“Damn the newspapers!” he grumbled. “Why can’t they let the District Attorney’s office handle its business in its own way? . . . Have you seen the afternoon papers? They’re all clamoring for the murderer. You’d think I had him up my sleeve.”
“You forget, my dear chap,” grinned Vance, “that we are living under the benign and upliftin’ reign of Democritus, which confers upon every ignoramus the privilege of promiscuously criticising his betters.”
Markham snorted.
“I don’t complain about criticism: it’s the lurid imagination of these bright young reporters that galls me. They’re trying to turn this sordid crime into a spectacular Borgia melodrama, with passion running rampant, and mysterious influences at work, and all the pomp and trappings of a mediæval romance. . . . You’d think even a schoolboy could see that it was only an ordinary robbery and murder of the kind that’s taking place regularly throughout the country.”
Vance paused in the act of lighting a cigarette, and his eyebrows lifted. Turning, he regarded Markham with a look of mild incredulity.
“I say! Do you really mean to tell me that your statement for the press was given out in good faith?”
Markham looked up in surprise.
“Certainly it was. . . . What do you mean by ‘good faith’?”
Vance smiled indolently.
“I rather thought, don’t y’ know, that your oration to the reporters was a bit of strategy to lull the real culprit into a state of false security, and to give you a clear field for investigation.”
Markham contemplated him a moment.
“See here, Vance,” he demanded irritably, “what are you driving at?”
“Nothing at all—really, old fellow,” the other assured him affably. “I knew that Heath was deadly sincere about his belief in Skeel’s guilt, but it never occurred to me, d’ ye see, that you yourself actually regarded the crime as one committed by a professional burglar. I foolishly thought that you let Skeel go this morning in the hope that he would lead you somehow to the guilty person. I rather imagined you were spoofing the trusting Sergeant by pretending to fall in with his silly notion.”
“Ah, I see! Still clinging to your weird theory that a brace of villains were present, hiding in separate clothes-closets, or something of the kind.” Markham made no attempt to temper his sarcasm. “A sapient idea—so much more intelligent than Heath’s!”
“I know it’s weird. But it happens not to be any weirder than your theory of a lone yeggman.”
“And for what reason, pray,” persisted Markham, with considerable warmth, “do you consider the yeggman theory weird?”
“For the simple reason that it was not the crime of a professional thief at all, but the wilfully deceptive act of a particularly clever man who doubtless spent weeks in its preparation.”
Markham sank back in his chair and laughed heartily.
“Vance, you have contributed the one ray of sunshine to an otherwise gloomy and depressing case.”
Vance bowed with mock humility.
“It gives me great pleasure,” was his dulcet rejoinder, “to be able to bring even a wisp of light into so clouded a mental atmosphere.”
A brief silence followed. Then Markham asked:
“Is this fascinating and picturesque conclusion of yours regarding the highly intellectual character of the Odell woman’s murderer based on your new and original psychological methods of deduction?” There was no mistaking the ridicule in his voice.
“I arrived at it,” explained Vance sweetly, “by the same processes of logic I used in determining the guilt of Alvin Benson’s murderer.”
Markham smiled.
“Touché! . . . Don’t think I’m so ungrateful as to belittle the work you did in that case. But this time, I fear, you’ve permitted your theories to lead you hopelessly astray. The present case is what the police call an open-and-shut affair.”
“Particularly shut,” amended Vance dryly. “And both you and the police are in the distressin’ situation of waiting inactively for your suspected victim to give the game away.”
“I’ll admit the situation is not all one could desire.” Markham spoke morosely. “But even so, I can’t see that there’s any opportunity in this affair for your recondite psychological methods. The thing’s too obvious—that’s the trouble. What we need now is evidence, not theories. If it wasn’t for the spacious and romantic imaginings of the newspaper men, public interest in the case would already have died out.”
“Markham,” said Vance quietly, but with unwonted seriousness, “if that’s what you really believe, then you may as well drop the case now; for you’re foredoomed to failure. You think it’s an obvious crime. But let me tell you, it’s a subtle crime, if ever there was one. And it’s as clever as it is subtle. No common criminal committed it—believe me. It was done by a man of very superior intellect and astoundin’ ingenuity.”
Vance’s assured, matter-of-fact tone had a curiously convincing quality; and Markham, restraining his impulse to scoff, assumed an air of indulgent irony.
“Tell me,” he said, “by what cryptic mental process you arrived at so fantastic a conclusion.”
“With pleasure.” Vance took a few puffs on his cigarette, and lazily watched the smoke curl upward.14
“Y’ know, Markham,” he began, in his emotionless drawl, “every genuine work of art has a quality which the critics call élan—namely, enthusiasm and spontaneity. A copy, or imitation, lacks that distinguishing characteristic; it’s too perfect, too carefully done, too exact. Even enlightened scions of the law, I fancy, are aware that there is bad drawing in Botticelli and disproportions in Rubens, what? In an original, d’ ye see, such flaws don’t matter. But an imitator never puts ’em in: he doesn’t dare—he’s too intent on getting all the details correct. The imitator works with a self-consciousness and a meticulous care which the artist, in the throes of creative labor, never exhibits. And here’s the point: there’s no way of imitating that enthusiasm and spontaneity—that élan—which an original painting possesses. However closely a copy may resemble an original, there’s a vast psychological difference between them. The copy breathes an air of insincerity, of ultra-perfection, of conscious effort. . . . You follow me, eh?”
“Most instructive, my dear Ruskin.”
Vance meekly bowed his appreciation, and proceeded pleasantly.
“Now, let us consider the Odell murder. You and Heath are agreed that it is a commonplace, brutal, sordid, unimaginative crime. But, unlike you two bloodhounds on the trail, I have ignored its mere appearances, and have analyzed its various factors—I have looked at it psychologically, so to speak. And I have discovered that it is not a genuine and sincere crime—that is to say, an original—but only a sophisticated, self-conscious and clever imitation, done by a skilful copyist. I grant you it is correct and typical in every detail. But just there is where it fails, don’t y’ know. Its technic is too good, its craftsmanship too perfect. The ensemble, as it were, is not convincing—it lacks élan. Æsthetically speaking, it has all the earmarks of a tour de force. Vulgarly speaking, it’s a fake.” He paused and gave Markham an engaging smile. “I trust this somewhat oracular peroration has not bored you.”
“Pray continue,” urged Markham, with exaggerated politeness. His manner was jocular, but something in his tone led me to believe that he was seriously interested.
“What is true of art is true of life,” Vance resumed placidly. “Every human action, d’ ye see, conveys unconsciously an impression either of genuineness or of spuriousness—of