“I never thought of that,” he chuckled.… “And right next door here,” he went on, “is the Pantodon buchholzi. Just look at those large transparent pectoral fins. I brought these Butterfly Fish with me from West Africa.… And here are some beauties—the Scatophagus.” He pointed to two tanks containing fairly large hexagonal fish—one tank of the spotted argus and the other of the striped rubrifrons. “And just here,” Stamm continued, moving along the wall, “are a couple of Luciocephalus pulcher.”
Vance looked at this fish closely and inquiringly.
“I’ve heard of them,” he commented. “They are related to the Anabantidæ, I believe. But I didn’t know any one was versed in their habits and care.”
“No one but me,” Stamm boasted. “And I might add that they are not bubble-nest breeders, as many believe, but viviparous—live-bearers.”
“Astonishin’,” Vance murmured.
Stamm directed our attention to a series of small individual tanks on the shelf above.
“Piranhas,” he said. “A rare species. And savage devils:—take a squint at those wicked teeth. I believe these are the first ever to come to the United States alive. Brought them back myself from Brazil—in separate cans, of course: they’d kill each other if they were put together. Damned cannibals—the Serrasalmus. I had a couple that were nearly twenty inches long,—not the spilopleura: they rarely grow over a foot in length.… And here,” he went on, moving away, “is a nice collection of Sea-horses—the Hippocampus punctulatus. Better than those in the New York Aquarium.…”
Stamm moved a little further on.
“Here’s an interesting fish—pugnacious and dangerous. The Gymnotus carapo. Have to be kept separately. Known as the ‘Electric Eel’—Electrophorus electricus. But that’s all wrong, really. Though they have eel-like bodies, they are not eels at all, but related to the Characinidæ. These are only about eight inches long, but they grow to three feet.”
Vance looked at the queer specimens closely: they were vicious-looking and repulsive.
“I have heard,” he remarked, “that they are actually capable of electrocuting a man by a moment’ry contact.”
Stamm pursed his lips.
“So they say, so they say.”
At this point Tatum and Mrs. McAdam came into the room.
“How about a little battle?” Tatum asked of Stamm with a smirk. “Teeny and I are bored.”
Stamm hesitated.
“I’ve wasted eight of my biggest Bettas on you now.… Oh, all right.”
He went to a wide niche in the east wall, where there were numerous quart tanks each containing one Siamese Fighting Fish. From the ceiling hung a globe of water, on three slender chains, at a height of about five feet from the floor. He took up a small round Brussels net and transferred two veil-tail fish—a beautiful blue-green and a purple one—to the suspended globe.
The two fish appeared to look at each other cautiously before attacking. Then, with brilliantly heightened color and with fins and tails twitching and spreading furiously, they rushed about. Coming close together and nearly parallel, they slowly rose, side by side, to the surface. Soon they seemed to relax, and sank to the bottom of the globe. These preliminary manoeuvres continued for a few minutes. Then, with lightning swiftness, the fight was on. They dashed at each other viciously, ripping off scales, mutilating each other’s tails and fins, and tearing bloody bits from the sides. Tatum was offering odds on the purple Betta, but no one paid any attention to him. The blue-green one fastened on the other’s gill with a terrific grip, hanging on until he was compelled to rise to the surface for air. The other then attached himself savagely to his antagonist’s mouth and relinquished his hold only when forced to go up for air himself. It was a terrible, but beautiful, sight.
Vance looked toward Tatum.
“You enjoy this sort of thing?” he asked.
“Too tame,” Tatum complained, with an unpleasant laugh. “I prefer cock-fighting myself; but when there’s nothing else to do.…”
Leland had entered the room without our hearing him. He stood just behind Vance.
“I think it is a brutal sport,” he said, his smouldering eyes on Tatum. “It is beastly.”
The purple Betta was now at the bottom of the globe, mutilated and almost entirely stripped of its scales; and the other was attacking it to give the coup de grâce. Leland quickly picked up a small net and, reaching into the globe, removed the wounded loser and placed him in a small tank of Mercurochrome water. Then he went back to the library.
