“I see no reason,” protested Markham, “to inform Arnesson of this new case. My idea would be to keep it under cover as much as possible.”
“The Bishop won’t let you, I fear,” returned Vance.
Markham set his jaw. “Good God!” he burst out. “What damnable sort of thing are we facing? I expect every minute to wake up and discover I’ve been living a nightmare.”
“No such luck, sir,” growled Heath. He took a resolute breath like a man preparing for combat. “What’s on the cards? Where do we go from here? I need action.”
Markham appealed to Vance. “You seem to have some idea about this affair. What’s your suggestion? I frankly admit I’m floundering about in a black chaos.”
Vance inhaled deeply on his cigarette. Then he leaned forward as if to give emphasis to his words.
“Markham old man, there’s only one conclusion to be drawn. These two murders were engineered by the same brain: both sprang from the same grotesque impulse; and since the first of them was committed by someone intimately familiar with conditions inside the Dillard house, it follows that we must now look for a person who, in addition to that knowledge, had definite information that a man named John Sprigg was in the habit of taking a walk each morning in a certain part of Riverside Park. Having found such a person, we must check up on the points of time, place, opportunity, and possible motive. There’s some interrelation between Sprigg and the Dillards. What it is I don’t know. But our first move should be to find out. What better starting point than the Dillard house itself?”
“We’ll get some lunch first,” said Markham wearily. “Then we’ll run out there.”
Footnotes
*Inspector William M. Moran, who died two years ago, was, at the time of the Bishop case, the commanding officer of the detective bureau.
*This expression was actually developed by Christoffel for a problem on the conductivity of heat, and published by him in 1869 in the Crelle Journal für reine und angewandte Mathematik.
CHAPTER TEN
A Refusal of Aid
(Monday, April 11; 2 p.m.)
IT WAS SHORTLY after two o’clock when we reached the Dillard house. Pyne answered our ring; and if our visit caused him any surprise, he succeeded admirably in hiding it. In the look he gave Heath, however, I detected a certain uneasiness; but when he spoke, his voice had the flat, unctuous quality of the well-trained servant.
“Mr. Arnesson has not returned from the university,” he informed us.
“Mind reading, I see,” said Vance, “is not your forte, Pyne. We called to see you and Professor Dillard.”
The man looked ill at ease; but before he could answer, Miss Dillard appeared in the archway of the drawing room.
“I thought I recognized your voice, Mr. Vance.” She included us all in a smile of wistful welcome. “Please come in… Lady Mae dropped in for a few minutes—we’re going riding together this afternoon,” she explained as we entered the room.
Mrs. Drukker stood by the center table, one bony hand on the back of the chair from which she had evidently just risen. There was fear in her eyes as she stared at us unblinkingly; and her lean features seemed almost contorted. She made no effort to speak but stood rigidly as if waiting for some dread pronouncement, like a convicted prisoner at the bar about to receive sentence.
Belle Dillard’s pleasant voice relieved the tensity of the situation. “I’ll run up and tell uncle you’re here.”
She had no sooner quitted the room than Mrs. Drukker leaned over the table and said to Markham in a sepulchral, awestricken whisper: “I know why you’ve come! It’s about that fine young man who was shot in the park this morning.”
So amazing and unexpected were her words that Markham could make no immediate answer; and it was Vance who replied.
“You have heard of the tragedy, then, Mrs. Drukker? How could the news have come to you so soon?”
A look of canniness came into the woman’s expression, giving her the appearance of an evil old witch.
“Everyone is talking about it in the neighborhood,” she answered evasively.
“Indeed? That’s most unfortunate. But why do you assume we have come here to make inquiries about it?”
“Wasn’t the young man’s name Johnny Sprigg?” A faint, terrible smile accompanied the question.
“So it was. John E. Sprigg. Still, that does not explain his connection with the Dillards.”
