The Missing Fact
(Saturday, December 4; 1 p. m.)
Saturday was the District Attorney’s “half-day” at the office, and
Markham had invited Vance and me to lunch at the Bankers Club. But
when we reached the Criminal Courts Building he was swamped with an
accumulation of work, and we had a tray-service meal in his private
conference room. Before leaving the house that noon Vance had put
several sheets of closely written paper in his pocket, and I
surmised—correctly, as it turned out—that they were what he had been
working on the night before.
When lunch was over Vance lay back in his chair languidly and lit a
cigarette.
“Markham old dear,” he said, “I accepted your invitation to-day for
the sole purpose of discussing art. I trust you are in a receptive
mood.”
Markham looked at him with frank annoyance.
“Damn it, Vance, I’m too confounded busy to be bothered with your
irrelevancies. If you feel artistically inclined, take Van here to the
Metropolitan Museum. But leave me alone.”
Vance sighed, and wagged his head reproachfully.
“There speaks the voice of America! ‘Run along and play with your
æsthetic toys if such silly things amuse you; but let me attend to my
serious affairs.’ It’s very sad. In the present instance, however, I
refuse to run along; and most certainly I shall not browse about that
mausoleum of Europe’s rejected corpses, known as the Metropolitan
Museum. I say, it’s a wonder you didn’t suggest that I make the rounds
of our municipal statuary.”
“I’d have suggested the Aquarium——”
“I know. Anything to get rid of me.” Vance adopted an injured tone.
“And yet, don’t y’ know, I’m going to sit right here and deliver an
edifying lecture on æsthetic composition.”
“Then don’t talk too loud,” said Markham, rising; “for I’ll be in the
next room working.”
“But my lecture has to do with the Greene case. And really you
shouldn’t miss it.”
Markham paused and turned.
“Merely one of your wordy prologues, eh?” He sat down again. “Well, if
you have any helpful suggestions to make, I’ll listen.”
Vance smoked a moment.
“Y’ know, Markham,” he began, assuming a lazy, unemotional air,
“there’s a fundamental difference between a good painting and a
photograph. I’ll admit many painters appear unaware of this fact; and
when color photography is perfected—my word! what a horde of
academicians will be thrown out of employment! But none the less
there’s a vast chasm between the two; and it’s this technical
distinction that’s to be the burden of my lay. How, for instance, does
Michelangelo’s ‘Moses’ differ from a camera study of a patriarchal old
man with whiskers and a stone tablet? Wherein lie the points of
divergence between Rubens’s ‘Landscape with Château de Stein’ and a
tourist’s snap-shot of a Rhine castle? Why is a Cézanne still-life an
improvement on a photograph of a dish of apples? Why have the
Renaissance paintings of Madonnas endured for hundreds of years
whereas a mere photograph of a mother and child passes into artistic
oblivion at the very click of the lens shutter? . . .”
He held up a silencing hand as Markham was about to speak.
“I’m not being futile. Bear with me a moment.—The difference between a
good painting and a photograph is this: the one is arranged, composed,
organized; the other is merely the haphazard impression of a scene, or
a segment of realism, just as it exists in nature. In short, the one
has form; the other is chaotic. When a true artist paints a picture,
d’ ye see, he arranges all the masses and lines to accord with his
preconceived idea of composition—that is, he bends everything in the
picture to a basic design; and he also eliminates any objects or
details that go contr’ry to, or detract from, that design. Thus he
achieves a homogeneity of form, so to speak. Every object in the
picture is put there for a definite purpose, and is set in a certain
position to accord with the underlying structural pattern. There are
no irrelevancies, no unrelated details, no detached objects, no
arbitr’ry arrangement of values. All the forms and lines are
interdependent; every object—indeed, every brush stroke—takes its
exact place in the pattern and fulfils a given function. The picture,
in fine, is a unity.”
“Very instructive,” commented Markham, glancing ostentatiously at his
watch. “And the Greene case?”
