“Would you care to smoke, Mr. Owen?” he asked.
The man’s eyes contracted. Vance dropped his cigarette-case back into his pocket.
“Yes…” Owen breathed at length. “I believe I shall have a cigarette.” He reached into an inner pocket and drew forth a small Florentine-leather case…
“See here, Vance!” snapped Markham. “This is no longer your affair. A murder has been committed before my eyes, and I myself order this man’s arrest.”
“Quite,” Vance drawled. “But I fear you are too late.”
Even as he spoke, Owen slumped deeper in his chair; the cigarette he had lighted slipped from his lips and fell to the floor. Vance quickly crushed it with his foot.
Owen’s head fell forward on his breast—the muscles of his neck had suddenly relaxed.
CHAPTER XX
HAPPY LANDING
(Wednesday, May 22; 10:30 am.)
The following morning Vance was sitting in the District Attorney’s office, talking with Markham. Heath had been there earlier with his report of the arrest of the Tofanas. Sufficient evidence had been unearthed in the cellar of their house to convict them both—or so the Sergeant hoped.
Dixie Del Marr had also called, at Markham’s request, to supply such details as were needed for the official records. As there was no question of pressing charges against her for the part she had played in Mirche’s affairs, she was comparatively content when she left us.
“Really, y’ know, Markham,” Vance remarked, “in view of the woman’s primitive infatuation for Benny Pellinzi, her conduct, as we know it, is quite understandable—and forgivable… As for Mirche, his end was far better than he deserved… And Owen! A diseased maniac. Fortunate for the world he chose so expeditious a way of making his exit! He knew he was dying; and the stalking dread of a vengeful hereafter inspired his act… We may well be content to call the whole matter closed. And, after all, I did give the lunatic a vague promise to guard his aftermath so there should be no ‘ripples,’ as he put it, to follow him.”
Vance laughed dismally.
“What does it really matter? A minor gangster is found dead—a quite commonplace event; a major gangster is shot—also an ordin’ry episode; and the guiding light of a criminal band turns felo de se—well, perhaps a rare occurrence, but certainly not important… And anyway, the year’s at the spring; the lark’s on the wing; the snail’s on the thorn—I say! how about some escargots Bordelaise later?”
As he spoke, the buzzer sounded, and a voice announced the presence of Mr. Amos Doolson in the outer office.
Markham looked at Vance.
“I suppose it’s about that preposterous reward. But I can’t see the man now-”
Vance stood up quickly.
“Keep him waiting, Markham! An idea smites me.”
Then he went to the telephone and spoke to the In-O-Scent Corporation. When he hung up the receiver he smiled at Markham.
“Gracie Allen and George Burns will be here in fifteen minutes.” He chuckled with genuine delight. “If anyone deserves that reward, it’s the dryad. And I’m going to see that she gets it.”
“Are you out of your mind!” exclaimed Markham in surprise.
“No—oh, no. Quite sane, don’t y’ know. And—though you may doubt it—I’m passionately devoted to justice.”
Miss Allen, with Mr. Burns, arrived shortly thereafter. “Oh, what a terrible place!” she said. “I’m glad I don’t have to live here, Mr. Markham.” She turned troubled eyes on Vance. “Have I got to go on with my detecting? I’d much rather work at the factory—now that George is back, and everything.”
“No, my dear,” said Vance kindly. “You have already done ample. And the results you have achieved have been superb. In fact, I wanted you to come here this morning merely to receive your reward. A reward of five thousand dollars was offered to the person who would solve the murder of that man in the Domdaniel. It was Mr. Doolson who made the offer; and he’s waiting in the other room now.”
“Oh!” For once the girl was too puzzled and stunned to speak.
When Doolson was ushered in he took one amazed look at his two employees and went direct to Markham’s desk.
“I want to withdraw that reward immediately, sir,” he said. “Burns came back to work this morning in excellent spirits, and therefore there is no necessity-”
Markham, who had readily adjusted himself to Vance’s jocular but equitable view of the situation, spoke in his most judicial manner.
