“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 handshaking 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 Markham’s eyes deepened.
“The sooner we get to work, then, the better. Are you going to lend a hand, Inspector?”
“There’s no need, I think,” Moran answered quietly. “I’ll leave the police end entirely with Sergeant Heath; and now that you—and Mr. Vance—are here, I’d be of no use.” He gave Vance a pleasant smile, and made his adieus. “Keep in touch with me, Sergeant, and use all the men you want.”11
When he had gone Heath gave us the details of the crime.
At about half past eleven, after the family and the servants had retired, the shot was fired. Sibella was reading in bed at the time and heard it distinctly. She rose immediately and, after listening for several moments, stole up the servants’ stairs—the entrance to which was but a few feet from her door. She wakened the butler, and the two of them then went to Chester’s room. The door was unlocked, and the lights in the room were burning. Chester Greene was sitting, slightly huddled, in a chair near the desk. Sproot went to him, but saw that he was dead, and immediately left the room, locking the door. He then telephoned to the police and to Doctor Von Blon.
“I got here before Von Blon did,” Heath explained. “The doctor was out again when the butler phoned, and didn’t get the message till nearly one o’clock. I was damn glad of it, because it gave me a chance to check up on the footprints outside. The minute I turned in at the gate I could see that somebody had come and gone, the same as last time; and I whistled for the man on the beat to guard the entrance until Snitkin arrived. Then I came on in, keeping along the edge of the walk; and the first thing I noticed when the butler opened the door was a little puddle of water on the rug in the hall. Somebody had recently tracked the soft snow in. I found a coupla other puddles in the hall, and there were some wet imprints on the steps leading upstairs. Five minutes later Snitkin gave me the signal from the street, and I put him to work on the footprints outside. The tracks were plain, and Snitkin was able to get some pretty accurate measurements.”
After Snitkin had been put to work on the footprints, the Sergeant, it seemed, went upstairs to Chester’s room and made an examination. But he found nothing unusual, aside from the murdered man in the chair, and after half an hour descended again to the dining-room, where Sibella and Sproot were waiting. He had just begun his questioning of them when Doctor Von Blon arrived.
“I took him upstairs,” said Heath, “and he looked at the body. He seemed to want to stick around, but I told him he’d be in the way. So he talked to Miss Greene out in
