IN THE STUDY
(_Friday, July 13; 2 p.m._)
I had often seen Vance in crucial moments of violent disagreement with
Markham’s judgment, but, whatever his feelings had been, he had always
assumed a cynical and nonchalant attitude. Now, however, no lightness
or playfulness marked his manner. He was grim and serious: a deep
frown had settled on his forehead, and a look of baffled exasperation
had come into his cold gray eyes. He compressed his lips tightly and
crammed his hands deep into his coat pockets. I expected him to
protest vigorously against Markham’s action, but he remained silent,
and I realized that he was confronted by one of the most difficult and
unusual problems in his career.
His eyes drifted from Bliss to the immobile back of Hani and rested
there. But they were unseeing eyes--eyes that were turned inward as if
seeking for some means of counteracting the drastic step about to be
taken against the great Egyptologist.
Heath, on the contrary, was elated. A grin of satisfaction had
overspread his dour face at Markham’s order, and without moving from
in front of Bliss, he called stridently to the ominous figure of the
detective on the stair landing.
“Hey, Hennessey! Tell Snitkin to phone Precinct Station 8 for a
wagon.… Then go out back and get Emery, and bring him in here.”
Hennessey disappeared, and Heath stood watching Bliss like a cat, as
though he expected the doctor to make a dash for liberty. Had the
situation not been so tragic the Sergeant’s attitude would have
appeared humorous.
“You needn’t book and finger-print the doctor at the local station,”
Markham told him. “Send him direct to Headquarters. I’ll assume all
responsibility.”
“That’s fine with me, sir.” The Sergeant seemed greatly pleased. “I’ll
want to talk confidentially with this baby myself later on.”
Bliss, once the blow had fallen, had drawn himself together. He sat
upright, his head thrown slightly back, his eyes gazing defiantly out
of the rear windows. There was no cowering, no longer any fear, in his
manner. Faced with the inevitable, he had apparently decided to accept
it with stoical intrepidity. I could not help admiring the man’s
fortitude in extremity.
Scarlett stood like a man paralyzed, his mouth hanging partly open,
his eyes fixed on his employer with a kind of unbelieving horror.
Hani, of all the persons in the room, was the least perturbed: he had
not even turned round from his rapt contemplation of Teti-shiret.
Vance, after several moments, dropped his chin on his chest, and his
perplexed frown deepened. Then, as if on sudden impulse, he swung
about and walked to the end cabinet. He stood absorbed, leaning
against the statue of Anûbis; but soon his head moved slowly up and
down and from side to side as he inspected various parts of the
cabinet and its partly-drawn curtain.
Presently he came back to Heath.
“Sergeant, let me have another look at that tennis slipper.” His voice
was low and strained.
Heath, without relaxing his vigilance, reached in his pocket and held
out the shoe. Vance took it and, again adjusting his monocle,
scrutinized the sole. Then he returned the shoe to the Sergeant.
“By the by,” he said; “the doctor has more than one foot.… What about
the other slipper?”
“I didn’t look for it,” snapped Heath. “This one was enough for me.
It’s the right shoe--the one that made the footprints.”
“So it is.” Vance’s drawl informed me that his mind was more at ease.
“Still, I could bear to know where the other shoe is.”
“I’ll find it--don’t worry, sir.” Heath spoke with contemptuous
cocksureness. “I’ve got a little investigating to do as soon as I get
the doctor safely booked at Headquarters.”
“Typical police procedure,” murmured Vance. “Book your man and then
investigate. A sweet practice.”
Markham was ruffled by this comment.
“It seems to me, Vance,” he remarked with angry dignity, “that the
investigation has already led to something fairly definite. Whatever
else we find will be in the nature of supplementary evidence.”
“Oh, will it, now? Fancy that!” Vance smiled tauntingly. “I observe
you’ve gone in for fortune-telling. Do you crystal-gaze in your
moments of leisure, by any chance?… I myself am not what you’d call
clairvoyant, but, Markham old dear, I can read the future better than
you. And I assure you that when this investigation is continued there
will be no supplement’ry evidence against Doctor Bliss. Indeed, you’ll
be amazed at what will turn up.”
He came nearer to the District Attorney and dropped his scoffing tone.
