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 did you happen to come to the Greenes?”
Again she hesitated. “I had met Mr. Tobias Greene: he knew my husband. When my husband died there wasn’t any money. And I remembered Mr. Greene, and I thought——”
“I understand.” Vance paused, his eyes in space. “You heard nothing of what happened here last night?”
“No, sir. Not until Mr. Chester called up the stairs and said for us to get dressed and come down.”
Vance rose and turned to the window overlooking the East River.
“That’s all, Frau Mannheim. Be so good as to tell the senior maid—Hemming, isn’t she?—to come here.”
Without a word the cook left us, and her place was presently taken by a tall, slatternly woman, with a sharp, prudish face and severely combed hair. She wore a black, one-piece dress, and heelless vici-kid shoes; and her severity of mien was emphasized by a pair of thick-lensed spectacles.
“I understand, Hemming,” began Vance, reseating himself before the fireplace, “that you heard neither shot last night, and learned of the tragedy only when called by Mr. Greene.”
The woman nodded with a jerky, emphatic movement.
“I was spared,” she said, in a rasping voice. “But the tragedy, as you call it, had to come sooner or later. It was an act of God, if you ask me.”
“Well, we’re not asking you, Hemming; but we’re delighted to have your opinion.—So God had a hand in the shooting, eh?”
“He did that!” The woman spoke with religious fervor. “The Greenes are an ungodly, wicked family.” She leered defiantly at Chester Greene, who laughed uneasily. “ ‘For I shall rise up against them, saith the Lord of hosts—the name, the remnant, and son, and daughter, and nephew’—only there ain’t no nephew—‘and I will sweep them with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord.’ ”
Vance regarded her musingly.
“I see you have misread Isaiah. And have you any celestial information as to who was chosen by the Lord to personify the besom?”
The