by S.S. VAN DINE ¢
Copyright S. 8. Van Dine
WNU Service
CHAPTER I
nn] i
There were two reasons why the
. terrible and, in many ways, incredi-
ble Garden murder case—which
took place in the early spring fol-
lowing the spectacular Casino mur-
der case—was so designated. In
the first place, the scene of this
tragedy was the penthouse heme
of Professor Ephraim Garden, the
great experimental chemist of Stuy-
vesant university; and secondly, the
exact situs criminis was the beauti-
ful private roof-garden over the
apartment itself.
It was both a peculiar and im- |
plausible affair, and one so cleverly
planned that only by the merest |
accident—or perhaps, I should say |
a fortuitous intervention—was it dis-
covered at all.
The Garden murder case involved
a curious and anomalous mixture
of passion, avarice, ambition and
horse-racing. There was an admix- |
ture of hate, also; but this potent |
and blinding element was, I imag- |
ine, an understandable outgrowth |
of the other factors.
The beginning of the case came
on the night of April 13. It was one |
of those mild evenings that we often
experience in early spring following |
a spell of harsh dampness, when
all the remaining traces of winter |
finally capitulate to the inevitable |
seasonal changes. There was a
mellow softness in the air, a sud- |
den perfume from the burgeoning
life of nature—the kind of atmos- |
phere that makes one lackadaisical,
and wistful and, at the same time,
stimulates one's imagination.
I mention this seemingly irrele-
vant fact because I have good rea-
son to believe these meteorological
conditions had much to do with the
startling events that were imminent
that night and which were to break
forth, in all their horror, before an-
other 24 hours had passed.
And I believe that the season,
with all its subtle innuendoes, was
the real explanation of the change
that came over Vance himself dur-
ing his investigation of the crime.
Up to that time I had never con-
sidered Vance a man of any deep
personal emotion, except in so far
as children and animals and his in-
timate masculine friendships were
concerned. He had always im-
pressed me as a man so highly
mentalized, so cynical and imper-
sonal in his attitude toward life,
that an irrational human weakness
like romance would be alien to his
nature. But in the course of his
deft inquiry into the murders in
Professor Garden's penthouse, I |
saw, for the first time, another and |
softer side of his character. Vance |
was never a happy man in the |
conventional sense; but after the |
Garden murder case there were evi-
dences of an even deeper loneliness |
in his sensitive nature.
As I have said,
4
the case opened—
so far as Vance was concerned with |
it—on the night of April 13. John |
F-X. Markham, then district attor- |
ney of New York county, had dined |
with Vance at his apartment in
East Thirty- th street. The din-
ner had been excellent—as all of |
Vance's dir were—and at ten |
o'clock the three of us were sitting
ir; the comfortable library.
Vance and Markham had been |
discussing crime waves in a desul-
tory manner. There had been a |
mild disagreement, Vance discount-
ing the theory that crime waves |
are calculable, and holding that
crime is entirely personal and there-
fore incompatible with generaliza-
tions or laws.
It was in the midst of this dis- |
cussion that Currie, Vance's old |
English butler and majordomo, ap-
peared at the library door. 1 no- |
ticed that he seemed nervous and
ill at ease as he waited for Vance |
to finish speaking; and 1 think
Vance, too, sensed something un-
usual in the man's attitude, for
ke stopped speaking rather abruptly |
and turned.
“What is it, Currie? Have you |
seen a ghost, are there burglars in
the house?”
“I have just had a telephone call, |
gir,” the old man answered, endeav-
oring to restrain the excitement in
his voice.
“Not bad news from abroad?”
Vance asked sympathetically.
“Oh, no, sir; it wasn't anything
for me. There was a gentleman on
the phone—"'
Vance lifted his eyebrows and
smiled faintly.
“A gentleman, Currie?”
“He spoke like a gentleman, sir.
He was certainly no ordinary per-
son. He had a cultured voice, sir,
and-—""
“Since your instinct has gone so
“perhaps
you can tell me the gentleman's
“I should say he was middle-age
Currie
ventured. ‘‘His voice sounded ma-
ture and dignified and judicial.”
“Excellent!” Vance crushed out
his cigarette. ‘‘And what was the
object of this dignified, middle-aged
gentleman's call? Did he ask to
speak to me or give you his name?”
