“An amateur housebreaker with a front-door key to the Greene mansion,” murmured Vance. “Extr’ordin’ry!”
“I’m not saying he had a key, sir,” protested Heath. “I’m simply telling you what we found. The door mighta been unlatched by mistake; or someone mighta opened it for him.”
“Go on with the story, Sergeant,” urged Markham, giving Vance a reproving look.
“Well, after Doc Doremus got there and made an examination of the older woman’s body and inspected the younger one’s wound, I questioned all the family and the servants—a butler, two maids, and a cook. Chester Greene and the butler were the only ones who had heard the first shot, which was fired about half past eleven. But the second shot roused old Mrs. Greene—her room adjoins the younger daughter’s. The rest of the household had slept through all the excitement; but this Chester fellow had woke ’em all up by the time I got there. I talked to all of ’em, but nobody knew anything. After a coupla hours I left a man inside and another outside, and came away. Then I set the usual machinery going; and this morning Captain Dubois went over the place the best he could for fingerprints. Doc Doremus has got the body for an autopsy, and we’ll get a report tonight. But there’ll be nothing helpful from that quarter. She was fired on from in front at close range—almost a contact shot. And the other woman—the young one—was all powder-marked, and her nightgown was burnt. She was shot from behind.—That’s about all the dope.”
“Have you been able to get any sort of a statement from the younger one?”
“Not yet. She was unconscious last night, and this morning she was too weak to talk. But the doctor—Von Blon—said we could probably question her this afternoon. We may get something out of her, in case she got a look at the bird before he shot her.”
“That suggests something to me, Sergeant.” Vance had been listening passively to the recital, but now he drew in his legs, and lifted himself a little. “Did any member of the Greene household possess a gun?”
Heath gave him a sharp look.
“This Chester Greene said he had an old .32 revolver he used to keep in a desk drawer in his bedroom.”
“Oh, did he, now? And did you see the gun?”
“I asked him for it, but he couldn’t find it. Said he hadn’t seen it for years, but that probably it was around somewheres. Promised to dig it up for me today.”
“Don’t hang any fond hopes on his finding it, Sergeant.” Vance looked at Markham musingly. “I begin to comprehend the basis of Chester’s psychic perturbation. I fear he’s a crass materialist after all. … Sad, sad.”
“You think he missed the gun, and took fright?”
“Well—something like that … perhaps. One can’t tell. It’s deuced confusin’.” He turned an indolent eye on the Sergeant. “By the by, what sort of gun did your burglar use?”
Heath gave a gruff, uneasy laugh.
“You score there, Mr. Vance. I’ve got both bullets—thirty-twos, fired from a revolver, not an automatic. But you’re not trying to intimate—”
“Tut, tut, Sergeant. Like Goethe, I’m merely seeking for more illumination, if one may translate Licht—”
Markham interrupted this garrulous evasion.
“I’m going to the Greene house after lunch, Sergeant. Can you come along?”
“Sure I can, sir. I was going out anyway.”
“Good.” Markham brought forth a box of cigars. “Meet me here at two. … And take a couple of these Perfectos before you go.”
Heath selected the cigars, and put them carefully into his breast pocket. At the door he turned with a bantering grin.
“You coming along with us, Mr. Vance—to guide our erring footsteps, as they say?”
“Nothing could keep me away,” declared Vance.
III
At the Greene Mansion
(Tuesday, November 9; 2:30 p.m.)
The Greene mansion—as it was commonly referred to by New Yorkers—was a relic of the city’s ancien régime. It had stood for three generations at the eastern extremity of 53rd Street, two of its oriel windows actually overhanging the murky waters of the East River. The lot upon which the house was built extended through the entire block—a distance of two hundred feet—and had an equal frontage on the cross-streets. The character of the neighborhood had changed radically since the early days; but the spirit of commercial advancement had left the domicile of the Greenes untouched. It was an oasis of idealism and calm in the midst of moiling commercial enterprise; and one of the stipulations in old Tobias Greene’s last will and testament had been that the mansion should stand intact for at least a quarter of a century after his death, as a monument to him and his ancestors. One of his last acts on earth was to erect a high stone wall about the entire property, with a great double iron gateway opening on 53rd Street and a postern-gate for tradesmen giving on 52nd Street.
The mansion itself was two and a half stories high, surmounted by gabled spires and chimney clusters. It was what architects call, with a certain intonation of contempt, a “château flamboyant”; but no derogatory appellation could detract from the quiet dignity and the air of feudal traditionalism that emanated from its great rectangular blocks of gray limestone. The house was
