The Almost Perfect Murder, Hulbert Footner [digital e reader .TXT] 📗

The news caused a great shock because the

Commodore was looked upon as a man in the very prime of life. As a

matter of fact, he was fifty-five, but so brisk, well-preserved and

straight-backed a little man as to seem years younger. He used to

drive on the Avenue in his open automobile, sitting up on the back seat

with a haughty stare just like royalty, with his bodyguard sitting in

front.

 

I received my first news of the affair from Mme. Storey when she came

into the office the following morning. The Varicks were friends of

hers. Tossing a newspaper on my desk, she said:

 

“Poor Bill Varick is gone. Shockingly sudden. I dined there two

nights ago.”

 

She went on into her room and I read the paper. It had spread itself

on the event, of course, for Commodore Varick was more than a mere

individual, he was an institution. There was a three column head on

the first page, and a half page obituary inside, reciting the

Commodore’s life story, and the history of his family. He was the

fourth William Henry Varick of his line, and his name was woven into

the very texture of the annals of New York if not of all America. In

fact, all over the world, Varick has become a synonym for the American

millionaire.

 

The third William Henry left a number of sons and daughters,

consequently the fourth William Henry, he whose obituary I was reading,

did not inherit his entire fortune. But he was the head of the clan,

and still an enormously rich man. This one’s accomplishments had been

mostly in the social line. He married an ambitious woman, and New York

soon became too small for them.

 

The title of Commodore had been bestowed on him by our most important

yacht club. His yacht Manahatta, a dream of luxury, was a familiar

sight in the harbours of the old world. Before the war he had

entertained the King of England on board; besides King Leopold of

Belgium and a host of lesser potentates. And, of course, he was always

in the forefront when royalty visited our shores. The Princess

Cristina von Habsburg was staying at his house at the moment of his

death. The mere recital of his clubs filled a long paragraph, and all

in all the newspaper did not exaggerate in terming him “our first

private citizen.”

 

And now he was dead after half an hour’s illness, and his mantle had

fallen on the muscular shoulders of that delightful scapegrace, William

Henry Varick fifth, better known as Hank Varick. In the newspapers of

late, the fame of the Commodore himself had been overshadowed by the

escapades of his son. I did not suppose that he was any worse than

other young men, nor did I believe more than half I read about him. He

was a sort of crown prince, and his slightest actions were, therefore,

front page stuff.

 

Apparently the reporters followed him all around the country on the

chance of picking up copy. The stories were of the usual sort where

youth, irresponsibility and wealth are in conjunction. He was

handicapped by being an only child. At this time I had never seen him,

but his oft published photographs depicted a handsome, stalwart,

laughing young fellow. All the gifts of the gods were his.

 

I was still reading the newspaper when Inspector Rumsey entered my

office. Rumsey had an admirable command of his features, but at this

moment he was plainly disconcerted. It startled me. “What’s the

matter?” I asked.

 

“A bad business,” he said curtly. He nodded towards the next room.

“Is she down yet?”

 

“Yes,” I said. “Go right in.”

 

“You’d better come in, too,” he said. “She’ll want you to hear this.”

 

I locked the outer door to guard against interruptions, and followed

him full of trepidation. I had never seen the matter-of-fact Inspector

so upset, and it had the effect of a convulsion of nature.

 

In the long room Mme. Storey, clad in one of the clinging Fortuny robes

that become her so well, was lounging with her elbows on the big

Italian table, a negligent cigarette in one hand, and in the other a

lump of sugar that she was holding up for Giannino the ape to nibble

at. At sight of our good friend’s face, she straightened up and let

Giannino have the lump of sugar. “What is wrong?” she asked.

 

“I’m in the deuce of a hole!” he said in a voice of extreme bitterness.

“I’m a poor man, but I would give a thousand dollars to be away on my

vacation this minute!”

 

“Can I help?” she asked.

 

“If you won’t, nobody can,” he said laconically.

 

From his inside breast pocket he took an envelope and handed it to her.

I was looking over her shoulder. It was a cheap commercial envelope of

the sort that is sold by the million. It had come through the mail.

It was addressed in block letters very painstakingly formed:

INSPECTOR RUMSEY POLICE HEADQUARTERS CITY

Inside there was a little slip of white paper on which was lettered in

the same manner:

COMMODORE VARICK WAS POISONED

None of us spoke. For the space of thirty seconds or so the room was

so still you could hear Giannino’s little teeth nibbling at the sugar.

The possibilities that loomed ahead of us were truly dreadful.

 

Then the Inspector broke out: “There may be nothing in it. Very likely

it’s the work of the sort of crank that such an occasion always brings

to light.”

 

“Yet, you’ve got to take notice of it,” Mme. Storey put in quietly.

