THE GRACIE ALLEN MURDER CASE (Part 2)

CHAPTER XII

A STRANGE DISCOVERY

(Monday, May 20; 9 am.)

Vance had been reluctant Sunday evening to leave Markham’s apartment, and had remained late. But he was up earlier than usual the following morning. By half-past eight he was completely dressed and had drunk his coffee. Shortly after nine, Sergeant Heath arrived, striding into the library in jaunty triumph.

“Here you are, Mr. Vance,” he announced, placing a long cardboard tube on the desk. “If all my jobs were as easy as getting these blue-prints for you, I’d never die from overwork.”

“My word, such efficiency!”

Vance drew the plans from their holder and spread them on the desk. He scrutinized them all, inspecting the sheet for each floor in turn. He gave more time, however, to the ground-floor plan which included the actual cafe room, the entrance-hall and the checkrooms, the kitchen quarters, and the office. The Sergeant watched him with expectant amusement.

“Quite conventional,” Vance murmured, tapping the sheets with his finger. “An excellent bit of planning. Intelligently done. No more, no less. Sad.. sad.”

At this moment Gracie Allen unexpectedly arrived. She preceded Currie into the room, making his announcement superfluous.

“Oh, I just had to come and see you, Mr. Vance! Somehow I don’t seem to be getting anywhere—and I worked so hard. Honest, I did!”

“But my word! Young lady,”—Vance spoke pleasantly—“why aren’t you at the factory this morning?”

“I just couldn’t go there,” she returned. “Not for a while, anyhow. I’ve got so much on my mind—that is, terribly important things. And I’m sure Mr. Doolson won’t mind… George didn’t go to the factory today, either. He phoned me last night and said he couldn’t possibly do anything. He’s so upset.”

“Well, perhaps after all, Miss Allen, a few days’ rest…”

“Oh, I’m not resting.” She appeared hurt. “I’m frightfully busy every minute. You yourself said I have to keep busy. Remember?” She caught sight of Heath, and a frightened look came into her large eyes as she recognized him.

Vance eased the situation by casually introducing the Sergeant.

“He is working with us, too,” he added. “You can trust the Sergeant. I explained his error to him yesterday, and now he’s on our side… Furthermore,” Vance went on cheerfully, “he has five letters in his name.”

“Oh!” Her fears were somewhat allayed by this information, though she looked dubiously at Heath again before she broke into a faint smile. Then she pointed to the desk. “What are all those blue papers, Mr. Vance?—they weren’t there yesterday. Maybe they’re a clue, or something. Are they?”

“No, I’m afraid not. They’re just plans of the Domdaniel where you were Saturday night…”

“Oh, may I look?”

“Certainly,” Vance replied, and bent over the desk with her. “See, this is the big dining-room, and the entrance-door from the hall; and over here is the kitchen, and the side door; and right along here is the driveway that goes under the arch; and right in this corner is the office, with the door opening on the terrace; and—”

“Wait a minute,” she interrupted. “That’s not really an office.”

She bent closer over the chart and traced corridors and directions with her finger, calling them off as she did so. She ended by following the outline of the small room. Then she looked up.

“Why, that’s Dixie Del Marr’s private room. She told me so herself… Don’t you think she’s just beautiful, Mr. Vance? And she can sing so lovely, too. I wish I could sing like her. You know, classical songs.”

“I’m sure your singing is much prettier,” Vance told her gallantly. “But I think you’re mistaken about that room being Miss Del Marr’s. Really, y’ know, it’s Mr. Mirche’s office—isn’t it, Sergeant?”

“I’ll say it is!”

Gracie Allen bent still lower over the papers.

“Oh, but it is the room I was in,” she asserted conclusively. “I’ll show you:—that window looks right out on the driveway; and here’s the street, through those tiny windows. It even says ‘50th Street’ right on the picture. Why, it’s got to be Miss Del Marr’s room. And you can’t have two rooms in the same place, can you—even in a picture?”

“No, not very well—”

“And aren’t the walls all done in mauve? And aren’t there three or four big leather chairs along this wall? And isn’t there a big dead fish on a board, hanging up here?” She pointed out the locations as she spoke. “And isn’t there a funny little glass chandelier hanging—Oh, where’s the ceiling, Mr. Vance? I don’t see any ceiling on this picture.”

Heath had become highly interested in the girl’s inventory.

“Sure,” he said. “The walls are a sort of light purple; and Mirche says he caught that fish down in Florida. She’s dead right, Mr. Vance… But see here. Miss, when were you ever in that room?”

“Why, I was in it just last Saturday night.”

“What!” bellowed Heath.

The girl was startled.

“Did I say something wrong? I didn’t mean to go in there.”

Vance spoke now.

“What time during the evening did you go in there, Miss Allen?”

“Why, you know, Mr. Vance. When I went to look for Philip, at ten o’clock… But I didn’t see Philip. He wasn’t around. And he didn’t come home yesterday, either. I guess he’s gone on a vacation somewhere. And he promised he wouldn’t quit his job.”

Vance diverted the girl’s aimless chatter.

“Let’s not talk about Philip now. Just tell me how you happened to go out on the terrace looking for your brother, when you really wanted to go to the rear of the cafe.”

“I didn’t go out on the terrace.” She shook her head emphatically. “What would I want to go on the terrace for, anyhow? I’d have caught cold in that thin dress I was wearing. Don’t you think that was an awfully pretty dress, Mr. Vance? Mother made that too.”

“Yes, you looked very charming in it… But you must have forgot, for the only way to get into that room is from the terrace.”

“Oh, but I went in the other way—through the door at the back.” She pointed to the wall directly opposite the street door of Mirche’s office; then her eyes opened wide as she scrutinized the blue-print. “There’s something awfully funny here, Mr. Vance. Whoever made this picture wasn’t very careful.”

Vance came closer to her. The Sergeant, too, moved nearer, and stood beside them with an air of curious expectancy, his cigar poised in mid-air.

“You think there should be another door shown at that spot?” Vance asked softly.

“Why, of course! Because there is a door right there. Otherwise, how could I have gotten in Miss Del Marr’s private room? But I can’t imagine why she keeps that fish in there. I don’t think it’s pretty at all.”

“Don’t worry about the fish. Look here at the plan a minute… Now, here’s the archway through which you left the dining-room—”

“Uh-huh. The one with the big carved stairway in front of it.”

“And then—let’s see—you must have gone this way in the hall—”

“That’s right. George wanted me to stay and speak to him, but I was in a hurry. So I went right on back, until I passed another little passage. And then I didn’t know which way to go.”

“You must have turned into that narrow passage, and walked down to this point, here.” Vance brought to a stop the pencil with which he was tracing her course on the blue-print.

“That’s just what I did! How do you know? Were you watching me?”

“No, my dear,” Vance answered patiently. “But maybe you’re a little confused. There is a door here, at the end of this narrow passage, where you say you walked down.”

“Yes, I saw that door. I even opened it. But there wasn’t anything there—only the driveway. That’s how I knew I was lost. And then as I stood there leaning against the wall and wondering how to find Philip, this other door I was telling you about—you know, the one into Miss Del Marr’s room—opened right behind me.” She tittered, as at some joke she was just about to relate. “And I fell right into the room! It was terribly embarrassing. But I didn’t spoil my dress at all. And I might have torn it, falling like that… I guess it was my own fault though, for not looking where I was leaning. But I didn’t know there was a door there. I didn’t see any door at all. Anyhow, there I was in the room. Isn’t that silly—not seeing a door and leaning up against it, and then falling down right into a lady’s room?” She laughed engagingly at the recital of her mishap.

Vance led the girl to a chair and arranged a pillow for her.

“Sit right there, my dear,” he said, “and tell us all about it.”

“But I have told you,” she said, arranging herself comfortably. “It was awfully funny, and I was so embarrassed. Miss Del Marr was embarrassed too. She told me that was her private room. So, I told her I was awfully sorry and explained about looking for my brother—she even knew Philip. I guess that’s because they both work at the same place, like me and George… And then she showed me back down the hall, and pointed out the exact way to the landing on the kitchen stairs. She was awfully nice. Well, I waited a long time, but Philip didn’t show up. So I went back to Mr. Puttie. I knew how to find my way back, all right… And now, Mr. Vance, I want to ask you some more questions about what you said yesterday—”

“I’d love to answer them, Miss Allen,” Vance said; “but I really haven’t any time this morning. Maybe later—this afternoon. You won’t mind, will you?”

“Oh, no.” The girl jumped up quickly. “I’ve got something very important to do, too. And maybe George will come up for a while.” She shook Vance’s hand, nodded suspiciously to Heath, and in a moment she was gone.

“Holy suffering sauerkraut!” exploded Heath, almost before the door closed on Miss Allen. “Didn’t I tell you that Mirche was a crafty customer? So he’s got a secret door! The dizzy doll didn’t see it—sure she didn’t! Somebody musta got careless—her leani’n up against a invisible door and goin’ plop—right into the room where her brother was killed! That’s somethin’!”

Vance smiled grimly.

“But, after all, Sergeant, there’s no law against a man having a secret door to his own office. And that, undoubtedly, is our answer to the question of how the dead fellow got in there without being seen by Hennessey. But someone must have been in there with him. Not Mirche: he was at my table between ten and eleven. And certainly no dead man was there at ten.”

“But don’t you think Mr. Vance—”

“Spare me, Sergeant!” Vance was pacing the floor.

“I’d like to go up to the Domdaniel and smash that fake door in!” Heath asserted violently.

“No—oh, no,” counselled Vance. “You mustn’t be impetuous. Silkiness. Let that be your watchword for the nonce.”

“Still and all,” said the determined Heath, “if this Domdaniel is the headquarters for a crooked ring of some kind, like I’ve always suspected, nothing’d give me more pleasure than smashing the whole place—and Mirche along with it.”

“Your nature’s too vehement, Sergeant,” Vance rebuked him. “One doesn’t go about shattering people’s offices without proof of their guilt.”

“I’m just sayin’ what I’d like to do.”

“And another thing, Sergeant: Mirche would be merely one weak link in your imagin’ry criminal chain. As I said, he’s far from being a leader of men.”

“He looks like a pretty slick article to me,” Heath remonstrated meekly. “Anyhow, that ‘Owl’ Owen you was worrying about would fill the bill.”

“Quite—quite,” mused Vance. “But he was merely a fellow diner when I saw him. Very correct and unobtrusive. Though I admit I didn’t relish his being there that night, with so many other queer things all coming together and signifying nothing.” He made an ambiguous gesture. “I think we may forget him for the present, and concentrate on ascertaining who killed the poor chap.”

“Yeah? How? By checkin’ up a little closer on Mirche?”

“Precisely, Sergeant. And I shan’t overlook Dixie Del Marr either. Not after that amazing information about the door into her private room.”

“And just how do you intend doing it, Mr. Vance?”

“Quite openly, Sergeant. I shall drop in for a chat… Where, by the by, does brother Mirche reside?”

“That’s easy,” Heath told him. “Upstairs at the Domdaniel.”

“I thought as much… And could you answer with equal ease if I asked you the domicile of Miss Del Marr?”

“Sure.” Heath grunted. “I wouldn’t have lasted this long on the homicide squad, if I didn’t know where the people live that I think are crooked and mixed up in dirty business.—You’ll find her at the Antler Hotel, on 53rd Street.”

“You’re a fund of information, Sergeant,” Vance complimented him.

“When do you intend to see ’em, sir?… And then what?”

“I’ll try to commune with Mirche and Miss Del Marr this very morning. After that, I’ll endeavour to lure Mr. Markham to lunch. Then I should be charmed to meet you here again at three this afternoon.”

“It’s still your case, Mr. Vance,” mumbled Heath. “I’m not goin’ to tell you how to handle it.” He remained another half-hour before taking his departure.

Then Vance telephoned to Markham, after which he sat down and lighted a cigarette, with more than ordinary deliberation.

