Markham was annoyed. "Is it a secret?" he asked testily. "Or are you merely in one of your Delphic-oracle moods?"
Vance glanced toward him contritely.
"Forgive me, Markham. My mind automatically went off on a train of thought. Sorry--really." He held the paper again under the light. "This is the message that Currie so meticulously took down: 'There is a most disturbing psychological tension at Professor Ephraim Garden's apartment, which resists diagnosis. Read up on radioactive sodium. See Book XI of the Aeneid, line 875. Equanimity is essential.'...Curious--eh, what?"
"It sounds a little crazy to me," Markham grunted. "Are you troubled much with cranks?"
"Oh, this is no crank," Vance assured him. "It's puzzlin', I admit; but it's quite lucid."
Markham sniffed skeptically.
"What, in the name of Heaven, have a professor and sodium and the Aeneid to do with one another?"
Vance was frowning as he reached into the humidor for one of his beloved Régie cigarettes with a deliberation which indicated a mental tension. Slowly he lighted the cigarette. After a deep inhalation he answered.
"Ephraim Garden, of whom you surely must have heard from time to time, is one of the best-known men in chemical research in this country. Just now, I believe, he's professor of chemistry at Stuyvesant University-- that could be verified in Who's Who. But it doesn't matter. His latest researches have been directed along the lines of radioactive sodium. An amazin' discovery, Markham. Made by Doctor Ernest 0. Lawrence, of the University of California, and two of his colleagues there, Doctors Henderson and McMillan. This new radioactive sodium has opened up new fields of research in cancer therapy--indeed, it may prove some day to be the long-looked-for cure for cancer. The new gamma radiation of this sodium is more penetrating than any ever before obtained. On the other hand, radium and radioactive substances can be very dangerous if diffused into the normal tissues of the body and through the blood stream. The chief difficulty in the treatment of cancerous tissue by radiation is to find a selective carrier which will distribute the radioactive substance in the tumor alone. But with the discovery of radioactive sodium tremendous advances have been made; and it will be but a matter of time when this new sodium will be perfected and available in sufficient quantities for extensive experimentation...."* (*It is interesting to note the recent announcement that a magnetic accelerator of five million volts and weighing ten tons for the manufacture of artificial radium for the treatment of malignant growths, such as cancer, is being built by the University of Rochester.)
"That is all very fascinating," Markham commented sarcastically. "But what has it to do with you, or with trouble in the Garden home? And what could it possibly have to do with the Aeneid? They didn't have radioactive sodium in the time of Aeneas."
"Markham old dear, I'm no Chaldean. I haven't the groggiest notion wherein the situation concerns either me or Aeneas, except that I happen to know the Garden family slightly. But I've a vague feeling about that particular book of the Aeneid. As I recall, it contains one of the greatest descriptions of battle in all ancient literature. But let's see..." Vance rose quickly and went to the section of his book-shelves devoted to the classics, and, after a few moments' search, took down a small red volume and began to riffle the pages. He ran his eye swiftly down a page near the end of the volume and after a minute's perusal came back to his chair with the book, nodding his head comprehensively, as if in answer to some question he had inwardly asked himself.
"The passage referred to, Markham," he said after a moment, "is not exactly what I had in mind. But it may be even more significant. It's the famous onomatopoeic Quadrupedumque putrem cursu quatit ungula campum--meanin', more or less literally: 'And in their galloping course the horsehoof shakes the crumbling plain.'"
Markham took the cigar from his mouth and looked at Vance with undisguised annoyance.
"You're merely working up a mystery. You'll be telling me next that the Trojans had something to do with this professor of chemistry and his radioactive sodium."
"No. Oh, no." Vance was in an unusually serious mood. "Not the Trojans. But the galloping horses perhaps."
Markham snorted. "That may make sense to you."
