The Stolen Revolver
(Monday, April 11; 3 p. m.)
“Sit down, Pyne,” said Vance, with peremptory kindness. “We have
permission from Professor Dillard to question you; and we shall expect
answers to all our questions.”
“Certainly, sir,” the man answered. “I’m sure there’s nothing that
Professor Dillard has any reason to hide.”
“Excellent.” Vance lay back lazily. “To begin with, then; what hour
was breakfast served here this morning?”
“At half past eight, sir—the same as always.”
“Were all the members of the family present?”
“Oh, yes, sir.”
“Who calls the family in the morning? And at what time?”
“I do myself—at half past seven. I knock on the doors——”
“And wait for an answer?”
“Yes, sir—always.”
“Now think, Pyne: did every one answer you this morning?”
The man inclined his head emphatically. “Yes, sir.”
“And no one was late to breakfast?”
“Every one was on time promptly—as usual, sir.”
Vance leaned over and deposited his cigarette ash in the grate.
“Did you happen to see any one leaving the house or returning to it
this morning before breakfast?”
The question was put casually, but I noted a slight quiver of surprise
in the butler’s thin drooping eyelids.
“No, sir.”
“Even though you saw no one,” pursued Vance, “would it not have been
possible for some member of the household to have gone out and
returned without your knowing it?”
Pyne for the first time during the interview appeared reluctant to
answer.
“Well, sir, the fact is,” he said uneasily, “any one might have used
the front door this morning without my knowing it, as I was in the
dining-room setting table. And, for the matter of that, any one might
have used the archery-room door, for my daughter generally keeps the
kitchen door closed while preparing breakfast.”
Vance smoked thoughtfully a moment. Then in an even, matter-of-fact
tone he asked: “Does any one in the house own a revolver?”
The man’s eyes opened wide.
“Not that I—know of, sir,” he answered haltingly.
“Ever hear of the Bishop, Pyne?”
“Oh, no, sir!” His face blanched. “You mean the man who wrote those
letters to the papers?”
“I merely meant the Bishop,” said Vance carelessly. “But tell me: have
you heard anything about a man being killed in Riverside Park this
morning?”
“Yes, sir. The janitor next door was telling me about it.”
“You knew young Mr. Sprigg, didn’t you?”
“I’d seen him at the house here once or twice, sir.”
“Was he here recently?”
“Last week, sir. Thursday I think it was.”
“Who else was here at the time?”
Pyne frowned as if trying to remember.
“Mr. Drukker, sir,” he said after a moment. “And, as I recall, Mr.
Pardee came too. They were together in Mr. Arnesson’s room talking
until late.”
“In Mr. Arnesson’s room, eh? Is it custom’ry for Mr. Arnesson to
receive callers in his room?”
“No, sir,” Pyne explained; “but the professor was working in the
library, and Miss Dillard was with Mrs. Drukker in the drawing-room
here.”
Vance was silent a while.
“That will be all, Pyne,” he said at length. “But please send Beedle
to us at once.”
Beedle came and stood before us with sullen aggressiveness. Vance
questioned her along the same lines as he had taken with Pyne. Her
answers, for the most part monosyllabic, added nothing to what had
already been learned. But at the end of the brief interview Vance
asked her if she had happened to look out of the kitchen window that
morning before breakfast.
“I looked out once or twice,” she answered defiantly. “Why shouldn’t I
look out?”
“Did you see any one on the archery range or in the rear yard?”
“No one but the professor and Mrs. Drukker.”
“No strangers?” Vance strove to give the impression that the fact of
Professor Dillard’s and Mrs. Drukker’s presence in the rear yard that
morning was of no importance; but, by the slow, deliberate way in
which he reached into his pocket for his cigarette-case, I knew the
information had interested him keenly.
“No,” the woman replied curtly.
“What time did you notice the professor and Mrs. Drukker?”
“Eight o’clock maybe.”
“Were they talking together?”
“Yes.—Anyway,” she emended, “they were walking up and down near the
arbor.”
“Is it custom’ry for them to stroll in the yard before breakfast?”
“Mrs. Drukker often comes out early and walks about the flower beds.
And I guess the professor has a right to walk in his own yard any time
he wants to.”
