The Benson Murder Case (26 page)

The telephone rang: Colonel Ostrander wanted to speak to the District Attorney. Markham, after a short conversation, turned a disgruntled look upon Vance.

“Your bloodthirsty friend wanted to know if I'd arrested anyone yet. He offered to confer more of his invaluable suggestions upon me in case I was still undecided as to who was guilty.”

“I heard you thanking him fulsomely for something or other…. What did you give him to understand about your mental state?”

“That I was still in the dark.”

Markham's answer was accompanied by a sombre, tired smile. It was his way of telling Vance that he had entirely rejected the idea of Captain Leacock's guilt.

The Major went to him and held out his hand.

“I know how you feel,” he said. “This sort of thing is discouraging; but it's better that the guilty person should escape altogether than that an innocent man should be made to suffer…. Don't work too hard, and don't let these disappointments get to you. You'll soon hit on the right solution, and when you do—” His jaw snapped shut, and he uttered the rest of the sentence between clenched teeth “—you'll meet with no opposition from me. I'll help you put the thing over.”

He gave Markham a grim smile, and took up his hat.

“I'm going back to the office now. If you want me at any time, let me know. I may be able to help you—later on.”

With a friendly, appreciative bow to Vance, he went out.

Markham sat in silence for several minutes.

“Damn it, Vance!” he said irritably. “This case gets more difficult by the hour. I feel worn out.”

“You really shouldn't take it so seriously, old dear,” Vance advised lightly. “It doesn't pay, y'know, to worry over the
trivia
of existence.

‘Nothing's new,
And nothing's true,
And nothing really matters.'

Several million johnnies were killed in the War, and you don't let the fact bedevil your phagocytes or inflame your brain cells. But when one rotter is mercifully shot in your district, you lie awake nights perspiring over it, what? My word! You're deucedly inconsistent.”

“Consistency—” began Markham; but Vance interrupted him.

“Now don't quote Emerson. I inf'nitely prefer Erasmus. Y'know, you ought to read his
Praise of Folly
; it would cheer you no end. That goaty old Dutch professor would never have grieved inconsolably over the destruction of Alvin
Le Chauve
.”

“I'm not a
fruges consumere natus
like you,” snapped Markham. “I was elected to this office—”

“Oh, quite—‘loved I not honour more' and all that,” Vance chimed in. “But don't be so sens'tive. Even if the Captain has succeeded in bungling his way out of jail, you have at least five possibilities left. There's Mrs. Platz … and Pfyfe … and Colonel Ostrander … and Miss Hoffman … and Mrs. Banning. I say! Why don't you arrest 'em all, one at a time, and get 'em to confess? Heath would go crazy with joy.”

Markham was in too crestfallen a mood to resent this chaffing. Indeed, Vance's light-heartedness seemed to buoy him up.

“If you want the truth,” he said, “that's exactly what I feel like doing. I am restrained merely by my indecision as to which one to arrest first.”

“Stout fella!” Then Vance asked: “What are you going to do with the Captain now? It'll break his heart if you release him.”

“His heart'll have to break, I'm afraid.” Markham reached for the telephone. “I'd better see to the formalities now.”

“Just a moment!” Vance put forth a restraining hand. “Don't end his rapturous martyrdom just yet. Let him be happy for another day at least. I've a notion he may be most useful to us, pining away in his lonely cell like the prisoner of Chillon.”

Markham put down the telephone without a word. More and more, I had noticed, he was becoming inclined to accept Vance's leadership. This attitude was not merely the result of the hopeless confusion in his mind, though his uncertainty probably influenced him to some extent; but it was due in large measure to the impression Vance had given him of knowing more than he cared to reveal.

“Have you tried to figure out just how Pfyfe and his Turtledove fit into the case?” Vance asked.

“Along with a few thousand other enigmas—yes,” was the petulant reply. “But the more I try to reason it out, the more of a mystery the whole thing becomes.”

