Vance Accepts a Challenge
(Saturday, June 15; 4 p.m.)
After Markham had telephoned Heath the details of the interview, we
returned to the Stuyvesant Club. Ordinarily the District Attorney’s
office shuts down at one o’clock on Saturdays; but to-day the hour had
been extended because of the importance attaching to Miss St. Clair’s
visit. Markham had lapsed into an introspective silence which lasted
until we were again seated in the alcove of the Club’s lounge-room.
Then he spoke irritably.
“Damn it! I shouldn’t have let her go. . . . I still have a feeling
she’s guilty.”
Vance assumed an air of gushing credulousness.
“Oh, really? I dare say you’re _so_ psychic. Been that way all your
life, no doubt. And haven’t you had lots and lots of dreams that came
true? I’m sure you’ve often had a ’phone call from someone you were
thinking about at the moment. A delectable gift. Do you read palms,
also? . . . Why not have the lady’s horoscope cast?”
“I have no evidence as yet,” Markham retorted, “that your belief in
her innocence is founded on anything more substantial than your
impressions.”
“Ah, but it is,” averred Vance. “I _know_ she’s innocent. Furthermore,
I know that no woman could possibly have fired the shot.”
“Don’t get the erroneous idea in your head that a woman couldn’t have
manipulated a forty-five army Colt.”
“Oh, that?” Vance dismissed the notion with a shrug. “The material
indications of the crime don’t enter into my calculations, y’ know,—I
leave ’em entirely to you lawyers and the lads with the bulging
deltoids. I have other, and surer, ways of reaching conclusions.
That’s why I told you that if you arrested any woman for shooting
Benson you’d be blundering most shamefully.”
Markham grunted indignantly.
“And yet you seem to have repudiated all processes of deduction
whereby the truth may be arrived at. Have you, by any chance, entirely
renounced your faith in the operations of the human mind?”
“Ah, there speaks the voice of God’s great common people!” exclaimed
Vance. “Your mind is so typical, Markham. It works on the principle
that what you don’t know isn’t knowledge, and that, since you don’t
understand a thing, there is no explanation. A comfortable point of
view. It relieves one from all care and uncertainty. Don’t you find
the world a very sweet and wonderful place?”
Markham adopted an attitude of affable forbearance.
“You spoke at lunch time, I believe, of one infallible method of
detecting crime. Would you care to divulge this profound and priceless
secret to a mere district attorney?”
Vance bowed with exaggerated courtesy.*
* The following conversation in which Vance explains his
psychological methods of criminal analysis, is, of course,
set down from memory. However, a proof of this passage was
sent to him with a request that he revise and alter it in
whatever manner he chose; so that, as it now stands, it
describes Vance’s theory in practically his own words.
“Delighted, I’m sure,” he returned. “I referred to the science of
individual character and the psychology of human nature. We all do
things, d’ ye see, in a certain individual way, according to our
temp’raments. Every human act—no matter how large or how small—is a
direct expression of a man’s personality, and bears the inev’table
impress of his nature. Thus, a musician, by looking at a sheet of
music, is able to tell at once whether it was composed, for example,
by Beethoven, or Schubert, or Debussy, or Chopin. And an artist, by
looking at a canvas, knows immediately whether it is a Corot, a
Harpignies, a Rembrandt, or a Franz Hals. And just as no two faces are
exactly alike, so no two natures are exactly alike: the combination of
ingredients which go to make up our personalities, varies in each
individual. That is why, when twenty artists, let us say, sit down to
paint the same subject, each one conceives and executes it in a
different manner. The result in each case is a distinct and
unmistakable expression of the personality of the painter who did
it. . . . It’s really rather simple, don’t y’ know.”
“Your theory, doubtless, would be comprehensible to an artist,” said
Markham, in a tone of indulgent irony. “But its metaphysical
refinements are, I admit, considerably beyond the grasp of a vulgar
worldling like myself.”
“‘The mind inclined to what is false rejects the nobler course,’”
murmured Vance, with a sigh.
“There is,” argued Markham, “a slight difference between art and
crime.”
“Psychologically, old chap, there’s none,” Vance amended evenly.
“Crimes possess all the basic factors of a work of art—approach,
conception, technique, imagination, attack, method, and organization.
Moreover, crimes vary fully as much in their manner, their aspects,
and their general nature, as do works of art. Indeed, a carefully
planned crime is just as direct an expression of the individual as is
a painting, for instance. And therein lies the one great possibility
of detection. Just as an expert æsthetician can analyze a picture and
tell you who painted it, or the personality and temp’rament of the
person who painted it, so can the expert psychologist analyze a crime
and tell you who committed it—that is, if he happens to be acquainted
with the person—, or else can describe to you, with almost
mathematical surety, the criminal’s nature and character. . . . And
that, my dear Markham, is the only sure and inev’table means of
determining human guilt. All others are mere guess-work, unscientific,
uncertain, and—perilous.”
