“Any news of the car?” asked Markham.
Heath grunted his disgust.
“Not a word. And that’s funny, too, seeing all the advertising it got. Those fishing-rods are the only thing we’ve got…. The Inspector, by the way, sent me the post-mortem report this morning; but it didn’t tell us anything we didn’t know. Translated into human language, it said Benson died from a shot in the head, with all his organs sound. It’s a wonder, though, they didn’t discover that he’d been poisoned with a Mexican bean or bit by an African snake, or something, so’s to make the case a little more intricate than it already is.”
“Cheer up, Sergeant,” Markham exhorted him. “I’ve had a little better luck. Tracy ran down the owner of the handbag and found out she’d been to dinner with Benson that night. He and Phelps also learned a few other supplementary facts that fit in well; and I’m expecting the lady here at any minute. I’m going to find out what she has to say for herself.”
An expression of resentment came into Heath’s eyes as the District Attorney was speaking, but he erased it at once and began asking questions. Markham gave him every detail, and also informed him of Leander Pfyfe.
“I’ll let you know immediately how the interview comes out,” he concluded.
As the door closed on Heath, Vance looked up at Markham with a sly smile.
“Not exactly one of Nietzsche’s Uebermenschen—eh, what? I fear the subtleties of this complex world bemuse him a bit, y’know…. And he’s so disappointin’. I felt pos’tively elated when the bustling lad with the thick glasses announced his presence. I thought surely he wanted to tell you he had jailed at least six of Benson’s murderers.”
“Your hopes run too high, I fear,” commented Markham.
“And yet, that’s the usual procedure—if the headlines in our great moral dailies are to be credited. I always thought that the moment a crime was committed the police began arresting people promiscuously—to maintain the excitement, don’t y’know. Another illusion gone! … Sad, sad,” he murmured. “I shan’t forgive our Heath: he has betrayed my faith in him.”
At this point, Markham’s secretary came to the door and announced the arrival of Miss St. Clair.
I think we were all taken a little aback at the spectacle presented by this young woman as she came slowly into the room with a firm, graceful step, and with her head held slightly to one side in an attitude of supercilious inquiry. She was small and strikingly pretty, although “pretty” is not exactly the word with which to describe her. She possessed that faintly exotic beauty that we find in the portraits of the Carracci, who sweetened the severity of Leonardo and made it at once intimate and decadent. Her eyes were dark and widely spaced; her nose was delicate and straight, and her forehead broad. Her full, sensuous lips were almost sculpturesque in their linear precision, and her mouth wore an enigmatic smile, or hint of a smile. Her rounded firm chin was a bit heavy when examined apart from the other features, but not in the ensemble. There was poise and a certain strength of character in her bearing; but one sensed the potentialities of powerful emotions beneath her exterior calm. Her clothes harmonised with her personality; they were quiet and apparently in the conventional style, but a touch of colour and originality here and there conferred on them a fascinating distinction.
Markham rose and, bowing with formal courtesy, indicated a comfortable upholstered chair directly in front of his desk. With a barely perceptible nod, she glanced at the chair, and then seated herself in a straight armless chair standing next to it.
“You won’t mind, I’m sure,” she said, “if I choose my own chair for the inquisition.”
Her voice was low and resonant—the speaking voice of the highly-trained singer. She smiled as she spoke, but it was not a cordial smile: it was cold and distant, yet somehow indicative of levity.
“Miss St. Clair,” began Markham, in a tone of polite severity, “the murder of Mr. Alvin Benson has intimately involved yourself. Before taking any definite steps. I have invited you here to ask you a few questions, I can, therefore, advise you quite honestly that frankness will best serve your interests.”
He paused, and the woman looked at him with an ironically questioning gaze.
“Am I supposed to thank you for your generous advice?”
Markham’s scowl deepened as he glanced down at a typewritten page on his desk.
“You are probably aware that your gloves and handbag were found in Mr. Benson’s house the morning after he was shot?”
“I can understand how you might have traced the handbag to me,” she said: “but how did you arrive at the conclusion that the gloves were mine?”
Markham looked up sharply.
“Do you mean to say the gloves are not yours?”
“Oh, no.” She gave him another wintry smile. “I merely wondered how you knew they belonged to me, since you couldn’t have known either my taste in gloves or the size I wore.”
“They’re your gloves, then?”
“If they are Tréfousse, size five-and-three-quarters, of white kid and elbow length, they are certainly mine. And I’d so like to have them back, if you don’t mind.”
“I’m sorry,” said Markham, “but it is necessary that I keep them for the present.”
She dismissed the matter with a slight shrug of the shoulders.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” she asked.
Markham instantly opened a drawer of his desk, and took out a box of Benson and Hedges cigarettes.
“I have my own, thank you,” she informed him. “But I would so appreciate my holder. I’ve missed it horribly.”
Markham hesitated. He was manifestly annoyed by the woman’s attitude.
“I’ll be glad to lend it to you,” he compromised; and reaching into another drawer of his desk, he laid the holder on the table before her.
