Philo Vance Omnibus Vol 1

by S. S. Van Dine

  "Did Coe die of that blow on the head?"

  The Medical Examiner once more teetered on his toes, and pursed his lips. Then, without a word, he made another examination of Coe's head. Straightening up, he looked Markham in the eye.

  "There's something funny here. There's been an internal hemorrhage—what might be expected from a severe blow on the head. Blood in the mouth and all that. . . . But, Mr. Markham,"—Doremus spoke impressively—"that blow on the left frontal wasn't powerful enough to kill a man. A slight fracture, but nothing serious—just enough to stun him. . . . Nope, he didn't die of concussion or a fractured skull."

  "And he didn't die of the revolver shot," added Vance. "Most fascinatin'! . . . Still, the johnny's dead, don't y' know."

  Doremus swung jerkily about to Heath.

  "Come on, Sergeant."

  He and Heath lifted Coe's body and carried it to the bed. Together they removed the clothes from the dead man, hung them over a chair by the bed, and Doremus began his examination. He went over the body carefully from head to foot for abrasions and wounds, and ran his fingers over the bones in search of a possible fracture. The body was lying on its back, and as Doremus pressed his hand over the right side we could see him pause and bend forward.

  "Fifth rib broken," he announced. "And a decided bruise."

  "That's certainly not a serious injury," ventured Markham.

  "Oh, no. Nothing at all. He might not even have known it, except for a little soreness."

  "Did it happen before or after death?"

  "Before. Otherwise there'd be no epidermal discoloration."

  "And that blow on the head was also before death, I take it."

  "Sure thing. He got a little bunged up before he died, but that isn't what killed him."

  "Perhaps," suggested Vance, "the blow on the head and the broken rib are related. He may have been stunned and, in falling, struck his rib against some object."

  "Possibly." Doremus nodded without looking up. He was now inspecting the palms of Coe's hands.

  "Was the blow on the head powerful enough to have rendered him unconscious?" Vance was looking around the room at the various pieces of furniture, and there was a veiled interest in his eyes.

  "Oh, yes," Doremus told him. "More than likely."

  Vance's gaze came to rest on a heavy teak-wood chest near the east windows. Going to it he opened the lid and looked in. Then he closed it almost immediately.

  "And," pursued Vance, turning back to the Medical Examiner, "would Coe have regained consciousness very soon after that blow on his head?"

  "That's problematical." Doremus straightened and screwed up his face into a perplexed frown. "He might have remained unconscious for twelve hours, and he might have come to in a few minutes. All depends. . . . But that's not what's bothering me. There are a couple of small abrasions on the inside of the right-hand fingers and a slight cut on the knuckle—and they're all fresh. I'd say he'd put up a scrap with whoever cracked him over the head. And yet his clothes were certainly neat—no sign of having been mussed—and his hair's combed and slicked down. . . ."

  "Yeah, and there was a gun in his hand, and he was sitting restful-like and looking peaceful," added Heath with puzzled disgust. "Somebody musta dolled him up after the battle. A swell situation."

  "But they didn't change his shoes," put in Markham.

  "Which explains his still wearing his street shoes with his bathrobe." Heath addressed this remark to Vance.

  Vance gazed mildly at the Sergeant for a moment.

  "Why should any one re-dress a person he has just knocked unconscious, and then comb his hair? It's a sweet, kind-hearted thought, Sergeant, but somehow it's not the usual procedure. . . . No, I'm afraid we'll have to account for Coe's coiffure and sartorial condition along other lines."

  Heath studied Vance critically.

  "You mean he changed his clothes himself and combed his hair after his head was bashed in?"

  "It's not impossible," said Vance.

  "In that case," Markham asked, "why did he not also change his shoes?"

  "Something intervened."

  During this speculation Doremus had turned Coe's body over so that it now lay on its face. I was watching him and I saw him suddenly lean forward.

  "Aha! Now I've got it!"

  His exclamation brought us all up short.

  "Stabbed, by George!" he announced excitedly.

  We all drew close to the bed and looked down at the area on the body at which Doremus was pointing.

