The Greatest Murder Mysteries of S. S. Van Dine - 12 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). S.S. Van Dine
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outside; and it had been torn, or rather ripped, by a strong lateral pull; whereas, in the circumstances, any wrench on her part would have been downward or outward.”
Inspector Moran was listening intently, but Heath seemed restless and impatient; apparently he regarded the torn gown as irrelevant to the simple main issue.
“Moreover,” Vance went on, “there is the corsage. If she herself had torn it off while being strangled, it would doubtless have fallen to the floor; for, remember, she offered considerable resistance. Her body was twisted sidewise; her knee was drawn up, and one slipper had been kicked off. Now, no bunch of silken posies is going to remain in a lady’s lap during such a commotion. Even when ladies sit still, their gloves and hand-bags and handkerchiefs and programmes and serviettes are forever sliding off of their laps on to the floor, don’t y’ know.”
“But if your argument’s correct,” protested Markham, “then the tearing of the lace and the snatching off of the corsage could have been done only after she was dead. And I can’t see any object in such senseless vandalism.”
“Neither can I,” sighed Vance. “It’s all devilish queer.”
Heath looked up at him sharply. “That’s the second time you’ve said that. But there’s nothing what you’d call queer about this mess. It is a straight-away case.” He spoke with an overtone of insistence, like a man arguing against his own insecurity of opinion. “The dress might’ve been torn almost any time,” he went on stubbornly. “And the flower might’ve got caught in the lace of her skirt so it couldn’t roll off.”
“And how would you explain the jewel-case, Sergeant?” asked Vance.
“Well, the fellow might’ve tried the poker, and then, finding it wouldn’t work, used his jimmy.”
“If he had the efficient jimmy,” countered Vance, “why did he go to the trouble of bringing the silly poker from the living-room?”
The Sergeant shook his head perplexedly.
“You never can tell why some of these crooks act the way they do.”
“Tut, tut!” Vance chided him. “There should be no such word as ‘never’ in the bright lexicon of detecting.”
Heath regarded him sharply. “Was there anything else that struck you as queer?” His subtle doubts were welling up again.
“Well, there’s the lamp on the table in the other room.”
We were standing near the archway between the two rooms, and Heath turned quickly and looked blankly at the fallen lamp.
“I don’t see anything queer about that.”
“It has been upset—eh, what?” suggested Vance.
“What if it has?” Heath was frankly puzzled. “Damn near everything in this apartment has been knocked crooked.”
“Ah! But there’s a reason for most of the other things having been disturbed—like the drawers and pigeonholes and closets and vases. They all indicate a search; they’re consistent with a raid for loot. But that lamp, now, d’ ye see, doesn’t fit into the picture. It’s a false note. It was standing on the opposite end of the table to where the murder was committed, at least five feet away; and it couldn’t possibly have been knocked over in the struggle. . . . No, it won’t do. It’s got no business being upset, any more than that pretty mirror over the gate-legged table has any business being broken. That’s why it’s queer.”
“What about those chairs and the little table?” asked Heath, pointing to two small gilded chairs which had been overturned, and a fragile tip-table that lay on its side near the piano.
“Oh, they fit into the ensemble,” returned Vance. “They’re all light pieces of furniture which could easily have been knocked over, or thrown aside, by the hasty gentleman who rifled these rooms.”
“The lamp might’ve been knocked over in the same way,” argued Heath.
Vance shook his head. “Not tenable, Sergeant. It has a solid bronze base, and isn’t at all top-heavy; and being set well back on the table, it wasn’t in any one’s way. . . . That lamp was upset deliberately.”
The Sergeant was silent for a while. Experience had taught him not to underestimate Vance’s observations; and, I must confess, as I looked at the lamp lying on its side on the end of the library-table, well removed from any of the other disordered objects in the room, Vance’s argument seemed to possess considerable force. I tried hard to fit it into a hasty reconstruction of the crime, but was utterly unable to do so.
“Anything else that don’t seem to fit into the picture?” Heath at length asked.
Vance pointed with his cigarette toward the clothes-closet in the living-room. This closet was alongside of the foyer, in the corner near the Boule cabinet, directly opposite to the end of the davenport.
“You might let your mind dally a moment with the condition of that clothes-press,” suggested Vance carelessly. “You will note that, though the door’s ajar, the contents have not been touched. And it’s about the only area in the apartment that hasn’t been disturbed.”
Heath walked over and looked into the closet.
“Well, anyway, I’ll admit that’s queer,” he finally conceded.
Vance had followed him indolently, and stood gazing over his shoulder.
“And my word!” he exclaimed suddenly. “The key’s on the inside of the lock. Fancy that, now! One can’t lock a closet door with the key on the inside—can one, Sergeant?”
“The key may not mean anything,” Heath observed hopefully. “Maybe the door was never locked. Anyhow, we’ll find out about that pretty soon. I’m holding the maid outside, and I’m going to have her on the carpet as soon as the Captain finishes his job here.”
He turned to Dubois, who, having completed his search for finger-prints in the bedroom, was now inspecting the piano.
“Any luck yet?”
The Captain shook his head.
“Gloves,” he answered succinctly.
“Same here,” supplemented Bellamy gruffly, on his knees before the escritoire.
Vance, with a sardonic smile, turned and walked to the window, where he stood looking out and smoking placidly, as if his entire interest in the case had evaporated.
At this moment the door from the main hall opened, and a short thin little man, with gray hair and a scraggly gray beard, stepped inside and stood blinking against the vivid sunlight.
“Good morning, Professor,” Heath greeted the newcomer. “Glad to see you. I’ve got something nifty, right in your line.”
Deputy-Inspector Conrad Brenner was one of that small army of obscure, but highly capable, experts who are connected with the New York Police Department, and who are constantly being consulted on abstruse technical problems, but whose names and achievements rarely get into the public prints. His specialty was locks and burglars’ tools; and I doubt if, even among those exhaustively pains-taking criminologists of the University of Lausanne, there was a more accurate reader of the evidential signs left by the implements of house-breakers. In appearance and bearing he was like a withered little college professor.9 His black, unpressed suit was old-fashioned in cut; and he wore a very high stiff collar, like a fin-de-siècle clergyman, with a narrow black string tie. His gold-rimmed spectacles were so thick-lensed that the pupils of his eyes gave the impression of acute belladonna poisoning.
When Heath had spoken to him, he merely stood staring with a sort of detached expectancy; he seemed utterly unaware that there was any one else in the room. The Sergeant, evidently familiar with the little man’s idiosyncrasies of manner, did not wait for a response, but started at once for the bedroom.