The Benson Murder Case

by S. S. Van Dine


[Frontispiece: Philo Vance, from a drawing by Herbert Stoops. A sketch
of a seated gentleman in evening dress and wearing an monocle.]


Contents

    I. Philo Vance at Home
   II. At the Scene of the Crime
  III. A Lady’s Hand-bag
   IV. The Housekeeper’s Story
    V. Gathering Information
   VI. Vance Offers an Opinion
  VII. Reports and an Interview
 VIII. Vance Accepts a Challenge
   IX. The Height of the Murderer
    X. Eliminating a Suspect
   XI. A Motive and a Threat
  XII. The Owner of a Colt-.45
 XIII. The Grey Cadillac
  XIV. Links in the Chain
   XV. “Pfyfe—Personal”
  XVI. Admissions and Suppressions
 XVII. The Forged Check
XVIII. A Confession
  XIX. Vance Cross-examines
   XX. A Lady Explains
  XXI. Sartorial Revelations
 XXII. Vance Outlines a Theory
XXIII. Checking an Alibi
 XXIV. The Arrest
  XXV. Vance Explains His Methods



  “Mr. Mason,” he said, “I wish to thank you for
  my life.”

  “Sir,” said Mason, “I had no interest in your
  life. The adjustment of your problem was the
  only thing of interest to me.”

    —Randolph Mason: Corrector of Destinies.



Publisher’s Note

It gives us considerable pleasure to be able to offer to the public
the “inside” record of those of former District Attorney Markham’s
criminal cases in which Mr. Philo Vance figured so effectively. The
true inwardness of these famous cases has never before been revealed;
for Mr. S. S. Van Dine, Mr. Vance’s lawyer and almost constant
companion, being the only person who possessed a complete record of
the facts, has only recently been permitted to make them public.

After inspecting Mr. Van Dine’s voluminous notes, we decided to
publish “The Benson Murder Case” as the first of the series—not
because it was the most interesting and startling, nor yet the most
complicated and dramatic from the fictional point of view, but
because, coming first chronologically, it explains how Mr. Philo
Vance happened to become involved in criminal matters, and also
because it possesses certain features that reveal very clearly Mr.
Vance’s unique analytic methods of crime detection.



Introductory

If you will refer to the municipal statistics of the City of New
York, you will find that the number of unsolved major crimes during
the four years that John F.-X. Markham was District Attorney, was far
smaller than under any of his predecessors’ administrations. Markham
projected the District Attorney’s office into all manner of criminal
investigations; and, as a result, many abstruse crimes on which the
Police had hopelessly gone aground, were eventually disposed of.

But although he was personally credited with the many important
indictments and subsequent convictions that he secured, the truth is
that he was only an instrument in many of his most famous cases. The
man who actually solved them and supplied the evidence for their
prosecution, was in no way connected with the city’s administration,
and never once came into the public eye.

At that time I happened to be both legal advisor and personal friend
of this other man; and it was thus that the strange and amazing facts
of the situation became known to me. But not until recently have I
been at liberty to make them public. Even now I am not permitted to
divulge the man’s name, and, for that reason, I have chosen,
arbitrarily, to refer to him throughout these _ex-officio_ reports as
Philo Vance.

It is, of course, possible that some of his acquaintances may,
through my revelations, be able to guess his identity; and if such
should prove the case, I beg of them to guard that knowledge; for
though he has now gone to Italy to live, and has given me permission
to record the exploits of which he was the unique central character,
he has very emphatically imposed his anonymity upon me; and I should
not like to feel that, through any lack of discretion or delicacy, I
have been the cause of his secret becoming generally known.

The present chronicle has to do with Vance’s solution of the
notorious Benson murder which, due to the unexpectedness of the
crime, the prominence of the persons involved, and the startling
evidence adduced, was invested with an interest rarely surpassed in
the annals of New York’s criminal history.

This sensational case was the first of many in which Vance figured as
a kind of _amicus curiæ_ in Markham’s investigations.

  S. S. Van Dine.

New York.



Characters of the Book

Philo Vance
John F.-X. Markham
  District Attorney of New York County.
Alvin H. Benson
  Well-known Wall Street broker and man-about-town, who was
  mysteriously murdered in his home.
Major Anthony Benson
  Brother of the murdered man.
Mrs. Anna Platz
  Housekeeper for Alvin Benson.
Muriel St. Clair
  A young singer.
Captain Philip Leacock
  Miss St. Clair’s fiancé.
Leander Pfyfe
  Intimate friend of Alvin Benson’s.
Mrs. Paula Banning
  A friend of Leander Pfyfe’s.
Elsie Hoffman
  Secretary of the firm of Benson and Benson.
Colonel Bigsby Ostrander
  A retired army officer.
William H. Moriarty
  An alderman, Borough of the Bronx.
Jack Prisco
  Elevator-boy at the Chatham Arms.
George G. Stitt
  Of the firm of Stitt and McCoy, Public Accountants.
Maurice Dinwiddie
  Assistant District Attorney.
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.
Burke
  Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
Snitkin
  Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
Emery
  Detective of the Homicide Bureau.
Ben Hanlon
  Commanding Officer of Detectives assigned to District Attorney’s
  office.
Phelps
  Detective assigned to District Attorney’s office.
Tracy
  Detective assigned to District Attorney’s office.
Springer
  Detective assigned to District Attorney’s office.
Higginbotham
  Detective assigned to District Attorney’s office.
Captain Carl Hagedorn
  Fire-arms expert.
Dr. Doremus
  Medical Examiner.
Francis Swacker
  Secretary to the District Attorney.
Currie
  Vance’s valet.



CHAPTER I.

Philo Vance at Home

  (Friday, June 14; 8.30 a.m.)

It happened that, on the morning of the momentous June the fourteenth
when the discovery of the murdered body of Alvin H. Benson created a
sensation which, to this day, has not entirely died away, I had
breakfasted with Philo Vance in his apartment. It was not unusual for
me to share Vance’s luncheons and dinners, but to have breakfast with
him was something of an occasion. He was a late riser, and it was his
habit to remain _incommunicado_ until his midday meal.

The reason for this early meeting was a matter of business—or, rather,
of æsthetics. On the afternoon of the previous day Vance had attended
a preview of Vollard’s collection of Cézanne water-colors at the
Kessler Galleries, and having seen several pictures he particularly
wanted, he had invited me to an early breakfast to give me
instructions regarding their purchase.

A word concerning my relationship with Vance is necessary to clarify
my rôle of narrator in this chronicle. The legal tradition is deeply
imbedded in my family, and when my preparatory-school days were over,
I was sent, almost as a matter of course, to Harvard to study law. It
was there I met Vance, a reserved, cynical and caustic freshman who
was the bane of his professors and the fear of his fellow-classmen.
Why he should have chosen me, of all the students at the University,
for his extra-scholastic association, I have never been able to
understand fully. My own liking for Vance was simply explained: he
fascinated and interested me, and supplied me with a novel kind of
intellectual diversion. In his liking for me, however, no such basis
of appeal was present. I was (and am now) a commonplace fellow,
possessed of a conservative and rather conventional mind. But, at
least, my mentality was not rigid, and the ponderosity of the legal
procedure did not impress me greatly—which is why, no doubt, I had
little taste for my inherited profession—; and it is possible that
these traits found certain affinities in Vance’s unconscious mind.
There is, to be sure, the less consoling explanation that I appealed
to Vance as a kind of foil, or anchorage, and that he sensed in my
nature a complementary antithesis to his own. But whatever the
explanation, we were much together; and, as the years went by, that
association ripened into an inseparable friendship.

Upon graduation I entered my father’s law firm—Van Dine and Davis—and
after five years of dull apprenticeship I was taken into the firm as
the junior partner. At present I am the second Van Dine of Van Dine,
Davis and Van Dine, with offices at 120 Broadway. At about the time my
name first appeared on the letter-heads of the firm, Vance returned
from Europe, where he had been living during my legal novitiate, and,
an aunt of his having died and made him her principal beneficiary, I
was called upon to discharge the technical obligations involved in
putting him in possession of his inherited property.

This work was the beginning of a new and somewhat unusual relationship
between us. Vance had a strong distaste for any kind of business
transaction, and in time I became the custodian of all his monetary
interests and his agent at large. I found that his affairs were
various enough to occupy as much of my time as I cared to give to
legal matters, and as Vance was able to indulge the luxury of having a
personal legal factotum, so to speak, I permanently closed my desk at
the office, and devoted myself exclusively to his needs and whims.

If, up to the time when Vance summoned me to discuss the purchase of
the Cézannes, I had harbored any secret or repressed regrets for
having deprived the firm of Van Dine, Davis and Van Dine of my modest
legal talents, they were permanently banished on that eventful
morning; for, beginning with the notorious Benson murder, and
extending over a period of nearly four years, it was my privilege to
be a spectator of what I believe was the most amazing series of
criminal cases that ever passed before the eyes of a young lawyer.
Indeed, the grim dramas I witnessed during that period constitute one
of the most astonishing secret documents in the police history of this
country.

Of these dramas Vance was the central character. By an analytical and
interpretative process which, as far as I know, has never before been
applied to criminal activities, he succeeded in solving many of the
important crimes on which both the police and the District Attorney’s
office had hopelessly fallen down.

Due to my peculiar relations with Vance it happened that not only did
I participate in all the cases with which he was connected, but I was
also present at most of the informal discussions concerning them which
took place between him and the District Attorney; and, being of
methodical temperament, I kept a fairly complete record of them. In
addition, I noted down (as accurately as memory permitted) Vance’s
unique psychological methods of determining guilt, as he explained
them from time to time. It is fortunate that I performed this
gratuitous labor of accumulation and transcription, for now that
circumstances have unexpectedly rendered possible my making the cases
public, I am able to present them in full detail and with all their
various side-lights and succeeding steps—a task that would be
impossible were it not for my numerous clippings and _adversaria_.

Fortunately, too, the first case to draw Vance into its ramifications
was that of Alvin Benson’s murder. Not only did it prove one of the
most famous of New York’s _causes célèbres_, but it gave Vance an
excellent opportunity of displaying his rare talents of deductive
reasoning, and, by its nature and magnitude, aroused his interest in a
branch of activity which heretofore had been alien to his
temperamental promptings and habitual predilections.

The case intruded upon Vance’s life suddenly and unexpectedly,
although he himself had, by a casual request made to the District
Attorney over a month before, been the involuntary agent of this
destruction of his normal routine. The thing, in fact, burst upon us
before we had quite finished our breakfast on that mid-June morning,
and put an end temporarily to all business connected with the purchase
of the Cézanne paintings. When, later in the day, I visited the
Kessler Galleries, two of the water-colors that Vance had particularly
desired had been sold; and I am convinced that, despite his success in
the unravelling of the Benson murder mystery and his saving of at
least one innocent person from arrest, he has never to this day felt
entirely compensated for the loss of those two little sketches on
which he had set his heart.

As I was ushered into the living-room that morning by Currie, a rare
old English servant who acted as Vance’s butler, valet, major-domo
and, on occasions, specialty cook, Vance was sitting in a large
armchair, attired in a surah silk dressing-gown and grey suède
slippers, with Vollard’s book on Cézanne open across his knees.

“Forgive my not rising, Van,” he greeted me casually. “I have the
whole weight of the modern evolution in art resting on my legs.
Furthermore, this plebeian early rising fatigues me, y’ know.”

He riffled the pages of the volume, pausing here and there at a
reproduction.

“This chap Vollard,” he remarked at length, “has been rather liberal
with our art-fearing country. He has sent a really goodish collection
of his Cézannes here. I viewed ’em yesterday with the proper reverence
and, I might add, unconcern, for Kessler was watching me; and I’ve
marked the ones I want you to buy for me as soon as the Gallery opens
this morning.”

He handed me a small catalogue he had been using as a book-mark.

“A beastly assignment, I know,” he added, with an indolent smile.
“These delicate little smudges with all their blank paper will
prob’bly be meaningless to your legal mind—they’re so unlike a
neatly-typed brief, don’t y’ know. And you’ll no doubt think some of
’em are hung upside-down,—one of ’em is, in fact, and even Kessler
doesn’t know it. But don’t fret, Van old dear. They’re very beautiful
and valuable little knickknacks, and rather inexpensive when one
considers what they’ll be bringing in a few years. Really an excellent
investment for some money-loving soul, y’ know—inf’nitely better than
that Lawyer’s Equity Stock over which you grew so eloquent at the time
of my dear Aunt Agatha’s death.”*

   * As a matter of fact, the same water-colors that Vance
   obtained for $250 and $300, were bringing three times as
   much four years later.

Vance’s one passion (if a purely intellectual enthusiasm may be called
a passion) was art—not art in its narrow, personal aspects, but in its
broader, more universal significance. And art was not only his
dominating interest, but his chief diversion. He was something of an
authority on Japanese and Chinese prints; he knew tapestries and
ceramics; and once I heard him give an impromptu _causerie_ to a few
guests on Tanagra figurines, which, had it been transcribed, would
have made a most delightful and instructive monograph.

Vance had sufficient means to indulge his instinct for collecting, and
possessed a fine assortment of pictures and _objets d’art_. His
collection was heterogeneous only in its superficial characteristics:
every piece he owned embodied some principle of form or line that
related it to all the others. One who knew art could feel the unity
and consistency in all the items with which he surrounded himself,
however widely separated they were in point of time or _métier_ or
surface appeal. Vance, I have always felt, was one of those rare human
beings, a collector with a definite philosophic point of view.

His apartment in East Thirty-eighth Street—actually the two top floors
of an old mansion, beautifully remodelled and in part rebuilt to
secure spacious rooms and lofty ceilings—was filled, but not crowded,
with rare specimens of oriental and occidental, ancient and modern,
art. His paintings ranged from the Italian primitives to Cézanne and
Matisse; and among his collection of original drawings were works as
widely separated as those of Michelangelo and Picasso. Vance’s Chinese
prints constituted one of the finest private collections in this
country. They included beautiful examples of the work of Ririomin,
Rianchu, Jinkomin, Kakei and Mokkei.

“The Chinese,” Vance once said to me, “are the truly great artists of
the East. They were the men whose work expressed most intensely a
broad philosophic spirit. By contrast the Japanese were superficial.
It’s a long step between the little more than decorative _souci_ of a
Hokusai and the profoundly thoughtful and conscious artistry of a
Ririomin. Even when Chinese art degenerated under the Manchus, we find
in it a deep philosophic quality—a spiritual _sensibilité_, so to
speak. And in the modern copies of copies—what is called the
_bunjinga_ style—we still have pictures of profound meaning.”

Vance’s catholicity of taste in art was remarkable. His collection was
as varied as that of a museum. It embraced a black-figured amphora by
Amasis, a proto-Corinthian vase in the Ægean style, Koubatcha and
Rhodian plates, Athenian pottery, a sixteenth-century Italian
holy-water stoup of rock crystal, pewter of the Tudor period (several
pieces bearing the double-rose hall-mark), a bronze plaque by Cellini,
a triptych of Limoges enamel, a Spanish retable of an altar-piece by
Vallfogona, several Etruscan bronzes, an Indian Greco Buddhist, a
statuette of the Goddess Kuan Yin from the Ming Dynasty, a number of
very fine Renaissance wood-cuts, and several specimens of Byzantine,
Carolingian and early French ivory carvings.

His Egyptian treasures included a gold jug from Zakazik, a statuette
of the Lady Nai (as lovely as the one in the Louvre), two beautifully
carved steles of the First Theban Age, various small sculptures
comprising rare representations of Hapi and Amset, and several
Arrentine bowls carved with Kalathiskos dancers. On top of one of his
embayed Jacobean book cases in the library, where most of his modern
paintings and drawings were hung, was a fascinating group of African
sculpture—ceremonial masks and statuette-fetishes from French Guinea,
the Sudan, Nigeria, the Ivory Coast, and the Congo.

A definite purpose has animated me in speaking at such length about
Vance’s art instinct, for, in order to understand fully the
melodramatic adventures which began for him on that June morning, one
must have a general idea of the man’s _penchants_ and inner
promptings. His interest in art was an important—one might almost say
the dominant—factor in his personality. I have never met a man quite
like him—a man so apparently diversified, and yet so fundamentally
consistent.

Vance was what many would call a dilettante. But the designation does
him injustice. He was a man of unusual culture and brilliance. An
aristocrat by birth and instinct, he held himself severely aloof from
the common world of men. In his manner there was an indefinable
contempt for inferiority of all kinds. The great majority of those
with whom he came in contact regarded him as a snob. Yet there was in
his condescension and disdain no trace of spuriousness. His
snobbishness was intellectual as well as social. He detested stupidity
even more, I believe, than he did vulgarity or bad taste. I have heard
him on several occasions quote Fouché’s famous line: _C’est plus qu’un
crime; c’est une faute._ And he meant it literally.

Vance was frankly a cynic, but he was rarely bitter: his was a
flippant, Juvenalian cynicism. Perhaps he may best be described as a
bored and supercilious, but highly conscious and penetrating,
spectator of life. He was keenly interested in all human reactions;
but it was the interest of the scientist, not the humanitarian. Withal
he was a man of rare personal charm. Even people who found it
difficult to admire him, found it equally difficult not to like him.
His somewhat quixotic mannerisms and his slightly English accent and
inflection—a heritage of his post-graduate days at Oxford—impressed
those who did not know him well, as affectations. But the truth is,
there was very little of the _poseur_ about him.

He was unusually good-looking, although his mouth was ascetic and
cruel, like the mouths on some of the Medici portraits*; moreover,
there was a slightly derisive hauteur in the lift of his eyebrows.
Despite the aquiline severity of his lineaments his face was highly
sensitive. His forehead was full and sloping—it was the artist’s,
rather than the scholar’s, brow. His cold grey eyes were widely
spaced. His nose was straight and slender, and his chin narrow but
prominent, with an unusually deep cleft. When I saw John Barrymore
recently in _Hamlet_ I was somehow reminded of Vance; and once before,
in a scene of _Cæsar and Cleopatra_ played by Forbes-Robertson, I
received a similar impression.†

   * I am thinking particularly of Bronzino’s portraits of
   Pietro de’ Medici and Cosimo de’ Medici, in the National
   Gallery, and of Vasari’s medallion portrait of Lorenzo de’
   Medici in the Vecchio Palazzo, Florence.
   † Once when Vance was suffering from sinusitis, he had an
   X-ray photograph of his head made; and the accompanying
   chart described him as a “marked dolichocephalic” and a
   “disharmonious Nordic.” It also contained the following
   data:—cephalic index 75; nose, leptorhine, with an index
   of 48; facial angle, 85°; vertical index, 72; upper facial
   index, 54; interpupilary width, 67; chin, masognathous,
   with an index of 103; sella turcica, abnormally large.

Vance was slightly under six feet, graceful, and giving the impression
of sinewy strength and nervous endurance. He was an expert fencer, and
had been the Captain of the University’s fencing team. He was mildly
fond of outdoor sports, and had a knack of doings things well without
any extensive practice. His golf handicap was only three; and one
season he had played on our championship polo team against England.
Nevertheless, he had a positive antipathy to walking, and would not go
a hundred yards on foot if there was any possible means of riding.

In his dress he was always fashionable—scrupulously correct to the
smallest detail—yet unobtrusive. He spent considerable time at his
clubs: his favorite was the Stuyvesant, because, as he explained to
me, its membership was drawn largely from the political and commercial
ranks, and he was never drawn into a discussion which required any
mental effort. He went occasionally to the more modern operas, and was
a regular subscriber to the symphony concerts and chamber-music
recitals.

Incidentally, he was one of the most unerring poker players I have
ever seen. I mention this fact not merely because it was unusual and
significant that a man of Vance’s type should have preferred so
democratic a game to bridge or chess, for instance, but because his
knowledge of the science of human psychology involved in poker had an
intimate bearing on the chronicles I am about to set down.

Vance’s knowledge of psychology was indeed uncanny. He was gifted with
an instinctively accurate judgment of people, and his study and
reading had co-ordinated and rationalized this gift to an amazing
extent. He was well grounded in the academic principles of psychology,
and all his courses at college had either centered about this subject
or been subordinated to it. While I was confining myself to a
restricted area of torts and contracts, constitutional and common law,
equity, evidence and pleading, Vance was reconnoitring the whole field
of cultural endeavor. He had courses in the history of religions, the
Greek classics, biology, civics and political economy, philosophy,
anthropology, literature, theoretical and experimental psychology, and
ancient and modern languages.* But it was, I think, his courses under
Münsterberg and William James that interested him the most.

   * “Culture,” Vance said to me shortly after I had met him,
   “is polyglot; and the knowledge of many tongues is
   essential to an understanding of the world’s intellectual
   and æsthetic achievements. Especially are the Greek and
   Latin classics vitiated by translation.” I quote the
   remark here because his omnivorous reading in languages
   other than English, coupled with his amazingly retentive
   memory, had a tendency to affect his own speech. And while
   it may appear to some that his speech was at times
   pedantic, I have tried, throughout these chronicles, to
   quote him literally, in the hope of presenting a portrait
   of the man as he was.

Vance’s mind was basically philosophical—that is, philosophical in the
more general sense. Being singularly free from the conventional
sentimentalities and current superstitions, he could look beneath the
surface of human acts into actuating impulses and motives. Moreover,
he was resolute both in his avoidance of any attitude that savored of
credulousness, and in his adherence to cold, logical exactness in his
mental processes.

“Until we can approach all human problems,” he once remarked, “with
the clinical aloofness and cynical contempt of a doctor examining a
guinea-pig strapped to a board, we have little chance of getting at
the truth.”

Vance led an active, but by no means animated, social life—a
concession to various family ties. But he was not a social animal.—I
can not remember ever having met a man with so undeveloped a
gregarious instinct,—and when he went forth into the social world it
was generally under compulsion. In fact, one of his “duty” affairs had
occupied him on the night before that memorable June breakfast;
otherwise, we would have consulted about the Cézannes the evening
before; and Vance groused a good deal about it while Currie was
serving our strawberries and eggs _Bénédictine_. Later on I was to
give profound thanks to the God of Coincidence that the blocks had
been arranged in just that pattern; for had Vance been slumbering
peacefully at nine o’clock when the District Attorney called, I would
probably have missed four of the most interesting and exciting years
of my life; and many of New York’s shrewdest and most desperate
criminals might still be at large.

Vance and I had just settled back in our chairs for our second cup of
coffee and a cigarette when Currie, answering an impetuous ringing of
the front-door bell, ushered the District Attorney into the
living-room.

“By all that’s holy!” he exclaimed, raising his hands in mock
astonishment. “New York’s leading _flâneur_ and art connoisseur is up
and about!”

“And I am suffused with blushes at the disgrace of it,” Vance replied.

It was evident, however, that the District Attorney was not in a
jovial mood. His face suddenly sobered.

“Vance, a serious thing has brought me here. I’m in a great hurry, and
merely dropped by to keep my promise. . . . The fact is, Alvin Benson
has been murdered.”

Vance lifted his eyebrows languidly.

“Really, now,” he drawled. “How messy! But he no doubt deserved it. In
any event, that’s no reason why you should repine. Take a chair and
have a cup of Currie’s incomp’rable coffee.” And before the other
could protest, he rose and pushed a bell-button.

Markham hesitated a second or two.

“Oh, well. A couple of minutes won’t make any difference. But only a
gulp.” And he sank into a chair facing us.



CHAPTER II.

At the Scene of the Crime

  (Friday, June 14; 9 a.m.)

John F.-X. Markham, as you remember, had been elected District
Attorney of New York County on the Independent Reform Ticket during
one of the city’s periodical reactions against Tammany Hall. He served
his four years, and would probably have been elected to a second term
had not the ticket been hopelessly split by the political juggling of
his opponents. He was an indefatigable worker, and projected the
District Attorney’s office into all manner of criminal and civil
investigations. Being utterly incorruptible, he not only aroused the
fervid admiration of his constituents, but produced an almost
unprecedented sense of security in those who had opposed him on
partisan lines.

He had been in office only a few months when one of the newspapers
referred to him as the Watch Dog; and the sobriquet clung to him until
the end of his administration. Indeed, his record as a successful
prosecutor during the four years of his incumbency was such a
remarkable one that even to-day it is not infrequently referred to in
legal and political discussions.

Markham was a tall, strongly-built man in the middle forties, with a
clean-shaven, somewhat youthful face which belied his uniformly grey
hair. He was not handsome according to conventional standards, but he
had an unmistakable air of distinction, and was possessed of an amount
of social culture rarely found in our latter-day political
office-holders. Withal he was a man of brusque and vindictive
temperament; but his brusqueness was an incrustation on a solid
foundation of good-breeding, not—as is usually the case—the roughness
of substructure showing through an inadequately superimposed crust of
gentility.

When his nature was relieved of the stress of duty and care, he was
the most gracious of men. But early in my acquaintance with him I had
seen his attitude of cordiality suddenly displaced by one of grim
authority. It was as if a new personality—hard, indomitable, symbolic
of eternal justice—had in that moment been born in Markham’s body. I
was to witness this transformation many times before our association
ended. In fact, this very morning, as he sat opposite to me in Vance’s
living-room, there was more than a hint of it in the aggressive
sternness of his expression; and I knew that he was deeply troubled
over Alvin Benson’s murder.

He swallowed his coffee rapidly, and was setting down the cup, when
Vance, who had been watching him with quizzical amusement, remarked:

“I say; why this sad preoccupation over the passing of one Benson? You
weren’t, by any chance, the murderer, what?”

Markham ignored Vance’s levity.

“I’m on my way to Benson’s. Do you care to come along? You asked for
the experience, and I dropped in to keep my promise.”

I then recalled that several weeks before at the Stuyvesant Club, when
the subject of the prevalent homicides in New York was being
discussed, Vance had expressed a desire to accompany the District
Attorney on one of his investigations; and that Markham had promised
to take him on his next important case. Vance’s interest in the
psychology of human behavior had prompted the desire, and his
friendship with Markham, which had been of long standing, had made the
request possible.

“You remember everything, don’t you?” Vance replied lazily. “An
admirable gift, even if an uncomfortable one.” He glanced at the clock
on the mantel: it lacked a few minutes of nine. “But what an indecent
hour! Suppose someone should see me.”

Markham moved forward impatiently in his chair.

“Well, if you think the gratification of your curiosity would
compensate you for the disgrace of being seen in public at nine
o’clock in the morning, you’ll have to hurry. I certainly won’t take
you in dressing-gown and bed-room slippers. And I most certainly won’t
wait over five minutes for you to get dressed.”

“Why the haste, old dear?” Vance asked, yawning. “The chap’s dead,
don’t y’ know; he can’t possibly run away.”

“Come, get a move on, you orchid,” the other urged. “This affair is no
joke. It’s damned serious; and from the looks of it, it’s going to
cause an ungodly scandal.—What are you going to do?”

“Do? I shall humbly follow the great avenger of the common people,”
returned Vance, rising and making an obsequious bow.

He rang for Currie, and ordered his clothes brought to him.

“I’m attending a levee which Mr. Markham is holding over a corpse, and
I want something rather spiffy. Is it warm enough for a silk
suit? . . . And a lavender tie, by all means.”

“I trust you won’t also wear your green carnation,” grumbled Markham.

“Tut! Tut!” Vance chided him. “You’ve been reading Mr. Hichens. Such
heresy in a district attorney! Anyway, you know full well I never wear
_boutonnières_. The decoration has fallen into disrepute. The only
remaining devotees of the practice are roués and saxophone
players. . . . But tell me about the departed Benson.”

Vance was now dressing, with Currie’s assistance, at a rate of speed I
had rarely seen him display in such matters. Beneath his bantering
pose I recognized the true eagerness of the man for a new experience
and one that promised such dramatic possibilities for his alert and
observing mind.

“You knew Alvin Benson casually, I believe,” the District Attorney
said. “Well, early this morning his housekeeper ’phoned the local
precinct station that she had found him shot through the head, fully
dressed and sitting in his favorite chair in his living-room. The
message, of course, was put through at once to the Telegraph Bureau at
Headquarters, and my assistant on duty notified me immediately. I was
tempted to let the case follow the regular police routine. But half an
hour later Major Benson, Alvin’s brother, ’phoned me and asked me, as
a special favor, to take charge. I’ve known the Major for twenty
years, and I couldn’t very well refuse. So I took a hurried breakfast
and started for Benson’s house. He lived in West Forty-eighth Street;
and as I passed your corner I remembered your request, and dropped by
to see if you cared to go along.”

“Most consid’rate,” murmured Vance, adjusting his four-in-hand before
a small polychrome mirror by the door. Then he turned to me. “Come,
Van. We’ll all gaze upon the defunct Benson. I’m sure some of
Markham’s sleuths will unearth the fact that I detested the bounder
and accuse me of the crime; and I’ll feel safer, don’t y’ know, with
legal talent at hand. . . . No objections—eh, what, Markham?”

“Certainly not,” the other agreed readily, although I felt that he
would rather not have had me along. But I was too deeply interested in
the affair to offer any ceremonious objections, and I followed Vance
and Markham downstairs.

As we settled back in the waiting taxicab and started up Madison
Avenue, I marvelled a little, as I had often done before, at the
strange friendship of these two dissimilar men beside me—Markham
forthright, conventional, a trifle austere, and over-serious in his
dealings with life; and Vance casual, mercurial, debonair, and
whimsically cynical in the face of the grimmest realities. And yet
this temperamental diversity seemed, in some wise, the very
cornerstone of their friendship: it was as if each saw in the other
some unattainable field of experience and sensation that had been
denied himself. Markham represented to Vance the solid and immutable
realism of life, whereas Vance symbolized for Markham the care-free,
exotic, gypsy spirit of intellectual adventure. Their intimacy, in
fact, was even greater than showed on the surface; and despite
Markham’s exaggerated deprecations of the other’s attitudes and
opinions, I believe he respected Vance’s intelligence more profoundly
than that of any other man he knew.

As we rode up town that morning Markham appeared preoccupied and
gloomy. No word had been spoken since we left the apartment; but as we
turned west into Forty-eighth Street Vance asked:

“What is the social etiquette of these early-morning murder functions,
aside from removing one’s hat in the presence of the body?”

“You keep your hat on,” growled Markham.

“My word! Like a synagogue, what? Most int’restin’! Perhaps one takes
off one’s shoes so as not to confuse the footprints.”

“No,” Markham told him. “The guests remain fully clothed—in which the
function differs from the ordinary evening affairs of your smart set.”

“My _dear_ Markham!”—Vance’s tone was one of melancholy reproof—“The
horrified moralist in your nature is at work again. That remark of
yours was pos’tively Epworth Leaguish.”

Markham was too abstracted to follow up Vance’s badinage.

“There are one or two things,” he said soberly, “that I think I’d
better warn you about. From the looks of it, this case is going to
cause considerable noise, and there’ll be a lot of jealousy and
battling for honors. I won’t be fallen upon and caressed
affectionately by the police for coming in at this stage of the game;
so be careful not to rub their bristles the wrong way. My assistant,
who’s there now, tells me he thinks the Inspector has put Heath in
charge. Heath’s a sergeant in the Homicide Bureau, and is undoubtedly
convinced at the present moment that I’m taking hold in order to get
the publicity.”

“Aren’t you his technical superior?” asked Vance.

“Of course; and that makes the situation just so much more
delicate. . . . I wish to God the Major hadn’t called me up.”

“_Eheu!_” sighed Vance. “The world is full of Heaths. Beastly
nuisances.”

“Don’t misunderstand me,” Markham hastened to assure him. “Heath is a
good man—in fact, as good a man as we’ve got. The mere fact that he
was assigned to the case shows how seriously the affair is regarded at
Headquarters. There’ll be no unpleasantness about my taking charge,
you understand; but I want the atmosphere to be as halcyon as
possible. Heath’ll resent my bringing along you two chaps as
spectators, anyway; so I beg of you, Vance, emulate the modest
violet.”

“I prefer the blushing rose, if you don’t mind,” Vance protested.
“However, I’ll instantly give the hypersensitive Heath one of my
choicest _Régie_ cigarettes with the rose-petal tips.”

“If you do,” smiled Markham, “he’ll probably arrest you as a
suspicious character.”

We had drawn up abruptly in front of an old brownstone residence on
the upper side of Forty-eighth Street, near Sixth Avenue. It was a
house of the better class, built on a twenty-five-foot lot in a day
when permanency and beauty were still matters of consideration among
the city’s architects. The design was conventional, to accord with the
other houses in the block, but a touch of luxury and individuality was
to be seen in its decorative copings and in the stone carvings about
the entrance and above the windows.

There was a shallow paved areaway between the street line and the
front elevation of the house; but this was enclosed in a high iron
railing, and the only entrance was by way of the front door, which was
about six feet above the street level at the top of a flight of ten
broad stone stairs. Between the entrance and the right-hand wall were
two spacious windows covered with heavy iron _grilles_.

A considerable crowd of morbid onlookers had gathered in front of the
house; and on the steps lounged several alert-looking young men whom I
took to be newspaper reporters. The door of our taxicab was opened by
a uniformed patrolman who saluted Markham with exaggerated respect and
ostentatiously cleared a passage for us through the gaping throng of
idlers. Another uniformed patrolman stood in the little vestibule, and
on recognizing Markham, held the outer door open for us and saluted
with great dignity.

“_Ave, Cæsar, te salutamus_,” whispered Vance, grinning.

“Be quiet,” Markham grumbled. “I’ve got troubles enough without your
garbled quotations.”

As we passed through the massive carved-oak front door into the main
hallway, we were met by Assistant District Attorney Dinwiddie, a
serious, swarthy young man with a prematurely lined face, whose
appearance gave one the impression that most of the woes of humanity
were resting upon his shoulders.

“Good morning, Chief,” he greeted Markham, with eager relief. “I’m
damned glad you’ve got here. This case’ll rip things wide open.
Cut-and-dried murder, and not a lead.”

Markham nodded gloomily, and looked past him into the living-room.

“Who’s here?” he asked.

“The whole works, from the Chief Inspector down,” Dinwiddie told him,
with a hopeless shrug, as if the fact boded ill for all concerned.

At that moment a tall, massive, middle-aged man with a pink complexion
and a closely-cropped white moustache, appeared in the doorway of the
living-room. On seeing Markham he came forward stiffly with
outstretched hand. I recognized him at once as Chief Inspector
O’Brien, who was in command of the entire Police Department. Dignified
greetings were exchanged between him and Markham, and then Vance and I
were introduced to him. Inspector O’Brien gave us each a curt, silent
nod, and turned back to the living-room, with Markham, Dinwiddie,
Vance and myself following.

The room, which was entered by a wide double door about ten feet down
the hall, was a spacious one, almost square, and with high ceilings.
Two windows gave on the street; and on the extreme right of the north
wall, opposite to the front of the house, was another window opening
on a paved court. To the left of this window were the sliding doors
leading into the dining-room at the rear.

The room presented an appearance of garish opulence. About the walls
hung several elaborately framed paintings of race-horses and a number
of mounted hunting trophies. A highly-colored oriental rug covered
nearly the entire floor. In the middle of the east wall, facing the
door, was an ornate fireplace and carved marble mantel. Placed
diagonally in the corner on the right stood a walnut upright piano
with copper trimmings. Then there was a mahogany bookcase with glass
doors and figured curtains, a sprawling tapestried davenport, a squat
Venetian tabouret with inlaid mother of pearl, a teak-wood stand
containing a large brass samovar, and a buhl-topped center table
nearly six feet long. At the side of the table nearest the hallway,
with its back to the front windows, stood a large wicker lounge chair
with a high, fan-shaped back.

In this chair reposed the body of Alvin Benson.

Though I had served two years at the front in the World War and had
seen death in many terrible guises, I could not repress a strong sense
of revulsion at the sight of this murdered man. In France death had
seemed an inevitable part of my daily routine, but here all the
organisms of environment were opposed to the idea of fatal violence.
The bright June sunshine was pouring into the room, and through the
open windows came the continuous din of the city’s noises, which, for
all their cacophony, are associated with peace and security and the
orderly social processes of life.

[Illustration: The plan of the ground floor of an apartment in West
Forty-eighth Street. The front door is in the southwest corner of the
building, and opens onto a vestibule, beyond which the entrance hall
runs along the west side of the building. Near the end of the hall are
stairs to the upper floor and a door to the dining-room. Halfway along
the hall, double doors on the eastern side open into a living-room,
which occupies most of the ground floor. Windows on the south wall
have iron grilles over them. A window on the north wall is locked on
the inside. Double doors on the north wall also lead into the
dining-room. In the middle of the living-room is a chair facing north,
which is labeled “Where Benson was sitting when murdered.” A mark
north of the chair is labeled “Spot from which shot was fired,” and
from this mark a line runs due south, ending at the south wall, at a
spot between the windows, labeled “Where bullet struck wainscot.” On
the east wall is a fireplace, and a spot on the mantel is labeled
“Where woman’s handbag was found.”]

Benson’s body was reclining in the chair in an attitude so natural
that one almost expected him to turn to us and ask why we were
intruding upon his privacy. His head was resting against the chair’s
back. His right leg was crossed over his left in a position of
comfortable relaxation. His right arm was resting easily on the
center-table, and his left arm lay along the chair’s arm. But that
which most strikingly gave his attitude its appearance of naturalness,
was a small book which he held in his right hand with his thumb still
marking the place where he had evidently been reading.*

   * The book was O. Henry’s _Strictly Business_, and the
   place at which it was being held open was, curiously
   enough, the story entitled “A Municipal Report.”

He had been shot through the forehead from in front; and the small
circular bullet mark was now almost black as a result of the
coagulation of the blood. A large dark spot on the rug at the rear of
the chair indicated the extent of the hemorrhage caused by the
grinding passage of the bullet through his brain. Had it not been for
these grisly indications one might have thought that he had merely
paused momentarily in his reading to lean back and rest.

He was attired in an old smoking-jacket and red felt bed-room
slippers, but still wore his dress trousers and evening shirt, though
he was collarless, and the neck band of the shirt had been unbuttoned
as if for comfort. He was not an attractive man physically, being
almost completely bald and more than a little stout. His face was
flabby, and the puffiness of his neck was doubly conspicuous without
its confining collar. With a slight shudder of distaste I ended my
brief contemplation of him, and turned to the other occupants of the
room.

Two burly fellows with large hands and feet, their black felt hats
pushed far back on their heads, were minutely inspecting the iron
grill-work over the front windows. They seemed to be giving particular
attention to the points where the bars were cemented into the masonry;
and one of them had just taken hold of a _grille_ with both hands and
was shaking it, simian-wise, as if to test its strength. Another man,
of medium height and dapper appearance, with a small blond moustache,
was bending over in front of the grate looking intently, so it seemed,
at the dusty gas-logs. On the far side of the table a thickset man in
blue serge and a derby hat, stood with arms a-kimbo scrutinizing the
silent figure in the chair. His eyes, hard and pale blue, were
narrowed, and his square prognathous jaw was rigidly set. He was
gazing with rapt intensity at Benson’s body, as though he hoped, by
the sheer power of concentration, to probe the secret of the murder.

Another man, of unusual mien, was standing before the rear window,
with a jeweller’s magnifying glass in his eye, inspecting a small
object held in the palm of his hand. From pictures I had seen of him I
knew he was Captain Carl Hagedorn, the most famous fire-arms expert in
America. He was a large, cumbersome, broad-shouldered man of about
fifty; and his black shiny clothes were several sizes too large for
him. His coat hitched up behind, and in front hung half way down to
his knees; and his trousers were baggy and lay over his ankles in
grotesquely comic folds. His head was round and abnormally large, and
his ears seemed sunken into his skull. His mouth was entirely hidden
by a scraggly, grey-shot moustache, all the hairs of which grew
downwards, forming a kind of lambrequin to his lips. Captain Hagedorn
had been connected with the New York Police Department for thirty
years, and though his appearance and manner were ridiculed at
Headquarters, he was profoundly respected. His word on any point
pertaining to fire-arms and gunshot wounds was accepted as final by
Headquarters men.

In the rear of the room, near the dining-room door, stood two other
men talking earnestly together. One was Inspector William M. Moran,
Commanding Officer of the Detective Bureau; the other, Sergeant Ernest
Heath of the Homicide Bureau, of whom Markham had already spoken to
us.

As we entered the room in the wake of Chief Inspector O’Brien everyone
ceased his occupation for a moment and looked at the District Attorney
in a spirit of uneasy, but respectful, recognition. Only Captain
Hagedorn, after a cursory squint at Markham, returned to the
inspection of the tiny object in his hand, with an abstracted
unconcern which brought a faint smile to Vance’s lips.

Inspector Moran and Sergeant Heath came forward with stolid dignity;
and after the ceremony of hand-shaking (which I later observed to be a
kind of religious rite among the police and the members of the
District Attorney’s staff), Markham introduced Vance and me, and
briefly explained our presence. The Inspector bowed pleasantly to
indicate his acceptance of the intrusion, but I noticed that Heath
ignored Markham’s explanation, and proceeded to treat us as if we were
non-existent.

Inspector Moran was a man of different quality from the others in the
room. He was about sixty, with white hair and a brown moustache, and
was immaculately dressed. He looked more like a successful Wall Street
broker of the better class than a police official.*

   * Inspector Moran (as I learned later) had once been the
   president of a large up-State bank that had failed during
   the panic of 1907, and during the Gaynor Administration
   had been seriously considered for the post of Police
   Commissioner.

“I’ve assigned Sergeant Heath to the case, Mr. Markham,” he explained
in a low, well-modulated voice. “It looks as though we were in for a
bit of trouble before it’s finished. Even the Chief Inspector thought
it warranted his lending the moral support of his presence to the
preliminary rounds. He has been here since eight o’clock.”

Inspector O’Brien had left us immediately upon entering the room, and
now stood between the front windows, watching the proceedings with a
grave, indecipherable face.

“Well, I think I’ll be going,” Moran added. “They had me out of bed at
seven-thirty, and I haven’t had any breakfast yet. I won’t be needed
anyway now that you’re here. . . . Good-morning.” And again he shook
hands.

When he had gone Markham turned to the Assistant District Attorney.

“Look after these two gentlemen, will you, Dinwiddie? They’re babes in
the wood, and want to see how these affairs work. Explain things to
them while I have a little confab with Sergeant Heath.”

Dinwiddie accepted the assignment eagerly. I think he was glad of the
opportunity to have someone to talk to by way of venting his pent-up
excitement.

As the three of us turned rather instinctively toward the body of the
murdered man—he was, after all, the hub of this tragic drama—I heard
Heath say in a sullen voice:

“I suppose you’ll take charge now, Mr. Markham.”

Dinwiddie and Vance were talking together, and I watched Markham with
interest after what he had told us of the rivalry between the Police
Department and the District Attorney’s office.

Markham looked at Heath with a slow gracious smile, and shook his
head.

“No, Sergeant,” he replied. “I’m here to work with you, and I want
that relationship understood from the outset. In fact, I wouldn’t be
here now if Major Benson hadn’t ’phoned me and asked me to lend a
hand. And I particularly want my name kept out of it. It’s pretty
generally known—and if it isn’t, it will be—that the Major is an old
friend of mine; so, it will be better all round if my connection with
the case is kept quiet.”

Heath murmured something I did not catch, but I could see that he had,
in large measure, been placated. He, in common with all other men who
were acquainted with Markham, knew his word was good; and he
personally liked the District Attorney.

“If there’s any credit coming from this affair,” Markham went on, “the
Police Department is to get it; therefore I think it best for you to
see the reporters. . . . And, by the way,” he added good-naturedly,
“if there’s any blame coming, you fellows will have to bear that,
too.”

“Fair enough,” assented Heath.

“And now, Sergeant, let’s get to work,” said Markham.



CHAPTER III.

A Lady’s Hand-bag

  (Friday, June 14; 9.30 a.m.)

The District Attorney and Heath walked up to the body, and stood
regarding it.

“You see,” Heath explained; “he was shot directly from the front. A
pretty powerful shot, too; for the bullet passed through the head and
struck the woodwork over there by the window.” He pointed to a place
on the wainscot a short distance from the floor near the drapery of
the window nearest the hallway. “We found the expelled shell, and
Captain Hagedorn’s got the bullet.”

He turned to the fire-arms expert.

“How about it, Captain? Anything special?”

Hagedorn raised his head slowly, and gave Heath a myopic frown. Then
after a few awkward movements, he answered with unhurried precision:

“A forty-five army bullet—Colt automatic.”

“Any idea how close to Benson the gun was held?” asked Markham.

“Yes, sir, I have,” Hagedorn replied, in his ponderous monotone.
“Between five and six feet—probably.”

Heath snorted.

“‘Probably’,” he repeated to Markham with good-natured contempt. “You
can bank on it if the Captain says so. . . . You see, sir, nothing
smaller than a forty-four or forty-five will stop a man, and these
steel-capped army bullets go through a human skull like it was cheese.
But in order to carry straight to the woodwork the gun had to be held
pretty close; and as there aren’t any powder marks on the face, it’s a
safe bet to take the Captain’s figures as to distance.”

At this point we heard the front door open and close, and Dr. Doremus,
the Chief Medical Examiner, accompanied by his assistant, bustled in.
He shook hands with Markham and Inspector O’Brien, and gave Heath a
friendly salutation.

“Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner,” he apologized.

He was a nervous man with a heavily seamed face and the manner of a
real-estate salesman.

“What have we got here?” he asked, in the same breath, making a wry
face at the body in the chair.

“You tell us, Doc,” retorted Heath.

Dr. Doremus approached the murdered man with a callous indifference
indicative of a long process of hardening. He first inspected the face
closely,—he was, I imagine, looking for powder marks. Then he glanced
at the bullet hole in the forehead and at the ragged wound in the back
of the head. Next he moved the dead man’s arm, bent the fingers, and
pushed the head a little to the side. Having satisfied himself as to
the state of _rigor mortis_, he turned to Heath.

“Can we get him on the settee there?”

Heath looked at Markham inquiringly.

“All through, sir?”

Markham nodded, and Heath beckoned to the two men at the front windows
and ordered the body placed on the davenport. It retained its sitting
posture, due to the hardening of the muscles after death, until the
doctor and his assistant straightened out the limbs. The body was then
undressed, and Dr. Doremus examined it carefully for other wounds. He
paid particular attention to the arms; and he opened both hands wide
and scrutinized the palms. At length he straightened up and wiped his
hands on a large colored silk handkerchief.

“Shot through the left frontal,” he announced. “Direct angle of fire.
Bullet passed completely through the skull. Exit wound in the left
occipital region—base of skull,—you found the bullet, didn’t you? He
was awake when shot, and death was immediate—probably never knew what
hit him. . . . He’s been dead about—well, I should judge, eight hours;
maybe longer.”

“How about twelve-thirty for the exact time?” asked Heath.

The doctor looked at his watch.

“Fits O. K. . . . Anything else?”

No one answered, and after a slight pause the Chief Inspector spoke.

“We’d like a post-mortem report to-day, doctor.”

“That’ll be all right,” Dr. Doremus answered, snapping shut his
medical case and handing it to his assistant. “But get the body to the
Mortuary as soon as you can.”

After a brief hand-shaking ceremony, he went out hurriedly.

Heath turned to the detective who had been standing by the table when
we entered.

“Burke, you ’phone Headquarters to call for the body—and tell ’em to
get a move on. Then go back to the office and wait for me.”

Burke saluted and disappeared.

Heath then addressed one of the two men who had been inspecting the
_grilles_ of the front windows.

“How about that ironwork, Snitkin?”

“No chance, Sergeant,” was the answer. “Strong as a jail—both of ’em.
Nobody never got in through those windows.”

“Very good,” Heath told him. “Now you two fellows chase along with
Burke.”

When they had gone the dapper man in the blue serge suit and derby,
whose sphere of activity had seemed to be the fireplace, laid two
cigarette butts on the table.

“I found these under the gas-logs, Sergeant,” he explained
unenthusiastically. “Not much; but there’s nothing else laying
around.”

“All right, Emery.” Heath gave the butts a disgruntled look. “You
needn’t wait, either. I’ll see you at the office later.”

Hagedorn came ponderously forward.

“I guess I’ll be getting along, too,” he rumbled. “But I’m going to
keep this bullet a while. It’s got some peculiar rifling marks on it.
You don’t want it specially, do you, Sergeant?”

Heath smiled tolerantly.

“What’ll I do with it, Captain? You keep it. But don’t you dare lose
it.”

“I won’t lose it,” Hagedorn assured him, with stodgy seriousness; and,
without so much as a glance at either the District Attorney or the
Chief Inspector, he waddled from the room with a slightly rolling
movement which suggested that of some huge amphibious mammal.

Vance, who was standing beside me near the door, turned and followed
Hagedorn into the hall. The two stood talking in low tones for several
minutes. Vance appeared to be asking questions, and although I was not
close enough to hear their conversation, I caught several words and
phrases—“trajectory,” “muzzle velocity,” “angle of fire,” “impetus,”
“impact,” “deflection,” and the like—and wondered what on earth had
prompted this strange interrogation.

As Vance was thanking Hagedorn for his information Inspector O’Brien
entered the hall.

“Learning fast?” he asked, smiling patronizingly at Vance. Then,
without waiting for a reply: “Come along, Captain; I’ll drive you down
town.”

Markham heard him.

“Have you got room for Dinwiddie, too, Inspector?”

“Plenty, Mr. Markham.”

The three of them went out.

Vance and I were now left alone in the room with Heath and the
District Attorney, and, as if by common impulse, we all settled
ourselves in chairs, Vance taking one near the dining-room door
directly facing the chair in which Benson had been murdered.

I had been keenly interested in Vance’s manner and actions from the
moment of his arrival at the house. When he had first entered the room
he had adjusted his monocle carefully—an act which, despite his air of
passivity, I recognized as an indication of interest. When his mind
was alert and he wished to take on external impressions quickly, he
invariably brought out his monocle. He could see adequately enough
without it, and his use of it, I had observed, was largely the result
of an intellectual dictate. The added clarity of vision it gave him
seemed subtly to affect his clarity of mind.*

   * Vance’s eyes were slightly bifocal. His right eye was
   1.2 astigmatic, whereas his left eye was practically
   normal.

At first he had looked over the room incuriously and watched the
proceedings with bored apathy; but during Heath’s brief questioning of
his subordinates, an expression of cynical amusement had appeared on
his face. Following a few general queries to Assistant District
Attorney Dinwiddie, he had sauntered, with apparent aimlessness, about
the room, looking at the various articles and occasionally shifting
his gaze back and forth between different pieces of furniture. At
length he had stooped down and inspected the mark made by the bullet
on the wainscot; and once he had gone to the door and looked up and
down the hall.

The only thing that had seemed to hold his attention to any extent was
the body itself. He had stood before it for several minutes, studying
its position, and had even bent over the outstretched arm on the table
as if to see just how the dead man’s hand was holding the book. The
crossed position of the legs, however, had attracted him most, and he
had stood studying them for a considerable time. Finally, he had
returned his monocle to his waistcoat pocket, and joined Dinwiddie and
me near the door, where he had stood, watching Heath and the other
detectives with lazy indifference, until the departure of Captain
Hagedorn.

The four of us had no more than taken seats when the patrolman
stationed in the vestibule appeared at the door.

“There’s a man from the local precinct station here, sir,” he
announced, “who wants to see the officer in charge. Shall I send him
in?”

Heath nodded curtly, and a moment later a large red-faced Irishman, in
civilian clothes, stood before us. He saluted Heath, but on
recognizing the District Attorney, made Markham the recipient of his
report.

“I’m Officer McLaughlin, sir—West Forty-seventh Street station,” he
informed us; “and I was on duty on this beat last night. Around
midnight, I guess it was, there was a big grey Cadillac standing in
front of this house—I noticed it particular, because it had a lot of
fishing-tackle sticking out the back, and all of its lights were on.
When I heard of the crime this morning I reported the car to the
station sergeant, and he sent me around to tell you about it.”

“Excellent,” Markham commented; and then, with a nod, referred the
matter to Heath.

“May be something in it,” the latter admitted dubiously. “How long
would you say the car was here, officer?”

“A good half hour anyway. It was here before twelve, and when I come
back at twelve-thirty or thereabouts it was still here. But the next
time I come by, it was gone.”

“You saw nothing else? Nobody in the car, or anyone hanging around who
might have been the owner?”

“No, sir, I did not.”

Several other questions of a similar nature were asked him; but
nothing more could be learned, and he was dismissed.

“Anyway,” remarked Heath, “the car story will be good stuff to hand
the reporters.”

Vance had sat through the questioning of McLaughlin with drowsy
inattention,—I doubt if he even heard more than the first few words of
the officer’s report,—and now, with a stifled yawn, he rose and,
sauntering to the center-table, picked up one of the cigarette butts
that had been found in the fireplace. After rolling it between his
thumb and forefinger and scrutinizing the tip, he ripped the paper
open with his thumb-nail, and held the exposed tobacco to his nose.

Heath, who had been watching him gloweringly, leaned suddenly forward
in his chair.

“What are you doing there?” he demanded, in a tone of surly
truculence.

Vance lifted his eyes in decorous astonishment.

“Merely smelling of the tobacco,” he replied, with condescending
unconcern. “It’s rather mild, y’ know, but delicately blended.”

