The Lost Poisons
(Tuesday, November 30; 2 p. m.)
Markham and Vance and I had a late lunch at the Stuyvesant Club.
During the meal the subject of the murder was avoided as if by tacit
agreement; but when we sat smoking over our coffee Markham settled
back in his chair and surveyed Vance sternly.
“Now,” he said, “I want to hear how you came to find those galoshes in
the linen-closet. And, damn it! I don’t want any garrulous evasions or
quotations out of Bartlett.”
“I’m quite willing to unburden my soul,” smiled Vance. “It was all so
dashed simple. I never put any stock in the burglar theory, and so was
able to approach the problem with a virgin mind, as it were.”
He lit a fresh cigarette and poured himself another cup of coffee.
“Perpend, Markham. On the night that Julia and Ada were shot a double
set of footprints was found. It had stopped snowing at about eleven
o’clock, and the tracks had been made between that hour and midnight,
when the Sergeant arrived on the scene. On the night of Chester’s
murder there was another set of footprints similar to the others; and
they too had been made shortly after the weather had cleared. Here,
then, were tracks in the snow, approaching and retreating from the
front door, preceding each crime; and both sets had been made after
the snow had stopped falling _when they would be distinctly visible
and determinable_. This was not a particularly striking coincidence,
but it was sufficiently arresting to create a slight strain on my
_cortex cerebri_. And the strain increased perceptibly this morning
when Snitkin reported his discovery of fresh footprints on the balcony
steps; for once again the same meteorological conditions had
accompanied our culprit’s passion for leaving spoors. I was therefore
driven to the irresistible inference, as you learned Solons put it,
that the murderer, so careful and calculating about everything else,
had deliberately made all these footprints for our special
edification. In each instance, d’ ye see, he had chosen the only hour
of the day when his tracks would not be obliterated by falling snow or
confused with other tracks. . . . Are you there?”
“Go ahead,” said Markham. “I’m listening.”
“To proceed, then. Another coincidence attached to these three sets of
footprints. It was impossible, because of the dry, flaky nature of the
snow, to determine whether the first set had originated in the house
and returned there, or had first approached the house from the street
and then retreated. Again, on the night of Chester’s demise, when the
snow was damp and susceptible to clear impressions, the same doubt
arose. The tracks to and from the house were on opposite sides of the
front walk: not a single footstep overlapped! Accidental? Perhaps. But
not wholly reasonable. A person walking to and from a door along a
comparatively narrow pathway would almost certainly have doubled on
some of his tracks. And even if he had failed to superimpose any of
his footprints, the parallel spoors would have been close together.
But these two lines of prints were far apart: each clung to the
extreme edge of the walk, as if the person who made them was
positively afraid of overlapping. Now, consider the footprints made
this morning. There was a single line of them entering the house, but
none coming out. We concluded that the murderer had made his escape
_via_ the front door and down the neatly swept walk; but this, after
all, was only an assumption.”
Vance sipped his coffee and inhaled a moment on his cigarette.
“The point I’m trying to bring out is this: there is no proof whatever
that all these footprints were not made by some one in the house who
first went out and then returned for the express purpose of leading
the police to believe that an outsider was guilty. And, on the other
hand, there is evidence that the footprints actually did originate in
the house; because if an outsider had made them he would have been at
no pains to confuse the issue of their origin, since, in any event,
they could not have been traced back farther than the street.
Therefore, as a tentative starting-point, I assumed that the tracks
had, in reality, been made by some one in the house.—I can’t say, of
course, whether or not my layman’s logic adds lustre to the gladsome
light of jurisprudence——”
“Your reasoning is consistent as far as it goes,” cut in Markham
tartly. “But it is hardly complete enough to have led you directly to
the linen-closet this morning.”
“True. But there were various contribut’ry factors. For instance, the
galoshes which Snitkin found in Chester’s clothes-closet were the
exact size of the prints. At first I toyed with the idea that they
were the actual instruments of our unknown’s vestigial deception. But
when, after they had been taken to Headquarters, another set of
similar tracks appeared—to wit, the ones found this morning—I amended
my theory slightly, and concluded that Chester had owned two pairs of
galoshes—one that had perhaps been discarded but not thrown away. That
was why I wanted to wait for Captain Jerym’s report: I was anxious to
learn if the new tracks were exactly like the old ones.”
