The Casino Murder Case

by S. S. Van Dine

  Mrs. Llewellyn, holding her handkerchief close to her face, went out sobbing.

  Amelia Llewellyn did not go at once. She waited till the door had closed behind her mother, and then looked at Vance questioningly.

  “Why,” she asked in a dead, metallic voice, “did you ask Doctor Kane if he used a typewriter?”

  Vance took out the letter that had brought him into the affair, and handed it to her without a word. He watched her closely with half-closed eyes as she read it. A troubled frown settled over her face, but she showed no surprise. When she had come to the end she slowly and deliberately refolded the letter and handed it back to Vance.

  “Thanks,” she said, and turning, started toward the door to the passageway leading to her quarters.

  “One moment, Miss Llewellyn.” Vance’s summoning voice halted her just as she placed her hand on the knob; and she faced the room again. “Do you, too, use a typewriter?”

  The girl nodded lethargically.

  “Oh, yes. I do all of my correspondence on a small typewriter I have... However,” she added, with a faint, weary smile, “I’m much more adept than the person who typed that letter.”

  “And are the other members of the household given to using the typewriter, too?” asked Vance.

  “Yes—we’re all quite modern.” The girl spoke indifferently. “Even mother types her own lectures. And Uncle Dick, having been an author at one time, developed a rapid, but sloppy, two-fingered system.”

  “And your sister-in-law: did she use one?”

  The girl’s eyes turned toward the bed, and she winced.

  “Yes. Virginia played around with the machine when Lynn was out gambling... Lynn himself is quite proficient as a typist. He once attended a commercial school—probably thought he might be called on some time to handle the Llewellyn estate. But mother wasn’t thinking along those lines; so he turned to night-clubs instead.” (There was a curious detachment in her manner which I could not fathom at the time.)

  “That leaves only Mr. Bloodgood—” Vance began; but the girl quickly interrupted him.

  “He types, also.” Her eyes darkened somewhat, and I felt that her attitude toward Bloodgood was not altogether a friendly one. “He typed most of his reports of that slot-machine affair he was connected with on our typewriter downstairs.”

  Vance raised his eyebrows slightly in mild interest.

  “There is a typewriter downstairs?”

  Again the girl nodded, and shrugged as if the matter was of no interest to her.

  “There always has been one there—in the little library off the drawing-room.”

  “Do you think,” asked Vance, “that the letter I showed you was typed on that machine?”

  “It might have been.” The girl sighed. “It’s the same kind of type and the same color ribbon... But there are so many like it.”

  “And perhaps,” Vance pursued, “you could suggest who is the author of the communication.”

  Amelia Llewelyn’s face clouded, and the hard look returned to her eyes.

  “I could make several suggestions,” she said in a dull angry tone. “But I have no intention of doing anything of the kind.” And opening the door with decisive swiftness, she went from the room.

  “You learned a hell of a lot!” snorted Heath with ponderous sarcasm. “This house is just a bunch of stenographers.”

  Vance regarded the Sergeant indulgently.

  “I learned a good deal, don’t y’know.”

  Heath shifted the cigar between his teeth and made a grimace.

  “Maybe yes and maybe no,” he rumbled. “The case is cock-eyed anyway, if you ask me.—Llewellyn getting poisoned at the Casino, and his wife having it handed to her here at the same time. Looks to me as if there was a gang at work.”

  “The same person could have accomplished both acts, Sergeant,” Vance returned mildly. “In fact, I feel sure it was the same person. Furthermore, I think it was that person who sent me the letter... Just a minute.”

  He walked to the night-stand, and, moving the telephone aside, picked up a small folded piece of paper.

  “I saw this when I called the hospital,” he explained. “But I purposely didn’t look at it till the ladies should have left us.”

  He unfolded the paper and held it under the night-light on the table. From where I stood I could see that it was a single sheet of pale-blue note-paper, and that there was typing on it.

  “Oh, my aunt!” Vance murmured, as he read it. “Amazin’!...”

