The Dragon Murder Case

by S. S. Van Dine

“They’re the same as the ones I made copies of,” he declared. “No mistaking ’em, sir.” He looked inquiringly at Heath. “But I didn’t see these imprints on the bank when I was making the drawings.”

  “They weren’t here then,” Vance explained. “But I wanted you to see them, nevertheless—to make sure they were the same as the others... I just made these myself.”

  “How did you make them—and with what?” Markham demanded angrily.

  “With part of the sartorial outfit I purchased today,” Vance told him. “The new gloves and the new shoes, don’t y’ know.” Despite his smile his eyes were grave.

  He picked up the hand-bag and walked back toward the cement path.

  “Come, Markham,” he said, “I’ll show you what I mean. But we had better go back to the car. It’s beastly damp here by the pool.”

  He entered the spacious tonneau, and we did likewise, wondering. Snitkin stood in the road by the open door, with one foot on the running-board.

  Vance opened the bag and, reaching into it, drew out the most unusual pair of gloves I had ever seen. They were made of heavy rubber, with gauntlets extending about six inches above the wrists; and though they had a division for the thumb, they had only two broad tapering fingers. They looked like some monster’s three-pronged talons.

  “These gloves, Markham,” Vance explained, “are technically known as two-fingered diving mittens. They are the United States Navy standard pattern, and are constructed in this fashion for convenience when it is necess’ry to have the use of the fingers under water. They are adapted to the most difficult types of submarine work. And it was with one of these gloves that I just made the mark on the earth there.”

  Markham was speechless for a moment; then he tore his fascinated gaze from the gloves and looked up at Vance.

  “Do you mean to tell me it was with a pair of gloves like those that the imprints were made on the bottom of the pool!”

  Vance nodded and tossed the gloves back into the bag.

  “Yes, they explain the claw-marks of the dragon... And here is what made the dragon’s hoof-prints in the silt of the pool.”

  Reaching into the bag again, he brought out a pair of enormous, strange-looking foot-gear. They had heavy solid-brass bottoms with thick leather tops; and across the instep and the ankle were wide leather straps, with huge buckles.

  “Diving shoes, Markham,” Vance remarked. “Also standard equipment... Look at the corrugations on the metal soles, made to prevent slipping.”

  He turned one of the shoes over, and there, etched in the brass, were scale-like ridges and grooves, such as are found in the tread of an automobile tire.

  There was a long silence. This revelation of Vance’s had started, in all of us, new processes of speculative thought. Heath’s face was rigid and dour, and Snitkin stood staring at the shoes with an air of fascinated curiosity. It was Markham who first roused himself.

  “Good God!” he exclaimed, in a low tone, as if expressing his feelings aloud, but without reference to any listener. “I’m beginning to see...” Then he turned his eyes quickly to Vance. “But what about the suit you were going to get?”

  “I saw the suit when I purchased the shoes and gloves,” Vance replied, inspecting his cigarette thoughtfully. “It really wasn’t necess’ry to own it, once I had seen it, and its workability had been explained to me. But I had to make sure, don’t y’ know,—it was essential to find the missing integers of my theory. However, I needed the shoes and gloves to experiment with. I wanted to prove, d’ ye see, the existence of the diving suit.”

  Markham inclined his head comprehendingly, but there was still a look of awe and incredulity in his eyes.

  “I see what you mean,” he murmured. “There’s a diving suit and a similar pair of shoes and gloves somewhere about here...”

  “Yes, yes. Somewhere hereabouts. And there’s also an oxygen tank...” His voice drifted off, and his eyes became dreamy. “They must be near at hand,” he added, “—somewhere on the estate.”

  “The dragon’s outfit!” mumbled Markham, as if following some inner train of thought.

  “Exactly.” Vance nodded and threw his cigarette out of the car window. “And that outfit should be somewhere near the pool. There wasn’t time to carry it away. It couldn’t have been taken back to the house—that would have been too dangerous. And it couldn’t have been left where it might have been accidentally discovered... There was design in these crimes—a careful plotting of details. Nothing haphazard, nothing fortuitous—”

  He broke off suddenly and, rising quickly, stepped out of the car.

