The Canary Murder Case

by S. S. Van Dine

  “Pray continue,” urged Markham, with exaggerated politeness. His manner was jocular, but something in his tone led me to believe that he was seriously interested.

  “What is true of art is true of life,” Vance resumed placidly. “Every human action, d’ ye see, conveys unconsciously an impression either of genuineness or of spuriousness—of sincerity or calculation. For example, two men at table eat in a similar way, handle their knives and forks in the same fashion, and apparently do the identical things. Although the sensitive spectator cannot put his finger on the points of difference, he nonetheless senses at once which man’s breeding is genuine and instinctive and which man’s is imitative and self-conscious.”

  He blew a wreath of smoke toward the ceiling, and settled more deeply into his chair.

  “Now, Markham, just what are the universally recognized features of a sordid crime of robbery and murder?... Brutality, disorder, haste, ransacked drawers, cluttered desks, broken jewel-cases, rings stripped from the victim’s fingers, severed pendant chains, torn clothing, tipped-over chairs, upset lamps, broken vases, twisted draperies, strewn floors, and so forth. Such are the accepted immemorial indications—eh, what? But—consider a moment, old chap. Outside of fiction and the drama, in how many crimes do they all appear—all in perfect ordination, and without a single element to contradict the general effect? That is to say, how many actual crimes are technically perfect in their settings?... None! And why? Simply because nothing actual in this life—nothing that is spontaneous and genuine—runs to accepted form in every detail. The law of chance and fallibility invariably steps in.”

  He made a slight indicative gesture.

  “But regard this particular crime: look at it closely. What do you find? You will perceive that its mise-en-scène has been staged, and its drama enacted, down to every minute detail—like a Zola novel. It is almost mathematically perfect. And therein, d’ ye see, lies the irresistible inference of its having been carefully premeditated and planned. To use an art term, it is a tickled-up crime. Therefore, its conception was not spontaneous... And yet, don’t y’ know, I can’t point out any specific flaw; for its great flaw lies in its being flawless. And nothing flawless, my dear fellow, is natural or genuine.”

  Markham was silent for a while.

  “You deny even the remote possibility of a common thief having murdered the girl?” he asked at length; and now there was no hint of sarcasm in his voice.

  “If a common thief did it,” contended Vance, “then there’s no science of psychology, there are no philosophic truths, and there are no laws of art. If it was a genuine crime of robbery, then, by the same token, there is no difference whatever between an old master and a clever technician’s copy.”

  “You’d entirely eliminate robbery as the motive, I take it.”

  “The robbery,” Vance affirmed, “was only a manufactured detail. The fact that the crime was committed by a highly astute person indicates unquestionably that there was a far more potent motive behind it. Any man capable of so ingenious and clever a piece of deception is obviously a person of education and imagination; and he most certainly would not have run the stupendous risk of killing a woman unless he had feared some overwhelming disaster—unless, indeed, her continuing to live would have caused him greater mental anguish, and would have put him in greater jeopardy, even than the crime itself. Between two colossal dangers, he chose the murder as the lesser.”

  Markham did not speak at once; he seemed lost in reflection. But presently he turned and, fixing Vance with a dubious stare, said:

  “What about that chiselled jewel-box? A professional burglar’s jimmy wielded by an experienced hand doesn’t fit into your æsthetic hypothesis—it is, in fact, diametrically opposed to such a theory.”

  “I know it only too well.” Vance nodded slowly. “And I’ve been harried and hectored by that steel chisel ever since I beheld the evidence of its work that first morning... Markham, that chisel is the one genuine note in an otherwise spurious performance. It’s as if the real artist had come along at the moment the copyist had finished his faked picture, and painted in a single small object with the hand of a master.”

  “But doesn’t that bring us back inevitably to Skeel?”

  “Skeel—ah, yes. That’s the explanation, no doubt; but not the way you conceive it. Skeel ripped the box open—I don’t question that; but—deuce take it!—it’s the only thing he did do: it’s the only thing that was left for him to do. That’s why he got only a ring which La Belle Marguerite was not wearing that night. All her other baubles—to wit, those that adorned her—had been stripped from her and were gone.”

