"I can see how his mind was working," Markham admitted. "But in Greeff's case he had to create the opportunity for the crime."
"Quite so. But that wasn't difficult. After Stamm's vicious outburst Saturday night, Greeff was only too glad to accept the reconciliation Stamm offered him last night in the library. You recall that Leland told us they sat for hours talking amicably before retiring. What they probably talked about was the prospect of a new expedition, and Greeff was delighted to be able to offer his help. Then, when they had gone up-stairs, Stamm undoubtedly invited Greeff into his own room for a last drink, later suggesting that they go for a walk to continue the discussion; and the two went out together. It was at that time that both Leland and Trainor heard the side door being unbolted."
Vance again sipped his champagne.
"How Stamm inveigled Greeff into the vault is something we'll never know. However, it's a point of no importance, for certainly Greeff was in a frame of mind to acquiesce in any suggestion Stamm might have made. Stamm may have told Greeff that he was able to explain Montague's death if the other would go into the vault with him. Or, it may have been a more commonplace invitation—the expression of a desire to inspect the masonry after the heavy rains. But whatever the means used by Stamm, we know that Greeff did enter the vault with him last night. . . ."
"The gardenia, of course—and the bloodstains," Markham murmured.
"Oh, yes; it was quite evident. . . . And after Stamm had killed Greeff and mutilated him exactly as he had mutilated Montague, he took him down to the pot-holes in the wheelbarrow, over the sandy ground along the foot of the cliff, where he would not attract the attention of any guard that might have been stationed on the East Road."
Heath gave a gratified grunt.
"And then he left the wheelbarrow in that bunch of trees, and pussy-footed back to the house."
"Exactly, Sergeant. Moreover, the grating metallic noise that Leland heard was obviously the creaking of the rusty hinges of the vault door; and the other sound which Leland described could have been nothing but the wheelbarrow. And, despite all Stamm's caution on re-entering the house, both Leland and Trainor heard him throw the bolt."
Vance sighed.
"It was not a perfect murder, Markham, but it had the elements of perfection in it. It was a bold murder, too; for if either of the murders were solved, both would be solved. It was a double gamble—the placing of two chips, instead of one, on a selected number."
Again Markham nodded sombrely.
"That part is clear enough now," he said. "But why should the key to the vault have been found in Tatum's room?"
"That was part of Stamm's fundamental mistake. As I have said, Stamm was overcautious. He didn't have the courage to carry through his plot without building bridges. He may have had the key for years, or he may have secured it recently from Mrs. Stamm's trunk. But really, it doesn't matter. Once he had used it for his purpose, he could not throw it away, for obviously he intended to remove the diving suit from the vault when the first opportunity offered. He could have hidden the key in the meantime; but if the diving suit had been discovered in the vault by some one's tearing down a wall or breaking in the door, suspicion would immediately have fallen on him, as it was his own diving suit. Therefore, in an effort to protect himself in this remote eventuality, he probably put the key first in Greeff's room, to point suspicion to Greeff. Then, when the opportunity to murder Greeff arose, Stamm planted the key in Tatum's room. Stamm liked Leland and wanted Bernice to marry him—which, incidentally, was the primary motive for his getting rid of Montague—and he certainly would not have tried to throw suspicion on Leland. You will remember that I first searched Greeff's room—I thought that the key might be there, inasmuch as there was a possibility we would think that Greeff had merely run away. But when it was not there I looked for it in Tatum's room. Luckily we found it and didn't have to break into the vault—which I would certainly have insisted upon if there had been no other means of entering."
"But what I still don't understand, Vance," Markham persisted, "is why the key should have interested you in the first place."
"Neither do I—entirely," Vance returned. "And it's much too hot tonight to indulge in psychological analyses of my mental quirks. Let's say, for brevity, that my idea about the key was mere guesswork. As you know, the vault fascinated me because of its strategic position; and I couldn't see how else the first murder could have been so neatly accomplished unless the vault had been used in some way. It was most convenient, don't y' know. But the entire matter was far from clear in my mind. In fact, it was dashed vague. However, I thought it worth determining, and that's why I went to Mrs. Stamm and demanded to know the hiding-place of the key. I frightened her into telling me, for she didn't associate the vault with Stamm's machinations. When I discovered that the key had disappeared from its hiding-place, I was more convinced than ever that it was a factor in the solution of our problem."
"But how, in the name of Heaven," asked Markham, "did you first hit upon the idea that Stamm was the guilty person? He was the only person in the house that seemed to have a good alibi."
Vance shook his head slowly.