“Now, Miss St. Clair,” he said, resuming his gravity of manner, “will you tell me how these personal articles of yours happened to be in Mr. Benson’s living-room?”
“No, Mr. Markham, I will not,” she answered.
“Do you realise the serious construction your refusal places upon the circumstances?”
“I really hadn’t given it much thought.” Her tone was indifferent.
“It would be well if you did,” Markham advised her. “Your position is not an enviable one; and the presence of your belongings in Mr. Benson’s room is, by no means, the only thing that connects you directly with the crime.”
The woman raised her eyes inquiringly, and again the enigmatic smile appeared at the corners of her mouth.
“Perhaps you have sufficient evidence to accuse me of the murder?”
Markham ignored this question.
“You were well acquainted with Mr. Benson, I believe?”
“The finding of my handbag and gloves in his apartment might lead one to assume as much, mightn’t it?” she parried.
“He was, in fact, much interested in you?” persisted Markham.
She made a moue, and sighed.
“Alas, yes! Too much for my peace of mind…. Have I been brought here to discuss the attentions this gentleman paid me?”
Again Markham ignored her query.
“Where were you, Miss St. Clair, between the time you left the ‘Marseilles’ at midnight and the time you arrived home—which, I understand, was after one o’clock?”
“You are simply wonderful!” she exclaimed. “You seem to know everything…. Well, I can only say that during that time I was on my way home.”
“Did it take you an hour to go from Fortieth Street to Eighty-first and Riverside Drive?”
“Just about that, I should say—a few minutes more or less, perhaps.”
“How do you account for that?” Markham was becoming impatient.
“I can’t account for it,” she said, “except by the passage of time. Time does fly, doesn’t it, Mr. Markham?”
“By your attitude you are only working detriment to yourself,” Markham warned her, with
a show of irritation. “Can you not see the seriousness of your position? You are known to have dined with Mr. Benson, to have left the restaurant at midnight, and to have arrived at your own apartment after one o’clock. At twelve-thirty, Mr. Benson was shot; and your personal articles were found in the same room the morning after.”
“It looks terribly suspicious, I know,” she admitted, with whimsical seriousness. “And I’ll tell you this, Mr. Markham, if my thoughts could have killed Mr. Benson, he would have died long ago. I know I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead—there’s a saying about it beginning ‘de mortuis,’ isn’t there?—but the truth is, I had reason to dislike Mr. Benson exceedingly.”
“Then why did you go to dinner with him?”
“I’ve asked myself the same question a dozen times since,” she confessed dolefully. “We women are such impulsive creatures—always doing things we shouldn’t…. But I know what you’re thinking: if I had intended to shoot him, that would have been a natural preliminary. Isn’t that what’s in your mind? I suppose all murderesses do go to dinner with their victims first.”
While she spoke she opened her vanity-case and looked at her reflection in its mirror. She daintily adjusted several imaginary stray ends of her abundant dark-brown hair, and touched her arched eye-brows gently with her little finger as if to rectify some infinitesimal disturbance in their pencilled contour. Then she tilted her head, regarded herself appraisingly, and returned her gaze to the District Attorney only as she came to the end of her speech. Her actions had perfectly conveyed to her listeners the impression that the subject of the conversation was, in her scheme of things, of secondary importance to her personal appearance. No words could have expressed her indifference so convincingly as had her little pantomime.
Markham was becoming exasperated. A different type of district attorney would no doubt have attempted to use the pressure of his office to force her into a more amenable frame of mind. But Markham shrank instinctively from the bludgeoning, threatening methods of the ordinary Public Prosecutor, especially in his dealings with women. In the present case, however, had it not been for Vance’s strictures at the Club, he would no doubt have taken a more aggressive stand. But it was evident he was labouring under a burden of uncertainty superinduced by Vance’s words and augmented by the evasive deportment of the woman herself.
After a moment’s silence he asked grimly:
“You did considerable speculating through the firm of Benson and Benson, did you not?”
A faint ring of musical laughter greeted this question.
“I see that the dear Major has been telling tales…. Yes, I’ve been gambling most extravagantly. And I had no business to do it. I’m afraid I’m avaricious.”
“And is it not true that you’ve lost heavily of late—that, in fact, Mr. Alvin Benson called upon you for additional margin and finally sold out your securities?”
“I wish to Heaven it were not true,” she lamented, with a look of simulated tragedy. Then: “Am I supposed to have done away with Mr. Benson out of sordid revenge, or as an act of just retribution?” She smiled archly and waited expectantly, as if her question had been part of a guessing game.
Markham’s eyes hardened as he coldly enunciated his next words.
“Is it not a fact that Captain Philip Leacock owned just such a pistol as Mr. Benson was killed with—a forty-five army Colt automatic?”
At the mention of her fiancé’s name she stiffened perceptibly and caught her breath. The part she had been playing fell from her, and a faint flush suffused her cheeks and extended to her forehead. But almost immediately she had reassumed her role of playful indifference.
