The Greatest Works of S. S. Van Dine (Illustrated Edition). S.S. Van Dine

or open Miss Ada’s door?”

      “I’ve already told you I heard nothing.” The old lady’s denial was viciously emphatic.

      “Nor any one walking in the hall, or descending the stairs?”

      “No one but that incompetent doctor and the impossible Sproot. Were we supposed to have had visitors this morning?”

      “Some one shot your son,” Markham reminded her coolly.

      “It was probably his own fault,” she snapped. Then she seemed to relent a bit. “Still, Rex was not as hard and thoughtless as the rest of the children. But even he neglected me shamefully.” She appeared to weigh the matter. “Yes,” she decided, “he received just punishment for the way he treated me.”

      Markham struggled with a hot resentment. At last he managed to ask, with apparent calmness:

      “Did you hear the shot with which your son was punished?”

      “I did not.” Her tone was again irate. “I knew nothing of the disturbance until the doctor saw fit to tell me.”

      “And yet Mr. Rex’s door, as well as yours, was open,” said Markham. “I can hardly understand your not having heard the shot.”

      The old lady gave him a look of scathing irony.

      “Am I to sympathize with your lack of understanding?”

      “Lest you be tempted to, madam, I shall leave you.” Markham bowed stiffly and turned on his heel.

      As we reached the lower hall Doctor Doremus arrived.

      “Your friends are still at it, I hear, Sergeant,” he greeted Heath, with his usual breezy manner. Handing his coat and hat to Sproot, he came forward and shook hands with all of us. “When you fellows don’t spoil my breakfast you interfere with my lunch,” he repined. “Where’s the body?”

      Heath led him up-stairs, and after a few minutes returned to the drawing-room. Taking out another cigar he bit the end of it savagely. “Well, sir, I guess you’ll want to see this Miss Sibella next, won’t you?”

      “We might as well,” sighed Markham. “Then I’ll tackle the servants and leave things to you. The reporters will be along pretty soon.”

      “Don’t I know it! And what they’re going to do to us in the papers’ll be a-plenty!”

      “And you can’t even tell them ‘it is confidently expected that an arrest will be made in the immediate future,’ don’t y’ know,” grinned Vance. “It’s most distressin’.”

      Heath made an inarticulate noise of exasperation and, calling Sproot, sent him for Sibella.

      A moment later she came in carrying a small Pomeranian. She was paler than I had ever seen her, and there was unmistakable fright in her eyes. When she greeted us it was without her habitual gaiety.

      “This thing is getting rather ghastly, isn’t it?” she remarked when she had taken a seat.

      “It is indeed dreadful,” returned Markham soberly. “You have our very deepest sympathy. . . .”

      “Oh, thanks awf’ly.” She accepted the cigarette Vance offered her. “But I’m beginning to wonder how long I’ll be here to receive condolences.” She spoke with forced lightness, but a strained quality in her voice told of her suppressed emotion.

      Markham regarded her sympathetically.

      “I do not think it would be a bad idea if you went away for a while—to some friend’s house, let us say—preferably out of the city.”

      “Oh, no.” She tossed her head with defiance. “I sha’n’t run away. If there’s any one really bent on killing me, he’ll manage it somehow, wherever I am. Anyway, I’d have to come back sooner or later. I couldn’t board with out-of-town friends indefinitely—could I?” She looked at Markham with a kind of anxious despair. “You haven’t any idea, I suppose, who it is that’s obsessed with the idea of exterminating us Greenes?”

      Markham was reluctant to admit to her the utter hopelessness of the official outlook; and she turned appealingly to Vance.

      “You needn’t treat me like a child,” she said spiritedly. “You, at least, Mr. Vance, can tell me if there is any one under suspicion.”

      “No, dash it all, Miss Greene!—there isn’t,” he answered promptly. “It’s an amazin’ confession to have to make; but it’s true. That’s why, I think, Mr. Markham suggested that you go away for a while.”

      “It’s very thoughtful of him and all that,” she returned. “But I think I’ll stay and see it through.”

      “You’re a very brave girl,” said Markham, with troubled admiration. “And I assure you everything humanly possible will be done to safeguard you.”

      “Well, so much for that.” She tossed her cigarette into a receiver, and began abstractedly to pet the dog in her lap. “And now, I suppose, you want to know if I heard the shot. Well, I didn’t. So you may continue the inquisition from that point.”

      “You were in your room, though, at the time of your brother’s death?”

      “I was in my room all morning,” she said. “My first appearance beyond the threshold was when Sproot brought the sad tidings of Rex’s passing. But Doctor Von shooed me back again; and there I’ve remained until now. Model behavior, don’t you think, for a member of this new and wicked generation?”

      “What time did Doctor Von Blon come to your room?” asked Vance.

      Sibella gave him a faint whimsical smile.

      “I’m so glad it was you who asked that question. I’m sure Mr. Markham would have used a disapproving tone—though it’s quite au fait to receive one’s doctor in one’s boudoir.—Let me see. I’m sure you asked Doctor Von the same question, so I must be careful. . . . A little before eleven, I should say.”

      “The doc’s exact words,” chimed in Heath suspiciously.

      Sibella turned a look of amused surprise upon him.

      “Isn’t that wonderful! But then, I’ve always been told that honesty is the best policy.”

      “And did Doctor Von Blon remain in your room until called by Sproot?” pursued Vance.

      “Oh, yes. He was smoking his pipe. Mother detests pipes, and he often sneaks into my room to enjoy a quiet smoke.”

      “And what were you doing during the doctor’s visit?”

      “I was bathing this ferocious animal.” She held up the Pomeranian for Vance’s inspection. “Doesn’t he look nice?”

      “In the bathroom?”

      “Naturally. I’d hardly bathe him in the poudrière.”

      “And was the bathroom door closed?”

      “As to that I couldn’t say. But it’s quite likely. Doctor Von is like a member of the family, and I’m terribly rude to him sometimes.”

      Vance got up.

      “Thank you very much, Miss Greene. We’re sorry we had to trouble you. Do you mind remaining in your room for a while?”

      “Mind? On the contrary. It’s about the only place I feel safe.” She walked to the archway. “If you do find out anything you’ll let me know—won’t you? There’s no use pretending any longer. I’m dreadfully scared.” Then, as if ashamed of her admission, she went quickly down the hall.

      Just then Sproot admitted the two finger-print experts—Dubois and Bellamy—and the official photographer. Heath joined them in the hall and took them up-stairs, returning immediately.

      “And now what, sir?”

      Markham