The Philo Vance Megapack

by S. S. Van Dine

  “But she followed some one in, obviously,” Markham argued, “—unless, of course, she was deliberately brought there.”

  “That is true,” Vance admitted, “and that is a point that puzzles me. She might have followed some one—even a stranger—into the house, provided he had left the door open; but the murderer would scarcely have left the front door open,—in fact, I imagine he would have taken pains to shut it securely. And Brisbane would certainly not have left the door open. And both of them—if they had shut the front door immediately—would have noticed the dog and pushed her back.… On the other hand, the vicious injury given the dog seems to indicate that her presence in the house was not deliberate—that, in fact, the person who found her was surprised and, perhaps, frightened. Being afraid he would be seen if he turned her out, he acted impulsively and sought to kill her lest she should start barking and attract attention. In that event, we might conclude that the murderer struck the dog as a sort of self-protective measure; and the second and most important conclusion is that the dog’s presence was not discovered until after the murder.”

  “Your reasoning is clear enough,” Markham told him, “but I don’t see in what way it is helpful to us.”

  “Oh, but it is helpful,” Vance returned cheerfully.

  “It eliminates certain possibilities: it narrows down certain movements of the murderer; and it leads to a specific interpretation of the two crimes—the murder of Archer and the murder of Brisbane.”

  “Forgive me if, as a mere lawyer unversed in logic, I cannot follow your esoteric ratiocinations.”

  “Perpend, Markham.” Vance was genially patient. “It is highly unlikely—not to say impossible—that the dog could have followed any one in the front door without being seen. Remember, there is a double door and a vestibule; and the murderer would not have left the front door open behind him. Moreover, if the dog had been deliberately admitted, she would probably not have been injured and left behind the portières. Therefore, in view of the various factors of the situation, I believe the dog entered the house through an open door. And as the murderer would not have left the front door open, we may, as a hypothesis, assume that he entered by the rear door. And this would be in keeping with the nature of the crime. He could have entered the tradesmen’s gate with far less danger of being seen than if he had mounted the front steps; and he would have had the advantage of taking his victim unawares by an approach from the rear of the house. Furthermore, it is not at all unlikely that he would have left both the gate and the rear door open so that he could make his escape without unnecess’ry noise. In that case the dog could easily have followed him in through the open gate and door, without being seen or heard. And the place where the dog was found—just outside the library door—was a logical spot, for the dog would have come in through the kitchen and dining-room and into the library.”

  Markham nodded slowly.

  “Yes. All that is quite reasonable. But, after all, we now merely have the plausible supposition that the murderer entered by the rear door. It doesn’t get us any nearer our victim.”

  “You’re so discouragin’,” sighed Vance. “It’s not impossible, don’t y’ know, that this one bit of knowledge—or, shall I say conjecture?—may go a long way toward identifyin’ the culprit.”

  “Any one could have come in the rear door.”

  “Provided he knew the lie of the land, was familiar with all the domestic arrangements—and could have obtained a key. Also, provided he knew that all the servants would be away that night.”

  Vance looked up thoughtfully.

  “Yes, Markham, already that little Scottie has narrowed down our investigation. Unwittingly she has pointed out several valuable clues to us. She has helped us, no end. And I have a feelin’ she’s going to tell us a lot more.”

  It was about half-past three when we returned to the Coe house. The Sergeant was bustling about, giving orders; and as we entered Gamble was descending from the second floor with a small tool-box, accompanied by Burke.

  “All set?” demanded Heath, planting himself in front of Burke.

  “Right, Sergeant,” the detective replied proudly. “That door and lock are as good as they ever were.”

  Heath turned to Vance.

  “And I’ve got something for you, sir.” He swaggered a little as he led us into the library and pointed to the large centre-table. “There’s the poker—and it’s got blood on it.”

  Vance went up to it and examined it closely. He picked something from it between his thumb and forefinger, and went to the window.

