the corey ford murder case

COREY FORD

the author solves the motive for one of the most logical assassinations in crime annals

This detective story gets off to a very exciting start, because in the opening chapter I am discovered shot, poisoned, drowned, strangled, asphyxiated, punctured with a quaint Oriental dagger, drawn and quartered, torch-murdered, dynamited, beheaded, and bitten by a snake—dead.

On the other hand, there are one or two rather serious disadvantages to this lightning start. In the first place, the fact that I am killed at the outset of my own novel may be original, but it makes it the least bit difficult for me to go on writing it any further. It is one of the few remaining conventions of detective story writing that dead men tell no tales. I have read thousands and thousands (and thousands) of detective stories in the past few months—not one-tenth of the general output, at that—and although the ingenious authors have been known to resort to visions, walking ghosts, flashbacks, discoveries that Uncle Abner was only playing 'possum in order to test young Frederic's sincerity, discoveries that the supposed body of Uncle Abner was really nothing but a stuffed dummy or the corpse of an obliging friend, discoveries that there never ivas an Uncle Abner, all these devices nevertheless have adhered in general to the ancient and honourable maxim. And so if I have allowed myself to be so indubitably butchered in the opening chapter, any further writing I may attempt after that would scarcely be cricket.

Then there is another difficulty: I want to be one of the detectives. Every author of a detective story wants to be the detective. He may be a harmless old spinster, or Sherlock Holmes, or the wealthy young bachelor who just dabbles in crime for the sport of the thing, or Mr. Wu, or a sleuth from Scotland Yard (comic), or a newspaper reporter, or a faithful pony, or one of Mr. Milne's young couples in love; but whatever type of detective he is, that is where he has his fun. That is where he can tiptoe around to his heart's content, and make mysterious notes on the inside of a paper match-safe, and expound some unique theory of his own that all crime is directly traceable to the angle of the eyebrows, women, or a taste for broccoli. The only advantage in being the corpse is that you can wipe your make-up off and be home and in bed before eleven o'clock.

There is a third disadvantage. If I am so enthusiastically done away with at the very beginning of my own book, I admit I am a little curious to know the reason why. After all, there must have been some motive. To be sure, this is the first detective story I've ever attempted; but I've read all of Mr. Wallace's, and Mr. Biggers', and Mrs. Frances Noyes Hart's, and Mr. Willard Huntington Wright's, and they all had motives. (Some of them were a bit obscure; but still they were there, you felt.) Under the present arrangement I should never know who killed me, let alone why.

So I think the only thing to do under the circumstances (if Mr. Wright doesn't mind) is to change my name, and appear in my story as Philo Vance. I'll be Philo Vance; and Corey Ford will be the elderly author of this detective story, who was found in a silk dressing gown, at the very outset of his novel, in a peculiarly messy condition.

Now to go on with the story.

Chapter Two

The telephone tinkled in a smart Park Avenue apartment, and an immaculate young man (you'd never recognize me with my hair all slicked down) strode quickly across the room and lifted the receiver from the hook.

"Hello?"

"Is this Philo Vance?"

"Speaking."

"Look, old chap, this is Dick Dashit—you remember me; we roomed together at Twig; reporter on the London Times, you know, in love with the daughter of the Managing Editor —well, listen, Philo, there's been an ugly business up at Corey Ford's. Murdered, and killed, and slain, and chopped up no end. Whole town's excited. I got the assignment—want to make a scoop, win the girl; you know how it is. Wondering if you had any idea who did it."

"Have they got any clews?" asked Vance slowly.

"Oh, nothing much. The usual thing. Gripes, the butler, was discovered beside the body with a smoking revolver in his hand. And the housekeeper, Mrs. Phipps, had a bottle in her room half-filled with the same poison they found in his port. Oh, and I believe that his dissolute nephew was discovered with bloodstains all down his vest. And then of course there was the usual run of Indian snakecharmers under the bed, and a file of Chinese in the grandfather's clock, and whatnot. Nothing you could lay your hands on."

