The Investigation Opens
(Tuesday, November 9; 11 a. m.)
When Chester Greene entered it was obvious he was under a nervous
strain; but his nervousness evoked no sympathy in me. From the very
first I disliked the man. He was of medium height and was bordering on
corpulence. There was something soft and flabby in his contours; and,
though he was dressed with studied care, there were certain signs of
overemphasis about his clothes. His cuffs were too tight; his collar
was too snug; and the colored silk handkerchief hung too far out of
his breast pocket. He was slightly bald, and the lids of his close-set
eyes projected like those of a man with Bright’s disease. His mouth,
surmounted by a close-cropped blond moustache, was loose; and his chin
receded slightly and was deeply creased below the under lip. He
typified the pampered idler.
When he had shaken hands with Markham, and Vance and I had been
introduced, he seated himself and meticulously inserted a brown
Russian cigarette in a long amber-and-gold holder.
“I’d be tremendously obliged, Markham,” he said, lighting his
cigarette from an ivory pocket-lighter, “if you’d make a personal
investigation of the row that occurred at our diggin’s last night. The
police will never get anywhere the way they’re going about it. Good
fellows, you understand—the police. But . . . well, there’s something
about this affair—don’t know just how to put it. Anyway, I don’t like
it.”
Markham studied him closely for several moments.
“Just what’s on your mind, Greene?”
The other crushed out his cigarette, though he had taken no more than
half a dozen puffs, and drummed indecisively on the arm of his chair.
“Wish I knew. It’s a rum affair—damned rum. There’s something back of
it, too—something that’s going to raise the very devil if we don’t
stop it. Can’t explain it. It’s a feeling I’ve got.”
“Perhaps Mr. Greene is psychic,” commented Vance, with a look of bland
innocence.
The man swung about and scrutinized Vance with aggressive
condescension. “Tosh!” He brought out another Russian cigarette, and
turned again to Markham: “I do wish you’d take a peep at the
situation.”
Markham hesitated. “Surely you’ve some reason for disagreeing with the
police and appealing to me.”
“Funny thing, but I haven’t.” (It seemed to me Greene’s hand shook
slightly as he lit his second cigarette.) “I simply know that my mind
rejects the burglar story automatically.”
It was difficult to tell if he were being frank or deliberately hiding
something. I did feel, however, that some sort of fear lurked beneath
his uneasiness; and I also got the impression that he was far from
being heart-broken over the tragedy.
“It seems to me,” declared Markham, “that the theory of the burglar is
entirely consistent with the facts. There have been many other cases
of a housebreaker suddenly taking alarm, losing his head, and
needlessly shooting people.”
Greene rose abruptly and began pacing up and down.
“I can’t argue the case,” he muttered. “It’s beyond all that, if you
understand me.” He looked quickly at the District Attorney with
staring eyes. “Gad! It’s got me in a cold sweat.”
“It’s all too vague and intangible,” Markham observed kindly. “I’m
inclined to think the tragedy has upset you. Perhaps after a day or
two——”
Greene lifted a protesting hand.
“It’s no go. I’m telling you, Markham, the police will never find
their burglar. I feel it—here.” He mincingly laid a manicured hand on
his breast.
Vance had been watching him with a faint suggestion of amusement. Now
he stretched his legs before him and gazed up at the ceiling.
“I say, Mr. Greene—pardon the intrusion on your esoteric gropings—but
do you know of any one with a reason for wanting your two sisters out
of the way?”
The man looked blank for a moment.
“No,” he answered finally; “can’t say that I do. Who, in Heaven’s
name, would want to kill two harmless women?”
“I haven’t the groggiest notion. But, since you repudiate the burglar
theory, and since the two ladies were undoubtedly shot, it’s inferable
that some one sought their demise; and it occurred to me that you,
being their brother and domiciled _en famille_, might know of some one
who harbored homicidal sentiments toward them.”
Greene bristled, and thrust his head forward. “I know of no one,” he
blurted. Then, turning to Markham, he continued wheedlingly: “If I had
the slightest suspicion, don’t you think I’d come out with it? This
thing has got on my nerves. I’ve been mulling over it all night, and
it’s—it’s bothersome, frightfully bothersome.”
