The Philo Vance Megapack

by S. S. Van Dine

  “The wagon’s here, Sergeant.”

  Bliss turned immediately, and the two detectives swung about alertly. The three men had taken only a few steps when Vance’s voice cracked out like a whip.

  “Stop!” He looked squarely at Markham. “You can’t do this! The thing is a farce. You’re making an unutterable ass of yourself.”

  I had never seen Vance so fiery—he was quite unlike his usual frigid self—and Markham was noticeably taken aback.

  “Give me ten minutes,” Vance hurried on. “There’s something I want to find out—there’s an experiment I want to make. Then, if you’re not satisfied, you can go ahead with this imbecile arrest.”

  Heath’s face grew red with anger.

  “Look here, Mr. Markham,” he protested; “we’ve got the goods—”

  “Just a minute, Sergeant.” Markham held up his hand: he had obviously been impressed by Vance’s unusual earnestness. “Ten minutes is not going to make any material difference. And if Mr. Vance has any evidence we don’t know of, we might as well learn it now.” He turned brusquely to Vance. “What’s on your mind? I’m willing to give you ten minutes.… Has your request anything to do with what you found on top of the cabinet and put in your pocket?”

  “Oh, a great deal.” Vance had again assumed his habitual easy-going manner. “And many thanks for the respite.… I’d suggest, however, that these two myrmidons take the doctor into the front hall and hold him there for further instructions.”

  Markham, after a brief hesitation, nodded to Heath, who gave Hennessey and Emery the necessary order.

  When we were alone Vance turned toward the spiral stairs.

  “Imprimis,” he said almost gaily, “I passionately desire to make a curs’ry inspection of the doctor’s study. I’ve a premonition that we will find something there of the most entrancin’ interest.”

  He was now half-way up the stairs, with Markham, Heath and me following.

  The study was a spacious room, about twenty feet square. It had two large windows at the rear and a smaller window on the east side giving on a narrow court. There were several massive embayed bookcases about the walls; and stacked in the corners were piles of paper pamphlets and cardboard folders. Along the wall which contained the door leading into the hall, stretched a long divan. Between the two rear windows stood a large flat-topped mahogany desk, before which was a cushioned swivel chair. Several other chairs were drawn up about the desk—evidences of the conference that had been held the previous night.

  It was an orderly room, and there was a striking neatness about all of its appointments. Even the papers and books on the desk were carefully arranged, attesting to Bliss’s meticulous nature. The only untidiness in the study was where Heath had upset the wicker waste-basket in his search for the tennis shoe. The curtains of the rear windows were up, and the afternoon sunlight flooded in.

  Vance stood for a while just inside the door glancing slowly about him. His eyes tarried for a moment on the disposition of the chairs, but more especially, I thought, on the doctor’s swivel seat, which stood several feet away from the desk. He looked at the heavily padded hall door, and let his gaze rest on the drawn curtain of the side window. After a pause he went to the window and raised the shade,—the window was shut.

  “Rather strange,” he commented. “A torrid day like this—and the window closed. Bear that in mind, Markham.… You observe, of course, that there’s a window opposite in the next house.”

  “What possible significance could that have?” asked Markham irritably.

  “I haven’t the foggiest notion, don’t y’ know.… Unless,” Vance added whimsically, “something went on in here that the occupant—or occupants—of the room didn’t wish the neighbors to know about. The trees in the yard completely preclude any spying through the rear windows.”

  “Huh! That looks like a point in our favor,” Heath rejoined. “The doc shuts the side window and pulls the shade down so’s nobody’ll hear him going in and out of the museum, or’ll see him hiding the shoe.”

  Vance nodded.

  “Your reasoning, Sergeant, is good as far as it goes. But you might carry the equation to one more decimal point. Why, for instance, didn’t your guilty doctor open the window and throw up the shade after the dire deed was done? Why should he leave another obvious clew indicating his guilt?”

  “Guys who commit murder, Mr. Vance,” argued the Sergeant pugnaciously, “don’t think of everything.”

