Murder Impossible Read online

  'I dare say Sumner was not a foreigner? His name is English?'

  'Yes, and a splendid man physically—a hard drinker, I hear, as well as a hard worker.'

  Again a pause.

  'You don't happen to know if Meredith is now or ever has been particularly interested in physics—that is, in natural philosophy?'

  'I do not.'

  'Please find out immediately,' the scientist directed tersely. 'Willing has handled some legal business for Miss Danbury. Learn what you can from him to the general end of establishing some connection—a relationship, possibly—between Henry Sumner and Miss Violet Danbury. That, at the moment, is the most important thing to do. Neither of them may have been aware of the relationship, if relationship it was, yet it may have existed. If it doesn't exist, there's only one answer to the problem.'

  'And that is?' Hatch asked.

  'The murders are the work of a madman,' was the tart rejoinder. 'There's no mystery of course, in the manner of the death of these two.'

  'No mystery?' the reporter echoed blankly. 'Do you mean you know how—'

  'Certainly I know, and you know. The examining physicians know, only they don't know that they know.' Suddenly his tone became didactic. 'Knowledge that can't be applied is utterly useless,' he said. 'The real difference between a great mind and a mediocre mind is only that the great mind applies its knowledge.' He was silent a moment. 'The one problem remaining here is to find the person who was aware of the many advantages of this method of murder.'

  'Advantages?' The newspaper man was puzzled.

  'From the view point of the murderer there is always a good way and a bad way to kill a person,' the scientist told him. 'This particular murderer chose a way that was swift, silent, simple, and sure as the march of time. There was no scream, no struggle, no pistol shot, no poison to be traced; nothing except—'

  'The hole in the left cheek, perhaps?'

  'Quite right, and that leaves no clue. As a matter of fact, the only clue we have at all is the certainty that the murderer, man or woman, is well acquainted with physics, or natural philosophy.'

  'Then you think'—the newspaper man's eyes were about to start from his head—'that Professor Meredith—'

  'I think nothing,' Professor Van Dusen declared briefly. 'I want to know what he knows of physics, as I said; also, I want to know if there is any connection between Miss Danbury and the longshoreman. If you'll attend to—'

  Abruptly the laboratory door opened, and Martha entered, pallid, frightened, her hands shaking.

  'Something most peculiar, sir,' she stammered in her excitement.

  'Well?' the little scientist questioned.

  'I do believe,' said Martha, 'that I'm a-going to faint!'

  And as an evidence of good faith she did, crumpling up in a little heap before their astonished eyes.

  'Dear me! Dear me!' exclaimed Professor Van Dusen petulantly. 'Of all the inconsiderate things. Why couldn't she have told us before she did that?'

  It was a labour of fifteen minutes to bring Martha round, and then, weakly, she explained what had happened. She had answered a ring of the telephone, and someone had asked for Professor Van Dusen. She inquired the name of the person talking.

  'Never mind that,' came the reply. 'Is he there? Can I see him?'

  'You'll have to explain what you want, sir' Martha had told him. 'He always has to know.'

  'Tell him I know who murdered Miss Danbury and Henry Sumner,' came over the wire. 'If he'll receive me I'll be right up.'

  'And then, sir,' Martha explained to Professor Dusen, 'something must have happened at the other end, sir. I heard another man's voice, then a sort of a choking sound, sir, and then "Damn you!" just like that, sir. I didn't hear any more. They hung up the receiver or something, sir.' She paused indignantly. 'Think of him, sir, a-swearing at me that way!'

  For a moment the eyes of the two men met; the same thought had come to them both. Professor Van Dusen voiced it.

  'Another one!' he said. 'The third!'

  With no other word he turned and went out; Martha followed him grumblingly. Hatch shuddered a little. The hand of the clock went on to half past seven, to eight. At twenty minutes past eight the scientist reentered the laboratory.

  'That fifteen minutes "Martha was unconscious probably cost a man's life, and certainly lost to us an immediate solution of the riddle,' he declared peevishly. 'If she had told us before she fainted, there is a chance that the operator would have remembered the number. As it is, there have been fifty calls since, and there's no record.' He spread his slender hands helplessly. 'The manager is trying to find the calling number. Anyway, we'll know tomorrow. Meanwhile, try to see Mr Willing tonight and find out what relationship, if any, exists between Miss Danbury and Sumner; also see Professor Meredith.'

