The Philo Vance Megapack

by S. S. Van Dine

“This way, please, Professor,” he directed cajolingly, going to the dressing table and picking up the jewel case. “Take a squint at this and tell me what you see.”

  Inspector Brenner followed Heath, without looking to right or left, and, taking the jewel case, went silently to the window and began to examine it. Vance, whose interest seemed suddenly to be reawakened, came forward and stood watching him.

  For fully five minutes the little expert inspected the case, holding it within a few inches of his myopic eyes. Then he lifted his glance to Heath and winked several times rapidly.

  “Two instruments were used in opening this case.” His voice was small and high-pitched, but there was in it an undeniable quality of authority. “One bent the lid and made several fractures on the baked enamel. The other was, I should say, a steel chisel of some kind, and was used to break the lock. The first instrument, which was blunt, was employed amateurishly, at the wrong angle of leverage; and the effort resulted only in twisting the overhang of the lid. But the steel chisel was inserted with a knowledge of the correct point of oscillation, where a minimum of leverage would produce the counteracting stress necessary to displace the lockbolts.”

  “A professional job?” suggested Heath.

  “Highly so,” answered the inspector, again blinking. “That is to say, the forcing of the lock was professional. And I would even go so far as to advance the opinion that the instrument used was one especially constructed for such illegal purposes.”

  “Could this have done the job?” Heath held out the poker.

  The other looked at it closely and turned it over several times. “It might have been the instrument that bent the cover, but it was not the one used for prying open the lock. This poker is cast iron and would have snapped under any great pressure; whereas this box is of cold rolled eighteen-gauge steel plate, with an inset cylinder pin-tumbler lock taking a paracentric key. The leverage force necessary to distort the flange sufficiently to lift the lid could have been made only by a steel chisel.”

  “Well, that’s that.” Heath seemed well satisfied with Inspector Brenner’s conclusion. “I’ll send the box down to you, Professor, and you can let me know what else you find out.”

  “I’ll take it along, if you have no objection.” And the little man tucked it under his arm and shuffled out without another word.

  Heath grinned at Markham. “Queer bird. He ain’t happy unless he’s measuring jimmy marks on doors and windows and things. He couldn’t wait till I sent him the box. He’ll hold it lovingly on his lap all the way down in the subway, like a mother with a baby.”

  Vance was still standing near the dressing table, gazing perplexedly into space. “Markham,” he said, “the condition of that jewel case is positively astounding. It’s unreasonable, illogical—insane. It complicates the situation most damnably. That steel box simply couldn’t have been chiseled open by a professional burglar…and yet, don’t y’ know, it actually was.”

  Before Markham could reply, a satisfied grunt from Captain Dubois attracted our attention. “I’ve got something for you, Sergeant,” he announced.

  We moved expectantly into the living room. Dubois was bending over the end of the library table almost directly behind the place where Margaret Odell’s body had been found. He took out an insufflator, which was like a very small hand bellows, and blew a fine light-yellow powder evenly over about a square foot of the polished rosewood surface of the table top. Then he gently blew away the surplus powder, and there appeared the impression of a human hand distinctly registered in saffron. The bulb of the thumb and each fleshy hummock between the joints of the fingers and around the palm stood out like tiny circular islands. All the papillary ridges were clearly discernible. The photographer then hooked his camera to a peculiar adjustable tripod and, carefully focusing his lens, took two flashlight pictures of the hand mark.

  “This ought to do.” Dubois was pleased with his find. “It’s the right hand—a clear print—and the guy who made it was standing right behind the dame.… And it’s the newest print in the place.”

  “What about this box?” Heath pointed to the black document box on the table near the overturned lamp.

  “Not a mark—wiped clean.”

  Dubois began putting away his paraphernalia.

  “I say, Captain Dubois,” interposed Vance, “did you take a good look at the inside doorknob of that clothes press?”

  The man swung about abruptly and gave Vance a glowering look. “People ain’t in the habit of handling the inside knobs of closet doors. They open and shut closets from the outside.”

