"I've been in a frightful stew for hours," he said. "Been trying to analyze this affair. I was on the point of running round to the museum and finding out what progress you gentlemen had made."
"We've made a bit of progress," Vance told him; "but it's not of a tangible nature. We've decided to let matters float for a while in the anticipation that the guilty person will proceed with his plot and thus supply us with definite evidence."
"Ah!" Scarlett took his pipe slowly from his mouth and looked sharply at Vance. "That remark makes me think that maybe you and I have reached the same conclusion. There was no earthly reason for Kyle's having been killed unless his demise was to lead to something else—"
"To what, for example?"
"By Jove, I wish I knew!" Scarlett packed his pipe with his finger and held a match to it. "There are several possible explanations."
"My word! Are there? . . . Several? Well, well! Could you bear to outline one of them? We're dashed interested, don't y' know."
"Oh, I say, Vance! Really, now, I'd hate like the Old Harry to wrong any one," Scarlett spluttered. "Hani, however, didn't care a great deal for Doctor Bliss—"
"Thanks awfully. Astonishin' as it may seem, I noted that fact myself this morning. Have you any other little beam of sunshine you'd care to launch in our direction?"
"I think Salveter is hopelessly smitten with Meryt-Amen."
"Fancy that!"
Vance took out his cigarette-case and tapped his one remaining Régie on the lid. Deliberately he lighted it and, after a deep inhalation, looked up seriously.
"Yes, Scarlett," he drawled, "it's quite possible that you and I have arrived at the same conclusion. But naturally we can't make a move until we have something definite with which to back up our hypotheses. . . . By the by, Doctor Bliss attempted to leave the country this afternoon. If it hadn't been for one of Sergeant Heath's minions he presumably would be on his way to Montreal at this moment."
I expected to see Scarlett express astonishment at this news, but instead he merely nodded his head.
"I'm not surprised. He's certainly in a funk. Can't say that I blame him. Things appear rather black for him." Scarlett puffed on his pipe, and shot a surreptitious look at Vance. "The more I think about this affair, the more I'm impressed with the possibility that, after all—"
"Oh, quite." Vance cut him short. "But we're not pantin' for possibilities. What we crave is specific data."
"That's going to be difficult, I'm afraid." Scarlett grew thoughtful. "There's been too much cleverness—"
"Ah! That's the point—too much cleverness. Exactly! Therein lies the weakness of the crime. And I'm hopefully countin' on that abundantia cautelae." Vance smiled. "Really, y' know, Scarlett, I'm not as dense as I've appeared thus far. My object in stultifyin' my perceptions has been to wangle the murderer into new efforts. Sooner or later he'll overplay his hand."
Scarlett did not answer for some time. Finally he spoke.
"I appreciate your confidence, Vance. You're very sporting. But my opinion is, you'll never be able to convict the murderer."
"You may be right," Vance admitted. "Nevertheless, I'm appealing to you to keep an eye on the situation. . . . But I warn you to be careful. The murderer of Kyle is a ruthless johnnie."
"You don't have to tell me that." Scarlett got up and, walking to the fireplace, leaned against the marble mantel. "I could tell you volumes about him."
"I'm sure you could." To my astonishment Vance accepted the other's startling statement without the slightest manifestation of surprise. "But there's no need to go into that now." He, too, rose, and going to the door gave a casual wave of farewell to Scarlett. "We're toddlin' along. Just thought we'd let you know how things stood and admonish you to be careful."
"Very kind of you, Vance. Fact is, I'm frightfully upset—nervous as a Persian kitten. . . . Wish I could work; but all my materials are at the museum. I know I sha'n't sleep a wink to-night."
"Well, cheerio!" Vance turned the door-knob.
"I say, Vance!" Scarlett stepped forward urgently. "Are you, by any chance, going back to the Bliss house to-day?"
"No. We're through there for the time being." Vance's voice was quiet and droning, as with ennui. "Why do you ask?"
Scarlett fiddled at his pipe with a sort of sudden agitation.
"No reason." He looked at Vance with a constricted brow. "No reason at all. I'm anxious about the situation. There's no telling what may happen."
