When Markham had placed the chair for her, he had risen and reached for a book lying on the table near her; and, in doing so, he had leaned unnecessarily close to her in order to inspect—or so it appeared to me—the side of her head. And during her story he had continued his observation, at times bending slightly to the right or left to better his view of her. Unaccountable as his actions had seemed, I knew that some serious consideration had prompted the scrutiny.
When she finished speaking, Major Benson reached in his pocket, and tossed a long manila envelope on the desk before Markham.
“Here it is,” he said. “I got Miss Hoffman to bring it to me the moment she told me her story.”
Markham picked it up hesitantly, as if doubtful of his right to inspect its contents.
“You’d better look at it,” the major advised. “That envelope may very possibly have an important bearing on the case.”
Markham removed the elastic band and spread the contents of the envelope before him. They consisted of three items—a canceled check for $10,000 made out to Leander Pfyfe and signed by Alvin Benson; a note for $10,000 to Alvin Benson signed by Pfyfe, and a brief confession, also signed by Pfyfe, saying the check was a forgery. The check was dated March 20th of the current year. The confession and the note were dated two days later. The note—which was for ninety days—fell due on Friday, June 21st, only three days off.
For fully five minutes Markham studied these documents in silence. Their sudden introduction into the case seemed to mystify him. Nor had any of the perplexity left his face when he finally put them back in the envelope.
He questioned the girl carefully and had her repeat certain parts of her story. But nothing more could be learned from her; and at length he turned to the major.
“I’ll keep this envelope awhile, if you’ll let me. I don’t see its significance at present, but I’d like to think it over.”
When Major Benson and his secretary had gone, Vance rose and extended his legs.
“À la fin!” he murmured. “‘All things journey: sun and moon, morning, noon, and afternoon, night and all her stars.’ Videlicet: we begin to make progress.
“What the devil are you driving at?” The new complication of Pfyfe’s peccadilloes had left Markham irritable.
“Int’restin’ young woman, this Miss Hoffman—eh, what?” Vance rejoined irrelevantly. “Didn’t care especially for the deceased Benson. And she fairly detests the aromatic Leander. He has prob’bly told her he was misunderstood by Mrs. Pfyfe and invited her to dinner.”
“Well, she’s pretty enough,” commented Markham indifferently. “Benson, too, may have made advances—which is why she disliked him.”
“Oh, absolutely.” Vance mused a moment. “Pretty—yes; but misleadin’. She’s an ambitious gel and capable, too—knows her business. She’s no ball of fluff. She has a solid, honest streak in her—a bit of Teutonic blood, I’d say.” He paused meditatively. “Y’ know, Markham, I have a suspicion you’ll hear from little Miss Katinka again.”
“Crystal-gazing, eh?” mumbled Markham.
“Oh, dear no!” Vance was looking lazily out of the window. “But I did enter the silence, so to speak, and indulged in a bit of craniological contemplation.”
“I thought I noticed you ogling the girl,” said Markham. “But since her hair was bobbed and she had her hat on, how could you analyze the bumps?—if that’s the phrase you phrenologists use.”
“Forget not Goldsmith’s preacher,” Vance admonished. “Truth from his lips prevailed, and those who came to scoff remained et cetera.… To begin with, I’m no phrenologist. But I believe in epochal, racial, and heredit’ry variations in skulls. In that respect I’m merely an old-fashioned Darwinian. Every child knows that the skull of the Piltdown man differs from that of the Cromagnard; and even a lawyer could distinguish an Aryan head from a Ural-Altaic head, or a Maylaic from a Negrillo. And, if one is versed at all in the Mendelian theory, heredit’ry cranial similarities can be detected.… But all this erudition is beyond you, I fear. Suffice it to say that, despite the young woman’s hat and hair, I could see the contour of her head and the bone structure in her face; and I even caught a glimpse of her ear.”
“And thereby deduced that we’d hear from her again,” added Markham scornfully.
“Indirectly—yes,” admitted Vance. Then, after a pause: “I say, in view of Miss Hoffman’s revelation, do not Colonel Ostrander’s comments of yesterday begin to take on a phosph’rescent aspect?”
“Look here!” said Markham impatiently. “Cut out these circumlocutions and get to the point.”
Vance turned slowly from the window and regarded him pensively. “Markham—I put the question academically—doesn’t Pfyfe’s forged check, with its accompanying confession and its shortly due note, constitute a rather strong motive for doing away with Benson?”
Markham sat up suddenly. “You think Pfyfe guilty—is that it?”
“Well, here’s the touchin’ situation: Pfyfe obviously signed Benson’s name to a check, told him about it, and got the surprise of his life when his dear old pal asked him for a ninety-day note to cover the amount and also for a written confession to hold over him to insure payment.… Now consider the subs’quent facts:—First, Pfyfe called on Benson a week ago and had a quarrel in which the check was mentioned—Damon was prob’bly pleading with Pythias to extend the note and was vulgarly informed that there was ‘nothing doing.’ Secondly, Benson was shot two days later, less than a week before the note fell due. Thirdly, Pfyfe was at Benson’s house the hour of the shooting, and not only lied to you about his whereabouts but bribed a garage owner to keep silent about his car. Fourthly, his explanation, when caught, of his unrewarded search for Haig and Haig was, to say the least, a bit thick. And don’t forget that the original tale of his lonely quest for nature’s solitudes in the Catskills—with his mysterious stopover in New York to confer a farewell benediction upon some anonymous person—was not all that one could have hoped for in the line of plausibility. Fifthly, he is an impulsive gambler, given to taking chances; and his experiences in South Africa would certainly have familiarized him with firearms. Sixthly, he was rather eager to involve Leacock and did a bit of caddish talebearing to that end, even informing you that he saw the captain on the spot at the fatal moment. Seventhly—but why bore you? Have I not supplied you with all the factors you hold so dear—what are they now?—motive, time, place, opportunity, conduct? All that’s wanting is the criminal agent. But then, the captain’s gun is at the bottom of the East River; so you’re not very much better off in his case, what?”
Markham had listened attentively to Vance’s summary. He now sat in rapt silence gazing down at the desk.
“How about a little chat with Pfyfe before you make any final move against the captain?” suggested Vance.
“I think I’ll take your advice,” answered Markham slowly, after several minutes’ reflection. Then he picked up the telephone. “I wonder if he’s at his hotel now.”
“Oh, he’s there,” said Vance. “Watchful waitin’ and all that.”
Pfyfe was in; and Markham requested him to come at once to the office.
“There’s another thing I wish you’d do for me,” said Vance, when the other had finished telephoning. “The fact is, I’m longing to know what everyone was doing during the hour of Benson’s dissolution—that is, between midnight and one A.M. on the night of the thirteenth, or to speak pedantically, the morning of the fourteenth.”
Markham looked at him in amazement.
“Seems silly, doesn’t it?” Vance went on blithely. “But you put such faith in alibis—though they do prove disappointin’ at times, what? There’s Leacock, for instance. If that hallboy had told Heath to toddle along and sell his violets, you couldn’t do a blessed thing