The Garden Murder Case Read online

  “All right, Sneed,” he said, “on what horse do you want to lose your easily earned money today?”

  Sneed coughed discreetly.

  “If you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to risk five dollars on Roving Flirt to show.”

  Garden made a notation in the ledger.

  “All right, Sneed; you’re on Roving Flirt for a V at third.” With an apologetic “Thank you, sir,” the butler disappeared into the dining room. When he had gone Garden glanced at the clock and reached for the black telephone connected with the amplifier.

  “The first race today,” he said, “is at two-thirty, and I’d better hop to it and get the line-up. Lex* will be coming on in a few minutes; and the boys and girls will want to be knowing everything and a little bit more when they arrive with their usual high hopes and misgivings.”

  He lifted the receiver from the hook of the telephone and dialed a number. After a pause he spoke into the transmitter:

  “Hello, Lex. B-2-9-8. Waiting for the dope.” And, laying the receiver down on the stand, he threw the switch key forward.

  A clear-cut, staccato voice came through the amplifier: “O. K., B-2-9-8.” Then there was a click, followed by several minutes of silence. Finally the same voice began speaking: “Everybody get ready. The exact time now is one-thirty and a quarter.—Three tracks today. The order will be Rivermont, Texas, and Cold Springs. Just as you have them on the cards. Here we go. Rivermont: weather clear and track fast. Clear and fast. First post, 2:30. And now down the line. First race: 20, Barbour; 4, Gates; 5, Lyons; 3, Shea; scratch twice; 3, Denham; 20, Z. Smythe—that’s S-m-y-t-h-e; 10, Gilly; 10, Deel; 15, Carr.—And the Second race: 4, Elkind; 20, Barbour; 4, Carr; 20, Hunter; 10, Shea; scratch number 6; 20, Gedney, and make the weight 116; scratch number 8; 3 to 5, Lyon; 4, Martinson.—And the Third race: The top one is 10, with Huron; scratch twice; 20, Denham; 20, J. Briggs—that’s Johnny Briggs; 20, Hunter; 4, Gedney; even money, Deel; 20, Landseer. And now race number Four. The Rivermont Handicap. The top one is 8, with Shelton; 15, Denham; 10, Redman; 6, Baroco; 20, Gates; 20, Hunter; 6, Cressy; 5, Barbour; 12, J. Briggs—that’s Johnny Briggs; 5, Elkind; 4, Martinson; scratch number 12; 20, Gilly; 2-1/2, Birken.—And the Fifth: 6, Littman; 12, Huron…”

  The incisive voice continued with the odds and jockeys and scratches on the two remaining races at Rivermont Park. As the announcements came over, Garden attentively and rapidly filled in the data on his card. When the last entrant of the closing race at Rivermont Park had been reached there was a slight pause. Then the announcements continued:

  “Now everybody go to Texas. At Texas, weather cloudy and track slow. Cloudy and slow. In the First: 4, Burden; 10, Lansing—”

  Garden leaned over and threw the amplifier switch up, and there was silence in the room.

  “Who cares about Texas?” he remarked negligently, rising from his chair and stretching. “No one around here plays those goats anyway. I’ll pick up the Cold Springs dope later. If I don’t,

  someone’s sure to ask for it, just to be contrary.” He turned to his cousin. “Why don’t you take Vance and Mr. Van Dine upstairs and show them around the garden?… They might,” he added with good-natured sarcasm, “be interested in your lonely retreat on the roof, where you listen in to your fate. Sneed has probably got it arranged for you.”

  Swift rose with alacrity.

  “Damned glad of the chance,” he returned surlily. “Your manner today rather annoys me, Floyd.” And he led the way down the hall and up the stairs to the roof-garden, Vance and I following. Hammle, who had settled himself in an easy chair with a Scotch-and-soda, remained below with our host.

  The stairway was narrow and semicircular, and led upward from the hallway near the front entrance. In glancing back up the hall, toward the drawing room, I noticed that no section of that room was visible from the stair end of the hall. I made this mental note idly at the time, but I mention it here because the fact played a very definite part in the tragic events which were to follow.