"Whatever happens, Scarlett," Vance said, with a certain abruptness, "Mrs. Bliss will be perfectly safe. I think we can trust Hani to see to that."
"Yes—of course," the man murmured. "Faithful dog, Hani. . . . And who'd want to harm Meryt?"
"Who, indeed?" Vance was now standing in the hallway, holding the door open for Markham and Heath and me to pass through.
Scarlett, animated by some instinct of hospitality, came forward.
"Sorry you're going," he said perfunctorily. "If I can be of any help. . . . So you've ended your investigation at the house?"
"For the moment, at least." Vance paused. The rest of us had passed him and were waiting at the head of the stairs. "We're not contemplatin' returning to the Bliss establishment until something new comes to light."
"Right-o." Scarlett nodded with a curious significance. "If I learn anything I'll telephone to you."
We went out into Irving Place, and Vance hailed a taxicab.
"Food—sustenance," he moaned. "Let us see. . . . The Brevoort isn't far away. . . ."
We had an elaborate tea at the old Brevoort on lower Fifth Avenue, and shortly afterward Heath departed for the Homicide Bureau to make out his report and to pacify the newspaper reporters who would be swarming in on him the moment the case went on record.
"You had better stand by," Vance suggested to the Sergeant, as he left us; "for I'm full of anticipation, and we couldn't push forward without you."
"I'll be at the office till ten to-night," Heath told him sulkily. "And after that Mr. Markham knows where to reach me at home. But, I'm here to tell you, I'm disgusted."
"So are we all," said Vance cheerfully.
Markham telephoned to Swacker[24] to close the office and go home. Then the three of us drove to Longue Vue for dinner. Vance refused to discuss the case and insisted upon talking about Arturo Toscanini, the new conductor of the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra.
"A vastly overrated Kapellmeister," he complained, as he tasted his canard Molière. "It strikes me he is temperamentally incapable of sensing the classic ideals in the great symphonic works of Brahms and Beethoven. . . . I say, the tomato purée in this sauce is excellent, but the Madeira wine is too vineg'ry. Prohibiton, Markham, worked devastatin' havoc on the food of this country: it practically eliminated gastronomic aesthetics. . . . But to return to Toscanini. I'm positively amazed at the panegyrics with which the critics have showered him. His secret ideals, I'm inclined to think, are Puccini and Giordano and Respighi. And no man with such ideals should attempt to interpret the classics. I've heard him do Brahms and Beethoven and Mozart, and they all exuded a strong Italian aroma under his baton. But the Americans worship him. They have no sense of pure intellectual beauty, of sweeping classic lines and magistral form. They crave strongly contrasted pianissimos and fortissimos, sudden changes in tempi, leaping accelerandos and crawling ritardandos. And Toscanini gives it all to 'em. . . . Furtwangler, Walter, Klemperer, Mengelberg, Van Hoogstraaten—any one of these conductors is, in my opinion, superior to Toscanini when it comes to the great German classics. . . ."
"Would you mind, Vance," Markham asked irritably, "dropping these irrelevancies and outlining to me your theory of the Kyle case?"
"I'd mind terribly," was Vance's amiable reply. "After the Bar-le-duc and Gervaise, however. . . ."
As a matter of fact it was nearly midnight before the subject of the tragedy was again broached. We had returned to Vance's apartment after a long drive through Van Cortlandt Park; and Markham and he and
I had gone up to the little roof garden to seek whatever air was stirring along East Thirty-eighth Street. Currie had made a delicious champagne cup—what the Viennese call a Bowle—with fresh fruit in it; and we sat under the summer stars smoking and waiting. I say, "waiting," for there is no doubt that each of us expected something untoward to happen.
Vance, for all his detachment, was inwardly tense—I could tell this by his slow, restrained movements. And Markham was loath to go home: he was far from satisfied with the way the investigation had progressed, and was hoping—as a result of Vance's prognostication—that something would develop to take the case out of the hazy realm of conjecture and place it upon a sound basis where definite action could be taken.
Shortly before twelve o'clock Markham held a long conversation with Heath on the telephone. When he hung up the receiver he heaved a hopeless sigh.
