Links in the Chain
(Monday, June 17; 6 p.m.)
Vance and I spent an hour or so that afternoon at the Anderson
Galleries looking at some tapestries which were to be auctioned the
next day, and afterward had tea at Sherry’s. We were at the Stuyvesant
Club a little before six. A few minutes later Markham and Pfyfe
arrived; and we went at once into one of the conference rooms.
Pfyfe was as elegant and superior as at the first interview. He wore a
ratcatcher suit and Newmarket gaiters of unbleached linen, and was
redolent of perfume.
“An unexpected pleasure to see you gentlemen again so soon,” he
greeted us, like one conferring a blessing.
Markham was far from amiable, and gave him an almost brusque
salutation. Vance had merely nodded, and now sat regarding Pfyfe
drearily as if seeking to find some excuse for his existence, but
utterly unable to do so.
Markham went directly to the point.
“I’ve found out, Mr. Pfyfe, that you placed your machine in a garage
at noon on Friday, and gave the man twenty dollars to say nothing
about it.”
Pfyfe looked up with a hurt look.
“I’ve been deeply wronged,” he complained sadly. “I gave the man fifty
dollars.”
“I am glad you admit the fact so readily,” returned Markham. “You
knew, by the newspapers, of course, that your machine was seen outside
Benson’s house the night he was shot.”
“Why else should I have paid so liberally to have its presence in New
York kept secret?” His tone indicated that he was pained at the
other’s obtuseness.
“In that case, why did you keep it in the city at all?” asked Markham.
“You could have driven it back to Long Island.”
Pfyfe shook his head sorrowfully, a look of commiseration in his eyes.
Then he leaned forward with an air of benign patience:—he would be
gentle with this dull-witted District Attorney, like a fond teacher
with a backward child, and would strive to lead him out of the tangle
of his uncertainties.
“I am a married man, Mr. Markham.” He pronounced the fact as if some
special virtue attached to it. “I started on my trip for the Catskills
Thursday after dinner, intending to stop a day in New York to make my
adieus to someone residing here. I arrived quite late—after
midnight—and decided to call on Alvin. But when I drove up, the house
was dark. So, without even ringing the bell, I walked to Pietro’s in
Forty-third Street to get a night-cap,—I keep a bit of my own
pinch-bottle Haig and Haig there,—but, alas! the place was closed, and
I strolled back to my car. . . . To think, that while I was away poor
Alvin was shot!”
He stopped and polished his eye-glass.
“The irony of it! . . . I didn’t even guess that anything had happened
to the dear fellow,—how could I? I drove, all unsuspecting of the
tragedy, to a Turkish bath, and remained there the night. The next
morning I read of the murder; and in the later editions I saw the
mention of my car. It was then I became—shall I say worried? But no.
‘Worried’ is a misleading word. Let me say, rather, that I became
aware of the false position I might be placed in if the car were
traced to me. So I drove it to the garage and paid the man to say
nothing of its whereabouts, lest its discovery confuse the issue of
Alvin’s death.”
One might have thought, from his tone and the self-righteous way he
looked at Markham, that he had bribed the garage-man wholly out of
consideration for the District Attorney and the police.
“Why didn’t you continue on your trip?” asked Markham. “That would
have made the discovery of the car even less likely.”
Pfyfe adopted an air of compassionate surprise.
“With my dearest friend foully murdered? How could one have the heart
to seek diversion at such a sad moment? . . . I returned home, and
informed Mrs. Pfyfe that my car had broken down.”
“You might have driven home in your car, it seems to me,” observed
Markham.
Pfyfe offered a look of infinite forbearance for the other’s
inspection, and took a deep sigh, which conveyed the impression that,
though he could not sharpen the world’s perceptions, he at least could
mourn for its deplorable lack of understanding.
“If I had been in the Catskills away from any source of information,
where Mrs. Pfyfe believed me to be, how would I have heard of Alvin’s
death until, perhaps, days afterward? You see, unfortunately I had not
mentioned to Mrs. Pfyfe that I was stopping over in New York. The
truth is, Mr. Markham, I had reason for not wishing my wife to know I
was in the city. Consequently, if I had driven back at once, she
would, I regret to say, have suspected me of breaking my journey. I
therefore pursued the course which seemed simplest.”
