Copyright S. 8. Van Dine
WNU Service
SYNOPSIS
Philo Vance, famous detective, and John
fF. X. Markham, district attorney for New
York county are dining in Vance's apart.
ment when Vance receives an anonymous
telephone message informing him of a "dis-
turbing psychological tension at Professor
Ephriam Garden's apartment’ advising
that he read up on radio-active sodium,
consult a passage in the Aeneid and coun-
seling that “Equanimity is essential.” Pro-
fessor Garden is famous in chemical re-
search. The message, decoded by Vance,
reminds him that Professor Garden's son
Floyd and his puny cousin, Woode Swift,
are addicted to horse-racing. Vance says
that “Equanimity’’ is a horse running next
day in the Rivermont handicap. Vance is
convinced that the message was sent by Dr.
Siefert, the Gardens’ family physician. He
arranges to have lunch next day at the
Gardens’ penthouse. Vance is greeted by
Floyd Garden (3d meets Lowe Hammle, an
elderly follower of horse racing. Floyd ex-
presses concern over Swift's queer actions.
Mrs. ‘Garden, supposedly ill, comes down.
stairs and places a $100 bet on a horse.
Gathered around an elaborate loud speaker
service, listening to the racing are Cecil
Kroon, Madge Weatherby and Zalia Graem,
who bet varying amounts on the race.
There is tension under the surface galety.
Zalia and Swift are not on speaking terms
Kroon leaves to keep an appointment be-
fore the race starts. Miss Beeton, a nurse,
and Vance bet on "Azure Star.” Swift reck-
lessly bets $10,000 on “Equanimity’ and
goes to the roof garden to hear the results
Floyd follows Swift, remaining away sev.
eral minutes. Zalia Graem answers a phone
call in the den. Soon after the announce.
ment that “Azure Star’ wins, the guests
hear a shot. Vance finds Swift dead, shot
dead, shot through the head with a revolver
nearby. He says Swift has been murdered.
After calling the police, he finds the door of
a vault ajar. Kroon returns and is sharply
questioned by Vance, who finds he had not
left the building. Vance orders Miss Bee-
ton to guard the stairway and prevent Mrs.
Garden and Zalla from viewing Swift's body
Floyd Garden admits the revolver belongs
to his father. Further questioning by Vance
reveals that the revolver had been found
recently by Zalia in the presence of the
other guests. Floyd hinfs that Swift bet
80 recklessly because of Zalia.
CHAPTER V—Continued
neni
Garden shrugged carelessly, as if
the matter was neither important
nor unusual.
“Probably,” he suggested, ‘‘the
pater didn't shut the door tightly
when he went out this morning. It
has a spring lock."
“And the key?"
“The key is a mere matter of
form. It hangs conveniently on a
g¢mall nail at the side of the door.”
“Accordingly,” mused Vance, ‘the
vault is readily accessible to any-
one in the household who cares to
enter it.”
Vance went to the door. ‘Miss
Beeton,” he called, ‘‘will you be
good enough to run upstairs and see
if the key to the vault door is in
its place?”
A few moments later the nurse re-
turned and informed Vance that the
key was where it was always kept.
Vance thanked her and, closing
the den door, turned again to Gar-
den.
‘““There’'s one more rather impor-
tant matter that you can clear up
for me—it may have a definite bear-
ing on the situation. Can the gar-
den be entered from the fire exit
opening on the roof?”
“Yes, by George!” The other sat
up with alacrity. ‘“‘There's a gate
in the east fence of the garden,
just beside the privet hedge, which
leads upon the terrace on which the
fire exit of the building opens. When
we had the fence built we were re-
quired to put this gate in because
of the fire laws. But it's rarely
used, except on hot summer nights.
Still, if anyone came up the main
stairs to the roof and went out the
emergency fire door, he could easily
enter our garden by coming through
that gate in the fence.”
*Don’t you keep the gate locked?”
Vance was studying the tip of his
cigarette with close attention.
“The fire regulations don’t permit
that. We merely have an old-fash-
ioned barn-door lift-latch on it.”
We could hear the sharp ringing
of the entrance bell, and a door
opening somewhere. Vance stepped
out into the hall. A moment later
the butler admitted District Attor-
ney Markham and Sergeant Heath,
accompanied by Snitkin and Hen-
nessey.
“Well, what's the trouble,
Vance?” Markham demanded
brusquely. ‘I phoned Heath, as
you requested, and brought him up
with me.”
“It's a bad business,” Vance re-
turned. “‘Same like I told you. I'm
afraid you're in for some difficulties.
It's no ordin’ry crime. Everything
I've been able to learn so far con-
tradicts everything else.” He looked
past Markham and nodded pleas-
antly to Heath. “Sorry to make
you all this trouble, Sergeant.”
