"Van Dine, S.S. - The Kidnap Murder Case" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Dine S S)

THE KIDNAP MURDER CASE



CHAPTER I

KIDNAPPED!


(Wednesday, July 20; 9:30 a.m.)


Philo Vance, as you may remember, took a solitary trip to Egypt
immediately after the termination of the Garden murder case.* He
did not return to New York until the middle of July. He was
considerably tanned, and there was a tired look in his wide-set
grey eyes. I suspected, the moment I greeted him on the dock, that
during his absence he had thrown himself into Egyptological
research, which was an old passion of his.


* "The Garden Murder Case" (Scribners, 1935).


"I'm fagged out, Van," he complained good-naturedly, as we settled
ourselves in a taxicab and started uptown to his apartment. "I
need a rest. We're not leavin' New York this summer--you won't
mind, I hope. I've brought back a couple of boxes of archжological
specimens. See about them tomorrow, will you?--there's a good
fellow."

Even his voice sounded weary. His words carried a curious
undertone of distraction; and the idea flashed through my mind that
he had not altogether succeeded in eliminating from his thoughts
the romantic memory of a certain young woman he had met during the
strange and fateful occurrences in the penthouse of Professor
Ephraim Garden.* My surmise must have been correct, for it was
that very evening, when he was relaxing in his roof-garden, that
Vance remarked to me, apropos of nothing that had gone before: "A
man's affections involve a great responsibility. The things a man
wants most must often be sacrificed because of this exacting
responsibility." I felt quite certain then that his sudden and
prolonged trip to Egypt had not been an unqualified success as far
as his personal objective was concerned.


* This famous case had taken place just three months earlier.


For the next few days Vance busied himself in arranging,