“And what were you doing during the doctor’s visit?”
“I was bathing this ferocious animal.” She held up the Pomeranian for Vance’s inspection. “Doesn’t he look nice?”
“In the bathroom?”
“Naturally. I’d hardly bathe him in the poudrière.”
“And was the bathroom door closed?”
“As to that I couldn’t say. But it’s quite likely. Doctor Von is like a member of the family, and I’m terribly rude to him sometimes.”
Vance got up.
“Thank you very much, Miss Greene. We’re sorry we had to trouble you. Do you mind remaining in your room for a while?”
“Mind? On the contrary. It’s about the only place I feel safe.” She walked to the archway. “If you do find out anything you’ll let me know—won’t you? There’s no use pretending any longer. I’m dreadfully scared.” Then, as if ashamed of her admission, she went quickly down the hall.
Just then Sproot admitted the two fingerprint experts—Dubois and Bellamy—and the official photographer. Heath joined them in the hall and took them upstairs, returning immediately.
“And now what, sir?”
Markham seemed lost in gloomy speculation, and it was Vance who answered the Sergeant’s query.
“I rather think,” he said, “that another verbal bout with the pious Hemming and the taciturn Frau Mannheim might dispose of a loose end or two.”
Hemming was sent for. She came in laboring under intense excitement. Her eyes fairly glittered with the triumph of the prophetess whose auguries have come to pass. But she had no information whatever to impart. She had spent most of the forenoon in the laundry, and had been unaware of the tragedy until Sproot had mentioned it to her shortly before our arrival. She was voluble, however, on the subject of divine punishment, and it was with difficulty that Vance stemmed her oracular stream of words.
Nor could the cook throw any light on Rex’s murder. She had been in the kitchen, she said, the entire morning except for the hour she had gone marketing. She had not heard the shot and, like Hemming, knew of the tragedy only through Sproot. A marked change, however, had come over the woman. When she had entered the drawing-room fright and resentment animated her usually stolid features, and as she sat before us her fingers worked nervously in her lap.
Vance watched her critically during the interview. At the end he asked suddenly:
“Miss Ada has been with you in the kitchen this past half-hour?”
At the mention of Ada’s name her fear was perceptibly intensified. She drew a deep breath.
“Yes, little Ada has been with me. And thank the good God she was away this morning when Mr. Rex was killed, or it might have been her and not Mr. Rex. They tried once to shoot her, and maybe they’ll try again. She oughtn’t to be allowed to stay in this house.”
“I think it only fair to tell you, Frau Mannheim,” said Vance, “that someone will be watching closely over Miss Ada from now on.”
The woman looked at him gratefully.
“Why should anyone want to harm little Ada?” she asked, in an anguished tone. “I also shall watch over her.”
When she had left us Vance said:
“Something tells me, Markham, that Ada could have no better protector in this house than that motherly German.—And yet,” he added, “there’ll be no end of this grim carnage until we have the murderer safely gyved.” His face darkened: his mouth was as cruel as Pietro de’ Medici’s. “This hellish business isn’t ended. The final picture is only just emerging. And it’s damnable—worse than any of the horrors of Rops or Doré.”
Markham nodded with dismal depression.
“Yes, there appears to be an inevitability about these tragedies that’s beyond mere human power to combat.” He got up wearily and addressed himself to Heath. “There’s nothing more I can do here at present, Sergeant. Carry on, and phone me at the office before five.”
We were about to take our departure when Captain Jerym arrived. He was a quiet, heavyset man, with a gray, scraggly moustache and small, deep-set eyes. One might easily have mistaken him for a shrewd, efficient merchant. After a brief handshaking ceremony Heath piloted him upstairs.
Vance had already donned his ulster, but now he removed it.
“I think I’ll tarry a bit and hear what the Captain has to say regarding those footprints. Y’ know, Markham, I’ve been evolving a rather fantastic theory about ’em; and I want to test it.”
Markham looked at him a moment with questioning curiosity. Then he glanced at his watch.
“I’ll wait with you,” he said.
Ten minutes later Doctor Doremus came down, and paused long enough on his way out to tell us that Rex had been shot with a .32 revolver held at a distance of about a foot from the forehead, the bullet having entered directly from the front and embedded itself, in all probability, in the midbrain.
A quarter of an hour after Doremus had gone Heath re-entered the drawing-room. He expressed uneasy surprise at seeing us still there.
“Mr. Vance wanted to hear Jerym’s report,” Markham explained.
“The Captain’ll be through any minute now.” The Sergeant sank into a chair. “He’s checking Snitkin’s measurements. He couldn’t make much of the tracks on the carpet, though.”
“And fingerprints?” asked Markham.
“Nothing yet.”
“And there won’t be,” added Vance. “There wouldn’t be footprints if they weren’t deliberately intended for us.”
Heath shot him a sharp look, but before he could speak Captain Jerym and Snitkin came downstairs.
“What’s the verdict, Cap?” asked the Sergeant.
“Those footprints on the balcony steps,” said Jerym, “were made with galoshes of the same size and markings as the pattern turned over to me by Snitkin a fortnight or so ago. As for the prints in the room, I’m not so sure. They appear to be the same, however; and the dirt on them is sooty, like the dirt on the snow outside the French doors. I’ve several photographs of them; and I’ll know definitely when I get my enlargements under the microscope.”
Vance rose and sauntered to the archway.
“May
