Chapter I
The
Tragedy(Saturday,
August 11; 11.45 p. m.)That
sinister and terrifying crime, which came to be known as the dragon
murder case, will always be associated in my mind with one of the
hottest summers I have ever experienced in New York.Philo
Vance, who stood aloof from the eschatological and supernatural
implications of the case, and was therefore able to solve the problem
on a purely rationalistic basis, had planned a fishing trip to Norway
that August, but an intellectual whim had caused him to cancel his
arrangements and to remain in America. Since the influx of post–war,
nouveau–riche
Americans along the French and Italian Rivieras, he had forgone his
custom of spending his summers on the Mediterranean, and had gone
after salmon and trout in the streams of North Bergenhus. But late in
July of this particular year his interest in the Menander fragments
found in Egypt during the early years of this century, had revived,
and he set himself to complete their translation—a work which, you
may recall, had been interrupted by that amazing series of
Mother–Goose murders in West 75th Street.[1]However,
once again this task of research and love was rudely intruded upon by
one of the most baffling murder mysteries in which Vance ever
participated; and the lost comedies of Menander were again
pigeon–holed for the intricate ratiocination of crime. Personally I
think Vance’s criminal investigations were closer to his heart than
the scholastic enterprises on which he was constantly embarking, for
though his mind was ever seeking out abstruse facts in the realm of
cultural lore, he found his greatest mental recreation in intricate
problems wholly unrelated to pure learning. Criminology satisfied
this yearning in his nature, for it not only stimulated his
analytical processes but brought into play his knowledge of recondite
facts and his uncanny instinct for the subtleties of human nature.Shortly
after his student days at Harvard he asked me to officiate as his
legal adviser and monetary steward; and my liking and admiration for
him were such that I resigned from my father’s firm of Van Dine,
Davis and Van Dine to take up the duties he had outlined. I have
never regretted that decision; and it is because of the resultant
association with him that I have been able to set down an accurate
and semi–official account of the various criminal investigations in
which he participated. He was drawn into these investigations as a
result of his friendship with John F.–X. Markham during the
latter’s four years’ incumbency as District Attorney of New York
County.Of
all the cases I have thus far recorded none was as exciting, as
weird, as apparently unrelated to all rational thinking, as the
dragon murder. Here was a crime that seemed to transcend all the
ordinary scientific knowledge of man and to carry the police and the
investigators into an obfuscous and unreal realm of demonology and
folk–lore—a realm fraught with dim racial memories of legendary
terrors.The
dragon has ever entered into the emotional imaginings of primitive
religions, throwing over its conceivers a spell of sinister and
terrifying superstition. And here in the city of New York, in the
twentieth century, the police were plunged into a criminal
investigation which resuscitated all the dark passages in those dim
forgotten times when the superstitious children of the earth believed
in malignant monsters and the retributive horrors which these
monsters visited upon man.The
darkest chapters in the ethnological records of the human race were
reviewed within sight of the skyscrapers of modern Manhattan; and so
powerful was the effect of these resuscitations that even scientists
searched for some biological explanation of the grotesque phenomena
that held the country enthralled during the days following the
uncanny and incomprehensible death of Sanford Montague. The survival
of prehistoric monsters—the development of subterranean
Ichthyopsida—the unclean and darksome matings of earth and sea
creatures—were advanced as possible scientific explanations of the
extraordinary and hideous facts with which the police and the
District Attorney’s office were faced.Even
the practical and hard–headed Sergeant Ernest Heath of the Homicide
Bureau was affected by the mysterious and incalculable elements of
the case. During the preliminary investigation—when there was no
actual evidence of murder—the unimaginative Sergeant sensed hidden
