“Ah!” There was no mistaking the sarcasm of Markham’s tone. “I am to understand then that you even regard confessions as valueless?”
“Yes, my dear Justinian,” the other responded with an air of complacency; “I would have you understand precisely that. Indeed, they are worse than valueless—they’re downright misleading. The fact that occasionally they may prove to be correct—like woman’s prepost’rously overrated intuition—renders them just so much more unreliable.”
Markham grunted disdainfully.
“Why should any person confess something to his detriment unless he felt that the truth had been found out, or was likely to be found out?”
“’Pon my word, Markham, you astound me! Permit me to murmur, privatissime et gratis, into your innocent ear that there are many other presumable motives for confessing. A confession may be the result of fear, or duress, or expediency, or mother-love, or chivalry, or what the psycho-analysts call the inferiority complex, or delusions, or a mistaken sense of duty, or a perverted egotism, or sheer vanity, or any other of a hundred causes. Confessions are the most treacherous and unreliable of all forms of evidence; and even the silly and unscientific law repudiates them in murder cases unless, substantiated by other evidence.”
“You are eloquent; you wring me,” said Markham. “But if the law threw out all confessions and ignored all material clues, as you appear to advise, then society might as well close down all its courts and scrap all its jails.”
“A typical non sequitur of legal logic,” Vance replied.
“But how would you convict the guilty, may I ask?”
“There is one infallible method of determining human guilt and responsibility,” Vance explained; “but as yet the police are as blissfully unaware of its possibilities as they are ignorant of its operations. The truth can be learned only by an analysis of the pyschological factors of a crime and an application of them to the individual. The only real clues are psychological—not material. Your truly profound art expert, for instance, does not judge and authenticate pictures by an inspection of the underpainting and a chemical analysis of the pigments, but by studying the creative personality revealed in the picture’s conception and execution. He asks himself: Does this work of art embody the qualities of form and technique and mental attitude that made up the genius—namely, the personality—of Rubens, or Michelangelo, or Veronese, or Titian, or Tintoretto, or whoever may be the artist to whom the work was tentatively credited.”
“My mind is, I fear,” Markham confessed, “still sufficiently primitive to be impressed by vulgar facts; and in the present instance—unfortunately for your most original and artistic analogy—I possess quite an array of such facts, all of which indicate that a certain young woman is the—shall we say—creator of the criminal opus entitled The Murder of Alvin Benson.”
Vance shrugged his shoulders almost imperceptibly.
“Would you mind telling me—in confidence, of course—what these facts are?”
“Certainly not,” Markham acceded. “Imprimis: the lady was in the house at the time the shot was fired.”
Vance affected incredibility.
“Eh—my word! She was actu’lly there? Most extr’ordin’ry!”
“The evidence of her presence is unassailable,” pursued Markham. “As you know, the gloves she wore at dinner, and the handbag she carried with her, were both found on the mantel in Benson’s living-room.”
“Oh!” murmured Vance, with a faintly deprecating smile. “It was not the lady, then, but her gloves and bag which were present—a minute and unimportant distinction, no doubt, from the legal point of view…. Still,” he added, “I deplore the inability of my layman’s untutored mind to accept the two conditions as identical. My trousers are at the dry-cleaners; therefore, I am at the dry-cleaners, what?”
Markham turned on him with considerable warmth.
“Does it mean nothing in the way of evidence, even to your layman’s mind, that a woman’s intimate and necessary articles, which she has carried throughout the evening, are found in her escort’s quarters the following morning?”
“In admitting that it does not.” Vance acknowledged quietly, “I no doubt expose a legal perception lamentably inefficient.”
“But since the lady certainly wouldn’t have carried these particular objects during the afternoon, and since she couldn’t have called at the house that evening during Benson’s absence without the housekeeper knowing it, how, may one ask, did these articles happen to be there the next morning if she herself did not take them there late that night?”
