waiting-room when I came in, and he called me over and said: ‘I came to give myself up. I killed Benson.’ I got him to dictate a confession to Swacker, and then he signed it. . . . Here it is.” He handed Markham a typewritten sheet of paper.
Markham sank wearily into a chair. The strain of the past few days had begun to tell on him. He sighed heavily.
“Thank God! Now our troubles are ended.”
Vance looked at him lugubriously, and shook his head.
“I rather fancy, y’ know, that your troubles are only beginning,” he drawled.
When Markham had glanced through the confession he handed it to Vance, who read it carefully with an expression of growing amusement.
“Y’ know,” he said, “this document isn’t at all legal. Any judge worthy the name would throw it precip’tately out of court. It’s far too simple and precise. It doesn’t begin with ‘greetings’; it doesn’t contain a single ‘wherefore-be-it’ or ‘be-it-known’ or ‘do-hereby’; it says nothing about ‘free will’ or ‘sound mind’ or ‘disposin’ mem’ry’; and the Captain doesn’t once refer to himself as ‘the party of the first part’. . . . Utterly worthless, Sergeant. If I were you, I’d chuck it.”
Heath was feeling too complacently triumphant to be annoyed. He smiled with magnanimous tolerance.
“It strikes you as funny, doesn’t it, Mr. Vance?”
“Sergeant, if you knew how inord’nately funny this confession is, you’d pos’tively have hysterics.”
Vance then turned to Markham.
“Really, y’ know, I shouldn’t put too much stock in this. It may, however, prove a valuable lever with which to prise open the truth. In fact, I’m jolly glad the Captain has gone in for imag’native lit’rature. With this entrancin’ fable in our possession, I think we can overcome the Major’s scruples, and get him to tell us what he knows. Maybe I’m wrong, but it’s worth trying.”
He stepped to the District Attorney’s desk, and leaned over it cajolingly.
“I haven’t led you astray yet, old dear; and I’m going to make another suggestion. Call up the Major and ask him to come here at once. Tell him you’ve secured a confession,—but don’t you dare say whose. Imply it’s Miss St. Clair’s, or Pfyfe’s—or Pontius Pilate’s. But urge his immediate presence. Tell him you want to discuss it with him before proceeding with the indictment.”
“I can’t see the necessity of doing that,” objected Markham. “I’m pretty sure to see him at the Club to-night, and I can tell him then.”
“That wouldn’t do at all,” insisted Vance. “If the Major can enlighten us on any point, I think Sergeant Heath should be present to hear him.”
“I don’t need any enlightenment,” cut in Heath.
Vance regarded him with admiring surprise.
“What a wonderful man! Even Goethe cried for mehr Licht; and here are you in a state of luminous saturation! . . . Astonishin’!”
“See here, Vance,” said Markham: “why try to complicate the matter? It strikes me as a waste of time, besides being an imposition, to ask the Major here to discuss Leacock’s confession. We don’t need his evidence now, anyway.”
Despite his gruffness there was a hint of reconsideration in his voice; for though his instinct had been to dismiss the request out of hand, the experiences of the past few days had taught him that Vance’s suggestions were not made without an object.
Vance, sensing the other’s hesitancy, said:
“My request is based on something more than an idle desire to gaze upon the Major’s rubicund features at this moment. I’m telling you, with all the meagre earnestness I possess, that his presence here now would be most helpful.”
Markham deliberated, and argued the point at some length. But Vance was so persistent that in the end he was convinced of the advisability of complying.
Heath was patently disgusted, but he sat down quietly, and sought solace in a cigar.
Major Benson arrived with astonishing promptness, and when Markham handed him the confession, he made little attempt to conceal his eagerness. But as he read it his face clouded, and a look of puzzlement came into his eyes.
At length he looked up, frowning.
“I don’t quite understand this; and I’ll admit I’m greatly surprised. It doesn’t seem credible that Leacock shot Alvin. . . . And yet, I may be mistaken, of course.”
He laid the confession on Markham’s desk with an air of disappointment, and sank into a chair.
“Do you feel satisfied?” he asked.
“I don’t see any way around it,” said Markham. “If he isn’t guilty, why should he come forward and confess? God knows, there’s plenty of evidence against him. I was ready to arrest him two days ago.”
“He’s guilty all right,” put in Heath. “I’ve had my eye on him from the first.”
Major Benson did not reply at once: he seemed to be framing his next words.
“It might be—that is, there’s the bare possibility—that Leacock had an ulterior motive in confessing.”
We all, I think, recognized the thought which his words strove to conceal.
“I’ll admit,” acceded Markham, “that at first I believed Miss St. Clair guilty, and I intimated as much to Leacock. But later I was persuaded that she was not directly involved.”
“Does Leacock know this?” the Major asked quickly.
Markham thought a moment.
“No, I can’t say that he does. In fact, it’s more than likely he still thinks I suspect her.”
“Ah!” The Major’s exclamation was almost involuntary.
“But what’s that got to do with it?” asked Heath irritably. “Do you think he’s going to the chair to save her reputation?—Bunk! That sort of thing’s all right in the movies, but no man’s that crazy in real life.”
“I’m not so sure, Sergeant,” ventured Vance lazily. “Women are too sane and practical to make such foolish gestures; but men, y’ know, have an illim’table capacity for idiocy.”
He turned an inquiring gaze on Major Benson.
“Won’t you tell us why you think Leacock is playing Sir Galahad?”
But the Major took refuge in generalities, and was disinclined even to follow up his original intimation as to the cause of the Captain’s action. Vance questioned him for some time, but was unable to penetrate his reticence.
Heath, becoming restless, finally spoke up.
“You can’t argue Leacock’s guilt away, Mr. Vance. Look at the facts. He threatened Benson that he’d kill him if he caught him with the girl again. The next time Benson goes out with her, he’s found shot. Then Leacock hides his gun at her house, and when things begin to get hot, he takes it away and ditches it in the river. He bribes the hall-boy to alibi him; and he’s seen at Benson’s house at twelve-thirty that night. When he’s questioned he can’t explain anything. . . . If that ain’t an open-and-shut case, I’m a mock-turtle.”
“The circumstances are convincing,” admitted Major Benson. “But couldn’t they be accounted for on other grounds?”
Heath did not deign to answer the question.
“The way I see it,” he continued, “is like this: Leacock gets suspicious along about midnight, takes his gun and goes out. He catches Benson with the girl, goes in, and shoots him like he threatened. They’re both mixed up in it, if you ask me; but Leacock