“That's all right, Mr. Vance.”
Heath held out his hand in solemn
good-nature. ‘“‘Glad I was in when
the chief called. What's it all about,
and where do we go from here?”
Mrs. Garden came bustling ener-
down the hallway.
“Are you the district attorney?”
she a eyeing Markham fero-
ciously. Without walting for an an-
swer, she went on: ‘This whole
thing is an outrage. My poor neph-
ew shot himself and this gentleman
here''—she looked at Vance with
supreme contempt—*'is trying to
make a scandal out of it."’ Her eyes
swept over Heath and the two de-
tectives. ‘‘And I suppose you're the
police. There's no reason what-
ever for your being here.”
Markham looked steadfastly at
the woman and seemed to take in
the situation immediately.
“Madam, {if things are as you
say,” he promised in a pacifying,
yet grave, tone, ‘you need have no
fear of any scandal.”
“I'll leave the matter entirely in
your hands, sir,” the woman re-
turned with calm dignity. She
turned and walked back up the hall.
“A most tryin’ and complicated
state of affairs, Markham." Vance
took the matter up again. “I ad-
mit the chap upstairs appears to
have killed himself. But that, I
think, is what everyone is supposed
to believe. Tableau superficially cor-
rect. Stage direction and decor
fairly good. But the whole far from
perfect. I observed several dis-
crepancies.”’
Garden, who had been standing in
the doorway to the den, came for-
ward, and Vance introduced him to
Markham and Heath. Then Vance
turned to the sergeant.
“I think you'd better have either
Snitkin or Hennessey remain down
here and see that no one leaves the
apartment for a little while.” He
addressed Garden. ‘I hope you
don't mind."
‘Not at all,” Garden replied com-
placently. “I'll join the others in
the drawing-room. 1 feel the need
of a highball, anyway.” He includ-
ed us all in a curt bow and moved
up the hall.
“We'd better go
roof now, Markham,"
up to
said Vance.
The Nurse Informed Vance That
the Key Was Where It Was Al-
ways Kept.
to the case.
He moved down the hall,
Markham and Heath and I followed
him. But before he mounted the
nurse,
thanks for your help. But one
more favor: when the medical ex-
aminer comes, please bring him di-
rectly upstairs.”
The girl inclined her head in ac-
quiescence and stepped into the bed-
room.
We went immediately up to the
garden. As we stepped out on the
roof, Vance indicated the body of
Swift slumped in the chair.
“There's the johnnie,” he said.
“Just as he was found.”
Markham and Heath moved clos-
er to the huddled figure and studied
it for a few moments. At length
Heath looked up with a perplexed
frown.
“Well, Mr. Vance,” he announced
querulously, "it looks like suicide,
all right.”’ He shifted his cigar from
one corner of his mouth to the other.
Markham too turned to Vance. He
nodded his agreement with the Ser-
geant's observation.
“It certainly has the appearance
of suicide, Vance,” he remarked.
“No—oh, no,’”* Vance sighed. "Not
suicide. A deuced brutal crime
and clever no end."
Markham smoked a while, still
staring at the dead man skeptically;
then he sat down facing Vance.
“Let's have the whole story be-
fore Doremus gets here,” he re-
quested.
Vance remained standing, his
eyes moving aimlessly about the
garden. After a moment he re-
counted succinctly, but carefully,
the entire sequence of events of the
afternoon, describing the group of
people present, with their relation-
ships and temperamental clashes;
the various races and wagers;
Swift's retirement to the garden for
the results of the big Handicap;
and, finally, the shot which had
aroused us all and brought us up-
stairs. When he had finished, Mark-
ham worried his chin for a moment.
“1 still can’t see a single fact,” he
objected, “‘that does not point logi-
cally to suicide.”
Vance leaned against the wall be-
side the study window and lighted
a cigarette,
“Of course,” he said, “there's
nothing in the outline I've given you
to indicate murder. Nevertheless,
it was murder; and that outline is
exactly the concatenation of events
which the murderer wants us to
accept, We are supposed to arrive
at the obvious conclusion of suicide.
Suicide as the result of losing mon-
ey on horses ig by no means a rare
occurrence. It is not impossible
that the murderer's scheme was in-
fluenced by this account. But there
are other factors, psychological and
actual, which belie this whole supege
ficial and deceptive structure.” He
drew on his cigarette and watched
the thin blue ribbon of smoke dis-
perse in the light breeze from the
river. ‘To begin with,” he went on,
“Swift was not the suicidal type.
In the first place, Swift was a weak-
ling and a highly imaginative one.
