The Philo Vance Megapack

by S. S. Van Dine

  “Fifty thousand. But you’ll see the note when we get there. Nothing’s been touched. Heath knows I’m coming.”

  “Fifty thousand…” Vance poured himself a pony of his Napoléon cognac. “That’s most interestin’. Not an untidy sum—eh, what?”

  When he had finished his brandy he rang again for Currie.

  “Really, y’ know,” he said to Markham—his tone had suddenly changed to one of levity—, “I can’t wear chamois gloves in a purple house. Most inappropriate.”

  He asked Currie for a pair of doeskin gloves, his wanghee cane, and a town hat. When they were brought in he turned to me.

  “Do you mind calling MacDermott242 and explainin’?” he asked. “The old boy himself will have to show Sandy.… And do you care to come along, Van? It may prove more fascinatin’ than it sounds.”

  Despite my accumulated work, I was glad of the invitation. I caught MacDermott on the telephone just as he was packing his crated entries into the station-wagon. I wasted few words on him, in true Scotch fashion, and immediately joined Vance and Markham in the lower hallway where they were waiting for me.

  We entered the District Attorney’s car, and in fifteen minutes we were at the scene of what proved to be one of the most unusual criminal cases in Vance’s career.

  CHAPTER II

  THE PURPLE HOUSE

  (Wednesday, July 20; 10:30 A.M.)

  The Kenting residence in 86th Street was not as bizarre a place as I had expected to see after Vance’s description of it. In fact, it differed very little from the other old brownstone residences in the street, except that it was somewhat larger. I might even have passed it or driven by it any number of times without noticing it at all. This fact was, no doubt, owing to the dullness of its faded color, since the house had apparently not been repainted for several years, and sun and rain had not spared it. Its tone was so dingy and superficially nondescript that it blended unobtrusively with the other houses of the neighborhood. As we approached it that fateful morning it appeared almost a neutral grey in the brilliant summer sunshine.

  On closer inspection I could see that the house had been built of bricks put together in English cross bond with weathered mortar joints, trimmed at the cornices, about the windows and door, and below the eaves, with great rectangular slabs of brownstone. Only in the shadow along the eaves and beneath the projections of the sills was there any distinguishable tint of purple remaining. The architecture of the house was conventional enough—a somewhat free adaptation of combined Georgian and Colonial, such as was popular during the middle of the last century.

  The entrance, which was several feet above the street level and reached by five or six broad sandstone steps, was a spacious one; and there was the customary glass-enclosed vestibule. The windows were high, and old-fashioned shutters folded back against the walls of the house. Instead of the regulation four stories, the house consisted of only three stories, not counting the sunken basement; and I was somewhat astonished at this fact when it came to my attention, for the structure was even higher than its neighbors. The windows, however, were not on a line with those in the other houses, and I realized that the ceilings of the “Purple House” must be unusually high.

  Another thing which distinguished the Kenting residence from the neighboring buildings was the existence of a fifty-foot court to the east. This court was covered with a neatly kept lawn, with hedges on all four sides. There were two flower-beds—one star-shaped and the other in the form of a crescent; and an old gnarled maple tree stood at the rear, with its branches extending almost the entire width of the yard. Only a low iron picket fence, with a swinging gate, divided the yard from the street.

  This refreshing quadrangle was bathed with sunshine, and it seemed a very pleasant spot, with its blooming hedges and its scattered painted metal chairs. But there was one sinister note—one item which in itself was not sinister at all, but which had acquired a malevolent aspect from the facts Markham had related to us in Vance’s apartment that morning. It was a long, heavy ladder, such as outdoor painters use, leaning against the house, with its upper end just below a second-story window—the window nearest the street.

  The “Purple House” itself was set about ten feet in from the sidewalk, and we immediately crossed the irregular flagstones and proceeded up the steps to the front door. But there was no need to ring the bell. Sergeant Ernest Heath, of the Homicide Bureau, greeted us in the vestibule. After saluting Markham, whom he addressed as Chief, he turned to Vance with a grin and shook his head ponderously.

  “I didn’t think you’d be here, Mr. Vance,” he said good-naturedly. “Ain’t this a little out of your line? But howdy, anyway.” And he held out his hand.

  “I myself didn’t think I’d be here, Sergeant. And everything is out of my line today except dog shows. Fact is, I almost missed the present pleasure of seeing you.” Vance shook hands with him cordially, and cocked one eye inquiringly. “What’s the exhibit I’m supposed to view?”

  “You might as well have stayed home, Mr. Vance,” Heath told him. “Hell, there’s nothing to this case. It ain’t even a fancy one. A little routine police work is all that’s needed to clear it up. There ain’t a chance for what you call psychological deduction.”

  “My word!” sighed Vance. “Most encouragin’, Sergeant. I hope you’re right. Still, since I’m here, don’t y’ know, I might as well look around in my amateurish way and try to learn what it’s all about. I promise not to complicate matters for you.”

  “That’s a little more than O.-K. with me, Mr. Vance,” the Sergeant grinned. And, opening the heavy glass-panelled oak door, he led us into the dingy but spacious hallway, and then through partly-opened sliding doors at the right, into a stuffy drawing-room.

  “Cap Dubois and Bellamy243 are upstairs, getting the finger-prints; and Quackenbush244 took a few shots and went away.” Heath seated himself at a small Jacobean desk and drew out his little black leather-bound note-book. “Chief,” he said to Markham, “I think maybe you’d better get the whole story direct from Mrs. Kenting, the wife of the gentleman who was kidnapped.”

  I now noticed three other persons in the room. At the front window stood a solid, slightly corpulent man of successful, professional mien. He turned and came forward as we entered, and Markham bowed to him cordially and greeted him by the name Fleel. He was the lawyer of the Kenting family.

  At his side was a somewhat aggressive middle-aged man, rather thin, with a serious and pinched expression. Fleel introduced him to us cursorily, with a careless wave of the hand, as Kenyon Kenting, the brother of the missing man. Then the lawyer turned stiffly to the other side of the room, and said in a suave, businesslike voice:

  “But I particularly wish to present you gentlemen to Mrs. Kaspar Kenting.”

  We all turned to the pale, terrified woman seated at one end of a small davenport, in the shadows of the west wall. She appeared at first glance to be in her early thirties; but I soon realized that my guess might be ten years out, one way or the other. She seemed exceedingly thin, even beneath the full folds of the satin dressing-gown she wore; and although her eyes were large and frankly appealing, there was in her features evidence of a shrewd competency amounting almost to hardness. It struck me that a painter could have used her for the perfect model of the clinging, nervous, whiny woman. But, on the other hand, she impressed me as being capable of assuming the role of a strong-minded and efficient person when the occasion demanded. Her hair was thin and stringy and of the lustreless ashen-blond variety; and her eyelashes and eyebrows were so sparse and pale, that she gave the impression, sitting there in the dim light, of having none at all.

  When Fleel presented us to her she nodded curtly with a frightened air, and kept her eyes focused sharply on Markham. Kenyon Kenting went directly to her and, sitting down on the edge of the sofa, put his arm half around her and patted her gently on the back.

  “You must be brave, my dear,” he said in a tone that was almost endearing. “These
gentlemen have come to help us, and I’m sure they’ll be wanting to know all you can tell them about the events of last night.”

  The woman drew her eyes slowly away from Markham and looked up wistfully and trustingly at her brother-in-law. Then she nodded her head slowly, in complete and confiding acquiescence and again turned her eyes to Markham.

  Sergeant Heath broke gruffly into the scene.

  “Don’t you want to go upstairs, Chief, and see the room from where the snatch was made? Snitkin’s on duty up there, to see that nothing is moved around or changed.”

  “I say, just a moment, Sergeant.” Vance sat down on the sofa beside Mrs. Kenting. “I’d like to ask Mrs. Kenting a few questions first.” He turned to the woman. “Do you mind?” he asked in a mild, almost deferential tone. As she silently shook her head in reply he continued: “Tell me, when did you first learn of your husband’s absence?”

