Philo Vance Omnibus Vol 2

by S. S. Van Dine

  "My word!" Vance smiled. "The farther we go, the more remote infallibility becomes."

  The doctor grinned broadly.

  "You know Goethe, yes? Eigentlich weiss man nur wenn man wenig weiss; mit dem Wissen wächst der Zweifel."

  "That's hardly helpful, though." Vance sighed. "I want to know more, not less."

  "Toxicology is not entirely a hopeless science," the doctor answered good-naturedly. "If a poison is found in the organs of a dead person, and the pathology of the case corresponds accurately to the symptoms produced by that poison, one is justified in accepting as a fact that the person died of that particular poison."

  Vance nodded.

  "Yes. I can see that. But, as I understand you, the absence of any determinable poison in the organs does not mean that death was not due to the actual administration of poison. Now, is it possible that poison could actually be in the organs analyzed and yet resist detection by the chemical analyst?"

  "Oh, yes. There are several toxic substances for which chemistry has not yet found the means of determination. Furthermore, you must not overlook the fact that there are poisons which, when they come in contact with certain chemicals in the human body, are converted into harmless substances which one would ordinarily expect to find in the body."

  "Then it is possible to poison some one deliberately, without fear of leaving any trace of the method of murder?"

  Doctor Hildebrandt inclined his head slightly.

  "Yes, that is possible. If one could successfully introduce common sodium into the stomach—"

  "Yes, I know," interrupted Vance. "But the perforation of the stomach walls by the combustion of sodium was not the sort of thing I had in mind. What I wanted to ask is this: are there actual poisonous substances which might produce death and yet leave no trace?"

  "Yes, there are such poisons," Doctor Hildebrandt returned slowly, taking his pipe from his mouth again. "For instance, there are various vegetable poisons which neither produce a specific lesion nor are chemically identifiable. And certain organic poisons may be converted into constituents commonly present in the body. Moreover, certain volatile poisons can be entirely dissipated by the time the toxicologist gets the organs for examination.[12] I am not mentioning the mineral acids which might cause corrosion and be eliminated from the system before death sets in, as I understand this type of poison does not interest you."

  "I was thinking particularly," said Vance, "of some poison easily obtained, that could be given in a glass of water without its presence being detected by the victim."

  Doctor Hildebrandt considered this for a moment. Then he shook his head gravely.

  "No-o. I'm afraid the drugs and chemicals I have in mind would not satisfy all the conditions you impose."

  "Still, doctor," Vance persisted, "is it not possible that a new poison may have been discovered recently which would meet my hypothetical requirements?"

  "Certainly, that is possible," the doctor admitted. "New poisons are constantly being discovered."

  Vance was silent for a while; then he asked:

  "Would a lethal dose of atropin or belladonna, in a glass of water, be easily detected by any one who drank the mixture?"

  "Oh, yes. There would be a distinctly bitter taste to the water." The doctor turned his eyes lazily to Vance. "Have you reason to believe that the poison in the Llewellyn case was given in water?"

  Vance hesitated before answering.

  "We are still only speculating on that point. The fact is, two persons besides Mrs. Llewellyn were poisoned last night, but they recovered. And both of them had taken a glass of water shortly before collapsing. And the carafe at Mrs. Llewellyn's bedside was empty when we arrived."

  "I see," the doctor mumbled, nodding slowly. "Well, perhaps after my chemical analysis of the other organs tomorrow, I can tell you more."

  Vance rose.

  "I'm deeply grateful to you, doctor. There is nothing else I have in mind at the moment. The case just now seems pretty well obscured. By the by, when will your report be completed?"

  Doctor Hildebrandt got up ponderously and accompanied us to the door.

  "That's hard to say. I'll begin work the first thing in the morning, and if I have any luck, I may have the report by tomorrow night."