“Can’t you see, Markham, that you’re playing into the murderer’s
hands? The person who killed Kyle planned the affair so you’d do
exactly what you are doing.… And, as I’ve already told you, you’ll
never get a conviction with the preposterous evidence you have.”
“I’ll come mighty close to it,” Markham retorted. “In any event, my
duty is plain. I’ll have to take a chance on the conviction.… But for
once, Vance, I think you’ve permitted your theories to override a
simple, obvious fact.”
Before Vance could reply Hennessey and Emery came into the museum.
“Here, boys,” the Sergeant ordered, “take this bird up-stairs and get
some clothes on him, and bring him back here. Make it snappy.”
Bliss went out between the two detectives.
Markham turned to Scarlett.
“You’d better wait in the drawing-room. I’ll want to question every
one, and I think you can give us some of the information we want.… And
take Hani with you.”
“I’ll be glad to do what I can.” Scarlett spoke in an awed voice. “But
you’re making a terrible mistake----”
“I’ll settle that point for myself,” Markham interrupted coldly. “Be
good enough to wait in the drawing-room.”
Scarlett and Hani walked slowly up the museum and passed out through
the great steel door.
Vance had gone to the front of the spiral stairs and was pacing up and
down with suppressed anxiety. A tense atmosphere had settled over the
room. No one spoke. Heath was inspecting the small statue of Sakhmet
with forced curiosity; and Markham had lapsed into a state of solemn
abstraction.
A few minutes later Hennessey and Emery returned with Doctor Bliss in
street clothes. They had hardly reached the rear of the museum when
Snitkin put his head in the front door and called:
“The wagon’s here, Sergeant.”
Bliss turned immediately, and the two detectives swung about alertly.
The three men had taken only a few steps when Vance’s voice cracked
out like a whip.
“Stop!” He looked squarely at Markham. “You can’t do this! The thing
is a farce. You’re making an unutterable ass of yourself.”
I had never seen Vance so fiery--he was quite unlike his usual frigid
self--and Markham was noticeably taken aback.
“Give me ten minutes,” Vance hurried on. “There’s something I want to
find out--there’s an experiment I want to make. Then, if you’re not
satisfied, you can go ahead with this imbecile arrest.”
Heath’s face grew red with anger.
“Look here, Mr. Markham,” he protested; “we’ve got the goods----”
“Just a minute, Sergeant.” Markham held up his hand: he had obviously
been impressed by Vance’s unusual earnestness. “Ten minutes is not
going to make any material difference. And if Mr. Vance has any
evidence we don’t know of, we might as well learn it now.” He turned
brusquely to Vance. “What’s on your mind? I’m willing to give you ten
minutes.… Has your request anything to do with what you found on top
of the cabinet and put in your pocket?”
“Oh, a great deal.” Vance had again assumed his habitual easy-going
manner. “And many thanks for the respite.… I’d suggest, however, that
these two myrmidons take the doctor into the front hall and hold him
there for further instructions.”
Markham, after a brief hesitation, nodded to Heath, who gave Hennessey
and Emery the necessary order.
When we were alone Vance turned toward the spiral stairs.
“_Imprimis_,” he said almost gaily, “I passionately desire to make a
curs’ry inspection of the doctor’s study. I’ve a premonition that we
will find something there of the most entrancin’ interest.”
He was now half-way up the stairs, with Markham, Heath and me
following.
The study was a spacious room, about twenty feet square. It had two
large windows at the rear and a smaller window on the east side giving
on a narrow court. There were several massive embayed bookcases about
the walls; and stacked in the corners were piles of paper pamphlets
and cardboard folders. Along the wall which contained the door leading
into the hall, stretched a long divan. Between the two rear windows
stood a large flat-topped mahogany desk, before which was a cushioned
swivel chair. Several other chairs were drawn up about the
desk--evidences of the conference that had been held the previous
night.
It was an orderly room, and there was a striking neatness about all of
its appointments. Even the papers and books on the desk were carefully
arranged, attesting to Bliss’s meticulous nature. The only untidiness
in the study was where Heath had upset the wicker waste-basket in his
search for the tennis shoe. The curtains of the rear windows were up,
and the afternoon sunlight flooded in.
