“‘I,’ Said the Sparrow”
(Saturday, April 2; 3 p. m.)
When we were again in the Dillard drawing-room and Miss Dillard had
left us to rejoin her uncle in the library, Vance, without
preliminaries, proceeded to the business in hand.
“I didn’t care to worry your mother, Mr. Drukker, by questioning you
in front of her, but inasmuch as you called here this morning shortly
before Mr. Robin’s death, it is necessary—as a mere routine
procedure—that we seek whatever information you can give us.”
Drukker had seated himself near the fireplace. He now drew in his head
cautiously, but made no answer.
“You came here,” continued Vance, “about half past nine, I believe, to
call on Mr. Arnesson.”
“Yes.”
“By way of the archery range and the basement door?”
“I always come that way. Why walk around the block?”
“But Mr. Arnesson was out this morning.”
Drukker nodded. “At the university.”
“And, finding Mr. Arnesson away, you sat for a while in the library
with Professor Dillard, I understand, discussing an astronomical
expedition to South America.”
“The expedition of the Royal Astronomical Society to Sobral to test
the Einsteinian deflection,” amplified Drukker.
“How long were you in the library?”
“Less than half an hour.”
“And then?”
“I went down to the archery-room, and glanced at one of the magazines.
There was a chess problem in it—a _Zugszwang_ end-game that came up
recently between Shapiro and Marshall—and I sat down and worked it
out. . . .”
“Just a moment, Mr. Drukker.” A note of suppressed interest came into
Vance’s voice. “You’re interested in chess?”
“To a certain extent. I don’t spend much time at it, however. The game
is not purely mathematical; and it’s insufficiently speculative to
appeal to a wholly scientific mind.”
“Did you find the Shapiro-Marshall position difficult?”
“Not so difficult as tricky.” Drukker was watching Vance shrewdly. “As
soon as I discovered that an apparently useless pawn move was the key
to the impasse, the solution was simple.”
“How long did it take you?”
“Half an hour or so.”
“Until about half past ten, shall we say?”
“That would be about right.” Drukker settled deeper into his chair,
but his covert alertness did not relax.
“Then you must have been in the archery-room when Mr. Robin and Mr.
Sperling came there.”
The man did not answer at once, and Vance, pretending not to notice
his hesitancy, added: “Professor Dillard said they called at the house
about ten and, and after waiting a while in the drawing-room here,
went down to the basement.”
“Where’s Sperling now, by the way?” Drukker’s eyes darted suspiciously
from one to the other of us.
“We expect him here any minute,” Vance replied. “Sergeant Heath has
sent two of his men to fetch him.”
The hunchback’s eyebrows lifted. “Ah! So Sperling is being forcibly
brought back.” He pyramided his spatulate fingers and inspected them
musingly. Then he slowly lifted his eyes to Vance. “You asked me if I
saw Robin and Sperling in the archery-room.—Yes; they came down-stairs
just as I was going.”
Vance leaned back and stretched his legs before him.
“Did you get the impression, Mr. Drukker, that they had—as we
euphemistically say—been having words?”
The man considered this question for several moments.
“Now that you mention it,” he said at length, “I do recall that there
seemed to be a coolness between them. I wouldn’t, however, care to be
too categorical on that point. You see, I left the room almost
immediately after they entered.”
“You went out the basement door, I think you said, and thence through
the wall gate into 75th Street. Is that correct?”
For a moment Drukker seemed loath to answer; but he replied with an
effort at unconcern.
“Quite. I thought I’d take a stroll along the river before going back
to work. I went to the Drive, then up the bridle path, and turned into
the park at 79th Street.”
Heath, with his habitual suspicion of all statements made to the
police, put the next question.
“Did you meet any one you knew?”
Drukker turned angrily, but Vance quickly stepped into the breach.
“It really doesn’t matter, Sergeant. If it’s necess’ry later on to
ascertain that point, we can take the matter up again.” Then to
Drukker: “You returned from your walk a little before eleven, I think
you said, and entered your house by the front door.”
“That’s right.”
“You saw nothing, by the by, that was in the least extr’ordin’ry when
you were here this morning?”
“I saw nothing except what I’ve told you.”
“And you’re quite sure you heard your mother scream at about half past
eleven?”
Vance did not move as he asked this question; but a slightly different
note had crept into his voice, and it acted on Drukker in a startling
manner. He heaved his squat body out of his chair, and stood glaring
down on Vance with menacing fury. His tiny round eyes flashed, and his
lips worked convulsively. His hands, dangling before him, flexed and
unflexed like those of a man in a paroxysm.
“What are you driving at?” he demanded, his voice a shrill falsetto.