and ominous things, as if a miasmatic emanation had arisen from the
seemingly commonplace circumstances surrounding the situation. In
fact, had it not been for the fears that arose in him when he was
first called to take charge of the tragic episode, the dragon murder
might never have come to the attention of the authorities. It would,
in all probability, have been recorded conventionally in the archives
of the New York Police Department as another “disappearance,”
accounted for along various obvious lines and with a cynical wink.This
hypothetical eventuality was, no doubt, what the murderer intended;
but the perpetrator of that extraordinary crime—a crime, as far as
I know, unparalleled in the annals of violent homicide—had failed
to count on the effect of the sinister atmosphere which enveloped his
unholy act. The fact that the imaginative aboriginal fears of man
have largely developed from the inherent mysteries enshrouded in the
dark hidden depths of water, was overlooked by the murderer. And it
was this oversight that roused the Sergeant’s vague misgivings and
turned a superficially commonplace episode into one of the most
spectacular and diabolical murder cases of modern times.Sergeant
Heath was the first official to go to the scene of the
crime—although, at the time, he was not aware that a crime had been
committed; and it was he who stammered out his unidentifiable fears
to Markham and Vance.It
was nearly midnight on August 11. Markham had dined with Vance at the
latter’s roof–garden apartment in East 38th Street, and the three
of us had spent the evening in a desultory discussion of various
topics. There had been a lackadaisical atmosphere over our gathering,
and the periods of silence had increased as the night wore on, for
the weather was both hot and sultry, and the leaves of the tree–tops
which rose from the rear yard were as still as those on a painted
canvas. Moreover, it had rained for hours, the downpour ceasing only
at ten o’clock, and a heavy breathless pall seemed to have settled
over the city.Vance
had just mixed a second champagne cup for us when Currie, Vance’s
butler and major–domo, appeared at the door to the roof–garden
carrying a portable telephone.
“There
is an urgent call for Mr. Markham,” he announced; “and I took the
liberty of bringing the telephone…. It’s Sergeant Heath, sir.”Markham
looked nettled and a bit surprised, but he nodded and took the
instrument. His conversation with the Sergeant was a brief one, and
when he replaced the receiver he was frowning.
“That’s
queer,” he commented. “Unlike the Sergeant. He’s worried about
something—wants to see me. He didn’t give any hint of the matter,
and I didn’t press the point. Said he found out at my home that I
was here…. I didn’t like the suppressed tone of his voice, and
told him he might come here. I hope you don’t mind, Vance.”
“Delighted,”
Vance drawled, settling deeper into his wicker chair. “I haven’t
seen the doughty Sergeant for months…. Currie,” he called, “bring
the Scotch and soda. Sergeant Heath is joining us.” Then he turned
back to Markham. “I hope there’s nothing amiss…. Maybe the heat
has hallucinated the Sergeant.”Markham,
still troubled, shook his head.
“It
would take more than hot weather to upset Heath’s equilibrium.”
He shrugged. “Oh, well, we’ll know the worst soon enough.”It
was about twenty minutes later when the Sergeant was announced. He
came out on the terrace garden, wiping his brow with an enormous
handkerchief. After he had greeted us somewhat abstractedly he
dropped into a chair by the glass–topped table and helped himself
to a long drink of the Scotch whisky which Vance moved toward him.
“I’ve
just come from Inwood, Chief,” he explained to Markham. “A guy
has disappeared. And to tell you the truth, I don’t like it.
There’s something phony somewhere.”Markham
scowled.
“Anything
unusual about the case?”
“No—nothing.”
The Sergeant appeared embarrassed. “That’s the hell of it.
Everything in order—the usual sort of thing. Routine. And yet …”
His voice trailed off, and he lifted the glass to his lips.Vance
gave an amused smile.
“I
fear, Markham,” he observed, “the Sergeant has become intuitive.”Heath
set down his glass with a bang.
“If
you mean, Mr. Vance, that I’ve got a hunch about this case, you’re
right!” And he thrust his jaw forward.Vance
raised his eyebrows whimsically.
“What
case, Sergeant?”Heath
gave him a dour look and then grinned.