A worried look came into Cur-
rie's eyes as he shook his head.
“No, sir. That's the strange part
of it. He said he did not wish to
would not tell me his name. But he
asked me to give you a message.
the receiver.” Currie stepped for-
ward. ‘Here's the message, sir.”
Vance took it and nodded a dis-
missal. Then he adjusted his mon-
ocle and held the slip of paper un-
der the light of the table lamp.
Markham and I both watched him
Markham Snorted, “That
Make Sense to You.”
May
closely, for the incident was un-
usual, to say the least. After a
hasty reading of the paper he gazed
off into space, and a clouded look
came into his eyes. He read the
into his chair.
“My word!" he murmured
extr'ordin'ry.
however,
sank back
“Most
It's quite intelligible,
don't ¥' know. But I'm
tion
Markham was annoyed.
secret?’ he asked testily.
“Is it a
“Or are
of your Delphic-
oracle moods?”
Vance glanced toward him con-
tritely.
“Forgive me, Markham. My mind
automatically went off on a train
of thought. Sorry—really.” He
held the paper again under the light.
‘“This is the message that Currie so
meticulously took down: ‘There is
a most disturbing psychological
tension of Professor Ephraim Gar-
den's apartment, which resists di-
Read up on radioactive
sodium. See Book XI of the Aeneid,
line 875, Equanimity is essential.’
. Curious—eh, what?"
“It sounds a little crazy to me,”
Markham grunted. “Are you trou-
bled much with cranks?”
“Oh, this is no crank,” Vance as-
sured him, “It's palin’ , I admit;
but it’s quite lucid.”
Markham sniffed skeptically.
“What, in the name of Heaven,
have a professor and sodium and
the Aeneid to do with one another?”
Vance was frowning as he reached
into the humidor for one of his
beloved cigarettes with a delibera-
tion which indicated a mental ten-
After a deep inhalation he
swered.
country.
filed in Who's Who.
matter. His latest researches have
been directed along the lines of
covery, Markham.
Ernest O. Lawrence, of the Univer-
sity of California, and two of his
colleagues there, Doctors Hender-
son and McMillan. This new radio-
active sodium has openec up new
fields of research in cancer thera-
py—indeed, it may prove some day
to be the long-looked-for cure for
cancer. The new gamma radiation
of this sodium is more penetrating
than any ever before obtained. On
the other hand, radium and radio-
active substances can be very dan-
gerous if diffused into the normal
tissues of the body and through the
blood stream.
“That is all very fascinating,”
Markham commented, sarcastical-
ly. “But what has it to do with you,
or with trouble in the Garden home?
And what could it possibly have to
do with the Aeneid? They didn't
have radioactive sodium in the time
of Aeneas.”
“Markham, old dear, I'm no Chal-
dean. I haven't the groggiest no-
tion wherein the situation concerns
either me or Aeneas, except that I
happen to know the Garden family
slightly. But I've & vague feeling
about that particular book of the
Aeneid. As I recall, it contains one
of the greatest descriptions of a
battle in all ancient literature. But
let's see . . .
Vance rose quickly and went to
the section of his book-shelves de-
voted to the classics, and, after a
few moments’ search, took down a
small red volume and began to rif-
fle the pages. He ran his eye swift.
ly down a page near the end of the
volume and after a minute's perusal
came back to his chair with the
book, nodding his head compre-
hensively, as if in answer to some
question he had inwardly asked
himself.
“The passage referred to, Mark-
ham,” he said after a moment, “is
not exactly what I had in mind. But
it may be even more significant.
It's the famous onomatopoeic Quad-
rupedumque putrem cursu quatit
ungula campum-— —meanin’, more or
less literally: “And in their gal-
loping course the horsehoof shakes
the crumbling plain."
Markham took the cigar from his
mouth and looked at Vance with
undisguised annoyance.
“You're merely working up a
mystery. You'll be telling me next
that the Trojans had something to
do with this professor of chemistry
and his radioactive sodium."
“No, oh, no.” Vance was in an
unu lly serious mood. ‘Not the
Trojans. But the galloping horses
perhaps.’
Markham snorted.
make sense to you."