  The newspaper man telephoned to Mr. Willing's home in Melrose to see if he was in; he was not. On a chance he telephoned to his office. He hardly expected an answer, and he got none. So it was not until four o'clock in the morning that the third tragedy in the series came to light.

  The scrub women employed in the great building where Mr Willing had his law offices entered the suite to clean up. They found Mr. Willing there, gagged, bound hand and foot, and securely lashed to a chair. He was alive, but apparently unconscious from exhaustion. Direcdy facing him, his secretary, Maxwell Pittman, sat dead in his chair. On his face, dark in death as are the faces of those who die of strangulation, was an expression of unspeakable terror. His parted lips were slightly bruised, as if from a light blow; in the left cheek was an insignificant bloodless wound. At his feet was a shattered drinking glass.

  Within less than an hour Detective Mallory was on the scene. By that time Mr. Willing, under the influence of stimulants, was able to talk.

  'I have no idea what happened,' he explained. 'It was after six o'clock, and my secretary and I were alone in the offices finishing up some work. He had stepped into another room for a moment, and I was at my desk. Someone crept up behind me and held a drugged cloth to my nostrils. I tried to shout, to struggle, but everything grew black, and that's all I know. When I came to myself poor Pittman was there, just as you see him.'

  Searching about the offices Mallory came upon a small lace handkerchief. He seized upon it tensely, and, as he raised it to examine it, he became conscious of a strong odour of drugs. In one corner of the handkerchief there was a monogram.

  ' "C. M." ' he read. His eyes blazed. 'Cecelia Montgomery!'

  In the grip of an uncontrollable excitement Hutchinson Hatch butted in upon Professor Van Dusen in his laboratory.

  'There was another,' he announced.

  'I know it,' said Professor Van Dusen, still bent over his work table. 'Who was it?'

  'Maxwell Pittman.' And Hatch related the story.

  'There may be two more,' the scientist remarked. 'Be good enough to call a cab.'

  'Two more?' Hatch gasped in horror. 'Already dead?'

  'There may be, I said. One, Cecelia Montgomery; the other the unknown who called on the telephone last night.'

  Together they were driven straight to the University and shown into Professor Meredith's study. Professor Meredith showed his astonishment plainly at the visit, and astonishment became indignant amazement at the first question.

  'Mr. Meredith, can you account for every moment of your time from mid afternoon yesterday until four o'clock this morning?' Professor Van Dusen queried flatly. 'Don't misunderstand me—I mean every moment covering the time in which it is possible that Maxwell Pittman was murdered?'

  'Why, it's a most outrageous—' Professor Meredith exploded.

  'I'm trying to save you from arrest,' the scientist explained curtly. 'If you can account for all that time, and prove your statement, believe me, you had better prepare to do so. Now, if you could give me any information as to—'

  'Who the devil are you?' demanded Professor Meredith belligerently. 'What do you mean by daring to suggest—'

  'My name is Van
Dusen,' said the little professor mildly; 'Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen. Long before your time I held the chair of philosophy in this university. I vacated it by request. Later the university honoured me with a degree of LL.D.'

  The result of the selfintroduction was astonishing. Professor Meredith, in the presence of the master mind in the sciences, was a different man. 'I beg your pardon,' he began.

  'I'm curious to know if you are at all acquainted with Miss Danbury's family history,' the scientist went on. 'Meanwhile, Mr. Hatch, take the cab and go straight and measure the precise width of the bruise on Pittman's lips; also see Mr. Willing, if he is able to receive you, and ask him what he can give you as to Miss Danbury's history—I mean her family, her property, her connections; all about everything. Meet me at my house in a couple of hours.'

  Hatch went out, leaving them together. When he reached the scientist's home Professor Van Dusen was just coming out.

  'I'm on my way to see Mr. George Parsons, the socalled Copper King,' he volunteered. 'Come along.'

  From that moment came several developments so curious and bizarre and so widely dissociated that Hatch could make nothing of them at all. Nothing seemed to fit into anything else. For instance, Professor Van Dusen's visit to Mr. Parsons' office.