“Still another amazin’ facet in the gem, Van,” he said. “Markham was on the point of calling me when I was put through to his office. Mr. Doolson—he of the In-O-Scent Corporation—had just come and gone. Markham promised he’d pour forth the story when I see him later—he seemed inordin’tely amused. We’re to be at his office round one o’clock. I told him if we weren’t there by two, to send a posse of trusty stalwarts to our rescue at the Domdaniel.”

CHAPTER XIII

NEWS OF AN OWL

(Monday, May 20; 11 am.)

At eleven o’clock Vance went to the Domdaniel. He had no difficulty about seeing Mirche. After a delay of only five minutes, Mirche came into the reception-hall where we were waiting. He greeted Vance effusively, though he gave me the impression that he was acting out a rehearsed part.

“To what am I indebted for this unexpected visit, sir?” he asked smoothly.

“I merely wanted a chat with you anent the poor fellow who was found dead here Saturday night.” Vance spoke with a casual pleasantness.

“Oh, yes.” If Mirche was surprised, he disguised the fact successfully. “Of course, if it’s about his family, we will be very glad to see what can be done… Naturally, I should like to avoid any scandal—the public is sensitive about such matters. A most unfortunate incident.—But suppose we go into my office.”

He led the way along the terrace, and opening the door, stood aside to let us precede him. Vance seated himself in one of the large leather chairs, and Mirche sat down half facing him.

“The police have naturally been asking a great many questions about the affair,” Mirche began. “But I was hoping the whole thing had been settled by now.”

“These things are most distressing, I know,” said Vance. “But there are one or two points about the situation that rather interest me.”

“I’m greatly surprised that you should be interested, Mr. Vance.” Mirche was cool and suave. “After all, the man was only a dishwasher here. I had dismissed him just before the dinner hour. A question of pay—he didn’t think he was getting enough. I don’t see why he should have come back, unless he thought better of the matter and wished to be reinstated. Most unfortunate he should die in my office. But he didn’t seem to be a particularly robust fellow, and I suppose one can never tell when the heart will give out… By the way, Mr. Vance, have they found out just what did cause his death?”

“No, I don’t believe so,” answered Vance noncommittally. “However, that isn’t the point that interests me at the moment. The fact is, Mr. Mirche, there was an officer in the street outside Saturday night, and he insists he didn’t see this dishwasher of yours enter the office here, after he was last seen coming out of it at about six o’clock.”

“Probably didn’t notice him,” said Mirche indifferently.

“No—oh, no. The officer—who, by the by, knew young Allen—is quite positive the man did not enter your office from the balcony all evening.”

Mirche looked up and spread his hands.

“I must still insist, Mr. Vance—”

“Is it possible the fellow could have come in here some other way?” Vance paused momentarily and looked about him. “He might, don’t y’ know, have come through that little door in the wall at the rear.”

Mirche did not speak for a moment. He stared shrewdly at Vance, and the muscles in his body seemed to tighten. If I have ever seen a living picture of a man thinking rapidly, Mirche was that picture.

Suddenly the man let out a short laugh.

“And I thought I had guarded my little secret so well!… That door is a device of mine—purely for my own convenience, you understand.” He rose and went to the rear of the office. “I’ll show you how it works.” He pressed a small medallion on the wainscoting, and a panel barely two feet wide swung silently into the room. Beyond was the narrow passageway in which Gracie Allen had lost her way.

Vance looked at the concealed catch on the secret door and then turned away, as if the revelation were nothing new to him.

“Quite neat,” he drawled.

“A great convenience,” said Mirche, closing the door. “A private entrance to my office from the cafe. You can see, Mr. Vance—”

“Oh, yes—quite. Useful no end when you crave a bit of privacy. I’ve known certain Wall Street brokers to have just such contraptions. Can’t say I blame them… But how should your dishwasher have known of this arrangement?”

Mirche stroked his chin thoughtfully.

“I’m sure I don’t know. Although it’s wholly possible, of course, that some of the help around here have spied on me—or perhaps run into the secret accidentally.”

“Miss Del Marr’s aware of it, of course?”

“Oh, yes,” Mirche admitted. “She helps me here a bit at times. I see no reason for not letting her use the door when she wishes.”

It was apparent that Vance was somewhat taken aback at Mirche’s frankness, and he straightway turned the conversation into other channels. He put numerous questions about Allen, and then reverted to the events of Saturday night.

In the midst of one of Vance’s questions the front door opened, and Miss Del Marr herself appeared in the doorway. Mirche invited her in and immediately introduced us.

“I have just been telling these gentlemen,” he said quickly, “about the private entrance to this room.” He forced a laugh. “Mr. Vance seemed to think there might be some mysterious connection between that and—”

Vance held up his hand, protesting pleasantly.

“I’m afraid you read hidden meanings into my words, Mr. Mirche.” Then he smiled at Miss Del Marr. “You must find that door a great convenience.”

“Oh, yes—especially when the weather is bad. In fact, it has proved most convenient.” She spoke in a casual tone, but there was a hardness, almost a bitterness, in her expression.

Vance was scrutinizing her closely. I expected him to question her regarding Allen’s death, for I knew this had been his intention. But, instead, he chatted carelessly regarding trivial things, quite unrelated to the matter which had brought him there.

Shortly before he made his adieus, he said disarmingly to Miss Del Marr: “Forgive me if I seem personal, but I cannot help admiring the scent you are wearing. I’d hazard a guess it is a blend of jonquille and rose.”

If the woman was astonished at Vance’s comment, she gave no indication of it.

“Yes,” she replied indifferently. “It has a ridiculous name—quite unworthy of it, I think. Mr. Mirche uses the perfume, too—I am sure it was my influence.” She gave the man a conventional smile; and again I detected the hardness and bitterness in her manner.

We took our leave soon thereafter, and as we walked toward Seventh Avenue, Vance was unusually serious.

“Deuced clever, our Mr. Mirche,” he muttered. “Can’t understand why he wasn’t more concerned about the secret door. He’s worried, though. Oh, quite. Very queer… No need whatever to question the Lorelei. Changed my mind about that the moment she spoke so dulcetly and looked at Mirche. There was hatred, Van,—passionate, cruel hatred… And they both use Kiss Me Quick. Oh, where does that aromatic item belong?… Most puzzlin’!…”

At the District Attorney’s office Markham told us about Doolson’s visit that morning.

“The man is desperately concerned, Vance, and for the most incredible reason. It seems he has an exalted opinion of this young Burns’ ability. Imagines his perfumery business cannot function without the fellow. Is convinced that Burns holds the key to the factory’s continued success. And more of that sort of amazing twaddle.”

“Not twaddle at all, Markham,” Vance put in. “Doolson probably has every reason to regard Burns highly. It was Burns who concocted the formula for In-O-Scent and saved Doolson from bankruptcy. I understand just what the man means.”

“Well, it seems, further, that the business of the concern is of a somewhat seasonal nature and that the annual peak is approaching. Doolson has invested heavily in an intensive campaign of some kind, and is in immediate need of various new popular scents. His contention is that only Burns can turn the trick.”

“Both interesting and plausible. But why his visit here to your sanctum?”

“It appears Burns has chucked his job until cleared of all suspicion in the Allen affair. He’s nervous and, I imagine, not a little frightened. Can’t work, can’t think, can’t sniff—completely disorganized. And Doolson is frantic. He had a talk with the fellow this morning, and got the reasons for his obstinate refusal to return to his work. Burns told him the affair was being kept quiet temporarily, and gave no names; but explained that he was in some way concerned with it and therefore upset. Having complete faith in Burns, Doolson hastened here in despair. Probably thought my office wasn’t making enough speed.”

“Well?”

“He insists on offering a reward for the solution to the case, in the desperate hope of spurring me and the staff to get the matter settled at once, so his precious Burns can get back to work. Personally, I think the man is crazy.”

“It could be, Markham. But don’t disabuse him.”

“I’ve already tried. But he was insistent.”

“And at what figure does he estimate the immediate and carefree services of Mr. Burns?”

“Five thousand dollars!”

“Quite insane,” Vance laughed.

“I agree with you. I wouldn’t believe it myself if I didn’t have the written and signed instructions and the certified cheque right here in my safe at this moment—incidentally, with an expiration clause of forty-eight hours.”

After Vance had absorbed this fantastic information, he related his own activities of the morning. He told of the secret door to Mirche’s office, and dwelt on the Sergeant’s stubborn suspicion that the Domdaniel was the centre of some far-reaching criminal ring.

To this last, Markham nodded slowly and thoughtfully.

“I’m not sure,” he remarked, “that the Sergeant’s suspicions are unfounded. That place has always troubled me a bit, but nothing definite has ever been brought to light.”

“The Sergeant mentioned Owen as a possible guiding genius,” Vance said. “And the idea rather appeals to me. I’m half inclined, don’t y’ know, to search for the ‘Owl’ and see if I can ruffle his feathers… By the by, Markham, in case my impulse should overcome my discretion, what might be his Christian name? Really, one can’t go about inquiring for a predat’ry nocturnal bird.”

“As I remember, it’s Dominic.”

“Dominic—Dominic…” Suddenly Vance stood up, his eyes fixed before him. “Dominic Owen! And Daniel Mirche!” He held his cigarette suspended. “Now the whole thing has become fantasy. You’re right, Markham—I’m having visions: I’m enmeshed in an abracadabra. It’s all as fantastic as the Papyrus of Ani!”

“In the name of Heaven—” began Markham.

“Doesn’t it pierce your consciousness?” Then he said: “Dominic—Daniel. To wit, Domdaniel!”

Markham raised his eyebrows sceptically.

“Sheer coincidence, Vance. Though a neat bit of fantasy, I’ll admit. As I recall my Arabian Nights, the original Domdaniel was under the ocean, somewhere near Tunis, and was the abode of evil spirits. Even if Mirche had ever heard of that undersea palace and was a partner of Owen’s in the cafe, he’d never have had enough initiative, or courage, for that.”

“Not Mirche, Markham. But Owen. He would have the subtlety and the daring and the grim humour. The idea would have been quite magnificent, don’t y’know. Offering the world a key to his secret, and then chuckling to himself much like one of the evil afrits who originally inhabited that subterranean citadel of sin…”

He commiserated with Markham on the intricacies of life, and left him to draw his own conclusions.

It was not Heath who was waiting for us when we returned to Vance’s apartment a little before three. It was the ubiquitous Gracie Allen; and, as usual, she greeted Vance with gay exuberance.

“You told me to come back this afternoon. Or didn’t you? Anyhow, you did say something about later this afternoon, and I didn’t know what time that was; so I thought I’d come early. I’ve got lots of clues collected—that is, I’ve got three or four. But I don’t think they’re any good. Have you got any clues, Mr. Vance?”

“Not yet,” he said, smiling. “That is, I haven’t any definite clues. But I have several ideas.”

“Oh, tell me all about your ideas, Mr. Vance,” she urged. “Maybe they will help. You never know what will come out of just thinking. Only last week I thought there’d be a thunderstorm—and there was!”

“Well, let me see…” And Vance, somewhat in the spirit of facetiousness, yet with a manifest benignity, told her of his surmise regarding the meaning of the word “Domdaniel.” He dwelt entertainingly on the mystery and romance of the Arabian Nights legend of the original Domdaniel—the Syrian califs, the “roots of the ocean,” the four entrances and the four thousand steps, and Maghrabi and the other magicians and sorcerers.

Heath had come in at the beginning of the story, and stood listening throughout as enthralled as was the girl. When Vance had finished Gracie Allen relaxed momentarily.

“That’s simply wonderful, Mr. Vance. I wish I could help you find the man named Dominic. We have a big fat shipping clerk down at the factory named Dominic. But he can’t be the one you mean.”

“No, I’m sure he’s not. This one is a small man, with very dark, piercing eyes, and a white face, and hair that’s almost black.”

“Oh! Maybe it was the man I saw in Miss Del Marr’s room.”

“What!” The Sergeant’s exclamation startled the girl.

“Goodness! Did I say something wrong again, Mr. Heath?”

Vance reproachfully waved the Sergeant back. Then he spoke calmly to the girl.

“You mean, Miss Allen, that you saw someone besides Miss Del Marr when you fell into that room last Saturday?”