Tatum shrugged and took Mrs. McAdam’s arm.
“Come on, Teeny, we’ll play tiddledywinks. I’m sure Leland would approve of that.”
And the two of them left the room.
“A pleasant little household,” Stamm remarked with a sneer. He continued his rounds of the tanks, talking volubly and lovingly of his rare assortment of fish. That he had a wide and varied knowledge of them, and that he had done much important experimentation, was obvious.
When he had come to the farther archway, he offered to show us his terrarium.
But Vance shook his head.
“Not today,” he said. “Thanks awfully, and all that.”
“I have some fascinating toads here—the Alytes obstetricans—the first ever to come from Europe,” Stamm urged.
“We’ll inspect the Midwives another time,” Vance replied. “What I’m interested in at the moment are your bottled Devil Fish. I see some allurin’ specimens over there.”
Below one of the large east windows there were several shelves lined with jars of strange preserved sea-monsters of varying sizes, and Stamm led us immediately to them.
“There’s a jolly little fellow,” he remarked, pointing to a specimen in a long conical jar. “The Omosudis lowi. Look at those sabre-like fangs!”
“A typical dragon’s mouth,” Vance murmured. “But not as vicious as it looks. A fish one-third its size can conquer and swallow it—the Chiasmodon niger, for instance.”
“That’s right.” Once more Stamm glanced sharply at Vance. “Any implication in that observation?”
“Really now,” Vance protested, and pointed to a large glass receptacle containing a preserved fish of the most hideous and formidable aspect I had ever seen. “Is this one of the Chauliodus sloanei?”
“Yes, it is,” Stamm answered, without shifting his gaze from Vance. “And I have another one here.”
“I believe Greeff did mention two.”
“Greeff!” Stamm’s face hardened. “Why should he have mentioned them?”
“I’m sure I don’t know.” Vance moved along the row of bottles. “And what might this be?”
Stamm turned reluctantly, and glanced at the jar on which Vance had placed his finger.
“Another so-called Dragonfish,” he said. “The Lamprotaxus flagellibarba.” It was a wicked-looking, greenish-black monster, with blazing emerald markings.
Stamm showed us other specimens: the Idiacanthus fasciola, a serpent dragon with a long eel-like body, almost black, and with a golden tail; the wolf-like Linophryne arborifer, with a very large mouth and strong teeth, and what appeared to be a fungus-like beard; the Photocorynus spiniceps which, though very small, possessed a head half the length of its body, with an enormous jaw and serried teeth; the Lasiognathus saceostoma, known as the Angler Fish, with a jaw longer than the rest of its body, and equipped with a line and hooks for catching its prey; and other repulsive varieties of luminous Dragonfish. He also showed us a vermilion and yellow sea-dragon, with what appeared to be a coat of armor and waving plumes—a miniature dragon that looked as if it had been reconstructed from the imaginative pages of mythology.…
“A most fascinatin’ collection,” Vance commented, as he turned from the jars. “With such an array of Dragonfish round the place, it’s no wonder the old superstition of the pool persists.”
Stamm drew up short and scowled: it was patent that Vance’s last remark had upset him. He started to make a reply, bu
t evidently thought better of it, and walked back toward the inner room without a word.
As we came again into the library Vance gazed about curiously at various potted plants in the room.
“I see you have some unusual botanical specimens here,” he remarked.
Stamm nodded indifferently.
“Yes, but I am not much interested in them. I brought them back with me on some of my trips, but only for the mater.”
“Do they require any special care?”
“Oh, yes. And many of them have died. Too cold up here for tropical vegetation, though I keep the library pretty warm, and there’s plenty of sunlight.”
Vance paused beside one of the pots and studied it a moment. Then he moved on to another plant which looked like a dwarf evergreen but showed many tiny pale yellow berries—a most unusual plant.
“What might this be?” he asked.
