The Philo Vance Megapack

by S. S. Van Dine

  “No—no!” Her voice became almost hysterical. “I don’t understand any of it.” Tears came into her eyes, and she was unable to continue.

  “Don’t let it worry you,” Vance consoled her. “You’re frightfully wrought up, don’t y’ know.”

  “May I go now?” she asked pleadingly.

  “Of course.” Vance rose and escorted her to the door.

  When he returned to his chair Teeny McAdam spoke. She had been smoking with tense abstractedness for some time; I doubt if she had even heard any of Bernice Stamm’s remarks. Suddenly she wheeled toward Vance, her features contracted and set.

  “Listen!” she began, with peremptory desperation. “I’m sick of this whole miserable affair. Monty’s dead and you’ve found his body—and I’ve got something to tell you. Alex Greeff hated Monty. And he said to Monty Friday night—I heard him—‘You’re not going to marry Bernice if I can help it.’ Monty laughed at him and retorted: ‘What are you going to do about it?’ Mr. Greeff said: ‘Plenty—if the dragon doesn’t get you first.’ Then Monty called him a foul name and went up to bed.…”

  “What do you think Mr. Greeff was referring to when he mentioned the dragon?”

  “I don’t know. But later that night it occurred to me he might have been referring to Mr. Leland.”

  “Was it because of these remarks you screamed when Montague failed to come up after his dive?”

  “Yes! I’d been worrying all day yesterday. And when Mr. Greeff jumped into the pool and made a pretense of looking for Monty I kept my eyes on him. But he immediately swam out of sight toward the cliffs on the other side—”

  “And you kept your eyes strained in that direction?”

  Mrs. McAdam nodded jerkily.

  “I didn’t know what he was up to—and I didn’t trust him.… Later, when he came back he whispered to me: ‘Montague’s gone—and good riddance.’ Even then I couldn’t see how he’d accomplished the thing. But now that you’ve found Monty’s body in the pot-hole, I had to tell you what I know.”

  Vance nodded sympathetically.

  “But why were you upset when I told you of the splash in the pool late last night?”

  “I don’t know—exactly.” The woman spoke hurriedly and excitedly. “But I thought it might be part of the plot to kill Monty—or maybe Monty’s body being thrown from the cliff—or some one in the water doing dreadful things to him.… Oh, I didn’t know what it might be, but I was afraid…afraid—” Her voice died away, and she caught her breath.

  Vance rose and regarded her rather coldly.

  “Thank you for your information,” he said, bowing. “I’m sorry, and all that, to have upset you. You and Miss Steele may return to the library now. There are a few other matters to be attended to. And if we need your assistance later I’m sure you’ll both be good enough to give it.”

  When they had gone a brief discussion followed as to the best means of proceeding with the case. The greatest difficulty lay in the fact that there seemed to be nothing tangible to take hold of. Montague’s murdered body was a reality, of course, and there were various suspects—that is, persons with a motive for killing the man. But there were no connecting links, no indicated lines of investigation, and no clues pointing in any specific direction. The actual modus operandi of the murder was in itself an incalculable mystery. And over the whole situation hung the sinister mythology of a dragon.

  Routine police work was, however, in order; and the Sergeant, with his trained official mind, insisted on carrying this work through without further delay. Markham agreed with him; and Vance, who, for the solution of criminal problems, depended largely upon intuitive processes and psychological reasoning, finally acquiesced. The case had deeply impressed him: it held elements that profoundly appealed to his nature, and he was loath to spare even an hour for the Sergeant’s routine activities. Moreover, he had, I knew, several definite, even if only vaguely formulated, ideas concerning the case.

  “A very simple key,” he said, “is all that’s needed to unlock the door of this fantastic mystery. But without that key we’re helpless.… My word, what an amazin’ situation! There are any number of people who admit that they are delighted with Montague’s translation into the Beyond, and each one accuses one of the others of having manipulated his transit. But, on the other hand, the circumstances surrounding Montague’s death seem to preclude the possibility of his having been killed at all. It was he who suggested the swim, and he dived into the pool in sight of every one.… And yet, Markham, I’m thoroughly convinced the whole affair was carefully planned—deliberately enciphered with commonplace numerals to make it appear fortuitous.”