  “Why are you so positive on this point?”

  “The poker, man—the poker!... Don’t you see? That amateurish assault upon the jewel-case with a cast-iron coal-prodder couldn’t have been made after the case had been prized open—it would have had to be made before. And that seemingly insane attempt to break steel with cast iron was part of the stage-setting. The real culprit didn’t care if he got the case open or not. He merely wanted it to look as if he had tried to get it open; so he used the poker and then left it lying beside the dinted box.”

  “I see what you mean.” This point, I think, impressed Markham more strongly than any other Vance had raised; for the presence of the poker on the dressing-table had not been explained away either by Heath or Inspector Brenner... “Is that the reason you questioned Skeel as if he might have been present when your other visitor was there?”

  “Exactly. By the evidence of the jewel-case I knew he either was in the apartment when the bogus crime of robbery was being staged, or else had come upon the scene when it was over and the stage-director had cleared out... From his reactions to my questions I rather fancy he was present.”

  “Hiding in the closet?”

  “Yes. That would account for the closet not having been disturbed. As I see it, it wasn’t ransacked, for the simple and rather grotesque reason that the elegant Skeel was locked within. How else could that one clothes-press have escaped the rifling activities of the pseudo-burglar? He wouldn’t have omitted it deliberately, and he was far too thorough-going to have overlooked it accidentally. Then there are the finger-prints on the knob…”

  Vance lightly tapped on the arm of his chair.

  “I tell you, Markham old dear, you simply must build your conception of the crime on this hypothesis and proceed accordingly. If you don’t, each edifice you rear will come toppling about your ears.”

  Footnote

  * I sent a proof of the following paragraphs to Vance, and he edited and corrected them; so that, as they now stand, they represent his theories in practically his own words.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN Four Possibilities

  (Wednesday, September 12; evening)

  WHEN VANCE FINISHED speaking, there was a long silence. Markham, impressed by the other’s earnestness, sat in a brown study. His ideas had been shaken. The theory of Skeel’s guilt, to which he had clung from the moment of the identification of the finger-prints, had, it must be admitted, not entirely satisfied him, although he had been able to suggest no alternative. Now Vance had categorically repudiated this theory and at the same time had advanced another which, despite its indefiniteness, had nevertheless taken into account all the physical points of the case; and Markham, at first antagonistic, had found himself, almost against his will, becoming more and more sympathetic to this new point of view.

  “Damn it, Vance!” he said. “I’m not in the least convinced by your theatrical theory. And yet, I feel a curious undercurrent of plausibility in your analyses... I wonder—”

  He turned sharply, and scrutinized the other steadfastly for a moment.

  “Look here! Have you any one in mind as the protagonist of the drama you’ve outlined?”

  “’Pon my word, I haven’t the slightest notion as to who killed the lady,” Vance assured him. “But if you are ever to find the murderer, you must look for a shrewd, superior man with nerve
s of iron, who was in imminent danger of being irremediably ruined by the girl—a man of inherent cruelty and vindictiveness; a supreme egoist; a fatalist more or less; and, I’m inclined to believe, something of a madman.”

  “Mad!”

  “Oh, not a lunatic—just a madman, a perfectly normal, logical, calculating madman—same as you and I and Van here. Only, our hobbies are harmless, d’ ye see. This chap’s mania is outside your preposterously revered law. That’s why you’re after him. If his aberration were stamp-collecting, or golf, you wouldn’t give him a second thought. But his perfectly rational penchant for eliminating déclassées ladies who bothered him, fills you with horror: it’s not your hobby. Consequently, you have a hot yearning to flay him alive.”

  “I’ll admit,” said Markham coolly, “that a homicidal mania is my idea of madness.”