  The woman took a deep breath, and after a barely perceptible hesitation answered in a slightly rasping, low-pitched voice which contrasted strangely with her colorless, semi-anæmic appearance.

  “Early this morning—about six o’clock, I should say. The sun had just risen.”245

  “And how did you happen to become aware of his absence?”

  “I wasn’t sleeping well last night,” the woman responded. “I was restless for some unknown reason, and the early morning sun coming through the shutters into my room not only awakened me, but prevented me from going back to sleep. Then I thought I heard a faint unfamiliar sound in my husband’s room—you see, we occupy adjoining rooms on the next floor—and it seemed to me I heard some one moving stealthily about. There was the unmistakable sound of footsteps across the floor—that is, like some one walking around in soft slippers.”

  She took another deep breath, and shuddered slightly.

  “I was already terribly nervous, anyway, and these strange noises frightened me, for Kaspar—Mr. Kenting—is usually sound asleep at that hour of the morning. I got up, put on my slippers, threw a dressing-gown around me, and went to the door which connects our two rooms. I called to my husband, but got no answer. Then I called again, and still again, in louder tones, at the same time knocking at the door. But there was no response of any kind—and I realized that everything had suddenly become quiet in the room. By this time I was panicky; so I pulled open the door quickly and entered the room.…”

  “Just a moment, Mrs. Kenting,” Vance interrupted. “You speak of having been startled by an unfamiliar sound in your husband’s room this morning, and you say you heard some one walking about in the room. Just what kind of sound was it that first caught your attention?”

  “I don’t know exactly. It might have been some one moving a chair, or dropping something, or maybe it was just a door surreptitiously opened and shut. I can’t describe it any better than that.”

  “Could it have been a scuffle of some kind—I mean, did it sound as if more than one person might have been making the noise?”

  The woman shook her head vaguely.

  “I don’t think so. It was over too quickly for that. I should say it was a sound that was not intended—something accidental—do you see what I mean? I can’t imagine what it could have been—so many things might have happened.…”

  “When you entered the room, were the lights on?” Vance asked, with what appeared to be almost utter indifference.

  “Yes,” the woman hastened to answer animatedly. “That was the curious thing about it. Not only was the chandelier burning brightly, but the light beside the bed also. They were a ghastly yellow in the day-light.”

  “Are the two fixtures controlled with the same switch?” Vance asked, frowning down at his unlighted Régie.

  “No,” the woman told him. “The switch for the chandelier is near the hall door, while the night-lamp is connected to an outlet in the baseboard and is worked by a switch on the lamp itself. And another strange thing was that the bed had not been slept in.”

  Vance’s eyebrows rose slightly, but he did not look up from his fixed contemplation of the cigarette between his fingers.

  “Do you know what time Mr. Kenting came to his bedroom last night?”

  The woman hesitated a moment and flashed a glance at Kenyon Kenting.

  “Oh, yes,” she said hurriedly. “I heard him come in. It must have been soon after three this morning. He had been out for the evening, and I happened to be awake when he got back—or else the unlocking and closing of the front door awakened me—I really don’t know. I heard him enter his bedroom and turn on the lights. Then I heard him telephoning to some one in an angry voice. Right after that I fell asleep again.”

  “You say he was out last night. Do you know where or with whom?”

  Mrs. Kenting nodded, but again she hesitated. Finally she answered in the same brittle, rasping voice:

  “A new gambling casino was opened in Jersey yesterday, and my husband was invited to be a guest at the opening ceremonies. His friend Mr. Quaggy called for him about nine o’clock—”

  “Please repeat the name of your husband’s friend.”

  “Quaggy—Porter Quaggy. He’s a very trustworthy and loyal man, and I’ve never objected to my husband’s going out with him. He has been more or less a friend of the family for several years, and he always seems to know just how to handle my husband when he shows an inclination to go a little too far in his—his, well, his drinking. Mr. Quaggy was here at the house yesterday afternoon, and it was then that he and Kaspar made arrangements to go together to the new casino.”

