The Greene Murder Case/Chapter 13
(November 28 and November 30)
The following Sunday evening, November 28, Markham invited Inspector Moran and Heath to the Stuyvesant Club for an informal conference. Vance and I had dined with him and were present when the two police officials arrived. We retired to Markham's favorite corner of the club's lounge-room; and soon a general discussion of the Greene murders was under way.
"I'm rather amazed," said the Inspector, his voice even quieter than usual, "that nothing has turned up to focus the inquiry. In the average murder case there are numerous lines to be explored, even if the right one is not hit upon immediately. But in this affair there appears to be nothing whatever on which to concentrate."
"That fact in itself, I should say," rejoined Vance, "constitutes a distinguishing characteristic of the case which shouldn't be overlooked, don't y' know. It's a clew of vital importance, and if only we could probe its significance I think we'd be on our way toward a solution."
"A fine clew that is!" grumbled Heath. "'What clew have you got, Sergeant?' asks the Inspector. 'Oh, a bully clew,' says I. 'And what is it?' asks the Inspector. 'The fact that there ain't nothing to go on!' says I."
Vance smiled.
"You're so literal, Sergeant! What I was endeavoring to express, in my purely laic capacity, was this: when there are no clews in a case—no points de départ, no tell-tale indications—one is justified in regarding everything as a clew—or, rather, as a factor in the puzzle. To be sure, the great difficulty lies in fitting together these apparently inconsequential pieces. I rather think we've at least a hundred clews in our possession; but none of them has any meaning so long as it's unrelated to the others. This affair is like one of those silly word-puzzles where all the letters are redistributed into a meaningless jumble. The task for the solver is to rearrange them into an intelligible word or sentence."
"Could you name just eight or ten of those hundred clews for me?" Heath requested ironically. "I sure would like to get busy on something definite."
"You know 'em all, Sergeant." Vance refused to fall in with the other's bantering manner. "I'd say that practically everything that has happened since the first alarm reached you might be regarded as a clew."
"Sure!" The Sergeant had lapsed again into sullen gloom. "The footprints, the disappearance of the revolver, that noise Rex heard in the hall. But we've run all those leads up against a blank wall."
"Oh, those things!" Vance sent a ribbon of blue smoke upward. "Yes, they're clews of a kind. But I was referring more specifically to the conditions existing at the Greene mansion—the organisms of the environment there—the psychological elements of the situation."
"Don't get off again on your metaphysical theories and esoteric hypotheses," Markham interjected tartly. "We've either got to find a practical modus operandi, or admit ourselves beaten."
"But, Markham old man, you're beaten on the face of it unless you can put your chaotic facts into some kind of order. And the only way you'll be able to do that is by a process of prayerful analysis."
"You give me some facts that've got some sense to 'em," challenged Heath, "and I'll put 'em together soon enough."
"The Sergeant's right," was Markham's comment. "You'll admit that as yet we haven't any significant facts to work with."
"Oh, there'll be more."
Inspector Moran sat up, and his eyes narrowed.
"What do you mean by that, Mr. Vance?" It was obvious that the remark had struck some chord of agreement in him.
"The thing isn't over yet." Vance spoke with unwonted sombreness. "The picture's unfinished. There's more tragedy to come before the monstrous canvas is rounded out. And the hideous thing about it is that there's no way of stopping it. Nothing now can halt the horror that's at work. It's got to go on."
"You feel that, too!" The Inspector's voice was off its normal pitch. "By God! This is the first case I've ever had that frightened me."
"Don't forget, sir," argued Heath, but without conviction, "that we got men watching the house day and night."
"There's no security in that, Sergeant," asserted Vance. "The killer is already in the house. He's part of the deadly atmosphere of the place. He's been there for years, nourished by the toxins that seep from the very stones of the walls."
Heath looked up.
"A member of the family? You said that once before."
"Not necessarily. But some one who has been tainted by the perverted situation that grew out of old Tobias's patriarchal ideas."
"We might manage to put some one in the house to keep an eye on things," suggested the Inspector. "Or, there's a possibility of prevailing upon the members of the family to separate and move to other quarters."
Vance shook his head slowly.
"A spy in the house would be useless. Isn't every one there a spy now, watching all the others, and watching them with fear and suspicion? And as for dispersing the family: not only would you find old Mrs. Greene, who holds the purse-strings, an adamantine obstacle, but you'd meet all manner of legal complications as a result of Tobias's will. No one gets a dollar, I understand, who doesn't remain in the mansion until the worms have ravaged his carcass for a full quarter of a century. And even if you succeeded in scattering the remnants of the Greene line, and locked up the house, you wouldn't have stamped out the killer. And there'll be no end of this thing until a purifying stake has been driven through his heart."