  “But he didn’t have a homicidal mania, Markham old thing. You miss all the fine distinctions in psychology. This man was annoyed by a certain person, and set to work, masterfully and reasonably, to do away with the source of his annoyance. And he did it with surpassin’ cleverness. To be sure, his act was a bit grisly. But when, if ever, you get your hands on him, you’ll be amazed to find how normal he is. And able, too—oh, able no end.”

  Again Markham lapsed into a long, thoughtful silence. At last he spoke.

  “The only trouble with your ingenious deductions is that they don’t accord with the known circumstances of the case. And facts, my dear Vance, are still regarded by a few of us old-fashioned lawyers as more or less conclusive.”

  “Why this needless confession of your shortcomings?” inquired Vance whimsically. Then, after a moment: “Let me have the facts which appear to you antagonistic to my deductions.”

  “Well, there are only four men of the type you describe who could have had any remote reason for murdering the Odell woman. Heath’s scouts went into her history pretty thoroughly, and for over two years—that is, since her appearance in the ‘Follies’—the only personæ gratæ at her apartment have been Mannix, Doctor Lindquist, Pop Cleaver, and, of course, Spotswoode. The Canary was a bit exclusive, it seems; and no other man got near enough to her even to be considered as a possible murderer.”

  “It appears, then, that you have a complete quartet to draw on.” Vance’s tone was apathetic. “What do you crave—a regiment?”

  “No,” answered Markham patiently. “I crave only one logical possibility. But Mannix was through with the girl over a year ago; Cleaver and Spotswoode both have water-tight alibis; and that leaves only Doctor Lindquist, whom I can’t exactly picture as a strangler and meretricious burglar, despite his irascibility. Moreover, he, too, has an alibi; and it may be a genuine one.”

  Vance wagged his head.

  “There’s something positively pathetic about the childlike faith of the legal mind.”

  “It does cling to rationality at times, doesn’t it?” observed Markham.

  “My dear fellow!” Vance rebuked him. “The presumption implied in that remark is most immodest. If you could distinguish between rationality and irrationality you wouldn’t be a lawyer—you’d be a god... No; you’re going at this thing the wrong way. The real factors in the case are not what you call the known circumstances, but the unknown quantities—the human x’s, so to speak—the personalities, or natures, of your quartet.”

  He lit a fresh cigarette, and lay back, closing his eyes.

  “Tell me what you know of these four cavalieri serventi—you say Heath has turned in his report. Who were their mamas? What do they eat for breakfast? Are they susceptible to poison ivy?... Let’s have Spotswoode’s dossier first. Do you know anything about him?”

  “In a general way,” returned Markham. “Old Puritan stock, I believe—governors, burgomasters, a few successful traders. All Yankee forebears—no intermixture. As a matter of fact, Spotswoode represents the oldest and hardiest of the New England aristocracy—although I imagine the so-called wine of the Puritans has become pretty well diluted by now. His affair with the Odell girl is hardly consonant with the older Puritans’ mortification of the flesh.”

  “It’s wholly consonant, though, with the psychological reactions which are apt to follow the inhibitions produced by such mortification,” submitted Vance. “But what does he do? Whence cometh his lucre?”

  “His father manufactured automobile accessories, made a fortune at it, and left the business to him. He tinkers at it, but not seriously, though I believe he has designed a few appurtenances.”

  “I do hope the hideous cut-glass olla for holding paper bouquets is not one of them. The man who invented that tonneau decoration is capable of any fiendish crime.”

  “It couldn’t have been Spotswoode then,” said Markham tolerantly, “for he certainly can’t qualify as your potential strangler. We know the girl was alive after he left her, and that, during the time she was murdered, he was with Judge Redfern... Even you, friend Vance, couldn’t manipulate those facts to the gentleman’s disadvantage.”

  “On that, at least, we agree,” conceded Vance. “And that’s all you know of the gentleman?”

  “I think that’s all, except that he married a well-to-do woman—a daughter of a Southern senator, I believe.”

  “Doesn’t help any... And now, let’s have Mannix’s history.”