Moreover, he was too hopeful and
ambitious—too sure of his own judg-
out of the world simply because
he had lost all his money. The fact
that Equanimity might not win the
race was an eventuality which, as a
take into consideration beforehand,
that, if he were greatly disappoint-
hatred of others.
emergency, have
He might, in
against himself. Like all gamblers,
he was trusting and gullible; and I
think it was these temperamental
qualities which probably made him
CHAPTER VI
leaned forward protesiingly. ‘No
ysis can make a crime out of a situ-
I must have more definite
reasons than you have given me be-
fore I would be justified in dis-
carding the theory of suicide.”
“Oh, I dare say,” nodded Vance.
“But I have more tangible evidence
that the johnnie did not eliminate
himself from this life."
“Well, let's have it." Markham
Rd geted impatiently in his chair.
“Imprimis, my dear Justinian, a
bullet wound in the temple would
undoubtedly cause more blood than
you see on the brow of the deceased.
There are, as you notice, only a
few partly coagulated drops, where-
as the vessels of the brain cannot
be punctured without a considerable
flow of blood. And there is no
blood either on his clothes or on the
tiles beneath his chair. Meanin’
that the blood has been, perhaps,
spilled elsewhere before 1 arrived
on the scene--which was, let us
say, within thirty seconds after we
heard the shot"
“A far-fetched theory,” muttered
Markham. “All wounds don't bleed
the same."
Vance ignored the district attor-
ney's objection.
“And please take a good look at
the poor fellow. His legs are
stretched forward at an awkward
angle. The trousers are twisted out
of place and look most uncomforta-
ble. His coat, though buttoned, is
riding his shoulder, so that his col-
lar is at least three inches above
his exquisite mauve shirt. No man
could endure to have his clothes so
outrageously askew, even on the
point of suicide — he would have
straightened them out almost un-
consciously. The corpus delicti
indication of having
to the chair and
we
been dragged
placed in it.”
Markham's eyes were surveying
the limp figure of Swift as Vance
talked.
“Even that argument is not en-
ically, though his tone was a bit
modified; “especially in view of the
"
phone .
quickly. “That's another
oughness in the setting of the stage.
I believe his first impulsive move-
ment would have been to remove
pose.
thermore, I seriously doubt if he
would have come upstairs to listen
to the race with his mind made up
in advance that he was going to
commit suicide in case his horse
didn't come in. And, as I have
explained to you, the revolver is
one belonging to Professor Garden
and was always kept in the desk
in the study. Consequently, if Swift
had decided, after the race had
been run, to shoot himself, he would
hardly have gone into the study,
procured the gun, then come back
to his chair on the roof and put the
head-phone on again before ending
his life. Undoubtedly he would have
shot himself right there in the study
~at the desk from which he had
obtained the revolver.”
Vance moved forward a little as
if for emphasis,
“Another point about that head-
phone—the point that gave me the
first hint of murder—is the fact
that the receiver at present is over
Swift's right ear. Earlier today I
(10 BE CONTINUED)
what : b
ob
i) (obt
about:
Curing Stuttering.
HIN LEE, ARIZ.—Away up
+ here in the Indian country
comes a newspaper, saying
some expert at correcting hu-
man utterance has turned up
with a cure for stuttering.
But why? By his own admission,
most of them can
swear fluently, thus
providing superior
emotional cutlets in
two directions. One
of the smartest
criminal lawyers 1
know deliberately
cultivated a natural
impediment in his
speech. In court-
room debates it
gave him more time »
to think up either
the right questions
or to figure out the right answers.
And one of the most charming
voices I ever heard belonged to a
Louisiana girl whose soft southern
accents were fascinatingly inter-
rupted at intervals by a sudden
stammer-like unexpected ripples
in a gently flowing brook.
Irvin 8S. Cobb
. » .
How to Relax.
BE FORE 1 started out here, feel-
g somewhat jumpy after
mW a radio program for six
months, Jimmy Swinnerton, the art-
ist, who's one of the most devoted
friends these high mesas ever had,
advised me to try stretching out on
the desert sands as a measure for
health and complete relaxation and
a general toning up.
“Just lie down perfectly flat,
said. Then he took another look at
my figure. “Anyway, lie down,”
he sai a
" he
John or irk, the Tio In dian ‘tad.
er, helped me pick out a suitable
spot on the Navajo reservation that
miles from the nearest
habitation.
But the site I chose was already
pre-empted by a scorpion with a
fretful stinger and an irritable dis-
position that seemed to resent be-
ing crowded. So 1 got right up
again. In fact, I got up so swiftly
that Kirk said it was impossible to
follow the movement with the hu-
man eye. It was like magic, he
said.
» - *
Speed Crazed Drivers.
Be y?
. You're
roaring through populous streets or
skidding on hairpin turns or whirl-
ing at sixty perilous miles an hour
around the kinked and snaky twists
of mountain roads like some de-
moniac bug racing along the spine
of a coiled rattler.
