The Casino Murder Case
Page 19
Markham took a deep audible breath and rose vigorously to his feet. His shoulders were squared defiantly, and not for a moment did his steady, aggressive gaze falter.
“You’re only a policeman at heart,” Llewellyn said. “I think I’ll shoot you in the back. Turn around.”
Markham did not move.
“Not for you, Llewellyn,” he returned calmly. “I’ll take anything you’ve got to give me facing you.”
As he spoke I heard a curious unfamiliar sliding noise at the other end of the little office, and I instinctively glanced in that direction. A startling sight met my eyes. One of the wide wooden panels in the opposite wall had apparently disappeared and in the opening stood Kinkaid, a large blue automatic in his hand. He was leaning slightly forward; and he held the gun at his hip pointed directly at Llewellyn.
Llewellyn also had heard the noise, for he turned partly and glanced suspiciously over his shoulder. Then there were two resounding explosions. But this time they came from Kinkaid’s gun. Llewellyn stopped short in mid-movement. His eyes opened in glazed astonishment, and the revolver he held fell from his fingers. He stood as if frozen for perhaps two full seconds. Then all his muscles seemed to go limp: his head drooped, and he crumpled to the floor. Realizing what had happened, both Markham and I were too stunned to move or speak.
In the brief, terrible silence that followed, a startling and extraordinary thing happened. For a moment I felt as though I were witnessing some strange and uncanny bit of magic: a fantastic miracle seemed to be taking place. My fascinated gaze had followed Llewellyn’s collapse, and my eyes had shifted to the still form of Vance. And then Vance moved and rose leisurely to his feet. Removing the handkerchief from his breast pocket, he began dusting himself.
“Thanks awfully, Kinkaid,” he drawled. “You’ve saved us a beastly lot of trouble. I heard your car drive up and tried to hold the johnnie off till you got upstairs. I was hopin’ you’d hear the shots and would take a pop at him yourself. That’s why I let him think he had killed me.”
Kinkaid narrowed his eyes angrily. Then his expression changed, and he laughed gruffly.
“You wanted me to shoot him, did you? That’s all right with me. Glad of the opportunity... Sorry I didn’t get here sooner. But the train was a little late, and my taxi was held up in traffic.”
“Pray don’t apologize,” said Vance. “You arrived at exactly the right moment.” He knelt down beside Llewellyn and ran his hand over the body. “He’s quite dead. You got him through the heart. You’re an excellent shot, Kinkaid.”
“I always was,” the other returned dryly.
Markham was still standing like a man in a daze. His face was pale, and there were large globules of perspiration on his forehead. He managed now to speak.
“You’re—you’re sure you’re all right, Vance?”
“Oh, quite.” Vance smiled. “Never better. I’ll have to die some time, alas! But, really, I wouldn’t let a pathological degenerate like Llewellyn choose the time for my demise.” His eyes turned to Markham contritely. “I’m deuced sorry to have caused you and Van all this agitation. But I had to get Llewellyn’s confession on the records. We didn’t have any overwhelming evidence against him, don’t y’ know.”
“But—but—” Markham stammered, still apparently unable to accept the astonishing situation.
“Oh, Llewellyn’s revolver had nothing but blank cartridges in it.” Vance explained. “I saw to that this morning when I visited the Llewellyn domicile.”
“You knew what he was going to do?” Markham looked at Vance incredulously and rubbed his handkerchief vigorously over his face.
“I suspected it,” said Vance, lighting a cigarette.
Markham sank back into his chair, like an exhausted man.
“I’ll get some brandy,” Kinkaid announced. “We can all stand a drink.” And he went out through the door which led to the bar.
Markham’s eyes were still on Vance, but they had lost their startled look.
“What did you mean just now,” he asked, “when you said you had to get Llewellyn’s confession on the records?”
“Just that,” Vance returned. “And that reminds me. I’d better disconnect the dictaphone now.”
He went to a small picture hanging over Kinkaid’s desk and took it down, revealing a small metal disk.
“That’s all, boys,” he said, apparently addressing the wall. Then he severed the two wires attached to the disk.
“You see, Markham,” he elucidated, “when you told me this morning of the supposed telephone call from Kinkaid I couldn’t understand it. But it soon came to me that it was not Kinkaid at all who had phoned, but Llewellyn. It was from Llewellyn that I was expecting some move, after the remarks I had poured indirectly into his ear last night. I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting anything quite as forthright and final as this little act: that’s why I was puzzled at first. But once the idea dawned on me, I could see that it was both a logical and subtle move. Premise: you and I were in the way. Conclusion: you and I would have to be put out of the way. And, inasmuch as we were being lured to the Casino, it was not particularly difficult to follow Llewellyn’s syllogism. I was pretty sure he had actually gone to Atlantic City to make the telephone call—it’s difficult, don’t y’ know, to simulate a long-distance call from a local station. Therefore, I knew I had several hours in which to make arrangements. I called Kinkaid at Atlantic City at once, told him all the circumstances, and asked him to come immediately to New York. I also found out from him how I could get into the Casino to install a dictaphone. That’s why I called on the doughty Sergeant. He and some of the boys from the Homicide Bureau and a stenographer are in an apartment of the house next door, and have taken down everything that has been said here this afternoon.”
