The Greene Murder Case/Chapter 23
(Saturday, December 4; 1 p. m.)
Saturday was the District Attorney's "half-day" at the office, and Markham had invited Vance and me to lunch at the Bankers Club. But when we reached the Criminal Courts Building he was swamped with an accumulation of work, and we had a tray-service meal in his private conference room. Before leaving the house that noon Vance had put several sheets of closely written paper in his pocket, and I surmised—correctly, as it turned out—that they were what he had been working on the night before.
When lunch was over Vance lay back in his chair languidly and lit a cigarette.
"Markham old dear," he said, "I accepted your invitation to-day for the sole purpose of discussing art. I trust you are in a receptive mood."
Markham looked at him with frank annoyance.
"Damn it, Vance, I'm too confounded busy to be bothered with your irrelevancies. If you feel artistically inclined, take Van here to the Metropolitan Museum. But leave me alone."
Vance sighed, and wagged his head reproachfully.
"There speaks the voice of America! 'Run along and play with your æsthetic toys if such silly things amuse you; but let me attend to my serious affairs.' It's very sad. In the present instance, however, I refuse to run along; and most certainly I shall not browse about that mausoleum of Europe's rejected corpses, known as the Metropolitan Museum. I say, it's a wonder you didn't suggest that I make the rounds of our municipal statuary."
"I'd have suggested the Aquarium"
"I know. Anything to get rid of me." Vance adopted an injured tone. "And yet, don't y' know, I'm going to sit right here and deliver an edifying lecture on æsthetic composition."
"Then don't talk too loud," said Markham, rising; "for I'll be in the next room working."
"But my lecture has to do with the Greene case. And really you shouldn't miss it."
Markham paused and turned.
"Merely one of your wordy prologues, eh?" He sat down again. "Well, if you have any helpful suggestions to make, I'll listen."
Vance smoked a moment.
"Y' know, Markham," he began, assuming a lazy, unemotional air, "there's a fundamental difference between a good painting and a photograph. I'll admit many painters appear unaware of this fact; and when color photography is perfected—my word! what a horde of academicians will be thrown out of employment! But none the less there's a vast chasm between the two; and it's this technical distinction that's to be the burden of my lay. How, for instance, does Michelangelo's 'Moses' differ from a camera study of a patriarchal old man with whiskers and a stone tablet? Wherein lie the points of divergence between Rubens's 'Landscape with Château de Stein' and a tourist's snap-shot of a Rhine castle? Why is a Cézanne still-life an improvement on a photograph of a dish of apples? Why have the Renaissance paintings of Madonnas endured for hundreds of years whereas a mere photograph of a mother and child passes into artistic oblivion at the very click of the lens shutter? . . ."
He held up a silencing hand as Markham was about to speak.
"I'm not being futile. Bear with me a moment.—The difference between a good painting and a photograph is this: the one is arranged, composed, organized; the other is merely the haphazard impression of a scene, or a segment of realism, just as it exists in nature. In short, the one has form; the other is chaotic. When a true artist paints a picture, d' ye see, he arranges all the masses and lines to accord with his preconceived idea of composition—that is, he bends everything in the picture to a basic design; and he also eliminates any objects or details that go contr'ry to, or detract from, that design. Thus he achieves a homogeneity of form, so to speak. Every object in the picture is put there for a definite purpose, and is set in a certain position to accord with the underlying structural pattern. There are no irrelevancies, no unrelated details, no detached objects, no arbitr'ry arrangement of values. All the forms and lines are interdependent; every object—indeed, every brush stroke—takes its exact place in the pattern and fulfils a given function. The picture, in fine, is a unity."
"Very instructive," commented Markham, glancing ostentatiously at his watch. "And the Greene case?"
