“No, you wouldn’t have,” Vance informed her. “One of the district attorney’s sleuths, d’ ye see, cleaned it all up nicely for you yesterday.”
She shot Markham a questioning glance. She was not sure whether Vance’s remark was to be taken seriously; but his casualness of manner and pleasantness of voice tended to put her at ease.
“Now that we understand each other, Mrs. Platz,” he was saying, “was there anything else you particularly noticed when the young lady was here? You will be doing her a good service by telling us, because both the district attorney and I happen to know she is innocent.”
She gave Vance a long, shrewd look, as if appraising his sincerity. Evidently the results of her scrutiny were favorable, for her answer left no doubt as to her complete frankness.
“I don’t know if it’ll help, but when I came in with the toast, Mr. Benson looked like he was arguing with her. She seemed worried about something that was going to happen and asked him not to hold her to some promise she’d made. I was only in the room a minute and I didn’t hear much. But just as I was going out he laughed and said it was only a bluff and that nothing was going to happen.”
She stopped and waited anxiously. She seemed to fear that her revelation might, after all, prove injurious rather than helpful to the girl.
“Was that all?” Vance’s tone indicated that the matter was of no consequence.
The woman demurred.
“That was all I heard; but…there was a small blue box of jewelry sitting on the table.”
“My word!—a box of jewelry! Do you know whose it was?”
“No, sir, I don’t. The lady hadn’t brought it, and I never saw it in the house before.”
“How did you know it was jewelry?”
“When Mr. Benson went upstairs to dress, I came in to clear the tea things away, and it was still sitting on the table.”
Vance smiled. “And you played Pandora and took a peep—eh, what? Most natural—I’d have done it myself.”
He stepped back and bowed politely.
“That will be all, Mrs. Platz.… And you needn’t worry about the young lady. Nothing is going to happen to her.”
When she had left us, Markham leaned forward and shook his cigar at Vance. “Why didn’t you tell me you had information about the case unknown to me?”
“My dear chap!” Vance lifted his eyebrows in protestation. “To what do you refer specifically?”
“How did you know this St. Clair woman had been here in the afternoon?”
“I didn’t; but I surmised it. There were cigarette butts of hers in the grate; and, as I knew she hadn’t been here on the night Benson was shot, I thought it rather likely she had been here earlier in the day. And since Benson didn’t arrive from his office until four, I whispered into my ear that she had called sometime between four and the hour of his departure for dinner.… An element’ry syllogism, what?”
“How did you know she wasn’t here that night?”
“The psychological aspects of the crime left me in no doubt. As I told you, no woman committed it—my metaphysical hypotheses again; but never mind.… Furthermore, yesterday morning I stood on the spot where the murderer stood and sighted with my eye along the line of fire, using Benson’s head and the mark on the wainscot as my points of coinc’dence. It was evident to me then, even without measurements, that the guilty person was rather tall.”
“Very well.… But how did you know she left here that afternoon before Benson did?” persisted Markham.
“How else could she have changed into an evening gown? Really, y’ know, ladies don’t go about décolletées in the afternoon.”
“You assume, then, that Benson himself brought her gloves and handbag back here that night?”
“Someone did—and it certainly wasn’t Miss St. Clair.”
“All right,” conceded Markham. “And what about this Morris chair?—how did you know she sat in it?”
“What other chair could she have sat in and still thrown her cigarettes into the fireplace? Women are notoriously poor shots, even if they were given to hurling their cigarette stubs across the room.”
“That deduction is simple enough,” admitted Markham. “But suppose you tell me how you know she had tea here unless you were privy to some information on the point?”
“It pos’tively shames me to explain it. But the humiliating truth is that I inferred the fact from the condition of yon samovar. I noted yesterday that it had been used and had not been emptied or wiped off.”
Markham nodded with contemptuous elation.
“You seem to have sunk to the despised legal level of material clues.”
“That’s why I’m blushing so furiously.… However, psychological deductions alone do not determine facts in esse, but only in posse. Other conditions must, of course, be considered. In the present instance the indications of the samovar served merely as the basis for an assumption, or guess, with which to draw out the housekeeper.”
“Well, I won’t deny that you succeeded,” said Markham. “I’d like to know, though, what you had in mind when you accused the woman of a personal interest in the girl. That remark certainly indicated some preknowledge of the situation.”
Vance’s face became serious.
“Markham, I give you my word,” he said earnestly, “I had nothing in mind. I made the accusation, thinking it was false, merely to trap her into a denial. And she fell into the trap. But—deuce take it!—I seemed to hit some nail squarely on the head, what? I can’t for the life of me imagine why she was frightened. But it really doesn’t matter.”
“Perhaps not,” agreed Markham, but his tone was dubious. “What do you make of the box of jewelry and the disagreement between Benson and the girl?”
“Nothing yet. They don’t fit in, do they?”
He was silent a moment. Then he spoke with unusual seriousness. “Markham, take my advice and don’t bother with these side issues. I’m telling you the girl had no part in the murder. Let her alone—you’ll be happier in your old age if you do.”
Markham sat scowling, his eyes in space. “I’m convinced that you think you know something.”
“Cogito, ergo sum,” murmured Vance. “Y’ know, the naturalistic philosophy of Descartes has always rather appealed to me. It was a departure from universal doubt and a seeking for positive knowledge in self-consciousness. Spinoza in his pantheism, and Berkeley in his idealism, quite misunderstood the significance of their precursor’s favorite enthymeme. Even Descartes’ errors were brilliant. His method of reasoning, for all its scientific inaccuracies, gave new signif’cation to the symbols of the analyst. The mind, after all, if it is to function effectively, must combine the mathematical precision of a natural science with such pure speculations as astronomy. For instance, Descartes’ doctrine of Vortices—”
“Oh, be quiet,” growled Markham. “I’m not insisting that you reveal your precious information. So why burden me with a dissertation on seventeenth-century philosophy?”
“Anyhow, you’ll admit, won’t you,” asked Vance lightly, “that, in elim’nating those disturbing cigarette butts, so to speak, I’ve elim’nated Miss St. Clair as a suspect?”
Markham did not answer at once. There was no doubt that the developments of the past hour had made a decided impression upon him. He did not underestimate Vance, despite his persistent opposition; and he knew that, for all his flippancy,