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Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Introduction
CHAPTER 1: It's All in the Plan
Another Pleasant Valley Saturday
Had This Been the Real Thing …
Assembly Language Programming As a Square Dance
Assembly Language Programming As a Board Game
CHAPTER 2: Alien Bases
The Return of the New Math Monster
Octal: How the Grinch Stole Eight and Nine
Hexadecimal: Solving the Digit Shortage
From Hex to Decimal and from Decimal to Hex
Practice. Practice! PRACTICE!
Arithmetic in Hex
Binary
Hexadecimal as Shorthand for Binary
Prepare to Compute
CHAPTER 3: Lifting the Hood
RAXie, We Hardly Knew Ye
Switches, Transistors, and Memory
The Shop Supervisor and the Assembly Line
The Box That Follows a Plan
What vs. How: Architecture and Microarchitecture
Enter the Plant Manager
CHAPTER 4: Location, Location, Location
 The Joy of Memory Models
The Nature of Segments
Segment Registers
The Four Major Assembly Programming Models
64-Bit Long Mode
CHAPTER 5: The Right to Assemble
The Nine and Sixty Ways to Code
Files and What's Inside Them
Text In, Code Out
The Assembly Language Development Process
Linking the Object Code File
Taking a Trip Down Assembly Lane
CHAPTER 6: A Place to Stand, with Access to Tools
Integrated Development Environments
Introducing SASM
Linux and Terminals
Using Linux Make
Debugging with SASM
CHAPTER 7: Following Your Instructions
Build Yourself a Sandbox
Instructions and Their Operands
Source and Destination Operands
Rally Round the Flags, Boys!
Signed and Unsigned Values
Implicit Operands and MUL
Reading and Using an Assembly Language Reference
NEG Negate (Two's Complement; i.e., Multiply by −1)
CHAPTER 8: Our Object All Sublime
The Bones of an Assembly Language Program
Last In, First Out via the Stack
 Using Linux Kernel Services Through Syscall
Designing a Nontrivial Program
Going Further
CHAPTER 9: Bits, Flags, Branches, and Tables
Bits Is Bits (and Bytes Is Bits)
Shifting Bits
Bit-Bashing in Action
Flags, Tests, and Branches
X64 Long Mode Memory Addressing in Detail
Character Table Translation
Tables Instead of Calculations
CHAPTER 10: Dividing and Conquering
Boxes within Boxes
Calling and Returning
Local Labels and the Lengths of Jumps
Building External Procedure Libraries
The Art of Crafting Procedures
Simple Cursor Control in the Linux Console
Creating and Using Macros
CHAPTER 11: Strings and Things
The Notion of an Assembly Language String
REP STOSB, the Software Machine Gun
The Semiautomatic Weapon: STOSB Without REP
MOVSB: Fast Block Copies
Storing Data to Discontinuous Strings
Command-Line Arguments, String Searches, and the Linux
Stack
The Stack, Its Structure, and How to Use It
CHAPTER 12: Heading Out to C
What's GNU?
Linking to the Standard C Library
 Formatted Text Output with printf()
Data In with fgets() and scanf()
Be a Linux Time Lord
Understanding AT&T Instruction Mnemonics
Generating Random Numbers
How C Sees Command-Line Arguments
Simple File I/O
Conclusion: Not the End, But Only the Beginning
Where to Now?
The Art of 64-bit Assembly by Randall Hyde (No Starch
Press, 2022)
Modern x86 Assembly Language Programming by David
Kusswurm (Apress, 2018)
Stepping off Square One
APPENDIX A: The Return of the Insight Debugger
Insight's Shortcomings
Opening a Program Under Insight
Setting Command-Line Arguments with Insight
Running and Stepping a Program
The Memory Window
Showing the Stack in Insight's Memory View
Examining the Stack with Insight's Memory View
Learn gdb!
APPENDIX B: Partial x64 Instruction Reference
What's Been Removed from x64
Flag Results
Size Specifiers
Instruction Index
ADC: Arithmetic Addition with Carry
ADD: Arithmetic Addition
AND: Logical AND
BT: Bit Test
CALL: Call Procedure
CLC: Clear Carry Flag (CF)
CLD: Clear Direction Flag (DF)
CMP: Arithmetic Comparison
DEC: Decrement Operand
DIV: Unsigned Integer Division
INC: Increment Operand
J??: Jump If Condition Is Met
JECXZ: Jump if ECX=0
JRCXZ: Jump If RCX=0
JMP: Unconditional Jump
LEA: Load Effective Address
LOOP: Loop Until CX/ECX/RCX=0
LOOPNZ/LOOPNE: Loop Until CX/ECX/RCX=0 and ZF=0
LOOPZ/LOOPE: Loop Until CX/ECX/RCX=0 and ZF=1
MOV: Copy Right Operand into Left Operand
MOVS: Move String
MOVSX: Copy with Sign Extension
MUL: Unsigned Integer Multiplication
NEG: Negate (Two's Complement; i.e., Multiply by −1)
NOP: No Operation
NOT: Logical NOT (One's Complement)
OR: Logical OR
POP: Copy Top of Stack into Operand
POPF/D/Q: Copy Top of Stack into Flags Register
PUSH: Push Operand onto Top of Stack
PUSHF/D/Q: Push Flags Onto the Stack
RET: Return from Procedure
ROL/ROR: Rotate Left/Rotate Right
 SBB: Arithmetic Subtraction with Borrow
SHL/SHR: Shift Left/Shift Right
STC: Set Carry Flag (CF)
STD: Set Direction Flag (DF)
STOS/B/W/D/Q: Store String
SUB: Arithmetic Subtraction
SYSCALL: Fast System Call into Linux
XCHG: Exchange Operands
XLAT: Translate Byte Via Table
XOR: Exclusive OR
APPENDIX C: Character Set Charts
Index
Copyright
Dedication
About the Author
About the Technical Editor
Acknowledgments
End User License Agreement