  At the head of this narrow stairway we turned left into a corridor, barely four feet wide, at the end of which was a door leading into a large room—the only room on the roof. This spacious and beautifully appointed study, with high windows on all four sides, was used by Professor Garden, Swift informed us, as a library and private experimental laboratory. Near the door to this room, on the left wall of the corridor, was another door, of kalamein, which, I learned later, led into a small storeroom built to hold the professor’s valuable papers and data.

  Halfway down the corridor, on the right, was another large kalamein weather door which led out to the roof. This door had been propped open, for the sun was bright and the day mild. Swift preceded us into one of the loveliest skyscraper gardens I have ever seen. It covered a space about forty feet square and was directly over the drawing room, the den and the reception hall. In the center was a beautiful rock pool. Along the low brick balustrade were rows of thick privet and evergreens. In front of these were boxed flowerbeds, in which the crocuses, tulips and hyacinths were already blooming in a riot of color. That part of the garden nearest the study was overhung by a gay stationary awning, and various pieces of comfortable garden furniture were arranged in its shade.

  We walked leisurely about the garden, smoking. Vance seemed deeply interested in two or three rare evergreens, and chatted casually about them. At length he turned, strolled back toward the awning, and sat down in a chair facing the river. Swift and I joined him. The conversation was desultory: Swift was a difficult man to talk to, and as the minutes went by he became more and more distrait. After a while he got up nervously and walked to the other end of the garden. Resting his elbows on the balustrade, he looked for several minutes down into Riverside Park; then, with a sudden jerky movement, almost as if he had been struck, he straightened up and came back to us. He glanced apprehensively at his wristwatch.

  “We’d better be going down,” he said. “They’ll be coming out for the first race before long.”

  Vance gave him an appraising look and rose.

  “What about that sanctum sanctorum of yours which your cousin mentioned?” he asked lightly.

  “Oh, that…” Swift forced an embarrassed smile. “It’s that red chair over there against the wall, next to the small table… But I don’t see why Floyd should spoof about it. The crowd downstairs always rags me when I lose, and it irritates me. I’d much rather be alone when I get the results.”

  “Quite understandable,” nodded Vance with sympathy. “You see,” the man went on rather pathetically, “I frankly play the ponies for the money—the others downstairs can afford to take heavy losses, but I happen to need the cash just now. Of course, I know it’s a hell of a way to try to make money. But you either make it in a hurry or lose it in a hurry. So what’s the difference?”

  Vance had stepped over to the little table on which stood a desk telephone which had, instead of the ordinary receiver, what is known as a head receiver—that is, a flat disk earphone attached to a curved metal band to go over the head.

  “Your retreat is well equipped,” commented Vance.

  “Oh, yes. This is an extension of the news-service phone downstairs; and there’s also a plug-in for a radio, and another for an electric plate. And floodlights.” He pointed them out to us on the study wall. “All the comforts of a hotel,” he added with a sneer.

  He took the earphone from the hook and, adjusting the band over his head, listened for a moment.

  “Nothing new yet at Rivermont,” he mumbled. He removed the earphone with nervous impatience and tossed it to the table. “Anyway we’d better get down.” And he walked toward the door by which we had come out in the garden.

  When we reached the drawing room we found two newcomers—a man and a woman—seated at one of the tables, poring over the racing cards and making notations. Vance and I were casually introduced to them by Garden.

  The man was Cecil Kroon, about thirty-five, immaculately attired and sleek,
with smooth, regular features and a very narrow waxed mustache. He was quite blond, and his eyes were a cold steely blue. The woman, whose name was Madge Weatherby, was about the same age as Kroon, tall and slender, and with a marked tendency toward theatricalism in both her attire and her makeup. Her cheeks were heavily rouged and her lips crimson. Her eyelids were shaded with green, and her eyebrows had been plucked and replaced with fine penciled lines. In a spectacular way she was not unattractive.

  Hammle had moved from his easy chair to one of the card tables at the end of the room nearest the entrance, and was engaged in checking over the afternoon’s entries.

  Swift went to the same table and, nodding to Hammle, sat down opposite him. He removed his glasses, wiped them carefully, reached for one of the cards, and glanced over the races.

  Garden looked up and motioned to us—he was holding the receiver of the black telephone to his ear.

  “Choose a table, Vance, and see how accurate, or otherwise, your method of handicapping is. They’ll be coming to the post for the first race in about ten minutes, and we’ll be getting a new line shortly.”

