The Philo Vance Megapack

by S. S. Van Dine

  Kroon appeared to be thinking fast. He walked nervously up and down the study floor.

  “Puzzlin’ and interestin’ situation,” Vance went on. “Gentleman leaves this apartment at—let’s say—ten minutes to four. Family documents to sign. Doesn’t enter the elevator. Appears in apartment two floors below within a few minutes—been a regular visitor there. Remains till four-fifteen. Then departs. Shows up again in this apartment at half-past four. In the meantime, Swift is shot through the head—exact time unknown. Gentleman is apparently familiar with various details of the shooting. Refuses to give information regarding his whereabouts during his absence. A lady accuses him of the murder, and demonstrates how he could have accomplished it. Also kindly supplies the motive. Fifteen minutes of gentleman’s absence—namely, from four-fifteen to four-thirty—unaccounted for.”

  Vance drew on his cigarette.

  “Fascinatin’ assortment of facts. Add them up. Mathematically speakin’, they make a total… I say, Mr. Kroon, any suggestions?”

  Kroon came to a sudden halt and swung about.

  “No!” he blurted. “Damn your mathematics! And you people hang men on such evidence!” He sucked in a deep noisy breath and made a despairing gesture. “All right, here’s the story. Take it or leave it. I’ve been mixed up with Stella Fruemon for the past year. She’s nothing but a gold-digger and blackmailer. Madge Weatherby got on to it. She’s the jealous member of this combination—not me. And she cared about as much for Woode Swift as I did. Anyway, I got involved with Stella Fruemon. It came to a show-down, and I had to pay through the nose. To avoid scandal for my family, of course. Otherwise, I’d have thrown her through the window and called it my boy scout’s good deed for the day. At any rate, we each got our lawyers, and a settlement was reached. She finally named a stiff figure and agreed to sign a general release from all claims. In the circumstances, I had no alternative. Four o’clock today was the time set for the completion of the transaction. My lawyer and hers were to be at her apartment. The certified check and the papers were ready. So I went down there a little before four to clean up the whole dirty business. And I cleaned it up and got out. I had walked down the two flights of stairs to her apartment, and at four-fifteen, when the hold-up was over, I told the lady she could go to hell, and I walked back up the stairs.”

  Kroon took a deep breath and frowned.

  “I was so furious—and relieved—that I kept on walking without realizing where I was going. When I opened the door which I thought led into the public hallway outside the Garden apartment, I found I was out on the terrace of the roof.” He cocked an angry eye at Vance. “I suppose that fact is suspicious too—walking up three flights of stairs instead of two—after what I’d been through?”

  “No. Oh, no.” Vance shook his head. “Quite natural. Exuberant spirits. Weight off the shoulders, and all that. Three flights of stairs seemin’ like two. Light impost, so to speak. Horses run better that way. Don’t feel the extra furlong, as it were. Quite comprehensible… But please proceed.”

  “Maybe you mean that—and maybe you don’t.” Kroon spoke truculently. “Anyway; it’s the truth… When I saw where I was I thought I’d come through the garden and go down the stairway there. It was really the natural thing to do…”

  “You knew about the gate leading into the garden, then?”

  “I’ve known about it for years. Everybody who’s been up here knows about it. On summer nights Floyd used to leave the gate open and we’d walk up and down the terrace. Anything wrong with my knowing about the gate?”

  “No. Quite natural. And so, you opened the gate and entered the garden?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that would be between a quarter after four and twenty minutes after four?”

  “I wasn’t holding a stop-watch on myself, but I guess that’s close enough… When I entered the garden I saw Swift slumped down in his chair. His position struck me as funny, but I paid no attention to it until I spoke to him and got no answer. Then I approached and saw the revolver lying on the tiles, and the hole in his head. It gave me a hell of a shock, I can tell you, and I started to run downstairs to give the alarm. But I realized it would look bad for me. There I was, alone on the roof with a dead man…”

  “Ah, yes. Discretion. So you played safe. Can’t say that I blame you entirely—if your chronology is accurate. So, I take it, you re-entered the public stairway and came down to the front door of the Garden apartment.”