“Yes. A man exactly like you described.”

“But why,” asked Vance, “did you not tell me about him this morning?”

“Why, you didn’t ask me! If you’d asked me I’d have told you. And anyhow, I didn’t think it made any difference—about the man being there, I mean. He didn’t have anything at all to do with my tumble.”

“And you’re sure,” Vance went on, “that he looked like the man I just described to you?”

“Uh-huh, I’m sure.”

“I don’t suppose you had ever seen him before.”

“I never saw him before in all my life. And I’d have remembered, too, if I’d ever seen him. I always remember faces, but I can’t hardly ever remember names. But I did see him afterwards.”

“Afterwards? Where was that?”

“Why, he was sitting in the dining-room, right in the corner, not very far from George. I can’t imagine how I happened to look over in that direction, because I was with Mr. Puttie that evening.”

“Was there anyone else with the man when you saw him in the dining-room?” Vance pursued.

“But I couldn’t see them, because they had their backs to me.”

“Them? Just whom do you mean?”

“Why, the two other men at the same table.”

Vance inhaled deeply on his cigarette.

“Tell me. Miss Allen: what was the man doing when you saw him in Miss Del Marr’s room?”

“Well, let me see. I guess he was a very personal friend of Miss Del Marr’s because he was putting a big notebook away in one of the drawers. And he must have been a very personal friend of Miss Del Marr’s, or he wouldn’t know where the book belonged, would he? And then Miss Del Marr came over to me and put her hand on my arm, and led me out very quick. I guess she was in a hurry. But she was awfully nice…”

“Well, that was a very amusing experience, my dear.”

Shortly after this astounding recital, Miss Allen cheerfully took leave of us, saying, with a comical air of mystery, that she had a lot of very important things to attend to. She intimated that she might even be seeing Mr. Burns.

When she had gone Vance looked across at the Sergeant as if expecting some comment.

Heath sprawled in a chair, apparently stunned. “I got nothin’ to say, Mr. Vance. I’m goin’ nuts!”

“I’m a bit groggy myself,” said Vance. “But now it’s imperative that I see Owen. Frankly, I’ve been only half-hearted about communing with him, and only vaguely believed in my game of charades about Owen and Mirche. Yet Gracie Allen knew of the connection all along. Yes, now it is highly imperative that I tree the ‘Owl.’ Can you help, Sergeant?”

Heath pursed his lips. “I don’t know where the guy’s staying in New York, if that’s what you mean. But one of the federal boys I know might have the dope. Wait a minute…”

He went to the telephone in the hall, while Vance smoked in silent preoccupation.

“At last I got it,” Heath announced as he came back into the room a half-hour later. “None of the federal boys knew Owen was in town, but one of ’em dug up the file and told me that Owen used to live at the St. Carlton during the old investigation. I took a chance and called up the hotel. He’s stopping there, all right—got in Thursday…”

“Thank you, Sergeant. I’ll phone you in the morning. In the meantime, discourage thought.”

The Sergeant departed, and Vance immediately put a call through to Markham.

“You’re breakfasting with me tomorrow,” he told the District Attorney. “This evening I shall endeavour to call on the erudite Mr. Owen. I’ve many things to tell you, and I may have more by morning. Remember, Markham: breakfast tomorrow—it’s a ukase, not a frivolous invitation…”

CHAPTER XIV

A DYING MADMAN

(Monday, May 20; 8 pm.)

At eight o’clock that evening Vance went to the St. Carlton hotel. He did not telephone from the reception desk, but wrote the word “Unprofessionally” across one of his personal cards and sent it to Owen. A few minutes later the bellboy returned and led us upstairs.

Two men were standing by a window when we entered, and Owen himself was seated limply in a low chair against the wall, slowly turning Vance’s card between his slender tapering fingers. He looked at Vance, and tossed the card on the inlaid tabouret beside him. Then he said in a soft, imperious voice, “That’s all tonight.” The two men went out of the room immediately, and closed the door.

“Forgive me,” he said with a wistful, apologetic smile. “Man is a suspicious animal.” He moved his hand in a vague gesture: it was his invitation for us to sit down. “Yes, suspicious. But why should one care?” Owen’s voice was ominously low, but it had a plaintive carrying quality, like a birdcall at dusk. “I know why you came. And I am glad to see you. Something might have intervened.”

With a closer view of the man, I got the impression that grave illness hung over him. An inner lethargy marked him; his eyes were liquid; his face was almost cyanosed; his voice a monotone. He gave me the feeling of a living dead man.

“For several years,” he went on, “there has been the vagrant hope that some day… Need for consciousness of kind, like-mindedness…” His voice drifted off.

“The loneliness of psychic isolation,” murmured Vance. “Quite. Perhaps I was not the one.”

“Nobody is the one, of course. Forgive my conceit.” Owen smiled wanly and lighted a cigarette. “You think that either of us willed this meeting? Man makes no choices. His choice is his temperament. We are sucked into a vortex, and until we escape we struggle to justify or ennoble this ‘choice.’”

“It doesn’t matter, does it?” said Vance. “Something vital always evades us, and the mind can never answer the questions it propounds. Saying a thing, or not saying it and thinking it, is no different.”

“Exactly.” The man gave Vance a glance of interrogation. “What thought have you?”

“I was wondering why you were in New York. I saw you at the Domdaniel on Saturday.” Vance’s tone had changed.

“I saw you too, though I was not certain. I thought then you might get in touch with me. Your presence that night was not a coincidence. There are no coincidences. A babu word to cloak our reeking ignorance. There is only one pattern in the entire universe of time.”

“But your visit to the city. Do I intrude on a secret?”

Owen snarled, and I could feel a chill go down my spine. Then his expression changed to one of sadness.

“I came to see a specialist—Enrick Hofmann.”

“Yes. One of the world’s greatest cardiologists. You saw him?”

“Two days ago.” Owen laughed bitterly. “Doomed! Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.”

Vance merely raised his eyebrows slightly, and drew deeply on his cigarette.

“Thank you,” said Owen, “for sparing me the meaningless platitudes.” Then he asked suddenly: “Are you a Daniel?”

“Does Belshazzar need an augur?” Vance looked straight at the man… “No, alas! I am no Daniel. Nor am I a Dominic.”

Owen chuckled diabolically.

“I was sure you knew!” He wagged his head in satisfaction. “Mirche will die without the faintest suspicion of the jest. He’s as ignorant of the Thousand and One Nights as he is of Southey and Carlyle. [Southey used the Domdaniel as the subject of his “Thalaba”; and it was Carlyle who made the Domdaniel of the Arabian Night synonymous with a “den of iniquity.”] An illiterate swine!”

“It was a clever idea,” said Vance.

“Oh, no; not clever. Merely a bit of humour.” Lethargy again seemed to pervade him; his expression became a mask; his hands lay limp on the arms of the chair. He might have been a corpse. There was a long silence; then Vance spoke.

“The handwriting on the wall. Would it comfort you to have me suggest that perhaps all the years throughout infinity are counted and divided?”

“No,” Owen snapped. “‘Comfort’—another babu word.” Then he went on wistfully: “Eternal recurrence—resurgam. The perfect torture.” He began to mutter. “‘The sea will begin to wither.. an extinct planet.. absorbed in the sun.. greater suns.. the ultimate moment.. eternal dispersal of things.. billions of years hence.. this same room…’” He shook himself weakly, and stared at Vance. “Moore was right: it is like madness.”

Vance nodded sympathetically.

“Yes. Madness. Quite. The moment’ry finite is all we dare face. But there is no finite.”

“No, no finite, of course.” Owen spoke sepulchrally. “But those billions of years beyond, when the mind returns to infinity.. like the endless ripples made by a stone cast in the water. Then we must have cleanliness of spirit. Not now. But then. We must cause no endless ripples… Thank God, I can talk to you.”

Again Vance nodded.

“Yes, I quite understand. ‘Cleanliness’—I know what you mean. The finite balances itself—that is, we can balance it, even at the last. We can go back clean to endless time. Yes. ‘Cleanliness of spirit’—an apposite phrase. No ripples. I wholly agree.”

“But not through restitution,” Owen said quickly. “No preposterous confessionals.”

Vance waved his hand in negation.

“I didn’t mean that. Merely a neant—a nothingness—after the finite, when there will be no further struggle, no more trying to eliminate the impulses placed in us by the same agency that puts a taboo on our indulging them…”

“That’s it!” There was a flicker of animation in Owen’s voice; then he lapsed again into languor. The slight gesture of his hand was as graceful as a woman’s. But the steely hardness in his gaze remained. “You will see that I cause no ripples, in case..?”

“Yes,” returned Vance simply. “If the occasion should ever arise, and I am able to help, you may count on me.”

“I trust you… And now, may I speak a moment? I have long wanted to say these things to someone who would understand…”

Vance merely waited, and Owen went on.

“Nothing has the slightest importance—not even life itself. We ourselves can create or smear out human beings—it is all one, whichever we do.” He grinned hopelessly. “The rotten futility of all things—the futility of doing anything, even of thinking. Damn the agonizing succession of days we call Life! My temperament has ever drawn me in many directions at once—always the thumbscrew and the rack. Perhaps, after all, to smear souls out is better.”

He seemed to shrink as from a ghost; and Vance put in: “I know the unrest that comes from too much needless activity, with all its multiplying desires.”

“The aimless struggle! Yes, yes. The struggle to fit oneself into a mould that differs from one’s ancient mould. That is the ultimate curse. The instinct to achieve—faugh! We learn its worthlessness only when it has devoured us. I have been fired by different instincts at different times. They are all lies—cunning, corroding lies. And we think we can subject our instincts to the mind. The mind!” He laughed softly. “The mind’s only value is attained when it teaches us that it is useless.”

He moved a little, as if a slight involuntary spasm had shaken him. “Nor can we attribute our distorted instincts to racial memory. There are no races—only one great filthy stream of life flowing out of the primeval slime. The abortive sensualism of primordial animal life lies dormant within all of us. If we suppress it, it manifests itself in cruelty and sadism; if we unleash it, it produces perversions and insanity. There is no answer.”

“Man sometimes strives to counteract these horrors by releasing an inner ideal from its abstract conception through visual symbols.”

“Symbols themselves are abstractions,” came Owen’s mordant monotone. “Nor can logic help. Logic leads no man to the truth: logic leads only to insane delusions. The apotheosis of logic:—angels dancing on the point of a needle… But why do I even bother, in this shadow between two infinities? I can give only one answer: the obscene urge to eat well and live well—which, in turn, is an instinct and, therefore, a lie.”

“It may go farther back than that instinct,” Vance suggested. “It may be an urge brought here when the shadow of life first fell across the path of infinity—the cosmic urge to play a game with life, in order to escape from the stresses and pressures of the finite.”

(I now knew that Vance had some very definite—but, to me, obscure—purpose in mind as he talked with this strange, unnatural man before him.)

“Here in this dreamed-out world,” said Owen hazily, “one course is no better than another; one person or thing is no more important than any other person or thing. All opposites are interchangeable—creation or slaughter, serenity or torture. Yet vanity seeps through the scabby crust of my congealed metaphysics. Bah!” He hunched himself over and stared At Vance. “There is neither time nor existence here.”

“As you say. Infinity is not relatively divisible.”

“But there is the terrifying possibility that we can add some factor to the time before us. And if we do, that factor will continue eternally… There must be no pebble thrown. We must cut through this shadow clean.”

Owen had closed his eyes, and Vance scrutinized him without expression. Then he said in an almost consoling tone:

“That is wisdom… Yes. Cleanliness of spirit.”

Owen nodded with great languor.

“Tomorrow night I sail for South America. Warmth—the ocean.. nepenthe, perhaps. I’ll be engaged all tomorrow. Things to be done—accounts, a house-cleaning, temporal orderliness. No ripples to follow me for all time. Cleanliness—beyond… You understand?”

“Yes.” Vance did not lower his gaze. “I understand. Cessation here, lest there be a ‘hound of Heaven’…”

The man’s slow eyes opened. He straightened and lighted another cigarette. His strange mood was dissipated, and another look came into his eyes. Throughout this discussion he had not once raised his voice; nor had there been more than the mildest inflection in his words. Yet I felt as if I had been listening to a bitter and passionate tirade.

