A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook Title: The Casino Murder Case (1934) Author: S. S. Van Dine eBook No.: 0400241.txt Edition: 1 Language: English Character set encoding: Latin-1(ISO-8859-1)--8 bit Date first posted: March 2004 Date most recently updated: March 2004 This eBook was produced by: Don Lainson dlainson@sympatico.ca Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular paper edition. Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg file. To contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.au Further information on contacting Project Gutenberg, the "legal small print" and other information about this eBook may be found at the end of this file. ** Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Books ** ** eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971 ** ***** These eBooks Are Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers! ***** ----------------------------------------------------------------- A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook Title: The Casino Murder Case (1934) Author: S. S. Van Dine A PHILO VANCE MYSTERY Quam saepe forte temere eveniunt, quae non audeas optare!--Terence. TO AUGUSTA MacMANNUS ("Our Mac") CONTENTS CHAPTER I. An Anonymous Letter II. The Casino III. The First Tragedy IV. The Dead Girl's Room V. Poison! VI. A Cry in the Night VII. More Poison VIII. The Medicine Cabinet IX. A Painful Interview X. The Post-Mortem Report XI. Fear of Water XII. Vance Takes a Journey XIII. An Amazing Discovery XIV. The White Label XV. The Two-o'Clock Appointment XVI. The Final Tragedy CHARACTERS OF THE BOOK Philo Vance John F.-X. Markham--District Attorney of New York County. Ernest Heath--Sergeant of the Homicide Bureau. Mrs. Anthony Llewellyn--A prominent social worker. Richard Kinkaid--Her brother, and owner of the Casino. Amelia Llewellyn--Her daughter; an art student. Lynn Llewellyn--Her son, a night-club habitu? and gambler. Virginia Llewellyn--Lynn Llewellyn's wife: formerly Virginia Vale, a musical-comedy star. Morgan Bloodgood--Former instructor in mathematics, and Kinkaid's chief croupier. Doctor Allan Kane--A young doctor; friend of the Llewellyns. Doctor Rogers--A physician. Doctor Adolph Hildebrandt--Official Toxicologist. Smith--The Llewellyn butler. Hennessey--Detective of the Homicide Bureau. Snitkin--Detective of the Homicide Bureau. Sullivan--Detective of the Homicide Bureau. Burke--Detective of the Homicide Bureau. Doctor Emanuel Doremus--Medical Examiner. Currie--Vance's valet. THE CASINO MURDER CASE CHAPTER I AN ANONYMOUS LETTER (Saturday, October 15; 10 a. m.) It was in the cold bleak autumn following the spectacular Dragon murder case that Philo Vance was confronted with what was probably the subtlest and most diabolical criminal problem of his career. Unlike his other cases, this mystery was one of poisoning. But it was not an ordinary poisoning case: it involved far too clever a technique, and was thought out to far too many decimal points, to be ranked with even such famous crimes as the Cordelia Botkin, Molineux, Maybrick, Buchanan, Bowers and Carlyle Harris cases. The designation given to it by the newspapers--namely, the Casino murder case--was technically a misnomer, although Kinkaid's famous gambling Casino in West 73rd Street played a large part in it. In fact, the first sinister episode in this notorious crime actually occurred beside the high-stake roulette table in the "Gold Room" of the Casino; and the final episode of the tragedy was enacted in Kinkaid's walnut-paneled Jacobean office, just off the main gambling salon. Incidentally, I may say that that last terrible scene will haunt me to my dying day and send cold shivers racing up and down my spine whenever I let my mind dwell on its terrifying details. I have been through many shocking and unnerving situations with Vance during the course of his criminal investigations, but never have I experienced one that affected me as did that terrific and fatal d?nouement that came so suddenly, so unexpectedly, in the gaudy environment of that famous gambling rendezvous. And Markham, too, I know, underwent some chilling metamorphosis in those few agonizing moments when the murderer stood before us and cackled in triumph. To this day, the mere mention of the incident makes Markham irritable and nervous--a fact which, considering his usual calm, indicates clearly how deep and lasting an impression the tragic affair made upon him. The Casino murder case, barring that one fatal terminating event, was not so spectacular in its details as many other criminal cases which