“But even so,” interrupted Markham, “your theory that the footprints
emanated from the house strikes me as being erected on pretty weak
scaffolding. Were there any other indicants?”
“I was coming to them,” replied Vance reproachfully. “But you _will_
rush me so. Pretend that I’m a lawyer, and my summation will sound
positively breathless.”
“I’m more likely to pretend that I’m a presiding judge, and give you
_sus. per coll._”
“Ah, well.” Vance sighed and continued. “Let us consider the
hypothetical intruder’s means of escape after the shooting of Julia
and Ada. Sproot came into the upper hall immediately after the shot
had been fired in Ada’s room; yet he heard nothing—neither footsteps
in the hall nor the front door closing. And, Markham old thing, a
person in galoshes going down marble steps in the dark is no midsummer
zephyr for silence. In the circumstances Sproot would have been
certain to hear him making his escape. Therefore, the explanation that
suggested itself to me was that _he did not make his escape_.”
“And the footprints outside?”
“Were made beforehand by some one walking to the front gate and
back.—And that brings me to the night of Chester’s murder. You
remember Rex’s tale of hearing a dragging noise in the hall and a door
closing about fifteen minutes before the shot was fired, and Ada’s
corroboration of the door-shutting part of the story? The noise,
please note, was heard after it had stopped snowing—in fact, after the
moon had come out. Could the noise not easily have been a person
walking in galoshes, or even taking them off, after having returned
from making those separated tracks to and from the gate? And might not
that closing door have been the door of the linen-closet where the
galoshes were being temporarily cached?”
Markham nodded. “Yes, the sounds Rex and Ada heard might be explained
that way.”
“And this morning’s business was even plainer. There were footprints
on the balcony steps, made between nine o’clock and noon. But neither
of the guards saw any one enter the grounds. Moreover, Sproot waited a
few moments in the dining-room after the shot had been fired in Rex’s
room; and if any one had come down the stairs and gone out the front
door Sproot would certainly have heard him. It’s true that the
murderer might have descended the front stairs as Sproot went up the
servants’ stairs. But is that likely? Would he have waited in the
upper hall after killing Rex, knowing that some one was likely to step
out and discover him? I think not. And anyway, the guards saw no one
leave the estate. _Ergo_, I concluded that _no one came down the front
stairs after Rex’s death_. I assumed again that the footprints had
been made at some earlier hour. This time, however, the murderer did
not go to the gate and return, for a guard was there who would have
seen him; and, furthermore, the front steps and the walk had been
swept. So our track-maker, after having donned the galoshes, stepped
out of the front door, walked round the corner of the house, mounted
the balcony steps, and re-entered the upper hall by way of Ada’s
room.”
“I see.” Markham leaned over and knocked the ashes from his cigar.
“Therefore, you inferred that the galoshes were still in the house.”
“Exactly. But I’ll admit I didn’t think of the linen-closet at once.
First I tried Chester’s room. Then I took a look round Julia’s
chamber; and I was about to go up to the servants’ quarters when I
recalled Rex’s story of the closing door. I ran my eye over all the
second-story doors, and straightway tried the linen-closet—which was,
after all, the most likely place for a transient occultation. And lo!
there were the galoshes tucked under an old drugget. The murderer had
probably hidden them there both times before, pending an opportunity
of secreting them more thoroughly.”
“But where could they have been concealed so that our searchers didn’t
run across them?”
“As to that, now, I couldn’t say. They may have been taken out of the
house altogether.”
There was a silence for several minutes. Then Markham spoke.
“The finding of the galoshes pretty well proves your theory, Vance.
But do you realize what confronts us now? If your reasoning is
correct, the guilty person is some one with whom we’ve been talking
this morning. It’s an appalling thought. I’ve gone over in my mind
every member of that household; and I simply can’t regard any one of
them as a potential mass-murderer.”
“Sheer moral prejudice, old dear.” Vance’s voice assumed a note of
raillery. “I’m a bit cynical myself, and the only person at the Greene
mansion I’d eliminate as a possibility would be Frau Mannheim. She’s
not sufficiently imaginative to have planned this accumulative
massacre. But as regards the others, I could picture any one of ’em as
being at the bottom of this diabolical slaughter. It’s a mistaken
idea, don’t y’ know, to imagine that a murderer looks like a murderer.