  “That’s just what I did.” Kroon’s tone was as vigorous as it was resentful.

  “By the by, during the brief time you were on the roof, or even after you returned to the stairway, did you hear a shot?”

  Kroon looked at Vance in obvious surprise.

  “A shot? I’ve told you the fellow was already dead when I first saw him.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Vance, “there was a shot. Not the one that killed him, but the one that summoned us to the roof. There were two shots, don’t y’ know—although no one seems to have heard the first.”

  Kroon thought a moment.

  “By George! I did hear something, now that you put it that way. I thought nothing of it at the time, since Woody was already dead. But just as I re-entered the stairway there was an explosion of some kind outside. I thought it was a car back-firing down in the street, and paid no attention to it.”

  Vance nodded with a puzzled frown.

  “That’s very interestin’…” His eyes drifted off into space. “I wonder…” After a moment he returned his gaze to Kroon. “But to continue your tale. You say you left the roof immediately and came downstairs. But there were at least ten minutes from the time you left the garden to the time I encountered you entering the apartment at the front door. How and where did you spend these ten intervening minutes?”

  “I stayed on the landing of the stairs and smoked a couple of cigarettes. I was trying to pull myself together. After what I had been through, and then finding Woody shot, I was in a hell of a mental state.”

  Heath stood up quickly, one hand in his outside coat pocket, and thrust out his jaw belligerently toward the agitated Kroon.

  “What kind of cigarettes do you smoke?” he barked.

  The man looked at the Sergeant in bewilderment, and then said: “I smoke gold-tipped Turkish cigarettes. What about it?”

  Heath drew his hand from his pocket and looked at something which he held on his palm.

  “All right,” he muttered. Then he addressed Vance. “I got the stubs here. Picked ’em up on the landing when I came up from the dame’s apartment. Thought maybe they might have some connection.”

  “Well, well,” sneered Kroon. “So the police actually found something!… What more do you want?” he demanded of Vance.

  “Nothing for the moment, thank you,” Vance, returned with exaggerated courtesy. “You have done very well by yourself this afternoon, Mr. Kroon. We won’t need you any more… Sergeant, give instructions to Hennessey that Mr. Kroon may leave the apartment.”

  Kroon went to the door without a word.

  “Oh, I say.” Vance delayed him at the threshold. “Do you, by any chance, possess a maiden aunt?”

  Kroon looked back over his shoulder with a vicious grin.

  “No, thank God!” And he slammed the door noisily behind him.

  210 See The Casino Murder Case.

  211 I realize that this statement will call forth considerable doubt, for real Napoléon brandy is practically unknown in America. But Vance had obtained a case in France; and Lawton Mackall, an exacting connoisseur, has assured me that, contrary to the existing notion among experts, there are at least eight hundred cases of this brandy in a warehouse in Cognac at the present day.

  212 It is interesting to note the recent announcement that a magnetic accelerator of five million volts and weighing ten tons for the manufacture of artificial radium for the treatment of malignant growths, such as cancer, is being built by the University of Rochester.

  213 At
one time Vance was a polo enthusiast and played regularly. He too had a five-goal rating.

  214 When Vance read the proof of this record, he made a marginaal notation: “And I might also have mentioned Sir Barton, Sysonby, Colin, Crusader, Twenty Grand, and Equipoise.”

  215 Miles Siefert was, at that time, one of the leading pathologists of New York, with an extensive practice among the fashionable element of the city.

  216 Vance at one time owned several excellent race-horses. His Magic Mirror, Smoke Maiden, and Aldeen were well known in their day; and Magic Mirror, as a three-year-old won two of the most important handicaps on the eastern tracks. But when, in the famous Elmswood Special, this horse broke a leg on entering the back-stretch and had to be destroyed, Vance seemed to lose all interest in racing and disposed of his entire stable. He is probably not a true horseman, any more than he is a truly great breeder of Scottish terriers, for his sentiments are constantly interfering with the stern and often ruthless demands of the game.

