“You’ve made your point,” he said; “and I accept it with proper humility. I’m most grateful to you.”
Vance walked indifferently to the window and looked out. “I am happy to learn that you are capable of accepting such evidence as the human mind could not possibly deny.”
I had always noticed, in the relationship of these two men, that whenever either made a remark that bordered on generosity, the other answered in a manner which ended all outward show of sentiment. It was as if they wished to keep this more intimate side of their mutual regard hidden from the world.
Markham therefore ignored Vance’s thrust. “Have you perhaps any enlightening suggestions, other than negative ones, to offer as to Benson’s murderer?” he asked.
“Rather!” said Vance. “No end of suggestions.”
“Could you spare me a good one?” Markham imitated the other’s playful tone.
Vance appeared to reflect. “Well, I should advise that, as a beginning, you look for a rather tall man, cool-headed, familiar with firearms, a good shot, and fairly well known to the deceased—a man who was aware that Benson was going to dinner with Miss St. Clair, or who had reason to suspect the fact.”
Markham looked narrowly at Vance for several moments.
“I think I understand.… Not a bad theory, either. You know, I’m going to suggest immediately to Heath that he investigate more thoroughly Captain Leacock’s activities on the night of the murder.”
“Oh, by all means,” said Vance carelessly, going to the piano.
Markham watched him with an expression of puzzled interrogation. He was about to speak when Vance began playing a rollicking French café song which opens, I believe, with “Ils sont dans les vignes les moineaux.”
CHAPTER 11
A MOTIVE AND A THREAT
(Sunday, June 16; afternoon.)
The following day, which was Sunday, we lunched with Markham at the Stuyvesant Club. Vance had suggested the appointment the evening before; for, as he explained to me, he wished to be present in case Leander Pfyfe should arrive from Long Island.
“It amuses me tremendously,” he had said, “the way human beings delib’rately complicate the most ordin’ry issues. They have a downright horror of anything simple and direct. The whole modern commercial system is nothing but a colossal mechanism for doing things in the most involved and roundabout way. If one makes a ten-cent purchase at a department store nowadays, a complete history of the transaction is written out in triplicate, checked by a dozen floorwalkers and clerks, signed and countersigned, entered into innum’rable ledgers with various colored inks, and then elab’rately secreted in steel filing cabinets. And not content with all this superfluous chinoiserie, our businessmen have created a large and expensive army of efficiency experts whose sole duty it is to complicate and befuddle this system still further.… It’s the same with everything else in modern life. Regard that insup’rable mania called golf. It consists merely of knocking a ball into a hole with a stick. But the devotees of this pastime have developed a unique and distinctive livery in which to play it. They concentrate for twenty years on the correct angulation of their feet and the proper method of entwining their fingers about the stick. Moreover, in order to discuss the pseudointr’cacies of this idiotic sport, they’ve invented an outlandish vocabulary which is unintelligible even to an English scholar.”
He pointed disgustedly at a pile of Sunday newspapers.
“Then here’s this Benson murder—a simple and incons’quential affair. Yet the entire machinery of the law is going at high pressure and blowing off jets of steam all over the community, when the matter could be settled quietly in five minutes with a bit of intelligent thinking.”
At lunch, however, he did not refer to the crime; and, as if by tacit agreement, the subject was avoided. Markham had merely mentioned casually to us as we went into the dining room that he was expecting Heath a little later.
The sergeant was waiting for us when we retired to the lounge room for our smoke, and by his expression it was evident he was not pleased with the way things were going.
“I told you, Mr. Markham,” he said, when he had drawn up our chairs, “that this case was going to be a tough one.… Could you get any kind of a lead from the St. Clair woman?”
Markham shook his head.
“She’s out of it.” And he recounted briefly the happenings at Benson’s house the preceding afternoon.
“Well, if you’re satisfied,” was Heath’s somewhat dubious comment, “that’s good enough for me. But what about this Captain Leacock?”
“That’s what I asked you here to talk about,” Markham told him. “There’s no direct evidence against him, but there are several suspicious circumstances that tend to connect him with the murder. He seems to meet the specifications as to height; and we mustn’t overlook the fact that Benson was shot with just such a gun as Leacock would be likely to possess. He was engaged to the girl, and a motive might be found in Benson’s attentions to her.”
“And ever since the big scrap,” supplemented Heath, “these Army boys don’t think anything of shooting people. They got used to blood on the other side.”
“The only hitch,” resumed Markham, “is that Phelps, who had the job of checking up on the captain, reported to me that he was home that night from eight o’clock on. Of course, there may be a loophole somewhere, and I was going to suggest that you have one of your men go into the matter thoroughly and see just what the situation is. Phelps got his information from one of the hallboys; and I think it might be well to get hold of the boy again and apply a little pressure. If it was found that Leacock was not at home at twelve-thirty that night, we might have the lead you’ve been looking for.”
“I’ll attend to it myself,” said Heath. “I’ll go round there tonight, and if this boy knows anything, he’ll spill it before I’m through with him.”
We had talked but a few minutes longer when a uniformed attendant bowed deferentially at the district attorney’s elbow and announced that Mr. Pfyfe was calling.
Markham requested that his visitor be shown into the lounge room, and then added to Heath, “You’d better remain, and hear what he has to say.”
Leander Pfyfe was an immaculate and exquisite personage. He approached us with a mincing gate of self-approbation. His legs, which were very long and thin, with knees that seemed to bend slightly inward, supported a short bulging torso; and his chest curved outward in a generous arc, like that of a pouter pigeon. His face was rotund, and his jowls hung in two loops over a collar too tight for comfort. His blond sparse hair was brushed back sleekly; and the ends of his narrow, silken moustache were waxed into needlepoints. He was dressed in light gray summer flannels and wore a pale turquoise-green silk shirt, a vivid foulard tie, and gray suede Oxfords. A strong odor of oriental perfume was given off by the carefully arranged batiste handkerchief in his breast pocket.
He greeted Markham with viscid urbanity and acknowledged his introduction to us with a patronizing bow. After posing himself in a chair the attendant placed for him, he began polishing a gold-rimmed eyeglass which he wore on a ribbon, and fixed Markham with a melancholy gaze.
“A very sad occasion, this,” he sighed.
“Realizing your friendship for Mr. Benson,” said Markham, “I deplore the necessity of appealing to you at this time. It was very good of you, by the way, to come to the city today.”
Pfyfe made a mildly deprecating movement with his carefully manicured fingers. He was, he explained with an air of ineffable self-complacency, only too glad to discommode himself to give aid to servants of the public. A distressing necessity, to be sure; but his manner conveyed unmistakably