The muscles in Heath’s cheeks worked angrily. “Well, you’d better put
it down, sir,” he advised. Then he looked Vance up and down. “Tobacco
expert?” he asked, with ill disguised sarcasm.

“Oh, dear no.” Vance’s voice was dulcet. “My specialty is
scarab-cartouches of the Ptolemaic dynasties.”

Markham interposed diplomatically.

“You really shouldn’t touch anything around here, Vance, at this stage
of the game. You never know what’ll turn out to be important. Those
cigarette stubs may quite possibly be significant evidence.”

“Evidence?” repeated Vance sweetly. “My word! You don’t say, really!
Most amusin’!”

Markham was plainly annoyed; and Heath was boiling inwardly, but made
no further comment: he even forced a mirthless smile. He evidently
felt that he had been a little too abrupt with this friend of the
District Attorney’s, however much the friend might have deserved being
reprimanded.

Heath, however, was no sycophant in the presence of his superiors. He
knew his worth and lived up to it with his whole energy, discharging
the tasks to which he was assigned with a dogged indifference to his
own political well-being. This stubbornness of spirit, and the
solidity of character it implied, were respected and valued by the men
over him.

He was a large, powerful man, but agile and graceful in his movements,
like a highly trained boxer. He had hard, blue eyes, remarkably bright
and penetrating, a small nose, a broad oval chin, and a stern straight
mouth with lips that appeared always compressed. His hair, which,
though he was well along in his forties, was without a trace of
greyness, was cropped about the edges, and stood upright in a short
bristly pompadour. His voice had an aggressive resonance, but he
rarely blustered. In many ways he accorded with the conventional
notion of what a detective is like. But there was something more to
the man’s personality, an added capability and strength, as it were;
and as I sat watching him that morning, I felt myself unconsciously
admiring him, despite his very obvious limitations.

“What’s the exact situation, Sergeant?” Markham asked. “Dinwiddie gave
me only the barest facts.”

Heath cleared his throat.

“We got the word a little before seven. Benson’s housekeeper, a Mrs.
Platz, called up the local station and reported that she’d found him
dead, and asked that somebody be sent over at once. The message, of
course, was relayed to Headquarters. I wasn’t there at the time, but
Burke and Emery were on duty, and after notifying Inspector Moran,
they came on up here. Several of the men from the local station were
already on the job doing the usual nosing about. When the Inspector
had got here and looked the situation over, he telephoned me to hurry
along. When I arrived the local men had gone, and three more men from
the Homicide Bureau had joined Burke and Emery. The Inspector also
’phoned Captain Hagedorn—he thought the case big enough to call him in
on it at once—and the Captain had just got here when you arrived. Mr.
Dinwiddie had come in right after the Inspector, and ’phoned you at
once. Chief Inspector O’Brien came along a little ahead of me. I
questioned the Platz woman right off; and my men were looking the
place over when you showed up.”

“Where’s this Mrs. Platz now?” asked Markham.

“Upstairs being watched by one of the local men. She lives in the
house.”

“Why did you mention the specific hour of twelve-thirty to the
doctor?”

“Platz told me she heard a report at that time, which I thought might
have been the shot. I guess now it _was_ the shot—it checks up with a
number of things.”

“I think we’d better have another talk with Mrs. Platz,” Markham
suggested. “But first: did you find anything suggestive in the room
here—anything to go on?”

Heath hesitated almost imperceptibly; then he drew from his coat
pocket a woman’s hand-bag and a pair of long white kid gloves, and
tossed them on the table in front of the District Attorney.

“Only these,” he said. “One of the local men found them on the end of
the mantel over there.”

After a casual inspection of the gloves, Markham opened the hand-bag
and turned its contents out onto the table. I came forward and looked
on, but Vance remained in his chair, placidly smoking a cigarette.

The hand-bag was of fine gold mesh with a catch set with small
sapphires. It was unusually small, and obviously designed only for
evening wear. The objects which it had held, and which Markham was now
inspecting, consisted of a flat watered-silk cigarette-case, a small
gold phial of Roger and Gallet’s _Fleurs d’Amour_ perfume, a
_cloisonné_ vanity-compact, a short delicate cigarette-holder of
inlaid amber, a gold-cased lip-stick, a small embroidered French-linen
handkerchief with “M. St.C.” monogrammed in the corner, and a Yale
latch-key.

“This ought to give us a good lead,” said Markham, indicating the
handkerchief. “I suppose you went over the articles carefully,
Sergeant.”

Heath nodded.

“Yes; and I imagine the bag belongs to the woman Benson was out with
last night. The housekeeper told me he had an appointment and went out
to dinner in his dress clothes. She didn’t hear Benson when he came
back, though. Anyway, we ought to be able to run down Miss ‘M. St.C.’
without much trouble.”

Markham had taken up the cigarette-case again, and as he held it
upside down a little shower of loose dried tobacco fell onto the
table.

Heath stood up suddenly.

“Maybe those cigarettes came out of that case,” he suggested. He
picked up the intact butt and looked at it. “It’s a lady’s cigarette,
all right. It looks as though it might have been smoked in a holder,
too.”

“I beg to differ with you, Sergeant,” drawled Vance. “You’ll forgive
me, I’m sure. But there’s a bit of lip rouge on the end of the
cigarette. It’s hard to see, on account of the gold tip.”

Heath looked at Vance sharply; he was too much surprised to be
resentful. After a closer inspection of the cigarette, he turned again
to Vance.

“Perhaps you could also tell us from these tobacco grains, if the
cigarettes came from this case,” he suggested, with gruff irony.

“One never knows, does one?” Vance replied, indolently rising.

Picking up the case, he pressed it wide open, and tapped it on the
table. Then he looked into it closely, and a humorous smile twitched
the corners of his mouth. Putting his forefinger deep into the case,
he drew out a small cigarette which had evidently been wedged flat
along the bottom of the pocket.

“My olfact’ry gifts won’t be necess’ry now,” he said. “It is apparent
even to the naked eye that the cigarettes are, to speak loosely,
identical—eh what, Sergeant?”

Heath grinned good-naturedly.

“That’s one on us, Mr. Markham.” And he carefully put the cigarette
and the stub in an envelope, which he marked and pocketed.

“You now see, Vance,” observed Markham, “the importance of those
cigarette butts.”

“Can’t say that I do,” responded the other. “Of what possible value is
a cigarette butt? You can’t smoke it, y’ know.”

“It’s evidence, my dear fellow,” explained Markham patiently. “One
knows that the owner of this bag returned with Benson last night, and
remained long enough to smoke two cigarettes.”

Vance lifted his eyebrows in mock amazement.

“One does, does one? Fancy that, now.”

“It only remains to locate her,” interjected Heath.

“She’s a rather decided brunette, at any rate—if that fact will
facilitate your quest any,” said Vance easily; “though why you should
desire to annoy the lady, I can’t for the life of me imagine—really I
can’t, don’t y’ know.”

“Why do you say she’s a brunette?” asked Markham.

“Well, if she isn’t,” Vance told him, sinking listlessly back in his
chair, “then she should consult a cosmetician as to the proper way to
make up. I see she uses ‘Rachel’ powder and Guerlain’s dark lip-stick.
And it simply isn’t done among blondes, old dear.”

“I defer, of course, to your expert opinion,” smiled Markham. Then, to
Heath: “I guess we’ll have to look for a brunette, Sergeant.”

“It’s all right with me,” agreed Heath jocularly. By this time, I
think, he had entirely forgiven Vance for destroying the cigarette
butt.



CHAPTER IV.

The Housekeeper’s Story

  (Friday, June 14; 11 a.m.)

“Now,” suggested Markham, “suppose we take a look over the house. I
imagine you’ve done that pretty thoroughly already, Sergeant, but I’d
like to see the layout. Anyway, I don’t want to question the
housekeeper until the body has been removed.”

Heath rose.

“Very good, sir. I’d like another look myself.”

The four of us went into the hall and walked down the passageway to
the rear of the house. At the extreme end, on the left, was a door
leading downstairs to the basement; but it was locked and bolted.

“The basement is only used for storage now,” Heath explained; “and the
door which opens from it into the street areaway is boarded up. The
Platz woman sleeps upstairs—Benson lived here alone, and there’s
plenty of spare room in the house—; and the kitchen is on this floor.”

He opened a door on the opposite side of the passageway, and we
stepped into a small modern kitchen. Its two high windows, which gave
into the paved rear yard at a height of about eight feet from the
ground, were securely guarded with iron bars, and, in addition, the
sashes were closed and locked. Passing through a swinging door we
entered the dining-room which was directly behind the living-room. The
two windows here looked upon a small stone court—really no more than a
deep air-well between Benson’s house and the adjoining one—; and these
also were iron-barred and locked.

We now re-entered the hallway and stood for a moment at the foot of
the stairs leading above.

“You can see, Mr. Markham,” Heath pointed out, “that whoever shot
Benson must have gotten in by the front door. There’s no other way he
could have entered. Living alone, I guess Benson was a little touchy
on the subject of burglars. The only window that wasn’t barred was the
rear one in the living-room; and that was shut and locked. Anyway, it
only leads into the inside court. The front windows of the living-room
have that ironwork over them; so they couldn’t have been used even to
shoot through, for Benson was shot from the opposite direction. . . .
It’s pretty clear the gunman got in the front door.”

“Looks that way,” said Markham.

“And pardon me for saying so,” remarked Vance, “but Benson let him
in.”

“Yes?” retorted Heath unenthusiastically. “Well, we’ll find all that
out later, I hope.”

“Oh, doubtless,” Vance drily agreed.

We ascended the stairs, and entered Benson’s bed-room which was
directly over the living-room. It was severely but well furnished, and
in excellent order. The bed was made, showing it had not been slept in
that night; and the window shades were drawn. Benson’s dinner-jacket
and white piqué waistcoat were hanging over a chair. A winged collar
and a black bow-tie were on the bed, where they had evidently been
thrown when Benson had taken them off on returning home. A pair of low
evening shoes were standing by the bench at the foot of the bed. In a
glass of water on the night-table was a platinum plate of four false
teeth; and a toupee of beautiful workmanship was lying on the
chiffonier.

This last item aroused Vance’s special interest. He walked up to it
and regarded it closely.

“Most int’restin’,” he commented. “Our departed friend seems to have
worn false hair; did you know that, Markham?”

“I always suspected it,” was the indifferent answer.

Heath, who had remained standing on the threshold, seemed a little
impatient.

“There’s only one other room on this floor,” he said, leading the way
down the hall. “It’s also a bed-room—for guests, so the housekeeper
explained.”

Markham and I looked in through the door, but Vance remained lounging
against the balustrade at the head of the stairs. He was manifestly
uninterested in Alvin Benson’s domestic arrangements; and when Markham
and Heath and I went up to the third floor, he sauntered down into the
main hallway. When at length we descended from our tour of inspection
he was casually looking over the titles in Benson’s bookcase.

We had just reached the foot of the stairs when the front door opened
and two men with a stretcher entered. The ambulance from the
Department of Welfare had arrived to take the corpse to the Morgue;
and the brutal, business-like way in which Benson’s body was covered
up, lifted onto the stretcher, carried out and shoved into the wagon,
made me shudder. Vance, on the other hand; after the merest fleeting
glance at the two men, paid no attention to them. He had found a
volume with a beautiful Humphrey-Milford binding, and was absorbed in
its Roger Payne tooling and powdering.

“I think an interview with Mrs. Platz is indicated now,” said Markham;
and Heath went to the foot of the stairs and gave a loud, brisk order.

Presently a grey-haired, middle-aged woman entered the living-room
accompanied by a plain-clothes man smoking a large cigar. Mrs. Platz
was of the simple, old-fashioned, motherly type, with a calm,
benevolent countenance. She impressed me as highly capable, and as a
woman given little to hysteria—an impression strengthened by her
attitude of passive resignation. She seemed, however, to possess that
taciturn shrewdness that is so often found among the ignorant.

“Sit down, Mrs. Platz,” Markham greeted her kindly. “I’m the District
Attorney, and there are some questions I want to ask you.”

She took a straight chair by the door and waited, gazing nervously
from one to the other of us. Markham’s gentle, persuasive voice,
though, appeared to encourage her; and her answers became more and
more fluent.

The main facts that transpired from a quarter-of-an-hour’s examination
may be summed up as follows:

  Mrs. Platz had been Benson’s housekeeper for four years and was the
  only servant employed. She lived in the house, and her room was on
  the third, or top, floor in the rear.

  On the afternoon of the preceding day Benson had returned from his
  office at an unusually early hour—around four o’clock—announcing to
  Mrs. Platz that he would not be home for dinner that evening. He had
  remained in the living-room, with the hall door closed, until half
  past six, and had then gone upstairs to dress.

  He had left the house about seven o’clock, but had not said where he
  was going. He had remarked casually that he would return in fairly
  good season, but had told Mrs. Platz she need not wait up for
  him—which was her custom whenever he intended bringing guests home.
  This was the last she had seen him alive. She had not heard him when
  he returned that night.

  She had retired about half past ten, and, because of the heat, had
  left the door ajar. She had been awakened some time later by a loud
  detonation. It had startled her, and she had turned on the light by
  her bed, noting that it was just half past twelve by the small
  alarm-clock she used for rising. It was, in fact, the early hour
  which had reassured her. Benson, whenever he went out for the
  evening, rarely returned home before two; and this fact, coupled
  with the stillness of the house, had made her conclude that the
  noise which had aroused her had been merely the backfiring of an
  automobile in Forty-ninth Street. Consequently, she had dismissed
  the matter from her mind, and gone back to sleep.

  At seven o’clock the next morning she came downstairs as usual to
  begin her day’s duties, and, on her way to the front door to bring
  in the milk and cream, had discovered Benson’s body. All the shades
  in the living-room were down.

  At first she thought Benson had fallen asleep in his chair, but when
  she saw the bullet hole and noticed that the electric lights had
  been switched off, she knew he was dead. She had gone at once to the
  telephone in the hall and, asking the operator for the Police
  Station, had reported the murder. She had then remembered Benson’s
  brother, Major Anthony Benson, and had telephoned him also. He had
  arrived at the house almost simultaneously with the detectives from
  the West Forty-seventh Street station. He had questioned her a
  little, talked with the plain-clothes men, and gone away before the
  men from Headquarters arrived.

“And now, Mrs. Platz,” said Markham, glancing at the notes he had been
making, “one or two more questions, and we won’t trouble you
further. . . . Have you noticed anything in Mr. Benson’s actions
lately that might lead you to suspect that he was worried—or, let us
say, in fear of anything happening to him?”

“No, sir,” the woman answered readily. “It looked like he was in
special good-humor for the last week or so.”

“I notice that most of the windows on this floor are barred. Was he
particularly afraid of burglars, or of people breaking in?”

“Well—not exactly,” was the hesitant reply. “But he did use to say as
how the police were no good—begging your pardon, sir—and how a man in
this city had to look out for himself if he didn’t want to get held
up.”

Markham turned to Heath with a chuckle.

“You might make a special note of that for your files, Sergeant.” Then
to Mrs. Platz: “Do you know of anyone who had a grudge against Mr.
Benson?”

“Not a soul, sir,” the housekeeper answered emphatically. “He was a
queer man in many ways, but everybody seemed to like him. He was all
the time going to parties or giving parties. I just can’t see why
anybody’d want to kill him.”

Markham looked over his notes again.

“I don’t think there’s anything else for the present. . . . How about
it, Sergeant? Anything further you want to ask?”

Heath pondered a moment.

“No, I can’t think of anything more just now. . . . But you, Mrs.
Platz,” he added, turning a cold glance on the woman, “will stay here
in this house till you’re given permission to leave. We’ll want to
question you later. But you’re not to talk to anyone else—understand?
Two of my men will be here for a while yet.”

Vance, during the interview, had been jotting down something on the
fly-leaf of a small pocket address-book, and as Heath was speaking, he
tore out the page and handed it to Markham. Markham glanced at it
frowningly and pursed his lips. Then after a few moments’ hesitation,
he addressed himself again to the housekeeper.

“You mentioned, Mrs. Platz, that Mr. Benson was liked by everyone. Did
you yourself like him?”

The woman shifted her eyes to her lap.

“Well, sir,” she replied reluctantly, “I was only working for him, and
I haven’t got any complaint about the way he treated me.”

Despite her words, she gave the impression that she either disliked
Benson extremely or greatly disapproved of him. Markham, however, did
not push the point.

“And by the way, Mrs. Platz,” he said next, “did Mr. Benson keep any
fire-arms about the house? For instance, do you know if he owned a
revolver?”

For the first time during the interview, the woman appeared agitated,
even frightened.

“Yes, sir, I—think he did,” she admitted, in an unsteady voice.

“Where did he keep it?”

The woman glanced up apprehensively, and rolled her eyes slightly as
if weighing the advisability of speaking frankly. Then she replied in
a low voice:

“In that hidden drawer there in the center-table. You—you use that
little brass button to open it with.”

Heath jumped up, and pressed the button she had indicated. A tiny,
shallow drawer shot out; and in it lay a Smith and Wesson thirty-eight
revolver with an inlaid pearl handle. He picked it up, broke the
carriage, and looked at the head of the cylinder.

“Full,” he announced laconically.

An expression of tremendous relief spread over the woman’s features,
and she sighed audibly.

Markham had risen and was looking at the revolver over Heath’s
shoulder.

“You’d better take charge of it, Sergeant,” he said; “though I don’t
see exactly how it fits in with the case.”

He resumed his seat, and glancing at the notation Vance had given him,
turned again to the housekeeper.

“One more question, Mrs. Platz. You said Mr. Benson came home early
and spent his time before dinner in this room. Did he have any callers
during that time?”

I was watching the woman closely, and it seemed to me that she quickly
compressed her lips. At any rate, she sat up a little straighter in
her chair before answering.

“There wasn’t no one, as far as I know.”

“But surely you would have known if the bell rang,” insisted Markham.
“You would have answered the door, wouldn’t you?”

“There wasn’t no one,” she repeated, with a trace of sullenness.

“And last night: did the door-bell ring at all after you had retired?”

“No, sir.”

“You would have heard it, even if you’d been asleep?”

“Yes, sir. There’s a bell just outside my door, the same as in the
kitchen. It rings in both places. Mr. Benson had it fixed that way.”

Markham thanked her and dismissed her. When she had gone, he looked at
Vance questioningly.

“What idea did you have in your mind when you handed me those
questions?”

“I might have been a bit presumptuous, y’ know,” said Vance; “but when
the lady was extolling the deceased’s popularity, I rather felt she
was overdoing it a bit. There was an unconscious implication of
antithesis in her eulogy, which suggested to me that she herself was
not ardently enamored of the gentleman.”

“And what put the notion of fire-arms into your mind?”

“That query,” explained Vance, “was a corollary of your own questions
about barred windows and Benson’s fear of burglars. If he was in a
funk about house-breakers or enemies, he’d be likely to have weapons
at hand—eh, what?”

“Well, anyway, Mr. Vance,” put in Heath, “your curiosity unearthed a
nice little revolver that’s probably never been used.”

“By the bye, Sergeant,” returned Vance, ignoring the other’s
good-humored sarcasm, “just what do you make of that nice little
revolver?”

“Well, now,” Heath replied, with ponderous facetiousness, “I deduct
that Mr. Benson kept a pearl-handled Smith and Wesson in a secret
drawer of his center-table.”

“You don’t say—really!” exclaimed Vance in mock admiration.
“Pos’tively illuminatin’!”

Markham broke up this raillery.

“Why did you want to know about visitors, Vance? There obviously
hadn’t been anyone here.”

“Oh, just a whim of mine. I was assailed by an impulsive yearning to
hear what La Platz would say.”

Heath was studying Vance curiously. His first impressions of the man
were being dispelled, and he had begun to suspect that beneath the
other’s casual and debonair exterior there was something of a more
solid nature than he had at first imagined. He was not altogether
satisfied with Vance’s explanations to Markham, and seemed to be
endeavoring to penetrate to his real reasons for supplementing the
District Attorney’s interrogation of the housekeeper. Heath was
astute, and he had the worldly man’s ability to read people; but
Vance, being different from the men with whom he usually came in
contact, was an enigma to him.

At length he relinquished his scrutiny, and drew up his chair to the
table with a spirited air.

“And now, Mr. Markham,” he said crisply, “we’d better outline our
activities so as not to duplicate our efforts. The sooner I get my men
started, the better.”

Markham assented readily.

“The investigation is entirely up to you, Sergeant. I’m here to help
wherever I’m needed.”

“That’s very kind of you, sir,” Heath returned. “But it looks to me as
though there’d be enough work for all parties. . . . Suppose I get to
work on running down the owner of the hand-bag, and send some men out
scouting among Benson’s night-life cronies,—I can pick up some names
from the housekeeper, and they’ll be a good starting point. And I’ll
get after that Cadillac, too. . . . Then we ought to look into his
lady friends—I guess he had enough of ’em.”

“I may get something out of the Major along that line,” supplied
Markham. “He’ll tell me anything I want to know. And I can also look
into Benson’s business associates through the same channel.”

“I was going to suggest that you could do that better than I could,”
Heath rejoined. “We ought to run into something pretty quick that’ll
give us a line to go on. And I’ve got an idea that when we locate the
lady he took to dinner last night and brought back here, we’ll know a
lot more than we do now.”

“Or a lot less,” murmured Vance.

Heath looked up quickly, and grunted with an air of massive petulance.

“Let me tell you something, Mr. Vance,” he said, “—since I understand
you want to learn something about these affairs: when anything goes
seriously wrong in this world, it’s pretty safe to look for a woman in
the case.”

“Ah, yes,” smiled Vance. “_Cherchez la femme_—an aged notion. Even the
Romans labored under the superstition,—they expressed it with _Dux
femina facti_.”

“However they expressed it,” retorted Heath, “they had the right idea.
And don’t let ’em tell you different.”

Again Markham diplomatically intervened.

“That point will be settled very soon, I hope. . . . And now,
Sergeant, if you’ve nothing else to suggest, I’ll be getting along. I
told Major Benson I’d see him at lunch time; and I may have some news
for you by to-night.”

“Right,” assented Heath. “I’m going to stick around here a while and
see if there’s anything I overlooked. I’ll arrange for a guard outside
and also for a man inside to keep an eye on the Platz woman. Then I’ll
see the reporters and let them in on the disappearing Cadillac and Mr.
Vance’s mysterious revolver in the secret drawer. I guess that ought
to hold ’em. If I find out anything, I’ll ’phone you.”

When he had shaken hands with the District Attorney, he turned to
Vance.

“Good-bye, sir,” he said pleasantly, much to my surprise, and to
Markham’s too, I imagine. “I hope you learned something this morning.”

“You’d be pos’tively dumbfounded, Sergeant, at all I did learn,” Vance
answered carelessly.

Again I noted the look of shrewd scrutiny in Heath’s eyes; but in a
second it was gone.

“Well, I’m glad of that,” was his perfunctory reply.

Markham, Vance and I went out, and the patrolman on duty hailed a
taxicab for us.

“So that’s the way our lofty _gendarmerie_ approaches the mysterious
wherefores of criminal enterprise—eh?” mused Vance, as we started on
our way across town. “Markham, old dear, how do those robust lads ever
succeed in running down a culprit?”

“You have witnessed only the barest preliminaries,” Markham explained.
“There are certain things that must be done as a matter of routine—_ex
abundantia cautelæ_, as we lawyers say.”

“But, my word!—such technique!” sighed Vance. “Ah, well, _quantum est
in rebus inane!_ as we laymen say.”

“You don’t think much of Heath’s capacity, I know,”—Markham’s voice
was patient—“but he’s a clever man, and one that it’s very easy to
underestimate.”

“I dare say,” murmured Vance. “Anyway, I’m deuced grateful to you, and
all that, for letting me behold the solemn proceedings. I’ve been
vastly amused, even if not uplifted. Your official Æsculapius rather
appealed to me, y’ know—such a brisk, unemotional chap, and utterly
unimpressed with the corpse. He really should have taken up crime in a
serious way, instead of studying medicine.”

Markham lapsed into gloomy silence, and sat looking out of the window
in troubled meditation until we reached Vance’s house.

“I don’t like the looks of things,” he remarked, as we drew up to the
curb. “I have a curious feeling about this case.”

Vance regarded him a moment from the corner of his eye.

“See here, Markham,” he said with unwonted seriousness; “haven’t you
any idea who shot Benson?”

Markham forced a faint smile.

“I wish I had. Crimes of wilful murder are not so easily solved. And
this case strikes me as a particularly complex one.”

“Fancy, now!” said Vance, as he stepped out of the machine. “And I
thought it extr’ordin’rily simple.”



CHAPTER V.

Gathering Information

  (Saturday, June 15; forenoon.)

You will remember the sensation caused by Alvin Benson’s murder. It
was one of those crimes that appeal irresistibly to the popular
imagination. Mystery is the basis of all romance, and about the Benson
case there hung an impenetrable aura of mystery. It was many days
before any definite light was shed on the circumstances surrounding
the shooting; but numerous _ignes fatui_ arose to beguile the public’s
imagination, and wild speculations were heard on all sides.

Alvin Benson, while not a romantic figure in any respect, had been
well-known; and his personality had been a colorful and spectacular
one. He had been a member of New York’s wealthy bohemian social set—an
avid sportsman, a rash gambler, and professional man-about-town; and
his life, led on the borderland of the demimonde, had contained many
high-lights. His exploits in the night clubs and cabarets had long
supplied the subject-matter for exaggerated stories and comments in
the various local papers and magazines which batten on Broadway’s
scandalmongers.

Benson and his brother, Anthony, had, at the time of the former’s
sudden death, been running a brokerage office at 21 Wall Street, under
the name of Benson and Benson. Both were regarded by the other brokers
of the Street as shrewd business men, though perhaps a shade unethical
when gauged by the constitution and by-laws of the New York Stock
Exchange. They were markedly contrasted as to temperament and taste,
and saw little of each other outside the office. Alvin Benson devoted
his entire leisure to pleasure-seeking and was a regular patron of the
city’s leading cafés; whereas Anthony Benson, who was the older and
had served as a major in the late war, followed a sedate and
conventional existence, spending most of his evenings quietly at his
clubs. Both, however, were popular in their respective circles, and
between them they had built up a large clientele.

The glamour of the financial district had much to do with the manner
in which the crime was handled by the newspapers. Moreover, the murder
had been committed at a time when the metropolitan press was
experiencing a temporary lull in sensationalism; and the story was
spread over the front pages of the papers with a prodigality rarely
encountered in such cases.* Eminent detectives throughout the country
were interviewed by enterprising reporters. Histories of famous
unsolved murder cases were revived; and clairvoyants and astrologers
were engaged by the Sunday editors to solve the mystery by various
metaphysical devices. Photographs and detailed diagrams were the daily
accompaniments of these journalistic outpourings.

   * Even the famous Elwell case, which came several years
   later and bore certain points of similarity to the Benson
   case, created no greater sensation, despite the fact that
   Elwell was more widely known than Benson, and the persons
   involved were more prominent socially. Indeed, the Benson
   case was referred to several times in descriptions of the
   Elwell case; and one anti-administration paper regretted
   editorially that John F.-X. Markham was no longer District
   Attorney of New York.

In all the news stories the grey Cadillac and the pearl-handled Smith
and Wesson were featured. There were pictures of Cadillac cars,
“touched up” and reconstructed to accord with Patrolman McLaughlin’s
description, some of them even showing the fishing-tackle protruding
from the tonneau. A photograph of Benson’s center-table had been
taken, with the secret drawer enlarged and reproduced in an “inset”.
One Sunday magazine went so far as to hire an expert cabinet-maker to
write a dissertation on secret compartments in furniture.

The Benson case from the outset had proved a trying and difficult one
from the police standpoint. Within an hour of the time that Vance and
I had left the scene of the crime a systematic investigation had been
launched by the men of the Homicide Bureau in charge of Sergeant
Heath. Benson’s house was again gone over thoroughly, and all his
private correspondence read; but nothing was brought forth that could
throw any light on the tragedy. No weapon was found aside from
Benson’s own Smith and Wesson; and though all the window _grilles_
were again inspected, they were found to be secure, indicating that
the murderer had either let himself in with a key, or else been
admitted by Benson. Heath, by the way, was unwilling to admit this
latter possibility despite Mrs. Platz’s positive assertion that no
other person besides herself and Benson had a key.

Because of the absence of any definite clue, other than the hand-bag
and the gloves, the only proceeding possible was the interrogating of
Benson’s friends and associates in the hope of uncovering some fact
which would furnish a trail. It was by this process also that Heath
hoped to establish the identity of the owner of the hand-bag. A
special effort was therefore made to ascertain where Benson had spent
the evening; but though many of his acquaintances were questioned, and
the cafés where he habitually dined were visited, no one could at once
be found who had seen him that night; nor, as far as it was possible
to learn, had he mentioned to anyone his plans for the evening.
Furthermore, no general information of a helpful nature came to light
immediately, although the police pushed their inquiry with the utmost
thoroughness. Benson apparently had no enemies; he had not quarreled
seriously with anyone; and his affairs were reported in their usual
orderly shape.

Major Anthony Benson was naturally the principal person looked to for
information, because of his intimate knowledge of his brother’s
affairs; and it was in this connection that the District Attorney’s
office did its chief functioning at the beginning of the case. Markham
had lunched with Major Benson the day the crime was discovered, and
though the latter had shown a willingness to co-operate—even to the
detriment of his brother’s character—his suggestions were of little
value. He explained to Markham that, though he knew most of his
brother’s associates, he could not name anyone who would have any
reason for committing such a crime, or anyone who, in his opinion,
would be able to help in leading the police to the guilty person. He
admitted frankly, however, that there was a side to his brother’s life
with which he was unacquainted, and regretted that he was unable to
suggest any specific way of ascertaining the hidden facts. But he
intimated that his brother’s relations with women were of a somewhat
unconventional nature; and he ventured the opinion that there was a
bare possibility of a motive being found in that direction.

Pursuant of the few indefinite and unsatisfactory suggestions of Major
Benson, Markham had immediately put to work two good men from the
Detective Division assigned to the District Attorney’s office, with
instructions to confine their investigations to Benson’s women
acquaintances so as not to appear in any way to be encroaching upon
the activities of the Central Office men. Also, as a result of Vance’s
apparent interest in the housekeeper at the time of the interrogation,
he had sent a man to look into the woman’s antecedents and
relationships.

Mrs. Platz, it was learned, had been born in a small Pennsylvania
town, of German parents both of whom were dead; and had been a widow
for over sixteen years. Before coming to Benson, she had been with one
family for twelve years, and had left the position only because her
mistress had given up housekeeping and moved into a hotel. Her former
employer, when questioned, said she thought there had been a daughter,
but had never seen the child, and knew nothing of it. In these facts
there was nothing to take hold of, and Markham had merely filed the
report as a matter of form.

Heath had instigated a city-wide search for the grey Cadillac,
although he had little faith in its direct connection with the crime;
and in this the newspapers helped considerably by the extensive
advertising given the car. One curious fact developed that fired the
police with the hope that the Cadillac might indeed hold some clue to
the mystery. A street-cleaner, having read or heard about the
fishing-tackle in the machine, reported the finding of two jointed
fishing-rods, in good condition, at the side of one of the drives in
Central Park near Columbus Circle. The question was: were these rods
part of the equipment Patrolman McLaughlin had seen in the Cadillac?
The owner of the car might conceivably have thrown them away in his
flight; but, on the other hand, they might have been lost by someone
else while driving through the park. No further information was
forthcoming, and on the morning of the day following the discovery of
the crime the case, so far as any definite progress toward a solution
was concerned, had taken no perceptible forward step.

That morning Vance had sent Currie out to buy him every available
newspaper; and he had spent over an hour perusing the various accounts
of the crime. It was unusual for him to glance at a newspaper, even
casually, and I could not refrain from expressing my amazement at his
sudden interest in a subject so entirely outside his normal routine.

“No, Van old dear,” he explained languidly, “I am not becoming
sentimental or even human, as that word is erroneously used to-day. I
can not say with Terence, ‘_Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum
puto_’, because I regard most things that are called human as
decidedly alien to myself. But, y’ know, this little flurry in crime
has proved rather int’restin’, or, as the magazine writers say,
intriguing—beastly word! . . . Van, you really should read this
precious interview with Sergeant Heath. He takes an entire column to
say ‘I know nothing’. A priceless lad! I’m becoming pos’tively fond of
him.”

“It may be,” I suggested, “that Heath is keeping his true knowledge
from the papers, as a bit of tactical diplomacy.”

“No,” Vance returned, with a sad wag of the head; “no man has so
little vanity that he would delib’rately reveal himself to the world
as a creature with no perceptible powers of human reasoning—as he does
in all these morning journals—for the mere sake of bringing one
murderer to justice. That would be martyrdom gone mad.”

“Markham, at any rate, may know or suspect something that hasn’t been
revealed,” I said.

Vance pondered a moment.

“That’s not impossible,” he admitted. “He has kept himself modestly in
the background in all this journalistic palaver. Suppose we look into
the matter more thoroughly—eh, what?”

Going to the telephone he called the District Attorney’s office, and I
heard him make an appointment with Markham for lunch at the Stuyvesant
Club.

“What about that Nadelmann statuette at Stieglitz’s,” I asked,
remembering the reason for my presence at Vance’s that morning.

“I ain’t* in the mood for Greek simplifications to-day,” he answered,
turning again to his newspapers.

   * Vance, who had lived many years in England, frequently
   said “ain’t”—a contraction which is regarded there more
   leniently than in this country. He also pronounced _ate_
   as if it were spelled _et_; and I can not remember his
   ever using the word “stomach” or “bug”, both of which are
   under the social ban in England.

To say that I was surprised at his attitude is to express it mildly.
In all my association with him I had never known him to forgo his
enthusiasm for art in favor of any other divertisement; and heretofore
anything pertaining to the law and its operations had failed to
interest him. I realized, therefore, that something of an unusual
nature was at work in his brain, and I refrained from further comment.

Markham was a little late for the appointment at the Club, and Vance
and I were already at our favorite corner table when he arrived.

“Well, my good Lycurgus,” Vance greeted him, “aside from the fact that
several new and significant clues have been unearthed and that the
public may expect important developments in the very near future, and
all that sort of tosh, how are things really going?”

Markham smiled.

“I see you have been reading the newspapers. What do you think of the
accounts?”

“Typical, no doubt,” replied Vance. “They carefully and painstakingly
omit nothing but the essentials.”

“Indeed?” Markham’s tone was jocular. “And what, may I ask, do you
regard as the essentials of the case?”

“In my foolish amateur way,” said Vance, “I looked upon dear Alvin’s
toupee as a rather conspicuous essential, don’t y’ know.”

“Benson, at any rate, regarded it in that light, I imagine. . . .
Anything else?”

“Well, there was the collar and the tie on the chiffonier.”

“And,” added Markham chaffingly, “don’t overlook the false teeth in
the tumbler.”

“You’re pos’tively coruscatin’!” Vance exclaimed. “Yes, they, too,
were an essential of the situation. And I’ll warrant the incomp’rable
Heath didn’t even notice them. But the other Aristotles present were
equally sketchy in their observations.”

“You weren’t particularly impressed by the investigation yesterday, I
take it,” said Markham.

“On the contrary,” Vance assured him. “I was impressed to the point of
stupefaction. The whole proceedings constituted a masterpiece of
absurdity. Everything relevant was sublimely ignored. There were at
least a dozen _points de départ_, all leading in the same direction,
but not one of them apparently was even noticed by any of the
officiating _pourparleurs_. Everybody was too busy at such silly
occupations as looking for cigarette-ends and inspecting the ironwork
at the windows.—Those _grilles_, by the way, were rather
attractive—Florentine design.”

Markham was both amused and ruffled.

“One’s pretty safe with the police, Vance,” he said. “They get there
eventually.”

“I simply adore your trusting nature,” murmured Vance. “But confide in
me: what do you know regarding Benson’s murderer?”

Markham hesitated.

“This is, of course, in confidence,” he said at length; “but this
morning, right after you ’phoned, one of the men I had put to work on
the amatory end of Benson’s life, reported that he had found the woman
who left her hand-bag and gloves at the house that night,—the initials
on the handkerchief gave him the clue. And he dug up some interesting
facts about her. As I suspected, she was Benson’s dinner companion
that evening. She’s an actress—musical comedy, I believe. Muriel St.
Clair by name.”

“Most unfortunate,” breathed Vance. “I was hoping, y’ know, your
myrmidons wouldn’t discover the lady. I haven’t the pleasure of her
acquaintance, or I’d send her a note of commiseration. . . . Now, I
presume, you’ll play the _juge d’instruction_ and chivvy her most
horribly, what?”

“I shall certainly question her, if that’s what you mean.”

Markham’s manner was preoccupied, and during the rest of the lunch we
spoke but little.

As we sat in the Club’s lounge-room later having our smoke, Major
Benson, who had been standing dejectedly at a window close by, caught
sight of Markham and came over to us. He was a full-faced man of about
fifty, with grave kindly features and a sturdy, erect body.

He greeted Vance and me with a casual bow, and turned at once to the
District Attorney.

“Markham, I’ve been thinking things over constantly since our lunch
yesterday,” he said, “and there’s one other suggestion I think I might
make. There’s a man named Leander Pfyfe who was very close to Alvin;
and it’s possible he could give you some helpful information. His name
didn’t occur to me yesterday, for he doesn’t live in the city; he’s on
Long Island somewhere—Port Washington, I think.—It’s just an idea. The
truth is, I can’t seem to figure out anything that makes sense in this
terrible affair.”

He drew a quick, resolute breath, as if to check some involuntary sign
of emotion. It was evident that the man, for all his habitual
passivity of nature, was deeply moved.

“That’s a good suggestion, Major,” Markham said, making a notation on
the back of a letter. “I’ll get after it immediately.”

Vance, who, during this brief interchange, had been gazing
unconcernedly out of the window, turned and addressed himself to the
Major.

“How about Colonel Ostrander? I’ve seen him several times in the
company of your brother.”

Major Benson made a slight gesture of deprecation.

“Only an acquaintance. He’d be of no value.”

Then he turned to Markham.

“I don’t imagine it’s time even to hope that you’ve run across
anything.”

Markham took his cigar from his mouth, and turning it about in his
fingers, contemplated it thoughtfully.

“I wouldn’t say that,” he remarked, after a moment. “I’ve managed to
find out whom your brother dined with Thursday night; and I know that
this person returned home with him shortly after midnight.” He paused
as if deliberating the wisdom of saying more. Then: “The fact is, I
don’t need a great deal more evidence than I’ve got already to go
before the Grand Jury and ask for an indictment.”

A look of surprised admiration flashed in the Major’s sombre face.

“Thank God for that, Markham!” he said. Then, setting his heavy jaw,
he placed his hand on the District Attorney’s shoulder. “Go the
limit—for my sake!” he urged. “If you want me for anything, I’ll be
here at the Club till late.”

With this he turned and walked from the room.

“It seems a bit cold-blooded to bother the Major with questions so
soon after his brother’s death,” commented Markham. “Still, the world
has got to go on.”

Vance stifled a yawn.

“Why—in Heaven’s name?” he murmured listlessly.



CHAPTER VI.

Vance Offers an Opinion

  (Saturday, June 15; 2 p.m.)

We sat for a while smoking in silence, Vance gazing lazily out into
Madison Square, Markham frowning deeply at the faded oil portrait of
old Peter Stuyvesant that hung over the fireplace.

Presently Vance turned and contemplated the District Attorney with a
faintly sardonic smile.

“I say, Markham,” he drawled; “it has always been a source of
amazement to me how easily you investigators of crime are misled by
what you call clues. You find a footprint, or a parked automobile, or
a monogrammed handkerchief, and then dash off on a wild chase with
your eternal _Ecce signum!_ ’Pon my word, it’s as if you chaps were
all under the spell of shillin’ shockers. Won’t you ever learn that
crimes can’t be solved by deductions based merely on material clues
and circumst’ntial evidence?”

I think Markham was as much surprised as I at this sudden criticism;
yet we both knew Vance well enough to realize that, despite his placid
and almost flippant tone, there was a serious purpose behind his
words.

“Would you advocate ignoring all the tangible evidence of a crime?”
asked Markham, a bit patronizingly.

“Most emphatically,” Vance declared calmly. “It’s not only worthless
but dangerous. . . . The great trouble with you chaps, d’ ye see, is
that you approach every crime with a fixed and unshakable assumption
that the criminal is either half-witted or a colossal bungler. I say,
has it never by any chance occurred to you that if a detective could
see a clue, the criminal would also have seen it, and would either
have concealed it or disguised it, if he had not wanted it found? And
have you never paused to consider that anyone clever enough to plan
and execute a successful crime these days, is, _ipso facto_, clever
enough to manufacture whatever clues suit his purpose? Your detective
seems wholly unwilling to admit that the surface appearance of a crime
may be delib’rately deceptive, or that the clues may have been planted
for the def’nite purpose of misleading him.”

“I’m afraid,” Markham pointed out, with an air of indulgent irony,
“that we’d convict very few criminals if we were to ignore all
indicatory evidence, cogent circumstances and irresistible
inferences. . . . As a rule, you know, crimes are not witnessed by
outsiders.”

“That’s your fundamental error, don’t y’ know,” Vance observed
impassively. “Every crime is witnessed by outsiders, just as is every
work of art. The fact that no one sees the criminal, or the artist,
actu’lly at work, is wholly incons’quential. The modern investigator
of crime would doubtless refuse to believe that Rubens painted the
_Descent from the Cross_ in the Cathedral at Antwerp if there was
sufficient circumst’ntial evidence to indicate that he had been away
on diplomatic business, for instance, at the time it was painted. And
yet, my dear fellow, such a conclusion would be prepost’rous. Even if
the inf’rences to the contr’ry were so irresistible as to be legally
overpowering, the picture itself would prove conclusively that Rubens
did paint it. Why? For the simple reason, d’ ye see, that no one but
Rubens could have painted it. It bears the indelible imprint of his
personality and genius—and his alone.”

“I’m not an æsthetician,” Markham reminded him, a trifle testily. “I’m
merely a practical lawyer, and when it comes to determining the
authorship of a crime, I prefer tangible evidence to metaphysical
hypotheses.”

“Your pref’rence, my dear fellow,” Vance returned blandly, “will
inev’tably involve you in all manner of embarrassing errors.”

He slowly lit another cigarette, and blew a wreath of smoke toward the
ceiling.

“Consider, for example, your conclusions in the present murder case,”
he went on, in his emotionless drawl. “You are laboring under the
grave misconception that you know the person who prob’bly killed the
unspeakable Benson. You admitted as much to the Major; and you told
him you had nearly enough evidence to ask for an indictment. No doubt,
you do possess a number of what the learned Solons of to-day regard as
convincing clues. But the truth is, don’t y’ know, you haven’t your
eye on the guilty person at all. You’re about to bedevil some poor
girl who had nothing whatever to do with the crime.”

Markham swung about sharply.

“So!” he retorted. “I’m about to bedevil an innocent person, eh? Since
my assistants and I are the only ones who happen to know what evidence
we hold against her, perhaps you will explain by what occult process
you acquired your knowledge of this person’s innocence.”

“It’s quite simple, y’ know,” Vance replied, with a quizzical twitch
of the lips. “You haven’t your eye on the murderer for the reason that
the person who committed this particular crime was sufficiently shrewd
and perspicacious to see to it that no evidence which you or the
police were likely to find, would even remotely indicate his guilt.”

He had spoken with the easy assurance of one who enunciates an obvious
fact—a fact which permits of no argument.

Markham gave a disdainful laugh.

“No law-breaker,” he asserted oracularly, “is shrewd enough to see all
contingencies. Even the most trivial event has so many intimately
related and serrated points of contact with other events which precede
and follow, that it is a known fact that every criminal—however long
and carefully he may plan—leaves some loose end to his preparations,
which in the end betrays him.”

“A known fact?” Vance repeated. “No, my dear fellow—merely a
conventional superstition, based on the childish idea of an
implacable, avenging Nemesis. I can see how this esoteric notion of
the inev’tability of divine punishment would appeal to the popular
imagination, like fortune-telling and Ouija boards, don’t y’ know;
but—my word!—it desolates me to think that you, old chap, would give
credence to such mystical moonshine.”

“Don’t let it spoil your entire day,” said Markham acridly.

“Regard the unsolved, or successful, crimes that are taking place
every day,” Vance continued, disregarding the other’s irony, “—crimes
which completely baffle the best detectives in the business, what? The
fact is, the only crimes that are ever solved are those planned by
stupid people. That’s why, whenever a man of even mod’rate sagacity
decides to commit a crime, he accomplishes it with but little
diff’culty, and fortified with the pos’tive assurance of his immunity
to discovery.”

“Undetected crimes,” scornfully submitted Markham, “result, in the
main, from official bad luck—not from superior criminal cleverness.”

“Bad luck”—Vance’s voice was almost dulcet—“is merely a defensive and
self-consoling synonym for inefficiency. A man with ingenuity and
brains is not harassed by bad luck. . . . No, Markham old dear;
unsolved crimes are simply crimes which have been intelligently
planned and executed. And, d’ ye see, it happens that the Benson
murder falls into that categ’ry. Therefore, when, after a few hours’
investigation, you say you’re pretty sure who committed it, you must
pardon me if I take issue with you.”

He paused and took a few meditative puffs on his cigarette.

“The factitious and casuistic methods of deduction you chaps pursue
are apt to lead almost anywhere. In proof of which assertion I point
triumphantly to the unfortunate young lady whose liberty you are now
plotting to take away.”

Markham, who had been hiding his resentment behind a smile of tolerant
contempt, now turned on Vance and fairly glowered.

“It so happens—and I’m speaking _ex cathedra_—” he proclaimed
defiantly, “that I come pretty near having the goods on your
‘unfortunate young lady’.”

Vance was unmoved.

“And yet, y’ know,” he observed drily, “no woman could possibly have
done it.”

I could see that Markham was furious. When he spoke he almost
spluttered.

“A woman couldn’t have done it, eh—no matter what the evidence?”

“Quite so,” Vance rejoined placidly: “not if she herself swore to it
and produced a tome of what you scions of the law term, rather
pompously, incontrovertible evidence.”

“Ah!” There was no mistaking the sarcasm of Markham’s tone. “I am to
understand then that you even regard confessions as valueless?”

“Yes, my dear Justinian,” the other responded, with an air of
complacency; “I would have you understand precisely that. Indeed, they
are worse than valueless—they’re downright misleading. The fact that
occasionally they may prove to be correct—like woman’s prepost’rously
overrated intuition—renders them just so much more unreliable.”

Markham grunted disdainfully.

“Why should any person confess something to his detriment unless he
felt that the truth had been found out, or was likely to be found
out?”

“’Pon my word, Markham, you astound me! Permit me to murmur,
_privatissime et gratis_, into your innocent ear that there are many
other presumable motives for confessing. A confession may be the
result of fear, or duress, or expediency, or mother-love, or chivalry,
or what the psycho-analysts call the inferiority complex, or
delusions, or a mistaken sense of duty, or a perverted egotism, or
sheer vanity, or any other of a hundred causes. Confessions are the
most treach’rous and unreliable of all forms of evidence; and even the
silly and unscientific law repudiates them in murder cases unless
substantiated by other evidence.”

“You are eloquent; you wring me,” said Markham. “But if the law threw
out all confessions and ignored all material clues, as you appear to
advise, then society might as well close down all its courts and scrap
all its jails.”

“A typical _non sequitur_ of legal logic,” Vance replied.

“But how would you convict the guilty, may I ask?”

“There is one infallible method of determining human guilt and
responsibility,” Vance explained; “but as yet the police are as
blissfully unaware of its possibilities as they are ignorant of its
operations. The truth can be learned only by an analysis of the
psychological factors of a crime, and an application of them to the
individual. The only real clues are psychological—not material. Your
truly profound art expert, for instance, does not judge and
authenticate pictures by an inspection of the underpainting and a
chemical analysis of the pigments, but by studying the creative
personality revealed in the picture’s conception and execution. He
asks himself: Does this work of art embody the qualities of form and
technique and mental attitude that made up the genius—namely, the
personality—of Rubens, or Michelangelo, or Veronese, or Titian, or
Tintoretto, or whoever may be the artist to whom the work has been
tentatively credited.”

“My mind is, I fear,” Markham confessed, “still sufficiently primitive
to be impressed by vulgar facts; and in the present
instance—unfortunately for your most original and artistic analogy—I
possess quite an array of such facts, all of which indicate that a
certain young woman is the—shall we say?—creator of the criminal
_opus_ entitled _The Murder of Alvin Benson_.”

Vance shrugged his shoulders almost imperceptibly.

“Would you mind telling me—in confidence, of course—what these facts
are?”

“Certainly not,” Markham acceded. “_Imprimis_: the lady was in the
house at the time the shot was fired.”

Vance affected incredibility.

“Eh—my word! She was actu’lly there? Most extr’ordin’ry!”

“The evidence of her presence is unassailable,” pursued Markham. “As
you know, the gloves she wore at dinner, and the hand-bag she carried
with her, were both found on the mantel in Benson’s living-room.”

“Oh!” murmured Vance, with a faintly deprecating smile. “It was not
the lady, then, but her gloves and bag which were present,—a minute
and unimportant distinction, no doubt, from the legal point of
view. . . . Still,” he added, “I deplore the inability of my layman’s
untutored mind to accept the two conditions as identical. My trousers
are at the dry-cleaners; therefore, I am at the dry-cleaners, what?”

Markham turned on him with considerable warmth.

“Does it mean nothing in the way of evidence, even to your layman’s
mind, that a woman’s intimate and necessary articles, which she has
carried throughout the evening, are found in her escort’s quarters the
following morning?”

“In admitting that it does not,” Vance acknowledged quietly, “I no
doubt expose a legal perception lamentably inefficient.”

“But since the lady certainly wouldn’t have carried these particular
objects during the afternoon, and since she couldn’t have called at
the house that evening during Benson’s absence without the housekeeper
knowing it, how, may one ask, did these articles happen to be there
the next morning if she herself did not take them there late that
night?”

“’Pon my word, I haven’t the slightest notion,” Vance rejoined. “The
lady herself could doubtless appease your curiosity. But there are any
number of possible explanations, y’ know. Our departed Chesterfield
might have brought them home in his coat pocket,—women are eternally
handing men all manner of gewgaws and bundles to carry for ’em, with
the cooing request: ‘Can you put this in your pocket for me?’ . . .
Then again, there is the possibility that the real murderer secured
them in some way, and placed them on the mantel delib’rately to
mislead the _polizei_. Women, don’t y’ know, never put their
belongings in such neat, out-of-the-way places as mantels and
hat-racks. They invariably throw them down on your fav’rite chair or
your center-table.”

“And, I suppose,” Markham interjected, “Benson also brought the lady’s
cigarette butts home in his pocket?”

“Stranger things have happened,” returned Vance equably; “though I
sha’n’t accuse him of it in this instance. . . . The cigarette butts
may, y’ know, be evidence of a previous _conversazione_.”

“Even your despised Heath,” Markham informed him, “had sufficient
intelligence to ascertain from the housekeeper that she sweeps out the
grate every morning.”

Vance sighed admiringly.

“You’re _so_ thorough, aren’t you? . . . But, I say, that can’t be, by
any chance, your only evidence against the lady?”

“By no means,” Markham assured him. “But, despite your superior
distrust, it’s good corroboratory evidence nevertheless.”

“I dare say,” Vance agreed, “—seeing with what frequency innocent
persons are condemned in our courts. . . . But tell me more.”

Markham proceeded with an air of quiet self-assurance.

“My man learned, first, that Benson dined alone with this woman at the
Marseilles, a little bohemian restaurant in West Fortieth Street;
secondly, that they quarrelled; and thirdly, that they departed at
midnight, entering a taxicab together. . . . Now, the murder was
committed at twelve-thirty; but since the lady lives on Riverside
Drive, in the Eighties, Benson couldn’t possibly have accompanied her
home—which obviously he would have done had he not taken her to his
own house—and returned by the time the shot was fired. But we have
further proof pointing to her being at Benson’s. My man learned, at
the woman’s apartment-house, that actually she did not get home until
shortly after one. Moreover, she was without her gloves and hand-bag,
and had to be let in to her rooms with a pass-key, because, as she
explained, she had lost hers. As you remember, we found the key in her
bag. And—to clinch the whole matter—the smoked cigarettes in the grate
corresponded to the one you found in her case.”

Markham paused to relight his cigar.

“So much for that particular evening,” he resumed. “As soon as I
learned the woman’s identity this morning, I put two more men to work
on her private life. Just as I was leaving the office this noon the
men ’phoned in their reports. They had learned that the woman has a
fiancé, a chap named Leacock, who was a captain in the army, and who
would be likely to own just such a gun as Benson was killed with.
Furthermore, this Captain Leacock lunched with the woman the day of
the murder and also called on her at her apartment the morning after.”

Markham leaned slightly forward, and his next words were emphasized by
the tapping of his fingers on the arm of the chair.