Markham was becoming annoyed at the man’s fluent hypocrisy. After a
brief silence he asked abruptly:
“Did the presence of your car at Benson’s house that night have
anything to do with your apparent desire to implicate Captain Leacock
in the affair?”
Pfyfe lifted his eyebrows in pained astonishment, and made a gesture
of polite protestation.
“My dear sir!” His voice betokened profound resentment of the other’s
unjust imputation. “If yesterday you detected in my words an
undercurrent of suspicion against Captain Leacock, I can account for
it only by the fact that I actually saw the Captain in front of
Alvin’s house when I drove up that night.”
Markham shot a curious look at Vance; then said to Pfyfe:
“You are sure you saw Leacock?”
“I saw him quite distinctly. And I would have mentioned the fact
yesterday had it not involved the tacit confession of my own presence
there.”
“What if it had?” demanded Markham. “It was vital information, and I
could have used it this morning. You were placing your comfort ahead
of the legal demands of justice; and your attitude puts a very
questionable aspect on your own alleged conduct that night.”
“You are pleased to be severe, sir,” said Pfyfe with self-pity. “But
having placed myself in a false position, I must accept your
criticism.”
“Do you realize,” Markham went on, “that many a district attorney, if
he knew what I now know about your movements, and had been treated the
way you’ve treated me, would arrest you on suspicion?”
“Then I can only say,” was the suave response, “that I am most
fortunate in my inquisitor.”
Markham rose.
“That will be all for to-day, Mr. Pfyfe. But you are to remain in New
York until I give you permission to return home. Otherwise, I will
have you held as a material witness.”
Pfyfe made a shocked gesture in deprecation of such acerbities, and
bade us a ceremonious good-afternoon.
When we were alone, Markham looked seriously at Vance.
“Your prophecy was fulfilled, though I didn’t dare hope for such luck.
Pfyfe’s evidence puts the final link in the chain against the
Captain.”
Vance smoked languidly.
“I’ll admit your theory of the crime is most satisfyin’. But alas! the
psychological objection remains. Everything fits, with the one
exception of the Captain; and he doesn’t fit at all. . . . Silly idea,
I know. But he has no more business being cast as the murderer of
Benson than the bisonic Tetrazzini had being cast as the phthisical
_Mimi_.”*
* Obviously a reference to Tetrazzini’s performance in _La
Bohème_ at the Manhattan Opera House in 1908.
“In any other circumstances,” Markham answered, “I might defer
reverently to your charming theories. But with all the circumstantial
and presumptive evidence I have against Leacock, it strikes my
inferior legal mind as sheer nonsense to say, ‘He just couldn’t be
guilty because his hair is parted in the middle and he tucks his
napkin in his collar.’ There’s too much logic against it.”
“I’ll grant your logic is irrefutable—as all logic is, no doubt.
You’ve prob’bly convinced many innocent persons by sheer reasoning
that they were guilty.”
Vance stretched himself wearily.
“What do you say to a light repast on the roof? The unutt’rable Pfyfe
has tired me.”
In the summer dining-room on the roof of the Stuyvesant Club we found
Major Benson sitting alone, and Markham asked him to join us.
“I have good news for you, Major,” he said, when we had given our
order. “I feel confident I have my man; everything points to him.
To-morrow will see the end, I hope.”
The Major gave Markham a questioning frown.
“I don’t understand exactly. From what you told me the other day, I
got the impression there was a woman involved.”
Markham smiled awkwardly, and avoided Vance’s eyes.
“A lot of water has run under the bridge since then,” he said. “The
woman I had in mind was eliminated as soon as we began to check up on
her. But in the process I was led to the man. There’s little doubt of
his guilt. I felt pretty sure about it this morning, and just now I
learned that he was seen by a credible witness in front of your
brother’s house within a few minutes of the time the shot was fired.”
“Is there any objection to your telling me who it was?” The Major was
still frowning.
