The Garden Murder Case

by S. S. Van Dine

  Markham arrived within half an hour. In the meantime Vance had dressed and was finishing his second cup of coffee.

  “What’s the trouble now?” Markham demanded irritably, as he came into the library. “Perhaps now that I’m here, you’ll be good enough to forgo your cryptic air.”

  “My dear Markham—oh, my dear Markham!” Vance looked up and sighed. “Do sit down and have a cup of coffee while I enjoy this cigarette. Really, y’ know, it’s deuced hard to be lucid on the telephone.” He poured a cup of coffee, and Markham reluctantly sat down. “And please don’t sweeten the coffee,” Vance went on. “It has a delightfully subtle bouquet, and it would be a pity to spoil it with saccharine.”

  Markham, frowning defiantly, put three lumps of sugar in the cup.

  “Why am I here?” he growled.

  “A profoundly philosophical question,” smiled Vance. “Unanswerable, however. Why are any of us here? Why anything? But, since we are all here without knowing the reason therefor, I’ll pander to your pragmatism.” He drew deeply on his cigarette and settled back lazily in his chair. “Siefert phoned me this morning, just before I called you. Explained he didn’t know your private number at home and asked me to apologize to you for not notifying you direct.”

  “Notifying me?” Markham set down his cup.

  “About Mrs. Garden. She’s dead. Found so this morning in bed. Probably murdered.”

  “Good God!”

  “Yes, quite. Not a nice situation. No. The lady died some time during the night—exact hour unknown as yet. Siefert says it might have been caused by an overdose of the sleeping medicine he prescribed for her. It’s all gone. And he says there was enough of it to do the trick. On the other hand, he admits it might have been something else. He’s very noncommittal. No external signs he can diagnose. Craves our advice and succor. Hence his summons.”

  Markham pushed his cup aside with a clatter and lighted a cigar.

  “Where’s Siefert now?” he asked.

  “At the Gardens’. Very correct. Standing by, and all that. The nurse phoned him shortly after eight this morning—it was she who made the discovery when she took Mrs. Garden’s breakfast in. Siefert hastened over and after viewing the remains and probing round a bit called me. Said that, in view of yesterday’s events, he didn’t wish to go ahead until we got there.”

  “Well, why don’t we get along?” snapped Markham, standing up.

  Vance sighed and rose slowly from his chair.

  “There’s really no rush. The lady can’t elude us. And Siefert won’t desert the ship. Moreover, it’s a beastly hour to drag one out of bed. Y’ know, Markham, an entertainin’ monograph could be written about the total lack of consideration on the part of murderers. They think only of themselves. No fellow feelin’. Always upsettin’ the normal routine. And they never declare a holiday—not even on a Sunday morning… However, as you say. Let’s toddle.”

  “Hadn’t we better notify Heath?” suggested Markham.

  “Yes—quite,” returned Vance, as we went out. “I called the Sergeant just after I phoned you. He’s been up half the night working on the usual police routine. Stout fella, Heath. Amazin’ industry. But quite futile. If only such energy led anywhere beyond steel filing cabinets. I always think tenderly of Heath as a perpetuator of archives…”

  Miss Beeton admitted us to the Garden apartment. She looked drawn and worried, but she gave Vance a faint smile of greeting which he returned.

  “I’m beginning to think this nightmare will never end, Mr. Vance,” she said.

  Vance nodded sombrely, and we went on into the drawing room where Doctor Siefert, Professor Garden, and his son were awaiting us.

  “I’m glad you’ve come, gentlemen,” Siefert greeted us, coming forward.

  Professor Garden sat at one end of the long davenport, his elbows resting on his knees, his face in his hands. He barely acknowledged our presence. Floyd Garden got to his feet and nodded abstractedly in our direction. A terrible change seemed to have come over him. He looked years older than when we had left him the night before, and his face, despite its tan, showed a greenish pallor. His eyes moved vaguely about the room; he was visibly shaken.

