I bought another Herald and put it on the rack.” He paused. “Is that all?”
Markham nodded.
“Thank you—that’s all; except that I must now ask you to go with these officers.”
“In that case,” said Spotswoode quietly, “there’s a small favor I have to ask of you, Mr. Markham. Now that the blow has fallen, I wish to write a certain note—to my wife. But I want to be alone when I write it. Surely you understand that desire. It will take but a few moments. Your men may stand at the door—I can’t very well escape. . . . The victor can afford to be generous to that extent.”
Before Markham had time to reply, Vance stepped forward and touched his arm.
“I trust,” he interposed, “that you won’t deem it necess’ry to refuse Mr. Spotswoode’s request.”
Markham looked at him hesitantly.
“I guess you’ve pretty well earned the right to dictate, Vance,” he acquiesced.
Then he ordered Heath and Snitkin to wait outside in the hall, and he and Vance and I went into the adjoining room. Markham stood, as if on guard, near the door; but Vance, with an ironical smile, sauntered to the window and gazed out into Madison Square.
“My word, Markham!” he declared. “There’s something rather colossal about that chap. Y’ know, one can’t help admiring him. He’s so eminently sane and logical.”
Markham made no response. The drone of the city’s mid-afternoon noises, muffled by the closed windows, seemed to intensify the ominous silence of the little bedchamber where we waited.
Then came a sharp report from the other room.
Markham flung open the door. Heath and Snitkin were already rushing toward Spotswoode’s prostrate body, and were bending over it when Markham entered. Immediately he wheeled about and glared at Vance, who now appeared in the doorway.
“He’s shot himself!”
“Fancy that,” said Vance.
“You—you knew he was going to do that?” Markham spluttered.
“It was rather obvious, don’t y’ know.”
Markham’s eyes flashed angrily.
“And you deliberately interceded for him—to give him the opportunity?”
“Tut, tut, my dear fellow!” Vance reproached him. “Pray don’t give way to conventional moral indignation. However unethical—theoretically—it may be to take another’s life, a man’s own life is certainly his to do with as he chooses. Suicide is his inalienable right. And under the paternal tyranny of our modern democracy, I’m rather inclined to think it’s about the only right he has left, what?”
He glanced at his watch and frowned.
“D’ ye know, I’ve missed my concert, bothering with your beastly affairs,” he complained amiably, giving Markham an engaging smile; “and now you’re actually scolding me. ’Pon my word, old fellow, you’re deuced ungrateful!”
THE GREENE MURDER CASE
Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange and unnatural.
—Hamlet.
TO
NORBERT L. LEDERER
Αγαθὴ δὲ παράφασίς ἐστιν ἐταίρου
CHAPTER II. THE INVESTIGATION OPENS
CHAPTER III. AT THE GREENE MANSION
CHAPTER IV. THE MISSING REVOLVER
CHAPTER V. HOMICIDAL POSSIBILITIES
CHAPTER VII. VANCE ARGUES THE CASE
CHAPTER VIII. THE SECOND TRAGEDY
CHAPTER X. THE CLOSING OF A DOOR
CHAPTER XI. A PAINFUL INTERVIEW
CHAPTER XIII. THE THIRD TRAGEDY
CHAPTER XIV. FOOTPRINTS ON THE CARPET
CHAPTER XV. THE MURDERER IN THE HOUSE
CHAPTER XVIII. IN THE LOCKED LIBRARY
CHAPTER XIX. SHERRY AND PARALYSIS
CHAPTER XX. THE FOURTH TRAGEDY
CHAPTER XXI. A DEPLETED HOUSEHOLD
CHAPTER XXII. THE SHADOWY FIGURE
CHAPTER XXIII. THE MISSING FACT
CHAPTER XXIV. A MYSTERIOUS TRIP
CHAPTER XXVI. THE ASTOUNDING TRUTH
CHARACTERS OF THE BOOK
Philo Vance
John F.-X. Markham
District Attorney of New York County.
Mrs. Tobias Greene
The mistress of the Greene mansion.
Julia