“I regret extremely, Mr. Doolson, that such a withdrawal is entirely out of the question. The case was completed and shelved yesterday afternoon—well within the time limit you stipulated. I have no alternative but to pay that money to the person who earned it.”
The man’s gorge rose and he spluttered.
“But—!” he began to expostulate.
“We’re frightfully sorry, and all that, Mr. Doolson,” Vance cut in dulcetly. “But I am sure you will be quite reconciled to your impulsive generosity when I inform you that the recipient is to be Miss Gracie Allen.”
“What!” Doolson burst forth apoplectically. “What has Miss Allen to do with it? Preposterous!”
“No,” replied Vance. “Simple statement of fact. Miss Allen had everything to do with the solution of the case. It was she who supplied every important clue… And, after all, you did get back the services of your Mr. Burns today.”
“I won’t do it!” shouted the man. “It’s chicanery! A farce! You can’t legally hold me to it!”
“On the contrary, Mr. Doolson,” said Markham, “I am forced to regard the money as the property of the young lady. The very wording of the reward—dictated here by yourself—would not leave you a leg to stand on if you decided to make a legal issue of it.”
Doolson’s jaw sagged.
“Oh, Mr. Doolson!” exclaimed Gracie Allen. “That’s such a lovely reward! And did you really do it to get George back to work for the big rush? I never thought of that. But you do need him terribly, don’t you?… And oh, that gives me another idea. You ought to raise George’s salary.”
“I’ll be damned if I will!” For a moment I thought Doolson was on the verge of a stroke.
“But just suppose, Mr. Doolson,” Miss Allen went on, “if George got worried again and couldn’t do his work! What would become of the business?”
The man took hold of himself and studied Burns darkly and thoughtfully for several moments.
“You know. Burns,” he said almost placatingly, “I’ve been thinking for some time that you deserved a raise. You’ve been most loyal and valuable to the corporation. You come back to your laboratory at once—and we can discuss the matter amicably.” Then he turned and shook his finger wrathfully at the girl. “And you, young woman. You’re fired!”
“Oh, that’s all right, Mr. Doolson,” the girl returned with smiling nonchalance. “I bet the raise you give George will make his salary as much as his and mine put together now—if you know what I mean.”
“Who gives a damn what you mean!” And Doolson stalked angrily from the room.
“I believe,” said Vance musingly, “that the next remark should come from Mr. Burns himself.” And he smiled at the young man significantly.
Burns, though obviously astonished by the proceedings of the past half-hour, was nevertheless sufficiently clear-headed to understand the import of Vance’s words. Grasping the suggestion offered, he walked resolutely to the girl.
“How about that proposition I made to you the morning I was arrested?” Our presence, far from embarrassing him, had given him courage.
“Why, what proposition?” the girl asked archly.
“You know what I mean!” His tone was gruff and determined. “How about you and me getting married?”
The girl fell back into a chair, laughing musically.
“Oh, George! Was that what you were trying to say?”
There is little more that need be told regarding what Vance has always insisted on call
ing the Gracie Allen murder case.
The Domdaniel, as everyone knows, has long been closed, and a few years ago it was replaced by a modern commercial structure. Tony and Rosa Tofana found it expedient to confess, and are now serving time in prison. I do not know what became of Dixie Del Marr. She probably took a new name and left this part of the country, to live quietly far from the scenes of her former triumphs and tragedies.
Gracie Allen and George Burns were married shortly after that unexpected and amusing proposal in Markham’s office.
One Saturday afternoon, months later, Vance and I met them strolling down Fifth Avenue. They seemed inordinately happy, and the girl was chatting animatedly, as usual.
We stopped for a few minutes to speak with them. We learned that Burns had been made a junior officer in the In-O-Scent Corporation; and, much to Vance’s delight, the fact came out that Miss Allen had, for sentimental reasons, presented his card to Mr. Lyons of Chareau and Lyons, when selecting her wedding dress.