List of Tables
Chapter 2
Table 2.1: Counting in Martian, Base Fooby
Table 2.2: Powers of Fooby
Table 2.3: Counting in Octal, Base 8
Table 2.4: Octal Columns as Powers of Eight
Table 2.5: Counting in Hexadecimal, Base 16
Table 2.6: Hexadecimal Columns as Powers of 16
Table 2.7: Binary Columns as Powers of 2
Chapter 4
 Table 4.1: Collective Terms for Memory
Chapter 6
Table 6.1: The Three Standard Unix Files
Chapter 7
Table 7.1: MOV and Its Operands
Table 7.2: The Ranges of Signed Values
Table 7.3: The MOVSX Instruction
Table 7.4: The MUL Instruction
Table 7.5: The DIV Instruction
Chapter 8
Table 8.1: System Call Conventions for the System V ABI
Chapter 9
Table 9.1: The AND Truth Table for Formal Logic
Table 9.2: The AND Truth Table for Assembly Language
Table 9.3: The OR Truth Table for Assembly Language
Table 9.4: The XOR Truth Table for Assembly Language
Table 9.5: The NOT Truth Table for Assembly Language
Table 9.6: Jump Instruction Mnemonics and Their
Synonyms
Table 9.7: Arithmetic Tests Useful After a CMP Instruction
Table 9.8: 64-Bit Long Mode Memory-Addressing Schemes
Chapter 12
Table 12.1: Printf() Formatting Codes
Table 12.2: The Values Contained in the tm Structure
Table 12.3: File Access Codes for Use with fopen()
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1: The Game of Assembly Language
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1: The anatomy of ∩≡ ⌠ Θ ≡
Figure 2.2: The anatomy of 76225 octal
Figure 2.3: The anatomy of 3C0A9H
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1: Transistor switches and memory cells
Figure 3.2: A RAM chip
Figure 3.3: A simple 1-megabyte memory system
Figure 3.4: The CPU and memory
Figure 3.5: The idea of multitasking
Figure 3.6: A mature protected-mode operating system
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1: The 8080 memory model
Figure 4.2: The 8080 memory model inside an 8086
memory system
Figure 4.3: Seeing a megabyte through 64 KB blinders
Figure 4.4: Memory addresses versus segment addresses
Figure 4.5: Segments and offsets
Figure 4.6: Registers inside registers
Figure 4.7: 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, and 64-bit registers
Figure 4.8: Real-mode flat model
Figure 4.9: The real-mode segmented model
Figure 4.10: 32-bit protected mode flat model
Chapter 5
 Figure 5.1: Displaying a Linux text file with the GHex editor
Figure 5.2: Displaying a Windows text file with the GHex
editor
Figure 5.3: A Linux text file displayed under Windows
Figure 5.4: Differences in display order versus differences in
evaluation or...
Figure 5.5: Big endian versus little endian for a 16-bit value
Figure 5.6: Big endian versus little endian for a 32-bit value
Figure 5.7: What the assembler does
Figure 5.8: The assembler and linker
Figure 5.9: The assembly language development process
Figure 5.10: The Linux Mint Software Manager
Figure 5.11: The anatomy of a NASM command line
Figure 5.12: The anatomy of an ld command line
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1: The SASM Build dialog
Figure 6.2: The full SASM window in debug mode
Figure 6.3: Changing Konsole's character encoding to IBM-
850
Figure 6.4: I/O redirection
Figure 6.5: Adding a key binding to Konsole
Chapter 7
Figure 7.1: Character strings as immediate data
Figure 7.2: The x64 RFlags register
Chapter 8
Figure 8.1: The stack
Figure 8.2: The stack in program memory
Figure 8.3: How the stack works
 Figure 8.4: The “off by one” error
Chapter 9
Figure 9.1: Bit numbering
Figure 9.2: The anatomy of an AND instruction
Figure 9.3: Using XOR to zero a register
Figure 9.4: How the rotate instructions work
Figure 9.5: How the rotate through carry instructions work
Figure 9.6: Using a lookup table
Figure 9.7: A table of 16 three-byte entries
Figure 9.8: Multiplying by shifting
Figure 9.9: x64 long mode memory addressing
Figure 9.10: How address scaling works
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1: Calling a procedure and returning
Figure 10.2: Local labels and the globals that own them
Figure 10.3: Connecting globals and externals
Figure 10.4: How macros work
Chapter 11
Figure 11.1: Using MOVSB on overlapping memory blocks
Figure 11.2: How to access parameters from within SASM
Figure 11.3: The Linux stack at program execution
Chapter 12
Figure 12.1: How gcc builds Linux executables
Figure 12.2: The structure of a hybrid C-assembly program
Figure 12.3: A stack frame
Figure 12.4: Accessing command-line arguments from the
x64 main() function
Appendix A
Figure A.1: Insight's memory display of a .data section
Figure A.2: Command-line arguments in Insight's memory
view
x64 Assembly Language Step-
by-Step