"I don't like to think of what the opposition papers are going to say to-morrow," he remarked gloomily, as he cut the tip off of a fresh cigar. "We've got absolutely nowhere in this investigation. . . ."
"Oh, yes, we have." Vance was staring up into the sultry night. "We've made amazin' progress. The case, d' ye see, is closed as far as the solution is concerned. We're merely waitin' for the murderer to get panic-stricken. The moment he does, we'll be able to take action."
"Why must you be so confounded mysterious?" Markham was in a vile humor. "You're always indulging in cabalistic rituals. The Delphic Pythia herself was no vaguer or more obscure than you. If you think you know who killed Kyle, why not come out with it?"
"I can't do it." Vance, too, was distressed. "Really, y' know, Markham, I'm not trying to be illusory. I'm strivin' to find some tangible evidence to corroborate my theory. And if we bide our time we'll secure that evidence." He looked at Markham seriously. "There's danger, of course. Something unforeseen may happen. But there's no human way to stop it. Whatever step we might take now would lead to tragedy. We have given the murderer an abundance of rope; let us hope he will hang himself. . . ."
It was exactly twenty minutes past twelve that night when the thing that Vance had been waiting for happened. We had been sitting in silence for perhaps ten minutes when Currie stepped out into the garden carrying a portable telephone.
"I beg your pardon, sir—" he began; but before he could continue Vance had risen and walked toward him.
"Plug it in, Currie," he ordered. "I'll answer the call."
Vance took the instrument and leaned against the French door.
"Yes . . . yes. What has happened?" His voice was low and resonant. He listened for perhaps thirty seconds, his eyes half closed. Then he said merely: "We'll be there at once," and handed the telephone to Currie.
He was unquestionably puzzled, and stood for several moments, his head down, deep in thought.
"It's not what I expected," he said, as if to himself. "It doesn't fit."
Presently he lifted his head, like one struck sharply.
"But it does fit! Of course it fits! It's what I should have expected." Despite the careless pose of his body his eyes were animated. "Logic! How damnable logical! . . . Come, Markham. Phone Heath—have him meet us at the museum as soon as he can get there. . . ."
Markham had risen and was glaring at Vance in ferocious alarm.
"Who was that on the phone?" he demanded. "And what has happened?"
"Please be tranquil, Markham." Vance spoke quietly. "It was Doctor Bliss who spoke to me. And, accordin' to his hysterical tale, there has been an attempted murder in his house. I promised him we'd look in. . . ."
Markham had already snatched the telephone from Currie's hands and was frantically asking for Heath's number.
17. THE GOLDEN DAGGER
(Saturday, July 14; 12:45 A.M.)
We had to walk to Fifth Avenue to find a taxicab at that hour, and even then there was five minutes' wait until an unoccupied one came by. The result was that it was fully twenty minutes before we turned into Gramercy Park and drew up in front of the Bliss residence.
As we alighted another taxicab swung round the corner of Irving Place and nearly skidded into us as its brakes were suddenly thrown on. The door was flung open before the cab had come to a standstill, and the bulky figure of Sergeant Heath projected itself to the sidewalk. Heath lived in East Eleventh Street and had managed to dress and reach the museum almost simultaneously with our arrival.
"My word, Sergeant!" Vance hailed him. "We synchronize, don't y' know. We arrive at the same destination at the same time, but from opposite directions. Jolly idea."
Heath acknowledged the somewhat enigmatical pleasantry with a grunt.
"What's all the excitement anyway?" he asked Markham. "You didn't give me much of an earful over the phone."
"An attempt has been made on Doctor Bliss's life," Markham told him.
Heath whistled softly.
"I certainly didn't expect that, sir."
"Neither did Mr. Vance." The rejoinder was intended as a taunt.
We went up the stone steps to the vestibule, but before we could ring the bell Brush opened the door. He placed his forefinger to his lips and, leaning forward mysteriously, said in a stage whisper:
"Doctor Bliss requests that you gentlemen be very quiet so as not to disturb the other members of the household. . . . He's in his bedchamber waiting for you."
Brush was clad in a flannel robe and carpet slippers, but despite the hot sultriness of the night he was visibly shivering. His face, always pale, now appeared positively ghastly in the dim light.