Throughout this explanation Vance’s manner had been almost casual; yet
the very serenity and assurance of his attitude conferred upon his
words a curious sense of authority. Markham had listened with
interest, though it could be seen that he did not regard Vance’s
theorizing seriously.
“Your system ignores motive altogether,” he objected.
“Naturally,” Vance replied, “—since it’s an irrelevant factor in most
crimes. Every one of us, my dear chap, has just as good a motive for
killing at least a score of men, as the motives which actuate
ninety-nine crimes out of a hundred. And, when anyone is murdered,
there are dozens of innocent people who had just as strong a motive
for doing it as had the actual murderer. Really, y’ know, the fact
that a man has a motive is no evidence whatever that he’s guilty,—such
motives are too universal a possession of the human race. Suspecting a
man of murder because he has a motive is like suspecting a man of
running away with another man’s wife because he has two legs. The
reason that some people kill and others don’t, is a matter of
temp’rament—of individual psychology. It all comes back to that. . . .
And another thing: when a person does possess a real motive—something
tremendous and overpowering—he’s pretty apt to keep it to himself, to
hide it and guard it carefully—eh, what? He may even have disguised
the motive through years of preparation; or the motive may have been
born within five minutes of the crime through the unexpected discovery
of facts a decade old. . . . So, d’ ye see, the absence of any
apparent motive in a crime might be regarded as more incriminating
than the presence of one.”
“You are going to have some difficulty in eliminating the idea of _cui
bono_ from the consideration of crime.”
“I dare say,” agreed Vance. “The idea of _cui bono_ is just silly
enough to be impregnable. And yet, many persons would be benefited by
almost anyone’s death. Kill Sumner, and, on that theory, you could
arrest the entire membership of the Authors’ League.”
“Opportunity, at any rate,” persisted Markham, “is an insuperable
factor in crime,—and by opportunity, I mean that affinity of
circumstances and conditions which make a particular crime possible,
feasible and convenient for a particular person.”
“Another irrelevant factor,” asserted Vance. “Think of the
opportunities we have every day to murder people we dislike! Only the
other night I had ten insuff’rable bores to dinner in my apartment—a
social devoir. But I refrained—with consid’rable effort, I admit—from
putting arsenic in the Pontet Canet. The Borgias and I, y’ see, merely
belong in different psychological categ’ries. On the other hand, had I
been resolved to do murder, I would—like those resourceful
_cinquecento_ patricians—have created my own opportunity. . . . And
there’s the rub:—one can either make an opportunity or disguise the
fact that he had it, with false alibis and various other tricks. You
remember the case of the murderer who called the police to break into
his victim’s house before the latter had been killed, saying he
suspected foul play, and who then preceded the policemen indoors and
stabbed the man as they were trailing up the stairs.”*
* I don’t know what case Vance was referring to; but there
are several instances of this device on record, and
writers of detective fiction have often used it. The
latest instance is to be found in G. K. Chesterton’s _The
Innocence of Father Brown_, in the story entitled “The
Wrong Shape.”
“Well, what of actual proximity, or presence,—the proof of a person
being on the scene of the crime at the time it was committed?”
“Again misleading,” Vance declared. “An innocent person’s presence is
too often used as a shield by the real murderer who is actu’lly
absent. A clever criminal can commit a crime from a distance through
an agency that is present. Also, a clever criminal can arrange an
alibi and then go to the scene of the crime disguised and
unrecognized. There are far too many convincing ways of being present
when one is believed to be absent—and _vice versa_. . . . But we can
never part from our individualities and our natures. And that is why
all crime inev’tably comes back to human psychology—the one fixed,
undisguisable basis of deduction.”
“It’s a wonder to me,” said Markham, “in view of your theories, that
you don’t advocate dismissing nine-tenths of the police force and
installing a gross or two of those psychological machines so popular
with the Sunday Supplement editor.”
Vance smoked a minute meditatively.
“I’ve read about ’em. Int’restin’ toys. They can no doubt indicate a
certain augmented emotional stress when the patient transfers his
attention from the pious platitudes of Dr. Frank Crane to a problem in
spherical trigonometry. But if an innocent person were harnessed up to
the various tubes, galvanometers, electro-magnets, glass plates, and
brass knobs of one of these apparatuses, and then quizzed about some
recent crime, your indicat’ry needle would cavort about like a Russian
dancer as a result of sheer nervous panic on the patient’s part.”
Markham smiled patronizingly.
“And I suppose the needle would remain static with a guilty person in
contact?”