Vance had probed and solved. From a purely objective point of view it might even have been considered commonplace; for in its superficial mechanism it had many parallels in well-known cases of criminological history. But what distinguished this case from its many antetypes was the subtle inner processes by which the murderer sought to divert suspicion and to create new and more devilish situations wherein the real motive of the crime was to be found. It was not merely one wheel within another wheel: it was an elaborate and complicated piece of psychological machinery, the mechanism of which led on and on, almost indefinitely, to the most amazing--and erroneous--conclusions. Indeed, the first move of the murderer was perhaps the most artful act of the entire profound scheme. It was a letter addressed to Vance thirty-six hours before the mechanism of the plot was put in direct operation. But, curiously enough, it was this supreme subtlety that, in the end, led to the recognition of the culprit. Perhaps this act of letter-writing was too subtle: perhaps it defeated its own purpose by calling mute attention to the mental processes of the murderer, and thereby gave Vance an intellectual clue which fortunately diverted his efforts from the more insistent and more obvious lines of ratiocination. In any event, it achieved its superficial object; for Vance was actually a spectator of the first thrust, so to speak, of the villain's rapier. And, as an eye witness to the first episode of this famous poison murder mystery, Vance became directly involved in the case; so that, in this instance, he carried the problem to John F.-X. Markham, who was then the District Attorney of New York County and Vance's closest friend; whereas, in all his other criminal investigations, it was Markham who had been primarily responsible for Vance's participation. The letter of which I speak arrived in the morning mail on Saturday, October 15. It consisted of two typewritten pages, and the envelop was postmarked Closter, New Jersey. The official post- office stamp showed the mailing time as noon of the preceding day. Vance had worked late Friday night, tabulating and comparing the ?sthetic designs on Sumerian pottery in an attempt to establish the cultural influences of this ancient civilization,* and did not arise till ten o'clock on Saturday. I was living in Vance's apartment in East 38th Street at the time; and though my position was that of legal adviser and monetary steward I had, during the past three years, gradually taken over a kind of general secretaryship in his employ. "Employ" is perhaps not the correct word, for Vance and I had been close friends since our Harvard days; and it was this relationship that had induced me to sever my connection with my father's law firm of Van Dine, Davis and Van Dine and to devote myself to the more congenial task of looking after Vance's affairs. * The records of the Joint Expedition to Mesopotamia, undertaken by the University of Pennsylvania and the British Museum, under the directorship of Doctor C. Leonard Woolley, had recently appeared. On that raw, almost wintry, morning in October I had, as usual, opened and segregated his mail, taking care of such items as came under my own jurisdiction, and was engaged in making out his entry blanks for the autumn field trials,* when Vance entered the library and, with a nod of greeting, sat down in his favorite Queen-Anne chair before the open fire. * Vance owned some exceptionally fine pointers and setters which had made many notable wins for him in the various trials in the East. They had been trained by one of the country's leading experts, and returned to Vance perfectly broken to field work. Vance took great pleasure in handling the dogs himself. That morning he was wearing a rare old mandarin robe and Chinese sandals, and I was somewhat astonished at his costume, for he rarely came to breakfast (which invariably consisted of a cup of Turkish coffee and one of his beloved R?gie cigarettes) in such elaborate dress. "I say, Van," he remarked, when he had pushed the table-button for Currie, his aged English butler and majordomo; "don't look so na?vely amazed. I felt depressed when I awoke. I couldn't trace the designs on some of the jolly old stel? and cylinder seals they've dug up at Ur, and in consequence had a restless night. Therefore, I bedecked myself in this Chinese attire in an effort to counteract my feelin's, and in the hope, I may add, that I would, through a process of psychic osmosis, acquire a bit of tha...
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