  Vance strolled over to the table nearest Garden’s, and seating himself, drew from his pocket a sheet of notepaper on which were written rows of names and figures and computations—the results of his labors, the night before, with the past performance charts of the horses in that day’s races. He adjusted his monocle, lighted a fresh cigarette, and appeared to busy himself with the Rivermont race card. But I could see that he was covertly studying the occupants of the room more intently than he was the racing data.

  “It won’t be long now,” Garden announced, the receiver still at his ear. “Lex is repeating the Cold Springs and Texas lines for some subscribers who were late calling in.”

  Kroon went to the small bar and mixed two drinks which he took back to his table, setting one down before Miss Weatherby.

  “I say, Floyd,” he called out to Garden; “Zalia coming today?”

  “Absolutely,” Garden told him. “She was all stirred up when she phoned this morning. Full of sure things. Bulging with red-hot tips direct from trainers and jockeys and stable-boys and all the other phony sources of misinformation.”

  “Well, what about it?” came a vivacious feminine voice from down the hall; and the next moment a swaggering, pretty girl was standing in the archway, her hands on her muscular boyish hips. “I’ve concluded I can’t pick any winners myself, so why not let the other guy pick ’em for me?… Hello, everybody,” she threw in parenthetically. “But Floyd, old thing, I really have a humdinger in the First at Rivermont today. This tip didn’t come from a stable-boy, either. It came from one of the stewards—a friend of dad’s. And am I going to smear that hay-burner!”

  “Right-o, Baby-face,” grinned Garden. “Step into our parlor.”

  She started forward, and hesitated momentarily as she caught sight of Vance and me.

  “Oh, by the way, Zalia,”—Garden put the receiver down and rose—“let me present Mr. Vance and Mr. Van Dine… Miss Graem.”

  The girl staggered back dramatically and lifted her hands to her head in mock panic.

  “Oh, Heaven protect me!” she exclaimed. “Philo Vance, the detective! Is this a raid?”

  Vance bowed graciously.

  “Have no fear, Miss Graem,” he smiled. “I’m merely a fellow criminal. And, as you see, I’m dragging Mr. Van Dine along the downward path with me.”

  The girl flashed me a whimsical glance.

  “But that isn’t fair to Mr. Van Dine. Where would you be without him, Mr. Vance?”

  “I admit I’d be unknown and unsung,” returned Vance. “But I’d be a happier man—an obscure, but free, spirit. And I’d never have unconsciously provided the inspiration for Ogden Nash’s poetic masterpiece.”*

  Zalia Graem smiled broadly, and then pouted.

  “It was horrid of Nash to write that jingle,” she said. “Personally, I think you’re adorable.” She went toward the unoccupied card table. “But after all, Mr. Vance,” she threw back over her shoulder, “you are terribly stingy with your g’s.”

  At this moment Garden, who was again listening through the receiver, announced:

  “The new line’s coming. Take it down if you want it.”

  He pressed forward the key on the switch box, and in a moment the voice we had heard earlier was again coming through the amplifier.

  “Coming out at Rivermont, and here’s the new line: 20, 6, 4, 8 to 5, scratch twice, 3, 20, 15, 10, 15… Who was it wanted the run-down at Texas—?”

  Garden cut out the amplifier.

  “All right, boys and girls,” he sang out, drawing the ledger to him. “What’s on your mind? Be speedy. Only two minutes to post time. Any customers?… How about your hot tip, Zalia?”

  “Oh, I’m playing it, all right,” Miss Graem answered seriously. “And he’s ten to one. I want fifty on Topspede to win—and…seventy-five on him to show.”

  Garden wrote rapidly in the ledger.

  “So you don’t quite trust your hot tip?” he gloated. “Covering, as it were… Who else?”

  “I’m playing Sara Bellum,” Hammle spoke up. “Twenty-five across the board.”

  “And I want Moondash—twenty on Moondash, to show.” This bet came from Miss Weatherby.

  “Any others?” asked Garden. “It’s now or never.”

  “Give me Miss Construe—fifty to win,” said Kroon.

  “How about you, Vance?” asked Garden.”

  “I had Fisticuffs and Black Revel down as about equal choices, so I’ll take the one with the better odds—but not to win. Make it a hundred on Black Revel to place.”

  Garden turned to his cousin. “And you, Woody?”

  Swift shook his head. “Not this race.”