“Ah, but it does!” Her head moved up and down with a sort of horrible satisfaction. “It’s a game—a child’s game. First Cock Robin…then Johnny Sprig. Children must play—all healthy children must play.” Her mood suddenly changed. A softness shone on her face, and her eyes grew sad.
“It’s a rather diabolical game, don’t you think, Mrs. Drukker?”
“And why not? Isn’t life itself diabolical?”
“For some of us—yes.” A curious sympathy informed Vance’s words as he gazed at this strange tragic creature before us. “Tell me,” he went on quickly, in an altered tone, “do you know who the Bishop is?”
“The Bishop?” She frowned perplexedly. “No, I don’t know him. Is that another child’s game?”
“Something of that kind, I imagine. At any rate, the Bishop is interested in Cock Robin and Johnny Sprig. In fact, he may be the person who is making up these fantastic games. And we’re looking for him, Mrs. Drukker. We hope to learn the truth from him.”
The woman shook her head vaguely. “I don’t know him.” Then she glared vindictively at Markham. “But it’s not going to do you any good to try to find out who killed Cock Robin and shot Johnny Sprig through the middle of his wig. You’ll never learn—never—never… ” Her voice had risen excitedly, and a fit of trembling seized her.
At this moment Belle Dillard reentered the room and, going quickly to Mrs. Drukker, put her arm about her.
“Come,” she said soothingly, “we’ll have a long drive in the country, Lady Mae.” Reproachfully she turned to Markham and said coldly: “Uncle wishes you to come to the library.” With that she led Mrs. Drukker from the room and down the hall.
“Now that’s a queer one, sir,” commented Heath, who had stood looking on with bewildered amazement. “She had the dope on this Johnny-Sprig stuff all the time!”
Vance nodded.
“And our appearance here frightened her. Still, her mind is morbid and sensitive, Sergeant; and dwelling as she does constantly on her son’s deformity and the early days when he was like other children, it’s quite possible she merely hit accidentally upon the Mother Goose significance of Robin’s and Sprigg’s death… I wonder.” He looked toward Markham. “There are strange undercurrents in this case—incredible and terrifying implications. It’s like being lost in the Dovrë-Troll caverns of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, where only monstrosities and abnormalities exist.” He shrugged his shoulders, though I knew he had not wholly escaped the pall of horror cast on us by Mrs. Drukker’s words. “Perhaps we can find a little solid footing with Professor Dillard.”
The professor received us without enthusiasm and with but scant cordiality. His desk was littered with papers, and it was obvious that we had disturbed him in the midst of his labors.
“Why this unexpected visit, Markham?” he asked after we had seated ourselves. “Have you something to report on Robin’s death?” He marked a page in Weyl’s Space, Time and Matter and, settling back reluctantly, regarded us with impatience. “I’m very busy working on a problem of Mach’s mechanics—”
“I regret,” said Markham, “I have nothing to report on the Robin case. But there has been another murder in this neighborhood today, and we have reason to believe that it may be connected with Robin’s death. What I wanted particularly to ask you, sir, is whether or not the name of John E. Sprigg is familiar to you.”
Professor Dillard’s expression of annoyance changed quickly. “Is that the name of the man who was killed?” There was no longer any lack of interest in his attitude.
“Yes. A man
named John E. Sprigg was shot in Riverside Park, near 84th Street, this morning shortly after half past seven.”
The professor’s eyes wandered to the mantelpiece, and he was silent for several moments. He seemed to be debating inwardly some point that troubled him.
“Yes,” he said at length, “I—we—do know a young man of that name—though it’s wholly unlikely he’s the same one.”
“Who is he?” Markham’s voice was eagerly insistent.
Again the professor hesitated. “The lad I have in mind is Arnesson’s prize student in mathematics—what they’d call at Cambridge a senior wrangler.”
“How do you happen to know him, sir?”
“Arnesson has brought him to the house here several times. Wanted me to see him and talk to him. Arnesson was quite proud of the boy, and I must admit he showed unusual talent.”