  Markham was weary and on edge.

  “Granted all that, how would you propose going about deciphering the riddle other than by the usual measures which the Sergeant intends to take?”

  “I have no suggestions at the moment.” Vance was gazing meditatively into space. “I was hopin’, however, to inspect Stamm’s collection of tropical fish today.”

  Markham snorted with exasperation.

  “The fish will keep till tomorrow. In the meantime, the Sergeant can clear up the routine matters.”

  CHAPTER XIV

  AN UNEXPECTED DEVELOPMENT

  (Sunday, August 12; 5.30 p. m.)

  It was nearly half-past five when Markham and Vance and I left the old Stamm mansion and drove back to Vance’s apartment. All the guests and members of the household had been given instructions to remain until the following day and not to leave the grounds of the estate. Stamm had generously cooperated with us in this respect. Greeff had raised objections, and even threatened us with his lawyer; but finally he had agreed to remain another twenty-four hours, in view of the complications that had arisen with the finding of Montague’s body. The other guests had accepted Markham’s decision without protest.

  All the main entrances to the grounds were to be guarded; and the servants in the house were to be questioned for any possible suggestions, although nothing of importance was expected from their testimony.

  Heath had decided to remain at the Stamm estate during this investigation and direct the activities. Other members of the Homicide Bureau were to take a hand in the case. Montague’s associations were to be looked into; an attempt was to be made to find Ellen Bruett; and a canvas of Inwood was planned, in the hope of unearthing some information about the automobile which had been heard on the East Road. In short, the usual police procedure was to be intensively followed, with Sergeant Heath in charge.

  “I see no other way to handle the case,” Markham said despondently, as we settled ourselves in the sprawling wicker chairs on Vance’s roof-garden.

  Vance was troubled and distrait.

  “You may be right. But the factors of this case are far from ordin’ry. The answer to the whole problem lies somewhere in the Stamm residence. That’s a strange place, Markham. It’s full of infinite possibilities—with its distorted traditions, its old superstitions, its stagnant air of a dead and buried age, its insanity and decadence, and its folklore and demonology. Such a place produces strange quirks of the mind: even casual visitors are caught in its corroding atmosphere. Such an atmosphere generates and begets black and incredible crimes. You have seen, in the last two days, how every one with whom we talked was poisoned by these subtle and sinister influences.”

  For a moment Markham studied Vance intently.

  “Have you any particular person in mind?” he asked.

  Vance rose and rang for Currie.

  “I wasn’t thinking of individuals so much as of the perverted psychological combinations of the problem. And no explanation can be reached without a recognition and consideration of this fantastic dragon—”

  “Vance! For the love of Heaven!”

  “Oh, I’m quite serious. We’ll go far afield if we do not recognize that fact.” He looked up. “There are various types of dragons, don’t y’ know.”

  Currie appeared, and Vance ordered Moraine Coolers
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  “The dragon,” Vance continued, “has always had a powerful hold on the imagination of man. We find the dragon, in some form, in most religions; and all folk-lore is peppered with dragons. The dragon goes deeper than a mere myth, Markham: it has become a part of man’s inheritance from the earliest times; it has enhanced his fears; it has guided and shaped his symbolism; it has put strange notions in his head by coloring and distorting his imagination. Without the dragon the history of man would be a very different record from what it is today. None of us can entirely escape the dragon myth: it is too much an integral part of our deeper and more primitive natures. That’s why I say that we cannot ignore the dragon in dealing with a criminal case which is, at bottom, dragonish.…”

  Vance moved a little in his chair, and his eyes roamed dreamily over the hazy skyline of Manhattan.

  “Where the conception of the dragon originated no one knows; but it is probably the most tenacious of all ancient superstitions. The Christian devil is nothing but a modified dragon of ancient folk-lore. There have, of course, been many speculations as to the origin of this supernatural monster, and Moncure Conway, in his ‘Demonology and Devil-Lore,’ says it is the result of a confused memory of prehistoric saurians. But other researchers—Sir James George Scott, for instance—take issue with Conway and attribute the conception of the dragon to the primitive imagination in connection with snakes. But whatever the origin, it is a persistent and varied superstition. The dragon has taken many forms in man’s mind. It is a far cry, for example, from the Indian Vrtra and the Greek Hydra to the mild Burmese dragon and the drakos of the European Gipsies. And neither of these conceptions is comparable with the enormous tortoise which King Thai-to saw swimming toward his royal bark.”

