Philo Vance Omnibus Vol 1

by S. S. Van Dine

  "I say, Markham," observed Vance; "you're going at this thing the wrong way. Naturally there'd be no finger-prints. Really, y' know, one doesn't carefully produce a playlet and then leave all the stage props in full view of the audience. What we've got to learn is why this particular impresario decided to indulge in silly theatricals."

  "It ain't as easy as all that, Mr. Vance," submitted Heath bitterly.

  "Did I intimate it was easy? No, Sergeant; it's deucedly difficult. And it's worse than difficult: it's subtle and obscure and . . . fiendish."

  4. A MYSTERIOUS NOTE

  (Saturday, April 2; 2 p.m.)

  Markham sat down resolutely before the centre-table.

  "Suppose, Sergeant, we overhaul the two servants now."

  Heath stepped into the hall and gave an order to one of his men. A few moments later a tall, sombre, disjointed man entered and stood at respectful attention.

  "This is the butler, sir," explained the Sergeant. "Named Pyne."

  Markham studied the man appraisingly. He was perhaps sixty years old. His features were markedly acromegalic; and this distortion extended to his entire figure. His hands were large, and his feet broad and misshapen. His clothes, though neatly pressed, fitted him badly; and his high clerical collar was several sizes too large for him. His eyes, beneath gray, bushy eyebrows, were pale and watery, and his mouth was a mere slit in an unhealthily puffy face. Despite his utter lack of physical prepossession, however, he gave one the impression of shrewd competency.

  "So you are the Dillard butler," mused Markham. "How long have you been with the family, Pyne?"

  "Going on ten years, sir."

  "You came, then, just after Professor Dillard resigned his chair at the university?"

  "I believe so, sir." The man's voice was deep and rumbling.

  "What do you know of the tragedy that occurred here this morning?" Though Markham put the question suddenly, in the hope, I imagine, of surprising some admission, Pyne received it with the utmost stoicism.

  "Nothing whatever, sir. I was unaware that anything had happened until Professor Dillard called to me from the library and asked me to look for Mr. Sperling."

  "He told you of the tragedy then?"

  "He said: 'Mr. Robin has been murdered, and I wish you'd find Mr. Sperling for me.'—That was all, sir."

  "You're sure he said 'murdered,' Pyne?" interjected Vance.

  For the first time the butler hesitated, and an added astuteness crept into his look.

  "Yes, sir—I'm sure he did. 'Murdered' is what he said."

  "And did you see the body of Mr. Robin when you pushed your search?" pursued Vance, his eyes idly tracing a design on the wall.

  Again there was a brief hesitation.

  "Yes, sir. I opened the basement door to look out on the archery range, and there I saw the poor young gentleman. . . ."

  "A great shock it must have given you, Pyne," Vance observed drily. "Did you, by any hap, touch the poor young gentleman's body?—or the arrow, perhaps?—or the bow?"

  Pyne's watery eyes glistened for a moment. "No—of course not, sir. . . . Why should I, sir?"

  "Why, indeed?" Vance sighed wearily. "But you saw the bow?"

  The man squinted, as if for purposes of mental visualization.

  "I couldn't say, sir. Perhaps, yes; perhaps, no. I don't recall."

  Vance seemed to lose all interest in him; and Markham resumed the interrogation.

  "I understand, Pyne, that Mr. Drukker called here this morning about half past nine. Did you see him?"

  "Yes, sir. He always uses the basement door; and he said good-morning to me as he passed the butler's pantry at the head of the steps."

  "He returned the same way he came?"

  "I suppose so, sir—though I was up-stairs when he went. He lives in the house at the rear—"

  "I know." Markham leaned forward. "I presume it was you who admitted Mr. Robin and Mr. Sperling this morning."

  "Yes, sir. At about ten o'clock."

  "Did you see them again, or overhear any of their remarks while they waited here in the drawing-room?"

  "No, sir. I was busy in Mr. Arnesson's quarters most of the morning."