  “What a hell of a situation!” he mumbled, focusing watery eyes on Vance. “The mater accuses me last night of putting Woody out of the way, and then threatens to cut me off in her will. And now she’s dead! And it was I who took charge of the prescription. The doc says it could have been the medicine that killed her.”

  Vance looked at the man sharply.

  “Yes, yes,” he said in a low, sympathetic tone. “I thought of all that, too, don’t y’ know. But it certainly won’t help you to be morbid about it. How about a Tom Collins?”

  “I’ve had four already,” Garden returned dispiritedly, sinking back into his chair. But almost immediately he sprang to his feet again. He pointed a finger at Vance, and his eyes filled with apprehension and entreaty.

  “For God’s sake,” he burst out, “it’s up to you to find out the truth. I’m on the spot—what with my going out of the room with Woody yesterday, my failure to place his bet, then the mater’s accusation, and that damned will of hers, and the medicine. You’ve got to find out who’s guilty…”

  As he was talking the door bell had rung, and Heath came up the hallway.

  “Sure, we’re gonna find out,” came the pugnacious voice of the Sergeant from the archway. “And it ain’t gonna be so well with you when we do.”

  Vance turned quickly round. “Oh, I say, Sergeant. Less animation, please. This is hardly the time. Too early in the morning.” He went to Garden and, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder, urged him back into his chair. “Come, buck up,” he said; “we’ll need your help, and if you work up a case of jitters you’ll be useless.”

  “But don’t you see how deeply involved I am?” Garden protested weakly.

  “You’re not the only one involved,” Vance returned calmly. He turned to Siefert. “I think, doctor, we should have a little chat. Possibly we can get the matter of your patient’s death straightened out a bit. Suppose we go upstairs to the study, what?”

  As we stepped through the archway into the hall, I glanced back. Young Garden was staring after us with a hard, determined look. The professor had not moved, and took no more notice of our going than he had of our coming.

  In the study Vance went directly to the point.

  “Doctor, the time has come when we must be perfectly frank with each other. The usual conventional considerations of your profession must be temporarily put aside. A matter far more urgent is involved now, and it requires more serious consideration than the accepted relationship between doctor and patient. Therefore, I shall be altogether candid with you and trust that you can see your way to being equally candid with me.”

  Siefert, who had taken a chair near the door, looked at Vance a trifle uneasily.

  “I regret that I do not understand what you mean,” he said in his suavest manner.

  “I merely mean,” replied Vance coolly, “that I am fully aware that it was you who sent me the anonymous telephone message Friday night.”

  Siefert raised his eyebrows slightly.

  “Indeed! That’s very interesting.”

  “Not only interestin’,” drawled Vance, “but true. How I know it was you need not concern us at the moment. I only beg of you to admit that it is so, and to act accordingly. The fact has a direct bearing on this tragic case, and unless you will assist us with a frank statement, a grave injustice may be done—an injustice that could not be squared with any existing code of medical ethics.”

  Siefert hesitated for several moments. He withdrew his eyes hastily from Vance and looked thoughtfully out of the window toward the west.

  “Assuming, for the sake of argument,” he said with deliberation, like a man carefully choosing his words, “that it was I who phoned you Friday night, what then?”

  Vance watched the man with a faint smile.

  “It mig
ht be, don’t y’ know,” he said, “that you were cognizant of the situation here, and that you had a suspicion—or let us say, a fear—that something tragic was impending.” Vance took out his cigarette case and lighted a cigarette. “I fully understood the import of that message, doctor—as you intended. That is why I happened to be here yesterday afternoon. The significance of your reference to the Æneid and the inclusion of the word ‘equanimity’ did not escape me. I must say, however, that your advice to investigate radioactive sodium was not entirely clear—although I think I now have a fairly lucid idea as to the implication. However, there were some deeper implications in your message, and this is the time, d’ ye see, when we should face this thing together with complete honesty.”

