Reports and an Interview
(Saturday, June 15; 3 p.m.)
We entered the ancient building, with its discolored marble pillars
and balustrades and its old-fashioned iron scroll-work, by the
Franklin Street door, and went directly to the District Attorney’s
office on the fourth floor. The office, like the building, breathed an
air of former days. Its high ceilings, its massive golden-oak
woodwork, its elaborate low-hung chandelier of bronze and china, its
dingy bay walls of painted plaster, and its four high narrow windows
to the south—all bespoke a departed era in architecture and
decoration.
On the floor was a large velvet carpet-rug of dingy brown; and the
windows were hung with velour draperies of the same color. Several
large comfortable chairs stood about the walls and before the long oak
table in front of the District Attorney’s desk. This desk, directly
under the windows and facing the room, was broad and flat, with carved
uprights and two rows of drawers extending to the floor. To the right
of the high-backed swivel desk-chair, was another table of carved oak.
There were also several filing cabinets in the room, and a large safe.
In the center of the east wall a leather-covered door, decorated with
large brass nail-heads, led into a long narrow room, between the
office and the waiting-room, where the District Attorney’s secretary
and several clerks had their desks. Opposite to this door was another
one opening into the District Attorney’s inner sanctum; and still
another door, facing the windows, gave on the main corridor.
Vance glanced over the room casually.
“So this is the matrix of municipal justice—eh, what?” He walked to
one of the windows and looked out upon the grey circular tower of the
Tombs opposite. “And there, I take it, are the oubliettes where the
victims of our law are incarc’rated so as to reduce the competition of
criminal activity among the remaining citizenry. A most distressin’
sight, Markham.”
The District Attorney had sat down at his desk and was glancing at
several notations on his blotter.
“There are a couple of my men waiting to see me,” he remarked, without
looking up; “so, if you’ll be good enough to take a chair over here,
I’ll proceed with my humble efforts to undermine society still
further.”
He pressed a button under the edge of his desk, and an alert young man
with thick-lensed glasses appeared at the door.
“Swacker, tell Phelps to come in,” Markham ordered. “And also tell
Springer, if he’s back from lunch, that I want to see him in a few
minutes.”
The secretary disappeared, and a moment later a tall, hawk-faced man,
with stoop-shoulders and an awkward, angular gait, entered.
“What news?” asked Markham.
“Well, Chief,” the detective replied in a low grating voice, “I just
found out something I thought you could use right away. After I
reported this noon, I ambled around to this Captain Leacock’s house,
thinking I might learn something from the house-boys, and ran into the
Captain coming out. I tailed along; and he went straight up to the
lady’s house on the Drive, and stayed there over an hour. Then he went
back home, looking worried.”
Markham considered a moment.
“It may mean nothing at all, but I’m glad to know it anyway. St.
Clair’ll be here in a few minutes, and I’ll find out what she has to
say.—There’s nothing else for to-day. . . . Tell Swacker to send Tracy
in.”
Tracy was the antithesis of Phelps. He was short, a trifle stout, and
exuded an atmosphere of studied suavity. His face was rotund and
genial; he wore a _pince-nez_; and his clothes were modish and fitted
him well.
“Good-morning, Chief,” he greeted Markham in a quiet, ingratiating
tone. “I understand the St. Clair woman is to call here this
afternoon, and there are a few things I’ve found out that may assist
in your questioning.”
He opened a small note-book and adjusted his _pince-nez_.
“I thought I might learn something from her singing teacher, an
Italian formerly connected with the Metropolitan, but now running a
sort of choral society of his own. He trains aspiring _prima donnas_
in their rôles with a chorus and settings, and Miss St. Clair is one
of his pet students. He talked to me, without any trouble; and it
seems he knew Benson well. Benson attended several of St. Clair’s
rehearsals, and sometimes called for her in a taxicab. Rinaldo—that’s
the man’s name—thinks he had a bad crush on the girl. Last winter,
when she sang at the Criterion in a small part, Rinaldo was back stage
coaching, and Benson sent her enough hothouse flowers to fill the
star’s dressing-room and have some left over. I tried to find out if
Benson was playing the ‘angel’ for her, but Rinaldo either didn’t know
or pretended he didn’t.” Tracy closed his note-book and looked up.
“That any good to you, Chief?”
“First-rate,” Markham told him. “Keep at work along that line, and let
me hear from you again about this time Monday.”
Tracy bowed, and as he went out the secretary again appeared at the
door.
“Springer’s here now, sir,” he said. “Shall I send him in?”