“Then, he was known to all the members of the household?”
“Yes. Belle met him, I think. And if by ‘the household’ you include Pyne and Beedle, I should say the name was probably familiar to them, too.”
Vance asked the next question. “Did the Drukkers know Sprigg, Professor Dillard?”
“It’s quite possible. Arnesson and Drukker see each other a great deal… Come to think of it, I believe Drukker was here one night when Sprigg called.”
“And Pardee—did he also know Sprigg?”
“As to that I couldn’t say.” The professor tapped impatiently on the arm of his chair, and turned back to Markham. “See here”—his voice held a worried petulance—“what’s the point of these questions? What has our knowing a student named Sprigg to do with this morning’s affair? Surely you don’t mean to tell me that the man who was killed was Arnesson’s pupil.”
“I’m afraid it’s true,” said Markham.
There was a note of anxiety—of fear almost, I thought—in the professor’s voice when he next spoke. “Even so, what can that fact have to do with us? And how can you possibly connect his death with Robin’s?”
“I admit we have nothing definite to go on,” Markham told him. “But the purposelessness of both crimes—the total lack of any motive in either case—seems to give them a curious unity of aspect.”
“You mean, of course, that you have found no motive. But if all crimes without apparent motive were assumed to be connected—”
“Also there are the elements of time and proximity in these two cases,” Markham amplified.
“Is that the basis of your assumption?” The professor’s manner was benevolently contemptuous. “You never were a good mathematician, Markham, but at least you should know that no hypothesis can be built on such a flimsy premise.”
“Both names,” interposed Vance, “—Cock Robin and Johnny Sprig—are the subjects of well-known nursery rhymes.”
The old man stared at him with undisguised astonishment; and gradually an angry flush mounted to his face.
“Your humor, sir, is out of place.”
“It is not my humor, alas!” replied Vance sadly. “The jest is the Bishop’s.”
“The Bishop?” Professor Dillard strove to curb his irritation. “Look here, Markham, I won’t be played with. That’s the second mention of a mysterious Bishop that’s been made in this room; and I want to know the meaning of it. Even if a crank did write an insane letter to the papers in connection with Robin’s death, what has this Bishop to do with Sprigg?”
“A paper was found beneath Sprigg’s body bearing a mathematical formula typed on the same machine as the Bishop notes.”
“What!” The professor bent forward. “The same machine, you say? And a mathematical formula?…What was the formula?”
Markham opened his pocketbook and held out the triangular scrap of paper that Pitts had given him.
“The Riemann-Christoffel tensor… ” Professor Dillard sat for a long time gazing at the paper; then he handed it back to Markham. He seemed suddenly to have grown older; and there was a weary look in his eyes as he lifted them to us. “I don’t see any light in this matter.” His tone was one of hopeless resignation. “But perhaps you are right in following your present course.—What do you want of me?”
Markham was plainly puzzled by the other’s altered attitude.
“I came to you primarily to ascertain if there was any link between Sprigg and this house; but, to be quite candid, I don’t see how that link, now that I have it, fits into the chain.—I would, however, like your permission to question Pyne and Beedle in whatever way I think advisable.”
“Ask them anything you like, Markham. You shall never be able to accuse me of having stood in your way.” He glanced up appealingly. “But you will, I hope, advise me before you take any drastic steps.”
“That I can promise you, sir.” Markham rose. “But I fear we are a long way from any drastic measures at present.” He held out his hand, and from his manner it was evident he had sensed some hidden anxiety in the old man and wanted to express his sympathy without voicing his feelings.
The professor walked with us to the door.
“I can’t understand that typed tensor,” he murmured, shaking his head. “But if there’s anything I can do… ”
“There is something you can do for us, Professor Dillard,” said Vance, pausing at the door. “On the morning Robin was killed we interviewed Mrs. Drukker—”
“Ah!”