Markham nodded non-committally, and rising, walked to the window,
where he stood, his hands behind him, gazing down on the gray stone
masonry of the Tombs.
Vance, despite his apparent apathy, had been studying Greene closely;
and, as Markham turned to the window, he straightened up slightly in
his chair.
“Tell me,” he began, an ingratiating note in his voice; “just what
happened last night? I understand you were the first to reach the
prostrate women.”
“I was the first to reach my sister Julia,” retorted Greene, with a
hint of resentment. “It was Sproot, the butler, who found Ada
unconscious, bleeding from a nasty wound in her back.”
“Her back, eh?” Vance leaned forward, and lifted his eyebrows. “She
was shot from behind, then?”
“Yes.” Greene frowned and inspected his fingernails, as if he too
sensed something disturbing in the fact.
“And Miss Julia Greene: was she too shot from behind?”
“No—from the front.”
“Extr’ordin’ry!” Vance blew a ring of smoke toward the dusty
chandelier. “And had both women retired for the night?”
“An hour before. . . . But what has all that got to do with it?”
“One never knows, does one? However, it’s always well to be in
possession of these little details when trying to run down the elusive
source of a psychic seizure.”
“Psychic seizure be damned!” growled Greene truculently. “Can’t a man
have a feeling about something without——?”
“Quite—quite. But you’ve asked for the District Attorney’s assistance,
and I’m sure he would like a few data before making a decision.”
Markham came forward and sat down on the edge of the table. His
curiosity had been aroused, and he indicated to Greene his sympathy
with Vance’s interrogation.
Greene pursed his lips, and returned his cigarette-holder to his
pocket.
“Oh, very well. What else do you want to know?”
“You might relate for us,” dulcetly resumed Vance, “the exact order of
events after you heard the first shot. I presume you did hear the
shot.”
“Certainly I heard it—couldn’t have helped hearing it. Julia’s room is
next to mine, and I was still awake. I jumped into my slippers and
pulled on my dressing-gown; then I went out into the hall. It was
dark, and I felt my way along the wall until I reached Julia’s door. I
opened it and looked in—didn’t know who might be there waiting to pop
me—and I saw her lying in bed, the front of her nightgown covered with
blood. There was no one else in the room, and I went to her
immediately. Just then I heard another shot which sounded as if it
came from Ada’s room. I was a bit muzzy by this time—didn’t know what
I’d better do; and as I stood by Julia’s bed in something of a
funk—oh, I was in a funk all right . . .”
“Can’t say that I blame you,” Vance encouraged him.
Greene nodded. “A damned ticklish position to be in. Well, anyway, as
I stood there, I heard some one coming down the stairs from the
servants’ quarters on the third floor, and recognized old Sproot’s
tread. He fumbled along in the dark, and I heard him enter Ada’s door.
Then he called to me, and I hurried over. Ada was lying in front of
the dressing-table; and Sproot and I lifted her on the bed. I’d gone a
bit weak in the knees; was expecting any minute to hear another
shot—don’t know why. Anyway, it didn’t come; and then I heard Sproot’s
voice at the hall telephone calling up Doctor Von Blon.”
“I see nothing in your account, Greene, inconsistent with the theory
of a burglar,” observed Markham. “And furthermore, Feathergill, my
assistant, says there were two sets of confused footprints in the snow
outside the front door.”
Greene shrugged his shoulders, but did not answer.
“By the by, Mr. Greene,”—Vance had slipped down in his chair and was
staring into space—“you said that when you looked into Miss Julia’s
room you saw her in bed. How was that? Did you turn on the light?”
“Why, no!” The man appeared puzzled by the question. “The light was
on.”
There was a flutter of interest in Vance’s eyes.
“And how about Miss Ada’s room? Was the light on there also?”
“Yes.”
Vance reached into his pocket, and, drawing out his cigarette-case,
carefully and deliberately selected a cigarette. I recognized in the
action an evidence of repressed inner excitement.
“So the lights were on in both rooms. Most interestin’.”
Markham, too, recognized the eagerness beneath his apparent
indifference, and regarded him expectantly.
“And,” pursued Vance, after lighting his cigarette leisurely, “how
long a time would you say elapsed between the two shots?”