  Just below Coe's right shoulder-blade and near the spine was a small diamond-shaped wound about half an inch in diameter. It was a clean-cut wound etched with black coagulated blood. Apparently there had been no external bleeding. This fact struck me as unusual, and Markham must have received the same impression, for, after a moment's silence, he asked Doremus about it.

  "All wounds do not bleed externally," Doremus explained. "This is especially true of clean, quick stabs that pass through thin membranes into the viscera: they frequently show little or no external blood. Like contusions. The bleeding is internal. . . . This stab closed immediately and the lips of the wound adhered. An internal hemorrhage was caused. Very simple. . . . Now we have an explanation of everything."

  Vance smiled cynically.

  "Oh, have we, now? We have only an explanation of the cause of Coe's death. And that explanation complicates the situation horribly. It makes the case even more insane."

  Markham shot him a quick glance.

  "I can't see that," he said. "It at least clarifies one point we have been discussing. We now know what stopped him in the middle of changing his clothes."

  "I wonder. . . ." Vance crushed out his cigarette in an ash-tray on the night-table, and picked up the silk-wool dressing-gown which Coe had been wearing when we found him. He held it up to the light and inspected it minutely. There was no cut or hole of any kind in it. We all looked on in stupefied silence.

  "No, Markham," Vance said, placing the gown over the foot of the bed. "Coe didn't have on his dressing-gown when he was stabbed. That change was made later."

  "Still and all," Heath argued, "the guy mighta had his hand under the robe when he did the stabbing."

  Vance shook his head ruefully.

  "You forget, Sergeant, that the gown was buttoned tightly and that the belt was neatly tied around Coe's middle. . . . But let us see if we can verify the matter."

  He walked quickly to the clothes-closet in the west wall, whose door was slightly ajar. Opening the door wide, he stepped inside. A moment later he emerged with a clothes-hanger from which depended a coat and waistcoat of the same sombre gray material as that of the trousers Coe had been wearing.

  Vance ran his fingers over the coat in the vicinity of the right shoulder, and there was revealed a slit in the material the exact size of the wound in Coe's back. There was a similar slit in the back of the waistcoat, coinciding with the one in the coat.

  Vance held the two articles of clothing close to the light and touched the slits with his fingers.

  "These holes," he said, "are slightly stiffened at the edges, as if some substance had dried on them. I think that substance will be found to be blood. . . . There's no doubt that Coe was fully dressed when he was stabbed, and that the blood on the dagger, or knife, soiled the edges of these two cuts when it was withdrawn."

  He replaced the hanger in the closet.

  After a moment Markham expressed the thought uppermost in all our minds.

  "That being the case, Vance, the murderer must have taken Coe's coat and vest off, hung them in the closet, and then put the dressing-gown on the stabbed man."

  "Why the murderer?" Vance parried. "The indications are that some one else came here after Coe was dead and sent a bullet through his head. Couldn't this other hypothetical person have made the change in the corpse's habiliments?"

  "Does that theory help us any?" Markham asked gruffly.

  "Not a bit," Vance cheerfully admitted, "even i
f it were true—which, of course, we don't know. And I'll admit it sounds incredible. I merely made the suggestion by way of indicating that, at this stage of the game, we should not jump at conclusions. And the more obvious the conclusion, the more cautious we should be. This is not, my dear Markham, an obvious case."

  Doremus was becoming bored. Criminal technicalities were not in his line: his entire interest was medical; and with the finding of the wound in Coe's back, he felt that he had discharged his duties for the time being. He gave a cavernous yawn, stretched himself, and reached for his hat which he had placed on the floor beside the bed.

  "Well, that lets me out." He squinted at Heath. "I suppose you want a quick autopsy."

  "I'll say we do." The Sergeant's head was enveloped in a cloud of cigar smoke. "When can we get it?"

  "Tonight—if you must have it." Doremus drew a sheet over the prone figure on the bed, and made out an order for the removal of the body. "Get him down to the morgue as soon as possible." He shook hands cordially with every one and walked briskly toward the door.

  "Just a moment, doctor." Markham's voice halted him. "Any remote possibility of suicide here?"

  "What!" Doremus wheeled in surprise. "Not a chance. That bird was stabbed in the back—couldn't possibly have done it himself. He died of internal hemorrhage caused by the stab. He's been dead eight or ten hours—maybe longer. The broken rib and the blow on the left frontal are minor affairs—didn't do any particular damage. The bullet in his right temple don't mean a thing—he was already dead. . . . Suicide? Huh!" And with a wave of the hand he went out.

  Markham stood for a time looking unhappily at the floor. Finally he made a commanding gesture to Heath.

  "You'd better notify the boys, Sergeant. Get the finger-print men and the photographer. We're in for it. . . . And you'll take charge, of course."

  Before Markham had finished speaking, Heath was on his way to the extension telephone which stood on a tabouret beside the desk. A moment later he was in touch with the Police Headquarters Telegraph Bureau. After turning in a brief report to be relayed to the various departments, he ordered the Bureau to notify the Department of Public Welfare to send a wagon immediately for Coe's body.

  "I hope, sir," he said a bit pleadingly to Markham, turning from the phone, "that you are not going to step out on this case. I don't like the way things stack up. Almost anything mighta happened here last night." (I had rarely seen the Sergeant so perturbed; and I could not blame him, for every phase of the crime seemed utterly contradictory and incomprehensible.)

  "No, Sergeant," Markham assured him; "I shall remain and do all I can. There must be some simple explanation, and we're sure to find it sooner or later. . . . Don't be discouraged," he added, in a kindly tone. "We haven't begun the investigation yet."

  Vance had seated himself in a low-backed chair near the windows and was smoking placidly, his eyes on the ceiling.

  "Yes, Markham,"—he spoke languidly, yet withal thoughtfully—"there's some explanation, but I doubt if it will prove to be a simple one. There are too many conflicting elements in this equation; and each one seems to eliminate all the others. . . ."

  He took a deep inhalation on his cigarette.

  "Let us summarize, for the sake of clarity, before we proceed with our interviews of the family and guests. . . . First, Coe was struck over the head and perhaps rendered unconscious. Then he probably tumbled against some hard object and broke a rib. All this was evidently preceded by some sort of physical contretemps. Coe was, we may assume, in his street clothes at the time. Later on—how much later we don't know—he was stabbed in the back through his coat and waistcoat with a small, peculiarly shaped instrument, and he died of internal hemorrhage. At some time subsequent to the stabbing, his coat and waistcoat were removed and carefully hung up in the clothes-closet. His dressing-gown was put on, buttoned, and the belt neatly tied about him. Moreover, his hair was correctly combed. But his street shoes were not changed to bedroom slippers. Furthermore, we found him sitting in a comfortable attitude in an easy chair—in a position he could not possibly have been in when he was stabbed. And his broken rib indicates clearly that he was at one time prostrate over some hard object. . . . Then, as if all this were not incongruous enough, we know that after he was killed by the stab in his back and before rigor mortis had set in, a bullet crashed into his right temple. The gun from which the bullet was presumably fired was clutched tightly in his right hand, so tightly that the official Æsculapius had difficulty in removing it. And we must not forget the serene expression on Coe's face: it was not the expression of a man who had been struggling with an antagonist and been knocked unconscious by a blow on the head. And this fact, Markham, is one of the strangest phases of the case. Coe was in a peaceful, or at least a satisfied, state of mind when he departed this life. . . ."

  Vance puffed again on his cigarette, and his eyes became dreamy.

  "So much for the present situation as it relates to Coe's dead body and to the hypothetical events leading up to his demise. Now, there are other elements in the situation that must be taken into consideration. For instance, we found him in a room securely and powerfully bolted on the inside, and with no other means of ingress or egress. All the windows are closed, and all the shades drawn. The electric lights are burning, and the bed has not been slept in. What took place here last night, therefore, must have happened before Coe's usual time for retiring. Furthermore, I am inclined to think that we must also consider the implied fact that, just before his death, he had been reading about peach-bloom vases and that he had started to write a letter or make a memorandum of some kind. That dated piece of stationery and that fountain-pen on the floor must be added to the problem. . . ."

