Reconstructing the Crime
(Monday, September 17; noon)
When Vance finished speaking, there was several minutes’ silence.
Markham sat deep in his chair glaring into space. Heath, however, was
watching Vance with a kind of grudging admiration. The corner-stone in
the foundation of his case against Jessup had been knocked out, and
the structure he had built was tottering precariously. Markham
realized this, and the fact played havoc with his hopes.
“I wish your inspirations were more helpful,” he grumbled, turning his
gaze upon Vance. “This latest revelation of yours puts us back almost
to where we started from.”
“Oh, don’t be pessimistic. Let us face the future with a bright
eye. . . . Want to hear my theory?—it’s fairly bulging with
possibilities.” He arranged himself comfortably in his chair. “Skeel
needed money—no doubt his silk shirts were running low—and after his
unsuccessful attempt to extort it from the lady a week before her
demise, he came here last Monday night. He had learned she would be
out, and he intended to wait for her; for she had probably refused to
receive him in the custom’ry social way. He knew the side door was
bolted at night, and, as he didn’t want to be seen entering the
apartment, he devised the little scheme of unbolting the door for
himself under cover of a futile call at half past nine. The unbolting
accomplished, he returned via the alleyway, and let himself into the
apartment at some time before eleven. When the lady returned with an
escort, he quickly hid in the clothes-closet, and remained there until
the escort had departed. Then he came forth, and the lady, startled by
his sudden appearance, screamed. But, on recognizing him, she told
Spotswoode, who was now hammering at the door, that it was all a
mistake. So Spotswoode ran along and played poker. A financial
discussion between Skeel and the lady—probably a highly acrimonious
tiff—ensued. In the midst of it the telephone rang, and Skeel snatched
off the receiver and said the Canary was out. The tiff was resumed;
but presently another suitor appeared on the scene. Whether he rang
the bell or let himself in with a key I can’t say—probably the latter,
for the phone operator was unaware of his visit. Skeel hid himself a
second time in the closet, and luckily took the precaution of locking
himself in. Also, he quite naturally put his eye to the keyhole to see
who the second intruder was.”
Vance pointed to the closet door.
“The keyhole, you will observe, is on a line with the davenport; and
as Skeel peered out into the room he saw a sight that froze his blood.
The new arrival—in the midst, perhaps, of some endearing
sentence—seized the lady by the throat and proceeded to throttle
her. . . . Imagine Skeel’s emotions, my dear Markham. There he was,
crouching in a dark closet, and a few feet from him stood a murderer
in the act of strangling a lady! _Pauvre Antoine!_ I don’t wonder he
was petrified and speechless. He saw what he imagined to be maniacal
fury in the strangler’s eyes; and the strangler must have been a
fairly powerful creature, whereas Skeel was slender and almost
undersized. . . . No, merci. Skeel wasn’t having any. He lay doggo.
And I can’t say that I blame the beggar, what?”
He made a gesture of interrogation.
“What did the strangler do next? Well, well; we’ll probably never
know, now that Skeel, the horrified witness, has gone to his Maker.
But I rather imagine he got out that black document-box, opened it
with a key he had taken from the lady’s hand-bag, and extracted a
goodly number of incriminating documents. Then, I fancy, the fireworks
began. The gentleman proceeded to wreck the apartment in order to give
the effect of a professional burglary. He tore the lace on the lady’s
gown and severed the shoulder-strap; snatched her orchid corsage and
threw it in her lap; stripped off her rings and bracelets; and tore
the pendant from its chain. After that he upset the lamp, rifled the
escritoire, ransacked the Boule cabinet, broke the mirror, overturned
the chairs, tore the draperies. . . . And all the time Skeel kept his
eye glued to the keyhole with fascinated horror, afraid to move,
terrified lest he be discovered and sent to join his erstwhile
inamorata, for by now he was no doubt thoroughly convinced that the
man outside was a raving lunatic.—I can’t say that I envy Skeel his
predicament: it was ticklish, y’ know. Rather!—And the devastation
went on. He could hear it even when the operations had passed from out
his radius of vision. And he himself was caught like a rat in a trap,
with no means of escape. A harrowin’ situation—my word!”
Vance smoked a moment, and then shifted his position slightly.