  At length he handed the paper to Markham, who held it so that Heath and I, who were standing at his side, could see it. It was an inexpertly typed note, and ran:

  Dear Lynn—I cannot make you happy, and God knows, no one in this house has ever tried to make me happy. Uncle Dick is the only person here who has ever been civil or considerate toward me. I am not wanted here and am utterly miserable. I am going to poison myself.

  Good-by—and may your new roulette system bring you the fortune that you seem to want more than you want anything else.

  The signature, “Virginia,” was also typewritten.

  Markham folded the note and pursed his lips. He looked at Vance for a long time; then he remarked:

  “That seems to simplify matters.”

  “Oh, my dear fellow!” Vance protested. “That note merely complicates the situation abominably.”

  Footnote

  * Doctor Emanuel Doremus, the Chief Medical Examiner of New York.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Poison!

  (Sunday, October 16; 2.15 a.m.)

  AT THAT MOMENT Sullivan opened the door and admitted Doctor Doremus, a slight jaunty person with a businesslike, peppery air. He wore a tweed top-coat, and the brim of his pearl-gray felt hat was turned down rakishly on one side.

  He greeted us with dramatic consternation, and then cocked an eye flippantly at Sergeant Heath.

  “When you don’t call me to see your corpses at meal time,” he complained with falsetto ill-nature, “you wait till I’m sound asleep and then rout me out. No system...no system. It’s a conspiracy to rob me of food and rest. I’ve aged twenty years since I took this job three years ago.”

  “You look young and snappy enough,” grinned Heath. (He had long since become accustomed to the Medical Examiner’s grousing.)

  “Well, it’s through no kindly consideration on the part of you babies in the Homicide Bureau, by Gad!” Doremus snapped. “Where’s the body?” His eyes shot round the room and came to rest on the still figure of Virginia Llewellyn. “A lady, eh? What did she die of?”

  “You tell us.” Heath had suddenly become aggressive.

  Doremus grunted; then, removing his hat and coat, he put them on a chair and approached the bed. For ten minutes he was examining the dead girl, and, once again, I was impressed by his competency and thoroughness. For all his nonchalant mannerisms and cynical attitude, he was a shrewd and efficient physician—one of the best and most conscientious medical examiners New York has ever had.

  While Doremus was busy with his gruesome task Vance made a brief inspection of the room. He went first to the night-table on which stood a small silver water-service similar to the one in Kinkaid’s office at the Casino. He picked up the two glasses and looked at them: they both seemed to be dry. He then took the stopper from the carafe, and inverted the bottle over one of the glasses. It was empty. Vance frowned as he set it back on the tray. After inspecting the interior of the little drawer in the table, he walked toward the bathroom door, which was half open, at the rear of the room.

  As he passed Markham he commented in a low voice:

  “The general service tonight has been abominable. Kinkaid’s water carafe was empty; and so is the Lynn Llewellyns’. Queer, don’t y’ know... Incidentally, the drawer in that table by the bed contains only a handkerchief, a pack of cards—for solitaire, no doubt,—a pencil and pad, a stick of lip pomade, and a pair of reading glasses... Nothing lethal, as it were.”

  I followe
d Vance into the bathroom, for I knew that he had something definite in mind when he began his tour of inspection:—this fact was clearly indicated by his casual and lazy manner, which he invariably assumed in moments of highest tension.

  The bathroom was quite a large one, thoroughly modernized, and had two small windows facing on the south court. The room was neatly arranged and everything was in order. Vance, after switching on the light, glanced about him searchingly. There was a small atomizer and a tube of bath tablets on one of the window sills.

  Vance pressed the bulb of the atomizer and sniffed at the spray.

  “Derline’s Fleur-de-lis, Van,” he remarked. “Ideal for blondes.” He read the label on the tube of bath tablets. “Also Derline’s Fleur-de-lis. Quite consistent and correct. Alas, too many women make the fatal error of contrasting their bath perfume with their personal scent...”