  217 These three horses were the first to better, by fractions of a second, Jack High’s 1:35 record for the mile at Belmont.

  218 “Lucky” Baldwin, the owner of Los Angeles, insisted upon run-off (which was the privilege of the owners of dead-heat winners up to 1932), and Los Angeles won.

  219 On the “cards” for New York State, however, the numbers do not correspond to the post positions, as here these positions are drawn shortly before the races begin, except in stake races.

  220 Alexis Flint was the service announcer at the central news station.

  221 Vance was referring to Nash’s famous couplet: “Philo Vance / Needs a kick in the pance.”

  222 Hannix was Floyd Garden’s book-maker.

  223 The pari-mutuel prices.

  224 David Alexander, the entertaining turf chronicler, wrote an item about these two horses recently. “Morestone,” said Mr. Alexander, “could run plenty fast—up to six furlongs. But after six furlongs he flagged the horse ambulance. Morestone could quit in track record time. Nothing like it had been seen since they tried to make Nevada Queen go more than a half-mile a few years ago. There were two mysteries about Morestone. One was how he could run so fast, and the other was how he could quit so fast.”

  225 Mutuel prices are figured on the basis of a two-dollar bet made at the track, and already paid in there. Therefore, away from the track, where the money wagered has not actually been passed over, the two dollars is subtracted from the mutuel price and the remainder is then divided by two to ascertain the exact odds which the horse paid on one dollar. In this particular race, Vance’s horse paid $3.90 to come in second, or place. Two dollars subtracted from this leaves $1.90, and this amount divided by two gives ninety-five cents—that is, in the position in which Vance played him, Black Revel paid ninety-five cents on the dollar. Hence, Vance, having wagered $100 on the horse to place, won $95. In Hammle’s case, the horse paid $5.80 in third place, so that the net odds were $1.90 to the dollar in that position. And, since he bet $25 on the horse to come in third, he won $47.50. But, from this must be deducted the $25 he played on the horse to win, and the $25 he put on the same horse to come in second—both of which bets he lost. This left him minus $2.50.

  226 Short for totalizator, an electrical, automatic betting device used at mutuel tracks.

  227 Garden was referring to the last race of the final day of a recent Saratoga season, when Anna V. L., Noble Spirit, and Semaphore finished in that order, and all were disqualified, Anna V. L. for swerving sharply at the start and causing other horses to take up, Noble Spirit for swerving badly at the eighth pole, and Semaphore for alleged interference with Anna V. L. The official placing, after the disqualifications, was Just Cap, first; Celiba, second; and Bahadur, third—the only other three horses in the race.

  228 Sergeant Ernest Heath of the Homicide Bureau, who had had charge of the various criminal investigations with which Vance had been associated.

  229

  230 Snitkin and Hennessey were two detectives of the Homicide Bureau, who had worked as associates of Sergeant Heath on the various criminal cases with which Vance had previously been connected.

  231 Doctor Emanuel Doremus, the Chief Medical Examiner of New York.

  232 Vance was referring to the suicide of a man in Houston, Texas, who left the following note: “To the public—Race horses caused this. The greatest thing the Texas Legislature can do is to repeal and enforce the gambling law.”

  THE GARDEN MURDER CASE (Part 2)

  CHAPTER X

  THE $10,000 BET

  (Saturday, April 14; 6:15 P.M.)

  “A good story,” Markham commented dryly when Kroon had gone.

  “Yes, yes. Good. But reluctant.” Vance appeared disturbed.

  “Do you believe it?”

  “My dear Markham, I keep an open mind, neither believin’ nor disbelievin’. Prayin’ for facts. But no facts yet. Drama everywhere, but no substance. Kroon’s story is at least consistent. One of the reasons why I’m skeptical. Always distrust consistency. Too easy to manufacture. And Kroon’s shrewd no end.”

