The House of Cards
(Sunday, April 17; 9 a. m.)
The astounding news of Pardee’s death had a curiously disturbing
effect on Vance. He stared at Markham unbelievingly. Then he rang
hastily for Currie and ordered his clothes and a cup of coffee. There
was an eager impatience in his movements as he dressed.
“My word, Markham!” he exclaimed. “This is most extr’ordin’ry. . . .
How did you hear of it?”
“Professor Dillard phoned me at my apartment less than half an hour
ago. Pardee killed himself in the archery-room of the Dillard home
some time last night. Pyne discovered the body this morning and
informed the professor. I relayed the news to Sergeant Heath, and then
came here. In the circumstances I thought we ought to be on hand.”
Markham paused to light his cigar. “It looks as if the Bishop case was
over. . . . Not an entirely satisfactory ending, but perhaps the best
for every one concerned.”
Vance made no immediate comment. He sipped his coffee abstractedly,
and at length got up and took his hat and stick.
“Suicide. . . ,” he murmured, as we went down the stairs. “Yes, that
would be wholly consistent. But, as you say, unsatisfact’ry—dashed
unsatisfact’ry. . . .”
We rode to the Dillard house, and were admitted by Pyne. Professor
Dillard had no more than joined us in the drawing-room when the
door-bell rang, and Heath, pugnacious and dynamic, bustled in.
“This’ll clean things up, sir,” he exulted to Markham, after the usual
ritualistic handshake. “Those quiet birds . . . you never can tell.
Yet, who’d’ve thought. . . ?”
“Oh, I say, Sergeant,” Vance drawled; “let’s not think. Much too
wearin’. An open mind—arid like a desert—is indicated.”
Professor Dillard led the way to the archery-room. The shades at all
the windows were drawn, and the electric lights were still burning. I
noticed, too, that the windows were closed.
“I left everything exactly as it was,” explained the professor.
Markham walked to the large wicker centre-table. Pardee’s body was
slumped in a chair facing the range door. His head and shoulders had
fallen forward over the table; and his right arm hung at his side, the
fingers still clutching an automatic pistol. There was an ugly wound
in his right temple; and on the table beneath his head was a pool of
coagulated blood.
Our eyes rested but a moment on the body, for a startling and
incongruous thing diverted our attention. The magazines on the table
had been pushed aside, leaving an open space in front of the body; and
in this cleared area rose a tall and beautifully constructed house of
playing cards. Four arrows marked the boundaries of the yard, and
matches had been laid side by side to represent the garden walks. It
was a reproduction that would have delighted a child’s heart; and I
recalled what Vance had said the night before about serious minds
seeking recreation in children’s games. There was something
unutterably horrible in the juxtaposition of this juvenile card
structure and violent death.
Vance stood looking down at the scene with sad, troubled eyes.
“_Hic jacet_ John Pardee,” he murmured, with a sort of reverence. “And
this is the house that Jack built . . . a house of cards. . . .”
He stepped forward as if to inspect it more closely; but as his body
struck the edge of the table there was a slight jar, and the flimsy
edifice of cards toppled over.
Markham drew himself up and turned to Heath.
“Have you notified the Medical Examiner?”
“Sure.” The Sergeant seemed to find it difficult to take his eyes from
the table. “And Burke’s coming along, in case we need him.” He went to
the windows and threw up the shades, letting in the bright daylight.
Then he returned to Pardee’s body and stood regarding it appraisingly.
Suddenly he knelt down and leaned over.
“That looks to me like the .38 that was in the tool-chest,” he
remarked.
“Undoubtedly,” nodded Vance, taking out his cigarette-case.
Heath rose and, going to the chest, inspected the contents of its
drawer. “I guess that’s it, all right. We’ll get Miss Dillard to
identify it after the doc has been here.”
At this moment Arnesson, clothed in a brilliant red-and-yellow
dressing-gown, burst excitedly into the room.
“By all the witches!” he exclaimed. “Pyne just told me the news.” He
came to the table and stared at Pardee’s body. “Suicide, eh? . . . But
why didn’t he choose his own home for the performance? Damned
inconsiderate of him to muss up some one else’s house this way. Just
like a chess player.” He lifted his eyes to Markham. “Hope this won’t
involve us in more unpleasantness. We’ve had enough notoriety.
Distracts the mind. When’ll you be able to take the beggar’s remains
away? Don’t want Belle to see him.”
“The body will be removed as soon as the Medical Examiner has seen
it,” Markham told him in a tone of frosty rebuke. “And there will be
no necessity to bring Miss Dillard here.”
