The Gracie Allen Murder Case Read online

  THE GRACIE ALLEN MURDER CASE

  THE GRACIE ALLEN MURDER CASE

  S. S. Van Dine

  All the characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious.

  THE GRACIE ALLEN MURDER CASE

  A Felony & Mayhem mystery

  PRINTING HISTORY

  First edition (Scribner’s): 1938

  Felony & Mayhem edition: 2021

  Copyright © 1938 by Charles Scribner’s Sons

  Copyright renewed 1954 by Claire R. Wright

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 978-1-63194-214-3

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Cataloging-in-Publication information for this book is available from the Library of Congress

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  A Buzzard Escapes

  Chapter Two

  A Rustic Interlude

  Chapter Three

  The Startling Adventure

  Chapter Four

  The Domdaniel Café

  Chapter Five

  A Rendezvous

  Chapter Six

  The Dead Man

  Chapter Seven

  Queer Coincidences

  Chapter Eight

  At the Mortuary

  Chapter Nine

  Held On Suspicion

  Chapter Ten

  An Unexpected Visitor

  Chapter Eleven

  Folklore and Poisons

  Chapter Twelve

  A Strange Discovery

  Chapter Thirteen

  News of an Owl

  Chapter Fourteen

  A Dying Madman

  Chapter Fifteen

  An Appalling Accusation

  Chapter Sixteen

  Another Shock

  Chapter Seventeen

  Fingerprints

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jonquille and Rose

  Chapter Nineteen

  Through the Shadow

  Chapter Twenty

  Happy Landing

  Unexpected Night

  Chapter One

  A Pale Young Man

  Chapter Two

  Gamadge Minds His Own Business

  Chapter Three

  Not Much of a Birthday

  One never rises so high as when one does not know where one is going.

  —Cromwell

  CHARACTERS OF THE BOOK

  PHILO VANCE

  JOHN F.-X. MARKHAM

  District Attorney of New York County

  ERNEST HEATH

  Sergeant of the Homicide Bureau

  GRACIE ALLEN

  A worker in a perfume factory

  GEORGE BURNS

  A perfume mixer and scent-tester

  DANIEL MIRCHE

  Maître d’hôtel of the Domdaniel café

  DIXIE DEL MARR

  Singer at the Domdaniel café

  C. AMOS DOOLSON

  President of the In-O-Scent Corporation

  JIMMY PUTTLE

  A perfume salesman

  MRS. ALLEN

  Gracie Allen’s mother

  PHILIP ALLEN

  Gracie Allen’s brother

  “OWL” OWEN

  Head of a large criminal ring

  BENNY THE BUZZARD (BENIAMINO PELLINZI)

  A gangster

  DELPHA (ROSA TOFANA)

  A fortune-teller

  TONY TOFANA

  Her husband

  SNITKIN

  HENNESSEY

  SULLIVAN

  GUILFOYLE

  BURKE

  EMERY

  TRACY

  DOCTOR EMANUEL DOREMUS

  Medical Examiner

  DOCTOR MENDEL

  Assistant Medical Examiner

  CURRIE

  Vance’s valet

  The icon above says you’re holding a copy of a book in the Felony & Mayhem “Vintage” category. These books were originally published prior to about 1965, and feature the kind of twisty, ingenious puzzles beloved by fans of Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr. If you enjoy this book, you may well like other “Vintage” titles from Felony & Mayhem Press.