"Not altogether," returned Vance, critically contemplating the end of his cigarette. "There is, nevertheless, the vague outline of a pattern here. You see, young Floyd Garden, the professor's only offspring, and his cousin, a puny chap named Woode Swift--he's quite an intimate member of the Garden household, I believe--are addicted to the ponies. Quite a prevalent disease, by the way, Markham. They're both interested in sports in general--probably the normal reaction to their professorial and ecclesiastical forebears: young Swift's father, who has now gone to his Maker, was a D.D. of sorts. I used to see both young johnnies at Kinkaid's Casino occasionally. But the galloping horses are their passion now. And they're the nucleus of a group of young aristocrats who spend their afternoons mainly in the futile attempt to guess which horses are going to come in first at the various tracks."
"You know this Floyd Garden well?"
Vance nodded. "Fairly well. He's a member of the Far Meadows Club and I've often played polo with him. He's a five-goaler and owns a couple of the best ponies in the country. I tried to buy one of them from him once--but that's beside the point.* (*At one time Vance was a polo enthusiast and played regularly. He too had a five-goal rating.) The fact is, young Garden has invited me on several occasions to join him and his little group at the apartment when the out-of-town races were on. It seems he has a direct loud-speaker service from all the tracks, like many of the horse fanatics. The professor disapproves, in a mild way, but he raises no serious objections because Mrs. Garden is rather inclined to sit in and take her chances on a horse now and then."
"Have you ever accepted his invitation?" asked Markham.
"No," Vance told him. Then he glanced up with a far-away look in his eyes. "But I think it might be an excellent idea."
"Come, come, Vance!" protested Markham. "Even if you see some cryptic relationship between the disconnected items of this message you've just received, how, in the name of Heaven, can you take it seriously?"
Vance drew deeply on his cigarette and waited a moment before answering.
"You have overlooked one phrase in the message: 'Equanimity is essential,'" he said at length. "One of the great race-horses of today happens to be named Equanimity. He belongs in the company of such immortals of the turf as Man o' War, Exterminator, Gallant Fox, and Reigh Count.* (*When Vance read the proof of this record, he made a marginaal notation: "And I might also have mentioned Sir Barton, Sysonby, Colin, Crusader, Twenty Grand, and Equipoise.") Furthermore, Equanimity is running in the Rivermont Handicap tomorrow."
"Still I see no reason to take the matter seriously," Markham objected.
Vance ignored the comment and added: "Moreover, Doctor Miles Siefert* told me at the club the other day that Mrs. Garden had been quite ill for some time with a mysterious malady." (*Miles Siefert was, at that time, one of the leading pathologists of New York, with an extensive practice among the fashionable element of the city.)
Markham shifted in his chair and broke the ashes from his cigar.
"The affair gets more muddled by the minute," he remarked irritably. "What's the connection between all these commonplace data and that precious phone message of yours?" He waved his hand contemptuously toward the paper which Vance still held.
"I happen to know," Vance answered slowly, "who sent me this message."
"Ah, yes?" Markham was obviously skeptical.
"Quite. It was Doctor Siefert."
Markham showed a sudden interest.
"Would you care to enlighten me as to how you arrived at this conclusion?" he asked in a satirical voice.
"It was not difficult," Vance answered, rising and standing before the empty hearth, with one arm resting on the mantel. "To begin with, I was not called to the telephone personally. Why? Because it was some one who feared I might recognize his v
oice. Ergo, it was some one I know. To continue, the language of the message bears the earmarks of the medical profession. 'Psychological tension' and 'resists diagnosis' are not phrases ordinarily used by the layman, although they consist of commonplace enough words. And there are two such identifying phrases in the message--a fact which eliminates any possibility of a coincidence. Take this example, for instance: the word uneventful is certainly a word used by every class of person; but when it is coupled with another ordin'ry word, recovery, you can rest pretty much assured that only a doctor would use the phrase. It has a pertinent medical significance-- it's a cliché of the medical profession...To go another step: the message obviously assumes that I am more or less acquainted with the Garden household and the race-track passion of young Garden. Therefore, we get the result that the sender of the message is a doctor whom I know and one who is aware of my acquaintance with the Gardens. The only doctor who fulfills these conditions, and who, incidentally, is middle-aged and cultured and highly judicial--Currie's description, y' know,--is Miles Siefert. And, added to this simple deduction, I happen to know that Siefert is a Latin scholar--I once encountered him at the Latin Society club-rooms. Another point in my favor is the fact that he is the family physician of the Gardens and would have ample opportunity to know about the galloping horses--and perhaps about Equanimity in particular--in connection with the Garden household."
