Philo Vance Omnibus Vol 1

by S. S. Van Dine

  "Although there was a good entry," Mr. Megargee explained to Vance, "I know practically every dog and bitch that got in the ribbons that day, and this one was certainly not among them, or she would have taken the blue in either the puppy or the novice class."

  Things began to appear discouraging, and Vance was not in the best humor as we drove to the east-side winter studio of Mrs. Marguerite Kirmse Cole.

  Mr. and Mrs. Cole, owners of the Tobermory Kennels, greeted us graciously and did everything they could to help Vance out of his quandary. But to no avail. Mrs. Cole was positive the dog had not been an entry under her judgeship.

  We stayed for a short time, looking at her lovely paintings and etchings of dogs,[27] and then returned to Vance's apartment for a belated luncheon.

  It was past four in the afternoon when we arrived at Mr. William MacBain's Diehard Kennels in Closter, New Jersey. Mr. MacBain, who was then vice-president of the Scottish Terrier Club of America, was busily engaged with some of his young stock. He was most gracious when Vance asked for his assistance. He showed an intense interest in the dog that Vance had brought to him, but was unable to identify her.

  "But there's unquestionably Ornsay blood in her," he said, running his hand over her skull.

  Mr. MacBain was too old a breeder in the Scottish terrier fancy not to have remembered the dog at once if he had judged her, and when he shook his head in answer to Vance's query there was no doubt whatever that Vance had drawn another blank in his investigation of the wounded dog's ownership.

  Vance had succeeded in locating the New York office of Mr. Stinemetz, but, on phoning, learned that he was not in the city that day but could undoubtedly be found at his country home.

  Mr. Stinemetz's estate in Orangeburg was only a few miles from the Diehard Kennels and we headed for it somewhat despondently. The sun was setting over the Jersey hills and a cool breeze came up from the southwest.

  "This is almost our last chance," Vance observed dejectedly, "—unless the dog has been shown in New England or the south. But if that were the case, why is she here in New York now?"

  Vance was downcast: I realized for the first time how much he had counted on this stray Scottish terrier to help him in the solution of the crime which was perplexing him. But it was just at the moment when things seemed darkest that a ray of light was introduced into the situation. It was Mr. Stinemetz—the last of the judges we consulted—who gave Vance the information he was seeking.

  Mr. Stinemetz was in his kennel, feeding his dogs, when we arrived. Vance showed him the little lost bitch and asked him if he had ever judged her. Mr. Stinemetz looked at her closely for a moment, took her in his arms and stood her on the show table in his main kennel.

  "Yes," he said slowly, after a minute's inspection; "I not only judged her, but I put her up, three weeks ago at Englewood. She won the puppy bitch class, and I would have given her a first instead of a second in the novice class, if she had shown properly. For she has the quality, and if correctly handled should go over the top. But, as I remember, some young woman with little or no experience brought her into the ring. Naturally, she could get no response from the dog. I tried to help her out, but it was hopeless; and I had to give the blue to a bitch that had the style and the ring manners, but who wasn't this one's equal in anatomy. . . . There was one slight fault in the mouth, however."

  Mr. Stinemetz held back the dog's lips, exposing her teeth.

  "You see this upper incisor: it's out of place. But it's not a serious fault. There's many a champion with a much worse mouth."

  Vance thanked him for his help and added: "Do you happen to know what bitch this is, or who owns her?"

  Mr. Stinemetz shook his head.

  "No, I never saw her before—she must be a newcomer. I didn't see a catalogue of the show and there were no post mortems at the judge's table after the show."[28]

  Vance left Mr. Stinemetz's Quince Hill Kennels in a much happier frame of mind.

  "Tomorrow," he said, as we drove home through the gathering dusk, "we will know the owner's name."

  Immediately upon our arrival in New York, Vance telephoned to Markham at his home, and learned that there had been no developments in the case during the day. Grassi had returned to the Coe house at eleven o'clock that morning, evidently very little the worse for his experience of the previous night. He had wished to go to a hotel, but Markham had prevailed upon him to remain at the Coe residence until some light had filtered into the case, and Grassi had reluctantly agreed to do so.