Programming with Linux®

4TH Edition

Jeff Duntemann
Introduction
“Why Would You Want to Do That?”
It was 1985, and I was in a chartered bus in New York City, heading
for a press reception with a bunch of other restless media
egomaniacs. I was only beginning my tech journalist career (as
technical editor for PC Tech Journal), and my first book was still
months in the future. I happened to be sitting next to an established
programming writer/guru, with whom I was impressed and to whom
I was babbling about one thing or another. I would like to eliminate
this statement; it adds little to the book, and as annoying as he is,
even though we don’t name him, I now understand why he’s so
annoying: He lives and works in a completely different culture than I
do.
During our chat, I happened to let slip that I was a Turbo Pascal
fanatic, and what I really wanted to do was learn how to write Turbo
Pascal programs that made use of the brand new Microsoft Windows
user interface. He wrinkled his nose and grimaced wryly, before
speaking the Infamous Question:
“Why would you want to do that?”
I had never heard the question before (though I would hear it many
times thereafter), and it took me aback. Why? Because, well,
because…I wanted to know how it worked.
“Heh. That's what C is for.”
Further discussion got me nowhere in a Pascal direction. But some
probing led me to understand that you couldn't write Windows apps
in Turbo Pascal. It was impossible. Or…the programming
writer/guru didn't know how. Maybe both. I never learned the truth
as it stood in 1985. (Delphi answered the question once and for all in
1995.) But I did learn the meaning of the Infamous Question.
Note well: When somebody asks you, “Why would you want to do
that?” what it really means is this: “You've asked me how to do
something that is either impossible using tools that I favor or
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Greene
murder case
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The Greene murder case

Author: S. S. Van Dine

Illustrator: Lowell Leroy Balcolm

Release date: January 14, 2024 [eBook #72719]

Most recently updated: February 18, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1928

Credits: Brian Raiter

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREENE

MURDER CASE ***
THE GREENE MURDER CASE

by

S. S. VAN DINE
 Contents
I A Double Tragedy
II The Investigation Opens
III At the Greene Mansion
IV The Missing Revolver
V Homicidal Possibilities
VI An Accusation
VII Vance Argues the Case
VIII The Second Tragedy
IX The Three Bullets
X The Closing of a Door
XI A Painful Interview
XII A Motor Ride
XIII The Third Tragedy
XIV Footprints on the Carpet
XV The Murderer in the House
XVI The Lost Poisons
XVII The Two Wills
XVIII In the Locked Library
XIX Sherry and Paralysis
XX The Fourth Tragedy
XXI A Depleted Household
XXII The Shadowy Figure
XXIII The Missing Fact
XXIV A Mysterious Trip
 XXV The Capture
XXVI The Astounding Truth
 to

NORBERT L. LEDERER
Άγαθὴ δἑ παράφασίς έστιν έταίρου
The Greene mansion, New York, as it appeared at the time
of the notorious Greene murder case.
From an old woodcut by Lowell L. Balcom.
Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange and
unnatural.
—Hamlet.
 Characters of the Book
Philo Vance
John F.-X. Markham
District Attorney of New York County.
Mrs. Tobias Greene
The mistress of the Greene mansion.
Julia Greene
The eldest daughter.
Sibella Greene
Another daughter.
Ada Greene
The youngest daughter.
Chester Greene
The elder son.
Rex Greene
The younger son.
Dr. Arthur Von Blon
The Greene family physician.
Sproot
The Greene butler.
Gertrude Mannheim
The cook.
Hemming
The senior maid.
Barton
The junior maid.
Miss Craven
Mrs. Greene’s nurse.
Chief Inspector O’Brien
Of the Police Department of New York City.
William M. Moran
Commanding officer of the Detective Bureau.
Ernest Heath
Sergeant of the Homicide Bureau.
Snitkin
Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
Burke
Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
Captain Anthony P. Jerym
Bertillon expert.
Captain Dubois
Finger-print expert.
Dr. Emanuel Doremus
Medical Examiner.
Dr. Drumm
An official police surgeon.
Marie O’Brien
A Police nurse.
Swacker
Secretary to the District Attorney.
Currie
Vance’s valet.
 CHAPTER I.
A Double Tragedy
(Tuesday, November 9; 10 a. m.)