  Vance sipped his drink, which Currie had just served.

  “Every land and every people, Markham, has had its dragons. Even in ancient Egypt the dragon became more or less identified with Seth and fought against Horus in the form of water-monsters. And in the Papyrus of Ani—or Book of the Dead—we read of the fire-breathing dragon Apop, to whom the wicked were thrown. But the dragon was not always a monster. A dragon-horse brought Fu Hsi the Eight Diagrams nearly 3000 years B.C.; and whenever the Yellow Emperor saw dragons he knew that prosperity was at hand. Chinese mythology, in fact, is filled with dragons, both benevolent and malevolent. The Fifth Moon Feast in memory of Ch’ü Yüan’s suicide is called the Dragon Festival; and Fei Ch’ang-fang’s magic rod turned into a dragon and aided him in conquering the ogres of darkness. In the Buddhist myths we find many references to the dragon as associated with fish; and there is at least one instance where the Dragon King himself was carried off to sea in the body of a fish.…”

  Markham looked up sharply.

  “Are you insinuating—” he began; but Vance interrupted him.

  “No, oh no,” he said. “I am not referring to Stamm’s collection of tropicals. It’s the dragon myth itself that fascinates me.… In all the Indo-Chinese countries we find the snake—not the fish—as the basis of the dragon. Probably this conception was brought from China and Japan, where the water-snake was formerly worshipped as a god. In Indo-Chinese mythology there are any number of dragon-myths, after the fashion of the Chutia Nagpur tradition. There is the Naga Min, who is at times represented with coils long enough to embrace an entire pagoda; and Galon, the Burmese dragon who appeared like the Indian Garuda; and Bilu, a dragon ogre who fed on human flesh and never cast a shadow. And you perhaps recall the myth of Hkun Ai and his Naga princess who was the daughter of the King of the Dragons, and how he spied upon her and her court one night, only to find that the entire countryside and all the lakes around were filled with these gigantic writhing creatures.… In the Han Dynasty the Spirit of the East was Thang-long, the Blue Dragon; and in the legends of the Karens we find the spirit of Satan symbolized as a dragon. The mythology of the Tongkingese abounds in dragons; and their secret hiding-places exist to this day. Buddhist and Taoist tales are filled with dragon lore. Even the great Temple of Linh-lanh was supposed to have been built on a dragon’s head. There was a dragon guardian of the city of Hanoi; and in the Ly Dynasty King Thaiton named the capital Thanh-long, meaning the Dragon City. The protective idea of the dragon, d’ ye see, is also well established in folk-lore. At Pokhar in Rajputana there is a sacred lake which, tradition tells us, was once inhabited by a dragon who guarded the Burmese Temple nearby.… And the dragon permeates the legends of Siam—he was probably brought from India along with Brahmanism and serpent worship. Siamese dragons lived in caves and under the water.…”

  Vance gazed up meditatively at the sky.

  “You will note how the water motif runs through these ancient superstitions,” he continued. “Perhaps one of the most significant tales—this is from the Japanese—is that of Kobo Daishi, the founder of Shingon Buddhism in the ninth century, who drew the ideogram for dragon on the waters of a stream in the Kozuke district. When he had finished the ideogram it became an actual dragon which rose over the water; and it is supposed to have hovered there ever since—a superstition no doubt based on the dense vapors which constantly rise from this mountain stream. And similar to this tale is the one in which Le-loi’s sword turned into a jade-colored dragon and disappeared in the waters of the sacred lake which, to this day, is called the Lake of the Great Sword. Then, there’s the legend of the province of Izumo, in Japan, which tells of a water-dragon who demanded the sacrifice of a virgin each year, and of how Susa-no-wo slew him when he came up out of the river. The hero of course married the young lady he had thus saved.… Japanese mythology, like the Chinese, is filled with Dragon Kings: we find many tales of them in the Shinto chronicles. One of the most significant legends connected with the Dragon Kings was that of a Chinese emperor who sent a shipload of treasures to Japan. During a storm a priceless crystal, which perpetually held the image of Buddha, was lost. It was supposed to have been stolen by the Dragon King who lived in the deep waters off the coast of Sanuki. The crystal was recovered from the Dragon Palace by a poor fisher-woman who, as a reward, had her only child brought up by the noble Fujiwara family. The water motif again, Markham.… And do you recall how Toda saved the dragon folk in Lake Biwa by slaying the giant centipede with poisoned arrows?”