“And though she denied having sat at her window during the forenoon, there is a possibility she saw something happen on the archery range between eleven and twelve.”
“She gave you that impression?” There was an undertone of suppressed interest in the Professor’s question.
“Only in a remote way. It was Drukker’s statement that he had heard his mother scream and her denial of having screamed that led me to believe that she might have seen something she preferred to keep from us. And it occurred to me that you would probably have more influence with her than anyone else, and that, if she did indeed witness anything, you might prevail upon her to speak.”
“No!” Professor Dillard spoke almost harshly, but he immediately placed his hand on Markham’s arm, and his tone changed. “There are some things you must not ask me to do for you. If that poor harassed woman saw anything from her window that morning, you must find it out for yourself. I’ll have no hand in torturing her, and I sincerely hope you’ll not worry her either. There are other ways of finding out what you want to know.” He looked straight into Markham’s eyes. “She must not be the one to tell you. You yourself would be sorry afterward.”
“We must find out what we can,” Markham answered resolutely but with kindliness. “There’s a fiend loose in this city, and I cannot stay my hand to save anyone from suffering—however tragic that suffering may be. But I assure you I shall not unnecessarily torture anyone.”
“Have you thought,” asked Professor Dillard quietly, “that the truth you seek may be more frightful even than the crimes themselves?”
“That I shall have to risk. But even if I knew it to be a fact, it would not deter me in any degree.”
“Certainly not. But, Markham, I’m much older than you. I had gray hair when you were a lad struggling with your logs and antilogs; and when one gets old, one learns the true proportions in the universe. The ratios all change. The estimates we once placed on things lose their meaning. That’s why the old are more forgiving: they know that no manmade values are of any importance.”
“But as long as we must live by human values,” argued Markham, “it is my duty to uphold them. And I cannot, through any personal sense of sympathy, refuse to take any avenue that may lead to the truth.”
“You are perhaps right,” the professor sighed. “But you must not ask me to help you in this instance. If you learn the truth, be charitable. Be sure your culprit is accountable before you demand that he be sent to the electric chair. There are diseased minds as well as diseased bodies; and often the two go together.”
When we had returned to the drawing room, Vance lighted a
cigarette with more than his usual care.
“The professor,” he said, “is not at all happy about Sprigg’s death; and, though he won’t admit it, that tensor formula convinced him that Sprigg and Robin belong to the same equation. But he was convinced dashed easily. Now, why?—Moreover, he didn’t care to admit that Sprigg was known hereabouts. I don’t say he has suspicions, but he has fears… Deuced funny, his attitude. He apparently doesn’t want to obstruct the legal justice which you uphold with such touchin’ zeal, Markham; but he most decidedly doesn’t care to abet your crusade where the Drukkers are concerned. I wonder what’s back of his consideration for Mrs. Drukker. I shouldn’t say, offhand, that the professor was of a sentimental nature.—And what was that platitude about a diseased mind and a diseased body? Sounded like a prospectus for a physical culture class, what?…Lackaday! Let’s put a few questions to Pyne and kin.”
Markham sat smoking moodily. I had rarely seen him so despondent. “I don’t see what we can hope for from them,” he commented. “However, Sergeant, get Pyne in here.”
When Heath had stepped out, Vance gave Markham a waggish look. “Really, y’ know, you shouldn’t repine. Let Terence console you:— Nil tam difficile est, quin quaerendo investigari possit. And, ’pon my soul, this is a difficult problem… ” He became suddenly sober. “We’re dealing with unknown quantities here. We’re pitted against some strange, abnormal force that doesn’t operate according to the accepted laws of conduct. It’s at once subtle—oh, no end subtle—and unfamiliar. But at least we know that it emanates from somewhere in the environs of this old house; and we must search in every psychological nook and cranny. Somewhere about us lies the invisible dragon. So don’t be shocked at the questions I shall put to Pyne. We must look in the most unlikely places… ”
The Bishop Murder Case Page 11