a moment ago?”
“In my primitive legal way I considered it as such.” Markham resented Vance’s question. “The summons was handed him at half past eleven: it’s so marked and dated. And Boonton is fifty miles from here—a good two hours’ motor ride. Therefore, Cleaver unquestionably left New York about half past nine; and even if he’d driven directly back, he couldn’t have reached here until long after the time the Medical Examiner declared the girl was dead. As a matter of routine, I investigated the summons, and even spoke by phone to the officer who issued it. It was genuine enough—I ought to know: I had it quashed.”
“Did this Boonton Dogberry know Cleaver by sight?”
“No, but he gave me an accurate description of him. And naturally he took the car’s number.”
Vance looked at Markham with open-eyed sorrow.
“My dear Markham—my very dear Markham—can’t you see that all you’ve actually proved is that a bucolic traffic Nemesis handed a speed-violation summons to a smooth-faced, middle-aged, stout man who was driving Cleaver’s car near Boonton at half past eleven on the night of the murder? . . . And, my word! Isn’t that exactly the sort of alibi the old boy would arrange if he intended taking the lady’s life at midnight or thereabouts?”
“Come, come!” laughed Markham. “That’s a bit too far-fetched. You’d give every law-breaker credit for concocting schemes of the most diabolical cunning.”
“So I would,” admitted Vance apathetically. “And—d’ye know?—I rather fancy that’s just the kind of schemes a law-breaker would concoct, if he was planning a murder, and his own life was at stake. What really amazes me is the naïve assumption of you investigators that a murderer gives no intelligent thought whatever to his future safety. It’s rather touchin’, y’ know.”
Markham grunted.
“Well, you can take it from me, it was Cleaver himself who got that summons.”
“I dare say you’re right,” Vance conceded. “I merely suggested the possibility of deception, don’t y’ know. The only point I really insist on is that the fascinatin’ Miss Odell was killed by a man of subtle and superior mentality.”
“And I, in turn,” irritably rejoined Markham, “insist that the only men of that type who touched her life intimately enough to have had any reason to do it are Mannix, Cleaver, Lindquist, and Spotswoode. And I further insist that not one of them can be regarded as a promising possibility.”
“I fear I must contradict you, old dear,” said Vance serenely. “They’re all possibilities—and one of them is guilty.”
Markham glared at him derisively.
“Well, well! So the case is settled! Now, if you’ll but indicate which is the guilty one, I’ll arrest him at once, and return to my other duties.”
“You’re always in such haste,” Vance lamented. “Why leap and run? The wisdom of the world’s philosophers is against it. Festina lente, says Cæsar; or, as Rufus has it, Festinatio tarda est. And the Koran says quite frankly that haste is of the Devil. Shakespeare was constantly belittling speed:
‘He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes’;
and
‘Wisely, and slow; they stumble that run fast.’
Then there was Molière—remember ‘Sganarelle’?—: ‘Le trop de promptitude à l’erreur nous expose.’ Chaucer also held similar views. ‘He hasteth wel,’ said he, ‘that wysely can abyde.’ Even God’s common people have embalmed the idea in numberless proverbs: ‘Good and quickly seldom meet’; and ‘Hasty men never want woe——’ ”
Markham rose with a gesture of impatience.
“Hell! I’m going home before you start a bedtime story,” he growled.
The ironical aftermath of this remark was that Vance did tell a “bedtime story” that night; but he told it to me in the seclusion of his own library; and the gist of it was this:
“Heath is committed, body and soul, to a belief in Skeel’s guilt; and Markham is as effectively strangled with legal red tape as the poor Canary was strangled with powerful hands. Eheu, Van! There’s nothing left for me but to set forth to-morrow a cappella, like Gaboriau’s Monsieur Lecoq, and see what can be done in the noble cause of justice. I shall ignore both Heath and Markham, and become as a pelican of the wilderness, an owl of the desert, a sparrow alone upon the housetop. . . . Really, y’ know, I’m no avenger of society, but I do detest an unsolved problem.”
CHAPTER XVI
SIGNIFICANT DISCLOSURES
(Thursday, September 13; forenoon)
Greatly to Currie’s astonishment Vance gave instructions to be called at nine o’clock the following morning; and at ten o’clock we were sitting on his little roof-garden having breakfast in the mellow mid-September sunshine.
“Van,” he said to me, when Currie had brought us our second cup of coffee, “however secretive a woman may be, there’s always some one to whom she unburdens her soul. A confidant is an essential to the feminine temperament. It may be a mother, or a lover, or a priest, or a doctor, or, more generally, a girl chum. In the Canary’s case we haven’t a mother or a priest. Her lover—the elegant Skeel—was a potential enemy; and we’re pretty safe in ruling out her doctor—she was too shrewd to confide in such a creature as Lindquist. The girl chum, then, remains. And to-day we seek her.” He lit a cigarette and rose. “But, first, we must visit Mr. Benjamin Browne of Seventh Avenue.”
Benjamin Browne was a well-known photographer of stage celebrities, with galleries in the heart of the city’s theatrical district; and as we entered the reception-room of his luxurious studio later that morning my curiosity as to the object of our visit was at the breaking-point. Vance went straight to the desk, behind which sat a young woman with flaming red hair and mascaro-shaded eyes, and bowed in his most dignified manner. Then, taking a small unmounted photograph from his pocket, he laid it before her.
“I am producing a musical comedy, mademoiselle,” he said, “and I wish to communicate with the young lady who left this picture of herself with me. Unfortunately I’ve misplaced her card; but as her photograph bore the imprint of Browne’s, I thought you might be good enough to look in your files and tell me who she is and where I may find her.”
He slipped a five-dollar bill under the edge of the blotter, and waited with an air of innocent expectancy.
The young woman looked at him quizzically, and I thought I detected the hint of a smile at the corners of her artfully rouged lips. But after a moment she took the photograph without a word and disappeared through a rear door. Ten minutes later she returned and handed Vance the picture. On the back of it she had written a name and address.
“The young lady is Miss Alys La Fosse, and she lives at the Belafield Hotel.” There was now no doubt as to her smile. “You really shouldn’t be so careless with the addresses of your applicants—some poor girl might lose an engagement.” And her smile suddenly turned into soft laughter.
“Mademoiselle,” replied Vance, with mock seriousness, “in the future I shall be guided by your warning.” And with another dignified bow, he went out.
“Good Lord!” he said, as we emerged into Seventh Avenue. “Really, y’ know, I should have disguised myself as an impresario, with a gold-headed cane, a derby, and a purple shirt. That young woman is thoroughly convinced that I’m contemplating an intrigue. . . . A jolly smart tête-rouge, that.”
He turned into a florist’s shop at the corner, and selecting a dozen American Beauties, addressed them to “Benjamin Browne’s Receptionist.”