  "Ah!" Vance turned his eyes on the man. "That would be on the second floor rear, wouldn't it?—the room with the balcony?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Most interestin'. . . . And it was from that balcony that Professor Dillard first saw Mr. Robin's body.—How could he have entered the room without your knowing it? You said, I believe, that your first intimation of the tragedy was when the professor called you from the library and told you to seek Mr. Sperling."

  The butler's face turned a pasty white, and I noticed that his fingers twitched nervously.

  "I might have stepped out of Mr. Arnesson's room for a moment," he explained, with effort. "Yes—it's quite likely. In fact, sir, I recall going to the linen-closet. . . ."

  "Oh, to be sure." Vance lapsed into lethargy.

  Markham smoked a while, his gaze concentrated on the table-top.

  "Did any one else call at the house this morning, Pyne?" he asked presently.

  "No one, sir."

  "And you can suggest no explanation for what happened here?"

  The man shook his head heavily, his watery eyes in space.

  "No, sir. Mr. Robin seemed a pleasant, well-liked young man. He wasn't the kind to inspire murder—if you understand what I mean."

  Vance looked up.

  "I can't say that I, personally, understand exactly what you mean, Pyne. How do you know it wasn't an accident?"

  "I don't, sir," was the unperturbed answer. "But I know a bit about archery—if you'll pardon my saying so—and I saw right away that Mr. Robin had been killed by a hunting arrow."

  "You're very observin', Pyne," nodded Vance. "And quite correct."

  It was plain that no direct information was to be got from the butler, and Markham dismissed him abruptly, at the same time ordering Heath to send in the cook.

  When she entered I noticed at once a resemblance between father and daughter. She was a slatternly woman of about forty, also tall and angular, with a thin, elongated face and large hands and feet. Hyperpituitarism evidently ran in the Pyne family.

  A few preliminary questions brought out the information that she was a widow, named Beedle, and had, at the death of her husband five years before, come to Professor Dillard as the result of Pyne's recommendation.

  "What time did you leave the house this morning, Beedle?" Markham asked her.

  "Right after half past ten." She seemed uneasy and on the alert, and her voice was defensively belligerent.

  "And what time did you return?"

  "About half past twelve. That man let me in"—she looked viciously at Heath—"and treated me like I'd been a criminal."

  Heath grinned. "The time's O. K., Mr. Markham. She got sore because I wouldn't let her go down-stairs."

  Markham nodded non-committally.

  "Do you know anything of what took place here this morning?" he went on, studying the woman closely.

  "How should I know? I was at Jefferson market."

  "Did you see either Mr. Robin or Mr. Sperling?"

  "They went down-stairs to the archery-room past the kitchen a little while before I went out."

  "Did you overhear anything they said?"

  "I don't listen at keyholes."

  Markham set his jaw angrily and was about to speak when Vance addressed the woman suavely.

  "The District Attorney thought that perhaps the door was open, and that you might have overheard some of their conversation despite your commendable effort not to listen."

  "The door might've been open, but I didn't hear anything," she answered sullenly.

  "Then you couldn't tell us if there was any one else in the archery-room."

  Beedle narrowed her eyes and gave Vance a calculating look.

  "Maybe there was some one else," she said slowly. "In fact, I thought I heard Mr. Drukker." A note of
venom came into her voice, and the shadow of a hard smile passed over her thin lips. "He was here to call on Mr. Arnesson early this morning."

  "Oh, was he, now?" Vance appeared surprised at this news. "You saw him perhaps?"

  "I saw him come in, but I didn't see him go out—anyway, I didn't notice. He sneaks in and out at all hours."

  "Sneaks, eh? Fancy that! . . . By the by, which door did you use when you went a-marketing?"

  "The front door. Since Miss Belle made a clubroom out of the basement, I always use the front door."

  "Then you didn't enter the archery-room this morning?"

  "No."

  Vance raised himself in his chair.

  "Thanks for your help, Beedle. We won't need you any more now."

  When the woman had left us Vance rose and walked to the window.