  We took our leave and Vance drove us direct to his apartment. He was quiet and apparently absorbed in thought. Moreover, he appeared troubled, and Markham made no attempt at conversation until we had settled ourselves in the library. Currie came in and lighted a fire in the grate, and Vance ordered a service of Napoléon cognac. It was then that Markham put his first question to Vance since leaving the doctor's apartment.

  "Did you learn anything—that is, did anything new suggest itself to you during your interview with Hildebrandt?"

  "Nothing definite," Vance replied unhappily. "That's the queer part of this case. I feel as though I were almost touching something vital, and then it eludes me. Several times this afternoon, as the doctor dissertated, I felt that he was telling me something that I needed to know—but I couldn't put my finger on it. Ah, Markham, if only I were psychic!"

  He sighed and warmed his cognac between his hands, inspiring its fumes through the narrow opening of the large pot-bellied inhalateur.

  "But there's one motif that runs all through the events of last night—the water motif."

  Markham looked at him thoughtfully.

  "I noticed that several of your questions were centred about that theme."

  "Oh, yes. Yes. They would be, y' know. Water runs through every act of this devilish drama. Llewellyn orders a whisky and insists upon plain water; but he doesn't drink it when it's brought to him. Later Bloodgood orders it for him, and Kinkaid sends the boy to his office to get the water. Then Kinkaid himself wants a drink of water, and the carafe's empty; so he sends it to the bar to be filled. Virginia Llewellyn's carafe is empty when we arrive at the house. Amelia Llewellyn takes the last glass of water from her mother's carafe and collapses. Her own carafe is later found to be empty—though she explained that point. Then Bloodgood gets emotional and enters the silence at the mere mention of water. Everywhere we turn—water! 'Pon my soul, Markham, it's like some hideous charade. . . ."

  "You think, perhaps, all these victims were poisoned through water?"

  "If I thought that, the whole problem would be simple." Vance made a hopeless gesture with his hand. "But there's no main thread holding these various repetitions of water together. Lynn Llewellyn drank whisky as well as water. Virginia Llewellyn could, of course, have been poisoned by water; but if the poison she took was belladonna or atropin—as the post-mortem signs indicated—she would have tasted the poison and not emptied the entire carafe. The only one of the three victims who we can say, with any degree of certainty, was poisoned by water, is Amelia. But even she tasted nothing amiss; and she had emptied her own carafe earlier in the evening without any untoward effects. . . . It's deuced queer. It's as if water had deliberately been introduced into this case to lead us somewhere. Any murder planned as subtly as this one seems to have been planned, doesn't present a recurring sign-post at every turn unless it has been calculated. Some of it may be coincidence, of course. But not all. That couldn't be. And Bloodgood's perturbation at the mention of water. . . . We have a key, Markham. But—dash it all!—we can't find the door. . . ."

  He made a despairing gesture.

  "Water. What a silly notion. . . . If only it were something besides water! Water can't injure any one, unless one were submerged in it. Why water, Markham? . . . Two parts of hydrogen and one part of oxygen . . . simple, element'ry formula—"

  Vance suddenly stopped speaking. His eyes were fixed before him, and automatically he set down his cognac glass. He leaned forward in his chair, and then he sprang to his feet.

  "Oh, my aunt!" He swung round toward Markham. "Water isn't necess'rily H2O. We're dealing here with the unknown. Subtleties." His eyelids drooped in speculation. "It could be, don't y' know. It may be we are suppos
ed to take the water trail—for a reason. . . . We have a chemist, and a doctor, and a gambler-financier, and books on toxicology, and hatreds, and jealousies, and an Œdipus complex, and three cases of poisoning—and water everywhere. . . . I say, Markham, busy yourself with something for a while. Read, think, sleep, fidget, play solitaire—anything. Only, don't talk."

  He turned swiftly and went to a section of his book-shelves where he kept his scientific journals and pamphlets. For half an hour he rummaged among them, pausing here and there to read some paragraph or glance through some article he had found. At length he replaced all the periodicals and documents and rang for Currie.

  "Pack my bag," he directed when the old English butler appeared. "Overnight. Informal. And put it in the car. I'm drivin'."