"Is anyone covering the case?"

"Oh, sure, all of us. Grimshaw of Scotland Yard and Inspector Burns of New York are more or less taking charge; but old Dr. Brett, the eccentric scientist, is on the job again, and timid Aunt Mary who is forever stumbling into things—couldn't do without her, you know—and Sherlock Holmes happened in, and old Ford's attractive young daughter Phyllis and her fiance, and no end of clever young menabout-town in evening jackets. All the sleuths you ever heard of. You see, old Ford was about to write a detective story of his own—" "Ah?"

"We're all dropping around to view the corpse at tea," rushed Dashit, not heeding the glint of comprehension in the other's tone, "and I wondered if you would care to join us for a snack. Sort of a coroner's inquest, as it were."

"I should love it."

"Good. See you in an hour. I say, Philo," eagerly, "you can't let a chap have just a bit of a hint who did it?"

"We shall see what we shall see," smiled Philo Vance enigmatically.

Chapter Three

The library in which the corpse was situated was a typical millionaire's study, with thick draperies, a low ceiling, and expensive rugs scattered with a studied carelessness across the polished floor. At one end of the room was a huge stone fireplace; at the other a bay window looked out upon a narrow, dark court. The body of the victim lay slumped across a mahogany desk, facing the door; part of a glass of port still stood on a tray before him, and a crumpled piece of paper was clutched in his lifeless hand.

"Not a bad layout," commented Dashit to Vance, noticing that the suave young man was surveying the details of the room minutely. "Understand old Ford bought it furnished from Edgar Wallace. It was the scene of a couple of his most dastardly crimes."

"I thought I recognized it," replied Philo Vance, with the trace of a smile at the corners of his lips.

"Of course, it was nice of you chaps to drop up and all that," interrupted the rough voice of Inspector Grimshaw of Scotland Yard, "but I hardly think there's any mystery who did it. This tell-tale dagger," and he pointed to a knife which quivered between the shoulderblades of the deceased, the initials "W. D." plainly visible on its handle, "points rather conclusively to his nephew, Willie Drounce."

"On the other hand,''said Holmes, "the angle at which the bullet entered the body would indicate that the criminal is lefthanded, as well as careless in his personal appearance, fond of Swinburne, speaks with a lisp, and is madly infatuated with a dark woman known only as Isabel."

"But the fingerprints on his throat," cried Dr. Brett in a high voice, "are clearly those of his valet, Jenks."

"I suppose it's none of my business," murmured Aunt Mary, glancing up from her knitting timidly, "but have any of you noted these parallel grooves in the waxed floor? They could only have been done by a pair of roller skates."

"It's all very well for you to make your horrid accusations," retorted young Phyllis, choking back her tears, "but how do you explain this name upside down on his blotter? Who is Andrew L. Vunt anyway?"

"Just one moment!" Inspector Burns held up his hand triumphantly. "While you've all been talking, I've been developing the negative in this automatic camera rigged up here on the mantelpiece. Clever old Ford had it fixed so that the murderer in attacking him would tread upon the bulb and set off the shutter. And the photograph is—" He paused impressively.

"Before we tell who is in the picture, Inspector," suggested Philo Vance quietly, "why not ask in all the suspects and confront them with the evidence?" And with a catlike gesture he reached behind him and flung open the door.

Chapter Four

As Philo Vance threw open the library door, a motley assembly filed sheepishly into the already crowded room. Gripes, the butler, led the way, his smoking revolver still clutched in his hand. Next came Mrs. Phipps, the housekeeper, with her phial of poison, followed by the valet, Jenks, concealing his fingertips guiltily in a pair of ill-fitting furnace gloves. Willie Drounce was next, wiping his blood-stained hands nervously on his trousers; and behind him the suave figure of Lu Wu, the Japanese chauffeur, glided impassively on roller-skates. These were followed by an ever-increasing line of suspicious characters: an Indian snake-charmer, one or two Master Criminals, a gorilla, a former business associate with a grudge, an exotic foreign countess with jet ear-rings, a mildmannered curate, several relatives who had been invited to come at midnight to hear the reading of the will, and a leering dwarf with parchment-like skin who was known only as The Spider. Into the library they crowded in a seemingly endless array, more and yet more, each starting guiltily at the sight of the corpse and then attempting to bluster it off with a faint laugh as he caught the steel-grey eye of Philo Vance upon him.