Springer proved to be a type of detective quite different from either
Phelps or Tracy. He was older, and had the gloomy capable air of a
hard-working bookkeeper in a bank. There was no initiative in his
bearing, but one felt that he could discharge a delicate task with
extreme competency.
Markham took from his pocket the envelope on which he had noted the
name given him by Major Benson.
“Springer, there’s a man down on Long Island that I want to interview
as soon as possible. It’s in connection with the Benson case, and I
wish you’d locate him and get him up here as soon as possible. If you
can find him in the telephone book you needn’t go down personally. His
name is Leander Pfyfe, and he lives, I think, at Port Washington.”
Markham jotted down the name on a card and handed it to the detective.
“This is Saturday, so if he comes to town to-morrow, have him ask for
me at the Stuyvesant Club. I’ll be there in the afternoon.”
When Springer had gone, Markham again rang for his secretary and gave
instructions that the moment Miss St. Clair arrived she was to be
shown in.
“Sergeant Heath is here,” Swacker informed him, “and wants to see you
if you’re not too busy.”
Markham glanced at the clock over the door.
“I guess I’ll have time. Send him in.”
Heath was surprised to see Vance and me in the District Attorney’s
office, but after greeting Markham with the customary handshake, he
turned to Vance with a good-natured smile.
“Still acquiring knowledge, Mr. Vance?”
“Can’t say that I am, Sergeant,” returned Vance lightly. “But I’m
learning a number of most int’restin’ errors. . . . How goes the
sleuthin’?”
Heath’s face became suddenly serious.
“That’s what I’m here to tell the Chief about.” He addressed himself
to Markham. “This case is a jaw-breaker, sir. My men and myself have
talked to a dozen of Benson’s cronies, and we can’t worm a single fact
of any value out of ’em. They either don’t know anything, or they’re
giving a swell imitation of a lot of clams. They all appear to be
greatly shocked—bowled over, floored, flabbergasted—by the news of the
shooting. And have they got any idea as to why or how it happened?
They’ll tell the world they haven’t. You know the line of talk: Who’d
want to shoot good old Al? Nobody could’ve done it but a burglar who
didn’t know good old Al. If he’d known good old Al, even the burglar
wouldn’t have done it. . . . Hell! I felt like killing off a few of
those birds myself so they could go and join their good old Al.”
“Any news of the car?” asked Markham.
Heath grunted his disgust.
“Not a word. And that’s funny, too, seeing all the advertising it got.
Those fishing-rods are the only thing we’ve got. . . . The Inspector,
by the way, sent me the post-mortem report this morning; but it didn’t
tell us anything we didn’t know. Translated into human language, it
said Benson died from a shot in the head, with all his organs sound.
It’s a wonder, though, they didn’t discover that he’d been poisoned
with a Mexican bean or bit by an African snake, or something, so’s to
make the case a little more intrikkit than it already is.”
“Cheer up, Sergeant,” Markham exhorted him. “I’ve had a little better
luck. Tracy ran down the owner of the hand-bag and found out she’d
been to dinner with Benson that night. He and Phelps also learned a
few other supplementary facts that fit in well; and I’m expecting the
lady here at any minute. I’m going to find out what she has to say for
herself.”
An expression of resentment came into Heath’s eyes as the District
Attorney was speaking, but he erased it at once and began asking
questions. Markham gave him every detail, and also informed him of
Leander Pfyfe.
“I’ll let you know immediately how the interview comes out,” he
concluded.
As the door closed on Heath Vance looked up at Markham with a sly
smile.
“Not exactly one of Nietzche’s _Übermenschen_—eh, what? I fear the
subtleties of this complex world bemuse him a bit, y’ know. . . . And
he’s so disappointin’. I felt pos’tively elated when the bustling lad
with the thick glasses announced his presence. I thought surely he
wanted to tell you he had jailed at least six of Benson’s murderers.”
“Your hopes run too high, I fear,” commented Markham.
“And yet, that’s the usual procedure—if the headlines in our great
moral dailies are to be credited. I always thought that the moment a
crime was committed the police began arresting people promiscuously—to
maintain the excitement, don’t y’ know. Another illusion gone! . . .
Sad, sad,” he murmured. “I sha’n’t forgive our Heath: he has betrayed
my faith in him.”
At this point Markham’s secretary came to the door and announced the
arrival of Miss St. Clair.