  “Saving it all for Equanimity, eh? Right-o. I’m staying off this race myself.”

  Garden reached for the gray telephone and dialed a number… “Hello, Hannix.* This is Garden… Feeling fine, thanks… Here’s the book for the First at Rivermont:—Topspede, half a hundred—0—seventy-five. Sara Bellum, twenty-five across the board. Moondash, twenty to show. Miss Construe, half a hundred to win. Black Revel a hundred to place… Right.”

  He hung up the receiver and cut in the amplifier. There was a momentary silence. Then:

  “I got ’em at the post at Rivermont. At the post, Rivermont. Topspede is making trouble… They’ve taken him to the outside… And there they go! Off at Rivermont at 2:32 and a half… At the quarter: it’s Topspede, by a length; Sara Bellum, by a head; and Miss Construe… At the half: Sara Bellum, half a length; Black Revel, a length; and Topspede… In the stretch: Black Revel, a length; Fisticuffs, a head and gaining; and Sara Bellum… AND the Rivermont winner: Fisticuffs. The winner is Fisticuffs. Black Revel is second. Sara Bellum is third. The numbers are 4, 7, and 3. Winner closed at eight to five. Hold on for the official O.K. and the muts*…”

  “Well, well, well!” chortled Garden. “That was a grand race for Hannix as far as this crowd was concerned. They came in like little trained pigs. Even our two winners here didn’t nick the old fox for much. Pop Hammle chiseled out a bit of show money, but he has to deduct fifty dollars. And Vance probably picked about even money at place on Black Revel… What about that humdinger of yours, Zalia? Oh, trusting child, will you never learn?…”

  “Well, anyway,” protested the girl good-naturedly, “wasn’t Topspede a length ahead at the quarter? And he was still in the money at the half. I had the right idea.”

  “Sure,” returned Garden. “Topspede made a noble effort, but I suspect he’s a blood-brother of Morestone and a boyfriend of Nevada Queen—the world’s most eminent folder-uppers.† He’d probably go big at three furlongs on the Nursery Course.”

  “Who cares?” retorted Zalia Graem. “I’m still young and healthy…”

  The voice over the amplifier came back:

  “O.K. at Rivermont. Official. They got off at 2:32 and a half. Winner: number 4, Fisticu
ffs; second, number 7, Black Revel; third, number 3, Sara Bellum. The running time, 1:24… And here are the muts: Fisticuffs paid $5.60—$3.10—$2.90. Black Revel paid $3.90 and $3.20. Sara Bellum paid $5.80… Post time for the second race 3:05. The line: 3; 15, 5, 20, 12, scratch, 15, scratch, 4 to 5, 6… They’re coming out at Cold Springs. And here’s a new line—”

  Garden cut out the amplifier again.

  “Well, Vance,” he said, “you’re the only winner on the first race. You made ninety-five dollars—all entered up in the ledger. And you, Pop, lose two dollars and a half.”*

  Since no one present was interested in the Texas or Cold Springs meets, there was approximately a half hour between races. During these intervals the members of the party moved from table to table, chatting, discussing horses, and indulging in pleasant, intimate give-and-take; and there was considerable traffic to and from the bar. Occasionally Garden cut in the amplifier to pick up any late scratches, changes of odds, and other flashes from the tracks.

  Vance, while apparently mingling casually with the alternately gay and serious groups, was closely watching everything that went on. I could plainly see that he was far less interested in the races than in the human and psychological relationships of those present.

  Despite the superficial buoyancy of the gathering, I could detect an undercurrent of extreme tension and expectancy; and I made mental note of various little occurrences during the first hour or so. I noticed, for instance, that from time to time Zalia Graem joined Cecil Kroon and Madge Weatherby and engaged them in serious low-toned conversation. Once the three strolled out on the narrow balcony which ran along the north side of the drawing room.

  Swift was by turns hysterically gay and dejected, and he made frequent trips to the bar. His inconsistent moods impressed me unpleasantly; and several times I noticed Garden watching him with shrewd concern.

  One incident connected with Swift puzzled me greatly. I had noticed that he and Zalia Graem had not spoken to each other during the entire time they had been in the drawing room. Once they had brushed against each other near Garden’s table, and each, as if instinctively, had drawn resentfully to one side. Garden had cocked his head at them irritably and said: