“My brother? My brother?” Then as quickly as she had burst into mirth, she sobered. “You can’t fool me that way, Mr. Officer.”
Vance stepped back.
“Tell me,”—a sudden new note came into his voice—“what do you mean by that, Miss Allen?”
“My brother’s in jail!”
CHAPTER XVII
FINGERPRINTS
(Tuesday, May 21; 11:30 am.)
It was at this moment that Mrs. Allen, serene and self-effacing, was guided into the room by Currie.
Vance turned quickly and welcomed her with but the briefest of greetings.
“Is it true, Mrs. Allen,” he asked, “that your son is not dead?”
“Yes, it is true, Mr. Vance. That’s why I came over here.”
Vance nodded with an understanding smile and, leading the woman to a chair, asked her to explain more fully.
“You see, sir,” she began in a colorless voice, “Philip was arrested over near Hackensack that awful night, after he had given up his job at the cafe. He was with another boy in an automobile, and a policeman got in and told this other boy—it’s Stanley Smith I mean, a friend of Philip’s—to drive to the police station. He accused them of stealing the car; and then, when they were on the way to the jail, the policeman said that it was the same car that had just killed an old man and run off—you know, what you call a hit-and-run murder. And this frightened Philip terribly, because he didn’t know what Stanley might have done before they met. And then, when the car stopped for a light, Philip jumped out and ran away. The policeman shot at him, but he wasn’t caught.” Vance nodded sympathetically. “Then Philip telephoned to me—I could tell how frightened he was—and said that the police were after him and that he was going somewhere to hide… Oh, I was so terribly worried, Mr. Vance, with the poor miserable boy so scared, and biding—you know, a fugitive from justice. And then when you came that night I thought you were looking for him; but when you told me my boy was dead, you can imagine—”
Heath leaped forward.
“But you said that was your son down at the morgue!” He flung the words at her.
“No, I didn’t, Mr. Officer,” the woman said simply.
“The hell you didn’t!” bellowed Heath.
“Sergeant!” Vance held up his hand. “Mrs. Allen is quite correct… If you think back, you will remember she did not once say it was her son. I’m afraid we said it for her, because we thought it was true.” He smiled wistfully.
“But she fainted, didn’t she?” pursued Heath.
“I fainted from joy, Mr. Officer,” explained the woman, “when I saw it wasn’t really Philip.”
Heath was by no means satisfied. “But—but you didn’t say it wasn’t your son. And you let us think—”
Again Vance checked him.
“I believe I understand exactly why Mrs. Allen let us think it was her son. She knew we represented the police, and she also knew her son was hiding from them. And when she saw that we believed her son was dead, she was very glad to let us think so, imagining that would end the hunt for Philip… Isn’t that true, Mrs. Allen?”
“Yes, Mr. Vance.” The woman nodded calmly. “And I naturally didn’t want you to tell Gracie that Philip was dead, because then I would have to tell her that he was hiding from the police; and that would have made her very unhappy. But I thought that maybe in a few days everything would come out all right; and then I would tell you. Anyhow, I thought you would find out before long that it really wasn’t Philip.”
She looked up with a faint sad smile.
“And everything did come out all right, just as I hoped and prayed—and knew—it would.”
“We’re all very happy that it did,” said Vance. “But tell us just how everything has come out all right.”
“Why, this morning,” resumed Mrs. Allen, “Stanley Smith came to the house to ask for Philip. And when I told him that Philip was still hiding, he said that everything had been a mistake; and how his uncle came to the jail and proved to the police that the car was not stolen, and how it was a different car that had run over the old man… So I told Gracie all about it right away, and went to take the wonderful news to my son and bring him back home…”
“How come then,”—the Sergeant’s continued exasperation was evident in his manner—“if you told your daughter all about it, that she said just now her brother was in jail?”
Mrs. Allen smiled timidly.
“Oh, he is. You see, Saturday was such a warm night that Philip had his coat off in the car; and he left it there. That’s how the police knew who he was, because he had his work—check in the pocket. So he went to the jail in Hackensack this morning to get his coat. And he’s coming home for lunch.”
Vance laughed in spite of himself, and gave Gracie Allen a mischievous look. “And I’ll warrant it was a black coat.”
“Oh, Mr. Vance!” the girl exclaimed ecstatically. “What a wonderful detective you are! How could you possibly tell what colour Philip’s coat was way over there across the river?”
Vance chuckled and then became suddenly serious.
“And now I must ask you all to go,” he said, “and prepare for Philip’s home-coming.”
At this point Markham intervened.
“But what about that story you were threatening to tell to the newspapers, Miss Allen? I couldn’t permit anything like that.”
George Burns, with a broad grin on his face, answered the District Attorney.
“Gracie won’t do that, Mr. Markham. You see, I’m perfectly happy now, and I’m going back to work tomorrow morning. I really wasn’t worrying about being guilty or about having anybody following me around. But I had to tell that to Gracie—and Mr. Doolson—because you made me promise that I wouldn’t say a word about Philip. And it was Philip being dead and Gracie not knowing, and everything, that made me feel so terribly bad that I just couldn’t get any sleep or do any work.”
“Isn’t that wonderful!” Miss Allen clapped her hands, and then glanced slyly at Vance. “I didn’t really want you to go to jail, Mr. Vance—except to help George. So I give you my promise I won’t say one word to anybody about your confession. And you know I always keep a promise.”
As Mrs. Allen was departing with her daughter and Burns, she gave Vance a look of shy apology.
“I do hope, sir,” she said, “that you don’t think I did wrong in deceiving you about that poor boy—downtown.”
Vance took her hand in his. “I certainly think nothing of the kind. You acted as any mother would have acted, had she been as clever and as quick-witted as you.”
He raised her hand to his lips, and then closed the door after the trio.
“And now, Sergeant,”—his whole manner changed—“get busy! Call Tracy up here, and then try to have that dead fellow identified by his fingerprints.”
“You don’t have to tell me to get busy, sir,” returned Heath, hurrying to the window. He beckoned frantically to the man across the street. Then he turned back into the room, and on his way to the telephone, he halted abruptly, as if a sudden thought had left him motionless.
“Say, Mr. Vance,” he asked, “what makes you think his fingerprints’ll be on file?”
Vance gave him a searching, significant look.
“You may be greatly surprised, Sergeant.”
“Mother o’ God!” breathed Heath in an awed tone, as he dashed to the instrument in the hall.
While the Sergeant was talking with almost incoherent agitation to the Bureau, Tracy came in. Vance sent him at once to Doremus’s laboratory with the sealed envelope on the mantel.
In a few minutes Heath returned to the library. “Are those babies on the job!” He rubbed his hands together energetically. “They’ll sure burn up shoe-leather getting those fingerprints and checking up in the file. And if they don’t call me back in an hour, I’ll go down there and wring their thick necks!” He collapsed in a chair as if exhausted by the mere thought of the speed and activity he had demande
d.
Vance himself now telephoned Doremus, explaining that an immediate report on the cigarette was essential.
It was nearly noon, and we chatted aimlessly for another hour. There was a tension in the atmosphere, and the conversation was like a cloak deliberately thrown over the inner thoughts of these three diverse men.
As the clock over the mantel pointed to one, the telephone rang, and Vance answered it.
“There was no difficulty with that analysis,” he informed us, as he hung up the receiver. “The efficient Doremus found in the cigarette the same elusive combination of poisons that bothered him so frightfully Sunday evening… My jumbled story, Markham, is at last beginning to take form.”
He had barely finished speaking when the telephone rang again, and it was Heath who now dashed into the hall. As he came back into the library after a few moments, he stumbled against a small Renaissance stand near the door and sent it sprawling.
“All right, I’m excited. So what?” The Sergeant’s eyes were staring. “Who do you think the guy was? But hell! You knew it already, Mr. Vance. It’s our old chum, Benny the Buzzard!… And maybe those boys down in Pittsburgh wasn’t nuts! And maybe the Buzzard didn’t hop straight from Nomenica to New York, just like I said he would!… Laugh that one off, Mr. Markham.”
