Philo Vance 12 Novels Complete Bundle

by S. S. Van Dine

  "What about Montague's body?" Stamm broke in. "Haven't you found it yet? That ought to tell the story. He probably bashed his skull while doing a fancy dive to impress the ladies."

  "No, his body has not yet been found. It was too late to get a boat and grappling hooks to the pool tonight. . . ."

  "You don't have to do that," Stamm informed him truculently. "There are two big gates in the stream just above the filter, and they can be closed. And there's a turnstile lock in the dam. That lets the water drain from the pool. I drain it every year or so, to clean it out."

  "Ah! That's worth knowing--eh, Sergeant?" Then to Stamm: "Are the gates and lock difficult to manipulate?"

  "Four or five men can do the job in an hour."

  "We'll attend to all that in the morning then." Vance looked at the other thoughtfully. "And, by the by, one of Sergeant Heath's men just reported that there was quite a noisy splash in the pool a little while ago--somewhere near the opposite side."

  "A part of that damned rock has fallen," Stamm remarked. "It's been loose for a long time." Then he moved uneasily, and asked: "What difference does it make?"

  "Mrs. McAdam seemed rather upset about it."

  "Hysteria," snorted Stamm. "Leland has probably been telling her stories about the pool. . . . But what are you driving at, anyway?"

  Vance smiled faintly.

  "I'm sure I don't know. But the fact that a man disappeared in the Dragon Pool tonight seems to have impressed several people in a most peculiar fashion. None of them seem wholly convinced that it was an accidental death."

  "Tommy-rot!"

  Stamm drew himself up until he rested on his elbows, and thrust his head forward. A wild light came into his glaring eyes, and his face twitched spasmodically.

  "Can't a man get drowned without having a lot of policemen all over the place?" His voice was loud and shrill. "Montague--bah! The world's better off without him. I wouldn't give him tank space with my Guppies--and I feed them to the Scalares."

  Stamm became more and more excited, and his voice grew shriller.

  "Montague jumped into the pool, did he? And he didn't come up? Is that any reason to annoy me when I'm ill? . . ."

  At this moment there came a startling and blood-chilling interruption. The door into the hall had been left open, and there suddenly came to us, from the floor above, a woman's maniacal and terrifying scream.

  CHAPTER V

  THE WATER-MONSTER

  (Sunday, August 12; 2 a. m.)

  There was a second of tense startled silence. Then Heath swung round and rushed toward the door, his hand slipping into his outer coat pocket where he carried his gun. As he reached the threshold Leland stepped quickly up to him and placed a restraining hand on his shoulder.

  "Do not bother," he said quietly. "It is all right."

  "The hell it is!" Heath shot back, throwing off the other's hand and stepping into the hallway.

  Doors had begun to open along the hallway, and there were several smothered exclamations.

  "Get back in your rooms!" bawled Heath. "And stay in 'em." He planted himself aggressively outside the door, glowering down the corridor.

  Evidently some of the guests, frightened by the scream, had come out to see what the trouble was. But confronted with the menacing attitude of the Sergeant and cowed by his angry command, they returned to their quarters, and we could hear the doors close again. The Sergeant, confused and indecisive, turned threateningly to Leland who was standing near the door with a calm but troubled look on his face.

  "Where'd that scream come from?" he demanded. "And what does it mean?"

  Before Leland could answer Stamm raised himself to a semi-recumbent position and glowered at Vance.

  "For the love of God," he complained irritably, "will you gentlemen get out of here! You've done enough damage already. . . . Get out, I tell you! Get out!" Then he turned to Doctor Holliday. "Please go up to mother, doctor, and give her something. She's having another attack--what with all this upheaval round the house."

  Doctor Holliday left the room, and we could hear him mounting the stairs.

  Vance had been unimpressed by the whole episode. He stood smoking casually, his eyes resting dreamily on the man in bed.

  "Deuced sorry to have upset your household, Mr. Stamm," he murmured. "Every one's nerves are raw, don't y' know. Hope you'll be better in the morning. . . . We'll toddle down-stairs--eh, what, Markham?"

  Leland looked at him gratefully and nodded.

