understand perfectly what you mean,” he said. “But I don’t see that your impressions bring us any nearer to a new theory of the crime. The Greene mansion is unhealthy—that’s granted—and so, no doubt, are the people in it. But I’m afraid you’ve been oversusceptible to its atmosphere. You talk as if last night’s crime were comparable to the poisoning orgies of the Borgias, or the Marquise de Brinvilliers affair, or the murder of Drusus and Germanicus, or the suffocation of the York princes in the Tower. I’ll admit the setting is consonant with that sort of stealthy, romantic crime; but, after all, housebreakers and bandits are shooting people senselessly every week throughout the country, in very much the same way the two Greene women were shot.”
“You’re shutting your eyes to the facts, Markham,” Vance declared earnestly. “You’re overlooking several strange features of last night’s crime—the horrified, astounded attitude of Julia at the moment of death; the illogical interval between the two shots; the fact that the lights were on in both rooms; Ada’s story of that hand reaching for her; the absence of any signs of a forced entry——”
“What about those footprints in the snow?” interrupted Heath’s matter-of-fact voice.
“What about them, indeed?” Vance wheeled about. “They’re as incomprehensible as the rest of this hideous business. Some one walked to and from the house within a half-hour of the crime; but it was some one who knew he could get in quietly and without disturbing any one.”
“There’s nothing mysterious about that,” asserted the practical Sergeant. “There are four servants in the house, and any one of ’em could’ve been in on the job.”
Vance smiled ironically.
“And this accomplice in the house, who so generously opened the front door at a specified hour, failed to inform the intruder where the loot was, and omitted to acquaint him with the arrangement of the house; with the result that, once he was inside, he went astray, overlooked the dining-room, wandered up-stairs, went groping about the hall, got lost in the various bedrooms, had a seizure of panic, shot two women, turned on the lights by switches hidden behind the furniture, made his way down-stairs without a sound when Sproot was within a few feet of him, and walked out the front door to freedom! . . . A strange burglar, Sergeant. And an even stranger inside accomplice.—No; your explanation won’t do—decidedly it won’t do.” He turned back to Markham. “And the only way you’ll ever find the true explanation for those shootings is by understanding the unnatural situation that exists in the house itself.”
“But we know the situation, Vance,” Markham argued patiently. “I’ll admit it’s an unusual one. But it’s not necessarily criminal. Antagonistic human elements are often thrown together; and a mutual hate is generated as a result. But mere hate is rarely a motive for murder; and it certainly does not constitute evidence of criminal activity.”
“Perhaps not. But hatred and enforced propinquity may breed all manner of abnormalities—outrageous passions, abominable evils, devilish intrigues. And in the present case there are any number of curious and sinister facts that need explaining——”
“Ah! Now you’re becoming more tangible. Just what are these facts that call for explanation?”
Vance lit a cigarette and sat down on the edge of the table.
“For instance, why did Chester Greene come here in the first place and solicit your help? Because of the disappearance of the gun? Maybe; but I doubt if it is the whole explanation. And what about the gun itself? Did it disappear? Or did Chester secrete it? Deuced queer about that gun. And Sibella said she saw it last week. But did she see it? We’ll know a lot more about the case when we can trace the peregrinations of that revolver.—And why did Chester hear the first shot so readily, when Rex, in the next room to Ada’s, says he failed to hear the second shot?—And that long interval between the two reports will need some explaining.—And there’s Sproot—the multilingual butler who happened to be reading Martial—Martial, by all that’s holy!—when the grim business took place, and came directly to the scene without meeting or hearing any one.—And just what significance attaches to the pious Hemming’s oracular pronouncements about the Lord of hosts smiting the Greenes as he did the children of Babylon? She has some obscure religious notion in her head—which, after all, may not be so obscure.—And the German cook: there’s a woman with, as we euphemistically say, a past. Despite her phlegmatic appearance, she’s not of the servant class; yet she’s been feeding the Greenes dutifully for over a dozen years. You recall her explanation of how she came to the Greenes? Her husband was a friend of old Tobias’s; and Tobias gave orders she was to remain as cook as long as she desired. She needs explaining, Markham—and a dashed lot of it.—And Rex, with his projecting parietals and his wambly body and his periodic fits. Why did he get so excited when we questioned him? He certainly didn’t act like an innocent and uncomprehending spectator of an attempted burglary.—And again I mention the lights. Who turned them on, and why? And in both rooms! In Julia’s room before the shot was fired, for she evidently saw the assassin and understood his purpose; and in Ada’s room, after the shooting! Those are facts which fairly shriek for explanation; for without an explanation they’re mad, irrational, utterly incredible.—And why wasn’t Von Blon at home in the middle of the night when Sproot phoned him? And how did it happen he nevertheless arrived so promptly? Coincidence? . . . And, by the by, Sergeant: was that double set of footprints like the single spoor of the doctor’s?”
“There wasn’t any way of telling. The snow was too flaky.”
“It probably doesn’t matter particularly, anyhow.” Vance again faced Markham and resumed his recapitulation. “And then there are the points of difference in these two attacks. Julia was shot from the front when she was in bed, whereas Ada was shot in the back after she had risen from bed, although the murderer had ample time to go to her and take aim while she was still lying down. Why did he wait silently until the girl got up and approached him? How did he dare wait at all after he had killed Julia and alarmed the house? Does that strike you as panic? Or as cool-headedness?—And how did Julia’s door come to be unlocked at that particular time? That’s something I especially want clarified.—And perhaps you noticed, Markham, that Chester himself went to summon Sibella to the interview in the drawing-room, and that he remained with her a considerable time. Why, now, did he send Sproot for Rex, and fetch Sibella personally? And why the delay? I yearn for an explanation of what passed between them before they eventually appeared.—And why was Sibella so definite that there wasn’t a burglar, and yet so evasive when we asked her to suggest a counter-theory? What underlay her satirical frankness when she held up each member of the Greene household, including herself, as a possible suspect?—And then there are the details of Ada’s story. Some of them are amazing, incomprehensible, almost fabulous. There was no apparent sound in the room; yet she was conscious of a menacing presence. And that outstretched hand and the shuffling footsteps—we simply must have an explanation of those things. And her hesitancy about saying whether she thought it was a man or a woman; and Sibella’s evident belief that the girl thought it was she. That wants explaining, Markham.—And Sibella’s hysterical accusation against Ada. What lay behind that?—And don’t forget that curious scene between Sibella and Von Blon when he reproached her for her outburst. That was devilish odd. There’s some intimacy there—ça saute aux yeux. You noticed how she obeyed him. And you doubtless observed, too, that Ada is rather fond of the doctor: snuggled up to him figuratively during the performance, opened her eyes on him wistfully, looked to him for protection. Oh, our little Ada has flutterings in his direction. And yet he adopts the hovering professional-bedside manner of a high-priced medico toward her, whereas he treats Sibella very much as Chester might if he had the courage.”
Vance inhaled deeply on his cigarette.
“Yes, Markham, there are many things that must be satisfactorily accounted for before I can believe in your hypothetical burglar.”
Markham