"No, Markham old dear; he was the only member of the party who did not have an alibi. And it was for that reason that I had my eye on him from the first—although I admit there were other possibilities. Stamm, of course, thought that he had built up a perfect alibi, at the same time hoping that the murder would pass as a mere departure. But when Montague's murder was established, Stamm's position was really weaker than that of any of the others; for he was the only one who was not standing beside the pool at the time Montague dived in. It would have been difficult for any one of the others to have murdered Montague in the circumstances, just as it would have been impossible for Stamm to have murdered him if he had actually been in a state of acute alcoholism. It was this combination of circumstances that gave me my first inkling of the truth. Naturally, Stamm couldn't have gone to the pool with the others and still have accomplished his purpose; and, reasoning from this premise, I arrived at the conclusion that it was possible for him to have feigned drunkenness by secretly disposing of his liquor, and then made his drunkenness a reality after he had returned to the house. When I learned that he had spent the entire evening on the davenport in the library, I naturally became interested in the jardinière holding the rubber-plant at the head of the davenport."
"But, Vance," protested Markham, "if you were so certain from the first that the crime was rational and commonplace, why all the silly pother about a dragon?"
"It was not silly. There was always the remote possibility that some strange fish, or sea-monster, had been responsible for Montague's death. Even the greatest zoologists understand but little about aquatic life: it is positively amazin' how meagre our knowledge of under-water creatures really is. The breeding of the Betta, for instance, has been going on for decades, and with all our experimentation with this labyrinth family, no one knows whether the Betta pugnax is a nest-builder or a mouthbreeder. Mrs. Stamm was quite right when she ridiculed scientific knowledge of submarine life. And you must not forget, Markham, that Stamm was an ardent fish hunter, and that he brought back to this country all kinds of rare specimens about which practically nothing is known. Scientifically, the superstition of the pool could not be ignored. But, I admit, I did not take the matter very seriously. I clung childishly to the trodden paths, for life has a most disappointin' way of proving commonplace and rational when we are hopin' most passionately for the bizarre and supernatural. Anyway, I thought it worth while to inspect Stamm's collection of fish. But I was more or less familiar with all his exhibits; so I descended to the realm of simple, understandable things, and tested the soil in the jardinière."
"And incidentally," Markham commented, with a slow smile, "you lingered over the fish and the other plants so as not to give Stamm any idea of what you were really after in the rubber-plant pot."
Vance smiled back.
; "It may be, don't y' know. . . . How about another magnum of Pol Roger?" And he rang for Currie.
It was less than a year after these two sinister murders at the old Dragon Pool, with their sequence of tragedies, that Leland and Bernice Stamm were married. They were both strong and, in many ways, remarkable characters; but the memory of the tragedies affected them too deeply for them to remain in Inwood. They built a home in the hills of Westchester, and went there to live. Vance and I visited them shortly after their marriage.
The old Stamm residence was never occupied again, and the estate was acquired by the city and added to what is now Inwood Hill Park. The house was torn down, and only the crumbling stones of its foundation remain. But the two square stone posts of the entrance gate, which marked the beginning of the driveway from Bolton Road, are still standing. The old Dragon Pool exists no more. The stream that fed it was diverted into Spuyten Duyvil Creek. Its semi-artificial bed has been filled in, and what was once the basin of the Dragon Pool is now overgrown with wild vegetation. It would be difficult today even to trace the course of the old stream or to determine the former boundaries of that sinister and tragic pool.
After the final tragedy and the breaking up of the century-old traditions of the Stamm estate, I often wondered what became of Trainor, the butler, when the doors of the ancient mansion had been closed for all time. Why the memory of the fellow should have remained in my mind, I cannot say; but there was in him something at once ghost-like and corporeal, something both pathetic and offensive, which made a strong impression on me. I was, therefore, glad when I recently ran into him.
Vance and I were visiting a tropical-fish shop in East 34th Street; and there, behind the counter, half hidden by the tanks, was Trainor.
He recognized Vance at once, and shook his head lugubriously as we approached him.
"I'm not doing so well with my Scatophagus here," he repined. "Not the proper conditions—if you know what I mean, sir."
THE END
Footnotes
[1] "The Bishop Murder Case" (Scribners, 1929).
[2] At one time Vance had turned his sun-parlor into an aquarium and devoted several years to breeding these beautiful veil-tailed fish. He succeeded in producing corn-flower blue, deep maroon, and even black specimens; and he won several awards with them at the exhibitions of the Aquarium Society at the Museum of Natural History.
[3] This is not to be confused with Lower Bolton Road, otherwise known as River Road, which turns off Dyckman Street near the New York Central Hudson River railroad tracks and passes below the Memorial Hospital.
[4] 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.
[5] 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.
