"Come, come, Vance. Be tangible." Markham spoke with acerbity. "What's in your mind?"
"'Pon my word, I don't know. It's too vague." He leaned over and picked up a small book from the floor just beneath where the dead man's hand hung over the arm of the chair. "Chester apparently was immersed in literature at the time of his taking off." He opened the book casually. "'Hydrotherapy and Constipation.' Yes, Chester was just the kind to worry about his colon. Someone probably told him that intestinal stasis interfered with the proper stance. He's no doubt clearing the asphodel from the Elysian fields at the present moment preparat'ry to laying out a golf-course."
He became suddenly serious.
"You see what this book means, Markham? Chester was sitting here reading when the murderer came in. Yet he did not so much as rise or call out. Furthermore, he let the intruder stand directly in front of him. He did not even lay down his book, but sat back in his chair relaxed. Why? Because the murderer was someone Chester knew--and trusted! And when the gun was suddenly brought forth and pointed at his heart, he was too astounded to move. And in that second of bewilderment and unbelief the trigger was pulled and the bullet entered his heart."
Markham nodded slowly, in deep perplexity, and Heath studied the attitude of the dead man more closely.
"That's a good theory," the sergeant conceded finally. "Yes, he musta let the bird get right on top of him without suspecting anything. Same like Julia did."
"Exactly, Sergeant. The two murders constitute a most suggestive parallel."
"Still and all, there's one point you're overlooking." Heath's brow was roughened in a troubled frown. "Chester's door mighta been unlocked last night, seeing as he hadn't gone to bed, and so this person coulda walked in without any trouble. But Julia, now, was already undressed and in bed; and she always locked her door at night. Now, how would you say this person with the gun got into Julia's room, Mr. Vance?"
"There's no difficulty about that. Let us say, as a tentative hypothesis, that Julia had disrobed, switched off the lights, and climbed into her queenly bed. Then came a tap on the door--perhaps a tap she recognized. She rose, put on the lights, opened the door, and again repaired to her bed for warmth while she held parley with her visitor. Maybe--who knows?-- the visitor sat on the edge of the bed during the call. Then suddenly the visitor produced the revolver and fired, and made a hurried exit, forgetting to switch the lights off. Such a theory--though I don't insist on the details--would square neatly with my idea regarding Chester's caller."
"It may've been like you say," admitted Heath dubiously. "But why all the hocus-pocus when it came to shooting Ada? That job was done in the dark."
"The rationalistic philosophers tell us, Sergeant"--Vance became puckishly pedantic--"that there's a reason for everything, but that the finite mind is woefully restricted. The altered technique of our elusive culprit when dealing with Ada is one of the things that is obscure. But you've touched a vital point. If we could discover the reason for this reversal of our inconnu's homicidal tactics, I believe we'd be a lot forrader in our investigation."
Heath made no reply. He stood in the centre of the room running his eye over the various objects and pieces of furniture. Presently he stepped to the clothes-closet, pulled open the door, and turned on a pendent electric light just inside. As he stood gloomily peering at the closet's contents there was a sound of heavy footsteps in the hall and Snitkin appeared in the open door. Heath turned and, without giving his assistant time to speak, asked gruffly:
"How did you make out with those footprints?"
"Got all the dope here." Snitkin crossed to the sergeant, and held out a long manila envelope. "There wasn't no trouble in checking the measurements and cutting the patterns. But they're not going to be a hell of a lot of good, I'm thinking. There's ten million guys more or less in this country who coulda made 'em."
Heath had opened the envelope and drawn forth a thin white cardboard pattern which looked like an inner sole of a shoe.
"It wasn't no pygmy who made this print," he remarked.
"That's the catch in it," explained Snitkin. "The size don't mean nothing much, for it ain't a shoe-track. Those footprints were made by galoshes, and there's no telling how much bigger they were than the guy's foot. They mighta been worn over a shoe anywheres from a size eight to a size ten, and with a width anywheres from an A to a D."
Heath nodded with obvious disappointment.
"You're sure about 'em being galoshes?" He was reluctant to let what promised to be a valuable clue slip away.