  He opened the door of the medicine cabinet and looked inside. It contained only the usual items: cleansing creams and skin food, a bottle of hand lotion, toilet water, talcum and bath powders, a deodorant, a tube of tooth paste, dental floss, a thermometer, and the conventional array of medicinal preparations—iodin, aspirin, sodium bicarbonate, camphor, Dobell’s solution, yellow throat mixture, glycerin, argyrol, aromatic spirits of ammonia, benzoin, milk of magnesia, bromide tablets, a standard eye-wash with its cup-shaped stopper, medicated alcohol, and so forth.

  Vance spent considerable time scrutinizing each item. At length he took down a small brown bottle with a printed label, and, carefully adjusting his monocle, read the fine type of the formula. Then he slipped the bottle into his pocket, closed the cabinet door, and turned back into the bedroom.

  Doctor Doremus was just putting the sheet back over the still form on the bed. He turned toward Heath with simulated truculence.

  “Well, what about it?” he demanded irritably, spreading his hands in a gesture of inquiry. “She’s dead—if that’s what you want to know. And I have to be dragged out of the blankets at two in the morning to tell you that!”

  Heath took his cigar slowly from between his teeth and glowered at the Medical Examiner.

  “All right, doc,” he said. “She’s dead, says you. But how long has she been that way, and what killed her?”

  “I knew that was coming,” sighed Doremus, and then became professionally serious. “Well, Sergeant, she’s been dead about two hours; and she was poisoned... Now, I suppose you’ll want me to tell you where she got the poison.” And he leered at Heath.

  Vance stepped between the two men.

  “A doctor who was called in,” he said gravely to Doremus, “suggested that she might have died from one of the poisons in the belladonna group.”

  “Any third-year medical student would know that,” Doremus returned. “Sure, it’s belladonna poisoning... Was this saw-bones here in time to catch her post-mortem rise in temperature?”

  Vance nodded.

  “He was here within ten minutes of her death.”

  “Well, there you are.” Doremus put on his coat and carefully adjusted his hat on the side of his head. “All the indications: staring eyes, widely dilated pupils, pin-point rash, a jump in temperature, signs of convulsions and asphyxia... Simple.”

  “Yes, yes—quite.” Vance drew forth the bottle he had taken from the bathroom cabinet, and handed it to the Medical Examiner. “Could these tablets have been the cause of death?” he asked.

  Doremus looked closely at the label and the printed formula.

  “Regulation rhinitis tablets—household-remedy stuff.” He held the bottle under the table light and squinted at it. “Powdered camphor,” he read aloud; “fluid extract of bella-donna root, a quarter minim; and quinin sulphate... Certainly this could have done it—if enough of ’em were taken.”

  “The bottle’s empty; and it contained a hundred tablets originally,” Vance pointed out.

  Doctor Doremus, still scrutinizing the label, nodded his head.

  “A hundred times one-quarter of a minim would be twenty-five minims... Enough belladonna to knock anybody cold.” He handed the bottle back to Vance. “That’s the answer. Why get me up in the middle of the night when you had all the dope?”

  “Really, doctor,” returned Vance quietly, “we’re merely probin’ around. I just found this empty bottle, d’ ye see, and thought I’d advance it as a possibility.”

  “Looks all right to me.” Doremus went to the door. “Only a post mortem’ll answer your questions definitely.”

  Markham spoke up brusquely.

  “That’s just what we want, doctor. When is the soonest we can have the autopsy report?”

  “Oh, Lord!” Doremus set his teeth. “And tomorrow’s Sunday. This modern speed will kill me yet... How would eleven o’clock tomorrow morning do?”

  “That would be eminently satisfactory,” Markham told him.

  Doctor Doremus took a small pad from his pocket, and, writing something on it, tore off the top sheet and handed it to the Sergeant.

  “Here’s your order for the removal of the body.”

  The Sergeant pocketed the slip of paper.

  “The body’ll be at the morgue before you are,” he mumbled.

  “That’s bully.” Doremus gave Heath a vicious leer and opened the door. “And now I’m going back to sleep. You can have a massacre tonight if you want to, but you won’t see me again till nine a.m.” He waved his hand in a farewell gesture which included us all, and went swiftly out.

  When the Medical Examiner had slammed the door behind him, Markham turned to Vance gravely.