“Not altogether,” returned Vance,
critically contemplating the end of
his cigarette. ‘‘There is neverthe-
less, the vague outline of a pattern
here. You see, young Floyd Sar-
den, the professor's only offspring,
and his cousin a puny chap named
Woode Swift—he's quite an intimate
member of the Garden household, I
believe—are addicted to the ponies.
“That may
way, Markham. They're both in-
terested in sports in general—prob-
ably the normal reaction to their
professorial and ecclesiastical fore-
bears: young Swift's father, who has
now gone to his Maker, was a D.D.
of sorts. I used to see both young
Johnnies at Kinkaid's Casino occa-
sionally. But the galloping horses
are their passion now. And they're
the nucleus of a group of young
aristocrats who spend their after-
noons mainly in the futile attempt
to guess which horses are going to
come in first at the various tracks.”
(TO BE CONTINUED)
DEGCINNI
iN THIS
-—
NG
ISSUE...
TOO LATE
clerk gave him,
| moments later he was back at the
booking office.
“l say,” he said to the clerk,
“you gave me the wrong change
just now.”
“Sorry,” said the clerk with a
shrug of his shoulders, ‘but it can-
not be rectified now. You should
have called my attention to it when
you bought your ticket.”
“Well, that's all right,” said
Brown. “I'm not worrying. You
gave me $2 too much.”
“What's Your Address?”
The pocr man was effusive in his
thanks to his rich friend. “This five
pounds will help me out of a tight
hold, and I'll send it back to you in
a few weeks. By the way, what is
your address?’
The rich man looked solemn.
“Fairview Cemetery,” he replied.
“0, nonsense, that's not your ad-
dress!"
“No,” said the rich man, “but it
will be before you send this five
pounds back."
PULLING THINGS
Friend—Now that you've pulled
all Tom's teeth I suppose you're
through with him
Dentist—Not yet—the bili has yet
to be extracted, you know,
Familiar Words
Little Doreen looked aghast.
new doll from her aunt. “And what
are you going to name her?" the
aunt asked.
“Sirshe,"” said the child.
“Sirshe?"” said auntie: “I've nev-
er heard that name before.”
Little Doreen looked aghast.
“Don't you remember that song you
taught me-—‘Where are you going
to my pretty maid? I'm going a-
milking Sirshe said’.”
Clue
Sherlock Holmes—Ah, Watson, 1
see you have on your winter under-
wear.
Watson — Marvelous, Holmes,
marvelous! How did you ever de-
duce that?
Sherlock—-Well, you've forgotten
to put on your trousers.
OLD GOSSIPEES
“Was it a love match?”
“Looks like it, but you never can
tell. One of them may have thought
the other had money."
The Usual Warner
“1 hear that Jenkins and his wife
had a row over ‘he kin. of car they
decided to buy; he wantec an open
one .nd she a closed one. Anyhow,
the incident is now closed.”
“So is the car—I saw her in it this
morning."
The Victim
Mrs. Smith—Yes, my 'usband's
laid up, a victinu of hockey.
| Mrs. Higgins—But I didn’t know
e even played the game.
Mrs. Smith 'E doesn't. 'E
sprained 'is larynx at the match
|last Saturday.
Self Defense
Judge—~Why have you brought
that cudgel into >ourt?
| Prisoner—Well, they said 1 had
‘to provide my own defense.
| Pursuit of the Incomprehensible
“Have you studied relativity?”
“No need to do so,” answered
{Senator Sorghum. “I can come
{across enough things I don’t under-
igstand mn the course of one of our
| usual investigations.”
:
Getting Even
“Why don’t you fix that leak?
You've been here nearly an hour,
and you haven'i done a thing.”
“T° tell the truth, ma'am. I'm
sore at the tenant down stairs.”
STR
“Benefit’”’ Promises.
Maybe ‘‘benefits’’ are being
overdone—indeed, some
rackets wearing the mask of
charity—
trouper has promised to show
he's a
up.
There have been out
here when there were listed
enough notables to make a whole
constellation of star: 5s but what
resulted milky way of
amateurs and unknowns.
Those last-minute ali
appearance not always
ones. The real facts
may be:
A night club cutup
has been unexpect-
edly taken sober
and so isn't funny.
