The room presented an appearance of garish opulence. About the walls hung several elaborately framed paintings of racehorses and a number of mounted hunting trophies. A highly coloured oriental rug covered nearly the entire floor. In the middle of the east wall, facing the door, was an ornate fireplace and carved marble mantel. Placed diagonally in the corner on the right stood a walnut upright piano with copper trimmings. Then there was a mahogany bookcase with glass doors and figured curtains, a sprawling tapestried davenport, a squat Venetian tabouret with inlaid mother-of-pearl, a teak-wood stand containing a large brass samovar, and a buhl-topped centre-table nearly six feet long. At the side of the table nearest the hallway, with its back to the front windows, stood a large wickei lounge chair with a high, fan-shaped back.
In this chair reposed the body of Alvin Benson.
Though I had served two years at the front in the World War and had seen death in many terrible guises, I could not repress a strong sense of revulsion at the sight of this murdered man. In France, death had seemed an inevitable part of my daily routine, but here all the organisms of environment were opposed to the idea of fatal violence. The bright June sunshine was pouring into the room, and through the open windows came the continuous din of the city’s noises, which, for all their cacophony, are associated with peace and security and the orderly social processes of life.
Benson’s body was reclining in the chair in an attitude so natural that one almost expected him to turn to us and ask why we were intruding upon his privacy. His head was resting against the chair’s back. His right leg was crossed over his left in a position of comfortable relaxation. His right arm was resting easily on the centre-table, and his left arm lay along the chair’s arm. But that which most strikingly gave his attitude its appearance of naturalness, was a small book which he held in his right hand with his thumb still marking the place where he had evidently been reading.1
He had been shot—through the forehead—from the front; and the small circular bullet-mark was now almost black as a result of the coagulation of the blood. A large dark spot on the rug at the rear of the chair indicated the extent of the hæmorrhage caused by the grinding passage of the bullet through his brain. Had it not been for these grisly indications one might have thought that he had merely paused momentarily in his reading to lean back and rest.
He was attired in an old smoking-jacket and red felt bedroom slippers, but still wore his dress trousers and evening shirt, though he was collarless, and the neck band of the shirt had been unbuttoned as if for comfort. He was not an attractive man physically, being almost completely bald and more than a little stout. His face was flabby, and the puffiness of his neck was doubly conspicuous without its confining collar. With a slight shudder of distaste I ended my brief contemplation of him, and turned to the other occupants of the room.
Two burly fellows with large hands and feet, their black felt hats pushed far back on their heads, were minutely inspecting the grill-work over the front windows. They seemed to be giving particular attention to the points where the bars were cemented into the masonry; and one of them had just taken hold of a grille with both hands and was shaking it, simian-wise, as if to test its strength. Another man, of medium height and dapper appearance, with a small blond moustache, was bending over in front of the grate looking intently, so it seemed, at the dusty gas-logs. On the far side of the table a thick-set man in blue serge and a derby hat, stood with arms a-kimbo scrutinising the silent figure in the chair. His eyes, hard and pale blue, were narrowed, and his square prognathous jaw was rigidly set. He was gazing with rapt intensity at Benson’s body, as though he hoped, by sheer power of concentration, to probe the secret of the murder.
Another man, of unusual mien, was standing before the rear window, with a jeweller’s magnifying glass in his eye, inspecting a small object held in the palm of his hand. From pictures I had seen of him I knew he was Captain Carl Hagedorn, the most famous firearms expert in America. He was a large, cumbersome, broad-shouldered man of about fifty; and his black shiny clothes were several sizes too large for him. His coat hitched up behind, and in front hung half-way down to his knees; and his trousers were baggy and lay over his ankles in grotesquely comic folds. His head was round and abnormally large, and his ears seemed sunken into his skull. His mouth was entirely hidden by a scraggly, grey-shot moustache, all the hairs of which grew downwards, forming a kind of lambrequin to his lips. Captain Hagedorn had been connected with the New York Police Department for thirty years, and though his appearance and manner were ridiculed at Headquarters, he was profoundly respected. His word on any point pertaining to firearms and gunshot wounds was accepted as final by Headquarters men.