“Now, a photograph, on the other hand,” pursued Vance, ignoring the
interruption, “is devoid of design or even of arrangement in the
æsthetic sense. To be sure, a photographer may pose and drape a
figure—he may even saw off the limb of a tree that he intends to
record on his negative; but it’s quite impossible for him to compose
the subject-matter of his picture to accord with a preconceived
design, the way a painter does. In a photograph there are always
details that have no meaning, variations of light and shade that are
harmonically false, textures that create false notes, lines that are
discords, masses that are out of place. The camera, d’ ye see, is
deucedly forthright—it records whatever is before it, irrespective of
art values. The inevitable result is that a photograph lacks
organization and unity; its composition is, at best, primitive and
obvious. And it is full of irrelevant factors—of objects which have
neither meaning nor purpose. There is no uniformity of conception in
it. It is haphazard, heterogeneous, aimless, and amorphous—just as is
nature.”
“You needn’t belabor the point.” Markham spoke impatiently. “I have a
rudimentary intelligence.—Where is this elaborate truism leading you?”
Vance gave him an engaging smile.
“To East 53d Street. But before we reach our destination permit me
another brief amplification.—Quite often a painting of intricate and
subtle design does not at once reveal its composition to the
spectator. In fact, only the designs of the simpler and more obvious
paintings are immediately grasped. Generally the spectator has to
study a painting carefully—trace its rhythms, compare its forms, weigh
its details, and fit together all its salients—before its underlying
design becomes apparent. Many well-organized and perfectly balanced
paintings—such as Renoir’s figure-pieces, Matisse’s interiors,
Cézanne’s water-colors, Picasso’s still-lives, and Leonardo’s
anatomical drawings—may at first appear meaningless from the
standpoint of composition; their forms may seem to lack unity and
cohesion; their masses and linear values may give the impression of
having been arbitrarily put down. And it is only after the spectator
has related all their integers and traced all their contrapuntal
activities that they take on significance and reveal their creator’s
motivating conception. . . .”
“Yes, yes,” interrupted Markham. “Paintings and photographs differ;
the objects in a painting possess design; the objects in a photograph
are without design; one must often study a painting in order to
determine the design.—That, I believe, covers the ground you have been
wandering over desultorily for the past fifteen minutes.”
“I was merely trying to imitate the vast deluge of repetitive verbiage
found in legal documents,” explained Vance. “I hoped thereby to convey
my meaning to your lawyer’s mind.”
“You succeeded with a vengeance,” snapped Markham. “What follows?”
Vance became serious again.
“Markham, we’ve been looking at the various occurrences in the Greene
case as though they were the unrelated objects of a photograph. We’ve
inspected each fact as it came up; but we have failed to analyze
sufficiently its connection with all the other known facts. We’ve
regarded this whole affair as though it were a series, or collection,
of isolated integers. And we’ve missed the significance of everything
because we haven’t yet determined the shape of the basic pattern of
which each of these incidents is but a part.—Do you follow me?”
“My dear fellow!”
“Very well.—Now, it goes without saying that there is a design at the
bottom of this whole amazin’ business. Nothing has happened
haphazardly. There has been premeditation behind each act—a subtly and
carefully concocted composition, as it were. And everything has
emanated from that central shape. Everything has been fashioned by a
fundamental structural idea. Therefore, nothing important that has
occurred since the first double shooting has been unrelated to the
predetermined pattern of the crime. All the aspects and events of the
case, taken together, form a unity—a co-ordinated, interactive whole.
In short, the Greene case is a painting, not a photograph. And when we
have studied it in that light—when we have determined the
interrelationship of all the external factors, and have traced the
visual forms to their generating lines—then, Markham, we will know the
composition of the picture; we will see the design on which the
perverted painter has erected his document’ry material. And once we
have discovered the underlying shape of this hideous picture’s
pattern, we’ll know its creator.”
“I see your point,” said Markham slowly. “But how does it help us? We
know all the external facts; and they certainly don’t fit into any
intelligible conception of a unified whole.”
“Not yet, perhaps,” agreed Vance. “But that’s because we haven’t gone
about it systematically. We’ve done too much investigating and too
little thinking. We’ve been sidetracked by what the modern painters
call documentation—that is, by the objective appeal of the picture’s
recognizable parts. We haven’t sought for the abstract content. We’ve
overlooked the ‘significant form’—a loose phrase; but blame Clive Bell
for it.”*
* Vance was here referring to the chapter called “The Æsthetic
Hypothesis” in Clive Bell’s “Art.” But, despite the somewhat
slighting character of his remark, Vance was an admirer of
Bell’s criticisms, and had spoken to me with considerable
enthusiasm of his “Since Cézanne.”
