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

Commissioner.

      CHAPTER III

       A LADY’S HAND-BAG

       Table of Contents

      (Friday, June 14; 9.30 a.m.)

      The District Attorney and Heath walked up to the body, and stood regarding it.

      “You see,” Heath explained; “he was shot directly from the front. A pretty powerful shot, too; for the bullet passed through the head and struck the woodwork over there by the window.” He pointed to a place on the wainscot a short distance from the floor near the drapery of the window nearest the hallway. “We found the expelled shell, and Captain Hagedorn’s got the bullet.”

      He turned to the fire-arms expert.

      “How about it, Captain? Anything special?”

      Hagedorn raised his head slowly, and gave Heath a myopic frown. Then after a few awkward movements, he answered with unhurried precision:

      “A forty-five army bullet—Colt automatic.”

      “Any idea how close to Benson the gun was held?” asked Markham.

      “Yes, sir, I have,” Hagedorn replied, in his ponderous monotone. “Between five and six feet—probably.”

      Heath snorted.

      “ ‘Probably’,” he repeated to Markham with good natured contempt. “You can bank on it if the Captain says so. . . . You see, sir, nothing smaller than a forty-four or forty-five will stop a man, and these steel-capped army bullets go through a human skull like it was cheese. But in order to carry straight to the woodwork the gun had to be held pretty close; and as there aren’t any powder marks on the face, it’s a safe bet to take the Captain’s figures as to distance.”

      At this point we heard the front door open and close, and Dr. Doremus, the Chief Medical Examiner, accompanied by his assistant, bustled in. He shook hands with Markham and Inspector O’Brien, and gave Heath a friendly salutation.

      “Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner,” he apologized.

      He was a nervous man with a heavily seamed face and the manner of a real-estate salesman.

      “What have we got here?” he asked, in the same breath, making a wry face at the body in the chair.

      “You tell us, Doc,” retorted Heath.

      Dr. Doremus approached the murdered man with a callous indifference indicative of a long process of hardening. He first inspected the face closely,—he was, I imagine, looking for powder marks. Then he glanced at the bullet hole in the forehead and at the ragged wound in the back of the head. Next he moved the dead man’s arm, bent the fingers, and pushed the head a little to the side. Having satisfied himself as to the state of rigor mortis, he turned to Heath.

      “Can we get him on the settee there?”

      Heath looked at Markham inquiringly.

      “All through, sir?”

      Markham nodded, and Heath beckoned to the two men at the front windows and ordered the body placed on the davenport. It retained its sitting posture, due to the hardening of the muscles after death, until the doctor and his assistant straightened out the limbs. The body was then undressed, and Dr. Doremus examined it carefully for other wounds. He paid particular attention to the arms; and he opened both hands wide and scrutinized the palms. At length he straightened up and wiped his hands on a large colored silk handkerchief.

      “Shot through the left frontal,” he announced. “Direct angle of fire. Bullet passed completely through the skull. Exit wound in the left occipital region—base of skull,—you found the bullet, didn’t you? He was awake when shot, and death was immediate—probably never knew what hit him. . . . He’s been dead about—well, I should judge, eight hours; maybe longer.”

      “How about twelve-thirty for the exact time?” asked Heath.

      The doctor looked at his watch.

      “Fits O. K. . . . Anything else?”

      No one answered, and after a slight pause the Chief Inspector spoke.

      “We’d like a post-mortem report to-day, doctor.”

      “That’ll be all right,” Dr. Doremus answered, snapping shut his medical case and handing it to his assistant. “But get the body to the Mortuary as soon as you can.”

      After a brief hand-shaking ceremony, he went out hurriedly.

      Heath turned to the detective who had been standing by the table when we entered.

      “Burke, you ’phone Headquarters to call for the body—and tell ’em to get a move on. Then go back to the office and wait for me.”

      Burke saluted and disappeared.

      Heath then addressed one of the two men who had been inspecting the grilles of the front windows.

      “How about that ironwork, Snitkin?”

      “No chance, Sergeant,” was the answer. “Strong as a jail—both of ’em. Nobody never got in through those windows.”

      “Very good,” Heath told him. “Now you two fellows chase along with Burke.”

      When they had gone the dapper man in the blue serge suit and derby, whose sphere of activity had seemed to be the fireplace, laid two cigarette butts on the table.

      “I found these under the gas-logs, Sergeant,” he explained unenthusiastically. “Not much; but there’s nothing else laying around.”

      “All right, Emery.” Heath gave the butts a disgruntled look. “You needn’t wait, either. I’ll see you at the office later.”

      Hagedorn came ponderously forward.

      “I guess I’ll be getting along, too,” he rumbled. “But I’m going to keep this bullet a while. It’s got some peculiar rifling marks on it. You don’t want it specially, do you, Sergeant?”

      Heath smiled tolerantly.

      “What’ll I do with it, Captain? You keep it. But don’t you dare lose it.”

      “I won’t lose it,” Hagedorn assured him, with stodgy seriousness; and, without so much as a glance at either the District Attorney or the Chief Inspector, he waddled from the room with a slightly rolling movement which suggested that of some huge amphibious mammal.

      Vance, who was standing beside me near the door, turned and followed Hagedorn into the hall. The two stood talking in low tones for several minutes. Vance appeared to be asking questions, and although I was not close enough to hear their conversation, I caught several words and phrases—“trajectory,” “muzzle velocity,” “angle of fire,” “impetus,” “impact,” “deflection,” and the like—and wondered what on earth had prompted this strange interrogation.

      As Vance was thanking Hagedorn for his information Inspector O’Brien entered the hall.

      “Learning fast?” he asked, smiling patronizingly at Vance. Then, without waiting for a reply: “Come along, Captain; I’ll drive you down town.”

      Markham heard him.

      “Have you got room for Dinwiddie, too, Inspector?”

      “Plenty, Mr. Markham.”

      The three of them went out.

      Vance and I were now left alone in the room with Heath and the District Attorney, and, as if by common impulse, we all settled ourselves in chairs, Vance taking one near the dining-room door directly facing the chair in which Benson had been murdered.

I had been keenly interested in Vance’s manner and actions from the moment of his arrival at the house. When he