It has long been a source of wonder to me why the leading

criminological writers—men like Edmund Lester Pearson, H. B.
Irving, Filson Young, Canon Brookes, William Bolitho, and Harold
Eaton—have not devoted more space to the Greene tragedy; for
here, surely, is one of the outstanding murder mysteries of modern
times—a case practically unique in the annals of latter-day crime.
And yet I realize, as I read over my own voluminous notes on the
case, and inspect the various documents relating to it, how little of
its inner history ever came to light, and how impossible it would be
for even the most imaginative chronicler to fill in the hiatuses.
The world, of course, knows the external facts. For over a month
the press of two continents was filled with accounts of this appalling
tragedy; and even the bare outline was sufficient to gratify the
public’s craving for the abnormal and the spectacular. But the inside
story of the catastrophe surpassed even the wildest flights of public
fancy; and, as I now sit down to divulge those facts for the first
time, I am oppressed with a feeling akin to unreality, although I was
a witness to most of them and hold in my possession the
incontestable records of their actuality.
Of the fiendish ingenuity which lay behind this terrible crime, of
the warped psychological motives that inspired it, and of the strange
hidden sources of its technic, the world is completely ignorant.
Moreover, no explanation has ever been given of the analytic steps
that led to its solution. Nor have the events attending the
mechanism of that solution—events in themselves highly dramatic
and unusual—ever been recounted. The public believes that the
termination of the case was a result of the usual police methods of
investigation; but this is because the public is unaware of many of
the vital factors of the crime itself, and because both the Police
Department and the District Attorney’s office have, as if by tacit
agreement, refused to make known the entire truth—whether for
fear of being disbelieved or merely because there are certain things
so terrible that no man wishes to talk of them, I do not know.
The record, therefore, which I am about to set down is the first
complete and unedited history of the Greene holocaust.1 I feel that
now the truth should be known, for it is history, and one should not
shrink from historical facts. Also, I believe that the credit for the
solution of this case should go where it belongs.
The man who elucidated the mystery and brought to a close that
palimpsest of horror was, curiously enough, in no way officially
connected with the police; and in all the published accounts of the
murder his name was not once mentioned. And yet, had it not been
for him and his novel methods of criminal deduction, the heinous
plot against the Greene family would have been conclusively
successful. The police in their researches were dealing dogmatically
with the evidential appearances of the crime, whereas the
operations of the criminal were being conducted on a plane quite
beyond the comprehension of the ordinary investigator.
This man who, after weeks of sedulous and disheartening
analysis, eventually ferreted out the source of the horror, was a
young social aristocrat, an intimate friend of John F.-X. Markham, the
District Attorney. His name I am not at liberty to divulge, but for the
purposes of these chronicles I have chosen to call him Philo Vance.
He is no longer in this country, having transferred his residence
several years ago to a villa outside of Florence; and, since he has no
intention of returning to America, he has acceded to my request to
publish the history of the criminal cases in which he participated as a
sort of amicus curiæ. Markham also has retired to private life; and
Sergeant Ernest Heath, that doughty and honest officer of the
Homicide Bureau who officially handled the Greene case for the
Police Department, has, through an unexpected legacy, been able to
gratify his life’s ambition to breed fancy wyandottes on a model farm
in the Mohawk Valley. Thus circumstances have made it possible for
me to publish my intimate records of the Greene tragedy.
A few words are necessary to explain my own participation in the
case. (I say “participation,” though, in reality, my rôle was that of
passive spectator.) For several years I had been Vance’s personal
attorney. I had resigned from my father’s law firm—Van Dine, Davis
& Van Dine—in order to devote myself exclusively to Vance’s legal
and financial needs, which, by the way, were not many. Vance and I
had been friends from our undergraduate days at Harvard, and I
found in my new duties as his legal agent and monetary steward a
sinecure combined with many social and cultural compensations.
Vance at that time was thirty-four years old. He was just under
six feet, slender, sinewy, and graceful. His chiselled regular features
gave his face the attraction of strength and uniform modelling, but a
sardonic coldness of expression precluded the designation of
handsome. He had aloof gray eyes, a straight, slender nose, and a
mouth suggesting both cruelty and asceticism. But, despite the
severity of his lineaments—which acted like an impenetrable glass
wall between him and his fellows—, he was highly sensitive and
mobile; and, though his manner was somewhat detached and
supercilious, he exerted an undeniable fascination over those who
knew him at all well.
Much of his education had been acquired in Europe, and he still
retained a slight Oxonian accent and intonation, though I happen to
be aware that this was no affectation: he cared too little for the
opinions of others to trouble about maintaining any pose. He was an
indefatigable student. His mind was ever eager for knowledge, and
he devoted much of his time to the study of ethnology and
psychology. His greatest intellectual enthusiasm was art, and he
fortunately had an income sufficient to indulge his passion for
collecting. It was, however, his interest in psychology and his
application of it to individual behaviorism that first turned his
attention to the criminal problems which came under Markham’s
jurisdiction.
 The first case in which he participated was, as I have recorded
elsewhere, the murder of Alvin Benson.2 The second was the
seemingly insoluble strangling of the famous Broadway beauty,
Margaret Odell.3 And in the late fall of the same year came the
Greene tragedy. As in the two former cases, I kept a complete
record of this new investigation. I possessed myself of every
available document, making verbatim copies of those claimed for the
police archives, and even jotted down the numerous conversations
that took place in and out of conference between Vance and the
official investigators. And, in addition, I kept a diary which, for
elaborateness and completeness, would have been the despair of
Samuel Pepys.
The Greene murder case occurred toward the end of Markham’s
first year in office. As you may remember, the winter came very
early that season. There were two severe blizzards in November, and
the amount of snowfall for that month broke all local records for
eighteen years. I mention this fact of the early snows because it
played a sinister part in the Greene affair: it was, indeed, one of the
vital factors of the murderer’s scheme. No one has yet understood,
or even sensed, the connection between the unseasonable weather
of that late fall and the fatal tragedy that fell upon the Greene
household; but that is because all of the dark secrets of the case
were not made known.
Vance was projected into the Benson murder as the result of a
direct challenge from Markham; and his activities in the Canary case
were due to his own expressed desire to lend a hand. But pure