“And how would you suggest that we set about determining the
compositional design of this bloody canvas? We might dub the picture,
by the way, ‘Nepotism Gone Wrong.’” By this facetious remark, he was,
I knew, attempting to counteract the serious impression the other’s
disquisition had made on him; for, though he realized Vance would not
have drawn his voluminous parallel without a definite hope of applying
it successfully to the problem in hand, he was chary of indulging any
expectations lest they result in further disappointments.
In answer to Markham’s question Vance drew out the sheaf of papers he
had brought with him.
“Last night,” he explained, “I set down briefly and chronologically
all the outstanding facts of the Greene case—that is, I noted each
important external factor of the ghastly picture we’ve been
contemplating for the past few weeks. The principal forms are all
here, though I may have left out many details. But I think I have
tabulated a sufficient number of items to serve as a working basis.”
He held out the papers to Markham.
“The truth lies somewhere in that list. If we could put the facts
together—relate them to one another with their correct values—we’d
know who was at the bottom of this orgy of crime; for, once we
determined the pattern, each of the items would take on a vital
significance, and we could read clearly the message they had to tell
us.”
Markham took the summary and, moving his chair nearer to the light,
read through it without a word.
I preserved the original copy of the document; and, of all the records
I possess, it was the most important and far-reaching in its effects.
Indeed, it was the instrument by means of which the Greene case was
solved. Had it not been for this recapitulation, prepared by Vance and
later analyzed by him, the famous mass murder at the Greene mansion
would doubtless have been relegated to the category of unsolved
crimes.
Herewith is a verbatim reproduction of it:
General Facts
1. An atmosphere of mutual hatred pervades the Greene mansion.
2. Mrs. Greene is a nagging, complaining paralytic, making life
miserable for the whole household.
3. There are five children—two daughters, two sons, and one adopted
daughter—who have nothing in common, and live in a state of constant
antagonism and bitterness toward one another.
4. Though Mrs. Mannheim, the cook, was acquainted with Tobias Greene
years ago and was remembered in his will, she refuses to reveal any
of the facts in her past.
5. The will of Tobias Greene stipulated that the family must live in
the Greene mansion for twenty-five years on pain of disinheritance,
with the one exception that, if Ada should marry, she could
establish a residence elsewhere, as she was not of the Greene blood.
By the will Mrs. Greene has the handling and disposition of the
money.
6. Mrs. Greene’s will makes the five children equal beneficiaries.
In event of death of any of them the survivors share alike; and if
all should die the estate goes to their families, if any.
7. The sleeping-rooms of the Greenes are arranged thus: Julia’s and
Rex’s face each other at the front of the house; Chester’s and Ada’s
face each other in the centre of the house; and Sibella’s and Mrs.
Greene’s face each other at the rear. No two rooms intercommunicate,
with the exception of Ada’s and Mrs. Greene’s; and these two rooms
also give on the same balcony.
8. The library of Tobias Greene, which Mrs. Greene believes she had
kept locked for twelve years, contains a remarkably complete
collection of books on criminology and allied subjects.
9. Tobias Greene’s past was somewhat mysterious, and there were many
rumors concerning shady transactions carried on by him in foreign
lands.
First Crime
10. Julia is killed by a contact shot, fired from the front, at
11.30 P. M.
11. Ada is shot from behind, also by a contact shot. She recovers.
12. Julia is found in bed, with a look of horror and amazement on
her face.
13. Ada is found on the floor before the dressing-table.
14. The lights have been turned on in both rooms.
15. Over three minutes elapse between the two shots.
16. Von Blon, summoned immediately, arrives within half an hour.
17. A set of footprints, other than Von Blon’s, leaving and
approaching the house, is found; but the character of the snow
renders them indecipherable.
18. The tracks have been made during the half-hour preceding the
crime.
19. Both shootings are done with a .32 revolver.
20. Chester reports that an old .32 revolver of his is missing.
21. Chester is not satisfied with the police theory of a burglar,
and insists that the District Attorney’s office investigate the
case.