  “Come, Markham! There’s a chance!” There was suppressed excitement in his voice. “By Jove! it’s the only chance. The equipment must be there—it couldn’t be anywhere else. It’s a hideous idea—gruesome beyond words—but maybe...maybe.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Final Link (Monday, August 13; 5 p.m.)

  VANCE HASTENED BACK down the cement walk toward the pool, with the rest of us close behind him, not knowing where he was leading us and with only a vague idea of his object. But there was something in his tone, as well as in his dynamic action, which had taken a swift and strong hold on all of us. I believe that Markham and Heath, like myself, felt that the end of this terrible case was near, and that Vance, through some subtle contact with the truth, had found the road which led to its culmination.

  Half-way down the walk Vance turned into the shrubbery at the right, motioning us to follow.

  “Be careful to keep out of sight of the house,” he called over his shoulder, as he headed for the vault.

  When he had reached the great iron door he looked about him carefully, glanced up at the high cliff, and then, with a swift movement to his pocket, took out the vault key. Unlocking the door, he pushed it inward slowly to avoid, I surmised, any unnecessary noise. For the second time that day we entered the dank close atmosphere of the old Stamm tomb, and Vance carefully closed the door. The beam from Heath’s flashlight split the darkness, and Vance took the light from the Sergeant’s hand.

  “I’ll need that for a moment,” he explained, and stepped toward the grim tier of coffins on the right.

  Slowly Vance moved the light along those gruesome rows of boxes, with their corroded bronze fittings and clouded silver name-plates. He worked systematically, rubbing off the tarnish of the silver with his free hand, so that he might read the inscriptions. When he had come to the bottom tier he paused before a particularly old oak coffin and bent down.

  “Sylvanus Anthony Stamm, 1790–1871,” he read aloud. He ran the light along the top of the coffin and touched it at several points with his fingers. “This should be the one, I think,” he murmured. “There’s very little dust on it, and it’s the oldest coffin here. Disintegration of the body will be far advanced and the bone structure will have crumbled, leaving more room for—other things.” He turned to Heath. “Sergeant, will you and Snitkin get this coffin out on the floor. I’d like a peep in it.”

  Markham, who had stood at one side in the shadows watching Vance intently and doubtfully, came quickly forward.

  “You can’t do that, Vance!” he protested. “You can’t break into a private coffin this way. You can be held legally accountable...”

  “This is no time for technicalities, Markham,” Vance returned in a bitter, imperious voice... “Come, Sergeant. Are you with me?”

  Heath stepped forward without hesitation.

  “I’m with you, sir,” he said resolutely. “I think I know what we’re going to find.”

  Markham looked squarely at Vance a moment; then moved aside and turned his back. Knowing what this unspoken acquiescence on Markham’s part meant to a man of his precise and conventional nature, I felt a great wave of admiration for him.

  The coffin was moved from its rack to the floor of the vault, and Vance bent over the lid.

  “Ah! The screws are gone.” He took hold of the lid, and with but little effort it slid aside.


  With the Sergeant’s help the heavy top was removed. Beneath was the inner casket. The lid of this was also loose, and Vance easily lifted it off and placed it on the floor. Then he played the flashlight on the interior of the casket.

  At first I thought the thing I saw was some unearthly creature with a huge head and a tapering body, like some illustrations I had seen of Martians. I drew in an involuntary, audible breath: I was shocked and, at the same time, frightened. More monsters! My one instinct was to rush out into the clean sunlight, away from such a hideous and terrifying sight.