  ELIZABETH DALY

  Unexpected Night

  Deadly Nightshade

  Murders in Volume 2

  The House without the Door

  Evidence of Things Seen

  Nothing Can Rescue Me

  Arrow Pointing Nowhere

  The Book of the Dead

  Any Shape or Form

  Somewhere in the House

  The Wrong Way Down

  Night Walk

  The Book of the Lion

  And Dangerous to Know

  Death and Letters

  The Book of the Crime

  NGAIO MARSH

  A Man Lay Dead

  Enter a Murderer

  The Nursing Home Murder

  Death in Ecstasy

  Vintage Murder

  Artists in Crime

  Death in a White Tie

  Overture to Death

  Death at the Bar

  Surfeit of Lampreys

  Death and the Dancing Footman

  Colour Scheme

  Died in the Wool

  Final Curtain

  Swing, Brother, Swing

  Night at the Vulcan

  Spinsters in Jeopardy

  Scales of Justice

  Death of a Fool

  Singing in the Shrouds

  False Scent

  Hand in Glove

  Dead Water

  Killer Dolphin

  Clutch of Constables

  When in Rome

  Tied Up in Tinsel

  Black as He’s Painted

  Last Ditch

  A Grave Mistake

  Photo Finish

  Light Thickens

  Collected Short Mysteries

  PATRCIA MOYES

  Dead Men Don’t Ski

  The Sunken Sailor

  Death on the Agenda

  Murder à la Mode

  Falling Star

  Johnny Under Ground

  Murder Fantastical

  Death and the Dutch Uncle

  Who Saw Her Die?

  Season of Snow and Sins

  The Curious Affair of the Third Dog

  Black Widower

  The Coconut Killings

  Who Is Simon Warwick?

  Angel Death

  A Six-Letter Word for Death

  Night Ferry to Death

  Black Girl, White Girl

  LENORE GLEN OFFORD

  Skeleton Key

  The Glass Mask

  The Smiling Tiger

  My True Love Lies

  The 9 Dark Hours

  S.S. VAN DINE

  The Benson Murder Case

  The Canary Murder Case

  The Greene Murder Case

  The Bishop Murder Case

  The Scarab Murder Case

  The Kennel Murder Case

  The Dragon Murder Case

  The Casino Murder Case

  The Garden Murder Case

  The Kidnap Murder Case

  For more about these books, and other Felony & Mayhem titles, or to place an order, please visit our website at:

  www.FelonyAndMayhem.com

  CHAPTER ONE

  A Buzzard Escapes

  (Friday, May 17; 8 p.m.)

  PHILO VANCE, CURIOUSLY enough, always liked the Gracie Allen murder case more than any of the others in which he participated.

  The case was, perhaps, not as serious as some of the others—although, on second thought, I am not so sure that this is strictly true. Indeed, it was fraught with many ominous potentialities; and its basic elements (as I look back now) were, in fact, in
tensely dramatic and sinister, despite its almost constant leaven of humor.

  I have often asked Vance why he felt so keen a fondness for this case, and he has always airily retorted with a brief explanation that it constituted his one patent failure as an investigator of the many crimes presented to him by District Attorney John F.-X. Markham.

  “No—oh, no, Van; it was not my case at all, don’t y’ know,” Vance drawled, as we sat before his grate fire one wintry evening, long after the events. “Really, y’ know, I deserve none of the credit. I would have been utterly baffled and helpless had it not been for the charming Gracie Allen who always popped up at just the crucial moment to save me from disaster… If ever you should embalm the case in print, please place the credit where it rightfully belongs… My word, what an astonishing girl! The goddesses of Zeus’ Olympian ménage never harassed old Priam and Agamemnon with the éclat exhibited by Gracie Allen in harassing the recidivists of that highly scented affair. Amazin’!…”

  It was an almost unbelievable case from many angles, exceedingly unorthodox and unpredictable. The mystery and enchantment of perfume permeated the entire picture. The magic of fortune-telling and commercial haruspicy in general were intimately involved in its deciphering. And there was a human romantic element which lent it an unusual roseate color.

  To start with, it was spring—the 17th day of May—and the weather was unusually mild. Vance and Markham and I had dined on the spacious veranda of the Bellwood Country Club, overlooking the Hudson. The three of us had chatted in desultory fashion, for this was to be an hour of sheer relaxation and pleasure, without any intrusion of the jarring criminal interludes which had, in recent years, marked so many of our talks.