  At this point we could hear hurried footsteps mounting the stairs, and the next moment Gamble stood at the door with a startled look in his eyes.

  "Mr. Markham," he stammered, "excuse the interruption, sir, but—but there's something queer—very queer, sir—down in the front hall."

  5. THE WOUNDED SCOTTIE

  (Thursday, October 11; 10.30 a.m.)

  The butler's attitude was one of amazement rather than fear; and we all regarded him with misgivings.

  "Well, what's in the hall?" barked Markham. Vance's recapitulation had produced an irritating effect on him.

  "A dog, sir!" Gamble announced.

  Markham gave a start of exasperation.

  "What of it?"

  "A wounded dog, sir," the butler explained.

  Before Markham could answer, Vance had leaped to his feet.

  "That's the thing I've been waiting for!" There was a suppressed note of excitement in his voice. "A wounded dog! My word! . . ." He went swiftly to the door. "Come along, Gamble," he called, as he passed quickly down the stairs.

  We all followed in silent amazement. The situation up to this point had been topsy-turvy enough, but this new element seemed to shunt the case still further off the track of rationality.

  "Where is it?" Vance demanded when he had reached the lower hallway.

  Gamble stepped to the heavy portières at the right of the entrance door, and drew one of them aside.

  "I heard a strange sound just now," he explained. "Like a whine, sir. It startled me terribly. When I looked back of this curtain, there I saw the dog."

  "Does it belong to any one in the house?" Markham asked.

  "Oh, no, sir!" the man assured him. "That's why I was so startled. There's never been a dog in this house since I've been here—and that's going on ten years."

  As he held back the portière, we could see the small, prone shape of a slightly brindled Scottish terrier, lying on its side with its four short legs stretched out. Over the left eye was a clotted wound; and on the floor was a black stain of dried blood. The eye beneath the wound was swollen shut, but the other eye, dark hazel and oval, looked up at us with an expression of tragic appeal.

  Vance was already on his knees beside the dog.

  "It's all right, lassie,"
he was murmuring. "Everything's all right."

  He took the dog tenderly in his arms, and stood up.

  "What street's this?" he asked of no one in particular. "Seventy-first? . . . Good! . . . Open that door, Gamble."

  The butler, apparently as much surprised as any of the rest of us, hurried to obey.

  Vance stepped into the vestibule, the dog held gently against his breast.

  "I'm going to Doctor Blamey,"[6] he announced. "He's just up the street. I'll be back presently." And he hurried down the stone steps.

  This new development left us all even more puzzled than before. Vance's animated response to Gamble's announcement regarding the dog, and his cryptic remark as he hurried downstairs, added another element of almost outlandish mystery to a situation already incredibly complicated.

  When Vance had disappeared with the wounded Scottie in his arms, Heath, frowning perplexedly, turned to Markham and crammed his hands into his trousers' pockets.

  "This case is beginning to get to me, sir," he complained. "Now, what do you suppose is the meaning of this dog business? And why was Mr. Vance so excited? And anyhow, what could a dog have to do with the stabbing?"

  Markham did not answer. He was staring at the front door through which Vance had just passed, chewing his cigar nervously. Presently he fixed Gamble with an angry look.

  "You never saw that dog before?"

  "No, sir." The butler had become oily again. "Never, sir. No dog at all has ever been in this house—"

  "No one here was interested in dogs?"

  "No one, sir. . . . It's most mysterious. I can't imagine how it got in the house."

  Wrede and Grassi had come to the drawing-room door, and stood looking out curiously into the hall.

  Markham, seeing them, addressed himself to Wrede.

  "Do you, Mr. Wrede, know anything about a small black shaggy dog that might have found access to this house?"

  Wrede looked puzzled.

  "Why, no," he answered, after a slight hesitation. "No one here cared for dogs. I happen to know that both Archer and Brisbane detested pets."