  Vance nodded slightly, and directed his gaze to the floor as if trying to connect something the woman had told him with something already in his mind.

  “Where does Mr. Quaggy live?” he asked.

  “Just up the street, near Central Park West, at the Nottingham.…” She paused, and drew a deep breath. “Mr. Quaggy’s a frequent and welcome visitor here.”

  Vance threw Heath a significant coup d’œil, and the Sergeant made a note in the small leather-bound black book which lay before him on the desk.

  “Do you happen to know,” Vance continued, still addressing the woman, “whether Mr. Quaggy returned to the house last night with Mr. Kenting?”

  “Oh, no; I’m quite sure he did not,” was the prompt reply. “I heard my husband come in alone and mount the stairs; and I heard him alone in his bedroom. As I said, I dozed off shortly afterwards, and didn’t wake up again until after the sun rose.”

  “May I offer you a cigarette?” said Vance, holding out his case.

  The woman shook her head slightly and glanced questioningly at Kenyon Kenting.

  “No, thank you,” she returned. “I rarely smoke. But I don’t in the least mind others smoking, so please light your own cigarette.”

  With a courteous bow in acknowledgment, Vance proceeded to do so, and then asked:

  “When you found that your husband was not in his room at six this morning, and that the lights were on and the bed had not been slept in, what did you think?—and what did you do?”

  “I was naturally upset and troubled and very much puzzled,” Mrs. Kenting explained; “and just then I noticed that the big side window overlooking the lawn was open and that the Venetian blind had not been lowered. This was queer, because Kaspar was always fussy about this particular blind in the summer-time because of the early morning sun. I immediately ran to the window and looked down into the yard, for a sudden fear had flashed through my mind that perhaps Kaspar had fallen out.… You see,” she added reluctantly, “my husband often has had too much to drink when he comes home late at night.… It was then I saw the ladder against the house; and I was wondering about that vaguely, when suddenly I noticed that horrible slip of paper pinned to the window-sill. Immediately I realized what had happened, and why I had heard those peculiar noises in his room. The realization made me feel faint.”

  She paused and dabbed gently at her eyes with a lace-trimmed handkerchief.

  “When I recovered a little from
the shock of this frightful thing,” she continued, “I went to the telephone and called up Mr. Fleel. I also called Mr. Kenyon Kenting here—he lives on Fifth Avenue, just across the park. After that I simply ordered some black coffee, and waited, frantic, until their arrival. I said nothing about the matter to the servants, and I didn’t dare inform the police until I had consulted with my brother-in-law and especially with Mr. Fleel, who is not only the family’s legal advisor, but also a very close friend. I felt that he would know the wisest course to follow.”

  “How many servants are there here?” Vance asked.

  “Only two—Weem, our butler and houseman, and his wife, Gertrude, who cooks and does maid service.”

  “They sleep where?”

  “On the third floor, at the rear.”

  Vance had listened to the woman’s account of the tragic episode with unusual attentiveness, and while to the others he must have seemed casual and indifferent, I had noticed that he shot the narrator several appraising glances from under his lazily drooping eyelids.

  At last he rose and, walking to the desk, placed his half-burnt cigarette in a large onyx ash receiver. Turning to Mrs. Kenting again, he asked quietly:

  “Had you, or your husband, any previous warning of this event?”

  Before answering, the woman looked with troubled concern at Kenyon Kenting.

  “I think, my dear,” he encouraged her, in a ponderous, declamatory tone, “that you should be perfectly frank with these gentlemen.”

  The woman shifted her eyes back to Vance slowly, and after a moment of indecision said:

  “Only this: several nights, recently, after I had retired, I have heard Kaspar dialing a number and talking angrily to some one over the telephone. I could never distinguish any of the conversation—it was simply a sort of muffled muttering. And I always noticed that the next day Kaspar was in a terrible humor and seemed worried and agitated about something. Twice I tried to find out what the trouble was, and asked him to explain the phone calls; but each time he assured me nothing whatever was wrong, and refused to tell me anything except that he had been speaking to his brother regarding business affairs.…”