“As you see, we have the motive, the opportunity, and the means. . . .
Perhaps you will tell me now that I possess no incriminating
evidence.”

“My dear Markham,” Vance affirmed calmly, “you haven’t brought out a
single point which could not easily be explained away by any bright
school-boy.” He shook his head lugubriously. “And on such evidence
people are deprived of their life and liberty! ’Pon my word, you alarm
me. I tremble for my personal safety.”

Markham was nettled.

“Would you be so good as to point out, from your dizzy pinnacle of
sapience, the errors in my reasoning?”

“As far as I can see,” returned Vance evenly, “your particularization
concerning the lady is innocent of reasoning. You’ve simply taken
several unaffined facts, and jumped to a false conclusion. I happen to
know the conclusion is false because all the psychological indications
of the crime contradict it—that is to say, the only real evidence in
the case points unmistakably in another direction.”

He made a gesture of emphasis, and his tone assumed an unwonted
gravity.

“And if you arrest any woman for killing Alvin Benson, you will simply
be adding another crime—a crime of delib’rate and unpardonable
stupidity—to the one already committed. And between shooting a bounder
like Benson and ruining an innocent woman’s reputation, I’m inclined
to regard the latter as the more reprehensible.”

I could see a flash of resentment leap into Markham’s eyes; but he did
not take offense. Remember: these two men were close friends; and, for
all their divergency of nature, they understood and respected each
other. Their frankness—severe and even mordant at times—was, indeed, a
result of that respect.

There was a moment’s silence; then Markham forced a smile.

“You fill me with misgivings,” he averred mockingly; but, despite the
lightness of his tone, I felt that he was half in earnest. “However, I
hadn’t exactly planned to arrest the lady just yet.”

“You reveal commendable restraint,” Vance complimented him. “But I’m
sure you’ve already arranged to ballyrag the lady and perhaps trick
her into one or two of those contradictions so dear to every lawyer’s
heart,—just as if any nervous or high-strung person could help
indulging in apparent contradictions while being cross-questioned as a
suspect in a crime they had nothing to do with. . . . To ‘put ’em on
the grill’—a most accurate designation. So reminiscent of burning
people at the stake, what?”

“Well, I’m most certainly going to question her,” replied Markham
firmly, glancing at his watch. “And one of my men is escorting her to
the office in half an hour; so I must break up this most delightful
and edifying chat.”

“You really expect to learn something incriminating by interrogating
her?” asked Vance. “Y’ know, I’d jolly well like to witness your
humiliation. But I presume your heckling of suspects is a part of the
legal arcana.”

Markham had risen and turned toward the door, but at Vance’s words he
paused and appeared to deliberate.

“I can’t see any particular objection to your being present,” he said,
“if you really care to come.”

I think he had an idea that the humiliation of which the other had
spoken would prove to be Vance’s own; and soon we were in a taxicab
headed for the Criminal Courts Building.



CHAPTER VII.

Reports and an Interview

  (Saturday, June 15; 3 p.m.)

We entered the ancient building, with its discolored marble pillars
and balustrades and its old-fashioned iron scroll-work, by the
Franklin Street door, and went directly to the District Attorney’s
office on the fourth floor. The office, like the building, breathed an
air of former days. Its high ceilings, its massive golden-oak
woodwork, its elaborate low-hung chandelier of bronze and china, its
dingy bay walls of painted plaster, and its four high narrow windows
to the south—all bespoke a departed era in architecture and
decoration.

On the floor was a large velvet carpet-rug of dingy brown; and the
windows were hung with velour draperies of the same color. Several
large comfortable chairs stood about the walls and before the long oak
table in front of the District Attorney’s desk. This desk, directly
under the windows and facing the room, was broad and flat, with carved
uprights and two rows of drawers extending to the floor. To the right
of the high-backed swivel desk-chair, was another table of carved oak.
There were also several filing cabinets in the room, and a large safe.
In the center of the east wall a leather-covered door, decorated with
large brass nail-heads, led into a long narrow room, between the
office and the waiting-room, where the District Attorney’s secretary
and several clerks had their desks. Opposite to this door was another
one opening into the District Attorney’s inner sanctum; and still
another door, facing the windows, gave on the main corridor.

Vance glanced over the room casually.

“So this is the matrix of municipal justice—eh, what?” He walked to
one of the windows and looked out upon the grey circular tower of the
Tombs opposite. “And there, I take it, are the oubliettes where the
victims of our law are incarc’rated so as to reduce the competition of
criminal activity among the remaining citizenry. A most distressin’
sight, Markham.”

The District Attorney had sat down at his desk and was glancing at
several notations on his blotter.

“There are a couple of my men waiting to see me,” he remarked, without
looking up; “so, if you’ll be good enough to take a chair over here,
I’ll proceed with my humble efforts to undermine society still
further.”

He pressed a button under the edge of his desk, and an alert young man
with thick-lensed glasses appeared at the door.

“Swacker, tell Phelps to come in,” Markham ordered. “And also tell
Springer, if he’s back from lunch, that I want to see him in a few
minutes.”

The secretary disappeared, and a moment later a tall, hawk-faced man,
with stoop-shoulders and an awkward, angular gait, entered.

“What news?” asked Markham.

“Well, Chief,” the detective replied in a low grating voice, “I just
found out something I thought you could use right away. After I
reported this noon, I ambled around to this Captain Leacock’s house,
thinking I might learn something from the house-boys, and ran into the
Captain coming out. I tailed along; and he went straight up to the
lady’s house on the Drive, and stayed there over an hour. Then he went
back home, looking worried.”

Markham considered a moment.

“It may mean nothing at all, but I’m glad to know it anyway. St.
Clair’ll be here in a few minutes, and I’ll find out what she has to
say.—There’s nothing else for to-day. . . . Tell Swacker to send Tracy
in.”

Tracy was the antithesis of Phelps. He was short, a trifle stout, and
exuded an atmosphere of studied suavity. His face was rotund and
genial; he wore a _pince-nez_; and his clothes were modish and fitted
him well.

“Good-morning, Chief,” he greeted Markham in a quiet, ingratiating
tone. “I understand the St. Clair woman is to call here this
afternoon, and there are a few things I’ve found out that may assist
in your questioning.”

He opened a small note-book and adjusted his _pince-nez_.

“I thought I might learn something from her singing teacher, an
Italian formerly connected with the Metropolitan, but now running a
sort of choral society of his own. He trains aspiring _prima donnas_
in their rôles with a chorus and settings, and Miss St. Clair is one
of his pet students. He talked to me, without any trouble; and it
seems he knew Benson well. Benson attended several of St. Clair’s
rehearsals, and sometimes called for her in a taxicab. Rinaldo—that’s
the man’s name—thinks he had a bad crush on the girl. Last winter,
when she sang at the Criterion in a small part, Rinaldo was back stage
coaching, and Benson sent her enough hothouse flowers to fill the
star’s dressing-room and have some left over. I tried to find out if
Benson was playing the ‘angel’ for her, but Rinaldo either didn’t know
or pretended he didn’t.” Tracy closed his note-book and looked up.
“That any good to you, Chief?”

“First-rate,” Markham told him. “Keep at work along that line, and let
me hear from you again about this time Monday.”

Tracy bowed, and as he went out the secretary again appeared at the
door.

“Springer’s here now, sir,” he said. “Shall I send him in?”

Springer proved to be a type of detective quite different from either
Phelps or Tracy. He was older, and had the gloomy capable air of a
hard-working bookkeeper in a bank. There was no initiative in his
bearing, but one felt that he could discharge a delicate task with
extreme competency.

Markham took from his pocket the envelope on which he had noted the
name given him by Major Benson.

“Springer, there’s a man down on Long Island that I want to interview
as soon as possible. It’s in connection with the Benson case, and I
wish you’d locate him and get him up here as soon as possible. If you
can find him in the telephone book you needn’t go down personally. His
name is Leander Pfyfe, and he lives, I think, at Port Washington.”

Markham jotted down the name on a card and handed it to the detective.

“This is Saturday, so if he comes to town to-morrow, have him ask for
me at the Stuyvesant Club. I’ll be there in the afternoon.”

When Springer had gone, Markham again rang for his secretary and gave
instructions that the moment Miss St. Clair arrived she was to be
shown in.

“Sergeant Heath is here,” Swacker informed him, “and wants to see you
if you’re not too busy.”

Markham glanced at the clock over the door.

“I guess I’ll have time. Send him in.”

Heath was surprised to see Vance and me in the District Attorney’s
office, but after greeting Markham with the customary handshake, he
turned to Vance with a good-natured smile.

“Still acquiring knowledge, Mr. Vance?”

“Can’t say that I am, Sergeant,” returned Vance lightly. “But I’m
learning a number of most int’restin’ errors. . . . How goes the
sleuthin’?”

Heath’s face became suddenly serious.

“That’s what I’m here to tell the Chief about.” He addressed himself
to Markham. “This case is a jaw-breaker, sir. My men and myself have
talked to a dozen of Benson’s cronies, and we can’t worm a single fact
of any value out of ’em. They either don’t know anything, or they’re
giving a swell imitation of a lot of clams. They all appear to be
greatly shocked—bowled over, floored, flabbergasted—by the news of the
shooting. And have they got any idea as to why or how it happened?
They’ll tell the world they haven’t. You know the line of talk: Who’d
want to shoot good old Al? Nobody could’ve done it but a burglar who
didn’t know good old Al. If he’d known good old Al, even the burglar
wouldn’t have done it. . . . Hell! I felt like killing off a few of
those birds myself so they could go and join their good old Al.”

“Any news of the car?” asked Markham.

Heath grunted his disgust.

“Not a word. And that’s funny, too, seeing all the advertising it got.
Those fishing-rods are the only thing we’ve got. . . . The Inspector,
by the way, sent me the post-mortem report this morning; but it didn’t
tell us anything we didn’t know. Translated into human language, it
said Benson died from a shot in the head, with all his organs sound.
It’s a wonder, though, they didn’t discover that he’d been poisoned
with a Mexican bean or bit by an African snake, or something, so’s to
make the case a little more intrikkit than it already is.”

“Cheer up, Sergeant,” Markham exhorted him. “I’ve had a little better
luck. Tracy ran down the owner of the hand-bag and found out she’d
been to dinner with Benson that night. He and Phelps also learned a
few other supplementary facts that fit in well; and I’m expecting the
lady here at any minute. I’m going to find out what she has to say for
herself.”

An expression of resentment came into Heath’s eyes as the District
Attorney was speaking, but he erased it at once and began asking
questions. Markham gave him every detail, and also informed him of
Leander Pfyfe.

“I’ll let you know immediately how the interview comes out,” he
concluded.

As the door closed on Heath Vance looked up at Markham with a sly
smile.

“Not exactly one of Nietzche’s _Übermenschen_—eh, what? I fear the
subtleties of this complex world bemuse him a bit, y’ know. . . . And
he’s so disappointin’. I felt pos’tively elated when the bustling lad
with the thick glasses announced his presence. I thought surely he
wanted to tell you he had jailed at least six of Benson’s murderers.”

“Your hopes run too high, I fear,” commented Markham.

“And yet, that’s the usual procedure—if the headlines in our great
moral dailies are to be credited. I always thought that the moment a
crime was committed the police began arresting people promiscuously—to
maintain the excitement, don’t y’ know. Another illusion gone! . . .
Sad, sad,” he murmured. “I sha’n’t forgive our Heath: he has betrayed
my faith in him.”

At this point Markham’s secretary came to the door and announced the
arrival of Miss St. Clair.

I think we were all taken a little aback at the spectacle presented by
this young woman as she came slowly into the room with a firm graceful
step, and with her head held slightly to one side in an attitude of
supercilious inquiry. She was small and strikingly pretty, although
“pretty” is not exactly the word with which to describe her. She
possessed that faintly exotic beauty that we find in the portraits of
the Carracci, who sweetened the severity of Leonardo and made it at
once intimate and decadent. Her eyes were dark and widely spaced; her
nose was delicate and straight, and her forehead broad. Her full
sensuous lips were almost sculpturesque in their linear precision, and
her mouth wore an enigmatic smile, or hint of a smile. Her rounded
firm chin was a bit heavy when examined apart from the other features,
but not in the _ensemble_. There was poise and a certain strength of
character in her bearing; but one sensed the potentialities of
powerful emotions beneath her exterior calm. Her clothes harmonized
with her personality: they were quiet and apparently in the
conventional style, but a touch of color and originality here and
there conferred on them a fascinating distinction.

Markham rose and, bowing with formal courtesy, indicated a comfortable
upholstered chair directly in front of his desk. With a barely
perceptible nod, she glanced at the chair, and then seated herself in
a straight armless chair standing next to it.

“You won’t mind, I’m sure,” she said, “if I choose my own chair for
the inquisition.”

Her voice was low and resonant—the speaking voice of the highly
trained singer. She smiled as she spoke, but it was not a cordial
smile: it was cold and distant, yet somehow indicative of levity.

“Miss St. Clair,” began Markham, in a tone of polite severity, “the
murder of Mr. Alvin Benson has intimately involved yourself. Before
taking any definite steps, I have invited you here to ask you a few
questions. I can, therefore, advise you quite honestly that frankness
will best serve your interests.”

He paused, and the woman looked at him with an ironically questioning
gaze.

“Am I supposed to thank you for your generous advice?”

Markham’s scowl deepened as he glanced down at a typewritten page on
his desk.

“You are probably aware that your gloves and hand-bag were found in
Mr. Benson’s house the morning after he was shot.”

“I can understand how you might have traced the hand-bag to me,” she
said; “but how did you arrive at the conclusion that the gloves were
mine?”

Markham looked up sharply.

“Do you mean to say the gloves are not yours?”

“Oh, no.” She gave him another wintry smile. “I merely wondered how
you knew they belonged to me, since you couldn’t have known either my
taste in gloves or the size I wore.”

“They’re your gloves, then?”

“If they are Tréfousse, size five-and-three-quarters, of white kid and
elbow length, they are certainly mine. And I’d so like to have them
back, if you don’t mind.”

“I’m sorry,” said Markham; “but it is necessary that I keep them for
the present.”

She dismissed the matter with a slight shrug of the shoulders.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” she asked.

Markham instantly opened a drawer of his desk, and took out a box of
Benson and Hedges cigarettes.

“I have my own, thank you,” she informed him. “But I would so
appreciate my holder. I’ve missed it horribly.”

Markham hesitated. He was manifestly annoyed by the woman’s attitude.

“I’ll be glad to lend it to you,” he compromised; and reaching into
another drawer of his desk, he laid the holder on the table before
her.

“Now, Miss St. Clair,” he said, resuming his gravity of manner, “will
you tell me how these personal articles of yours happened to be in Mr.
Benson’s living-room?”

“No, Mr. Markham, I will not,” she answered.

“Do you realize the serious construction your refusal places upon the
circumstances?”

“I really hadn’t given it much thought.” Her tone was indifferent.

“It would be well if you did,” Markham advised her. “Your position is
not an enviable one; and the presence of your belongings in Mr.
Benson’s room is, by no means, the only thing that connects you
directly with the crime.”

The woman raised her eyes inquiringly, and again the enigmatic smile
appeared at the corners of her mouth.

“Perhaps you have sufficient evidence to accuse me of the murder?”

Markham ignored this question.

“You were well acquainted with Mr. Benson, I believe?”

“The finding of my hand-bag and gloves in his apartment might lead one
to assume as much, mightn’t it?” she parried.

“He was, in fact, much interested in you?” persisted Markham.

She made a _moue_, and sighed.

“Alas, yes! Too much for my peace of mind. . . . Have I been brought
here to discuss the attentions this gentleman paid me?”

Again Markham ignored her query.

“Where were you, Miss St. Clair, between the time you left the
Marseilles at midnight and the time you arrived home—which, I
understand, was after one o’clock?”

“You are simply wonderful!” she exclaimed. “You seem to know
everything. . . . Well, I can only say that during that time I was on
my way home.”

“Did it take you an hour to go from Fortieth Street to Eighty-first
and Riverside Drive?”

“Just about, I should say,—a few minutes more or less, perhaps.”

“How do you account for that?” Markham was becoming impatient.

“I can’t account for it,” she said, “except by the passage of time.
Time does fly, doesn’t it, Mr. Markham?”

“By your attitude you are only working detriment to yourself,” Markham
warned her, with a show of irritation. “Can you not see the
seriousness of your position? You are known to have dined with Mr.
Benson, to have left the restaurant at midnight, and to have arrived
at your own apartment after one o’clock. At twelve-thirty, Mr. Benson
was shot; and your personal articles were found in the same room the
morning after.”

“It looks terribly suspicious, I know,” she admitted, with whimsical
seriousness. “And I’ll tell you this, Mr. Markham: if my thoughts
could have killed Mr. Benson, he would have died long ago. I know I
shouldn’t speak ill of the dead—there’s a saying about it beginning
‘_de mortuis_,’ isn’t there?—but the truth is, I had reason to dislike
Mr. Benson exceedingly.”

“Then why did you go to dinner with him?”

“I’ve asked myself the same question a dozen times since,” she
confessed dolefully. “We women are such impulsive creatures—always
doing things we shouldn’t. . . . But I know what you’re thinking:—if I
had intended to shoot him, that would have been a natural preliminary.
Isn’t that what’s in your mind? I suppose all murderesses do go to
dinner with their victims first.”

While she spoke she opened her vanity-case and looked at her
reflection in its mirror. She daintily adjusted several imaginary
stray ends of her abundant dark-brown hair, and touched her arched
eyebrows gently with her little finger as if to rectify some
infinitesimal disturbance in their pencilled contour. Then she tilted
her head, regarded herself appraisingly, and returned her gaze to the
District Attorney only as she came to the end of her speech. Her
actions had perfectly conveyed to her listeners the impression that
the subject of the conversation was, in her scheme of things, of
secondary importance to her personal appearance. No words could have
expressed her indifference so convincingly as had her little
pantomime.

Markham was becoming exasperated. A different type of district
attorney would no doubt have attempted to use the pressure of his
office to force her into a more amenable frame of mind. But Markham
shrank instinctively from the bludgeoning, threatening methods of the
ordinary Public Prosecutor, especially in his dealings with women. In
the present case, however, had it not been for Vance’s strictures at
the Club, he would no doubt have taken a more aggressive stand. But it
was evident he was laboring under a burden of uncertainty superinduced
by Vance’s words and augmented by the evasive deportment of the woman
herself.

After a moment’s silence he asked grimly:

“You did considerable speculating through the firm of Benson and
Benson, did you not?”

A faint ring of musical laughter greeted this question.

“I see that the dear Major has been telling tales. . . . Yes, I’ve
been gambling most extravagantly. And I had no business to do it. I’m
afraid I’m avaricious.”

“And is it not true that you’ve lost heavily of late—that, in fact,
Mr. Alvin Benson called upon you for additional margin and finally
sold out your securities?”

“I wish to Heaven it were not true,” she lamented, with a look of
simulated tragedy. Then: “Am I supposed to have done away with Mr.
Benson out of sordid revenge, or as an act of just retribution?” She
smiled archly and waited expectantly, as if her question had been part
of a guessing game.

Markham’s eyes hardened as he coldly enunciated his next words.

“Is it not a fact that Captain Philip Leacock owned just such a pistol
as Mr. Benson was killed with—a forty-five army Colt automatic?”

At the mention of her fiancé’s name she stiffened perceptibly and
caught her breath. The part she had been playing fell from her, and a
faint flush suffused her cheeks and extended to her forehead. But
almost immediately she had reassumed her rôle of playful indifference.

“I never inquired into the make or calibre of Captain Leacock’s
fire-arms,” she returned carelessly.

“And is it not a fact,” pursued Markham’s imperturbable voice, “that
Captain Leacock lent you his pistol when he called at your apartment
on the morning before the murder?”

“It’s most ungallant of you, Mr. Markham,” she reprimanded him coyly,
“to inquire into the personal relations of an engaged couple; for I am
betrothed to Captain Leacock—though you probably know it already.”

Markham stood up, controlling himself with effort.

“Am I to understand that you refuse to answer any of my questions, or
to endeavor to extricate yourself from the very serious position you
are in?”

She appeared to consider.

“Yes,” she said slowly, “I haven’t anything I care especially to say
just now.”

Markham leaned over and rested both hands on the desk.

“Do you realize the possible consequences of your attitude?” he asked
ominously. “The facts I know regarding your connection with the case,
coupled with your refusal to offer a single extenuating explanation,
give me more grounds than I actually need to order your being held.”

I was watching her closely as he spoke, and it seemed to me that her
eyelids drooped involuntarily the merest fraction of an inch. But she
gave no other indication of being affected by the pronouncement, and
merely looked at the District Attorney with an air of defiant
amusement.

Markham, with a sudden contraction of the jaw, turned and reached
toward a bell-button beneath the edge of his desk. But, in doing so,
his glance fell upon Vance; and he paused indecisively. The look he
had encountered on the other’s face was one of reproachful amazement:
not only did it express complete surprise at his apparent decision,
but it stated, more eloquently than words could have done, that he was
about to commit an act of irreparable folly.

There were several moments of tense silence in the room. Then calmly
and unhurriedly Miss St. Clair opened her vanity-case and powdered her
nose. When she had finished, she turned a serene gaze upon the
District Attorney.

“Well, do you want to arrest me now?” she asked.

Markham regarded her for a moment, deliberating. Instead of answering
at once, he went to the window and stood for a full minute looking
down upon the Bridge of Sighs which connects the Criminal Courts
Building with the Tombs.

“No, I think not to-day,” he said slowly.

He stood a while longer in absorbed contemplation; then, as if shaking
off his mood of irresolution, he swung about and confronted the woman.

“I’m not going to arrest you—yet,” he reiterated, a bit harshly. “But
I’m going to order you to remain in New York for the present. And if
you attempt to leave, you _will_ be arrested. I hope that is clear.”

He pressed a button, and his secretary entered.

“Swacker, please escort Miss St. Clair downstairs, and call a taxicab
for her. . . . Then you can go home yourself.”

She rose and gave Markham a little nod.

“You were very kind to lend me my cigarette-holder,” she said
pleasantly, laying it on his desk.

Without another word, she walked calmly from the room.

The door had no more than closed behind her when Markham pressed
another button. In a few moments the door leading into the outer
corridor opened, and a white-haired, middle-aged man appeared.

“Ben,” ordered Markham hurriedly, “have that woman that Swacker’s
taking downstairs followed. Keep her under surveillance, and don’t let
her get lost. She’s not to leave the city—understand? It’s the St.
Clair woman Tracy dug up.”

When the man had gone, Markham turned and stood glowering at Vance.

“What do you think of your innocent young lady now?” he asked, with an
air of belligerent triumph.

“Nice gel—eh, what?” replied Vance blandly. “Extr’ordin’ry control.
And she’s about to marry a professional milit’ry man! Ah, well. _De
gustibus_. . . . Y’ know, I was afraid for a moment you were actu’lly
going to send for the manacles. And if you had, Markham old dear,
you’d have regretted it to your dying day.”

Markham studied him for a few seconds. He knew there was something
more than a mere whim beneath Vance’s certitude of manner; and it was
this knowledge that had stayed his hand when he was about to have the
woman placed in custody.

“Her attitude was certainly not conducive to one’s belief in her
innocence,” Markham objected. “She played her part damned cleverly,
though. But it was just the part a shrewd woman, knowing herself
guilty, would have played.”

“I say, didn’t it occur to you,” asked Vance, “that perhaps she didn’t
care a farthing whether you thought her guilty or not?—that, in fact,
she was a bit disappointed when you let her go?”

“That’s hardly the way I read the situation,” returned Markham.
“Whether guilty or innocent, a person doesn’t ordinarily invite
arrest.”

“By the bye,” asked Vance, “where was the fortunate swain during the
hour of Alvin’s passing?”

“Do you think we didn’t check up on that point?” Markham spoke with
disdain. “Captain Leacock was at his own apartment that night from
eight o’clock on.”

“Was he, really?” airily retorted Vance. “A most model young fella!”

Again Markham looked at him sharply.

“I’d like to know what weird theory has been struggling in your brain
to-day,” he mused. “Now that I’ve let the lady go temporarily—which is
what you obviously wanted me to do—, and have stultified my own better
judgment in so doing, why not tell me frankly what you’ve got up your
sleeve?”

“‘Up my sleeve?’ Such an inelegant metaphor! One would think I was a
prestidig’tator, what?”

Whenever Vance answered in this fashion it was a sign that he wished
to avoid making a direct reply; and Markham dropped the matter.

“Anyway,” he submitted, “you didn’t have the pleasure of witnessing my
humiliation, as you prophesied.”

Vance looked up in simulated surprise.

“Didn’t I, now?” Then he added sorrowfully: “Life is so full of
disappointments, y’ know.”



CHAPTER VIII.

Vance Accepts a Challenge

  (Saturday, June 15; 4 p.m.)

After Markham had telephoned Heath the details of the interview, we
returned to the Stuyvesant Club. Ordinarily the District Attorney’s
office shuts down at one o’clock on Saturdays; but to-day the hour had
been extended because of the importance attaching to Miss St. Clair’s
visit. Markham had lapsed into an introspective silence which lasted
until we were again seated in the alcove of the Club’s lounge-room.
Then he spoke irritably.

“Damn it! I shouldn’t have let her go. . . . I still have a feeling
she’s guilty.”

Vance assumed an air of gushing credulousness.

“Oh, really? I dare say you’re _so_ psychic. Been that way all your
life, no doubt. And haven’t you had lots and lots of dreams that came
true? I’m sure you’ve often had a ’phone call from someone you were
thinking about at the moment. A delectable gift. Do you read palms,
also? . . . Why not have the lady’s horoscope cast?”

“I have no evidence as yet,” Markham retorted, “that your belief in
her innocence is founded on anything more substantial than your
impressions.”

“Ah, but it is,” averred Vance. “I _know_ she’s innocent. Furthermore,
I know that no woman could possibly have fired the shot.”

“Don’t get the erroneous idea in your head that a woman couldn’t have
manipulated a forty-five army Colt.”

“Oh, that?” Vance dismissed the notion with a shrug. “The material
indications of the crime don’t enter into my calculations, y’ know,—I
leave ’em entirely to you lawyers and the lads with the bulging
deltoids. I have other, and surer, ways of reaching conclusions.
That’s why I told you that if you arrested any woman for shooting
Benson you’d be blundering most shamefully.”

Markham grunted indignantly.

“And yet you seem to have repudiated all processes of deduction
whereby the truth may be arrived at. Have you, by any chance, entirely
renounced your faith in the operations of the human mind?”

“Ah, there speaks the voice of God’s great common people!” exclaimed
Vance. “Your mind is so typical, Markham. It works on the principle
that what you don’t know isn’t knowledge, and that, since you don’t
understand a thing, there is no explanation. A comfortable point of
view. It relieves one from all care and uncertainty. Don’t you find
the world a very sweet and wonderful place?”

Markham adopted an attitude of affable forbearance.

“You spoke at lunch time, I believe, of one infallible method of
detecting crime. Would you care to divulge this profound and priceless
secret to a mere district attorney?”

Vance bowed with exaggerated courtesy.*

   * The following conversation in which Vance explains his
   psychological methods of criminal analysis, is, of course,
   set down from memory. However, a proof of this passage was
   sent to him with a request that he revise and alter it in
   whatever manner he chose; so that, as it now stands, it
   describes Vance’s theory in practically his own words.

“Delighted, I’m sure,” he returned. “I referred to the science of
individual character and the psychology of human nature. We all do
things, d’ ye see, in a certain individual way, according to our
temp’raments. Every human act—no matter how large or how small—is a
direct expression of a man’s personality, and bears the inev’table
impress of his nature. Thus, a musician, by looking at a sheet of
music, is able to tell at once whether it was composed, for example,
by Beethoven, or Schubert, or Debussy, or Chopin. And an artist, by
looking at a canvas, knows immediately whether it is a Corot, a
Harpignies, a Rembrandt, or a Franz Hals. And just as no two faces are
exactly alike, so no two natures are exactly alike: the combination of
ingredients which go to make up our personalities, varies in each
individual. That is why, when twenty artists, let us say, sit down to
paint the same subject, each one conceives and executes it in a
different manner. The result in each case is a distinct and
unmistakable expression of the personality of the painter who did
it. . . . It’s really rather simple, don’t y’ know.”

“Your theory, doubtless, would be comprehensible to an artist,” said
Markham, in a tone of indulgent irony. “But its metaphysical
refinements are, I admit, considerably beyond the grasp of a vulgar
worldling like myself.”

“‘The mind inclined to what is false rejects the nobler course,’”
murmured Vance, with a sigh.

“There is,” argued Markham, “a slight difference between art and
crime.”

“Psychologically, old chap, there’s none,” Vance amended evenly.
“Crimes possess all the basic factors of a work of art—approach,
conception, technique, imagination, attack, method, and organization.
Moreover, crimes vary fully as much in their manner, their aspects,
and their general nature, as do works of art. Indeed, a carefully
planned crime is just as direct an expression of the individual as is
a painting, for instance. And therein lies the one great possibility
of detection. Just as an expert æsthetician can analyze a picture and
tell you who painted it, or the personality and temp’rament of the
person who painted it, so can the expert psychologist analyze a crime
and tell you who committed it—that is, if he happens to be acquainted
with the person—, or else can describe to you, with almost
mathematical surety, the criminal’s nature and character. . . . And
that, my dear Markham, is the only sure and inev’table means of
determining human guilt. All others are mere guess-work, unscientific,
uncertain, and—perilous.”

Throughout this explanation Vance’s manner had been almost casual; yet
the very serenity and assurance of his attitude conferred upon his
words a curious sense of authority. Markham had listened with
interest, though it could be seen that he did not regard Vance’s
theorizing seriously.

“Your system ignores motive altogether,” he objected.

“Naturally,” Vance replied, “—since it’s an irrelevant factor in most
crimes. Every one of us, my dear chap, has just as good a motive for
killing at least a score of men, as the motives which actuate
ninety-nine crimes out of a hundred. And, when anyone is murdered,
there are dozens of innocent people who had just as strong a motive
for doing it as had the actual murderer. Really, y’ know, the fact
that a man has a motive is no evidence whatever that he’s guilty,—such
motives are too universal a possession of the human race. Suspecting a
man of murder because he has a motive is like suspecting a man of
running away with another man’s wife because he has two legs. The
reason that some people kill and others don’t, is a matter of
temp’rament—of individual psychology. It all comes back to that. . . .
And another thing: when a person does possess a real motive—something
tremendous and overpowering—he’s pretty apt to keep it to himself, to
hide it and guard it carefully—eh, what? He may even have disguised
the motive through years of preparation; or the motive may have been
born within five minutes of the crime through the unexpected discovery
of facts a decade old. . . . So, d’ ye see, the absence of any
apparent motive in a crime might be regarded as more incriminating
than the presence of one.”

“You are going to have some difficulty in eliminating the idea of _cui
bono_ from the consideration of crime.”

“I dare say,” agreed Vance. “The idea of _cui bono_ is just silly
enough to be impregnable. And yet, many persons would be benefited by
almost anyone’s death. Kill Sumner, and, on that theory, you could
arrest the entire membership of the Authors’ League.”

“Opportunity, at any rate,” persisted Markham, “is an insuperable
factor in crime,—and by opportunity, I mean that affinity of
circumstances and conditions which make a particular crime possible,
feasible and convenient for a particular person.”

“Another irrelevant factor,” asserted Vance. “Think of the
opportunities we have every day to murder people we dislike! Only the
other night I had ten insuff’rable bores to dinner in my apartment—a
social devoir. But I refrained—with consid’rable effort, I admit—from
putting arsenic in the Pontet Canet. The Borgias and I, y’ see, merely
belong in different psychological categ’ries. On the other hand, had I
been resolved to do murder, I would—like those resourceful
_cinquecento_ patricians—have created my own opportunity. . . . And
there’s the rub:—one can either make an opportunity or disguise the
fact that he had it, with false alibis and various other tricks. You
remember the case of the murderer who called the police to break into
his victim’s house before the latter had been killed, saying he
suspected foul play, and who then preceded the policemen indoors and
stabbed the man as they were trailing up the stairs.”*

   * I don’t know what case Vance was referring to; but there
   are several instances of this device on record, and
   writers of detective fiction have often used it. The
   latest instance is to be found in G. K. Chesterton’s _The
   Innocence of Father Brown_, in the story entitled “The
   Wrong Shape.”

“Well, what of actual proximity, or presence,—the proof of a person
being on the scene of the crime at the time it was committed?”

“Again misleading,” Vance declared. “An innocent person’s presence is
too often used as a shield by the real murderer who is actu’lly
absent. A clever criminal can commit a crime from a distance through
an agency that is present. Also, a clever criminal can arrange an
alibi and then go to the scene of the crime disguised and
unrecognized. There are far too many convincing ways of being present
when one is believed to be absent—and _vice versa_. . . . But we can
never part from our individualities and our natures. And that is why
all crime inev’tably comes back to human psychology—the one fixed,
undisguisable basis of deduction.”

“It’s a wonder to me,” said Markham, “in view of your theories, that
you don’t advocate dismissing nine-tenths of the police force and
installing a gross or two of those psychological machines so popular
with the Sunday Supplement editor.”

Vance smoked a minute meditatively.

“I’ve read about ’em. Int’restin’ toys. They can no doubt indicate a
certain augmented emotional stress when the patient transfers his
attention from the pious platitudes of Dr. Frank Crane to a problem in
spherical trigonometry. But if an innocent person were harnessed up to
the various tubes, galvanometers, electro-magnets, glass plates, and
brass knobs of one of these apparatuses, and then quizzed about some
recent crime, your indicat’ry needle would cavort about like a Russian
dancer as a result of sheer nervous panic on the patient’s part.”

Markham smiled patronizingly.

“And I suppose the needle would remain static with a guilty person in
contact?”

“Oh, on the contr’ry.” Vance’s tone was unruffled. “The needle would
bob up and down just the same—but not _because_ he was guilty. If he
was stupid, for instance, the needle would jump as a result of his
resentment at a seemingly newfangled third-degree torture. And if he
was intelligent, the needle would jump because of his suppressed mirth
at the puerility of the legal mind for indulging in such nonsense.”

“You move me deeply,” said Markham. “My head is spinning like a
turbine. But there are those of us poor worldlings who believe that
criminality is a defect of the brain.”

“So it is,” Vance readily agreed. “But unfortunately the entire human
race possesses the defect. The virtuous ones haven’t, so to speak, the
courage of their defects. . . . However, if you were referring to a
criminal type, then, alas! we must part company. It was Lombroso, that
darling of the yellow journals, who invented the idea of the
congenital criminal. Real scientists like DuBois, Karl Pearson and
Goring have shot his idiotic theories full of holes.”*

   * It was Pearson and Goring who, about twenty years ago,
   made an extensive investigation and tabulation of
   professional criminals in England, the results of which
   showed (1) that criminal careers began mostly between the
   ages of 16 and 21; (2) that over ninety per cent of
   criminals were mentally normal; and (3) that more
   criminals had criminal older brothers than criminal
   fathers.

“I am floored by your erudition,” declared Markham, as he signalled to
a passing attendant and ordered another cigar. “I console myself,
however, with the fact that, as a rule, murder will leak out.”

Vance smoked his cigarette in silence, looking thoughtfully out
through the window up at the hazy June sky.

“Markham,” he said at length, “the number of fantastic ideas extant
about criminals is pos’tively amazing. How a sane person can subscribe
to that ancient hallucination that ‘murder will out’ is beyond me. It
rarely ‘outs’, old dear. And, if it did ‘out’, why a Homicide Bureau?
Why all this whirlin’-dervish activity by the police whenever a body
is found? . . . The poets are to blame for this bit of lunacy. Chaucer
probably started it with his ‘Mordre wol out’, and Shakespeare helped
it along by attributing to murder a miraculous organ that speaks in
lieu of a tongue. It was some poet, too, no doubt, who conceived the
fancy that carcasses bleed at the sight of the murderer. . . . Would
you, as the great Protector of the Faithful, dare tell the police to
wait calmly in their offices, or clubs, or favorite beauty-parlors—or
wherever policemen do their waiting—until a murder ‘outs’? Poor
dear!—if you did, they’d ask the Governor for your detention as
_particeps criminis_, or apply for a _de lunatico inquirendo_.”*

   * Sir Basil Thomson, K.C.B., former Assistant Commissioner
   of Metropolitan Police, London, writing in _The Saturday
   Evening Post_ several years after this conversation, said:
   “Take, for example, the proverb that murder will out,
   which is employed whenever one out of many thousands of
   undiscovered murderers is caught through a chance
   coincidence that captures the popular imagination. It is
   because murder will not out that the pleasant shock of
   surprise when it does out calls for a proverb to enshrine
   the phenomenon. The poisoner who is brought to justice has
   almost invariably proved to have killed other victims
   without exciting suspicion until he has grown careless.”

Markham grunted good-naturedly. He was busy cutting and lighting his
cigar.

“I believe you chaps have another hallucination about crime,”
continued Vance, “—namely, that the criminal always returns to the
scene of the crime. This weird notion is even explained on some
recondite and misty psychological ground. But, I assure you,
psychology teaches no such prepost’rous doctrine. If ever a murderer
returned to the body of his victim for any reason other than to
rectify some blunder he had made, then he is a subject for
Broadmoor—or Bloomingdale. . . . How easy it would be for the police
if this fanciful notion were true! They’d merely have to sit down at
the scene of a crime, play bezique or Mah Jongg until the murderer
returned, and then escort him to the _bastille_, what? The true
psychological instinct in anyone having committed a punishable act, is
to get as far away from the scene of it as the limits of this world
will permit.”*

   * In “Popular Fallacies About Crime” (_Saturday Evening
   Post_: April 21, 1923, p. 8) Sir Basil Thomson also upheld
   this point of view.

“In the present case, at any rate,” Markham reminded him, “we are
neither waiting inactively for the murder to out, nor sitting in
Benson’s living-room trusting to the voluntary return of the
criminal.”

“Either course would achieve success as quickly as the one you are now
pursuing,” Vance said.

“Not being gifted with your singular insight,” retorted Markham, “I
can only follow the inadequate processes of human reasoning.”

“No doubt,” Vance agreed commiseratingly. “And the results of your
activities thus far force me to the conclusion that a man with a
handful of legalistic logic can successfully withstand the most
obst’nate and heroic assaults of ordin’ry common-sense.”

Markham was piqued.

“Still harping on the St. Clair woman’s innocence, eh? However, in
view of the complete absence of any tangible evidence pointing
elsewhere, you must admit I have no choice of courses.”

“I admit nothing of the kind,” Vance told him; “for, I assure you,
there is an abundance of evidence pointing elsewhere. You simply
failed to see it.”

“You think so!” Vance’s nonchalant cocksureness had at last overthrown
Markham’s equanimity. “Very well, old man; I hereby enter an emphatic
denial to all your fine theories; and I challenge you to produce a
single piece of this evidence which you say exists.”

He threw his words out with asperity, and gave a curt, aggressive
gesture with his extended fingers, to indicate that, as far as he was
concerned, the subject was closed.

Vance, too, I think, was pricked a little.

“Y’ know, Markham old dear, I’m no avenger of blood, or vindicator of
the honor of society. The rôle would bore me.”

Markham smiled loftily, but made no reply.

Vance smoked meditatively for a while. Then, to my amazement, he
turned calmly and deliberately to Markham, and said in a quiet,
matter-of-fact voice:

“I’m going to accept your challenge. It’s a bit alien to my tastes;
but the problem, y’ know, rather appeals to me: it presents the same
diff’culties as the _Concert Champêtre_ affair,—a question of disputed
authorship, as it were.”*

   * For years the famous _Concert Champêtre_ in the Louvre
   was officially attributed to Titian. Vance, however, took
   it upon himself to convince the Curator, M. Lepelletier,
   that it was a Giorgione, with the result that the painting
   is now credited to that artist.

Markham abruptly suspended the motion of lifting his cigar to his
lips. He had scarcely intended his challenge literally: it had been
uttered more in the nature of a verbal defiance; and he scrutinized
Vance a bit uncertainly. Little did he realize that the other’s casual
acceptance of his unthinking and but half-serious challenge, was to
alter the entire criminal history of New York.

“Just how do you intend to proceed?” he asked.

Vance waved his hand carelessly.

“Like Napoleon, _je m’en gage, et puis je vois_. However, I must have
your word that you’ll give me every possible assistance, and will
refrain from all profound legal objections.”

Markham pursed his lips. He was frankly perplexed by the unexpected
manner in which Vance had met his defiance. But immediately he gave a
good-natured laugh, as if, after all, the matter was of no serious
consequence.

“Very well,” he assented. “You have my word. . . . And now what?”

After a moment Vance lit a fresh cigarette, and rose languidly.

“First,” he announced, “I shall determine the exact height of the
guilty person. Such a fact will, no doubt, come under the head of
indicat’ry evidence—eh, what?”

Markham stared at him incredulously.

“How, in Heaven’s name, are you going to do that?”

“By those primitive deductive methods to which you so touchingly pin
your faith,” he answered easily. “But come; let us repair to the scene
of the crime.”

He moved toward the door, Markham reluctantly following in a state of
perplexed irritation.

“But you know the body was removed,” the latter protested; “and the
place by now has no doubt been straightened up.”

“Thank Heaven for that!” murmured Vance. “I’m not particularly fond of
corpses; and untidiness, y’ know, annoys me frightfully.”

As we emerged into Madison Avenue, he signalled to the
_commissionnaire_ for a taxicab, and without a word, urged us into it.

“This is all nonsense,” Markham declared ill-naturedly, as we started
on our journey up town. “How do you expect to find any clues now? By
this time everything has been obliterated.”

“Alas, my dear Markham,” lamented Vance, in a tone of mock solicitude,
“how woefully deficient you are in philosophic theory! If anything, no
matter how inf’nitesimal, could really be obliterated, the universe,
y’ know, would cease to exist,—the cosmic problem would be solved, and
the Creator would write Q.E.D. across an empty firmament. Our only
chance of going on with this illusion we call Life, d’ ye see, lies in
the fact that consciousness is like an inf’nite decimal point. Did
you, as a child, ever try to complete the decimal, one-third, by
filling a whole sheet of paper with the numeral three? You always had
the fraction, one-third, left, don’t y’ know. If you could have
eliminated the smallest one-third, after having set down ten thousand
threes, the problem would have ended. So with life, my dear fellow.
It’s only because we can’t erase or obliterate anything that we go on
existing.”

He made a movement with his fingers, putting a sort of tangible period
to his remarks, and looked dreamily out of the window up at the fiery
film of sky.

Markham had settled back into his corner, and was chewing morosely at
his cigar. I could see he was fairly simmering with impotent anger at
having let himself be goaded into issuing his challenge. But there was
no retreating now. As he told me afterward, he was fully convinced he
had been dragged forth out of a comfortable chair, on a patent and
ridiculous fool’s errand.



CHAPTER IX.

The Height of the Murderer

  (Saturday, June 15; 5 p.m.)

When we arrived at Benson’s house a patrolman leaning somnolently
against the iron paling of the areaway came suddenly to attention and
saluted. He eyed Vance and me hopefully, regarding us no doubt as
suspects being taken to the scene of the crime for questioning by the
District Attorney. We were admitted by one of the men from the
Homicide Bureau who had been in the house on the morning of the
investigation.

Markham greeted him with a nod.

“Everything going all right?”

“Sure,” the man replied good-naturedly. “The old lady’s as meek as a
cat—and a swell cook.”

“We want to be alone for a while, Sniffin,” said Markham, as we passed
into the living-room.

“The gastronome’s name is Snitkin—not Sniffin,” Vance corrected him,
when the door had closed on us.

“Wonderful memory,” muttered Markham churlishly.

“A failing of mine,” said Vance. “I suppose you are one of those rare
persons who never forget a face but just can’t recall names, what?”

But Markham was in no mood to be twitted.

“Now that you’ve dragged me here, what are you going to do?” He waved
his hand depreciatingly, and sank into a chair with an air of
contemptuous abdication.

The living-room looked much the same as when we saw it last, except
that it had been put neatly in order. The shades were up, and the late
afternoon light was flooding in profusely. The ornateness of the
room’s furnishings seemed intensified by the glare.

Vance glanced about him and gave a shudder.

“I’m half inclined to turn back,” he drawled. “It’s a clear case of
justifiable homicide by an outraged interior decorator.”

“My dear æsthete,” Markham urged impatiently, “be good enough to bury
your artistic prejudices, and to proceed with your problem. . . . Of
course,” he added, with a malicious smile, “if you fear the result,
you may still withdraw, and thereby preserve your charming theories in
their present virgin state.”

“And permit you to send an innocent maiden to the chair!” exclaimed
Vance, in mock indignation. “Fie, fie! _La politesse_ alone forbids my
withdrawal. May I never have to lament, with Prince Henry, that ‘to my
shame I have a truant been to chivalry’.”

Markham set his jaw, and gave Vance a ferocious look.

“I’m beginning to think that, after all, there is something in your
theory that every man has some motive for murdering another.”

“Well,” replied Vance cheerfully, “now that you have begun to come
round to my way of thinking, do you mind if I send Mr. Snitkin on an
errand?”

Markham sighed audibly and shrugged his shoulders.

“I’ll smoke during the _opéra bouffe_, if it won’t interfere with your
performance.”

Vance went to the door and called Snitkin.

“I say, would you mind going to Mrs. Platz and borrowing a long
tape-measure and a ball of string. . . . The District Attorney wants
them,” he added, giving Markham a sycophantic bow.

“I can’t hope that you’re going to hang yourself, can I?” asked
Markham.

Vance gazed at him reprovingly.

“Permit me,” he said sweetly, “to commend _Othello_ to your attention:

   ‘How poor are they that have not patience!
    What wound did ever heal but by degrees?’

Or—to descend from a poet to a platitudinarian—let me present for your
consid’ration a pentameter from Longfellow: ‘All things come round to
him who will but wait.’ Untrue, of course, but consolin’. Milton said
it much better in his ‘They also serve—’. But Cervantes said it best:
‘Patience and shuffle the cards.’ Sound advice, Markham—and advice
expressed rakishly, as all good advice should be. . . . To be sure,
patience is a sort of last resort—a practice to adopt when there’s
nothing else to do. Still, like virtue, it occasionally rewards the
practitioner; although I’ll admit that, as a rule, it is—again like
virtue—bootless. That is to say, it is its own reward. It has,
however, been swathed in many verbal robes. It is ‘sorrow’s slave,’
and the ‘sov’reign o’er transmuted ills,’ as well as ‘all the passion
of great hearts.’ Rousseau wrote, _La patience est amère mais son
fruit est doux._ But perhaps your legal taste runs to Latin.
_Superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est_, quoth Vergil. And Horace also
spoke on the subject. _Durum!_ said he, _sed levius fit patientia_——”

“Why the hell doesn’t Snitkin come?” growled Markham.

Almost as he spoke the door opened, and the detective handed Vance the
tape-measure and string.

“And now, Markham, for your reward!”

Bending over the rug Vance moved the large wicker chair into the exact
position it had occupied when Benson had been shot. The position was
easily determined, for the impressions of the chair’s castors on the
deep nap of the rug were plainly visible. He then ran the string
through the bullet-hole in the back of the chair, and directed me to
hold one end of it against the place where the bullet had struck the
wainscot. Next he took up the tape-measure and, extending the string
through the hole, measured a distance of five feet and six inches
along it, starting at the point which corresponded to the location of
Benson’s forehead as he sat in the chair. Tying a knot in the string
to indicate the measurement, he drew the string taut, so that it
extended in a straight line from the mark on the wainscot, through the
hole in the back of the chair, to a point five feet and six inches in
front of where Benson’s head had rested.

“This knot in the string,” he explained, “now represents the exact
location of the muzzle of the gun that ended Benson’s career. You see
the reasoning—eh, what? Having two points in the bullet’s
course—namely, the hole in the chair and the mark on the wainscot—,
and also knowing the approximate vertical line of explosion, which was
between five and six feet from the gentleman’s skull, it was merely
necess’ry to extend the straight line of the bullet’s course to the
vertical line of explosion in order to ascertain the exact point at
which the shot was fired.”

“Theoretically very pretty,” commented Markham; “though why you should
go to so much trouble to ascertain this point in space I can’t
imagine. . . . Not that it matters, for you have overlooked the
possibility of the bullet’s deflection.”

“Forgive me for contradicting you,” smiled Vance; “but yesterday
morning I questioned Captain Hagedorn at some length, and learned that
there had been no deflection of the bullet. Hagedorn had inspected the
wound before we arrived; and he was really pos’tive on that point. In
the first place, the bullet struck the frontal bone at such an angle
as to make deflection practically impossible even had the pistol been
of smaller calibre. And in the second place, the pistol with which
Benson was shot was of so large a bore—a point-forty-five—and the
muzzle velocity was so great, that the bullet would have taken a
straight course even had it been held at a greater distance from the
gentleman’s brow.”

“And how,” asked Markham, “did Hagedorn know what the muzzle velocity
was?”

“I was inquis’tive on that point myself,” answered Vance; “and he
explained that the size and character of the bullet and the expelled
shell told him the whole tale. That’s how he knew the gun was an army
Colt automatic—I believe he called it a U. S. Government Colt—and not
the ordinary Colt automatic. The weight of the bullets of these two
pistols is slightly different: the ordinary Colt bullet weighs 200
grains, whereas the army Colt bullet weighs 230 grains. Hagedorn,
having a hypersensitive tactile sense, was able, I presume, to
distinguish the diff’rence at once, though I didn’t go into his
physiological gifts with him,—my reticent nature, you
understand. . . . However, he could tell it was a forty-five army Colt
automatic bullet; and knowing this, he knew that the muzzle velocity
was 809 feet, and that the striking energy was 329—which gives a
six-inch penetration in white pine at a distance of twenty-five
yards. . . . An amazin’ creature, this Hagedorn. Imagine having one’s
head full of such entrancing information! The old mysteries of why a
man should take up the bass-fiddle as a life work and where all the
pins go, are babes’ conundrums compared with the one of why a human
being should devote his years to the idiosyncrasies of bullets.”

“The subject is not exactly an enthralling one,” said Markham wearily;
“so, for the sake of argument, let us admit that you have now found
the precise point of the gun’s explosion. Where do we go from there?”

“While I hold the string on a straight line,” directed Vance, “be good
enough to measure the exact distance from the floor to the knot. Then
my secret will be known.”

“This game doesn’t enthrall me, either,” Markham protested. “I’d much
prefer ‘London Bridge’.”

Nevertheless he made the measurement.

“Four feet, eight and a half inches,” he announced indifferently.

Vance laid a cigarette on the rug at a point directly beneath the
knot.

“We now know the exact height at which the pistol was held when it was
fired. . . . You grasp the process by which this conclusion was
reached, I’m sure.”

“It seems rather obvious,” answered Markham.

Vance again went to the door and called Snitkin.

“The District Attorney desires the loan of your gun for a moment,” he
said. “He wishes to make a test.”

Snitkin stepped up to Markham and held out his pistol wonderingly.

“The safety’s on, sir: shall I shift it?”

Markham was about to refuse the weapon when Vance interposed.

“That’s quite all right. Mr. Markham doesn’t intend to fire it—I
hope.”

When the man had gone Vance seated himself in the wicker chair, and
placed his head in juxtaposition with the bullet-hole.

“Now, Markham,” he requested, “will you please stand on the spot where
the murderer stood, holding the gun directly above that cigarette on
the floor, and aim delib’rately at my left temple. . . . Take care,”
he cautioned, with an engaging smile, “not to pull the trigger, or you
will never learn who killed Benson.”

[Illustration: Diagram of shooting. A silhouette illustration of John
Markham holding a gun while standing before Philo Vance sitting in a
chair. A line is drawn from the gun through Vance’s forehead to the
bullet-hole in the wainscot behind him.]

Reluctantly Markham complied. As he stood taking aim, Vance asked me
to measure the height of the gun’s muzzle from the floor.

The distance was four feet and nine inches.

“Quite so,” he said, rising. “Y’ see, Markham, you are five feet,
eleven inches tall; therefore the person who shot Benson was very
nearly your own height—certainly not under five feet, ten. . . . That,
too, is rather obvious, what?”

His demonstration had been simple and clear. Markham was frankly
impressed; his manner had become serious. He regarded Vance for a
moment with a meditative frown; then he said:

“That’s all very well; but the person who fired the shot might have
held the pistol relatively higher than I did.”

“Not tenable,” returned Vance. “I’ve done too much shooting myself not
to know that when an expert takes delib’rate aim with a pistol at a
small target, he does it with a stiff arm and with a slightly raised
shoulder, so as to bring the sight on a straight line between his eye
and the object at which he aims. The height at which one holds a
revolver, under such conditions, pretty accurately determines his own
height.”

“Your argument is based on the assumption that the person who killed
Benson was an expert taking deliberate aim at a small target?”

“Not an assumption, but a fact,” declared Vance. “Consider: had the
person not been an expert shot, he would not—at a distance of five or
six feet—have selected the forehead, but a larger target—namely, the
breast. And having selected the forehead, he most certainly took
delib’rate aim, what? Furthermore, had he not been an expert shot, and
had he pointed the gun at the breast without taking delib’rate aim, he
would, in all prob’bility, have fired more than one shot.”

