The Philo Vance Megapack - S.S. Van Dine

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in a small Middle-West bailiwick—French and Magyar extraction; took his M.D. from the Ohio State Medical, practiced in Chicago—some shady business there, but never convicted; came to Albany and got in on the X-ray-machine craze; invented a breast pump and formed a stock company—made a small fortune out of it; went to Vienna for two years—”

      “Ah, the Freudian motif!”

      “—returned to New York and opened a private sanitarium; charged outrageous prices and thereby endeared himself to the nouveau riche. Has been at the endearing process ever since. Was defendant in a breach-of-promise suite some years ago, but the case was settled out of court. He’s not married.”

      “He wouldn’t be,” commented Vance. “Such gentry never are.… Interestin’ summary, though—yes, decidedly interestin’. I’m tempted to develop a psychoneurosis and let Ambroise treat me. I do so want to know him better. And where—oh, where—was this egregious healer at the moment of our erring sister’s demise? Ah, who can tell, my Markham; who knows—who knows?”

      “In any event, I don’t think he was murdering anyone.”

      “You’re so prejudicial!” said Vance. “But let us move reluctantly on. What’s your portrait parlé of Cleaver? The fact that he’s familiarly called Pop is helpful as a starter. You simply couldn’t imagine Beethoven being called Shorty, or Bismarck being referred to as Snookums.”

      “Cleaver has been a politician all of his life—a Tammany Hall ‘regular.’ Was a ward boss at twenty-five; ran a Democratic club of some kind in Brooklyn for a time; was an alderman for two terms and practiced general law. Was appointed Tax Commissioner; left politics and raised a small racing stable. Later secured an illegal gambling concession at Saratoga; and now operates a poolroom in Jersey City. He’s what you might call a professional sport. Loves his liquor.”

      “No marriages?”

      “None on the records. But see here: Cleaver’s out of it. He was ticketed in Boonton that night at half past eleven.”

      “Is that, by any chance, the watertight alibi you mentioned a moment ago?”

      “In any primitive legal way I considered it as such.” Markham resented Vance’s question. “The summons was handed him at half past eleven; it’s so marked and dated. And Boonton is fifty miles from here—a good two hours’ motor ride. Therefore, Cleaver unquestionably left New York about half past nine; and even if he’d driven directly back, he couldn’t have reached here until long after the time the medical examiner declared the girl was dead. As a matter of routine, I investigated the summons and even spoke by phone to the officer who issued it. It was genuine enough—I ought to know: I had it quashed.”

      “Did this Boonton Dogberry know Cleaver by sight?”

      “No, but he gave me an accurate description of him. And naturally he took the car’s number.”

      Vance looked at Markham with open-eyed sorrow.

      “My dear Markham—my very dear Markham—can’t you see that all you’ve actually proved is that a bucolic traffic Nemesis handed a speed-violation summons to a smooth-faced, middle-aged, stout man who was driving Cleaver’s car near Boonton at half past eleven on the night of the murder?… And, my word! Isn’t that exactly the sort of alibi the old boy would arrange if he intended taking the lady’s life at midnight or thereabouts?”

      “Come, come!” laughed Markham. “That’s a bit too far-fetched. You’d give every lawbreaker credit for concocting schemes of the most diabolical cunning.”

      “So I would,” admitted Vance apathetically. “And—d’ ye know?—rather fancy that’s just the kind of schemes a lawbreaker would concoct, if he was planning a murder, and his own life was at stake. What really amazes me is the naïve assumption of you investigators that a murderer gives no intelligent thought whatever to his future safety. It’s rather touchin’, y’ know.”

      Markham grunted. “Well, you can take it from me, it was Cleaver himself who got the summons.”

      “I dare say you’re right,” Vance conceded. “I merely suggested the possibility of deception, don’t y’ know. The only point I really insist on is that the fascinatin’ Miss Odell was killed by a man of subtle and superior mentality.”

      “And I, in turn,” irritably rejoined Markham, “insist that the only men of that type who touched her life intimately enough to have had any reason to do it are Mannix, Cleaver, Lindquist, and Spotswoode. And I further insist that not one of them can be regarded as a promising possibility.”

      “I fear I must contradict you, old dear,” said Vance serenely. “They’re all possibilities—and one of them is guilty.”

      Markham glared at him derisively.

      “Well, well! So the case is settled! Now, if you’ll but indicate which is the guilty one, I’ll arrest him at once and return to my other duties.”

      “You’re always in such haste,” Vance lamented. “Why leap and run? The wisdom of the world’s philosophers is against it. Festina lente, says Caesar; or, as Rufus has it, Festinatio tarda est. And the Koran says quite frankly that haste is of the Devil. Shakespeare was constantly belittling speed: ‘He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes’; and, ‘Wisely, and slow; they stumble that run fast.’ Then there was Molière—remember Sganarelle?—‘Le trop de promptitude à l’erreur nous expose.’ Chaucer also held similar views. ‘He hasteth wel,’ said he, ‘that wysely can abyde.’ Even God’s common people have embalmed the idea in numberless proverbs: ‘Good and quickly seldom meet’; and ‘Hasty men never want woe—’”

      Markham rose with a gesture of impatience.

      “Hell! I’m going home before you start a bedtime story,” he growled.

      The ironical aftermath of this remark was that Vance did tell a “bedtime story” that night; but he told it to me in the seclusion of his own library; and the gist of it was this:

      “Heath is committed, body and soul, to a belief in Skeel’s guilt; and Markham is as effectively strangled with legal red tape as the poor Canary was strangled with powerful hands. Eheu, Van! There’s nothing left for me but to set forth tomorrow a cappella, like Gaboriau’s Monsieur Lecoq, and see what can be done in the noble cause of justice. I shall ignore both Heath and Markham, and become as a pelican of the wilderness, an owl of the desert, a sparrow alone upon the housetop.… Really, y’ know, I’m no avenger of society, but I do detest an unsolved problem.”

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