Heath’s excitement was such that it temporarily overweighed even his respectful manner toward the District Attorney.
“What’ll we do next, Mr. Vance?”
“I should say, Sergeant, that the first thing is for you to sit down. Calm. A most necess’ry virtue.”
Heath readily complied, and Vance turned to Markham.
“I believe this is still my case, so to speak. You most magnanimously presented it to me, to rid yourself of my chatter last Saturday night. I must, therefore, now ask a further indulgence.”
Markham waited in silence.
“The time has come when I must act with dispatch,” Vance continued. “The whole case, Markham, has become quite clear; the various fragments have fitted themselves together into a rather amazing mosaic. But there are still one or two blank spaces. And I believe that Mirche, if properly approached, can supply the missin’ pieces…”
Heath broke in. “I’m beginning to get you, sir. You think that Mirche’s identification of the Buzzard was deliberately phony?”
“No—oh, no, Sergeant. Mirche was quite sincere—and with very good reason. He was genuinely stunned by the appearance of the dead body in his office that night.”
“Then I don’t get you, sir,” said Heath, disgruntled.
“What’s the indulgence you’re after, Vance?” Markham asked impatiently.
“I merely wish to make an arrest.”
“But I certainly do not propose to let you get the District Attorney’s office into hot water. We must wait until the case is solved.”
“Ah! but it is solved,” Vance returned blandly. “And you may toddle along with me, to protect the sanctity of your office. In fact, I’d be charmed with your company.”
“Come to the point.” Markham spoke irritably. “Just what is it you want to do?”
Vance leaned forward and spoke with precision.
“I desire most fervently to go to the Domdaniel as soon as possible this afternoon. I desire to have two men—let us say Hennessey and Burke—standing guard in the passageway outside the secret door. I then desire to proceed with you and the Sergeant to the front door on the balcony, and demand entry. Then I will take action—under your vigilant and restraining eye, of course.”
“But, good Heavens, Vance! Mirche may not be waiting in his office for your visit. He may have other plans for his afternoon’s diversion.”
“That,” remarked Vance, “is a chance we must take. But I have sufficient reason to believe that Mirche’s office is a beehive of secret activity today. And I would be rather astonished if the Lorelei—and Owen, too—were not there. Tonight, y’ know, Owen is sailin’ for the southern hemisphere, and this is his day for closin’ up his mundane affairs here. You and the Sergeant have long suspected that the Domdaniel is the headquarters for all sorts of naughty goings on. You need doubt no more, my Markham.”
The District Attorney pondered a moment.
“It sounds preposterous and futile,” he asserted. “Unless you have some cryptic grounds for such an absurd course… However, as you say, I’ll be there myself to guard against any imbecile indiscretion on your part… Very well.” He capitulated.
Vance nodded with satisfaction and looked at the bewildered Heath.
“And by the by, Sergeant, we may possibly hear rumours of your friends Rosa and Tony.”
“The Tofanas!” Heath sat up alertly. “I knew it. That cigarette job is right up Tony’s alley…”
Vance outlined his plan to the Sergeant. Heath was to arrange with Joe Hanley, the doorman, to give a signal if Mirche should quit the dining-room by the rear exit. Hennessey and Burke were to be instructed regarding their post and duties. And Markham and Vance and Heath were to wait in the rooming-house opposite, whence they could see either Hanley’s signal or Mirche himself entering his office by way of the balcony.
However, many of the elaborate and intricate preparations proved unnecessary; for Vance’s theory and prognostications with reference to the situation that afternoon were entirely correct.
CHAPTER XVIII
JONQUILLE AND ROSE
(Tuesday, May 21; 3 pm.)
At three o’clock that afternoon Joe Hanley, who had been watching for us, came to the corner of Seventh Avenue and informed us that Mirche had entered his office shortly after noon, and that neither he nor Miss Del Marr had been seen in the cafe since then.