  Wrede had remained indoors all day and had telephoned to Markham twice and offered to give whatever assistance he could.

  Hilda Lake had gone out about ten o'clock in the morning, dressed in sport clothes. When Heath had asked her where she was going, she had told him nonchalantly that she was going to take a drive in the country.

  Sergeant Heath had remained on duty most of the day, but his labors had consisted in the main of answering phone calls and trying to pacify a small army of reporters with news of purely imaginary "developments." The den window-sill had been gone over carefully for finger-prints, but without results. A general routine investigation had been put in operation by the Sergeant, but, aside from this, nothing had been done.

  "The case has me bogged," Markham complained sadly at dinner that night. (We had joined him, at his request, at the Stuyvesant Club.) "I see no way out of the situation. Even if we knew who committed the crimes, we couldn't show how they were accomplished—unless the guilty person himself chose to tell us. . . . And that attack on Grassi: instead of helping us, it has only put us deeper into the well. And there's nothing to take hold of. All the ordinary avenues of investigation are closed. Heaven knows there are enough people who might have done it—and there are enough motives for a dozen murders."

  "Sad . . . sad," sighed Vance. "My heart bleeds for you, don't y' know. Still, there's some simple explanation. It's a deucedly complicated puzzle—a cryptogram with apparently meaningless words. But once we have the key letter, the rest of it will fall into place. And the key letter may be the Scottie. I'm hopin' for the best."

  He applied himself for a moment to his salad.

  "A bit of Beluga caviar," he drawled, "would improve this Russian dressing."

  "Shall I report the oversight to the Club's board of governors, Monsieur Brillat-Savarin?"

  "Oh, don't bother," Vance returned dulcetly. "They'd probably add salted caviar and ruin the dressing completely. . . . You might, however, confide in me the exact condition of the Coe domicile tonight."

  "There's little to confide," Markham told him acerbitously. "Heath has done the usual things and gone home. However, he's left two men on guard, one in the street and one at the rear of the house. Grassi has remained in his room all day,—Heath's last report to me was that the gentleman had gone to bed. The lock on his door, by the way, has been fixed; so he'll probably live the night through. Miss Lake came in just as the Sergeant was going. . . . By the way, she took the news of Grassi's stabbing rather hard—"

  Vance looked up quickly.

  "I say, that's most interestin'."

  "The Chinaman did not leave the house," Markham continued, "and told Heath he preferred to remain until the guilty person had been brought to justice."

  "I do hope he hasn't too long to wait," Vance sighed. "But it's just as well if Liang stays with us. I feel that he's going to be most helpful to us anon. . . . And you, Markham, old dear: what have you been doing? Milk investigations, I suppose—and committees of eminent citizens who wish to uplift the drama—and interviews with aldermen."

  "That's about all," Markham confessed. "What would you have suggested?"

  "Really, Markham, I hadn't a suggestion today." Vance leaned back in his chair. "But tomorrow—"

  "You're so helpful and satisfying," Markham snapped. "'Morgen, morgen, nur nicht heute; sagen immer träge Leute.'"

  "Markham—my very dear Markham!" Vance protested reprovingly. "Really, don't y' know, I'm not laz
y. I give you Cicero: 'Aliquod crastinus dies ad cogitandum dabit.'"

  18. THE SCOTTIE'S TRAIL

  (Saturday, October 13; 9 a.m.)

  At nine o'clock the following morning Vance called at the offices of the American Kennel Club, at 221 Fourth Avenue, and explained to the genial and accommodating secretary, Mr. Perry B. Rice, the nature of the information he sought. Mr. Rice was sympathetic and offered to do everything he could to help with the investigation.

  "The officially marked catalogue of the Englewood show would give you what data you desire," he said.

  He led us down the corridor and into a large room, and introduced us to Mrs. Del Campo, the head of the show department. The room was over forty feet long, with windows across the entire west wall. Great rows of steel filing cabinets lined the side walls, and near the windows was an enormous bookcase with glass doors, lined with red morocco-bound catalogues of all the official shows during nearly half a century. Beside the door was a large tier of open shelves holding all of the judges' books and entry blanks.[29] Near these open shelves was a series of filing cabinets containing the cards of every registered dog of every breed, showing all the wins each dog had made. A score of silent and efficient girls were at work in this room, filing cards, adding to the records, and checking the innumerable items that arise after every official show. About the walls were framed pictures of famous dogs of the various breeds.

