"What really infuriates me is that I"ve been outwitted. And by a manufacturer of automobile access"ries! . . . It"s most humiliatin"."
He sat down at the piano and played the opening bars of Brahms"s Capriccio No. 1. "Needs tuning," he muttered; and, sauntering to the Boule cabinet, he ran his finger over the marquetry. "Pretty and all that," he said, "but a bit fussy. Good example, though.
The deceased"s aunt from Seattle should get a very fair price for it." He regarded a pendent girandole at the side of the cabinet.
"Rather nice, that, if the original candles hadn"t been supplanted with modern frosted bulbs." He paused before the little china clock on the mantel. "Gingerbread. I"m sure it kept atrocious time."
Pa.s.sing on to the escritoire, he examined it critically. "Imitation French Renaissance. But rather dainty, what?" Then his eye fell on the wastepaper basket, and he picked it up. "Silly idea," he commented, ", making a basket out of vellum. The artistic triumph of some lady interior decorator, I"ll wager. Enough vellum here to bind a set of Epictetus. But why ruin the effect with hand-painted garlands? The aesthetic instinct has not as yet invaded these fair States, decidedly not."
Setting the basket down, he studied it meditatively for a moment.
Then he leaned over and took from it the piece of crumpled wrapping paper to which he had referred the previous day.
"This doubtless contained the lady"s last purchase on earth," he mused. "Very touchin". Are you sentimental about such trifles, Markham? Anyway, the purple string round it was a G.o.dsend to Skeel. . . . What knickknack, do you suppose, paved the way for the frantic Tony"s escape?"
He opened the paper, revealing a broken piece of corrugated cardboard and a large square dark-brown envelope.
"Ah, to be sure! Phonograph records." He glanced about the apartment. "But, I say, where did the lady keep the bally machine?"
"You"ll find it in the foyer," said Markham wearily, without turning.
He knew that Vance"s chatter was only the outward manifestation of serious and perplexed thinking; and he was waiting with what patience he could muster.
Vance sauntered idly through the gla.s.s doors into the little reception hall, and stood gazing abstractedly at a console phonograph of Chinese Chippendale design which stood against the wall at one end. The squat cabinet was partly covered with a prayer rug, and upon it sat a polished bronze flower bowl.
"At any rate, it doesn"t look phonographic," he remarked. "But why the prayer rug?" He examined it casually. "Anatolian, probably called a Caesarian for sale purposes. Not very valuable, too much on the Oushak type. . . . Wonder what the lady"s taste in music was. Victor Herbert, doubtless." He turned back the rug and lifted the lid of the cabinet. There was a record already on the machine, and he leaned over and looked at it.
"My word! The Andante from Beethoven"s C-Minor Symphony!" he exclaimed cheerfully. "You know the movement, of course, Markham.
The most perfect Andante ever written." He wound up the machine.
"I think a little music might clear the atmosphere and volatilize our perturbation, what?"
Markham paid no attention to his banter; he was still gazing dejectedly out of the window.
Vance started the motor, and placing the needle on the record, returned to the living room. He stood staring at the davenport, concentrating on the problem in hand. I sat in the wicker chair by the door waiting for the music. The situation was getting on my nerves, and I began to feel fidgety. A minute or two pa.s.sed, but the only sound which came from the phonograph was a faint scratching. Vance looked up with mild curiosity, and walked back to the machine. Inspecting it cursorily, he once more set it in operation. But though he waited several minutes, no music came forth.
"I say! That"s deuced queer, y" know," he grumbled, as he changed the needle and rewound the motor.
Markham had now left the window and stood watching him with good natured tolerance. The turntable of the phonograph was spinning, and the needle was tracing its concentric revolutions; but still the instrument refused to play. Vance, with both hands on the cabinet, was leaning forward, his eyes fixed on the silently revolving record with an expression of amused bewilderment.
"The sound box is probably broken," he said. "Silly machines, anyway."
"The difficulty, I imagine," Markham chided him, "lies in your patrician ignorance of so vulgar and democratic a mechanism. Permit me to a.s.sist you."
He moved to Vance"s side, and I stood looking curiously over his shoulder. Everything appeared to be in order, and the needle had now almost reached the end of the record. But only a faint scratching was audible.
Markham stretched forth his hand to lift the sound box. But his movement was never completed.
At that moment the little apartment was filled with several terrifying treble screams, followed by two shrill calls for help.
