The Arrest
(Thursday, June 20; noon.)
On leaving the apartment, Markham took with him the pistol and the
case of jewels. In the drug store at the corner of Sixth Avenue he
telephoned Heath to meet him immediately at the office, and to bring
Captain Hagedorn. He also telephoned Stitt, the public accountant, to
report as soon as possible.
“You observe, I trust,” said Vance, when we were in the taxicab headed
for the Criminal Courts Building, “the great advantage of my methods
over yours. When one knows at the outset who committed a crime, one
isn’t misled by appearances. Without that foreknowledge, one is apt to
be deceived by a clever alibi, for example. . . . I asked you to
secure the alibis because, knowing the Major was guilty, I thought
he’d have prepared a good one.”
“But why ask for all of them? And why waste time trying to disprove
Colonel Ostrander’s?”
“What chance would I have had of securing the Major’s alibi, if I had
not injected his name surreptitiously, as it were, into a list of
other names? . . . And had I asked you to check the Major’s alibi
first, you’d have refused. I chose the Colonel’s alibi to start with
because it seemed to offer a loop-hole,—and I was lucky in the choice.
I knew that if I could puncture one of the other alibis, you would be
more inclined to help me test the Major’s.”
“But if, as you say, you knew from the first that the Major was
guilty, why, in God’s name, didn’t you tell me, and save me this week
of anxiety?”
“Don’t be ingenuous, old man,” returned Vance. “If I had accused the
Major at the beginning, you’d have had me arrested for _scandalum
magnatum_ and criminal libel. It was only by deceivin’ you every
minute about the Major’s guilt, and drawing a whole school of red
herrings across the trail, that I was able to get you to accept the
fact even to-day. And yet, not once did I actu’lly lie to you. I was
constantly throwing out suggestions, and pointing to significant
facts, in the hope that you’d see the light for yourself; but you
ignored all my intimations, or else misinterpreted them, with the most
irritatin’ perversity.”
Markham was silent a moment.
“I see what you mean. But why did you keep setting up these straw men
and then knocking them over?”
“You were bound, body and soul, to circumst’ntial evidence,” Vance
pointed out. “It was only by letting you see that it led you nowhere
that I was able to foist the Major on you. There was no evidence
against him,—he naturally saw to that. No one even regarded him as a
possibility: fratricide has been held as inconceivable—a _lusus
naturæ_—since the days of Cain. Even with all my finessing you fought
every inch of the way, objectin’ to this and that, and doing
everything imag’nable to thwart my humble efforts. . . . Admit, like a
good fellow, that, had it not been for my assiduousness, the Major
would never have been suspected.”
Markham nodded slowly.
“And yet, there are some things I don’t understand even now. Why, for
instance, should he have objected so strenuously to my arresting the
Captain?”
Vance wagged his head.
“How deuced obvious you are! Never attempt a crime, my Markham,—you’d
be instantly apprehended. I say, can’t you see how much more
impregnable the Major’s position would be if he showed no int’rest in
your arrests—if, indeed, he appeared actu’lly to protest against your
incarc’ration of a victim. Could he, by any other means, have
elim’nated so completely all possible suspicion against himself?
Moreover, he knew very well that nothing he could say would swerve you
from your course. You’re so noble, don’t y’ know.”
“But he did give me the impression once or twice that he thought Miss
St. Clair was guilty.”
“Ah! There you have a shrewd intelligence taking advantage of an
opportunity. The Major unquestionably planned the crime so as to cast
suspicion on the Captain. Leacock had publicly threatened his brother
in connection with Miss St. Clair; and the lady was about to dine
alone with Alvin. When, in the morning, Alvin was found shot with an
army Colt, who but the Captain would be suspected? The Major knew the
Captain lived alone, and that he would have diff’culty in establishing
an alibi. Do you now see how cunning he was in recommending Pfyfe as a
source of information? He knew that if you interviewed Pfyfe, you’d
hear of the threat. And don’t ignore the fact that his suggestion of
Pfyfe was an apparent afterthought: he wanted to make it appear
casual, don’t y’ know.—Astute devil, what?”