  “Where’d you find that bottle, Vance?”

  “In yon’ lavatorium. It was the only thing I saw there that seemed to have any possibilities.”

  “Taken in connection with that suicide note you found,” observed Markham, “it would seem to furnish a simple explanation of this terrible affair.”

  Vance regarded Markham thoughtfully for several moments; then, after a long inhalation on his cigarette, he walked the length of the room and back, his head bowed in contemplation.

  “I’m not so sure, Markham,” he murmured, almost as if to himself. “I’ll grant you that it’s a specious solution of the death of this girl on the bed. But what of that poor johnnie in the hospital? It wasn’t belladonna that hit him; and there certainly wasn’t any suicidal urge in his mind. He was playing to win tonight; and his silly system was apparently working out. Yet, in the midst of it he fades out... No, no. The empty bottle of rhinitis tablets is too simple. And this affair is not simple at all. It’s filled with shadows and false scents: it has hidden subtleties and convolutions...”

  “After all, you found the bottle—” began Markham. But Vance interrupted him.

  “That may have been arranged for us. It fits too snugly into the pattern. We’ll know more—or less—tomorrow morning when Doremus has turned in his report.”

  Markham was annoyed.

  “Why try to concoct mysteries?”

  “My dear Markham!” Vance reproached him, and stood for several minutes apparently absorbed in one of the eighteenth-century prints hanging over the mantel.

  Heath, in the meantime, had been telephoning to the Department of Public Welfare for a wagon to take the body away. When he had completed the call he spoke to Lieutenant Smalley of the local precinct station, who had watched the proceedings silently from a corner of the room.

  “There’s nothing more, Lieutenant. Mr. Markham’s here, and there’s only routine stuff till Doc Doremus makes the autopsy. But you might leave a couple of your men on the job outside.”

  “Anything you want, Sergeant.” Lieutenant Smalley shook hands all round, and went out with an air of obvious relief.

  “I think we can go, too,” Markham said. “You’re in charge, of course, Sergeant—I’ll arrange it with the Inspector the first thing in the morning.”

  “I say, Markham,” Vance put in, “let’s not dash precipitately away. I could bear to know a few facts, and as long as we’re here ton
ight...”

  “What, for instance, do you want to know?” Markham was impatient.

  Vance turned away from the print, and gazed sadly at the dead girl.

  “I’d like a few more words with Doctor Kane before we drift out into the chillin’ mist.”

  Markham made a wry face, but finally nodded in reluctant assent.

  “He’s downstairs.” And he led the way out into the hall.

  Doctor Kane was pacing nervously up and down when we entered the drawing-room.

  “What’s the report?” he asked before Vance had time to speak.

  “The Medical Examiner merely corroborated your own diagnosis, doctor,” Vance told him. “The post mortem will be performed the first thing in the morning... By the by, doctor, are you the Llewellyns’ family physician?”

  “I can hardly say that,” the other answered. “I doubt if they have any one attend them regularly. They don’t require much medical supervision; they’re a very healthy family. I do prescribe occasionally, though, for minor ailments—but as a friend rather than professionally.”

  “And have you done any prescribing for any of them lately?” asked Vance.

  Kane took a moment to think.

  “Nothing of any consequence,” he answered at length. “I suggested a tonic of iron—Blaud’s Mass—and strychnin for Miss Llewellyn a few days ago—”

  “Has Lynn Llewellyn any constitutional ailment,” interrupted Vance, “that would cause him to collapse under keen excitement?”

  “No-o. He has a hypertrophied heart, with the attendant increased blood-pressure—the result of athletics in college—”

  “Angina?”

  Kane shook his head.

  “Nothing as serious as that—though his condition may develop into that some day.”

  “Ever prescribe for him?”

  “A year or so ago I gave him a prescription for some nitroglycerin tablets—a two-hundredth of a grain. But that’s all.”

  “Nitroglycerin—eh, what?” A flash of interest animated Vance’s smouldering eyes. “That’s most revealin’... And his wife: were you ever called upon in her behalf?”