  “Still,” put in Markham, “those cigarette butts which Heath found check with his story.”

  “Yes. Oh, yes.” Vance nodded and sighed. “I don’t doubt he smoked two cigarettes on the stair landing. But he could have smoked them just as well if he’d done the johnnie in. At the moment I’m suspectin’ every one here. Lot of angles protrudin’ from this case.”

  “On the other hand,” objected Markham, “with that entrance from the main stairway to the door open to anybody, why couldn’t an outsider have killed Swift?”

  Vance looked up at him with a melancholy air.

  “Oh, Markham—my dear Markham! The legalistic intelligence at work. Ever lookin’ for loopholes. The prosecutin’ attorney hopin’ for the best. No. Oh, no. No outsider. Too many sound objections. The murder was too perfectly timed. Only some one present could have executed it so fittingly. Moreover, it was committed in yon vault. Only some one thoroughly familiar with the Garden household and the exact situation here this afternoon could have done it…”

  There was a rustle in the passageway, and Madge Weatherby came rushing into the study, with Heath following and protesting vigorously. It was obvious that Miss Weatherby had dashed up the stairs before any one could interfere with her.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” she demanded imperiously. “You’re letting Cecil Kroon go, after what I’ve told you? And I”—she indicated herself with a dramatic gesture—“I am being held here, a prisoner.”

  Vance rose wearily and offered her a cigarette. She brushed the proffered case aside and sat down rigidly.

  “The fact is, Miss Weatherby,” said Vance, returning to his chair, “Mr. Kroon explained his brief absence this afternoon lucidly and with impellin’ logic. It seems that he was doing nothing more reprehensible than conferring with Miss Stella Fruemon and a brace of attorneys.”

  “Ah!” The woman’s eyes glared with venom.

  “Quite so. He was breaking off with the lady for ever and ever. Also getting a release from her and from her heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, from the beginning of the world to the day of the date of these presents—I believe that is the correct legal phraseology. Really, y’ know, he never cared for her. He assured us she was quite a nuisance. Was rather vehement about it. No woman would ever dominate and blackmail him—or brave words to that effect. The Cezanne slogan modified:

  Pas une gonzesse ne me mettra le grappin dessus.”

  “Is that the truth?” Miss Weatherby straightened in her chair.

  “Yes, yes. No subterfuge. Kroon said you were jealous of Stella. Thought I’d relieve your mind.”

  “Why didn’t he tell me, then?”

  “There’s always the possibility you didn’t give him a chance.”

  The woman nodded vigorously.

  “Yes, that’s right. I wouldn’t speak to him when he returned here this afternoon.”

  �
�Care to revamp your original theory?” asked Vance. “Or do you still think that Kroon is the culprit?”

  “I—I really don’t know now,” the woman answered hesitantly. “When I last spoke to you I was terribly upset… Maybe it was all my imagination.”

  “Imagination—yes. Terrible and dangerous thing. Causes more misery than actuality. Especially imagination stimulated by jealousy. ‘Not poppy, nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups of the world’…” He looked at the woman quizzically. “Since you’re not so sure that Kroon did the deed, have you any other suggestions?”

  There was a tense silence. Miss Weatherby’s face seemed to contract: she drew in her lips. Her eyes almost closed.

  “Yes!” she exploded, leaning toward Vance with a new enthusiasm. “It was Zalia Graem who killed Woody! She had the motive, as you call it. She’s capable of such things, too. She’s breezy and casual enough on the outside. But inside she’s a demon. She’d stop at nothing. There was something between her and Woody. Then she chucked him over. But he wouldn’t let her alone. He kept on annoying her, and she ignored him. He didn’t have enough money to suit her. You saw the way they acted toward each other today.”

  “Have you any idea as to how she managed the crime?” Vance asked quietly.

  “She was out of the drawing-room long enough, wasn’t she? Supposed to be telephoning. But does any one really know where she was, or what she was doing?”