Markham pondered.

“I’ll grant that, on the face of it, your theory sounds plausible,” he
conceded at length. “On the other hand, the guilty man could have been
almost any height over five feet, ten; for certainly a man may crouch
as much as he likes and still take deliberate aim.”

“True,” agreed Vance. “But don’t overlook the fact that the murderer’s
position, in this instance, was a perfectly natural one. Otherwise,
Benson’s attention would have been attracted, and he would not have
been taken unawares. That he was shot unawares was indicated by his
attitude. Of course, the assassin might have stooped a little without
causing Benson to look up. . . . Let us say, therefore, that the
guilty person’s height is somewhere between five feet, ten, and six
feet, two. Does that appeal to you?”

Markham was silent.

“The delightful Miss St. Clair, y’ know,” remarked Vance, with a
japish smile, “can’t possibly be over five feet, five or six.”

Markham grunted, and continued to smoke abstractedly.

“This Captain Leacock, I take it,” said Vance, “is over six feet—eh,
what?”

Markham’s eyes narrowed.

“What makes you think so?”

“You just told me, don’t y’ know.”

“I told you!”

“Not in so many words,” Vance pointed out. “But after I had shown you
the approximate height of the murderer, and it didn’t correspond at
all to that of the young lady you suspected, I knew your active mind
was busy looking around for another possibility. And, as the lady’s
_inamorato_ was the only other possibility on your horizon, I
concluded that you were permitting your thoughts to play about the
Captain. Had he, therefore, been the stipulated height, you would have
said nothing; but when you argued that the murderer might have stooped
to fire the shot, I decided that the Captain was inord’nately
tall. . . . Thus, in the pregnant silence that emanated from you, old
dear, your spirit held sweet communion with mine, and told me that the
gentleman was a six-footer no less.”

“I see that you include mind-reading among your gifts,” said Markham.
“I now await an exhibition of slate-writing.”

His tone was irritable, but his irritation was that of a man reluctant
to admit the alteration of his beliefs. He felt himself yielding to
Vance’s guiding rein, but he still held stubbornly to the course of
his own previous convictions.

“Surely you don’t question my demonstration of the guilty person’s
height?” asked Vance mellifluously.

“Not altogether,” Markham replied. “It seems colorable enough. . . .
But why, I wonder, didn’t Hagedorn work the thing out, if it was so
simple?”

“Anaxagoras said that those who have occasion for a lamp, supply it
with oil. A profound remark, Markham—one of those seemingly simple
quips that contain a great truth. A lamp without oil, y’ know, is
useless. The police always have plenty of lamps—every variety, in
fact—but no oil, as it were. That’s why they never find anyone unless
it’s broad daylight.”

Markham’s mind was now busy in another direction, and he rose and
began to pace the floor.

“Until now I hadn’t thought of Captain Leacock as the actual agent of
the crime.”

“Why hadn’t you thought of him? Was it because one of your sleuths
told you he was at home like a good boy that night?”

“I suppose so.” Markham continued pacing thoughtfully. Then suddenly
he swung about. “That wasn’t it, either. It was the amount of damning
circumstantial evidence against the St. Clair woman. . . . And, Vance,
despite your demonstration here to-day, you haven’t explained away any
of the evidence against her.—Where was she between twelve and one? Why
did she go with Benson to dinner? How did her hand-bag get here? And
what about those burned cigarettes of hers in the grate?—they’re the
obstacle, those cigarette butts; and I can’t admit that your
demonstration wholly convinces me—despite the fact that it _is_
convincing—as long as I’ve got the evidence of those cigarettes to
contend with, for that evidence is also convincing.”

“My word!” sighed Vance. “You’re in a pos’tively ghastly predic’ment.
However, maybe I can cast illumination on those disquietin’ cigarette
butts.”

Once more he went to the door, and summoning Snitkin, returned the
pistol.

“The District Attorney thanks you,” he said. “And will you be good
enough to fetch Mrs. Platz. We wish to chat with her.”

Turning back to the room, he smiled amiably at Markham.

“I desire to do all the conversing with the lady this time, if you
don’t mind. There are potentialities in Mrs. Platz which you entirely
overlooked when you questioned her yesterday.”

Markham was interested, though sceptical.

“You have the floor,” he said.



CHAPTER X.

Eliminating a Suspect

  (Saturday, June 15; 5.30 p.m.)

When the housekeeper entered she appeared even more composed than when
Markham had first questioned her. There was something at once sullen
and indomitable in her manner, and she looked at me with a slightly
challenging expression. Markham merely nodded to her, but Vance stood
up and indicated a low tufted Morris chair near the fireplace, facing
the front windows. She sat down on the edge of it, resting her elbows
on its broad arms.

“I have some questions to ask you, Mrs. Platz,” Vance began, fixing
her sharply with his gaze; “and it will be best for everyone if you
tell the whole truth. You understand me—eh, what?”

The easy-going, half-whimsical manner he had taken with Markham had
disappeared. He stood before the woman, stern and implacable.

At his words she lifted her head. Her face was blank, but her mouth
was set stubbornly, and a smouldering look in her eyes told of a
suppressed anxiety.

Vance waited a moment and then went on, enunciating each word with
distinctness.

“At what time, on the day Mr. Benson was killed, did the lady call
here?”

The woman’s gaze did not falter, but the pupils of her eyes dilated.

“There was nobody here.”

“Oh, yes, there was, Mrs. Platz.” Vance’s tone was assured. “What time
did she call?”

“Nobody was here, I tell you,” she persisted.

Vance lit a cigarette with interminable deliberation, his eyes resting
steadily on hers. He smoked placidly until her gaze dropped. Then he
stepped nearer to her, and said firmly:

“If you tell the truth no harm will come to you. But if you refuse any
information you will find yourself in trouble. The withholding of
evidence is a crime, y’ know, and the law will show you no mercy.”

He made a sly grimace at Markham, who was watching the proceedings
with interest.

The woman now began to show signs of agitation. She drew in her
elbows, and her breathing quickened.

“In God’s name, I swear it!—there wasn’t anybody here.” A slight
hoarseness gave evidence of her emotion.

“Let us not invoke the Deity,” suggested Vance carelessly. “What time
was the lady here?”

She set her lips stubbornly, and for a whole minute there was silence
in the room. Vance smoked quietly, but Markham held his cigar
motionless between his thumb and forefinger in an attitude of
expectancy.

Again Vance’s impassive voice demanded: “What time was she here?”

The woman clinched her hands with a spasmodic gesture, and thrust her
head forward.

“I tell you—I swear it——”

Vance made a peremptory movement of his hand, and smiled coldly.

“It’s no go,” he told her. “You’re acting stupidly. We’re here to get
the truth—and you’re going to tell us.”

“I’ve told you the truth.”

“Is it going to be necess’ry for the District Attorney here to order
you placed in custody?”

“I’ve told you the truth,” she repeated.

Vance crushed out his cigarette decisively in an ash-receiver on the
table.

“Right-o, Mrs. Platz. Since you refuse to tell me about the young
woman who was here that afternoon, I’m going to tell you about her.”

His manner was easy and cynical, and the woman watched him
suspiciously.

“Late in the afternoon of the day your employer was shot, the
door-bell rang. Perhaps you had been informed by Mr. Benson that he
was expecting a caller, what? Anyhow, you answered the door and
admitted a charming young lady. You showed her into this room . . .
and—what do you think, my dear Madam!—she took that very chair on
which you are resting so uncomfortably.”

He paused, and smiled tantalizingly.

“Then,” he continued, “you served tea to the young lady and Mr.
Benson. After a bit she departed, and Mr. Benson went upstairs to
dress for dinner. . . . Y’ see, Mrs. Platz, I happen to know.”

He lit another cigarette.

“Did you notice the young lady particularly? If not, I’ll describe her
to you. She was rather short—_petite_ is the word. She had dark hair
and dark eyes, and she was dressed quietly.”

A change had come over the woman. Her eyes stared; her cheeks were now
grey; and her breathing had become audible.

“Now, Mrs. Platz,” demanded Vance sharply, “what have you to say?”

She drew a deep breath.

“There wasn’t anybody here,” she said doggedly. There was something
almost admirable in her obstinacy.

Vance considered a moment. Markham was about to speak, but evidently
thought better of it, and sat watching the woman fixedly.

“Your attitude is understandable,” Vance observed finally. “The young
lady, of course, was well known to you, and you had a personal reason
for not wanting it known she was here.”

At these words she sat up straight, a look of terror in her face.

“I never saw her before!” she cried; then stopped abruptly.

“Ah!” Vance gave her an amused leer. “You had never seen the young
lady before—eh, what? . . . That’s quite possible. But it’s
immaterial. She’s a nice girl, though, I’m sure—even if she did have a
dish of tea with your employer alone in his home.”

“Did she tell you she was here?” The woman’s voice was listless. The
reaction to her tense obduracy had left her apathetic.

“Not exactly,” Vance replied. “But it wasn’t necess’ry: I knew without
her informing me. . . . Just when did she arrive, Mrs. Platz?”

“About a half-hour after Mr. Benson got here from the office.” She had
at last given over all denials and evasions. “But he didn’t expect
her—that is, he didn’t say anything to me about her coming; and he
didn’t order tea until after she came.”

Markham thrust himself forward.

“Why didn’t you tell me she’d been here, when I asked you yesterday
morning?”

The woman cast an uneasy glance about the room.

“I rather fancy,” Vance intervened pleasantly, “that Mrs. Platz was
afraid you might unjustly suspect the young lady.”

She grasped eagerly at his words.

“Yes, sir—that was all. I was afraid you might think she—did it. And
she was such a quiet, sweet-looking girl. . . . That was the only
reason, sir.”

“Quite so,” agreed Vance consolingly. “But tell me: did it not shock
you to see such a quiet, sweet-looking young lady smoking cigarettes?”

Her apprehension gave way to astonishment.

“Why—yes, sir, it did. . . . But she wasn’t a bad girl—I could tell
that. And most girls smoke nowadays. They don’t think anything of it,
like they used to.”

“You’re quite right,” Vance assured her. “Still, young ladies really
shouldn’t throw their cigarettes in tiled, gas-log fireplaces, should
they, now?”

The woman regarded him uncertainly; she suspected him of jesting.

“Did she do that?” She leaned over and looked into the fireplace. “I
didn’t see any cigarettes there this morning.”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” Vance informed her. “One of the District
Attorney’s sleuths, d’ ye see, cleaned it all up nicely for you
yesterday.”

She shot Markham a questioning glance. She was not sure whether
Vance’s remark was to be taken seriously; but his casualness of manner
and pleasantness of voice tended to put her at ease.

“Now that we understand each other, Mrs. Platz,” he was saying, “was
there anything else you particularly noticed when the young lady was
here? You will be doing her a good service by telling us, because both
the District Attorney and I happen to know she is innocent.”

She gave Vance a long shrewd look, as if appraising his sincerity.
Evidently the results of her scrutiny were favorable, for her answer
left no doubt as to her complete frankness.

“I don’t know if it’ll help, but when I came in with the toast Mr.
Benson looked like he was arguing with her. She seemed worried about
something that was going to happen, and asked him not to hold her to
some promise she’d made. I was only in the room a minute, and I didn’t
hear much. But just as I was going out, he laughed and said it was
only a bluff, and that nothing was going to happen.”

She stopped, and waited anxiously. She seemed to fear that her
revelation might, after all, prove injurious rather than helpful to
the girl.

“Was that all?” Vance’s tone indicated that the matter was of no
consequence.

The woman demurred.

“That was all I heard; but . . . there was a small blue box of
jewellery sitting on the table.”

“My word!—a box of jewellery! Do you know whose it was?”

“No, sir, I don’t. The lady hadn’t brought it, and I never saw it in
the house before.”

“How did you know it was jewellery?”

“When Mr. Benson went upstairs to dress, I came in to clear the tea
things away, and it was still sitting on the table.”

Vance smiled.

“And you played Pandora and took a peep—eh, what? Most natural,—I’d
have done it myself.”

He stepped back, and bowed politely.

“That will be all, Mrs. Platz. . . . And you needn’t worry about the
young lady. Nothing is going to happen to her.”

When she had left us, Markham leaned forward and shook his cigar at
Vance.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had information about the case unknown to
me?”

“My dear chap!” Vance lifted his eyebrows in protestation. “To what do
you refer specifically?”

“How did you know this St. Clair woman had been here in the
afternoon?”

“I didn’t; but I surmised it. There were cigarette butts of hers in
the grate; and, as I knew she hadn’t been here on the night Benson was
shot, I thought it rather likely she had been here earlier in the day.
And since Benson didn’t arrive from his office until four, I whispered
into my ear that she had called sometime between four and the hour of
his departure for dinner. . . . An element’ry syllogism, what?”

“How did you know she wasn’t here that night?”

“The psychological aspects of the crime left me in no doubt. As I told
you, no woman committed it,—my metaphysical hypotheses again; but
never mind. . . . Furthermore, yesterday morning I stood on the spot
where the murderer stood, and sighted with my eye along the line of
fire, using Benson’s head and the mark on the wainscot as my points of
coinc’dence. It was evident to me then, even without measurements,
that the guilty person was rather tall.”

“Very well. . . . But how did you know she left here that afternoon
before Benson did?” persisted Markham.

“How else could she have changed into an evening gown? Really, y’
know, ladies don’t go about _décolletées_ in the afternoon.”

“You assume, then, that Benson himself brought her gloves and hand-bag
back here that night?”

“Someone did,—and it certainly wasn’t Miss St. Clair.”

“All right,” conceded Markham. “And what about this Morris chair?—how
did you know she sat in it?”

“What other chair could she have sat in, and still thrown her
cigarettes into the fireplace? Women are notoriously poor shots, even
if they were given to hurling their cigarette stubs across the room.”

“That deduction is simple enough,” admitted Markham. “But suppose you
tell me how you knew she had tea here unless you were privy to some
information on the point?”

“It pos’tively shames me to explain it. But the humiliating truth is
that I inferred the fact from the condition of yon samovar. I noted
yesterday that it had been used, and had not been emptied or wiped
off.”

Markham nodded with contemptuous elation.

“You seem to have sunk to the despised legal level of material clues.”

“That’s why I’m blushing so furiously. . . . However, psychological
deductions alone do not determine facts _in esse_, but only _in
posse_. Other conditions must, of course, be considered. In the
present instance the indications of the samovar served merely as the
basis for an assumption, or guess, with which to draw out the
housekeeper.”

“Well, I won’t deny that you succeeded,” said Markham. “I’d like to
know, though, what you had in mind when you accused the woman of a
personal interest in the girl. That remark certainly indicated some
pre-knowledge of the situation.”

Vance’s face became serious.

“Markham, I give you my word,” he said earnestly, “I had nothing in
mind. I made the accusation, thinking it was false, merely to trap her
into a denial. And she fell into the trap. But—deuce take it!—I seemed
to hit some nail squarely on the head, what? I can’t for the life of
me imagine why she was frightened.—But it really doesn’t matter.”

“Perhaps not,” agreed Markham, but his tone was dubious. “What do you
make of the box of jewellery and the disagreement between Benson and
the girl?”

“Nothing yet. They don’t fit in, do they?”

He was silent a moment. Then he spoke with unusual seriousness.

“Markham, take my advice and don’t bother with these side-issues. I’m
telling you the girl had no part in the murder. Let her alone,—you’ll
be happier in your old age if you do.”

Markham sat scowling, his eyes in space.

“I’m convinced that you _think_ you know something.”

“_Cogito, ergo sum_,” murmured Vance. “Y’ know, the naturalistic
philosophy of Descartes has always rather appealed to me. It was a
departure from universal doubt and a seeking for positive knowledge in
self-consciousness. Spinoza in his pantheism, and Berkeley in his
idealism, quite misunderstood the significance of their precursor’s
favorite enthymeme. Even Descartes’ errors were brilliant. His method
of reasoning, for all its scientific inaccuracies, gave new
signif’cation to the symbols of the analyst. The mind, after all, if
it is to function effectively, must combine the mathematical precision
of a natural science with such pure speculations as astronomy. For
instance, Descartes’ doctrine of Vortices——”

“Oh, be quiet,” growled Markham. “I’m not insisting that you reveal
your precious information. So why burden me with a dissertation on
seventeenth-century philosophy?”

“Anyhow, you’ll admit, won’t you,” asked Vance lightly, “that, in
elim’nating those disturbing cigarette butts, so to speak, I’ve
elim’nated Miss St. Clair as a suspect?”

Markham did not answer at once. There was no doubt that the
developments of the past hour had made a decided impression upon him.
He did not underestimate Vance, despite his persistent opposition; and
he knew that, for all his flippancy, Vance was fundamentally serious.
Furthermore, Markham had a finely developed sense of justice. He was
not narrow, even though obstinate at times; and I have never known him
to close his mind to the possibilities of truth, however opposed to
his own interests. It did not, therefore, surprise me in the least
when, at last, he looked up with a gracious smile of surrender.

“You’ve made your point,” he said; “and I accept it with proper
humility. I’m most grateful to you.”

Vance walked indifferently to the window and looked out.

“I am happy to learn that you are capable of accepting such evidence
as the human mind could not possibly deny.”

I had always noticed, in the relationship of these two men, that
whenever either made a remark that bordered on generosity, the other
answered in a manner which ended all outward show of sentiment. It was
as if they wished to keep this more intimate side of their mutual
regard hidden from the world.

Markham therefore ignored Vance’s thrust.

“Have you perhaps any enlightening suggestions, other than negative
ones, to offer as to Benson’s murderer?” he asked.

“Rather!” said Vance. “No end of suggestions.”

“Could you spare me a good one?” Markham imitated the other’s playful
tone.

Vance appeared to reflect.

“Well, I should advise that, as a beginning, you look for a rather
tall man, cool-headed, familiar with fire-arms, a good shot, and
fairly well known to the deceased—a man who was aware that Benson was
going to dinner with Miss St. Clair, or who had reason to suspect the
fact.”

Markham looked narrowly at Vance for several moments.

“I think I understand. . . . Not a bad theory, either. You know, I’m
going to suggest immediately to Heath that he investigate more
thoroughly Captain Leacock’s activities on the night of the murder.”

“Oh, by all means,” said Vance carelessly, going to the piano.

Markham watched him with an expression of puzzled interrogation. He
was about to speak when Vance began playing a rollicking French café
song which opens, I believe, with

   “Ils sont dans les vignes les moineaux.”



CHAPTER XI.

A Motive and a Threat

  (Sunday, June 16; afternoon.)

The following day, which was Sunday, we lunched with Markham at the
Stuyvesant Club. Vance had suggested the appointment the evening
before; for, as he explained to me, he wished to be present in case
Leander Pfyfe should arrive from Long Island.

“It amuses me tremendously,” he had said, “the way human beings
delib’rately complicate the most ordin’ry issues. They have a
downright horror of anything simple and direct. The whole modern
commercial system is nothing but a colossal mechanism for doing things
in the most involved and roundabout way. If one makes a ten-cent
purchase at a department store nowadays, a complete history of the
transaction is written out in triplicate, checked by a dozen
floor-walkers and clerks, signed and countersigned, entered into
innum’rable ledgers with various colored inks, and then elab’rately
secreted in steel filing-cabinets. And not content with all this
superfluous _chinoiserie_, our business men have created a large and
expensive army of efficiency experts whose sole duty it is to
complicate and befuddle this system still further. . . . It’s the same
with everything else in modern life. Regard that insup’rable mania
called golf. It consists merely of knocking a ball into a hole with a
stick. But the devotees of this pastime have developed a unique and
distinctive livery in which to play it. They concentrate for twenty
years on the correct angulation of their feet and the proper method of
entwining their fingers about the stick. Moreover, in order to discuss
the pseudo-intr’cacies of this idiotic sport, they’ve invented an
outlandish vocabulary which is unintelligible even to an English
scholar.”

He pointed disgustedly at a pile of Sunday newspapers.

“Then here’s this Benson murder—a simple and incons’quential affair.
Yet the entire machinery of the law is going at high pressure and
blowing off jets of steam all over the community, when the matter
could be settled quietly in five minutes with a bit of intelligent
thinking.”

At lunch, however, he did not refer to the crime; and, as if by tacit
agreement, the subject was avoided. Markham had merely mentioned
casually to us as we went into the dining-room that he was expecting
Heath a little later.

The sergeant was waiting for us when we retired to the lounge-room for
our smoke, and by his expression it was evident he was not pleased
with the way things were going.

“I told you, Mr. Markham,” he said, when he had drawn up our chairs,
“that this case was going to be a tough one. . . . Could you get any
kind of a lead from the St. Clair woman?”

Markham shook his head.

“She’s out of it.” And he recounted briefly the happenings at Benson’s
house the preceding afternoon.

“Well, if you’re satisfied,” was Heath’s somewhat dubious comment,
“that’s good enough for me. But what about this Captain Leacock?”

“That’s what I asked you here to talk about,” Markham told him.
“There’s no direct evidence against him, but there are several
suspicious circumstances that tend to connect him with the murder. He
seems to meet the specifications as to height; and we mustn’t overlook
the fact that Benson was shot with just such a gun as Leacock would be
likely to possess. He was engaged to the girl, and a motive might be
found in Benson’s attentions to her.”

“And ever since the big scrap,” supplemented Heath, “these army boys
don’t think anything of shooting people. They got used to blood on the
other side.”

“The only hitch,” resumed Markham, “is that Phelps, who had the job of
checking up on the Captain, reported to me that he was home that night
from eight o’clock on. Of course, there may be a loop-hole somewhere,
and I was going to suggest that you have one of your men go into the
matter thoroughly and see just what the situation is. Phelps got his
information from one of the hall-boys; and I think it might be well to
get hold of the boy again and apply a little pressure. If it was found
that Leacock was not at home at twelve-thirty that night, we might
have the lead you’ve been looking for.”

“I’ll attend to it myself,” said Heath. “I’ll go round there to-night,
and if this boy knows anything, he’ll spill it before I’m through with
him.”

We had talked but a few minutes longer when a uniformed attendant
bowed deferentially at the District Attorney’s elbow and announced
that Mr. Pfyfe was calling.

Markham requested that his visitor be shown into the lounge-room, and
then added to Heath:

“You’d better remain, and hear what he has to say.”

Leander Pfyfe was an immaculate and exquisite personage. He approached
us with a mincing gate of self-approbation. His legs, which were very
long and thin, with knees that seemed to bend slightly inward,
supported a short bulging torso; and his chest curved outward in a
generous arc, like that of a pouter-pigeon. His face was rotund, and
his jowls hung in two loops over a collar too tight for comfort. His
blond sparse hair was brushed back sleekly; and the ends of his
narrow, silken moustache were waxed into needle-points. He was dressed
in light-grey summer flannels, and wore a pale turquoise-green silk
shirt, a vivid foulard tie, and grey suède Oxfords. A strong odor of
oriental perfume was given off by the carefully arranged batiste
handkerchief in his breast pocket.

He greeted Markham with viscid urbanity, and acknowledged his
introduction to us with a patronizing bow. After posing himself in a
chair the attendant placed for him, he began polishing a gold-rimmed
eye-glass which he wore on a ribbon, and fixed Markham with a
melancholy gaze.

“A very sad occasion, this,” he sighed.

“Realizing your friendship for Mr. Benson,” said Markham, “I deplore
the necessity of appealing to you at this time. It was very good of
you, by the way, to come to the city to-day.”

Pfyfe made a mildly deprecating movement with his carefully manicured
fingers. He was, he explained with an air of ineffable
self-complacency, only too glad to discommode himself to give aid to
servants of the public. A distressing necessity, to be sure; but his
manner conveyed unmistakably that he knew and recognized the
obligations attaching to the dictum of _noblesse oblige_, and was
prepared to meet them.

He looked at Markham with a self-congratulatory air, and his eyebrows
queried: “What can I do for you?” though his lips did not move.

“I understand from Major Anthony Benson,” Markham said, “that you were
very close to his brother, and therefore might be able to tell us
something of his personal affairs, or private social relationships,
that would indicate a line of investigation.”

Pfyfe gazed sadly at the floor.

“Ah, yes. Alvin and I were very close,—we were, in fact, the most
intimate of friends. You can not imagine how broken up I was at
hearing of the dear fellow’s tragic end.” He gave the impression that
here was a modern instance of Æneas and Achates. “And I was deeply
grieved at not being able to come at once to New York to put myself at
the service of those that needed me.”

“I’m sure it would have been a comfort to his other friends,” remarked
Vance, with cool politeness. “But in the circumst’nces you will be
forgiven.”

Pfyfe blinked regretfully.

“Ah, but I shall never forgive myself—though I cannot hold myself
altogether blameworthy. Only the day before the tragedy I had started
on a trip to the Catskills. I had even asked dear Alvin to go along;
but he was too busy.” Pfyfe shook his head as if lamenting the
incomprehensible irony of life. “How much better—ah, how infinitely
much better—if only——”

“You were gone a very short time,” commented Markham, interrupting
what promised to be a homily on perverse providence.

“True,” Pfyfe indulgently admitted. “But I met with a most unfortunate
accident.” He polished his eye-glass a moment. “My car broke down, and
I was necessitated to return.”

“What road did you take?” asked Heath.

Pfyfe delicately adjusted his eye-glass, and regarded the Sergeant
with an intimation of boredom.

“My advice, Mr.—ah—Sneed——”

“Heath,” the other corrected him surlily.

“Ah, yes—Heath. . . . My advice, Mr. Heath, is, that if you are
contemplating a motor trip to the Catskills, you apply to the
Automobile Club of America for a road-map. My choice of itinerary
might very possibly not suit you.”

He turned back to the District Attorney with an air that implied he
preferred talking to an equal.

“Tell me, Mr. Pfyfe,” Markham asked; “did Mr. Benson have any
enemies?”

The other appeared to think the matter over.

“No⁠-o. Not one, I should say, who would actually have killed him as a
result of animosity.”

“You imply nevertheless that he had enemies. Could you not tell us a
little more?”

Pfyfe passed his hand gracefully over the tips of his golden
moustache, and then permitted his index-finger to linger on his cheek
in an attitude of meditative indecision.

“Your request, Mr. Markham,”—he spoke with pained reluctance—“brings
up a matter which I hesitate to discuss. But perhaps it is best that I
confide in you—as one gentleman to another. Alvin, in common with many
other admirable fellows, had a—what shall I say?—a weakness—let me put
it that way—for the fair sex.”

He looked at Markham, seeking approbation for his extreme tact in
stating an indelicate truth.

“You understand,” he continued, in answer to the other’s sympathetic
nod, “Alvin was not a man who possessed the personal characteristics
that women hold attractive.” (I somehow got the impression that Pfyfe
considered himself as differing radically from Benson in this
respect.) “Alvin was aware of his physical deficiency, and the result
was,—I trust you will understand my hesitancy in mentioning this
distressing fact,—but the result was that Alvin used
certain—ah—methods in his dealings with women, which you and I could
never bring ourselves to adopt. Indeed—though it pains me to say it—he
often took unfair advantage of women. He used underhand methods, as it
were.”

He paused, apparently shocked by this heinous imperfection of his
friend, and by the necessity of his own seemingly disloyal revelation.

“Was it one of these women whom Benson had dealt with unfairly, that
you had in mind?” asked Markham.

“No—not the woman herself,” Pfyfe replied; “but a man who was
interested in her. In fact, this man threatened Alvin’s life. You will
appreciate my reluctance in telling you this; but my excuse is that
the threat was made quite openly. There were several others besides
myself who heard it.”

“That, of course, relieves you from any technical breach of
confidence,” Markham observed.

Pfyfe acknowledged the other’s understanding with a slight bow.

“It happened at a little party of which I was the unfortunate host,”
he confessed modestly.

“Who was the man?” Markham’s tone was polite but firm.

“You will comprehend my reticence. . . .” Pfyfe began. Then, with an
air of righteous frankness, he leaned forward. “It might prove unfair
to Alvin to withhold the gentleman’s name. . . . He was Captain Philip
Leacock.”

He allowed himself the emotional outlet of a sigh.

“I trust you won’t ask me for the lady’s name.”

“It won’t be necessary,” Markham assured him. “But I’d appreciate your
telling us a little more of the episode.”

Pfyfe complied with an expression of patient resignation.

“Alvin was considerably taken with the lady in question, and showed
her many attentions which were, I am forced to admit, unwelcome.
Captain Leacock resented these attentions; and at the little affair to
which I had invited him and Alvin, some unpleasant and, I must say,
unrefined words passed between them. I fear the wine had been flowing
too freely, for Alvin was always punctilious—he was a man, indeed,
skilled in the niceties of social intercourse; and the Captain, in an
outburst of temper, told Alvin that, unless he left the lady strictly
alone in the future, he would pay with his life. The Captain even went
so far as to draw a revolver half-way out of his pocket.”

“Was it a revolver, or an automatic pistol?” asked Heath.

Pfyfe gave the District Attorney a faint smile of annoyance, without
deigning even to glance at the Sergeant.

“I misspoke myself; forgive me. It was not a revolver. It was, I
believe, an automatic army pistol—though, you understand, I didn’t see
it in its entirety.”

“You say there were others who witnessed the altercation?”

“Several of my guests were standing about,” Pfyfe explained; “but, on
my word, I couldn’t name them. The fact is, I attached little
importance to the threat—indeed, it had entirely slipped my memory
until I read the account of poor Alvin’s death. Then I thought at once
of the unfortunate incident, and said to myself: Why not tell the
District Attorney. . . ?”

“Thoughts that breathe and words that burn,” murmured Vance, who had
been sitting through the interview in oppressive boredom.

Pfyfe once more adjusted his eye-glass, and gave Vance a withering
look.

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

Vance smiled disarmingly.

“Merely a quotation from Gray. Poetry appeals to me in certain moods,
don’t y’ know. . . . Do you, by any chance, know Colonel Ostrander?”

Pfyfe looked at him coldly, but only a vacuous countenance met his
gaze.

“I am acquainted with the gentleman,” he replied haughtily.

“Was Colonel Ostrander present at this delightful little social affair
of yours?” Vance’s tone was artlessly innocent.

“Now that you mention it, I believe he was,” admitted Pfyfe, and
lifted his eyebrows inquisitively.

But Vance was again staring disinterestedly out of the window.

Markham, annoyed at the interruption, attempted to re-establish the
conversation on a more amiable and practical basis. But Pfyfe, though
loquacious, had little more information to give. He insisted
constantly on bringing the talk back to Captain Leacock, and, despite
his eloquent protestations, it was obvious he attached more importance
to the threat than he chose to admit. Markham questioned him for fully
an hour, but could learn nothing else of a suggestive nature.

When Pfyfe rose to go Vance turned from his contemplation of the
outside world and, bowing affably, let his eyes rest on the other with
ingenuous good-nature.

“Now that you are in New York, Mr. Pfyfe, and were so unfortunate as
to be unable to arrive earlier, I assume that you will remain until
after the investigation.”

Pfyfe’s studied and habitual calm gave way to a look of oily
astonishment.

“I hadn’t contemplated doing so.”

“It would be most desirable—if you could arrange it,” urged Markham;
though I am sure he had no intention of making the request until Vance
suggested it.

Pfyfe hesitated, and then made an elegant gesture of resignation.

“Certainly I shall remain. When you have further need of my services,
you will find me at the Ansonia.”

He spoke with exalted condescension, and magnanimously conferred upon
Markham a parting smile. But the smile did not spring from within. It
appeared to have been adjusted upon his features by the unseen hands
of a sculptor; and it affected only the muscles about his mouth.

When he had gone Vance gave Markham a look of suppressed mirth.

“‘Elegancy, facility and golden cadence.’ . . . But put not your faith
in poesy, old dear. Our Ciceronian friend is an unmitigated fashioner
of deceptions.”

“If you’re trying to say that he’s a smooth liar,” remarked Heath, “I
don’t agree with you. I think that story about the Captain’s threat is
straight goods.”

“Oh, that! Of course, it’s true. . . . And, y’ know, Markham, the
knightly Mr. Pfyfe was frightfully disappointed when you didn’t insist
on his revealing Miss St. Clair’s name. This Leander, I fear, would
never have swum the Hellespont for a lady’s sake.”

“Whether he’s a swimmer or not,” said Heath impatiently, “he’s given
us something to go on.”

Markham agreed that Pfyfe’s recital had added materially to the case
against Leacock.

“I think I’ll have the Captain down to my office to-morrow, and
question him,” he said.

A moment later Major Benson entered the room, and Markham invited him
to join us.

“I just saw Pfyfe get into a taxi,” he said, when he had sat down. “I
suppose you’ve been asking him about Alvin’s affairs. . . . Did he
help you any?”

“I hope so, for all our sakes,” returned Markham kindly. “By the way,
Major, what do you know about a Captain Philip Leacock?”

Major Benson lifted his eyes to Markham’s in surprise.

“Didn’t you know? Leacock was one of the captains in my regiment,—a
first-rate man. He knew Alvin pretty well, I think; but my impression
is they didn’t hit it off very chummily. . . . Surely you don’t
connect him with this affair?”

Markham ignored the question.

“Did you happen to attend a party of Pfyfe’s the night the Captain
threatened your brother?”

“I went, I remember, to one or two of Pfyfe’s parties,” said the
Major. “I don’t, as a rule, care for such gatherings, but Alvin
convinced me it was a good business policy.”

He lifted his head, and frowned fixedly into space, like one searching
for an elusive memory.

“However, I don’t recall—By George! Yes, I believe I do. . . . But if
the instance I am thinking of is what you have in mind, you can
dismiss it. We were all a little moist that night.”

“Did Captain Leacock draw a gun?” asked Heath.

The Major pursed his lips.

“Now that you mention it, I think he did make some motion of the
kind.”

“Did you see the gun?” pursued Heath.

“No, I can’t say that I did.”

Markham put the next question.

“Do you think Captain Leacock capable of the act of murder?”

“Hardly,” Major Benson answered with emphasis. “Leacock isn’t
cold-blooded. The woman over whom the tiff occurred is more capable of
such an act than he is.”

A short silence followed, broken by Vance.

“What do you know, Major, about this glass of fashion and mould of
form, Pfyfe? He appears a rare bird. Has he a history, or is his
presence his life’s document?”

“Leander Pfyfe,” said the Major, “is a typical specimen of the modern
young do-nothing,—I say young, though I imagine he’s around forty. He
was pampered in his upbringing—had everything he wanted, I believe;
but he became restless, and followed several different fads till he
tired of them. He was two years in South Africa hunting big game, and,
I think, wrote a book recounting his adventures. Since then he has
done nothing that I know of. He married a wealthy shrew some years
ago—for her money, I imagine. But the woman’s father controls the
purse-strings, and holds him down to a rigid allowance. . . . Pfyfe’s
a waster and an idler, but Alvin seemed to find some attraction in the
man.”

The Major’s words had been careless in inflection and undeliberated,
like those of a man discussing a neutral matter; but all of us, I
think, received the impression that he had a strong personal dislike
for Pfyfe.

“Not a ravishing personality, what?” remarked Vance. “And he uses far
too much _Jicky_.”

“Still,” supplied Heath, with a puzzled frown, “a fellow’s got to have
a lot of nerve to shoot big game. . . . And, speaking of nerve, I’ve
been thinking that the guy who shot your brother, Major, was a mighty
cool-headed proposition. He did it from the front when his man was
wide awake, and with a servant upstairs. That takes nerve.”

“Sergeant, you’re pos’tively brilliant!” exclaimed Vance.



CHAPTER XII.

The Owner of a Colt-.45

  (Monday, June 17; forenoon.)

Though Vance and I arrived at the District Attorney’s office the
following morning a little after nine, the Captain had been waiting
twenty minutes; and Markham directed Swacker to send him in at once.

Captain Philip Leacock was a typical army officer, very tall—fully six
feet, two inches,—clean-shaven, straight and slender. His face was
grave and immobile; and he stood before the District Attorney in the
erect, earnest attitude of a soldier awaiting orders from his superior
officer.

“Take a seat, Captain,” said Markham, with a formal bow. “I have asked
you here, as you probably know, to put a few questions to you
concerning Mr. Alvin Benson. There are several points regarding your
relationship with him, which I want you to explain.”

“Am I suspected of complicity in the crime?” Leacock spoke with a
slight Southern accent.

“That remains to be seen,” Markham told him coldly. “It is to
determine that point that I wish to question you.”

The other sat rigidly in his chair and waited.

Markham fixed him with a direct gaze.

“You recently made a threat on Mr. Alvin Benson’s life, I believe.”

Leacock started, and his fingers tightened over his knees. But before
he could answer, Markham continued:

“I can tell you the occasion on which the threat was made,—it was at a
party given by Mr. Leander Pfyfe.”

Leacock hesitated; then thrust forward his jaw.

“Very well, sir; I admit I made the threat. Benson was a cad—he
deserved shooting. . . . That night he had become more obnoxious than
usual. He’d been drinking too much—and so had I, I reckon.”

He gave a twisted smile, and looked nervously past the District
Attorney out of the window.

“But I didn’t shoot him, sir. I didn’t even know he’d been shot until
I read the paper next day.”

“He was shot with an army Colt—the kind you fellows carried in the
war,” said Markham, keeping his eyes on the man.

“I know it,” Leacock replied. “The papers said so.”

“You have such a gun, haven’t you, Captain?”

Again the other hesitated.

“No, sir.” His voice was barely audible.

“What became of it?”

The man glanced at Markham, and then quickly shifted his eyes.

“I—I lost it . . . in France.”

Markham smiled faintly.

“Then how do you account for the fact that Mr. Pfyfe saw the gun the
night you made the threat?”

“Saw the gun?” He looked blankly at the District Attorney.

“Yes, saw it, and recognized it as an army gun,” persisted Markham, in
a level voice. “Also, Major Benson saw you make a motion as if to draw
a gun.”

Leacock drew a deep breath, and set his mouth doggedly.

“I tell you, sir, I haven’t a gun. . . . I lost it in France.”

“Perhaps you didn’t lose it, Captain. Perhaps you lent it to someone.”

“I didn’t, sir!” the words burst from his lips.

“Think a minute, Captain. . . . Didn’t you lend it to someone?”

“No—I did not!”

“You paid a visit—yesterday—to Riverside Drive. . . . Perhaps you took
it there with you.”

Vance had been listening closely.

“Oh—deuced clever!” he now murmured in my ear.

Captain Leacock moved uneasily. His face, even with its deep coat of
tan, seemed to pale, and he sought to avoid the implacable gaze of his
questioner by concentrating his attention upon some object on the
table. When he spoke his voice, heretofore truculent, was colored by
anxiety.

“I didn’t have it with me. . . . And I didn’t lend it to anyone.”

Markham sat leaning forward over the desk, his chin on his hand, like
a minatory graven image.

“It may be you lent it to someone prior to that morning.”

“Prior to . . ?” Leacock looked up quickly and paused, as if analyzing
the other’s remark.

Markham took advantage of his perplexity.

“Have you lent your gun to anyone since you returned from France?”

“No, I’ve never lent it——” he began, but suddenly halted and flushed.
Then he added hastily. “How could I lend it? I just told you, sir——”

“Never mind that!” Markham cut in. “So you had a gun, did you,
Captain? . . . Have you still got it?”

Leacock opened his lips to speak, but closed them again tightly.

Markham relaxed, and leaned back in his chair.

“You were aware, of course, that Benson had been annoying Miss St.
Clair with his attentions?”

At the mention of the girl’s name the Captain’s body became rigid; his
face turned a dull red, and he glared menacingly at the District
Attorney. At the end of a slow, deep inhalation he spoke through
clenched teeth.

“Suppose we leave Miss St. Clair out of this.” He looked as though he
might spring at Markham.

“Unfortunately, we can’t.” Markham’s words were sympathetic but firm.
“Too many facts connect her with the case. Her hand-bag, for instance,
was found in Benson’s living-room the morning after the murder.”

“That’s a lie, sir!”

Markham ignored the insult.

“Miss St. Clair herself admits the circumstance.” He held up his hand,
as the other was about to answer. “Don’t misinterpret my mentioning
the fact. I am not accusing Miss St. Clair of having anything to do
with the affair. I’m merely endeavoring to get some light on your own
connection with it.”

The Captain studied Markham with an expression that clearly indicated
he doubted these assurances. Finally he set his mouth, and announced
with determination:

“I haven’t anything more to say on the subject, sir.”

“You knew, didn’t you,” continued Markham, “that Miss St. Clair dined
with Benson at the Marseilles on the night he was shot?”

“What of it?” retorted Leacock sullenly.

“And you knew, didn’t you, that they left the restaurant at midnight,
and that Miss St. Clair did not reach home until after one?”

A strange look came into the man’s eyes. The ligaments of his neck
tightened, and he took a deep, resolute breath. But he neither glanced
at the District Attorney nor spoke.

“You know, of course,” pursued Markham’s monotonous voice, “that
Benson was shot at half past twelve?”

He waited; and for a whole minute there was silence in the room.

“You have nothing more to say, Captain?” he asked at length; “—no
further explanations to give me?”

Leacock did not answer. He sat gazing imperturbably ahead of him; and
it was evident he had sealed his lips for the time being.

Markham rose.

“In that case, let us consider the interview at an end.”

The moment Captain Leacock had gone, Markham rang for one of his
clerks.

“Tell Ben to have that man followed. Find out where he goes and what
he does. I want a report at the Stuyvesant Club to-night.”

When we were alone Vance gave Markham a look of half-bantering
admiration.

“Ingenious—not to say artful. . . . But, y’ know, your questions about
the lady were shocking bad form.”

“No doubt,” Markham agreed. “But it looks now as if we were on the
right track. Leacock didn’t create an impression of unassailable
innocence.”

“Didn’t he?” asked Vance. “Just what were the signs of his assailable
guilt?”

“You saw him turn white when I questioned him about the weapon. His
nerves were on edge,—he was genuinely frightened.”

Vance sighed.

“What a perfect ready-made set of notions you have, Markham! Don’t you
know that an innocent man, when he comes under suspicion, is apt to be
more nervous than a guilty one, who, to begin with, had enough nerve
to commit the crime, and, secondly, realizes that any show of
nervousness is regarded as guilt by you lawyer chaps? ‘My strength is
as the strength of ten because my heart is pure’ is a mere
Sunday-school pleasantry. Touch almost any innocent man on the
shoulder and say ‘You’re arrested’, and his pupils will dilate, he’ll
break out in a cold sweat, the blood will rush from his face, and
he’ll have tremors and dyspnœa. If he’s a _hystérique_, or a cardiac
neurotic, he’ll probably collapse completely. It’s the guilty person
who, when thus accosted, lifts his eyebrows in bored surprise and
says, ‘You don’t mean it, really,—here have a cigar’.”

“The hardened criminal may act as you say,” Markham conceded; “but an
honest man who’s innocent doesn’t go to pieces, even when accused.”

Vance shook his head hopelessly.

“My dear fellow, Crile and Voronoff might have lived in vain for all
of you. Manifestations of fear are the result of glandular
secretions—nothing more. All they prove is that the person’s thyroid
is undeveloped or that his adrenals are subnormal. A man accused of a
crime, or shown the bloody weapon with which it was committed, will
either smile serenely, or scream, or have hysterics, or faint, or
appear disint’rested—according to his hormones, and irrespective of
his guilt. Your theory, d’ ye see, would be quite all right if
everyone had the same amount of the various internal secretions. But
they haven’t. . . . Really, y’ know, you shouldn’t send a man to the
electric chair simply because he’s deficient in endocrines. It isn’t
cricket.”

Before Markham could reply Swacker appeared at the door and said Heath
had arrived.

The Sergeant, beaming with satisfaction, fairly burst into the room.
For once he forgot to shake hands.

“Well, it looks like we’d got hold of something workable. I went to
this Captain Leacock’s apartment-house last night, and here’s the
straight of it:—Leacock was at home the night of the thirteenth all
right; but shortly after midnight he went out, headed west—get
that!—and he didn’t return till about quarter of one!”

“What about the hall-boy’s original story?” asked Markham.

“That’s the best part of it. Leacock had the boy fixed. Gave him money
to swear he hadn’t left the house that night.—What do you think of
that, Mr. Markham? Pretty crude—huh? . . . The kid loosened up when I
told him I was thinking of sending him up the river for doing the job
himself.” Heath laughed unpleasantly. “And he won’t spill anything to
Leacock, either.”

Markham nodded his head slowly.

“What you tell me, Sergeant, bears out certain conclusions I arrived
at when I talked to Captain Leacock this morning. Ben put a man on him
when he left here, and I’m to get a report to-night. To-morrow may see
this thing through. I’ll get in touch with you in the morning, and if
anything’s to be done, you understand, you’ll have the handling of
it.”

When Heath had left us, Markham folded his hands behind his head and
leaned back contentedly.

“I think I’ve got the answer,” he said. “The girl dined with Benson
and returned to his house afterward. The Captain, suspecting the fact,
went out, found her there, and shot Benson. That would account not
only for her gloves and hand-bag, but for the hour it took her to go
from the Marseilles to her home. It would also account for her
attitude here Saturday, and for the Captain’s lying about the
gun. . . . There, I believe, I have my case. The smashing of the
Captain’s alibi about clinches it.”

“Oh, quite,” said Vance airily. “‘Hope springs exulting on triumphant
wing’.”

Markham regarded him a moment.

“Have you entirely forsworn human reason as a means of reaching a
decision? Here we have an admitted threat, a motive, the time, the
place, the opportunity, the conduct, and the criminal agent.”

“Those words sound strangely familiar,” smiled Vance. “Didn’t most of
’em fit the young lady also? . . . And you really haven’t got the
criminal agent, y’ know. But it’s no doubt floating about the city
somewhere.—A mere detail, however.”

“I may not have it in my hand,” Markham countered. “But with a good
man on watch every minute, Leacock won’t find much opportunity of
disposing of the weapon.”

Vance shrugged indifferently.

“In any event, go easy,” he admonished. “My humble opinion is that
you’ve merely unearthed a conspiracy.”

“Conspiracy? . . . Good Lord! What kind?”

“A conspiracy of circumst’nces, don’t y’ know.”

“I’m glad, at any rate, it hasn’t to do with international politics,”
returned Markham good-naturedly.

He glanced at the clock.

“You won’t mind if I get to work? I’ve a dozen things to attend to,
and a couple of committees to see. . . . Why don’t you go across the
hall and have a talk with Ben Hanlon, and then come back at
twelve-thirty? We’ll have lunch together at the Bankers’ Club. Ben’s
our greatest expert on foreign extradition, and has spent most of his
life chasing about the world after fugitives from justice. He’ll spin
you some good yarns.”

“How perfectly fascinatin’!” exclaimed Vance, with a yawn.

But instead of taking the suggestion, he walked to the window and lit
a cigarette. He stood for a while puffing at it, rolling it between
his fingers, and inspecting it critically.

“Y’ know, Markham,” he observed, “everything’s going to pot these
days. It’s this silly democracy. Even the nobility is degen’rating.
These _Régie_ cigarettes, now: they’ve fallen off frightfully. There
was a time when no self-respecting potentate would have smoked such
inferior tobacco.”

Markham smiled.

“What’s the favor you want to ask?”

“Favor? What has that to do with the decay of Europe’s aristocracy?”

“I’ve noticed that whenever you want to ask a favor which you consider
questionable etiquette, you begin with a denunciation of royalty.”

“Observin’ fella,” commented Vance drily. Then he, too, smiled. “Do
you mind if I invite Colonel Ostrander along to lunch?”

Markham gave him a sharp look.

“Bigsby Ostrander, you mean? . . . Is he the mysterious colonel you’ve
been asking people about for the past two days?”

“That’s the lad. Pompous ass and that sort of thing. Might prove a bit
edifyin’, though. He’s the papa of Benson’s crowd, so to speak; knows
all parties. Regular old scandalmonger.”

“Have him along, by all means,” agreed Markham.

Then he picked up the telephone.

“Now I’m going to tell Ben you’re coming over for an hour or so.”



CHAPTER XIII.

The Grey Cadillac

  (Monday, June 17; 12.30 p.m.)

When, at half past twelve, Markham, Vance and I entered the Grill of
the Bankers’ Club in the Equitable Building, Colonel Ostrander was
already at the bar engaged with one of Charlie’s prohibition
clam-broth-and-Worcestershire-sauce cocktails. Vance had telephoned
him immediately upon our leaving the District Attorney’s office,
requesting him to meet us at the Club; and the Colonel had seemed
eager to comply.

“Here is New York’s gayest dog,” said Vance, introducing him to
Markham (I had met him before); “a sybarite and a hedonist. He sleeps
till noon, and makes no appointments before tiffin-time. I had to
knock him up and threaten him with your official ire to get him down
town at this early hour.”

“Only too pleased to be of any service,” the Colonel assured Markham
grandiloquently. “Shocking affair! Gad! I couldn’t credit it when I
read it in the papers. Fact is, though—I don’t mind sayin’ it—I’ve one
or two ideas on the subject. Came very near calling you up myself,
sir.”

When we had taken our seats at the table Vance began interrogating him
without preliminaries.

“You know all the people in Benson’s set, Colonel. Tell us something
about Captain Leacock. What sort of chap is he?”

“Ha! So you have your eye on the gallant Captain?”

Colonel Ostrander pulled importantly at his white moustache. He was a
large pink-faced man with bushy eyelashes and small blue eyes; and his
manner and bearing were those of a pompous light-opera general.

“Not a bad idea. Might possibly have done it. Hot-headed fellow. He’s
badly smitten with a Miss St. Clair—fine girl, Muriel. And Benson was
smitten, too. If I’d been twenty years younger myself——”

“You’re too fascinatin’ to the ladies, as it is, Colonel,” interrupted
Vance. “But tell us about the Captain.”

“Ah, yes—the Captain. Comes from Georgia originally. Served in the
war—some kind of decoration. He didn’t care for Benson—disliked him,
in fact. Quick-tempered, single-track-minded sort of person. Jealous,
too. You know the type—a product of that tribal etiquette below the
Mason and Dixon line. Puts women on a pedestal—not that they shouldn’t
be put there, God bless ’em! But he’d go to jail for a lady’s honor. A
shielder of womanhood. Sentimental cuss, full of chivalry; just the
kind to blow out a rival’s brains:—no questions asked—_pop_—and it’s
all over. Dangerous chap to monkey with. Benson was a confounded idiot
to bother with the girl when he knew she was engaged to Leacock.
Playin’ with fire. I don’t mind sayin’ I was tempted to warn him. But
it was none of my affair—I had no business interferin’. Bad taste.”

“Just how well did Captain Leacock know Benson?” asked Vance. “By that
I mean: how intimate were they?”

“Not intimate at all,” the Colonel replied.

He made a ponderous gesture of negation, and added:

“I should say not! Formal, in fact. They met each other here and there
a good deal, though. Knowing ’em both pretty well, I’ve often had ’em
to little affairs at my humble diggin’s.”

“You wouldn’t say Captain Leacock was a good gambler—level-headed and
all that?”

“Gambler—huh!” The Colonel’s manner was heavily contemptuous. “Poorest
I ever saw. Played poker worse than a woman. Too excitable—couldn’t
keep his feelin’s to himself. Altogether too rash.”

Then, after a momentary pause:

“By George! I see what you’re aimin’ at. . . . And you’re dead right.
It’s rash young puppies just like him that go about shootin’ people
they don’t like.”

“The Captain, I take it, is quite different in that regard from your
friend, Leander Pfyfe,” remarked Vance.

The Colonel appeared to consider.

“Yes and no,” he decided. “Pfyfe’s a cool gambler—that I’ll grant you.
He once ran a private gambling place of his own down on Long
Island—roulette, monte, baccarat, that sort of thing. And he popped
tigers and wild boars in Africa for a while. But Pfyfe’s got his
sentimental side, and he’d plunge on a pair of deuces with all the
betting odds against him. Not a good scientific gambler. Flighty in
his impulses, if you understand me. I don’t mind admittin’, though,
that he could shoot a man and forget all about it in five minutes. But
he’d need a lot of provocation. . . . He may have had it—you can’t
tell.”

“Pfyfe and Benson were rather intimate, weren’t they?”

“Very—very. Always saw ’em together when Pfyfe was in New York. Known
each other years. Boon companions, as they called ’em in the old days.
Actually lived together before Pfyfe got married. An exacting woman,
Pfyfe’s wife; makes him toe the mark. But loads of money.”

“Speaking of the ladies,” said Vance: “what was the situation between
Benson and Miss St. Clair?”

“Who can tell?” asked the Colonel sententiously. “Muriel didn’t cotton
to Benson—that’s sure. And yet . . . women are strange creatures——”

“Oh, no end strange,” agreed Vance, a trifle wearily. “But really, y’
know, I wasn’t prying into the lady’s personal relations with Benson.
I thought you might know her mental attitude concerning him.”

“Ah—I see. Would she, in short, have been likely to take desperate
measures against him? . . . Egad! That’s an idea!”

The Colonel pondered the point.