In the rear of the room, near the dining-room door, stood two other men talking earnestly together. One was Inspector William M. Moran, Commanding Officer of the Detective Bureau; the other, Sergeant Ernest Heath of the Homicide Bureau, of whom Markham had already spoken to us.
As we entered the room in the wake of Chief Inspector O’Brien everyone ceased his occupation for a moment and looked at the District Attorney in a spirit of uneasy, but respectful, recognition. Only Captain Hagedorn, after a cursory squint at Markham, returned to the inspection of the tiny object in his hand, with an abstracted unconcern which brought a faint smile to Vance’s lips.
Inspector Moran and Sergeant Heath came forward with stolid dignity; and after the ceremony of hand-shaking (which I later observed to be a kind of religious rite among the police and members of the District Attorney’s Staff), Markham introduced Vance and me, and briefly explained our presence. The Inspector bowed pleasantly to indicate his acceptance of the intrusion, but I noted that Heath ignored Markham’s explanation, and proceeded to treat us as if we were non-existent.
Inspector Moran was a man of different quality from the others in the room. He was about sixty, with white hair and a brown moustache, and was immaculately dressed. He looked more like a successful Wall Street broker of the better class than a police official.2
“I’ve assigned Sergeant Heath to the case, Mr. Markham,” he explained in a low, well-modulated voice. “It looks as though we were in for a bit of trouble before it’s finished. Even the Chief Inspector thought it warranted his lending the moral support of his presence to the preliminary rounds. He has been here since eight o’clock.”
Inspector O’Brien had left us immediately upon entering the room, and now stood between the front windows, watching the proceedings with a grave, indecipherable face.
“Well, I think I’ll be going,” Moran added. “They had me out of bed at seven-thirty, and I haven’t had any breakfast yet. I won’t be needed anyway now that you’re here…. Good morning.” And again he shook hands.
When he had gone Markham turned to the Assistant District Attorney.
“Look after these two gentlemen, will you, Dinwiddie? They’re babes in the wood, and want to see how these affairs work. Explain things to them while I have a little confab with Sergeant Heath.”
Dinwiddie accepted the assignment eagerly. I think he was glad of the opportunity to have someone to talk to by way of venting his pent-up excitement.
As the three of us turned rather instinctively towards the body of the murdered man—he was, after all, the hub of this tragic drama—I heard Heath say in a sullen voice:
“I suppose you’ll take charge now, Mr. Markham.”
Dinwiddie and Vance were talking together, and I watched Markham with interest after what he had told us of the rivalry between the Police Department and the District Attorney’s office.
Markham looked at Heath with a slow gracious smile, and shook his head.
“No, Sergeant,” he replied. “I’m here to work with you, and I want that relationship understood from the outset. In fact, I wouldn’t be here now if Major Benson hadn’t ’phoned me and asked me to lend a hand. And I particularly want my name kept out of it. It’s pretty generally known—and if it isn’t, it will be—that the Major is an old friend of mine
; so it will be better all round if my connection with the case is kept quiet.”
Heath murmured something I did not catch, but I could see that he had, in large measure, been placated. He, in common with all other men who were acquainted with Markham, knew his word was good; and he personally liked the District Attorney.
“If there’s any credit coming from this affair,” Markham went on, “the Police Department is to get it; therefore I think it best for you to see the reporters…. And, by the way,” he added good-naturedly, “if there’s any blame coming, you fellows will have to bear that, too.”
“Fair enough,” assented Heath.
“And now, Sergeant, let’s get to work,” said Markham.
Chapter III
A Lady’s Handbag
(Friday, June 14th; 9.30 a.m.)
The District Attorney and Heath walked up to the body, and stood regarding it.
