legal device at their disposal, but the accumulation of evidence against their client overwhelmed them.
After Markham had been convinced of the major’s guilt, he had made a thorough examination of the business affairs of the two brothers and found the situation even worse than had been indicated by Stitt’s first report. The firm’s securities had been systematically appropriated for private speculations; but whereas Alvin Benson had succeeded in covering himself and making a large profit, the major had been almost completely wiped out by his investments. Markham was able to show that the major’s only hope of replacing the diverted securities and saving himself from criminal prosecution lay in Alvin Benson’s immediate death. It was also brought out at the trial that the major, on the very day of the murder, had made emphatic promises which could have been kept only in the event of his gaining access to his brother’s safe. Furthermore, these promises had involved specific amounts in the other’s possession; and, in one instance, he had put up, on a forty-eight-hour note, a security already pledged—a fact which, in itself would have exposed his hand had his brother lived.
Miss Hoffman was a helpful and intelligent witness for the prosecution. Her knowledge of conditions at the Benson and Benson offices went far toward strengthening the case against the major.
Mrs. Platz also testified to overhearing acrimonious arguments between the brothers. She stated that less than a fortnight before the murder the major, after an unsuccessful attempt to borrow $50,000 from Alvin, had threatened him, saying, “If I ever have to choose between your skin and mine, it won’t be mine that’ll suffer.”
Theodore Montagu, the man who, according to the story of the elevator boy at the Chatham Arms, had returned at half past two on the night of the murder, testified that as his taxicab turned in front of the apartment house the headlights flashed on a man standing in a tradesmen’s entrance across the street, and that the man looked like Major Benson. This evidence would have had little effect had not Pfyfe come forward after the arrest and admitted seeing the major crossing Sixth Avenue at Forty-sixth Street when he had walked to Pietro’s for his drink of Haig and Haig. He explained that he had attached no importance to it at the time, thinking the major was merely returning home from some Broadway restaurant. He himself had not been seen by the major.
This testimony, in connection with Mr. Montagu’s, annihilated the major’s carefully planned alibi; and though the defense contended stubbornly that both witnesses had been mistaken in their identification, the jury was deeply impressed by the evidence, especially when Assistant District Attorney Sullivan, under Vance’s tutoring, painstakingly explained, with diagrams, how the major could have gone out and returned that night without being seen by the boy.
It was also shown that the jewels could not have been taken from the scene of the crime except by the murderer; and Vance and I were called as witnesses to the finding of them in the major’s apartment. Vance’s demonstration of the height of the murderer was shown in court, but, curiously, it carried little weight, as the issue was confused by a mass of elaborate scientific objections. Captain Hagedorn’s identification of the pistol was the most difficult obstacle with which the defense had to contend.
The trial lasted three weeks, and much evidence of a scandalous nature was taken, although, at Markham’s suggestion, Sullivan did his best to minimize the private affairs of those innocent persons whose lives unfortunately touched upon the episode. Colonel Ostrander, however, has never forgiven Markham for not having had him called as a witness.
During the last week of the trial Miss Muriel St. Clair appeared as prima donna in a large Broadway light opera production which ran successfully for nearly two years. She has since married her chivalrous Captain Leacock, and they appear perfectly happy.
Pfyfe is still married and as elegant as ever. He visits New York regularly, despite the absence of his “dear old Alvin”; and I have occasionally seen him and Mrs. Banning together. Somehow, I shall always like that woman. Pfyfe raised the $10,000—how, I have no idea—and reclaimed her jewels. Their ownership, by the way, was not divulged at the trial, for which I was very glad.
On the evening of the day the verdict was brought in against the major, Vance and Markham and I were sitting in the Stuyvesant Club. We had dined together, but no word of the events of the past few weeks had passed between us. Presently, however, I saw an ironic smile creep slowly to Vance’s lips.
“I say, Markham,” he drawled, “what a grotesque spectacle the trial was! The real evidence, y’ know, wasn’t even introduced. Benson was convicted entirely on suppositions, presumptions, implications and inf’rences.… God help the innocent Daniel who inadvertently falls into a den of legal lions!”
Markham, to my surprise, nodded gravely.
“Yes,” he concurred; “but if Sullivan had tried to get a conviction on your so-called psychological theories, he’d have been adjudged insane.”
“Doubtless,” sighed Vance. “You illuminati of the law would have little to do if you went about your business intelligently.”
“Theoretically,” replied Markham at length, “your theories are clear enough; but I’m afraid I’ve dealt too long with material facts to forsake them for psychology and art.… However,” he added lightly, “if my legal evidence should fail me in the future, may I call on you for assistance?”
“I’m always at your service, old chap, don’t y’ know,” Vance rejoined. “I rather fancy, though, that it’s when your legal evidence is leading you irresistibly to your victim that you’ll need me most, what?”
And the remark, though intended merely as a good-natured sally, proved strangely prophetic.
16 Obviously a reference to Tetrazzini’s performance in La Bohème at the Manhattan Opera House in 1908.
17 This quotation from Ecclesiastes reminds me that Vance regularly read the Old Testament. “When I weary of the professional liter’ry man,” he once said, “I find stimulation in the majestic prose of the Bible. If the moderns feel that they simply must write, they should be made to spend at least two hours a day with the Biblical historians.”
18 The book—or a part of it—has, I believe, been recently translated into English.
19 The boy was Jack Prisco, of 621 Kelly Street.
20 Obviously Mrs. Platz.
21 A helixometer, I learned later, is an instrument that makes it possible to examine every portion of the inside of a gun’s barrel through a microscope.
THE “CANARY” MURDER CASE (Part 1)
CHAPTER 1
THE “CANARY”
In the offices of the Homicide Bureau of the Detective Division of the New York Police Department, on the third floor of the police headquarters building in Centre Street, there is a large steel filing cabinet; and within it, among thousands of others of its kind, there reposes a small green index card on which is typed: “ODELL, MARGARET. 184 West 71st Street. Sept. 10. Murder: Strangled about 11 P.M. Apartment ransacked. Jewelry stolen. Body found by Amy Gibson, maid.”
Here, in a few commonplace words, is the bleak, unadorned statement of one of the most astonishing crimes in the police annals of this country—a crime so contradictory, so baffling, so ingenious, so unique, that for many days the best minds of the police department and the district attorney’s office were completely at a loss as to even a method of approach. Each line of investigation only tended to prove that Margaret Odell could not possibly have been murdered. And yet, huddled on the great silken davenport in her living room lay the girl’s strangled