22. Mrs. Greene is aroused by the shot fired in Ada’s room, and
hears Ada fall. But she hears no footsteps or sound of a door
closing.
23. Sproot is half-way down the servants’ stairs when the second
shot is fired, yet he encounters no one in the hall. Nor does he
hear any noise.
24. Rex, in the room next to Ada’s, says he heard no shot.
25. Rex intimates that Chester knows more about the tragedy than he
admits.
26. There is some secret between Chester and Sibella.
27. Sibella, like Chester, repudiates the burglar theory, but
refuses to suggest an alternative, and says frankly that any member
of the Greene family may be guilty.
28. Ada says she was awakened by a menacing presence in her room,
which was in darkness; that she attempted to run from the intruder,
but was pursued by shuffling footsteps.
29. Ada says a hand touched her when she first arose from bed, but
refuses to make any attempt to identify the hand.
30. Sibella challenges Ada to say that it was she (Sibella) who was
in the room, and then deliberately accuses Ada of having shot Julia.
She also accuses Ada of having stolen the revolver from Chester’s
room.
31. Von Blon, by his attitude and manner, reveals a curious intimacy
between Sibella and himself.
32. Ada is frankly fond of Von Blon.
Second Crime
33. Four days after Julia and Ada are shot, at 11.30 P. M., Chester
is murdered by a contact shot fired from a .32 revolver.
34. There is a look of amazement and horror on his face.
35. Sibella hears the shot and summons Sproot.
36. Sibella says she listened at her door immediately after the shot
was fired, but heard no other sound.
37. The lights are on in Chester’s room. He was apparently reading
when the murderer entered.
38. A clear double set of footprints is found on the front walk. The
tracks have been made within a half-hour of the crime.
39. A pair of galoshes, exactly corresponding to the footprints, is
found in Chester’s clothes-closet.
40. Ada had a premonition of Chester’s death, and, when informed of
it, guesses he has been shot in the same manner as Julia. But she is
greatly relieved when shown the footprint patterns indicating that
the murderer is an outsider.
41. Rex says he heard a noise in the hall and the sound of a door
closing twenty minutes before the shot was fired.
42. Ada, when told of Rex’s story, recalls also having heard a door
close at some time after eleven.
43. It is obvious that Ada knows or suspects something.
44. The cook becomes emotional at the thought of any one wanting to
harm Ada, but says she can understand a person having a reason to
shoot Julia and Chester.
45. Rex, when interviewed, shows clearly that he thinks some one in
the house is guilty.
46. Rex accuses Von Blon of being the murderer.
47. Mrs. Greene makes a request that the investigation be dropped.
Third Crime
48. Rex is shot in the forehead with a .32 revolver, at 11.20 A. M.,
twenty days after Chester has been killed and within five minutes of
the time Ada phones him from the District Attorney’s office.
49. There is no look of horror or surprise on Rex’s face, as was the
case with Julia and Chester.
50. His body is found on the floor before the mantel.
51. A diagram which Ada asked him to bring with him to the District
Attorney’s office has disappeared.
52. No one up-stairs hears the shot, though the doors are open; but
Sproot, down-stairs in the butler’s pantry, hears it distinctly.
53. Von Blon is visiting Sibella that morning; but she says she was
in the bathroom bathing her dog at the time Rex was shot.
54. Footprints are found in Ada’s room coming from the balcony door,
which is ajar.
55. A single set of footprints is found leading from the front walk
to the balcony.
56. The tracks could have been made at any time after nine o’clock
that morning.
57. Sibella refuses to go away on a visit.
58. The galoshes that made all three sets of footprints are found in
the linen-closet, although they were not there when the house was
searched for the revolver.
59. The galoshes are returned to the linen-closet, but disappear
that night.
Fourth Crime
60. Two days after Rex’s death Ada and Mrs. Greene are poisoned
within twelve hours of each other—Ada with morphine, Mrs. Greene
with strychnine.
61. Ada is treated at once, and recovers.
62. Von Blon is seen leaving the house just before Ada swallows the
poison.
63. Ada is discovered by Sproot as a result of Sibella’s dog
catching his teeth in the bell-cord.