We stepped into the hall, and Brush closed the door cautiously with trembling hands. Suddenly, Vance wheeled about and caught him by the arm, spinning him round.
"What do you know about the occurrence here to-night?" he demanded in a low tone.
The butler's eyes bulged and his jaw sagged.
"Nothing—nothing," he managed to stammer.
"Really, now! Then why are you so frightened?" Vance did not relax his hold.
"I'm afraid of this place," came the plaintive answer. "I want to leave here. Strange things are going on—"
"So they are. But don't fret; you'll be able to look for another berth before long."
"I'm glad of that, sir." The man seemed greatly relieved. "But what has happened to-night, sir?"
"If you're ignorant of what has taken place," returned Vance, "how do you happen to be here at this hour awaiting our arrival and acting like a villain in a melodrama?"
"I was told to wait for you, sir. Doctor Bliss came down-stairs to my room—"
"Where is your room, Brush?"
"In the basement, at the rear, just off the kitchen."
"Very good. Go on."
"Well, sir, Doctor Bliss came to my room about half an hour ago. He seemed very much upset, and frightened—if you know what I mean. He told me to wait at the front door for you gentlemen—that you'd arrive any minute. And he instructed me to make no noise and also to warn you—"
"Then he went up-stairs?"
"At once, sir."
"Where is Doctor Bliss's room?"
"It's the rear door on the second floor, just at the head of the stairs. The forward door is the mistress's bedchamber."
Vance released the man's arm.
"Did you hear any disturbance to-night?"
"None, sir. Everything has been quiet. Every one retired early, and I myself went to bed before eleven."
"You may go back to bed now," Vance told him.
"Yes, sir." And Brush went quickly away and disappeared through the door at the rear of the hall.
Vance made a gesture for us to follow him and led the way up-stairs. A small electric bulb was burning in the upper hall, but we did not need it to find Doctor Bliss's room, for his door was a few inches ajar and a shaft of light fell diagonally across the floor outside.
Vance, without knocking, pushed the door inward and stepped into the room. Bliss was sitting rigidly in a straight chair in the far corner, leaning slightly forward, his eyes riveted
on the door. In his hand was a brutal-looking army revolver. At our entrance he leapt to his feet, and brought the gun up simultaneously.
"Tut, tut, doctor!" Vance smiled whimsically. "Put the firearms away and chant us the distressin' rune."
Bliss drew an audible sigh of relief, and placed the weapon on a small table at his side.
"Thank you for coming, Mr. Vance," he said in a strained tone. "And you, Mr. Markham." He acknowledged Heath's and my presence with a slight, jerky bow. "The thing you predicted has happened. . . . There's a murderer in this house!"
"Well, well! That would hardly come under the head of news." (I could not understand Vance's attitude.) "We've known that fact since eleven this morning."
Bliss, too, was perplexed and, I imagine, somewhat piqued by Vance's negligent manner, for he stepped stiffly to the bed and, pointing at the headboard, remarked irritably:
"And there's the proof!"
The bed was an old Colonial piece, of polished mahogany, with a great curving headboard rising at least four feet above the mattress. It stood against the left-hand wall at a right angle to the door.
The object at which Bliss pointed with a quivering finger was an antique Egyptian dagger, about eleven inches long, whose blade was driven into the headboard just above the pillow. The direction of penetration was on a line with the door.
We all moved forward and stood for several seconds staring at the sinister sight. The dagger had undoubtedly been thrown with great force to have entered the hard mahogany wood so firmly; and it was obvious that if any one had been lying on the pillow at the time it was hurled, he would have received the full brunt of it somewhere in the throat.
Vance studied the position of the dagger, gauging its alignment and angulation with the door, and then he reached out his hand to grasp it. But Heath intercepted the movement.
"Use your handkerchief, Mr. Vance," he admonished. "There'll be fingerprints—"
"Oh, no, there won't, Sergeant." Vance spoke with an impressive air of knowledge. "Whoever threw that dagger was careful to avoid any such incriminatin' tokens. . . ." Whereupon he drew the blade, with considerable difficulty, from the headboard, and took it to the table-lamp.
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