If I am one to say, you probably
have primed yourself for this sense-
less speeding on that most danger-
ous of all mixed tipples—the fear-
some combination of alcohol and
gasoline. Or perhaps, like the blind
mule of the folklore tale, you just
naturally don't care a dern. One
thing is plain: Despite the high per-
centage of mortality your breed is
on the increase.
So, again, echoing the question
which the coroner must frequently
ask at the inquest, why the hurry,
Sonny Boy?
you back at the place where you've
you're going.
Really now, Sonny Boy, what is
Civilization’s Predicament.
FEEL it my duty to call atten-
tion to the following warning, re-
“The earth is degenerating in
these latter days. . bribery and
corruption abound. . . the children
no longer obey their parents. . . it
is evident that the end of the world
is approaching!”
However, it should be added that
this prediction is not, as might be
assumed from its familiar . ring,
the utterance of some inspired ob-
server of the present moment. It
is a translation from an Assyrian
tablet, dated 2800 B. C.
So, if the fulfillment of the doleful |
assume that it may be some months
yet before civilization flies all to
pieces.
* - *
Waning States’ Rights,
S I watch commonwealth after
commonwealth below the Ma-
son and Dixon line tumbling over
one another to embrace centralized
authority in exchange for federal
funds for local projects, I'm re-
AROUND
the HOUSE
Making Cocoa—Cocoa loses that
raw taste if made with half milk
and half water, then boiled. More
nutritious and digestible, too
. * »
Milk Puddings — Orange peel
shredded very finely makes an ex-
cellent flavoring for milk pud-
dings. It is a pleasant change
from nutmeg when added to rice
pudding or baked custard.
. * -
Cleaning Combs, Brushes—A
teaspoon of ammonia in a fJuart
of water will remove all grease
. * -
Fitting Your Hat—If you have
hold it in the
When
easy to stretch it to the right size.
. * -
Stewed Macaroni — Boil one
ter for three-quarters of an hour,
adding one-fourth ounce butter,
salt, and an onion stuck with
cloves. Afterwards, drain the
macaroni, add three ounces grat-
ed cheese, a little nutmeg, pep-
per, and a little milk or cream.
Stew gently for five minutes and
serve very hot,
* » »
Devilled Egg Lillies—Hard cook
as many eggs as there are to be
servings. Chill, then peel care-
fully. With a sharp knife cut
strips from the large end to the
Foreign Words
and Phrases
Toute medaille a son revers.
(F.) Everything has its good and
its bad side.
Ad nauseam.
of disgust.
Laissez ces
(F.) Discard or
vain scruples.
Entr'acte.
acts.
Argumentum ad absurdum.
An argument intended to
the absurdity of
gumen
Chacun pour
tous. (F.) Everybody for himself
and God for all of us.
Bon marche. (F.) A bargain.
Chronique scandaleuse, (F.) A
scandalous story.
Empressement. (F.) Eagerness,
Pater patriae. (L..) The father
of his country.
(L..) To the point
vains
lay
scrupules.
aside those
(F.) Between
(L.)
prove
an opponent's ar-
center; remove yolks, mash and
season with salt, pepper, mayon-
naise and a little Worcestershire
sauce, Carefully refill cavities
having the white strips form the
petals of the “lily.” Lay each on
a bed of curly endive. Accom-
pany with cheese straws,
» * *
Tough Pastry—Too much water
will make pastry tough.
. » -
Keeping Cheese Moist—To pre-
vent it from becoming dry, keep
it wrapped in butter muslin, or
in the glazed hygienic paper in
which some bread is wrapped.
* ® »
Protecting Mirrors—Keep mir-
rors out of the sun—it will cause
spots and other blemishes.
WNU Service,
BIR ET
1000 THIN
Coleman
AIR-PRESSURE
Mantle
LANTERN
Use your Coleman
in hundreds of places
where an ordinary lan
tern is useless. Use it for
after -dark chores, hunt.
fishing, or on any
sight job . it turns
night into day. Wind,
rein or snow can't put
it out. High candlepower
air-pressure light
Kerosene and gasoline
models. The finest made.
Prices as Jow as $4.45
Your local dealer can
supply you. Send post.
card for FREE Folders
THE COLEMAN LAMP AND STOVE CO.
Dept. WUITZ, Wichita, Kans; Chicago, Hily
Philadelphia, Pa; Los Angeles, Calif. (6172)
Golf at
The Ca valier
Our two 18-hole courses
are sporty but not forbid
ding. Superlative scenery,
with Pt ne woods, streams
dl lakes, S0Be, { and roll
ing greens, amid the salty
fr agrance of the ocean.
ihe cl lientele is selective.
Or
Elia Wad
Hotel and Beach Club
Rolond Lato
# Wana IR
Oil City, Pennsylvania.
A Product of