64. The morphine was taken in the bouillon which Ada habitually
drank in the mornings.
65. Ada states that no one visited her in her room after the nurse
had called her to come and drink the bouillon; but that she went to
Julia’s room to get a shawl, leaving the bouillon unguarded for
several moments.
66. Neither Ada nor the nurse remembers having seen Sibella’s dog in
the hall before the poisoned bouillon was taken.
67. Mrs. Greene is found dead of strychnine-poisoning the morning
after Ada swallowed the morphine.
68. The strychnine could have been administered only after 11 P. M.
the previous night.
69. The nurse was in her room on the third floor between 11 and
11.30 P. M.
70. Von Blon was calling on Sibella that night, but Sibella says he
left her at 10.45.
71. The strychnine was administered in a dose of citrocarbonate,
which, presumably, Mrs. Greene would not have taken without
assistance.
72. Sibella decides to visit a girl chum in Atlantic City, and
leaves New York on the afternoon train.
Distributable Facts
73. The same revolver is used on Julia, Ada, Chester, and Rex.
74. All three sets of footprints have obviously been made by some
one in the house for the purpose of casting suspicion on an
outsider.
75. The murderer is some one whom both Julia and Chester would
receive in their rooms, in negligé, late at night.
76. The murderer does not make himself known to Ada, but enters her
room surreptitiously.
77. Nearly three weeks after Chester’s death Ada comes to the
District Attorney’s office, stating she has important news to
impart.
78. Ada says that Rex has confessed to her that he heard the shot in
her room and also heard other things, but was afraid to admit them;
and she asks that Rex be questioned.
79. Ada tells of having found a cryptic diagram, marked with
symbols, in the lower hall near the library door.
80. On the day of Rex’s murder Von Blon reports that his
medicine-case has been rifled of three grains of strychnine and six
grains of morphine—presumably at the Greene mansion.
81. The library reveals the fact that some one has been in the habit
of going there and reading by candle-light. The books that show
signs of having been read are: a handbook of the criminal sciences,
two works on toxicology, and two treatises on hysterical paralysis
and sleep-walking.
82. The visitor to the library is some one who understands German
well, for three of the books that have been read are in German.
83. The galoshes that disappeared from the linen-closet on the night
of Rex’s murder are found in the library.
84. Some one listens at the door while the library is being
inspected.
85. Ada reports that she saw Mrs. Greene walking in the lower hall
the night before.
86. Von Blon asserts that Mrs. Greene’s paralysis is of a nature
that makes movement a physical impossibility.
87. Arrangements are made with Von Blon to have Doctor Oppenheimer
examine Mrs. Greene.
88. Von Blon informs Mrs. Greene of the proposed examination, which
he has scheduled for the following day.
89. Mrs. Greene is poisoned before Doctor Oppenheimer’s examination
can be made.
90. The _post mortem_ reveals conclusively that Mrs. Greene’s leg
muscles were so atrophied that she could not have walked.
91. Ada, when told of the autopsy, insists that she saw her mother’s
shawl about the figure in the hall, and, on being pressed, admits
that Sibella sometimes wore it.
92. During the questioning of Ada regarding the shawl Mrs. Mannheim
suggests that it was she herself whom Ada saw in the hall.
93. When Julia and Ada were shot there were, or could have been,
present in the house: Chester, Sibella, Rex, Mrs. Greene, Von Blon,
Barton, Hemming, Sproot, and Mrs. Mannheim.
94. When Chester was shot there were, or could have been, present in
the house: Sibella, Rex, Mrs. Greene, Ada, Von Blon, Barton,
Hemming, Sproot, and Mrs. Mannheim.
95. When Rex was shot there were, or could have been, present in the
house: Sibella, Mrs. Greene, Von Blon, Hemming, Sproot, and Mrs.
Mannheim.
96. When Ada was poisoned there were, or could have been, present in
the house: Sibella, Mrs. Greene, Von Blon, Hemming, Sproot, and Mrs.
Mannheim.
97. When Mrs. Greene was poisoned there were, or could have been,
present in the house: Sibella, Von Blon, Ada, Hemming, Sproot, and
Mrs. Mannheim.
