“What astounds me,” remarked the Inspector, “is the security felt by the thief. Within an hour of the time Rex Greene is shot the poison disappears from the upper hall. Good Gad! That’s cold-bloodedness for you! And nerve, too!”
“There’s plenty of cold-bloodedness and nerve in this case,” answered Vance. “A relentless determination is back of these murders—and calculation no end. I wouldn’t be surprised if the doctor’s satchel had been searched a score of times before. Perhaps there’s been a patient accumulation of the drugs. This morning’s theft may have been the final raid. I see in this whole affair a carefully worked-out plot that’s been in preparation perhaps for years. We’re dealing with the persistency of an idée fixe, and with the demoniacal logic of insanity. And—what is even more hideous—we’re confronted with the perverted imagination of a fantastically romantic mind. We’re pitted against a fiery, egocentric, hallucinated optimism. And this type of optimism has tremendous stamina and power. The history of nations has been convulsed by it. Mohammed, Bruno, and Jeanne d’Arc—as well as Torquemada, Agrippina, and Robespierre—all had it. It operates in different degrees, and to different ends; but the spirit of individual revolution is at the bottom of it.”
“Hell, Mr. Vance!” Heath was uneasy. “You’re trying to make this case something that ain’t—well, natural.”
“Can you make it anything else, Sergeant? Already there have been three murders and an attempted murder. And now comes the theft of the poisons from Von Blon.”
Inspector Moran drew himself up and rested his elbows on the table.
“Well, what’s to be done? That, I believe, is the business of to-night’s conclave.” He forced himself to speak with matter-of-factness. “We can’t break up the establishment; and we can’t assign a separate bodyguard for each remaining member of the household.”
“No; and we can’t give ’em the works at the police station, either,” grumbled Heath.
“It wouldn’t help you if you could, Sergeant,” said Vance. “There’s no third degree known that could unseal the lips of the person who is executing this particular opus. There’s too much fanaticism and martyrdom in it.”
“Suppose we hear those wills, Mr. Markham,” suggested Moran. “We may then be able to figure out a motive.—You’ll admit, won’t you, Mr. Vance, that there’s a pretty strong motive back of these killings?”
“There can be no doubt as to that. But I don’t believe it’s money. Money may enter into it—and probably does—but only as a contribut’ry factor. I’d say the motive was more fundamental—that it had its matrix in some powerful but suppressed human passion. However, the financial conditions may lead us to those depths.”