  "I am sure that would be best," he said, leading the way.

  We went out of the room and descended the stairs. Heath, however, remained in the hall for a moment glaring up toward the third floor.

  "Come, Sergeant," Vance called to him. "You're overwrought."

  Heath finally took his hand from his coat pocket and followed us reluctantly.

  Again in the drawing-room, Vance settled into a chair and, looking at Leland inquiringly, waited for an explanation.

  Leland took out his pipe again and slowly packed it.

  "That was Stamm's mother, Matilda Stamm," he said when he had got his pipe going. "She occupies the third floor of the house. She is a little unbalanced. . . ." He made a slight but significant gesture toward his forehead. "Not dangerous, you understand, but erratic--given occasionally to hallucinations. She has queer attacks now and then, and talks incoherently."

  "Sounds like mild paranoia," Vance murmured. "Some hidden fear, perhaps."

  "That is it, I imagine," Leland returned. "A psychiatrist they had for her years ago suggested a private sanitarium, but Stamm would not hear of it. Instead he turned the third floor over to her, and there is some one with her all the time. She is in excellent physical health and is perfectly rational most of the time. But she is not permitted to go out. However, she is well taken care of, and the third floor has a large balcony and a conservatory for her diversion. She spends most of her time cultivating rare plants."

  "How often do her attacks come?"

  "Two or three times a year, I understand, though she is always full of queer ideas about people and things. Nothing to worry about, though."

  "And the nature of these attacks?"

  "They vary. Sometimes she talks and argues with imaginary people. At other times she becomes hysterical and babbles of events that occurred when she was a girl. Then, again, she will suddenly take violent dislikes to people, for no apparent reason, and proceed to berate and threaten them."

  Vance nodded.

  "Typical," he mused. Then, after several deep inhalations on his Régie, he asked in an offhand manner: "On which side of the house are Mrs. Stamm's balcony and conservat'ry?"

  Leland's eyes moved quickly toward Vance, and he lifted his head.

  "On the northeast corner," he answered with a slightly rising inflection, as if his answer were purposely incomplete.

  "Ah!" Vance took his cigarette slowly from his mouth. "Overlooking the pool, eh?"

  Leland nodded. Then, after a brief hesitation, he said: "The pool has a curious hold on her fancy. It is the source of many of her hallucinations. She sits for hours gazing at it abstractedly, and the German woman who looks after her--a capable companion-nurse named Schwarz--tells me that she never goes to bed without first standing in rapt attention for several minutes at the window facing the pool."

  "Very interestin'. . . . By the by, Mr. Leland, do you know when the pool was constructed?"

  Leland frowned thoughtfully.

  "I cannot say exactly. I know it was built by Stamm's grandfather--that is to say, he built the dam to broaden the water of the stream. But I doubt if he had anything in mind except a scenic improvement. It was Stamm's father--Joshua Stamm--who put in the retaining wall on this side of the pool, to keep the water from straying too far up the hill toward the house. And it was Stamm himself who installed the filter and the gates, when he first began to use the pool for swimming. The water was not particularly free from rubbish, and he wanted some way of filtering the stream that fed
it, and also of closing off the inflow, so that the pool could be cleaned out occasionally."

  "How did the pool get its name?" asked Vance casually.

  Leland gave a slight shrug.

  "Heaven only knows. From some old Indian tradition, probably. The Indians hereabouts originally called it by various terms--Amangaming, Amangemokdom Wikit, and sometimes Amangemokdomipek--but as a rule the shorter word, Amangaming, was used, which means, in the Lenape dialect of the Algonkians, the 'place of the water-monster.'* When I was a child my mother always referred to the pool by that name, although at that time it was pretty generally known as the Dragon Pool, which is a fairly accurate transliteration of its original name. Many tales and superstitions grew up around it. The water-dragon--Amangemokdom** or, sometimes, Amangegach--was used as a bogy with which to frighten recalcitrant children. . . ."