I think we were all taken a little aback at the spectacle presented by
this young woman as she came slowly into the room with a firm graceful
step, and with her head held slightly to one side in an attitude of
supercilious inquiry. She was small and strikingly pretty, although
“pretty” is not exactly the word with which to describe her. She
possessed that faintly exotic beauty that we find in the portraits of
the Carracci, who sweetened the severity of Leonardo and made it at
once intimate and decadent. Her eyes were dark and widely spaced; her
nose was delicate and straight, and her forehead broad. Her full
sensuous lips were almost sculpturesque in their linear precision, and
her mouth wore an enigmatic smile, or hint of a smile. Her rounded
firm chin was a bit heavy when examined apart from the other features,
but not in the _ensemble_. There was poise and a certain strength of
character in her bearing; but one sensed the potentialities of
powerful emotions beneath her exterior calm. Her clothes harmonized
with her personality: they were quiet and apparently in the
conventional style, but a touch of color and originality here and
there conferred on them a fascinating distinction.
Markham rose and, bowing with formal courtesy, indicated a comfortable
upholstered chair directly in front of his desk. With a barely
perceptible nod, she glanced at the chair, and then seated herself in
a straight armless chair standing next to it.
“You won’t mind, I’m sure,” she said, “if I choose my own chair for
the inquisition.”
Her voice was low and resonant—the speaking voice of the highly
trained singer. She smiled as she spoke, but it was not a cordial
smile: it was cold and distant, yet somehow indicative of levity.
“Miss St. Clair,” began Markham, in a tone of polite severity, “the
murder of Mr. Alvin Benson has intimately involved yourself. Before
taking any definite steps, I have invited you here to ask you a few
questions. I can, therefore, advise you quite honestly that frankness
will best serve your interests.”
He paused, and the woman looked at him with an ironically questioning
gaze.
“Am I supposed to thank you for your generous advice?”
Markham’s scowl deepened as he glanced down at a typewritten page on
his desk.
“You are probably aware that your gloves and hand-bag were found in
Mr. Benson’s house the morning after he was shot.”
“I can understand how you might have traced the hand-bag to me,” she
said; “but how did you arrive at the conclusion that the gloves were
mine?”
Markham looked up sharply.
“Do you mean to say the gloves are not yours?”
“Oh, no.” She gave him another wintry smile. “I merely wondered how
you knew they belonged to me, since you couldn’t have known either my
taste in gloves or the size I wore.”
“They’re your gloves, then?”
“If they are Tréfousse, size five-and-three-quarters, of white kid and
elbow length, they are certainly mine. And I’d so like to have them
back, if you don’t mind.”
“I’m sorry,” said Markham; “but it is necessary that I keep them for
the present.”
She dismissed the matter with a slight shrug of the shoulders.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” she asked.
Markham instantly opened a drawer of his desk, and took out a box of
Benson and Hedges cigarettes.
“I have my own, thank you,” she informed him. “But I would so
appreciate my holder. I’ve missed it horribly.”
Markham hesitated. He was manifestly annoyed by the woman’s attitude.
“I’ll be glad to lend it to you,” he compromised; and reaching into
another drawer of his desk, he laid the holder on the table before
her.
“Now, Miss St. Clair,” he said, resuming his gravity of manner, “will
you tell me how these personal articles of yours happened to be in Mr.
Benson’s living-room?”
“No, Mr. Markham, I will not,” she answered.
“Do you realize the serious construction your refusal places upon the
circumstances?”
“I really hadn’t given it much thought.” Her tone was indifferent.
“It would be well if you did,” Markham advised her. “Your position is
not an enviable one; and the presence of your belongings in Mr.
Benson’s room is, by no means, the only thing that connects you
directly with the crime.”
The woman raised her eyes inquiringly, and again the enigmatic smile
appeared at the corners of her mouth.
“Perhaps you have sufficient evidence to accuse me of the murder?”
Markham ignored this question.
“You were well acquainted with Mr. Benson, I believe?”
“The finding of my hand-bag and gloves in his apartment might lead one
to assume as much, mightn’t it?” she parried.
“He was, in fact, much interested in you?” persisted Markham.
She made a _moue_, and sighed.
“Alas, yes! Too much for my peace of mind. . . . Have I been brought
here to discuss the attentions this gentleman paid me?”
Again Markham ignored her query.
“Where were you, Miss St. Clair, between the time you left the
Marseilles at midnight and the time you arrived home—which, I
understand, was after one o’clock?”
“You are simply wonderful!” she exclaimed. “You seem to know
everything. . . . Well, I can only say that during that time I was on
my way home.”
“Did it take you an hour to go from Fortieth Street to Eighty-first
and Riverside Drive?”
“Just about, I should say,—a few minutes more or less, perhaps.”