No murderer ever does. The only people who really look like murderers
are quite harmless. Do you recall the mild and handsome features of
the Reverend Richeson of Cambridge? Yet he gave his inamorata cyanide
of potassium. The fact that Major Armstrong was a meek and gentlemanly
looking chap did not deter him from feeding arsenic to his wife.
Professor Webster of Harvard was not a criminal type; but the
dismembered spirit of Doctor Parkman doubtless regards him as a brutal
slayer. Doctor Lamson, with his philanthropic eyes and his benevolent
beard, was highly regarded as a humanitarian; but he administered
aconitine rather cold-bloodedly to his crippled brother-in-law. Then
there was Doctor Neil Cream, who might easily have been mistaken for
the deacon of a fashionable church; and the soft-spoken and amiable
Doctor Waite. . . . And the women! Edith Thompson admitted putting
powdered glass in her husband’s gruel, though she looked like a pious
Sunday-school teacher. Madeleine Smith certainly had a most
respectable countenance. And Constance Kent was rather a beauty—a nice
girl with an engaging air; yet she cut her little brother’s throat in
a thoroughly brutal manner. Gabrielle Bompard and Marie Boyer were
anything but typical of the _donna delinquente_; but the one strangled
her lover with the cord of her dressing-gown, and the other killed her
mother with a cheese-knife. And what of Madame Fenayrou——?”
“Enough!” protested Markham. “Your lecture on criminal physiognomy can
go over a while. Just now I’m trying to adjust my mind to the
staggering inferences to be drawn from your finding of those
galoshes.” A sense of horror seemed to weigh him down. “Good God,
Vance! There must be some way out of this nightmare you’ve propounded.
What member of that household could possibly have walked in on Rex
Greene and shot him down in broad daylight?”
“’Pon my soul, I don’t know.” Vance himself was deeply affected by the
sinister aspects of the case. “But some one in that house did it—some
one the others don’t suspect.”
“That look on Julia’s face, and Chester’s amazed expression—that’s
what you mean, isn’t it? They didn’t suspect either. And they were
horrified at the revelation—when it was too late. Yes, all those
things fit in with your theory.”
“But there’s one thing that doesn’t fit, old man.” Vance gazed at the
table perplexedly. “Rex died peacefully, apparently unaware of his
murderer. Why wasn’t there also a look of horror on his face? His eyes
couldn’t have been shut when the revolver was levelled at him, for he
was standing, facing the intruder. It’s inexplicable—mad!”
He beat a nervous tattoo on the table, his brows contracted.
“And there’s another thing, Markham, that’s incomprehensible about
Rex’s death. His door into the hall was open; but nobody up-stairs
heard the shot—nobody _up-stairs_. And yet Sproot—who was down-stairs,
in the butler’s pantry behind the dining-room—heard it distinctly.”
“It probably just happened that way,” Markham argued, almost
automatically. “Sound acts fantastically sometimes.”
Vance shook his head.
“Nothing has ‘just happened’ in this case. There’s a terrible logic
about everything—a carefully planned reason behind each detail.
Nothing has been left to chance. Still, this very systematization of
the crime will eventually prove the murderer’s downfall. When we can
find a key to any one of the anterooms, we’ll know our way into the
main chamber of horrors.”
At that moment Markham was summoned to the telephone. When he returned
his expression was puzzled and uneasy.
“It was Swacker. Von Blon is at my office now—he has something to tell
me.”
“Ah! Very interestin’,” commented Vance.
We drove to the District Attorney’s office, and Von Blon was shown in
at once.
“I may be stirring up a mare’s nest,” he began apologetically, after
he had seated himself on the edge of a chair. “But I felt I ought to
inform you of a curious thing that happened to me this morning. At
first I thought I would tell the police, but it occurred to me they
might misunderstand; and I decided to place the matter before you to
act upon as you saw fit.”
Plainly he was uncertain as to how the subject should be broached, and
Markham waited patiently with an air of polite indulgence.
“I phoned the Greene house as soon as I made the—ah—discovery,” Von
Blon went on hesitantly. “But I was informed you had left for the
office; so, as soon as I had lunched, I came directly here.”
“Very good of you, doctor,” murmured Markham.
Again Von Blon hesitated, and his manner became exaggeratedly
ingratiating.
“The fact is, Mr. Markham, I am in the habit of carrying a rather full
supply of emergency drugs in my medicine-case. . . .”
“Emergency drugs?”