“Loosely put, my dear Markham,” criticised Vance. “There are no mysteries originating in human beings, y'know; there are only problems. And any problem originating in one human being can be solved by another human being. It merely requires a knowledge of the human mind, and the application of that knowledge to human acts. Simple, what?”

He glanced at the clock.

“I wonder how your Mr. Stitt is getting along with the Benson and Benson books. I await his report with anticipat'ry excitement.”

This was too much for Markham. The wearing-down process of Vance's intimations and veiled innuendoes had at last dissipated his self-control. He bent forward and struck the desk angrily with his hand.

“I'm damned tired of this superior attitude of yours,” he complained hotly. “Either you know something or you don't. If you don't know anything, do me the favour of dropping these insinuations of knowledge. If you do know anything, it's up to you to tell me. You've been hinting around in one way or another ever since Benson was shot. If you've got any idea who lolled him, I want to know it.”

He leaned back and took out a cigar. Not once did he
look up as he carefully clipped the end and lit it. I think he was a little ashamed at having given way to his anger.

Vance had sat apparently unconcerned during the outburst. At length he stretched his legs, and gave Markham a long contemplative look.

“Y'know, Markham, old bean, I don't blame you a bit for your unseemly ebullition. The situation has been most provokin'. But now, I fancy, the time has come to put an end to the comedietta. I really haven't been spoofing, y'know. The fact is, I've some most int'restin' ideas on the subject.”

He stood up and yawned.

“It's a beastly hot day, but it must be done—eh, what?

‘So nigh is grandeur to our dust,

So near is God to man.

When duty whispers low,
Thou must
,

The youth replies, I
can
.'

I'm the noble youth, don't y'know. And you're the voice of duty—though you didn't exactly whisper, did you? …
Was aber ist deine Pflicht
? And Goethe answered:
Die Forderung des Tages
. But—deuce take it—I wish the demand had come on a cooler day!”

He handed Markham his hat.

“Come,
Postume
. To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
¹
You are through with the office for to-day—inform Swacker of the fact, will you?—there's a dear! We attend upon a lady—Miss St. Clair, no less.”

Markham realised that Vance's jesting manner was only the masquerade of a very serious purpose. Also, he knew that Vance would tell him what he knew or suspected only in his own way, and that, no matter how circuitous and unreasonable that way might appear, Vance had excellent
reasons for following it. Furthermore, since the unmasking of Captain Leacock's purely fictitious confession, he was in a state of mind to follow any suggestion that held the faintest hope of getting at the truth. He therefore rang at once for Swacker, and informed him he was quitting the office for the day.

In ten minutes we were in the subway on our way to 94 Riverside Drive.

(
Wednesday
,
June
19
th
; 4.30
p.m.
)

“The quest for enlightenment upon which we are now embarked,” said Vance, as we rode up town, “may prove a bit tedious. But you must exert your will-power, and bear with me. You can't imagine what a ticklish task I have on my hands. And it's not a pleasant one either. I'm a bit too young to be sentimental, and yet, d'ye know, I'm half inclined to let your culprit go.”

“Would you mind telling me why we are calling on Miss St. Clair?” asked Markham resignedly.

Vance amiably complied.

“Not at all. Indeed, I deem it best for you to know. There are several points connected with the lady that need eluc'dation. First, there are the gloves and the handbag. Nor poppy nor mandragora shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep which thou ow'dst yesterday until you have learned about those articles—eh, what? Then, you recall, Miss Hoffman told us that the Major was lending an ear when a certain lady called upon Benson the day he was shot. I suspect that the visitor was Miss St. Clair; and I am rather curious to know what took place in the office that day, and why she came back later. Also, why did she go to Benson's for tea that afternoon? And what part did the jewels play in the chit-chat? But there are other items. For example: Why did the Captain take his gun to her?
What makes him think she shot Benson?—he really believes it, y'know. And why did she think that he was guilty from the first?”

Markham looked sceptical.

“You expect her to tell us all this?”

“My hopes run high,” returned Vance. “With her verray parfit gentil knight jailed as a self-confessed murderer, she will have nothing to lose by unburdening her soul…. But we must have no blustering. Your police brand of aggressive cross-examination will, I assure you, have no effect upon the lady.”

