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THE BENSON MURDER CASE (Part 2)

CHAPTER 13

THE GRAY 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 downtown 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. Hotheaded 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—levelheaded 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 nodded, “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 offhand 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 bloodthirsty,” 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 gray 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 uptown 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 notebook.

“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 awhile 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 Cumean Sibyl, I presume, could inform me in advance what he’s going to tell me.”

“I couldn’t say as to the Cumean 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 14

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 rat-catcher 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 nightcap,—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 eyeglass.

“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 garageman 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 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 today, 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.”16

“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. Tomorrow 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 whatsoever. The whole city will probably know it tomorrow.… 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 headwaiter. 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 uptown 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 halfway 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 safekeeping 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 15

“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 the 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 evildoers. 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 case, I would have every right to use it, for the good of the community.”

“I daresay 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 bookeeper 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 manila 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 canceled 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 awhile, 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 analyze 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 stopover 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 firearms. Sixthly, he was rather eager to involve Leacock and did a bit of caddish talebearing 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 hallboy 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 soiree, 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 tomorrow,” 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 troublemakers—” 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 16

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 tomorrow, and then he said good-bye.”

Markham sat awhile 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.”

“Parden 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 refused 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 aesthetic 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 cover?” 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 notebook 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 notebook. “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 moneybags—”

“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 extranuptial 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 notebook and proceeded.

“I found one other woman in the case. She lives in New York and often telephones to a drugstore 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 quartet from San Francisco was giving a program 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, businesslike 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 quarreling.”

“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 uptown 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 Goldilocks 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 awhile 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 cannot 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 17

THE FORGED CHECK

(Wednesday, June 19; forenoon.)

We rode downtown 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 sublease beginning tomorrow. 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 getaway.”

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 today. 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 Eloïse, 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 raveled 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 cheekbones 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 overfurnished and rococo living room, was one of easygoing good-fellowship.

When we were seated and Markham had apologized for our intrusion, Vance at once assumed the role 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 reconnoitering, 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 gray 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 m’ade 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’oeil. 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 quarreled 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 18

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 openhanded, bighearted 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 jewelry 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 sighed 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 signed 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 tonight 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 meager 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 hallboy 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 tomorrow, 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 tomorrow 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 council 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 tomorrow.”

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 19

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 was 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 gray 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 latchkey.”

“And now, Captain, tell us just what happened after you and Mr. Benson entered the house.”

“He laid his hat and stick on the hatrack, 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 today 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 have 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 shirtfront 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 handbag, 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 bloodthirsty 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 somber, 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 lightheartedness 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.17 You are through with the office for today. Inform Swacker of the fact, will you?—there’s a dear! We attend upon a lady—Miss St. Clair, no less.”

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 20

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 uptown, “may prove a bit tedious. But you must exert your willpower 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 handbag. 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 skeptical.

“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 elenctus 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 handbag 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.” Vance grinned. “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 today is going to help immeasurably in convicting the culprit. Furthermore, we now know about the gloves and handbag, 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 debris.”

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 21

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 bedroom 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.18 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 beveled 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 today. Sic transit.…”

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 firearms 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 aesthetic credo is: Whatever’s big is beautiful. These depressin’ gargantuan boxes with rectangular holes in ’em, which are called skyscrapers, are worshiped 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 today and I feel pos’tively virtuous. Frau Platz will schlafen much better tonight. 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 treetops 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 firearms 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.

“’Twas 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 overarticulated cheekbones, 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 bedroom slippers! Picture the spectacle, my dear fellow.… A man does not look fascinatin’ without his collar and with his shirtband 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 housebreakers 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 personae gratae 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 today 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 tonight—and tomorrow 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 tomorrow 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’ tonight. 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 tomorrow,” 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 22

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 a 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 bonbon; 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 cantaloupes, citrons, nutmegs, Cassabas, and honeydews—are varieties of the muskmelon. But people have the notion, d’ ye see, that cantaloupe is a generic term. Philadelphians call all melons cantaloupes; 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’oeuvre—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 bedroom than in his living room; and since a Smith and Wesson was found in the living room, there probably was another in the bedroom.

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 firearms Benson kept about the house, for she was not sure whether or not we knew of the gun in the bedroom.

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 hardheaded, 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 tenterhooks. 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 reread 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 downtown.”

“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 theater 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 Picadilly 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 theater.”

“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 washroom. After the second act the colonel and I stepped outside into the alleyway and had a smoke.”

“What time, would you say, was the first act over?”

“Twelve thirty or thereabouts.”

“And where is this alleyway situated?” asked Vance. “As I recall, it runs along the side of the theater to the street.”

“You’re right.”

“And isn’t there an exit door very near the boxes, which leads into the alleyway?”

“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 theater. 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 theater. Being an army officer, he would have had a Colt .45, 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 washroom 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 washroom 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 quintet 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 nightboy 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 23

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.19

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 theater, 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 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 bedroom.

VANCE: Could you see into his bedroom from the parlor?

BOY: No. The bedroom’s off the hall.

VANCE: How could you tell the light was turned off then?

BOY: The bedroom door was open, and the light was shinin’ into the hall.

VANCE: Did you pass the bedroom 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 bedroom?

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 around 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 dame20 phoned him and said his brother had been murdered. He came down and went out about ten minutes after.

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 lockup—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 weakminded, 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 passkey, 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 bedroom.

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.

“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 bedroom, 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 bedroom. 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 bedroom 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 airtight. But a fresh box of cartridges is well sealed, and its contents retain their luster 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 infrences, 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 disemboweled 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 applied 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 anaesthetic.”

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 bedroom—which is why I came here.”

He walked to a squat rosewood 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 bedroom when his eye fell on a Circassian-walnut humidor half hidden by a pile of magazines on the undershelf 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 24

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 loophole—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 today. 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 naturae—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 counterpossibility.”

“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 somber 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 firearms 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 jeweler’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.”21

“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 loophole 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 somber 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 sometime. 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 housebreaker, 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 melee, 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 25

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 today,” 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 aesthetic 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, hotheaded, impulsive, or timid persons were automatically elim’nated as suspects. The neat, businesslike aspect of the crime, together with the absence of any material clues that could possibly have imcrim’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, levelheaded 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,” Vance went on “—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 businesslike 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 handbag. And a man is always on guard when an angry woman opens a handbag 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 bedroom 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 awhile.

“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 aesthetic 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 handbag 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 role 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 nationwide 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 lifelong 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 headlights 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.

16 Obviously a reference to Tetrazzini’s performance in La Bohème at the Manhattan Opera House in 1908.

17 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.”

18 The book—or a part of it—has, I believe, been recently translated into English.

19 The boy was Jack Prisco, of 621 Kelly Street.

20 Obviously Mrs. Platz.

21 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.