A cold chill swept my body, and there was a tingling at the roots of my hair.
After a short silence, during which the three of us remained speechless, the same feminine voice said in a loud, distinct tone: "No; nothing is the matter. I"m sorry. . . . Everything is all right. . . . Please go home, and don"t worry."
The needle had come to the end of the record. There was a slight click, and the automatic device shut off the motor. The almost terrifying silence that followed was broken by a sardonic chuckle from Vance.
"Well, old dear," he remarked languidly, as he strolled back into the living room, "so much for your irrefutable facts!"
There came a loud knocking on the door, and the officer on duty outside looked in with a startled face.
"It"s all right," Markham informed him in a husky voice. "I"ll call you when I want you."
Vance lay down on the davenport and took out another cigarette.
Having lighted it, he stretched his arms far over his head and extended his legs, like a man in whom a powerful physical tension had suddenly relaxed.
""Pon my soul, Markham, we"ve all been babes in the woods," he drawled. "An incontrovertible alibi, my word! If the law supposes that, as Mr. b.u.mble said, the law is a a.s.s, a idiot., Oh, Sammy, Sammy, vy worn"t there a alleybi! . . . Markham, I blush to admit it, but it"s you and I who"ve been the unutterable a.s.ses."
Markham had been standing by the instrument like a man dazed, his eyes riveted hypnotically on the telltale record. Slowly he came into the room and threw himself wearily into a chair.
"Those precious facts of yours!" continued Vance. "Stripped of their carefully disguised appearance, what are they?, Spotswoode prepared a phonograph record, a simple enough task. Everyone makes "em nowadays, "
"Yes. He told me he had a workshop at his home on Long Island where he tinkered a bit."
"He really didn"t need it, y" know. But it facilitated things, no doubt. The voice on the record is merely his own in falsetto, better for the purpose than a woman"s, for it"s stronger and more penetrating. As for the label, he simply soaked it off an ordin"ry record, and pasted it on his own. He brought the lady several new records that night, and concealed this one among them. After the theater he enacted his gruesome little drama and then carefully set the stage so that the police would think it was a typical burglar"s performance. When this had been done, he placed the record on the machine, set it going, and calmly walked out. He had placed the prayer rug and bronze bowl on the cabinet of the machine to give the impression that the phonograph was rarely used. And the precaution worked, for no one thought of looking into it. Why should they? . ..
Then he asked Jessup to call a taxicab, everything quite natural, y" see. While he was waiting for the car the needle reached the recorded screams. They were heard plainly: it was night, and the sounds carried distinctly. Moreover, being filtered through a wooden door, their phonographic timbre was well disguised. And, if you"ll note, the enclosed horn is directed toward the door, not three feet away."
"But the synchronization of his questions and the answers on the record. . . ?"
"The simplest part of it. You remember Jessup told us that Spotswoode was standing with one arm on the switchboard when the screams were heard. He merely had his eye on his wrist.w.a.tch. The moment he heard the cry, he calculated the intermission on the record and put his question to the imagin"ry lady at just the right moment to receive the record"s response. It was all carefully figured out beforehand; he no doubt rehea.r.s.ed it in his laborat"ry.
It was deuced simple, and practically proof against failure. The record is a large one, twelve-inch diameter, I should say, and it requires about five minutes for the needle to traverse it. By putting the screams at the end, he allowed himself ample time to get out and order a taxicab. When the car at last came, he rode direct to the Stuyvesant Club, where he met Judge Redfern and played poker till three. If he hadn"t met the judge, rest a.s.sured he would have impressed his presence on someone else so as to have established an alibi."
Markham shook his head gravely.
"Good G.o.d! No wonder he importuned me on every possible occasion to let him visit this apartment again. Such a d.a.m.ning piece of evidence as that record must have kept him awake at night."
"Still, I rather fancy that if I hadn"t discovered it, he would have succeeded in getting possession of it as soon as your sergent-de ville was removed. It was annoyin" to be unexpectedly barred from the apartment, but I doubt if it worried him much. He would have been on hand when the Canary"s aunt took possession, and the retrieving of the record would have been comparatively easy. Of course the record const.i.tuted a hazard, but Spotswoode isn"t the type who"d shy at a low bunker of that kind. No, the thing was planned scientifically enough. He was defeated by sheer accident."
"And Skeel?"