  * I made a note of these unusual words, and years later, when Vance and I were in California, to see the Munthe Collection of Chinese art, I brought up the subject with Doctor M. R. Harrington, the author of "Religion and Ceremonies of the Lenapes" and now Curator of the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles. He explained that Amangemokdoming meant "Dragon-place"; Amangemokdom Wikit, "Dragon his-house"; and Amangemokdomipek, "Dragon-pond." He also explained that the word amangam, though sometimes translated "big fish," seems to have meant "water-monster" as well; and that it would yield the shorter compound Amangaming. This evidently was the word preferred by the Lenapes in Inwood.

  ** In the Walum Olum the word amangam is translated as "monster" and Brinton in his notes derives it from amangi, "great or terrifying," and names, "fish with reference to some mythical water-monster." In the Brinton and Anthony dictionary, however, amangamek, the plural form, is translated simply as "large fishes." The Indians regarded such a creature, not as a mere animal, but as a manitto, or being endowed with supernatural as well as physical power.

  Markham got to his feet impatiently and looked at his watch.

  "This is hardly the hour," he complained, "for a discussion of mythology."

  "Tut, tut, old dear," Vance chided him pleasantly. "I say, these ethnological data are most fascinatin'. For the first time tonight we seem to be getting a little forrader. I'm beginning to understand why nearly every one in the house is filled with doubts and misgivings."

  He smiled ingratiatingly and turned his attention again to Leland.

  "By the by," he went on, "is Mrs. Stamm given to such distressin' screams during her cloudy moments?"

  Again Leland hesitated, but finally answered: "Occasionally--yes."

  "And do these screams usually have some bearing on her hallucinations regarding the pool?"

  Leland inclined his head.

  "Yes--always." Then he added: "But she is never coherent as to the exact cause of her perturbation. I have been present when Stamm has tried to get an explanation from her, but she has never been lucid on the subject. It is as if she feared something in the future which her momentarily excited mind could not visualize. An inflamed and confused projection of the imagination, I should say--without any definite mental embodiment. . . ."

  At this moment the curtains parted, and Doctor Holliday's troubled face looked into the room.

  "I am glad you gentlemen are still here," he said. "Mrs. Stamm is in an unusual frame of mind, and insists on seeing you. She is having one of her periodical attacks--nothing serious, I assure you. But she seems very much excited, and she refused to let me give her something to quiet her. . . . I really don't feel that I should mention these facts to you, but in the circumstances--"

  "I have explained Mrs. Stamm's condition to these gentlemen," Leland put in quietly.

  The doctor appeared relieved.

  "That being the case," he went on, "I can tell you quite frankly that I am a little worried. And, as I say, she insists that she see the police--as she calls you--at once." He paused as if uncertain. "Perhaps it might be best--if you do not mind. Since she has this idea, a talk with you might bring about the desired reaction. . . . But I warn you that she is a bit hallucinated, and I trust that you will treat her accordingly. . . ."

  Vance had risen.

  "We quite understand, doctor," he said assuringly, adding significantly: "It might be better for all of us if we talked with her."

  We retraced our way up the dimly lighted stairs, and at the second-story hallway turned upward to Mrs. Stamm's quarters.

  On the third floor the doctor led the way down a wide passage, toward the rear of the house, to an open door through which a rectangular shaft of yellow light poured into the gloom of the hall. The room into which we were ushered was large and crowded with early Victorian furniture. A dark green shabby carpet covered the floor, and on the walls was faded green paper. The overstuffed satin-covered chairs had once been white and chartreuse green, but were now gray and dingy. An enormous canopied bed stood at the right of the door, draped in pink damask; and similar damask, with little of its color left, formed the long overdrapes at the window. The Nottingham-lace curtains beneath were wrinkled and soiled. Opposite the bed was a fireplace, on the hearth of which lay a collection of polished conch shells; and beside it stood a high spool what-not overladen with all manner of hideous trifles of the period. Several large faded oil paintings were suspended about the walls on wide satin ribbons which were tied in bows at the moulding.

  As we entered, a tall, capable-looking gray-haired woman, in a Hoover apron, stepped aside to make way for us.

  "You had better remain, Mrs. Schwarz," the doctor suggested as we passed her.