“Good.” Arnesson still stood staring at the dead man. Slowly a look of
cynical wistfulness came over his face. “Poor devil! Life was too much
for him. Hypersensitive—no psychic stamina. Took things too seriously.
Brooded over his fate ever since his gambit went up in smoke. Couldn’t
find any other diversion. The black bishop haunted him; probably
tipped his mind from its axis. By Gad! Wouldn’t be surprised if the
idea drove him to self-destruction. Might have imagined he was a chess
bishop—trying to get back at the world in the guise of his nemesis.”
“Clever idea,” returned Vance. “By the by, there was a house of cards
on the table when we first saw the body.”
“Ha! I wondered what the cards were doing there. Thought he might have
sought solace in solitaire during his last moments. . . . A card
house, eh? Sounds foolish. Do you know the answer?”
“Not all of it. ‘The house that Jack built’ might explain something.”
“I see.” Arnesson looked owlish. “Playing children’s games to the
end—even on himself. Queer notion.” He yawned cavernously. “Guess I’ll
get some clothes on.” And he went up-stairs.
Professor Dillard had stood watching Arnesson with a look at once
distressed and paternal. Now he turned to Markham with a gesture of
annoyance.
“Sigurd’s always protecting himself against his emotions. He’s ashamed
of his feelings. Don’t take his careless attitude too seriously.”
Before Markham could make a reply Pyne ushered Detective Burke into
the room; and Vance took the opportunity of questioning the butler
about his discovery of Pardee.
“How did it happen you entered the archery-room this morning?” he
asked.
“It was a bit close in the pantry, sir,” the man returned, “and I
opened the door at the foot of the stairs to get a little more air.
Then I noticed that the shades were down——”
“It’s not custom’ry to draw the shades at night, then?”
“No, sir—not in this room.”
“How about the windows?”
“I always leave them slightly open from the top at night.”
“Were they left open last night?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good.—And after you opened the door this morning?”
“I started to put out the lights, thinking Miss Dillard had forgotten
to turn the switch last night; but just then I saw the poor gentleman
there at the table, and went straight up and informed Professor
Dillard.”
“Does Beedle know about the tragedy?”
“I told her of it right after you gentlemen arrived.”
“What time did you and Beedle retire last night?”
“At ten o’clock, sir.”
When Pyne had left us Markham addressed Professor Dillard.
“It might be well for you to give us what details you can while we’re
waiting for Doctor Doremus.—Shall we go up-stairs?”
Burke remained in the archery-room, and the rest of us went to the
library.
“I’m afraid there’s little I can tell you,” the professor began,
settling himself and taking out his pipe. There was a noticeable
reserve in his manner—a kind of detached reluctance. “Pardee came here
last night after dinner, ostensibly to chat with Arnesson, but
actually, I imagine, to see Belle. Belle, however, excused herself
early and went to bed—the child had a bad headache—and Pardee remained
until about half past eleven. Then he went out; and that was the
last I saw of him until Pyne brought me the terrible news this
morning. . . .”
“But if,” put in Vance, “Mr. Pardee came to see your niece, how do you
account for his staying so late after she had retired?”
“I don’t account for it.” The old man exhibited perplexity. “He gave
the impression, though, that there was something on his mind and that
he desired a sense of human contact. The fact is, I had to hint rather
broadly about being tired before he finally got up to go.”
“Where was Mr. Arnesson during the evening?”
“Sigurd remained here talking with us for an hour or so after Belle
had retired, and then went to bed. He’d been busy with Drukker’s
affairs all afternoon, and was played out.”
“What time would that have been?”
“About half past ten.”
“And you say,” continued Vance, “that Mr. Pardee impressed you as
being under a mental strain?”
“Not a strain exactly.” The professor drew on his pipe, frowning. “He
appeared depressed, almost melancholy.”
“Did it strike you that he was in fear of something?”
“No; not in the least. He was more like a man who had suffered a great
sorrow and couldn’t shake the effects of it.”
“When he went out did you go with him into the hall—that is, did you
note which direction he took?”
“No. We always treated Pardee very informally here. He said good-night
and left the room. I took it for granted he went to the front door and
let himself out.”
“Did you go to your own room at once?”
“In about ten minutes. I stayed up only long enough to arrange some
papers I’d been working on.”
Vance lapsed into silence—he was obviously puzzled over some phase of
the episode; and Markham took up the interrogation.
“I suppose,” he said, “that it is useless to ask if you heard any
sound last night that might have been a shot.”