Greene was obviously annoyed by this cross-examination, but he
answered readily.
“Two or three minutes—certainly no longer.”
“Still,” ruminated Vance, “after you heard the first shot you rose
from your bed, donned slippers and robe, went into the hall, felt
along the wall to the next room, opened the door cautiously, peered
inside, and then crossed the room to the bed—all this, I gather,
before the second shot was fired. Is that correct?”
“Certainly it’s correct.”
“Well, well! As you say, two or three minutes. Yes, at least that.
Astonishin’!” Vance turned to Markham. “Really, y’ know, old man, I
don’t wish to influence your judgment, but I rather think you ought to
accede to Mr. Greene’s request to take a hand in this investigation. I
too have a psychic feeling about the case. Something tells me that
your eccentric burglar will prove an _ignis fatuus_.”
Markham eyed him with meditative curiosity. Not only had Vance’s
questioning of Greene interested him keenly, but he knew, as a result
of long experience, that Vance would not have made the suggestion had
he not had a good reason for doing so. I was in no wise surprised,
therefore, when he turned to his restive visitor and said:
“Very well, Greene, I’ll see what I can do in the matter. I’ll
probably be at your house early this afternoon. Please see that every
one is present, as I’ll want to question them.”
Greene held out a trembling hand. “The domestic roster—family and
servants—will be complete when you arrive.”
He strode pompously from the room.
Vance sighed. “Not a nice creature, Markham—not at all a nice
creature. I shall never be a politician if it involves an acquaintance
with such gentlemen.”
Markham seated himself at his desk with a disgruntled air.
“Greene is highly regarded as a social—not a political—decoration,” he
said maliciously. “He belongs to your totem, not mine.”
“Fancy that!” Vance stretched himself luxuriously. “Still, it’s you
who fascinate him. Intuition tells me he is not overfond of me.”
“You did treat him a bit cavalierly. Sarcasm is not exactly a means of
endearment.”
“But, Markham old thing, I wasn’t pining for Chester’s affection.”
“You think he knows, or suspects, something?”
Vance gazed through the long window into the bleak sky beyond.
“I wonder,” he murmured. Then: “Is Chester, by any chance, a typical
representative of the Greene family? Of recent years I’ve done so
little mingling with the élite that I’m woefully ignorant of the East
Side nabobs.”
Markham nodded reflectively.
“I’m afraid he is. The original Greene stock was sturdy, but the
present generation seems to have gone somewhat to pot. Old Tobias the
Third—Chester’s father—was a rugged and, in many ways, admirable
character. He appears, however, to have been the last heir of the
ancient Greene qualities. What’s left of the family has suffered some
sort of disintegration. They’re not exactly soft, but tainted with
patches of incipient decay, like fruit that’s lain on the ground too
long. Too much money and leisure, I imagine, and too little restraint.
On the other hand, there’s a certain intellectuality lurking in the
new Greenes. They all seem to have good minds, even if futile and
misdirected. In fact, I think you underestimate Chester. For all his
banalities and effeminate mannerisms, he’s far from being as stupid as
you regard him.”
“_I_ regard Chester as stupid! My dear Markham! You wrong me
abominably. No, no. There’s nothing of the anointed ass about our
Chester. He’s shrewder even than you think him. Those œdematous
eyelids veil a pair of particularly crafty eyes. Indeed, it was
largely his studied pose of fatuousness that led me to suggest that
you aid and abet in the investigation.”
Markham leaned back and narrowed his eyes.
“What’s in your mind, Vance?”
“I told you. A psychic seizure—same like Chester’s subliminal
visitation.”
Markham knew, by this elusive answer, that for the moment Vance had no
intention of being more definite; and after a moment of scowling
silence he turned to the telephone.
“If I’m to take on this case, I’d better find out who has charge of it
and get what preliminary information I can.”
He called up Inspector Moran, the commanding officer of the Detective
Bureau. After a brief conversation he turned to Vance with a smile.