  'Please ask Mr. Parsons if he will see Mr. Van Dusen?' he requested of an attendant.

  'What about?' the query came from Mr. Parsons.

  'It is a matter of life and death,' the answer went back.

  'Whose?' Mr. Parsons wanted to know.

  'His!' The scientist's answer was equally short.

  Immediately afterwards Professor Van Dusen disappeared inside. Ten minutes later, he came out, and he and Hatch went off together, stopping at a toy shop to buy a small highgrade, rubber ball, and later at a department store to purchase a vicious looking hatpin.

  'You failed to inform me, Mr. Hatch, of the measurement of the bruise.'

  'Precisely one and a quarter inches.'

  'Thanks. And what did Mr. Willing say?'

  'I haven't seen him as yet. I have an appointment to see him in an hour from now.'

  'Very well'—and Professor Van Dusen nodded his satisfaction— 'when you see him will you be so good enough to tell him, please, that I know—I know, do you understand?—who killed Miss Danbury, and Sumner, and Pittman. You can't make it too strong. I know, do you understand?'

  'Do you know?' Hatch demanded quickly.

  'No'—frankly. 'But convince him that I do, and add that tomorrow at noon I shall place the extraordinary facts I have gathered in possession of the police. At noon, understand; and I know.' He was thoughtful a moment. 'You might add that I have informed you that the guilty person is a person of high position, whose name has been in no way connected with the crimes—that is, unpleasantly. You don't know that name; no one knows it except myself. I shall give it to the police at noon tomorrow.'

  'Anything else?'

  'Drop in on me early tomorrow morning, and bring Mr. Mallory.'

  Events were cyclonic on that last morning. Mallory and Hatch had hardly arrived when there came a telephone message for the detective from police headquarters. Mrs Cecelia Montgomery was there. She had come in voluntarily, and asked for Mr. Mallory.

  'Don't rush off now,' requested Professor Van Dusen, who was pottering around among the retorts and microscopes and what not on his work table. 'Ask them to detain her until you get there. Also, ask her what relationship existed between Miss Danbury and Henry Sumner.' The detective went out; the scientist turned to Hatch. 'Here is a hatpin,' he said. 'Some time this morning we shall have another caller. If, during the presence of that person in this room, I voluntarily put anything to my lips—a bottle, say—or anything is forced upon me and I do not remove it in just thirty seconds, you will thrust this hatpin through my cheek. Don't hesitate.'

  'Thrust it through—' the reporter repeated. An uncanny chill ran over him.

  'I say if I don't remove it,' Professor Van Dusen interrupted shortly. 'You and Mallory will be watching from another room; I shall demonstrate the exact manner of the murders.' There was a troubled look in the reporter's face. 'I shall be in no danger,' he said simply. 'The hatpin is merely a precaution if anything should go wrong.'

  After a little Mallory entered, with clouded countenance.

  'She denies the murders,' he announced, 'but admits that the hand¬prints in blood are hers. According to her yarn she searched Miss Danbury's room and Sumner's room after the murders to find some family papers which were necessary to establish claims to some estate—I don't quite understand. She hurt her hand in Miss Danbury's room, and it bled a lot—hence the hand print. From there she went straight to Sumner's room, and presumably left the smudge there. It seems that Sumner was a distant cousin of Miss Danbury's—the only son of a younger brother who ran away years ago after some wild escapade, and later returned home. George Parsons, the Copper King, is the only other relative in this country. She advises us to warn him to be on guard—seems to think he will be the next victim.'

  'He's already warned,' said Professor Van Dusen, 'and he has gone away on important business.' Mallory stared.

  'You seem to know more about this case that I do,' he sneered. 'I do,' asserted the scientist; 'quite a lot more.'

  'I think a crossexamination will change Mrs. Montgomery's story soon,' the detective declared. 'Perhaps she will remember better—'

  'She is telling the truth.'

  'Then why did she run away? How was it we found her handkerchief in Mr. Willing's office after the Pittman affair? How was it—'

  The little scientist shrugged his shoulders and was silent. A moment later the door opened and Martha appeared, her eyes blazing with indignation.