"Are you going in now for vampirism, Vance?" The case had exacerbated Markham's nerves. "Shall we draw an enchanted ring around the house and hang garlic on the door?"
Markham's extravagant comment of harassed discouragement seemed to express the hopeless state of mind of all of us, and there was a long silence. It was Heath who first came back to a practical consideration of the matter in hand.
"You spoke, Mr. Vance, about old man Greene's will. And I've been thinking that, if we knew all the terms of that will, we might find something to help us. There's millions in the estate, all of it left, I hear, to the old lady. What I'd like to know is, has she a full right to dispose of it any way she likes? And I'd also like to know what kind of a will the old lady herself has made. With all that money at stake, we might get on to a motive of some kind."
"Quite—quite!" Vance looked at Heath with undisguised admiration. "That's the most sensible suggestion that's been made thus far. I salute you, Sergeant. Yes, old Tobias's money may have some bearing on the case. Not a direct bearing, perhaps; but the influence of that money—the subterranean power it exerts—is undoubtedly tangled up in these crimes.—How about it, Markham? How does one go about finding out about other people's wills?"
Markham pondered the point.
"I don't believe there'd be any great difficulty in the present instance. Tobias Greene's will is a matter of record, of course, though it might take some little time to look it up in the Surrogate's files; and I happen to know old Buckway, the senior partner of Buckway & Aldine, the Greene solicitors. I see him here at the club occasionally, and I've done one or two small favors for him. I think I could induce him to tell me confidentially the terms of Mrs. Greene's will. I'll see what can be done to-morrow."
Half an hour later the conference broke up and we went home.
"I fear those wills are not going to help much," Vance remarked, as he sipped his high-ball before the fire late that night. "Like everything else in this harrowin' case, they'll possess some significance that can't be grasped until they're fitted into the final picture."
He rose and, going to the book-shelves, took down a small volume.
"And now I think I'll erase the Greenes from my mind pro tempore, and dip into the 'Satyricon.' The fusty historians pother frightfully about the reasons for the fall of Rome, whereas the eternal answer is contained in Petronius's imperishable classic of that city's decadence."
He settled himself and turned the pages of his book. But there was no concentration in his attitude, and his eyes wandered constantly from the text.
Two days later—on Tuesday, November 30—Markham telephoned Vance shortly after ten o'clock in the morning, and asked him to come at once to the office. Vance was preparing to attend an exhibition of negro sculpture at the Modern Gallery,[1] but this indulgence was postponed in view of the District Attorney's urgent call; and in less than half an hour we were at the Criminal Courts Building.
"Ada Greene called up this morning, and asked to see me without delay," explained Markham. "I offered to send Heath out and, if necessary, to come myself later on. But she seemed particularly anxious that I shouldn't do that, and insisted on coming here: said it was a matter she could speak of more freely away from the house. She seemed somewhat upset, so I told her to come ahead. Then I phoned you and notified Heath."
Vance settled himself and lit a cigarette.
"I don't wonder she'd grasp at any chance to shake the atmosphere of her surroundings. And, Markham, I've come to the conclusion that girl knows something that would be highly valuable to our inquiry. It's quite possible, don't y' know, that she's now reached a point where she'll tell us what's on her mind."
As he spoke the Sergeant was announced, and Markham briefly explained the situation to him.
"It looks to me," said Heath gloomily, but with interest, "like it was our only chance of getting a lead. We haven't learned anything ourselves that's worth a damn, and unless somebody spills a few suggestions we're up against it."
Ten minutes later Ada Greene was ushered into the office. Though her pallor had gone and her arm was no longer in a sling, she still gave one the impression of weakness. But there was none of the tremulousness or shrinking in her bearing that had heretofore characterized her.
She sat down before Markham's desk, and for a while frowned up at the sunlight, as if debating how to begin.
"It's about Rex, Mr. Markham," she said finally. "I really don't know whether I should have come here or not—it may be very disloyal of me. . . ." She gave him a look of appealing indecision. "Oh, tell me: if a person knows something—something bad and dangerous—about some one very close and very dear, should that person tell, when it might make terrible trouble?"
"That all depends," Markham answered gravely. "In the present circumstances, if you know anything that might be helpful to a solution of the murder of your brother and sister, it's your duty to speak."