  “That’s a duplicate of the suit I saw today, Markham,” came Vance’s steadying, matter-of-fact voice. He played his light down upon it. “A shallow-water diving suit—the kind used largely in pearl-fishing. There’s the three-light screw helmet with its hinged face-plate... And there’s the one-piece United States Navy diving dress of rubberized canvas.” He bent over and touched the gray material. “Yes, yes, of course—cut down the front. That was for getting out of it quickly without unscrewing the helmet and unlacing the backs of the legs.” He reached into the casket alongside the diving suit and drew forth two rubber gloves and a pair of brass-soled shoes. “And here are duplicates of the shoes and gloves I brought here with me.” (They were both caked with dried mud.) “These are what made the dragon’s imprints on the bottom of the pool.”

  Markham was gazing down into the casket, like a man stunned by a sudden and awe-inspiring revelation.

  “And hidden in that coffin!” he muttered, as if to himself.

  “Apparently the one safe place on the estate,” Vance nodded. “And this particular coffin was chosen because of its age. There would be little more than bones left, after all these years; and with a slight pressure the frame of the chest walls would have caved in, making space for the safe disposal of this outfit.” Vance paused a moment, and then went on: “This type of suit, d’ ye see, doesn’t require an air pump and hose connection. An oxygen tank can be clamped to the breast-plate and attached to the intake-valve of the helmet... See this?”

  He pointed to the foot of the casket, and I saw, for the first time, lying on the bottom, a metal cylinder about eighteen inches long.

  “That’s the tank. It can be placed horizontally across the breast-plate, without interfering with the operations of the diver.”

  As he started to lift out the oxygen tank we heard a clinking sound, as if the tank had come in contact with another piece of metal.

  Vance’s face became suddenly animated.

  “Ah! I wonder...”

  He moved the tank to one side and reached down into the depths of that ancient coffin. When his hand came out he was holding a vicious-looking grappling-iron. It was fully two feet long and at one end were three sharp steel hooks. For a moment I did not grasp the significance of this discovery; but when Vance touched the prongs with his finger I saw that they were clotted with blood, and the horrible truth swept over me.

  Holding the grappling-iron toward Markham, he said in a curiously hushed voice:

  “The dragon’s claws—the same that tore Montague’s breast—and Greeff’s.”

  Markham’s fascinated eyes clung to the deadly instrument.

  “Still—I don’t quite see—”

  “This grapnel was the one missing factor in the hideous problem,” Vance interrupted. “Not that it would have mattered greatly, once we had found the diving suit and had explained the imprints in the pool. But it does clarify the situation, don’t y’ know.”

  He tossed the iron back into the casket and replaced the cover. At a sign from him Heath and Snitkin lifted the heavy oak lid back to the coffin and returned the ancient box, with its terrible and revelatory contents, to its original position on the lower tier.

  “We’re through here—for the present, at any rate,” Vance said, as we passed out into the sunlight. He locked the door of the vault and dropped the key back into his pocket. “We had better be returning to the house, now that we have the solution to the crimes...”

  He paused to light a cigarette; then looked grimly at the District Attorney.

  “Y’ see, Markham,” he said, “there was, after all, a dragon involved in the case—a fiendish and resourceful dragon. He had vengeance and hate and ruthlessness in his heart. He could live under water, and he had talons of steel with which to tear his victims. But, above all, he had the shrewd calculating mind of man—and when the mind of man becomes perverted and cruel it is more vicious than that of any other creature on earth.”

  Markham nodded thoughtfully.

  “I’m beginning to understand. But there are too many things that need explaining.”

  “I think I can explain them all,” Vance replied, “now that the basic pattern is complete.”

  Heath was scowling deeply, watching Vance with a look which combined skepticism with admiration.

  “Well, if you don’t mind, Mr. Vance,” he said apologetically, “I’d like you to explain one thing to me right now.—How did the fellow in the diving suit get out of the pool without leaving footprints? You’re not going to tell me he had wings, too, are you?”

  “No, Sergeant.” Vance waved his hand toward the pile of lumber beside the vault. “There’s the answer. The point bothered me too until this afternoon; but knowing he could have left the pool only by walking, I realized that there must inevitably be a simple and rational explanation for the absence of footprints—especially when I knew that he was weighted down and wearing heavy diving shoes. When I approached the vault a few minutes ago, the truth suddenly dawned on me.” He smiled faintly. “We should have seen it long ago, for we ourselves demonstrated the method by doing exactly the same thing when we walked out over the bottom of the pool. The murderer placed one of these boards between the end of the cement walk and the edge of the pool,—the width of that stretch of flat ground is little more than the length of the timber. Then, when he had walked out of the pool over the board, he simply carried it back and threw it on the pile of lumber from which he had taken it.”