Markham, sunk in gloom, was listening closely.
“Now for the opportunity of which he took advantage,” continued Vance.
“When you upset his calculations by telling him you knew whom Alvin
dined with, and that you had almost enough evidence to ask for an
indictment, the idea appealed to him. He knew no charmin’ lady could
ever be convicted of murder in this most chivalrous city, no matter
what the evidence; and he had enough of the sporting instinct in him
to prefer that no one should actu’lly be punished for the crime.
Cons’quently, he was willing to switch you back to the lady. And he
played his hand cleverly, making it appear that he was most reluctant
to involve her.”
“Was that why, when you wanted me to examine his books and to ask him
to the office to discuss the confession, you told me to intimate that
I had Miss St. Clair in mind?”
“Exactly!”
“And the person the Major was shielding——”
“Was himself. But he wanted you to think it was Miss St. Clair.”
“If you were certain he was guilty, why did you bring Colonel
Ostrander into the case?”
“In the hope that he could supply us with faggots for the Major’s
funeral pyre. I knew he was acquainted intimately with Alvin Benson
and his entire _camarilla_; and I knew, too, that he was an egregious
quidnunc who might have got wind of some enmity between the Benson
boys, and have suspected the truth. And I also wanted to get a line on
Pfyfe, by way of elim’nating every remote counter possibility.”
“But we already had a line on Pfyfe.”
“Oh, I don’t mean material clues. I wanted to learn about Pfyfe’s
nature—his psychology, y’ know,—particularly his personality as a
gambler. Y’ see, it was the crime of a calculating, cold-blooded
gambler; and no one but a man of that particular type could possibly
have committed it.”
Markham apparently was not interested just now in Vance’s theories.
“Did you believe the Major,” he asked, “when he said his brother had
lied to him about the presence of the jewels in the safe?”
“The wily Alvin prob’bly never mentioned ’em to Anthony,” rejoined
Vance. “An ear at the door during one of Pfyfe’s visits was, I fancy,
his source of information. . . . And speaking of the Major’s
eavesdropping, it was that which suggested to me a possible motive for
the crime. Your man Stitt, I hope, will clarify that point.”
“According to your theory, the crime was rather hastily conceived.”
Markham’s statement was in reality a question.
“The details of its execution were hastily conceived,” corrected
Vance. “The Major undoubtedly had been contemplating for some time
elim’nating his brother. Just how or when he was to do it, he hadn’t
decided. He may have thought out and rejected a dozen plans. Then, on
the thirteenth, came the opportunity: all the conditions adjusted
themselves to his purpose. He heard Miss St. Clair’s promise to go to
dinner; and he therefore knew that Alvin would prob’bly be home alone
at twelve-thirty, and that, if he were done away with at that hour,
suspicion would fall on Captain Leacock. He saw Alvin take home the
jewels—another prov’dential circumst’nce. The propitious moment for
which he had been waiting, d’ ye see, was at hand. All that remained
was to establish an alibi and work out a _modus operandi_. How he did
this, I’ve already eluc’dated.”
Markham sat thinking for several minutes. At last he lifted his head.
“You’ve about convinced me of his guilt,” he admitted. “But damn it,
man! I’ve got to prove it; and there’s not much actual legal
evidence.”
Vance gave a slight shrug.
“I’m not int’rested in your stupid courts and your silly rules of
evidence. But, since I’ve convinced you, you can’t charge me with not
having met your challenge, don’t y’ know.”
“I suppose not,” Markham assented gloomily.
Slowly the muscles about his mouth tightened.
“You’ve done your share, Vance. I’ll carry on.”
Heath and Captain Hagedorn were waiting when we arrived at the office,
and Markham greeted them in his customary reserved, matter-of-fact
way. By now he had himself well in hand, and he went about the task
before him with the sombre forcefulness that characterized him in the
discharge of all his duties.
“I think we at last have the right man, Sergeant,” he said. “Sit down,
and I’ll go over the matter with you in a moment. There are one or two
things I want to attend to first.”