“I’m not questioning his rights in the matter, Beedle,” said Vance
mildly. “I was merely wondering if he was in the habit of exercising
those rights at such an early hour.”
“Well, he was exercising ’em this morning.”
Vance dismissed the woman and, rising, went to the front window. He
was patently puzzled, and he stood several minutes looking down the
street toward the river.
“Well, well,” he murmured. “It’s a nice day for communin’ with nature.
At eight this morning the lark was on the wing no doubt, and—who
knows?—maybe there was a snail on the thorn. But—my word!—all wasn’t
right with the world.”
Markham recognized the signs of Vance’s perplexity.
“What do you make of it?” he asked. “I’m inclined to ignore Beedle’s
information.”
“The trouble is, Markham, we can’t afford to ignore anything in this
case.” Vance spoke softly, without turning. “I’ll admit, though, that
at present Beedle’s revelation is meaningless. We’ve merely learned
that two of the actors in our melodrama were up and about this morning
shortly after Sprigg was snuffed out. The al-fresco rendezvous between
the professor and Mrs. Drukker may, of course, be just one of your
beloved coincidences. On the other hand, it may have some bearing on
the old gentleman’s sentimental attitude toward the lady. . . . I
think we’ll have to make a few discreet inquiries of him about his
ante-prandial tryst, what? . . .”
He leaned suddenly toward the window.
“Ah! Here comes Arnesson. Looks a bit excited.”
A few moments later there was the sound of a key in the front door,
and Arnesson strode down the hall. When he saw us he came quickly into
the drawing-room and, without a word of greeting, burst forth:
“What’s this I hear about Sprigg being shot?” His eager eyes darted
from one to the other of us. “I suppose you’re here to ask me about
him. Well, fire away.” He threw a bulky brief-case on the centre-table
and sat down abruptly on the edge of a straight chair. “There was a
detective up at college this morning asking fool questions and acting
like a burlesque sleuth in a comic opera. Very mysterious. . . .
Murder—horrible murder! What did we know about a certain John E.
Sprigg? And so on. . . . Scared a couple of juniors out of an entire
semester’s mental growth, and sent a harmless young English instructor
into incipient nervous collapse. I didn’t see the Dogberry myself—was
in class at the time. But he had the cheek to ask what women Sprigg
went around with. Sprigg and women! That boy didn’t have a thought in
his head but his work. Brightest man in senior math. Never missed a
class. When he didn’t answer roll-call this morning I knew something
serious was the matter. At the lunch hour every one was buzzing about
murder. . . . What’s the answer?”
“We haven’t the answer, Mr. Arnesson.” Vance had been watching him
closely. “However, we have another determinant for your formula.
Johnny Sprig was shot this morning with a little gun through the
middle of his wig.”
Arnesson stared at Vance for some time without moving. Then he threw
his head back and gave a sardonic laugh.
“Some more mumbo-jumbo, eh?—like the death of Cock Robin. . . . Read
me the rune.”
Vance gave him briefly the details of the crime.
“That’s all we know at present,” he concluded. “Could _you_, Mr.
Arnesson, add any suggestive details?”
“Good Lord, no!” The man appeared genuinely amazed. “Not a thing.
Sprigg . . . one of the keenest students I ever had. Something of a
genius, by Gad! Too bad his parents named him John—plenty of other
names. It sealed his doom apparently; got him shot through the head by
a maniac. Obviously the same merry-andrew who did Robin in with an
arrow.” He rubbed his hands together,—the abstract philosopher in him
had become uppermost. “A nice problem. You’ve told me everything? I’ll
need every known integer. Maybe I’ll hit upon a new mathematical
method in the process—like Kepler.” He chuckled over the conceit.
“Remember Kepler’s ‘Doliometrie’? It became the foundation of
Infinitesimal Calculus. He arrived at it trying to construct a cask
for his wine—a cask with a minimum amount of wood and a maximum
cubical content. Maybe the formulas I work out to solve these crimes
will open up new fields of scientific research. Ha! Robin and Sprigg
will then become martyrs.”
The man’s humor, even taking into consideration his life’s passion for
abstractions, struck me as particularly distasteful. But Vance seemed
not to mind his cold-blooded cynicism.