“’Pon my word, I haven’t the slightest notion,” Vance rejoined. “The lady herself could doubtless appease your curiosity. But there are any number of possible explanations, y’know. Our departed Chesterfield might have brought them home in his coat pocket—women are eternally handing men all manner of gewgaws and bundles to carry for ’em. with the cooing request: ‘Can you put this in your pocket for me?’ … Then again, there is the possibility that the real murderer secured them in some way, and placed them on the mantel delib’rately to mislead the polizei. Women, don’t y’know, never put their belongings in such neat, out-of-the-way places as mantels and hat racks. They invariably throw them down on your fav’rite chair or your centre-table.”
“And, I suppose,” Markham interjected, “Benson also brought the lady’s cigarette butts home in his pocket?”
“Stranger things have happened,” returned Vance equably; “though I shan’t accuse him of it in this instance…. The cigarette butts may, y’know, be evidence of a previous conversazione.”
“Even your despised Heath,” Markham informed him, “had sufficient intelligence to ascertain from the housekeeper that she sweeps out the grate every morning.”
Vance smiled admiringly.
“You’re so thorough, aren’t you? … But, I say, that can’t be, by any chance, your only evidence against the lady?”
“By no means,” Markham assured him, “But despite your superior distrust it’s good corroboratory evidence, nevertheless.”
“I dare say,” Vance agreed, “seeing with what frequency innocent persons are condemned in our courts…. But tell me more.”
Markham proceeded with an air of quiet self-assurance.
“My man learned, first, that Benson dined alone with this woman at the ‘Marseilles,’ a little bohemian restaurant in West Fortieth Street; secondly, that they quarrelled, and thirdly, that they departed at midnight, entering a taxicab together…. Now, the murder was committed at twelve-thirty; but since the lady lives on Riverside Drive, in the Eighties, Benson couldn’t possibly have accompanied her home—which obviously he would have done had he not taken her to his own house—and returned by the time the shot was fired. But we have further proof prompting to her being at Benson’s. My man learned, at the woman’s apartment-house, that actually she did not get home until shortly after one. Moreover, she was without her gloves and handbag, and had to be let in to her rooms with a pass-key, because, as she explained, she had lost hers. As you remember, we found the key in her bag. And—to clinch the whole matter—the smoked cigarettes in the grate corresponded to the one you found in her case.”
Markham paused to relight his cigar.
“So much for that particular evening,” he resumed. “As soon as I learned the woman’s identity this morning, I put two more men to work on her private life. Just as I was leaving the office this noon the men ’phoned in their reports. They had learned that the woman has a fiancé, a chap named Leacock, who was a captain in the army, and who would be likely to own just such a gun as Benson was killed with. Furthermore, this Captain Leacock lunched with the woman the day of the murder and also called on her at her apartment the morning after.”
Markham leaned slightly forward, and his next words were emphasised by the tapping of his fingers on the arm of the chair.
“As you see, we have the motive, the opportunity and the means…. Perhaps you will tell me now that
I possess no incriminating evidence.”
“My dear Markham,” Vance affirmed calmly, “you haven’t brought out a single point which could not easily be explained away by any bright schoolboy.” He shook his head lugubriously. “And on such evidence people are deprived of their life and liberty! ’Pon my word, you alarm me. I tremble for my personal safety.”
Markham was nettled.
“Would you be so good as to point out, from your dizzy pinnacle of sapience, the errors in my reasoning?”
“As far as I can see,” returned Vance evenly, “your particularisation concerning the lady is innocent of reasoning. You’ve simply taken several unaffined facts, and jumped to a false conclusion. I happen to know the conclusion is false because all the psychological indications of the crime contradict it—that is to say, the only real evidence in the case points unmistakably in another direction.”
He made a gesture of emphasis, and his tone assumed an unwonted gravity.
“And if you arrest any woman for killing Alvin Benson, you will simply be adding another crime—a crime of delib’rate and unpardonable stupidity—to the one already committed. And between shooting a bounder like Benson and ruining an innocent woman’s reputation, I’m inclined to regard the latter as the more reprehensible.”
I could see a flash of resentment leap into Markham’s eyes; but he did not take offence. Remember: these two men were close friends; and, for all their divergency of nature, they understood and respected each other. Their frankness—severe and even mordant at times—was, indeed, a result of that respect.
There was a moment’s silence; then Markham forced a smile.
“You fill me with misgivings,” he averred mockingly; but, despite the lightness of his tone, I felt that he was half in earnest. “However, I hadn’t exactly planned to arrest the lady just yet.”
“You reveal commendable restraint,” Vance complimented him. “But I’m sure you’ve already arranged to bullyrag the lady and perhaps trick her into one or two of those contradictions so dear to every lawyer’s heart—just as if any nervous or high-strung person could help indulging in apparent contradictions while being cross-questioned as a suspect in a crime they had nothing to do with…. To ‘put ’em on the grill’—a most accurate designation. So reminiscent of burning people at the stake, what?”
“Well, I’m most certainly going to question her,” replied Markham firmly, glancing at his watch. “And one of my men is escorting her to the office in half an hour; so I must break up this most delightful and edifying chat.”
“You really expect to learn something incriminating by interrogating her?” asked Vance. “Y’know, I’d jolly well like to witness your humiliation. But I presume your heckling of suspects is a part of the legal arcana.”
Markham had risen and turned towards the door, but at Vance’s words he paused and appeared to deliberate.
“I can’t see any particular objection to your being present,” he said, “if you really care to come.”
I think he had an idea that the humiliation of which the other had spoken would prove to be Vance’s own; and soon we were in a taxicab headed for the Criminal Courts Building.
Chapter VII
Reports and an Interview
(Saturday, June 15th; 3 p.m.)
We entered the ancient building, with its discoloured marble pillars and balustrades and its old-fashioned iron scroll-work, by the Franklin Street door, and went directly to the District Attorney’s office on the fourth floor. The office, like the building, breathed an air of former days. Its high ceilings, its massive golden-oak woodwork, its elaborate low-hung chandelier of bronze and china, its dingy bay walls of painted plaster, and its four high narrow windows to the south—all bespoke a departed era in architecture and decoration.
On the floor was a large velvet carpet-rug of dingy brown; and the windows were hung with velour draperies of the same colour. Several large comfortable chairs stood about the walls and before the long oak table in front of the District Attorney’s desk. This desk, directly under the windows and facing the room, was broad and flat, with carved uprights and two rows of drawers extending to the floor. To the right of the high-backed swivel desk-chair, was another table of carved oak. There were also several filing cabinets in the room, and a large safe. In the centre of the east wall a leather-covered door, decorated with large brass nail-heads, led into a long narrow room, between the office and the waiting-room, where the District Attorney’s secretary and several clerks had their desks. Opposite to this door was another one opening into the District Attorney’s inner sanctum; and still another door, facing the windows, gave on the main corridor.
Vance glanced over the room casually.
“So this is the matrix of municipal justice—eh, what?” He walked to one of the windows and looked out upon the grey circular tower of the Tombs opposite. “And there, I take it, are the oubliettes where the victims of our law are incarc’rated so as to reduce the competition of criminal activity among the remaining citizenry. A most distressin’ sight, Markham.”
The District Attorney had sat down at his desk and was glancing at several notations on his blotter.
“There are a couple of my men waiting to see me,” he remarked without looking up; “so, if you’ll be good enough to take a chair over here, I’ll proceed with my humble efforts to undermine society still further.”
He pressed a button under the edge of his desk, and an alert young man with thick-lensed glasses appeared at the door.
“Swacker, tell Phelps to come in,” Markham ordered. “And also tell Springer, if he’s back from lunch, that I want to see him in a few minutes.”
The secretary disappeared, and a moment later a tall, hawk-faced man, with stoop-shoulders and an awkward angular gait, entered.
“What news?” asked Markham.
“Well, Chief,” the detective replied in a low, grating voice, “I just found out something I thought you could use right away. After I reported this noon, I ambled round to this Captain Leacock’s house, thinking I might learn something from the house-boys, and ran into the Captain coming out. I tailed along; and he went straight up to the lady’s house on the Drive, and stayed there over an hour. Then he went back home, looking worried.”
Markham considered a moment.
“It may mean nothing at all, but I’m glad to know it, anyway. St. Clair’ll be here in a few minutes, and I’ll find out what she has to say. There’s nothing else for today…. Tell Swacker to send Tracy in.”
Tracy was the antithesis of Phelps. He was short, a trifle stout, and exuded an atmosphere of studied suavity. His face was rotund and genial; he wore a pince-nez; and his clothes were modish and fitted him well.
“Good morning, Chief,” he greeted Markham in a quiet, ingratiating tone. “I understand the St. Clair woman is to call here this afternoon, and there are a few things I’ve found out that may assist in your questioning.”
He opened a small note-book and adjusted his pince-nez.
“I thought I might learn something from her singing teacher, an Italian formerly connected with the Metropolitan, but now running a sort of choral society of his own. He trains aspiring prima donnas in their rôles with a chorus and settings, and Miss St. Clair is one of his pet students. He talked to me, without any trouble; and it seems he knew Benson well. Benson attended several of St. Clair’s rehearsals, and sometimes called for her in a taxicab. Rinaldo—that’s the man’s name—thinks he had a bad crush on the girl. Last winter, when she sang at the Criterion in a small part, Rinaldo was back stage, coaching, and Benson sent her enough hot-house flowers to fill the star’s dressing-room and have some left over. I tried to find out if Benson was playing the ‘angel’ for her, but Rinaldo either didn’t know or pretended he didn’t.” Tracy closed his note-book and looked up. “That any good to you, Chief?”
“First-rate,” Markham told him. “Keep at work along that line, and let me hear from you again about this time Monday.”
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p; Tracy bowed, and as he went out the secretary again appeared at the door.
“Springer’s here now, sir,” he said. “Shall I send him in?”
Springer proved to be a type of detective quite different from either Phelps or Tracy. He was older, and had the gloomy capable air of a hard-working book-keeper in a bank. There was no initiative in his bearing, but one felt that he could discharge a delicate task with extreme competency.
Markham took from his pocket the envelope on which he had noted the name given him by Major Benson.
“Springer, there’s a man down on Long Island that I want to interview as soon as possible. It’s in connection with the Benson case, and I wish you’d locate him and get him up here as soon as possible. If you can find him in the telephone-book you needn’t go down personally. His name is Leander Pfyfe, and he lives, I think, at Port Washington.”
Markham jotted down the name on a card and handed it to the detective.
“This is Saturday, so if he comes to town to-morrow, have him ask for me at the Stuyvesant Club. I’ll be there in the afternoon.”
When Springer had gone, Markham again rang for his secretary and gave instructions that the moment Miss St. Clair arrived she was to be shown in.
“Sergeant Heath is here,” Swacker informed him, “and wants to see you if you’re not too busy.”
Markham glanced at the clock over the door.
“I guess I’ll have time. Send him in.”
Heath was surprised to see Vance and me in the District Attorney’s office, but after greeting Markham with the customary handshake, he turned to Vance with a good-natured smile.
“Still acquiring knowledge, Mr. Vance?”
“Can’t say that I am, Sergeant,” returned Vance lightly. “But I’m learning a number of most int’restin’ errors…. How goes the sleuthin’?”
Heath’s face became suddenly serious.
“That’s what I’m here to tell the Chief about.” He addressed himself to Markham. “This case is a jaw-breaker, sir. My men and myself have talked to a dozen of Benson’s cronies, and we can’t worm a single fact of any value out of ’em. They either don’t know anything, or they’re giving a swell imitation of a lot of clams. They all appear to be greatly shocked—bowled over, floored, flabbergasted—by the news of the shooting. And have they got any idea as to why or how it happened? They’ll tell the world they haven’t. You know the line of talk: Who’d want to shoot good old Al? Nobody could’ve done it but a burglar who didn’t know good old Al? If he’d known good old Al, even the burglar wouldn’t have done it…. Hell! I felt like killing off a few of those birds myself so they could go and join their good old Al.”
The Benson Murder Case Page 7