  Mrs. Del Campo, when Mr. Rice explained to her what Vance wanted, found the marked Englewood catalogue on which one of the girls was working. Turning to the Scottish terrier section, she ran her finger down the list of Puppy Bitch entries until she came to the winner of the class. The owner's name was given as Julius Higginbottom, and the name of the dog itself as Miss MacTavish. Then followed the A.K.C. Stud Book number and the date of birth—November 20 of the preceding year. The sire of the bitch was given as Champion Ornsay Autocrat, and the dam as Laurieston Lovelace. The breeder was Henry D. Bixby.

  Vance made a note of these data, and while he was jotting them down, Mrs. Del Campo said:

  "This catalogue hasn't yet been checked with the judges' book. . . . Just a minute and I'll compare them."

  She procured the Scottish terrier judges' book from one of the desks and, opening it to the page headed Puppy Bitches, looked beside the printed numeral 1. There was a pencilled numeral—258. She compared this with the printed numeral in the catalogue in front of Miss MacTavish's name; and it was the same.

  "And that's final?" asked Vance.

  "No, not final," Mr. Rice told him. "Those data in the catalogue should be checked with the official pedigree card." And he made a note of the A.K.C. number which appeared after Miss MacTavish's name in the catalogue.

  He then took us into the room next door—a room similar to the one we had just left. In this room there was also a great series of steel filing cases filled with cards bearing the official pedigrees and all information concerning every dog registered with the A.K.C, as well as a complete file of nearly five thousand registered kennel names.

  Miss Dora Makin, the head of the registration department, took the number that Mr. Rice gave her and, going to a large steel cabinet at the left of the door, pulled out a drawer containing a double row of small cards. These cards were arranged in numerical order under each of the separate breeds. There were white cards for dogs and salmon-colored cards for bitches.

  After a moment's search, Miss Makin drew forth Miss MacTavish's card. At the top of it appeared the bitch's name and breed and A.K.C. number. Then came the names of her sire and dam, the date she was whelped, the name of the breeder, and the name and address of the owner. All this information tallied accurately with the data contained in the official catalogue; but there was one added item, namely, the address of Julius Higginbottom, which was Mount Vernon, New York.

  "Now, that's final, Mr. Vance," Mr. Rice said. "You may rest assured that the information is correct. We go through that process with every entry in every show. Dog people don't realize the enormous amount of detail work which goes on at the A.K.C. in order to keep the hundreds of thousands of records correct and to insure every one in the dog game an almost absolute protection."

  After dropping into an office across the hall to pay his respects to Mr. Louis de Casanova, the editor of The American Kennel Gazette, Vance took his departure, and instructed his chauffeur to drive immediately to the Criminal Courts Building on the corner of Franklin and Centre Streets.

  On our way downtown Vance expressed his admiration for the A.K.C. system.

  "It's amazin', Van. An entire institution based on the ideal of accuracy. It has no commodity to sell: it's purely managerial in essence. It sells only accuracy and protection to the many thousands of sportsmen and dog lovers throughout the country. A unique and astonishin' institution."

  When we arrived at the District Attorney's office on the fourth floor of the Criminal Courts Building, Markham was in conference with Sergeant Heath. Swacker, the District Attorney's secretary, ushered us immediately into Markham's private office.

  "Things are moving." Vance sat down and took out his cigarette case. "I have just come from the American Kennel Club and have discovered a bit of most interestin' information. The wounded Scottie, Markham, belongs to none other than Julius Higginbottom."

  "And who might he be, Vance? And why does the fact interest you?"

  Vance lighted his cigarette leisurely.

  "I have met Higginbottom. He's a member of the Crestview Country Club, and he has a large country estate at Mount Vernon, where he spends his entire time living what he imagines to be the life of a country gentleman—"

  Heath sat forward in his chair.