He sat down in a chair facing Markham and drew deeply on his cigarette.
“I’ll admit,” he went on, “that I wasn’t quite sure what method Llewellyn would use to put us out of his way and throw suspicion on his loving uncle. So I warned you and Van not to drink anything,—there was, of course, the possibility that he would use poison again. But I thought that he might use his revolver; and so I purchased a box of blanks, went to his home this morning on a perfectly silly pretext, and when I was alone in his bedroom I substituted the blanks for the cartridges in his revolver. There was the chance that he would have noticed this substitution if he examined the gun from the front; but I saw that the blanks were in place before I took my seat beside you a while ago. Otherwise I would have practised a bit of jiu-jitsu on the johnnie immediately...”
Kinkaid reentered the office with a bottle of brandy and four glasses. Setting the tray on his desk, he filled the glasses and waved his hand toward them, inviting us to help ourselves.
“Shall I, Vance?” Markham asked, with a grim smile. “You told us not to drink anything here.”
“It’s quite all right now.” Vance sipped his Courvoisier. “From the very first I have regarded Mr. Kinkaid as our most valuable ally.”
“The hell you say!” Kinkaid grumbled good-naturedly. “After all you put me through!”
At this moment there came to us the sound of a slamming door, followed by heavy, hurrying footsteps on the stairs. Kinkaid stepped to the office door leading into the Gold Room, and opened it. On the threshold stood Heath, a Colt revolver in his hand. Behind him, crowding forward, were Snitkin, Hennessey and Burke. Heath’s eyes, fixed on Vance, were wide in childlike amazement.
“You’re not dead!” he almost shouted.
“Far from it, Sergeant,” Vance returned. “But please put away that gun. Let’s not have any more shootin’ today.”
Heath’s hand dropped to his side, but his astonished eyes did not leave Vance’s face.
“I know, Mr. Vance,” he said, “you told me that I wasn’t to get upset at anything I heard over the dictaphone, and to stay on the job till you gave me the sign-off. But when I heard what that baby said, and then the shots and you falling, I beat it right ov
er.”
“It was sweet of you,” returned Vance. “But unnecess’ry.” He waved his hand toward the limp figure of Lynn Llewellyn. “There’s the chappie. No trouble. Shot through the heart. Quite dead. You’ll have to get him to the morgue, of course. But that’ll be that. Everything worked out beautifully. No pother. No trial. No jury. Justice triumphant nevertheless. Life goes on. But why?”
I doubt if Heath heard anything Vance said. He continued to stare open-mouthed.
“You’re sure—you’re not hurt?” The words seemed to come from his lips in an automatic expression of his apprehension.
Vance set down his cognac glass and, going to Heath, put his hand affectionately on the other’s shoulder.
“Quite sure,” he said softly. Then he wagged his head in mock commiseration. “Frightfully sorry to disappoint you, Sergeant.”
The murder of Virginia Llewellyn, as you perhaps remember, occupied the front pages of the country’s press for several days, but it soon gave way to other scandals. Most of the major facts of the case became public property. But not all of them. Kinkaid was, of course, exonerated for the shooting of Lynn Llewellyn: Markham saw to it that the affair was not even brought before the Grand Jury.
The Casino was permanently closed within a year, and the beautiful old gray-stone house was torn down to make way for the construction of a modern skyscraper. By that time Kinkaid had amassed a small fortune; and the manufacture of heavy water has occupied him ever since.
Mrs. Llewellyn recovered from the shock of her son’s death in far shorter time than I had thought possible. She threw herself more energetically than ever into social-welfare work, and I see her name frequently in the papers in connection with her philanthropic activities. Bloodgood and Amelia Llewellyn were married the week after Kinkaid had closed the doors of the Casino for all time, and they are now living in Paris. (Mrs. Bloodgood, incidentally, has given up her artistic career.) I met Doctor Kane on Park Avenue recently. He had an air of great importance, and informed me he was rushing to his office to give a woman patient a diathermic treatment.
For more of S. S. Van Dine’s “Philo Vance” series and other “Vintage” titles from Felony & Mayhem Press, including the “Inspector Alleyn” series by Ngaio Marsh, and the “Henry Gamadge” series by Elizabeth Daly, please visit our website:
FelonyAndMayhem.com
All the characters and events in this work are fictitious.
THE CASINO MURDER CASE
A Felony & Mayhem “Vintage” mystery
PUBLISHING HISTORY
First print edition (Scribner’s): 1934
Felony & Mayhem print and digital editions: 2020
Copyright © 1934 by Charles Scribner’s Sons
Copyright renewed 1954 by Claire R. Wright
All rights reserved
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63194-211-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Van Dine, S. S., author.
Title: The casino murder case / S.S. Van Dine.
Description: Felony & Mayhem edition. | New York : Felony & Mayhem Press, 2020. | Series: Philo Vance; 8 | “A Felony & Mayhem mystery.” | Summary: “Philo Vance investigates a murder at a private, family-operated casino on Manhattan’s Upper West Side”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019045212 | ISBN 9781631942037 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781631942112 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Vance, Philo (Fictitious character)--Fiction. | Private investigators--New York (State)--New York--Fiction. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction
Classification: LCC PS3545.R846 C3 2020 | DDC 813/.52--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019045212