Owen began speaking now of old books, of his days at Cambridge, of his cultural ambitions as a youth, of his early study of music. He was steeped in the lore of ancient civilizations and, to my astonishment, he dwelt with fanatical passion on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. But, strangely enough, he spoke of himself always with a sense of dualism, as if telling of someone else. There was a sensitive courtesy in the man, but somehow he instilled in me a repugnance akin to fear. There was always an invisible aura about him, like that of a primitive, smouldering beast. I was unwholesomely fascinated by the man; and I experienced an unmistakable sensation of relief when Vance stood up to go.

As we parted from him at the door, he said to Vance with seeming irrelevancy:

“Counted, weighed, divided… You have promised me.’

Vance met his gaze directly for a brief moment. “Thank you,” breathed Owen, with a deep bow.

CHAPTER XV

AN APPALLING ACCUSATION

(Tuesday, May 21; 9:30 am.)

“Yes, Markham, quite mad,” Vance summarized, as we were finishing breakfast in his apartment the next morning. “Quite. A poisonous madman, like some foul, crawling creature. His end is rapidly approaching, and a hideous fear has wrecked his brain. The sudden anticipation of death has severed his cord of sanity. He’s seeking a hole in which to hide from the unescapable. But he has nowhere to take cover—only the mephitic charnel house which his warped brain has erected. That is his one remaining reality… A vile creature that should be stamped out as one would destroy a deadly germ. A mental, moral and spiritual leper. Unclean. Polluted. And I—I—am to save him from the horrors infinity holds for him!”

“You must have had a pleasant evening with him,” commented Markham with distaste.

Sergeant Heath, having arrived in answer to an earlier telephone summons from Vance, had listened attentively to the conversation. But he seemed to withdraw into himself when, a few moments later, Gracie Allen came tripping gaily into the library.

She carried a small wooden box, held tightly to her. Behind her was George Burns, diffident and hesitant. Miss Allen explained things buoyantly.

“I just had to come, Mr. Vance, to show you my clues. And George had just come to see me; so I brought him along, too. I think he should know how we’re getting along. Don’t you, Mr. Vance? And mother, she’s coming over too in a little while. She said she wants to see you, though I can’t even imagine why.”

The girl paused long enough for Vance to present Markham. She accepted him without the suspicion she had previously accorded Heath; and Markham was both fascinated and amused by her lively and irrelevant chatter.

“And now, Mr. Vance,” the girl continued, going to the desk and taking the tight cover from the little box she had brought, “I’ve simply got to show you my clues. But I really don’t think they’re any good, because I didn’t know exactly where to look for them. Anyhow…”

She began to display her treasures. Vance humoured her and pretended to be greatly interested. Markham, puzzled but smiling, came forward a few steps; and Burns stood, ill at ease, at the other side of the desk. Heath, annoyed by the frivolous interruption, disgustedly lighted a cigar and walked to the window.

“Now here, Mr. Vance, is the exact size of a footprint.” Gracie Allen took out a slip of paper with some figures written on it. “It measures just eleven inches long, and the man at the shoe store said that was the length of a number nine-and-a-half shoe—unless it was an English shoe, and then it might be only a number nine. But I don’t think he was English—I mean the man with the foot. I think he was a Greek, because he was one of the waiters up at the Domdaniel. You see, I went up there because that’s where you said the dead man was found. And I waited a long time for someone to come out of the kitchen to make a footprint; and then, when no one was looking, I measured it…”

She put the paper to one side.

“And now, here’s a piece of blotter that I took from the desk in Mr. Puttie’s office at lunch-time yesterday, when he wasn’t there. And I held it to a mirror, but all it says is ‘4 dz Sw So,’ just like I wrote it out again here. All that means is, ‘four dozen boxes of sandalwood soap.’…”

She brought out two or three other useless odds and ends which she explained in amusing detail, as she placed them beside the others.

Vance did not interrupt her during this diverting, but pathetic, display. But Burns, who was growing nervous and exasperated at the girl’s unnecessary wasting of time, finally seemed to lose his patience and burst out: “Why don’t you show the gentlemen the almonds you have there, and get this silly business over with?”

“I haven’t any almonds, George. There’s only one thing left in the box, and that hasn’t anything to do with it. I was just sort of practising when I got that due—”

“But something smells like bitter almond to me.”

Vance suddenly became seriously interested.

“What else have you in the box, Miss Allen?” he asked.

She giggled as she took out the last item—a slightly bulging and neatly sealed envelope.

“It’s only an old cigarette,” she said. “And that’s a good joke on George. He’s always smelling the funniest smells. I guess he can’t help it.”

She tore away the corner of the envelope and let a flattened and partly broken cigarette slip into her hand. At first glimpse, I would have said that it had not been lighted, but then I noticed its charred end, as if a few inhalations had been taken of it. Vance took the cigarette and held it gingerly near his nose.

“Here’s your smell of bitter almond, Mr. Burns.” His eyes were focused somewhere far in space. Then he sealed the cigarette again in one of his own envelopes, and placed it on the mantelpiece.

“Where did you find that cigarette, Miss Allen?” he asked.

The girl giggled again musically.

“Why, that’s the one that burned a hole in my dress last Saturday out in Riverdale. You remember… And then when you told me all about how important cigarettes are, I thought I’d go out there right away. I wanted to see if I could find the cigarette and maybe tell if it was a man or a woman that had thrown it at me. You see, I didn’t really believe it was you that did it… I had a terrible time finding the cigarette, because I had stepped on it and it was half covered up. Anyhow, I couldn’t tell anything from it, and I was awfully mad all over again. I started to throw it away. But I thought I’d just better keep it, because it was the first clue I had gotten—although it really didn’t have anything to do with the case I was helping you with.”

“My dear child,” said Vance slowly, “it may not have anything to do with our case, but it may have something to do with some other case.”

“Oh, wouldn’t that be wonderful!” the girl exclaimed delightedly. “Then we’d have two cases, and I’d really be a detective, wouldn’t I?”

Markham had come forward.

“What did you mean by that last remark, Vance?”

“Cyanide may have been on this cigarette.” He looked at Markham significantly. “For the possible action of this drug, as well as the possible means of its administration, I have only to refer you to Doremus’s remarks Sunday night.”

Markham made a gesture of impatience. “For Heaven’s sake, Vance! Your attitude toward this case is becoming more insane every minute.”

Vance ignored the other’s comment, and continued. “Assuming my fantastic, and probably fleeting, notion that this cigarette is the actual lethal weapon we have been yearning for, many other equally fantastic things in the case become rational. We could then connect several of our unknown, nightmarish quantities and thus build up a theory which—within its own limitations, at least—would glimmer with sense. Perpend: We could account for Hennessey’s failure to see the chap enter the office Saturday evening. We could limit the knowledge of the secret door to Mirche and his immediate circle—which, you must admit, would be logical. We could assume that the crime took place elsewhere than in Mirche’s office—in Riverdale, to be specific—and that the body was brought to the office for some definite reason. Such an assumption might offer an explanation of the peculiar manner in which the police were notified; and it might account for the difficulty Doctor Mendel had in determining the time of death. For if the killing took place in the office, it could not have been earlier than ten o’clock, since Miss Allen was in there at about that hour; whereas if the killing took place elsewhere, it could have been at any time within ten hours prior to the finding of the body.”

Vance moved to the mantelpiece and thoughtfully tapped the envelope containing the cigarette.

“Should that cigarette prove to have been impregnated with the poison, and should it have been used as Doremus indicated such an item could be used, then we’re up against an utterly implausible coincidence. To wit, we’d have two people, in separate parts of the city, murdered by the same obscure agent, on the some day. And, added to that, we have only one body.”

Markham nodded slowly without enthusiasm. “Remotely specious. But—”

“I know your objections, Markham,” Vance interrupted. “And they are mine, too. My whole capricious supposition may be less than gossamer—but it’s mine own and, at the moment, I adore it.”

Markham started to speak, but Vance ran on.

“Let me rave a moment longer ere you encase me in a strait-jacket… I behold, as in a dream, the most comforting pastures into which my quaint assumption might lead. It might even tie together the annoyin’ factors that have robbed me of sweet sleep—Mirche’s ready admission concerning his secret door; the hatred I glimpsed in the eyes of the Lorelei; the mystic lore of the Tofanas; and the presence of the ‘Owl’ at the Domdaniel Saturday night. It might explain the subtle implications in the name of the cafe. It might even justify the Sergeant’s haunting hypothesis of a criminal ring. It might, conceivably, elucidate Mr. Burns’ migrat’ry cigarette-case with its scent of jonquille. And there are other things now baffling me that might be assembled into a consistent whole… My word, Markham! it has the most amazin’ possibilities. Let me have my hasheesh dream. A pattern is forming at last in my whirling brain; and it is the first coherent design that has invaded my enfevered imagination since Sabbath eve. With the droll premise that the cigarette was adequately poisoned, I can force a score of hitherto recalcitrant elements into line—or, rather, they tumble into line themselves, like the tiny coloured particles in a kaleidoscope.”

“Vance, for the love of Heaven! You’re simply creating a new and more preposterous fantasy to explain away your first fantasy.” Markham’s severe tone quickly sobered Vance.

“Yes, you’re quite right,” he said. “I shall, of course, send the cigarette at once to Doremus for analysis. And it will probably reveal nothing. As you say. Frankly, I don’t understand how the smell could have remained on the cigarette so long, unless one of the combining poisons acted as a fixator and retarded volatilization… But, Markham, I do want—I need—a dead man who was killed in Riverdale last Saturday.”

Gracie Allen had been looking from one to the other in a bewildered daze. “Oh, now I bet I understand!” she exclaimed exultantly. “You really think the cigarette could have killed somebody… But I never heard of anyone dying from smoking just one cigarette.”

“Not an ordin’ry cigarette, my dear,” Vance explained patiently. “It is only possible if the cigarette has been dipped in some terrible poison.”

“Why, that’s awful, if it’s really true,” she mused. “And up in Riverdale, of all places! It’s so pretty and quiet up there…”

Her eyes began to grow wide, and finally she exclaimed: “But I bet I know who the dead man was! I bet I know!”

“What in the world are you talking about?” Vance laughed and looked at her with puzzled eyes. “Who do you think it was?”

She looked back at him searchingly for a few moments, and then said: “Why, it was Benny the Buzzard!”

Sergeant Heath stiffened suddenly, his mouth agape.

“Where did you ever hear that name, Miss?” he almost shouted.

“Why—why—” She stammered, taken aback by his vehemence. “Mr. Vance told me all about him.”

“Mr. Vance told you—?”

“Of course he did!” the girl said defiantly. “That’s how I know that Benny the Buzzard was killed in Riverdale.”

“Killed in Riverdale?” The Sergeant looked dazed. “And maybe you know who killed him, too?”

“I should say I do know… It was Mr. Vance himself!”

CHAPTER XVI

ANOTHER SHOCK

(Tuesday, May 21; 10:50 am.)

The appalling accusation came like a paralyzing shock. It was several moments before I could collect myself sufficiently to see the logic behind it. It was the natural outcome of the story which Vance had built up for the girl the afternoon he had first met her.

Markham, with only meagre details of that rustic encounter and knowing nothing of the tall tale spun by Vance, must have recalled immediately the conversation at the Bellwood Country Club, in which Vance had expressed his extravagant ideas as to how Pellinzi should be disposed of.

Heath, too, flabbergasted by the girl’s announcement, must have remembered that Friday night dinner; and it was not beyond reason to assume that he now held some hazy suspicion of Vance’s guilt.

Vance himself was temporarily astounded. Weightier matters had undoubtedly crowded the entire Riverdale episode from his mind for the moment; but now he suddenly realized how Gracie Allen’s accusation took on the colour of plausibility.

Markham approached the girl with an austere frown.

“That is a grave charge you have just made, Miss Allen,” he said. His gruff tone indicated the intangible doubts in the recesses of his mind.