“Y’ know, Markham, I imagine that the worst moment in the whole of
Skeel’s checkered career came when that mysterious wrecker tried to
open the closet door behind which he was crouching. Fancy! There he
was cornered, and not two inches from him stood, apparently, a
homicidal maniac trying to get to him, rattling that thin barricade of
white pine. . . . Can you picture the blighter’s relief when the
murderer finally released the knob and turned away? It’s a wonder he
didn’t collapse from the reaction. But he didn’t. He listened and
watched in a sort of hypnotic panic, until he heard the invader leave
the apartment. Then, weak-kneed and in a cold sweat, he came forth and
surveyed the battlefield.”
Vance glanced about him.
“Not a pretty sight—eh, what? And there on the davenport reclined the
lady’s strangled body. That corpse was Skeel’s dominant horror. He
staggered to the table to look at it, and steadied himself with his
right hand—that’s how you got your finger-prints, Sergeant. Then the
realization of his own position suddenly smote him. Here he was alone
with a murdered person. He was known to have been intimate with the
lady; and he was a burglar with a record. Who would believe that he
was innocent? And though he had probably recognized the man who had
negotiated the business, he was in no position to tell his story.
Everything was against him—his sneaking in, his presence in the house
at half past nine, his relations with the girl, his profession, his
reputation. He hadn’t a chance in the world. . . . I say, Markham,
would _you_ have credited his tale?”
“Never mind that,” retorted Markham. “Go on with your theory.” He and
Heath had been listening with rapt interest.
“My theory from this point on,” resumed Vance, “is what you might term
self-developing. It proceeds on its own inertia, so to speak.—Skeel
was confronted by the urgent problem of getting away and covering up
his tracks. His mind in this emergency became keen and highly active:
his life was forfeit if he didn’t succeed. He began to think
furiously. He could have left by the side door at once without being
seen; but then, the door would have been found unbolted. And this
fact, taken in connection with his earlier visit that night, would
have suggested his manner of unbolting the door. . . . No, that method
of escape wouldn’t do—decidedly it wouldn’t do. He knew he was likely,
in any event, to be suspected of the murder, in view of his shady
association with the lady and his general character. Motive, place,
opportunity, time, means, conduct, and his own record—all were against
him. Either he must cover up his tracks, don’t y’ know, or else his
career as a Lothario was at an end. A sweet dilemma! He realized, of
course, that if he could get out and leave that side door bolted on
the inside, he’d be comparatively safe. No one could then explain how
he had come in or gone out. It would establish his only possible
alibi—a negative one, to be sure; but, with a good lawyer, he could
probably make it hold. Doubtless he searched for other means of
escape, but found himself confronted with obstacles on every hand. The
side door was his only hope. How could it be worked?”
Vance rose and yawned.
“That’s my caressin’ theory. Skeel was caught in a trap, and with his
shrewd, tricky brain he figured his way out. He may have roamed up and
down these two rooms for hours before he hit on his plan; and it’s not
unlikely that he appealed to the Deity with an occasional ‘Oh, my
God!’ As for his using the tweezers, I’m inclined to think the
mechanism of the idea came to him almost immediately.—Y’ know,
Sergeant, this locking of a door on the inside is an old trick. There
are any number of recorded cases of it in the criminal literature of
Europe. Indeed, in Professor Hans Gross’s handbook of criminology
there’s a whole chapter on the devices used by burglars for illegal
entries and exits.* But all such devices have had to do with the
locking—not the bolting—of doors. The principle, of course, is the
same, but the technic is different. To lock a door on the inside, a
needle, or strong slender pin, is inserted through the bow of the key,
and pulled downward with a string. But on the side door of this house
there is no lock and key; nor is there a bow in the bolt-handle.—Now,
the resourceful Skeel, while pacing nervously about, looking for
something that might offer a suggestion, probably espied the tweezers
on the lady’s dressing-table—no lady nowadays is without these little
eyebrow-pluckers, don’t y’ know—and immediately his problem was
solved. It remained only to test the device. Before departing,
however, he chiselled open the jewel-case which the other chap had
merely dinted, and found the solitaire diamond ring that he later
attempted to pawn. Then he erased, as he thought, all his
finger-prints, forgetting to wipe off the inside door-knob of the
closet, and overlooking the hand-mark on the table. After that, he let
himself out quietly, and rebolted the side door the same as I did,
stuffing the tweezers in his waistcoat pocket and forgetting them.”
