Markham came immediately to Heath’s defense.
“I’m wholly responsible for any seeming negligence on the Sergeant’s part in that regard,” he said with a noticeable accent of cold reproach. “As long as I have anything to say about this case no arrests are going to be made for the mere purpose of quieting unpleasant criticism.” Then his manner relaxed slightly. “There isn’t the remotest indication of guilt in connection with any of the servants. The maid Hemming is a harmless fanatic, and is quite incapable mentally of having planned the murders. I permitted her to leave the Greenes’ today. …”
“We know where to find her, Inspector,” Heath hastened to add by way of forestalling the other’s inevitable question.
“As to the cook,” Markham went on; “she, too, is wholly outside of any serious consideration. She’s temperamentally unfitted to be cast in the role of murderer.”
“And what about the butler?” asked O’Brien acrimoniously.
“He’s been with the family thirty years, and was even remembered liberally in Tobias Greene’s will. He’s a bit queer, but I think if he had had any reason for destroying the Greenes he wouldn’t have waited till old age came on him.” Markham looked troubled for a moment. “I must admit, however, that there’s an atmosphere of mysterious reserve about the old fellow. He always gives me the impression of knowing far more than he admits.”
“What you say, Markham, is true enough,” remarked Vance. “But Sproot certainly doesn’t fit this particular saturnalia of crime. He reasons too carefully; there’s an immense cautiousness about the man, and his mental outlook is highly conservative. He might stab an enemy if there was no remote chance of detection. But he lacks the courage and the imaginative resiliency that have made possible this present gory debauch. He’s too old—much too old. … By Jove!”
Vance leaned over and tapped the table with an incisive gesture.
“That’s the thing that’s been evading me! Vitality! That’s what is at the bottom of this business—a tremendous, elastic, self-confident vitality: a supreme ruthlessness mingled with audacity and impudence—an intrepid and reckless egoism—an undaunted belief in one’s own ability. And they’re not the components of age. There’s youth in all this—youth with its ambition and venturesomeness—that doesn’t count the cost, that takes no thought of risk. … No. Sproot could never qualify.”
Moran shifted his chair uneasily, and turned to Heath.
“Whom did you send to Atlantic City to watch Sibella?”
“Guilfoyle and Mallory—the two best men we’ve got.”26 The Sergeant smiled with a kind of cruel satisfaction. “She won’t get away. And she won’t pull anything, either.”
“And have you extended your attention to Doctor Von Blon, by any chance?” negligently asked Vance.
Again Heath’s canny smile appeared.
“He’s been tailed ever since Rex was shot.”
Vance regarded him admiringly.
“I’m becoming positively fond of you, Sergeant,” he said; and beneath his chaffing note was the ring of sincerity.
O’Brien leaned ponderously over the table and, brushing the ashes from his cigar, fixed a sullen look on the District Attorney.
“What was this story you gave out to the papers, Mr. Markham? You seemed to want to imply that the old woman took the strychnine herself. Was that hogwash, or was there something in it?”
“I’m afraid there was nothing in it, Inspector.” Markham spoke with a sense of genuine regret. “Such a theory doesn’t square with the poisoning of Ada—or with any of the rest of it, for that matter.”
“I’m not so sure,” retorted O’Brien. “Moran here has told me that you fellows had an idea the old woman was faking her paralysis.” He rearranged his arms on the table and pointed a short thick finger at Markham. “Supposing she shot three of the children, using up all the cartridges in the revolver, and then stole the two doses of poison—one for each of the two girls left; and then supposing she gave the morphine to the younger one, and had only one dose left. …” He paused and squinted significantly.
“I see what you mean,” said Markham. “Your theory is that she didn’t count on our having a doctor handy to save Ada’s life, and that, having failed to put Ada out of the way, she figured the game was up, and took the strychnine.”
“That’s it!” O’Brien struck the table with his fist. “And it makes sense. Furthermore, it means we’ve cleared up the case—see?”
“Yes, it unquestionably makes sense.” It was Vance’s quiet, drawling voice that answered. “But forgive me if I suggest that it fits the facts much too tidily. It’s a perfect theory, don’t y’ know; it leaps to the brain, almost as though someone had planned it for our benefit. I rather fancy that we’re intended to adopt that very logical and sensible point of view. But really now, Inspector, Mrs. Greene was not the suicidal type, however murderous she may have been.”
While Vance had been speaking, Heath had left the room. A few minutes later he returned and interrupted O’Brien in a long, ill-natured defense of his suicide theory.
“We haven’t got to argue any more along that line,” he announced. “I’ve just had Doc Doremus on the phone. He’s finished the autopsy; and he says that the old lady’s leg muscles had wasted away—gone plumb flabby—and that there wasn’t a chance in the world of her moving her legs, let alone walking on ’em.”
“Good God!” Moran was the first to recover from the amazement this news had caused us. “Who was it, then, that Ada saw in the hall?”
“That’s just it!” Vance spoke hurriedly, trying to stem his rising sense of excitation. “If only we knew! That’s the answer to the whole problem. It may not have been the murderer; but the person who sat