  However, even at this moment of serenity, ugly criminal angles were beginning to protrude, though unsuspected by any of us; and their shadow was creeping silently toward us.

  We had finished our coffee and were sipping our chartreuse when Sergeant Heath,* looking grim and bewildered, appeared at the door leading from the main dining room to the veranda, and strode quickly to our table.

  “Hello, Mr. Vance.” His tone was hurried. “…Howdy, Chief. Sorry to bother you, but this came into the office half an hour after you left and, knowing where you were, I thought it best to bring it to you pronto.” He drew a folded yellow paper from his pocket and, opening it out, placed it emphatically before the District Attorney.

  Markham read it carefully, shrugged his shoulders, and handed the paper back to Heath.

  “I can’t see,” he said without emotion, “why this routine information should necessitate a trip up here.”

  Heath’s cheeks inflated with exasperation.

  “Why, that’s the guy, Chief, that threatened to get you.”

  “I’m quite aware of that fact,” said Markham coldly; then he added in a somewhat softened tone: “Sit down, Sergeant. Consider yourself off duty for the moment, and have a drink of your favorite whisky.”

  When Heath had adjusted himself in a chair, Markham went on.

  “Surely you don’t expect me, at this late date, to begin taking seriously the hysterical mouthings of criminals I have convicted in the course of my duties.”

  “But, Chief, this guy’s a tough hombre, and he ain’t the forgetting or the forgiving kind.”

  “Anyway,”—Markham laughed without concern—“it would be tomorrow, at the earliest, before he could reach New York.”

  As Heath and Markham were speaking, Vance’s eyebrows rose in mild curiosity.

  “I say, Markham, all I’ve been able to glean is that your tutel’ry Sergeant has fears for your curtailed existence, and that you yourself are rather annoyed by his zealous worries.”

  “Hell, Mr. Vance, I’m not worryin’,” Heath blurted. “I’m just considering the possibilities, as you might say.”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” smiled Vance. “Always careful. Sewin’ up seams that haven’t even ripped. Doughty and admirable, as always, Sergeant. But whence springeth your qualm?”

  “I’m sorry, Vance.” Markham apologized for his failure to explain. “It’s really of no importance—just a routine telegraphic announcement of a rather commonplace jail-break at Nomenica.* Three men under long sentences staged the exodus, and two of them were shot by the guards…”

  “I’m not botherin’ about the guys who was shot,” Heath cut in. “It’s the other one—the guy that got away safe—that’s set me to thinkin’—”

  “And who might this stimulator of thought be, Sergeant?” Vance asked.

  “Benny the Buzzard!” whispered Heath, with melodramatic emphasis.

  “Ah!” Vance smiled. “An ornithological specimen—Buteo borealis. Maybe he flew away to freedom…”

  “It’s no laughing matter, Mr. Vance.” Heath became even more serious. “Benny the Buzzard—or Benny Pellinzi, to give him his honest monicker—is plenty tough, in spite of looking like a bloodless, pretty-faced boy. Only a few years back, he was strutting around telling anybody who’d listen that he was Public Enemy Number One. That type of guy. But he was only small change, except for his toughness and meanness—actually nothing but a dumb, stupid rat—”

  “Rat? Buzzard?… My word, Sergeant, aren’t you confusin’ your natural history?”

  “And only three years ago,” continued Heath doggedly, “Mr. Markham got him sent up for a twenty-year stretch. And he pulls a jail-break just this afternoon and gets away with it. Sweet, ain’t it?”

  “Still,” submitted Vance, “such A.W.O.L.s have been taken ere this.”

  “Sure they have.” Heath extended his off-duty respite and took another whisky. “But you must’ve read what this guy pulled in court when he was sentenced. The judge hadn’t hardly finished slipping him the twenty years when he blew off his gauge. He pointed at Mr. Markham and, at the top of his voice, swore some kind of cockeyed oath that he’d come back and get him if it was the last thing he ever did. And he sounded like he meant it. He was so sore and steamed up that it took two man-eating bailiffs to drag him out of the courtroom. Generally it’s the judge who gets the threats; but this guy elected to take it out on the D. A. And that somehow made more sense.”