He handed Major Benson’s pistol to the fire-arms expert.
“Look that gun over, Captain, and tell me if there’s any way of
identifying it as the weapon that killed Benson.”
Hagedorn moved ponderously to the window. Laying the pistol on the
sill, he took several tools from the pockets of his voluminous coat,
and placed them beside the weapon. Then, adjusting a jeweller’s
magnifying glass to his eye, he began what seemed an interminable
series of tinkerings. He opened the plates of the stock, and drawing
back the sear, took out the firing-pin. He removed the slide,
unscrewed the link, and extracted the recoil spring. I thought he was
going to take the weapon entirely apart, but apparently he merely
wanted to let light into the barrel; for presently he held the gun to
the window and placed his eye at the muzzle. He peered into the barrel
for nearly five minutes, moving it slightly back and forth to catch
the reflection of the sun on different points of the interior.
At last, without a word, he slowly and painstakingly went through the
operation of redintegrating the weapon. Then he lumbered back to his
chair, and sat blinking heavily for several moments.
“I’ll tell you,” he said, thrusting his head forward and gazing at
Markham over the tops of his steel-rimmed spectacles. “This, now, may
be the right gun. I wouldn’t say for sure. But when I saw the bullet
the other morning I noticed some peculiar rifling marks on it; and the
rifling in this gun here looks to me as though it would match up with
the marks on the bullet. I’m not certain. I’d like to look at this
barrel through my helixometer.*”
* A helixometer, I learned later, is an instrument that
makes it possible to examine every portion of the inside
of a gun’s barrel through a microscope.
“But you believe it’s the gun?” insisted Markham.
“I couldn’t say, but I think so. I might be wrong.”
“Very good, Captain. Take it along, and call me the minute you’ve
inspected it thoroughly.”
“It’s the gun, all right,” asserted Heath, when Hagedorn had gone. “I
know that bird. He wouldn’t ’ve said as much as he did if he hadn’t
been sure. . . . Whose gun is it, sir?”
“I’ll answer you presently.” Markham was still battling against the
truth—withholding, even from himself, his pronouncement of the Major’s
guilt until every loop-hole of doubt should be closed. “I want to hear
from Stitt before I say anything. I sent him to look over Benson and
Benson’s books. He’ll be here any moment.”
After a wait of a quarter of an hour, during which time Markham
attempted to busy himself with other matters, Stitt came in. He said a
sombre good-morning to the District Attorney and Heath; then, catching
sight of Vance, smiled appreciatively.
“That was a good tip you gave me. You had the dope. If you’d kept
Major Benson away longer, I could have done more. While he was there
he was watching me every minute.”
“I did the best I could,” sighed Vance. He turned to Markham: “Y’
know, I was wondering all through lunch yesterday how I could remove
the Major from his office during Mr. Stitt’s investigation; and when
we learned of Leacock’s confession, it gave me just the excuse I
needed. I really didn’t want the Major here,—I simply wished to give
Mr. Stitt a free hand.”
“What did you find out?” Markham asked the accountant.
“Plenty!” was the laconic reply.
He took a sheet of paper from his pocket, and placed it on the desk.
“There’s a brief report. . . . I followed Mr. Vance’s suggestion, and
took a look at the stock record and the cashier’s collateral blotter,
and traced the transfer receipts. I ignored the journal entries
against the ledger, and concentrated on the activities of the firm
heads. Major Benson, I found, has been consistently hypothecating
securities transferred to him as collateral for marginal trading, and
has been speculating steadily in mercantile curb stocks. He has lost
heavily—how much, I can’t say.”
“And Alvin Benson?” asked Vance.
“He was up to the same tricks. But he played in luck. He made a wad on
a Columbus Motors pool a few weeks back; and he has been salting the
money away in his safe—or, at least, that’s what the secretary told
me.”
“And if Major Benson has possession of the key to that safe,”
suggested Vance, “then it’s lucky for him his brother was shot.”
“Lucky?” retorted Stitt. “It’ll save him from State prison.”