“Muriel, now, is a girl of strong character. Works hard at her art.
She’s a singer, and—I don’t mind tellin’ you—a mighty fine one. She’s
deep, too—deuced deep. And capable. Not afraid of taking a chance.
Independent. I myself wouldn’t want to be in her path if she had it in
for me. Might stick at nothing.”

He nodded his head sagely.

“Women are funny that way. Always surprisin’ you. No sense of values.
The most peaceful of ’em will shoot a man in cold blood without
warnin’——”

He suddenly sat up, and his little blue eyes glistened like china.

“By Gad!” He fairly blurted the ejaculation. “Muriel had dinner alone
with Benson the night he was shot—the very night. Saw ’em together
myself at the Marseilles.”

“You don’t say, really!” muttered Vance incuriously. “But I suppose we
all must eat. . . . By the bye; how well did you yourself know
Benson?”

The Colonel looked startled, but Vance’s innocuous expression seemed
to reassure him.

“I? My dear fellow! I’ve known Alvin Benson fifteen years. At least
fifteen—maybe longer. Showed him the sights in this old town before
the lid was put on. A live town it was then. Wide open. Anything you
wanted. Gad—what times we had! Those were the days of the old
Haymarket. Never thought of toddlin’ home till breakfast——”

Vance again interrupted his irrelevancies.

“How intimate are your relations with Major Benson?”

“The Major? . . . That’s another matter. He and I belong to different
schools. Dissimilar tastes. We never hit it off. Rarely see each
other.”

He seemed to think that some explanation was necessary, for before
Vance could speak again, he added:

“The Major, you know, was never one of the boys, as we say.
Disapproved of gaiety. Didn’t mix with our little set. Considered me
and Alvin too frivolous. Serious-minded chap.”

Vance ate in silence for a while, then asked in an off-hand way:

“Did you do much speculating through Benson and Benson?”

For the first time the Colonel appeared hesitant about answering. He
ostentatiously wiped his mouth with his napkin.

“Oh—dabbled a bit,” he at length admitted airily. “Not very lucky,
though. . . . We all flirted now and then with the Goddess of Chance
in Benson’s office.”

Throughout the lunch Vance kept plying him with questions along these
lines; but at the end of an hour he seemed to be no nearer anything
definite than when he began. Colonel Ostrander was voluble, but his
fluency was vague and disorganized. He talked mainly in parentheses,
and insisted on elaborating his answers with rambling opinions, until
it was almost impossible to extract what little information his words
contained.

Vance, however, did not appear discouraged. He dwelt on Captain
Leacock’s character, and seemed particularly interested in his
personal relationship with Benson. Pfyfe’s gambling proclivities also
occupied his attention, and he let the Colonel ramble on tiresomely
about the man’s gambling house on Long Island and his hunting
experiences in South Africa. He asked numerous questions about
Benson’s other friends, but paid scant attention to the answers.

The whole interview impressed me as pointless, and I could not help
wondering what Vance hoped to learn. Markham, I was convinced, was
equally at sea. He pretended polite interest, and nodded
appreciatively during the Colonel’s incredibly drawn-out periods; but
his eyes wandered occasionally, and several times I saw him give Vance
a look of reproachful inquiry. There was no doubt, however, that
Colonel Ostrander knew his people.

When we were back in the District Attorney’s office, having taken
leave of our garrulous guest at the subway entrance, Vance threw
himself into one of the easy chairs with an air of satisfaction.

“Most entertainin’, what? As an elim’nator of suspects the Colonel has
his good points.”

“Eliminator!” retorted Markham. “It’s a good thing he’s not connected
with the police: he’d have half the community jailed for shooting
Benson.”

“He _is_ a bit blood-thirsty,” Vance admitted. “He’s determined to get
somebody jailed for the crime.”

“According to that old warrior, Benson’s coterie was a camorra of
gunmen—not forgetting the women. I couldn’t help getting the
impression, as he talked, that Benson was miraculously lucky not to
have been riddled with bullets long ago.”

“It’s obvious,” commented Vance, “that you overlooked the illuminatin’
flashes in the Colonel’s thunder.”

“Were there any?” Markham asked. “At any rate, I can’t say that they
exactly blinded me by their brilliance.”

“And you received no solace from his words?”

“Only those in which he bade me a fond farewell. The parting didn’t
exactly break my heart. . . . What the old boy said about Leacock,
however, might be called a confirmatory opinion. It verified—if
verification had been necessary—the case against the Captain.”

Vance smiled cynically.

“Oh, to be sure. And what he said about Miss St. Clair would have
verified the case against her, too—last Saturday.—Also, what he said
about Pfyfe would have verified the case against that Beau Sabreur, if
you had happened to suspect him—eh, what?”

Vance had scarcely finished speaking when Swacker came in to say that
Emery from the Homicide Bureau had been sent over by Heath, and
wished, if possible, to see the District Attorney.

When the man entered I recognized him at once as the detective who had
found the cigarette butts in Benson’s grate.

With a quick glance at Vance and me, he went directly to Markham.

“We’ve found the grey Cadillac, sir; and Sergeant Heath thought you
might want to know about it right away. It’s in a small, one-man
garage on Seventy-fourth Street near Amsterdam Avenue, and has been
there three days. One of the men from the Sixty-eighth Street station
located it and ’phoned in to Headquarters; and I hopped up town at
once. It’s the right car—fishing-tackle and all, except for the rods;
so I guess the ones found in Central Park belonged to the car after
all: fell out probably. . . . It seems a fellow drove the car into the
garage about noon last Friday, and gave the garage-man twenty dollars
to keep his mouth shut. The man’s a wop, and says he don’t read the
papers. Anyway, he came across _pronto_ when I put the screws on.”

The detective drew out a small note-book.

“I looked up the car’s number. . . . It’s listed in the name of
Leander Pfyfe, 24 Elm Boulevard, Port Washington, Long Island.”

Markham received this piece of unexpected information with a perplexed
frown. He dismissed Emery almost curtly, and sat tapping thoughtfully
on his desk.

Vance watched him with an amused smile.

“It’s really not a madhouse, y’ know,” he observed comfortingly. “I
say, don’t the Colonel’s words bring you any cheer, now that you know
Leander was hovering about the neighborhood at the time Benson was
translated into the Beyond?”

“Damn your old Colonel!” snapped Markham. “What interests me at
present is fitting this new development into the situation.”

“It fits beautifully,” Vance told him. “It rounds out the mosaic, so
to speak. . . . Are you actu’lly disconcerted by learning that Pfyfe
was the owner of the mysterious car?”

“Not having your gift of clairvoyance, I am, I confess, disturbed by
the fact.”

Markham lit a cigar—an indication of worry.

“You, of course,” he added, with sarcasm, “knew before Emery came here
that it was Pfyfe’s car.”

“I didn’t know,” Vance corrected him; “but I had a strong suspicion.
Pfyfe overdid his distress when he told us of his breakdown in the
Catskills. And Heath’s question about his itiner’ry annoyed him
frightfully. His hauteur was too melodramatic.”

“Your _ex post facto_ wisdom is most useful!”

Markham smoked a while in silence.

“I think I’ll find out about this matter.”

He rang for Swacker.

“Call up the Ansonia,” he ordered angrily; “locate Leander Pfyfe, and
say I want to see him at the Stuyvesant Club at six o’clock. And tell
him he’s to be there.”

“It occurs to me,” said Markham, when Swacker had gone, “that this car
episode may prove helpful, after all. Pfyfe was evidently in New York
that night, and for some reason he didn’t want it known. Why, I
wonder? He tipped us off about Leacock’s threat against Benson, and
hinted strongly that we’d better get on the fellow’s track. Of course,
he may have been sore at Leacock for winning Miss St. Clair away from
his friend, and taken this means of wreaking a little revenge on him.
On the other hand, if Pfyfe was at Benson’s house the night of the
murder, he may have some real information. And now that we’ve found
out about the car, I think he’ll tell us what he knows.”

“He’ll tell you something anyway,” said Vance. “He’s the type of
congenital liar that’ll tell anybody anything as long as it doesn’t
involve himself unpleasantly.”

“You and the Cumæan Sibyl, I presume, could inform me in advance what
he’s going to tell me.”

“I couldn’t say as to the Cumæan Sibyl, don’t y’ know,” Vance returned
lightly; “but speaking for myself, I rather fancy he’ll tell you that
he saw the impetuous Captain at Benson’s house that night.”

Markham laughed.

“I hope he does. You’ll want to be on hand to hear him, I suppose.”

“I couldn’t bear to miss it.”

Vance was already at the door, preparatory to going, when he turned
again to Markham.

“I’ve another slight favor to ask. Get a _dossier_ on Pfyfe—there’s a
good fellow. Send one of your innumerable Dogberrys to Port Washington
and have the gentleman’s conduct and social habits looked into. Tell
your emiss’ry to concentrate on the woman question. . . . I promise
you, you sha’n’t regret it.”

Markham, I could see, was decidedly puzzled by this request, and half
inclined to refuse it. But after deliberating a few moments, he
smiled, and pressed a button on his desk.

“Anything to humor you,” he said. “I’ll send a man down at once.”



CHAPTER XIV.

Links in the Chain

  (Monday, June 17; 6 p.m.)

Vance and I spent an hour or so that afternoon at the Anderson
Galleries looking at some tapestries which were to be auctioned the
next day, and afterward had tea at Sherry’s. We were at the Stuyvesant
Club a little before six. A few minutes later Markham and Pfyfe
arrived; and we went at once into one of the conference rooms.

Pfyfe was as elegant and superior as at the first interview. He wore a
ratcatcher suit and Newmarket gaiters of unbleached linen, and was
redolent of perfume.

“An unexpected pleasure to see you gentlemen again so soon,” he
greeted us, like one conferring a blessing.

Markham was far from amiable, and gave him an almost brusque
salutation. Vance had merely nodded, and now sat regarding Pfyfe
drearily as if seeking to find some excuse for his existence, but
utterly unable to do so.

Markham went directly to the point.

“I’ve found out, Mr. Pfyfe, that you placed your machine in a garage
at noon on Friday, and gave the man twenty dollars to say nothing
about it.”

Pfyfe looked up with a hurt look.

“I’ve been deeply wronged,” he complained sadly. “I gave the man fifty
dollars.”

“I am glad you admit the fact so readily,” returned Markham. “You
knew, by the newspapers, of course, that your machine was seen outside
Benson’s house the night he was shot.”

“Why else should I have paid so liberally to have its presence in New
York kept secret?” His tone indicated that he was pained at the
other’s obtuseness.

“In that case, why did you keep it in the city at all?” asked Markham.
“You could have driven it back to Long Island.”

Pfyfe shook his head sorrowfully, a look of commiseration in his eyes.
Then he leaned forward with an air of benign patience:—he would be
gentle with this dull-witted District Attorney, like a fond teacher
with a backward child, and would strive to lead him out of the tangle
of his uncertainties.

“I am a married man, Mr. Markham.” He pronounced the fact as if some
special virtue attached to it. “I started on my trip for the Catskills
Thursday after dinner, intending to stop a day in New York to make my
adieus to someone residing here. I arrived quite late—after
midnight—and decided to call on Alvin. But when I drove up, the house
was dark. So, without even ringing the bell, I walked to Pietro’s in
Forty-third Street to get a night-cap,—I keep a bit of my own
pinch-bottle Haig and Haig there,—but, alas! the place was closed, and
I strolled back to my car. . . . To think, that while I was away poor
Alvin was shot!”

He stopped and polished his eye-glass.

“The irony of it! . . . I didn’t even guess that anything had happened
to the dear fellow,—how could I? I drove, all unsuspecting of the
tragedy, to a Turkish bath, and remained there the night. The next
morning I read of the murder; and in the later editions I saw the
mention of my car. It was then I became—shall I say worried? But no.
‘Worried’ is a misleading word. Let me say, rather, that I became
aware of the false position I might be placed in if the car were
traced to me. So I drove it to the garage and paid the man to say
nothing of its whereabouts, lest its discovery confuse the issue of
Alvin’s death.”

One might have thought, from his tone and the self-righteous way he
looked at Markham, that he had bribed the garage-man wholly out of
consideration for the District Attorney and the police.

“Why didn’t you continue on your trip?” asked Markham. “That would
have made the discovery of the car even less likely.”

Pfyfe adopted an air of compassionate surprise.

“With my dearest friend foully murdered? How could one have the heart
to seek diversion at such a sad moment? . . . I returned home, and
informed Mrs. Pfyfe that my car had broken down.”

“You might have driven home in your car, it seems to me,” observed
Markham.

Pfyfe offered a look of infinite forbearance for the other’s
inspection, and took a deep sigh, which conveyed the impression that,
though he could not sharpen the world’s perceptions, he at least could
mourn for its deplorable lack of understanding.

“If I had been in the Catskills away from any source of information,
where Mrs. Pfyfe believed me to be, how would I have heard of Alvin’s
death until, perhaps, days afterward? You see, unfortunately I had not
mentioned to Mrs. Pfyfe that I was stopping over in New York. The
truth is, Mr. Markham, I had reason for not wishing my wife to know I
was in the city. Consequently, if I had driven back at once, she
would, I regret to say, have suspected me of breaking my journey. I
therefore pursued the course which seemed simplest.”

Markham was becoming annoyed at the man’s fluent hypocrisy. After a
brief silence he asked abruptly:

“Did the presence of your car at Benson’s house that night have
anything to do with your apparent desire to implicate Captain Leacock
in the affair?”

Pfyfe lifted his eyebrows in pained astonishment, and made a gesture
of polite protestation.

“My dear sir!” His voice betokened profound resentment of the other’s
unjust imputation. “If yesterday you detected in my words an
undercurrent of suspicion against Captain Leacock, I can account for
it only by the fact that I actually saw the Captain in front of
Alvin’s house when I drove up that night.”

Markham shot a curious look at Vance; then said to Pfyfe:

“You are sure you saw Leacock?”

“I saw him quite distinctly. And I would have mentioned the fact
yesterday had it not involved the tacit confession of my own presence
there.”

“What if it had?” demanded Markham. “It was vital information, and I
could have used it this morning. You were placing your comfort ahead
of the legal demands of justice; and your attitude puts a very
questionable aspect on your own alleged conduct that night.”

“You are pleased to be severe, sir,” said Pfyfe with self-pity. “But
having placed myself in a false position, I must accept your
criticism.”

“Do you realize,” Markham went on, “that many a district attorney, if
he knew what I now know about your movements, and had been treated the
way you’ve treated me, would arrest you on suspicion?”

“Then I can only say,” was the suave response, “that I am most
fortunate in my inquisitor.”

Markham rose.

“That will be all for to-day, Mr. Pfyfe. But you are to remain in New
York until I give you permission to return home. Otherwise, I will
have you held as a material witness.”

Pfyfe made a shocked gesture in deprecation of such acerbities, and
bade us a ceremonious good-afternoon.

When we were alone, Markham looked seriously at Vance.

“Your prophecy was fulfilled, though I didn’t dare hope for such luck.
Pfyfe’s evidence puts the final link in the chain against the
Captain.”

Vance smoked languidly.

“I’ll admit your theory of the crime is most satisfyin’. But alas! the
psychological objection remains. Everything fits, with the one
exception of the Captain; and he doesn’t fit at all. . . . Silly idea,
I know. But he has no more business being cast as the murderer of
Benson than the bisonic Tetrazzini had being cast as the phthisical
_Mimi_.”*

   * Obviously a reference to Tetrazzini’s performance in _La
   Bohème_ at the Manhattan Opera House in 1908.

“In any other circumstances,” Markham answered, “I might defer
reverently to your charming theories. But with all the circumstantial
and presumptive evidence I have against Leacock, it strikes my
inferior legal mind as sheer nonsense to say, ‘He just couldn’t be
guilty because his hair is parted in the middle and he tucks his
napkin in his collar.’ There’s too much logic against it.”

“I’ll grant your logic is irrefutable—as all logic is, no doubt.
You’ve prob’bly convinced many innocent persons by sheer reasoning
that they were guilty.”

Vance stretched himself wearily.

“What do you say to a light repast on the roof? The unutt’rable Pfyfe
has tired me.”

In the summer dining-room on the roof of the Stuyvesant Club we found
Major Benson sitting alone, and Markham asked him to join us.

“I have good news for you, Major,” he said, when we had given our
order. “I feel confident I have my man; everything points to him.
To-morrow will see the end, I hope.”

The Major gave Markham a questioning frown.

“I don’t understand exactly. From what you told me the other day, I
got the impression there was a woman involved.”

Markham smiled awkwardly, and avoided Vance’s eyes.

“A lot of water has run under the bridge since then,” he said. “The
woman I had in mind was eliminated as soon as we began to check up on
her. But in the process I was led to the man. There’s little doubt of
his guilt. I felt pretty sure about it this morning, and just now I
learned that he was seen by a credible witness in front of your
brother’s house within a few minutes of the time the shot was fired.”

“Is there any objection to your telling me who it was?” The Major was
still frowning.

“None whatever. The whole city will probably know it to-morrow. . . .
It was Captain Leacock.”

Major Benson stared at him in unbelief.

“Impossible! I simply can’t credit it. That boy was with me three
years on the other side, and I got to know him pretty well. I can’t
help feeling there’s a mistake somewhere. . . . The police,” he added
quickly, “have got on the wrong track.”

“It’s not the police,” Markham informed him. “It was my own
investigations that turned up the Captain.”

The Major did not answer, but his silence bespoke his doubt.

“Y’ know,” put in Vance, “I feel the same way about the Captain that
you do, Major. It rather pleases me to have my impressions verified by
one who has known him so long.”

“What, then, was Leacock doing in front of the house that night?”
urged Markham acidulously.

“He might have been singing carols beneath Benson’s window,” suggested
Vance.

Before Markham could reply he was handed a card by the head-waiter.
When he glanced at it, he gave a grunt of satisfaction, and directed
that the caller be sent up immediately. Then, turning back to us, he
said:

“We may learn something more now. I’ve been expecting this man
Higginbotham. He’s the detective that followed Leacock from my office
this morning.”

Higginbotham was a wiry, pale-faced youth with fishy eyes and a shifty
manner. He slouched up to the table and stood hesitantly before the
District Attorney.

“Sit down and report, Higginbotham,” Markham ordered. “These gentlemen
are working with me on the case.”

“I picked up the bird while he was waiting for the elevator,” the man
began, eyeing Markham craftily. “He went to the subway and rode up
town to Seventy-ninth and Broadway. He walked through Eightieth to
Riverside Drive and went in the apartment-house at No. 94. Didn’t give
his name to the boy—got right in the elevator. He stayed upstairs a
coupla hours, come down at one-twenty, and hopped a taxi. I picked up
another one, and followed him. He went down the Drive to
Seventy-second, through Central Park, and east on Fifty-ninth. Got out
at Avenue A, and walked out on the Queensborough Bridge. About half
way to Blackwell’s Island he stood leaning over the rail for five or
six minutes. Then he took a small package out of his pocket, and
dropped it in the river.”

“What size was the package?” There was repressed eagerness in
Markham’s question.

Higginbotham indicated the measurements with his hands.

“How thick was it?”

“Inch or so, maybe.”

Markham leaned forward.

“Could it have been a gun—a Colt automatic?”

“Sure, it could. Just about the right size. And it was heavy, too,—I
could tell by the way he handled it, and the way it hit the water.”

“All right.” Markham was pleased. “Anything else?”

“No, sir. After he’d ditched the gun, he went home and stayed. I left
him there.”

When Higginbotham had gone Markham nodded at Vance with melancholy
elation.

“There’s your criminal agent. . . . What more would you like?”

“Oh, lots,” drawled Vance.

Major Benson looked up, perplexed.

“I don’t quite grasp the situation. Why did Leacock have to go to
Riverside Drive for his gun?”

“I have reason to think,” said Markham, “that he took it to Miss St.
Clair the day after the shooting—for safe-keeping probably. He
wouldn’t have wanted it found in his place.”

“Might he not have taken it to Miss St. Clair’s before the shooting?”

“I know what you mean,” Markham answered. (I, too, recalled the
Major’s assertion the day before that Miss St. Clair was more capable
of shooting his brother than was the Captain.) “I had the same idea
myself. But certain evidential facts have eliminated her as a
suspect.”

“You’ve undoubtedly satisfied yourself on the point,” returned the
Major; but his tone was dubious. “However, I can’t see Leacock as
Alvin’s murderer.”

He paused, and laid a hand on the District Attorney’s arm.

“I don’t want to appear presumptuous, or unappreciative of all you’ve
done; but I really wish you’d wait a bit before clapping that boy into
prison. The most careful and conscientious of us are liable to error:
even facts sometimes lie damnably; and I can’t help believing that the
facts in this instance have deceived you.”

It was plain that Markham was touched by this request of his old
friend; but his instinctive fidelity to duty helped him to resist the
other’s appeal.

“I must act according to my convictions, Major,” he said firmly, but
with a great kindness.



CHAPTER XV.

“Pfyfe—Personal”

  (Tuesday, June 18; 9 a.m.)

The next day—the fourth of the investigation—was an important and, in
some ways, a momentous one in the solution of the problem posed by
Alvin Benson’s murder. Nothing of a definite nature came to light, but
a new element was injected into the case; and this new element
eventually led to the guilty person.

Before we parted from Markham after our dinner with Major Benson,
Vance had made the request that he be permitted to call at the
District Attorney’s office the next morning. Markham, both
disconcerted and impressed by his unwonted earnestness, had complied;
although, I think, he would rather have made his arrangements for
Captain Leacock’s arrest without the disturbing influence of the
other’s protesting presence. It was evident that, after Higginbotham’s
report, Markham had decided to place the Captain in custody, and to
proceed with his preparation of data for the Grand Jury.

Although Vance and I arrived at the office at nine o’clock Markham was
already there. As we entered the room, he picked up the telephone
receiver, and asked to be put through to Sergeant Heath.

At that moment Vance did an amazing thing. He walked swiftly to the
District Attorney’s desk and, snatching the receiver out of Markham’s
hand, clamped it down on the hook. Then he placed the telephone to one
side, and laid both hands on the other’s shoulders. Markham was too
astonished and bewildered to protest; and before he could recover
himself, Vance said in a low, firm voice, which was all the more
impelling because of its softness:

“I’m not going to let you jail Leacock,—that’s what I came here for
this morning. You’re not going to order his arrest as long as I’m in
this office and can prevent it by any means whatever. There’s only one
way you can accomplish this act of unmitigated folly, and that’s by
summoning your policemen and having me forcibly ejected. And I advise
you to call a goodly number of ’em, because I’ll give ’em the battle
of their bellicose lives!”

The incredible part of this threat was that Vance meant it literally.
And Markham knew he meant it.

“If you do call your henchmen,” he went on, “you’ll be the laughing
stock of the city inside of a week; for, by that time, it’ll be known
who really did shoot Benson. And I’ll be a popular hero and a
martyr—God save the mark!—for defying the District Attorney and
offering up my sweet freedom on the altar of truth and justice and
that sort of thing. . . .”

The telephone rang, and Vance answered it.

“Not wanted,” he said, closing off immediately. Then he stepped back
and folded his arms.

At the end of a brief silence, Markham spoke, his voice quavering with
rage.

“If you don’t go at once, Vance, and let me run this office myself,
I’ll have no choice but to call in those policemen.”

Vance smiled. He knew Markham would take no such extreme measures.
After all, the issue between these two friends was an intellectual
one; and though Vance’s actions had placed it for a moment on a
physical basis, there was no danger of its so continuing.

Markham’s belligerent gaze slowly turned to one of profound
perplexity.

“Why are you so damned interested in Leacock?” he asked gruffly. “Why
this irrational insistence that he remain at large?”

“You priceless, inexpressible ass!” Vance strove to keep all hint of
affection out of his voice. “Do you think I care particularly what
happens to a Southern army captain? There are hundreds of Leacocks,
all alike—with their square shoulders and square chins, and their
knobby clothes, and their totemistic codes of barbaric chivalry. Only
a mother could tell ’em apart. . . . I’m int’rested in you, old chap.
I don’t want to see you make a mistake that’s going to injure you more
than it will Leacock.”

Markham’s eyes lost their hardness: he understood Vance’s motive, and
forgave him. But he was still firm in his belief of the Captain’s
guilt. He remained thoughtful for some time. Then, having apparently
arrived at a decision, he rang for Swacker and asked that Phelps be
sent for.

“I’ve a plan that may nail this affair down tight,” he said. “And
it’ll be evidence that not even you, Vance, can gainsay.”

Phelps came in, and Markham gave him instructions.

“Go and see Miss St. Clair at once. Get to her some way, and ask her
what was in the package Captain Leacock took away from her apartment
yesterday and threw in the East River.” He briefly summarized
Higginbotham’s report of the night before. “Demand that she tell you,
and intimate that you know it was the gun with which Benson was shot.
She’ll probably refuse to answer, and will tell you to get out. Then
go downstairs and wait developments. If she ’phones, listen in at the
switchboard. If she happens to send a note to anyone, intercept it.
And if she goes out—which I hardly think likely—follow her and learn
what you can. Let me hear from you the minute you get hold of
anything.”

“I get you, Chief.” Phelps seemed pleased with the assignment, and
departed with alacrity.

“Are such burglarious and eavesdropping methods considered ethical by
your learned profession?” asked Vance. “I can’t harmonize such conduct
with your other qualities, y’ know.”

Markham leaned back and gazed up at the chandelier.

“Personal ethics don’t enter into it. Or, if they do, they are crowded
out by greater and graver considerations—by the higher demands of
justice. Society must be protected; and the citizens of this county
look to me for their security against the encroachments of criminals
and evil-doers. Sometimes, in the pursuance of my duty, it is
necessary to adopt courses of conduct that conflict with my personal
instincts. I have no right to jeopardize the whole of society because
of an assumed ethical obligation to an individual. . . . You
understand, of course, that I would not use any information obtained
by these unethical methods, unless it pointed to criminal activities
on the part of that individual. And in such a case, I would have every
right to use it, for the good of the community.”

“I dare say you’re right,” yawned Vance. “But society doesn’t int’rest
me particularly. And I inf’nitely prefer good manners to
righteousness.”

As he finished speaking Swacker announced Major Benson, who wanted to
see Markham at once.

The Major was accompanied by a pretty young woman of about twenty-two
with yellow bobbed hair, dressed daintily and simply in light blue
_crêpe de Chine_. But for all her youthful and somewhat frivolous
appearance, she possessed a reserve and competency of manner that
immediately evoked one’s confidence.

Major Benson introduced her as his secretary, and Markham placed a
chair for her facing his desk.

“Miss Hoffman has just told me something that I think is vital for you
to know,” said the Major; “and I brought her directly to you.”

He seemed unusually serious, and his eyes held a look of expectancy
colored with doubt.

“Tell Mr. Markham exactly what you told me, Miss Hoffman.”

The girl raised her head prettily, and related her story in a capable,
well-modulated voice.

“About a week ago—I think it was Wednesday—Mr. Pfyfe called on Mr.
Alvin Benson in his private office. I was in the next room, where my
typewriter is located. There’s only a glass partition between the two
rooms, and when anyone talks loudly in Mr. Benson’s office I can hear
them. In about five minutes Mr. Pfyfe and Mr. Benson began to quarrel.
I thought it was funny, for they were such good friends; but I didn’t
pay much attention to it, and went on with my typing. Their voices got
very loud, though, and I caught several words. Major Benson asked me
this morning what the words were; so I suppose you want to know, too.
Well, they kept referring to a note; and once or twice a check was
mentioned. Several times I caught the word ‘father-in-law’, and once
Mr. Benson said ‘nothing doing’. . . . Then Mr. Benson called me in
and told me to get him an envelope marked ‘Pfyfe-Personal’ out of his
private drawer in the safe. I got it for him, but right after that our
bookkeeper wanted me for something, so I didn’t hear any more. About
fifteen minutes later, when Mr. Pfyfe had gone, Mr. Benson called me
to put the envelope back. And he told me that if Mr. Pfyfe ever called
again, I wasn’t, under any circumstances, to let him into the private
office unless he himself was there. He also told me that I wasn’t to
give the envelope to anybody—not even on a written order. . . . And
that is all, Mr. Markham.”

During her recital I had been as much interested in Vance’s actions as
in what she had been saying. When first she had entered the room, his
casual glance had quickly changed to one of attentive animation, and
he had studied her closely. When Markham had placed the chair for her,
he had risen and reached for a book lying on the table near her; and,
in doing so, he had leaned unnecessarily close to her in order to
inspect—or so it appeared to me—the side of her head. And during her
story he had continued his observation, at times bending slightly to
the right or left to better his view of her. Unaccountable as his
actions had seemed, I knew that some serious consideration had
prompted the scrutiny.

When she finished speaking Major Benson reached in his pocket, and
tossed a long manilla envelope on the desk before Markham.

“Here it is,” he said. “I got Miss Hoffman to bring it to me the
moment she told me her story.”

Markham picked it up hesitantly, as if doubtful of his right to
inspect its contents.

“You’d better look at it,” the Major advised. “That envelope may very
possibly have an important bearing on the case.”

Markham removed the elastic band, and spread the contents of the
envelope before him. They consisted of three items—a cancelled check
for $10,000 made out to Leander Pfyfe and signed by Alvin Benson; a
note for $10,000 to Alvin Benson signed by Pfyfe, and a brief
confession, also signed by Pfyfe, saying the check was a forgery. The
check was dated March 20th of the current year. The confession and the
note were dated two days later. The note—which was for ninety
days—fell due on Friday, June 21st, only three days off.

For fully five minutes Markham studied these documents in silence.
Their sudden introduction into the case seemed to mystify him. Nor had
any of the perplexity left his face when he finally put them back in
the envelope.

He questioned the girl carefully, and had her repeat certain parts of
her story. But nothing more could be learned from her; and at length
he turned to the Major.

“I’ll keep this envelope a while, if you’ll let me. I don’t see its
significance at present, but I’d like to think it over.”

When Major Benson and his secretary had gone, Vance rose and extended
his legs.

“_À la fin!_” he murmured. “‘All things journey: sun and moon,
morning, noon, and afternoon, night and all her stars.’ _Videlicet_:
we begin to make progress.”

“What the devil are you driving at?” The new complication of Pfyfe’s
peccadilloes had left Markham irritable.

“Int’restin’ young woman, this Miss Hoffman—eh, what?” Vance rejoined
irrelevantly. “Didn’t care especially for the deceased Benson. And she
fairly detests the aromatic Leander. He has prob’bly told her he was
misunderstood by Mrs. Pfyfe, and invited her to dinner.”

“Well, she’s pretty enough,” commented Markham indifferently. “Benson,
too, may have made advances—which is why she disliked him.”

“Oh, absolutely.” Vance mused a moment. “Pretty—yes; but misleadin’.
She’s an ambitious gel, and capable, too—knows her business. She’s no
ball of fluff. She has a solid, honest streak in her—a bit of Teutonic
blood, I’d say.” He paused meditatively. “Y’ know, Markham, I have a
suspicion you’ll hear from little Miss Katinka again.”

“Crystal-gazing, eh?” mumbled Markham.

“Oh, dear no!” Vance was looking lazily out of the window. “But I did
enter the silence, so to speak, and indulged in a bit of craniological
contemplation.”

“I thought I noticed you ogling the girl,” said Markham. “But since
her hair was bobbed and she had her hat on, how could you analyse the
bumps?—if that’s the phrase you phrenologists use.”

“Forget not Goldsmith’s preacher,” Vance admonished. “Truth from his
lips prevailed, and those who came to scoff remained _et
cetera_. . . . To begin with, I’m no phrenologist. But I believe in
epochal, racial, and heredit’ry variations in skulls. In that respect
I’m merely an old-fashioned Darwinian. Every child knows that the
skull of the Piltdown man differs from that of the Cromagnard; and
even a lawyer could distinguish an Aryan head from a Ural-Altaic head,
or a Maylaic from a Negrillo. And, if one is versed at all in the
Mendelian theory, heredit’ry cranial similarities can be
detected. . . . But all this erudition is beyond you, I fear. Suffice
it to say that, despite the young woman’s hat and hair, I could see
the contour of her head and the bone structure in her face; and I even
caught a glimpse of her ear.”

“And thereby deduced that we’d hear from her again,” added Markham
scornfully.

“Indirectly—yes,” admitted Vance. Then, after a pause: “I say, in view
of Miss Hoffman’s revelation, do not Colonel Ostrander’s comments of
yesterday begin to take on a phosph’rescent aspect?”

“Look here!” said Markham impatiently. “Cut out these circumlocutions,
and get to the point.”

Vance turned slowly from the window, and regarded him pensively.

“Markham—I put the question academically—doesn’t Pfyfe’s forged check,
with its accompanying confession and its shortly-due note, constitute
a rather strong motive for doing away with Benson?”

Markham sat up suddenly.

“You think Pfyfe guilty—is that it?”

“Well, here’s the touchin’ situation: Pfyfe obviously signed Benson’s
name to a check, told him about it, and got the surprise of his life
when his dear old pal asked him for a ninety-day note to cover the
amount, and also for a written confession to hold over him to insure
payment. . . . Now consider the subs’quent facts:—First, Pfyfe called
on Benson a week ago and had a quarrel in which the check was
mentioned,—Damon was prob’bly pleading with Pythias to extend the
note, and was vulgarly informed that there was ‘nothing doing’.
Secondly, Benson was shot two days later, less than a week before the
note fell due. Thirdly, Pfyfe was at Benson’s house the hour of the
shooting, and not only lied to you about his whereabouts, but bribed a
garage owner to keep silent about his car. Fourthly, his explanation,
when caught, of his unrewarded search for Haig and Haig was, to say
the least, a bit thick. And don’t forget that the original tale of his
lonely quest for nature’s solitudes in the Catskills—with his
mysterious stop-over in New York to confer a farewell benediction upon
some anonymous person—was not all that one could have hoped for in the
line of plausibility. Fifthly, he is an impulsive gambler, given to
taking chances; and his experiences in South Africa would certainly
have familiarized him with fire-arms. Sixthly, he was rather eager to
involve Leacock, and did a bit of caddish tale-bearing to that end,
even informing you that he saw the Captain on the spot at the fatal
moment. Seventhly—but why bore you? Have I not supplied you with all
the factors you hold so dear,—what are they now?—motive, time, place,
opportunity, conduct? All that’s wanting is the criminal agent. But
then, the Captain’s gun is at the bottom of the East River; so you’re
not very much better off in his case, what?”

Markham had listened attentively to Vance’s summary. He now sat in
rapt silence gazing down at the desk.

“How about a little chat with Pfyfe before you make any final move
against the Captain?” suggested Vance.

“I think I’ll take your advice,” answered Markham slowly, after
several minutes’ reflection. Then he picked up the telephone. “I
wonder if he’s at his hotel now.”

“Oh, he’s there,” said Vance. “Watchful waitin’ and all that.”

Pfyfe was in; and Markham requested him to come at once to the office.

“There’s another thing I wish you’d do for me,” said Vance, when the
other had finished telephoning. “The fact is, I’m longing to know what
everyone was doing during the hour of Benson’s dissolution—that is,
between midnight and one a. m. on the night of the thirteenth, or to
speak pedantically, the morning of the fourteenth.”

Markham looked at him in amazement.

“Seems silly, doesn’t it?” Vance went on blithely. “But you put such
faith in alibis—though they do prove disappointin’ at times, what?
There’s Leacock, for instance. If that hall-boy had told Heath to
toddle along and sell his violets, you couldn’t do a blessed thing to
the Captain. Which shows, d’ ye see, that you’re too trustin’. . . .
Why not find out where everyone was? Pfyfe and the Captain were at
Benson’s; and they’re about the only ones whose whereabouts you’ve
looked into. Maybe there were others hovering around Alvin that night.
There may have been a crush of friends and acquaintances on hand—a
regular _soirée_, y’ know. . . . Then again, checking up on all these
people will supply the desolate Sergeant with something to take his
mind off his sorrows.”

Markham knew, as well as I, that Vance would not have made a
suggestion of this kind unless actuated by some serious motive; and
for several moments he studied the other’s face intently, as if trying
to read his reason for this unexpected request.

“Who, specifically,” he asked, “is included in your ‘everyone’?” He
took up his pencil and held it poised above a sheet of paper.

“No one is to be left out,” replied Vance. “Put down Miss St.
Clair—Captain Leacock—the Major—Pfyfe—Miss Hoffman——”

“Miss Hoffman!”

“Everyone! . . . Have you Miss Hoffman? Now jot down Colonel
Ostrander——”

“Look here!” cut in Markham.

“—and I may have one or two others for you later. But that will do
nicely for a beginning.”

Before Markham could protest further, Swacker came in to say that
Heath was waiting outside.

“What about our friend Leacock, sir?” was the Sergeant’s first
question.

“I’m holding that up for a day or so,” explained Markham. “I want to
have another talk with Pfyfe before I do anything definite.” And he
told Heath about the visit of Major Benson and Miss Hoffman.

Heath inspected the envelope and its enclosures, and then handed them
back.

“I don’t see anything in that,” he said. “It looks to me like a
private deal between Benson and this fellow Pfyfe.—Leacock’s our man;
and the sooner I get him locked up, the better I’ll feel.”

“That may be to-morrow,” Markham encouraged him. “So don’t feel
downcast over this little delay. . . . You’re keeping the Captain
under surveillance, aren’t you?”

“I’ll say so,” grinned Heath.

Vance turned to Markham.

“What about that list of names you made out for the Sergeant?” he
asked ingenuously. “I understood you to say something about alibis.”

Markham hesitated, frowning. Then he handed Heath the paper containing
the names Vance had called off to him.

“As a matter of caution, Sergeant,” he said morosely, “I wish you’d
get me the alibis of all these people on the night of the murder. It
may bring something contributory to light. Verify those you already
know, such as Pfyfe’s; and let me have the reports as soon as you
can.”

When Heath had gone Markham turned a look of angry exasperation upon
Vance.

“Of all the confounded trouble-makers——” he began.

But Vance interrupted him blandly.

“Such ingratitude! If only you knew it, Markham, I’m your tutelary
genius, your _deus ex machina_, your fairy godmother.”



CHAPTER XVI.

Admissions and Suppressions

  (Tuesday, June 18; afternoon.)

An hour later Phelps, the operative Markham had sent to 94 Riverside
Drive, came in radiating satisfaction.

“I think I’ve got what you want, Chief.” His raucous voice was
covertly triumphant. “I went up to the St. Clair woman’s apartment and
rang the bell. She came to the door herself, and I stepped into the
hall and put my questions to her. She sure refused to answer. When I
let on I knew the package contained the gun Benson was shot with, she
just laughed and jerked the door open. ‘Leave this apartment, you vile
creature,’ she says to me.”

He grinned.

“I hurried downstairs, and I hadn’t any more than got to the
switchboard when her signal flashed. I let the boy get the number, and
then I stood him to one side, and listened in. . . . She was talking
to Leacock, and her first words were: ‘They know you took the pistol
from here yesterday and threw it in the river.’ That must’ve knocked
him out, for he didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he answered,
perfectly calm and kinda sweet: ‘Don’t worry, Muriel; and don’t say a
word to anybody for the rest of the day. I’ll fix everything in the
morning.’ He made her promise to keep quiet until to-morrow, and then
he said good-bye.”

Markham sat a while digesting the story.

“What impression did you get from the conversation?”

“If you ask me, Chief,” said the detective, “I’d lay ten to one that
Leacock’s guilty and the girl knows it.”

Markham thanked him and let him go.

“This sub-Potomac chivalry,” commented Vance, “is a frightful
nuisance. . . . But aren’t we about due to hold polite converse with
the genteel Leander?”

Almost as he spoke the man was announced. He entered the room with his
habitual urbanity of manner, but for all his suavity, he could not
wholly disguise his uneasiness of mind.

“Sit down, Mr. Pfyfe,” directed Markham brusquely. “It seems you have
a little more explaining to do.”

Taking out the manilla envelope, he laid its contents on the desk
where the other could see them.

“Will you be so good as to tell me about these?”

“With the greatest pleasure,” said Pfyfe; but his voice had lost its
assurance. Some of his poise, too, had deserted him, and as he paused
to light a cigarette I detected a slight nervousness in the way he
manipulated his gold match-safe.

“I really should have mentioned these before,” he confessed,
indicating the papers with a delicately inconsequential wave of the
hand.

He leaned forward on one elbow, taking a confidential attitude, and as
he talked, the cigarette bobbed up and down between his lips.

“It pains me deeply to go into this matter,” he began; “but since it
is in the interests of truth, I shall not complain. . . .
My—ah—domestic arrangements are not all that one could desire. My
wife’s father has, curiously enough, taken a most unreasonable dislike
to me; and it pleases him to deprive me of all but the meagerest
financial assistance, although it is really my wife’s money that he
refuses to give me. A few months ago I made use of certain funds—ten
thousand dollars, to be exact—which, I learned later, had not been
intended for me. When my father-in-law discovered my error, it was
necessary for me to return the full amount to avoid a misunderstanding
between Mrs. Pfyfe and myself—a misunderstanding which might have
caused my wife great unhappiness. I regret to say, I used Alvin’s name
on a check. But I explained it to him at once, you understand,
offering him the note and this little confession as evidence of my
good faith. . . . And that is all, Mr. Markham.”

“Was that what your quarrel with him last week was about?”

Pfyfe gave him a look of querulous surprise.

“Ah, you heard of our little _contretemps_? . . . Yes—we had a slight
disagreement as to the—shall I say terms of the transaction?”

“Did Benson insist that the note be paid when due?”

“No—not exactly.” Pfyfe’s manner became unctuous. “I beg of you, sir,
not to press me as to my little chat with Alvin. It was, I assure you,
quite irrelevant to the present situation. Indeed, it was of a most
personal and private nature.” He smiled confidingly. “I will admit,
however, that I went to Alvin’s house the night he was shot, intending
to speak to him about the check; but, as you already know, I found the
house dark and spent the night in a Turkish bath.”

“Pardon me, Mr. Pfyfe,”—it was Vance who spoke—“but did Mr. Benson
take your note without security?”

“Of course!” Pfyfe’s tone was a rebuke. “Alvin and I, as I have
explained, were the closest friends.”

“But even a friend, don’t y’ know,” Vance submitted, “might ask for
security on such a large amount. How did Benson know that you’d be
able to repay him?”

“I can only say that he did know,” the other answered, with an air of
patient deliberation.

Vance continued to be doubtful.

“Perhaps it was because of the confession you had given him.”

Pfyfe rewarded him with a look of beaming approval.

“You grasp the situation perfectly,” he said.

Vance withdrew from the conversation, and though Markham questioned
Pfyfe for nearly half an hour, nothing further transpired. Pfyfe clung
to his story in every detail, and politely refused to go deeper into
his quarrel with Benson, insisting that it had no bearing on the case.
At last he was permitted to go.

“Not very helpful,” Markham observed. “I’m beginning to agree with
Heath that we’ve turned up a mare’s-nest in Pfyfe’s frenzied financial
deal.”

“You’ll never be anything but your own sweet trusting self, will you?”
lamented Vance sadly. “Pfyfe has just given you your first intelligent
line of investigation—and you say he’s not helpful! . . . Listen to me
and _nota bene_. Pfyfe’s story about the ten thousand dollars is
undoubtedly true: he appropriated the money and forged Benson’s name
to a check with which to replace it. But I don’t for a second believe
there was no security in addition to the confession. Benson wasn’t the
type of man—friend or no friend—who’d hand over that amount without
security. He wanted his money back—not somebody in jail. That’s why I
put my oar in, and asked about the security. Pfyfe, of course, denied
it; but when pressed as to how Benson knew he’d pay the note, he
retired into a cloud. I had to suggest the confession as the possible
explanation; which showed that something else was in his
mind—something he didn’t care to mention. And the way he jumped at my
suggestion bears out my theory.”

“Well, what of it?” Markham asked impatiently.

“Oh, for the gift of tears!” moaned Vance. “Don’t you see that there’s
someone in the background—someone connected with the security? It must
be so, y’ know; otherwise Pfyfe would have told you the entire tale of
the quarrel, if only to clear himself from suspicion. Yet, knowing
that his position is an awkward one, he refuses to divulge what passed
between him and Benson in the office that day. . . . Pfyfe is
shielding someone—and he is not the soul of chivalry, y’ know.
Therefore, I ask: Why?”

He leaned back and gazed at the ceiling.

“I have an idea, amounting to a cerebral cyclone,” he added, “that
when we put our hands on that security, we’ll also put our hands on
the murderer.”

At this moment the telephone rang, and when Markham answered it a look
of startled amusement came into his eyes. He made an appointment with
the speaker for half past five that afternoon. Then, hanging up the
receiver, he laughed outright at Vance.

“Your auricular researches have been confirmed,” he said. “Miss
Hoffman just called me confidentially on an outside ’phone to say she
has something to add to her story. She’s coming here at five-thirty.”

Vance was unimpressed by the announcement.

“I rather imagined she’d telephone during her lunch hour.”

Again Markham gave him one of his searching scrutinies.

“There’s something damned queer going on around here,” he observed.

“Oh, quite,” returned Vance carelessly. “Queerer than you could
possibly imagine.”

For fifteen or twenty minutes Markham endeavored to draw him out; but
Vance seemed suddenly possessed of an ability to say nothing with the
blandest fluency. Markham finally became exasperated.

“I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion,” he said, “that either you had
a hand in Benson’s murder, or you’re a phenomenally good guesser.”

“There is, y’ know, an alternative,” rejoined Vance. “It might be that
my æsthetic hypotheses and metaphysical deductions—as you call ’em—are
working out—eh, what?”

A few minutes before we went to lunch Swacker announced that Tracy had
just returned from Long Island with his report.

“Is he the lad you sent to look into Pfyfe’s _affaires du cœur_?”
Vance asked Markham. “For, if he is, I am all a-flutter.”

“He’s the man. . . . Send him in, Swacker.”

Tracy entered smiling silkily, his black note-book in one hand, his
_pince-nez_ in the other.

“I had no trouble learning about Pfyfe,” he said. “He’s well known in
Port Washington—quite a character, in fact—and it was easy to pick up
gossip about him.”

He adjusted his glasses carefully, and referred to his note-book.

“He married a Miss Hawthorn in nineteen-ten. She’s wealthy, but Pfyfe
doesn’t benefit much by it, because her father sits on the
money-bags——”

“Mr. Tracy, I say,” interrupted Vance; “never mind the _née_-Hawthorn
and her doting papa,—Mr. Pfyfe himself has confided in us about his
sad marriage. Tell us, if you can, about Mr. Pfyfe’s extra-nuptial
affairs. Are there any other ladies?”

Tracy looked inquiringly at the District Attorney: he was uncertain as
to Vance’s _locus standi_. Receiving a nod from Markham, he turned a
page in his note-book and proceeded.

“I found one other woman in the case. She lives in New York, and often
telephones to a drug store near Pfyfe’s house, and leaves messages for
him. He uses the same ’phone to call her by. He had made some deal
with the proprietor, of course; but I was able to obtain her ’phone
number. As soon as I came back to the city I got her name and address
from Information, and made a few inquiries. . . . She’s a Mrs. Paula
Banning, a widow, and a little fast, I should say; and she lives in an
apartment at 268 West Seventy-fifth Street.”

This exhausted Tracy’s information; and when he went out, Markham
smiled broadly at Vance.

“He didn’t supply you with very much fuel.”

“My word! I think he did unbelievably well,” said Vance. “He unearthed
the very information we wanted.”

“_We_ wanted?” echoed Markham. “I have more important things to think
about than Pfyfe’s amours.”

“And yet, y’ know, this particular amour of Pfyfe’s is going to solve
the problem of Benson’s murder,” replied Vance; and would say no more.

Markham, who had an accumulation of other work awaiting him and
numerous appointments for the afternoon, decided to have his lunch
served in the office; so Vance and I took leave of him.

We lunched at the Élysée, dropped in at Knoedler’s to see an
exhibition of French Pointillism, and then went to Aeolian Hall where
a string quartette from San Francisco was giving a programme of
Mozart. A little before half past five we were again at the District
Attorney’s office, which at that hour was deserted except for Markham.

Shortly after our arrival Miss Hoffman came in, and told the rest of
her story in direct, business-like fashion.

“I didn’t give you all the particulars this morning,” she said; “and I
wouldn’t care to do so now unless you are willing to regard them as
confidential, for my telling you might cost me my position.”

“I promise you,” Markham assured her, “that I will entirely respect
your confidence.”

She hesitated a moment, and then continued.

“When I told Major Benson this morning about Mr. Pfyfe and his
brother, he said at once that I should come with him to your office
and tell you also. But on the way over, he suggested that I might omit
a part of the story. He didn’t exactly tell me not to mention it; but
he explained that it had nothing to do with the case and might only
confuse you. I followed his suggestion; but after I got back to the
office I began thinking it over, and knowing how serious a matter Mr.
Benson’s death was, I decided to tell you anyway. In case it did have
some bearing on the situation, I didn’t want to be in the position of
having withheld anything from you.”

She seemed a little uncertain as to the wisdom of her decision.

“I do hope I haven’t been foolish. But the truth is, there was
something else besides that envelope, which Mr. Benson asked me to
bring him from the safe the day he and Mr. Pfyfe had their quarrel. It
was a square heavy package, and, like the envelope, was marked
‘Pfyfe-Personal’. And it was over this package that Mr. Benson and Mr.
Pfyfe seemed to be quarrelling.”

“Was it in the safe this morning when you went to get the envelope for
the Major?” asked Vance.

“Oh, no. After Mr. Pfyfe left last week, I put the package back in the
safe along with the envelope. But Mr. Benson took it home with him
last Thursday—the day he was killed.”

Markham was but mildly interested in the recital, and was about to
bring the interview to a close when Vance spoke up.

“It was very good of you, Miss Hoffman, to take this trouble to tell
us about the package; and now that you are here, there are one or two
questions I’d like to ask. . . . How did Mr. Alvin Benson and the
Major get along together?”

She looked at Vance with a curious little smile.

“They didn’t get along very well,” she said. “They were so different.
Mr. Alvin Benson was not a very pleasant person, and not very
honorable, I’m afraid. You’d never have thought they were brothers.
They were constantly disputing about the business; and they were
terribly suspicious of each other.”

“That’s not unnatural,” commented Vance, “seeing how incompatible
their temp’raments were. . . . By the bye, how did this suspicion show
itself?”

“Well, for one thing, they sometimes spied on each other. You see,
their offices were adjoining, and they would listen to each other
through the door. I did the secretarial work for both of them, and I
often saw them listening. Several times they tried to find out things
from me about each other.”

Vance smiled at her appreciatively.

“Not a pleasant position for you.”

“Oh, I didn’t mind it,” she smiled back. “It amused me.”

“When was the last time you caught either one of them listening?” he
asked.

The girl quickly became serious.

“The very last day Mr. Alvin Benson was alive I saw the Major standing
by the door. Mr. Benson had a caller—a lady—and the Major seemed very
much interested. It was in the afternoon. Mr. Benson went home early
that day—only about half an hour after the lady had gone. She called
at the office again later, but he wasn’t there of course, and I told
her he had already gone home.”

“Do you know who the lady was?” Vance asked her.

“No, I don’t,” she said. “She didn’t give her name.”

Vance asked a few other questions, after which we rode up town in the
subway with Miss Hoffman, taking leave of her at Twenty-third Street.

Markham was silent and preoccupied during the trip. Nor did Vance make
any comment until we were comfortably relaxed in the easy chairs of
the Stuyvesant Club’s lounge-room. Then, lighting a cigarette lazily,
he said:

“You grasp the subtle mental processes leading up to my prophecy about
Miss Hoffman’s second coming—eh, what, Markham? Y’ see, I knew friend
Alvin had not paid that forged check without security, and I also knew
that the tiff must have been about the security, for Pfyfe was not
really worrying about being jailed by his _alter ego_. I rather
suspect Pfyfe was trying to get the security back before paying off
the note, and was told there was ‘nothing doing’. . . . Moreover,
Little Goldylocks may be a nice girl and all that; but it isn’t in the
feminine temp’rament to sit next door to an altercation between two
such rakes and not listen attentively. I shouldn’t care, y’ know, to
have to decipher the typing she said she did during the episode. I was
quite sure she heard more than she told; and I asked myself: Why this
curtailment? The only logical answer was: Because the Major had
suggested it. And since the _gnädiges Fräulein_ was a forthright
Germanic soul, with an inbred streak of selfish and cautious honesty,
I ventured the prognostication that as soon as she was out from under
the benev’lent jurisdiction of her tutor, she would tell us the rest,
in order to save her own skin if the matter should come up
later. . . . Not so cryptic when explained, what?”

“That’s all very well,” conceded Markham petulantly. “But where does
it get us?”

“I shouldn’t say that the forward movement was entirely
imperceptible.”

Vance smoked a while impassively.

“You realize, I trust,” he said, “that the mysterious package
contained the security.”

“One might form such a conclusion,” agreed Markham. “But the fact
doesn’t dumbfound me—if that’s what you’re hoping for.”

“And, of course,” pursued Vance easily, “your legal mind, trained in
the technique of ratiocination, has already identified it as the box
of jewels that Mrs. Platz espied on Benson’s table that fatal
afternoon.”

Markham sat up suddenly; then sank back with a shrug.