* The treatise referred to by Vance was _Handbuch für
Untersuchungsrichter als System der Kriminalistik_.
Heath nodded his head oracularly.
“A crook, no matter how clever he is, always overlooks something.”
“Why single out crooks for your criticism, Sergeant?” asked Vance
lazily. “Do you know of anybody in this imperfect world who doesn’t
always overlook something?” He gave Heath a benignant smile. “Even the
police, don’t y’ know, overlooked the tweezers.”
Heath grunted. His cigar had gone out, and he relighted it slowly and
thoroughly.
“What do you think, Mr. Markham?”
“The situation doesn’t become much clearer,” was Markham’s gloomy
comment.
“My theory isn’t exactly a blindin’ illumination,” said Vance. “Yet I
wouldn’t say that it left things in pristine darkness. There are
certain inferences to be drawn from my vagaries. To wit: Skeel either
knew or recognized the murderer; and once he had made good his escape
from the apartment and had regained a modicum of self-confidence, he
undoubtedly blackmailed his homicidal confrère. His death was merely
another manifestation of our inconnu’s bent for ridding himself of
persons who annoyed him. Furthermore, my theory accounts for the
chiselled jewel-case, the finger-prints, the unmolested closet, the
finding of the gems in the refuse-tin—the person who took them really
didn’t want them, y’ know—and Skeel’s silence. It also explains the
unbolting and bolting of the side door.”
“Yes,” sighed Markham. “It seems to clarify everything but the one
all-important point—the identity of the murderer.”
“Exactly,” said Vance. “Let’s go to lunch.”
Heath, morose and confused, departed for Police Headquarters; and
Markham, Vance, and I rode to Delmonico’s, where we chose the main
dining-room in preference to the grill.
“The case now would seem to centre in Cleaver and Mannix,” said
Markham, when we had finished our luncheon. “If your theory that the
same man killed both Skeel and the Canary is correct, then Lindquist
is out of it, for he certainly was in the Episcopal Hospital Saturday
night.”
“Quite,” agreed Vance. “The doctor is unquestionably eliminated. . . .
Yes; Cleaver and Mannix—they’re the allurin’ twins. Don’t see any way
to go beyond them.” He frowned and sipped his coffee. “My original
quartet is dwindling, and I don’t like it. It narrows the thing down
too much—there’s no scope for the mind, as it were, in only two
choices. What if we should succeed in eliminating Cleaver and Mannix?
Where would we be—eh, what? Nowhere—simply nowhere. And yet, one of
the quartet is guilty; let’s cling to that consolin’ fact. It can’t be
Spotswoode and it can’t be Lindquist. Cleaver and Mannix remain: two
from four leaves two. Simple arithmetic, what? The only trouble is,
this case isn’t simple. Lord, no!—I say, how would the equation work
out if we used algebra, or spherical trigonometry, or differential
calculus? Let’s cast it in the fourth dimension—or the fifth, or the
sixth. . . .” He held his temples in both hands. “Oh, promise,
Markham—promise me that you’ll hire a kind, gentle keeper for me.”
“I know how you feel. I’ve been in the same mental state for a week.”
“It’s the quartet idea that’s driving me mad,” moaned Vance. “It
wrings me to have my tetrad lopped off in such brutal fashion. I’d set
my young trustin’ heart on that quartet, and now it’s only a pair. My
sense of order and proportion has been outraged. . . . I want my
quartet.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to be satisfied with two of them,” Markham
returned wearily. “One of them can’t qualify, and one is in bed. You
might send some flowers to the hospital, if it would cheer you any.”
“One is in bed—one is in bed,” repeated Vance. “Well, well—to be sure!
And one from four leaves three. More arithmetic. Three! . . . On the
other hand, there is no such thing as a straight line. All lines are
curved; they transcribe circles in space. They look straight, but
they’re not. Appearances, y’ know—so deceptive! . . . Let’s enter the
silence, and substitute mentation for sight.”
He gazed up out of the great windows into Fifth Avenue. For several
moments he sat smoking thoughtfully. When he spoke again, it was in an
even, deliberate voice.
“Markham, would it be difficult for you to invite Mannix and Cleaver
and Spotswoode to spend an evening—this evening, let us say—in your
apartment?”
Markham set down his cup with a clatter, and regarded Vance narrowly.
“What new harlequinade is this?”
“Fie on you! Answer my question.”
“Well—of course—I might arrange it,” replied Markham hesitantly.
“They’re all more or less under my jurisdiction at present.”
“So that such an invitation would be rather in line with the
situation—eh, what? And they wouldn’t be likely to refuse you, old
dear—would they?”
“No; I hardly think so. . . .”
“And if, when they had assembled in your quarters, you should propose
a few hands of poker, they’d probably accept, without thinking the
suggestion strange?”
“Probably,” said Markham, nonplussed at Vance’s amazing request.
“Cleaver and Spotswoode both play, I know; and Mannix doubtless knows
the game. But why poker? Are you serious, or has your threatened
dementia already overtaken you?”
“Oh, I’m deuced serious.” Vance’s tone left no doubt as to the fact.
“The game of poker, d’ ye see, is the crux of the matter. I knew
Cleaver was an old hand at the game; and Spotswoode, of course, played
with Judge Redfern last Monday night. So that gave me a basis for my
plan. Mannix, we’ll assume, also plays.”
He leaned forward, speaking earnestly.
“Nine-tenths of poker, Markham, is psychology; and if one understands
the game, one can learn more of a man’s inner nature at a poker table
in an hour than during a year’s casual association with him. You
rallied me once when I said I could lead you to the perpetrator of any
crime by examining the factors of the crime itself. But naturally I
must know the man to whom I am to lead you; otherwise I cannot relate
the psychological indications of the crime to the culprit’s nature. In
the present case, I know the kind of man who committed the crime; but
I am not sufficiently acquainted with the suspects to point out the
guilty one. However, after our game of poker, I hope to be able to
tell you who planned and carried out the Canary’s murder.”*
* Recently I ran across an article by Doctor George A.
Dorsey, professor of anthropology at the University of
Chicago, and author of “Why We Behave Like Human Beings,”
which bore intimate testimony to the scientific accuracy of
Vance’s theory. In it Doctor Dorsey said: “Poker is a
cross-section of life. The way a man behaves in a poker game
is the way he behaves in life. . . . His success or failure
lies in the way his physical organism responds to the stimuli
supplied by the game. . . . I have studied humanity all my
life from the anthropologic and psychological view-point. And
I have yet to find a better laboratory exercise than to
observe the manners of men as they see my raise and come back
at me. . . . The psychologist’s verbalized, visceral, and
manual behaviors are functioning at their highest in a poker
game. . . . I can truthfully say that I learned about men
from poker.”
Markham gazed at him in blank astonishment. He knew that Vance played
poker with amazing skill, and that he possessed an uncanny knowledge
of the psychological elements involved in the game; but he was
unprepared for the latter’s statement that he might be able to solve
the Odell murder by means of it. Yet Vance had spoken with such
undoubted earnestness that Markham was impressed. I knew what was
passing in his mind almost as well as if he had voiced his thoughts.
He was recalling the way in which Vance had, in a former murder case,
put his finger unerringly on the guilty man by a similar process of
psychological deduction. And he was also telling himself that, however
incomprehensible and seemingly extravagant Vance’s requests were,
there was always a fundamentally sound reason behind them.
“Damn it!” he muttered at last. “The whole scheme seems idiotic. . . .
And yet, if you really want a game of poker with these men, I’ve no
special objection. It’ll get you nowhere—I’ll tell you that
beforehand. It’s stark nonsense to suppose that you can find the
guilty man by such fantastic means.”
“Ah, well,” sighed Vance, “a little futile recreation will do us no
harm.”
“But why do you include Spotswoode?”
“Really, y’ know, I haven’t the slightest notion—except, of course,
that he’s one of my quartet. And we’ll need an extra hand.”
“Well, don’t tell me afterwards that I’m to lock him up for murder.
I’d have to draw the line. Strange as it may seem to your layman’s
mind, I wouldn’t care to prosecute a man, knowing that it was
physically impossible for him to have committed the crime.”
“As to that,” drawled Vance, “the only obstacles that stand in the way
of physical impossibilities are material facts. And material facts are
notoriously deceivin’. Really, y’ know, you lawyers would do better if
you ignored them entirely.”
Markham did not deign to answer such heresy, but the look he gave
Vance was most expressive.