Vance stood for a while just inside the door glancing slowly about
him. His eyes tarried for a moment on the disposition of the chairs,
but more especially, I thought, on the doctor’s swivel seat, which
stood several feet away from the desk. He looked at the heavily padded
hall door, and let his gaze rest on the drawn curtain of the side
window. After a pause he went to the window and raised the shade,--the
window was shut.
“Rather strange,” he commented. “A torrid day like this--and the
window closed. Bear that in mind, Markham.… You observe, of course,
that there’s a window opposite, in the next house.”
“What possible significance could that have?” asked Markham irritably.
“I haven’t the foggiest notion, don’t y’ know.… Unless,” Vance added
whimsically, “something went on in here that the occupant--or
occupants--of the room didn’t wish the neighbors to know about. The
trees in the yard completely preclude any spying through the rear
windows.”
“Huh! That looks like a point in our favor,” Heath rejoined. “The doc
shuts the side window and pulls the shade down so’s nobody’ll hear him
going in and out of the museum, or’ll see him hiding the shoe.”
Vance nodded.
“Your reasoning, Sergeant, is good as far as it goes. But you might
carry the equation to one more decimal point. Why, for instance,
didn’t your guilty doctor open the window and throw up the shade after
the dire deed was done? Why should he leave another obvious clew
indicating his guilt?”
“Guys who commit murder, Mr. Vance,” argued the Sergeant pugnaciously,
“don’t think of everything.”
“The trouble with this crime,” Vance returned quietly, “is that the
murderer thought of too many things. He erred on the side of
prodigality, so to speak.”
He stepped to the desk. On one end lay a low starched turn-over collar
with a dark-blue four-in-hand pulled through it.
“Behold,” he said, “the doctor’s collar and cravat which he removed
last night during the conference. The scarab pin was in the cravat.
Any one might have taken it--eh, what?”
“So you remarked before.” Markham’s tone held a note of bored sarcasm.
“Did you bring us here to show us the necktie? Scarlett told us it was
here. Forgive me, Vance, if I confess that I am not stunned by your
discovery.”
“No, I didn’t lead you here to exhibit the doctor’s neckwear.” Vance
spoke with calm assurance. “I merely mentioned the four-in-hand _en
passant_.”
He brushed the spilled papers of the waste-basket back and forth with
his foot.
“I am rather anxious to know where the doctor’s other tennis shoe is.
I have a feelin’ its whereabouts might tell us something.”
“Well, it ain’t in the basket,” declared Heath. “If it had been I’d
have found it.”
“Ah! But, Sergeant, why wasn’t it in the basket? That’s a point worth
considerin’, don’t y’ know.”
“Maybe it didn’t have any blood on it. And that being the case, there
wasn’t any use in hiding it.”
“But, my word! It strikes me that the blameless left shoe is hidden
even better than was the incriminatin’ right shoe.” (During the
discussion Vance had made a fairly thorough search of the study for
the missing tennis shoe.) “It’s certainly not round here.”
Markham, for the first time since we quitted the museum, showed signs
of interest.
“I see your point, Vance,” he conceded reluctantly. “The telltale shoe
was hidden here in the study, and the other one has disappeared.… I
admit that’s rather odd. What’s your explanation?”
“Oh, I say! Let’s locate the shoe before we indulge in speculation.…”
Vance then addressed himself to Heath. “Sergeant, if you should get
Brush to conduct you to Doctor Bliss’s bedchamber, I’m rather inclined
to think you’ll find the missing shoe there. You remember the doctor
said he wore his tennis shoes up-stairs last night and came down this
morning in his house slippers.”
“Huh!” Heath scouted the suggestion. Then he gave Vance a sharp,
calculating look. After a moment he changed his mind. Shrugging his
shoulders in capitulation, he went swiftly out into the hall, and we
could hear him calling down the rear stairs for the butler.
“If the Sergeant finds the shoe up-stairs,” Vance observed to Markham,
“it will be fairly conclusive evidence that the doctor didn’t wear his
tennis shoes this morning; for we know that he did not return to his
bedroom after descending to his study before breakfast.”
Markham looked perplexed.
“Then who brought the other shoe from his room this morning? And how
did it get in the waste-basket? And how did it become blood-stained?…
Surely the murderer wore the shoe that Heath found here.…”
“Oh, yes--there can be no doubt of that.” Vance nodded gravely. “And
my theory is that the murderer wore only the one tennis shoe and left
the other up-stairs.”