"Even if the thing were told me in confidence?" she persisted. "And the person were a member of my family?"
"Even under those conditions, I think." Markham spoke paternally. "Two terrible crimes have been committed, and nothing should be held back that might bring the murderer to justice—whoever he may be."
The girl averted her troubled face for a moment. Then she lifted her head with sudden resolution.
"I'll tell you. . . . You know you asked Rex about the shot in my room, and he told you he didn't hear it. Well, he confided in me, Mr. Markham; and he did hear the shot. But he was afraid to admit it lest you might think it funny he didn't get up and give the alarm."
"Why do you think he remained in bed silent, and pretended to every one he was asleep?" Markham attempted to suppress the keen interest the girl's information had roused in him.
"That's what I don't understand. He wouldn't tell me. But he had some reason—I know he did!—some reason that terrified him. I begged him to tell me, but the only explanation he gave was that the shot was not all he heard. . . ."
"Not all!" Markham spoke with ill-concealed excitement. "He heard something else that, you say, terrified him? But why shouldn't he have told us about it?"
"That's the strange part of it. He got angry when I asked him. But there's something he knows—some awful secret; I feel sure of it. . . . Oh, maybe I shouldn't have told you. Maybe it will get Rex into trouble. But I felt that you ought to know because of the frightful things that have happened. I thought perhaps you could talk to Rex and make him tell you what's on his mind."
Again she looked beseechingly at Markham, and there was the anxiety of a vague fear in her eyes.
"Oh, I do wish you'd ask him—and try to find out," she went on, in a pleading tone. "I'd feel—safer if—if . . ."
Markham nodded and patted her hand.
"We'll try to make him talk."
"But don't try at the house," she said quickly. "There are people—things—around; and Rex would be too frightened. Ask him to come here, Mr. Markham. Get him away from that awful place, where he can talk without being afraid that some one's listening. Rex is home now. Ask him to come here. Tell him I'm here, too. Maybe I can help you reason with him. . . . Oh, do this for me, Mr. Markham!"
Markham glanced at the clock and ran his eye over his appointment-pad. He was, I knew, as anxious as Ada to have Rex on the carpet for a questioning; and, after a momentary hesitation, he picked up the telephone-receiver and had Swacker put him through to the Greene mansion. From what I heard of the conversation that ensued, it was plain that he experienced considerable difficulty in urging Rex to come to the office, for he had to resort to a veiled threat of summary legal action before he finally succeeded.
"He evidently fears some trap," commented Markham thoughtfully, replacing the receiver. "But he has promised to get dressed immediately and come."
A look of relief passed over the girl's face.
"There's one other thing I ought to tell you," she said hurriedly; "though it may not mean anything. The other night, in the rear of the lower hall by the stairs, I picked up a piece of paper—like a leaf torn from a note-book. And there was a drawing on it of all our bedrooms up-stairs with four little crosses marked in ink—one at Julia's room, one at Chester's, one at Rex's, and one at mine. And down in the corner were several of the queerest signs, or pictures. One was a heart with three nails in it; and one looked like a parrot. Then there was a picture of what seemed to be three little stones with a line under them. . . ."
Heath suddenly jerked himself forward, his cigar half-way to his lips.
"A parrot, and three stones! . . . And say, Miss Greene, was there an arrow with numbers on it?"
"Yes!" she answered eagerly. "That was there, too."
Heath put his cigar in his mouth and chewed on it with vicious satisfaction.
"That means something, Mr. Markham," he proclaimed, trying to keep the agitation out of his voice. "Those are all symbols—graphic signs, they're called—of Continental crooks, German or Austrian mostly."
"The stones, I happen to know," put in Vance, "represent the idea of the martyrdom of Saint Stephen, who was stoned to death. They're the emblem of Saint Stephen, according to the calendar of the Styrian peasantry."
"I don't know anything about that, sir," answered Heath. "But I know that European crooks use those signs."
"Oh, doubtless. I ran across a number of 'em when I was looking up the emblematic language of the gypsies. A fascinatin' study." Vance seemed uninterested in Ada's discovery.
"Have you this paper with you, Miss Greene?" asked Markham.
The girl was embarrassed and shook her head.
"I'm so sorry," she apologized. "I didn't think it was important. Should I have brought it?"
"Did you destroy it?" Heath put the question excitedly.
"Oh, I have it safely. I put it away. . . ."
"We gotta have that paper, Mr. Markham." The Sergeant had risen and come toward the District Attorney's desk. "It may be just the lead we're looking for."