“Even if it was,” he said, “I don’t see how that helps us. Unless the
Major knew the package had nothing to do with the case, he would not
have suggested to his secretary that she omit telling us about it.”

“Ah! But if the Major knew that the package was an irrelevant item in
the case, then he must also know something about the case—eh, what?
Otherwise, he couldn’t determine what was, and what was not,
irrelevant. . . . I have felt all along that he knew more than he
admitted. Don’t forget that he put us on the track of Pfyfe, and also
that he was quite pos’tive Captain Leacock was innocent.”

Markham thought for several minutes.

“I’m beginning to see what you’re driving at,” he remarked slowly.
“Those jewels, after all, may have an important bearing on the
case. . . . I think I’ll have a chat with the Major about things.”

Shortly after dinner at the Club that night Major Benson came into the
lounge-room where we had retired for our smoke; and Markham accosted
him at once.

“Major, aren’t you willing to help me a little more in getting at the
truth about your brother’s death?” he asked.

The other gazed at him searchingly: the inflection of Markham’s voice
belied the apparent casualness of the question.

“God knows it’s not my wish to put obstacles in your way,” he said,
carefully weighing each word. “I’d gladly give you any help I could.
But there are one or two things I can not tell you at this time. . . .
If there was only myself to be considered,” he added, “it would be
different.”

“But you do suspect someone?” Vance put the question.

“In a way—yes. I overheard a conversation in Alvin’s office one day,
that took on added significance after his death.”

“You shouldn’t let chivalry stand in the way,” urged Markham. “If your
suspicion is unfounded, the truth will surely come out.”

“But when I don’t _know_, I certainly ought not to hazard a guess,”
affirmed the Major. “I think it best that you solve this problem
without me.”

Despite Markham’s importunities, he would say no more; and shortly
afterward he excused himself and went out.

Markham, now profoundly worried, sat smoking restlessly, tapping the
arm of his chair with his fingers.

“Well, old bean, a bit involved, what?” commented Vance.

“It’s not so damned funny,” Markham grumbled. “Everyone seems to know
more about the case than the police or the District Attorney’s
office.”

“Which wouldn’t be so disconcertin’ if they all weren’t so deuced
reticent,” supplemented Vance cheerfully. “And the touchin’ part of it
is that each of ’em appears to be keeping still in order to shield
someone else. Mrs. Platz began it: she lied about Benson’s having any
callers that afternoon, because she didn’t want to involve his tea
companion. Miss St. Clair declined point-blank to tell you anything,
because she obviously didn’t desire to cast suspicion on another. The
Captain became voiceless the moment you suggested his affianced bride
was entangled. Even Leander refused to extricate himself from a
delicate situation lest he implicate another. And now the Major! . . .
Most annoyin’.—On the other hand, don’t y’ know, it’s comfortin’—not
to say upliftin’—to be dealing exclusively with such noble,
self-sacrificin’ souls.”

“Hell!” Markham put down his cigar and rose. “The case is getting on
my nerves. I’m going to sleep on it, and tackle it in the morning.”

“That ancient idea of sleeping on a problem is a fallacy,” said Vance,
as we walked out into Madison Avenue, “—an _apologia_, as it were, for
one’s not being able to think clearly. Poetic idea, y’ know. All poets
believe in it—nature’s soft nurse, the balm of woe, childhood’s
mandragora, tired nature’s sweet restorer, and that sort of thing.
Silly notion. When the brain is keyed up and alive, it works far
better than when apathetic from the torpor of sleep. Slumber is an
anodyne—not a stimulus.”

“Well, you sit up and think,” was Markham’s surly advice.

“That’s what I’m going to do,” blithely returned Vance; “but not about
the Benson case. I did all the thinking I’m going to do along that
line four days ago.”



CHAPTER XVII.

The Forged Check

  (Wednesday, June 19; forenoon.)

We rode down town with Markham the next morning, and though we arrived
at his office before nine o’clock, Heath was already there waiting. He
appeared worried, and when he spoke his voice held an ill-disguised
reproof for the District Attorney.

“What about this Leacock, Mr. Markham?” he asked. “It looks to me like
we’d better grab him quick. We’ve been tailing him right along; and
there’s something funny going on. Yesterday morning he went to his
bank and spent half an hour in the chief cashier’s office. After that
he visited his lawyer’s, and was there over an hour. Then he went back
to the bank for another half-hour. He dropped in to the Astor Grill
for lunch, but didn’t eat anything—sat staring at the table. About two
o’clock he called on the realty agents who have the handling of the
building he lives in; and after he’d left, we found out he’d offered
his apartment for sub-lease beginning to-morrow. Then he paid six
calls on friends of his, and went home. After dinner my man rang his
apartment bell and asked for Mr. Hoozitz:—Leacock was packing
up! . . . It looks to me like a get-away.”

Markham frowned. Heath’s report clearly troubled him; but before he
could answer, Vance spoke.

“Why this perturbation, Sergeant? You’re watching the Captain. I’m
sure he can’t slip from your vigilant clutches.”

Markham looked at Vance a moment; then turned to Heath.

“Let it go at that. But if Leacock attempts to leave the city, nab
him.”

Heath went out sullenly.

“By the bye, Markham,” said Vance; “don’t make an appointment for half
past twelve to-day. You already have one, don’t y’ know. And with a
lady.”

Markham put down his pen, and stared.

“What new damned nonsense is this?”

“I made an engagement for you. Called the lady by ’phone this morning.
I’m sure I woke the dear up.”

Markham spluttered, striving to articulate his angry protest.

Vance held up his hand soothingly.

“And you simply must keep the engagement. Y’ see, I told her it was
you speaking; and it would be shocking taste not to appear. . . . I
promise, you won’t regret meeting her,” he added. “Things looked so
sadly befuddled last night,—I couldn’t bear to see you suffering so.
Cons’quently, I arranged for you to see Mrs. Paula Banning—Pfyfe’s
Éloïse, y’ know. I’m pos’tive she’ll be able to dispel some of this
inspissated gloom that’s enveloping you.”

“See here, Vance!” Markham growled. “I happen to be running this
office——” He stopped abruptly, realizing the hopelessness of making
headway against the other’s blandness. Moreover, I think, the prospect
of interviewing Mrs. Paula Banning was not wholly alien to his
inclinations. His resentment slowly ebbed, and when he again spoke his
voice was almost matter-of-fact.

“Since you’ve committed me, I’ll see her. But I’d rather Pfyfe wasn’t
in such close communication with her. He’s apt to drop in—with
preconcerted unexpectedness.”

“Funny,” murmured Vance. “I thought of that myself. . . . That’s why I
’phoned him last night that he could return to Long Island.”

“You ’phoned him——!”

“Awf’lly sorry and all that,” Vance apologized. “But you’d gone to
bed. Sleep was knitting up your ravell’d sleave of care; and I
couldn’t bring myself to disturb you. . . . Pfyfe was so grateful,
too. Most touchin’. Said his wife also would be grateful. He was
pathetically consid’rate about Mrs. Pfyfe. But I fear he’ll need all
his velvety forensic powers to explain his absence.”

“In what other quarters have you involved me during my absence?” asked
Markham acrimoniously.

“That’s all,” replied Vance, rising and strolling to the window.

He stood looking out, smoking thoughtfully. When he turned back to the
room, his bantering air had gone. He sat down facing Markham.

“The Major has practically admitted to us,” he said, “that he knows
more about this affair than he has told. You naturally can’t push the
point, in view of his hon’rable attitude in the matter. And yet, he’s
willing for you to find out what he knows, as long as he doesn’t tell
you himself,—that was unquestionably the stand he took last night.
Now, I believe there’s a way you can find out without calling upon him
to go against his principles. . . . You recall Miss Hoffman’s story of
the eavesdropping; and you also recall that he told you he heard a
conversation which, in the light of Benson’s murder, became
significant. It’s quite prob’ble, therefore, that the Major’s
knowledge has to do with something connected with the business of the
firm, or at least with one of the firm’s clients.”

Vance slowly lit another cigarette.

“My suggestion is this: call up the Major, and ask permission to send
a man to take a peep at his ledger accounts and his purchase and sales
books. Tell him you want to find out about the transactions of one of
his clients. Intimate that it’s Miss St. Clair—or Pfyfe, if you like.
I have a strange mediumistic feeling that, in this way, you’ll get on
the track of the person he’s shielding. And I’m also assailed by the
premonition that he’ll welcome your interest in his ledger.”

The plan did not appeal to Markham as feasible or fraught with
possibilities; and it was evident he disliked making such a request of
Major Benson. But so determined was Vance, so earnestly did he argue
his point, that in the end Markham acquiesced.

“He was quite willing to let me send a man,” said Markham, hanging up
the receiver. “In fact, he seemed eager to give me every assistance.”

“I thought he’d take kindly to the suggestion,” said Vance. “Y’ see,
if you discover for yourself whom he suspects, it relieves him of the
onus of having tattled.”

Markham rang for Swacker.

“Call up Stitt and tell him I want to see him here before noon—that I
have an immediate job for him.”

“Stitt,” Markham explained to Vance, “is the head of a firm of public
accountants over in the New York Life Building. I use him a good deal
on work like this.”

Shortly before noon Stitt came. He was a prematurely old young man,
with a sharp, shrewd face and a perpetual frown. The prospect of
working for the District Attorney pleased him.

Markham explained briefly what was wanted, and revealed enough of the
case to guide him in his task. The man grasped the situation
immediately, and made one or two notes on the back of a dilapidated
envelope.

Vance also, during the instructions, had jotted down some notations on
a piece of paper.

Markham stood up and took his hat.

“Now, I suppose, I must keep the appointment you made for me,” he
complained to Vance. Then: “Come, Stitt, I’ll take you down with us in
the judges’ private elevator.”

“If you don’t mind,” interposed Vance, “Mr. Stitt and I will forgo the
honor, and mingle with the commoners in the public lift. We’ll meet
you downstairs.”

Taking the accountant by the arm, he led him out through the main
waiting-room. It was ten minutes, however, before he joined us.

We took the subway to Seventy-second Street and walked up West End
Avenue to Mrs. Paula Banning’s address. She lived in a small
apartment-house just around the corner in Seventy-fifth Street. As we
stood before her door, waiting for an answer to our ring, a strong
odor of Chinese incense drifted out to us.

“Ah! That facilitates matters,” said Vance, sniffing. “Ladies who burn
joss-sticks are invariably sentimental.”

Mrs. Banning was a tall, slightly adipose woman of indeterminate age,
with straw-colored hair and a pink-and-white complexion. Her face in
repose possessed a youthful and vacuous innocence; but the expression
was only superficial. Her eyes, a very light blue, were hard; and a
slight puffiness about her cheek-bones and beneath her chin attested
to years of idle and indulgent living. She was not unattractive,
however, in a vivid, flamboyant way; and her manner, when she ushered
us into her over-furnished and rococo living-room, was one of
easy-going good-fellowship.

When we were seated and Markham had apologized for our intrusion,
Vance at once assumed the rôle of interviewer. During his opening
explanatory remarks he appraised the woman carefully, as if seeking to
determine the best means of approaching her for the information he
wanted.

After a few minutes of verbal reconnoitring, he asked permission to
smoke, and offered Mrs. Banning one of his cigarettes, which she
accepted. Then he smiled at her in a spirit of appreciative geniality,
and relaxed comfortably in his chair. He conveyed the impression that
he was fully prepared to sympathize with anything she might tell him.

“Mr. Pfyfe strove very hard to keep you entirely out of this affair,”
said Vance; “and we fully appreciate his delicacy in so doing. But
certain circumst’nces connected with Mr. Benson’s death have
inadvertently involved you in the case; and you can best help us and
yourself—and particularly Mr. Pfyfe—by telling us what we want to
know, and trusting to our discretion and understanding.”

He had emphasized Pfyfe’s name, giving it a significant intonation;
and the woman had glanced down uneasily. Her apprehension was
apparent, and when she looked up into Vance’s eyes, she was asking
herself: How much does he know? as plainly as if she had spoken the
words audibly.

“I can’t imagine what you want me to tell you,” she said, with an
effort at astonishment. “You know that Andy was not in New York that
night.” (Her designating of the elegant and superior Pfyfe as “Andy”
sounded almost like _lèse-majesté_.) “He didn’t arrive in the city
until nearly nine the next morning.”

“Didn’t you read in the newspapers about the grey Cadillac that was
parked in front of Benson’s house?” Vance, in putting the question,
imitated her own astonishment.

She smiled confidently.

“That wasn’t Andy’s car. He took the eight o’clock train to New York
the next morning. He said it was lucky that he did, seeing that a
machine just like his had been at Mr. Benson’s the night before.”

She had spoken with the sincerity of complete assurance. It was
evident that Pfyfe had lied to her on this point.

Vance did not disabuse her; in fact, he gave her to understand that he
accepted her explanation, and consequently dismissed the idea of
Pfyfe’s presence in New York on the night of the murder.

“I had in mind a connection of a somewhat diff’rent nature when I
mentioned you and Mr. Pfyfe as having been drawn into the case. I
referred to a personal relationship between you and Mr. Benson.”

She assumed an attitude of smiling indifference.

“I’m afraid you’ve made another mistake.” She spoke lightly. “Mr.
Benson and I were not even friends. Indeed, I scarcely knew him.”

There was an overtone of emphasis in her denial—a slight eagerness
which, in indicating a conscious desire to be believed, robbed her
remark of the complete casualness she had intended.

“Even a business relationship may have its personal side,” Vance
reminded her; “especially when the intermediary is an intimate friend
of both parties to the transaction.”

She looked at him quickly; then turned her eyes away.

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” she affirmed; and her
face for a moment lost its contours of innocence, and became
calculating. “You’re surely not implying that I had any business
dealings with Mr. Benson?”

“Not directly,” replied Vance. “But certainly Mr. Pfyfe had business
dealings with him; and one of them, I rather imagined, involved you
consid’rably.”

“Involved me?” She laughed scornfully, but it was a strained laugh.

“It was a somewhat unfortunate transaction, I fear,” Vance went on,
“—unfortunate in that Mr. Pfyfe was necessitated to deal with Mr.
Benson; and doubly unfortunate, y’ know, in that he should have had to
drag you into it.”

His manner was easy and assured, and the woman sensed that no display
of scorn or contempt, however well simulated, would make an impression
upon him. Therefore, she adopted an attitude of tolerantly incredulous
amusement.

“And where did you learn about all this?” she asked playfully.

“Alas! I didn’t learn about it,” answered Vance, falling in with her
manner. “That’s the reason, d’ ye see, that I indulged in this
charming little visit. I was foolish enough to hope that you’d take
pity on my ignorance and tell me all about it.”

“But I wouldn’t think of doing such a thing,” she said, “even if this
mysterious transaction had really taken place.”

“My word!” sighed Vance. “That _is_ disappointin’. . . . Ah, well. I
see that I must tell you what little I know about it, and trust to
your sympathy to enlighten me further.”

Despite the ominous undercurrent of his words, his levity acted like a
sedative to her anxiety. She felt that he was friendly, however much
he might know about her.

“Am I bringing you news when I tell you that Mr. Pfyfe forged Mr.
Benson’s name to a check for ten thousand dollars?” he asked.

She hesitated, gauging the possible consequences of her answer.

“No, that isn’t news. Andy tells me everything.”

“And did you also know that Mr. Benson, when informed of it, was
rather put out?—that, in fact, he demanded a note and a signed
confession before he would pay the check?”

The woman’s eyes flashed angrily.

“Yes, I knew that too.—And after all Andy had done for him! If ever a
man deserved shooting, it was Alvin Benson. He was a dog. And he
pretended to be Andy’s best friend. Just think of it,—refusing to lend
Andy the money without a confession! . . . You’d hardly call that a
business deal, would you? I’d call it a dirty, contemptible, underhand
trick.”

She was enraged. Her mask of breeding and good-fellowship had fallen
from her; and she poured out vituperation on Benson with no thought of
the words she was using. Her speech was devoid of all the ordinary
reticencies of intercourse between strangers.

Vance nodded consolingly during her tirade.

“Y’ know, I sympathize fully with you.” The tone in which he made the
remark seemed to establish a closer _rapprochement_.

After a moment he gave her a friendly smile.

“But, after all, one could almost forgive Benson for holding the
confession, if he hadn’t also demanded security.”

“What security?”

Vance was quick to sense the change in her tone. Taking advantage of
her rage, he had mentioned the security while the barriers of her pose
were down. Her frightened, almost involuntary query told him that the
right moment had arrived. Before she could gain her equilibrium or
dispel the momentary fear which had assailed her, he said, with suave
deliberation:

“The day Mr. Benson was shot he took home with him from the office a
small blue box of jewels.”

She caught her breath, but otherwise gave no outward sign of emotion.

“Do you think he had stolen them?”

The moment she had uttered the question she realized that it was a
mistake in technique. An ordinary man might have been momentarily
diverted from the truth by it. But by Vance’s smile she recognized
that he had accepted it as an admission.

“It was rather fine of you, y’ know, to lend Mr. Pfyfe your jewels to
cover the note with.”

At this she threw her head up. The blood had left her face, and the
rouge on her cheeks took on a mottled and unnatural hue.

“You say I lent my jewels to Andy! I swear to you——”

Vance halted her denial with a slight movement of the hand and a _coup
d’œil_. She saw that his intention was to save her from the
humiliation she might feel later at having made too emphatic and
unqualified a statement; and the graciousness of his action, although
he was an antagonist, gave her more confidence in him.

She sank back into her chair, and her hands relaxed.

“What makes you think I lent Andy my jewels?”

Her voice was colorless, but Vance understood the question. It was the
end of her deceptions. The pause which followed was an
amnesty—recognized as such by both. The next spoken words would be the
truth.

“Andy had to have them,” she said, “or Benson would have put him in
jail.” One read in her words a strange, self-sacrificing affection for
the worthless Pfyfe. “And if Benson hadn’t done it, and had merely
refused to honor the check, his father-in-law would have done
it. . . . Andy is so careless, so unthinking. He does things without
weighing the consequences: I am all the time having to hold him
down. . . . But this thing has taught him a lesson—I’m sure of it.”

I felt that if anything in the world could teach Pfyfe a lesson, it
was the blind loyalty of this woman.

“Do you know what he quarrelled about with Mr. Benson in his office
last Wednesday?” asked Vance.

“That was all my fault,” she explained, with a sigh. “It was getting
very near to the time when the note was due, and I knew Andy didn’t
have all the money. So I asked him to go to Benson and offer him what
he had, and see if he couldn’t get my jewels back. . . . But he was
refused,—I thought he would be.”

Vance looked at her for a while sympathetically.

“I don’t want to worry you any more than I can help,” he said; “but
won’t you tell me the real cause of your anger against Benson a moment
ago?”

She gave him an admiring nod.

“You’re right—I had good reason to hate him.” Her eyes narrowed
unpleasantly. “The day after he had refused to give Andy the jewels,
he called me up—it was in the afternoon—and asked me to have breakfast
with him at his house the next morning. He said he was home and had
the jewels with him; and he told me—hinted, you understand—that
maybe—_maybe_ I could have them.—That’s the kind of beast he
was! . . . I telephoned to Port Washington to Andy and told him about
it, and he said he’d be in New York the next morning. He got here
about nine o’clock, and we read in the paper that Benson had been shot
that night.”

Vance was silent for a long time. Then he stood up and thanked her.

“You have helped us a great deal. Mr. Markham is a friend of Major
Benson’s, and, since we have the check and the confession in our
possession, I shall ask him to use his influence with the Major to
permit us to destroy them—very soon.”



CHAPTER XVIII.

A Confession

  (Wednesday, June 19; 1 p.m.)

When we were again outside Markham asked:

“How in Heaven’s name did you know she had put up her jewels to help
Pfyfe?”

“My charmin’ metaphysical deductions, don’t y’ know,” answered Vance.
“As I told you, Benson was not the open-handed, big-hearted altruist
who would have lent money without security; and certainly the
impecunious Pfyfe had no collateral worth ten thousand dollars, or he
wouldn’t have forged the check. _Ergo_: someone lent him the security.
Now, who would be so trustin’ as to lend Pfyfe that amount of security
except a sentimental woman who was blind to his amazin’ defects? Y’
know, I was just evil-minded enough to suspect there was a Calypso in
the life of this Ulysses when he told us of stopping over in New York
to murmur _au revoir_ to someone. When a man like Pfyfe fails to
specify the sex of a person, it is safe to assume the feminine gender.
So I suggested that you send a Paul Pry to Port Washington to peer
into his trans-matrimonial activities: I felt certain a _bonne amie_
would be found. Then, when the mysterious package, which obviously was
the security, seemed to identify itself as the box of jewels seen by
the inquisitive housekeeper, I said to myself: ‘Ah! Leander’s
misguided Dulcinea has lent him her gewgaws to save him from the
yawning dungeon.’ Nor did I overlook the fact that he had been
shielding someone in his explanation about the check. Therefore, as
soon as the lady’s name and address were learned by Tracy, I made the
appointment for you. . . .”

We were passing the Gothic-Renaissance Schwab residence which extends
from West End Avenue to Riverside Drive at Seventy-third Street; and
Vance stopped for a moment to contemplate it.

Markham waited patiently. At length Vance walked on.

“ . . . Y’ know, the moment I saw Mrs. Banning I knew my conclusions
were correct. She was a sentimental soul, and just the sort of
professional good sport who would have handed over her jewels to her
_amoroso_. Also, she was bereft of gems when we called,—and a woman of
her stamp always wears her jewels when she desires to make an
impression on strangers. Moreover, she’s the kind that would have
jewellery even if the larder was empty. It was therefore merely a
question of getting her to talk.”

“On the whole, you did very well,” observed Markham.

Vance gave him a condescending bow.

“Sir Hubert is too generous.—But tell me, didn’t my little chat with
the lady cast a gleam into your darkened mind?”

“Naturally,” said Markham. “I’m not utterly obtuse. She played
unconsciously into our hands. She believed Pfyfe did not arrive in New
York until the morning after the murder, and therefore told us quite
frankly that she had ’phoned him that Benson had the jewels at home.
The situation now is: Pfyfe knew they were in Benson’s house, and was
there himself at about the time the shot was fired. Furthermore, the
jewels are gone; and Pfyfe tried to cover up his tracks that night.”

Vance sighed hopelessly.

“Markham, there are altogether too many trees for you in this case.
You simply can’t see the forest, y’ know, because of ’em.”

“There is the remote possibility that you are so busily engaged in
looking at one particular tree that you are unaware of the others.”

A shadow passed over Vance’s face.

“I wish you were right,” he said.

It was nearly half past one, and we dropped into the Fountain Room of
the Ansonia Hotel for lunch. Markham was preoccupied throughout the
meal, and when we entered the subway later, he looked uneasily at his
watch.

“I think I’ll go on down to Wall Street and call on the Major a moment
before returning to the office. I can’t understand his asking Miss
Hoffman not to mention the package to me. . . . It might not have
contained the jewels, after all.”

“Do you imagine for one moment,” rejoined Vance, “that Alvin told the
Major the truth about the package? It was not a very cred’table
transaction, y’ know; and the Major most likely would have given him
what-for.”

Major Benson’s explanation bore out Vance’s surmise. Markham, in
telling him of the interview with Paula Banning, emphasized the jewel
episode in the hope that the Major would voluntarily mention the
package; for his promise to Miss Hoffman prevented him from admitting
that he was aware of the other’s knowledge concerning it.

The Major listened with considerable astonishment, his eyes gradually
growing angry.

“I’m afraid Alvin deceived me,” he said. He looked straight ahead for
a moment, his face softening. “And I don’t like to think it, now that
he’s gone. But the truth is, when Miss Hoffman told me this morning
about the envelope, she also mentioned a small parcel that had been in
Alvin’s private safe-drawer; and I asked her to omit any reference to
it from her story to you. I knew the parcel contained Mrs. Banning’s
jewels, but I thought the fact would only confuse matters if brought
to your attention. You see, Alvin told me that a judgment had been
taken against Mrs. Banning, and that, just before the Supplementary
Proceedings, Pfyfe had brought her jewels here and asked him to
sequester them temporarily in his safe.”

On our way back to the Criminal Courts Building Markham took Vance’s
arm and smiled.

“Your guessing luck is holding out, I see.”

“Rather!” agreed Vance. “It would appear that the late Alvin, like
Warren Hastings, resolved to die in the last dyke of
prevarication. . . . _Splendide mendax_, what?”

“In any event,” replied Markham, “the Major has unconsciously added
another link in the chain against Pfyfe.”

“You seem to be making a collection of chains,” commented Vance drily.
“What have you done with the ones you forged about Miss St. Clair and
Leacock?”

“I haven’t entirely discarded them—if that’s what you think,” asserted
Markham gravely.

When we reached the office Sergeant Heath was awaiting us with a
beatific grin.

“It’s all over, Mr. Markham,” he announced. “This noon, after you’d
gone, Leacock came here looking for you. When he found you were out,
he ’phoned Headquarters, and they connected him with me. He wanted to
see me—very important, he said; so I hurried over. He was sitting in
the waiting-room when I came in, and he called me over and said: ‘I
came to give myself up. I killed Benson.’ I got him to dictate a
confession to Swacker, and then he signed it. . . . Here it is.” He
handed Markham a typewritten sheet of paper.

Markham sank wearily into a chair. The strain of the past few days had
begun to tell on him. He sighed heavily.

“Thank God! Now our troubles are ended.”

Vance looked at him lugubriously, and shook his head.

“I rather fancy, y’ know, that your troubles are only beginning,” he
drawled.

When Markham had glanced through the confession he handed it to Vance,
who read it carefully with an expression of growing amusement.

“Y’ know,” he said, “this document isn’t at all legal. Any judge
worthy the name would throw it precip’tately out of court. It’s far
too simple and precise. It doesn’t begin with ‘greetings’; it doesn’t
contain a single ‘wherefore-be-it’ or ‘be-it-known’ or ‘do-hereby’; it
says nothing about ‘free will’ or ‘sound mind’ or ‘disposin’ mem’ry’;
and the Captain doesn’t once refer to himself as ‘the party of the
first part’. . . . Utterly worthless, Sergeant. If I were you, I’d
chuck it.”

Heath was feeling too complacently triumphant to be annoyed. He smiled
with magnanimous tolerance.

“It strikes you as funny, doesn’t it, Mr. Vance?”

“Sergeant, if you knew how inord’nately funny this confession is,
you’d pos’tively have hysterics.”

Vance then turned to Markham.

“Really, y’ know, I shouldn’t put too much stock in this. It may,
however, prove a valuable lever with which to prise open the truth. In
fact, I’m jolly glad the Captain has gone in for imag’native
lit’rature. With this entrancin’ fable in our possession, I think we
can overcome the Major’s scruples, and get him to tell us what he
knows. Maybe I’m wrong, but it’s worth trying.”

He stepped to the District Attorney’s desk, and leaned over it
cajolingly.

“I haven’t led you astray yet, old dear; and I’m going to make another
suggestion. Call up the Major and ask him to come here at once. Tell
him you’ve secured a confession,—but don’t you dare say whose. Imply
it’s Miss St. Clair’s, or Pfyfe’s—or Pontius Pilate’s. But urge his
immediate presence. Tell him you want to discuss it with him before
proceeding with the indictment.”

“I can’t see the necessity of doing that,” objected Markham. “I’m
pretty sure to see him at the Club to-night, and I can tell him then.”

“That wouldn’t do at all,” insisted Vance. “If the Major can enlighten
us on any point, I think Sergeant Heath should be present to hear
him.”

“I don’t need any enlightenment,” cut in Heath.

Vance regarded him with admiring surprise.

“What a wonderful man! Even Goethe cried for _mehr Licht_; and here
are you in a state of luminous saturation! . . . Astonishin’!”

“See here, Vance,” said Markham: “why try to complicate the matter? It
strikes me as a waste of time, besides being an imposition, to ask the
Major here to discuss Leacock’s confession. We don’t need his evidence
now, anyway.”

Despite his gruffness there was a hint of reconsideration in his
voice; for though his instinct had been to dismiss the request out of
hand, the experiences of the past few days had taught him that Vance’s
suggestions were not made without an object.

Vance, sensing the other’s hesitancy, said:

“My request is based on something more than an idle desire to gaze
upon the Major’s rubicund features at this moment. I’m telling you,
with all the meagre earnestness I possess, that his presence here now
would be most helpful.”

Markham deliberated, and argued the point at some length. But Vance
was so persistent that in the end he was convinced of the advisability
of complying.

Heath was patently disgusted, but he sat down quietly, and sought
solace in a cigar.

Major Benson arrived with astonishing promptness, and when Markham
handed him the confession, he made little attempt to conceal his
eagerness. But as he read it his face clouded, and a look of
puzzlement came into his eyes.

At length he looked up, frowning.

“I don’t quite understand this; and I’ll admit I’m greatly surprised.
It doesn’t seem credible that Leacock shot Alvin. . . . And yet, I may
be mistaken, of course.”

He laid the confession on Markham’s desk with an air of
disappointment, and sank into a chair.

“Do _you_ feel satisfied?” he asked.

“I don’t see any way around it,” said Markham. “If he isn’t guilty,
why should he come forward and confess? God knows, there’s plenty of
evidence against him. I was ready to arrest him two days ago.”

“He’s guilty all right,” put in Heath. “I’ve had my eye on him from
the first.”

Major Benson did not reply at once: he seemed to be framing his next
words.

“It might be—that is, there’s the bare possibility—that Leacock had an
ulterior motive in confessing.”

We all, I think, recognized the thought which his words strove to
conceal.

“I’ll admit,” acceded Markham, “that at first I believed Miss St.
Clair guilty, and I intimated as much to Leacock. But later I was
persuaded that she was not directly involved.”

“Does Leacock know this?” the Major asked quickly.

Markham thought a moment.

“No, I can’t say that he does. In fact, it’s more than likely he still
thinks I suspect her.”

“Ah!” The Major’s exclamation was almost involuntary.

“But what’s that got to do with it?” asked Heath irritably. “Do you
think he’s going to the chair to save her reputation?—Bunk! That sort
of thing’s all right in the movies, but no man’s that crazy in real
life.”

“I’m not so sure, Sergeant,” ventured Vance lazily. “Women are too
sane and practical to make such foolish gestures; but men, y’ know,
have an illim’table capacity for idiocy.”

He turned an inquiring gaze on Major Benson.

“Won’t you tell us why you think Leacock is playing Sir Galahad?”

But the Major took refuge in generalities, and was disinclined even to
follow up his original intimation as to the cause of the Captain’s
action. Vance questioned him for some time, but was unable to
penetrate his reticence.

Heath, becoming restless, finally spoke up.

“You can’t argue Leacock’s guilt away, Mr. Vance. Look at the facts.
He threatened Benson that he’d kill him if he caught him with the girl
again. The next time Benson goes out with her, he’s found shot. Then
Leacock hides his gun at her house, and when things begin to get hot,
he takes it away and ditches it in the river. He bribes the hall-boy
to alibi him; and he’s seen at Benson’s house at twelve-thirty that
night. When he’s questioned he can’t explain anything. . . . If that
ain’t an open-and-shut case, I’m a mock-turtle.”

“The circumstances are convincing,” admitted Major Benson. “But
couldn’t they be accounted for on other grounds?”

Heath did not deign to answer the question.

“The way I see it,” he continued, “is like this: Leacock gets
suspicious along about midnight, takes his gun and goes out. He
catches Benson with the girl, goes in, and shoots him like he
threatened. They’re both mixed up in it, if you ask me; but Leacock
did the shooting. And now we got his confession. . . . There isn’t a
jury in the country that wouldn’t convict him.”

“_Probi et legales homines_—oh, quite!” murmured Vance.

Swacker appeared at the door.

“The reporters are clamoring for attention,” he announced with a wry
face.

“Do they know about the confession?” Markham asked Heath.

“Not yet. I haven’t told ’em anything so far—that’s why they’re
clamoring, I guess. But I’ll give ’em an earful now, if you say the
word.”

Markham nodded, and Heath started for the door. But Vance quickly
planted himself in the way.

“Could you keep this thing quiet till to-morrow, Markham?” he asked.

Markham was annoyed.

“I could if I wanted to—yes. But why should I?”

“For your own sake, if for no other reason. You’ve got your prize
safely locked up. Control your vanity for twenty-four hours. The Major
and I both know that Leacock’s innocent, and by this time to-morrow
the whole country’ll know it.”

Again an argument ensued; but the outcome, like that of the former
argument, was a foregone conclusion. Markham had realized for some
time that Vance had reason to be convinced of something which as yet
he was unwilling to divulge. His opposition to Vance’s requests were,
I had suspected, largely the result of an effort to ascertain this
information; and I was positive of it now as he leaned forward and
gravely debated the advisability of making public the Captain’s
confession.

Vance, as heretofore, was careful to reveal nothing; but in the end
his sheer determination carried his point; and Markham requested Heath
to keep his own counsel until the next day. The Major, by a slight
nod, indicated his approbation of the decision.

“You might tell the newspaper lads, though,” suggested Vance, “that
you’ll have a rippin’ sensation for ’em to-morrow.”

Heath went out, crestfallen and glowering.

“A rash fella, the Sergeant—so impetuous!”

Vance again picked up the confession, and perused it.

“Now, Markham, I want you to bring your prisoner forth—_habeas corpus_
and that sort of thing. Put him in that chair facing the window, give
him one of the good cigars you keep for influential politicians, and
then listen attentively while I politely chat with him. . . . The
Major, I trust, will remain for the interlocut’ry proceedings.”

“That request, at least, I’ll grant without objections,” smiled
Markham. “I had already decided to have a talk with Leacock.”

He pressed a buzzer, and a brisk, ruddy-faced clerk entered.

“A requisition for Captain Philip Leacock,” he ordered.

When it was brought to him he initialed it.

“Take it to Ben, and tell him to hurry.”

The clerk disappeared through the door leading to the outer corridor.

Ten minutes later a deputy sheriff from the Tombs entered with the
prisoner.



CHAPTER XIX.

Vance Cross-examines

  (Wednesday, June 19; 3.30 p.m.)

Captain Leacock walked into the room with a hopeless indifference of
bearing. His shoulders drooped; his arms hung listlessly. His eyes
were haggard like those of a man who had not slept for days. On seeing
Major Benson, he straightened a little and, stepping toward him,
extended his hand. It was plain that, however much he may have
disliked Alvin Benson, he regarded the Major as a friend. But
suddenly, realizing the situation, he turned away, embarrassed.

The Major went quickly to him and touched him on the arm.

“It’s all right, Leacock,” he said softly. “I can’t think that you
really shot Alvin.”

The Captain turned apprehensive eyes upon him.

“Of course, I shot him.” His voice was flat. “I told him I was going
to.”

Vance came forward, and indicated a chair.

“Sit down, Captain. The District Attorney wants to hear your story of
the shooting. The law, you understand, does not accept murder
confessions without corroborat’ry evidence. And since, in the present
case, there are suspicions against others than yourself, we want you
to answer some questions in order to substantiate your guilt.
Otherwise, it will be necess’ry for us to follow up our suspicions.”

Taking a seat facing Leacock, he picked up the confession.

“You say here you were satisfied that Mr. Benson had wronged you, and
you went to his house at about half past twelve on the night of the
thirteenth. . . . When you speak of his wronging you, do you refer to
his attentions to Miss St. Clair?”

Leacock’s face betrayed a sulky belligerence.

“It doesn’t matter why I shot him.—Can’t you leave Miss St. Clair out
of it?”

“Certainly,” agreed Vance. “I promise you she shall not be brought
into it. But we must understand your motive thoroughly.”

After a brief silence Leacock said:

“Very well, then. That was what I referred to.”

“How did you know Miss St. Clair went to dinner with Mr. Benson that
night?”

“I followed them to the Marseilles.”

“And then you went home?”

“Yes.”

“What made you go to Mr. Benson’s house later?”

“I got to thinking about it more and more, until I couldn’t stand it
any longer. I began to see red, and at last I took my Colt and went
out, determined to kill him.”

A note of passion had crept into his voice. It seemed unbelievable
that he could be lying.

Vance again referred to the confession.

“You dictated: ‘I went to 87 West Forty-eighth Street, and entered the
house by the front door.’ . . . Did you ring the bell? Or was the
front door unlatched?”

Leacock was about to answer, but hesitated. Evidently he recalled the
newspaper accounts of the housekeeper’s testimony in which she
asserted positively that the bell had not rung that night.

“What difference does it make?” He was sparring for time.

“We’d like to know—that’s all,” Vance told him. “But no hurry.”

“Well, if it’s so important to you: I didn’t ring the bell; and the
door wasn’t unlocked.” His hesitancy was gone. “Just as I reached the
house, Benson drove up in a taxicab——”

“Just a moment. Did you happen to notice another car standing in front
of the house? A grey Cadillac?”

“Why—yes.”

“Did you recognize its occupant?”

There was another short silence.

“I’m not sure. I think it was a man named Pfyfe.”

“He and Mr. Benson were outside at the same time, then?”

Leacock frowned.

“No—not at the same time. There was nobody there when I arrived. . . .
I didn’t see Pfyfe until I came out a few minutes later.”

“He arrived in his car when you were inside,—is that it?”

“He must have.”

“I see. . . . And now to go back a little: Benson drove up in a
taxicab. Then what?”

“I went up to him and said I wanted to speak to him. He told me to
come inside, and we went in together. He used his latch-key.”

“And now, Captain, tell us just what happened after you and Mr. Benson
entered the house.”

“He laid his hat and stick on the hat-rack, and we walked into the
living-room. He sat down by the table, and I stood up and said—what I
had to say. Then I drew my gun, and shot him.”

Vance was closely watching the man, and Markham was leaning forward
tensely.

“How did it happen that he was reading at the time?”

“I believe he did pick up a book while I was talking. . . . Trying to
appear indifferent, I reckon.”

“Think now: you and Mr. Benson went into the living-room directly from
the hall, as soon as you entered the house?”

“Yes.”

“Then how do you account for the fact, Captain, that when Mr. Benson
was shot he had on his smoking-jacket and slippers?”

Leacock glanced nervously about the room. Before he answered he wet
his lips with his tongue.

“Now that I think of it, Benson did go upstairs for a few minutes
first. . . . I guess I was too excited,” he added desperately, “to
recollect everything.”

“That’s natural,” Vance said sympathetically. “But when he came
downstairs did you happen to notice anything peculiar about his hair?”

Leacock looked up vaguely.

“His hair? I—don’t understand.”

“The color of it, I mean. When Mr. Benson sat before you under the
table-lamp, didn’t you remark some—difference, let us say—in the way
his hair looked?”

The man closed his eyes, as if striving to visualize the scene.

“No—I don’t remember.”

“A minor point,” said Vance indifferently. “Did Benson’s speech strike
you as peculiar when he came downstairs—that is, was there a
thickness, or slight impediment of any kind, in his voice?”

Leacock was manifestly puzzled.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “He seemed to talk the way he
always talked.”

“And did you happen to see a blue jewel-case on the table?”

“I didn’t notice.”

Vance smoked a moment thoughtfully.

“When you left the room after shooting Mr. Benson, you turned out the
lights, of course?”

When no immediate answer came, Vance volunteered the suggestion:

“You must have done so, for Mr. Pfyfe says the house was dark when he
drove up.”

Leacock then nodded an affirmative.

“That’s right. I couldn’t recollect for the moment.”

“Now that you remember the fact, just how did you turn them off?”

“I——” he began, and stopped. Then, finally: “At the switch.”

“And where is that switch located, Captain?”

“I can’t just recall.”

“Think a moment. Surely you can remember.”

“By the door leading into the hall, I think.”

“Which side of the door?”

“How can I tell?” the man asked piteously. “I was too—nervous. . . .
But I think it was on the right-hand side of the door.”

“The right-hand side when entering or leaving the room?”

“As you go out.”

“That would be where the bookcase stands?”

“Yes.”

Vance appeared satisfied.

“Now, there’s the question of the gun,” he said. “Why did you take it
to Miss St. Clair?”

“I was a coward,” the man replied. “I was afraid they might find it at
my apartment. And I never imagined she would be suspected.”

“And when she was suspected, you at once took the gun away and threw
it into the East River?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose there was one cartridge missing from the magazine,
too—which in itself would have been a suspicious circumstance.”

“I thought of that. That’s why I threw the gun away.”

Vance frowned.

“That’s strange. There must have been two guns. We dredged the river,
y’ know, and found a Colt automatic, but the magazine was full. . . .
Are you sure, Captain, that it was _your_ gun you took from Miss St.
Clair’s and threw over the bridge?”

I knew no gun had been retrieved from the river, and I wondered what
he was driving at. Was he, after all, trying to involve the girl?
Markham, too, I could see, was in doubt.

Leacock made no answer for several moments. When he spoke, it was with
dogged sullenness.

“There weren’t two guns. The one you found was mine. . . . I refilled
the magazine myself.”

“Ah, that accounts for it.” Vance’s tone was pleasant and reassuring.
“Just one more question, Captain. Why did you come here to-day and
confess?”

Leacock thrust his chin out, and for the first time during the
cross-examination his eyes became animated.

“Why? It was the only honorable thing to do. You had unjustly
suspected an innocent person; and I didn’t want anyone else to
suffer.”

This ended the interview. Markham had no questions to ask; and the
deputy sheriff led the Captain out.

When the door had closed on him a curious silence fell over the room.
Markham sat smoking furiously, his hands folded behind his head, his
eyes fixed on the ceiling. The Major had settled back in his chair,
and was gazing at Vance with admiring satisfaction. Vance was watching
Markham out of the corner of his eye, a drowsy smile on his lips. The
expressions and attitudes of the three men conveyed perfectly their
varying individual reactions to the interview—Markham troubled, the
Major pleased, Vance cynical.

It was Vance who broke the silence. He spoke easily, almost lazily.

“You see how silly the confession is, what? Our pure and lofty Captain
is an incredibly poor Munchausen. No one could lie as badly as he did
who hadn’t been born into the world that way. It’s simply impossible
to imitate such stupidity. And he did so want us to think him guilty.
Very affectin’. He prob’bly imagined you’d merely stick the confession
in his shirt-front and send him to the hangman. You noticed, he hadn’t
even decided how he got into Benson’s house that night. Pfyfe’s
admitted presence outside almost spoiled his impromptu explanation of
having entered _bras dessus bras dessous_ with his intended victim.
And he didn’t recall Benson’s semi-négligé attire. When I reminded him
of it, he had to contradict himself, and send Benson trotting upstairs
to make a rapid change. Luckily, the toupee wasn’t mentioned by the
newspapers. The Captain couldn’t imagine what I meant when I intimated
that Benson had dyed his hair when changing his coat and shoes. . . .
By the bye, Major, did your brother speak thickly when his false teeth
were out?”

“Noticeably so,” answered the Major. “If Alvin’s plate had been
removed that night—as I gathered it had been from your
question—Leacock would surely have noticed it.”

“There were other things he didn’t notice,” said Vance: “the
jewel-case, for instance, and the location of the electric-light
switch.”

“He went badly astray on that point,” added the Major. “Alvin’s house
is old-fashioned, and the only switch in the room is a pendant one
attached to the chandelier.”

“Exactly,” said Vance. “However, his worst break was in connection
with the gun. He gave his hand away completely there. He said he threw
the pistol into the river largely because of the missing cartridge,
and when I told him the magazine was full, he explained that he had
refilled it, so I wouldn’t think it was anyone else’s gun that was
found. . . . It’s plain to see what’s the matter. He thinks Miss St.
Clair is guilty, and is determined to take the blame.”

“That’s my impression,” said Major Benson.

“And yet,” mused Vance, “the Captain’s attitude bothers me a little.
There’s no doubt he had something to do with the crime, else why
should he have concealed his pistol the next day in Miss St. Clair’s
apartment? He’s just the kind of silly beggar, d’ ye see, who would
threaten any man he thought had designs on his fiancée, and then carry
out the threat if anything happened. And he has a guilty
conscience—that’s obvious. But for what? Certainly not the shooting.
The crime was planned; and the Captain never plans. He’s the kind that
gets an _idée fixe_, girds up his loins, and does the deed in knightly
fashion, prepared to take the cons’quences. That sort of chivalry, y’
know, is sheer _beau geste_: its acolytes want everyone to know of
their valor. And when they go forth to rid the world of a Don Juan,
they’re always clear-minded. The Captain, for instance, wouldn’t have
overlooked his Lady Fair’s gloves and hand-bag,—he would have taken
’em away. In fact, it’s just as certain he would have shot Benson as
it is he didn’t shoot him. That’s the beetle in the amber. It’s
psychologically possible he would have done it, and psychologically
impossible he would have done it the way it was done.”

He lit a cigarette and watched the drifting spirals of smoke.

“If it wasn’t so fantastic, I’d say he started out to do it, and found
it already done. And yet, that’s about the size of it. It would
account for Pfyfe’s seeing him there, and for his secreting the gun at
Miss St. Clair’s the next day.”

The telephone rang: Colonel Ostrander wanted to speak to the District
Attorney. Markham, after a short conversation, turned a disgruntled
look upon Vance.

“Your blood-thirsty friend wanted to know if I’d arrested anyone yet.
He offered to confer more of his invaluable suggestions upon me in
case I was still undecided as to who was guilty.”

“I heard you thanking him fulsomely for something or other. . . . What
did you give him to understand about your mental state?”

“That I was still in the dark.”

Markham’s answer was accompanied by a sombre, tired smile. It was his
way of telling Vance that he had entirely rejected the idea of Captain
Leacock’s guilt.

The Major went to him and held out his hand.

“I know how you feel,” he said. “This sort of thing is discouraging;
but it’s better that the guilty person should escape altogether than
that an innocent man should be made to suffer. . . . Don’t work too
hard, and don’t let these disappointments get to you. You’ll soon hit
on the right solution, and when you do——” His jaw snapped shut, and he
uttered the rest of the sentence between clenched teeth. “—you’ll meet
with no opposition from me. I’ll help you put the thing over.”

He gave Markham a grim smile, and took up his hat.

“I’m going back to the office now. If you want me at any time, let me
know. I may be able to help you—later on.”

With a friendly, appreciative bow to Vance, he went out.

Markham sat in silence for several minutes.

“Damn it, Vance!” he said irritably. “This case gets more difficult by
the hour. I feel worn out.”

“You really shouldn’t take it so seriously, old dear,” Vance advised
lightly. “It doesn’t pay y’ know, to worry over the _trivia_ of
existence.

   ‘Nothing’s new,
    And nothing’s true,
    And nothing really matters.’

Several million johnnies were killed in the war, and you don’t let the
fact bedevil your phagocytes or inflame your brain-cells. But when one
rotter is mercifully shot in your district, you lie awake nights
perspiring over it, what? My word! You’re deucedly inconsistent.”

“Consistency——” began Markham; but Vance interrupted him.

“Now don’t quote Emerson. I inf’nitely prefer Erasmus. Y’ know, you
ought to read his _Praise of Folly_; it would cheer you no end. That
goaty old Dutch professor would never have grieved inconsolably over
the destruction of Alvin _Le Chauve_.”

“I’m not a _fruges consumere natus_ like you,” snapped Markham. “I was
elected to this office——”

“Oh, quite,—‘loved I not honor more’ and all that,” Vance chimed in.
“But don’t be so sens’tive. Even if the Captain has succeeded in
bungling his way out of jail, you have at least five possibilities
left. There’s Mrs. Platz . . . and Pfyfe . . . and Colonel Ostrander .
. . and Miss Hoffman . . . and Mrs. Banning.—I say! Why don’t you
arrest ’em all, one at a time, and get ’em to confess? Heath would go
crazy with joy.”

Markham was in too crestfallen a mood to resent this chaffing. Indeed,
Vance’s light-heartedness seemed to buoy him up.

“If you want the truth,” he said; “that’s exactly what I feel like
doing. I am restrained merely by my indecision as to which one to
arrest first.”

“Stout fella!” Then Vance asked: “What are you going to do with the
Captain now? It’ll break his heart if you release him.”

“His heart’ll have to break, I’m afraid.” Markham reached for the
telephone. “I’d better see to the formalities now.”

“Just a moment!” Vance put forth a restraining hand. “Don’t end his
rapturous martyrdom just yet. Let him be happy for another day at
least. I’ve a notion he may be most useful to us, pining away in his
lonely cell like the prisoner of Chillon.”

Markham put down the telephone without a word. More and more, I had
noticed, he was becoming inclined to accept Vance’s leadership. This
attitude was not merely the result of the hopeless confusion in his
mind, though his uncertainty probably influenced him to some extent;
but it was due in large measure to the impression Vance had given him
of knowing more than he cared to reveal.

“Have you tried to figure out just how Pfyfe and his Turtledove fit
into the case?” Vance asked.

“Along with a few thousand other enigmas—yes,” was the petulant reply.
“But the more I try to reason it out, the more of a mystery the whole
thing becomes.”

“Loosely put, my dear Markham,” criticized Vance. “There are no
mysteries originating in human beings, y’ know; there are only
problems. And any problem originating in one human being can be solved
by another human being. It merely requires a knowledge of the human
mind, and the application of that knowledge to human acts. Simple,
what?”

He glanced at the clock.

“I wonder how your Mr. Stitt is getting along with the Benson and
Benson books. I await his report with anticipat’ry excitement.”

This was too much for Markham. The wearing-down process of Vance’s
intimations and veiled innuendoes had at last dissipated his
self-control. He bent forward and struck the desk angrily with his
hand.

“I’m damned tired of this superior attitude of yours,” he complained
hotly. “Either you know something or you don’t. If you don’t know
anything, do me the favor of dropping these insinuations of knowledge.
If you do know anything, it’s up to you to tell me. You’ve been
hinting around in one way or another ever since Benson was shot. If
you’ve got any idea who killed him, I want to know it.”

He leaned back, and took out a cigar. Not once did he look up as he
carefully clipped the end and lit it. I think he was a little ashamed
at having given way to his anger.

Vance had sat apparently unconcerned during the outburst. At length he
stretched his legs, and gave Markham a long contemplative look.

“Y’ know, Markham old bean, I don’t blame you a bit for your unseemly
ebullition. The situation has been most provokin’. But now, I fancy,
the time has come to put an end to the comedietta. I really haven’t
been spoofing, y’ know. The fact is, I’ve some most int’restin’ ideas
on the subject.”

He stood up and yawned.

“It’s a beastly hot day, but it must be done—eh, what?

   ‘So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
      So near is God to man.
    When duty whispers low, _Thou must,_
      The youth replies, _I can._’

I’m the noble youth, don’t y’ know. And you’re the voice of
duty—though you didn’t exactly whisper, did you? . . . _Was aber ist
deine Pflicht?_ And Goethe answered: _Die Forderung des Tages._
But—deuce take it!—I wish the demand had come on a cooler day.”

He handed Markham his hat.

“Come, _Postume_. To everything there is a season, and a time to every
purpose under the heaven.* You are through with the office for
to-day,—inform Swacker of the fact, will you?—there’s a dear! We
attend upon a lady—Miss St. Clair, no less.”

   * This quotation from Ecclesiastes reminds me that Vance
   regularly read the Old Testament. “When I weary of the
   professional liter’ry man,” he once said, “I find
   stimulation in the majestic prose of the Bible. If the
   moderns feel that they simply must write, they should be
   made to spend at least two hours a day with the Biblical
   historians.”

Markham realized that Vance’s jesting manner was only the masquerade
of a very serious purpose. Also, he knew that Vance would tell him
what he knew or suspected only in his own way, and that, no matter how
circuitous and unreasonable that way might appear, Vance had excellent
reasons for following it. Furthermore, since the unmasking of Captain
Leacock’s purely fictitious confession, he was in a state of mind to
follow any suggestion that held the faintest hope of getting at the
truth. He therefore rang at once for Swacker, and informed him he was
quitting the office for the day.

In ten minutes we were in the subway on our way to 94 Riverside Drive.



CHAPTER XX.

A Lady Explains

  (Wednesday, June 19; 4.30 p.m.)

“The quest for enlightenment upon which we are now embarked,” said
Vance, as we rode up town, “may prove a bit tedious. But you must
exert your will-power, and bear with me. You can’t imagine what a
ticklish task I have on my hands. And it’s not a pleasant one either.
I’m a bit too young to be sentimental, and yet, d’ ye know, I’m half
inclined to let your culprit go.”

“Would you mind telling me why we are calling on Miss St. Clair?”
asked Markham resignedly.

Vance amiably complied.

“Not at all. Indeed, I deem it best for you to know. There are several
points connected with the lady that need eluc’dation. First, there are
the gloves and the hand-bag. Nor poppy nor mandragora shall ever
medicine thee to that sweet sleep which thou ow’dst yesterday until
you have learned about those articles—eh, what?—Then, you recall, Miss
Hoffman told us that the Major was lending an ear when a certain lady
called upon Benson the day he was shot. I suspect that the visitor was
Miss St. Clair; and I am rather curious to know what took place in the
office that day, and why she came back later. Also, why did she go to
Benson’s for tea that afternoon? And what part did the jewels play in
the chit-chat?—But there are other items. For example: Why did the
Captain take his gun to her? What makes him think she shot Benson?—he
really believes it, y’ know. And why did she think that he was guilty
from the first?”