“I’m
going to tell you—and you can laugh all you want to…. Listen,
Chief.” He turned back to Markham. “Along about ten forty–five
tonight a telephone call comes to the Homicide Bureau. A fellow, who
says his name is Leland, tells me there’s been a tragedy out at the
old Stamm estate in Inwood and that, if I have any sense, I better
hop out….”
“A
perfect spot for a crime,” Vance interrupted musingly. “It’s
one of the oldest estates in the city—built nearly a hundred years
ago. It’s an anachronism today, but—my word!—it’s full of
criminal possibilities. Legend’ry, in fact, with an amazin’
history.”Heath
contemplated Vance shrewdly.
“You
got the idea, sir. I felt just that way when I got out there….
Well, anyway, I naturally asked this fellow Leland what had happened
and why I should come. And it seems that a bird named Montague had
dived into the swimming pool on the estate, and hadn’t come up——”
“Was
it, by any chance, the old Dragon Pool?” inquired Vance, raising
himself and reaching for his beloved
Régie cigarettes.
“That’s
the one,” Heath told him; “though I never knew the name of it
till I got there tonight…. Well, I told him that wasn’t in my
line, but he got persistent and said that the matter oughta be looked
into, and the sooner I came the better. He talked in a funny tone—it
sorta got to me. His English was all right—he didn’t have any
foreign accent—but I got the idea he wasn’t an American. I asked
him why he was calling up about something that had happened on the
Stamm estate; and he said he was an old friend of the family and had
witnessed the tragedy. He also said Stamm wasn’t able to telephone,
and that he had temporarily taken charge of the situation…. I
couldn’t get any more out of him; but there was something about the
way the fellow talked that made me leery.”
“I
see,” Markham murmured noncommittally. “So you went out?”
“Yeah,
I went out.” Heath nodded sheepishly. “I got Hennessey and Burke
and Snitkin, and we hopped a police car.”
“What
did you find?”
“I
didn’t find anything, sir,” Heath returned aggressively, “except
what that guy told me over the phone. There was a week–end
house–party on the estate, and one of the guests—this bird named
Montague—had suggested they all go swimming in the pool. There’d
probably been considerable drinking, so they all went down to the
pool and put on bathing suits….”
“Just
a moment, Sergeant,” Vance interrupted. “Was Leland drunk, by any
chance?”
“Not
him.” The Sergeant shook his head. “He was the coolest member of
the lot. But there was something queer about him. He seemed greatly
relieved when I got there; and he took me aside and told me to keep
my eyes open. I naturally asked him what he meant, but right away he
got casual, so to speak, and merely said that a lot of peculiar
things had happened around those parts in the old days, and that
maybe something peculiar had happened tonight.”
“I
think I know what he meant,” Vance said with a slight nod. “That
part of the city has given rise to many strange and grotesque
legends—old wives’ tales and superstitions that have come down
from the Indians and early settlers.”
“Well,
anyway,”—Heath dismissed Vance’s comments as irrelevant—“after
the party had gone down to the pool, this fellow Montague walked out
on the spring–board and took a fancy dive. And he never came up….”
“How
could the others be so sure he didn’t come up?” asked Markham.
“It must have been pretty dark after the rain: it’s cloudy now.”
“There
was plenty of light at the pool,” Heath explained. “They’ve got
a dozen flood–lights on the place.”
“Very
well. Go on.” Markham reached impatiently for his champagne. “What
happened then?”Heath
shifted uneasily.
“Nothing
much,” he admitted. “The other men dove after him and tried to
find him, but after ten minutes or so they gave up. Leland, it seems,
told ’em that they’d all better go back to the house and that
he’d notify the authorities. Then he called the Homicide Bureau and
spilled the story.”
“Queer
he should do that,” ruminated Markham. “It doesn’t sound like a
criminal case.”
“Sure
it’s queer,” agreed Heath eagerly. “But what I found was a
whole lot queerer.”