“My word, Markham!” Vance put in, not without annoyance. “Please glance about you. This is not a courtroom.”

“I know exactly where I am,” retorted Markham testily. “Let me handle this matter—it’s full of dynamite.” He turned back to the girl. “Tell me just why you say Mr. Vance killed Benny the Buzzard.”

“Why, I didn’t say it—that is, I didn’t make it up out of my own head. I just sort of repeated it.”

Although she obviously did not regard the situation as serious, it was evident that Markham’s sternness had disturbed her.

“It was Mr. Vance who said it. He said it when I first met him in Riverdale beside the road that runs along a big white wall—last Saturday afternoon, when I was with—that is, I went there with—”

Markham, aware of the girl’s nervousness, smiled reassuringly and spoke in an altered manner.

“There’s nothing for you to worry about, Miss Allen,” he said. “Just tell me the whole story, exactly as it happened.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, a brighter note returning to her voice. “Why didn’t you tell me that’s what you wanted?… All right, I will tell you. Well, I went up to Riverdale last Saturday afternoon—we don’t have to work at the factory on Saturday afternoons, ever; Mr. Doolson is very nice about that. I went up with Mr. Puttie—he’s one of our salesmen, you know; but I really don’t think he’s as good as some of the other In-O-Scent salesmen.—Do you, George?”

She turned momentarily to Burns, but did not wait for a reply.

“Well, anyhow, George wanted me to go somewhere else with him; but I thought maybe it might be best if I went to Riverdale with Mr. Puttie, especially as he was taking me to dinner that night. And I thought maybe he might get angry if I didn’t go to Riverdale with him, and then he wouldn’t take me to dinner; so I didn’t go with George, but I went to Riverdale with Mr. Puttie. Don’t you think maybe I was right? Anyhow, that’s how I happened to be at Riverdale… Well, we got to Riverdale—I often go there—I think it’s just lovely up there. But it’s an awful long walk from Broadway—and then Mr. Puttie went to look for a nunnery—”

“Please, Miss Allen,” interrupted Markham, with admirable composure; “tell me how you happened to meet Mr. Vance, and what he said to you.”

“Oh, I was coming to that… Mr. Vance came falling over the wall. And I asked him what he’d been doing. And he said he’d been killing a man. And I said what was the man’s name. And he said Benny the Buzzard.”

Markham sighed with impatience. “Can you tell me a few other things, Miss Allen, about the incident?”

“All right. As I already told you, Mr. Vance came falling over the wall, just behind where I was sitting—no, excuse me, I wasn’t sitting, because somebody had just thrown a cigarette at me—that cigarette up there on the mantelpiece—only it was burning—and I was standing up, shaking it off my dress, when I heard Mr. Vance fall. He seemed in an awful hurry, too. I told him about the cigarette, and he said maybe he had thrown it himself; although I thought someone had thrown it out of a big automobile that had just whizzed by. Anyhow, Mr. Vance told me to get a new dress and it wouldn’t cost me anything because he was sorry. And then he sat down and smoked some more cigarettes.”

She took a deep breath and hurried on.

“And then was when I asked him what he was doing on the other side of the wall, and he said that he had just killed a very bad man named Benny the Buzzard. He said he did it because this Mr. Buzzard had broken out of jail and was going to murder a friend of his—that is, I mean a friend of Mr. Vance’s. Mr. Vance was all mussed up, and he certainly looked like he might have just killed somebody. I was even scared of him myself for a while. But I got all over that…”

She took a moment to survey Vance up and down, as if making a sartorial comparison.

“Well now, let’s see, where was I? Oh, yes… He was running away in a terrible hurry, because he said he didn’t want anybody to know about his killing the man. But he told me. I guess he saw right away he could trust me. But I don’t know why he was worried about it, because he said he thought he had done right to save his friend from danger. Anyhow, he asked me not to tell anybody; and I promised. But he just now asked me to tell what I meant about the dead man in Riverdale, so I guess he meant I didn’t have to keep my promise any more. So that’s why I’m telling you.”

Markham’s astonishment rose as the girl rambled on. When she completed her recital and looked round for approval, the District Attorney turned to Vance.

“Good Heavens, Vance! Is this story actually true?”

“I fear so,” Vance admitted, shrugging.

“But why—how did you come to tell her such a story?”

“The balmy weather, perhaps. In the spring, y’ know…”

“But,” demanded the girl, “aren’t you going to arrest him?”

“No—I—” Markham was left floundering.

“Why not?” the girl insisted. “I’ll bet I know why! I’ll bet you think that you can’t arrest a detective. I thought so, too—once. But Sunday I asked a policeman; and he said of course you can arrest a detective.”

“Yes; you can arrest a detective,” smiled Markham, “if you know that he has broken a law. But I have very grave doubts that Mr. Vance has actually killed a man.”

“But he said so himself. And how else could you know? I really didn’t think he was guilty either—at first. I thought he was just telling me a romantic story because I love romantic stories! But then, Mr. Vance himself just said—right here in this very room—you heard him—he said that there was a dead man killed with the cigarette in Riverdale last Saturday. And he was very serious about it—I could tell by the way he acted and talked. It wasn’t at all like he was making up a romantic story again…”

She stopped abruptly and looked at the befuddled Mr. Burns. Judging from her expression, another idea had come into her head. She turned back to Markham with renewed seriousness.

“But you really ought to arrest Mr. Vance,” she said with definiteness. “Even if he isn’t guilty. I guess I don’t really think he is guilty myself. He’s been so awfully nice to me. But still I think you ought to arrest him just the same. You see, what I mean is that you can pretend that you believe he killed this man in Riverdale. And then everything would be all right for George. And Mr. Vance wouldn’t care a bit—I know he wouldn’t. Would you, Mr. Vance?”

“What in Heaven’s name are you driving at now?” asked Markham.

Vance smiled.

“I know exactly what she means, Markham.” He turned to Miss Allen. “But really, y’ know, my arrest wouldn’t help Mr. Burns.”

“Oh, yes it would,” she insisted. “I know it would. Because there’s somebody following him wherever he goes. And George says he bets it’s a detective of some kind. And all the policemen around George’s hotel look at him in the strangest way. There’s just lots of people, I bet, who think George is guilty—like after they came to the house and took him away in a wagon to jail, and everything. George told me all about it, and it worries him terribly. He isn’t at all like he used to be. He can’t sleep very well; and he doesn’t smell so good. So how can he work?… You don’t know how awful it is, Mr. Vance. But if you got arrested, then everybody would think that you were guilty and they wouldn’t bother George any more; and he could go back to work and be just like he used to be. And then, after a while, they’d find the real person, and everything would be all right for everybody.”

She stopped to catch her breath; then quickly ran on with almost fiery determination.

“And that’s why I think you ought to arrest Mr. Vance. And if you don’t, I’m going to call up the newspapers and tell them everything he said and all about Benny the Buzzard, and how he wasn’t killed at the Domdaniel at all, but somewheres else. I’ll bet they’ll print it, too. Especially as Mr. Puttie was standing just behind the tree when Mr. Vance was talking to me, and he heard everything. And if they don’t believe me, they’ll believe Mr. Puttie. And if they don’t believe him, they’ll have to believe the two of us together. And then I’m sure they’ll print it. And everybody’ll be so interested in a famous man like Mr. Vance being guilty, that they won’t bother about George any more. Don’t you see what I mean?”

There was the zealous resolution of the crusader in her eyes; and her disorganized phrases pulsated with an unreasoning passion to help the man she loved.

“Good God, Chief!” blurted Heath. “There sure is dynamite there. You said it!”

Vance moved lethargically in his chair and looked at Heath with a satirical smile.

“You see what you and your shadowing Mr. Tracy have got me in for, Sergeant?”

“Sure I do!” Heath took a step toward Miss Allen. His perturbation was almost comical. “See here, Miss,” he blustered. “Listen to me a minute. You’re all wrong. You got everything mixed up. We don’t know there was a murder in Riverdale. We don’t know nothing about that, see? We only know about the dead guy in the cafe. And he wasn’t the Buzzard; he was your brother—”

He stopped short with a jerk, and his face went red.

“Holy Mackerel! I’m sorry as hell, Mr. Vance.”

Vance rose quickly and went to the girl’s side. She had her hands to her face in a spasm of uncontrollable laughter.

“My brother? My brother?” Then as quickly as she had burst into mirth, she sobered. “You can’t fool me that way, Mr. Officer.”

Vance stepped back.

“Tell me,”—a sudden new note came into his voice—“what do you mean by that, Miss Allen?”

“My brother’s in jail!”

CHAPTER XVII

FINGERPRINTS

(Tuesday, May 21; 11:30 am.)

It was at this moment that Mrs. Allen, serene and self-effacing, was guided into the room by Currie.

Vance turned quickly and welcomed her with but the briefest of greetings.

“Is it true, Mrs. Allen,” he asked, “that your son is not dead?”

“Yes, it is true, Mr. Vance. That’s why I came over here.”

Vance nodded with an understanding smile and, leading the woman to a chair, asked her to explain more fully.

“You see, sir,” she began in a colorless voice, “Philip was arrested over near Hackensack that awful night, after he had given up his job at the cafe. He was with another boy in an automobile, and a policeman got in and told this other boy—it’s Stanley Smith I mean, a friend of Philip’s—to drive to the police station. He accused them of stealing the car; and then, when they were on the way to the jail, the policeman said that it was the same car that had just killed an old man and run off—you know, what you call a hit-and-run murder. And this frightened Philip terribly, because he didn’t know what Stanley might have done before they met. And then, when the car stopped for a light, Philip jumped out and ran away. The policeman shot at him, but he wasn’t caught.” Vance nodded sympathetically. “Then Philip telephoned to me—I could tell how frightened he was—and said that the police were after him and that he was going somewhere to hide… Oh, I was so terribly worried, Mr. Vance, with the poor miserable boy so scared, and biding—you know, a fugitive from justice. And then when you came that night I thought you were looking for him; but when you told me my boy was dead, you can imagine—”

Heath leaped forward.

“But you said that was your son down at the morgue!” He flung the words at her.

“No, I didn’t, Mr. Officer,” the woman said simply.

“The hell you didn’t!” bellowed Heath.

“Sergeant!” Vance held up his hand. “Mrs. Allen is quite correct… If you think back, you will remember she did not once say it was her son. I’m afraid we said it for her, because we thought it was true.” He smiled wistfully.

“But she fainted, didn’t she?” pursued Heath.

“I fainted from joy, Mr. Officer,” explained the woman, “when I saw it wasn’t really Philip.”

Heath was by no means satisfied. “But—but you didn’t say it wasn’t your son. And you let us think—”

Again Vance checked him.

“I believe I understand exactly why Mrs. Allen let us think it was her son. She knew we represented the police, and she also knew her son was hiding from them. And when she saw that we believed her son was dead, she was very glad to let us think so, imagining that would end the hunt for Philip… Isn’t that true, Mrs. Allen?”

“Yes, Mr. Vance.” The woman nodded calmly. “And I naturally didn’t want you to tell Gracie that Philip was dead, because then I would have to tell her that he was hiding from the police; and that would have made her very unhappy. But I thought that maybe in a few days everything would come out all right; and then I would tell you. Anyhow, I thought you would find out before long that it really wasn’t Philip.”

She looked up with a faint sad smile.

“And everything did come out all right, just as I hoped and prayed—and knew—it would.”

“We’re all very happy that it did,” said Vance. “But tell us just how everything has come out all right.”

“Why, this morning,” resumed Mrs. Allen, “Stanley Smith came to the house to ask for Philip. And when I told him that Philip was still hiding, he said that everything had been a mistake; and how his uncle came to the jail and proved to the police that the car was not stolen, and how it was a different car that had run over the old man… So I told Gracie all about it right away, and went to take the wonderful news to my son and bring him back home…”

“How come then,”—the Sergeant’s continued exasperation was evident in his manner—“if you told your daughter all about it, that she said just now her brother was in jail?”

Mrs. Allen smiled timidly.