"Now, a photograph, on the other hand," pursued Vance, ignoring the interruption, "is devoid of design or even of arrangement in the æsthetic sense. To be sure, a photographer may pose and drape a figure—he may even saw off the limb of a tree that he intends to record on his negative; but it's quite impossible for him to compose the subject-matter of his picture to accord with a preconceived design, the way a painter does. In a photograph there are always details that have no meaning, variations of light and shade that are harmonically false, textures that create false notes, lines that are discords, masses that are out of place. The camera, d' ye see, is deucedly forthright—it records whatever is before it, irrespective of art values. The inevitable result is that a photograph lacks organization and unity; its composition is, at best, primitive and obvious. And it is full of irrelevant factors—of objects which have neither meaning nor purpose. There is no uniformity of conception in it. It is haphazard, heterogeneous, aimless, and amorphous—just as is nature."
"You needn't belabor the point." Markham spoke impatiently. "I have a rudimentary intelligence.—Where is this elaborate truism leading you?"
Vance gave him an engaging smile.
"To East 53d Street. But before we reach our destination permit me another brief amplification.—Quite often a painting of intricate and subtle design does not at once reveal its composition to the spectator. In fact, only the designs of the simpler and more obvious paintings are immediately grasped. Generally the spectator has to study a painting carefully—trace its rhythms, compare its forms, weigh its details, and fit together all its salients—before its underlying design becomes apparent. Many well-organized and perfectly balanced paintings—such as Renoir's figure-pieces, Matisse's interiors, Cézanne's water-colors, Picasso's still-lives, and Leonardo's anatomical drawings—may at first appear meaningless from the standpoint of composition; their forms may seem to lack unity and cohesion; their masses and linear values may give the impression of having been arbitrarily put down. And it is only after the spectator has related all their integers and traced all their contrapuntal activities that they take on significance and reveal their creator's motivating conception. . . ."
"Yes, yes," interrupted Markham. "Paintings and photographs differ; the objects in a painting possess design; the objects in a photograph are without design; one must often study a painting in order to determine the design.—That, I believe, covers the ground you have been wandering over desultorily for the past fifteen minutes."
"I was merely trying to imitate the vast deluge of repetitive verbiage found in legal documents," explained Vance. "I hoped thereby to convey my meaning to your lawyer's mind."
"You succeeded with a vengeance," snapped Markham. "What follows?"
Vance became serious again.
"Markham, we've been looking at the various occurrences in the Greene case as though they were the unrelated objects of a photograph. We've inspected each fact as it came up; but we have failed to analyze sufficiently its connection with all the other known facts. We've regarded this whole affair as though it were a series, or collection, of isolated integers. And we've missed the significance of everything because we haven't yet determined the shape of the basic pattern of which each of these incidents is but a part.—Do you follow me?"
"My dear fellow!"
"Very well.—Now, it goes without saying that there is a design at the bottom of this whole amazin' business. Nothing has happened haphazardly. There has been premeditation behind each act—a subtly and carefully concocted composition, as it were. And everything has emanated from that central shape. Everything has been fashioned by a fundamental structural idea. Therefore, nothing important that has occurred since the first double shooting has been unrelated to the predetermined pattern of the crime. All the aspects and events of the case, taken together, form a unity—a co-ordinated, interactive whole. In short, the Greene case is a painting, not a photograph. And when we have studied it in that light—when we have determined the interrelationship of all the external factors, and have traced the visual forms to their generating lines—then, Markham, we will know the composition of the picture; we will see the design on which the perverted painter has erected his document'ry material. And once we have discovered the underlying shape of this hideous picture's pattern, we'll know its creator."
"I see your point," said Markham slowly. "But how does it help us? We know all the external facts; and they certainly don't fit into any intelligible conception of a unified whole."
"Not yet, perhaps," agreed Vance. "But that's because we haven't gone about it systematically. We've done too much investigating and too little thinking. We've been sidetracked by what the modern painters call documentation—that is, by the objective appeal of the picture's recognizable parts. We haven't sought for the abstract content. We've overlooked the 'significant form'—a loose phrase; but blame Clive Bell for it."[1]
"And how would you suggest that we set about determining the compositional design of this bloody canvas? We might dub the picture, by the way, 'Nepotism Gone Wrong.'" By this facetious remark, he was, I knew, attempting to counteract the serious impression the other's disquisition had made on him; for, though he realized Vance would not have drawn his voluminous parallel without a definite hope of applying it successfully to the problem in hand, he was chary of indulging any expectations lest they result in further disappointments.