 

“Sure,” he cried, “that’s the damnable part of it! There may be

something in it. And if it should come out later that I had been

warned, and had taken no action, I’d be ruined.”

 

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

 

“What am I going to do?” he echoed. “Push in amongst the cardinals and

bishops and governors and senators who are leaving their cards at the

house this morning, and demand that an autopsy be performed?”

 

“It is a bad business,” murmured Mme. Storey.

 

“The reporters are there,” he went on, “and even my appearance at the

house at such time would be enough to start an ugly scandal. Or

anybody connected with the department that I might send. And suppose I

get my autopsy, and everything proves to be all right, the scandal will

go on just the same. The public will never believe but that Commodore

Varick was poisoned, and that we were all engaged in a conspiracy to

hush it up. A nice figure I would cut!”

 

“I see what you’re getting at, Inspector,” said my employer with a very

dry smile.

 

“You’re a friend of Mrs. Varick’s,” he said cajolingly. “You could go

to the house to leave your condolences without exciting any remark. I

suppose you would be going there anyway this morning.”

 

She nodded.

 

“Show her this communication privately,” he went on, “and tell her from

me that I am very reluctantly forced to insist on an autopsy. I’ll

send doctors not known to be connected with the department to the house

at any hour she sets. It can be performed in perfect secrecy, and if

everything proves to be all right, as I am sure it will, no whisper of

it need ever reach the press.”

 

Mme. Storey arose and took a turn down the room. Her brows were

knitted. “Really, Inspector, this is a bit thick!” she said. “You

find yourself in a hole, and you’re attempting to climb out on my

shoulders! I think a lot of you, my friend, but…”

 

“Oh, leave me out of it,” he said earnestly. “I’m not thinking of

myself so much as of the Varick family. I hate the idea of starting an

unnecessary scandal at their expense. And with death in the house at

that. Why, the reputation of a grand old family like that is like a

work of art that cannot be replaced. I don’t want to have a hand in

defacing it. It’s the property of the public, so to speak, and you and

I are servants of the public, aren’t we?”

 

Mme. Storey smiled at his ingenious sophistry. While he was speaking

she had made up her mind for quite different reasons. “Since you put

it that way I can’t very well refuse,” she said ironically. “I will

go. It is necessary to act quickly. I will change my dress. You will

come with me, Bella.”

II

The Varick house was a great palace of Vermont marble occupying a

frontage of half a block on the Avenue, facing the Park. It was one of

the older houses of that neighbourhood, and was already at this time

becoming hemmed in by hotels and apartment houses; but it had been

rebuilt and modernised on several occasions, and was still among the

two or three most imposing dwellings in town. There was a grand effect

in its severity and plainness that the French ch�teaux and Italian

palazzi strive for in vain.

 

We drove up in a taxicab which looked rather undignified amidst the

long line of elegant private cars crawling up to the front door through

the side street. But Mme. Storey cared nothing about that. The

arrangements at the house were perfect, of course. There was a footman

on the sidewalk to open the door of our car, another to open the great

steel grille lined with plate glass, a third to receive our cards and

to separate the sheep from the goats, and still others to usher us the

way we should go. Back of them all stood the majestic figure of

Jarboe, the Varick butler, overseeing all. All the men servants were

dressed in black morning coats.

 

This ceremony was taking place in a superb marble hall that ran right

through the centre of the building flanked by a double row of antique

marble pillars, and ending in a great bay filled with gigantic tropical

ferns. In the centre of the hall was a little fountain of porphyry,

and a great shallow stairway with a wrought steel balustrade swept up

at the right. Among the visitors the merely great left their cards and

went out again, but the very great were ushered into the state

drawing-room at the left to be received by Mr. Varick’s brother, while

members of the family connection were ushered into a more intimate room

on the right.

 

We hardly belonged to any of these categories but Mme. Storey caught

the eye of Mr. Jarboe who came directly to us, a signal honour. To him

she whispered her request to be allowed to see Mrs. Varick.

 

“Mrs. Varick is seeing nobody,” he answered with a slightly shocked

air.

 

“May I send her a message?”

 

“Certainly, Madame.”

 

She scribbled a few words on her card, and handed it to him. She asked

if we might wait in a place where we would see nobody, and we were

therefore shown into a soberly furnished office behind a masked door.

 

Presently a footman came to say that Mrs. Varick would see Madame

Storey, and led us, not up the great stairway, but into a little

elevator hidden in the wall, where no one saw us enter. We alighted in

another noble hall panelled in oak, and lighted by a great dome of

Tiffany glass. There were a dozen doors all around, and I wondered

mightily what was behind them all. Our conductor opened one of them,

and we found ourselves in a foyer with more