  Markham stood up and faced Vance.

  "See here!" He showed his annoyance. "Where are you going, Vance?"

  "I'm takin' a little trip," Vance returned, with an ingratiating smile. "I'm seekin' wisdom. The water trail beckons. I'll be back in the morning, either wiser or sadder—or both."

  Markham looked at him for a moment.

  "What have you in mind?" he asked.

  "Perhaps only a fantastic dream, old dear," smiled Vance.

  Markham knew Vance too well to attempt to elicit any further explanation from him at that moment.

  "Is your destination also a secret?" he asked with modified irritation.

  "Oh, no. No." Vance went to his desk and filled his cigarette-case. "No secret. . . . I'm going to Princeton."

  Markham stared at him in amazement. Then he shrugged, and wagged his head mockingly.

  "And you a Harvard man!"

  13. AN AMAZING DISCOVERY

  (Monday, October 17; 12 noon)

  It was nearly noon the next day when Vance returned to New York. I was busily engaged on routine work when he came into the library, and he barely nodded to me as he passed through to the bedroom. I could plainly see, by his look of concentration and his eager movements, that something urgent was on his mind. A short while later he emerged in a gray Glen Urquhart plaid suit, a subdued green Homburg hat and heavy blucher shoes.

  "It's a miserable day, Van," he remarked. "There's rain in the air, and we are going into the country. Put away your bookkeeping and come along. . . . But I must see Markham first. Phone his office that I'll be there in twenty minutes—there's a good fellow."

  While I got in touch with the District Attorney's office, Vance rang for Currie and gave instructions regarding dinner.

  Markham was alone when we arrived at the Criminal Courts Building.

  "I've held up my appointments waiting for you," he greeted Vance. "What's the report?"

  "My dear Markham—oh, my dear Markham!" protested Vance, sinking into a chair. "Must I make a report?" He became serious and looked thoughtfully at Markham. "The fact is, I have practically nothing to report. A very disappointin' trip."

  "Why did you go to Princeton at all?" Markham asked.

  "To visit an old acquaintance of mine," Vance returned. "Doctor Hugh Stott Taylor—one of the great chemists of our day. He's the Chairman of the Department of Chemistry at the University. . . . I spent a couple of hours with him last night, inspecting the Frick Chemical Laborat'ry."

  "Just a general tour of inspection?" Markham asked, watching Vance shrewdly. "Or something specific?"

  "No. Not general." Vance inhaled on his cigarette. "Quite specific. I was interested, d' ye see, in heavy water."

  "Heavy water!" Markham sat bolt upright in his chair. "I've come across a reference somewhere to heavy water—"

  "Yes—yes. Of course. There has been considerable about it in the papers. Amazin' discovery. One of the great events in modern chemistry. Fascinatin' subject."

  He lay back in his chair and stretched his legs out before him.

  "Heavy water is a compound in which the hydrogen atom weighs twice as much as the hydrogen atom in ordin'ry water. It's really a liquid in which at least ninety per cent of the molecules consist of oxygen combined with the recently discovered heavy hydrogen. The formula is H2H2O, though it is now generally referred to scientifically as D2O. The interestin' thing about it is that it looks and tastes like ordin'ry water. Actually, there is about one part of heavy water in five thousand parts of ordin'ry water; but because of the loss in the process of extraction, it comes nearer to requiring ten thousand parts of plain water to produce one part of the heavy water. In certain laborat'ries they have treated as much as three hundred gallons of ordin'ry water to produce one ounce of heavy water. The actual discovery of heavy water was made by Doctor Harold C. Urey of Columbia University. But a large part of the practical research in this new and amazin' compound has been done by the scientists at Princeton. The apparatus in the Frick Chemical Laborat'ry is the first that's been devised for the production of heavy water on any appreciable scale. And when I say 'appreciable scale' I'm speaking relatively; for Doctor Taylor told me last night that the daily output even at their plant is less than a cubic centimeter. But they're hopin' to step up production to about a teaspoonful a day. At present Princeton has on hand less than half a pint of this precious fluid. The cost of production is enormous; and because of the demand for samples of the liquid by scientists all over the country, the price asked for it is over a hundred dollars a cubic centimeter. A teaspoonful would cost over four hundred dollars, and a quart about a hundred thousand dollars. . . ."