“Oh, he is. You see, Saturday was such a warm night that Philip had his coat off in the car; and he left it there. That’s how the police knew who he was, because he had his work—check in the pocket. So he went to the jail in Hackensack this morning to get his coat. And he’s coming home for lunch.”

Vance laughed in spite of himself, and gave Gracie Allen a mischievous look. “And I’ll warrant it was a black coat.”

“Oh, Mr. Vance!” the girl exclaimed ecstatically. “What a wonderful detective you are! How could you possibly tell what colour Philip’s coat was way over there across the river?”

Vance chuckled and then became suddenly serious.

“And now I must ask you all to go,” he said, “and prepare for Philip’s home-coming.”

At this point Markham intervened.

“But what about that story you were threatening to tell to the newspapers, Miss Allen? I couldn’t permit anything like that.”

George Burns, with a broad grin on his face, answered the District Attorney.

“Gracie won’t do that, Mr. Markham. You see, I’m perfectly happy now, and I’m going back to work tomorrow morning. I really wasn’t worrying about being guilty or about having anybody following me around. But I had to tell that to Gracie—and Mr. Doolson—because you made me promise that I wouldn’t say a word about Philip. And it was Philip being dead and Gracie not knowing, and everything, that made me feel so terribly bad that I just couldn’t get any sleep or do any work.”

“Isn’t that wonderful!” Miss Allen clapped her hands, and then glanced slyly at Vance. “I didn’t really want you to go to jail, Mr. Vance—except to help George. So I give you my promise I won’t say one word to anybody about your confession. And you know I always keep a promise.”

As Mrs. Allen was departing with her daughter and Burns, she gave Vance a look of shy apology.

“I do hope, sir,” she said, “that you don’t think I did wrong in deceiving you about that poor boy—downtown.”

Vance took her hand in his. “I certainly think nothing of the kind. You acted as any mother would have acted, had she been as clever and as quick-witted as you.”

He raised her hand to his lips, and then closed the door after the trio.

“And now, Sergeant,”—his whole manner changed—“get busy! Call Tracy up here, and then try to have that dead fellow identified by his fingerprints.”

“You don’t have to tell me to get busy, sir,” returned Heath, hurrying to the window. He beckoned frantically to the man across the street. Then he turned back into the room, and on his way to the telephone, he halted abruptly, as if a sudden thought had left him motionless.

“Say, Mr. Vance,” he asked, “what makes you think his fingerprints’ll be on file?”

Vance gave him a searching, significant look.

“You may be greatly surprised, Sergeant.”

“Mother o’ God!” breathed Heath in an awed tone, as he dashed to the instrument in the hall.

While the Sergeant was talking with almost incoherent agitation to the Bureau, Tracy came in. Vance sent him at once to Doremus’s laboratory with the sealed envelope on the mantel.

In a few minutes Heath returned to the library. “Are those babies on the job!” He rubbed his hands together energetically. “They’ll sure burn up shoe-leather getting those fingerprints and checking up in the file. And if they don’t call me back in an hour, I’ll go down there and wring their thick necks!” He collapsed in a chair as if exhausted by the mere thought of the speed and activity he had demanded.

Vance himself now telephoned Doremus, explaining that an immediate report on the cigarette was essential.

It was nearly noon, and we chatted aimlessly for another hour. There was a tension in the atmosphere, and the conversation was like a cloak deliberately thrown over the inner thoughts of these three diverse men.

As the clock over the mantel pointed to one, the telephone rang, and Vance answered it.

“There was no difficulty with that analysis,” he informed us, as he hung up the receiver. “The efficient Doremus found in the cigarette the same elusive combination of poisons that bothered him so frightfully Sunday evening… My jumbled story, Markham, is at last beginning to take form.”

He had barely finished speaking when the telephone rang again, and it was Heath who now dashed into the hall. As he came back into the library after a few moments, he stumbled against a small Renaissance stand near the door and sent it sprawling.

“All right, I’m excited. So what?” The Sergeant’s eyes were staring. “Who do you think the guy was? But hell! You knew it already, Mr. Vance. It’s our old chum, Benny the Buzzard!… And maybe those boys down in Pittsburgh wasn’t nuts! And maybe the Buzzard didn’t hop straight from Nomenica to New York, just like I said he would!… Laugh that one off, Mr. Markham.”

Heath’s excitement was such that it temporarily overweighed even his respectful manner toward the District Attorney.

“What’ll we do next, Mr. Vance?”

“I should say, Sergeant, that the first thing is for you to sit down. Calm. A most necess’ry virtue.”

Heath readily complied, and Vance turned to Markham.

“I believe this is still my case, so to speak. You most magnanimously presented it to me, to rid yourself of my chatter last Saturday night. I must, therefore, now ask a further indulgence.”

Markham waited in silence.

“The time has come when I must act with dispatch,” Vance continued. “The whole case, Markham, has become quite clear; the various fragments have fitted themselves together into a rather amazing mosaic. But there are still one or two blank spaces. And I believe that Mirche, if properly approached, can supply the missin’ pieces…”

Heath broke in. “I’m beginning to get you, sir. You think that Mirche’s identification of the Buzzard was deliberately phony?”

“No—oh, no, Sergeant. Mirche was quite sincere—and with very good reason. He was genuinely stunned by the appearance of the dead body in his office that night.”

“Then I don’t get you, sir,” said Heath, disgruntled.

“What’s the indulgence you’re after, Vance?” Markham asked impatiently.

“I merely wish to make an arrest.”

“But I certainly do not propose to let you get the District Attorney’s office into hot water. We must wait until the case is solved.”

“Ah! but it is solved,” Vance returned blandly. “And you may toddle along with me, to protect the sanctity of your office. In fact, I’d be charmed with your company.”

“Come to the point.” Markham spoke irritably. “Just what is it you want to do?”

Vance leaned forward and spoke with precision.

“I desire most fervently to go to the Domdaniel as soon as possible this afternoon. I desire to have two men—let us say Hennessey and Burke—standing guard in the passageway outside the secret door. I then desire to proceed with you and the Sergeant to the front door on the balcony, and demand entry. Then I will take action—under your vigilant and restraining eye, of course.”

“But, good Heavens, Vance! Mirche may not be waiting in his office for your visit. He may have other plans for his afternoon’s diversion.”

“That,” remarked Vance, “is a chance we must take. But I have sufficient reason to believe that Mirche’s office is a beehive of secret activity today. And I would be rather astonished if the Lorelei—and Owen, too—were not there. Tonight, y’ know, Owen is sailin’ for the southern hemisphere, and this is his day for closin’ up his mundane affairs here. You and the Sergeant have long suspected that the Domdaniel is the headquarters for all sorts of naughty goings on. You need doubt no more, my Markham.”

The District Attorney pondered a moment.

“It sounds preposterous and futile,” he asserted. “Unless you have some cryptic grounds for such an absurd course… However, as you say, I’ll be there myself to guard against any imbecile indiscretion on your part… Very well.” He capitulated.

Vance nodded with satisfaction and looked at the bewildered Heath.

“And by the by, Sergeant, we may possibly hear rumours of your friends Rosa and Tony.”

“The Tofanas!” Heath sat up alertly. “I knew it. That cigarette job is right up Tony’s alley…”

Vance outlined his plan to the Sergeant. Heath was to arrange with Joe Hanley, the doorman, to give a signal if Mirche should quit the dining-room by the rear exit. Hennessey and Burke were to be instructed regarding their post and duties. And Markham and Vance and Heath were to wait in the rooming-house opposite, whence they could see either Hanley’s signal or Mirche himself entering his office by way of the balcony.

However, many of the elaborate and intricate preparations proved unnecessary; for Vance’s theory and prognostications with reference to the situation that afternoon were entirely correct.

CHAPTER XVIII

JONQUILLE AND ROSE

(Tuesday, May 21; 3 pm.)

At three o’clock that afternoon Joe Hanley, who had been watching for us, came to the corner of Seventh Avenue and informed us that Mirche had entered his office shortly after noon, and that neither he nor Miss Del Marr had been seen in the cafe since then.

We found the blinds at the narrow windows drawn; the door to the office was locked; nor was there any response to our insistent knocking.

“Open up, you!” Heath bawled ferociously. “Or have I gotta bust in the door?” Then he remarked to us: “I guess that’ll scare ’em, if anybody’s there.”

Soon we could hear the sound of scuffling and angry voices inside; and a few moments later the door was unlocked for us by Hennessey.

“It’s okay now, sir,” he said to Markham. “They tried to sneak out the wall door, but Burke and I forced em back.”

As we stepped across the threshold, a strange sight met our eyes. Burke stood with his back against the little secret door, his gun pointed significantly at the startled Mirche who was but a few steps away. Dixie Del Marr, also in line with Burke’s gun, was leaning against the desk, looking at us with an expression of cold resignation. In one of the leather chairs sat Owen, smiling faintly with calm cynicism. He seemed entirely dissociated from the general tableau, like a spectator viewing a theatrical scene which offended his intellect by its absurdity. He looked neither to right nor left; and it was not until we were well within range of his somnolent gaze, that he made the slightest movement.

When he caught sight of Vance, however, he rose wearily and bowed in formal greeting.

“What futile effort,” he complained. Then he sat down again with a mild sigh, like one who feels he must remain to the end of a distasteful drama.

Hennessey closed the door and stood alertly watching the occupants of the room. Burke, at a sign from Heath, let his hand fall to his side, but maintained a stolid vigilance.

“Sit down, Mr. Mirche,” said Vance. “Merely a little discussion.”

As the white and frightened man dropped into a chair at the desk, Vance bowed politely to Miss Del Marr.

“It isn’t necess’ry for you to stand.”

“I prefer it,” the woman said in a hard tone. “I’ve been sitting and waiting, as it were, for three years now.”

Vance accepted her cryptic remark without comment, and turned his attention back to Mirche.

“We have discussed preferences in foods and wines at some length,” he said casually; “and I was wondering what private brand of cigarettes you favour.”

The man seemed paralyzed with fear. But quickly he recovered himself; a semblance of his former suavity returned. He made a creaking noise intended for a laugh.

“I have no private brand,” he declared. “I always smoke—”

“No, no,” Vance interrupted. “I mean your very private brand—reserved for the elect.”

Mirche laughed again, and gestured broadly with upturned palms to indicate the question conveyed no meaning to him.

“By the by,” Vance went on; “in medieval times—when Madam Tofana and other famous poisoners flourished—there were many flowers which, romantic legend tells us, would bring death with a single whiff… Strange how these legends persist and how examples of their apparent authenticity crop up in modern times. One wonders, don’t y’ know, whether the old secrets of alchemy have indeed been preserved to the present day. Of course, such speculations are absurd in the light of modern science.”

“I don’t see your point.” Mirche spoke with an attempt at injured dignity. “Nor do I understand this outrageous invasion of my privacy.”

Vance ignored the man for a moment and addressed Miss Del Marr.

“You have perhaps lost an unusual cigarette-case of checkerboard design? When it was found it had the scent of jonquille and rose. A vagrant association—it recalled you, Miss Del Marr.”

No change was detectable in the woman’s hard expression, although she hesitated perceptibly before answering.

“It isn’t mine. I believe, though, I know the case you mean. I saw it in this office last Saturday; and that evening Mr. Mirche showed it to me. He had carried it for hours in his pocket—perhaps that’s how it took on the smell. Where did you find it, Mr. Vance? I was told it had been left here by one of the cafe employees… Maybe Mr. Mirche could—”

“I know nothing of such a cigarette-case,” Mirche stated bluntly. There was a startled energy in his words. He threw a defiant glance at the woman, but her back was to him.

“It doesn’t matter, does it?” said Vance. “Only a passing thought.”

His eyes were still on Miss Del Marr; and he spoke to her again.

“You know, of course, that Benny Pellinzi is dead.”

“Yes—I know.” Her words carried no emotion.

