The Benson Murder Case (8 page)

“Benson, at any rate, regarded it in that light, I imagine…. Anything else?”

“Well, there was the collar and tie on the chiffonier.”

“And,” added Markham chaffingly, “don't overlook the false teeth in the tumbler.”

“You're pos'tively coruscatin'!” Vance exclaimed. “Yes, they, too, were an essential of the situation. And I'll warrant the imcomp'rable Heath didn't even notice them. But the other Aristotles present were equally sketchy in their observations.

“You weren't particularly impressed by the investigation yesterday, I take it,” said Markham.

“On the contrary,” Vance assured him, “I was impressed to the point of stupefaction. The whole proceedings constituted a masterpiece of absurdity. Everything relevant was sublimely ignored. There were at least a dozen
points de départ
, all leading in the same direction, but not one of them apparently was even noticed by any of the officiating
pourparleurs
. Everybody was too busy at such silly occupations as looking for cigarette-ends and inspecting the ironwork at the windows—those grilles, by the way, were rather attractive—Florentine design.”

Markham was both amused and ruffled.

“One's pretty safe with the police, Vance,” he said. “They get there eventually.”

“I simply adore your trusting nature,” murmured Vance. “But confide in me: what do you know regarding Benson's murder?”

Markham hesitated.

“This is, of course, in confidence,” he said at length; “but this morning, right after you 'phoned, one of the men I had put to work on the amatory end of Benson's life, reported that he had found the woman who left her handbag and gloves at the house that night—the initials on the handkerchief gave him the clue. And he dug up some interesting facts about her. As I suspected, she was Benson's dinner companion that evening. She's an actress—musical comedy, I believe. Muriel St. Clair by name.”

“Most unfortunate,” breathed Vance. “I was hoping, y'know, your myrmidons wouldn't discover the lady. I haven't the pleasure of her acquaintance, or I'd send her a note of commiseration…. Now, I presume, you'll play the
juge d'instruction
and chivvy her most horribly, what?”

“I shall certainly question her, if that's what you mean.”

Markham's manner was preoccupied, and during the rest of the lunch we spoke but little.

As we sat in the Club's lounge-room later, having our smoke, Major Benson, who had been standing dejectedly at a window close by, caught sight of Markham and came over to us. He was a full-faced man of about fifty, with grave kindly features and a sturdy, erect body.

He greeted Vance and me with a casual bow, and turned at once to the District Attorney.

“Markham, I've been thinking things over constantly since our lunch yesterday,” he said, “and there's one other suggestion I think I might make. There's a man named Leander Pfyfe who was very close to Alvin; and it's possible he could give you some helpful information. His name didn't occur to me yesterday, for he doesn't live in the city; he's on Long Island somewhere—Port Washington, I think. It's just an idea. The truth is, I can't seem to figure out anything that makes sense in this terrible affair.”

He drew a quick, resolute breath, as if to check some involuntary sign of emotion. It was evident that the man, for all his habitual passivity of nature, was deeply moved.

“That's a good suggestion, Major,” Markham said, making a notation on the back of a letter. “I'll get after it immediately.”

Vance, who, during this brief interchange, had been
gazing unconcernedly out of the window, turned and addressed himself to the Major.

“How about Colonel Ostrander? I've seen him several times in the company of your brother.”

Major Benson made a slight gesture of deprecation.

“Only an acquaintance. He'd be of no value.”

Then he turned to Markham.

“I don't imagine it's time even to hope that you've run across anything?”

Markham took his cigar from his mouth, and turning it about in his fingers, contemplated it thoughtfully.

“I wouldn't say that,” he remarked after a moment. “I've managed to find out whom your brother dined with Thursday night; and I know that this person returned home with him shortly after midnight.” He paused as if deliberating the wisdom of saying more. Then: “The fact is, I don't need a great deal more evidence than I've got already to go before the Grand Jury and ask for an indictment.”

A look of surprised admiration flashed in the Major's sombre face.

“Thank God for that, Markham!” he said. Then, setting his heavy jaw, he placed his hand on the District Attorney's shoulder. “Go the limit—for my sake!” he urged. “If you want me for anything, I'll be here at the Club till late.”

With this he turned and walked from the room.

“It seems a bit cold-blooded to bother the Major with questions so soon after his brother's death,” commented Markham. “Still, the world has got to go on.”

Vance stifled a yawn.

“Why—in heaven's name?” he murmured listlessly.

(
Saturday
,
June
15
th
; 2
p.m.
)

We sat for a while smoking in silence, Vance gazing lazily out into Madison Square, Markham frowning deeply at the
faded oil portrait of old Peter Stuyvesant that hung over the fireplace.

Presently Vance turned and contemplated the District Attorney with a faintly sardonic smile.

“I say, Markham,” he drawled; “it has always been a source of amazement to me how easily you investigators of crime are misled by what you call clues. You find a footprint, or a parked motor-car, or a monogrammed handkerchief, and then dash off on a wild chase with your eternal
Ecce signum!
'Pon my word, it's as if you chaps were all under the spell of shillin' shockers. Won't you ever learn that crimes can't be solved by deductions based merely on material clues and circumst'ntial evidence?”

I think Markham was as much surprised as I at this sudden criticism; yet we both knew Vance well enough to realise that, despite his placid and almost flippant tone, there was a serious purpose behind his words.

“Would you advocate ignoring all the tangible evidence of a crime?” asked Markham, a bit patronisingly.