  "It was the Crestview Country Club at Mount Vernon," he interjected, "where Miss Lake and Grassi went to a dance Wednesday night."

  "And that's not all, Sergeant." Vance sprawled luxuriously in his chair and took a deep inhalation on his Régie. "Higginbottom knew Archer Coe pretty well. Several years ago Higginbottom inherited, from an aunt, a very fine collection of early Chinese paintings, many of which Coe bought from him at a preposterously low price. Higginbottom is something of a gay bird—the sporting type of man—and knew nothing of the value of the paintings. After he had sold them to Coe he learned from a dealer that they were very valuable, and there was consequent talk, in certain New York art circles, to the effect that Coe had put over a shrewd and somewhat unethical deal on Higginbottom. Higginbottom, as I know, took the matter up with Coe, but without any success, and there has been a certain amount of bad blood between them ever since. Higginbottom was a major in the World War and is a hot-headed sort of a chap."

  Markham beat a nervous tattoo on the desk.

  "Well, where does that get us?" he asked. "Are you implying that Higginbottom came down from Mount Vernon with his dog and murdered Coe?"

  "Good Lord, no!" Vance made a slight gesture of annoyance. "I'm not implyin' anything. I am merely reportin' my findings. But I must confess that I find the relationship between the Scottie and Major Higginbottom and Archer Coe a bit satisfyin'."

  "It appears to me," grumbled Markham, "that it merely adds a new and more complicated angle to the situation."

  "Don't be discouragin'," sighed Vance. "At least there's food for thought in the combination."

  "My mind is already glutted." Markham rose irritably and walked to the window overlooking the Tombs. "What do you propose to do now?"

  Vance also rose.

  "I'm taking a bit of a jaunt into the country. I am motoring immediately to Mount Vernon, where I hope to have polite and serious—and, I trust, illuminatin'—intercourse with the major concerning Miss MacTavish. . . . Would you care to hear the result of my social endeavors?"

  Markham turned from the window and sank heavily into his chair.

  "I'll be here all afternoon," he answered glumly.

  It was a pleasant drive to Mount Vernon, in the brisk October air. We had little difficulty in finding the Higginbottom estate, and we were
lucky enough to find the major sitting on the big colonial front porch.

  He was a rotund man of medium height, with a partly bald head and a florid complexion. There was a look of dissipation about his small, beady gray eyes, which no amount of outdoor country living could disguise. But there was a likable joviality about him.

  He welcomed Vance effusively and invited us to sit down and have a highball.

  "To what do I owe the honor of this call, sir?" He spoke with hospitable good-nature. "I am really delighted. You should come oftener."

  "I'd be charmed." Vance sat down beside a small glass table. "But today, Major, d' ye see, I hopped out here on a little matter of business. . . . The truth is, I'm dashed interested in a Scottie bitch belonging to you—Miss MacTavish—who was shown at Englewood. . . ."

  At the mention of the dog's name Higginbottom gave a loud cough, pushed his chair back with a scraping sound, and glanced over his shoulder to the open window leading into the house. The man seemed deeply perturbed, and his tone of voice and his manner, when he answered, struck me as most peculiar.

  "Yes, yes; of course," he blustered, rising and walking toward the front steps. "I rarely go to dog shows any more. By the way, Mr. Vance, I want to show you my roses. . . ." And he walked down the stairs toward a small rose garden at the right.

  Vance lifted his eyebrows in mild astonishment and followed his host. When we were out of hearing of the house, the major placed his hand on Vance's shoulder and spoke confidentially:

  "By gad, sir! I hope my wife didn't hear that question of yours. She's generally in the drawing-room during the mornings, and the windows were open." He appeared troubled. "Yes, sir, it would be most annoying if she heard it. I didn't mean to be impolite, sir—no, sir, by gad!—but you startled me for a moment. . . . A most trying and delicate situation." He put his head a little closer to Vance. "Where did you hear of that little bitch of mine?—were you at the Englewood show?—and why should you be interested?" He glanced again over his shoulder toward the porch. "George! I hope your question didn't reach my wife's ears."