“Ah!”
Vance blew a ribbon of smoke upward. “That romantic section of old
New York is at last living up to its reputation. What were these
queer things you found, Sergeant?”Heath
moved again with uneasy embarrassment.
“To
begin with, Stamm himself was cock–eyed drunk, and there was a
doctor from the neighborhood trying to get him to function. Stamm’s
young sister—a good–looker of about twenty–five—was having
hysterics and going off into faints every few minutes. The rest of
’em—there was four or five—were trying to duck and making
excuses why they had to get away
pronto. And all the
time this fellow Leland, who looks like a hawk or something, was
going round as cool as a cucumber with lifted eyebrows and a
satisfied grin on his brown face, as if he knew a lot more than he
was telling.—Then there was one of those sleezy, pasty–faced
butlers, who acted like a ghost and didn’t make any noise when he
moved….”
“Yes,
yes,” Vance nodded whimsically. “Everything most mystifyin’….
And the wind moaned through the pines; and an owl hooted in the
distance; and a lattice rattled in the attic; and a door creaked; and
there came a tapping—eh, what, Sergeant? … I say, do have another
spot of Scotch. You’re positively jittery.” (He spoke humorously,
but there was a shrewd, interested look in his half–closed eyes and
an undercurrent of tension in his voice that made me realize that he
was taking the Sergeant far more seriously than his manner
indicated.)I
expected the Sergeant to resent Vance’s frivolous attitude, but
instead he wagged his head soberly.
“You
got the idea, Mr. Vance. Nothing seemed on the level. It wasn’t
normal, as you might say.”Markham’s
annoyance was mounting.
“The
case doesn’t strike me as peculiar, Sergeant,” he protested. “A
man dives into a swimming pool, hits his head on the bottom, and
drowns. And you’ve related nothing else that can’t be explained
on the most commonplace grounds. It’s not unusual for a man to get
drunk, and after a tragedy of this kind a hysterical woman is not to
be regarded as unique. Naturally, too, the other members of the party
wanted to get away after an episode like this. As for the man Leland:
he may be just a peculiar officious character who wished to dramatize
a fundamentally simple affair. And you always had an antipathy for
butlers. However you look at the case, it doesn’t warrant anything
more than the usual procedure. It’s certainly not in the province
of the Homicide Bureau. The idea of murder is precluded by the very
mechanism of Montague’s disappearance. He himself suggested a swim
in the pool—a rational enough suggestion on a night like this—and
his plunge into the pool and his failure to come to the surface could
hardly be indicative of any other person’s criminal intent.”Heath
shrugged and lighted a long black cigar.
“I’ve
been telling myself the same things for the past hour,” he returned
stubbornly; “but that situation at the Stamm house ain’t right.”Markham
pursed his lips and regarded the Sergeant meditatively.
“Was
there anything else that upset you?” he asked, after a pause.Heath
did not answer at once. Obviously there was something else on his
mind, and it seemed to me that he was weighing the advisability of
mentioning it. But suddenly he lifted himself in his chair and took
his cigar deliberately from his mouth.
“I
don’t like those fish!” he blurted.
“Fish?”
repeated Markham in astonishment. “What fish?”Heath
hesitated and contemplated the end of his cigar sheepishly.
“I
think I can answer that question, Markham,” Vance put in. “Rudolph
Stamm is one of the foremost aquarists in America. He has a most
amazin’ collection of tropical fish—strange and little–known
varieties which he has succeeded in breeding. It’s been his hobby
for twenty years, and he is constantly going on expeditions to the
Amazon, Siam, India, the Paraguay basin, Brazil and Bermuda. He has
also made trips to China and has scoured the Orinoco. Only a year or
so ago the papers were full of his trip from Liberia to the Congo….”
“They’re
queer–looking things,” Heath supplemented. “Some of ’em look
like sea–monsters that haven’t grown up.”