"He was another unfortunate circ.u.mstance. He was hiding in the closet there when Spotswoode and the lady came in at eleven. It was Spotswoode whom he saw strangle his erstwhile amoureuse and rifle the apartment. Then, when Spotswoode went out, he came forth from hiding. He was probably looking down at the girl when the phonograph emitted its blood-chilling wails. . . . My word! Fancy being in a cold funk, gazing at a murdered woman, and then hearing piercing screams behind you! It was a bit too much even for the hardened Tony. I don"t wonder he forgot all caution and put his hand on the table to steady himself. . . . And then came Spotswoode"s voice through the door, and the record"s answer. This must have puzzled Skeel. I imagine he thought for a moment he"d lost his reason. But pretty soon the significance of it dawned on him; and I can see him grinning to himself. Obviously he knew who the murderer was, it would not have been in keeping with his character had he failed to learn the ident.i.ties of the Canary"s admirers. And now there had fallen into his lap, like manna from heaven, the most perfect opportunity for blackmail that any such charmin" young gentleman could desire. He doubtless indulged himself with roseate visions of a life of opulence and ease at Spotswoode"s expense. When Cleaver phoned a few minutes later, he merely said the lady was out, and then set to work planning his own departure."
"But I don"t see why he didn"t take the record with him."
"And remove from the scene of the crime the one piece of unanswerable evidence? . . . Bad strategy, Markham. If he himself had produced the record later, Spotswoode would simply have denied all knowledge of it, and accused the blackmailer of a plot. Oh, no; Skeel"s only course was to leave it and apply for an enormous settlement from Spotswoode at once. And I imagine that"s what he did. Spotswoode no doubt gave him something on account and promised him the rest anon, hoping in the meantime to retrieve the record.
When he failed to pay, Skeel phoned you and threatened to tell everything, thinking to spur Spotswoode to action. . . . Well, he spurred him, but not to the action desired. Spotswoode probably met him by appointment last Sat.u.r.day night, ostensibly to hand over the money, but instead, throttled the chap. Quite in keeping with his nature, don"t y" know. . . . Stout fella, Spotswoode."
"The whole thing . . . it"s amazing."
"I shouldn"t say that, now. Spotswoode had an unpleasant task to perform and he set about it in a cool, logical, forthright, businesslike manner. He had decided that his little Canary must die for his peace of mind; she"d probably made herself most annoyin".
So he arranged the date, like any judge pa.s.sing sentence on a prisoner at the bar, and then proceeded to fabricate an alibi.
Being something of a mechanic, he arranged a mechanical alibi. The device he chose was simple and obvious enough, no tortuosities or complications. And it would have succeeded but for what the insurance companies piously call an act of G.o.d. No one can foresee accidents, Markham; they wouldn"t be accidental if one could. But Spotswoode certainly took every precaution that was humanly possible. It never occurred to him that you would thwart his every effort to return here and confiscate the record; and he couldn"t antic.i.p.ate my taste in music, nor know that I would seek solace in the tonal art. Furthermore, when one calls on a lady, one doesn"t expect that another suitor is going to hide himself in the clothes press. It isn"t done, don"t y" know. . . . All in all, the poor johnny was beaten by a run of abominable luck."
"You overlook the fiendishness of the crime," Markham reproached him tartly.
"Don"t be so confoundedly moral, old thing. Everyone"s a murderer at heart. The person who has never felt a pa.s.sionate hankering to kill someone is without emotions. And do you think it"s ethics or theology that stays the average person from homicide? Dear no!
It"s lack of courage, the fear of being found out, or haunted, or cursed with remorse. Observe with what delight the people en ma.s.se, to wit, the state, put men to death and then gloat over it in the newspapers. Nations declare war against one another on the slightest provocation, so they can, with immunity, vent their l.u.s.t for slaughter. Spotswoode, I"d say, is merely a rational animal with the courage of his convictions."
"Society unfortunately isn"t ready for your nihilistic philosophy just yet," said Markham. "And during the intervening transition human life must be protected."
He rose resolutely and, going to the telephone, called up Heath.
"Sergeant," he ordered, "get a John-Doe warrant and meet me immediately at the Stuyvesant Club. Bring a man with you, there"s an arrest to be made."
"At last the law has evidence after its own heart," chirped Vance, as he lazily donned his topcoat and picked up his hat and stick.
"What a grotesque affair your legal procedure is, Markham!