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(Tuesday, November 30; 8 p. m.)

Eight o’clock that night found Inspector Moran, Sergeant Heath, Markham, Vance, and me seated about a small conference-table in one of the Stuyvesant Club’s private rooms. The evening papers had created a furore in the city with their melodramatic accounts of Rex Greene’s murder; and these early stories were, as we all knew, but the mild fore-runners of what the morning journals would publish. The situation itself, without the inevitable impending strictures of the press, was sufficient to harry and depress those in charge of the official investigation; and, as I looked round the little circle of worried faces that night, I realized the tremendous importance that attached to the outcome of our conference.

Markham was the first to speak.

“I have brought copies of the wills; but before we discuss them I’d like to know if there have been any new developments.”

“Developments!” Heath snorted contemptuously. “We’ve been going round in a circle all afternoon, and the faster we went the quicker we got to where we started. Mr. Markham, not one damn thing turned up to give us a line of inquiry. If it wasn’t for the fact that no gun was found in the room, I’d turn in a report of suicide and then resign from the force.”

“Fie on you, Sergeant!” Vance made a half-hearted attempt at levity. “It’s a bit too early to give way to such gloomy pessimism.—I take it that Captain Dubois found no finger-prints.”

“Oh, he found finger-prints, all right—Ada’s, and Rex’s, and Sproot’s, and a couple of the doctor’s. But that don’t get us anywheres.”

“Where were the prints?”

“Everywhere—on the door-knobs, the centre-table, the window-panes; some were even found on the woodwork above the mantel.”

“That last fact may prove interestin’ some day, though it doesn’t seem to mean much just now.—Anything more about the footprints?”

“Nope. I got Jerym’s report late this afternoon; but it don’t say anything new. The galoshes you found made the tracks.”

“That reminds me, Sergeant. What did you do with the galoshes?”

Heath gave him a sly, exultant grin.

“Just exactly what you’d have done with ’em, Mr. Vance. Only—I thought of it first.”

Vance smiled back.

“Salve! Yes, the idea entirely slipped my mind this morning. In fact, it only just occurred to me.”

“May I know what was done with the galoshes?” interjected Markham impatiently.

“Why, the Sergeant returned them surreptitiously to the linen-closet, and placed them under the drugget whence they came.”

“Right!” Heath nodded with satisfaction. “And I’ve got our new nurse keeping an eye on ’em. The minute they disappear she’s to phone the Bureau.”

“You had no trouble installing your woman?” asked Markham.

“A cinch. Everything went like clockwork. At a quarter to six the doc shows up; then at six comes the woman from the Central Office. After the doc has put her wise to her new duties, she gets into her uniform and goes in to Mrs. Greene. The old lady tells the doc she didn’t like this Miss Craven anyway, and hopes the new nurse will show her more consideration. Things couldn’t have gone smoother. I hung around until I got a chance to tip our woman off about the galoshes; then I came away.”

“Which of our women did you give the case to, Sergeant?” Moran asked.

“O’Brien—the one who handled the Sitwell affair. Nothing in that house will get by O’Brien; and she’s as strong as a man.”

“There’s another thing you’d better speak to her about as soon as possible.” And Markham related in detail the facts of Von Blon’s visit to the office after lunch. “If those drugs were stolen in the Greene mansion, your woman may be able to find some trace of them.”

Markham’s account of the missing poisons had produced a profound effect on both Heath and the Inspector.

“Good heavens!” exclaimed the latter. “Is this affair going to develop into a poisoning case? It would be the finishing touch.” His apprehension went much deeper than his tone implied.

Heath sat staring at the polished table-top with futile consternation.

“Morphine and strychnine! There’s no use looking for the stuff. There’s a hundred places in the house where it could be hid; and we might search a month and not find it. Anyway, I’ll go out there to-night and tell O’Brien to watch for it. If she’s on the lookout she maybe can spot any attempt to use it.”

“What astounds me,” remarked the Inspector, “is the security felt by the thief. Within an hour of the time Rex Greene is shot the poison disappears from the upper hall. Good Gad! That’s cold-bloodedness for you! And nerve, too!”

“There’s plenty of cold-bloodedness and nerve in this case,” answered Vance. “A relentless determination is back of these murders—and calculation no end. I wouldn’t be surprised if the doctor’s satchel had been searched a score of times before. Perhaps there’s been a patient accumulation of the drugs. This morning’s theft may have been the final raid. I see in this whole affair a carefully worked-out plot that’s been in preparation perhaps for years. We’re dealing with the persistency of an idée fixe, and with the demoniacal logic of insanity. And—what is even more hideous—we’re confronted with the perverted imagination of a fantastically romantic mind. We’re pitted against a fiery, egocentric, hallucinated optimism. And this type of optimism has tremendous stamina and power. The history of nations has been convulsed by it. Mohammed, Bruno, and Jeanne d’Arc—as well as Torquemada, Agrippina, and Robespierre—all had it. It operates in different degrees, and to different ends; but the spirit of individual revolution is at the bottom of it.”