“Strychnine, morphine, caffeine, and a variety of hypnotics and
stimulants. I find it often convenient——”
“And it was in connection with these drugs you wished to see me?”
“Indirectly—yes.” Von Blon paused momentarily to arrange his words.
“To-day it happened that I had in my case a fresh tube of soluble
quarter-grain morphine tablets, and a Parke-Davis carton of four tubes
of strychnine—thirtieths. . . .”
“And what about this supply of drugs, doctor?”
“The fact is, the morphine and the strychnine have disappeared.”
Markham bent forward, his eyes curiously animated.
“They were in my case this morning when I left my office,” Von Blon
explained; “and I made only two brief calls before I went to the
Greenes’. I missed the tubes when I returned to my office.”
Markham studied the doctor a moment.
“And you think it improbable that the drugs were taken from your case
during either of your other calls?”
“That’s just it. At neither place was the case out of my sight for a
moment.”
“And at the Greenes’?” Markham’s agitation was growing rapidly.
“I went directly to Mrs. Greene’s room, taking the case with me. I
remained there for perhaps half an hour. When I came out——”
“You did not leave the room during that half-hour?”
“No. . . .”
“Pardon me, doctor,” came Vance’s indolent voice; “but the nurse
mentioned that you called to her to bring Mrs. Greene’s bouillon. From
where did you call?”
Von Blon nodded. “Ah, yes. I did speak to Miss Craven. I stepped to
the door and called up the servants’ stairs.”
“Quite so. And then?”
“I waited with Mrs. Greene until the nurse came. Then I went across
the hall to Sibella’s room.”
“And your case?” interjected Markham.
“I set it down in the hall, against the rear railing of the main
stairway.”
“And you remained in Miss Sibella’s room until Sproot called you?”
“That is right.”
“Then the case was unguarded in the rear of the upper hall from about
eleven until you left the house?”
“Yes. After I had taken leave of you gentlemen in the drawing-room I
went up-stairs and got it.”
“And also made your adieus to Miss Sibella,” added Vance.
Von Blon raised his eyebrows with an air of gentle surprise.
“Naturally.”
“What amount of these drugs disappeared?” asked Markham.
“The four tubes of strychnine contained in all approximately three
grains—three and one-third, to be exact. And there are twenty-five
tablets of morphine in a Parke-Davis tube, making six and one-quarter
grains.”
“Are those fatal doses, doctor?”
“That’s a difficult question to answer, sir.” Von Blon adopted a
professorial manner. “One may have a tolerance for morphine and be
capable of assimilating astonishingly large doses. But, _ceteris
paribus_, six grains would certainly prove fatal. Regarding
strychnine, toxicology gives us a very wide range as to lethal dosage,
depending on the condition and age of the patient. The average fatal
dose for an adult is, I should say, two grains, though death has
resulted from administrations of one grain, or even less. And, on the
other hand, recovery has taken place after as much as ten grains have
been swallowed. Generally speaking, however, three and one-third
grains would be sufficient to produce fatal results.”
When Von Blon had gone Markham gazed at Vance anxiously.
“What do you make of it?” he asked.
“I don’t like it—I don’t at all like it.” Vance shook his head
despairingly. “It’s dashed queer—the whole thing. And the doctor is
worried, too. There’s a panic raging beneath his elegant façade. He’s
in a blue funk—and it’s not because of the loss of his pills. He fears
something, Markham. There was a strained, hunted look in his eyes.”
“Doesn’t it strike you as strange that he should be carrying such
quantities of drugs about with him?”
“Not necessarily. Some doctors do it. The Continental M.D.s especially
are addicted to the practice. And don’t forget Von Blon is
German-trained. . . .” Vance glanced up suddenly. “By the by, what
about those two wills?”
There was a look of astonished interrogation in Markham’s incisive
stare, but he said merely:
“I’ll have them later this afternoon. Buckway has been laid up with a
cold, but he promised to send me copies to-day.”
Vance got to his feet.
“I’m no Chaldean,” he drawled; “but I have an idea those two wills may
help us to understand the disappearance of the doctor’s pellets.” He
drew on his coat and took up his hat and stick. “And now I’m going to
banish this beastly affair from my thoughts.—Come, Van. There’s some
good chamber-music at Æolian Hall this afternoon, and if we hurry
we’ll be in time for the Mozart ‘_C-major_.’”