  “The trouble with this crime,” Vance returned quietly, “is that the murderer thought of too many things. He erred on the side of prodigality, so to speak.”

  He stepped to the desk. On one end lay a low starched turn-over collar with a dark-blue four-in-hand pulled through it.

  “Behold,” he said, “the doctor’s collar and cravat which he removed last night during the conference. The scarab pin was in the cravat. Any one might have taken it—eh, what?”

  “So you remarked before.” Markham’s tone held a note of bored sarcasm. “Did you bring us here to show us the necktie? Scarlett told us it was here. Forgive me, Vance, if I confess that I am not stunned by your discovery.”

  “No, I didn’t lead you here to exhibit the doctor’s neckwear.” Vance spoke with calm assurance. “I merely mentioned the four-in-hand en passant.”

  He brushed the spilled papers of the waste-basket back and forth with his foot.

  “I am rather anxious to know where the doctor’s other tennis shoe is. I have a feelin’ its whereabouts might tell us something.”

  “Well, it ain’t in the basket,” declared Heath. “If it had been I’d have found it.”

  “Ah! But, Sergeant, why wasn’t it in the basket? That’s a point worth considerin’, don’t y’ know.”

  “Maybe it didn’t have any blood on it. And that being the case, there wasn’t any use in hiding it.”

  “But, my word! It strikes me that the blameless left shoe is hidden even better than was the incriminatin’ right shoe.” (During the discussion Vance had made a fairly thorough search of the study for the missing tennis shoe.) “It’s certainly not round here.”

  Markham, for the first time since we quitted the museum, showed signs of interest.

  “I see your point, Vance,” he conceded reluctantly. “The telltale shoe was hidden here in the study, and the other one has disappeared.… I admit that’s rather odd. What’s your explanation?”

  “Oh, I say! Let’s locate the shoe before we indulge in speculation.…” Vance then addressed himself to Heath. “Sergeant, if you should get Brush to conduct you to Doctor Bliss’s bedchamber, I’m rather inclined to think you’ll find the missing shoe there. You remember the doctor said he wore his tennis shoes up-stairs last night and came down this morning in his house slippers.”

  “Huh!” Heath scouted the suggestion. Then he gave Vance a sharp, calculating look. After a moment he changed his mind. Shrugging his shoulders in capitulation, he went swiftly out into the hall, and we could hear him calling down the rear stairs for the butler.

  “If the Sergeant finds the shoe up-stairs,” Vance observed to Markham, “it will be fairly conclusive evidence that the doctor didn’t wear his tennis shoes this morning; for we know that he did not return to his bedroom after descending to his study before breakfast.”

  Markham looked perplexed.

  “Then who brought the other shoe from his room this morning? And how did it get in the waste-basket? And how did it become blood-stained?… Surely, the murderer wore the shoe that Heath found here.…”

  “Oh, yes—there can be no doubt of that.” Vance nodded gravely. “And my theory is that the murderer wore only the one tennis shoe and left the other up-stairs.”

  Markham clicked his tongue with annoyance.

  “Such a theory doesn’t make sense.”

  “Forgive me, Markham, for disagreeing with you,” Vance returned dulcetly. “But I think it makes more sense than the clews on which you’re so trustfully counting to
convict the doctor.”

  Heath burst into the room at this moment, holding the left tennis shoe in his hand. His expression was sheepish, but his eyes blinked with excitement.

  “It was there, all right,” he announced, “—at the foot of the bed.… Now, how did it get there?”

  “Perhaps,” softy suggested Vance, “the doctor wore it up-stairs last night, as he said.”

  “Then how the hell did the other shoe get down here?” The Sergeant was now holding the two shoes, one in each hand, staring at them in wrathful bewilderment.

  “If you knew who brought that other shoe downstairs this morning,” returned Vance, “you’d now who killed Kyle.” Then he added: “Not that it would do us any particular good at the present moment.”

  Markham had been standing scowling at the floor and smoking furiously. The shoe episode had disconcerted him. But now he looked up and made an impatient gesture.