“I’m sure I don’t know. I picked it up in Guam.”
Vance walked over to a rather high miniature tree in a large jardinière standing by the davenport on which Leland sat reading. This tree had large oblong glossy leaves, like the India-rubber plants that are cultivated in Europe for ornamental purposes, but these leaves were smaller and broader and seemed more profuse.
Vance regarded it a moment.
“Ficus elastica?” he asked.
“I imagine so,” Stamm replied. (It was evident that his interest lay in fish rather than in plants.) “However, it’s a curious type—maybe a cross of some kind. And it’s undoubtedly stunted. Moreover, it’s never had any pink buds. I got it in Burma three years ago.”
“Amazin’ how it has thrived.” Vance bent over it closely and touched the dirt in the jardinière with his finger. “Any special soil required?”
Stamm shook his head.
“No. Any good fertilizer mixed with the earth seems to suffice.”
At this point Leland closed his book. Then, with a sharp look at Vance, he rose and walked into the aquarium.
Vance drew out his handkerchief and wiped the moist earth from his finger.
“I think we’ll be running along; it’s nearly lunch time. We’ll either be back or communicate with you later this afternoon. And we’ll have to impose upon your hospitality a while longer. We do not want any one to leave here just yet.”
“That will be perfectly all right,” Stamm returned pleasantly, going to the hall door with us. “I think I’ll rig up a windlass and get that rock out of the pool this afternoon. A little physical exercise, you know.…” And with a genial wave of the hand he turned and went back to his beloved fish.
When we had returned to the drawing-room Markham turned on Vance angrily.
“What’s the idea of wasting all that time on fish and plants?” he demanded. “There’s serious work to be done.”
Vance nodded soberly.
“I was doing serious work, Markham,” he returned, in a low voice. “And during the last half-hour I’ve learned many important things.”
Markham scrutinized him a moment and said nothing.
Vance took up his hat.
“Come, old dear. We’re through here for the present. I’m taking you to my apartment for lunch. The Sergeant can carry on till we return.” He addressed Heath who stood by the table, smoking in sour silence. “By the by, Sergeant, there’s something I wish you would do for me this afternoon.”
Heath looked up without change of expression, and Vance went on:
“Have your men make a thorough search of the grounds in the vicinity of the pot-holes—in the bushes and clusters of trees. I would be jolly well pleased if they could find some sort of grass-cart, or wheelbarrow, or something of that nature.”
Heath’s unhappy eyes slowly focused on Vance and became animated. He took his cigar from his mouth, and a look of understanding spread over his broad face.
“I get you, sir,” he said.
CHAPTER XIX
THE DRAGON’S TRACKS
(Monday, August 13; 1 p. m.)
On our drive to Vance’s apartment we were caught in a sudden thunder-shower. Dark clouds had been gathering in the west for some time before we left the Stamm estate, though they had not appeared very menacing, and I thought they would pass us to the south. But the downpour was terrific, and our car was almost stalled on upper Broadway. When we reached Vance’s apartment, however, a little before half-past one, the storm had passed over the East River, and the sun was shining again. We were, in fact, able to have our lunch on the roof-garden.
During the meal Vance deliberately avoided any discussion of the case, and Markham, after two or three futile efforts at conversation, settled into a glum silence.
Shortly after two o’clock Vance rose from the table and announced that he was leaving us for a few hours.
Markham looked up in exasperated surprise.
“But, Vance,” he protested, “we can’t let things remain as they are. We must do something immediately.… Must you go? And where are you going?”
Vance ignored the first question.
“I am going shopping,” he returned, moving toward the door.
Markham sprang to his feet resentfully.
“Shopping! What, in the name of Heaven, are you going shopping for, at such a time?”
Vance turned and gave Markham a whimsical smile.
“For a suit of clothes, old dear,” he replied.
Markham spluttered, but before he could articulate his indignation Vance added:
“I’ll phone you at the office later.” And with a tantalizing wave of the hand, he disappeared through the door.