  Siefert brought his eyes back to Vance in a long appraising glance, and then shifted them to the window again. After a minute or two he stood up, clasped his hands behind him, and strode across the room. He looked out over the Hudson with troubled concern. Then he turned and, nodding as if in answer to some question he had put to himself, said:

  “Yes, I did send you that message. Perhaps I was not entirely loyal to my principles when I did so, for I had little doubt that you would guess who sent it and would understand what I was trying to convey to you. But I realize that nothing can be gained now by not being frank with you… The situation in this household has bothered me for a long time, and lately I’ve had a sense of imminent disaster. All of the factors of late have been ripening for this final outburst. And I felt so strongly about them that I could not resist sending an anonymous message to you, in the hope that the vague eventualities I anticipated might be averted.”

  “How long have you felt this vague premonition?” asked Vance.

  “For the past three months, I should say. Although I have acted as the Gardens’ physician for many years, it was not until last fall that Mrs. Garden’s changing condition came to my notice. I thought little of it at first, but, as it grew worse and I found myself unable to diagnose it satisfactorily, a curious suspicion forced itself on me that the change was not entirely natural. I began coming here much more frequently than had been my custom, and during the last couple of months I had felt many subtle undercurrents in the various relationships of the household, which I had never sensed before. Of course, I knew that Floyd and Swift never got along particularly well—that there was some deep animosity and jealousy between them. I also knew the conditions of Mrs. Garden’s will. Furthermore, I knew of the gambling on the horses that had become part of the daily routine here. Neither Floyd nor Woode kept anything from me—you see, I have always been their confidant as well as their physician—and their reactions toward their personal affairs—which, unfortunately, included horse-racing—were well known to me.”

  Siefert paused with a frown.

  “As I say, it has been only recently that I have felt something deeper and more significant in all this interplay of temperaments; and this feeling grew to such proportions that I actually feared a violent climax of some kind—especially as Floyd told me only a few days ago that his cousin intended to stake his entire remaining funds on Equanimity in the big race yesterday. So overpowering was my feeling in regard to the whole situation here that I decided to do something about it, if I could manage it without divulging any professional confidences. But you saw through my subterfuge, and, to be wholly candid with you, I’m rather glad you did.”

  Vance nodded. “I appreciate your scruples in the matter, doctor. I only regret that I was unable to forestall these tragedies. That, as it happened, was beyond human power.” Vance looked up quickly. “By the by, doctor, did you have any definite suspicions when you phoned me Friday night?”

  Siefert shook his head with emphasis. “No. Frankly, I was baffled. I merely felt that some sort of explosion was imminent. But I hadn’t the slightest idea in what quarter that explosion would occur.”

  “Can you say from what quarter the causes for your apprehension arose?”

  “No. Nor can I say whether my feeling had to do with Mrs. Garden’s state of health alone, or whether I was influenced also by the subtle antagonism between Floyd and Woode Swift. I asked myself the question many times, without finding a satisfactory answer. At times, however, I could not resist the impression that the two factors were in some way closely related. Hence my phone message, in which, by inference, I called your attention to both Mrs. Garden’s peculiar illness and the tense atmosphere that had developed round the daily betting on the races.”

  Vance smoked a while in silence. “And now, doctor, will you be so good as to give us the full details about this morning?”

  Siefert drew himself up in his chair.

  “There’s practically nothing to add to the information I gave you over the phone. Miss Beeton called me a little after eight o’clock and informed me that Mrs. Garden had died some time during the night. She asked for instructions, and I told her that I would come at once. I was here half an hour or so later. I could find no determinable cause for Mrs. Garden’s death, and assumed it might have been her heart until Miss Beeton called my attention to the fact that the bottle of medicine sent by the druggist was empty…”

  “By the by, doctor, what was, the prescription you made out for your patient last night?”

  “A simple barbital solution.”

  “Why did you not prescribe one of the ordin’ry barbiturate compounds?”