  “Yes, there’s dried blood on it—and also a coarse brindle hair.” He turned and nodded. “It was this poker, Markham, which wounded the Scottie. And undoubtedly, too, Archer Coe was struck with this poker. The shape of its blunt end coincides perfectly with the wound on Archer’s head.”

  He frowned and looked at the vase in which he had found the bloodstains.

  “And, Markham, that poker belongs in this room—in that rack beside the fireplace, just in front of the place on this divan where Archer Coe was sitting when Gamble went out last night. More evidence that something sinister and horrible preceded the crime upstairs. And it took place in this room.”

  “The poker mighta been carried upstairs, sir,” suggested Heath.

  “Oh, quite, Sergeant,” Vance agreed. “But the broken Sung Ting yao vase on the table here, with the blood on it; and that other Yung Cheng Ting yao vase with the smear of blood inside; and the wounded Scottie outside the door—what of them? They were not all carried upstairs.… No. It seems as if every sign-post were pointing toward this library.”

  “And yet,” argued Markham doggedly, “Archer Coe’s body was found upstairs, with his clothes changed, and the lights on, and the door bolted on the inside.”

  “Yeah,” supplemented Heath, “and with a gun in his hand and a bullet in his head.”

  Vance nodded despondently.

  “I know all that, Sergeant. That’s the terrible and baffling thing about the crime. The Sign-posts of death all indicate this library, yet death itself was elsewhere. And there’s no clear road leading between the two places.”

  He shrugged as if trying to shake off an unpleasant thought.

  “By the by, Sergeant, where did you find the poker?”

  Heath cocked an eye at Vance and gave a one-sided grin.

  “That’s one on you, sir. You looked at it this morning and didn’t see it.”

  “What’s that!” Markham ejaculated.

  “Sure, Chief. Mr. Vance opened that Chinese chest in the bedroom and looked inside.”

  Vance stiffened.

  “Well, what of it, Sergeant?”

  “Nothing, sir,” the other returned, “except that I found the poker in that chest—”

  “The teak-wood chest beneath the east windows?”

  “It’s the only chest in the bedroom, ain’t it, Mr. Vance?”

  “You found the poker in that chest?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  Vance sat down and drew deeply on his cigarette.

  “Who has been in the bedroom, Sergeant, since we went to lunch?” he asked presently.

  “No one, sir!” Heath was emphatic. “Burke’s guarded it every minute while you’ve been away. The butler helped him fix the door, but didn’t get three feet in the room. And it was me, and no one else, that searched the room.”

  Markham came forward.

  “What’s the idea, Vance? Why should the Sergeant’s finding the poker upstairs bother you?”

  Vance exhaled a long ribbon of smoke, and looked directly at Markham.

  “Because, old dear, that chest was empty when I looked in it this morning!”

  CHAPTER XIII

  THE SCENTED LIP-STICK

  (Thursday, October 11; 3.30 p. m.)

  Vance’s declaration left us both perturbed and mystified. A new and more intimate element seemed to have entered into the case, although, for the life of
me, I could not have analyzed the syllogism leading to such a conclusion. Markham was the first to speak.

  “Are you certain, Vance?” he asked, in a rather dazed tone. “Maybe you overlooked—”

  “Oh, no.” Vance made a gesture of finality. “It wasn’t there—oh, quite. Some one put it there after I’d examined the chest.”

  “But who, in Heaven’s name?”

  “Come, come, Markham.” Vance smiled grimly. “One doesn’t know, y’ know. A bit mysterious and disconcertin’—eh, what? But I’d say it was the same person who tucked the dagger under the cushion of the chair in which Archer passed away.”

  “The dagger?”

  “Yes, yes—the dagger. That mystery is at least cleared up—the poker explained that incongruity. The dagger didn’t belong in Archer’s boudoir. Quite the contr’ry. Its presence there confused me abominably. Both the poker and the dagger belonged in the library here. And they weren’t here, d’ ye see—they were where they shouldn’t have been, where they couldn’t possibly have been.… A gap—a mishap—a bit of superficial thinkin’ on some one’s part. Panic? Yes, that’s what it was. Movin’ things from one place to another. Silly idea. People always think that by movin’ things they can confuse an issue. More often they merely clarify it.”