  Markham referred to a typewritten sheet of paper.

  “Both parents immigrants—came over in the steerage. Original name Mannikiewicz, or something like that. Born on the East Side; learned the fur business in his father’s retail shop in Hester Street; worked for the Sanfrasco Cloak Company, and got to be factory foreman. Saved his money and sweetened the pot by manipulating real estate; then went into the fur business for himself, and steadily worked up to his present opulent state. Public school, and night commercial college. Married in 1900 and divorced a year later. Lives a gay life—helps support the night clubs, but never gets drunk. I suppose he comes under the head of a spender and wine-opener. Has invested some money in musical comedies, and always has a stage beauty in tow. Runs to blondes.”

  “Not very revealin’,” sighed Vance. “The city is full of Mannixes... What did you garner in connection with our bon-ton medico?”

  “The city has its quota of Doctor Lindquists, too, I fear. He was brought up in a small Middle-West bailiwick—French and Magyar extraction; took his M.D. from the Ohio State Medical, practised in Chicago—some shady business there, but never convicted; came to Albany and got in on the X-ray-machine craze; invented a breast pump and formed a stock company—made a small fortune out of it; went to Vienna for two years—”

  “Ah, the Freudian motif!”

  “—returned to New York, and opened a private sanatorium; charged outrageous prices, and thereby endeared himself to the nouveau riche. Has been at the endearing process ever since. Was defendant in a breach-of-promise suit some years ago, but the case was settled out of court. He’s not married.”

  “He wouldn’t be,” commented Vance. “Such gentry never are... Interestin’ summary, though—yes, decidedly interestin’. I’m tempted to develop a psychoneurosis and let Ambroise treat me. I do so want to know him better. And where—oh, where—was this egregious healer at the moment of our erring sister’s demise? Ah, who can tell, my Markham: who knows—who knows?”

  “In any event, I don’t think he was murdering any one.”

  “You’re so prejudicial!” said Vance. “But let us move reluctantly on.—What’s your portrait parlé of Cleaver? The fact that he’s familiarly called Pop is helpful as a starter. You simply couldn’t imagine Beethoven being called Shorty, or Bismarck being referred to as Snookums.”

  “Cleaver has been a politician all of his life—a Tammany Hall ‘regular.’ Was a ward-boss at twenty-five; ran a Democratic club of some kind in Brooklyn for a time; was an alderman for two terms, and practiced general law. Was appointed Tax Commissioner; left politics, and raised a small racing-stable. Later secured an illegal gambling concession at Saratoga
; and now operates a pool-room in Jersey City. He’s what you might call a professional sport. Loves his liquor.”

  “No marriages?”

  “None on the records.—But see here: Cleaver’s out of it. He was ticketed in Boonton that night at half past eleven.”

  “Is that, by any chance, the water-tight alibi you mentioned a moment ago?”

  “In my primitive legal way I considered it as such.” Markham resented Vance’s question. “The summons was handed him at half past eleven: it’s so marked and dated. And Boonton is fifty miles from here—a good two hours’ motor ride. Therefore, Cleaver unquestionably left New York about half past nine; and even if he’d driven directly back, he couldn’t have reached here until long after the time the Medical Examiner declared the girl was dead. As a matter of routine, I investigated the summons, and even spoke by phone to the officer who issued it. It was genuine enough—I ought to know: I had it quashed.”

  “Did this Boonton Dogberry know Cleaver by sight?”

  “No, but he gave me an accurate description of him. And naturally he took the car’s number.”

  Vance looked at Markham with open-eyed sorrow.

  “My dear Markham—my very dear Markham—can’t you see that all you’ve actually proved is that a bucolic traffic Nemesis handed a speed-violation summons to a smooth-faced, middle-aged, stout man who was driving Cleaver’s car near Boonton at half past eleven on the night of the murder?... And, my word! Isn’t that exactly the sort of alibi the old boy would arrange if he intended taking the lady’s life at midnight or thereabouts?”