coincidence was responsible for his participation in the Greene
investigation. During the two months that had elapsed since his
solution of the Canary’s death Markham had called upon him several
times regarding moot points of criminal detection in connection with
the routine work of the District Attorney’s office; and it was during
an informal discussion of one of these problems that the Greene
case was first mentioned.
Markham and Vance had long been friends. Though dissimilar in
tastes and even in ethical outlook, they nevertheless respected each
other profoundly. I have often marvelled at the friendship of these
two antipodal men; but as the years went by I came more and more
to understand it. It was as if they were drawn together by those
very qualities which each realized—perhaps with a certain repressed
regret—were lacking in his own nature. Markham was forthright,
brusque, and, on occasion, domineering, taking life with grim and
serious concern, and following the dictates of his legal conscience in
the face of every obstacle: honest, incorruptible, and untiring.
Vance, on the other hand, was volatile, debonair, and possessed of a
perpetual Juvenalian cynicism, smiling ironically at the bitterest
realities, and consistently fulfilling the rôle of a whimsically
disinterested spectator of life. But, withal, he understood people as
profoundly as he understood art, and his dissection of motives and
his shrewd readings of character were—as I had many occasions to
witness—uncannily accurate. Markham apprehended these qualities
in Vance, and sensed their true value.
It was not yet ten o’clock of the morning of November the 9th
when Vance and I, after motoring to the old Criminal Courts Building
on the corner of Franklin and Centre Streets, went directly to the
District Attorney’s office on the fourth floor. On that momentous
forenoon two gangsters, each accusing the other of firing the fatal
shot in a recent pay-roll hold-up, were to be cross-examined by
Markham; and this interview was to decide the question as to which
of the men would be charged with murder and which held as a
State’s witness. Markham and Vance had discussed the situation the
night before in the lounge-room of the Stuyvesant Club, and Vance
had expressed a desire to be present at the examination. Markham
had readily assented, and so we had risen early and driven down-
town.
The interview with the two men lasted for an hour, and Vance’s
disconcerting opinion was that neither was guilty of the actual
shooting.
“Y’ know, Markham,” he drawled, when the sheriff had returned
the prisoners to the Tombs, “those two Jack Sheppards are quite
sincere: each one thinks he’s telling the truth. Ergo, neither of ’em
fired the shot. A distressin’ predicament. They’re obvious gallows-
birds—born for the gibbet; and it’s a beastly shame not to be able to
round out their destinies in proper fashion. . . . I say, wasn’t there
another participant in the hold-up?”
Markham nodded. “A third got away. According to these two, it
was a well-known gangster named Eddie Maleppo.”
“Then Eduardo is your man.”4
Markham did not reply, and Vance rose lazily and reached for his
ulster.
“By the by,” he said, slipping into his coat, “I note that our
upliftin’ press bedecked its front pages this morning with head-lines
about a pogrom at the old Greene mansion last night. Wherefore?”
Markham glanced quickly at the clock on the wall, and frowned.
“That reminds me. Chester Greene called up the first thing this
morning and insisted on seeing me. I told him eleven o’clock.”
“Where do you fit in?” Vance had taken his hand from the door-
knob, and drew out his cigarette-case.
“I don’t!” snapped Markham. “But people think the District
Attorney’s office is a kind of clearing-house for all their troubles. It
happens, however, that I’ve known Chester Greene a long time—
we’re both members of the Marylebone Golf Club—and so I must
listen to his plaint about what was obviously an attempt to annex
the famous Greene plate.”
“Burglary—eh, what?” Vance took a few puffs on his cigarette.
“With two women shot?”
“Oh, it was a miserable business! An amateur, no doubt. Got in a
panic, shot up the place, and bolted.”
“Seems a dashed curious proceeding.” Vance abstractedly
reseated himself in a large armchair near the door. “Did the antique
cutlery actually disappear?”
“Nothing was taken. The thief was evidently frightened off before
he made his haul.”
“Sounds a bit thick, don’t y’ know.—An amateur thief breaks into
a prominent home, casts a predat’ry eye on the dining-room silver,
takes alarm, goes up-stairs and shoots two women in their
respective boudoirs, and then flees. . . . Very touchin’ and all that,
but unconvincin’. Whence came this caressin’ theory?”
Markham was glowering, but when he spoke it was with an effort
at restraint.
“Feathergill was on duty last night when the call was relayed
from Headquarters, and accompanied the police to the house. He
agrees with their conclusions.”5
“Nevertheless, I could bear to know why Chester Greene is
desirous of having polite converse with you.”
Markham compressed his lips. He was not in cordial mood that
morning, and Vance’s flippant curiosity irked him. After a moment,
however, he said grudgingly:
“Since the attempted robbery interests you so keenly, you may, if
you insist, wait and hear what Greene has to say.”
“I’ll stay,” smiled Vance, removing his coat. “I’m weak; just can’t
resist a passionate entreaty. . . . Which one of the Greenes is
Chester? And how is he related to the two deceased?”
“There was only one murder,” Markham corrected him in a tone
of forbearance. “The oldest daughter—an unmarried woman in her
early forties—was killed instantly. A younger daughter, who was also
shot, has, I believe, a chance of recovery.”
“And Chester?”
“Chester is the elder son, a man of forty or thereabouts. He was
the first person on the scene after the shots had been fired.”
“What other members of the family are there? I know old Tobias
Greene has gone to his Maker.”
“Yes, old Tobias died about twelve years ago. But his wife is still
living, though she’s a helpless paralytic. Then there are—or rather
were—five children: the oldest, Julia; next, Chester; then another
daughter, Sibella, a few years under thirty, I should say; then Rex, a
sickly, bookish boy a year or so younger than Sibella; and Ada, the
youngest—an adopted daughter twenty-two or three, perhaps.”
“And it was Julia who was killed, eh? Which of the other two girls
was shot?”
 “The younger—Ada. Her room, it seems, is across the hall from
Julia’s, and the thief apparently got in it by mistake while making his
escape. As I understand it, he entered Ada’s room immediately after
firing on Julia, saw his error, fired again, and then fled, eventually
going down the stairs and out the main entrance.”
Vance smoked a while in silence.
“Your hypothetical intruder must have been deuced confused to
have mistaken Ada’s bedroom door for the staircase, what? And then
there’s the query: what was this anonymous gentleman, who had
called to collect the plate, doing above-stairs?”
“Probably looking for jewellery.” Markham was rapidly losing
patience. “I am not omniscient.” There was irony in his inflection.
“Now, now, Markham!” pleaded Vance cajolingly. “Don’t be
vindictive. Your Greene burglary promises several nice points in
academic speculation. Permit me to indulge my idle whims.”
At that moment Swacker, Markham’s youthful and alert secretary,
appeared at the swinging door which communicated with a narrow
chamber between the main waiting-room and the District Attorney’s
private office.
“Mr. Chester Greene is here,” he announced.
 CHAPTER II.
The Investigation Opens
(Tuesday, November 9; 11 a. m.)