Markham looked sceptical.

“You expect her to tell us all this?”

“My hopes run high,” returned Vance. “With her verray parfit gentil
knight jailed as a self-confessed murderer, she will have nothing to
lose by unburdening her soul. . . . But we must have no blustering.
Your police brand of aggressive cross-examination will, I assure you,
have no effect upon the lady.”

“Just how do you propose to elicit your information?”

“With _morbidezza_, as the painters say. Much more refined and
gentlemanly, y’ know.”

Markham considered a moment.

“I think I’ll keep out of it, and leave the Socratic _elenchus_
entirely to you.”

“An extr’ordin’rily brilliant suggestion,” said Vance.

When we arrived Markham announced over the house-telephone that he had
come on a vitally important mission; and we were received by Miss St.
Clair without a moment’s delay. She was apprehensive, I imagine,
concerning the whereabouts of Captain Leacock.

As she sat before us in her little drawing-room overlooking the
Hudson, her face was quite pale, and her hands, though tightly
clasped, trembled a little. She had lost much of her cold reserve, and
there were unmistakable signs of sleepless worry about her eyes.

Vance went directly to the point. His tone was almost flippant in its
lightness: it at once relieved the tension of the atmosphere, and gave
an air bordering on inconsequentiality to our visit.

“Captain Leacock has, I regret to inform you, very foolishly confessed
to the murder of Mr. Benson. But we are not entirely satisfied with
his _bona fides_. We are, alas! awash between Scylla and Charybdis. We
can not decide whether the Captain is a deep-dyed villain or a
_chevalier sans peur et sans reproche_. His story of how he
accomplished the dark deed is a bit sketchy: he is vague on certain
essential details; and—what’s most confusin’—he turned the lights off
in Benson’s hideous living-room by a switch which pos’tively doesn’t
exist. Cons’quently, the suspicion has crept into my mind that he has
concocted this tale of derring-do in order to shield someone whom he
really believes guilty.”

He indicated Markham with a slight movement of the head.

“The District Attorney here does not wholly agree with me. But then,
d’ ye see, the legal mind is incredibly rigid and unreceptive once it
has been invaded by a notion. You will remember that, because you were
with Mr. Alvin Benson on his last evening on earth, and for other
reasons equally irrelevant and trivial, Mr. Markham actu’lly concluded
that you had had something to do with the gentleman’s death.”

He gave Markham a smile of waggish reproach, and went on:

“Since you, Miss St. Clair, are the only person whom Captain Leacock
would shield so heroically, and since I, at least, am convinced of
your own innocence, will you not clear up for us a few of those points
where your orbit crossed that of Mr. Benson? . . . Such information
cannot do the Captain or yourself any harm, and it very possibly will
help to banish from Mr. Markham’s mind his lingering doubts as to the
Captain’s innocence.”

Vance’s manner had an assuaging effect upon the woman; but I could see
that Markham was boiling inwardly at Vance’s animadversions on him,
though he refrained from any interruption.

Miss St. Clair stared steadily at Vance for several minutes.

“I don’t know why I should trust you, or even believe you,” she said
evenly; “but now that Captain Leacock has confessed,—I was afraid he
was going to, when he last spoke to me,—I see no reason why I should
not answer your questions. . . . Do you truly think he is innocent?”

The question was like an involuntary cry: her pent-up emotion had
broken through her carapace of calm.

“I truly do,” Vance avowed soberly. “Mr. Markham will tell you that
before we left his office I pleaded with him to release Captain
Leacock. It was with the hope that your explanations would convince
him of the wisdom of such a course, that I urged him to come here.”

Something in his tone and manner seemed to inspire her confidence.

“What do you wish to ask me?” she asked.

Vance cast another reproachful glance at Markham, who was restraining
his outraged feelings only with difficulty; and then turned back to
the woman.

“First of all, will you explain how your gloves and hand-bag found
their way into Mr. Benson’s house? Their presence there has been
preying most distressin’ly on the District Attorney’s mind.”

She turned a direct, frank gaze upon Markham.

“I dined with Mr. Benson at his invitation. Things between us were not
pleasant, and when we started for home, my resentment of his attitude
increased. At Times Square I ordered the chauffeur to stop—I preferred
returning home alone. In my anger and my haste to get away, I must
have dropped my gloves and bag. It was not until Mr. Benson had driven
off that I realized my loss, and having no money, I walked home. Since
my things were found in Mr. Benson’s house, he must have taken them
there himself.”

“Such was my own belief,” said Vance. “And—my word!—it’s a deucedly
long walk out here, what?”

He turned to Markham with a tantalizing smile.

“Really, y’ know, Miss St. Clair couldn’t have been expected to reach
here before one.”

Markham, grim and resolute, made no reply.

“And now,” pursued Vance, “I should love to know under what
circumst’nces the invitation to dinner was extended.”

A shadow darkened her face, but her voice remained even.

“I had been losing a lot of money through Mr. Benson’s firm, and
suddenly my intuition told me that he was purposely seeing to it that
I did lose, and that he could, if he desired, help me to recoup.” She
dropped her eyes. “He had been annoying me with his attentions for
some time; and I didn’t put any despicable scheme past him. I went to
his office, and told him quite plainly what I suspected. He replied
that if I’d dine with him that night we could talk it over. I knew
what his object was, but I was so desperate I decided to go anyway,
hoping I might plead with him.”

“And how did you happen to mention to Mr. Benson the exact time your
little dinner party would terminate?”

She looked at Vance in astonishment, but answered unhesitatingly.

“He said something about—making a gay night of it; and then I told
him—very emphatically—that if I went I would leave him sharply at
midnight, as was my invariable rule on all parties. . . . You see,”
she added, “I study very hard at my singing, and going home at
midnight, no matter what the occasion, is one of the sacrifices—or
rather, restrictions—I impose on myself.”

“Most commendable and most wise!” commented Vance. “Was this fact
generally known among your acquaintances?”

“Oh yes. It even resulted in my being nicknamed Cinderella.”

“Specifically, did Colonel Ostrander and Mr. Pfyfe know it?”

“Yes.”

Vance thought a moment.

“How did you happen to go to tea at Mr. Benson’s home the day of the
murder, if you were to dine with him that night?”

A flush stained her cheeks.

“There was nothing wrong in that,” she declared. “Somehow, after I had
left Mr. Benson’s office, I revolted against my decision to dine with
him, and I went to his house—I had gone back to the office first, but
he had left—to make a final appeal, and to beg him to release me from
my promise. But he laughed the matter off, and after insisting that I
have tea, sent me home in a taxicab to dress for dinner. He called for
me about half past seven.”

“And when you pleaded with him to release you from your promise you
sought to frighten him by recalling Captain Leacock’s threat; and he
said it was only a bluff.”

Again the woman’s astonishment was manifest.

“Yes,” she murmured.

Vance gave her a soothing smile.

“Colonel Ostrander told me he saw you and Mr. Benson at the
Marseilles.”

“Yes; and I was terribly ashamed. He knew what Mr. Benson was, and had
warned me against him only a few days before.”

“I was under the impression the Colonel and Mr. Benson were good
friends.”

“They were—up to a week ago. But the Colonel lost more money than I
did in a stock pool which Mr. Benson engineered recently, and he
intimated to me very strongly that Mr. Benson had deliberately
misadvised us to his own benefit. He didn’t even speak to Mr. Benson
that night at the Marseilles.”

“What about these rich and precious stones that accompanied your tea
with Mr. Benson?”

“Bribes,” she answered; and her contemptuous smile was a more eloquent
condemnation of Benson than if she had resorted to the bitterest
castigation. “The gentleman sought to turn my head with them. I was
offered a string of pearls to wear to dinner; but I declined them. And
I was told that, if I saw things in the right light—or some such
charming phrase—I could have jewels just like them for my very, very
own—perhaps even those identical ones, on the twenty-first.”

“Of course—the twenty-first,” grinned Vance. “Markham, are you
listening? On the twenty-first Leander’s note falls due, and if it’s
not paid the jewels are forfeited.”

He addressed himself again to Miss St. Clair.

“Did Mr. Benson have the jewels with him at dinner?”

“Oh, no! I think my refusal of the pearls rather discouraged him.”

Vance paused, looking at her with ingratiating cordiality.

“Tell us now, please, of the gun episode—in your own words, as the
lawyers say, hoping to entangle you later.”

But she evidently feared no entanglement.

“The morning after the murder Captain Leacock came here and said he
had gone to Mr. Benson’s house about half past twelve with the
intention of shooting him. But he had seen Mr. Pfyfe outside and,
assuming he was calling, had given up the idea and gone home. I feared
that Mr. Pfyfe had seen him, and I told him it would be safer to bring
his pistol to me and to say, if questioned, that he’d lost it in
France. . . . You see, I really thought he had shot Mr. Benson and
was—well, lying like a gentleman, to spare my feelings. Then, when he
took the pistol from me with the purpose of throwing it away
altogether, I was even more certain of it.”

She smiled faintly at Markham.

“That was why I refused to answer your questions. I wanted you to
think that maybe I had done it, so you’d not suspect Captain Leacock.”

“But he wasn’t lying at all,” said Vance.

“I know now that he wasn’t. And I should have known it before. He’d
never have brought the pistol to me if he’d been guilty.”

A film came over her eyes.

“And—poor boy!—he confessed because he thought that I was guilty.”

“That’s precisely the harrowin’ situation,” nodded Vance. “But where
did he think you had obtained a weapon?”

“I know many army men—friends of his and of Major Benson’s. And last
summer at the mountains I did considerable pistol practice for the fun
of it. Oh, the idea was reasonable enough.”

Vance rose and made a courtly bow.

“You’ve been most gracious—and most helpful,” he said. “Y’ see, Mr.
Markham had various theories about the murder. The first, I believe,
was that you alone were the Madam Borgia. The second was that you and
the Captain did the deed together—_à quatre_ mains, as it were. The
third was that the Captain pulled the trigger _a cappella_. And the
legal mind is so exquisitely developed that it can believe in several
conflicting theories at the same time. The sad thing about the present
case is that Mr. Markham still leans toward the belief that both of
you are guilty, individually and collectively. I tried to reason with
him before coming here; but I failed. Therefore, I insisted upon his
hearing from your own charming lips your story of the affair.”

He went up to Markham who sat glaring at him with lips compressed.

“Well, old chap,” he remarked pleasantly, “surely you are not going to
persist in your obsession that either Miss St. Clair or Captain
Leacock is guilty, what? . . . And won’t you relent and unshackle the
Captain as I begged you to?”

He extended his arms in a theatrical gesture of supplication.

Markham’s wrath was at the breaking-point, but he got up deliberately
and, going to the woman, held out his hand.

“Miss St. Clair,” he said kindly—and again I was impressed by the
bigness of the man—, “I wish to assure you that I have dismissed the
idea of your guilt, and also Captain Leacock’s, from what Mr. Vance
terms my incredibly rigid and unreceptive mind. . . . I forgive him,
however, because he has saved me from doing you a very grave
injustice. And I will see that you have your Captain back as soon as
the papers can be signed for his release.”

As we walked out onto Riverside Drive, Markham turned savagely on
Vance.

“So! _I_ was keeping her precious Captain locked up, and _you_ were
pleading with me to let him go! You know damned well I didn’t think
either one of them was guilty—you—you lounge lizard!”

Vance sighed.

“Dear me! Don’t you want to be of any help at all in this case?” he
asked sadly.

“What good did it do you to make an ass of me in front of that woman?”
spluttered Markham. “I can’t see that you got anywhere, with all your
tomfoolery.”

“What!” Vance registered utter amazement. “The testimony you’ve heard
to-day is going to help immeasurably in convicting the culprit.
Furthermore, we now know about the gloves and hand-bag, and who the
lady was that called at Benson’s office, and what Miss St. Clair did
between twelve and one, and why she dined alone with Alvin, and why
she first had tea with him, and how the jewels came to be there, and
why the Captain took her his gun and then threw it away, and why he
confessed. . . . My word! Doesn’t all this knowledge soothe you? It
rids the situation of so much débris.”

He stopped and lit a cigarette.

“The really important thing the lady told us was that her friends knew
she invariably departed at midnight when she went out of an evening.
Don’t overlook or belittle that point, old dear; it’s most pert’nent.
I told you long ago that the person who shot Benson knew she was
dining with him that night.”

“You’ll be telling me next you know who killed him,” Markham scoffed.

Vance sent a ring of smoke circling upward.

“I’ve known all along who shot the blighter.”

Markham snorted derisively.

“Indeed! And when did this revelation burst upon you?”

“Oh, not more than five minutes after I entered Benson’s house that
first morning,” replied Vance.

“Well, well! Why didn’t you confide in me, and avoid all these trying
activities?”

“Quite impossible,” Vance explained jocularly. “You were not ready to
receive my apocryphal knowledge. It was first necess’ry to lead you
patiently by the hand out of the various dark forests and morasses
into which you insisted upon straying. You’re so dev’lishly
unimag’native, don’t y’ know.”

A taxicab was passing, and he hailed it.

“Eighty-seven West Forty-eighth Street,” he directed.

Then he took Markham’s arm confidingly.

“Now for a brief chat with Mrs. Platz. And then—then I shall pour into
your ear all my maidenly secrets.”



CHAPTER XXI.

Sartorial Revelations

  (Wednesday, June 19; 5.30 p.m.)

The housekeeper regarded our visit that afternoon with marked
uneasiness. Though she was a large powerful woman, her body seemed to
have lost some of its strength, and her face showed signs of prolonged
anxiety. Snitkin informed us, when we entered, that she had carefully
read every newspaper account of the progress of the case, and had
questioned him interminably on the subject.

She entered the living-room with scarcely an acknowledgment of our
presence, and took the chair Vance placed for her like a woman
resigning herself to a dreaded but inevitable ordeal. When Vance
looked at her keenly, she gave him a frightened glance and turned her
face away, as if, in the second their eyes met, she had read his
knowledge of some secret she had been jealously guarding.

Vance began his questioning without prelude or protasis.

“Mrs. Platz, was Mr. Benson very particular about his toupee—that is,
did he often receive his friends without having it on?”

The woman appeared relieved.

“Oh, no, sir—never.”

“Think back, Mrs. Platz. Has Mr. Benson never, to your knowledge, been
in anyone’s company without his toupee?”

She was silent for some time, her brows contracted.

“Once I saw him take off his wig and show it to Colonel Ostrander, an
elderly gentleman who used to call here very often. But Colonel
Ostrander was an old friend of his. He told me they lived together
once.”

“No one else?”

Again she frowned thoughtfully.

“No,” she said, after several minutes.

“What about the tradespeople?”

“He was very particular about them. . . . And strangers, too,” she
added. “When he used to sit in here in hot weather without his wig, he
always pulled the shade on that window.” She pointed to the one
nearest the hallway. “You can look in it from the steps.”

“I’m glad you brought up that point,” said Vance. “And anyone standing
on the steps could tap on the window or the iron bars, and attract the
attention of anyone in this room?”

“Oh, yes, sir—easily. I did it myself once, when I went on an errand
and forgot my key.”

“It’s quite likely, don’t you think, that the person who shot Mr.
Benson obtained admittance that way?”

“Yes, sir.” She grasped eagerly at the suggestion.

“The person would have had to know Mr. Benson pretty well to tap on
the window instead of ringing the bell. Don’t you agree with me, Mrs.
Platz?”

“Yes—sir.” Her tone was doubtful: evidently the point was a little
beyond her.

“If a stranger had tapped on the window would Mr. Benson have admitted
him without his toupee?”

“Oh, no—he wouldn’t have let a stranger in.”

“You are sure the bell didn’t ring that night?”

“Positive, sir.” The answer was very emphatic.

“Is there a light on the front steps?”

“No, sir.”

“If Mr. Benson had looked out of the window to see who was tapping,
could he have recognized the person at night?”

The woman hesitated.

“I don’t know—I don’t think so.”

“Is there any way you can see through the front door who is outside,
without opening it?”

“No, sir. Sometimes I wished there was.”

“Then, if the person knocked on the window, Mr. Benson must have
recognized the voice?”

“It looks that way, sir.”

“And you’re certain no one could have got in without a key?”

“How could they? The door locks by itself.”

“It’s the regulation spring-lock, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then it must have a catch you can turn off so that the door will open
from either side even though it’s latched.”

“It did have a catch like that,” she explained, “but Mr. Benson had it
fixed so’s it wouldn’t work. He said it was too dangerous,—I might go
out and leave the house unlocked.”

Vance stepped into the hallway, and I heard him opening and shutting
the front door.

“You’re right, Mrs. Platz,” he observed, when he came back. “Now tell
me: are you quite sure no one had a key?”

“Yes, sir. No one but me and Mr. Benson had a key.”

Vance nodded his acceptance of her statement.

“You said you left your bed-room door open on the night Mr. Benson was
shot. . . . Do you generally leave it open?”

“No, I ’most always shut it. But it was terrible close that night.”

“Then it was merely an accident you left it open?”

“As you might say.”

“If your door had been closed as usual, could you have heard the shot,
do you think?”

“If I’d been awake, maybe. Not if I was sleeping, though. They got
heavy doors in these old houses, sir.”

“And they’re beautiful, too,” commented Vance.

He looked admiringly at the massive mahogany double door that opened
into the hall.

“Y’ know, Markham, our so-called civ’lization is nothing more than the
persistent destruction of everything that’s beautiful and enduring,
and the designing of cheap makeshifts. You should read Oswald
Spengler’s _Untergang des Abendlands_—a most penetratin’ document. I
wonder some enterprisin’ publisher hasn’t embalmed it in our native
argot.* The whole history of this degen’rate era we call modern
civ’lization can be seen in our woodwork. Look at that fine old door,
for instance, with its bevelled panels and ornamented bolection, and
its Ionic pilasters and carved lintel. And then compare it with the
flat, flimsy, machine-made, shellacked boards which are turned out by
the thousand to-day. _Sic transit_. . . .”

   * The book—or a part of it—has, I believe, been recently
   translated into English.

He studied the door for some time; then turned abruptly back to Mrs.
Platz, who was eyeing him curiously and with mounting apprehension.

“What did Mr. Benson do with the box of jewels when he went out to
dinner?” he asked.

“Nothing, sir,” she answered nervously. “He left them on the table
there.”

“Did you see them after he had gone?”

“Yes; and I was going to put them away. But I decided I’d better not
touch them.”

“And nobody came to the door, or entered the house, after Mr. Benson
left?”

“No, sir.”

“You’re quite sure?”

“I’m positive, sir.”

Vance rose, and began to pace the floor. Suddenly, just as he was
passing the woman, he stopped and faced her.

“Was your maiden name Hoffman, Mrs. Platz?”

The thing she had been dreading had come. Her face paled, her eyes
opened wide, and her lower lip drooped a little.

Vance stood looking at her, not unkindly. Before she could regain
control of herself, he said:

“I had the pleasure of meeting your charmin’ daughter recently.”

“My daughter. . . ?” the woman managed to stammer.

“Miss Hoffman, y’ know—the attractive young lady with the blond hair.
Mr. Benson’s secret’ry.”

The woman sat erect, and spoke through clamped teeth.

“She’s not my daughter.”

“Now, now, Mrs. Platz!” Vance chided her, as if speaking to a child.
“Why this foolish attempt at deception? You remember how worried you
were when I accused you of having a personal interest in the lady who
was here to tea with Mr. Benson? You were afraid I thought it was Miss
Hoffman. . . . But why should you be anxious about her, Mrs. Platz?
I’m sure she’s a very nice girl. And you really can’t blame her for
preferring the name of Hoffman to that of Platz. _Platz_ means
generally a place, though it also means a crash or an explosion; and
sometimes a _Platz_ is a bun or a yeast-cake. But a _Hoffman_ is a
courtier—much nicer than being a yeast-cake, what?”

He smiled engagingly, and his manner had a quieting effect upon her.

“It isn’t that, sir,” she said, looking at him appealingly. “I made
her take the name. In this country any girl who’s smart can get to be
a lady, if she’s given a chance. And——”

“I understand perfectly,” Vance interposed pleasantly. “Miss Hoffman
is clever, and you feared that the fact of your being a housekeeper,
if it became known, would stand in the way of her success. So you
elim’nated yourself, as it were, for her welfare. I think it was very
generous of you. . . . Your daughter lives alone?”

“Yes, sir—in Morningside Heights. But I see her every week.” Her voice
was barely audible.

“Of course—as often as you can, I’m sure. . . . Did you take the
position as Mr. Benson’s housekeeper because she was his secret’ry?”

She looked up, a bitter expression in her eyes.

“Yes, sir—I did. She told me the kind of man he was; and he often made
her come to the house here in the evenings to do extra work.”

“And you wanted to be here to protect her?”

“Yes, sir—that was it.”

“Why were you so worried the morning after the murder, when Mr.
Markham here asked you if Mr. Benson kept any fire-arms around the
house?”

The woman shifted her gaze.

“I—wasn’t worried.”

“Yes, you were, Mrs. Platz. And I’ll tell you why. You were afraid we
might think Miss Hoffman shot him.”

“Oh, no, sir, I wasn’t!” she cried. “My girl wasn’t even here that
night—I swear it!—she wasn’t here. . . .”

She was badly shaken: the nervous tension of a week had snapped, and
she looked helplessly about her.

“Come, come, Mrs. Platz,” pleaded Vance consolingly. “No one believes
for a moment that Miss Hoffman had a hand in Mr. Benson’s death.”

The woman peered searchingly into his face. At first she was loath to
believe him,—it was evident that fear had long been preying on her
mind,—and it took him fully a quarter of an hour to convince her that
what he had said was true. When, finally, we left the house she was in
a comparatively peaceful state of mind.

On our way to the Stuyvesant Club Markham was silent, completely
engrossed with his thoughts. It was evident that the new facts educed
by the interview with Mrs. Platz troubled him considerably.

Vance sat smoking dreamily, turning his head now and then to inspect
the buildings we passed. We drove east through Forty-eighth Street,
and when we came abreast of the New York Bible Society House he
ordered the chauffeur to stop, and insisted that we admire it.

“Christianity,” he remarked, “has almost vindicated itself by its
architecture alone. With few exceptions, the only buildings in this
city that are not eyesores, are the churches and their allied
structures. The American æsthetic credo is: Whatever’s big is
beautiful. These depressin’ gargantuan boxes with rectangular holes in
’em, which are called skyscrapers, are worshipped by Americans simply
because they’re huge. A box with forty rows of holes is twice as
beautiful as a box with twenty rows. Simple formula, what? . . . Look
at this little five-story affair across the street. It’s inf’nitely
lovelier—and more impressive, too—than any skyscraper in the
city. . . .”

Vance referred but once to the crime during our ride to the Club, and
then only indirectly.

“Kind hearts, y’ know, Markham, are more than coronets. I’ve done a
good deed to-day, and I feel pos’tively virtuous. Frau Platz will
_schlafen_ much better to-night. She has been frightfully upset about
little Gretchen. She’s a doughty old soul; motherly and all that. And
she couldn’t bear to think of the future Lady Vere de Vere being
suspected. . . . Wonder why she worried so?” And he gave Markham a sly
look.

Nothing further was said until after dinner, which we ate in the Roof
Garden. We had pushed back our chairs, and sat looking out over the
tree-tops of Madison Square.

“Now, Markham,” said Vance, “give over all prejudices, and consider
the situation judiciously—as you lawyers euphemistically put it. . . .
To begin with, we now know why Mrs. Platz was so worried at your
question regarding fire-arms, and why she was upset by my ref’rence to
her personal int’rest in Benson’s tea-companion. So, those two
mysteries are elim’nated. . . .”

“How did you find out about her relation to the girl?” interjected
Markham.

“’T was my ogling did it.” Vance gave him a reproving look. “You
recall that I ‘ogled’ the young lady at our first meeting,—but I
forgive you. . . . And you remember our little discussion about
cranial idiosyncrasies? Miss Hoffman, I noticed at once, possessed all
the physical formations of Benson’s housekeeper. She was
brachycephalic; she had over-articulated cheek-bones, an orthognathous
jaw, a low flat parietal structure, and a mesorrhinian nose. . . .
Then I looked for her ear, for I had noted that Mrs. Platz had the
pointed, lobeless, ‘satyr’ ear—sometimes called the Darwin ear. These
ears run in families; and when I saw that Miss Hoffman’s were of the
same type, even though modified, I was fairly certain of the
relationship. But there were other similarities—in pigment, for
instance; and in height,—both are tall, y’ know. And the central
masses of each were very large in comparison with the peripheral
masses: the shoulders were narrow and the wrists and ankles small,
while the hips were bulky. . . . That Hoffman was Platz’s maiden name
was only a guess. But it didn’t matter.”

Vance adjusted himself more comfortably in his chair.

“Now for your judicial considerations. . . . First, let us assume that
at a little before half past twelve on the night of the thirteenth the
villain came to Benson’s house, saw the light in the living-room,
tapped on the window, and was instantly admitted. . . . What, would
you say, do these assumptions indicate regarding the visitor?”

“Merely that Benson was acquainted with him,” returned Markham. “But
that doesn’t help us any. We can’t extend the _sus. per coll._ to
everybody the man knew.”

“The indications go much further than that, old chap,” Vance retorted.
“They show unmistakably that Benson’s murderer was a most intimate
crony, or, at least, a person before whom he didn’t care how he
looked. The absence of the toupee, as I once suggested to you, was a
prime essential of the situation. A toupee, don’t y’ know, is the
sartorial _sine qua non_ of every middle-aged Beau Brummel afflicted
with baldness. You heard Mrs. Platz on the subject. Do you think for a
second that Benson, who hid his hirsute deficiency even from the
grocer’s boy, would visit with a mere acquaintance thus bereft of his
crowning glory? And besides being thus denuded, he was without his
full complement of teeth. Moreover, he was without collar or tie, and
attired in an old smoking-jacket and bed-room slippers! Picture the
spectacle, my dear fellow. . . . A man does not look fascinatin’
without his collar and with his shirt-band and gold stud exposed. Thus
attired he is the equiv’lent of a lady in curl-papers. . . . How many
men do you think Benson knew with whom he would have sat down to a
_tête-à-tête_ in this undress condition?”

“Three or four, perhaps,” answered Markham. “But I can’t arrest them
all.”

“I’m sure you would if you could. But it won’t be necess’ry.”

Vance selected another cigarette from his case, and went on:

“There are other helpful indications, y’ know. For instance, the
murderer was fairly well acquainted with Benson’s domestic
arrangements. He must have known that the housekeeper slept a good
distance from the living-room and would not be startled by the shot if
her door was closed as usual. Also, he must have known there was no
one else in the house at that hour. And another thing: don’t forget
that his voice was perfectly familiar to Benson. If there had been the
slightest doubt about it Benson would not have let him in, in view of
his natural fear of house-breakers, and with the Captain’s threat
hanging over him.”

“That’s a tenable hypothesis. . . . What else?”

“The jewels, Markham—those orators of love. Have you thought of them?
They were on the center-table when Benson came home that night; and
they were gone in the morning. Wherefore, it seems inev’table that the
murderer took ’em—eh, what? . . . And may they not have been one
reason for the murderer’s coming there that night? If so, who of
Benson’s most intimate _personæ gratæ_ knew of their presence in the
house? And who wanted ’em particularly?”

“Exactly, Vance.” Markham nodded his head slowly. “You’ve hit it. I’ve
had an uneasy feeling about Pfyfe right along. I was on the point of
ordering his arrest to-day when Heath brought word of Leacock’s
confession; and then, when that blew up, my suspicions reverted to
him. I said nothing this afternoon because I wanted to see where your
ideas had led you. What you’ve been saying checks up perfectly with my
own notions. Pfyfe’s our man——”

He brought the front legs of his chair down suddenly.

“And now, damn it, you’ve let him get away from us!”

“Don’t fret, old dear,” said Vance. “He’s safe with Mrs. Pfyfe, I
fancy. And anyhow, your friend, Mr. Ben Hanlon, is well versed in
retrieving fugitives. . . . Let the harassed Leander alone for the
moment. You don’t need him to-night—and to-morrow you won’t want him.”

Markham wheeled about.

“What’s that!—I won’t want him? . . . And why, pray?”

“Well,” Vance explained indolently; “he hasn’t a congenial and lovable
nature, has he? And he’s not exactly an object of blindin’ beauty. I
shouldn’t want him around me more than was necess’ry, don’t y’
know. . . . Incidentally, he’s not guilty.”

Markham was too nonplussed to be exasperated. He regarded Vance
searchingly for a full minute.

“I don’t follow you,” he said. “If you think Pfyfe’s innocent, who, in
God’s name, do you think is guilty?”

Vance glanced at his watch.

“Come to my house to-morrow for breakfast, and bring those alibis you
asked Heath for; and I’ll tell you who shot Benson.”

Something in his tone impressed Markham. He realized that Vance would
not have made so specific a promise unless he was confident of his
ability to keep it. He knew Vance too well to ignore, or even
minimize, his statement.

“Why not tell me now?” he asked.

“Awf’lly sorry, y’ know,” apologized Vance; “but I’m going to the
Philharmonic’s ‘special’ to-night. They’re playing César Franck’s
D-minor, and Stransky’s temp’rament is em’nently suited to its
diatonic sentimentalities. . . . You’d better come along, old man.
Soothin’ to the nerves and all that.”

“Not me!” grumbled Markham. “What I need is a brandy-and-soda.”

He walked down with us to the taxicab.

“Come at nine to-morrow,” said Vance, as we took our seats. “Let the
office wait a bit. And don’t forget to ’phone Heath for those alibis.”

Then, just as we started off, he leaned out of the car.

“And I say, Markham: how tall would you say Mrs. Platz is?”



CHAPTER XXII.

Vance Outlines a Theory

  (Thursday, June 20; 9 a.m.)

Markham came to Vance’s apartment at promptly nine o’clock the next
morning. He was in bad humor.

“Now, see here, Vance,” he said, as soon as he was seated at the
table; “I want to know what was the meaning of your parting words last
night.”

“Eat your melon, old dear,” said Vance. “It comes from northern
Brazil, and is very delicious. But don’t devitalize its flavor with
pepper or salt. An amazin’ practice, that,—though not as amazin’ as
stuffing a melon with ice-cream. The American does the most
dumbfoundin’ things with ice-cream. He puts it on pie; he puts it in
soda-water; he encases it in hard chocolate like a _bon-bon_; he puts
it between sweet biscuits and calls the result an ice-cream sandwich;
he even uses it instead of whipped cream in a Charlotte Russe. . . .”

“What I want to know——” began Markham; but Vance did not permit him to
finish.

“It’s surprisin’, y’ know, the erroneous ideas people have about
melons. There are only two species—the muskmelon and the watermelon.
All breakfast melons—like cantaloups, citrons, nutmegs, Cassabas, and
Honeydews—are varieties of the muskmelon. But people have the notion,
d’ ye see, that cantaloup is a generic term. Philadelphians call all
melons cantaloups; whereas this type of muskmelon was first cultivated
in Cantalupo, Italy. . . .”

“Very interesting,” said Markham, with only partly disguised
impatience. “Did you intend by your remark last night——”

“And after the melon, Currie has prepared a special dish for you. It’s
my own gustat’ry _chef-d’œuvre_—with Currie’s collaboration, of
course. I’ve spent months on its conception—composing and organizing
it, so to speak. I haven’t named it yet,—perhaps you can suggest a
fitting appellation. . . . To achieve this dish, one first chops up a
hard-boiled egg and mixes it with grated _Port du Salut_ cheese,
adding a _soupçon_ of tarragon. This paste is then enclosed in a
_filet_ of white perch—like a French pancake. It is tied with silk,
rolled in a specially prepared almond batter, and cooked in sweet
butter.—That, of course, is the barest outline of its manufacture,
with all the truly exquisite details omitted.”

“It sounds appetizing.” Markham’s tone was devoid of enthusiasm. “But
I didn’t come here for a cooking lesson.”

“Y’ know, you underestimate the importance of your ventral pleasures,”
pursued Vance. “Eating is the one infallible guide to a people’s
intellectual advancement, as well as the inev’table gauge of the
individual’s temp’rament. The savage cooked and ate like a savage. In
the early days of the human race, mankind was cursed with one vast
epidemic of indigestion. There’s where his devils and demons and ideas
of hell came from: they were the nightmares of his dyspepsia. Then, as
man began to master the technique of cooking, he became civilized; and
when he achieved the highest pinnacles of the culin’ry art, he also
achieved the highest pinnacles of cultural and intellectual glory.
When the art of the _gourmet_ retrogressed, so did man. The tasteless,
standardized cookery of America is typical of our decadence. A
perfectly blended soup, Markham, is more ennoblin’ than Beethoven’s
C-minor Symphony. . . .”

Markham listened stolidly to Vance’s chatter during breakfast. He made
several attempts to bring up the subject of the crime, but Vance
glibly ignored each essay. It was not until Currie had cleared away
the dishes that he referred to the object of Markham’s visit.

“Did you bring the alibi reports?” was his first question.

Markham nodded.

“And it took me two hours to find Heath after you’d gone last night.”

“Sad,” breathed Vance.

He went to the desk, and took a closely written double sheet of
foolscap from one of the compartments.

“I wish you’d glance this over, and give me your learned opinion,” he
said, handing the paper to Markham. “I prepared it last night after
the concert.”

I later took possession of the document, and filed it with my other
notes and papers pertaining to the Benson case. The following is a
verbatim copy:

  Hypothesis

  Mrs. Anna Platz shot and killed Alvin Benson on the night of June
  13th.

  Place

  She lived in the house, and admitted being there at the time the
  shot was fired.

  Opportunity

  She was alone in the house with Benson.

  All the windows were either barred or locked on the inside. The
  front door was locked. There was no other means of ingress.

  Her presence in the living-room was natural: she might have entered
  ostensibly to ask Benson a domestic question.

  Her standing directly in front of him would not necessarily have
  caused him to look up. Hence, his reading attitude.

  Who else could have come so close to him for the purpose of shooting
  him, without attracting his attention?

  He would not have cared how he appeared before his housekeeper. He
  had become accustomed to being seen by her without his teeth and
  toupee and in négligé condition.

  Living in the house, she was able to choose a propitious moment for
  the crime.

  Time

  She waited up for him. Despite her denial, he might have told her
  when he would return.

  When he came in alone and changed to his smoking-jacket, she knew he
  was not expecting any late visitors.

  She chose a time shortly after his return because it would appear
  that he had brought someone home with him, and that this other
  person had killed him.

  Means

  She used Benson’s own gun. Benson undoubtedly had more than one; for
  he would have been more likely to keep a gun in his bed-room than in
  his living-room; and since a Smith and Wesson was found in the
  living-room, there probably was another in the bed-room.

  Being his housekeeper, she knew of the gun upstairs. After he had
  gone down to the living-room to read, she secured it, and took it
  with her, concealed under her apron.

  She threw the gun away or hid it after the shooting. She had all
  night in which to dispose of it.

  She was frightened when asked what fire-arms Benson kept about the
  house, for she was not sure whether or not we knew of the gun in the
  bed-room.

  Motive

  She took the position of housekeeper because she feared Benson’s
  conduct toward her daughter. She always listened when her daughter
  came to his house at night to work.

  Recently she discovered that Benson had dishonorable intentions, and
  believed her daughter to be in imminent danger.

  A mother who would sacrifice herself for her daughter’s future, as
  she has done, would not hesitate at killing to save her.

  And: there are the jewels. She has them hidden and is keeping them
  for her daughter. Would Benson have gone out and left them on the
  table? And if he had put them away, who but she, familiar with the
  house and having plenty of time, could have found them?

  Conduct

  She lied about St. Clair’s coming to tea, explaining later that she
  knew St. Clair could not have had anything to do with the crime. Was
  this feminine intuition? No. She could know St. Clair was innocent
  only because she herself was guilty. She was too motherly to want an
  innocent person suspected.

  She was markedly frightened yesterday when her daughter’s name was
  mentioned, because she feared the discovery of the relationship
  might reveal her motive for shooting Benson.

  She admitted hearing the shot, because, if she had denied it, a test
  might have proved that a shot in the living-room would have sounded
  loudly in her room; and this would have aroused suspicion against
  her. Does a person, when awakened, turn on the lights and determine
  the exact hour? And if she had heard a report which sounded like a
  shot being fired in the house, would she not have investigated, or
  given an alarm?

  When first interviewed, she showed plainly she disliked Benson.

  Her apprehension has been pronounced each time she has been
  questioned.

  She is the hard-headed, shrewd, determined German type, who could
  both plan and perform such a crime.

  Height

  She is about five feet, ten inches tall—the demonstrated height of
  the murderer.

Markham read this _précis_ through several times,—he was fully fifteen
minutes at the task,—and when he had finished he sat silent for ten
minutes more. Then he rose and walked up and down the room.

“Not a fancy legal document, that,” remarked Vance. “But I think even
a Grand Juror could understand it. You, of course, can rearrange and
elab’rate it, and bedeck it with innum’rable meaningless phrases and
recondite legal idioms.”

Markham did not answer at once. He paused by the French windows and
looked down into the street. Then he said:

“Yes, I think you’ve made out a case. . . . Extraordinary! I’ve
wondered from the first what you were getting at; and your questioning
of Platz yesterday impressed me as pointless. I’ll admit it never
occurred to me to suspect her. Benson must have given her good cause.”

He turned and came slowly toward us, his head down, his hands behind
him.

“I don’t like the idea of arresting her. . . . Funny I never thought
of her in connection with it.”

He stopped in front of Vance.

“And you yourself didn’t think of her at first, despite your boast
that you knew who did it after you’d been in Benson’s house five
minutes.”

Vance smiled mirthfully, and sprawled in his chair.

Markham became indignant.

“Damn it! You told me the next day that no woman could have done it,
no matter what evidence was adduced, and harangued me about art and
psychology and God knows what.”

“Quite right,” murmured Vance, still smiling. “No woman did it.”

“No woman did it!” Markham’s gorge was rising rapidly.

“Oh, dear no!”

He pointed to the sheet of paper in Markham’s hand.

“That’s just a bit of spoofing, don’t y’ know. . . . Poor old Mrs.
Platz!—she’s as innocent as a lamb.”

Markham threw the paper on the table and sat down. I had never seen
him so furious; but he controlled himself admirably.

“Y’ see, my dear old bean,” explained Vance, in his unemotional drawl,
“I had an irresistible longing to demonstrate to you how utterly silly
your circumst’ntial and material evidence is. I’m rather proud, y’
know, of my case against Mrs. Platz. I’m sure you could convict her on
the strength of it. But, like the whole theory of your exalted law,
it’s wholly specious and erroneous. . . . Circumst’ntial evidence,
Markham, is the utt’rest tommyrot imag’nable. Its theory is not unlike
that of our present-day democracy. The democratic theory is that if
you accumulate enough ignorance at the polls you produce intelligence;
and the theory of circumst’ntial evidence is that if you accumulate a
sufficient number of weak links you produce a strong chain.”

“Did you get me here this morning,” demanded Markham coldly, “to give
me a dissertation on legal theory?”

“Oh, no,” Vance blithely assured him. “But I simply must prepare you
for the acceptance of my revelation; for I haven’t a scrap of material
or circumst’ntial evidence against the guilty man. And yet, Markham, I
know he’s guilty as well as I know you’re sitting in that chair
planning how you can torture and kill me without being punished.”

“If you have no evidence, how did you arrive at your conclusion?”
Markham’s tone was vindictive.

“Solely by psychological analysis—by what might be called the science
of personal possibilities. A man’s psychological nature is as clear a
brand to one who can read it as was Hester Prynne’s scarlet
letter. . . . I never read Hawthorne, by the bye. I can’t abide the
New England temp’rament.”

Markham set his jaw, and gave Vance a look of arctic ferocity.

“You expect me to go into court, I suppose, leading your victim by the
arm, and say to the Judge: ‘Here’s the man that shot Alvin Benson. I
have no evidence against him, but I want you to sentence him to death,
because my brilliant and sagacious friend, Mr. Philo Vance, the
inventor of stuffed perch, says this man has a wicked nature.’”

Vance gave an almost imperceptible shrug.

“I sha’n’t wither away with grief if you don’t even arrest the guilty
man. But I thought it no more than humane to tell you who he was, if
only to stop you from chivvying all these innocent people.”

“All right—tell me; and let me get on about my business.”

I don’t believe there was any longer a question in Markham’s mind that
Vance actually knew who had killed Benson. But it was not until
considerably later in the morning that he fully understood why Vance
had kept him for days upon tenter-hooks. When, at last, he did
understand it, he forgave Vance; but at the moment he was angered to
the limit of his control.

“There are one or two things that must be done before I can reveal the
gentleman’s name,” Vance told him. “First, let me have a peep at those
alibis.”

Markham took from his pocket a sheaf of typewritten pages and passed
them over.

Vance adjusted his monocle, and read through them carefully. Then he
stepped out of the room; and I heard him telephoning. When he returned
he re-read the reports. One in particular he lingered over, as if
weighing its possibilities.

“There’s a chance, y’ know,” he murmured at length, gazing
indecisively into the fireplace.

He glanced at the report again.

“I see here,” he said, “that Colonel Ostrander, accompanied by a Bronx
alderman named Moriarty, attended the Midnight Follies at the
Piccadilly Theatre in Forty-seventh Street on the night of the
thirteenth, arriving there a little before twelve and remaining
through the performance, which was over about half past two a.m. . . .
Are you acquainted with this particular alderman?”

Markham’s eyes lifted sharply to the other’s face.

“I’ve met Mr. Moriarty. What about him?” I thought I detected a note
of suppressed excitement in his voice.

“Where do Bronx aldermen loll about in the forenoons?” asked Vance.

“At home, I should say. Or possibly at the Samoset Club. . . .
Sometimes they have business at City Hall.”

“My word!—such unseemly activity for a politician! . . . Would you
mind ascertaining if Mr. Moriarty is at home or at his club. If it’s
not too much bother, I’d like to have a brief word with him.”

Markham gave Vance a penetrating gaze. Then, without a word, he went
to the telephone in the den.

“Mr. Moriarty was at home, about to leave for City Hall,” he
announced, on returning. “I asked him to drop by here on his way down
town.”

“I do hope he doesn’t disappoint us,” sighed Vance. “But it’s worth
trying.”

“Are you composing a charade?” asked Markham; but there was neither
humor nor good-nature in the question.

“’Pon my word, old man, I’m not trying to confuse the main issue,”
said Vance. “Exert a little of that simple faith with which you are so
gen’rously supplied,—it’s more desirable than Norman blood, y’ know.
I’ll give you the guilty man before the morning’s over. But, d’ ye
see, I must make sure that you’ll accept him. These alibis are, I
trust, going to prove most prof’table in paving the way for my _coup
de boutoir_. . . . An alibi—as I recently confided to you—is a tricky
and dang’rous thing, and open to grave suspicion. And the absence of
an alibi means nothing at all. For instance, I see by these reports
that Miss Hoffman has no alibi for the night of the thirteenth. She
says she went to a motion-picture theatre and then home. But no one
saw her at any time. She was prob’bly at Benson’s visiting mama until
late. Looks suspicious—eh, what? And yet, even if she was there, her
only crime that night was filial affection. . . . On the other hand,
there are several alibis here which are, as one says, cast-iron,—silly
metaphor: cast iron’s easily broken—, and I happen to know one of ’em
is spurious. So be a good fellow and have patience; for it’s most
necess’ry that these alibis be minutely inspected.”

Fifteen minutes later Mr. Moriarty arrived. He was a serious,
good-looking, well-dressed youth in his late twenties—not at all my
idea of an alderman—, and he spoke clear and precise English with
almost no trace of the Bronx accent.

Markham introduced him, and briefly explained why he had been
requested to call.

“One of the men from the Homicide Bureau,” answered Moriarty, “was
asking me about the matter, only yesterday.”

“We have the report,” said Vance, “but it’s a bit too general. Will
you tell us exactly what you did that night after you met Colonel
Ostrander?”

“The Colonel had invited me to dinner and the Follies. I met him at
the Marseilles at ten. We had dinner there, and went to the Piccadilly
a little before twelve, where we remained until about two-thirty. I
walked to the Colonel’s apartment with him, had a drink and a chat,
and then took the subway home about three-thirty.”

“You told the detective yesterday you sat in a box at the theatre.”

“That’s correct.”

“Did you and the Colonel remain in the box throughout the
performance?”

“No. After the first act a friend of mine came to the box, and the
Colonel excused himself and went to the wash-room. After the second
act, the Colonel and I stepped outside into the alley-way and had a
smoke.”

“What time, would you say, was the first act over?”

“Twelve-thirty or thereabouts.”

“And where is this alley-way situated?” asked Vance. “As I recall, it
runs along the side of the theatre to the street.”

“You’re right.”

“And isn’t there an ‘exit’ door very near the boxes, which leads into
the alley-way?”

“There is. We used it that night.”

“How long was the Colonel gone after the first act?”

“A few minutes—I couldn’t say exactly.”

“Had he returned when the curtain went up on the second act?”

Moriarty reflected.

“I don’t believe he had. I think he came back a few minutes after the
act began.”

“Ten minutes?”

“I couldn’t say. Certainly no more.”

“Then, allowing for a ten-minute intermission, the Colonel might have
been away twenty minutes?”

“Yes—it’s possible.”

This ended the interview; and when Moriarty had gone, Vance lay back
in his chair and smoked thoughtfully.

“Surprisin’ luck!” he commented. “The Piccadilly Theatre, y’ know, is
practically round the corner from Benson’s house. You grasp the
possibilities of the situation, what? . . . The Colonel invites an
alderman to the Midnight Follies, and gets box seats near an exit
giving on an alley. At a little before half past twelve he leaves the
box, sneaks out via the alley, goes to Benson’s, taps and is admitted,
shoots his man, and hurries back to the theatre. Twenty minutes would
have been ample.”

Markham straightened up, but made no comment.

“And now,” continued Vance, “let’s look at the indicat’ry
circumst’nces and the confirmat’ry facts. . . . Miss St. Clair told us
the Colonel had lost heavily in a pool of Benson’s manipulation, and
had accused him of crookedness. He hadn’t spoken to Benson for a week;
so it’s plain there was bad blood between ’em.—He saw Miss St. Clair
at the Marseilles with Benson; and, knowing she always went home at
midnight, he chose half past twelve as a propitious hour; although
originally he may have intended to wait until much later; say,
one-thirty or two—before sneaking out of the theatre.—Being an army
officer, he would have had a Colt forty-five; and he was probably a
good shot.—He was most anxious to have you arrest someone—he didn’t
seem to care who; and he even ’phoned you to inquire about it.—He was
one of the very few persons in the world whom Benson would have
admitted, attired as he was. He’d known Benson int’mately for fifteen
years, and Mrs. Platz once saw Benson take off his toupee and show it
to him.—Moreover, he would have known all about the domestic
arrangements of the house: he no doubt had slept there many a time
when showing his old pal the wonders of New York’s night life. . . .
How does all that appeal to you?”

Markham had risen, and was pacing the floor, his eyes almost closed.

“So that was why you were so interested in the Colonel—asking people
if they knew him, and inviting him to lunch? . . . What gave you the
idea, in the first place, that he was guilty?”

“Guilty!” exclaimed Vance. “That priceless old dunderhead guilty!
Really, Markham, the notion’s prepost’rous. I’m sure he went to the
wash-room that night to comb his eyebrows and arrange his tie.
Sitting, as he was, in a box, the gels on the stage could see him, y’
know.”

Markham halted abruptly. An ugly color crept into his cheeks, and his
eyes blazed. But before he could speak Vance went on, with serene
indifference to his anger.

“And I played in the most astonishin’ luck. Still, he’s just the kind
of ancient popinjay who’d go to the wash-room and dandify himself,—I
rather counted on that, don’t y’ know. . . . My word! We’ve made
amazin’ progress this morning, despite your injured feelings. You now
have five different people, any one of whom you can, with a little
legal ingenuity, convict of the crime,—in any event, you can get
indictments against ’em.”

He leaned his head back meditatively.

“First, there’s Miss St. Clair. You were quite pos’tive she did the
deed, and you told the Major you were all ready to arrest her. My
demonstration of the murderer’s height could be thrown out on the
grounds that it was intelligent and conclusive, and therefore had no
place in a court of law. I’m sure the judge would concur.—Secondly, I
give you Captain Leacock. I actu’lly had to use physical force to keep
you from jailing the chap. You had a beautiful case against him—to say
nothing of his delightful confession. And if you met with any
diff’culties, he’d help you out: he’d adore having you convict
him.—Thirdly, I submit Leander the Lovely. You had a better case
against him than against almost any one of the others—a perfect wealth
of circumst’ntial evidence—an _embarras de richesse_, in fact. And any
jury would delight in convicting him,—I would, myself, if only for the
way he dresses.—Fourthly, I point with pride to Mrs. Platz. Another
perfect circumst’ntial case, fairly bulging with clues and inf’rences
and legal whatnots.—Fifthly, I present the Colonel. I have just
rehearsed your case against him; and I could elab’rate it touchin’ly,
given a little more time.”

He paused, and gave Markham a smile of cynical affability.

“Observe, please, that each member of this quintette meets all the
demands of presumptive guilt: each one fulfills the legal requirements
as to time, place, opportunity, means, motive, and conduct. The only
drawback, d’ ye see, is that all five are quite innocent. A most
discomposin’ fact—but there you are. . . . Now, if all the people
against whom there’s the slightest suspicion, are innocent, what’s to
be done? . . . Annoyin’, ain’t it?”

He picked up the alibi reports.

“There’s pos’tively nothing to be done but to go on checking up these
alibis.”

I could not imagine what goal he was trying to reach by these
apparently irrelevant digressions; and Markham, too, was mystified.
But neither of us doubted for a moment that there was method in his
madness.

“Let’s see,” he mused. “The Major’s is the next in order. What do you
say to tackling it? It shouldn’t take long: he lives near here; and
the entire alibi hinges on the evidence of the night-boy at his
apartment-house.—Come!” He got up.

“How do you know the boy is there now?” objected Markham.

“I ’phoned a while ago and found out.”

“But this is damned nonsense!”

Vance now had Markham by the arm, playfully urging him toward the
door.

“Oh, undoubtedly,” he agreed. “But I’ve often told you, old dear, you
take life much too seriously.”

Markham, protesting vigorously, held back, and endeavored to disengage
his arm from the other’s grip. But Vance was determined; and after a
somewhat heated dispute, Markham gave in.

“I’m about through with this hocus-pocus,” he growled, as we got into
a taxicab.

“I’m through already,” said Vance.



CHAPTER XXIII.

Checking an Alibi

  (Thursday, June 20; 10.30 a.m.)

The Chatham Arms, where Major Benson lived, was a small exclusive
bachelor apartment-house in Forty-sixth Street, midway between Fifth
and Sixth Avenues. The entrance, set in a simple and dignified façade,
was flush with the street, and only two steps above the pavement. The
front door opened into a narrow hallway with a small reception room,
like a _cul-de-sac_, on the left. At the rear could be seen the
elevator; and beside it, tucked under a narrow flight of iron stairs
which led round the elevator shaft, was a telephone switchboard.

When we arrived two youths in uniform were on duty, one lounging in
the door of the elevator, the other seated at the switchboard.

Vance halted Markham near the entrance.

“One of these boys, I was informed over the telephone, was on duty the
night of the thirteenth. Find out which one it was, and scare him into
submission by your exalted title of District Attorney. Then turn him
over to me.”

Reluctantly Markham walked down the hallway. After a brief
interrogation of the boys, he led one of them into the reception room,
and peremptorily explained what he wanted.*

   * The boy was Jack Prisco, of 621 Kelly Street.

[Illustration: First floor of Chatham Arms Apartment in West
Forty-sixth Street. A plan of the ground floor of an apartment
building in West 46th Street. The entrance is on the south side, and
an entrance hall leads into a room with an elevator. Stairs wind
around an elevator shaft, and a small room containing a telephone
switchboard is next to the elevator doors, underneath the stairs. To
the left of the entrance hall is a reception room.]

Vance began his questioning with the confident air of one who has no
doubt whatever as to another’s exact knowledge.

“What time did Major Benson get home the night his brother was shot?”

The boy’s eyes opened wide.

“He came in about ’leven—right after show time,” he answered, with
only a momentary hesitation.

(I have set down the rest of the questions and answers in
dramatic-dialogue form, for purposes of space economy.)

Vance: He spoke to you, I suppose?

Boy: Yes, sir. He told me he’d been to the theatre, and said what a
rotten show it was—and that he had an awful headache.

Vance: How do you happen to remember so well what he said a week ago?

Boy: Why, his brother was murdered that night!

Vance: And the murder caused so much excitement that you naturally
recalled everything that happened at the time in connection with Major
Benson?

Boy: Sure—he was the murdered guy’s brother.

Vance: When he came in that night did he say anything about the day of
the month?

Boy: Nothin’ except that he guessed his bad luck in pickin’ a bum show
was on account of it bein’ the thirteenth.

Vance: Did he say anything else?

Boy (_grinning_): He said he’d make the thirteenth my lucky day, and
he gave me all the silver he had in his pocket—nickels and dimes and
quarters and one fifty-cent piece.