  “Sure!” Heath agreed with a kind of shame-faced satisfaction. “That’s what made that mark on the grass that looked like a heavy suit-case had been set there.”

  “Quite right,” nodded Vance. “It was merely the indentation made by one end of the heavy plank when the chappie in the diving suit stepped on it...”

  Markham, who had been listening closely, interrupted.

  “The technical details of the crime are all very well, Vance, but what of the person who perpetrated these hideous acts? We should make some definite move immediately.”

  Vance looked up at him sadly and shook his head.

  “No, no—not immediately, Markham,” he said. “The thing is too obscure and complicated. There are too many unresolved factors in it—too many things to be considered. We have caught no one red-handed; and we must, therefore, avoid precipitancy in making an arrest. Otherwise, our entire case will collapse. It’s one thing to know who the culprit is and how the crimes were committed, but it’s quite another thing to prove the culprit’s guilt.”

  “How do you suggest that we go about it?”

  Vance thought a moment before answering. Then he said:

  “It’s a delicate matter. Perhaps it would be wise to make subtle suggestions and bold innuendos that may bring forth the very admission that we need. But certainly we must not take any direct action too quickly. We must discuss the situation before making a decision. We have hours ahead of us till nightfall.” He glanced at his watch. “We had better be going back to the house. We can settle the matter there and decide on the best course to pursue.”

  Markham acquiesced with a nod, and we set off through the shrubbery toward the car.

  As we came out into the East Road a car drove up from the direction of Spuyten Duyvil, and Stamm and two other men who looked like workers got out and approached us.

  “Anything new?” Stamm asked. And then, without waiting for an answer, he said: “I’m going down to get that rock o
ut of the pool.”

  “We have some news for you,” Vance said, “—but not here. When you’ve finished the job,” he suggested, “come up to the house. We’ll be there.”

  Stamm lifted his eyebrows slightly.

  “Oh, all right. It’ll take me only an hour or so.” And he turned and disappeared down the cement path, the two workmen following him.

  We drove quickly to the house. Vance, instead of entering at the front door, walked directly round the north side of the house, to the terrace overlooking the pool.

  Leland was seated in a large wicker chair, smoking placidly and gazing out at the cliffs opposite. He barely greeted us as we came forward, and Vance, pausing only to light a fresh cigarette, sat down beside him.

  “The game’s up, Leland,” he said in a tone which, for all its casualness, was both firm and grim. “We know the truth.”

  Leland’s expression did not change.

  “What truth?” he asked, almost as if he felt no curiosity about the matter.

  “The truth about the murders of Montague and Greeff.”

  “I rather suspected you would find it out,” he returned calmly. (I was amazed at the man’s self-control.) “I saw you down at the pool a while ago. I imagine I know what you were doing there... You have visited the vault also?”

  “Yes,” Vance admitted. “We inspected the coffin of Sylvanus Anthony Stamm. We found the diving equipment in it—and the three-pronged grappling-iron.”

  “And the oxygen tank?” Leland asked, without shifting his eyes from the cliffs beyond.

  Vance nodded.

  “Yes, the tank too.—The whole procedure is quite clear now. Everything about the crimes, I believe, is explained.”

  Leland bowed his head, and with trembling fingers attempted to repack his pipe.

  “In a way, I am glad,” he said, in a very low voice. “Perhaps it is better—for every one.”

  Vance regarded the man with a look closely akin to pity.

  “There’s one thing I don’t entirely understand, Mr. Leland,” he said at length. “Why did you telephone the Homicide Bureau after Montague’s disappearance? You only planted the seed of suspicion of foul play, when the episode might have passed as an accident.”