"You can't get around it. The rubber tread was distinct in several places, and the shallow, scooped heel stood out as plain as day. Anyhow, I got Jerym* to check up on my findings." (*Captain Anthony P. Jerym was one of the shrewdest and most painstaking criminologists of the New York Police Department. Though he had begun his career as an expert in the Bertillon system of measurements, he had later specialized in footprints-- a subject which he had helped to elevate to an elaborate and complicated science. He had spent several years in Vienna studying Austrian methods, and had developed a means of scientific photography for footprints which gave him rank with such men as Londe, Burias, and Reiss.)
Snitkin's gaze wandered idly to the floor of the clothes-closet.
"Those are the kind of things that made the tracks."
He pointed to a pair of high arctics which had been thrown carelessly under a boot-shelf. Then he leaned over and picked up one of them. As his eye rested on it he gave a grunt. "This looks like the size, too." He took the pattern from the sergeant's hand and laid it on the sole of the overshoe. It fitted as perfectly as if the two had been cut simultaneously.
Heath was startled out of his depression.
"Now, what in hell does that mean!"
Markham had drawn near.
"It might indicate, of course, that Chester went out somewhere late last night."
"But that don't make sense, sir," objected Heath. "If he'd wanted anything at that hour of the night he'd have sent the butler. And, anyway, the shops in this neighbourhood were all closed by that time, for the tracks weren't made till after it had stopped snowing at eleven."
"And," supplemented Snitkin, "you can't tell by the tracks whether the guy that made 'em left the house and came back, or came to the house and went away, for there wasn't a single print on top of the other."
Vance was standing at the window looking out.
"That, now, is a most interestin' point, Sergeant," he commented. "I'd file it away along with Rex's story for prayerful consideration." He sauntered back to the desk and looked at the dead man thoughtfully. "No, Sergeant," he continued; "I can't picture Chester donning gum-shoes and sneaking out into the night on a mysterious errand. I'm afraid we'll have to find another explanation for those footprints."
It's damn funny, just the same, that they should be the exact size of these galoshes."
"If," submitted Markham, "the footprints were not Chester's, then we're driven to the assumption that the murderer made them."
Vance slowly took out his cigarette case.
"Yes," he agreed, "I think we may safely assume that."
CHAPTER IX
THE THREE BULLETS
(Friday, November 12th; 9 a.m.)
AT this moment Doctor Doremus, the Medical Examiner, a brisk, nervous man with a jaunty air, was ushered in by one of the detectives I had seen in the drawing-room. He blinked at the company, threw his hat and coat on a chair, and shook hands with everyone.
"What are your friends trying to do, Sergeant?" he asked, eyeing the inert body in the chair. "Wipe out the whole family?" Without waiting for an answer to his grim pleasantry he went to the windows and threw up the shades with a clatter. "You gentlemen all through viewing the remains? If so, I'll get to work."
"Go to it," said Heath. Chester Greene's body was lifted to the bed and straightened out. "And how about the bullet, doc? Any chance of getting it before the autopsy?"
"How'm I going to get it wit
hout a probe and forceps? I ask you!" Doctor Doremus drew back the matted dressing-gown and inspected the wound. "But I'll see what I can do." Then he straightened up and cocked his eye facetiously at the sergeant. "Well, I'm waiting for your usual query about the time of death."
"We know it."
"Hah! Wish you always did. This fixing the exact time by looking over a body is all poppycock anyway. The best we fellows can do is to approximate it. Rigor mortis works differently in different people. Don't ever take me too seriously, Sergeant, when I set an exact hour for you. However, let's see..."
He ran his hands over the body on the bed, unflexed the fingers, moved the head, and put his eye close to the coagulated blood about the wound. Then he teetered on his toes, and squinted at the ceiling.
"How about ten hours? Say, between eleven-thirty, and midnight. How's that?"
Heath laughed good-naturedly.
"You hit it, doc--right on the head."
"Well, well! Always was a good guesser." Doctor Doremus seemed wholly indifferent.
Vance had followed Markham into the hall.
"An honest fellow, that archiater of yours. And to think he's a public servant of our beneficent government!"
"There are many honest men in public office," Markham reproved him.