In answer to Markham's question Vance drew out the sheaf of papers he had brought with him.
"Last night," he explained, "I set down briefly and chronologically all the outstanding facts of the Greene case—that is, I noted each important external factor of the ghastly picture we've been contemplating for the past few weeks. The principal forms are all here, though I may have left out many details. But I think I have tabulated a sufficient number of items to serve as a working basis."
He held out the papers to Markham.
"The truth lies somewhere in that list. If we could put the facts together—relate them to one another with their correct values—we'd know who was at the bottom of this orgy of crime; for, once we determined the pattern, each of the items would take on a vital significance, and we could read clearly the message they had to tell us."
Markham took the summary and, moving his chair nearer to the light, read through it without a word.
I preserved the original copy of the document; and, of all the records I possess, it was the most important and far-reaching in its effects. Indeed, it was the instrument by means of which the Greene case was solved. Had it not been for this recapitulation, prepared by Vance and later analyzed by him, the famous mass murder at the Greene mansion would doubtless have been relegated to the category of unsolved crimes.
Herewith is a verbatim reproduction of it:
General Facts
1. An atmosphere of mutual hatred pervades the Greene mansion.
2. Mrs. Greene is a nagging, complaining paralytic, making life miserable for the whole household.
3. There are five children—two daughters, two sons, and one adopted daughter—who have nothing in common, and live in a state of constant antagonism and bitterness toward one another.
4. Though Mrs. Mannheim, the cook, was acquainted with Tobias Greene years ago and was remembered in his will, she refuses to reveal any of the facts in her past.
5. The will of Tobias Greene stipulated that the family must live in the Greene mansion for twenty-five years on pain of disinheritance, with the one exception that, if Ada should marry, she could establish a residence elsewhere, as she was not of the Greene blood. By the will Mrs. Greene has the handling and disposition of the money.
6. Mrs. Greene's will makes the five children equal beneficiaries. In event of death of any of them the survivors share alike; and if all should die the estate goes to their families, if any.
7. The sleeping-rooms of the Greenes are arranged thus: Julia's and Rex's face each other at the front of the house; Chester's and Ada's face each other in the centre of the house; and Sibella's and Mrs. Greene's face each other at the rear. No two rooms intercommunicate, with the exception of Ada's and Mrs. Greene's; and these two rooms also give on the same balcony.
8. The library of Tobias Greene, which Mrs. Greene believes she had kept locked for twelve years, contains a remarkably complete collection of books on criminology and allied subjects.
9. Tobias Greene's past was somewhat mysterious, and there were many rumors concerning shady transactions carried on by him in foreign lands.
First Crime
10. Julia is killed by a contact shot, fired from the front, at 11.30 p. m.
11. Ada is shot from behind, also by a contact shot. She recovers.
12. Julia is found in bed, with a look of horror and amazement on her face.
13. Ada is found on the floor before the dressing-table.
14. The lights have been turned on in both rooms.
15. Over three minutes elapse between the two shots.
16. Von Blon, summoned immediately, arrives within half an hour.
17. A set of footprints, other than Von Blon's, leaving and approaching the house, is found; but the character of the snow renders them indecipherable.
18. The tracks have been made during the half-hour preceding the crime.
19. Both shootings are done with a .32 revolver.
20. Chester reports that an old .32 revolver of his is missing.
21. Chester is not satisfied with the police theory of a burglar, and insists that the District Attorney's office investigate the case.
22. Mrs. Greene is aroused by the shot fired in Ada's room, and hears Ada fall. But she hears no footsteps or sound of a door closing.
23. Sproot is half-way down the servants' stairs when the second shot is fired, yet he encounters no one in the hall. Nor does he hear any noise.
24. Rex, in the room next to Ada's, says he heard no shot.
25. Rex intimates that Chester knows more about the tragedy than he admits.
26. There is some secret between Chester and Sibella.
27. Sibella, like Chester, repudiates the burglar theory, but refuses to suggest an alternative, and says frankly that any member of the Greene family may be guilty.
28. Ada says she was awakened by a menacing presence in her room, which was in darkness; that she attempted to run from the intruder, but was pursued by shuffling footsteps.
29. Ada says a hand touched her when she first arose from bed, but refuses to make any attempt to identify the hand.
30. Sibella challenges Ada to say that it was she (Sibella) who was in the room, and then deliberately accuses Ada of having shot Julia. She also accuses Ada of having stolen the revolver from Chester's room.
31. Von Blon, by his attitude and manner, reveals a curious intimacy between Sibella and himself.
32. Ada is frankly fond of Von Blon. Second Crime
33. Four days after Julia and Ada are shot, at 11.30 p. m., Chester is murdered by a contact shot fired from a .32 revolver.
34. There is a look of amazement and horror on his face.
35. Sibella hears the shot and summons Sproot.
36. Sibella says she listened at her door immediately after the shot was fired, but heard no other sound.
37. The lights are on in Chester's room. He was apparently reading when the murderer entered.
38. A clear double set of footprints is found on the front walk. The tracks have been made within a half-hour of the crime.
39. A pair of galoshes, exactly corresponding to the footprints, is found in Chester's clothes-closet.
40. Ada had a premonition of Chester's death, and, when informed of it, guesses he has been shot in the same manner as Julia. But she is greatly relieved when shown the footprint patterns indicating that the murderer is an outsider.
41. Rex says he heard a noise in the hall and the sound of a door closing twenty minutes before the shot was fired.
42. Ada, when told of Rex's story, recalls also having heard a door close at some time after eleven.
43. It is obvious that Ada knows or suspects something.
44. The cook becomes emotional at the thought of any one wanting to harm Ada, but says she can understand a person having a reason to shoot Julia and Chester.
45. Rex, when interviewed, shows clearly that he thinks some one in the house is guilty.
46. Rex accuses Von Blon of being the murderer.
47. Mrs. Greene makes a request that the investigation be dropped.
Third Crime
48. Rex is shot in the forehead with a .32 revolver, at 11.20 a. m., twenty days after Chester has been killed and within five minutes of the time Ada phones him from the District Attorney's office.
49. There is no look of horror or surprise on Rex's face, as was the case with Julia and Chester.
50. His body is found on the floor before the mantel.
51. A diagram which Ada asked him to bring with him to the District Attorney's office has disappeared.
52. No one up-stairs hears the shot, though the doors are open; but Sproot, down-stairs in the butler's pantry, hears it distinctly.
53. Von Blon is visiting Sibella that morning; but she says she was in the bathroom bathing her dog at the time Rex was shot.
54. Footprints are found in Ada's room coming from the balcony door, which is ajar.
55. A single set of footprints is found leading from the front walk to the balcony.
56. The tracks could have been made at any time after nine o'clock that morning.
57. Sibella refuses to go away on a visit.
58. The galoshes that made all three sets of footprints are found in the linen-closet, although they were not there when the house was searched for the revolver.
59. The galoshes are returned to the linen-closet, but disappear that night.
Fourth Crime
60. Two days after Rex's death Ada and Mrs. Greene are poisoned within twelve hours of each other—Ada with morphine, Mrs. Greene with strychnine.
61. Ada is treated at once, and recovers.
62. Von Blon is seen leaving the house just before Ada swallows the poison.
63. Ada is discovered by Sproot as a result of Sibella's dog catching his teeth in the bell-cord.
64. The morphine was taken in the bouillon which Ada habitually drank in the mornings.
65. Ada states that no one visited her in her room after the nurse had called her to come and drink the bouillon; but that she went to Julia's room to get a shawl, leaving the bouillon unguarded for several moments.
66. Neither Ada nor the nurse remembers having seen Sibella's dog in the hall before the poisoned bouillon was taken.
67. Mrs. Greene is found dead of strychnine-poisoning the morning after Ada swallowed the morphine.
68. The strychnine could have been administered only after 11 p. m. the previous night.
69. The nurse was in her room on the third floor between 11 and 11.30 p. m.
70. Von Blon was calling on Sibella that night, but Sibella says he left her at 10.45.
71. The strychnine was administered in a dose of citrocarbonate, which, presumably, Mrs. Greene would not have taken without assistance.
72. Sibella decides to visit a girl chum in Atlantic City, and leaves New York on the afternoon train.
Distributable Facts
73. The same revolver is used on Julia, Ada, Chester, and Rex.
74. All three sets of footprints have obviously been made by some one in the house for the purpose of casting suspicion on an outsider.
75. The murderer is some one whom both Julia and Chester would receive in their rooms, in negligé, late at night.
76. The murderer does not make himself known to Ada, but enters her room surreptitiously.
77. Nearly three weeks after Chester's death Ada comes to the District Attorney's office, stating she has important news to impart.
78. Ada says that Rex has confessed to her that he heard the shot in her room and also heard other things, but was afraid to admit them; and she asks that Rex be questioned.
79. Ada tells of having found a cryptic diagram, marked with symbols, in the lower hall near the library door.
80. On the day of Rex's murder Von Blon reports that his medicine-case has been rifled of three grains of strychnine and six grains of morphine—presumably at the Greene mansion.
81. The library reveals the fact that some one has been in the habit of going there and reading by candle-light. The books that show signs of having been read are: a handbook of the criminal sciences, two works on toxicology, and two treatises on hysterical paralysis and sleep-walking.
82. The visitor to the library is some one who understands German well, for three of the books that have been read are in German.
83. The galoshes that disappeared from the linen-closet on the night of Rex's murder are found in the library.
84. Some one listens at the door while the library is being inspected.
85. Ada reports that she saw Mrs. Greene walking in the lower hall the night before.
86. Von Blon asserts that Mrs. Greene's paralysis is of a nature that makes movement a physical impossibility.
87. Arrangements are made with Von Blon to have Doctor Oppenheimer examine Mrs. Greene.
88. Von Blon informs Mrs. Greene of the proposed examination, which he has scheduled for the following day.
89. Mrs. Greene is poisoned before Doctor Oppenheimer's examination can be made.
90. The post mortem reveals conclusively that Mrs. Greene's leg muscles were so atrophied that she could not have walked.
91. Ada, when told of the autopsy, insists that she saw her mother's shawl about the figure in the hall, and, on being pressed, admits that Sibella sometimes wore it.
92. During the questioning of Ada regarding the shawl Mrs. Mannheim suggests that it was she herself whom Ada saw in the hall.
93. When Julia and Ada were shot there were, or could have been, present in the house: Chester, Sibella, Rex, Mrs. Greene, Von Blon, Barton, Hemming, Sproot, and Mrs. Mannheim.
94. When Chester was shot there were, or could have been, present in the house: Sibella, Rex, Mrs. Greene, Ada, Von Blon, Barton, Hemming, Sproot, and Mrs. Mannheim.
95. When Rex was shot there were, or could have been, present in the house: Sibella, Mrs. Greene, Von Blon, Hemming, Sproot, and Mrs. Mannheim.
96. When Ada was poisoned there were, or could have been, present in the house: Sibella, Mrs. Greene, Von Blon, Hemming, Sproot, and Mrs. Mannheim.
97. When Mrs. Greene was poisoned there were, or could have been, present in the house: Sibella, Von Blon, Ada, Hemming, Sproot, and Mrs. Mannheim.
When Markham had finished reading the summary, he went through it a second time. Then he laid it on the table.
"Yes, Vance," he said, "you've covered the main points pretty thoroughly. But I can't see any coherence in them. In fact, they seem only to emphasize the confusion of the case."