“None whatever. The whole city will probably know it to-morrow. . . .
It was Captain Leacock.”
Major Benson stared at him in unbelief.
“Impossible! I simply can’t credit it. That boy was with me three
years on the other side, and I got to know him pretty well. I can’t
help feeling there’s a mistake somewhere. . . . The police,” he added
quickly, “have got on the wrong track.”
“It’s not the police,” Markham informed him. “It was my own
investigations that turned up the Captain.”
The Major did not answer, but his silence bespoke his doubt.
“Y’ know,” put in Vance, “I feel the same way about the Captain that
you do, Major. It rather pleases me to have my impressions verified by
one who has known him so long.”
“What, then, was Leacock doing in front of the house that night?”
urged Markham acidulously.
“He might have been singing carols beneath Benson’s window,” suggested
Vance.
Before Markham could reply he was handed a card by the head-waiter.
When he glanced at it, he gave a grunt of satisfaction, and directed
that the caller be sent up immediately. Then, turning back to us, he
said:
“We may learn something more now. I’ve been expecting this man
Higginbotham. He’s the detective that followed Leacock from my office
this morning.”
Higginbotham was a wiry, pale-faced youth with fishy eyes and a shifty
manner. He slouched up to the table and stood hesitantly before the
District Attorney.
“Sit down and report, Higginbotham,” Markham ordered. “These gentlemen
are working with me on the case.”
“I picked up the bird while he was waiting for the elevator,” the man
began, eyeing Markham craftily. “He went to the subway and rode up
town to Seventy-ninth and Broadway. He walked through Eightieth to
Riverside Drive and went in the apartment-house at No. 94. Didn’t give
his name to the boy—got right in the elevator. He stayed upstairs a
coupla hours, come down at one-twenty, and hopped a taxi. I picked up
another one, and followed him. He went down the Drive to
Seventy-second, through Central Park, and east on Fifty-ninth. Got out
at Avenue A, and walked out on the Queensborough Bridge. About half
way to Blackwell’s Island he stood leaning over the rail for five or
six minutes. Then he took a small package out of his pocket, and
dropped it in the river.”
“What size was the package?” There was repressed eagerness in
Markham’s question.
Higginbotham indicated the measurements with his hands.
“How thick was it?”
“Inch or so, maybe.”
Markham leaned forward.
“Could it have been a gun—a Colt automatic?”
“Sure, it could. Just about the right size. And it was heavy, too,—I
could tell by the way he handled it, and the way it hit the water.”
“All right.” Markham was pleased. “Anything else?”
“No, sir. After he’d ditched the gun, he went home and stayed. I left
him there.”
When Higginbotham had gone Markham nodded at Vance with melancholy
elation.
“There’s your criminal agent. . . . What more would you like?”
“Oh, lots,” drawled Vance.
Major Benson looked up, perplexed.
“I don’t quite grasp the situation. Why did Leacock have to go to
Riverside Drive for his gun?”
“I have reason to think,” said Markham, “that he took it to Miss St.
Clair the day after the shooting—for safe-keeping probably. He
wouldn’t have wanted it found in his place.”
“Might he not have taken it to Miss St. Clair’s before the shooting?”
“I know what you mean,” Markham answered. (I, too, recalled the
Major’s assertion the day before that Miss St. Clair was more capable
of shooting his brother than was the Captain.) “I had the same idea
myself. But certain evidential facts have eliminated her as a
suspect.”
“You’ve undoubtedly satisfied yourself on the point,” returned the
Major; but his tone was dubious. “However, I can’t see Leacock as
Alvin’s murderer.”
He paused, and laid a hand on the District Attorney’s arm.
“I don’t want to appear presumptuous, or unappreciative of all you’ve
done; but I really wish you’d wait a bit before clapping that boy into
prison. The most careful and conscientious of us are liable to error:
even facts sometimes lie damnably; and I can’t help believing that the
facts in this instance have deceived you.”
It was plain that Markham was touched by this request of his old
friend; but his instinctive fidelity to duty helped him to resist the
other’s appeal.
“I must act according to my convictions, Major,” he said firmly, but
with a great kindness.