  Vance raised his eyebrows in simulated astonishment.

  “Do they, now, really?—Fancy that!… Still, don’t y’ know, if one were inside the closet, one couldn’t reach the outside knob.”

  “The people I know don’t shut themselves in clothes closets.” Dubois’ tone was ponderously sarcastic.

  “You positively amaze me!” declared Vance. “All the people I know are addicted to the habit—a sort of daily pastime, don’t y’ know.”

  Markham, always diplomatic, intervened. “What idea have you about that closet, Vance?”

  “Alas! I wish I had one,” was the dolorous answer. “It’s because I can’t, for the life of me, make sense of its neat and orderly appearance that I’m so interested in it. Really, y’ know, it should have been artistically looted.”

  Heath was not entirely free from the same vague misgivings that were disturbing Vance, for he turned to Dubois and said, “You might go over the knob, Captain. As this gentleman says, there’s something funny about the condition of that closet.”

  Dubois, silent and surly, went to the closet door and sprayed his yellow powder over the inside knob. When he had blown the loose particles away, he bent over it with his magnifying glass. At length he straightened up and gave Vance a look of ill-natured appraisal.

  “There’s fresh prints on it, all right,” he grudgingly admitted; “and, unless I’m mistaken, they were made by the same hand as those on the table. Both thumb marks are ulnar loops, and the index fingers are both whorl patterns.… Here, Pete,” he ordered the photographer, “make some shots of that knob.”

  When this had been done, Dubois, Bellamy, and the photographer left us. A few minutes later, after an interchange of pleasantries, Inspector Moran also departed. At the door he passed two men in the white uniforms of interns, who had come to take away the girl’s body.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE BOLTED DOOR

  (Tuesday, September 11; 10:30 A.M.)

  Markham and Heath and Vance and I were now alone in the apartment. Dark, low-hanging clouds had drifted across the sun, and the gray spectral light intensified the tragic atmosphere of the rooms. Markham had lighted a cigar, and stood leaning against the piano, looking about him with a disconsolate but determined air. Vance had moved over to one of the pictures on the side wall of the living room—Boucher’s “La Bergère Endormie” I think it was—and stood looking at it with cynical contempt.

  “Dimpled nudities, gamboling Cupids and woolly clouds for royal cocottes,” he commented. His distaste for all the painting of the French decadence under Louis XV was profound. “One wonders what pictures courtesans hung in their boudoirs before the invention of these amorous eclogues, with their blue verdure and beribboned sheep.”

  “I’m more interested at present in what took place in this particular boudoir last night,” retorted Markham impatiently.

  “There’s not much doubt about that, sir,” said Heath encouragingly. “And I’ve an idea that when Dubois checks up those fingerprints with our files, we’ll about know who did it.”

  Vance turned toward him with a rueful smile. “You’re so trusting, Sergeant. I, in turn, have an idea that, long before this touchin’ case is clarified, you’ll wish the irascible captain with the insect powder had never found those fingerprints.” He made a playful gesture of emphasis. “Permit me to whisper into your ear that the person who left his sign manuals o
n yonder rosewood table and cutglass doorknob had nothing whatever to do with the precipitate demise of the fair Mademoiselle Odell.”

  “What is it you suspect?” demanded Markham sharply.

  “Not a thing, old dear,” blandly declared Vance. “I’m wandering about in a mental murk as empty of signposts as interplanetary space. The jaws of darkness do devour me up; I’m in the dead vast and middle of the night. My mental darkness is Egyptian, Stygian, Cimmerian—I’m in a perfect Erebus of tenebrosity.”

  Markham’s jaw tightened in exasperation; he was familiar with this evasive loquacity of Vance’s. Dismissing the subject, he addressed himself to Heath.

  “Have you done any questioning of the people in the house here?”

