It was not yet ten o’clock of the morning of November the 9th when Vance and I, after motoring to the old Criminal Courts Building on the corner of Franklin and Centre Streets, went directly to the District Attorney’s office on the fourth floor. On that momentous forenoon two gangsters, each accusing the other of firing the fatal shot in a recent payroll holdup, were to be cross-examined by Markham; and this interview was to decide the question as to which of the men would be charged with murder and which held as a State’s witness. Markham and Vance had discussed the situation the night before in the lounge-room of the Stuyvesant Club, and Vance had expressed a desire to be present at the examination. Markham had readily assented, and so we had risen early and driven downtown.
The interview with the two men lasted for an hour, and Vance’s disconcerting opinion was that neither was guilty of the actual shooting.
“Y’ know, Markham,” he drawled, when the sheriff had returned the prisoners to the Tombs, “those two Jack Sheppards are quite sincere: each one thinks he’s telling the truth. Ergo, neither of ’em fired the shot. A distressin’ predicament. They’re obvious gallows-birds—born for the gibbet; and it’s a beastly shame not to be able to round out their destinies in proper fashion. … I say, wasn’t there another participant in the holdup?”
Markham nodded. “A third got away. According to these two, it was a well-known gangster named Eddie Maleppo.”
“Then Eduardo is your man.”4
Markham did not reply, and Vance rose lazily and reached for his ulster.
“By the by,” he said, slipping into his coat, “I note that our upliftin’ press bedecked its front pages this morning with headlines about a pogrom at the old Greene mansion last night. Wherefore?”
Markham glanced quickly at the clock on the wall, and frowned.
“That reminds me. Chester Greene called up the first thing this morning and insisted on seeing me. I told him eleven o’clock.”
“Where do you fit in?” Vance had taken his hand from the doorknob, and drew out his cigarette-case.
“I don’t!” snapped Markham. “But people think the District Attorney’s office is a kind of clearing-house for all their troubles. It happens, however, that I’ve known Chester Greene a long time—we’re both members of the Marylebone Golf Club—and so I must listen to his plaint about what was obviously an attempt to annex the famous Greene plate.”
“Burglary—eh, what?” Vance took a few puffs on his cigarette. “With two women shot?”
“Oh, it was a miserable business! An amateur, no doubt. Got in a panic, shot up the place, and bolted.”
“Seems a dashed curious proceeding.” Vance abstractedly reseated himself in a large armchair near the door. “Did the antique cutlery actually disappear?”
“Nothing was taken. The thief was evidently frightened off before he made his haul.”
“Sounds a bit thick, don’t y’ know.—An amateur thief breaks into a prominent home, casts a predat’ry eye on the dining-room silver, takes alarm, goes upstairs and shoots two women in their respective boudoirs, and then flees. … Very touchin’ and all that, but unconvincin’. Whence came this caressin’ theory?”
Markham was glowering, but when he spoke it was with an effort at restraint.
“Feathergill was on duty last night when the call was relayed from Headquarters, and accompanied the police to the house. He agrees with their conclusions.”5
“Nevertheless, I could bear to know why Chester Greene is desirous of having polite converse with you.”
Markham compressed his lips. He was not in cordial mood that morning, and Vance’s flippant curiosity irked him. After a moment, however, he said grudgingly:
“Since the attempted robbery interests you so keenly, you may, if you insist, wait and hear what Greene has to say.”
“I’ll stay,” smiled Vance, removing his coat. “I’m weak; just can’t resist a passionate entreaty. … Which one of the Greenes is Chester? And how is he related to the two deceased?”
“There was only one murder,” Markham corrected him in a tone of forbearance. “The oldest daughter—an unmarried woman in her early forties—was killed instantly. A younger daughter, who was also shot, has, I believe, a chance of recovery.”
“And Chester?”
“Chester is the elder son, a man of forty or thereabouts. He was the first person on the scene after the shots had been fired.”
“What other members of the family are there? I know old Tobias Greene has gone to his Maker.”
“Yes, old Tobias died about twelve years ago. But his wife is still living, though she’s a helpless paralytic. Then there are—or rather were—five children: the oldest, Julia; next, Chester; then another daughter, Sibella, a few years under thirty, I should say; then Rex, a sickly, bookish boy a year or so younger than Sibella; and Ada, the youngest—an adopted daughter twenty-two or three, perhaps.”
“And it was Julia who was killed, eh? Which of the other two girls was shot?”
“The younger—Ada. Her room, it seems, is across the hall from Julia’s, and the thief apparently got in it by mistake while making his escape. As I understand it, he entered Ada’s room immediately after firing on Julia, saw his error, fired again, and then fled, eventually going down the stairs and out the main entrance.”
Vance smoked a while in silence.
“Your hypothetical intruder must have been deuced confused to have mistaken Ada’s bedroom door for the staircase, what? And then there’s