“How do you account for that?” Markham was becoming impatient.
“I can’t account for it,” she said, “except by the passage of time.
Time does fly, doesn’t it, Mr. Markham?”
“By your attitude you are only working detriment to yourself,” Markham
warned her, with a show of irritation. “Can you not see the
seriousness of your position? You are known to have dined with Mr.
Benson, to have left the restaurant at midnight, and to have arrived
at your own apartment after one o’clock. At twelve-thirty, Mr. Benson
was shot; and your personal articles were found in the same room the
morning after.”
“It looks terribly suspicious, I know,” she admitted, with whimsical
seriousness. “And I’ll tell you this, Mr. Markham: if my thoughts
could have killed Mr. Benson, he would have died long ago. I know I
shouldn’t speak ill of the dead—there’s a saying about it beginning
‘_de mortuis_,’ isn’t there?—but the truth is, I had reason to dislike
Mr. Benson exceedingly.”
“Then why did you go to dinner with him?”
“I’ve asked myself the same question a dozen times since,” she
confessed dolefully. “We women are such impulsive creatures—always
doing things we shouldn’t. . . . But I know what you’re thinking:—if I
had intended to shoot him, that would have been a natural preliminary.
Isn’t that what’s in your mind? I suppose all murderesses do go to
dinner with their victims first.”
While she spoke she opened her vanity-case and looked at her
reflection in its mirror. She daintily adjusted several imaginary
stray ends of her abundant dark-brown hair, and touched her arched
eyebrows gently with her little finger as if to rectify some
infinitesimal disturbance in their pencilled contour. Then she tilted
her head, regarded herself appraisingly, and returned her gaze to the
District Attorney only as she came to the end of her speech. Her
actions had perfectly conveyed to her listeners the impression that
the subject of the conversation was, in her scheme of things, of
secondary importance to her personal appearance. No words could have
expressed her indifference so convincingly as had her little
pantomime.
Markham was becoming exasperated. A different type of district
attorney would no doubt have attempted to use the pressure of his
office to force her into a more amenable frame of mind. But Markham
shrank instinctively from the bludgeoning, threatening methods of the
ordinary Public Prosecutor, especially in his dealings with women. In
the present case, however, had it not been for Vance’s strictures at
the Club, he would no doubt have taken a more aggressive stand. But it
was evident he was laboring under a burden of uncertainty superinduced
by Vance’s words and augmented by the evasive deportment of the woman
herself.
After a moment’s silence he asked grimly:
“You did considerable speculating through the firm of Benson and
Benson, did you not?”
A faint ring of musical laughter greeted this question.
“I see that the dear Major has been telling tales. . . . Yes, I’ve
been gambling most extravagantly. And I had no business to do it. I’m
afraid I’m avaricious.”
“And is it not true that you’ve lost heavily of late—that, in fact,
Mr. Alvin Benson called upon you for additional margin and finally
sold out your securities?”
“I wish to Heaven it were not true,” she lamented, with a look of
simulated tragedy. Then: “Am I supposed to have done away with Mr.
Benson out of sordid revenge, or as an act of just retribution?” She
smiled archly and waited expectantly, as if her question had been part
of a guessing game.
Markham’s eyes hardened as he coldly enunciated his next words.
“Is it not a fact that Captain Philip Leacock owned just such a pistol
as Mr. Benson was killed with—a forty-five army Colt automatic?”
At the mention of her fiancé’s name she stiffened perceptibly and
caught her breath. The part she had been playing fell from her, and a
faint flush suffused her cheeks and extended to her forehead. But
almost immediately she had reassumed her rôle of playful indifference.
“I never inquired into the make or calibre of Captain Leacock’s
fire-arms,” she returned carelessly.
“And is it not a fact,” pursued Markham’s imperturbable voice, “that
Captain Leacock lent you his pistol when he called at your apartment
on the morning before the murder?”
“It’s most ungallant of you, Mr. Markham,” she reprimanded him coyly,
“to inquire into the personal relations of an engaged couple; for I am
betrothed to Captain Leacock—though you probably know it already.”
Markham stood up, controlling himself with effort.
“Am I to understand that you refuse to answer any of my questions, or
to endeavor to extricate yourself from the very serious position you
are in?”
She appeared to consider.
“Yes,” she said slowly, “I haven’t anything I care especially to say
just now.”
Markham leaned over and rested both hands on the desk.
“Do you realize the possible consequences of your attitude?” he asked
ominously. “The facts I know regarding your connection with the case,
coupled with your refusal to offer a single extenuating explanation,
give me more grounds than I actually need to order your being held.”
