer's tome on archery from the library—there's a good chap."[3]
I brought the book, and for nearly half an hour he dipped into it, tarrying over the chapters on archery associations, tournaments and matches, and scanning the long tabulation of the best American scores. At length he settled back in his chair. It was obvious he had found something that caused him troubled concern and set his sensitive mind to work.
"It's quite mad, Van," he remarked, his eyes in space. "A mediaeval tragedy in modern New York! We don't wear buskins and leathern doublets, and yet—by Jove!" He suddenly sat upright. "No—no! It's absurd. I'm letting the insanity of Markham's news affect me. . . ." He drank some more coffee, but his expression told me that he could not rid himself of the idea that had taken possession of him.
"One more favor, Van," he said at length. "Fetch me my German diction'ry and Burton E. Stevenson's 'Home Book of Verse.'"
When I had brought the volumes, he glanced at one word in the dictionary, and pushed the book from him.
Philo Vance Omnibus Vol 1 Page 82