  "We're expending too much zeal in irrelevant channels, Markham," he said. "We'll never get anywhere by ballyragging servants and questioning members of the household. There's a psychological wall to be battered down before we can begin storming the enemy's trenches. Everybody in this ménage has some pet privacy that he's afraid will leak out. Each person so far has told us either less or more than he knows. Disheartenin', but true. Nothing that we've learned dovetails with anything else; and when chronological events don't fit together, you may rest assured that the serrated points of contact have been deliberately distorted. I haven't found one clean joinder in all the tales that have been poured into our ears."

  "It's more likely the connections are missing," Markham argued; "and we'll never find them if we don't pursue our questionings."

  "You're much too trustin'." Vance walked back to the centre-table. "The more questions we ask the farther afield we'll be taken. Even Professor Dillard didn't give us a wholly honest account. There's something he's keeping back—some suspicion he won't voice. Why did he bring that bow indoors? Arnesson put his finger on a vital spot when he asked the same question. Shrewd fella, Arnesson.—Then there's our athletic young lady with the muscular calves. She's entangled in various amat'ry meshes, and is endeavoring to extricate herself and her whole coterie without leaving a blemish on any one. A praiseworthy aim, but not one conducive to the unadulterated truth.—Pyne has ideas, too. That flabby facial mask of his curtains many an entrancin' thought. But we'll never probe his cortex by chivyin' him with questions. Somethin' rum, too, about his matutinal labors. He says he was in Arnesson's room all morning; but he obviously didn't know that the professor took a sunnin' on Arnesson's verandah. And that linen-closet alibi—much too specious.—Also, Markham, let your mind flutter about the widowed Beedle's tale. She doesn't like the over-sociable Mr. Drukker; and when she saw a chance to involve him, she did so. She 'thought' she heard his voice in the archery-room. But did she? Who knows? True, he might have tarried among the slings and javelins on his way home and been joined later by Robin and Sperling. . . . Yes, it's a point we must investigate. In fact, a bit of polite converse with Mr. Drukker is strongly indicated. . . ."

  Footsteps were heard descending the front stairs, and Arnesson appeared in the archway of the living-room.

  "Well, who killed Cock Robin?" he asked, with a satyr-like grin.

  Markham rose, annoyed, and was about to protest at the intrusion; but Arnesson held up his hand.

  "One moment, please. I'm here to offer my exalted services in the noble cause of justice—mundane justice, I would have you understand. Philosophically, of course, there's no such thing as justice. If there really were justice we'd all be in for a shingling in the cosmic wood-shed." He sat down facing Markham and chuckled cynically. "The fact is, the sad and precipitate departure of Mr. Robin appeals to my scientific nature. It makes a nice, orderly problem. It has a decidedly mathematical flavor—no undistributed terms, you understand; clear-cut integers with certain unknown quantities to be determined.—Well, I'm the genius to solve it."

  "What would be your solution, Arnesson?" Markham knew and respected the man's intelligence, and seemed at once to sense a serious purpose beneath his attitude of sneering flippancy.

  "Ah! As yet I haven't tackled the equation." Arnesson drew out an old briar pipe and fingered it affectionately. "But I've always wanted to do a little detective work on a purely earthly plane—the insatiable curiosity and natural inquisitiveness of the physicist, you understand. And I've long had a theory that the science of mathematics can be advantageously applied to the trivialities of our life on this unimportant planet. There's nothing but law in the universe—unless Eddington is right and there's no law at all—and I see no sufficient reason why the identity and position of a criminal can't be determined just as Leverrier calculated the mass and ephemeris of Neptune from the observed deviations in the orbit of Uranus. You remember how, after his computations, he told Galle, the Berlin astronomer, to look for the planet in a specified longitude of the ecliptic."

  Arnesson paused and filled his pipe.

  "Now, Mr. Markham," he went on; and I tried to decide whether or not the man was in earnest, "I'd like the opportunity of applying to this absurd muddle the purely rational means used by Leverrier in discovering Neptune. But I've got to have the data on the perturbations of Uranus's orbit, so to speak—that is, I must know all the varying factors in the equation. The favor I've come here to ask is that you take me into your confidence and tell me all the facts. A sort of intellectual partnership. I'll figure out this problem for you along scientific lines. It'll be bully sport; and incidentally I'd like to prove my theory that mathematics is the basis of all truth however far removed from scholastic abstractions." He at last got his pipe going, and sank back in his chair. "Is it a bargain?"