I was watching her closely as he spoke, and it seemed to me that her
eyelids drooped involuntarily the merest fraction of an inch. But she
gave no other indication of being affected by the pronouncement, and
merely looked at the District Attorney with an air of defiant
amusement.
Markham, with a sudden contraction of the jaw, turned and reached
toward a bell-button beneath the edge of his desk. But, in doing so,
his glance fell upon Vance; and he paused indecisively. The look he
had encountered on the other’s face was one of reproachful amazement:
not only did it express complete surprise at his apparent decision,
but it stated, more eloquently than words could have done, that he was
about to commit an act of irreparable folly.
There were several moments of tense silence in the room. Then calmly
and unhurriedly Miss St. Clair opened her vanity-case and powdered her
nose. When she had finished, she turned a serene gaze upon the
District Attorney.
“Well, do you want to arrest me now?” she asked.
Markham regarded her for a moment, deliberating. Instead of answering
at once, he went to the window and stood for a full minute looking
down upon the Bridge of Sighs which connects the Criminal Courts
Building with the Tombs.
“No, I think not to-day,” he said slowly.
He stood a while longer in absorbed contemplation; then, as if shaking
off his mood of irresolution, he swung about and confronted the woman.
“I’m not going to arrest you—yet,” he reiterated, a bit harshly. “But
I’m going to order you to remain in New York for the present. And if
you attempt to leave, you _will_ be arrested. I hope that is clear.”
He pressed a button, and his secretary entered.
“Swacker, please escort Miss St. Clair downstairs, and call a taxicab
for her. . . . Then you can go home yourself.”
She rose and gave Markham a little nod.
“You were very kind to lend me my cigarette-holder,” she said
pleasantly, laying it on his desk.
Without another word, she walked calmly from the room.
The door had no more than closed behind her when Markham pressed
another button. In a few moments the door leading into the outer
corridor opened, and a white-haired, middle-aged man appeared.
“Ben,” ordered Markham hurriedly, “have that woman that Swacker’s
taking downstairs followed. Keep her under surveillance, and don’t let
her get lost. She’s not to leave the city—understand? It’s the St.
Clair woman Tracy dug up.”
When the man had gone, Markham turned and stood glowering at Vance.
“What do you think of your innocent young lady now?” he asked, with an
air of belligerent triumph.
“Nice gel—eh, what?” replied Vance blandly. “Extr’ordin’ry control.
And she’s about to marry a professional milit’ry man! Ah, well. _De
gustibus_. . . . Y’ know, I was afraid for a moment you were actu’lly
going to send for the manacles. And if you had, Markham old dear,
you’d have regretted it to your dying day.”
Markham studied him for a few seconds. He knew there was something
more than a mere whim beneath Vance’s certitude of manner; and it was
this knowledge that had stayed his hand when he was about to have the
woman placed in custody.
“Her attitude was certainly not conducive to one’s belief in her
innocence,” Markham objected. “She played her part damned cleverly,
though. But it was just the part a shrewd woman, knowing herself
guilty, would have played.”
“I say, didn’t it occur to you,” asked Vance, “that perhaps she didn’t
care a farthing whether you thought her guilty or not?—that, in fact,
she was a bit disappointed when you let her go?”
“That’s hardly the way I read the situation,” returned Markham.
“Whether guilty or innocent, a person doesn’t ordinarily invite
arrest.”
“By the bye,” asked Vance, “where was the fortunate swain during the
hour of Alvin’s passing?”
“Do you think we didn’t check up on that point?” Markham spoke with
disdain. “Captain Leacock was at his own apartment that night from
eight o’clock on.”
“Was he, really?” airily retorted Vance. “A most model young fella!”
Again Markham looked at him sharply.
“I’d like to know what weird theory has been struggling in your brain
to-day,” he mused. “Now that I’ve let the lady go temporarily—which is
what you obviously wanted me to do—, and have stultified my own better
judgment in so doing, why not tell me frankly what you’ve got up your
sleeve?”
“‘Up my sleeve?’ Such an inelegant metaphor! One would think I was a
prestidig’tator, what?”
Whenever Vance answered in this fashion it was a sign that he wished
to avoid making a direct reply; and Markham dropped the matter.
“Anyway,” he submitted, “you didn’t have the pleasure of witnessing my
humiliation, as you prophesied.”
Vance looked up in simulated surprise.
“Didn’t I, now?” Then he added sorrowfully: “Life is so full of
disappointments, y’ know.”