“There’s one item,” he said, “that I omitted to mention.” Turning to
Markham he asked for the piece of paper containing the formula, and
handed it to Arnesson. “This was found beneath Sprigg’s body.”
The other scrutinized it superciliously.
“The Bishop, I see, is again involved. Same paper and typing as the
notes. . . . But where did he get that Riemann-Christoffel tensor?
Now, if it had been some other tensor—like the G-sigma-tau, for
instance—any one interested in practical physics might have hit on it.
But this one isn’t common; and the statement of it here is arbitrary
and unusual. Certain terms omitted. . . . _By George!_ I was talking
to Sprigg about this only the other night. He wrote it down, too.”
“Pyne mentioned the fact that Sprigg had called here Thursday night,”
put in Vance.
“Oh, he did, did he? . . . Thursday—that’s right. Pardee was here,
too. And Drukker. We had a discussion on Gaussian co-ordinates. This
tensor came up—Drukker mentioned it first, I think. And Pardee had
some mad notion of applying the higher mathematics to chess. . . .”
“Do you play chess, by the by?” asked Vance.
“Used to. But no more. A beautiful game, though—if it wasn’t for the
players. Queer crabs, chess players.”
“Did you ever make any study of the Pardee gambit?” (At the time I
could not understand the seeming irrelevance of Vance’s questions; and
I noticed that Markham too was beginning to show signs of impatience.)
“Poor old Pardee!” Arnesson smiled unfeelingly. “Not a bad elementary
mathematician. Should have been a high-school teacher. Too much money,
though. Took to chess. I told him his gambit was unscientific. Even
showed him how it could be beaten. But he couldn’t see it. Then
Capablanca, Vidmar and Tartakower came along and knocked it into a
cocked hat. Just as I told him they would. Wrecked his life. He’s been
fussing around with another gambit for years, but can’t make it
cohere. Reads Weyl, Silberstein, Eddington and Mach in the hope of
getting inspiration.”
“That’s most interestin’.” Vance extended his match-case to Arnesson,
who had been filling his pipe as he talked. “Was Pardee well
acquainted with Sprigg?”
“Oh, no. Met him here twice—that’s all. Pardee knows Drukker well,
though. Always asking him about potentials and scalars and vectors.
Hopes to hit on something that’ll revolutionize chess.”
“Was he interested in the Riemann-Christoffel tensor when you
discussed it the other night?”
“Can’t say that he was. A bit out of his realm. You can’t hitch the
curvature of space-time to a chess-board.”
“What do you make of this formula being found on Sprigg?”
“Don’t make anything of it. If it had been in Sprigg’s handwriting I’d
say it dropped out of his pocket. But who’d go to the trouble of
trying to type a mathematical formula?”
“The Bishop apparently.”
Arnesson took his pipe from his mouth and grinned.
“Bishop X. We’ll have to find him. He’s full of whimsies. Perverted
sense of values.”
“Obviously.” Vance spoke languidly. “And, by the by, I almost forgot
to ask you: does the Dillard house harbor any revolvers?”
“Oho!” Arnesson chuckled with unrestrained delight. “Sits the wind
there? . . . Sorry to disappoint you. No revolvers. No sliding doors.
No secret stairways. All open and above-board.”
Vance sighed theatrically.
“Sad . . . sad! And I had such a comfortin’ theory.”
Belle Dillard had come silently down the hall, and now stood in the
archway. She had evidently heard Vance’s question and Arnesson’s
answer.
“But there _are_ two revolvers in the house, Sigurd,” she declared.
“Don’t you remember the old revolvers I used for target practice in
the country?”
“Thought you’d thrown ’em away long ago.” Arnesson rose and drew up a
chair for her. “I told you when we returned from Hopatcong that summer
that only burglars and bandits are allowed to own guns in this
benevolent State. . . .”
“But I didn’t believe you,” the girl protested. “I never know when
you’re jesting and when you’re serious.”
“And you kept them, Miss Dillard?” came Vance’s quiet voice.
“Why—yes.” She shot an apprehensive glance at Heath. “Shouldn’t I have
done so?”