[6] Kehoe's Hole, of which the lake in West Side Park, Newark, is the last vestige, has had a most unusual history. The once great swamp was also called, at different times, Magnolia Swamp and Turtle Ditch, and an enterprising newspaper reporter has dubbed the present lake Suicide Lake. The old swamp had the distinction of being considered bottomless; and many strange tales are told, by the old-timers and pseudo-archivists in the neighborhood, of mysterious drownings in its waters, and of the remarkable disappearances of the bodies despite every effort to find them. One story tells of the disappearance beneath its surface of a team of horses and a wagon. These amazing tales—extending over a period of forty years or more—may be accounted for by the fact that there were once quicksands in parts of the swamp. But tradition still has it that the bottom of the present lake has not been fathomed and that once a body sinks beneath its surface, it is never found.
[7] What is purported to be the Keating map, or a copy of it, has been almost generally used by treasure seekers on Cocos Island. It is supposed to have been made by Captain Thompson himself, who left it to a friend named Keating. Keating, with a Captain Bogue, outfitted an expedition to the island. There was mutiny on board the boat, and Bogue died on the island; but Keating miraculously escaped. At his death his widow turned the map over to Nicholas Fitzgerald, who, in turn, willed it to Commodore Curzon-Howe of the British navy.
[8] Doctor Emanuel Doremus, Chief Medical Examiner.
[9] In a pamphlet published in Morris, Illinois, in 1887, written by the Honorable P. A. Armstrong and entitled "The Piasa, or the Devil Among the Indians," there is an old engraving showing the Piasa as a monster with a dragon's head, antlers like a deer, the scales of a great fish, claws, and large wings, and with a long tail, like that of a sea-serpent, coiled about its body. The petroglyphs, or pictographs, carved on rock, of this devil-dragon were first found by Father Marquette in the valley of the Mississippi about 1665; and his description of the Piasa, given in Armstrong's pamphlet, reads thus: "They are as large as a calf, with head and horns like a goat, their eyes are red, beard like a tiger's, and a face like a man's. Their tails are so long that they pass over their bodies and between their legs, ending like a fish's tail."
[10] Lenape is the generic name for the Algonkian tribes in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and vicinity; and it was one of these tribes that inhabited Inwood.
[11] "The Greene Murder Case" (Scribners, 1927).
[12] The glacial pot-holes in Inwood Hill Park were recently discovered. They are excellent geological specimens of deeply bored, striated cavities formed in the glacial period by the grinding action of the lower gravel surface of the massive continental ice sheet that covered the northeastern part of North America between 30,000 and 50,000 years ago. One of these sub-glacial holes is about three and a half feet in diameter and five feet deep. Another is over four feet across; and still another is eight feet in diameter.
[13] There is a slab of Archæan-age granite with glacial markings from Vinalhaven, Maine, in front of the American Museum of Natural History, showing the formation of a glacial pot-hole. The cylindrical boring in it, however, is much smaller than those in Inwood.
[14] The fact is that one Patrick Coghlan, a resident of Inwood, found these pot-holes only a few years ago, on one of his rambling walks. They have since been cleared by the Dyckman Institute and made available for public inspection and study.
[15] The Moraine Cooler was one of Vance's favorite summer drinks. It is ordinarily made with Rhine wine, lemon juice (with the rind), Curaçao, and club soda; but Vance always substituted Grand Marnier for the Curaçao.
[16] The papers that day had carried spectacular accounts of Montague's murder; and the reporters had let their imaginations run riot over the possibilities of an actual aquatic monster having caused his death. A zoologist from one of the local universities had been interviewed and had expressed the opinion that such an explanation could not be scientifically refuted because of our scant knowledge of submarine life.
[17] Markham, I believe, was referring to the opportunity that Vance had given the murderer in "The 'Canary' Murder Case" to commit suicide after he had admitted his guilt.
THE CASINO MURDER CASE
First Published 1934
Quam saepe forte temere eveniunt, quae non audeas optare!
—Terence.
TO
/>
AUGUSTA MacMANNUS
("Our Mac")
CONTENTS
1. An Anonymous Letter
2. The Casino
3. The First Tragedy
4. The Dead Girl's Room
5. Poison!
6. A Cry in the Night
7. More Poison
8. The Medicine Cabinet
9. A Painful Interview
10. The Post-Mortem Report
11. Fear of Water
12. Vance Takes a Journey
13. An Amazing Discovery
14. The White Label
15. The Two-o'Clock Appointment
16. The Final Tragedy
CHARACTERS OF THE BOOK
Philo Vance
John F.-X. Markham—District Attorney of New York County.
Ernest Heath—Sergeant of the Homicide Bureau.
Mrs. Anthony Llewellyn—A prominent social worker.
Richard Kinkaid—Her brother, and owner of the Casino.
Amelia Llewellyn—Her daughter; an art student.
Lynn Llewellyn—Her son, a night-club habitué and gambler.
Virginia Llewellyn—Lynn Llewellyn's wife: formerly Virginia Vale, a musical-comedy star.
Philo Vance Omnibus Vol 2 Page 24