It was scarcely eight o’clock on the following morning when Markham brought us the news of the second Greene tragedy. I had risen early, and was having my coffee in the library when Markham came in, brushing past the astonished Currie with only a curt nod.
“Get Vance out right away—will you, Van Dine?” he began, without even a word of greeting. “Something serious has happened.”
I hastened to fetch Vance, who grumblingly slipped into a camel’s-hair dressing-gown and came leisurely into the library.
“My dear Markham!” he reproached the District Attorney. “Why pay your social calls in the middle of the night?”
“This isn’t a social call,” Markham told him tartly. “Chester Greene has been murdered.”
“Ah!” Vance rang for Currie, and lighted a cigarette. “Coffee for two and clothes for one,” he ordered, when the man appeared. Then he sank into a chair before the fire and gave Markham a waggish look. “That same unique burglar, I suppose. A perseverin’ lad. Did the family plate disappear this time?”
Markham gave a mirthless laugh.
“No, the plate’s intact; and I think we can now eliminate the burglar theory. I’m afraid your premonitions were correct—damn your uncanny faculty!”
“Pour out your heart-breakin’ story.” Vance, for all his levity, was extraordinarily interested. His moodiness of the past two days had given way to an almost eager alertness.
“It was Sproot who phoned the news to Headquarters a little before midnight. The operator in the Homicide Bureau caught Heath at home, and the Sergeant was at the Greene house inside of half an hour. He’s there now—phoned me at seven this morning. I told him I’d hurry out, so I didn’t get many details over the wire. All I know is that Chester Greene was fatally shot last night at almost the exact hour that the former shootings occurred—a little after half past eleven.”