  “I’m glad you see some clarity in this damnable situation,” Markham grumbled. “I’m getting more bogged every minute.”

  “Oh, but I’m not blinded by any dazzlin’ illumination yet.” Vance stretched himself comfortably in his chair. “I wonder.…”

  The practical Sergeant projected himself irascibly into the discussion.

  “If some one did cache the dagger and the poker upstairs, who’d have had the opportunity? That’s what I’d like to figure out.”

  “Almost any one might have done it, Sergeant,” returned Vance lazily. “Both Wrede and Grassi have passed back and forth before the room while we were downstairs.”

  Heath thought a moment.

  “That’s right. And then do you remember how that Miss Lake rushed to the chair when she first came in the room and put her arm back of the corpse? She coulda stuck the dagger under the seat with all of us looking at her.”

  “Oh, quite. And she could also have come downstairs from the third floor, while we were in the library here, and hidden the dagger when we were not looking at her.”

  Heath nodded.

  “Yeah, I guess they all coulda done it.… And that cagy butler, he coulda done it.”

  “And don’t overlook the Chinaman. Gamble sent him to fetch Miss Lake’s breakfast tray while we were all downstairs.”

  Heath grasped at this remark.

  “That’s the guy!” he declared.

  “Just a minute, Sergeant!” Markham suppressed him with a gesture, and turned to Vance. “If, as you believe, the dagger and poker were taken from this room and hidden in Coe’s bedroom this morning, the inevitable conclusion is that the murderer is one of the persons who have been in the house this morning.”

  “Not necessarily.” Vance shook his head mildly. “Even if the poker and dagger were secretly transferred upstairs, it doesn’t follow that the murderer made the transfer. Some one may have done it to shield another, or to divert suspicion from himself. It might have been an act of fear, or even chivalry, by an innocent person.”

  “Even so,” pursued Markham, “the transfer of the weapons would indicate that some one in the house knows more than he has told us.”

  “There are several persons here who know more than they’ve admitted.… No, no, it was a stupid act. The murderer couldn’t have done it. It was some one else—some one who didn’t know all the facts.” Vance stood up and walked the length of the room and back. “Yes, Markham, the murderer was too clever to do a foolish thing like that—to hide weapons where they never could have been.… The murderer wanted the weapons found in this library. That’s why he tried to hide the dagger twice—once in the egg-shell Ting yao vase, and the second time in that Yung Cheng Ting yao. And he wanted the poker to be found on the hearth—with the bloodstains on it. He wanted the weapons in this room where Archer Coe was sitting when Gamble left the house last night. He figured on this library being the murder room. And then something went wrong,—the murder room shifted. Something strange and diabolical happened. The corpse, with a bullet wound in his head and a revolver in his hand, decided on the bedroom upstairs. And when the murderer came back, it was too late to re-arrange the setting—”

  “Came back? Too late?” repeated Markham. “What do you mean?”

  “Just that.” Vance halted and looked down at the District Attorney. “Oh, he came back—he had to come back. Brisbane was killed hours after Archer.—And the reason he was too late to transfer the scene of the crime was that Archer’s door was bolted on the inside. The scene of his murder had shifted—and he, the murderer, was locked out. He knew last night that neither the dagger nor the poker could be found in the bedroom. Therefore it was not the murderer who placed them there this morning.…”

  At this moment Gamble appeared at the door leading to the butler’s pantry. He was worried and apologetic.

  “Give us the tidings, Gamble,” said Vance encouragingly, as the man hesitated. “I’m sure you have a tale to unfold.”

  “I’m very sorry, sir, to interrupt,” the butler began, “but an item—if you know what I mean—has just occurred to me. Ordinarily I would have thought little or nothing of it, but in view—”

  “What’s the item?” Markham snapped.