“Strange coincidence about that. Or, mayhap, just a vagary of mine.” Vance spoke as if he were merely making some matter-of-fact point. “Pellinzi died last Saturday afternoon, shortly after he would have had time to reach New York. At about that time I happened to be wandering in the woods in Riverdale. And as I started to retrace my steps homeward, a large car drove swiftly by. Later I learned that a lighted cigarette had been thrown from that car, almost at the very spot where I had stood. It was a most peculiar cigarette. Miss Del Marr. Only a few puffs had been taken on it. But that wasn’t its only peculiarity. There was a deadly poison in it, too—the modern equivalent of the fabulous poisoned flowers that figured in medieval tragedies. And yet, it had been carelessly tossed away on a public highway…”

“A stupid act,” came in soft, caustic tones from Owen.

“Fortuitous, let us say—from the finite point of view. Inevitable, really.” Vance also spoke softly. “There is only one pattern in all the universe.”

“Yes,” said Owen with arctic vagueness. “Stupidity is one of the compositional lines.”

Vance did not turn. He was still scrutinizing the woman.

“May I continue, Miss Del Marr?” he asked. “Or does my story bore you?”

She gave no indication that she had heard his query.

“The cigarette-case I mentioned,” Vance went on, “was found on Pellinzi’s body. But there were no cigarettes in it. And it had no pungent aroma of the bitter almond—only the sweet scent of jonquille and rose… But Pellinzi was poisoned as by the smelling of a scent. And again there crops up the deadly agent of ancient romance… Strange—is it not?—how the fancy conjures up such remote associations… Poor Pellinzi must have believed and trusted in his assassin. But all that his faith encountered was treachery and death.”

Vance paused. There was a tenseness in the small room. Only Owen seemed unconcerned. He looked straight ahead, with a hopeless detached expression, a sneer distorting his cruel mouth.

When Vance spoke again, his manner had changed: there was brusque severity in his voice.

“But perhaps I am not so fanciful, after all. Whom else but you, Miss Del Marr, would Pellinzi first have told of his safe arrival in New York? And how could he have known, these past few years, that someone else had sought and found a response in a heart which had once belonged to him? You have a large enclosed car, Miss Del Marr—a secret trip to Riverdale would have been an easy matter for you. The cigarette-case, with your subtle fragrance, was found on him. Love changes, and is cruel…”

An icy chuckle came from Owen. His eyebrows went up slightly. The sneer on his lips changed to the faint semblance of a smile.

“Very clever, Mr. Vance,” he muttered. “Admirable, in fact. Patterns within patterns. How easily man is deceived by fantasms!”

“The deceptive order of chaos,” said Vance.

Owen nodded almost imperceptibly. His face again became a satirical mask.

“Yes,” he breathed. “You, too, have a sense of esoteric humour.”

“I doubt,” murmured Vance, “that Miss Del Marr appreciates the humour of death.”

A strangled moan burst from the woman’s throat. She collapsed into a chair and covered her face with her hands.

“Oh, God!” It was the first break in her metallic composure.

A long silence followed. Mirche looked for a moment at Vance and back again at the woman. His face had regained some of its colour, but a haunted fear shone in his eyes—a fear as of a malignant ghost whose shape he could not determine. I knew that questions he dared not utter were crowding to his lips. Slowly the woman raised her head; her hands dropped to her lap and lay there in an attitude of listless dejection. The venomous hardness of her nature regained control. She was about to speak; but she, too, checked the impulse, as if the gauge of her emotions had not yet reached the point of release.

Vance slowly lighted one of his Regies. After one or two puffs, he spoke again to the woman, and his words sounded lackadaisical, as if he were putting a question of no particular moment.

“There is still one thing that puzzles me. Miss Del Marr… Why did you bring the dead Pellinzi back here to this office?”

The woman sat like a marble image, while a disdainful cackle broke from Mirche.

“Are you referring, Mr. Vance,” he asked, in his erstwhile pompous manner, “to the man found dead in this office? I’m beginning to understand your interest in the unfortunate episode here Saturday night. But I fear you have permitted your imagination to get the better of you. The body found here was that of one of the cafe helpers.”

“Yes, I know whom you mean, Mr. Mirche. Philip Allen.” Vance spoke smoothly. “As you said that night. And I have no doubt that you believed it, and still believe it. But seeming facts act strangely at times. A pattern is prone to change its design in the most incredible manner… Is it not true, Mr. Owen?”

“Always true,” replied the quiet spectator in the chair. “Confusion. We are victims…”

“What are you two driving at?” asked Mirche, half rising from his chair, as a dawning fear came into his eyes.

“The truth is, Mr. Mirche,” said Vance, “Philip Allen is quite alive. After you had discharged him and he accidentally left a cigarette-case here which did not belong to him, Philip Allen did not return to this office.”

“Ridiculous!” Mirche had lost his suavity. “How else could he—?”

“It was Benny Pellinzi who lay dead here that night!”

At this announcement Mirche dropped suddenly back into his chair, and stared with hopeless defiance at the man before him. But the facts had not yet arranged themselves in his mind; and he began to protest anew.

“That’s absurd—utterly absurd! I saw Allen’s body myself. And I identified it.”

“Oh, I don’t question the sincerity of your identification.” Vance moved closer to the dazed man. His tone was almost honeyed. “You had every reason to think that it was Philip Allen. He is the same size as Pellinzi. He has the same facial contours and colouring, and that day he was wearing the same kind of unobtrusive black clothes in which Pellinzi was sent to his death. You had just talked with Philip Allen in your office a few hours earlier, and, as you said to me yesterday, you were not surprised that he should have come back here. Moreover, death by poison changes the look in the eyes, the whole general appearance of the face. And, furthermore, wasn’t Pellinzi the last person in the world you would have expected to find in your office on that particular night? Yes, the last person in the world…”

“But why—,” stammered Mirche, “why should Pellinzi have been the last person I would have expected? I knew by the papers that the man had escaped. And it was wholly possible that he would have been fool enough to come to me for help.”

“No—oh, no. I do not mean just that, Mr. Mirche,” Vance returned quietly. “I had another and more cogent reason for knowing you would not expect to find Pellinzi here that night… You knew he was dead in Riverdale.”

“How could I have known that he was dead?” shouted the frantic man, leaping to his feet. “You yourself said it was Dixie Del Marr to whom he would have appealed first, and—her car—her trip to Riverdale—Bah!… You can’t intimidate me!”

“Then take it more calmly, Dan,” said Owen petulantly. “There’s far too much upheaval in this putrid world. Confusion wearies me.”

“Again I fear you have misunderstood me, Mr. Mirche.” Vance ignored Owen’s complaint to his frightened henchman. “I meant merely that Miss Del Marr must have informed you. I am sure you two have no secrets from each other. Complete mutual trust, even in crime. And, knowing that Pellinzi was dead in Riverdale, and that your—shall we say, partner?—would hardly bring the body here, how could you imagine that the dead man in this office that night was Pellinzi? How natural to make a mistake in identity! Y’ see: it couldn’t be Pellinzi; therefore, it must be someone else. And how readily—and logically—Philip Allen came to your mind… But it was Pellinzi.”

“How do you know it was Benny—?” Mirche was floundering, dazed by some inner mental vision. “You’re trying to trick me.” Then he almost shrieked: “I tell you, it couldn’t have been the Buzzard!”

“Ah, yes. An error on your part.” Vance spoke with quiet authority. “No possible doubt. Fingerprints don’t lie. You may ask Sergeant Heath, or the District Attorney. Or you may phone the Police Department and satisfy yourself.”

“Fool!” snapped Owen, his drowsy eyes on Mirche with a look of unutterable disgust. He turned to Vance. “After all, how futile it is—this devilish dream—this shadow across…” His voice trailed off.

Mirche was staring at some distant point beyond the confines of the room, alone with his thoughts, striving to assemble a disrupted mass of facts.

“But,” he mumbled, as if protesting weakly against some inevitable shapeless nemesis, “Miss Del Marr saw the body here, and…”

He lapsed again into calculating silence; and then a deep flush slowly mounted his features, gradually intensifying in colour till it seemed the blood must suffocate him. The muscles of his neck tightened; globules of sweat suddenly appeared on his forehead.

Stiffly, and as if with effort, the man turned toward Miss Del Marr, and in a voice of seething hatred, spat out at her a foul and bestial epithet.

CHAPTER XIX

THROUGH THE SHADOW

(Tuesday, May 21; 4 pm.)

Again some powerful emotion broke through Dixie Del Marr’s stony calm. A violent primitive passion blazed in her. She rose and faced Mirche, and her words came like an ineluctable torrent.

“Of course, you filthy creature, I let them think that the dead man in this office—the man you had killed—was Philip Allen. A few more days of doubt and torture for you—what did it matter? I had already waited years to avenge Benny. Oh, I knew only too well your treachery had sent him to prison for twenty years. And I could say nothing to save him. There was only one way for me to square the injustice. I must wait silently, patiently—I knew the moment would come some day… You liked me—you wanted me. That thought was already in your beastly mind when you let Benny get sent up. So I played up to you—I helped you in your rotten schemes. I flattered you. I did what you told me to. And all the time I loved Benny. But I waited…”

She gave a bitter laugh.

“Three years is a long time. And the moment for which I had waited came too late. But I console myself with the thought that Benny’s death was a merciful end. He couldn’t hope for anything, even when he had managed to break jail. He’d always have been hounded by the police. But he went mad in his cell, mad enough to think he could find real freedom from the prison where your dirty double-crossing had put him.”

Irresistible fury drove her on.

“But Benny never knew of your treachery. He thought you his friend. And he came to you for help. But, thank God, he called me too when he got back last Saturday. He told me he had phoned you before he reached the city. You had said that you would help him; and I knew it was a lie. But what could I do? I tried to warn him. But he wouldn’t listen. He thought that perhaps, after all these years, I might have reason to keep you two apart. He wouldn’t listen to me. He would tell me nothing of his plans, except that you were going to help him…”

“You’re insane,” Mirche managed to say.

“Shut up, fool,” sighed Owen. “You can’t change the pattern.”

“So I followed you, Dan—in the car you gave me, and with the chauffeur you supplied from your own crooked gang.” She laughed again, with the same bitterness. “He hates you as much as I do—but he’s afraid of you, for he knows how dangerous you can be… I followed you from the time you left here Saturday afternoon. I knew you wouldn’t let Benny come to you,—in spite of your vicious cruelty, you’re a coward. And I followed you uptown, and saw you go to Tony’s place… Too bad Rosa didn’t squint in her crystal and warn you!… And then I knew what a dirty deal you planned for Benny. But I didn’t think you had the guts to do it as you did. I thought that Benny was to die only when you yourself were safely back here. How could I tell that you had chosen Tony’s cigarettes for the job? I thought I could still warn Benny before it was too late—I thought I could still save him. So I followed you. I saw you pick him up from where he was hiding, far up in the park; I saw you drive north through Riverdale; I saw you stop at a lonely spot around a bend, where you thought no one could see you. And then I saw you place his body quickly beside the road and drive off.”

She swept us with a burning glance. “Oh, I’m not lying!” she cried. “Nothing matters any more—except the punishment of this creature.”

Mirche seemed paralyzed, unable to speak. Owen, still with his cynical detached smile, had not moved. “Please continue, Miss Del Marr,” Vance requested.

“I took Benny’s body into my own car, and I brought him back here when I knew Mirche would be upstairs. I came into the driveway, as I always do, and stopped close to the side door at the end of that passage.” She pointed toward the rear of the room. “No one could see from the street—not with the car door open. And the ivy helped, too. Then I went inside to make sure no one was in the hall beyond, and I gave the signal. My driver carried poor Benny in here, as I had instructed him, through that secret door; and placed him in the cabinet where I keep the cafe records locked. Yes! I brought Benny back and placed him at the very feet of his murderer!… You didn’t know, did you, Owl, that a dead man was in that cabinet when you sat here talking with me that night?”

“What of it?” There was no change in Owen’s expression.

“And when you went out, Owl, I moved Benny to the desk and telephoned the police.”

I now realized that Vance had deliberately provoked the woman’s frantic outburst. As she was speaking he had made a sign to the Sergeant; and Heath and Hennessey had surreptitiously closed in on Mirche, so that they now stood guard on either side of him.