“Hell, Mr. Vance!” Heath was uneasy. “You’re trying to make this case something that ain’t—well, natural.”

“Can you make it anything else, Sergeant? Already there have been three murders and an attempted murder. And now comes the theft of the poisons from Von Blon.”

Inspector Moran drew himself up and rested his elbows on the table.

“Well, what’s to be done? That, I believe, is the business of to-night’s conclave.” He forced himself to speak with matter-of-factness. “We can’t break up the establishment; and we can’t assign a separate bodyguard for each remaining member of the household.”

“No; and we can’t give ’em the works at the police station, either,” grumbled Heath.

“It wouldn’t help you if you could, Sergeant,” said Vance. “There’s no third degree known that could unseal the lips of the person who is executing this particular opus. There’s too much fanaticism and martyrdom in it.”

“Suppose we hear those wills, Mr. Markham,” suggested Moran. “We may then be able to figure out a motive.—You’ll admit, won’t you, Mr. Vance, that there’s a pretty strong motive back of these killings?”

“There can be no doubt as to that. But I don’t believe it’s money. Money may enter into it—and probably does—but only as a contribut’ry factor. I’d say the motive was more fundamental—that it had its matrix in some powerful but suppressed human passion. However, the financial conditions may lead us to those depths.”

Markham had taken from his pocket several legal-sized sheets of closely typed paper, and smoothed them on the table before him.

“There’s no necessity to read these verbatim,” he said. “I’ve gone over them thoroughly and can tell you briefly what they contain.” He took up the top sheet and held it nearer to the light. “Tobias Greene’s last will, drawn up less than a year before his death, makes the entire family, as you know, the residuary devisees, with the stipulation that they live on the estate and maintain it intact for twenty-five years. At the end of that time the property may be sold or otherwise disposed of. I might mention that the domiciliary stipulation was particularly strict: the legatees must live in the Greene mansion in esse—no technicality will suffice. They are permitted to travel and make visits; but such absences may not exceed three months in each respective year. . . .”

“What provision was made in case one of them should marry?” asked the Inspector.

“None. Even marriage on the part of any of the legatees did not vitiate the restrictions of the will. If a Greene married, he or she had to live out the twenty-five years on the estate just the same. The husband or wife could share the residence, of course. In event of children the will provided for the erection of two other small dwellings on the 52d Street side of the lot. Only one exception was made to these stipulations. If Ada should marry, she could live elsewhere without losing her inheritance, as she apparently was not Tobias’s own child and could not, therefore, carry on the blood line of the Greenes.”

“What penalties attached to a breaking of the domiciliary terms of the will?” Again the Inspector put the question.

“Only one penalty—disinheritance, complete and absolute.”

“A rigid old bird,” murmured Vance. “But the important thing about the will is, I should say, the manner in which he left the money. How was this distributed?”

“It wasn’t distributed. With the exception of a few minor bequests, it was left in its entirety to the widow. She was to have the use of it during her lifetime, and could, at her death, dispose of it to the children—and grandchildren, if any—as she saw fit. It was imperative, however, that it all remain in the family.”

“Where do the present generation of Greenes get their living expenses? Are they dependent on the old lady’s bounty?”

“Not exactly. A provision was made for them in this way: each of the five children was to receive from the executors a stipulated amount from Mrs. Greene’s income, sufficient for personal needs.” Markham folded up the paper. “And that about covers Tobias’s will.”

“You spoke of a few minor bequests,” said Vance. “What were they?”

“Sproot was left a competency, for instance—enough to take care of him comfortably whenever he wished to retire from service. Mrs. Mannheim, also, was to receive an income for life beginning at the end of the twenty-five years.”

“Ah! Now, that’s most interestin’. And in the meantime she could, if she chose, remain as cook at a liberal salary.”

“Yes, that was the arrangement.”

“The status of Frau Mannheim fascinates me. I have a feeling that some day ere long she and I will have a heart-to-heart talk.—Any other minor bequests?”

“A hospital, where Tobias recovered from typhus fever contracted in the tropics; and a donation to the chair of criminology at the University of Prague. I might mention too, as a curious item, that Tobias left his library to the New York Police Department, to be turned over to them at the expiration of the twenty-five years.”

Vance drew himself up with puzzled interest.

“Amazin’!”