  “I talked to Odell’s maid and to the janitor and the switchboard operators, but I didn’t go much into details—I was waiting for you. I’ll say this, though: what they did tell me made my head swim. If they don’t back down on some of their statements, we’re up against it.”

  “Let’s have them in now, then,” suggested Markham; “the maid first.” He sat down on the piano bench with his back to the keyboard.

  Heath rose but, instead of going to the door, walked to the oriel window. “There’s one thing I want to call your attention to, sir, before you interview these people, and that’s the matter of entrances and exits in this apartment.”

  He drew aside the gold-gauze curtain. “Look at that iron grating. All the windows in this place, including the ones in the bathroom, are equipped with iron bars just like these. It’s only eight or ten feet to the ground here, and whoever built this house wasn’t taking any chances of burglars getting in through the windows.”

  He released the curtain and strode into the foyer. “Now, there’s only one entrance to this apartment, and that’s this door here opening off the main hall. There isn’t a transom or an airshaft or a dumbwaiter in the place, and that means that the only way—the only way—that anybody can get in or out of this apartment is through this door. Just keep that fact in your mind, sir, while you’re listening to the stories of these people.… Now, I’ll have the maid brought in.”

  In response to Heath’s order a detective led in a mulatto woman about thirty years old. She was neatly dressed and gave one the impression of capability. When she spoke, it was with a quiet, clear enunciation which attested to a greater degree of education than is ordinarily found in members of her class.

  Her name, we learned, was Amy Gibson; and the information elicited by Markham’s preliminary questioning consisted of the following facts:

  She had arrived at the apartment that morning a few minutes after seven, and, as was her custom, had let herself in with her own key, as her mistress generally slept till late.

  Once or twice a week she came early to do sewing and mending for Miss Odell before the latter arose. On this particular morning she had come early to make an alteration in a gown.

  As soon as she had opened the door, she had been confronted by the disorder of the apartment, for the Venetian-glass doors of the foyer were wide open; and almost simultaneously she had noticed the body of her mistress on the davenport.

  She had called at once to Jessup, the night telephone operator then on duty, who, after one glance into the living room, had notified the police. She had then sat down in the public reception room and waited for the arrival of the officers.

  Her testimony had been simple and direct and intelligently stated. If she was nervous or excited, she managed to keep her feelings well under control.

  “Now,” continued Markham, after a short pause, “let us go back to last night. At what time did you leave Miss Odell?”

  “A few minutes before seven, sir,” the woman answered, in a colorless, even tone which seemed to be characteristic of her speech.

  “Is that your usual hour for leaving?”

  “No; I generally go about six. But last night Miss Odell wanted me to help her dress for dinner.”

  “Don’t you always help her dress for dinner?”

  “No, sir. But last night she was going with some gentleman to dinner and the theater, and wanted to look specially nice.”

  “Ah!” Markham leaned forward. “And who was this gentleman?”

  “I don’t know, sir—Miss Odell didn’t say.”

  “And you couldn’t suggest who it might have been?”

  “I couldn’t say, sir.”

  “And when did Miss Odell tell you that she wanted you to come early this morning?”

  “When I was leaving last night.”

  “So she evidently didn’t anticipate any danger, or have any fear of her companion.”

  “It doesn’t look that way.” The woman paused, as if considering. “No, I know she didn’t. She was in good spirits.”

  Markham turned to Heath.

  “Any other questions you want to ask, Sergeant?”

  Heath removed an unlighted cigar from his mouth, and bent forward, resting his hands on his knees.

  “What jewelry did this Odell woman have on last night?” he demanded gruffly.

  The maid’s manner became cool and a bit haughty.

  “Miss Odell”—she emphasized the “Miss,” by way of reproaching him for the disrespect implied in his omission—“wore all her rings, five or six of them, and three bracelets—one of square diamonds, one of rubies, and one of diamonds and emeralds. She also had on a sunburst of pear-shaped diamonds on a chain round her neck, and she carried a platinum lorgnette set with diamonds and pearls.”

  “Did she own any other jewelry?”

  “A few small pieces, maybe, but I’m not sure.”

  “And did she keep ’em in the steel jewel case in the room?”

  “Yes—when she wasn’t wearing them.” There was more than a suggestion of sarcasm in the reply.

  “Oh, I thought maybe she kept ’em locked up when she had ’em on.” Heath’s antagonism had been aroused by the maid’s attitude; he could not have failed to note that she had consistently omitted the punctilious “sir” when answering him. He now stood up and pointed loweringly to the black document box on the rosewood table.

  “Ever see that before?”

  The woman nodded indifferently. “Many times.”

  “Where was it generally kept?”

  “In that thing.” She indicated the Boule cabinet with a motion of the head.

  “What was in the box?”

  “How should I know?”

  “You don’t know—huh?” Heath thrust out his jaw, but his bullying attitude had no effect upon the impassive maid.

  “I’ve got no idea,” she replied calmly. “It was always kept locked, and I never saw Miss Odell open it.”

  The sergeant walked over to the door of the living room closet.

  “See that key?” he asked angrily.

  Again the woman nodded; but this time I detected a look of mild astonishment in her eyes.

  “Was that key always kept on the inside of the door?”

  “No, it was always on the outside.”

  Heath shot Vance a curious look. Then, after a moment’s frowning contemplation of the knob, he waved his hand to the detective who had brought the maid in.

  “Take her back to the reception room, Snitkin, and get a detailed description from her of all the Odell jewelry.… And keep her outside; I’ll want her again.”

  When Snitkin and the maid had gone out, Vance lay back lazily on the davenport, where he had sat during the interview, and sent a spiral of cigarette smoke toward the ceiling.

  “Rather illuminatin’, what?” he remarked. “The dusky demoiselle got us considerably forrader. Now we know that the closet key is on the wrong side of the door, and that our fille de joie went to the theater with one of her favorite inamorati, who presumably brought her home shortly before she took her departure from this wicked world.”

  “You think that’s helpful, do you?” Heath’s tone was contemptuously triumphant. “Wait till you hear the crazy story the telephone ope
rator’s got to tell.”

  “All right, Sergeant,” put in Markham impatiently. “Suppose we get on with the ordeal.”

  “I’m going to suggest, Mr. Markham, that we question the janitor first. And I’ll show you why.” Heath went to the entrance door of the apartment, and opened it. “Look here for just a minute, sir.”

  He stepped out into the main hall and pointed down the little passageway on the left. It was about ten feet in length and ran between the Odell apartment and the blank rear wall of the reception room. At the end of it was a solid oak door which gave on the court at the side of the house.

  “That door,” explained Heath, “is the only side or rear entrance to this building; and when that door is bolted, nobody can get into the house except by the front entrance. You can’t even get into the building through the other apartments, for every window on this floor is barred. I checked up on that point as soon as I got here.”

  He led the way back into the living room.

  “Now, after I’d looked over the situation this morning,” he went on, “I figured that our man had entered through that side door at the end of the passageway, and had slipped into this apartment without the night operator seeing him. So I tried the side door to see if it was open. But it was bolted on the inside—not locked, mind you, but bolted. And it wasn’t a slip bolt, either, that could have been jimmied or worked open from the outside, but a tough old-fashioned turn bolt of solid brass.… And now I want you to hear what the janitor’s got to say about it.”

  Markham nodded acquiescence, and Heath called an order to one of the officers in the hall. A moment later a stolid, middle-aged German, with sullen features and high cheekbones, stood before us. His jaw was clamped tight, and he shifted his eyes from one to the other of us suspiciously.

  Heath straightway assumed the role of inquisitor. “What time do you leave here at night?” He had, for some reason, assumed a belligerent manner.

  “Six o’clock—sometimes earlier, sometimes later.” The man spoke in a surly monotone. He was obviously resentful at this unexpected intrusion upon his orderly routine.

  “And what time do you get here in the morning?”