As we walked with them a short distance, Burns, in the midst of a sentence, suddenly stopped, and I noticed that his nostrils dilated slightly as he leaned close to Vance. “Farina’s original formula of Eau de Cologne!”
Vance laughed. “Yes. I always bring back a supply from Europe… Which reminds me: this morning I saw in a French magazine the name of a perfume, which, after the indispensable work Mrs. Burns did on our case, you might most appropriately give to the delightful citron-scented mixture you made for her. It was called La Femme Triomphante.”
Burns grinned proudly.
“I guess Gracie did help you a lot, Mr. Vance.”
The girl looked from one to the other with a puzzled frown, and then laughed shyly.
“I don’t get it.”
THE WINTER MURDER CASE
PREFACE
It was characteristic of Willard Huntington Wright, known to the great public as S. S. Van Dine, that when he died suddenly on April 11, 1939, he left The Winter Murder Case in the form in which it is published, complete to the last comma. Everything he ever did was done that way, accurately, thoroughly, and with consideration for other people. It was so with the entire series of the Philo Vance mysteries.
He has himself told the story of becoming a writer of mysteries in an article called, “I Used to be a Highbrow, and Look at Me Now.” He had worked as a critic of literature and art, and as an editor, since he left Harvard in 1907. And this he had done with great distinction, but with no material reward to speak of—certainly no accumulation of money. When the war came it seemed to him that all he had believed in and was working for was rushing into ruin—and now, twenty-five years later, can anyone say he was wrong? There were other influences at work on him perhaps, but no one who knew Willard and the purity of his perceptions in art, and his devotion to what he thought was the meaning of our civilization as expressed in the arts, can doubt that the shattering disillusionment and ruin of the war was what brought him at last to a nervous breakdown which incapacitated him for several years. He would never have explained it so, or any other way. He made no explanations, or excuses, ever, and his many apologies were out of the kindness of a heart so concealed by reticence that only a handful ever knew how gentle it really was. So at last all that he had done and aimed to do seemed to have come to ruin, and he himself too.
Only a gallant spirit could have risen up from that downfall, and gallantry alone would not have been enough. But Willard had also an intellect—even despair could not suppress it—which worked on anything at hand. One might believe that if his fate had been solitary confinement he would hare emerged with some biological discovery based on the rats that infested his cell. Anyhow, his doctor finally met his demands for mental occupation with the concession that he read mysteries, which he had never read before. The result was, that as he had studied painting, literature and philosophy, he now involuntarily studied and then consciously analyzed, the mystery story. And when he recovered he had mastered it.
He was then heavily in debt, but he thought he saw the possibility of freeing himself from obligations a nature of his integrity could not ignore, or in fact endure, by what he had learned in his illness. He wrote out, at some ten thousand words each, the plots of his first three murder cases, thought through to the last detail, footnotes and all, and brought them to the Century Club to a lunch with an editor of the publishing house that has put all of them before the public.
This editor knew little about mystery stories, which had not been much in vogue since Sherlock Holmes, but he knew Willard Wright. He knew from far back in Harvard that whatever this man did would be done well, and the reasonable terms—granting the writer’s talent— that Willard proposed were quickly accepted.
It is now thirteen years since Philo Vance stepped out into the world to solve The Benson Murder Case and, with that and the eleven others that followed, to delight hundreds of thousand of readers soon hard pressed by the anxieties and afflictions of a tragic decade. Each of these famous cases was set forth, as were the first three, in a long synopsis—about ten thousand words—letter perfect and complete to that point in its development. After the first three of these synopses, the publisher never saw another, nor wanted to, for he knew beyond peradventure that the finished book would be another masterpiece in its kind. Nor did he ever see the second stage of development, but only the third, the final manuscript—and that he read with the interest and pleasure of any reader, and with no professional anxieties. But this second stage in the infinitely painstaking development of the story was some 30,000 words long, and it lacked only the final elaboration of character, dialogue, and atmosphere. The Winter Murder Case represents this stage in S. S. Van Dine’s progress to its completion, and if the plot moves faster to its culmination than in the earlier books, it is for that reason.