  On the far side of the room, near the window, stood Mrs. Stamm; and the sight of her sent a strange chill through me. She was leaning with both hands on the back of a chair, her head thrust forward in an attitude of fearful expectancy. Even in the brilliant light of the room her eyes seemed to contain a fiery quality. She was a small, slender woman, but she gave forth an irresistible impression of great strength and vitality, as if every sinew in her body were like whipcord; and her large-boned hands, as they grasped the back of the chair, were more like a man's than a woman's. (The idea occurred to me that she could easily have lifted the chair and swung it about.) Her nose was Roman and pinched; and her mouth was a long slit distorted into a sardonic smile. Her hair was gray, streaked with black, and was tucked back over prominent ears. She wore a faded red silk kimono which trailed the floor, showing only the toes of her knitted slippers.

  Doctor Holliday made a brief, nervous presentation which Mrs. Stamm did not even acknowledge. She stood gazing at us with that twisted smile, as if gloating over something that only she herself knew. Then, after several moments' scrutiny, the smile faded from her mouth, and a look of terrifying hardness came into her face. Her lips parted, and the blazing light in her eyes grew brighter.

  "The dragon did it!" were her first words to us. "I tell you the dragon did it! There's nothing more you can do about it!"

  "What dragon, Mrs. Stamm?" asked Vance quietly.

  "What dragon, indeed!" She gave a scornful hollow laugh. "The dragon that lives down there in the pool below my window." She pointed vaguely with her hand. "Why do you think it's called the Dragon Pool? I'll tell you why. Because it's the home of the dragon--the old water-dragon that guards the lives and the fortunes of the Stamms. When any danger threatens my family the dragon arises in his wrath."

  "And what makes you think"--Vance's voice was mild and sympathetic--"that the dragon exercised his tutelary powers tonight?"

  "Oh, I know, I know!" A shrewd fanatical light came into her eyes, and again that hideous smile appeared on her lips. "I sit here alone in this room, year in and year out; yet I know all that is going on. They try to keep things from me, but they can't. I know all that has happened the last two days--I am aware of all the intrigues that are gathering about my house. And when I heard strange voices a while ago, I came to the top of the stairs and listened. I heard what my poor son said. Sanford Montague dived into the pool--and he didn't come up! He couldn't come up-
-he will never come up! The dragon killed him--caught him beneath the water and held him there and killed him."

  "But Mr. Montague was not an enemy," Vance suggested mildly. "Why should the protective deity of your family kill him?"

  "Mr. Montague was an enemy," the woman declared, pushing the chair aside and stepping forward. "He had fascinated my little girl and planned to marry her. But he wasn't worthy of her. He was always lying to her, and when her back was turned he was having affairs with other women. Oh, I've witnessed much these last two days!"

  "I see what you mean," nodded Vance. "But is it not possible that, after all, the dragon is only a myth?"

  "A myth?" The woman spoke with the calmness of conviction. "No, he's no myth. I've seen him too often. I saw him as a child. And when I was a young girl I talked with many people who had seen him. The old Indians in the village saw him too. They used to tell me about him when I would go to their huts. And in the long summer twilights I would sit on the top of the cliff and watch for him to come out of the pool, for water-dragons always come out after sundown. And sometimes, when the shadows were deep over the hills and the mists came drifting down the river, he would rise from the water and fly away--yonder--to the north. And then I would sit up all night at my window, when my governess thought I was asleep, and wait for his return; for I knew he was a friend and would protect me; and I was afraid to go to sleep until he had come back to our pool. But sometimes, when I waited for him on the cliff, he wouldn't come out of the pool at all, but would just ripple the water a little to let me know he was there. And those were the nights when I could sleep, for I didn't have to sit up and wait for his return."

  Mrs. Stamm's voice, as she related these strange imaginary things, was poetic in its intensity. She stood before us, her arms hanging calmly at her sides, her eyes, which now seemed to have become misty, gazing past us over our heads.

  "That's all very interestin'," Vance murmured politely; but I noticed that he kept a steady, appraising gaze on the woman from beneath partly lowered eyelids. "However, could not all that you have told us be accounted for by the romantic imaginings of a child? After all, don't y' know, the existence of dragons scarcely fits in with the conceptions of modern science."