  'That man who swore at me over the telephone,' she announced distinctly, 'wants to see you, sir.'

  Mallory's keen eyes swept the faces of the scientist and the reporter, trying to fathom the strange change that came over them.

  'You are sure, Martha?' asked Professor Van Dusen.

  'Indeed, I am, sir.' She was positive about it. 'I'd never forget his voice, sir.'

  For an instant her master merely stared, then dismissed her with a curt: 'Show him in,' after which he turned to the detective and Hatch.

  'You will wait in the next room,' he said tersely. 'If anything happens, Mr. Hatch, remember.'

  Professor Van Dusen was sitting when the visitor entered—a middle aged man, sharp featured, rather spare, brisk in his movements, and distinctly well groomed. It was Mr. Herbert Willing, solicitor. In one hand he carried a small bag. He paused an instant and gazed at the diminutive scientist curiously.

  'Come in, Mr. Willing,' Professor Van Dusen greeted. 'You want to see me about—' He paused questioningly.

  'I understand,' said the lawyer suavely, 'that you have interested yourself in these recent—er—remarkable murders, and there are some points I should like to discuss with you. I have some papers in my bag here which'—he opened it—'may be of interest. Some—er— newspaper man informed me that you have certain information indicating—'

  'I know the name of the murderer,' said Professor Van Dusen.

  'Indeed? May I ask who it is?'

  'You may. His name is Herbert Willing.'

  Watching tensely, Hatch saw the little scientist pass his hand slowly across his mouth as if to stifle a yawn; saw Willing leap forward suddenly with what seemed to be a bottle in his hand; saw him force the scientist back into his chair, and thrust the bottle against his lips. Instantly came a sharp click, and some hideous change came over the scientist's wizened face. His eyes opened wide in terror, his cheeks seemed to collapse. Instinctively he grasped the bottle with both hands.

  For a scant second Willing stared at him, his countenance grown demoniacal; then he swiftly took something else from the small bag and smashed it on the floor. It was a drinking glass! After which the scientist calmly removed the bottle from his lips.

  'The broken drinking glass,' he said, 'complet
es the evidence.'

  Hutchinson Hatch was lean and wiry and hard as nails; Detective Mallory's bulk concealed muscle of steel; but it took both of them to overpower the solicitor. Heedless of the struggling trio, Professor Van Dusen was curiously scrutinizing the black bottle. The mouth was blocked by a small rubber ball which he had thrust against it with his tongue a fraction of an instant before the dreaded power the bottle held had been released by pressure upon a cunningly concealed spring. When he raised his squinting eyes at last, Willing, manacled, was glaring at him in impotent rage. Fifteen minutes later the four were at police headquarters; Mrs. Montgomery was awaiting them.

  'Mrs. Montgomery, why'—and the petulant pale blue eyes of the little scientist were fixed upon her face—'why didn't you go to Boston, as you had said?'

  'I did go there,' she replied. 'It was simply that when the news came of Miss Danbury's terrible death I was frightened. I lost my head; I pleaded with my friends not to let it be known that I was there, and they agreed. If anyone had searched their house I would have been found; no one did. At last I could stand it no longer. I came to the city, and straight here to explain everything I knew in connection with the affair.'

  'And the search you made of Miss Danbury's room? And of Sumner's room?'

  'I've explained that,' she said. 'I knew of the relationship between poor Harry Sumner and Violet Danbury, and I knew each of them had certain papers which were of value as establishing their claims to a great estate in the country now in litigation. I was sure those papers would be valuable to the only other claimant, who was—'

  'Mr George Parsons, the Copper King,' interposed the scientist. 'You didn't find the papers you sought because Willing had taken them. That estate was the thing he wanted, and I dare say by some legal jugglery he would have got it.' Again he turned to face Mrs. Montgomery. 'Living with Miss Danbury, as you did, you probably held a key of her apartments? Yes. You had only the difficulty, then, of entering the hotel late at night, unseen, and that seemed to be simple. Willing did it the night he killed Miss Danbury, and left it unseen, as you did. Now, how did you enter Sumner's room?'

  'It was a terrible place,' and she shuddered slightly. 'I went in alone, and entered his room through a window from a fire escape. The newspapers, you will remember, described its location precisely, and-'