“Their
shapes and their colorings are very beautiful, however,” commented
Vance with a faint smile.
“But
that wasn’t all,” the Sergeant went on, ignoring Vance’s
æsthetic observation. “This fellow Stamm had lizards and baby
alligators——”
“And
probably turtles and frogs and snakes——”
“I’ll
say he has snakes!” The Sergeant made a grimace of disgust. “Plenty
of ’em—crawling in and out of big flat tanks of water….”
“Yes.”
Vance nodded and looked toward Markham. “Stamm, I understand, has a
terrarium along with his fish. The two often go together, don’t y’
know.”Markham
grunted and studied the Sergeant for a moment.
“Perhaps,”
he remarked at length, in a flat, matter–of–fact tone, “Montague
was merely playing a practical joke on the other guests. How do you
know he didn’t swim under water to the other side of the pool and
disappear up the opposite bank? Was it dark enough there so the
others couldn’t have seen him?”
“Sure
it was dark enough,” the Sergeant told him. “The flood–lights
don’t reach all across the water. But that explanation is out. I
myself thought something of the kind might have happened, seeing as
how there had been a lot of liquor going round, and I took a look
over the place. But the opposite side of the pool is almost a
straight precipice of rock, nearly a hundred feet high. Across the
upper end of the pool, where the creek runs in, there’s a big
filter, and not only would it be hard for a man to climb it, but the
lights reach that far and any one of the party could have seen him
there. Then, at the lower end of the pool, where the water has been
dammed up with a big cement wall, there’s a drop of twenty feet or
so, with plenty of rocks down below. No guy’s going to take a
chance dropping over the dam in order to create a little excitement.
On the side of the pool nearest the house, where the spring–board
is, there’s a concrete retaining wall which a swimmer might climb
over; but there again the flood–lights would give him dead away.”
“And
there’s no other possible way Montague could have got out of the
pool without being seen?”
“Yes,
there’s one way he might have done it—but he didn’t. Between
the end of the filter and the steep cliff that comes down on the
opposite side of the pool, there’s a low open space of about
fifteen feet which leads off to the lower part of the estate. And
this flat opening is plenty dark so that the people on the house side
of the pool couldn’t have seen anything there.”
“Well,
there’s probably your explanation.”
“No,
it isn’t, Mr. Markham,” Heath asserted emphatically. “The
minute I went down to the pool and got the lay of the land, I took
Hennessey with me across the top of the big filter and looked for
footprints on this fifteen–foot low bank. You know it had been
raining all evening, and the ground over there is damp anyway, so
that if there had been any kind of footprints they would have stuck
out plain. But the whole area was perfectly smooth. Moreover,
Hennessey and I went back into the grass a little distance from the
bank, thinking that maybe the guy might have climbed up on a ledge of
the rock and jumped over the muddy edge of the water. But there
wasn’t a sign of anything there either.”
“That
being the case,” said Markham, “they’ll probably find his body
when the pool is dragged…. Did you order that done?”
“Not
tonight I didn’t. It would take two or three hours to get a boat
and hooks up there, and you couldn’t do anything much at night
anyway. But that’ll all be taken care of the first thing in the
morning.”
“Well,”
decided Markham impatiently, “I can’t see that there’s anything
more for you to do tonight. As soon as the body is found the Medical
Examiner will be notified, and he’ll probably say that Montague has
a fractured skull and will put the whole thing down as accidental
death.”There
was a tone of dismissal in his voice, but Heath refused to be moved
by it. I had never seen the Sergeant so stubborn.
“You
may be right, Chief,” he conceded reluctantly. “But I got other
ideas. And I came all the way down here to ask you if you wouldn’t
come up and give the situation the once–over.”Something
in the Sergeant’s voice must have affected Markham, for instead of
replying at once he again studied the other quizzically. Finally he
asked:
“Just
what have you done so far in connection with the case?”