A darling of the
screen thinks he did
enough when he al-
lowed the use of his
name, so he spends
the evening congen-
ially posing for pro-
file photographs
An actor is
rying to decide whether he'll
his yacht and t
or sell his racin
yacht,
An actress su
she has an engagement
Arizona line be
good trouper by showing
cases
was a
bis for non-
are true
Irvin 8. Cobb
busy
a racir
a Tal
ar 3: on
uy
g stable
bers
iddenly remen
si Post
used to
keeping is no
lutely!
eXCUus
Wy
Oh,
diary
dairy
w out abso-
Talking Fish,
ROF. ISAAC GINSBURG of the
United States bureau of fisheries
solemnly vows he has heard those
tiny aquatic creatures known as sea-
horses communicating with one
another by speech and he suspects
other species do the same thing
Undoubtedly so.
this discovery by a story
Underwood used to rej
said a gentleman ordered
in a Chicago restaurant
portion patron
at it and then, in a confidenti
dertone, began talking,
to himself
The waiter up
“Anything wrong, sir?"
quired.
“Oh, no,” said the patron,
just talking to the fish.”
“Talking
“Certainly.
how're trick
gan?"
Drury
eat. Drury
whitefish
When the
sniffed
al un-
seemingly
arrived the
ranged
he in-
“1 was
And he
It's been so lor
The Race to Arms,
TALY sees Britain's bet of $7,500,-
000.000 to be spent war de-
fense dur ring the next fiv /e years, and
raises it by decreeing militariza-
tion of all classes between the ages
of eighteen and fifty-five, which
means a trained fighting force of
8.000.000 ready for immediate mobi-
lization, adding as a side wager
the promise of ‘“‘total sacrifice, if
required, of civil necessities. . . for
attainment of maximum, mili-
tary needs."
This means,
on
of course, that
before,
goes on until some nation,
peration, calls some other nation's
bluff and all go down together in a
stark brutality.
patching together the
called civilization,
be rent to tatters in an hour.
Maniacs and Motors.
]D ISPATCHES tell of a slaying
automobile which chased a cit-
jzen clear up on the sidewalk and
nailed him. This is a plain breach
of the ethics governing our most
popular national pastime-—that of
mowing down the innocent by-
stander.
Among our outstanding motor ma-
til somebody shoves him into the
Otherwise the pe-
terminated, whereas its members
are valuable for target practice
when an operator is building up
to the point where he is qualified
to sideswipe a car full of women
and children while going seventy
miles an hour, or meet a fast train
on equal terms’ at a grade cross-
ing.
By all means let us clarify the
rules so that the sport of destroying
not suffer through the overzeal of
amateur homicides. Remember our
proud boast that we lead all the
world in traffic horrors,
IRVIN 8. COBB.
© ~WNU Service.
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na
F oreign Words
and Phrases
Non com . (L.) Not of
pos ment
Ex parte. (L.) Of or from one
side only
Non est inventus. (L..) He has
not been found
Pax
with you!
Statu quo ante bellum. (L.) As
it was befor re the war.
Sur le tap (F.) On the carpet;
under Caras on.
Vinculum matrin
bond of matrimony.
Tabula rasa. (L.) A blank tab-
let.
Sine qua
which not;
vobiscum! (L.)
Peace be
(L.) The
Onl.
non. (L.) Without
an indispensable con-
(L.) To the (in-
dividual) man.
In extenso. (L.)
length; unabridged.
Fully; at
SEE THIS CROSS
IT'S FOR YOUR PROTECTION
BAYER ASPIRIN
Self- Knowledge
Self-knowledge is the property
of that man whose passions have
their full play, but who ponders
over their results. —Disraeli.
GOOD RELIEF
of constipation by a
GOOD LAXATIVE
Many folks get such refreshing
relief by taking Black-Draught for
constipation that they prefer It to
other laxatives and urge their friends
to try it. Black-Draught is made of
the leaves and roots of plants. It
does not disturb digestion but stimu-
lates the lower bowel so that con-
stipation is relieved,
BLACK-DRAUGHT
purely vegetable laxative
Personality Plus
The very best “personality” is
A FARMER BOY
NE of the best known
medical men in the
. 8. was the late Dr, R.
, Pierce of Buffalo, N.
Y. who was borm on a
farm in Pa. Dr. Pierce's
Favorite Prescription has
for nearly 70 years been
helping women who have
She » jar at druggists or
Wrights Pill Co. 100 Gold St, N.Y, Oty.