They say now that Philo Vance was made in the image of S. S. Van Dine, and although Willard smoked not Régies but denicotined cigarettes, there were resemblances. Both were infinitely neat in dress, equally decorous and considerate in manner, and Vance had Willard’s amazingly vast and accurate knowledge of a thousand arts and subjects, and his humorously sceptical attitude toward life and society. But in fact the resemblance would stand for only those with a superficial knowledge of Willard Huntington Wright. Vance in so far as he was Wright, was perhaps the form under which a gallant, gentle man concealed a spirit almost too delicate and sensitive for an age so turbulent and crude as this. Willard was not one to wear his heart upon his sleeve—but there were daws enough to peck, as there always are, and they found it where his friends always knew it to be, near the surface, and quick to respond.
As for the principles upon which he based his writing, and which brought new life into the craft of detective literature, they were succinctly set down by him in his famous twenty rules which are to be found at the back of this volume.
CHARACTERS OF THE BOOK
PHILO VANCE
JOHN F.-X. MARKHAM
District Attorney of New York County.
ELLA GUNTHAR
Companion to Joan Rexon.
CARRINGTON REXON
Owner of the Rexon estate.
RICHARD REXON
His son.
JOAN REXON
His invalid daughter.
CARLOTTA NAESMITH
Prominent society girl.
DOCTOR LOOMIS QUAYNE
The Rexon family physician.
JACQUES BASSETT
A friend of Richard Rexon.
ERIC GUNTHAR
Father of Ella Gunthar. Overseer on the Rexon estate.
MARCIA BRUCE
The Rexon housekeeper.
OLD JED
The Green Hermit. Former overseer on the Rexon estate.
LIEUTENANT O’LEARY
Lieutenant of the Winewood police.
LIEF WALLEN
A guard on the Rexon estate.
GUY DARRUP
Chief carpenter on the Rexon estate.
JOHN BRANDER
>
Coroner.
HIGGINS
The Rexon butler.
Guests at the Rexon estate.
DAHLIA DUNHAM
Political aspirant.
SALLY ALEXANDER
Singer and impersonator.
BEATRICK MADDOX
Famous aviatrix.
STANLEY SYDES
Treasure hunter.
PAT McORSAY
Racing driver.
CHUCK THROME
Gentleman jockey.
CHAPTER I
AN APPEAL FOR HELP
(Tuesday, January 14; 1x1 A.M.)
“How would you like a brief vacation in ideal surroundings—winter sports, pleasing company, and a veritable mansion in which to relax? I have just such an invitation for you, Vance.”
Philo Vance drew on his cigarette and smiled. We had just arrived at District Attorney Markham’s office in answer to a facetious yet urgent call. Vance looked at him and sighed.
“I suspect you. Speak freely, my dear Rhadamanthus.”
“Old Carrington Rexon’s worried.”
“Ah!” Vance drawled. “No spontaneous goodness of heart in life. Sad. So, I’m asked to enjoy myself in the Berkshires only because Carrington Rexon’s worried. A detective on the premises would soothe his harassed spirits. I’m invited. Not flatterin’. No.”
“Don’t be cynical, Vance.”
“But why should Carrington Rexon’s worries concern me? I’m not in the least worried.”
“You will be,” said Markham with feigned viciousness. “Don’t deny you dote on the sufferings of others, you sadist. You live for crime and suffering. And you adore worrying. You’d die of ennui if all were peaceful.”
“Tut, tut,” returned Vance. “Not sadistic. No. Always strivin’ for peace and calm. My charitable, unselfish nature.”
“As I thought! Old Rexon’s worry does appeal to you. I detect the glint in your eye.”
“Charming place, the Rexon estate,” Vance observed thoughtfully. “But why, Markham, with his millions, his leisure, his two adored and adoring offspring, his gorgeous estate, his fame, and his vigor— why should he be worrying? Quite unreasonable.”
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