“But how, Miss Del Marr,” asked Vance, “does your story account for the fact that the jonquille-scented cigarette-case was found in Pellinzi’s pocket?”

“Fear!—the conscience of this animal,” she retorted, pointing defiantly at Mirche. “When he saw what he thought was Allen’s body, his muddled, frightened brain remembered that in his own pocket was that man’s cigarette-case; and as he knelt beside the body, I saw him slip the case into the dead man’s coat. The impulsive act of a coward, by which he meant to rid himself of all association with what he thought a second death. He shrank from any possible connection with another dead man.”

“A reasonable version,” murmured Vance. “Yes. A rather subtle analysis… And you were content to let the truth regarding the dead man emerge through natural channels?”

“Yes! After I informed the police of Allen’s address, I knew they’d find out the truth sooner or later. And in the meantime this creature would worry and suffer—and I’d have plenty of ways of torturing him.”

“The ethics of woman…” Owen began; then lapsed into silence.

“Have you anything to say before we arrest you, Mirche?” Vance’s tone was low, but it cut like a lash.

Mirche stared hideously, and his flabby figure seemed to shrink. Suddenly, however, he drew himself up, and shook a quivering finger at Owen. His veins stood out like cords.

Owen made a small contemptuous noise.

“Your blood-pressure, fool,” he scoffed. “Don’t cheat the gibbet.”

I doubt if Mirche heard the biting words. Vituperation and profanity poured from him. His wrath seemed to surpass all human bounds. His venom left him a mere automaton—insensate, contorted, repulsive.

“You think I’ll take the rap for you—without a word! I have knuckled under too long already to your bidding. I carried out your dirty schemes for you. I’ve shut my mouth whenever they tried to twist from me the filthy truth about you. I may go to the chair, Owl—but not alone! I’ll take you and your poisoned, hypnotic brain along with me!”

He flashed a look at Vance, and pointed anew at Owen.

“There’s the twisted mind behind it all!… I warned him of the Buzzard’s arrival, and he sent me for the cigarettes. He told me what I must do. I was afraid to refuse—I was in his power…”

Owen looked at the man with calm derision: he was still aloof and scornful. The play was drawing to a close, and his contemptuous boredom had not abated.

“You’re an unclean spectacle, Dan.” His lips barely moved. “You think I haven’t prepared myself against this moment? You are the fool—not me. I’ve kept every record—names, dates, places—all! For years I’ve kept them. I’ve hidden them where no one can find them. But I know where to find them! And the world will know—”

Those were the last words Mirche ever spoke.

There was a shot. A small black hole appeared on Mirche’s forehead between the eyes. Blood trickled from it. The man fell forward over the desk.

Heath and the two officers, their automatics drawn, started swiftly across the room to the passive Owen who sat without moving, one hand lying limply in his lap, holding a smoking revolver.

But Vance quickly intervened. His back to the silent figure in the chair, he faced Heath with a commanding gesture. Leisurely he turned, and extended his hand Owen glanced up at him; then, as if with instinctive courtesy, he turned the revolver round and held it out with meek indifference. Vance tossed the weapon into an empty chair and, looking down again at the man, waited.

Owen’s eyes were half closed and dreamy. He no longer seemed to be aware of his surroundings or of the sprawled body of Mirche whom he had just killed. Finally he spoke, his voice seeming to come from far off.

“That would have meant ripples.”

Vance nodded.

“Yes. Cleanliness of spirit… But now there’s the trial, and the chair, and the scandal—indelibly written…”

A shudder shook Owen’s slight frame. His voice rose to a shrill cry.

“But how can one escape the finite—how cut through the shadow—clean?”

Vance took out his cigarette-case and held it for a moment in his hand; but he did not open it.

“Would you care to smoke, Mr. Owen?” he asked.

The man’s eyes contracted. Vance dropped his cigarette-case back into his pocket.

“Yes…” Owen breathed at length. “I believe I shall have a cigarette.” He reached into an inner pocket and drew forth a small Florentine-leather case…

“See here, Vance!” snapped Markham. “This is no longer your affair. A murder has been committed before my eyes, and I myself order this man’s arrest.”

“Quite,” Vance drawled. “But I fear you are too late.”

Even as he spoke, Owen slumped deeper in his chair; the cigarette he had lighted slipped from his lips and fell to the floor. Vance quickly crushed it with his foot.

Owen’s head fell forward on his breast—the muscles of his neck had suddenly relaxed.

CHAPTER XX

HAPPY LANDING

(Wednesday, May 22; 10:30 am.)

The following morning Vance was sitting in the District Attorney’s office, talking with Markham. Heath had been there earlier with his report of the arrest of the Tofanas. Sufficient evidence had been unearthed in the cellar of their house to convict them both—or so the Sergeant hoped.

Dixie Del Marr had also called, at Markham’s request, to supply such details as were needed for the official records. As there was no question of pressing charges against her for the part she had played in Mirche’s affairs, she was comparatively content when she left us.

“Really, y’ know, Markham,” Vance remarked, “in view of the woman’s primitive infatuation for Benny Pellinzi, her conduct, as we know it, is quite understandable—and forgivable… As for Mirche, his end was far better than he deserved… And Owen! A diseased maniac. Fortunate for the world he chose so expeditious a way of making his exit! He knew he was dying; and the stalking dread of a vengeful hereafter inspired his act… We may well be content to call the whole matter closed. And, after all, I did give the lunatic a vague promise to guard his aftermath so there should be no ‘ripples,’ as he put it, to follow him.”

Vance laughed dismally.

“What does it really matter? A minor gangster is found dead—a quite commonplace event; a major gangster is shot—also an ordin’ry episode; and the guiding light of a criminal band turns felo de se—well, perhaps a rare occurrence, but certainly not important… And anyway, the year’s at the spring; the lark’s on the wing; the snail’s on the thorn—I say! how about some escargots Bordelaise later?”

As he spoke, the buzzer sounded, and a voice announced the presence of Mr. Amos Doolson in the outer office.

Markham looked at Vance.

“I suppose it’s about that preposterous reward. But I can’t see the man now-”

Vance stood up quickly.

“Keep him waiting, Markham! An idea smites me.”

Then he went to the telephone and spoke to the In-O-Scent Corporation. When he hung up the receiver he smiled at Markham.

“Gracie Allen and George Burns will be here in fifteen minutes.” He chuckled with genuine delight. “If anyone deserves that reward, it’s the dryad. And I’m going to see that she gets it.”

“Are you out of your mind!” exclaimed Markham in surprise.

“No—oh, no. Quite sane, don’t y’ know. And—though you may doubt it—I’m passionately devoted to justice.”

Miss Allen, with Mr. Burns, arrived shortly thereafter. “Oh, what a terrible place!” she said. “I’m glad I don’t have to live here, Mr. Markham.” She turned troubled eyes on Vance. “Have I got to go on with my detecting? I’d much rather work at the factory—now that George is back, and everything.”

“No, my dear,” said Vance kindly. “You have already done ample. And the results you have achieved have been superb. In fact, I wanted you to come here this morning merely to receive your reward. A reward of five thousand dollars was offered to the person who would solve the murder of that man in the Domdaniel. It was Mr. Doolson who made the offer; and he’s waiting in the other room now.”

“Oh!” For once the girl was too puzzled and stunned to speak.

When Doolson was ushered in he took one amazed look at his two employees and went direct to Markham’s desk.

“I want to withdraw that reward immediately, sir,” he said. “Burns came back to work this morning in excellent spirits, and therefore there is no necessity-”

Markham, who had readily adjusted himself to Vance’s jocular but equitable view of the situation, spoke in his most judicial manner.

“I regret extremely, Mr. Doolson, that such a withdrawal is entirely out of the question. The case was completed and shelved yesterday afternoon—well within the time limit you stipulated. I have no alternative but to pay that money to the person who earned it.”

The man’s gorge rose and he spluttered.

“But—!” he began to expostulate.

“We’re frightfully sorry, and all that, Mr. Doolson,” Vance cut in dulcetly. “But I am sure you will be quite reconciled to your impulsive generosity when I inform you that the recipient is to be Miss Gracie Allen.”

“What!” Doolson burst forth apoplectically. “What has Miss Allen to do with it? Preposterous!”

“No,” replied Vance. “Simple statement of fact. Miss Allen had everything to do with the solution of the case. It was she who supplied every important clue… And, after all, you did get back the services of your Mr. Burns today.”

“I won’t do it!” shouted the man. “It’s chicanery! A farce! You can’t legally hold me to it!”

“On the contrary, Mr. Doolson,” said Markham, “I am forced to regard the money as the property of the young lady. The very wording of the reward—dictated here by yourself—would not leave you a leg to stand on if you decided to make a legal issue of it.”

Doolson’s jaw sagged.

“Oh, Mr. Doolson!” exclaimed Gracie Allen. “That’s such a lovely reward! And did you really do it to get George back to work for the big rush? I never thought of that. But you do need him terribly, don’t you?… And oh, that gives me another idea. You ought to raise George’s salary.”

“I’ll be damned if I will!” For a moment I thought Doolson was on the verge of a stroke.

“But just suppose, Mr. Doolson,” Miss Allen went on, “if George got worried again and couldn’t do his work! What would become of the business?”

The man took hold of himself and studied Burns darkly and thoughtfully for several moments.

“You know. Burns,” he said almost placatingly, “I’ve been thinking for some time that you deserved a raise. You’ve been most loyal and valuable to the corporation. You come back to your laboratory at once—and we can discuss the matter amicably.” Then he turned and shook his finger wrathfully at the girl. “And you, young woman. You’re fired!”

“Oh, that’s all right, Mr. Doolson,” the girl returned with smiling nonchalance. “I bet the raise you give George will make his salary as much as his and mine put together now—if you know what I mean.”

“Who gives a damn what you mean!” And Doolson stalked angrily from the room.

“I believe,” said Vance musingly, “that the next remark should come from Mr. Burns himself.” And he smiled at the young man significantly.

Burns, though obviously astonished by the proceedings of the past half-hour, was nevertheless sufficiently clear-headed to understand the import of Vance’s words. Grasping the suggestion offered, he walked resolutely to the girl.

“How about that proposition I made to you the morning I was arrested?” Our presence, far from embarrassing him, had given him courage.

“Why, what proposition?” the girl asked archly.

“You know what I mean!” His tone was gruff and determined. “How about you and me getting married?”

The girl fell back into a chair, laughing musically.

“Oh, George! Was that what you were trying to say?”

There is little more that need be told regarding what Vance has always insisted on calling the Gracie Allen murder case.

The Domdaniel, as everyone knows, has long been closed, and a few years ago it was replaced by a modern commercial structure. Tony and Rosa Tofana found it expedient to confess, and are now serving time in prison. I do not know what became of Dixie Del Marr. She probably took a new name and left this part of the country, to live quietly far from the scenes of her former triumphs and tragedies.

Gracie Allen and George Burns were married shortly after that unexpected and amusing proposal in Markham’s office.

One Saturday afternoon, months later, Vance and I met them strolling down Fifth Avenue. They seemed inordinately happy, and the girl was chatting animatedly, as usual.

We stopped for a few minutes to speak with them. We learned that Burns had been made a junior officer in the In-O-Scent Corporation; and, much to Vance’s delight, the fact came out that Miss Allen had, for sentimental reasons, presented his card to Mr. Lyons of Chareau and Lyons, when selecting her wedding dress.

As we walked with them a short distance, Burns, in the midst of a sentence, suddenly stopped, and I noticed that his nostrils dilated slightly as he leaned close to Vance. “Farina’s original formula of Eau de Cologne!”

Vance laughed. “Yes. I always bring back a supply from Europe… Which reminds me: this morning I saw in a French magazine the name of a perfume, which, after the indispensable work Mrs. Burns did on our case, you might most appropriately give to the delightful citron-scented mixture you made for her. It was called La Femme Triomphante.”

Burns grinned proudly.

“I guess Gracie did help you a lot, Mr. Vance.”

The girl looked from one to the other with a puzzled frown, and then laughed shyly.

“I don’t get it.”