When Chester Greene entered it was obvious he was under a

nervous strain; but his nervousness evoked no sympathy in me.
From the very first I disliked the man. He was of medium height and
was bordering on corpulence. There was something soft and flabby
in his contours; and, though he was dressed with studied care, there
were certain signs of overemphasis about his clothes. His cuffs were
too tight; his collar was too snug; and the colored silk handkerchief
hung too far out of his breast pocket. He was slightly bald, and the
lids of his close-set eyes projected like those of a man with Bright’s
disease. His mouth, surmounted by a close-cropped blond
moustache, was loose; and his chin receded slightly and was deeply
creased below the under lip. He typified the pampered idler.
When he had shaken hands with Markham, and Vance and I had
been introduced, he seated himself and meticulously inserted a
brown Russian cigarette in a long amber-and-gold holder.
“I’d be tremendously obliged, Markham,” he said, lighting his
cigarette from an ivory pocket-lighter, “if you’d make a personal
investigation of the row that occurred at our diggin’s last night. The
police will never get anywhere the way they’re going about it. Good
fellows, you understand—the police. But . . . well, there’s something
about this affair—don’t know just how to put it. Anyway, I don’t like
it.”
Markham studied him closely for several moments.
“Just what’s on your mind, Greene?”
 The other crushed out his cigarette, though he had taken no
more than half a dozen puffs, and drummed indecisively on the arm
of his chair.
“Wish I knew. It’s a rum affair—damned rum. There’s something
back of it, too—something that’s going to raise the very devil if we
don’t stop it. Can’t explain it. It’s a feeling I’ve got.”
“Perhaps Mr. Greene is psychic,” commented Vance, with a look
of bland innocence.
The man swung about and scrutinized Vance with aggressive
condescension. “Tosh!” He brought out another Russian cigarette,
and turned again to Markham: “I do wish you’d take a peep at the
situation.”
Markham hesitated. “Surely you’ve some reason for disagreeing
with the police and appealing to me.”
“Funny thing, but I haven’t.” (It seemed to me Greene’s hand
shook slightly as he lit his second cigarette.) “I simply know that my
mind rejects the burglar story automatically.”
It was difficult to tell if he were being frank or deliberately hiding
something. I did feel, however, that some sort of fear lurked beneath
his uneasiness; and I also got the impression that he was far from
being heart-broken over the tragedy.
“It seems to me,” declared Markham, “that the theory of the
burglar is entirely consistent with the facts. There have been many
other cases of a housebreaker suddenly taking alarm, losing his
head, and needlessly shooting people.”
Greene rose abruptly and began pacing up and down.
“I can’t argue the case,” he muttered. “It’s beyond all that, if you
understand me.” He looked quickly at the District Attorney with
staring eyes. “Gad! It’s got me in a cold sweat.”
“It’s all too vague and intangible,” Markham observed kindly. “I’m
inclined to think the tragedy has upset you. Perhaps after a day or
two——”
Greene lifted a protesting hand.
“It’s no go. I’m telling you, Markham, the police will never find
their burglar. I feel it—here.” He mincingly laid a manicured hand on
his breast.
 Vance had been watching him with a faint suggestion of
amusement. Now he stretched his legs before him and gazed up at
the ceiling.
“I say, Mr. Greene—pardon the intrusion on your esoteric
gropings—but do you know of any one with a reason for wanting
your two sisters out of the way?”
The man looked blank for a moment.
“No,” he answered finally; “can’t say that I do. Who, in Heaven’s
name, would want to kill two harmless women?”
“I haven’t the groggiest notion. But, since you repudiate the
burglar theory, and since the two ladies were undoubtedly shot, it’s
inferable that some one sought their demise; and it occurred to me
that you, being their brother and domiciled en famille, might know of
some one who harbored homicidal sentiments toward them.”
Greene bristled, and thrust his head forward. “I know of no one,”
he blurted. Then, turning to Markham, he continued wheedlingly: “If
I had the slightest suspicion, don’t you think I’d come out with it?
This thing has got on my nerves. I’ve been mulling over it all night,
and it’s—it’s bothersome, frightfully bothersome.”
Markham nodded non-committally, and rising, walked to the
window, where he stood, his hands behind him, gazing down on the
gray stone masonry of the Tombs.
Vance, despite his apparent apathy, had been studying Greene
closely; and, as Markham turned to the window, he straightened up
slightly in his chair.
“Tell me,” he began, an ingratiating note in his voice; “just what
happened last night? I understand you were the first to reach the
prostrate women.”
“I was the first to reach my sister Julia,” retorted Greene, with a
hint of resentment. “It was Sproot, the butler, who found Ada
unconscious, bleeding from a nasty wound in her back.”
“Her back, eh?” Vance leaned forward, and lifted his eyebrows.
“She was shot from behind, then?”
“Yes.” Greene frowned and inspected his fingernails, as if he too
sensed something disturbing in the fact.
“And Miss Julia Greene: was she too shot from behind?”
 “No—from the front.”
“Extr’ordin’ry!” Vance blew a ring of smoke toward the dusty
chandelier. “And had both women retired for the night?”
“An hour before. . . . But what has all that got to do with it?”
“One never knows, does one? However, it’s always well to be in
possession of these little details when trying to run down the elusive
source of a psychic seizure.”
“Psychic seizure be damned!” growled Greene truculently. “Can’t