“Your friend, Sergeant Heath, has the case in hand. He happened to be
in the office just now, and is coming here immediately.”*
* It was Sergeant Ernest Heath, of the Homicide Bureau, who
had been in charge of both the Benson and the Canary cases;
and, although he had been openly antagonistic to Vance during
the first of these investigations, a curious good-fellowship
had later grown up between them. Vance admired the Sergeant’s
dogged and straightforward qualities; and Heath had developed
a keen respect—with certain reservations, however—for Vance’s
abilities.
In less than fifteen minutes Heath arrived. Despite the fact that he
had been up most of the night, he appeared unusually alert and
energetic. His broad, pugnacious features were as imperturbable as
ever, and his pale-blue eyes held their habitual penetrating
intentness. He greeted Markham with an elaborate, though perfunctory,
handshake; and then, seeing Vance, relaxed his features into a
good-natured smile.
“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Vance! What have you been up to, sir?”
Vance rose and shook hands with him.
“Alas, Sergeant, I’ve been immersed in the terra-cotta ornamentation
of Renaissance façades, and other such trivialities, since I saw you
last.* But I’m happy to note that crime is picking up again. It’s a
deuced drab world without a nice murky murder now and then, don’t y’
know.”
* Vance, after reading proof of this sentence, requested me to
make mention here of that beautiful volume, “Terra Cotta of
the Italian Renaissance,” recently published by the National
Terra Cotta Society, New York.
Heath cocked an eye, and turned inquiringly to the District Attorney.
He had long since learned how to read between the lines of Vance’s
badinage.
“It’s this Greene case, Sergeant,” said Markham.
“I thought so.” Heath sat down heavily, and inserted a black cigar
between his lips. “But nothing’s broken yet. We’re rounding up all the
regulars, and looking into their alibis for last night. But it’ll take
several days before the check-up’s complete. If the bird who did the
job hadn’t got scared before he grabbed the swag, we might be able to
trace him through the pawnshops and fences. But something rattled him,
or he wouldn’t have shot up the works the way he did. And that’s what
makes me think he may be a new one at the racket. If he is, it’ll make
our job harder.” He held a match in cupped hands to his cigar, and
puffed furiously. “What did you want to know about the prowl, sir?”
Markham hesitated. The Sergeant’s matter-of-fact assumption that a
common burglar was the culprit disconcerted him.
“Chester Greene was here,” he explained presently; “and he seems
convinced that the shooting was not the work of a thief. He asked me,
as a special favor, to look into the matter.”
Heath gave a derisive grunt.
“Who but a burglar in a panic would shoot down two women?”
“Quite so, Sergeant.” It was Vance who answered. “Still, the lights
were turned on in both rooms, though the women had gone to bed an hour
before; and there was an interval of several minutes between the two
shots.”
“I know all that.” Heath spoke impatiently. “But if an amachoor did
the job, we can’t tell exactly what did happen up-stairs there last
night. When a bird loses his head——”
“Ah! There’s the rub. When a thief loses his head, d’ ye see, he isn’t
apt to go from room to room turning on the lights, even assuming he
knows where and how to turn them on. And he certainly isn’t going to
dally around for several minutes in a black hall between such
fantastic operations, especially after he has shot some one and
alarmed the house, what? It doesn’t look like panic to me; it looks
strangely like design. Moreover, why should this precious amateur of
yours be cavorting about the boudoirs up-stairs when the loot was in
the dining-room below?”
“We’ll learn all about that when we’ve got our man,” countered Heath
doggedly.
“The point is, Sergeant,” put in Markham, “I’ve given Mr. Greene my
promise to look into the matter, and I wanted to get what details I
could from you. You understand, of course,” he added mollifyingly,
“that I shall not interfere with your activities in any way. Whatever
the outcome of the case, your department will receive entire credit.”
“Oh, that’s all right, sir.” Experience had taught Heath that he had
nothing to fear in the way of lost _kudos_ when working with Markham.
“But I don’t think, in spite of Mr. Vance’s ideas, that you’ll find
much in the Greene case to warrant attention.”
“Perhaps not,” Markham admitted. “However, I’ve committed myself, and
I think I’ll run out this afternoon and look over the situation, if
you’ll give me the lie of the land.”
“There isn’t much to tell.” Heath chewed on his cigar cogitatingly. “A
Doctor Von Blon—the Greene family physician—phoned Headquarters about
midnight. I’d just got in from an up-town stick-up call, and I hopped
out to the house with a couple of the boys from the Bureau. I found
the two women, like you know, one dead and the other unconscious—both
shot. I phoned Doc Doremus,* and then looked the place over. Mr.
Feathergill came along and lent a hand; but we didn’t find much of
anything. The fellow that did the job musta got in by the front door
some way, for there was a set of footprints in the snow coming and
going, besides Doctor Von Blon’s. But the snow was too flaky to get
any good impressions. It stopped snowing along about eleven o’clock
last night; and there’s no doubt that the prints belonged to the
burglar, for no one else, except the doctor, had come or gone after
the storm.”
* Doctor Emanuel Doremus, the Chief Medical Examiner.
“An amateur housebreaker with a front-door key to the Greene mansion,”
murmured Vance. “Extr’ordin’ry!”
“I’m not saying he had a key, sir,” protested Heath. “I’m simply
telling you what we found. The door mighta been unlatched by mistake;
or some one mighta opened it for him.”
“Go on with the story, Sergeant,” urged Markham, giving Vance a
reproving look.
“Well, after Doc Doremus got there and made an examination of the
older woman’s body and inspected the younger one’s wound, I questioned
all the family and the servants—a butler, two maids, and a cook.
Chester Greene and the butler were the only ones who had heard the
first shot, which was fired about half past eleven. But the second
shot roused old Mrs. Greene—her room adjoins the younger daughter’s.
The rest of the household had slept through all the excitement; but
this Chester fellow had woke ’em all up by the time I got there. I
talked to all of ’em, but nobody knew anything. After a coupla hours I
left a man inside and another outside, and came away. Then I set the
usual machinery going; and this morning Captain Dubois went over the
place the best he could for finger-prints. Doc Doremus has got the
body for an autopsy, and we’ll get a report to-night. But there’ll be
nothing helpful from that quarter. She was fired on from in front at
close range—almost a contact shot. And the other woman—the young
one—was all powder-marked, and her nightgown was burnt. She was shot
from behind.—That’s about all the dope.”
“Have you been able to get any sort of a statement from the younger
one?”
“Not yet. She was unconscious last night, and this morning she was too
weak to talk. But the doctor—Von Blon—said we could probably question
her this afternoon. We may get something out of her, in case she got a
look at the bird before he shot her.”
“That suggests something to me, Sergeant.” Vance had been listening
passively to the recital, but now he drew in his legs, and lifted
himself a little. “Did any member of the Greene household possess a
gun?”
Heath gave him a sharp look.
“This Chester Greene said he had an old .32 revolver he used to keep
in a desk drawer in his bedroom.”
“Oh, did he, now? And did you see the gun?”
“I asked him for it, but he couldn’t find it. Said he hadn’t seen it
for years, but that probably it was around somewheres. Promised to dig
it up for me to-day.”
“Don’t hang any fond hopes on his finding it, Sergeant.” Vance looked
at Markham musingly. “I begin to comprehend the basis of Chester’s
psychic perturbation. I fear he’s a crass materialist after all. . . .
Sad, sad.”
“You think he missed the gun, and took fright?”
“Well—something like that . . . perhaps. One can’t tell. It’s deuced
confusin’.” He turned an indolent eye on the Sergeant. “By the by,
what sort of gun did your burglar use?”
Heath gave a gruff, uneasy laugh.
“You score there, Mr. Vance. I’ve got both bullets—thirty-twos, fired
from a revolver, not an automatic. But you’re not trying to
intimate——”
“Tut, tut, Sergeant. Like Goethe, I’m merely seeking for more
illumination, if one may translate _Licht_——”
Markham interrupted this garrulous evasion.
“I’m going to the Greene house after lunch, Sergeant. Can you come
along?”
“Sure I can, sir. I was going out anyway.”
“Good.” Markham brought forth a box of cigars. “Meet me here at
two. . . . And take a couple of these _Perfectos_ before you go.”
Heath selected the cigars, and put them carefully into his breast
pocket. At the door he turned with a bantering grin.
“You coming along with us, Mr. Vance—to guide our erring footsteps, as
they say?”
“Nothing could keep me away,” declared Vance.