with the crime, else why should he have concealed his pistol the next day in Miss St. Clair’s apartment? He’s just the kind of silly beggar, d’ ye see, who would threaten any man he thought had designs on his fiancée and then carry out the threat if anything happened. And he has a guilty conscience—that’s obvious. But for what? Certainly not the shooting. The crime was planned; and the captain never plans. He’s the kind that gets an idée fixe, girds up his loins, and does the deed in knightly fashion, prepared to take the cons’quences. That sort of chivalry, y’ know, is sheer beau geste: its acolytes want everyone to know of their valor. And when they go forth to rid the world of a Don Juan, they’re always clear-minded. The captain, for instance, wouldn’t have overlooked his Lady Fair’s gloves and handbag, he would have taken ’em away. In fact, it’s just as certain he would have shot Benson as it is he didn’t shoot him. That’s the beetle in the amber. It’s psychologically possible he would have done it, and psychologically impossible he would have done it the way it was done.”
He lit a cigarette and watched the drifting spirals of smoke.
“If it wasn’t so fantastic, I’d say he started out to do it and found it already done. And yet, that’s about the size of it. It would account for Pfyfe’s seeing him there, and for his secreting the gun at Miss St. Clair’s the next day.”
The telephone rang: Colonel Ostrander wanted to speak to the district attorney. Markham, after a short conversation, turned a disgruntled look upon Vance.
“Your bloodthirsty friend wanted to know if I’d arrested anyone yet. He offered to confer more of his invaluable suggestions upon me in case I was still undecided as to who was guilty.”
“I heard you thanking him fulsomely for something or other.… What did you give him to understand about your mental state?”
“That I was still in the dark.”
Markham’s answer was accompanied by a somber, tired smile. It was his way of telling Vance that he had entirely rejected the idea of Captain Leacock’s guilt.
The major went to him and held out his hand.
“I know how you feel,” he said. “This sort of thing is discouraging; but it’s better that the guilty person should escape altogether than that an innocent man should be made to suffer.… Don’t work too hard, and don’t let these disappointments get to you. You’ll soon hit on the right solution, and when you do”—his jaw snapped shut, and he uttered the rest of the sentence between clenched teeth—“you’ll meet with no opposition from me. I’ll help you put the thing over.”
He gave Markham a grim smile and took up his hat.
“I’m going back to the office now. If you want me at any time, let me know. I may be able to help you—later on.”
With a friendly, appreciative bow to Vance, he went out.
Markham sat in silence for several minutes.
“Damn it, Vance!” he said irritably. “This case gets more difficult by the hour. I feel worn out.”
“You really shouldn’t take it so seriously, old dear,” Vance advised lightly. “It doesn’t pay, y’ know, to worry over the trivia of existence.
‘Nothing’s new,
And nothing’s true,
And nothing really matters.’
Several million johnnies were killed in the war, and you don’t let the fact bedevil your phagocytes or inflame your brain cells. But when one rotter is mercifully shot in your district, you lie awake nights perspiring over it, what? My word! You’re deucedly inconsistent.”
“Consistency—” began Markham; but Vance interrupted him.
“Now don’t quote Emerson. I inf’nitely prefer Erasmus. Y’ know, you ought to read his Praise of Folly; it would cheer you no end. That goaty old Dutch professor would never have grieved inconsolably over the destruction of Alvin Le Chauve.”
“I’m not a fruges consumere natus like you,” snapped Markham. “I was elected to this office—”
“Oh, quite—‘loved I not honor more’ and all that,” Vance chimed in. “But don’t be so sens’tive. Even if the captain has succeeded in bungling his way out of jail, you have at least five possibilities left. There’s Mrs. Platz…and Pfyfe…and Colonel Ostrander…and Miss Hoffman…and Mrs. Banning.—I say! Why don’t you arrest ’em all, one at a time, and get ’em to confess? Heath would go crazy with joy.”
Markham was in too crestfallen a mood to resent this chaffing. Indeed, Vance’s lightheartedness seemed to buoy him up.
“If you want the truth,” he said; “that’s exactly what I feel like doing. I am restrained merely by my indecision as to which one to arrest first.”
“Stout fella!” Then Vance asked: “What are you going to do with the captain now? It’ll break his heart if you release him.”
“His heart’ll have to break, I’m afraid.” Markham reached for the telephone. “I’d better see to the formalities now.
“Just a moment!” Vance put forth a restraining hand. “Don’t end his rapturous martyrdom just yet. Let him be happy for another day at least. I’ve a notion he may be most useful to us, pining away in his lonely cell like the prisoner of Chillon.”
Markham put down the telephone without a word. More and more, I had noticed, he was becoming inclined to accept Vance’s leadership. This attitude was not merely the result of the hopeless confusion in his mind, though his uncertainty probably influenced him to some extent; but it was due in large measure to the impression Vance had given him of knowing more than he cared to reveal.
“Have you tried to figure out just how Pfyfe and his Turtledove fit into the case?” Vance asked.
“Along with a few thousand other enigmas—yes,” was the petulant reply. “But the more I try to reason it out, the more of a mystery the whole thing becomes.”
“Loosely put, my dear Markham,” criticized Vance. “There are no mysteries originating in human beings, y’ know; there are only problems. And any problem originating in one human being can be solved by another human being. It merely requires a knowledge of the human mind, and the application of that knowledge to human acts. Simple, what?”
He glanced at the clock.
“I wonder how your Mr. Stitt is getting along with the Benson and Benson books. I await his report with anticipat’ry excitement.”
This was too much for Markham. The wearing-down process of Vance’s intimations and veiled innuendoes had at last dissipated his self-control. He bent forward and struck the desk angrily with his hand.
“I’m damned tired of this superior attitude of yours,” he complained hotly. “Either you know something or you don’t. If you don’t know anything, do me the favor of dropping these insinuations of knowledge. If you do know anything, it’s up to you to tell me. You’ve been hinting around in one way or another ever since Benson was shot. If you’ve got any idea who killed him, I want to know it.”
He leaned back and took out a cigar. Not once did he look up as he carefully clipped the end and lit it. I think he was a little ashamed at having given way to his anger.
Vance had sat apparently unconcerned during the outburst. At length he stretched his legs and gave Markham a long contemplative look.
“Y’ know, Markham old bean, I don’t blame you a bit for your unseemly ebullition. The situation has been most provokin’. But now, I fancy, the time has come to put an end to the comedietta. I really haven’t been spoofing, y’ know. The fact is, I’ve some most int’restin’ ideas on the subject.”
He stood up and yawned.
“It’s a beastly hot day, but it must be done—eh, what?
‘So