"If you really want it so badly," said Ada, "I can phone Rex to bring it with him. He'll know where to find it if I explain."
"Right! That'll save me a trip." Heath nodded to Markham. "Try to catch him before he leaves, sir."
Taking up the telephone, Markham again directed Swacker to get Rex on the wire. After a brief delay the connection was made and he handed the instrument to Ada.
"Hello, Rex dear," she said. "Don't scold me, for there's nothing to worry about. . . . What I wanted of you is this:—in our private mail-box you'll find a sealed envelope of my personal blue stationery. Please get it and bring it with you to Mr. Markham's office. And don't let any one see you take it. . . . That's all, Rex. Now, hurry, and we'll have lunch together down-town."
"It will be at least half an hour before Mr. Greene can get here," said Markham, turning to Vance; "and as I've a waiting-room full of people, why don't you and Van Dine take the young lady to the Stock Exchange and show her how the mad brokers disport themselves.—How would you like that, Miss Greene?"
"I'd love it!" exclaimed the girl.
"Why not go along too, Sergeant?"
"Me!" Heath snorted. "I got excitement enough. I'll run over and talk to the Colonel[2] for a while."
Vance and Ada and I motored the few blocks to 18 Broad Street, and, taking the elevator, passed through the reception-room (where uniformed attendants peremptorily relieved us of our wraps), and came out upon the visitors' gallery overlooking the floor of the Exchange. There was an unusually active market that day. The pandemonium was almost deafening, and the feverish activity about the trading-posts resembled the riots of an excited mob. I was too familiar with the sight to be particularly impressed; and Vance, who detested noise and disorder, looked on with an air of bored annoyance. But Ada's face lighted up at once. Her eyes sparkled and the blood rushed to her cheeks. She gazed over the railing in a thrall of fascination.
"And now you see, Miss Greene, how foolish men can be," said Vance.
"Oh, but it's wonderful!" she answered. "They're alive. They feel things. They have something to fight for."
"You think you'd like it?" smiled Vance.
"I'd adore it. I've always longed to do something exciting—something . . . like that. . . ." She extended her hand toward the milling crowds below.
It was easy to understand her reaction after her years of monotonous service to an invalid in the dreary Greene mansion.
At that moment I happened to look up, and, to my surprise, Heath was standing in the doorway scanning the groups of visitors. He appeared troubled and unusually grim, and there was a nervous intentness in the way he moved his head. I raised my hand to attract his attention, and he immediately came to where we stood.
"The Chief wants you at the office right away, Mr. Vance." There was an ominousness in his tone. "He sent me over to get you."
Ada looked at him steadily, and a pallor of fear overspread her face.
"Well, well!" Vance shrugged in mock resignation. "Just when we were getting interested in the sights. But we must obey the Chief—eh, what, Miss Greene?"
But, despite his attempt to make light of Markham's unexpected summons, Ada was strangely silent; and as we rode back to the office she did not speak but sat tensely, her unseeing eyes staring straight ahead.
It seemed an interminable time before we reached the Criminal Courts Building. The traffic was congested; and there was even a long delay at the elevator. Vance appeared to take the situation calmly; but Heath's lips were compressed, and he breathed heavily through his nose, like a man laboring under tense excitement.
As we entered the District Attorney's office Markham rose and looked at the girl with a great tenderness.
"You must be brave, Miss Greene," he said, in a quiet, sympathetic voice. "Something tragic and unforeseen has happened. And as you will have to be told of it sooner or later"
"It's Rex!" She sank limply into a chair facing Markham's desk.
"Yes," he said softly; "it's Rex. Sproot called up a few minutes after you had gone. . . ."
"And he's been shot—like Julia and Chester!" Her words were scarcely audible, but they brought a sense of horror into the dingy old office.
Markham inclined his head.
"Not five minutes after you telephoned to him some one entered his room and shot him."
A dry sob shook the girl, and she buried her face in her arms.
Markham stepped round the desk and placed his hand gently on her shoulder.
"We've got to face it, my child," he said. "We're going to the house at once to see what can be done and you'd better come in the car with us."
"Oh, I don't want to go back," she moaned. "I'm afraid—I'm afraid! . . ."
- ↑ The Modern Gallery was then under the direction of Marius de Zayas, whose collection of African statuette-fetiches was perhaps the finest in America.
- ↑ Colonel Benjamin Hanlon, one of the Department's greatest authorities on extradition, was then the commanding officer of the Detective Division attached to the District Attorney's office, with quarters in the Criminal Courts Building.