Markham clicked his tongue with annoyance.
“Such a theory doesn’t make sense.”
“Forgive me, Markham, for disagreeing with you,” Vance returned
dulcetly. “But I think it makes more sense than the clews on which
you’re so trustfully counting to convict the doctor.”
Heath burst into the room at this moment, holding the left tennis shoe
in his hand. His expression was sheepish, but his eyes blinked with
excitement.
“It was there, all right,” he announced, “--at the foot of the bed.…
Now, how did it get there?”
“Perhaps,” softly suggested Vance, “the doctor wore it up-stairs last
night, as he said.”
“Then how the hell did the other shoe get down here?” The Sergeant was
now holding the two shoes, one in each hand, staring at them in
wrathful bewilderment.
“If you knew who brought that other shoe down-stairs this morning,”
returned Vance, “you’d know who killed Kyle.” Then he added: “Not that
it would do us any particular good at the present moment.”
Markham had been standing scowling at the floor and smoking furiously.
The shoe episode had disconcerted him. But now he looked up and made
an impatient gesture.
“You’re making a mountain out of this affair, Vance,” he asserted
aggressively. “A number of simple explanations suggest themselves. The
most plausible one seems to be that Doctor Bliss, when he came
down-stairs this morning, picked up his tennis shoes to have them
handy in his study, and in his nervousness--or merely
accidentally--dropped one, or even failed to pick both of them up, and
did not discover the fact until he was here----”
“And then,” continued Vance, with a japish grin, “he took off one
slipper and put on the tennis shoe, murdered Kyle, re-exchanged it for
his temporarily discarded slipper, and tucked the tennis shoe in the
waste-basket.”
“It’s possible.”
Vance sighed audibly.
“Possible--yes. I suppose that almost anything is possible in this
illogical world. But really, Markham, I can’t subscribe
enthusiastically to your touchin’ theory of the doctor’s having picked
up one shoe instead of two and not having known the difference. He’s
much too orderly and methodical--too conscious of details.”
“Let us assume then,” Markham persisted, “that the doctor actually
wore one tennis shoe and one bedroom slipper when he came to the study
this morning. Scarlett told us his feet troubled him a great deal.”
“If that hypothesis is correct,” countered Vance, “how did the other
bedroom slipper get down-stairs? He would hardly have put it in his
pocket and carried it along.”
“Brush perhaps.…”
Heath had been following the discussion closely, and now he went into
action.
“We can check that point _pronto_, Mr. Vance,” he said; and going
briskly to the hall door, he called down the stairs to the butler.
But no help came from Brush. He declared that neither he nor any
member of the household had been near the study after Bliss had gone
there at eight o’clock, with the one exception of the time when he
carried the doctor’s breakfast to him. When asked what shoes the
doctor was wearing, Brush answered that he had taken no notice.
When the butler had gone Vance shrugged his shoulders.
“Let’s not fume and whirret ourselves over the mysteriously separated
pair of tennis shoes. My prim’ry reason for luring you to the study
was to inspect the remains of the doctor’s breakfast.”
Markham gave a perceptible start, and his eyes narrowed.
“Good Heavens! You don’t believe…? I’ll confess I thought of it, too.
But then came all that other evidence.…”
“Thought of what, sir?” Heath was frankly exasperated, and his tone
was irritable.
“Both Mr. Markham and I,” explained Vance soothingly, “noted the dazed
condition of Doctor Bliss when he appeared this morning in answer to
my continued pounding on the door.”
“He’d been asleep. Didn’t he tell us so?”
“Quite. And that’s why I’m so dashed interested in his matutinal
coffee.”
Vance walked to the end of the desk upon which rested a small silver
tray containing a rack of toast and a cup and saucer. The toast had
not been touched, but the cup was practically empty. Only the
congealed brown dregs of what had evidently been coffee remained in
the bottom. Vance leant over and looked into the cup. Then he lifted
it to his nose.
“There’s a slightly acrid odor here,” he remarked.
He touched the tip of his finger to the inside of the cup and placed
it on his tongue.
“Yes!… Just what I thought,” he nodded, setting the cup down. “Opium.
