The Greene Murder Case. S.S. Van Dine
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The arrangement of the rooms on the second floor was simple and in keeping with the broad four-square architecture of the house; but for the sake of clarification I am embodying in this record a rough diagram of it; for it was the disposition of these rooms that made possible the carrying out of the murderer’s hideous and unnatural plot.
There were six bedrooms on the floor—three on either side of the hall, each occupied by a member of the family. At the front of the house, on our left, was the bedroom of Rex Greene, the younger brother. Next to it was the room occupied by Ada Greene; and at the rear were Mrs. Greene’s quarters, separated from Ada’s by a fair-sized dressing-room through which the two apartments communicated. It will be seen from the diagram that Mrs. Greene’s room projected beyond the main western elevation of the house, and that in the L thus formed was a small balustraded stone porch with a narrow flight of stairs, set against the house, leading to the lawn below. French doors opened upon this porch from both Ada’s and Mrs. Greene’s rooms.
PLAN OF SECOND FLOOR. (For the sake of simplification all bathrooms, clothes-closets, fireplaces, etc., have been omitted.)
On the opposite side of the hall were the three rooms occupied by Julia, Chester, and Sibella, Julia’s room being at the front of the house, Sibella’s at the rear, and Chester’s in the centre. None of these rooms communicated with the other. It might also be noted that the doors to Sibella’s and Mrs. Greene’s rooms were just behind the main staircase, whereas Chester’s and Ada’s were directly at the head of the stairs, and Julia’s and Rex’s farther toward the front of the house. There was a small linen closet between Ada’s room and Mrs. Greene’s; and at the rear of the hall were the servants’ stairs.
Chester Greene explained this arrangement to us briefly, and then walked up the hall to Julia’s room.
“You’ll want to look in here first, I imagine,” he said, throwing open the door. “Nothing’s been touched—police orders. But I can’t see what good all that stained bed-linen is to any one. It’s a frightful mess.”
The room was large and richly furnished with sage-green satin-upholstered furniture of the Marie Antoinette period. Opposite to the door was a canopied bedstead on a dais; and several dark blotches on the embroidered linen gave mute evidence of the tragedy that had been enacted there the night before.
Vance, after noting the disposition of the furniture, turned his gaze upon the old-fashioned crystal chandelier.
“Were those the lights that were on when you found your sister last night, Mr. Greene?” he asked casually.
The other nodded with surly annoyance.
“And where, may I ask, is the switch?”
“Behind the end of that cabinet.” Greene indifferently indicated a highly elaborated armoire near the door.
“Invisible—eh, what?” Vance strolled to the armoire and looked behind it. “An amazin’ burglar!” Then he went up to Markham and spoke to him in a low voice.
After a moment Markham nodded.
“Greene,” he said, “I wish you’d go to your room and lie down on the bed just as you were last night when you heard the shot. Then, when I tap on the wall, get up and do everything you did last night—in just the way you did it. I want to time you.”
PLAN OF JULIA’S BEDROOM.
The man stiffened, and gave Markham a look of resentful protestation.
“Oh, I say——!” he began. But almost at once he shrugged compliance and swaggered from the room, closing the door behind him.
Vance took out his watch, and Markham, giving Greene time to reach his room, rapped on the wall. For what seemed an interminable time we waited. Then the door opened slightly, and Greene peered round the casing. Slowly his eyes swept the room; he swung the door further ajar, stepped inside hesitantly, and moved to the bed.
“Three minutes and twenty seconds,” announced Vance. “Most disquietin’. . . . What do you imagine, Sergeant, the intruder was doing in the interim of the two shots?”
“How do I know?” retorted Heath. “Probably groping round the hall outside looking for the stairs.”
“If he’d groped that length of time he’d have fallen down ’em.”
Markham interrupted this discussion with a suggestion that we take a look at the servants’ stairway down which the butler had come after hearing the first shot.
“We needn’t inspect the other bedrooms just yet,” he added, “though we’ll want to see Miss Ada’s room as soon as the doctor thinks it’s advisable. When, by the way, will you know his decision, Greene?”
“He said he’d be here at three. And he’s a punctual beggar—a regular fiend for efficiency. He sent a nurse over early this morning, and she’s looking after Ada and the Mater now.”
“I say, Mr. Greene,” interposed Vance, “was your sister Julia in the habit of leaving her door unlocked at night?”
Greene’s jaw dropped a little, and his eyes opened wider.
“By Jove—no! Now that you mention it . . . she always locked herself in.”
Vance nodded absently, and we passed out into the hall. A thin, swinging baize door hid the servants’ stair-well at the rear, and Markham pushed it open.
“Nothing much here to deaden the sound,” he observed.
“No,” agreed Greene. “And old Sproot’s room is right at the head of the steps. He’s got good ears, too—too damned good sometimes.”
We were about to turn back, when a high-pitched querulous voice issued from the partly open door on our right.
“Is that you, Chester? What’s all this disturbance? Haven’t I had enough distraction and worry——?”
Greene had gone to his mother’s door and put his head inside.
“It’s all right, Mater,” he said irritably. “It’s only the police nosing around.”
“The police?” Her voice was contemptuous. “What do they want? Didn’t they upset me enough last night? Why don’t they go and look for the villain instead of congregating outside my door and annoying me?—So, it’s the police.” Her tone became vindictive. “Bring them in here at once, and let me talk to them. The police, indeed!”
Greene looked helplessly at Markham, who merely nodded; and we entered the invalid’s room. It was a spacious chamber, with windows on three sides, furnished elaborately with all manner of conflicting objects. My first glance took in an East Indian rug, a buhl cabinet, an enormous gilded Buddha, several massive Chinese chairs of carved teak-wood, a faded Persian tapestry, two wrought-iron standard lamps, and a red-and-gold lacquered high-boy. I looked quickly at Vance, and surprised an expression of puzzled interest in his eyes.
In an enormous bed, with neither head-piece nor foot-posts, reclined the mistress of the house, propped up in a semi-recumbent attitude on a sprawling pile of varicolored silken pillows. She must have been between sixty-five and seventy, but her hair was almost black. Her long, chevaline face, though yellowed and wrinkled like ancient parchment, still radiated an amazing vigor: it reminded me of the portraits I had seen of George Eliot. About her shoulders was drawn an embroidered Oriental shawl; and the picture she presented in the setting of that unusual and diversified room was exotic in the extreme. At her side sat a rosy-cheeked imperturbable nurse in a stiff white uniform, making a singular contrast to the woman on the bed.
Chester Greene presented Markham, and let his mother take the rest of us for