When the accountant had gone, Markham sat like a man of stone, his
eyes fixed on the wall opposite. Another straw at which he had grasped
in his instinctive denial of the Major’s guilt, had been snatched from
him.
The telephone rang. Slowly he took up the receiver, and as he listened
I saw a look of complete resignation come into his eyes. He leaned
back in his chair, like a man exhausted.
“It was Hagedorn,” he said. “That was the right gun.”
Then he drew himself up, and turned to Heath.
“The owner of that gun, Sergeant, was Major Benson.”
The detective whistled softly, and his eyes opened slightly with
astonishment. But gradually his face assumed its habitual stolidity of
expression.
“Well, it don’t surprise me any,” he said.
Markham rang for Swacker.
“Get Major Benson on the wire, and tell him—tell him I’m about to make
an arrest, and would appreciate his coming here immediately.” His
deputizing of the telephone call to Swacker was understood by all of
us, I think.
Markham then summarized, for Heath’s benefit, the case against the
Major. When he had finished, he rose and rearranged the chairs at the
table in front of his desk.
“When Major Benson comes, Sergeant,” he said, “I am going to seat him
here.” He indicated a chair directly facing his own. “I want you to
sit at his right; and you’d better get Phelps—or one of the other men,
if he isn’t in—to sit at his left. But you’re not to make any move
until I give the signal. Then you can arrest him.”
When Heath had returned with Phelps and they had taken their seats at
the table, Vance said:
“I’d advise you, Sergeant, to be on your guard. The minute the Major
knows he’s in for it, he’ll go bald-headed for you.”
Heath smiled with heavy contempt.
“This isn’t the first man I’ve arrested, Mr. Vance—with many thanks
for your advice. And what’s more, the Major isn’t that kind; he’s too
nervy.”
“Have it your own way,” replied Vance indifferently. “But I’ve warned
you. The Major is cool-headed; he’d take big chances, and he could
lose his last dollar without turning a hair. But when he is finally
cornered, and sees ultimate defeat, all his repressions of a lifetime,
having had no safety-valve, will explode physically. When a man lives
without passions or emotions or enthusiasms, there’s bound to be an
outlet some time. Some men explode, and some commit suicide,—the
principle is the same: it’s a matter of psychological reaction. The
Major isn’t the self-destructive type,—that’s why I say he’ll blow
up.”
Heath snorted.
“We may be short on psychology down here,” he rejoined, “but we know
human nature pretty well.”
Vance stifled a yawn, and carelessly lit a cigarette. I noticed,
however, that he pushed his chair back a little from the end of the
table where he and I were sitting.
“Well, Chief,” rasped Phelps, “I guess your troubles are about
over—though I sure did think that fellow Leacock was your man. . . .
Who got the dope on this Major Benson?”
“Sergeant Heath and the Homicide Bureau will receive entire credit for
the work,” said Markham; and added: “I’m sorry, Phelps, but the
District Attorney’s office, and everyone connected with it, will be
kept out of it altogether.”
“Oh, well, it’s all in a lifetime,” observed Phelps philosophically.
We sat in strained silence until the Major arrived. Markham smoked
abstractedly. He glanced several times over the sheet of notations
left by Stitt, and once he went to the water-cooler for a drink. Vance
opened at random a law book before him, and perused with an amused
smile a bribery-case decision by a Western judge. Heath and Phelps,
habituated to waiting, scarcely moved.
When Major Benson entered Markham greeted him with exaggerated
casualness, and busied himself with some papers in a drawer to avoid
shaking hands. Heath, however, was almost jovial. He drew out the
Major’s chair for him, and uttered a ponderous banality about the
weather. Vance closed the law book and sat erect with his feet drawn
back.
Major Benson was cordially dignified. He gave Markham a swift glance;
but if he suspected anything, he showed no outward sign of it.
“Major, I want you to answer a few questions—if you care to.”
Markham’s voice, though low, had in it a resonant quality.
“Anything at all,” returned the other easily.
“You own an army pistol, do you not?”
“Yes—a Colt automatic,” he replied, with a questioning lift of the
eyebrows.
“When did you last clean and refill it?”
Not a muscle of the Major’s face moved.