  He glanced up at Markham and continued.

  "There are great commercial possibilities in this new commodity. Doctor Taylor tells me that already there is a chemical firm out west which has begun to market it."[13]

  Markham was profoundly interested, and he did not once take his eyes from Vance.

  "You think, then, this heavy water is the answer to Saturday night's poisonings?"

  "It may be one of the answers," Vance returned slowly, "but I doubt if it is the final answer. Too many things militate against its giving us the entire explanation. To begin with, its cost is almost prohibitive, and there is too little of it available to account for the recurrent water motif in the Llewellyn case."

  "But what of its toxic effect on the human system?" Markham asked.

  "Ah! Exactly. Unfortunately, no one knows what effects liberal quantities of heavy water, taken internally, would have upon a human being. Indeed, the very small amounts of heavy water obtainable have made experimentation in this direction practically impossible. One can only speculate. Professor Swingle, at Princeton, has proved that heavy water is lethal to small fresh-water fish like the Lebistes reticulatus; and the tadpole of the green frog and the flat-worm have been shown to survive but a short time when placed in heavy water. The growth of seedlings in heavy water is retarded or entirely suspended; and this inhibit'ry effect on the functioning of the life protoplasm has led some experimenters in San Francisco to the hypothesis that the indications of old age and senility are caused by the normal accumulation of heavy water in the body."

  Vance smoked a moment and then added:

  "However, I am not satisfied that these speculations have any direct bearing on our particular problem. On the other hand, I'm rather inclined to think, Markham, that we are intended to work along just those lines. In any event, they may lead us to the truth."

  "Just what do you mean by that?" demanded Markham.

  "I met and talked with one of Doctor Taylor's bright young assistants last night—a Mr. Martin Quayle—an expert chemist, conscientious and resourceful, and a great asset to the doctor's staff. Personally, however, I shouldn't care to trust him too far. He has an inordinately ambitious nature. . . ."

  "What has this fellow Quayle to do with my question?" snapped Markham.

  "Quayle, d' ye see, was a classmate of Bloodgood's. Two aspirin' young chemists. Very good friends. Everything gemütlich."

  Markham studied Vance thoughtfully for a moment. Then he shook his head.

  "I feel there's a vague connection somewhere in that information," he sai
d; "but I still can't see what possible bearing it has on the problem we're trying to solve."

  "Neither can I," Vance admitted cheerfully. "I merely put the fact forward in lieu of anything more definite."

  Markham had suddenly become irritable. He struck the desk with his fist.

  "That being the case," he grumbled, "what have you gained by your mysterious trip to Princeton?"

  "I really don't know," Vance returned blandly. "I'll admit I'm frightfully disappointed. I had hoped for much more. But I'm not entirely disconsolate. There's an elusive theme running through the water song, and I hope to know more about it tonight. I'm taking another trip this afternoon—into the country, this time. Behold these rustic togs in which I am incased. I'm countin' on the thought of Quayle to guide my gropin' footsteps."

  Markham inspected Vance shrewdly for a brief time. Then he snorted and gave him a wry smile.

  "The rigmarole of the Delphic oracle; the perfect fortune-telling manner; the crystal-gazer at work. I should be used to it by now. . . . So you're taking a jaunt into the country?"

  "Yes," Vance murmured dulcetly. "Up Closter way—"

  Markham leaped to his feet.

  "What's that!" he fairly bellowed.

  "Oh, my dear Markham, don't startle me so. You have far too much energy." Vance sighed. "I say, would you ask Swacker to find out what companies supply water and electric power to the domiciles in and around Closter?"