“I tell you I heard her scream. I don’t care a damn whether she admits
it or not. Moreover, I heard her walking in her room. _She was in her
room_, understand, _and I was in my room_, between eleven and twelve.
And you can’t prove anything different. Furthermore, I’m not going to
be cross-examined by you or any one else as to what I was doing or
where I was. It’s none of your damned business—do you hear me? . . .”
So insensate was his wrath that I expected any minute to see him hurl
himself on Vance. Heath had risen and stepped forward, sensing the
potential danger of the man. Vance, however, did not move. He
continued to smoke languidly, and when the other’s fury had been
spent, he said quietly and without a trace of emotion:
“There’s nothing more we have to ask you, Mr. Drukker. And really, y’
know, there’s no need to work yourself up. It merely occurred to me
that your mother’s scream might help to establish the exact time of
the murder.”
“What could her scream have to do with the time of Robin’s death?
Didn’t she tell you she saw nothing?” Drukker appeared exhausted, and
leaned heavily against the table.
At this moment Professor Dillard appeared in the archway. Behind him
stood Arnesson.
“What seems to be the matter?” the professor asked. “I heard the noise
here, and came down.” He regarded Drukker coldly. “Hasn’t Belle been
through enough to-day without your frightening her this way?”
Vance had risen, but before he could speak Arnesson came forward and
shook his finger in mock reprimand at Drukker.
“You really should learn control, Adolph. You take life with such
abominable seriousness. You’ve worked in interstellar spatial
magnitudes long enough to have some sense of proportion. Why attach so
much importance to this pin-point of life on earth?”
Drukker was breathing stertorously.
“These swine——” he began.
“Oh, my dear Adolph!” Arnesson cut him short. “The entire human race
are swine. Why particularize? . . . Come along. I’ll see you home.”
And he took Drukker’s arm firmly and led him down-stairs.
“We’re very sorry we disturbed you, sir,” Markham apologized to
Professor Dillard. “The man flew off the handle for some unknown
reason. These investigations are not the pleasantest things in the
world; but we hope to be through before long.”
“Well, make it as brief as you can, Markham. And do try to spare Belle
as much as possible.—Let me see you before you go.”
When Professor Dillard had returned up-stairs, Markham took a turn up
and down the room, his brows knit, his hands clasped behind him.
“What do you make of Drukker?” he asked, halting before Vance.
“Decidedly not a pleasant character. Diseased physically and mentally.
A congenital liar. But canny—oh, deuced canny. An abnormal brain—you
often find it in cripples of his type. Sometimes it runs to real
constructive genius, as with Steinmetz; but too often it takes to
abstruse speculation along impractical lines, as with Drukker. Still,
our little verbal give-and-take has not been without fruit. He’s
hiding something that he’d like to tell but doesn’t dare.”
“That’s possible, of course,” returned Markham doubtfully. “He’s
touchy on the subject of that hour between eleven and noon. And he was
watching you all the time like a cat.”
“A weasel,” Vance corrected him. “Yes, I was aware of his flatterin’
scrutiny.”
“Anyway, I can’t see that he’s helped us very much.”
“No,” agreed Vance. “We’re not exactly forrader. But we’re at least
getting some luggage aboard. Our excitable mathematical wizard has
opened up some very interestin’ lines of speculation. And Mrs. Drukker
is fairly teemin’ with possibilities. If we knew what both of ’em
together know we might find the key to this silly business.”
Heath had been sullen for the past hour, and had looked on at the
proceedings with bored disdain. But now he drew himself up
combatively.
“I’m here to tell you, Mr. Markham, that we’re wasting our time.
What’s the good of all these parleys? Sperling’s the boy we want, and
when my men bring him in and put him through a little sweating, we’ll
have enough material for an indictment. He was in love with the
Dillard girl and was jealous of Robin—not only on account of the girl,
but because Robin could shoot those red sticks straighter than he
could. He had a scrap with Robin in this here room—the professor heard
’em at it; and he was down-stairs with Robin, according to the
evidence, a few minutes before the murder. . . .”
“And,” added Vance ironically, “his name means ‘sparrow.’ _Quod erat
demonstrandum._—No, Sergeant; it’s much too easy. It works out like a
game of Canfield with the cards stacked; whereas this thing was
planned much too carefully for suspicion to fall directly on the
guilty person.”
“I can’t see any careful planning about it,” persisted Heath. “This
Sperling gets sore, picks up a bow, grabs an arrow off of the wall,
follows Robin outside, shoots him through the heart, and beats it.”
Vance sighed.
“You’re far too forthright for this wicked world, Sergeant. If only
things happened with such naïve dispatch, life would be very
simple—and depressin’. But such was not the _modus operandi_ of the
Robin’s murder. First, no archer could shoot at a moving human target
and strike just between the ribs over the vital spot of the heart.