“Most emphatically,” Vance declared calmly. “It's not only worthless, but dangerous…. The great trouble with you chaps, d'ye see, is that you approach every crime with a fixed and unshakable assumption that the criminal is either half-witted or a colossal bungler. I say, has it never by any chance occurred to you that if a detective could see a clue, the criminal would also have seen it, and would either have concealed it or disguised it, if he had not wanted it found? And have you never paused to consider that anyone clever enough to plan and execute a successful crime these days, is,
ipso facto
, clever enough to manufacture whatever clues suit his purpose? Your detective seems wholly unwilling to admit that the surface appearance of a crime may be delib'rately deceptive, or that the clues may have been planted for the def'nite purpose of misleading him.”

“I'm afraid,” Markham pointed out, with an air of indulgent irony, “that we'd convict very few criminals if we were to ignore all indicatory evidence, cogent circumstances and irresistible inferences…. As a rule, you know, crimes are not witnessed by outsiders.”

“That's your fundamental error, don't y'know,” Vance observed impassively. “Every crime is witnessed by out
siders, just as is every work of art. The fact that no one sees the criminal, or the artist, actu'lly at work, is wholly incons'quential. The modern investigator of crime would doubtless refuse to believe that Rubens painted the “Descent from the Cross” in the Cathedral at Antwerp if there was sufficient circumst'ntial evidence to indicate that he had been away on diplomatic business, for instance, at the time it was painted. And yet, my dear fellow, such a conclusion would be preposterous. Even if the infrences to the contr'ry were so irresistible as to be legally overpowering, the picture itself would prove conclusively that Rubens did paint it. Why? For the simple reason, d'ye see, that no one but Rubens could have painted it. It bears the indelible imprint of his personality and genius—and his alone.”

“I'm not an aesthetician,” Markham reminded him, a trifle testily. “I'm merely a practical lawyer, and when it comes to determining the authorship of a crime, I prefer tangible evidence to metaphysical hypotheses.”

“Your pref'rence, my dear fellow,” Vance returned blandly, “will inev'tably involve you in all manner of embarrassing errors.”

He slowly lit another cigarette, and blew a wreath of smoke towards the ceiling.

“Consider, for example, your conclusions in the present murder case,” he went on in his emotionless drawl. “You are labouring under the grave misconception that you know the person who prob'bly killed the unspeakable Benson. You admitted as much to the Major; and you told him you had nearly enough evidence to ask for an indictment. No doubt, you do possess a number of what the learned Solons of to-day regard as convincing clues. But the truth is,—don't y'know, you haven't your eye on the guilty person at all. You're about to bedevil some poor girl who had nothing whatever to do with the crime.”

Markham swung about sharply.

“So!” he retorted. “I'm about to bedevil an innocent person, eh? Since my assistants and I are the only ones who happen to know what evidence we hold against her, perhaps you will explain by what occult process you acquired your knowledge of this person's innocence.”

“It's quite simple, y'know,” Vance replied, with a quizzical
twitch of the lips. “You haven't your eye on the murderer for the reason that the person who committed this particular crime was sufficiently shrewd and perspicacious to see to it that no evidence which you or the police were likely to find, would even remotely indicate his guilt.”

He had spoken with easy assurance of one who enunciates an obvious fact—a fact which permits of no argument.

Markham gave a disdainful laugh.

“No law-breaker,” he asserted oracularly, “is shrewd enough to see all contingencies. Even the most trivial event has so many intimately related and serrated points of contact with other events which precede and follow, that it is a known fact that every criminal—however long and carefully he may plan—leaves some loose end to his preparations, which in the end betrays him.”

“A known fact?” Vance repeated. “No, my dear fellow—merely a conventional superstition, based on the childish idea of an implacable, avenging Nemesis. I can see how this esoteric notion of the inev'tability of divine punishment would appeal to the popular imagination, like fortune-telling and Ouija boards, don't y'know; but—my word—it desolates me to think that you, old chap, would give credence to such mystical moonshine!”

“Don't let it spoil your entire day,” said Markham acridly.

“Regard the unsolved or successful crimes that are taking place every day,” Vance continued, disregarding the other's irony, “crimes which completely baffle the best detectives in the business, what? The fact is, the only crimes that are ever solved are those planned by stupid people. That's why, whenever a man of even mod'rate sagacity decides to commit a crime, he accomplishes it with but little diff'culty, and fortified with the positive assurance of his immunity to discovery.”

“Undetected crimes,” scornfully submitted Markham, “result, in the main, from official bad luck—not from superior criminal cleverness.”

“Bad luck”—Vance's voice was almost dulcet—“is merely a defensive and self-consoling synonym for inefficiency. A man with ingenuity and brains is not harassed by bad luck…. No, Markham, old dear; unsolved crimes are simply crimes which have been intelligently
planned and executed. And, d'ye see, it happens that the Benson murder falls into that categ'ry. Therefore, when, after a few hours' investigation, you say you're pretty sure who committed it, you must pardon me if I take issue with you.”

He paused and took a few meditative puffs on his cigarette.

“The factitious and casuistic methods of deduction you chaps pursue are apt to lead almost anywhere. In proof of which assertion I point triumphantly to the unfortunate young lady whose liberty you are now plotting to take away.”

Markham, who had been hiding his resentment behind a smile of tolerant contempt, now turned on Vance and fairly glowered.

“It so happens—and I'm speaking
ex cathedra
,” he proclaimed defiantly, “that I come pretty near having the goods on your ‘unfortunate young lady.'”

Vance was unmoved.

“And yet, y'know,” he observed drily, “no woman could possibly have done it.”

I could see that Markham was furious. When he spoke he almost spluttered.

“A woman couldn't have done it, eh—no matter what the evidence?”

“Quite so,” Vance rejoined placidly: “not if she herself swore to it and produced a tome of what you scions of the law term, rather pompously, incontrovertible evidence.”

“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?”