The Greatest Works of S. S. Van Dine (Illustrated Edition). S.S. Van Dine

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       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 granted. At first she did not acknowledge the introduction, but, after appraising Markham for a moment, she gave him a nod of resentful forbearance and held out to him a long bony hand.

      “I suppose there’s no way to avoid having my home overrun in this fashion,” she said wearily, assuming an air of great toleration. “I was just endeavoring to get a little rest. My back pains me so much to-day, after all the СКАЧАТЬ