Secondly, there’s that fracture of Robin’s skull. He may have acquired
it in falling, but it’s not likely. Thirdly, his hat was at his feet,
where it wouldn’t have been if he had fallen naturally. Fourthly, the
nock on the arrow is so bruised that I doubt if it would hold a
string. Fifthly, Robin was facing the arrow, and during the drawing
and aiming of the bow he would have had time to call out and cover
himself. Sixthly. . . .”
Vance paused in the act of lighting a cigarette.
“_By Jove_, Sergeant! I’ve overlooked something. When a man’s stabbed
in the heart there’s sure to be an immediate flow of blood, especially
when the end of the weapon is larger than the shaft and there’s no
adequate plug for the hole. I say! It’s quite possible that you’ll
find some blood spots on the floor of the archery-room—somewhere near
the door most likely.”
Heath hesitated, but only momentarily. Experience had long since
taught him that Vance’s suggestions were not to be treated cavalierly;
and with a good-natured grunt he got up and disappeared toward the
rear of the house.
“I think, Vance, I begin to see what you mean,” observed Markham, with
a troubled look. “But, good God! If Robin’s apparent death with a bow
and arrow was merely an _ex-post-facto_ stage-setting, then we’re
confronted by something almost too diabolical to contemplate.”
“It was the work of a maniac,” declared Vance, with unwonted sobriety.
“Oh, not the conventional maniac who imagines he’s Napoleon, but a
madman with a brain so colossal that he has carried sanity to a,
humanly speaking, _reductio ad absurdum_—to a point, that is, where
humor itself becomes a formula in four dimensions.”
Markham smoked vigorously, lost in speculation.
“I hope Heath doesn’t find anything,” he said at length.
“Why—in Heaven’s name?” returned Vance. “If there’s no material
evidence that Robin met his end in the archery-room, it’ll only make
the problem more difficult legally.”
But the material evidence was forthcoming. The Sergeant returned a few
minutes later, crestfallen but excited.
“Damn it, Mr. Vance!” he blurted. “You had the dope all right.” He
made no attempt to keep the admiration out of his look. “There isn’t
any actual blood on the floor; but there’s a dark place on the cement
where somebody’s scrubbed it with a wet rag to-day some time. It ain’t
dry yet; and the place is right near the door, where you said. And
what makes it more suspicious is that one of those rugs has been
pulled over it.—But that don’t let Sperling out altogether,” he added
pugnaciously. “He mighta shot Robin indoors.”
“And then cleaned up the blood, wiped off the bow and arrow,
and placed the body and the bow on the range, before making his
departure? . . . Why? . . . Archery, to begin with, isn’t an indoor
sport, Sergeant. And Sperling knows too much about it to attempt
murder with a bow and arrow. A hit such as the one that ended Robin’s
uneventful career would have been a pure fluke. Teucer himself
couldn’t have achieved it with any degree of certainty—and, according
to Homer, Teucer was the champion archer of the Greeks.”
As he spoke Pardee passed down the hall on his way out. He had nearly
reached the front door when Vance rose suddenly and went to the
archway.
“Oh, I say, Mr. Pardee. Just a moment, please.”
The man turned with an air of gracious compliance.
“There is one other question we’d like to ask you,” said Vance. “You
mentioned seeing Mr. Sperling and Beedle leave here this morning by
the wall gate. Are you sure you saw no one else use the gate?”
“Quite sure. That is, I don’t recall any one else.”
“I was thinking particularly of Mr. Drukker.”
“Oh, Drukker?” Pardee shook his head with mild emphasis. “No, I would
have remembered him. But you realize a dozen people might have entered
and left this house without my noticing them.”
“Quite—quite,” Vance murmured indifferently. “How good a chess player,
by the by, is Mr. Drukker?”
Pardee showed a flicker of surprise.
“He’s not a player in the practical sense at all,” he explained with
careful precision. “He’s an excellent analyst, however, and
understands the theory of the game amazingly well. But he’s had little
practice at actual over-the-board play.”
When Pardee had gone Heath cocked a triumphant eye at Vance.
“I notice, sir,” he remarked good-naturedly, “that I’m not the only
one who’d like to check the hunchback’s alibi.”
“Ah, but there’s a difference between checking an alibi, and demanding
that the person himself prove it.”
At this moment the front door was thrown open. There were heavy
footsteps in the hall, and three men appeared in the archway. Two were
obviously detectives, and between them stood a tall, clean-cut youth
of about thirty.
“We got him, Sergeant,” announced one of the detectives, with a grin
of vicious satisfaction. “He beat it straight home from here, and was
packing up when we walked in on him.”