"I know," sighed Vance. "Our democracy is still young. Give it time."
Heath joined us, and at the same moment the nurse appeared at Mrs. Greene's door. A querulous dictatorial voice issued from the depths of the room behind her.
"...And you tell whoever's in charge that I want to see him--right away, do you understand! It's an outrage, all this commotion and excitement, with me lying here in pain trying to get a little rest. Nobody shows me any consideration."
Heath made a grimace and looked toward the stairs; but Vance took Markham's arm.
"Come, let's cheer up the old lady."
As we entered the room, Mrs. Greene, propped up as usual in bed with a prismatic assortment of pillows, drew her shawl primly about her.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" she greeted us, her expression moderating. "I thought it was those abominable policemen making free of my house again... What's the meaning of all this disturbance, Mr. Markham? Nurse tells me that Chester has been shot. Dear, dear! If people must do such things, why do they have to come to my house and annoy a poor helpless old woman like me? There are plenty of other places they could do their shooting in." She appeared deeply resentful at the fact that the murderer should have been so inconsiderate as to choose the Greene mansion for his depredations. "But I've come to expect this sort of thing. Nobody thinks of my feelings. And if my own children see fit to do everything they can to annoy me, why should I expect total strangers to show me any consideration?"
"When one is bent on murder, Mrs. Greene," rejoined Markham, stung by her callousness, "one doesn't stop to think of the mere inconvenience his crime may cause others."
"I suppose not," she murmured self-pityingly. "But it's all the fault of my children. If they were what children ought to be, people wouldn't be breaking in here trying to murder them."
"And unfortunately succeeding," added Markham coldly.
"Well, that can't be helped." She suddenly became bitter. "It's their punishment for the way they've treated their poor old mother, lying here for ten long years, hopelessly paralysed. And do you think they try to make it easy for me? No! Here I must stay, day after day, suffering agonies with my spine; and they never give me a thought." A sly look came into her fierce old eyes. "But they think about me sometimes. Oh, yes! They think how nice it would be if I were out of the way. Then they'd get all my money..."
"I understand, madam," Markham put in abruptly, "that you were asleep last night at the time your son met his death."
"Was I? Well, maybe I was. It's a wonder, though, that some one didn't leave my door open just so I'd be disturbed."
"And you know no one who would have any reason to kill your son?"
"How should I know? Nobody tells me anything. I'm a poor neglected, lonely old cripple..."
"Well, we won't bother you any further, Mrs. Greene." Markham's tone held something both of sympathy and consternation.
As we descended the stairs the nurse reopened the door we had just closed after us, and left it ajar, no doubt in response to an order from her patient.
"Not at all a nice old lady," chuckled Vance, as we entered the drawing- room. "For a moment, Markham, I thought you were going to box her ears."
"I admit I felt like it. And yet I couldn't help pitying her. However, such utter self-concentration as hers saves one a lot of mental anguish. She seems to regard this whole damnable business as a plot to upset her."
Sproot appeared obsequiously at the door.
"May I bring you gentlemen some coffee?" No emotion of any kind showed on his graven wrinkled face. The events of the past few days seemed not to have affected him in any degree.
"No, we don't want coffee, Sproot," Markham told him brusquely. "But please be good enough to ask Miss Sibella if she will come here."
"Very good, sir."
The old man shuffled away, and a few minutes later Sibella strolled in, smoking a cigarette, one hand in the pocket of her vivid-green sweater- jacket. Despite her air of nonchalance her face was pale, its whiteness contrasting strongly with the deep crimson rouge on her lips. Her eyes, too, were slightly haggard; and when she spoke her voice sounded forced, as if she were playing a role against which her spirit was at odds. She greeted us blithely enough, however.
"Good morning, one and all. Beastly auspices for a social call." She sat down on the arm of a chair and swung one leg restlessly. "Someone certainly has a grudge against us Greenes. Poor old Chet! He didn't even die with his boots on. Felt bedroom slippers! What an end for an outdoor enthusiast! Well, I suppose I'm invited here to tell my story. Where do I begin?"
She rose, and throwing her half-burned cigarette into the grate, seated herself in a straight-backed chair facing Markham, folding her sinewy, tapering hands on the table before her.