“To
tell the truth, I haven’t done much of anything,” the Sergeant
admitted. “I haven’t had time. I naturally got the names and
addresses of everybody in the house and questioned each one of ’em
in a routine way. I couldn’t talk to Stamm because he was out of
the picture and the doctor was working over him. Most of my time was
spent in going around the pool, seeing what I could learn. But, as I
told you, I didn’t find out anything except that Montague didn’t
play any joke on his friends. Then I went back to the house and
telephoned to you. I left things up there in charge of the three men
I took along with me. And after I told everybody that they couldn’t
go home until I got back, I beat it down here…. That’s my story,
and I’m probably stuck with it.”Despite
the forced levity of his last remark, he looked up at Markham with, I
thought, an appealing insistence.Once
more Markham hesitated and returned the Sergeant’s gaze.
“You
are convinced there was foul play?” he queried.
“I’m
not convinced of anything,” Heath retorted. “I’m just not
satisfied with the way things stack up. Furthermore, there’s a lot
of funny relationships in that crowd up there. Everybody seems
jealous of everybody else. A couple of guys are dotty on the same
girl, and nobody seemed to care a hoot—except Stamm’s young
sister—that Montague didn’t come up from his dive. The fact is,
they all seemed damn pleased about it—which didn’t set right with
me. And even Miss Stamm didn’t seem to be worrying particularly
about Montague. I can’t explain exactly what I mean, but she seemed
to be all upset about something else connected with his
disappearance.”
“I
still can’t see,” returned Markham, “that you have any tangible
explanation for your attitude. The best thing, I think, is to wait
and see what tomorrow brings.”
“Maybe
yes.” But instead of accepting Markham’s obvious dismissal Heath
poured himself another drink and relighted his cigar.During
this conversation between the Sergeant and the District Attorney,
Vance had lain back in his chair contemplating the two dreamily,
sipping his champagne cup and smoking languidly. But a certain
deliberate tenseness in the way he moved his hand to and from his
lips, convinced me that he was deeply interested in everything that
was being said.At
this point he crushed out his cigarette, set down his glass, and rose
to his feet.
“Really,
y’ know, Markham old dear,” he said in a drawling voice, “I
think we should toddle along with the Sergeant to the site of the
mystery. It can’t do the slightest harm, and it’s a beastly night
anyway. A bit of excitement, however tame the ending, might help us
forget the weather. And we may be affected by the same sinister
atmospheres which have so inflamed the Sergeant’s hormones.”Markham
looked up at him in mild astonishment.
“Why
in the name of Heaven, should you want to go to the Stamm estate?”
“For
one thing,” Vance returned, stifling a yawn, “I am tremendously
interested, d’ ye see, in looking over Stamm’s collection of toy
fish. I bred them myself in an amateur way once, but because of lack
of space, I concentrated on the color–breeding of the
Betta splendens and
cambodia—Siamese
Fighting Fish, don’t y’ know.”[2]Markham
studied him for a few moments without replying. He knew Vance well
enough to realize that his desire to accede to the Sergeant’s
request was inspired by a much deeper reason than the patently
frivolous one he gave. And he also knew that no amount of questioning
would make Vance elucidate his true attitude just then.After
a minute Markham also rose. He glanced at his watch and shrugged.
“Past
midnight,” he commented disgustedly. “The perfect hour, of
course, to inspect fish! … Shall we drive out in the Sergeant’s
car or take yours?”
“Oh,
mine, by all means. We’ll follow the Sergeant.” And Vance rang
for Currie to bring him his hat and stick.[1]
“The Bishop Murder Case” (Scribners, 1929).[2]
At one time Vance had turned his sun–parlor into an aquarium
devoted several years to breeding these beautiful veil–tailed fish.
He succeeded in producing corn–flower blue, deep maroon, and black
specimens; and he won several awards with them at the exhibitions of
the Aquarium Society at the Museum of Natural History.