The Greatest Works of S. S. Van Dine (Illustrated Edition). S.S. Van Dine
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Название: The Greatest Works of S. S. Van Dine (Illustrated Edition)
Автор: S.S. Van Dine
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 9788027222902
isbn:
Markham did not speak at once: he seemed lost in reflection. But presently he turned and, fixing Vance with a dubious stare, said:
“What about that chiselled jewel-box? A professional burglar’s jimmy wielded by an experienced hand doesn’t fit into your æsthetic hypothesis—it is, in fact, diametrically opposed to such a theory.”
“I know it only too well.” Vance nodded slowly. “And I’ve been harried and hectored by that steel chisel ever since I beheld the evidence of its work that first morning. . . . Markham, that chisel is the one genuine note in an otherwise spurious performance. It’s as if the real artist had come along at the moment the copyist had finished his faked picture, and painted in a single small object with the hand of a master.”
“But doesn’t that bring us back inevitably to Skeel?”
“Skeel—ah, yes. That’s the explanation, no doubt; but not the way you conceive it. Skeel ripped the box open—I don’t question that; but—deuce take it!—it’s the only thing he did do: it’s the only thing that was left for him to do. That’s why he got only a ring which La Belle Marguerite was not wearing that night. All her other baubles—to wit, those that adorned her—had been stripped from her and were gone.”
“Why are you so positive on this point?”
“The poker, man—the poker! . . . Don’t you see? That amateurish assault upon the jewel-case with a cast-iron coal-prodder couldn’t have been made after the case had been prized open—it would have had to be made before. And that seemingly insane attempt to break steel with cast iron was part of the stage-setting. The real culprit didn’t care if he got the case open or not. He merely wanted it to look as if he had tried to get it open; so he used the poker and then left it lying beside the dinted box.”
“I see what you mean.” This point, I think, impressed Markham more strongly than any other Vance had raised; for the presence of the poker on the dressing-table had not been explained away either by Heath or Inspector Brenner. . . . “Is that the reason you questioned Skeel as if he might have been present when your other visitor was there?”
“Exactly. By the evidence of the jewel-case I knew he either was in the apartment when the bogus crime of robbery was being staged, or else had come upon the scene when it was over and the stage-director had cleared out. . . . From his reactions to my questions I rather fancy he was present.”
“Hiding in the closet?”
“Yes. That would account for the closet not having been disturbed. As I see it, it wasn’t ransacked, for the simple and rather grotesque reason that the elegant Skeel was locked within. How else could that one clothes-press have escaped the rifling activities of the pseudo-burglar? He wouldn’t have omitted it deliberately, and he was far too thorough-going to have overlooked it accidentally.—Then there are the finger-prints on the knob. . . .”
Vance lightly tapped on the arm of his chair.
“I tell you, Markham old dear, you simply must build your conception of the crime on this hypothesis, and proceed accordingly. If you don’t, each edifice you rear will come toppling about your ears.”
14. I sent a proof of the following paragraphs to Vance, and he edited and corrected them; so that, as they now stand, they represent his theories in practically his own words.
CHAPTER XV
FOUR POSSIBILITIES
(Wednesday, September 12; evening)
When Vance finished speaking, there was a long silence. Markham, impressed by the other’s earnestness, sat in a brown study. His ideas had been shaken. The theory of Skeel’s guilt, to which he had clung from the moment of the identification of the finger-prints, had, it must be admitted, not entirely satisfied him, although he had been able to suggest no alternative. Now Vance had categorically repudiated this theory and at the same time had advanced another which, despite its indefiniteness, had nevertheless taken into account all the physical points of the case; and Markham, at first antagonistic, had found himself, almost against his will, becoming more and more sympathetic to this new point of view.
“Damn it, Vance!” he said. “I’m not in the least convinced by your theatrical theory. And yet, I feel a curious undercurrent of plausibility in your analyses. . . . I wonder——”
He turned sharply, and scrutinized the other steadfastly for a moment.
“Look here! Have you any one in mind as the protagonist of the drama you’ve outlined?”
“’Pon my word, I haven’t the slightest notion as to who killed the lady,” Vance assured him. “But if you are ever to find the murderer, you must look for a shrewd, superior man with nerves of iron, who was in imminent danger of being irremediably ruined by the girl—a man of inherent cruelty and vindictiveness; a supreme egoist; a fatalist more or less; and—I’m inclined to believe—something of a madman.”
“Mad!”
“Oh, not a lunatic—just a madman, a perfectly normal, logical, calculating madman—same as you and I and Van here. Only, our hobbies are harmless, d’ ye see. This chap’s mania is outside your preposterously revered law. That’s why you’re after him. If his aberration were stamp-collecting, or golf, you wouldn’t give him a second thought. But his perfectly rational penchant for eliminating déclassées ladies who bothered him, fills you with horror: it’s not your hobby. Consequently, you have a hot yearning to flay him alive.”
“I’ll admit,” said Markham coolly, “that a homicidal mania is my idea of madness.”
“But he didn’t have a homicidal mania, Markham old thing. You miss all the fine distinctions in psychology. This man was annoyed by a certain person, and set to work, masterfully and reasonably, to do away with the source of his annoyance. And he did it with surpassin’ cleverness. To be sure, his act was a bit grisly. But when, if ever, you get your hands on him, you’ll be amazed to find how normal he is. And able, too—oh, able no end.”
Again Markham lapsed into a long thoughtful silence. At last he spoke.
“The only trouble with your ingenious deductions is that they don’t accord with the known circumstances of the case. And facts, my dear Vance, are still regarded by a few of us old-fashioned lawyers as more or less conclusive.”
“Why this needless confession of your shortcomings?” inquired Vance whimsically. Then, after a moment: “Let me have the facts which appear to you antagonistic to my deductions.”
“Well, there are only four men of the type you describe who could have had any remote reason for murdering the Odell woman. Heath’s scouts went into her history pretty thoroughly, and for over two years—that is, since her appearance in the СКАЧАТЬ