because of the confession you had given him.”
Pfyfe rewarded him with a look of beaming approval. “You grasp the situation perfectly,” he said.
Vance withdrew from the conversation, and though Markham questioned Pfyfe for nearly half an hour, nothing further transpired. Pfyfe clung to his story in every detail and politely refused to go deeper into his quarrel with Benson, insisting that it had no bearing on the case. At last he was permitted to go.
“Not very helpful,” Markham observed. “I’m beginning to agree with Heath that we’ve turned up a mare’s nest in Pfyfe’s frenzied financial deal.”
“You’ll never be anything but your own sweet trusting self, will you?” lamented Vance sadly. “Pfyfe has just given you your first intelligent line of investigation, and you say he’s not helpful!… Listen to me and nota bene. Pfyfe’s story about the ten thousand dollars is undoubtedly true; he appropriated the money and forged Benson’s name to a check with which to replace it. But I don’t for a second believe there was no security in addition to the confession. Benson wasn’t the type of man—friend or no friend—who’d hand over that amount without security. He wanted his money back, not somebody in jail. That’s why I put my oar in and asked about the security. Pfyfe, of course, denied it; but when pressed as to how Benson knew he’d pay the note, he retired into a cloud. I had to suggest the confession as the possible explanation; which showed that something else was in his mind—something he didn’t care to mention. And the way he jumped at my suggestion bears out my theory.”
“Well, what of it?” Markham asked impatiently.
“Oh, for the gift of tears!” moaned Vance. “Don’t you see that there’s someone in the background—someone connected with the security? It must be so, y’ know; otherwise Pfyfe would have told you the entire tale of the quarrel, if only to clear himself from suspicion. Yet, knowing that his position is an awkward one, he refused to divulge what passed between him and Benson in the office that day.… Pfyfe is shielding someone—and he is not the soul of chivalry, y’ know. Therefore, I ask: Why?”
He leaned back and gazed at the ceiling.
“I have an idea, amounting to a cerebral cyclone,” he added, “that when we put our hands on that security, we’ll also put our hands on the murderer.”
At this moment the telephone rang, and when Markham answered it, a look of startled amusement came into his eyes. He made an appointment with the speaker for half past five that afternoon. Then, hanging up the receiver, he laughed outright at Vance.
“Your auricular researches have been confirmed,” he said. “Miss Hoffman just called me confidentially on an outside phone to say she has something to add to her story. She’s coming here at five thirty.”
Vance was unimpressed by the announcement. “I rather imagined she’d telephone during her lunch hour.”
Again Markham gave him one of his searching scrutinies. “There’s something damned queer going on around here,” he observed.
“Oh, quite,” returned Vance carelessly. “Queerer than you could possibly imagine.”
For fifteen or twenty minutes Markham endeavored to draw him out; but Vance seemed suddenly possessed of an ability to say nothing with the blandest fluency. Markham finally became exasperated.
“I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion,” he said, “that either you had a hand in Benson’s murder or you’re a phenomenally good guesser.”
“There is, y’ know, an alternative,” rejoined Vance. “It might be that my aesthetic hypotheses and metaphysical deductions, as you call ’em, are working out—eh, what?”
A few minutes before we went to lunch, Swacker announced that Tracy had just returned from Long Island with his report.
“Is he the lad you sent to look into Pfyfe’s affaires du cover?” Vance asked Markham. “For, if he is, I am all a-flutter.”
“He’s the man.… Send him in, Swacker.”
Tracy entered smiling silkily, his black notebook in one hand, his pince nez in the other.
“I had no trouble learning about Pfyfe,” he said. “He’s well known in Port Washington—quite a character, in fact—and it was easy to pick up gossip about him.”
He adjusted his glasses carefully and referred to his notebook. “He married a Miss Hawthorn in nineteen ten. She’s wealthy, but Pfyfe doesn’t benefit much by it, because her father sits on the moneybags—”
“Mr. Tracy, I say,” interrupted Vance; “never mind the née-Hawthorn and her doting papa—Mr. Pfyfe himself has confided in us about his sad marriage. Tell us, if you can, about Mr. Pfyfe’s extranuptial affairs. Are there any other ladies?”
Tracy looked inquiringly at the district attorney; he was uncertain as to Vance’s locus standi. Receiving a nod from Markham, he turned a page in his notebook and proceeded.
“I found one other woman in the case. She lives in New York and often telephones to a drugstore near Pfyfe’s house and leaves messages for him. He uses the same phone to call her by. He had made some deal with the proprietor, of course; but I was able to obtain her phone number. As soon as I came back to the city, I got her name and address from Information and made a few inquiries.… She’s a Mrs. Paula Banning, a widow, and a little fast, I should say; and she lives in an apartment at 268 West Seventy-fifth Street.”
This exhausted Tracy’s information; and when he went out, Markham smiled broadly at Vance.
“He didn’t supply you with very much fuel.”
“My word! I think he did unbelievably well,” said Vance. “He unearthed the very information we wanted.”
“We wanted?” echoed Markham. “I have more important things to think about than Pfyfe’s amours.”
“And yet, y’ know, this particular amour of Pfyfe’s is going to solve the problem of Benson’s murder,” replied Vance; and would say no more.
Markham, who had an accumulation of other work awaiting him and numerous appointments for the afternoon, decided to have his lunch served in the office; so Vance and I took leave of him.
We lunched at the Élysée, dropped in at Knoedler’s to see an exhibition of French Pointillism, and then went to Aeolian Hall, where a string quartet from San Francisco was giving a program of Mozart. A little before half past five we were again at the district attorney’s office, which at that hour was deserted except for Markham.
Shortly after our arrival Miss Hoffman came in and told the rest of her story in direct, businesslike fashion.
“I didn’t give you all the particulars this morning,” she said; “and I wouldn’t care to do so now unless you are willing to regard them as confidential, for my telling you might cost me my position.”
“I promise you,” Markham assured her, “that I will entirely respect your confidence.”
She hesitated a moment and then continued. “When I told Major Benson this morning about Mr. Pfyfe and his brother, he said at once that I should come with him to your office and tell you also. But on the way over, he suggested that I might omit a part of the story. He didn’t exactly tell me not to mention it; but he explained that it had nothing to do with the case and might only confuse you. I followed his suggestion; but after I got back to the office, I began thinking it over, and knowing how serious a matter Mr. Benson’s death was, I decided to tell you anyway. In case it did have some bearing on the situation, I didn’t want to be in the position of having withheld anything from you.”
She seemed a little uncertain as to the wisdom of her decision.
“I do hope I haven’t been foolish. But the truth is, there was something else besides that envelope which Mr. Benson asked me to bring him from the safe the day he and Mr. Pfyfe had their quarrel. It was a square,