Markham studied her for several moments.
"You were awake last night, reading in bed, I understand, when the shot was fired in your brother's room."
"Zola's 'Nana,' to be explicit. Mother told me I shouldn't read it; so I got it at once. It was frightfully disappointing, though."
"And just what did you do after you heard the report?" continued Markham, striving to control his annoyance at the girl's flippancy.
"I put my book down, got up, donned a kimono, and listened for several minutes at the door. Not hearing anything further, I peeked out. The hall was dark, and the silence felt a bit spooky. I knew I ought to go to Chet's room and inquire, in a sisterly fashion, about the explosion; but, to tell you the truth, Mr. Markham, I was rather cowardly. So I went--oh, well, let the truth prevail: I ran up the servants' stairs and routed out our Admirable Crichton; and together we investigated. Chet's door was unlocked, and the fearless Sproot opened it. There sat Chet, looking as if he'd seen a ghost; and somehow I knew he was dead. Sproot went in and touched him, while I waited; and then we went down to the dining-room. Sproot did some phoning, and afterward made me some atrocious coffee. A half-hour or so later this gentleman"--she indicated her head toward Heath--"arrived, looking distressingly glum, and very sensibly refused a cup of Sproot's coffee."
"And you heard no sound of any kind before the shot?"
"Not a thing. Everybody had gone to bed early. The last sound I heard in this house was mother's gentle and affectionate voice telling the nurse she was as neglectful as the rest of us, and to bring her morning tea at nine sharp, and not to slam the door the way she always did.
"Then peace and quiet reigned until half-past eleven, when I heard the shot in Chet's room."
"How long was this interregnum of quietude?" asked Vance.
"Well, mother generally ends her daily criticism of the family around ten-thirty; so I'd say the quietude lasted about an hour."
"And
during that time you do not recall hearing a slight shuffling sound in the hall? Or a door closing softly?"
The girl shook her head indifferently, and took another cigarette from a small amber case she carried in her sweater-pocket.
"Sorry, but I didn't. That doesn't mean, though, that people couldn't have been shuffling and shutting doors all over the place. My room's at the rear, and the noises on the river and in 52nd Street drown out almost anything that's going on in the front of the house."
Vance had gone to her and held a match to her cigarette. "I say, you don't seem in the least worried."
"Oh, why worry?" She made a gesture of resignation. "If anything is to happen to me, it'll happen, whatever I do. But I don't anticipate an immediate demise. No one has the slightest reason for killing me--unless, of course, it's some of my former bridge partners. But they're all harmless persons who wouldn't be apt to take extreme measures."
"Still"--Vance kept his tone inconsequential--"no one apparently had any reason for harming your two sisters or your brother."
"On that point I couldn't be altogether lucid. We Greenes don't confide in one another. There's a beastly spirit of distrust in this ancestral domain. We all lie to each other on general principles. And as for secrets! Each member of the family is a kind of Masonic Order in himself. Surely there's some reason for all these shootings. I simply can't imagine anyone indulging himself in this fashion for the mere purpose of pistol practice."
She smoked a moment pensively, and went on:
"Yes, there must be a motive back of it all--though for the life of me I can't suggest one. Of course Julia was a vinegary, unpleasant person, but she went out very little, and worked off her various complexes on the family. And yet, she may have been leading a double life for all I know. When these sour old maids break loose from their inhibitions I understand they do the most utterly utter things. But I just can't bring my mind to picture Julia with a bevy of jealous Romeos." She made a comical grimace at the thought. "Ada, on the other hand, is what we used to call in algebra an unknown quantity. No one but dad knew where she came from, and he would never tell. To be sure, she doesn't get much time to run around-- mother keeps her too busy. But she's young and good-looking in a common sort of way"--there was a tinge of venom in this remark--"and you can't tell what connections she may have formed outside the sacred portals of the Greene mansion. As for Chet, no one seemed to love him passionately. I never heard anybody say a good word for him but the golf pro at the club, and that was only because Chet tipped him like a parvenu. He had a genius for antagonizing people. Several motives for the shooting might be found in his past."
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