"That being the case," Markham protested, "why don't you phone him and find out exactly what's back of his cryptography?"
"My dear Markham--oh, my dear Markham!" Vance strolled to the table and took up his temporarily forgotten cognac glass. "Siefert would not only indignantly repudiate any knowledge of the message, but would automatically become the first obstacle in any bit of pryin' I might decide to do. The ethics of the medical profession are most fantastic; and Siefert, as becomes his unique position, is a fanatic on the subject. From the fact that he communicated with me in this roundabout way I rather suspect that some grotesque point of honor is involved. Perhaps his conscience overcame him for the moment, and he temporarily relaxed his adherence to what he considers his code of honor...No, no, that course wouldn't do at all. I must ferret out the matter for myself--as he undoubtedly wishes me to do."
"But what is this matter that you feel called upon to ferret out?" persisted Markham. "Granting all you say, I still don't see how you can regard the situation as in any way serious."
"One never knows, does one?" drawled Vance. "Still, I'm rather fond of the horses myself, don't know."
Markham seemed to relax and fitted his manner to Vance's change of mood.
"And what do you propose to do?" he asked good-naturedly.
Vance sipped his cognac and then set down the glass. He looked up whimsically.
"The Public Prosecutor of New York--that noble defender of the rights of the common people--to wit: the Honorable John F.-X. Markham--must grant me immunity and protection before I'll consent to answer."
Markham's eyelids drooped a little as he studied Vance. He was familiar with the serious import that often lay beneath the other's most frivolous remarks.
"Are you planning to break the law?" he asked.
Vance picked up the lotus-shaped cognac glass again and twirled it gently between thumb and forefinger.
"Oh, yes--quite," he admitted nonchalantly. "Jailable offense, I believe."
Markham studied him for another moment.
"All right," he said, without the slightest trace of lightness. "I'll do what I can for you. What's it to be?"
Vance took another sip of the Napoléon.
"Well, Markham old dear," he announced, with a half smile, "I'm going to the Gardens' penthouse tomorrow afternoon and play the horses with the younger set."
CHAPTER II
DOMESTIC REVELATIONS
(Saturday, April 14; noon.)
As soon as Markham had left us that night, Vance's mood changed. A troubled look came into his eyes, and he walked up and down the room pensively.
"I don't like it, Van," he murmured, as if talking to himself. "I don't at all like it. Siefert isn't the type to make a mysterious phone call like that, unless he has a very good reason for doing so. It's quite out of character, don't y' know. He's a dashed conservative chap, and no end ethical. There must be something worrying him deeply. But why the Gardens' apartment? The domestic atmosphere there has always struck me as at least superficially normal--and now a man as dependable as Siefert gets jittery about it to the extent of indulging in shillin'-shocker technique. It's deuced queer."
He stopped pacing the floor and looked at the clock.
"I think I'll make the arrangements. A bit of snoopin' is highly indicated."
He went into the anteroom, and a moment later I heard him dialing a number on the telephone. When he returned to the library he seemed to have thrown off his depression. His manner was almost flippant.
"We're in for an abominable lunch tomorrow, Van," he announced, pouring himself another pony of cognac. "And we must torture ourselves with the viands at a most ungodly hour--noon. What a time to ingest even good food!" He sighed. "We're lunching with young Garden at his home. Woode Swift will be there and also an insufferable creature named Lowe Hammle, a horsy gentleman from some obscure estate on Long Island. Later we'll be joined by various members of the sporting set, and together we'll indulge in that ancient and fascinatin' pastime of laying wagers on the thoroughbreds. The Rivermont Handicap tomorrow is one of the season's classics. That, at any rate, may be jolly good fun..."
He rang for Currie and sent him out to fetch a copy of The Morning Telegraph.
