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