We found the blinds at the narrow windows drawn; the door to the office was locked; nor was there any response to our insistent knocking.
“Open up, you!” Heath bawled ferociously. “Or have I gotta bust in the door?” Then he remarked to us: “I guess that’ll scare ’em, if anybody’s there.”
Soon we could hear the sound of scuffling and angry voices inside; and a few moments later the door was unlocked for us by Hennessey.
“It’s okay now, sir,” he said to Markham. “They tried to sneak out the wall door, but Burke and I forced em back.”
As we stepped across the threshold, a strange sight met our eyes. Burke stood with his back against the little secret door, his gun pointed significantly at the startled Mirche who was but a few steps away. Dixie Del Marr, also in line with Burke’s gun, was leaning against the desk, looking at us with an expression of cold resignation. In one of the leather chairs sat Owen, smiling faintly with calm cynicism. He seemed entirely dissociated from the general tableau, like a spectator viewing a theatrical scene which offended his intellect by its absurdity. He looked neither to right nor left; and it was not until we were well within range of his somnolent gaze, that he made the slightest movement.
When he caught sight of Vance, however, he rose wearily and bowed in formal greeting.
“What futile effort,” he complained. Then he sat down again with a mild sigh, like one who feels he must remain to the end of a distasteful drama.
Hennessey closed the door and stood alertly watching the occupants of the room. Burke, at a sign from Heath, let his hand fall to his side, but maintained a stolid vigilance.
“Sit down, Mr. Mirche,” said Vance. “Merely a little discussion.”
As the white and frightened man dropped into a chair at the desk, Vance bowed politely to Miss Del Marr.
“It isn’t necess’ry for you to stand.”
“I prefer it,” the woman said in a hard tone. “I’ve been sitting and waiting, as it were, for three years now.”
Vance accepted her cryptic remark without comment, and turned his attention back to Mirche.
“We have discussed preferences in foods and wines at some length,” he said casually; “and I was wondering what private brand of cigarettes you favour.”
The man seemed paralyzed with fear
. But quickly he recovered himself; a semblance of his former suavity returned. He made a creaking noise intended for a laugh.
“I have no private brand,” he declared. “I always smoke—”
“No, no,” Vance interrupted. “I mean your very private brand—reserved for the elect.”
Mirche laughed again, and gestured broadly with upturned palms to indicate the question conveyed no meaning to him.
“By the by,” Vance went on; “in medieval times—when Madam Tofana and other famous poisoners flourished—there were many flowers which, romantic legend tells us, would bring death with a single whiff… Strange how these legends persist and how examples of their apparent authenticity crop up in modern times. One wonders, don’t y’ know, whether the old secrets of alchemy have indeed been preserved to the present day. Of course, such speculations are absurd in the light of modern science.”
“I don’t see your point.” Mirche spoke with an attempt at injured dignity. “Nor do I understand this outrageous invasion of my privacy.”
Vance ignored the man for a moment and addressed Miss Del Marr.
“You have perhaps lost an unusual cigarette-case of checkerboard design? When it was found it had the scent of jonquille and rose. A vagrant association—it recalled you, Miss Del Marr.”
No change was detectable in the woman’s hard expression, although she hesitated perceptibly before answering.
“It isn’t mine. I believe, though, I know the case you mean. I saw it in this office last Saturday; and that evening Mr. Mirche showed it to me. He had carried it for hours in his pocket—perhaps that’s how it took on the smell. Where did you find it, Mr. Vance? I was told it had been left here by one of the cafe employees… Maybe Mr. Mirche could—”
“I know nothing of such a cigarette-case,” Mirche stated bluntly. There was a startled energy in his words. He threw a defiant glance at the woman, but her back was to him.
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” said Vance. “Only a passing thought.”
His eyes were still on Miss Del Marr; and he spoke to her again.
“You know, of course, that Benny Pellinzi is dead.”
“Yes—I know.” Her words carried no emotion.
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