“Everything in the house was quiet,” Professor Dillard replied. “And
anyway no sound of a shot would carry from the archery-room to this
floor. There are two flights of stairs, the entire length of the lower
hall and a passageway, and three heavy doors between. Moreover, the
walls of this old house are very thick and solid.”
“And no one,” supplemented Vance, “could have heard the shot from the
street, for the archery-room windows were carefully closed.”
The professor nodded and gave him a searching look.
“That is true. I see you, too, noticed that peculiar circumstance. I
don’t quite understand why Pardee should have shut the windows.”
“The idiosyncrasies of suicides have never been satisfactorily
explained,” returned Vance casually. Then, after a short pause, he
asked: “What were you and Mr. Pardee talking about during the hour
preceding his departure?”
“We talked very little. I was more or less engaged with a new paper of
Millikan’s in the _Physics Review_ on alkali doublets, and I tried to
interest him in it; but his mind, as I’ve said, was noticeably
preoccupied, and he amused himself at the chess-board for the best
part of the hour.”
“Ah! Did he, now? That’s most interestin’.”
Vance glanced at the board. A number of pieces were still standing on
the squares; and he rose quickly and crossed the room to the little
table. After a moment he came back and reseated himself.
“Most curious,” he murmured, and very deliberately lighted a
cigarette. “He was evidently pondering over the end of his game with
Rubinstein just before he went down-stairs last night. The pieces are
set up exactly as they were at the time he resigned the contest—with
the inevitable black-bishop-mate only five moves off.”
Professor Dillard’s gaze moved to the chess table wonderingly.
“The black bishop,” he repeated in a low tone. “Could that have been
what was preying on his mind last night? It seems unbelievable that so
trivial a thing could affect him so disastrously.”
“Don’t forget, sir,” Vance reminded him, “that the black bishop was
the symbol of his failure. It represented the wreckage of his hopes.
Less potent factors have driven men to take their own lives.”
A few minutes later Burke informed us that the Medical Examiner had
arrived. Taking leave of the professor we descended again to the
archery-room, where Doctor Doremus was busy with his examination of
Pardee’s body.
He looked up as we entered and waved one hand perfunctorily. His usual
jovial manner was gone.
“When’s this business going to stop?” he grumbled. “I don’t like the
atmosphere round here. Murders—death from shock—suicides. Enough to
give any one the creeps. I’m going to get a nice uneventful job in a
slaughter house.”
“We believe,” said Markham, “that this is the end.”
Doremus blinked. “So! That’s it, is it?—the Bishop suicides after
running the town ragged. Sounds reasonable. Hope you’re right.” He
again bent over the body, and, unflexing the fingers, tossed the
revolver to the table.
“For your armory, Sergeant.”
Heath dropped the weapon in his pocket.
“How long’s he been dead, doc?”
“Oh, since midnight, or thereabouts. Maybe earlier, maybe later.—Any
other fool questions?”
Heath grinned. “Is there any doubt about it being suicide?”
Doremus glared passionately at the Sergeant.
“What does it look like? A black-hand bombing?” Then he became
professional. “The weapon was in his hand. Powder marks on the temple.
Hole the right size for the gun, and in the right place. Position of
the body natural. Can’t see anything suspicious.—Why? Got any doubts?”
It was Markham who answered.
“To the contrary, doctor. Everything from our angle of the case points
to suicide.”
“It’s suicide all right, then. I’ll check up a little further,
though.—Here, Sergeant, give me a hand.”
When Heath had helped to lift Pardee’s body to the divan for a more
detailed examination, we went to the drawing-room where we were joined
shortly by Arnesson.
“What’s the verdict?” he asked, dropping into the nearest chair. “I
suppose there’s no question that the chap committed the act himself.”
“Why should you raise the point, Mr. Arnesson?” Vance parried.
“No reason. An idle comment. Lots of queer things going on
hereabouts.”
“Oh, obviously.” Vance blew a wreath of smoke upward. “No; the Medical
Examiner seems to think there’s no doubt in the matter. Did Pardee, by
the by, impress you as bent on self-destruction last night?”
Arnesson considered. “Hard to say,” he concluded. “He was never a gay
soul. But suicide? . . . I don’t know. However, you say there’s no
question about it; so there you are.”
“Quite, quite. And how does this new situation fit into your formula?”
“Dissipates the whole equation, of course. No more need for
speculation.” Despite his words, he appeared uncertain. “What I can’t
understand,” he added, “is why he should choose the archery-room. Lot
of space in his own house for a _felo-de-se_.”
“There was a convenient gun in the archery-room,” suggested Vance.
“And that reminds me: Sergeant Heath would like to have Miss Dillard
identify the weapon, as a matter of form.”