Markham resumed his chair in sullen silence. He finished his wine, lighted a fresh cigar, and went off to his office in a taxicab.
I remained at the apartment and tried to catch up on some of my neglected work. Unable, however, to concentrate on figures and balances, I returned to the library and began travelling round the world on Vance’s specially built short-wave radio set. I picked up a beautiful Brahms symphony concert from Berlin. After listening to the Akademische Fest-Ouverture and the E-minor Symphony, I tuned off and tried to work out a chess problem that Vance had recently posed for me.
Vance returned to the apartment a little before four o’clock that afternoon. He was carrying a moderate-sized package, neatly wrapped in heavy brown paper, which he placed on the centre-table. He seemed unduly serious and scarcely nodded to me.
Currie, having heard him, came in and was about to take his hat and stick, when Vance said:
“Leave them here. I’ll be going out again immediately. But you might put the contents of this package in a small hand-bag for me.”
Currie took the package from the table and went into the bedroom.
Vance relaxed in his favorite chair in front of the window and abstractedly lighted one of his Régies.
“So Markham hasn’t shown up yet—eh, what?” he murmured, half to himself. “I phoned him from Whitehall Street to meet me here at four.” He glanced at his watch. “He was a bit annoyed with me over the wire.… I do hope he comes. It’s most important.” He rose and began pacing up and down the room; and I realized that something momentous was occupying his thoughts.
Currie came back with the hand-bag and stood at the door, awaiting orders.
“Take it down-stairs and put it in the tonneau of the car,” Vance directed, hardly lifting his eyes.
Shortly after Currie had returned, the door-bell rang and Vance came to an expectant halt.
“That should be Markham,” he said.
A few moments later Markham entered the library.
“Well, here I am,” he announced irritably, without a word of greeting. “I answered your curt summons, though God knows why.”
“Really, y’ know,” Vance returned placatingly, “I didn’t mean to be curt.…”
“Well, did you have any success in getting your suit?” Markham asked sarcastically, glancing round the room.
Vance nodded.
“Oh, yes, but I did
n’t bring all of the new integuments with me—only the shoes and gloves. They’re in the car now.”
Markham waited without speaking: there was something in Vance’s manner and tone which belied the trivial signification of his words.
“The truth is, Markham,” Vance went on, “I think—that is, I hope—I have found a plausible explanation for the horrors of the last two days.”
“In a new sartorial outfit?” Markham asked, with irony.
Vance inclined his head soberly.
“Yes, yes. Just that—in a new sartorial outfit.… If I am right, the thing is fiendish beyond words. But there’s no other rational explanation. It’s inevitable from a purely academic point of view. But the problem is to prove, from a practical point of view, that my theory fits the known facts.”
Markham stood by the library table, resting both hands on it and studying Vance with interrogative sharpness.
“What’s the theory—and what are the facts you’ve got to check?”
Vance shook his head slowly.
“The theory can wait,” he replied, without looking at Markham. “And the facts cannot be checked here.” He drew himself up, threw his cigarette into the fireplace, and picked up his hat and stick. “Come, the car awaits us, old dear,” he said, with an effort at lightness. “We’re proceeding to Inwood. And I’d be deuced grateful if you’d refrain from plying me with leading questions on our way out.”
I shall never forget the ride to the Stamm estate that afternoon. Nothing was said en route and yet I felt that terrible and final events were portending. A sense of awe-stricken excitement pervaded me; and I think that Markham experienced the same feeling to some degree, for he sat motionless, gazing out of the car window with eyes that did not focus on any of the immediate objects we passed.
The weather was almost unbearable. The terrific storm that had broken over us during our drive to Vance’s apartment had neither cleared nor cooled the atmosphere. There was a sultry haze in the air and, in addition to the suffocating humidity, the heat seemed to have increased.
When we arrived at the Stamm residence, Detective Burke admitted us. As we came into the front hall, Heath, who had evidently just entered through the side door, hurried forward.
The Philo Vance Megapack Page 181