The Greatest Murder Mysteries of S. S. Van Dine - 12 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). S.S. Van Dine
. . . Let me see. I must have just fallen to sleep. My back was giving me a great deal of trouble last night; I had suffered all day with it, though I of course didn’t tell any of the children about it. Little they care how their paralyzed old mother suffers. . . . And then, just as I had managed to doze off, there came the report, and I was wide-awake again—lying here helpless, unable to move, and wondering what awful thing might be going to happen to me. And no one came to see if I was all right; no one thought of me, alone and defenseless. But then, no one ever thinks of me.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t any lack of consideration, Mrs. Greene,” Markham assured her earnestly. “The situation probably drove everything momentarily from their minds except the two victims of the shooting.—Tell me this: did you hear any other sounds in Miss Ada’s room after the shot awakened you?”
“I heard the poor girl fall—at least, it sounded like that.”
“But no other noises of any kind? No footsteps, for instance?”
“Footsteps?” She seemed to make an effort to recall her impressions. “No; no footsteps.”
“Did you hear the door into the hall open or close, madam?” It was Vance who put the question.
The woman turned her eyes sharply and glared at him.
“No, I heard no door open or close.”
“That’s rather queer, too, don’t you think?” pursued Vance. “The intruder must have left the room.”
“I suppose he must have, if he’s not there now,” she replied acidly, turning again to the District Attorney. “Is there anything else you’d care to know?”
Markham evidently had perceived the impossibility of eliciting any vital information from her.
“I think not,” he answered; then added: “You of course heard the butler and your son here enter Miss Ada’s room?”
“Oh, yes. They made enough noise doing it—they didn’t consider my feelings in the least. That fuss-budget, Sproot, actually cried out for Chester like a hysterical woman; and, from the way he raised his voice over the telephone, one would have thought Doctor Von Blon was deaf. Then Chester had to rouse the whole house for some unknown reason. Oh, there was no peace or rest for me last night, I can tell you! And the police tramped around the house for hours like a drove of wild cattle. It was positively disgraceful. And here was I—a helpless old woman—entirely neglected and forgotten, suffering agonies with my spine.”
After a few commiserating banalities Markham thanked her for her assistance, and withdrew. As we passed out and walked toward the stairs I could hear her calling out angrily: “Nurse! Nurse! Can’t you hear me? Come at once and arrange my pillows. What do you mean by neglecting me this way. . . ?”
The voice trailed off mercifully as we descended to the main hall.
CHAPTER IV
THE MISSING REVOLVER
(Tuesday, November 9; 3 p. m.)
“The Mater’s a crabbed old soul,” Greene apologized offhandedly when we were again in the drawing-room. “Always grousing about her doting off-spring.—Well, where do we go from here?”
Markham seemed lost in thought, and it was Vance who answered.
“Let us take a peep at the servants and hearken to their tale: Sproot for a starter.”
Markham roused himself and nodded, and Greene rose and pulled a silken bell-cord near the archway. A minute later the butler appeared and stood at obsequious attention just inside the room. Markham had appeared somewhat at sea and even uninterested during the investigation, and Vance assumed command.
“Sit down, Sproot, and tell us as briefly as possible just what occurred last night.”
Sproot came forward slowly, his eyes on the floor, but remained standing before the centre-table.
“I was reading Martial, sir, in my room,” he began, lifting his gaze submissively, “when I thought I heard a muffled shot. I wasn’t quite sure, for the automobiles in the street back-fire quite loud at times; but at last I said to myself I’d better investigate. I was in negligé, if you understand what I mean, sir; so I slipped on my bath-robe and came down. I didn’t know just where the noise had come from; but when I was half-way down the steps, I heard another shot, and this time it sounded like it came from Miss Ada’s room. So I went there at once, and tried the door. It was unlocked, and when I looked in I saw Miss Ada lying on the floor—a very distressing sight, sir. I called to Mr. Chester, and we lifted the poor young lady to the bed. Then I telephoned to Doctor Von Blon.”
Vance scrutinized him.
“You were very courageous, Sproot, to brave a dark hall looking for the source of a shot in the middle of the night.”
“Thank you, sir,” the man answered, with great humility. “I always try to do my duty by the Greene family. I’ve been with them——”
“We know all that, Sproot.” Vance cut him short. “The light was on in Miss Ada’s room, I understand, when you opened the door.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you saw no one, or heard no noise? No door closing, for instance?”
“No, sir.”
“And yet the person who fired the shot must have been somewhere in the hall at the same time you were there.”
“I suppose so, sir.”
“And he might well have taken a shot at you, too.”
“Quite so, sir.” Sproot seemed wholly indifferent to the danger he had escaped. “But what will be, will be, sir—if you’ll pardon my saying so. And I’m an old man——”
“Tut, tut! You’ll probably live a considerable time yet—just how long I can’t, of course, say.”
“No, sir.” Sproot’s eyes gazed blankly ahead. “No one understands the mysteries of life and death.”
“You’re somewhat philosophic, I see,” drily commented Vance. Then: “When you phoned to Doctor Von Blon, was he in?”
“No, sir; but the night nurse told me he’d be back any minute, and that she’d send him over. He arrived in less than half an hour.”
Vance nodded. “That will be all, thank you, Sproot.—And now please send me die gnädige Frau Köchin.”
“Yes, sir.” And the old butler shuffled from the room.
Vance’s eyes followed him thoughtfully.
“An inveiglin’ character,” he murmured.
Greene snorted. “You don’t have to live with him. He’d have said ‘Yes, sir,’ if you’d spoken to him in Walloon or Volapük. A sweet little playmate to have snooping round the house twenty-four hours a day!”
The cook, a portly, phlegmatic German woman of about forty-five, named Gertrude Mannheim, came in and seated herself on the edge of a chair near the entrance. Vance, after a moment’s keen inspection of her, asked:
“Were you born in this country, Frau Mannheim?”
“I was born in Baden,” she answered, in flat, rather guttural tones. “I came to America when I was twelve.”
“You have not always been a cook, I take it.” Vance’s voice had a slightly different intonation from that which he had used with Sproot.
At first the woman did not answer.
“No, sir,” she said finally. “Only since the death of my husband.”
“How