  “No, I don’t recall it,” growled Markham. “And anyway, what’s the point of all this?”

  “The dragon myth, old dear—a most engagin’ subject,” Vance returned. Then he went on blandly: “Iranian mythology is filled with dragons, and they too are related, to a great extent, to water. In fact, the water of the earth was supposed to be the result of a god slaying a dragon who was hidden in the clouds. Indra, with his thunderbolt, slew the dragon of drought. Trita, the son of Aptya, also slew a tri-headed dragon named Visvarupa. And there’s the story of Keresaspa who slew the dragon Srvra and for whom Zarathustra intervened. Saam, the vassal of Minucihr, met many a dragon, but his great battle was with the one that haunted the river Kashaf. Then there’s the Iranian tale which relates of Ahura Mazda and the monster Azhi with the serpents springing from his shoulders. And in a Persian manuscript of the Shahnamah, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, there is a vivid picture of Gushtasp battling with a dragon.”

  “I do hope,” sighed Markham, “you’re not going to ask me to go to the Metropolitan Museum to inspect the manuscript.”

  Vance ignored Markham’s sarcasm and continued his treatise.

  “In Armenian mythology we have the Median king, Azdahak—a name which means ‘dragon’—who fought Tigranes and who, after his defeat, was compelled to bring his family and settle in Armenia. Anush, who was the Mother of Dragons, was, we are told, Azdahak’s first queen. And here we have, perhaps, the origin of the dragon children about whom the old songs were written.… Vahagn, the most popular of all the Armenian deities, was known far and wide as the ‘dragon-reaper,’ and in later syncretistic times he was identified with Heracles. Then there was the dragon of the Macedonians, closely related to the Indian
Vrtra and the Armenian Vishap. This dragon was a gigantic and terrible monster. But in all Armenian mythology the dragon was, as with other primitive peoples, associated with meteorology and was supposed to represent the whirlwind, the water spout, thunder and lightning, and heavy rain; and often the meteorological and the eschatological dragon were confused.… The water idea connected with the dragon is found also in the records of the Mayas. The great ceremonial monolith at Quirigua is known as the Great Turtle or the Dragon, and played an important part in the Mayan religion.”

  Vance sipped his drink and glanced up at Markham.

  “Am I borin’ you horribly?” he asked.

  Markham compressed his lips and said nothing; and Vance, with a sigh, settled himself more comfortably in his chair.

  “In Semitic mythology,” he went on, “the dragon played an important and sinister part. In the Babylonian Epic of Creation we read of the dragons which issued from the belly of Tiamat, released by Bêl and the Imhullu wind. These eleven dragons became gods of the lower regions and were later identified by the astrologers with various constellations. The Assyrian fish-man was one of the dragons of Chaos and represented the constellation Aquarius; and Ninurta, in the creation myth, was commanded by Anu and Enlil to conquer the ushumgal, or Great Sea Serpent.…”

  Vance smoked a while in silence.

  “The Greeks, and also the Romans, had their dragons. The Chimera, with her devastating breath of fire, whom Bellerophon slew, was part lion, part goat, and part dragon. The Golden Apples of the Hesperides were guarded by a hydra-headed deathless dragon; and, of course, there was the dragon that Cadmus destroyed and whose teeth he strew over the earth.… And throughout Celtic mythology we find dragons called péist or béist—probably from the Latin bestia—living in lochs in various reptilian forms. The saints destroyed many of these monsters; and if a dragon shrieked on May-Eve the land was barren until Lludd buried him alive. And there were the dragons which encircled the oaks in the grove of which Lucan wrote; and the two dragons of Merlin, who slept in hollow stones and, when dug up, did battle with each other. Also there’s the dragon who issued from the earth at the sound of Cliach’s harp playing.…”