And it’s powdered opium--the kind commonly used in Egypt. The other
forms and derivatives of opium--such as laudanum, morphine, heroin,
thebain, and codein--are not easily obtainable there.”
Heath had come forward and stood peering belligerently into the cup.
“Well, suppose there was opium in the coffee,” he rumbled. “What does
that mean?”
“Ah, who knows?” Vance was lighting a cigarette, his eyes in space.
“It might, of course, account for the doctor’s long siesta this
morning and for his confused condition when he answered my knock.
Also, it might indicate that some one narcotized his coffee for a
purpose. The fact is, Sergeant, the opium in the doctor’s coffee might
mean various things. At the present moment I’m expressing no opinion.
I’m merely calling Mr. Markham’s attention to the drug.… I’ll say
this, however: as soon as I saw the doctor this morning and observed
the way he acted, I guessed that there would be evidences of an opiate
in the study. And, being fairly familiar with conditions in Egypt, I
surmised that the opiate would prove to be powdered opium--_opii
pulvis_. Opium makes one very thirsty: that is why I wasn’t in the
least astonished when the doctor asked for a drink of water.” He
looked at Markham. “Does this discovery of the opium affect the
doctor’s legal status?”
“It’s certainly a strong point in his favor,” Markham returned after
several moments.
That he was deeply perplexed was only too apparent. But he was loath
to forgo his belief in Bliss’s guilt; and when he spoke again it was
obvious that he was arguing desperately against Vance’s new discovery.
“I realize that the presence of the opium will have to be explained
away before a conviction can be assured. But, on the other hand, we
don’t know how much opium he took. Nor do we know when he took it. He
may have drunk the coffee _after_ the murder--we have only his word
that he drank it at nine o’clock.… No, it certainly doesn’t affect the
fundamental issue--though it does raise a very grave question. But the
evidence against him is too strong to be counterbalanced by this one
point in his favor. Surely, you must see, Vance, that the mere
presence of opium in that cup is not conclusive evidence that Bliss
was asleep from nine o’clock until you knocked on the study door.”
“The perfect Public Prosecutor,” sighed Vance. “But a shrewd defense
lawyer could sow many fecund seeds of doubt in the jurors’ so-called
minds--eh, what?”
“True.” The admission came after a moment’s thought. “But we can’t
overlook the fact that Bliss was practically the only person who had
the opportunity to kill Kyle. Every one else was out of the house,
with the exception of Hani; and Hani impresses me as a harmless
fanatic who believes in the supernatural power of his Egyptian
deities. So far as we know, Bliss was the only person who was actually
on hand when Kyle was murdered.”
Vance studied Markham for several seconds. Then he said:
“Suppose it had not been necess’ry for the murderer to have been
anywhere near the museum when Kyle was killed with the statue of
Sakhmet.”
Markham took his cigar slowly from his mouth.
“What do you mean? How could that statue have been wielded by an
absent person? It strikes me you’re talking nonsense.”
“Perhaps I am.” Vance was troubled and serious. “And yet, Markham, I
found something on top of that end cabinet which makes me think that
maybe the murder was planned with diabolical cleverness.… As I told
you, I want to make an experiment. Then, when I have made it, your
course of action must rest entirely on your own convictions.… There’s
something both terrible and subtle about this crime. All its outward
appearances are misleading--deliberately so.”
“How long will this experiment take?” Markham was patently impressed
by Vance’s tone.
“Only a few minutes.…”
Heath had taken a sheet of newspaper from the basket and was carefully
wrapping up the cup.
“This goes to our chemist,” he explained sullenly. “I’m not doubting
you, Mr. Vance, but I want an expert analysis.”
“You’re quite right, Sergeant.”
Vance’s eye at that moment caught sight of a small bronze tray on the
desk, containing several yellow pencils and a fountain pen. Leaning
over casually, he picked up the pencils, glanced at them, and put them
back on the tray. Markham noted the action, as did I, but he refrained
from asking any question.
“The experiment will have to be made in the museum,” Vance said; “and
I’ll need a couple of sofa pillows for it.”
He walked to the divan and tucked two large pillows under his arm.
Then he went to the steel door and held it open.
Markham and Heath and I passed down the spiral stairs; and Vance
followed us.