a man have a feeling about something without——?”
“Quite—quite. But you’ve asked for the District Attorney’s
assistance, and I’m sure he would like a few data before making a
decision.”
Markham came forward and sat down on the edge of the table.
His curiosity had been aroused, and he indicated to Greene his
sympathy with Vance’s interrogation.
Greene pursed his lips, and returned his cigarette-holder to his
pocket.
“Oh, very well. What else do you want to know?”
“You might relate for us,” dulcetly resumed Vance, “the exact
order of events after you heard the first shot. I presume you did
hear the shot.”
“Certainly I heard it—couldn’t have helped hearing it. Julia’s room
is next to mine, and I was still awake. I jumped into my slippers and
pulled on my dressing-gown; then I went out into the hall. It was
dark, and I felt my way along the wall until I reached Julia’s door. I
opened it and looked in—didn’t know who might be there waiting to
pop me—and I saw her lying in bed, the front of her nightgown
covered with blood. There was no one else in the room, and I went
to her immediately. Just then I heard another shot which sounded as
if it came from Ada’s room. I was a bit muzzy by this time—didn’t
know what I’d better do; and as I stood by Julia’s bed in something
of a funk—oh, I was in a funk all right . . .”
“Can’t say that I blame you,” Vance encouraged him.
Greene nodded. “A damned ticklish position to be in. Well,
anyway, as I stood there, I heard some one coming down the stairs
from the servants’ quarters on the third floor, and recognized old
Sproot’s tread. He fumbled along in the dark, and I heard him enter
Ada’s door. Then he called to me, and I hurried over. Ada was lying
in front of the dressing-table; and Sproot and I lifted her on the bed.
I’d gone a bit weak in the knees; was expecting any minute to hear
another shot—don’t know why. Anyway, it didn’t come; and then I
heard Sproot’s voice at the hall telephone calling up Doctor Von
Blon.”
“I see nothing in your account, Greene, inconsistent with the
theory of a burglar,” observed Markham. “And furthermore,
Feathergill, my assistant, says there were two sets of confused
footprints in the snow outside the front door.”
Greene shrugged his shoulders, but did not answer.
“By the by, Mr. Greene,”—Vance had slipped down in his chair
and was staring into space—“you said that when you looked into
Miss Julia’s room you saw her in bed. How was that? Did you turn on
the light?”
“Why, no!” The man appeared puzzled by the question. “The light
was on.”
There was a flutter of interest in Vance’s eyes.
“And how about Miss Ada’s room? Was the light on there also?”
“Yes.”
Vance reached into his pocket, and, drawing out his cigarette-
case, carefully and deliberately selected a cigarette. I recognized in
the action an evidence of repressed inner excitement.
“So the lights were on in both rooms. Most interestin’.”
Markham, too, recognized the eagerness beneath his apparent
indifference, and regarded him expectantly.
“And,” pursued Vance, after lighting his cigarette leisurely, “how
long a time would you say elapsed between the two shots?”
Greene was obviously annoyed by this cross-examination, but he
answered readily.
“Two or three minutes—certainly no longer.”
“Still,” ruminated Vance, “after you heard the first shot you rose
from your bed, donned slippers and robe, went into the hall, felt
along the wall to the next room, opened the door cautiously, peered
inside, and then crossed the room to the bed—all this, I gather,
before the second shot was fired. Is that correct?”
“Certainly it’s correct.”
“Well, well! As you say, two or three minutes. Yes, at least that.
Astonishin’!” Vance turned to Markham. “Really, y’ know, old man, I
don’t wish to influence your judgment, but I rather think you ought
to accede to Mr. Greene’s request to take a hand in this
investigation. I too have a psychic feeling about the case. Something
tells me that your eccentric burglar will prove an ignis fatuus.”
Markham eyed him with meditative curiosity. Not only had
Vance’s questioning of Greene interested him keenly, but he knew,
as a result of long experience, that Vance would not have made the
suggestion had he not had a good reason for doing so. I was in no
wise surprised, therefore, when he turned to his restive visitor and
said:
“Very well, Greene, I’ll see what I can do in the matter. I’ll
probably be at your house early this afternoon. Please see that every
one is present, as I’ll want to question them.”
Greene held out a trembling hand. “The domestic roster—family
and servants—will be complete when you arrive.”
He strode pompously from the room.
Vance sighed. “Not a nice creature, Markham—not at all a nice
creature. I shall never be a politician if it involves an acquaintance
with such gentlemen.”
Markham seated himself at his desk with a disgruntled air.
“Greene is highly regarded as a social—not a political—
decoration,” he said maliciously. “He belongs to your totem, not
mine.”
“Fancy that!” Vance stretched himself luxuriously. “Still, it’s you
who fascinate him. Intuition tells me he is not overfond of me.”
“You did treat him a bit cavalierly. Sarcasm is not exactly a means
of endearment.”
“But, Markham old thing, I wasn’t pining for Chester’s affection.”
“You think he knows, or suspects, something?”
Vance gazed through the long window into the bleak sky beyond.
 “I wonder,” he murmured. Then: “Is Chester, by any chance, a
typical representative of the Greene family? Of recent years I’ve
done so little mingling with the élite that I’m woefully ignorant of the
East Side nabobs.”
Markham nodded reflectively.
“I’m afraid he is. The original Greene stock was sturdy, but the
present generation seems to have gone somewhat to pot. Old Tobias
the Third—Chester’s father—was a rugged and, in many ways,