“Just how do you propose to elicit your information?”

“With
morbidezza
, as the painters say. Much more refined and gentlemanly, y'know.”

Markham considered a moment.

“I think I'll keep out of it, and leave the Socratic
elenchus
entirely to you.”

“An extr'ordin'rily brilliant suggestion,” said Vance.

When we arrived Markham announced over the house-telephone that he had come on a vitally important mission; and we were received by Miss St. Clair without a moment's delay. She was apprehensive, I imagine, concerning the whereabouts of Captain Leacock.

As she sat before us in her little drawing-room overlooking the Hudson, her face was quite pale, and her hands, though tightly clasped, trembled a little. She had lost much of her cold reserve, and there were unmistakable signs of sleepless worry about her eyes.

Vance went directly to the point. His tone was almost flippant in its lightness: it at once relieved the tension of the atmosphere, and gave an air bordering on inconsequentiality to our visit.

“Captain Leacock has, I regret to inform you, very foolishly confessed to the murder of Mr. Benson. But we are not entirely satisfied with his
bona fides
. We are, alas! awash between Scylla and Charybdis. We cannot decide whether the Captain is a deep-dyed villain or a
chevalier sans peur et sans reproche
. His story of how he accomplished the dark deed is a bit sketchy: he is vague on certain essential details; and—what's most confusin'—he turned the lights off in Benson's hideous living-room by a switch which pos'tively
doesn't exist. Cons'quently, the suspicion has crept into my mind that he has concocted this tale of derring-do in order to shield someone whom he really believes guilty.”

He indicated Markham with a slight movement of the head. “The District Attorney here does not wholly agree with me. But then, d'ye see, the legal mind is incredibly rigid and unreceptive once it has been invaded by a notion. You will remember that, because you were with Mr. Alvin Benson on his last evening on earth, and for other reasons equally irrelevant and trivial, Mr. Markham actu'lly concluded that you had had something to do with the gentleman's death.”

He gave Markham a smile of waggish reproach, and went on:

“Since you, Miss St. Clair, are the only person whom Captain Leacock would shield so heroically, and since I, at least, am convinced of your own innocence, will you not clear up for us a few of those points where your orbit crossed that of Mr. Benson? … Such information cannot do the Captain or yourself any harm, and it very possibly will help to banish from Mr. Markham's mind his lingering doubts as to the Captain's innocence.”

Vance's manner had an assuaging effect upon the woman; but I could see that Markham was boiling inwardly at Vance's animadversions on him, though he refrained from any interruption.

Miss St. Clair stared steadily at Vance for several minutes.

“I don't know why I should trust you, or even believe you,” she said evenly; “but now that Captain Leacock has confessed—I was afraid he was going to, when he last spoke to me—I see no reason why I should not answer your questions…. Do you truly think he is innocent?”

The question was like an involuntary cry: her pent-up emotion had broken through her carapace of calm.

“I truly do,” Vance avowed soberly. “Mr. Markham will tell you that before we left his office I pleaded with him to release Captain Leacock. It was with the hope that your explanations would convince him of the wisdom of such a course, that I urged him to come here.”

Something in his tone and manner seemed to inspire her confidence.

“What do you wish to ask me?” she asked.

Vance cast another reproachful glance at Markham, who was restraining his outraged feelings only with difficulty; and then turned back to the woman.

“First of all, will you explain how your gloves and handbag found their way into Mr. Benson's house? Their presence there has been preying most distressin'ly on the District Attorney's mind.”

She turned a direct, frank gaze upon Markham.

“I dined with Mr. Benson at his invitation. Things between us were not pleasant, and when we started for home, my resentment of his attitude increased. At Times Square I ordered the chauffeur to stop—I preferred returning home alone. In my anger and my haste to get away, I must have dropped my gloves and bag. It was not until Mr. Benson had driven off that I realised my loss, and having no money, I walked home. Since my things were found in Mr. Benson's house, he must have taken them there himself.”