“I believe it was technically illegal. However”—Vance smiled
reassuringly—“I don’t think the Sergeant will invoke the Sullivan law
against you.—Where are they now?”
“Down-stairs—in the archery-room. They’re in one of the drawers of the
tool-chest.”
Vance rose.
“Would you be so good, Miss Dillard, as to show us where you put them?
I have a gnawin’ curiosity to see ’em, don’t y’ know.”
The girl hesitated and looked to Arnesson for guidance. When he nodded
she turned without a word and led the way to the archery-room.
“They’re in that chest by the window,” she said.
Going to it she drew out a small deep drawer in one end. At the rear,
beneath a mass of odds and ends, was a .38 Colt automatic.
“Why!” she exclaimed. “There’s only one here. The other is gone.”
“It was a smaller pistol, wasn’t it?” asked Vance.
“Yes. . . .”
“A .32?”
The girl nodded and turned bewildered eyes on Arnesson.
“Well, it’s gone, Belle,” he told her, with a shrug. “Can’t be helped.
Probably one of your young archers took it to blow out his brains with
after he’d foozled at shooting arrows up the alley.”
“Do be serious, Sigurd,” she pleaded, a little frightened. “Where
could it have gone?”
“Ha! Another dark mystery,” scoffed Arnesson. “Strange disappearance
of a discarded .32.”
Seeing the girl’s uneasiness Vance changed the subject.
“Perhaps, Miss Dillard, you’d be good enough to take us to Mrs.
Drukker. There are one or two matters we want to speak to her about;
and I assume, by your presence here, that the ride in the country has
been postponed.”
A shadow of distress passed over the girl’s face.
“Oh, you mustn’t bother her to-day.” Her tone was tragically
appealing. “Lady Mae is very ill. I can’t understand it—she seemed so
well when I was talking with her up-stairs. But after she’d seen you
and Mr. Markham she changed: she became weak and . . . oh, something
terrible seemed to be preying on her mind. After I’d put her to
bed she kept repeating in an awful whisper: ‘Johnny Sprig, Johnny
Sprig.’ . . . I phoned her doctor and he came right over. He said she
had to be kept very quiet. . . .”
“It’s of no importance,” Vance assured her. “Of course we shall
wait.—Who is her doctor, Miss Dillard?”
“Whitney Barstead. He’s attended her as long as I can remember.”
“A good man,” nodded Vance. “There’s no better neurologist in the
country. We’ll do nothing without his permission.”
Miss Dillard gave him a grateful look. Then she excused herself.
When we were again in the drawing-room Arnesson stationed himself
before the fireplace and regarded Vance satirically.
“‘Johnny Sprig, Johnny Sprig.’ Ha! Lady Mae got the idea at once. She
may be cracked, but certain lobes of her brain are over-active.
Unaccountable piece of machinery, the human brain. Some of the
greatest mental computers of Europe are morons. And I know a couple of
chess masters who need nurses to dress and feed ’em.”
Vance appeared not to hear him. He had stopped by a small cabinet near
the archway and was apparently absorbed in a set of jade carvings of
ancient Chinese origin.
“That elephant doesn’t belong there,” he remarked casually, pointing
to a tiny figure in the collection. “It’s a _bunjinga_—decadent, don’t
y’ know. Clever, but not authentic. Probably a copy of a Manchu
piece.” He stifled a yawn and turned toward Markham. “I say, old man,
there’s nothing more we can do. Suppose we toddle. We might have a
brief word with the professor before we go, though. . . . Mind waiting
for us here, Mr. Arnesson?”
Arnesson lifted his eyebrows in some surprise, but immediately
crinkled his face into a disdainful smile.
“Oh, no. Go ahead.” And he began refilling his pipe.
Professor Dillard was much annoyed at our second intrusion.
“We’ve just learned,” said Markham, “that you were speaking to Mrs.
Drukker before breakfast this morning. . . .”
The muscles of Professor Dillard’s cheeks worked angrily.
“Is it any concern of the District Attorney’s office if I speak to a
neighbor in my garden?”
“Certainly not, sir. But I am in the midst of an investigation which
seriously concerns your house, and I assumed that I had the privilege
of seeking help from you.”
The old man spluttered a moment.
“Very well,” he acquiesced irritably. “I saw no one except Mrs.
Drukker—if that’s what you’re after.”
Vance projected himself into the conversation.
“That’s not what we came to you for, Professor Dillard. We wanted
merely to ask you if Mrs. Drukker gave you the impression this morning
that she suspected what had taken place earlier in Riverside Park.”
The professor was about to make a sharp retort, but checked himself.
After a moment he said simply:
“No, she gave me no such impression.”
“Did she appear in any way uneasy or, let us say, excited?”
“She did not!” Professor Dillard rose and faced Markham. “I understand
perfectly what you are driving at; and I won’t have it. I’ve told you,
Markham, that I’ll take no part in spying or tale-bearing where this
unhappy woman is concerned. That’s all I have to say to you.” He
turned back to his desk. “I regret I’m very busy to-day.”
We descended to the main floor and made our adieus to Arnesson. He
waved his hand to us cordially as we went out; but his smile held
something of contemptuous patronage, as if he had witnessed, and was
gloating over, the rebuff we had just received.
When we were on the sidewalk Vance paused to light a fresh cigarette.
“Now for a brief _causerie_ with the sad and gentlemanly Mr. Pardee. I
don’t know what he can tell us, but I have a yearnin’ to commune with
him.”
Pardee, however, was not at home. His Japanese servant informed us
that his master was most likely at the Manhattan Chess Club.
“To-morrow will be time enough,” Vance said to Markham, as we turned
away from the house. “I’ll get in touch with Doctor Barstead in the
morning and try to arrange to see Mrs. Drukker. We’ll include Pardee
in the same pilgrimage.”
“I sure hope,” grumbled Heath, “that we learn more to-morrow than we
did to-day.”
“You overlook one or two consolin’ windfalls, Sergeant,” returned
Vance. “We’ve found out that every one connected with the Dillard
house was acquainted with Sprigg and could easily have known of his
early morning walks along the Hudson. We’ve also learned that the
professor and Mrs. Drukker were ramblin’ in the garden at eight
o’clock this morning. And we discovered that a .32 revolver has
disappeared from the archery-room.—Not an embarrassment of riches, but
something—oh, decidedly something.”
As we drove down-town Markham roused himself from gloomy abstraction,
and looked apprehensively at Vance.
“I’m almost afraid to go on with this case. It’s becoming too
sinister. And if the newspapers get hold of that Johnny-Sprig nursery
rhyme and connect the two murders, I hate to think of the gaudy
sensation that’ll follow.”
“I fear you’re in for it, old man,” sighed Vance. “I’m not a bit
psychic—never had dreams that came true, and don’t know what a
telepathic seizure feels like—but something tells me that the Bishop
is going to acquaint the press with that bit of Mother-Goose verse.
The point of his new joke is even obscurer than his Cock-Robin comedy.
He’ll see to it that no one misses it. Even a grim humorist who uses
corpses for his cap-and-bells must have his audience. Therein lies the
one weakness of his abominable crimes. It’s about our only hope,
Markham.”
“I’ll give Quinan a ring,” said Heath, “and find out if anything has
been received.”
But the Sergeant was saved the trouble. The _World_ reporter was
waiting for us at the District Attorney’s office, and Swacker ushered
him in at once.
“Howdy, Mr. Markham.” There was a breezy impudence in Quinan’s manner,
but withal he showed signs of nervous excitement. “I’ve got something
here for Sergeant Heath. They told me at Headquarters that he was
handling the Sprigg case, and said he was parleying with you. So I
blew over.” He reached in his pocket and, taking out a sheet of paper,
handed it to Heath. “I’m being mighty high, wide and handsome with
you, Sergeant, and I expect a little inside stuff by way of
reciprocity. . . . Cast your eye on that document. Just received by
America’s foremost family journal.”
It was a plain piece of typewriting paper, and it contained the
Mother-Goose melody of Johnny Sprig, typed in élite characters with a
pale-blue ribbon. In the lower right-hand corner was the signature in
capitals: THE BISHOP.
“And here’s the envelope, Sergeant.” Quinan again dug down into his
pocket.
The official cancellation bore the hour of 9 a. m., and, like the
first note, it had been mailed in the district of Post Office Station
“N.”