“That’s easy. Where is it?”
Heath handed it to him, and he started from the room.
“Also”—Vance halted him—“you might ask Miss Dillard if she kept
playing cards in the archery-room.”
Arnesson returned in a few minutes and informed us that the gun was
the one which had been in the tool-chest drawer, and that not only
were playing cards kept in the table drawer of the archery-room but
that Pardee knew of their presence there.
Doctor Doremus appeared soon afterwards and iterated his conclusion
that Pardee had shot himself.
“That’ll be my report,” he said. “Can’t see any way out of it. To be
sure, lots of suicides are fakes—but that’s _your_ province. Nothing
in the least suspicious here.”
Markham nodded with undisguised satisfaction.
“We’ve no reason to question your findings, doctor. In fact, suicide
fits perfectly with what we already know. It brings this whole Bishop
orgy to a logical conclusion.” He got up like a man from whose
shoulders a great burden had been lifted. “Sergeant, I’ll leave you to
arrange for the removal of the body for the autopsy; but you’d better
drop in at the Stuyvesant Club later. Thank Heaven to-day is Sunday!
It gives us time to turn round.”
That night at the club Vance and Markham and I sat alone in the
lounge-room. Heath had come and gone, and a careful statement had been
drawn up for the press announcing Pardee’s suicide and intimating that
the Bishop case was thereby closed. Vance had said little all day. He
had refused to offer any suggestion as to the wording of the official
statement, and had appeared reluctant even to discuss the new phase of
the case. But now he gave voice to the doubts that had evidently been
occupying his mind.
“It’s too easy, Markham—much too easy. There’s an aroma of
speciousness about it. It’s perfectly logical, d’ ye see, but it’s not
satisfyin’. I can’t exactly picture our Bishop terminating his debauch
of humor in any such banal fashion. There’s nothing witty in blowin’
one’s brain out—it’s rather commonplace, don’t y’ know. Shows a woeful
lack of originality. It’s not worthy of the artificer of the
Mother-Goose murders.”
Markham was disgruntled.
“You yourself explained how the crimes accorded with the psychological
possibilities of Pardee’s mentality; and to me it appears highly
reasonable that, having perpetrated his gruesome jokes and come to the
end of his rope, he should have done away with himself.”
“You’re probably right,” sighed Vance. “I haven’t any coruscatin’
arguments to combat you with. Only, I’m disappointed. I don’t like
anticlimaxes, especially when they don’t jibe with my idea of the
dramatist’s talent. Pardee’s death at this moment is too deuced
neat—it clears things up too tidily. There’s too much utility in it,
and too little imagination.”
Markham felt that he could afford to be tolerant.
“Perhaps his imagination was exhausted on the murders. His suicide
might be regarded merely as a lowering of the curtain when the play
was over. In any event, it was by no means an incredible act. Defeat
and disappointment and discouragement—a thwarting of all one’s
ambitions—have constituted cause for suicide since time immemorial.”
“Exactly. We have a reasonable motive, or explanation, for his
suicide, but no motive for the murders.”
“Pardee was in love with Belle Dillard,” argued Markham; “and he
probably knew that Robin was a suitor for her hand. Also, he was
intensely jealous of Drukker.”
“And Sprigg’s murder?”
“We have no data on that point.”
Vance shook his head.
“We can’t separate the crimes as to motive. They all sprang from one
underlying impulse: they were actuated by a single urgent passion.”
Markham sighed impatiently.
“Even if Pardee’s suicide is unrelated to the murders, we’re at a dead
end, figuratively and literally.”
“Yes, yes. A dead end. Very distressin’. Consolin’ for the police,
though. It lets them out—for a while, anyway. But don’t misinterpret
my vagaries. Pardee’s death is unquestionably related to the murders.
Rather intimate relationship, too, I’d say.”
Markham took his cigar slowly from his mouth and scrutinized Vance for
several moments.
“Is there any doubt in your mind,” he asked, “that Pardee committed
suicide?”
Vance hesitated before answering.
“I could bear to know,” he drawled, “why that house of cards collapsed
so readily when I deliberately leaned against the table——”
“Yes?”
“—and why it didn’t topple over when Pardee’s head and shoulders fell
forward on the table after he’d shot himself.”
“Nothing to that,” said Markham. “The first jar may have loosened the
cards——” Suddenly his eyes narrowed. “Are you implying that the
card-house was built _after_ Pardee was dead?”
“Oh, my dear fellow! I’m not indulgin’ in implications. I’m merely
givin’ tongue to my youthful curiosity, don’t y’ know.”