admirable character. He appears, however, to have been the last heir
of the ancient Greene qualities. What’s left of the family has suffered
some sort of disintegration. They’re not exactly soft, but tainted with
patches of incipient decay, like fruit that’s lain on the ground too
long. Too much money and leisure, I imagine, and too little restraint.
On the other hand, there’s a certain intellectuality lurking in the new
Greenes. They all seem to have good minds, even if futile and
misdirected. In fact, I think you underestimate Chester. For all his
banalities and effeminate mannerisms, he’s far from being as stupid
as you regard him.”
“I regard Chester as stupid! My dear Markham! You wrong me
abominably. No, no. There’s nothing of the anointed ass about our
Chester. He’s shrewder even than you think him. Those œdematous
eyelids veil a pair of particularly crafty eyes. Indeed, it was largely
his studied pose of fatuousness that led me to suggest that you aid
and abet in the investigation.”
Markham leaned back and narrowed his eyes.
“What’s in your mind, Vance?”
“I told you. A psychic seizure—same like Chester’s subliminal
visitation.”
Markham knew, by this elusive answer, that for the moment
Vance had no intention of being more definite; and after a moment
of scowling silence he turned to the telephone.
“If I’m to take on this case, I’d better find out who has charge of
it and get what preliminary information I can.”
He called up Inspector Moran, the commanding officer of the
Detective Bureau. After a brief conversation he turned to Vance with
a smile.
 “Your friend, Sergeant Heath, has the case in hand. He happened
to be in the office just now, and is coming here immediately.”6
In less than fifteen minutes Heath arrived. Despite the fact that
he had been up most of the night, he appeared unusually alert and
energetic. His broad, pugnacious features were as imperturbable as
ever, and his pale-blue eyes held their habitual penetrating
intentness. He greeted Markham with an elaborate, though
perfunctory, handshake; and then, seeing Vance, relaxed his
features into a good-natured smile.
“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Vance! What have you been up to, sir?”
Vance rose and shook hands with him.
“Alas, Sergeant, I’ve been immersed in the terra-cotta
ornamentation of Renaissance façades, and other such trivialities,
since I saw you last.7 But I’m happy to note that crime is picking up
again. It’s a deuced drab world without a nice murky murder now
and then, don’t y’ know.”
Heath cocked an eye, and turned inquiringly to the District
Attorney. He had long since learned how to read between the lines
of Vance’s badinage.
“It’s this Greene case, Sergeant,” said Markham.
“I thought so.” Heath sat down heavily, and inserted a black cigar
between his lips. “But nothing’s broken yet. We’re rounding up all
the regulars, and looking into their alibis for last night. But it’ll take
several days before the check-up’s complete. If the bird who did the
job hadn’t got scared before he grabbed the swag, we might be able
to trace him through the pawnshops and fences. But something
rattled him, or he wouldn’t have shot up the works the way he did.
And that’s what makes me think he may be a new one at the racket.
If he is, it’ll make our job harder.” He held a match in cupped hands
to his cigar, and puffed furiously. “What did you want to know about
the prowl, sir?”
Markham hesitated. The Sergeant’s matter-of-fact assumption
that a common burglar was the culprit disconcerted him.
“Chester Greene was here,” he explained presently; “and he
seems convinced that the shooting was not the work of a thief. He
asked me, as a special favor, to look into the matter.”
Heath gave a derisive grunt.
“Who but a burglar in a panic would shoot down two women?”
“Quite so, Sergeant.” It was Vance who answered. “Still, the
lights were turned on in both rooms, though the women had gone to
bed an hour before; and there was an interval of several minutes
between the two shots.”
“I know all that.” Heath spoke impatiently. “But if an amachoor
did the job, we can’t tell exactly what did happen up-stairs there last
night. When a bird loses his head——”
“Ah! There’s the rub. When a thief loses his head, d’ ye see, he
isn’t apt to go from room to room turning on the lights, even
assuming he knows where and how to turn them on. And he
certainly isn’t going to dally around for several minutes in a black
hall between such fantastic operations, especially after he has shot
some one and alarmed the house, what? It doesn’t look like panic to
me; it looks strangely like design. Moreover, why should this precious
amateur of yours be cavorting about the boudoirs up-stairs when the
loot was in the dining-room below?”
“We’ll learn all about that when we’ve got our man,” countered
Heath doggedly.
“The point is, Sergeant,” put in Markham, “I’ve given Mr. Greene
my promise to look into the matter, and I wanted to get what details
I could from you. You understand, of course,” he added mollifyingly,
“that I shall not interfere with your activities in any way. Whatever
the outcome of the case, your department will receive entire credit.”
“Oh, that’s all right, sir.” Experience had taught Heath that he had
nothing to fear in the way of lost kudos when working with
Markham. “But I don’t think, in spite of Mr. Vance’s ideas, that you’ll
find much in the Greene case to warrant attention.”
“Perhaps not,” Markham admitted. “However, I’ve committed
myself, and I think I’ll run out this afternoon and look over the
situation, if you’ll give me the lie of the land.”
“There isn’t much to tell.” Heath chewed on his cigar cogitatingly.
“A Doctor Von Blon—the Greene family physician—phoned
Headquarters about midnight. I’d just got in from an up-town stick-