  “You’re making a mountain out of this affair, Vance,” he asserted aggressively. “A number of simple explanations suggest themselves. The most plausible one seems to be that Doctor Bliss, when he came down-stairs this morning, picked up his tennis shoes to have them handy in his study, and in his nervousness—or merely accidentally—dropped one, or even failed to pick both of them up, and did not discover the fact until he was here—”

  “And then,” continued Vance, with a japish grin, “he took off one slipper and put on the tennis shoe, murdered Kyle, re-exchanged it for his temporarily discarded slipper, and tucked the tennis shoe in the waste-basket.”

  “It’s possible.”

  Vance sighed audibly.

  “Possible—yes. I suppose that almost anything is possible in this illogical world. But really, Markham, I can’t subscribe enthusiastically to your touchin’ theory of the doctor’s having picked up one shoe instead of two and not having known the difference. He’s much to orderly and methodical—too conscious of details.”

  “Let us assume then,” Markham persisted, “that the doctor actually wore one tennis shoe and one bedroom slipper when he came to the study this morning. Scarlett told us his feet troubled him a great deal.”

  “If that hypothesis is correct,” countered Vance, “how did the other bedroom slipper get down-stairs? He would hardly have put it in his pocket and carried it along.”

  “Brush perhaps.…”

  Heath had been following the discussion closely, and now he went into action.

  “We can check that one pronto, Mr. Vance,” he said; and going briskly to the hall door, he called down the stairs to the butler.

  But no help came from Brush. He declared that neither he nor any member of the household had been near the study after Bliss had gone there at eight o’clock, with the exception of the time when he carried the doctor’s breakfast to him. When asked what shoes the doctor was wearing, Brush answered that he had taken no notice.

  When the butler had gone Vance shrugged his shoulders.

  “Let’s not fume and whirret ourselves over the mysteriously separated pair of tennis shoes. My prim’ry reason for luring you to the study was to inspect the remains of the doctor’s breakfast.”

  Markham gave a perceptible start, and his eyes narrowed.

  “Good Heavens! You don’t believe…? I’ll confess I thought of it, too. But then came all that other evidence.…”

  “Thought of what, sir?” Heath was frankly exasperated, and his tone was irritable.

  “Both Mr. Markham and I,” explained Vance soothingly, “noted the dazed condition of Doctor Bliss when he appeared this morning in answer to my continued pounding on the door.”

  “He’d been asleep. Didn’t he tell us so?”

  “Quite. And that’s why I’m so dashed interested in his matutional coffee.” Vance walked to the end of the desk upon which rested a small silver tray containing a rack of toast and a cup and saucer. The toast had not been touched, and the cup was practically empty. Only the congealed brown dregs of what had evidently been coffee remained in the bottom. Vance leant over and looked into the cup. Then he lifted it to his nose.

  “There’s a slightly acrid odor here,” he remarked.

  He touched the tip of his finger to the inside of the cup and placed it on his tongue.

  “Yes!… Just what I thought,” he nodded, setting the cup down. “Opium. And it’s powered opium—the kind commonly used in Egypt. The other forms and derivatives of opium—such as laudanum, morphine, heroin, thebain, and codein—are not easily obtainable there.”

  Heath had come forward and stood peering belligerently into the cup.

  “Well, suppose there was opium in the coffee,” he rumbled. “What does that mean?”

  “Ah, who knows?” Vance was lighting a cigarette, his eyes in space. “It might, of course, account for the doctor’s long siesta this morning and for his confused condition when he answered my knock. Also, it might indicate that some one narcotized his coffee for a purpose. The fact is, Sergeant, the opium in the doctor’s coffee might mean various things. At the present moment I’m expressing no opinion. I’m merely calling Mr. Markham’s attention to the drug.… I’ll say this, however: as soon as I saw the doctor this morning and observed the way he acted, I guessed that there would be evidences of an opiate in the study. And, being fairly familiar with conditions in Egypt, I surmised that the opiate would prove to be powdered opium—opii pulvis. Opium makes one very thirsty: that is why I wasn’t in the least astonished when the doctor asked for a drink of water.” He looked at Markham. “Does this discovery of the opium affect the doctor’s legal status?”

  “It’s certainly a strong point in his favor,” Markham returned after several moments.

  That he was deeply perplexed was only too apparent. But he was loath to forgo his belief in Bliss’s guilt; and when he spoke again it was obvious that he was arguing desperately against Vance’s new discovery.

  “I realize that the presence of the opium will have to be explained away before a conviction can be assured. But, on the other hand, we don’t know how much opium he took. Nor do we know when he took it. He may have drunk the coffee after the murder—we have only his word that he drank it at nine o’clock.… No, it certainly doesn’t affect the fundamental issue—though it does raise a very grave question. But the evidence against him is too strong to be counterbalanced by this one point in his favor. Surely, you must see, Vance, that the mere presence of opium in that cup is not conclusive evidence that Bliss was asleep from nine o’clock until you knocked on the study door.”

  “The perfect Public Prosecutor,” sighed Vance. “But a shrewd defense lawyer could sow many fecund seeds of doubt in the jurors’ so-called minds—eh, what?”

  “True.” The admission came after a moment’s thought. “But we can’t overlook the fact that Bliss was practically the only person who had the opportunity to kill Kyle. Every one else was out of the house, with the exception of Hani; and Hani impresses me as a harmless fanatic who believes in the supernatural power of his Egyptian dieties. So far as we know, Bliss was the only person who was actually on hand when Kyle was murdered.”

  Vance studied Markham for several seconds. Then he said:

  “Suppose it had not been necess’ry for the murderer to have been anywhere near the museum when Kyle was killed with the statue of Sakhmet.”

  Markham took his cigar slowly from his mouth.

  “What do you mean? How could that statue have been wielded by an absent person? It strikes me you’re talking nonsense.”

  “Perhaps I am.” Vance was troubled and serious. “And yet, Markham, I found something on top of that end cabinet which makes me think that maybe the murder was planned with diabolical cleverness.… As I told you, I want to make an experiment. Then, when I have made it, your course of action must rest entirely on your own convictions.… There’s something both terrible and subtle about this crime. All its outward appearances are misleading—deliberately so.”

  “How long will this experiment take?” Ma
rkham was patently impressed by Vance’s tone.

  “Only a few minutes.…”

  Heath had taken a sheet of newspaper from the basket and was carefully wrapping up the cup.

  “This goes to our chemist,” he explained sullenly. “I’m not doubting you, Mr. Vance, but I want an expert analysis.”

  “You’re quite right, Sergeant.”

  Vance’s eye at that moment caught sight of a small bronze tray on the desk, containing several yellow pencils and a fountain pen. Leaning over casually, he picked up the pencils, glanced at them, and put them back on the tray. Markham noted the action, as did I, but he refrained from asking any questions.

  “The experiment will have to be made in the museum,” Vance said; “and I’ll need a couple of sofa pillows for it.”

  He walked to the divan and tucked two large pillows under his arm. Then he went to the steel door and held it open.

  Markham and Heath and I passed down the spiral stairs; and Vance followed us.

  CHAPTER 9

  VANCE MAKES AN EXPERIMENT

  (Friday, July 13, 2:15 P.M.)

  Vance went direct to the end cabinet before which Kyle’s body had been found, and dropped the two sofa pillows on the floor. Then he looked again speculatively at the upper edge of the cabinet.

  “I wonder.…” he murmured. “Dash it all! I’m almost afraid to carry on. If I should be wrong, this entire case would come topplin’ about my head.…”

  “Come, come!” Markham was growing impatient. “Soliloquies have gone out of date, Vance. If you have anything to show me, let’s get it over with.”

  “Right you are.”

  Vance stepped to the ash-tray and resolutely crushed out his cigarette. Returning to the cabinet he beckoned to Markham and Heath.

  “By way of praeludium,” he began, “I want to call your attention to this curtain. You will observe that the brass ring at the end has been slipped off of the rod and is now hanging down.”

  For the first time I noticed that the small ring on the corner of the curtain was not strung on the rod, and that the left edge of the curtain sagged correspondingly.