“You see,” Heath explained, “he was shot directly from the front. A pretty powerful shot, too; for the bullet passed through the head and struck the woodwork over there by the window.” He pointed to the place on the wainscot a short distance from the floor near the drapery of the window nearest the hall-way. “We found the expelled shell, and Captain Hagedorn’s got the bullet.”
He turned to the firearms expert.
“How about it, Captain? Anything special?”
Hagedorn raised his head slowly, and gave Heath a myopic frown. Then, after a few awkward movements, he answered with unhurried precision:
“A ·45 army bullet—Colt automatic.”
“Any idea how close to Benson the gun was held?” asked Markham.
“Yes, sir, I have,” Hagedorn replied, in his ponderous monotone. “Between five and six feet—probably.”
Heath snorted.
“‘Probably,’” he repeated to Markham with good-natured contempt. “You can bank on it if the Captain says so…. You see, sir, nothing smaller than a ·44 or ·45 will stop a man and these steel-capped army bullets go through a human skull like it was cheese. But in order to carry straight to the woodwork the gun had to be held pretty close; and as there aren’t any powder marks on the face, it’s a safe bet to take the Captain’s figures as to distance.”
At this point we heard the front door open and close, and Dr. Doremus, the Chief Medical Examiner, accompanied by his assistant, bustled in. He shook hands with Markham and Inspector O’Brien, and gave Heath a friendly salutation.
“Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner,” he apologised.
He was a nervous man with a heavily seamed face and the manner of a real-estate salesman.
“What have we got here?” he asked, in the same breath, making a my face at the body in the chair.
“You tell us, Doc,” retorted Heath.
Dr. Doremus approached the murdered man with a callous indifference indicative of a long process of hardening. He first inspected the face closely—he was, I imagine, looking for powder marks. Then he glanced at the bullet hole in the forehead and at the ragged wound in the back of the head. Next he moved the dead man’s arm, bent the fingers, and pushed the head a little to the side. Having satisfied himself as to the state of rigor mortis, he turned to Heath.
“Can we get him on the settee there?”
Heath looked at Markham inquiringly.
“All through, sir?”
Markham nodded, and Heath beckoned to the two men at the front windows and ordered the body placed on the davenport. It retained its sitting posture, due to the hardening of the muscles after death, until the doctor and his assistant straightened out the limbs. The body was then undressed, and Dr. Doremus examined it carefully for other wounds. He paid particular attention to the arms; and he opened both hands wide and scrutinised the palms. At length he straightened up and wiped his hands on a large coloured silk handkerchief.
“Shot through the left frontal,” he announced. “Direct angle of fire. Bullet passed completely through the skull. Exit wound in the left occipital region—base of skull—you found the bullet, didn’t you? He was awake when shot, and death was immediate—probably never knew what hit him…. He’s been dead about—well, I should judge, eight hours; maybe longer.”
“How about twelve-thirty for the exact time?” asked Heath.
The doctor looked at his watch.
“Fits O.K…. Anything else?”
No one answered, and after a slight pause the Chief Inspector spoke.
“We’d like a post-mortem report to-day, doctor.”
“That’ll be all right,” Dr. Doremus answered, snapping shut his medical case and handing it to his assistant. “But get the body to the mortuary as soon as you can.”
After a brief hand-shaking ceremony, he went out hurriedly.
Heath turned to the detective who had been standing by the table when we entered.
“Burke, you ’phone to Headquarters to call for the body—and tell ’em to get a move on. Then go back to the office and wait for me.”
Burke saluted and disappeared.
Heath then addressed one of the two men who had been inspecting the grilles of the front windows.
“How about that ironwork, Snitkin?”
“No chance, Sergeant,” was the answer. “Strong as a jail—both of ’em. Nobody got in through those windows.”
“Very good,” Heath told him. “Now, you two fellows chase along with Burke.”
When they had gone the dapper man in the blue serge suit and derby, whose sphere of activity had seemed to be the fireplace, laid two cigarette butts on the table.
“I found these under the gas-logs, Sergeant,” he explained unenthusiastically. “Not much; but there’s nothing else laying around.”