  Vance nodded slowly.

  “Yes, quite—quite. I see your point, Sergeant. Different and therefore dangerous.”

  “And why I really came here tonight,” Heath went on, “was to tell Mr. Markham what I intended doing. Naturally, we’ll be on the lookout for the Buzzard. He might come here direct, all right; and he might head west and try to reach the Dakotas—the Bad Lands for him, if he’s got a brain.”

  “Exactly,” Markham interpolated. “You’re probably right when you suggest he’ll head west. And I’m certainly planning no immediate jaunt to the Black Hills.”

  “Anyhow, Chief,” the Sergeant persisted stubbornly, “I’m not taking any chances on him—especially since we’ve got a pretty good line on his old cronies in this burg.”

  “Just what line do you refer to, Sergeant?”

  “Mirche, and the Domdaniel café, and Benny’s old sweetie that sings there—the Del Marr jane.”

  “Whether Mirche and Pellinzi are cronies,” said Markham, “is a moot question in my mind.”

  “It ain’t in mine, Chief. And if the Buzzard should sneak back to New York, I’ve got a hunch he’d go straight to Mirche for help.”

  Markham did not argue the possibilities further. Instead, he merely asked: “What course do you intend to pursue, Sergeant?”

  Heath leaned across the table.

  “I figure it this way, Chief. If the Buzzard does plan to return to his old hunting grounds, he’ll be smart about it. He’ll do it quick and sudden-like, figurin’ we haven’t got set. If he don’t show up in the next few days I’ll simply drop the idea, and the boys’ll keep their eyes open in the routine way. But—beginning tomorrow morning, I plan to have Hennessey in that old rooming-house across from the Domdaniel, covering the little door leading into Mirche’s private office. An’ Burke and Snitkin
will be with Hennessey in case the bird does show up.”

  “Aren’t you a bit optimistic, Sergeant?” asked Vance. “Three years in prison can work many changes in a man’s appearance, especially if the victim is still young and not too robust.”

  Heath dismissed Vance’s skepticism with an impatient gesture.

  “I’ll trust Hennessey—he’s got a good eye.”

  “Oh, I’m not questioning Hennessey’s vision,” Vance assured him, “—provided your liberty-lovin’ Buzzard should be so foolish as to choose the front door for his entry into Mirche’s office. But really, my dear Sergeant, Maestro Pellinzi may deem it wiser to steal in by the rear door, don’t y’ know.”

  “There ain’t no rear door,” explained Heath. “And there ain’t no side door, either. A strictly private room with only one entrance facing the street. That’s the wide-open and aboveboard set-up of this guy Mirche—everything on the up-and-up. Slick as they come.”

  “Is this sanctum a separate structure?” asked Vance. “Or is it an annex to the café? I don’t seem to recall it.”

  “No. And you wouldn’t notice it, if you weren’t looking for it. It’s like an end room that’s been cut off in the corner of the building—the way they cut off a doctor’s office, or a small shop, in a big apartment-house. But if you wanta see Mirche that’s where you’ll most likely find him. The place looks as innocent as an old ladies’ home.”

  Heath glanced round at us significantly as he continued.

  “And yet, plenty goes on in that little room. If I could ever get a dictograph planted there, the D. A.’s office would have enough underworld trials on its hands to keep it busy from now on.”

  He paused and cocked an eye at Markham.

  “How do you feel about my idea for tomorrow?”

  “It can’t do any harm, Sergeant,” answered Markham without enthusiasm. “But I still think it would be a waste of time and energy.”

  “Maybe so.” Heath finished his whisky. “But I feel I gotta follow my hunch, just the same.”