“And now,” pursued Vance, “I should love to know under what circumst’nces the invitation to dinner was extended.”
A shadow darkened her face, but her voice remained even.
“I had been losing a lot of money through Mr. Benson’s firm, and suddenly my intuition told me that he was purposely seeing to it that I did lose, and that he could, if he desired, help me to recoup.” She dropped her eyes. “He had been annoying me with his attentions for some time; and I didn’t put any despicable scheme past him. I went to his office and told him quite plainly what I suspected. He replied that if I’d dine with him that night, we could talk it over. I knew what his object was, but I was so desperate I decided to go anyway, hoping I might plead with him.”
“And how did you happen to mention to Mr. Benson the exact time your little dinner party would terminate?”
She looked at Vance in astonishment but answered unhesitatingly. “He said something about making a gay night of it; and then I told him—very emphatically—that if I went, I would leave him sharply at midnight, as was my invariable rule on all parties.… You see,” she added, “I study very hard at my singing, and going home at midnight, no matter what the occasion, is one of the sacrifices—or rather, restrictions—I impose on myself.”
“Most commendable and most wise!” commented Vance. “Was this fact generally known among your acquaintances?”
“Oh, yes. It even resulted in my being nicknamed Cinderella.”
“Specifically, did Colonel Ostrander and Mr. Pfyfe know it?”
“Yes.”
Vance thought a moment.
“How did you happen to go to tea at Mr. Benson’s home the day of the murder, if you were to dine with him that night?”
A flush stained her cheeks. “There was nothing wrong in that,” she declared. “Somehow, after I had left Mr. Benson’s office, I revolted against my decision to dine with him, and I went to his house—I had gone back to the office first, but he had left—to make a final appeal and to beg him to release me from my promise. But he laughed the matter off and, after insisting that I have tea, sent me home in a taxicab to dress for dinner. He called for me about half past seven.”
“And when you pleaded with him to release you from your promise, you sought to frighten him by recalling Captain Leacock’s threat; and he said it was only a bluff.”
Again the woman’s astonishment was manifest. “Yes,” she murmured.
Vance gave her a soothing smile.
“Colonel Ostrander told me he saw you and Mr. Benson at the Marseilles.”
“Yes, and I was terribly ashamed. He knew what Mr. Benson was and had warned me against him only a few days before.”
“I was under the impression the colonel and Mr. Benson were good friends.”
“They were—up to a week ago. But the colonel lost more money than I did in a stock pool which Mr. Benson engineered recently, and he intimated to me very strongly that Mr. Benson had deliberately misadvised us to his own benefit. He didn’t even speak to Mr. Benson that night at the Marseilles.”
“What about these rich and precious stones that accompanied your tea with Mr. Benson?”
“Bribes,” she answered; and her contemptuous smile was a more eloquent condemnation of Benson than if she had resorted to the bitterest castigation. “The gentleman sought to turn my head with them. I was offered a string of pearls to wear to dinner, but I declined them. And I was told that if I saw things in the right light—or some such charming phrase—I could have jewels just like them for my very, very own—perhaps even those identical ones, on the twenty-first.”
“Of course—the twenty-first.” Vance grinned. “Markham, are you listening? On the twenty-first Leander’s note falls due, and if it’s not paid, the jewels are forfeited.”
He addressed himself again to Miss St. Clair.
“Did Mr. Benson have the jewels with him at dinner?”
“Oh, no! I think my refusal of the pearls rather discouraged him.”
Vance paused, looking at her with ingratiating cordiality.
“Tell us now, please, of the gun episode—in your own words, as the lawyers say, hoping to entangle you later.”
But she evidently feared no entanglement.
“The morning after the murder Captain Leacock came here and said he had gone to Mr. Benson’s house about half past twelve with the intention of shooting him. But he had seen Mr. Pfyfe outside and, assuming he was calling, had given up the idea and gone home. I feared that Mr. Pfyfe had seen him, and I told him it would be safer to bring his pistol to me and to say, if questioned, that he’d lost it in France.… You see, I really thought he had shot Mr. Benson and was—well, lying like a gentleman, to spare my feelings. Then, when he took the pistol from me with the purpose of throwing it away altogether, I was even more certain of it.”
She smiled faintly at Markham.
“That was why I refused to answer your questions. I wanted you to think that maybe I had done it, so you’d not suspect Captain Leacock.”
“But he wasn’t lying at all,” said Vance.
“I know now that he wasn’t. And I should have known it before. He’d never have brought the pistol to me if he’d been guilty.”
A film came over her eyes.
“And—poor boy!—he confessed because he thought that I was guilty.”
“That’s precisely the harrowin’ situation,” nodded Vance. “But where did he think you had obtained a weapon?”
“I know many army men, friends of his and of Major Benson’s. And last summer at the mountains I did considerable pistol practice for the fun of it. Oh, the idea was reasonable enough.”
Vance rose and made a courtly bow.
“You’ve been most gracious—and most helpful,” he said. “Y’ see, Mr. Markham had various theories about the murder. The first, I believe, was that you alone were the Madam Borgia. The second was that you and the captain did the deed together—à quatre mains, as it were. The third was that the captain pulled the trigger a cappella. And the legal mind is so exquisitely developed that it can believe in several conflicting theories at the same time. The sad thing about the present case is that Mr. Markham still leans toward the belief that both of you are guilty, individually and collectively. I tried to reason with him before coming here; but I failed. Therefore, I insisted upon his hearing from your own charming lips your story of the affair.”
He went up to Markham, who sat glaring at him with lips compressed.
“Well, old chap,” he remarked pleasantly, “surely you are not going to persist in your obsession that either Miss St. Clair or Captain Leacock is guilty, what?… And won’t you relent and unshackle the captain as I begged you to?”
He extended his arms in a theatrical gesture of supplication.
Markham’s wrath was at the breaking point, but he got up deliberately and, going to the woman, held out his hand. “Miss St. Clair,” he said kindly—and again I was impressed by the bigness of the man—, “I wish to assure you that I have dismissed the idea of your guilt, and also Captain Leacock’s, from what Mr. Vance terms my incredibly rigid and unreceptive mind.… I forgive him, however, because he has saved me from doing you a very grave injustice. And I will see that you have your captain back as soon as the papers can be signed for his release.”
As we walked out onto Riverside Drive, Markham turned savagely on Vance.
“So! I was keeping her precious captain locked up, and you were pleading with me to