  "I'll be glad to tell you whatever we know, Arnesson," Markham replied after a brief pause. "But I can't promise to reveal everything that may arise from now on. It might work against the ends of justice and embarrass our investigation."

  Vance had sat with half-closed eyes, apparently bored by Arnesson's astonishing request; but now he turned to Markham with a considerable show of animation.

  "I say, y' know; there's really no reason why we shouldn't give Mr. Arnesson a chance to translate this crime into the realm of applied mathematics. I'm sure he'd be discreet and use our information only for scientific purposes. And—one never knows, does one?—we may need his highly trained assistance before we're through with this fascinatin' affair."

  Markham knew Vance well enough to realize that his suggestion had not been made thoughtlessly; and I was in no wise astonished when he faced Arnesson and said:

  "Very well, then. We'll give you whatever data you need to work out your mathematical formula. Anything special you want to know now?"

  "Oh, no. I know the details thus far as well as you; and I'll strip Beedle and old Pyne of their contributions when you're gone. But if I solve this problem and determine the exact position of the criminal, don't pigeon-hole my findings as Sir George Airy did those of poor Adams when he submitted his Neptunean calculations prior to Leverrier's. . . ."

  At this moment the front door opened, and the uniformed officer stationed on the porch came in, followed by a stranger.

  "This gent here says he wants to see the professor," he announced with radiating suspicion; and turning to the man he indicated Markham with a gesture of the head. "That's the District Attorney. Tell him your troubles."

  The newcomer seemed somewhat embarrassed. He was a slender, well-groomed man with an unmistakable air of refinement. His age, I should say, was fifty, though his face held a perennially youthful look. His hair was thin and graying, his nose a trifle sharp, and his chin small but in no way weak. His eyes, surmounted by a high broad forehead, were his most striking characteristic. They were the eyes of a disappointed and disillusioned dreamer—half sad, half resentful, as if life had tricked him and left him unhappy and bitter.

  He was about to address Markham when he caught sight of Arnesson.

  "Oh, good-morning, Arnesson," he said, in a quiet, well-modulated voice. "I hope t
here's nothing seriously wrong."

  "A mere death, Pardee," the other replied carelessly. "The proverbial tempest in a teapot."

  Markham was annoyed at the interruption.

  "What can I do for you, sir?" he asked.

  "I trust I am not intruding," the man apologized. "I am a friend of the family,—I live just across the street; and I perceived that something unusual had happened here. It occurred to me I might be of some service."

  Arnesson chuckled. "My dear Pardee! Why clothe your natural curiosity in the habiliments of rhetoric?"

  Pardee blushed.

  "I assure you, Arnesson—" he began; but Vance interrupted him.

  "You say you live opposite, Mr. Pardee. You have perhaps been observing this house during the forenoon?"

  "Hardly that, sir. My study, however, overlooks 75th Street, and it's true I was sitting at the window most of the morning. But I was busy writing. When I returned to my work from lunch I noticed the crowd and the police cars and also the officer in uniform at the door."

  Vance had been studying him from the corner of his eye.

  "Did you happen to see any one enter or leave this house this morning, Mr. Pardee?" he asked.

  The man shook his head slowly.

  "No one in particular. I noticed two young men—friends of Miss Dillard—call at about ten o'clock; and I saw Beedle go out with her market basket. But that's all I recall."

  "Did you see either of these young men depart?"

  "I don't remember." Pardee knit his brows. "And yet it seems to me one of them left by the range gate. But it's only an impression."

  "What time would that have been?"

  "Really, I couldn't say. Perhaps an hour or so after his arrival. I wouldn't care to be more specific."

  "You recall no other person whatever either coming or going from the house this morning?"

  "I saw Miss Dillard return from the tennis courts about half past twelve, just as I was called to lunch. In fact, she waved her racket to me."

  "And no one else?"

  "I'm afraid not." There was unmistakable regret in his quiet response.