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

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      CHAPTER VIII

       THE SECOND TRAGEDY

       Table of Contents

      (Friday, November 12; 8 a. m.)

      The day after we had taken leave of Markham at his office the rigor of the weather suddenly relaxed. The sun came out, and the thermometer rose nearly thirty degrees. Toward night of the second day, however, a fine, damp snow began to fall, spreading a thin white blanket over the city; but around eleven the skies were again clear.

      I mention these facts because they had a curious bearing on the second crime at the Greene mansion. Footprints again appeared on the front walk; and, as a result of the clinging softness of the snow, the police also found tracks in the lower hall and on the marble stairs.

Vance had spent Wednesday and Thursday in his library reading desultorily and checking Vollard’s catalogue of Cézanne’s water-colors. The three-volume edition of the “Journal de Eugène Delacroix”¹⁰ lay on his writing-table; but I noticed that he did not so much as open it. He was restless and distracted, and his long silences at dinner (which we ate together in the living-room before the great log fire) told me only too clearly that something was perturbing him. Moreover, he had sent notes cancelling several social engagements, and had given orders to Currie, his valet and domestic factotum, that he was “out” to callers.

      As he sat sipping his cognac at the end of dinner on Thursday night, his eyes idly tracing the forms in the Renoir Beigneuse above the mantel, he gave voice to his thoughts.

      “’Pon my word, Van, I can’t shake the atmosphere of that damnable house. Markham is probably right in refusing to take the matter seriously—one can’t very well chivy a bereaved family simply because I’m oversensitive. And yet”—he shook himself slightly—“it’s most annoyin’. Maybe I’m becoming weak and emotional. What if I should suddenly go in for Whistlers and Böcklins! Could you endure it? Miserere nostri! . . . No, it won’t come to that. But—dash it all!—that Greene murder is haunting my slumbers like a lamia. And the business isn’t over yet. There’s a horrible incompleteness about what’s already occurred. . . .”

      It was scarcely eight o’clock on the following morning when Markham brought us the news of the second Greene tragedy. I had risen early, and was having my coffee in the library when Markham came in, brushing past the astonished Currie with only a curt nod.

      “Get Vance out right away—will you, Van Dine?” he began, without even a word of greeting. “Something serious has happened.”

      I hastened to fetch Vance, who grumblingly slipped into a camel’s-hair dressing-gown and came leisurely into the library.

      “My dear Markham!” he reproached the District Attorney. “Why pay your social calls in the middle of the night?”

      “This isn’t a social call,” Markham told him tartly. “Chester Greene has been murdered.”

      “Ah!” Vance rang for Currie, and lighted a cigarette. “Coffee for two and clothes for one,” he ordered, when the man appeared. Then he sank into a chair before the fire and gave Markham a waggish look. “That same unique burglar, I suppose. A perseverin’ lad. Did the family plate disappear this time?”

      Markham gave a mirthless laugh.

      “No, the plate’s intact; and I think we can now eliminate the burglar theory. I’m afraid your premonitions were correct—damn your uncanny faculty!”

      “Pour out your heart-breakin’ story.” Vance, for all his levity, was extraordinarily interested. His moodiness of the past two days had given way to an almost eager alertness.

      “It was Sproot who phoned the news to Headquarters a little before midnight. The operator in the Homicide Bureau caught Heath at home, and the Sergeant was at the Greene house inside of half an hour. He’s there now—phoned me at seven this morning. I told him I’d hurry out, so I didn’t get many details over the wire. All I know is that Chester Greene was fatally shot last night at almost the exact hour that the former shootings occurred—a little after half past eleven.”

      “Was he in his own room at the time?” Vance was pouring the coffee which Currie had brought in.

      “I believe Heath did mention he was found in his bedroom.”

      “Shot from the front?”

      “Yes, through the heart, at very close range.”

      “Very interestin’. A duplication of Julia’s death, as it were.” Vance became reflective. “So the old house has claimed another victim. But why Chester? . . . Who found him, incidentally?”

      “Sibella, I think Heath said. Her room, you remember, is next to Chester’s, and the shot probably roused her. But we’d better be going.”

      “Am I invited?”

      “I wish you would come.” Markham made no effort to hide his desire to have the other accompany him.

      “Oh, I had every intention of doing so, don’t y’ know.” And Vance left the room abruptly to get dressed.

      It took the District Attorney’s car but a few minutes to reach the Greene mansion from Vance’s house in East 38th Street. A patrolman stood guard outside the great iron gates, and a plain-clothes man lounged on the front steps beneath the arched doorway.

      Heath was in the drawing-room talking earnestly to Inspector Moran, who had just arrived; and two men from the Homicide Bureau stood by the window awaiting orders. The house was peculiarly silent: no member of the family was to be seen.

      The Sergeant came forward at once. His usual ruddiness of complexion was gone and his eyes were troubled. He shook hands with Markham, and then gave Vance a look of friendly welcome.

      “You had the right dope, Mr. Vance. Somebody’s ripping things wide open here; and it isn’t swag they’re after.”

      Inspector Moran joined us, and again the hand-shaking ceremony took place.

      “This case is going to stir things up considerably,” he said. “And we’re in for an unholy scandal if we don’t clean it up quickly.”

      The worried look in СКАЧАТЬ