Heath had turned to the Inspector.

“Did you know anything about this, sir?”

“It seems to me I’ve heard of it. But a gift of books a quarter of a century in the future isn’t apt to excite the officials of the force.”

Vance, to all appearances, was smoking with indolent unconcern; but the precise way he held his cigarette told me that some unusual speculation was absorbing his mind.

“The will of Mrs. Greene,” Markham went on, “touches more definitely on present conditions, though personally I see nothing helpful in it. She has been mathematically impartial in doling out the estate. The five children—Julia, Chester, Sibella, Rex, and Ada—receive equal amounts under its terms—that is, each gets a fifth of the entire estate.”

“That part of it don’t interest me,” put in the Sergeant. “What I want to know is, who gets all this money in case the others pass outa the picture?”

“The provision covering that point is quite simple,” explained Markham. “Should any of the children die before a new will is drawn, their share of the inheritance is distributed equally among the remaining beneficiaries.”

“Then when any one of ’em passes out, all the others benefit. And if all of ’em, except one, should die, that one would get everything—huh?”

“Yes.”

“So, as it stands now, Sibella and Ada would get everything—fifty-fifty—provided the old lady croaked.”

“That’s correct, Sergeant.”

“But suppose both Sibella and Ada, as well as the old lady, should die: what would become of the money?”

“If either of the girls had a husband, the estate would pass to him. But, in event of Sibella and Ada dying single, everything would go to the State. That is to say, the State would get it provided there were no relatives alive—which I believe is the case.”

Heath pondered these possibilities for several minutes.

“I can’t see anything in the situation to give us a lead,” he lamented. “Everybody benefits equally by what’s already happened. And there’s three of the family still left—the old lady and the two girls.”

“Two from three leaves one, Sergeant,” suggested Vance quietly.

“What do you mean by that, sir?”

“The morphine and the strychnine.”

Heath gave a start and made an ugly face.

“By God!” He struck the table with his fist. “It ain’t coming to that if I can stop it!” Then a sense of helplessness tempered his outraged resolution, and he became sullen.

“I know how you feel.” Vance spoke with troubled discouragement. “But I’m afraid we’ll all have to wait. If the Greene millions are an actuating force in this affair, there’s no way on earth to avert at least one more tragedy.”

“We might put the matter up to the two girls and perhaps induce them to separate and go away,” ventured the Inspector.

“That would only postpone the inevitable,” Vance returned. “And besides, it would rob them of their patrimony.”

“A court ruling might be obtained upsetting the provisions of the will,” submitted Markham dubiously.

Vance gave him an ironical smile.

“By the time you could get one of your beloved courts to act the murderer would have had time to wipe out the entire local judiciary.”

For nearly two hours ways and means of dealing with the case were discussed; but obstacles confronted nearly every line of activity advocated. Finally it was agreed that the only practicable tactics to be pursued were those of the routine police procedure. However, before the conference broke up, certain specific decisions had been taken. The guard about the Greene estate was to be increased, and a man was to be placed on the upper floor of the Narcoss Flats to keep a close watch on the front door and windows. On some pretext or other a detective was to be kept inside of the house as many hours as possible during the day; and the telephone-line of the Greenes was to be tapped.

Vance insisted, somewhat against Markham’s inclination, that every one in the house and every person who called there—however seemingly remote his connection with the case—should be regarded as a suspect and watched vigilantly; and Heath was ordered by the Inspector to convey this decision to O’Brien, lest her instinctive partiality should result in the relaxation of her scrutiny of certain persons. The Sergeant, it seemed, had already instituted a thorough investigation into the private affairs of Julia, Chester, and Rex; and a dozen men were at work on their associates and activities outside of the Greene mansion, with special instructions to gather reports of conversations which might have contained some hint or reference indicating a foreknowledge or suspicion of the crimes.

Just as Markham rose to terminate the discussion Vance again leaned forward and spoke.

“In case there is to be a poisoning we should, I think, be prepared. Where overdoses of either morphine or strychnine are administered immediate action will sometimes save the victim. I would suggest that an official physician be placed in the Narcoss Flats with the man set to watch the Greene windows; and he should have at hand all the necess’ry apparatus and antidotes used in combating morphine and strychnine poisoning. Furthermore, I would suggest that we arrange some sort of signal with Sproot and the new nurse, so that, should anything happen, our doctor can be summoned without a moment’s delay. If the victim of the attempted poisoning were saved, we might be able to ascertain who administered the drug.”

The plan was readily agreed to. The Inspector took it upon himself to arrange the matter that night with one of the official police surgeons; and Heath went at once to the Narcoss Flats to secure a room facing the Greene mansion.