“He’ll tell you something anyway,” said Vance. “He’s the type of congenital liar that’ll tell anybody anything as long as it doesn’t involve himself unpleasantly.”
“You and the Cumean Sibyl, I presume, could inform me in advance what he’s going to tell me.”
“I couldn’t say as to the Cumean Sibyl, don’t y’ know,” Vance returned lightly; “but speaking for myself, I rather fancy he’ll tell you that he saw the impetuous captain at Benson’s house that night.”
Markham laughed. “I hope he does. You’ll want to be on hand to hear him, I suppose.”
“I couldn’t bear to miss it.”
Vance was already at the door, preparatory to going, when he turned again to Markham. “I’ve another slight favor to ask. Get a dossier on Pfyfe—there’s a good fellow. Send one of your innumerable Dogberrys to Port Washington and have the gentleman’s conduct and social habits looked into. Tell your emiss’ry to concentrate on the woman question.… I promise you, you sha’n’t regret it.”
Markham, I could see, was decidedly puzzled by this request and half inclined to refuse it. But after deliberating a few moments, he smiled and pressed a button on his desk.
“Anything to humor you,” he said. “I’ll send a man down at once.”
CHAPTER 14
LINKS IN THE CHAIN
(Monday, June 17; 6 P.M.)
Vance and I spent an hour or so that afternoon at the Anderson Galleries looking at some tapestries which were to be auctioned the next day, and afterward had tea at Sherry’s. We were at the Stuyvesant Club a little before six. A few minutes later Markham and Pfyfe arrived; and we went at once into one of the conference rooms.
Pfyfe was as elegant and superior as at the first interview. He wore a rat-catcher suit and Newmarket gaiters of unbleached linen, and was redolent of perfume.
“An unexpected pleasure to see you gentlemen again so soon,” he greeted us, like one conferring a blessing.
Markham was far from amiable, and gave him an almost brusque salutation. Vance had merely nodded, and now sat regarding Pfyfe drearily as if seeking to find some excuse for his existence but utterly unable to do so.
Markham went directly to the point. “I’ve found out, Mr. Pfyfe, that you placed your machine in a garage at noon on Friday and gave the man twenty dollars to say nothing about it.”
Pfyfe looked up with a hurt look. “I’ve been deeply wronged,” he complained sadly. “I gave the man fifty dollars.”
“I am glad you admit the fact so readily,” returned Markham. “You knew, by the newspapers, of course, that your machine was seen outside Benson’s house the night he was shot.”
“Why else should I have paid so liberally to have its presence in New York kept secret?” His tone indicated that he was pained at the other’s obtuseness.
“In that case, why did you keep it in the city at all?” asked Markham. “You could have driven it back to Long Island.”
Pfyfe shook his head sorrowfully, a look of commiseration in his eyes. Then he leaned forward with an air of benign patience:—he would be gentle with this dull-witted district attorney, like a fond teacher with a backward child, and would strive to lead him out of the tangle of his uncertainties.
“I am a married man, Mr. Markham.” He pronounced the fact as if some special virtue attached to it. “I started on my trip for the Catskills Thursday after dinner, intending to stop a day in New York to make my adieus to someone residing here. I arrived quite late—after midnight—and decided to call on Alvin. But when I drove up, the house was dark. So, without even ringing the bell, I walked to Pietro’s in Forty-third Street to get a nightcap,—I keep a bit of my own pinch-bottle Haig and Haig there—but, alas! the place was closed, and I strolled back to my car.… To think that while I was away poor Alvin was shot!”
He stopped and polished his eyeglass.
“The irony of it!… I didn’t even guess that anything had happened to the dear fellow—how could I? I drove, all unsuspecting of the tragedy, to a Turkish bath and remained there the night. The next morning I read of the murder; and in the later editions I saw the mention of my car. It was then I became—shall I say worried? But no. Worried is a misleading word. Let me say, rather, that I became aware of the false position I might be placed in if the car were traced to me. So I drove it to the garage and paid the man to say nothing of its whereabouts, lest its discovery confuse the issue of Alvin’s death.”
One might have thought, from his tone and the self-righteous way he looked at Markham, that he had bribed the garageman wholly out of consideration for the district attorney and the police.
“Why didn’t you continue on your trip?” asked Markham. “That would have made the discovery of the car even less likely.”
Pfyfe adopted an air of compassionate surprise.
“With my dearest friend foully murdered? How could one have the heart to seek diversion at such a sad moment?… I returned home and informed Mrs. Pfyfe that my car had broken down.”
“You might have driven home in your car, it seems to me,” observed Markham.
Pfyfe offered a look of infinite forbearance for the other’s inspection and took a deep sigh, which conveyed the impression that, though he could not sharpen the world’s perceptions, he at least could mourn for its deplorable lack of understanding.
“If I had been in the Catskills away from any source of information, where Mrs. Pfyfe believed me to be, how would I have heard of Alvin’s death until, perhaps, days afterward? You see, unfortunately I had not mentioned to Mrs. Pfyfe that I was stopping over in New York. The truth is, Mr. Markham, I had reason for not wishing my wife to know I was in the city. Consequently, if I had driven back at once, she would, I regret to say, have suspected me of breaking my journey. I therefore pursued the course which seemed simplest.”
Markham was becoming annoyed at the man’s fluent hypocrisy. After a brief silence he asked abruptly, “Did the presence of your car at Benson’s house that night have anything to do with your apparent desire to implicate Captain Leacock in the affair?”
Pfyfe lifted his eyebrows in pained astonishment and made a gesture of polite protestation.
“My dear sir!” His voice betokened profound resentment of the other’s unjust imputation. “If yesterday you detected in my words an undercurrent of suspicion against Captain Leacock, I can account for it only by the fact that I actually saw the captain in front of Alvin’s house when I drove up that night.”
Markham shot a curious look at Vance, then said to Pfyfe, “You are sure you saw Leacock?”
“I saw him quite distinctly. And I would have mentioned the fact yesterday had it not involved the tacit confession of my own presence there.”
“What if it had?” demanded Markham. “It was vital information, and I could have used it this morning. You were placing your comfort ahead of the legal demands of justice; and your attitude puts a very questionable aspect on your own alleged conduct that night.”
“You are pleased to be severe, sir,” said Pfyfe with self-pity. “But having placed myself in a false position, I must accept your criticism.”
“Do you realize,”