“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 ca
lculations 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.”
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