The Greatest Murder Mysteries of S. S. Van Dine - 12 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). S.S. Van Dine
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large measure prompted by purely selfish motives. The Canary! If one had sought the city over for a victim whose murder would stir up excitement, there could have been but few selections better calculated to produce this result.
Hastening to the door, I summoned Currie, and told him to call Vance at once.
“I’m afraid, sir——” began Currie, politely hesitant.
“Calm your fears,” cut in Markham. “I’ll take all responsibility for waking him at this indecent hour.”
Currie sensed an emergency and departed.
A minute or two later Vance, in an elaborately embroidered silk kimono and sandals, appeared at the living-room door.
“My word!” he greeted us, in mild astonishment, glancing at the clock. “Haven’t you chaps gone to bed yet?”
He strolled to the mantel, and selected a gold-tipped Régie cigarette from a small Florentine humidor.
Markham’s eyes narrowed: he was in no mood for levity.
“The Canary has been murdered,” I blurted out.
Vance held his wax vesta poised, and gave me a look of indolent inquisitiveness. “Whose canary?”
“Margaret Odell was found strangled this morning,” amended Markham brusquely. “Even you, wrapped in your scented cotton-wool, have heard of her. And you can realize the significance of the crime. I’m personally going to look for those footprints in the snow; and if you want to come along, as you intimated the other night, you’ll have to get a move on.”
Vance crushed out his cigarette.
“Margaret Odell, eh?—Broadway’s blonde Aspasia—or was it Phryne who had the coiffure d’or . . . Most distressin’!” Despite his offhand manner, I could see he was deeply interested. “The base enemies of law and order are determined to chivvy you most horribly, aren’t they, old dear? Deuced inconsiderate of ’em! . . . Excuse me while I seek habiliments suitable to the occasion.”
He disappeared into his bedroom, while Markham took out a large cigar and resolutely prepared it for smoking, and I returned to the library to put away the papers on which I had been working.
In less than ten minutes Vance reappeared, dressed for the street.
“Bien, mon vieux,” he announced gaily, as Currie handed him his hat and gloves and a malacca cane. “Allons-y!”
We rode up-town along Madison Avenue, turned into Central Park, and came out by the West 72d Street entrance. Margaret Odell’s apartment was at 184 West 71st Street, near Broadway; and as we drew up to the curb, it was necessary for the patrolman on duty to make a passage for us through the crowd that had already gathered as a result of the arrival of the police.
Feathergill, an assistant District Attorney, was waiting in the main hall for his Chief’s arrival.
“It’s too bad, sir,” he lamented. “A rotten show all round. And just at this time! . . .” He shrugged his shoulders discouragingly.
“It may collapse quickly,” said Markham, shaking the other’s hand. “How are things going? Sergeant Heath phoned me right after you called, and said that, at first glance, the case looked a bit stubborn.”
“Stubborn?” repeated Feathergill lugubriously. “It’s downright impervious. Heath is spinning round like a turbine. He was called off the Boyle case, by the way, to devote his talents to this new shocker. Inspector Moran arrived ten minutes ago, and gave him the official imprimatur.”
“Well, Heath’s a good man,” declared Markham. “We’ll work it out. . . . Which is the apartment?”
Feathergill led the way to a door at the rear of the main hall.
“Here you are, sir,” he announced. “I’ll be running along now. I need sleep. Good luck!” And he was gone.
It will be necessary to give a brief description of the house and its interior arrangement, for the somewhat peculiar structure of the building played a vital part in the seemingly insoluble problem posed by the murder.
The house, which was a four-story stone structure originally built as a residence, had been remodelled, both inside and outside, to meet the requirements of an exclusive individual apartment dwelling. There were, I believe, three or four separate suites on each floor; but the quarters up-stairs need not concern us. The main floor was the scene of the crime, and here there were three apartments and a dentist’s office.
The main entrance to the building was directly on the street, and extending straight back from the front door was a wide hallway. Directly at the rear of this hallway, and facing the entrance, was the door to the Odell apartment, which bore the numeral “3.” About half-way down the front hall, on the right-hand side, was the stairway leading to the floors above; and directly beyond the stairway, also on the right, was a small reception-room with a wide archway instead of a door. Directly opposite to the stairway, in a small recess, stood the telephone switchboard. There was no elevator in the house.
Another important feature of this ground-floor plan was a small passageway at the rear of the main hall and at right angles to it, which led past the front walls of the Odell apartment to a door opening on a court at the west side of the building. This court was connected with the street by an alley four feet wide.
In the accompanying diagram this arrangement of the ground floor can be easily visualized, and I suggest that the reader fix it in his mind; for I doubt if ever before so simple and obvious an architectural design played such an important part in a criminal mystery. By its very simplicity and almost conventional familiarity—indeed, by its total lack of any puzzling complications—it proved so baffling to the investigators that the case threatened, for many days, to remain forever insoluble.
As Markham entered the Odell apartment that morning Sergeant Ernest Heath came forward at once and extended his hand. A look of relief passed over his broad, pugnacious features; and it was obvious that the animosity and rivalry which always exist between the Detective Division and the District Attorney’s office during the investigation of any criminal case had no place in his attitude on this occasion.
“I’m glad you’ve come, sir,” he said; and meant it.
He then turned to Vance with a cordial smile, and held out his hand.8
“So the amachoor sleuth is with us again!” His tone held a friendly banter.
“Oh, quite,” murmured Vance. “How’s your induction coil working this beautiful September morning, Sergeant?”
“I’d hate to tell you!” Then Heath’s face grew suddenly grave, and he turned to Markham. “It’s a raw deal, sir. Why in hell couldn’t they have picked some one besides the Canary for their dirty work? There’s plenty of Janes on Broadway who coulda faded from the picture without causing a second alarm; but they gotta go and bump off the Queen of Sheba!”
As he spoke, William M. Moran, the commanding officer of the Detective Bureau, came into the little foyer and performed the usual hand-shaking ceremony. Though he had met Vance and me but once before, and then casually, he remembered us both and addressed us courteously by name.
“Your arrival,” he said to Markham, in a well-bred, modulated voice, “is very welcome. Sergeant Heath will give you what preliminary information you want. I’m still pretty much in the dark myself—only just arrived.”
“A lot of information I’ve got to give,” grumbled Heath, as he led the way into the living-room.
Margaret Odell’s apartment was a suite of two fairly large rooms connected by a wide archway draped with heavy damask portières. The entrance door from the main hall of the building led into a small rectangular foyer about eight feet long and