“Oh, on the contr’ry.” Vance’s tone was unruffled. “The needle would
bob up and down just the same—but not _because_ he was guilty. If he
was stupid, for instance, the needle would jump as a result of his
resentment at a seemingly newfangled third-degree torture. And if he
was intelligent, the needle would jump because of his suppressed mirth
at the puerility of the legal mind for indulging in such nonsense.”
“You move me deeply,” said Markham. “My head is spinning like a
turbine. But there are those of us poor worldlings who believe that
criminality is a defect of the brain.”
“So it is,” Vance readily agreed. “But unfortunately the entire human
race possesses the defect. The virtuous ones haven’t, so to speak, the
courage of their defects. . . . However, if you were referring to a
criminal type, then, alas! we must part company. It was Lombroso, that
darling of the yellow journals, who invented the idea of the
congenital criminal. Real scientists like DuBois, Karl Pearson and
Goring have shot his idiotic theories full of holes.”*
* It was Pearson and Goring who, about twenty years ago,
made an extensive investigation and tabulation of
professional criminals in England, the results of which
showed (1) that criminal careers began mostly between the
ages of 16 and 21; (2) that over ninety per cent of
criminals were mentally normal; and (3) that more
criminals had criminal older brothers than criminal
fathers.
“I am floored by your erudition,” declared Markham, as he signalled to
a passing attendant and ordered another cigar. “I console myself,
however, with the fact that, as a rule, murder will leak out.”
Vance smoked his cigarette in silence, looking thoughtfully out
through the window up at the hazy June sky.
“Markham,” he said at length, “the number of fantastic ideas extant
about criminals is pos’tively amazing. How a sane person can subscribe
to that ancient hallucination that ‘murder will out’ is beyond me. It
rarely ‘outs’, old dear. And, if it did ‘out’, why a Homicide Bureau?
Why all this whirlin’-dervish activity by the police whenever a body
is found? . . . The poets are to blame for this bit of lunacy. Chaucer
probably started it with his ‘Mordre wol out’, and Shakespeare helped
it along by attributing to murder a miraculous organ that speaks in
lieu of a tongue. It was some poet, too, no doubt, who conceived the
fancy that carcasses bleed at the sight of the murderer. . . . Would
you, as the great Protector of the Faithful, dare tell the police to
wait calmly in their offices, or clubs, or favorite beauty-parlors—or
wherever policemen do their waiting—until a murder ‘outs’? Poor
dear!—if you did, they’d ask the Governor for your detention as
_particeps criminis_, or apply for a _de lunatico inquirendo_.”*
* Sir Basil Thomson, K.C.B., former Assistant Commissioner
of Metropolitan Police, London, writing in _The Saturday
Evening Post_ several years after this conversation, said:
“Take, for example, the proverb that murder will out,
which is employed whenever one out of many thousands of
undiscovered murderers is caught through a chance
coincidence that captures the popular imagination. It is
because murder will not out that the pleasant shock of
surprise when it does out calls for a proverb to enshrine
the phenomenon. The poisoner who is brought to justice has
almost invariably proved to have killed other victims
without exciting suspicion until he has grown careless.”
Markham grunted good-naturedly. He was busy cutting and lighting his
cigar.
“I believe you chaps have another hallucination about crime,”
continued Vance, “—namely, that the criminal always returns to the
scene of the crime. This weird notion is even explained on some
recondite and misty psychological ground. But, I assure you,
psychology teaches no such prepost’rous doctrine. If ever a murderer
returned to the body of his victim for any reason other than to
rectify some blunder he had made, then he is a subject for
Broadmoor—or Bloomingdale. . . . How easy it would be for the police
if this fanciful notion were true! They’d merely have to sit down at
the scene of a crime, play bezique or Mah Jongg until the murderer
returned, and then escort him to the _bastille_, what? The true
psychological instinct in anyone having committed a punishable act, is
to get as far away from the scene of it as the limits of this world
will permit.”*
* In “Popular Fallacies About Crime” (_Saturday Evening
Post_: April 21, 1923, p. 8) Sir Basil Thomson also upheld
this point of view.
“In the present case, at any rate,” Markham reminded him, “we are
neither waiting inactively for the murder to out, nor sitting in
Benson’s living-room trusting to the voluntary return of the
criminal.”
“Either course would achieve success as quickly as the one you are now
pursuing,” Vance said.
“Not being gifted with your singular insight,” retorted Markham, “I
can only follow the inadequate processes of human reasoning.”
“No doubt,” Vance agreed commiseratingly. “And the results of your
activities thus far force me to the conclusion that a man with a
handful of legalistic logic can successfully withstand the most
obst’nate and heroic assaults of ordin’ry common-sense.”
