The Greatest Works of S. S. Van Dine (Illustrated Edition). S.S. Van DineЧитать онлайн книгу.
upon me. Had I not gambled in this instance, I stood to lose heavily nevertheless.”
His face grew bitter.
“This woman, Mr. Markham, had demanded the impossible of me. Not content with bleeding me financially, she demanded legal protection, position, social prestige—such things as only my name could give her. She informed me I must divorce my wife and marry her. I wonder if you apprehend the enormity of that demand? . . . You see, Mr. Markham, I love my wife, and I have children whom I love. I will not insult your intelligence by explaining how, despite my conduct, such a thing is entirely possible. . . . And yet, this woman commanded me to wreck my life and crush utterly those I held dear, solely to gratify her petty, ridiculous ambition! When I refused, she threatened to expose our relations to my wife, to send her copies of the letters I had written, to sue me publicly—in fine, to create such a scandal that, in any event, my life would be ruined, my family disgraced, my home destroyed.”
He paused and drew a deep inspiration.
“I have never been partial to half-way measures,” he continued impassively. “I have no talent for compromise. Perhaps I am a victim of my heritage. But my instinct is to play out a hand to the last chip—to force whatever danger threatens. And for just five minutes, a week ago, I understood how the fanatics of old could, with a calm mind and a sense of righteousness, torture their enemies who threatened them with spiritual destruction. . . . I chose the only course which might save those I love from disgrace and suffering. It meant taking a desperate risk. But the blood within me was such that I did not hesitate, and I was fired by the agony of a tremendous hate. I staked my life against a living death, on the remote chance of attaining peace. And I lost.”
Again he smiled faintly.
“Yes—the fortunes of the game. . . . But don’t think for a minute that I am complaining or seeking sympathy. I have lied to others perhaps, but not to myself. I detest a whiner—a self-excuser. I want you to understand that.”
He reached to the table at his side and took up a small limp-leather volume.
“Only last night I was reading Wilde’s ‘De Profundis.’ Had I been gifted with words, I might have made a similar confession. Let me show you what I mean so that, at least, you won’t attribute to me the final infamy of cravenness.”
He opened the book, and began reading in a voice whose very fervor held us all silent:
“ ‘I brought about my own downfall. No one, be he high or low, need be ruined by any other hand than his own. Readily as I confess this, there are many who will, at this time at least, receive the confession sceptically. And although I thus mercilessly accuse myself, bear in mind that I do so without offering any excuse. Terrible as is the punishment inflicted upon me by the world, more terrible is the ruin I have brought upon myself. . . . In the dawn of manhood I recognized my position. . . . I enjoyed an honored name, an eminent social position. . . . Then came the turning-point. I had become tired of dwelling on the heights—and descended by my own will into the depths. . . . I satisfied my desires wherever it suited me, and passed on. I forgot that every act, even the most insignificant act, of daily life, in some degree, makes or unmakes the character; and every occurrence which transpires in the seclusion of the chamber will some day be proclaimed from the housetops. I lost control of myself. I was no longer at the helm, and knew it not. I had become a slave to pleasure. . . . One thing only is left to me—complete humility.’ ”
He tossed the book aside.
“You understand now, Mr. Markham?”
Markham did not speak for several moments.
“Do you care to tell me about Skeel?” he at length asked.
“That swine!” Spotswoode sneered his disgust. “I could murder such creatures every day and regard myself as a benefactor of society. . . . Yes, I strangled him, and I would have done it before, only the opportunity did not offer. . . . It was Skeel who was hiding in the closet when I returned to the apartment after the theatre, and he must have seen me kill the woman. Had I known he was behind that locked closet door, I would have broken it down and wiped him out then. But how was I to know? It seemed natural that the closet might have been kept locked—I didn’t give it a second thought. . . . And the next night he telephoned me to the club here. He had first called my home on Long Island, and learned that I was staying here. I had never seen him before—didn’t know of his existence. But, it seems, he had equipped himself with a knowledge of my identity—probably some of the money I gave to the woman went to him. What a muck-heap I had fallen into! . . . When he phoned, he mentioned the phonograph, and I knew he had found out something. I met him in the Waldorf lobby, and he told me the truth: there was no doubting his word. When he saw I was convinced, he demanded so enormous a sum that I was staggered.”
Spotswoode lit a cigarette with steady fingers.
“Mr. Markham, I am no longer a rich man. The truth is, I am on the verge of bankruptcy. The business my father left me has been in a receiver’s hands for nearly a year. The Long Island estate on which I live belongs to my wife. Few people know these things, but unfortunately they are true. It would have been utterly impossible for me to raise the amount Skeel demanded, even had I been inclined to play the coward. I did, however, give him a small sum to keep him quiet for a few days, promising him all he asked as soon as I could convert some of my holdings. I hoped in the interim to get possession of the record and thus spike his guns. But in that I failed; and so, when he threatened to tell you everything, I agreed to bring the money to his home late last Saturday night. I kept the appointment, with the full intention of killing him. I was careful about entering, but he had helped me by explaining when and how I could get in without being seen. Once there, I wasted no time. The first moment he was off his guard I seized him—and gloried in the act. Then, locking the door and taking the key, I walked out of the house quite openly, and returned here to the club.—That’s all, I think.”
Vance was watching him musingly.
“So when you raised my bet last night,” he said, “the amount represented a highly important item in your exchequer.”
Spotswoode smiled faintly.
“It represented practically every cent I had in the world.”
“Astonishin’! . . . And would you mind if I asked you why you selected the label of Beethoven’s Andante for your record?”
“Another miscalculation,” the man said wearily. “It occurred to me that if any one should, by any chance, open the phonograph before I could return and destroy the record, he wouldn’t be as likely to want to hear the classics as he would a more popular selection.”
“And one who detests popular music had to find it! I fear, Mr. Spotswoode, that an unkind fate sat in at your game.”
“Yes. . . . If I were religiously inclined, I might talk poppycock about retribution and divine punishment.”
“I’d like to ask you about the jewellery,” said Markham. “It’s not sportsmanlike to do it, and I wouldn’t suggest it, except that you’ve already confessed voluntarily to the main points at issue.”
“I shall take no offense at any question you desire to ask, sir,” Spotswoode answered. “After I had recovered my letters from the document-box, I turned the rooms upside down to give the impression of a burglary—being careful to use gloves, of course. And I took the woman’s jewellery for the same reason. Parenthetically, I had paid for most of it. I offered it as a sop to Skeel, but he was afraid to accept it; and finally I decided to rid myself of it. I wrapped it in one of the club newspapers and threw it in a waste-bin near the Flatiron Building.”
“You wrapped it in the morning Herald,” put in Heath. “Did you know that Pop Cleaver reads nothing but the Herald?”
“Sergeant!” Vance’s voice was a cutting reprimand. “Certainly Mr. Spotswoode was not aware of that fact—else he would not have selected the Herald.”
Spotswoode smiled at Heath with pitying contempt. Then, with an appreciative glance at Vance, he turned back to Markham.