  “It—it’s this little gadget, sir,” Gamble stuttered, laying a small cylindrical metal lip-stick holder on the table. “I found it in the waste-paper basket in this room this morning before I discovered the masters body upstairs, and I threw it out. But a few minutes ago I began thinking about this terrible affair—”

  Vance glanced at the lip-stick holder.

  “What else did you find in the basket, Gamble?” he interrupted.

  “That was all, sir—except the evening paper.”

  “What evening paper?”

  “The one that is delivered here regularly. I placed it on the table here for Mr. Coe before I went out yesterday.”

  Vance picked up the holder and removed the top.

  “Practically empty,” he mused. “Not a gold case—therefore thrown away.” He smeared a little of the rouge on his finger and smelled it. “Duplaix’s Carmine. Made for blondes.… Most interestin’.” He looked again at Gamble.

  “Just where in the basket did you find this?—under the paper or on top of it?”

  “On top of it, sir,” the man answered with mild surprise. “The paper was crumpled in the bottom of the basket. Mr. Coe always threw the paper there when he had finished reading it. No one else in the house ever read the evening paper, sir.”

  “And what time does the paper arrive?”

  “At half-past five always.”

  Vance nodded. “And you left the house when?”

  “Between half-past five and six, sir. I couldn’t say exactly.”

  “And you are quite sure Mr. Archer Coe had no visitor at the time?”

  “Oh, quite, sir.” Gamble was again becoming worried. “As I told you—”

  “Yes, yes. So you told me.” Vance was watching the man from under lazy eyelids. “But a lady seems to have been here.… Do you know of any appointment Mr. Coe may have had with the possible owner of that lip-stick?”

  “An appointment with a lady?” The butler, for some reason, seemed shocked. “Oh, no, sir. I’m sure Mr. Coe had no such appointment. He was—if you understand me, sir,—a most abstemious man.”

  Vance dismissed him brusquely.

  “That will be all, Gamble.”

  When the man had gone, Vance looked waggishly at Markham.

  “I fear, old dear, despite Gamble’s assurances, that Archer did entertain a lady yesterday afternoon between, let us say, six o’clock and eight—which is probably about the time he was killed.”

  Mark
ham hesitated and pursed his lips.

  “Isn’t that leaping at conclusions? Archer may have thrown the lip-stick there himself. Miss Lake may have left it here.…”

  “My dear fellow—oh, my dear fellow! Really, now. Miss Lake, I’m sure, doesn’t use a lip-stick; and even if she did it wouldn’t be this highly scented and gaudily colored variety.…” Heath was again growing impatient.

  “I can’t see that it makes any difference anyway. Suppose the old boy did have a dame in for a visit—that’s not explaining the cock-eyed things that happened here last night.” He thrust an unlighted cigar in his mouth, and gave Vance a curious and rather aggressive look. “What about that bolted door upstairs? You had something in mind, Mr. Vance, when you asked me to get that bolt fixed, didn’t you?”

  “My notion was a bit vague, Sergeant.” Vance crushed out his cigarette. “Of course, people don’t get murdered in bolted rooms except in detective novels; and something Miss Lake said to me suggested that I might find a solution to that peculiar and illogical circumstance.”

  “What was that?” Markham curtly demanded.

  “When she was talkin’ about Brisbane, don’t y’ know. You remember she mentioned that he was interested in criminology and was sufficiently clever to cover his tracks if he’d decided to go in for murder. A significant remark, Markham.”

  “But I don’t see the connection.” Markham was puzzled. “Brisbane was the victim—not the murderer.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t regardin’ him as the culprit. I was thinkin’ of Miss Lake’s comment in terms of tangents.”

  “It occurs to me you’re always thinking in terms of tangents,” Markham growled. “Suppose you elucidate—if possible.”

  “I live in ’opes,” Vance grinned. “Let me question Miss Lake a bit further. I could bear a bit of amplification as to Brisbane’s delvings into criminological lore.” He sobered and went toward the door. “What do you say to using Archer’s bedroom as the scene of the interrogation?”