Markham was piqued.
“Still harping on the St. Clair woman’s innocence, eh? However, in
view of the complete absence of any tangible evidence pointing
elsewhere, you must admit I have no choice of courses.”
“I admit nothing of the kind,” Vance told him; “for, I assure you,
there is an abundance of evidence pointing elsewhere. You simply
failed to see it.”
“You think so!” Vance’s nonchalant cocksureness had at last overthrown
Markham’s equanimity. “Very well, old man; I hereby enter an emphatic
denial to all your fine theories; and I challenge you to produce a
single piece of this evidence which you say exists.”
He threw his words out with asperity, and gave a curt, aggressive
gesture with his extended fingers, to indicate that, as far as he was
concerned, the subject was closed.
Vance, too, I think, was pricked a little.
“Y’ know, Markham old dear, I’m no avenger of blood, or vindicator of
the honor of society. The rôle would bore me.”
Markham smiled loftily, but made no reply.
Vance smoked meditatively for a while. Then, to my amazement, he
turned calmly and deliberately to Markham, and said in a quiet,
matter-of-fact voice:
“I’m going to accept your challenge. It’s a bit alien to my tastes;
but the problem, y’ know, rather appeals to me: it presents the same
diff’culties as the _Concert Champêtre_ affair,—a question of disputed
authorship, as it were.”*
* For years the famous _Concert Champêtre_ in the Louvre
was officially attributed to Titian. Vance, however, took
it upon himself to convince the Curator, M. Lepelletier,
that it was a Giorgione, with the result that the painting
is now credited to that artist.
Markham abruptly suspended the motion of lifting his cigar to his
lips. He had scarcely intended his challenge literally: it had been
uttered more in the nature of a verbal defiance; and he scrutinized
Vance a bit uncertainly. Little did he realize that the other’s casual
acceptance of his unthinking and but half-serious challenge, was to
alter the entire criminal history of New York.
“Just how do you intend to proceed?” he asked.
Vance waved his hand carelessly.
“Like Napoleon, _je m’en gage, et puis je vois_. However, I must have
your word that you’ll give me every possible assistance, and will
refrain from all profound legal objections.”
Markham pursed his lips. He was frankly perplexed by the unexpected
manner in which Vance had met his defiance. But immediately he gave a
good-natured laugh, as if, after all, the matter was of no serious
consequence.
“Very well,” he assented. “You have my word. . . . And now what?”
After a moment Vance lit a fresh cigarette, and rose languidly.
“First,” he announced, “I shall determine the exact height of the
guilty person. Such a fact will, no doubt, come under the head of
indicat’ry evidence—eh, what?”
Markham stared at him incredulously.
“How, in Heaven’s name, are you going to do that?”
“By those primitive deductive methods to which you so touchingly pin
your faith,” he answered easily. “But come; let us repair to the scene
of the crime.”
He moved toward the door, Markham reluctantly following in a state of
perplexed irritation.
“But you know the body was removed,” the latter protested; “and the
place by now has no doubt been straightened up.”
“Thank Heaven for that!” murmured Vance. “I’m not particularly fond of
corpses; and untidiness, y’ know, annoys me frightfully.”
As we emerged into Madison Avenue, he signalled to the
_commissionnaire_ for a taxicab, and without a word, urged us into it.
“This is all nonsense,” Markham declared ill-naturedly, as we started
on our journey up town. “How do you expect to find any clues now? By
this time everything has been obliterated.”
“Alas, my dear Markham,” lamented Vance, in a tone of mock solicitude,
“how woefully deficient you are in philosophic theory! If anything, no
matter how inf’nitesimal, could really be obliterated, the universe,
y’ know, would cease to exist,—the cosmic problem would be solved, and
the Creator would write Q.E.D. across an empty firmament. Our only
chance of going on with this illusion we call Life, d’ ye see, lies in
the fact that consciousness is like an inf’nite decimal point. Did
you, as a child, ever try to complete the decimal, one-third, by
filling a whole sheet of paper with the numeral three? You always had
the fraction, one-third, left, don’t y’ know. If you could have
eliminated the smallest one-third, after having set down ten thousand
threes, the problem would have ended. So with life, my dear fellow.
It’s only because we can’t erase or obliterate anything that we go on
existing.”
He made a movement with his fingers, putting a sort of tangible period
to his remarks, and looked dreamily out of the window up at the fiery
film of sky.
Markham had settled back into his corner, and was chewing morosely at
his cigar. I could see he was fairly simmering with impotent anger at
having let himself be goaded into issuing his challenge. But there was
no retreating now. As he told me afterward, he was fully convinced he
had been dragged forth out of a comfortable chair, on a patent and
ridiculous fool’s errand.