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.
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 sle
ep, 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 dame[20] 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 cont
ents. "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."
Philo Vance Omnibus Vol 1 Page 23