When Markham had finished reading the summary, he went through it a
second time. Then he laid it on the table.
“Yes, Vance,” he said, “you’ve covered the main points pretty
thoroughly. But I can’t see any coherence in them. In fact, they seem
only to emphasize the confusion of the case.”
“And yet, Markham, I’m convinced that they only need rearrangement and
interpretation to be perfectly clear. Properly analyzed, they’ll tell
us everything we want to know.”
Markham glanced again through the pages.
“If it wasn’t for certain items, we could make out a case against
several people. But no matter what person in the list we may assume to
be guilty, we are at once confronted by a group of contradictory and
insurmountable facts. This _précis_ could be used effectively to prove
that every one concerned is innocent.”
“Superficially it appears that way,” agreed Vance. “But we first must
find the generating line of the design, and then relate the subsidi’ry
forms of the pattern to it.”
Markham made a hopeless gesture.
“If only life were as simple as your æsthetic theories!”
“It’s dashed simpler,” Vance asserted. “The mere mechanism of a camera
can record life; but only a highly developed creative intelligence,
with a profound philosophic insight, can produce a work of art.”
“Can _you_ make any sense—æsthetic or otherwise—out of this?” Markham
petulantly tapped the sheets of paper.
“I can see certain traceries, so to speak—certain suggestions of a
pattern; but I’ll admit the main design has thus far eluded me. The
fact is, Markham, I have a feeling that some important factor in this
case—some balancing line of the pattern, perhaps—is still hidden from
us. I don’t say that my résumé is insusceptible of interpretation in
its present state; but our task would be greatly simplified if we were
in possession of the missing integer.”
Fifteen minutes later, when we had returned to Markham’s main office,
Swacker came in and laid a letter on the desk.
“There’s a funny one, Chief,” he said.
Markham took up the letter and read it with a deepening frown. When he
had finished, he handed it to Vance. The letter-head read, “Rectory,
Third Presbyterian Church, Stamford, Connecticut”; the date was the
preceding day; and the signature was that of the Reverend Anthony
Seymour. The contents of the letter, written in a small, precise hand,
were as follows:
The Honorable John F.-X. Markham,
_Dear Sir:_ As far as I am aware, I have never betrayed a
confidence. But there can arise, I believe, unforeseen circumstances
to modify the strictness of one’s adherence to a given promise, and
indeed impose upon one a greater duty than that of keeping silent.
I have read in the papers of the wicked and abominable things that
have happened at the Greene residence in New York; and I have
therefore come to the conclusion, after much heart-searching and
prayer, that it is my bounden duty to put you in possession of a
fact which, as the result of a promise, I have kept to myself for
over a year. I would not now betray this trust did I not believe
that some good might possibly come of it, and that you, my dear sir,
would also treat the matter in the most sacred confidence. It may
not help you—indeed, I do not see how it can possibly lead to a
solution of the terrible curse that has fallen upon the Greene
family—but since the fact is connected intimately with one of the
members of that family, I will feel better when I have communicated
it to you.
On the night of August 29, of last year, a machine drove up to my
door, and a man and a woman asked that I secretly marry them. I may
say that I am frequently receiving such requests from runaway
couples. This particular couple appeared to be well-bred dependable
people, and I concurred with their wishes, giving them my assurances
that the ceremony would, as they desired, be kept confidential.
The names that appeared on the license—which had been secured in New
Haven late that afternoon—were Sibella Greene, of New York City, and
Arthur Von Blon, also of New York City.
Vance read the letter and handed it back.
“Really, y’ know, I can’t say that I’m astonished——”
Suddenly he broke off, his eyes fixed thoughtfully before him. Then he
rose nervously and paced up and down.
“That tears it!” he exclaimed.
Markham threw him a look of puzzled interrogation.
“What’s the point?”
“Don’t you see?” Vance came quickly to the District Attorney’s desk.
“My word! That’s the one fact that’s missing from my tabulation.” He
then unfolded the last sheet and wrote:
98. Sibella and Von Blon were secretly married a year ago.
“But I don’t see how that helps,” protested Markham.
“Neither do I at this moment,” Vance replied. “But I’m going to spend
this evening in erudite meditation.”