“All right, Emery.” Heath gave the butts a disgruntled look. “You needn’t wait, either. I’ll see you at the office later.”
Hagedorn came ponderously forward.
“I guess I’ll be getting along, too,” he rumbled. “But I’m going to keep this bullet awhile. It’s got some peculiar rifling marks on it. You don’t want it specially, do you, Sergeant?”
Heath smiled tolerantly.
“What’ll I do with it, Captain? You keep it. But don’t you dare lose it.”
“I won’t lose it,” Hagedorn assured him, with stodgy seriousness; and, without so much as a glance at either the District Attorney or the Chief Inspector, he waddled from the room with a slightly rolling movement which suggested that of some huge amphibious mammal.
Vance, who was standing beside me near the door, turned and followed Hagedorn into the hall. The two stood talking in low tones for several minutes. Vance appeared to be asking questions, and although I was not close enough to hear the conversation, I caught several words and phrases—“trajectory,” “muzzle velocity,” “angle of fire,” “impetus,” “impact,” “deflection,” and the like—and wondered what on earth had prompted this strange interrogation.
As Vance was thanking Hagedorn for his information Inspector O’Brien entered the hall.
“Learning fast?” he asked, smiling patronizingly at Vance. Then, without waiting for a reply: “Come along, Captain; I’ll drive you down town.”
Markham heard him.
“Have you got room for Dinwiddie, too, Inspector?”
“Plenty, Mr. Markham.”
The three of them went out.
Vance and I were now left alone in the room with Heath and the District Attorney, and, as if by common impulse, we all settled ourselves in chairs, Vance taking one near the dining-room door directly facing the chair in which Benson had been murdered.
I had been keenly interested in Vance’s manner and actions from the moment of his arrival at the house. When he had first entered the room he had adjusted his monocle carefully—an act which, despite his air of passivity, I recognised as an indication of interest. When his mind was alert and he wished to take on external impressions quickly, he invariably brought out his monocle. He could see adequately enough without it, and his use of it, I had
observed, was largely the result of an intellectual dictate. The added clarity of vision it gave him seemed subtly to affect his clarity of mind.1
At first he had looked over the room incuriously and watched the proceedings with bored apathy; but during Heath’s brief questioning of his subordinates, an expression of cynical amusement had appeared in his face. Following a few general queries to Assistant District Attorney Dinwiddie, he had sauntered, with apparent aimlessness, about the room, looking at the various articles and occasionally shifting his gaze back and forth between different pieces of furniture. At length he had stooped down and inspected the mark made by the bullet on the wainscot; and once he had gone to the door and looked up and down the hall.
The only thing that had seemed to hold his attention to any extent was the body itself. He had stood before it for several minutes, studying its position, and even bent over the outstretched arm on the table as if to see just how the dead man’s hand was holding the book. The crossed position of the legs, however, had attracted him most, and he had stood studying them for a considerable time. Finally, he had returned his monocle to his waistcoat pocket, and joined Dinwiddie and me near the door, where he had stood, watching Heath and the other detectives with lazy indifference, until the departure of Captain Hagedorn.
The four of us had no more than taken seats when the patrolman stationed in the vestibule appeared at the door.
“There’s a man from the local precinct station here, sir,” he announced, “who wants to see the officer in charge, Shall I send him in?”
Heath nodded curtly, and a moment later a large red-faced Irishman, in civilian clothes, stood before us. He saluted Heath, but on recognizing the District Attorney, made Markham the recipient of his report.
“I’m Officer McLaughlin, sir—West Forty-seventh Street station,” he informed us, “and I was on duty on this beat last night. Around midnight, I guess it was, there was a big grey Cadillac standing in front of this house—I noticed it particular, because it had a lot of fishing-tackle sticking out the back, and all its lights were on. When I heard of the crime this morning I reported the car to the station-sergeant, and he sent me around to tell you about it.”
The Benson Murder Case Page 3