"One should be prepared. Oh, quite. It's been years since I handicapped the horses. Ah, gullible Youth! But there's something about the ponies that gets in one's blood and plays havoc with the saner admonitions of the mind...I think I'll change to a dressing-gown."* (*Vance at one time owned several excellent race-horses. His Magic Mirror, Smoke Maiden, and Aldeen were well known in their day; and Magic Mirror, as a three-year-old won two of the most important handicaps on the eastern tracks. But when, in the famous Elmswood Special, this horse broke a leg on entering the back-stretch and had to be destroyed, Vance seemed to lose all interest in racing and disposed of his entire stable. He is probably not a true horseman, any more than he is a truly great breeder of Scottish terriers, for his sentiments are constantly interfering with the stern and often ruthless demands of the game.)
He finished his Napoléon, lingering over it fondly, and disappeared into the bedroom.
Although I was well aware that Vance had some serious object in lunching with young Garden the following day and in participating in the gambling on the races, I had not the slightest suspicion, at the time, of the horrors that were to follow. On the afternoon of April 14 occurred the first grim act of one of the most atrocious multiple crimes of this generation. And to Doctor Siefert must go, in a large measure, the credit for the identification of the criminal, for had he not sent his cryptic and would-be anonymous message to Vance, the truth would probably never have been known.
I shall never forget that fatal Saturday afternoon. And aside from the brutal Garden murder, that afternoon will always remain memorable for me because it marked the first mature sentimental episode, so far as I had ever observed, in Vance's life. For once, the cold impersonal attitude of his analytical mind melted before the appeal of an attractive woman.
Vance was just re-entering the library in his deep-red surah-silk dressing-gown when Currie brought in the Telegraph. Vance took the paper and opened it before him on the desk. To all appearances, he was in a gay and inquisitive frame of mind.
"Have you ever handicapped the ponies, Van?" he asked, picking up a pencil and reaching for a small tablet. "It's as absorbin' an occupation as it is a futile one. At least a score of technical considerations enter into the computations--the class of the horse, his age, his pedigree, the weight he has to carry, the consistency of his past performances, the time he has made in previous rac
es, the jockey that is to ride him, the type of races he is accustomed to running, the condition of the track and whether or not the horse is a mudder, his post position, the distance of the race, the value of the purse, and a dozen other factors--which, when added up, subtracted, placed against one another, and eventually balanced through an elaborate system of mathematical checking and counter-checking, give you what is supposed to be the exact possibilities of his winning the race on which you have been working. However, it's all quite useless. Less than forty per cent. of favorites--that is, horses who, on paper, should win--verify the result of these calculations. For instance, Jim Dandy beat Gallant Fox in the Travers and paid a hundred to one; and the theoretically invincible Man o' War lost one of his races to a colt named Upset. After all your intricate computations, horse-racing still remains a matter of sheer luck, as incalculable as roulette. But no true follower of the ponies will place a bet until he has gone through the charmin' rigmarole of handicapping the entries. It's little more than abracadabra--but it's three-fourths of the sport."
He gave me a waggish look.
"And that's why I shall sit here for another hour or two at least, indulging one of my old weaknesses. I shall go to the Gardens' tomorrow with every race perfectly calculated--and you will probably make a choice and collect the rewards of innocence." He waved his hand in a pleasant gesture. "Cheerio."
I turned in with a feeling of uneasiness.
Shortly before noon the next day we arrived at Professor Garden's beautiful skyscraper apartment, and were cordially, and a little exuberantly, greeted by young Garden.
Floyd Garden was a man in his early thirties, erect and athletically built. He was about six feet tall, with powerful shoulders and a slender waist. His hair was almost black, and his complexion swarthy. His manner, while easy and casual, and with a suggestion of swagger, was in no way offensive. He was not a handsome man: his features were too rugged, his eyes set too close together, his ears protruded too much, and his lips were too thin. But he had an undeniable charm, and there was a quiet submerged competency in the way he moved and in the rapidity of his mental reactions. He was certainly not intellectual, and later, when I met his mother, I recognized at once that his hereditary traits had come down to him from her side of the family.
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