"And yet, Markham, I'm convinced that they only need rearrangement and interpretation to be perfectly clear. Properly analyzed, they'll tell us everything we want to know."
Markham glanced again through the pages.
"If it wasn't for certain items, we could make out a case against several people. But no matter what person in the list we may assume to be guilty, we are at once confronted by a group of contradictory and insurmountable facts. This précis could be used effectively to prove that every one concerned is innocent."
"Superficially it appears that way," agreed Vance. "But we first must find the generating line of the design, and then relate the subsidi'ry forms of the pattern to it."
Markham made a hopeless gesture.
"If only life were as simple as your æsthetic theories!"
"It's dashed simpler," Vance asserted. "The mere mechanism of a camera can record life; but only a highly developed creative intelligence, with a profound philosophic insight, can produce a work of art."
"Can you make any sense—æsthetic or otherwise—out of this?" Markham petulantly tapped the sheets of paper.
"I can see certain traceries, so to speak—certain suggestions of a pattern; but I'll admit the main design has thus far eluded me. The fact is, Markham, I have a feeling that some important factor in this case—some balancing line of the pattern, perhaps—is still hidden from us. I don't say that my résumé is insusceptible of interpretation in its present state; but our task would be greatly simplified if we were in possession of the missing integer."
Fifteen minutes later, when we had returned to Markham's main office, Swacker came in and laid a letter on the desk.
"There's a funny one, Chief," he said.
Markham took up the letter and read it with a deepening frown. When he had finished, he handed it to Vance. The letter-head read, "Rectory, Third Presbyterian Church, Stamford, Connecticut"; the date was the preceding day; and the signature was that of the Reverend Anthony Seymour. The contents of the letter, written in a small, precise hand, were as follows:
The Honorable John F.-X. Markham,
Dear Sir: As far as I am aware, I have never betrayed a confidence. But there can arise, I believe, unforeseen circumstances to modify the strictness of one's adherence to a given promise, and indeed impose upon one a greater duty than that of keeping silent.
I have read in the papers of the wicked and abominable things that have happened at the Greene residence in New York; and I have therefore come to the conclusion, after much heart-searching and prayer, that it is my bounden duty to put you in possession of a fact which, as the result of a promise, I have kept to myself for over a year. I would not now betray this trust did I not believe that some good might possibly come of it, and that you, my dear sir, would also treat the matter in the most sacred confidence. It may not help you—indeed, I do not see how it can possibly lead to a solution of the terrible curse that has fallen upon the Greene family—but since the fact is connected intimately with one of the members of that family, I will feel better when I have communicated it to you.
On the night of August 29, of last year, a machine drove up to my door, and a man and a woman asked that I secretly marry them. I may say that I am frequently receiving such requests from runaway couples. This particular couple appeared to be well-bred dependable people, and I concurred with their wishes, giving them my assurances that the ceremony would, as they desired, be kept confidential.
The names that appeared on the license—which had been secured in New Haven late that afternoon—were Sibella Greene, of New York City, and Arthur Von Blon, also of New York City.
Vance read the letter and handed it back.
"Really, y' know, I can't say that I'm astonished"
Suddenly he broke off, his eyes fixed thoughtfully before him. Then he rose nervously and paced up and down.
"That tears it!" he exclaimed.
Markham threw him a look of puzzled interrogation.
"What's the point?"
"Don't you see?" Vance came quickly to the District Attorney's desk. "My word! That's the one fact that's missing from my tabulation." He then unfolded the last sheet and wrote:
98. Sibella and Von Blon were secretly married a year ago.
"But I don't see how that helps," protested Markham.
"Neither do I at this moment," Vance replied. "But I'm going to spend this evening in erudite meditation."
- ↑ Vance was here referring to the chapter called "The Æsthetic Hypothesis" in Clive Bell's "Art." But, despite the somewhat slighting character of his remark, Vance was an admirer of Bell's criticisms, and had spoken to me with considerable enthusiasm of his "Since Cézanne."