“I don’t exactly remember,” he said. “I’ve cleaned it several times.
But it hasn’t been refilled since I returned from overseas.”
“Have you lent it to anyone recently?”
“Not that I recall.”
Markham took up Stitt’s report, and looked at it a moment.
“How did you hope to satisfy your clients if suddenly called upon for
their marginal securities?”
The Major’s upper lip lifted contemptuously, exposing his teeth.
“So! That was why—under the guise of friendship—you sent a man to look
over my books!” I saw a red blotch of color appear on the back of his
neck, and swell upward to his ears.
“It happens that _I_ didn’t send him there for that purpose.” The
accusation had cut Markham. “But I did enter your apartment this
morning.”
“You’re a house-breaker, too, are you?” The man’s face was now
crimson; the veins stood out on his forehead.
“And I found Mrs. Banning’s jewels. . . . How did they get there,
Major?”
“It’s none of your damned business how they got there,” he said, his
voice as cold and even as ever.
“Why did you tell Miss Hoffman not to mention them to me?”
“That’s none of your damned business either.”
“Is it any of my business,” asked Markham quietly, “that the bullet
which killed your brother was fired from your gun?”
The Major looked at him steadily, his mouth a sneer.
“That’s the kind of double-crossing you do!—invite me here to arrest
me, and then ask me questions to incriminate myself when I’m unaware
of your suspicions. A fine dirty sport _you_ are!”
Vance leaned forward.
“You fool!” His voice was very low, but it cut like a whip. “Can’t you
see he’s your friend, and is asking you these questions in a last
desp’rate hope that you’re not guilty?”
The Major swung round on him hotly.
“Keep out of this—you damned sissy!”
“Oh, quite,” murmured Vance.
“And as for _you_,”—he pointed a quivering finger at Markham—“I’ll
make you sweat for this! . . .”
Vituperation and profanity poured from the man. His nostrils were
expanded, his eyes blazing. His wrath seemed to surpass all human
bounds: he was like a person in an apoplectic fit—contorted,
repulsive, insensate.
Markham sat through it patiently, his head resting on his hands, his
eyes closed. When, at length, the Major’s rage became inarticulate, he
looked up and nodded to Heath. It was the signal the detective had
been watching for.
But before Heath could make a move, the Major sprang to his feet. With
the motion of rising he swung his body swiftly about, and brought his
fist against Heath’s face with terrific impact. The Sergeant went
backward in his chair, and lay on the floor dazed. Phelps leaped
forward, crouching; but the Major’s knee shot upward and caught him in
the lower abdomen. He sank to the floor, where he rolled back and
forth groaning.
The Major then turned on Markham. His eyes were glaring like a
maniac’s, and his lips were drawn back. His nostrils dilated with each
stertorous breath. His shoulders were hunched, and his arms hung away
from his body, his fingers rigidly flexed. His attitude was the
embodiment of a terrific, uncontrolled malignity.
“You’re next!” The words, guttural and venomous, were like a snarl.
As he spoke he sprang forward.
Vance, who had sat quietly during the mêlée, looking on with
half-closed eyes and smoking indolently, now stepped sharply round the
end of the table. His arms shot forward. With one hand he caught the
Major’s right wrist; with the other he grasped the elbow. Then he
seemed to fall back with a swift pivotal motion. The Major’s pinioned
arm was twisted upward behind his shoulder-blades. There was a cry of
pain, and the man suddenly relaxed in Vance’s grip.
By this time Heath had recovered. He scrambled quickly to his feet and
stepped up. There was the click of handcuffs, and the Major dropped
heavily into a chair, where he sat moving his shoulder back and forth
painfully.
“It’s nothing serious,” Vance told him. “The capsular ligament is torn
a little. It’ll be all right in a few days.”
Heath came forward and, without a word, held out his hand to Vance.
The action was at once an apology and a tribute. I liked Heath for it.
When he and his prisoner had gone, and Phelps had been assisted into
an easy chair, Markham put his hand on Vance’s arm.
“Let’s get away,” he said. “I’m done up.”