Sperling’s eyes swept the room with angry apprehension. Heath had
planted himself before the man, and stood looking him up and down
triumphantly.
“Well, young fella, you thought you’d get away, did you?” The
Sergeant’s cigar bobbed up and down between his lips as he spoke.
The color mounted to Sperling’s cheeks, and he set his mouth
stubbornly.
“So! You’ve got nothing to say?” Heath went on, squaring his jaw
ferociously. “You’re one of these silent lads, are you? Well, we’ll
make you talk.” He turned to Markham. “How about it, sir? Shall I take
him to Headquarters?”
“Perhaps Mr. Sperling will not object to answering a few questions
here,” said Markham quietly.
Sperling studied the District Attorney a moment; then his gaze moved
to Vance, who nodded to him encouragingly.
“Answer questions about what?” he asked, with an obvious effort at
self-control. “I was preparing to go away for the week-end when these
ruffians forced their way into my room; and I was brought here without
a word of explanation or even an opportunity to communicate with my
family. Now you talk of taking me to Police Headquarters.” He gave
Heath a defiant glare. “All right, take me to Police Headquarters—and
be damned to you!”
“What time did you leave here this morning, Mr. Sperling?” Vance’s
tone was soft and ingratiating, and his manner reassuring.
“About a quarter past eleven,” the man answered. “In time to catch the
11.40 Scarsdale train from Grand Central.”
“And Mr. Robin?”
“I don’t know what time Robin went. He said he was going to wait for
Belle—Miss Dillard. I left him in the archery-room.”
“You saw Mr. Drukker?”
“For a minute—yes. He was in the archery-room when Robin and I went
down-stairs; but he left immediately.”
“Through the wall gate? Or did he walk down the range?”
“I don’t remember—in fact, I didn’t notice. . . . Say, look here:
what’s all this about anyway?”
“Mr. Robin was killed this morning,” said Vance, “—at some time near
eleven o’clock.”
Sperling’s eyes seemed to start from his head.
“Robin killed? My God! . . . Who—who killed him?” The man’s lips were
dry, and he wetted them with his tongue.
“We don’t know yet,” Vance answered. “He was shot through the heart
with an arrow.”
This news left Sperling stunned. His eyes traveled vaguely from side
to side, and he fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette.
Heath stepped nearer to him, and thrust out his chin.
“Maybe _you_ can tell us who killed him—_with a bow and arrow_!”
“Why—why do you—think I know?” Sperling managed to stammer.
“Well,” returned the Sergeant relentlessly, “you were jealous of
Robin, weren’t you? You had a hot argument with him about the girl,
right in this room, didn’t you? And you were alone with him just
before he was croaked, weren’t you? And you’re a pretty good shot with
the bow and arrow, aren’t you?—That’s why I think that maybe you know
something.” He narrowed his eyes and drew his upper lip over his
teeth. “Say! Come clean. Nobody else but you coulda done it. You had a
fight with him over the girl, and you were the last person seen with
him—_only a few minutes before he was killed_. And who else woulda
shot him with a bow and arrow except a champeen archer—huh? . . . Make
it easy for yourself, and spill the story. We’ve got you.”
A strange light had gathered in Sperling’s eyes, and his body became
rigid.
“Tell me,”—he spoke in a strained, unnatural voice—“did you find the
bow?”
“Sure we found it.” Heath laughed unpleasantly. “Right where you left
it—in the alley.”
“What kind of a bow was it?” Sperling’s gaze had not moved from some
distant point.
“What kind of a bow?” repeated Heath. “A regular bow——”
Vance, who had been watching the youth closely, interrupted.
“I think I understand the question, Sergeant.—It was a woman’s bow,
Mr. Sperling. About five-feet-six, and rather light—under thirty
pounds, I should say.”
Sperling drew a slow, deep breath, like a man steeling himself for
some bitter resolution. Then his lips parted in a faint, grim smile.
“What’s the use?” he asked listlessly. “I thought I’d have time to get
away. . . . Yes, I killed him.”
Heath grunted with satisfaction, and his belligerent manner at once
disappeared.
“You got more sense than I thought you had,” he said, in an almost
paternal tone, nodding in a businesslike manner to the two detectives.
“Take him along, boys. Use my buggy—it’s outside. And lock him up
without booking him. I’ll prefer the charge when I get to the office.”
“Come along, bo,” ordered one of the detectives, turning toward the
hall.
But Sperling did not at once obey. Instead he looked appealingly at
Vance.
“Could I—might I——” he began.
Vance shook his head.
“No, Mr. Sperling. It would be best if you didn’t see Miss Dillard. No
use of harrowin’ her feelings just now. . . . Cheerio.”
The man turned without another word and went out between his captors.