“I never inquired into the make or calibre of Captain Leacock’s firearms,” she returned carelessly.
“And is it not a fact,” pursued Markham’s imperturbable voice, “that Captain Leacock lent you his pistol when he called at your apartment on the morning before the murder?”
“It’s most ungallant of you, Mr. Markham,” she reprimanded him coyly, “to inquire into the personal relations of an engaged couple; for I am betrothed to Captain Leacock—though you probably know it already.”
Markham stood up, controlling himself with effort.
“Am I to understand that you refuse to answer any of my questions or to endeavour to extricate yourself from the very serious position you are in?”
She appeared to consider.
“Yes,” she said slowly, “I haven’t anything I care especially to say just now.”
Markham leaned over and rested both hands on the desk.
“Do you realise the possible consequences of your attitude?” he asked ominously. “The facts I know regarding your connection with the case, coupled with your refusal to offer a single extenuating explanation, give me more grounds than I actually need to order your being held.”
I was watching her closely as he spoke, and it seemed to me that her eyelids drooped involuntarily the merest fraction of an inch. But she gave no other indication of being affected by the pronouncement, and merely looked at the District Attorney with an air of defiant amusement.
Markham with a sudden contraction of the jaw, turned and reached towards a bell-button beneath the edge of his desk. But, in doing so, his glance fell upon Vance, and he paused indecisively. The look he had encountered on the other’s face was one of reproachful amazement: not only did it express complete surprise at his apparent decision, but it stated, more eloquently than words could have done, that he was about to commit an act of irreparable folly.
There were several moments of tense silence in the room. Then calmly and unhurriedly Miss St. Clair opened her vanity case and powdered her nose. When she had finished, she turned a serene gaze upon the District Attorney.
“Well, do you want to arrest me now?” she asked.
Markham regarded her for a moment, deliberating. Instead of answering at once, he went to the window and stood for a full minute looking down upon the Bridge of Sighs which connects the Criminal Courts Building with the Tombs.
“No, I think not to-day,” he said slowly.
He stood a while longer in absorbed contemplation; then, as if shaking off his mood of irresolution, he swung about and confronted the woman.
“I’m not going to arrest you—yet,” he reiterated a bit harshly. “But I’m going to order you to remain in New York for the present. And if you attempt to leave, you will be arrested. I hope that is clear.”
He pressed a button, and his secretary entered.
“Swacker, please escort Miss St. Clair downstairs and call a taxicab for her…. Then you can go home yourself.”
She rose and gave Markham a little nod.
“You were very kind to lend me my cigarette holder,” she said pleasantly, laying it on his desk.
Without another word, she walked calmly from the room.
The door had no more than closed behind her when Markham pressed another button. In a few moments the door leading into the outer corridor opened, and a white-haired, middle-aged man appeared.
“Ben,” ordered Markham hurriedly, “have that woman that Swacker’s taking downstairs followed. Keep her under surveillance, and don’t let her get lost. She’s not to leave the city—understand? It’s the St. Clair woman Tracy dug up.”
When the man had gone, Markham turned and stood glowering at Vance.
“What do you think of your innocent young lady now?” he asked, with an air of belligerent triumph.
“Nice gel—eh, what?” replied Vance blandly. “Extr’ordin’ry control. And she’s about to marry a professional milit’ry man! Ah well. De gustibus…. Y’know, I was afraid for a moment you were actu’lly going to send for the manacles. And if you had, Markham, old dear, you’d have regretted it to your dying day.”
Markham studied him for a few seconds. He knew there was something more than a mere whim beneath Vance’s certitude of manner; and it was this knowledge that had stayed his hand when he was about to have the woman placed in custo
dy.
“Her attitude was certainly not conducive to one’s belief in her innocence,” Markham objected. “She played her part damned cleverly, though. But it was just the part a shrewd woman knowing herself guilty, would have played.”
“I say, didn’t it occur to you,” asked Vance, “that perhaps she didn’t care a farthing whether you thought her guilty or not?—that, in fact, she was a bit disappointed when you let her go.”
“That’s hardly the way I read the situation,” returned Markham. “Whether guilty or innocent, a person doesn’t ordinarily invite arrest.”
“By the bye,” asked Vance, “where was the fortunate swain during the hour of Alvin’s passing?”
“Do you think we didn’t check up on that point?” Markham spoke with disdain. “Captain Leacock was at his own apartment that night from eight o’clock on.”
“Was he, really?” airily retorted Vance. “A most model young fella!”
Again Markham looked at him sharply.
“I’d like to know what weird theory has been struggling in your brain to-day,” he mused. “Now that I’ve let the lady go temporarily—which is what you obviously wanted me to do—and have stultified my own better judgment in so doing, why not tell me frankly what you’ve got up your sleeve?”
“‘Up my sleeve?’ Such an inelegant metaphor! One would think I was a prestidig’tator, what?”
Whenever Vance answered in this fashion it was a sign that he wished to avoid making a direct reply; and Markham dropped the matter.
The Benson Murder Case Page 8