For a moment the group of detectives faced the file of culprits in silence. Grimshaw of Scotland Yard was the first to speak.

"Willie Drounce," he announced triumphantly, "was the cold-blooded criminal."

The other detectives glanced at each other in surprise.

"Impossible," began Holmes impatiently. "The murderer was left-handed!" And he glanced significantly at the former business associate, who instantly transferred his briefcase to his right hand.

"The fingerprints are Jenks'," insisted Dr. Brett.

"How about those roller-skate tracks?" reminded Aunt Mary, edging away nervously from the impassive Japanese chauffeur.

"Oh, you fools, you fools," sobbed Phyllis hysterically. "Can't you see that Andrew L. Vunt is slipping through your very fingers?"

Philo Vance allowed a mocking smile to play for a moment about the corners of his mouth.

"May I inquire," he said in a cool voice, "which one of you really is the murderer of Corey Ford?"

Continued on page 114

Continued from, page 89

"I AM!" replied the roomful as one.

There was a moment of consternation; then Gripes the butler stepped forward apologetically.

"Hif it please you, sir," he began, "if you'd been in as many detective stories as wre have, you'd understand. Over and over I've 'ad to discover the body of the deceased in a silk dressing gown. Always the same old library, sir, and the same old missing will, and the same old millionaire, and the same old daughter, begging your pardon, Miss Phyllis. And so when we seen that this 'ere Mr. Corey Ford was about to turn to and do another detective story, sir—" His voice broke.

"Pray go on," said Philo Vance quietly.

"Well, sir, I guess we just lost our 'eads and became as beasts. When I looked at that first paragraph, sir, and seen old Mr. Ford seated as usual in his library, with the thick draperies and the fireplace and all the rest— well, everything just went black before me heyes, sir. That's all I remember. Please send us to the gallows, deport us to Siberia,—anything, sir, except make us go through a detective story again—"

"There's no danger of that, my man," interrupted Inspector Burns in a commanding voice that instantly silenced the room and focused all eyes upon the speaker. "We have forgotten that in this camera I have one bit of evidence which has not yet been introduced."

He paused impressively and held up a single blurred negative to the tense and spell-bound audience.

"The real murderer of Corey Ford," he said slowly, "is Philo Vance."

Chapter Five:

As all eyes sought the calm face of the unperturbed young man whose name had just been uttered, Philo Vance allowed the ghost of a smile to play about his mouth.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I beg to call your attention to the single piece of paper which is even now clutched in the fingers of the victim's hand."

With catlike tread he crossed the room and smoothed out the crumpled document. As all crowded about him, they recognized the title-page of Corey Ford's book. Scrawled hastily in pencil in a hand that could have been none other than that of the deceased, was the single word: "Over."

"Turn it upside down," urged Inspector Burns hoarsely.

Philo Vance reversed the page with a faint twinkle in his eye.

"'It is too much,' " he read aloud in a calm voice. " 'I cannot stand the disgrace. In all the weeks and months and years that I have read detective stories, I never dreamt the time should come when I too should find my name as the author. I shall seek the only way out. Corey Ford.' "

Vance laid the paper down gently on the blotter and a tiny smile twitched the corners of his lip.

"Gentlemen, the truth is out at last," he said. "It was a plain case of suicide."

Chapter Six:

I must admit I enjoyed being Philo Vance, though. It's the only time I've ever been able to make my lips twitch.