Vance: How much altogether?

Boy: Three dollars and forty-five cents.

Vance: And then he went to his room?

Boy: Yes, sir—I took him up. He lives on the third floor.

Vance: Did he go out again later?

Boy: No, sir.

Vance: How do you know?

Boy: I’d ’ve seen him. I was either answerin’ the switchboard or
runnin’ the elevator all night. He couldn’t ’ve got out without my
seein’ him.

Vance: Were you alone on duty?

Boy: After ten o’clock there’s never but one boy on.

Vance: And there’s no other way a person could leave the house except
by the front door?

Boy: No, sir.

Vance: When did you next see Major Benson?

Boy (_after thinking a moment_): He rang for some cracked ice, and I
took it up.

Vance: What time?

Boy: Why—I don’t know exactly. . . . Yes, I do! It was half past
twelve.

Vance (_smiling faintly_): He asked you the time, perhaps?

Boy: Yes, sir, he did. He asked me to look at his clock in his parlor.

Vance: How did he happen to do that?

Boy: Well, I took up the ice, and he was in bed; and he asked me to
put it in his pitcher in the parlor. When I was doin’ it he called to
me to look at the clock on the mantel and tell him what time it was.
He said his watch had stopped and he wanted to set it.

Vance: What did he say then?

Boy: Nothin’ much. He told me not to ring his bell, no matter who
called up. He said he wanted to sleep, and didn’t want to be woke up.

Vance: Was he emphatic about it?

Boy: Well—he meant it, all right.

Vance: Did he say anything else?

Boy: No. He just said good-night and turned out the light, and I came
on downstairs.

Vance: What light did he turn out?

Boy: The one in his bed-room.

Vance: Could you see into his bed-room from the parlor?

Boy: No. The bed-room’s off the hall.

Vance: How could you tell the light was turned off then?

Boy: The bed-room door was open, and the light was shinin’ into the
hall.

Vance: Did you pass the bed-room door when you went out?

Boy: Sure—you have to.

Vance: And was the door still open?

Boy: Yes.

Vance: Is that the only door to the bed-room?

Boy: Yes.

Vance: Where was Major Benson when you entered the apartment?

Boy: In bed.

Vance: How do you know?

Boy (_mildly indignant_): I saw him.

Vance (_after a pause_): You’re quite sure he didn’t come downstairs
again?

Boy: I told you I’d ’ve seen him if he had.

Vance: Couldn’t he have walked down at some time when you had the
elevator upstairs, without your seeing him?

Boy: Sure, he could. But I didn’t take the elevator up after I’d took
the Major his cracked ice until round two-thirty, when Mr. Montagu
came in.

Vance: You took no one up in the elevator, then, between the time you
brought Major Benson the ice and when Mr. Montagu came in at
two-thirty?

Boy: Nobody.

Vance: And you didn’t leave the hall here between those hours?

Boy: No. I was sittin’ here all the time.

Vance: Then the last time you saw him was in bed at twelve-thirty?

Boy: Yes—until early in the morning when some dame* ’phoned him and
said his brother had been murdered. He came down and went out about
ten minutes after.

   * Obviously Mrs. Platz.

Vance (_giving the boy a dollar_): That’s all. But don’t you open your
mouth to anyone about our being here, or you may find yourself in the
lock-up—understand? . . . Now, get back to your job.

When the boy had left us, Vance turned a pleading gaze upon Markham.

“Now, old man, for the protection of society, and the higher demands
of justice, and the greatest good for the greatest number, and _pro
bono publico_, and that sort of thing, you must once more adopt a
course of conduct contr’ry to your innate promptings—or whatever the
phrase you used. Vulgarly put, I want to snoop through the Major’s
apartment at once.”

“What for?” Markham’s tone was one of exclamatory protest. “Have you
completely lost your senses? There’s no getting round the boy’s
testimony. I may be weak-minded, but I know when a witness like that
is telling the truth.”

“Certainly, he’s telling the truth,” agreed Vance serenely. “That’s
just why I want to go up.—Come, my Markham. There’s no danger of the
Major returning _en surprise_ at this hour. . . . And”—he smiled
cajolingly—“you promised me every assistance, don’t y’ know.”

Markham was vehement in his remonstrances, but Vance was equally
vehement in his insistence; and a few minutes later we were
trespassing, by means of a pass-key, in Major Benson’s apartment.

The only entrance was a door leading from the public hall into a
narrow passageway which extended straight ahead into the living-room
at the rear. On the right of this passageway, near the entrance, was a
door opening into the bed-room.

Vance walked directly back into the living-room. On the right-hand
wall was a fireplace and a mantel on which sat an old-fashioned
mahogany clock. Near the mantel, in the far corner, stood a small
table containing a silver ice-water service consisting of a pitcher
and six goblets.

[Illustration: Third floor of Chatham Arms Apartment in West
Forty-sixth Street. The floor plan of an apartment. The front door
opens into a hallway that leads past a bedroom door into a living
room. In the living room is a clock on the fireplace mantel, and a
round table in the far corner. In the bedroom is a bed facing the
door. A night table stands by the bed, and a lamp is on the night
table.]

“There is our very convenient clock,” said Vance. “And there is the
pitcher in which the boy put the ice—imitation Sheffield plate.”

Going to the window he glanced down into the paved rear court
twenty-five or thirty feet below.

“The Major certainly couldn’t have escaped through the window,” he
remarked.

He turned and stood a moment looking into the passageway.

“The boy could easily have seen the light go out in the bed-room, if
the door was open. The reflection on the glazed white wall of the
passage would have been quite brilliant.”

Then, retracing his steps, he entered the bed-room. It contained a
small canopied bed facing the door, and beside it stood a night-table
on which was an electric lamp. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he
looked about him, and turned the lamp on and off by the socket-chain.
Presently he fixed his eyes on Markham.

“You see how the Major got out without the boy’s knowing it—eh, what?”

“By levitation, I suppose,” submitted Markham.

“It amounted to that, at any rate,” replied Vance. “Deuced ingenious,
too. . . . Listen, Markham:—At half past twelve the Major rang for
cracked ice. The boy brought it, and when he entered he looked in
through the door, which was open, and saw the Major in bed. The Major
told him to put the ice in the pitcher in the living-room. The boy
walked on down the passage and across the living-room to the table in
the corner. The Major then called to him to learn the time by the
clock on the mantel. The boy looked: it was half past twelve. The
Major replied that he was not to be disturbed again, said good-night,
turned off this light on this night-table, jumped out of bed—he was
dressed, of course—and stepped quickly out into the public hall before
the boy had time to empty the ice and return to the passage. The Major
ran down the stairs and was in the street before the elevator
descended. The boy, when he passed the bed-room door on his way out,
could not have seen whether the Major was still in bed or not, even if
he had looked in, for the room was then in darkness.—Clever, what?”

“The thing would have been possible, of course,” conceded Markham.
“But your specious imaginings fail to account for his return.”

“That was the simplest part of the scheme. He prob’bly waited in a
doorway across the street for some other tenant to go in. The boy said
a Mr. Montagu returned about two-thirty. Then the Major slipped in
when he knew the elevator had ascended, and walked up the stairs.”

Markham, smiling patiently, said nothing.

“You perceived,” continued Vance, “the pains taken by the Major to
establish the date and the hour, and to impress them on the boy’s
mind. Poor show—headache—unlucky day. Why unlucky? The thirteenth, to
be sure. But lucky for the boy. A handful of money—all silver.
Singular way of tipping, what? But a dollar bill might have been
forgotten.”

A shadow clouded Markham’s face, but his voice was as indulgently
impersonal as ever.

“I prefer your case against Mrs. Platz.”

“Ah, but I’ve not finished.” Vance stood up. “I have hopes of finding
the weapon, don’t y’ know.”

Markham now studied him with amused incredulity.

“That, of course, would be a contributory factor. . . . You really
expect to find it?”

“Without the slightest diff’culty,” Vance pleasantly assured him.

He went to the chiffonier and began opening the drawers.

“Our absent host didn’t leave the pistol at Alvin’s house; and he was
far too canny to throw it away. Being a major in the late war, he’d be
expected to have such a weapon: in fact, several persons may actu’lly
have known he possessed one. And if he is innocent—as he fully expects
us to assume—why shouldn’t it be in its usual place? Its absence, d’
ye see, would be more incriminatin’ than its presence. Also, there’s a
most int’restin’ psychological factor involved. An innocent person who
was afraid of being thought guilty, would have hidden it, or thrown it
away—like Captain Leacock, for example. But a guilty man, wishing to
create an appearance of innocence, would have put it back exactly
where it was before the shooting.”

He was still searching through the chiffonier.

“Our only problem, then, is to discover the custom’ry abiding place of
the Major’s gun. . . . It’s not here in the chiffonier,” he added,
closing the last drawer.

He opened a kit-bag standing at the foot of the bed, and rifled its
contents.

“Nor here,” he murmured indifferently. “The clothes-closet is the only
other likely place.”

Going across the room, he opened the closet door. Unhurriedly he
switched on the light. There, on the upper shelf, in plain view, lay
an army belt with a bulging holster.

Vance lifted it with extreme delicacy and placed it on the bed near
the window.

“There you are, old chap,” he cheerfully announced, bending over it
closely. “Please take particular note that the entire belt and
holster—with only the exception of the holster’s flap—is thickly
coated with dust. The flap is comparatively clean, showing it has been
opened recently. . . . Not conclusive, of course; but you’re so
partial to clues, Markham.”

He carefully removed the pistol from the holster.

“Note, also, that the gun itself is innocent of dust. It has been
recently cleaned, I surmise.”

His next act was to insert a corner of his handkerchief into the
barrel. Then, withdrawing it, he held it up.

“You see—eh, what? Even the inside of the barrel is immaculate. . . .
And I’ll wager all my Cézannes against an LL.B. degree, that there
isn’t a cartridge missing.”

He extracted the magazine, and poured the cartridges onto the
night-table, where they lay in a neat row before us. There were
seven—the full number for that style of gun.

“Again, Markham, I present you with one of your revered clues.
Cartridges that remain in a magazine for a long time become slightly
tarnished, for the catch-plate is not air-tight. But a fresh box of
cartridges is well sealed, and its contents retain their lustre much
longer.”

He pointed to the first cartridge that had rolled out of the magazine.

“Observe that this one cartridge—the last to be inserted into the
magazine—is a bit brighter than its fellows. The inf’rence is—you’re
an adept at inf’rences, y’ know—that it is a newer cartridge, and was
placed in the magazine rather recently.”

He looked straight into Markham’s eyes.

“It was placed there to take the place of the one which Captain
Hagedorn is keeping.”

Markham lifted his head jerkily, as if shaking himself out of an
encroaching spell of hypnosis. He smiled, but with an effort.

“I still think your case against Mrs. Platz is your masterpiece.”

“My picture of the Major is merely blocked in,” answered Vance. “The
revealin’ touches are to come. But first, a brief catechism: . . . How
did the Major know that brother Alvin would be home at twelve-thirty
on the night of the thirteenth?—He heard Alvin invite Miss St. Clair
to dinner—remember Miss Hoffman’s story of his eavesdropping?—and he
also heard her say she’d unfailingly leave at midnight. When I said
yesterday, after we had left Miss St. Clair, that something she told
us would help convict the guilty person, I referred to her statement
that midnight was her invariable hour of departure. The Major
therefore knew Alvin would be home about half past twelve, and he was
pretty sure that no one else would be there. In any event, he could
have waited for him, what? . . . Could he have secured an immediate
audience with his brother _en déshabillé_?—Yes. He tapped on the
window: his voice was recognized beyond any shadow of doubt; and he
was admitted instanter. Alvin had no sartorial modesties in front of
his brother, and would have thought nothing of receiving him without
his teeth and toupee. . . . Is the Major the right height?—He is. I
purposely stood beside him in your office the other day; and he is
almost exactly five feet, ten and a half.”

Markham sat staring silently at the disembowelled pistol. Vance had
been speaking in a voice quite different from that he had used when
constructing his hypothetical cases against the others; and Markham
had sensed the change.

“We now come to the jewels,” Vance was saying. “I once expressed the
belief, you remember, that when we found the security for Pfyfe’s
note, we would put our hands on the murderer. I thought then the Major
had the jewels; and after Miss Hoffman told us of his requesting her
not to mention the package, I was sure of it. Alvin took them home on
the afternoon of the thirteenth, and the Major undoubtedly knew it.
This fact, I imagine, influenced his decision to end Alvin’s life that
night. He wanted those baubles, Markham.”

He rose jauntily and stepped to the door.

“And now, it remains only to find ’em. . . . The murderer took ’em
away with him; they couldn’t have left the house any other way.
Therefore, they’re in this apartment. If the Major had taken them to
the office, someone might have seen them; and if he had placed them in
a safe deposit-box, the clerk at the bank might have remembered the
episode. Moreover, the same psychology that applies to the gun,
applies to the jewels. The Major has acted throughout on the
assumption of his innocence; and, as a matter of fact, the trinkets
were safer here than elsewhere. There’d be time enough to dispose of
them when the affair blew over. . . . Come with me a moment, Markham.
It’s painful, I know; and your heart’s too weak for an anæsthetic.”

Markham followed him down the passageway in a kind of daze. I felt a
great sympathy for the man, for now there was no question that he knew
Vance was serious in his demonstration of the Major’s guilt. Indeed, I
have always felt that Markham suspected the true purpose of Vance’s
request to investigate the Major’s alibi, and that his opposition was
due as much to his fear of the results as to his impatience with the
other’s irritating methods. Not that he would have balked ultimately
at the truth, despite his long friendship for Major Benson; but he was
struggling—as I see it now—with the inevitability of circumstances,
hoping against hope that he had read Vance incorrectly, and that, by
vigorously contesting each step of the way, he might alter the very
shape of destiny itself.

Vance led the way to the living-room, and stood for five minutes
inspecting the various pieces of furniture, while Markham remained in
the doorway watching him through narrowed lids, his hands crowded deep
into his pockets.

“We could, of course, have an expert searcher rake the apartment over
inch by inch,” observed Vance. “But I don’t think it necess’ry. The
Major’s a bold, cunning soul: witness his wide square forehead, the
dominating stare of his globular eyes, the perpendicular spine, and
the indrawn abdomen. He’s forthright in all his mental operations.
Like Poe’s Minister D——, he would recognize the futility of
painstakingly secreting the jewels in some obscure corner. And anyhow,
he had no object in secreting them. He merely wished to hide ’em where
there’d be no chance of their being seen. This naturally suggests a
lock and key, what? There was no such _cache_ in the bed-room—which is
why I came here.”

He walked to a squat rose-wood desk in the corner, and tried all its
drawers; but they were unlocked. He next tested the table drawer; but
that, too, was unlocked. A small Spanish cabinet by the window proved
equally disappointing.

“Markham, I simply must find a locked drawer,” he said.

He inspected the room again, and was about to return to the bed-room
when his eye fell on a Circassian-walnut humidor half hidden by a pile
of magazines on the under-shelf of the center-table. He stopped
abruptly, and going quickly to the box, endeavored to lift the top. It
was locked.

“Let’s see,” he mused: “what does the Major smoke? _Romeo y Julieta
Perfeccionados_, I believe—but they’re not sufficiently valuable to
keep under lock and key.”

He picked up a strong bronze paper-knife lying on the table, and
forced its point into the crevice of the humidor just above the lock.

“You can’t do that!” cried Markham; and there was as much pain as
reprimand in his voice.

Before he could reach Vance, however, there was a sharp click, and the
lid flew open. Inside was a blue-velvet jewel-case.

“Ah! ‘Dumb jewels more quick than words,’” said Vance, stepping back.

Markham stood staring into the humidor with an expression of tragic
distress. Then slowly he turned and sank heavily into a chair.

“Good God!” he murmured. “I don’t know what to believe.”

“In that respect,” returned Vance, “you’re in the same disheartenin’
predic’ment as all the philosophers.—But you were ready enough, don’t
y’ know, to believe in the guilt of half a dozen innocent people. Why
should you gag at the Major, who actu’lly is guilty?”

His tone was contemptuous, but a curious, inscrutable look in his eyes
belied his voice; and I remembered that, although these two men were
welded in an indissoluble friendship, I had never heard a word of
sentiment, or even sympathy, pass between them.

Markham had leaned forward in an attitude of hopelessness, elbows on
knees, his head in his hands.

“But the motive!” he urged. “A man doesn’t shoot his brother for a
handful of jewels.”

“Certainly not,” agreed Vance. “The jewels were a mere addendum. There
was a vital motive—rest assured. And, I fancy, when you get your
report from the expert accountant, all—or at least a goodly part—will
be revealed.”

“So that was why you wanted his books examined?”

Markham stood up resolutely.

“Come: I’m going to see this thing through.”

Vance did not move at once. He was intently studying a small antique
candlestick of oriental design on the mantel.

“I say!” he muttered. “That’s a dev’lish fine copy!”



CHAPTER XXIV.

The Arrest

  (Thursday, June 20; noon.)

On leaving the apartment, Markham took with him the pistol and the
case of jewels. In the drug store at the corner of Sixth Avenue he
telephoned Heath to meet him immediately at the office, and to bring
Captain Hagedorn. He also telephoned Stitt, the public accountant, to
report as soon as possible.

“You observe, I trust,” said Vance, when we were in the taxicab headed
for the Criminal Courts Building, “the great advantage of my methods
over yours. When one knows at the outset who committed a crime, one
isn’t misled by appearances. Without that foreknowledge, one is apt to
be deceived by a clever alibi, for example. . . . I asked you to
secure the alibis because, knowing the Major was guilty, I thought
he’d have prepared a good one.”

“But why ask for all of them? And why waste time trying to disprove
Colonel Ostrander’s?”

“What chance would I have had of securing the Major’s alibi, if I had
not injected his name surreptitiously, as it were, into a list of
other names? . . . And had I asked you to check the Major’s alibi
first, you’d have refused. I chose the Colonel’s alibi to start with
because it seemed to offer a loop-hole,—and I was lucky in the choice.
I knew that if I could puncture one of the other alibis, you would be
more inclined to help me test the Major’s.”

“But if, as you say, you knew from the first that the Major was
guilty, why, in God’s name, didn’t you tell me, and save me this week
of anxiety?”

“Don’t be ingenuous, old man,” returned Vance. “If I had accused the
Major at the beginning, you’d have had me arrested for _scandalum
magnatum_ and criminal libel. It was only by deceivin’ you every
minute about the Major’s guilt, and drawing a whole school of red
herrings across the trail, that I was able to get you to accept the
fact even to-day. And yet, not once did I actu’lly lie to you. I was
constantly throwing out suggestions, and pointing to significant
facts, in the hope that you’d see the light for yourself; but you
ignored all my intimations, or else misinterpreted them, with the most
irritatin’ perversity.”

Markham was silent a moment.

“I see what you mean. But why did you keep setting up these straw men
and then knocking them over?”

“You were bound, body and soul, to circumst’ntial evidence,” Vance
pointed out. “It was only by letting you see that it led you nowhere
that I was able to foist the Major on you. There was no evidence
against him,—he naturally saw to that. No one even regarded him as a
possibility: fratricide has been held as inconceivable—a _lusus
naturæ_—since the days of Cain. Even with all my finessing you fought
every inch of the way, objectin’ to this and that, and doing
everything imag’nable to thwart my humble efforts. . . . Admit, like a
good fellow, that, had it not been for my assiduousness, the Major
would never have been suspected.”

Markham nodded slowly.

“And yet, there are some things I don’t understand even now. Why, for
instance, should he have objected so strenuously to my arresting the
Captain?”

Vance wagged his head.

“How deuced obvious you are! Never attempt a crime, my Markham,—you’d
be instantly apprehended. I say, can’t you see how much more
impregnable the Major’s position would be if he showed no int’rest in
your arrests—if, indeed, he appeared actu’lly to protest against your
incarc’ration of a victim. Could he, by any other means, have
elim’nated so completely all possible suspicion against himself?
Moreover, he knew very well that nothing he could say would swerve you
from your course. You’re so noble, don’t y’ know.”

“But he did give me the impression once or twice that he thought Miss
St. Clair was guilty.”

“Ah! There you have a shrewd intelligence taking advantage of an
opportunity. The Major unquestionably planned the crime so as to cast
suspicion on the Captain. Leacock had publicly threatened his brother
in connection with Miss St. Clair; and the lady was about to dine
alone with Alvin. When, in the morning, Alvin was found shot with an
army Colt, who but the Captain would be suspected? The Major knew the
Captain lived alone, and that he would have diff’culty in establishing
an alibi. Do you now see how cunning he was in recommending Pfyfe as a
source of information? He knew that if you interviewed Pfyfe, you’d
hear of the threat. And don’t ignore the fact that his suggestion of
Pfyfe was an apparent afterthought: he wanted to make it appear
casual, don’t y’ know.—Astute devil, what?”

Markham, sunk in gloom, was listening closely.

“Now for the opportunity of which he took advantage,” continued Vance.
“When you upset his calculations by telling him you knew whom Alvin
dined with, and that you had almost enough evidence to ask for an
indictment, the idea appealed to him. He knew no charmin’ lady could
ever be convicted of murder in this most chivalrous city, no matter
what the evidence; and he had enough of the sporting instinct in him
to prefer that no one should actu’lly be punished for the crime.
Cons’quently, he was willing to switch you back to the lady. And he
played his hand cleverly, making it appear that he was most reluctant
to involve her.”

“Was that why, when you wanted me to examine his books and to ask him
to the office to discuss the confession, you told me to intimate that
I had Miss St. Clair in mind?”

“Exactly!”

“And the person the Major was shielding——”

“Was himself. But he wanted you to think it was Miss St. Clair.”

“If you were certain he was guilty, why did you bring Colonel
Ostrander into the case?”

“In the hope that he could supply us with faggots for the Major’s
funeral pyre. I knew he was acquainted intimately with Alvin Benson
and his entire _camarilla_; and I knew, too, that he was an egregious
quidnunc who might have got wind of some enmity between the Benson
boys, and have suspected the truth. And I also wanted to get a line on
Pfyfe, by way of elim’nating every remote counter possibility.”

“But we already had a line on Pfyfe.”

“Oh, I don’t mean material clues. I wanted to learn about Pfyfe’s
nature—his psychology, y’ know,—particularly his personality as a
gambler. Y’ see, it was the crime of a calculating, cold-blooded
gambler; and no one but a man of that particular type could possibly
have committed it.”

Markham apparently was not interested just now in Vance’s theories.

“Did you believe the Major,” he asked, “when he said his brother had
lied to him about the presence of the jewels in the safe?”

“The wily Alvin prob’bly never mentioned ’em to Anthony,” rejoined
Vance. “An ear at the door during one of Pfyfe’s visits was, I fancy,
his source of information. . . . And speaking of the Major’s
eavesdropping, it was that which suggested to me a possible motive for
the crime. Your man Stitt, I hope, will clarify that point.”

“According to your theory, the crime was rather hastily conceived.”
Markham’s statement was in reality a question.

“The details of its execution were hastily conceived,” corrected
Vance. “The Major undoubtedly had been contemplating for some time
elim’nating his brother. Just how or when he was to do it, he hadn’t
decided. He may have thought out and rejected a dozen plans. Then, on
the thirteenth, came the opportunity: all the conditions adjusted
themselves to his purpose. He heard Miss St. Clair’s promise to go to
dinner; and he therefore knew that Alvin would prob’bly be home alone
at twelve-thirty, and that, if he were done away with at that hour,
suspicion would fall on Captain Leacock. He saw Alvin take home the
jewels—another prov’dential circumst’nce. The propitious moment for
which he had been waiting, d’ ye see, was at hand. All that remained
was to establish an alibi and work out a _modus operandi_. How he did
this, I’ve already eluc’dated.”

Markham sat thinking for several minutes. At last he lifted his head.

“You’ve about convinced me of his guilt,” he admitted. “But damn it,
man! I’ve got to prove it; and there’s not much actual legal
evidence.”

Vance gave a slight shrug.

“I’m not int’rested in your stupid courts and your silly rules of
evidence. But, since I’ve convinced you, you can’t charge me with not
having met your challenge, don’t y’ know.”

“I suppose not,” Markham assented gloomily.

Slowly the muscles about his mouth tightened.

“You’ve done your share, Vance. I’ll carry on.”

Heath and Captain Hagedorn were waiting when we arrived at the office,
and Markham greeted them in his customary reserved, matter-of-fact
way. By now he had himself well in hand, and he went about the task
before him with the sombre forcefulness that characterized him in the
discharge of all his duties.

“I think we at last have the right man, Sergeant,” he said. “Sit down,
and I’ll go over the matter with you in a moment. There are one or two
things I want to attend to first.”

He handed Major Benson’s pistol to the fire-arms expert.

“Look that gun over, Captain, and tell me if there’s any way of
identifying it as the weapon that killed Benson.”

Hagedorn moved ponderously to the window. Laying the pistol on the
sill, he took several tools from the pockets of his voluminous coat,
and placed them beside the weapon. Then, adjusting a jeweller’s
magnifying glass to his eye, he began what seemed an interminable
series of tinkerings. He opened the plates of the stock, and drawing
back the sear, took out the firing-pin. He removed the slide,
unscrewed the link, and extracted the recoil spring. I thought he was
going to take the weapon entirely apart, but apparently he merely
wanted to let light into the barrel; for presently he held the gun to
the window and placed his eye at the muzzle. He peered into the barrel
for nearly five minutes, moving it slightly back and forth to catch
the reflection of the sun on different points of the interior.

At last, without a word, he slowly and painstakingly went through the
operation of redintegrating the weapon. Then he lumbered back to his
chair, and sat blinking heavily for several moments.

“I’ll tell you,” he said, thrusting his head forward and gazing at
Markham over the tops of his steel-rimmed spectacles. “This, now, may
be the right gun. I wouldn’t say for sure. But when I saw the bullet
the other morning I noticed some peculiar rifling marks on it; and the
rifling in this gun here looks to me as though it would match up with
the marks on the bullet. I’m not certain. I’d like to look at this
barrel through my helixometer.*”

   * A helixometer, I learned later, is an instrument that
   makes it possible to examine every portion of the inside
   of a gun’s barrel through a microscope.

“But you believe it’s the gun?” insisted Markham.

“I couldn’t say, but I think so. I might be wrong.”

“Very good, Captain. Take it along, and call me the minute you’ve
inspected it thoroughly.”

“It’s the gun, all right,” asserted Heath, when Hagedorn had gone. “I
know that bird. He wouldn’t ’ve said as much as he did if he hadn’t
been sure. . . . Whose gun is it, sir?”

“I’ll answer you presently.” Markham was still battling against the
truth—withholding, even from himself, his pronouncement of the Major’s
guilt until every loop-hole of doubt should be closed. “I want to hear
from Stitt before I say anything. I sent him to look over Benson and
Benson’s books. He’ll be here any moment.”

After a wait of a quarter of an hour, during which time Markham
attempted to busy himself with other matters, Stitt came in. He said a
sombre good-morning to the District Attorney and Heath; then, catching
sight of Vance, smiled appreciatively.

“That was a good tip you gave me. You had the dope. If you’d kept
Major Benson away longer, I could have done more. While he was there
he was watching me every minute.”

“I did the best I could,” sighed Vance. He turned to Markham: “Y’
know, I was wondering all through lunch yesterday how I could remove
the Major from his office during Mr. Stitt’s investigation; and when
we learned of Leacock’s confession, it gave me just the excuse I
needed. I really didn’t want the Major here,—I simply wished to give
Mr. Stitt a free hand.”

“What did you find out?” Markham asked the accountant.

“Plenty!” was the laconic reply.

He took a sheet of paper from his pocket, and placed it on the desk.

“There’s a brief report. . . . I followed Mr. Vance’s suggestion, and
took a look at the stock record and the cashier’s collateral blotter,
and traced the transfer receipts. I ignored the journal entries
against the ledger, and concentrated on the activities of the firm
heads. Major Benson, I found, has been consistently hypothecating
securities transferred to him as collateral for marginal trading, and
has been speculating steadily in mercantile curb stocks. He has lost
heavily—how much, I can’t say.”

“And Alvin Benson?” asked Vance.

“He was up to the same tricks. But he played in luck. He made a wad on
a Columbus Motors pool a few weeks back; and he has been salting the
money away in his safe—or, at least, that’s what the secretary told
me.”

“And if Major Benson has possession of the key to that safe,”
suggested Vance, “then it’s lucky for him his brother was shot.”

“Lucky?” retorted Stitt. “It’ll save him from State prison.”

When the accountant had gone, Markham sat like a man of stone, his
eyes fixed on the wall opposite. Another straw at which he had grasped
in his instinctive denial of the Major’s guilt, had been snatched from
him.

The telephone rang. Slowly he took up the receiver, and as he listened
I saw a look of complete resignation come into his eyes. He leaned
back in his chair, like a man exhausted.

“It was Hagedorn,” he said. “That was the right gun.”

Then he drew himself up, and turned to Heath.

“The owner of that gun, Sergeant, was Major Benson.”

The detective whistled softly, and his eyes opened slightly with
astonishment. But gradually his face assumed its habitual stolidity of
expression.

“Well, it don’t surprise me any,” he said.

Markham rang for Swacker.

“Get Major Benson on the wire, and tell him—tell him I’m about to make
an arrest, and would appreciate his coming here immediately.” His
deputizing of the telephone call to Swacker was understood by all of
us, I think.

Markham then summarized, for Heath’s benefit, the case against the
Major. When he had finished, he rose and rearranged the chairs at the
table in front of his desk.

“When Major Benson comes, Sergeant,” he said, “I am going to seat him
here.” He indicated a chair directly facing his own. “I want you to
sit at his right; and you’d better get Phelps—or one of the other men,
if he isn’t in—to sit at his left. But you’re not to make any move
until I give the signal. Then you can arrest him.”

When Heath had returned with Phelps and they had taken their seats at
the table, Vance said:

“I’d advise you, Sergeant, to be on your guard. The minute the Major
knows he’s in for it, he’ll go bald-headed for you.”

Heath smiled with heavy contempt.

“This isn’t the first man I’ve arrested, Mr. Vance—with many thanks
for your advice. And what’s more, the Major isn’t that kind; he’s too
nervy.”

“Have it your own way,” replied Vance indifferently. “But I’ve warned
you. The Major is cool-headed; he’d take big chances, and he could
lose his last dollar without turning a hair. But when he is finally
cornered, and sees ultimate defeat, all his repressions of a lifetime,
having had no safety-valve, will explode physically. When a man lives
without passions or emotions or enthusiasms, there’s bound to be an
outlet some time. Some men explode, and some commit suicide,—the
principle is the same: it’s a matter of psychological reaction. The
Major isn’t the self-destructive type,—that’s why I say he’ll blow
up.”

Heath snorted.

“We may be short on psychology down here,” he rejoined, “but we know
human nature pretty well.”

Vance stifled a yawn, and carelessly lit a cigarette. I noticed,
however, that he pushed his chair back a little from the end of the
table where he and I were sitting.

“Well, Chief,” rasped Phelps, “I guess your troubles are about
over—though I sure did think that fellow Leacock was your man. . . .
Who got the dope on this Major Benson?”

“Sergeant Heath and the Homicide Bureau will receive entire credit for
the work,” said Markham; and added: “I’m sorry, Phelps, but the
District Attorney’s office, and everyone connected with it, will be
kept out of it altogether.”

“Oh, well, it’s all in a lifetime,” observed Phelps philosophically.

We sat in strained silence until the Major arrived. Markham smoked
abstractedly. He glanced several times over the sheet of notations
left by Stitt, and once he went to the water-cooler for a drink. Vance
opened at random a law book before him, and perused with an amused
smile a bribery-case decision by a Western judge. Heath and Phelps,
habituated to waiting, scarcely moved.

When Major Benson entered Markham greeted him with exaggerated
casualness, and busied himself with some papers in a drawer to avoid
shaking hands. Heath, however, was almost jovial. He drew out the
Major’s chair for him, and uttered a ponderous banality about the
weather. Vance closed the law book and sat erect with his feet drawn
back.

Major Benson was cordially dignified. He gave Markham a swift glance;
but if he suspected anything, he showed no outward sign of it.

“Major, I want you to answer a few questions—if you care to.”
Markham’s voice, though low, had in it a resonant quality.

“Anything at all,” returned the other easily.

“You own an army pistol, do you not?”

“Yes—a Colt automatic,” he replied, with a questioning lift of the
eyebrows.

“When did you last clean and refill it?”

Not a muscle of the Major’s face moved.

“I don’t exactly remember,” he said. “I’ve cleaned it several times.
But it hasn’t been refilled since I returned from overseas.”

“Have you lent it to anyone recently?”

“Not that I recall.”

Markham took up Stitt’s report, and looked at it a moment.

“How did you hope to satisfy your clients if suddenly called upon for
their marginal securities?”

The Major’s upper lip lifted contemptuously, exposing his teeth.

“So! That was why—under the guise of friendship—you sent a man to look
over my books!” I saw a red blotch of color appear on the back of his
neck, and swell upward to his ears.

“It happens that _I_ didn’t send him there for that purpose.” The
accusation had cut Markham. “But I did enter your apartment this
morning.”

“You’re a house-breaker, too, are you?” The man’s face was now
crimson; the veins stood out on his forehead.

“And I found Mrs. Banning’s jewels. . . . How did they get there,
Major?”

“It’s none of your damned business how they got there,” he said, his
voice as cold and even as ever.

“Why did you tell Miss Hoffman not to mention them to me?”

“That’s none of your damned business either.”

“Is it any of my business,” asked Markham quietly, “that the bullet
which killed your brother was fired from your gun?”

The Major looked at him steadily, his mouth a sneer.

“That’s the kind of double-crossing you do!—invite me here to arrest
me, and then ask me questions to incriminate myself when I’m unaware
of your suspicions. A fine dirty sport _you_ are!”

Vance leaned forward.

“You fool!” His voice was very low, but it cut like a whip. “Can’t you
see he’s your friend, and is asking you these questions in a last
desp’rate hope that you’re not guilty?”

The Major swung round on him hotly.

“Keep out of this—you damned sissy!”

“Oh, quite,” murmured Vance.

“And as for _you_,”—he pointed a quivering finger at Markham—“I’ll
make you sweat for this! . . .”

Vituperation and profanity poured from the man. His nostrils were
expanded, his eyes blazing. His wrath seemed to surpass all human
bounds: he was like a person in an apoplectic fit—contorted,
repulsive, insensate.

Markham sat through it patiently, his head resting on his hands, his
eyes closed. When, at length, the Major’s rage became inarticulate, he
looked up and nodded to Heath. It was the signal the detective had
been watching for.

But before Heath could make a move, the Major sprang to his feet. With
the motion of rising he swung his body swiftly about, and brought his
fist against Heath’s face with terrific impact. The Sergeant went
backward in his chair, and lay on the floor dazed. Phelps leaped
forward, crouching; but the Major’s knee shot upward and caught him in
the lower abdomen. He sank to the floor, where he rolled back and
forth groaning.

The Major then turned on Markham. His eyes were glaring like a
maniac’s, and his lips were drawn back. His nostrils dilated with each
stertorous breath. His shoulders were hunched, and his arms hung away
from his body, his fingers rigidly flexed. His attitude was the
embodiment of a terrific, uncontrolled malignity.

“You’re next!” The words, guttural and venomous, were like a snarl.

As he spoke he sprang forward.

Vance, who had sat quietly during the mêlée, looking on with
half-closed eyes and smoking indolently, now stepped sharply round the
end of the table. His arms shot forward. With one hand he caught the
Major’s right wrist; with the other he grasped the elbow. Then he
seemed to fall back with a swift pivotal motion. The Major’s pinioned
arm was twisted upward behind his shoulder-blades. There was a cry of
pain, and the man suddenly relaxed in Vance’s grip.

By this time Heath had recovered. He scrambled quickly to his feet and
stepped up. There was the click of handcuffs, and the Major dropped
heavily into a chair, where he sat moving his shoulder back and forth
painfully.

“It’s nothing serious,” Vance told him. “The capsular ligament is torn
a little. It’ll be all right in a few days.”

Heath came forward and, without a word, held out his hand to Vance.
The action was at once an apology and a tribute. I liked Heath for it.

When he and his prisoner had gone, and Phelps had been assisted into
an easy chair, Markham put his hand on Vance’s arm.

“Let’s get away,” he said. “I’m done up.”



CHAPTER XXV.

Vance Explains His Methods

  (Thursday, June 20; 9 p.m.)

That same evening, after a Turkish bath and dinner, Markham, grim and
weary, and Vance, bland and debonair, and myself were sitting together
in the alcove of the Stuyvesant Club’s lounge-room.

We had smoked in silence for half an hour or more, when Vance, as if
giving articulation to his thoughts, remarked:

“And it’s stubborn, unimag’native chaps like Heath who constitute the
human barrage between the criminal and society! . . . Sad, sad.”

“We have no Napoleons to-day,” Markham observed. “And if we had,
they’d probably not be detectives.”

“But even should they have yearnings toward that profession,” said
Vance, “they would be rejected on their physical measurements. As I
understand it, your policemen are chosen by their height and weight;
they must meet certain requirements as to heft—as though the only
crimes they had to cope with were riots and gang feuds. Bulk,—the
great American ideal, whether in art, architecture, table d’hôte
meals, or detectives. An entrancin’ notion.”

“At any rate, Heath has a generous nature,” said Markham palliatingly.
“He has completely forgiven you for everything.”

Vance smiled.

“The amount of credit and emulsification he received in the afternoon
papers would have mellowed anyone. He should even forgive the Major
for hitting him.—A clever blow, that; based on rotary leverage.
Heath’s constitution must be tough, or he wouldn’t have recovered so
quickly. . . . And poor Phelps! He’ll have a horror of knees the rest
of his life.”

“You certainly guessed the Major’s reaction,” said Markham. “I’m
almost ready to grant there’s something in your psychological
flummery, after all. Your æsthetic deductions seemed to put you on the
right track.”

After a pause he turned and looked inquisitively at Vance.

“Tell me exactly why, at the outset, you were convinced of the Major’s
guilt?”

Vance settled back in his chair.

“Consider, for a moment, the characteristics—the outstanding
features—of the crime. Just before the shot was fired Benson and the
murderer undoubtedly had been talking or arguing—the one seated, the
other standing. Then Benson had pretended to read: he had said all he
had to say. His reading was his gesture of finality; for one doesn’t
read when conversing with another unless for a purpose. The murderer,
seeing the hopelessness of the situation, and having come prepared to
meet it heroically, took out a gun, aimed it at Benson’s temple, and
pulled the trigger. After that, he turned out the lights and went
away. . . . Such are the facts, indicated and actual.”

He took several puffs on his cigarette.

“Now, let’s analyze ’em. . . . As I pointed out to you, the murderer
didn’t fire at the body, where, though the chances of hitting would
have been much greater, the chances of death would have been less. He
chose the more diff’cult and hazardous—and, at the same time, the more
certain and efficient—course. His technique, so to speak, was bold,
direct, and fearless. Only a man with iron nerves and a highly
developed gambler’s instinct would have done it in just this
forthright and audacious fashion. Therefore, all nervous, hot-headed,
impulsive, or timid persons were automatically elim’nated as suspects.
The neat, business-like aspect of the crime, together with the absence
of any material clues that could possibly have incrim’nated the
culprit, indicated unmistakably that it had been premeditated and
planned with coolness and precision, by a person of tremendous
self-assurance, and one used to taking risks. There was nothing subtle
or in the least imag’native about the crime. Every feature of it
pointed to an aggressive, blunt mind—a mind at once static, determined
and intrepid, and accustomed to dealing with facts and situations in a
direct, concrete and unequivocal manner. . . . I say, Markham, surely
you’re a good enough judge of human nature to read the indications,
what?”

“I think I get the drift of your reasoning,” the other admitted a
little doubtfully.

“Very well, then,” Vance continued. “Having determined the exact
psychological nature of the deed, it only remained to find some
int’rested person whose mind and temp’rament were such that, if he
undertook a task of this kind in the given circumst’nces, he would
inev’tably do it in precisely the manner in which it was done. As it
happened, I had known the Major for a long time; and so it was obvious
to me, the moment I had looked over the situation that first morning,
that he had done it. The crime, in every respect and feature, was a
perfect psychological expression of his character and mentality. But
even had I not known him personally, I would have been able—since I
possessed so clear and accurate a knowledge of the murderer’s
personality—to pick him out from any number of suspects.”

“But suppose another person of the Major’s type had done it?” asked
Markham.

“We all differ in our natures—however similar two persons may appear
at times,” Vance explained. “And while, in the present case, it is
barely conceivable that another man of the Major’s type and
temp’rament might have done it, the law of probability must be taken
into account. Even supposing there were two men almost identical in
personality and instincts in New York, what would be the chance of
their both having had a reason to kill Benson? However, despite the
remoteness of the possibility, when Pfyfe came into the case, and I
learned he was a gambler and a hunter, I took occasion to look into
his qualifications. Not knowing him personally, I appealed to Colonel
Ostrander for my information; and what he told me put Pfyfe at once
_hors de propos_.”

“But he had nerve: he was a rash plunger; and he certainly had enough
at stake,” objected Markham.

“Ah! But between a rash plunger and a bold, level-headed gambler like
the Major, there is a great difference—a psychological abyss. In fact,
their animating impulses are opposites. The plunger is actuated by
fear and hope and desire; the cool-headed gambler is actuated by
expediency and belief and judgment. The one is emotional, the other
mental. The Major, unlike Pfyfe, is a born gambler, and inf’nitely
self-confident. This kind of self-confidence, however, is not the same
as recklessness, though superficially the two bear a close
resemblance. It is based on an instinctive belief in one’s own
infallibility and safety. It’s the reverse of what the Freudians call
the inferiority complex,—a form of egomania, a variety of _folie de
grandeur_. The Major possessed it, but it was absent from Pfyfe’s
composition; and as the crime indicated its possession by the
perpetrator, I knew Pfyfe was innocent.”

“I begin to grasp the thing in a nebulous sort of way,” said Markham
after a pause.

“But there were other indications, psychological and otherwise,” went
on Vance, “—the undress attire of the body, the toupee and teeth
upstairs, the inferred familiarity of the murderer with the domestic
arrangements, the fact that he had been admitted by Benson himself,
and his knowledge that Benson would be at home alone at that time—all
pointing to the Major as the guilty person. Another thing: the height
of the murderer corresponded to the Major’s height. This indication,
though, was of minor importance; for had my measurements not tallied
with the Major, I would have known that the bullet had been deflected,
despite the opinions of all the Captain Hagedorns in the universe.”

“Why were you so positive a woman couldn’t have done it?”

“To begin with: it wasn’t a woman’s crime—that is, no woman would have
done it in the way it was done. The most mentalized women are
emotional when it comes to a fundamental issue like taking a life.
That a woman could have coldly planned such a murder and then executed
it with such business-like efficiency—aiming a single shot at her
victim’s temple at a distance of five or six feet—, would be contr’ry,
d’ ye see, to everything we know of human nature. Again: women don’t
stand up to argue a point before a seated antagonist. Somehow they
seem to feel more secure sitting down. They talk better sitting;
whereas men talk better standing. And even had a woman stood before
Benson, she could not have taken out a gun and aimed it without his
looking up. A man’s reaching in his pocket is a natural action; but a
woman has no pockets and no place to hide a gun except her hand-bag.
And a man is always on guard when an angry woman opens a hand-bag in
front of him,—the very uncertainty of women’s natures has made men
suspicious of their actions when aroused. . . . But—above all—it was
Benson’s bald pate and bed-room slippers that made the woman
hypothesis untenable.”

“You remarked a moment ago,” said Markham, “that the murderer went
there that night prepared to take heroic measures if necessary. And
yet you say he planned the murder.”

“True. The two statements don’t conflict, y’ know. The murder was
planned—without doubt. But the Major was willing to give his victim a
last chance to save his life. My theory is this: The Major, being in a
tight financial hole with State prison looming before him, and knowing
that his brother had sufficient funds in the safe to save him, plotted
the crime, and went to the house that night prepared to commit it.
First, however, he told his brother of his predic’ment and asked for
the money; and Alvin prob’bly told him to go to the devil. The Major
may even have pleaded a bit in order to avoid killing him; but when
the liter’ry Alvin turned to reading, he saw the futility of appealing
further, and proceeded with the dire business.”

Markham smoked a while.

“Granting all you’ve said,” he remarked at length, “I still don’t see
how you could know, as you asserted this morning, that the Major had
planned the murder so as to throw suspicion deliberately on Captain
Leacock.”

“Just as a sculptor, who thoroughly understands the principles of form
and composition, can accurately supply any missing integral part of a
statue,” Vance explained, “so can the psychologist who understands the
human mind, supply any missing factor in a given human action. I might
add, parenthetically, that all this blather about the missing arms of
the Aphrodite of Melos—the Milo Venus, y’ know—is the utt’rest
fiddle-faddle. Any competent artist who knew the laws of æsthetic
organization could restore the arms exactly as they were originally.
Such restorations are merely a matter of context,—the missing factor,
d’ ye see, simply has to conform and harmonize with what is already
known.”

He made one of his rare gestures of delicate emphasis.

“Now, the problem of circumventing suspicion is an important detail in
every deliberated crime. And since the general conception of this
particular crime was pos’tive, conclusive and concrete, it followed
that each one of its component parts would be pos’tive, conclusive and
concrete. Therefore, for the Major merely to have arranged things so
that he himself should _not_ be suspected, would have been too
negative a conception to fit consistently with the other psychological
aspects of the deed. It would have been too vague, too indirect, too
indef’nite. The type of literal mind which conceived this crime would
logically have provided a specific and tangible object of suspicion.
Cons’quently, when the material evidence began to pile up against the
Captain, and the Major waxed vehement in defending him, I knew he had
been chosen as the dupe. At first, I admit, I suspected the Major of
having selected Miss St. Clair as the victim; but when I learned that
the presence of her gloves and hand-bag at Benson’s was only an
accident, and remembered that the Major had given us Pfyfe as a source
of information about the Captain’s threat, I realized that her
projection into the rôle of murderer was unpremeditated.”

A little later Markham rose and stretched himself.

“Well, Vance,” he said, “your task is finished. Mine has just begun.
And I need sleep.”

Before a week had passed, Major Anthony Benson was indicted for the
murder of his brother. His trial before Judge Rudolph Hansacker, as
you remember, created a nation-wide sensation. The Associated Press
sent columns daily to its members; and for weeks the front pages of
the country’s newspapers were emblazoned with spectacular reports of
the proceedings. How the District Attorney’s office won the case after
a bitter struggle; how, because of the indirect character of the
evidence, the verdict was for murder in the second degree; and how,
after a retrial in the Court of Appeals, Anthony Benson finally
received a sentence of from twenty years to life,—all these facts are
a matter of official and public record.

Markham personally did not appear as Public Prosecutor. Having been a
life-long friend of the defendant’s, his position was an unenviable
and difficult one, and no word of criticism was directed against his
assignment of the case to Chief Assistant District Attorney Sullivan.
Major Benson surrounded himself with an array of counsel such as is
rarely seen in our criminal courts. Both Blashfield and Bauer were
among the attorneys for the defense—Blashfield fulfilling the duties
of the English solicitor, and Bauer acting as advocate. They fought
with every legal device at their disposal, but the accumulation of
evidence against their client overwhelmed them.

After Markham had been convinced of the Major’s guilt, he had made a
thorough examination of the business affairs of the two brothers, and
found the situation even worse than had been indicated by Stitt’s
first report. The firm’s securities had been systematically
appropriated for private speculations; but whereas Alvin Benson had
succeeded in covering himself and making a large profit, the Major had
been almost completely wiped out by his investments. Markham was able
to show that the Major’s only hope of replacing the diverted
securities and saving himself from criminal prosecution lay in Alvin
Benson’s immediate death. It was also brought out at the trial that
the Major, on the very day of the murder, had made emphatic promises
which could have been kept only in the event of his gaining access to
his brother’s safe. Furthermore, these promises had involved specific
amounts in the other’s possession; and, in one instance, he had put
up, on a forty-eight-hour note, a security already pledged—a fact
which, in itself, would have exposed his hand, had his brother lived.

Miss Hoffman was a helpful and intelligent witness for the
prosecution. Her knowledge of conditions at the Benson and Benson
offices went far toward strengthening the case against the Major.

Mrs. Platz also testified to overhearing acrimonious arguments between
the brothers. She stated that less than a fortnight before the murder
the Major, after an unsuccessful attempt to borrow $50,000 from Alvin,
had threatened him, saying: “If I ever have to choose between your
skin and mine, it won’t be mine that’ll suffer.”

Theodore Montagu, the man who, according to the story of the elevator
boy at the Chatham Arms, had returned at half past two on the night of
the murder, testified that, as his taxicab turned in front of the
apartment house, the head-lights flashed on a man standing in a
tradesmen’s entrance across the street, and that the man looked like
Major Benson. This evidence would have had little effect had not Pfyfe
come forward after the arrest and admitted seeing the Major crossing
Sixth Avenue at Forty-sixth Street when he had walked to Pietro’s for
his drink of Haig and Haig. He explained that he had attached no
importance to it at the time, thinking the Major was merely returning
home from some Broadway restaurant. He himself had not been seen by
the Major.

This testimony, in connection with Mr. Montagu’s, annihilated the
Major’s carefully planned alibi; and though the defense contended
stubbornly that both witnesses had been mistaken in their
identification, the jury was deeply impressed by the evidence,
especially when Assistant District Attorney Sullivan, under Vance’s
tutoring, painstakingly explained, with diagrams, how the Major could
have gone out and returned that night without being seen by the boy.

It was also shown that the jewels could not have been taken from the
scene of the crime except by the murderer; and Vance and I were called
as witnesses to the finding of them in the Major’s apartment. Vance’s
demonstration of the height of the murderer was shown in court, but,
curiously, it carried little weight, as the issue was confused by a
mass of elaborate scientific objections. Captain Hagedorn’s
identification of the pistol was the most difficult obstacle with
which the defense had to contend.

The trial lasted three weeks, and much evidence of a scandalous nature
was taken, although, at Markham’s suggestion, Sullivan did his best to
minimize the private affairs of those innocent persons whose lives
unfortunately touched upon the episode. Colonel Ostrander, however,
has never forgiven Markham for not having had him called as a witness.

During the last week of the trial Miss Muriel St. Clair appeared as
_prima donna_ in a large Broadway light-opera production which ran
successfully for nearly two years. She has since married her
chivalrous Captain Leacock, and they appear perfectly happy.

Pfyfe is still married and as elegant as ever. He visits New York
regularly, despite the absence of his “dear old Alvin”; and I have
occasionally seen him and Mrs. Banning together. Somehow, I shall
always like that woman. Pfyfe raised the $10,000—how, I have no
idea—and reclaimed her jewels. Their ownership, by the way, was not
divulged at the trial, for which I was very glad.

On the evening of the day the verdict was brought in against the
Major, Vance and Markham and I were sitting in the Stuyvesant Club. We
had dined together, but no word of the events of the past few weeks
had passed between us. Presently, however, I saw an ironic smile creep
slowly to Vance’s lips.

“I say, Markham,” he drawled; “what a grotesque spectacle the trial
was! The real evidence, y’ know, wasn’t even introduced. Benson was
convicted entirely on suppositions, presumptions, implications and
inf’rences. . . . God help the innocent Daniel who inadvertently falls
into a den of legal lions!”

Markham, to my surprise, nodded gravely.

“Yes,” he concurred; “but if Sullivan had tried to get a conviction on
your so-called psychological theories, he’d have been adjudged
insane.”

“Doubtless,” sighed Vance. “You illuminati of the law would have
little to do if you went about your business intelligently.”

“Theoretically,” replied Markham at length, “your theories are clear
enough; but I’m afraid I’ve dealt too long with material facts to
forsake them for psychology and art. . . . However,” he added lightly,
“if my legal evidence should fail me in the future, may I call on you
for assistance?”

“I’m always at your service, old chap, don’t y’ know,” Vance rejoined.
“I rather fancy, though, that it’s when your legal evidence is leading
you irresistibly to your victim that you’ll need me most, what?”

And the remark, though intended merely as a good-natured sally, proved
strangely prophetic.



Transcriber’s Notes

This transcription follows the text of the first edition published by
A. L. Burt Company and Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1926. However, the
following alterations have been made to correct what are believed to
be unambiguous errors in the text:
  * The occurrence of “begining” in Chapter VIII has been corrected to
    “beginning”.
  * The occurrence of “elenctus” in Chapter XX has been corrected to
    “elenchus”.
  * The occurrence of “dumfounded” in Chapter IV, has been corrected
    to “dumbfounded” so as to be consistent with other appearances of
    the word.
  * The phrase “gone to Mr. Benson house” in Chapter XX has been
    corrected to “gone to Mr. Benson’s house”.
  * The phrase “keep his own council” in Chapter XVIII has been
    corrected to “keep his own counsel”.
  * Two ellipses (one of two dots in Chapter XXI and one of five dots
    in Chapter XXII) have been changed so as to be consistent with
    other ellipses in the text.