  “Why should I?” Siefert asked with obvious annoyance. “I always prefer to know exactly what my patient is getting. I’m old-fashioned enough to take little stock in proprietary mixtures.”

  “And I believe you told me on the telephone that there was sufficient barbital in the prescription to have caused death.”

  “Yes.” The doctor nodded. “If taken at one time.”

  “And Mrs. Garden’s death was consistent with barbital poisoning?”

  “There was nothing to contradict such a conclusion,” Siefert answered. “And there was nothing to indicate any other cause.”

  “When did the nurse discover the empty bottle?”

  “Not until after she had phoned me, I believe.”

  “Could the taste of the solution be detected if it were given to a person without his knowledge?”

  “Yes—and no,” the doctor replied judicially. “The taste is a bit acrid; but it is a colorless solution, like water, and if it were drunk fast the taste might go unnoticed.”

  Vance nodded. “Therefore, if the solution had been poured into a glass and water had been added, Mrs. Garden might conceivably have drunk it all without complaining about the bitter taste?”

  “That’s wholly possible,” the doctor told him. “And I cannot help feeling that something of that kind took place last night. It was because of this conclusion that I called you immediately.”

  Vance, smoking lazily, was watching Siefert from under speculative eyelids. Moving slightly in his chair and crushing out his cigarette in a small jade ashtray at his side, he said:

  “Tell me something of Mrs. Garden’s illness, doctor, and why radioactive sodium should have suggested itself to you.”

  Siefert brought his eyes sharply back to Vance.

  “I was afraid you would ask me that. But this is no time for squeamishness. I must trust wholly to your discretion.” He paused, as if determining how he might best approach a matter which was obviously distasteful to him. “As I’ve already said, I don’t know the exact nature of Mrs. Garden’s ailment. The symptoms have been very much like those accompanying radium poisoning. But I have never prescribed any of the radium preparations for her—I am, in fact, profoundly skeptical of their efficacy. As you may know, we have had many untoward results from the haphazard, unscientific administration of these radium preparations.”*

  He cleared his throat before continuing.

  “One evening while reading the reports of the researches made in California on radioactive sodium, or what might be called artificial radium, which has been heralded as a possible medium of cure for
cancer, I suddenly realized that Professor Garden himself was actively interested in this particular line of research and had done some very creditable work in the field. The realization was purely a matter of association, and I gave it little thought at first. But the idea persisted, and before long some very unpleasant possibilities began to force themselves upon me.”

  Again the doctor paused, a troubled look on his face.

  “About two months ago I suggested to Doctor Garden that, if it were at all feasible, he put Miss Beeton on his wife’s case. I had already come to the conclusion that Mrs. Garden required more constant attention and supervision than I could afford her, and Miss Beeton, who is a registered nurse, had, for the past year or so, been working with Doctor Garden in his laboratory—in fact, it was I who had sent her to him when he mentioned his need of a laboratory assistant. I was particularly anxious to have her take Mrs. Garden’s case, rather than some other nurse, for I felt that from her observations some helpful suggestions might result. The girl had been on several difficult cases of mine, and I was wholly familiar with her competency and discretion.”

  “And have Miss Beeton’s subsequent observations been helpful to you, doctor?” asked Vance.

  “No, I can’t say that they have,” Siefert admitted, “despite the fact that Doctor Garden still availed himself of her services occasionally in the laboratory, thereby giving her an added opportunity of keeping an eye on the entire situation. But, on the other hand, neither have they tended to dissipate my suspicions.”

  “I say, doctor,” Vance asked after a moment, “could this new radioactive sodium be administered to a person without his knowing it?”

  “Oh, quite easily,” Siefert assured him. “It could, for instance, be substituted in a shaker for ordinary salt and there would be nothing to arouse the slightest suspicion.”

  “And in quantities sufficient to produce the effects of radium poisoning?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “And how long would it be before the effects of such administrations proved fatal?”

  “That’s impossible to say.”