Vance Outlines a Theory
(Wednesday, September 12; evening)
Vance and I did not return to the District Attorney’s office after
lunch, for Markham had a busy afternoon before him, and nothing
further was likely to transpire in connection with the Odell case
until Sergeant Heath had completed his investigations of Cleaver and
Doctor Lindquist. Vance had seats for Giordano’s “Madame Sans-Gêne,”
and two o’clock found us at the Metropolitan. Though the performance
was excellent, Vance was too _distrait_ to enjoy it; and it was
significant that, after the opera, he directed the chauffeur to the
Stuyvesant Club. I knew he had a tea appointment, and that he had
planned to motor to Longue Vue for dinner; and the fact that he should
have dismissed these social engagements from his mind in order to be
with Markham showed how intensely the problem of the murder had
absorbed his interest.
It was after six o’clock when Markham came in, looking harassed and
tired. No mention of the case was made during dinner, with the
exception of Markham’s casual remark that Heath had turned in his
reports on Cleaver and Doctor Lindquist and Mannix. (It seemed that,
immediately after lunch, he had telephoned to the Sergeant to add
Mannix’s name to the two others as a subject for inquiry.) It was not
until we had retired to our favorite corner of the lounge-room that
the topic of the murder was brought up for discussion.
And that discussion, brief and one-sided, was the beginning of an
entirely new line of investigation—a line which, in the end, led to
the guilty person.
Markham sank wearily into his chair. He had begun to show the strain
of the last two days of fruitless worry. His eyes were a trifle heavy,
and there was a grim tenacity in the lines of his mouth. Slowly and
deliberately he lighted a cigar, and took several deep inhalations.
“Damn the newspapers!” he grumbled. “Why can’t they let the District
Attorney’s office handle its business in its own way? . . . Have you
seen the afternoon papers? They’re all clamoring for the murderer.
You’d think I had him up my sleeve.”
“You forget, my dear chap,” grinned Vance, “that we are living under
the benign and upliftin’ reign of Democritus, which confers upon every
ignoramus the privilege of promiscuously criticising his betters.”
Markham snorted.
“I don’t complain about criticism: it’s the lurid imagination of these
bright young reporters that galls me. They’re trying to turn this
sordid crime into a spectacular Borgia melodrama, with passion running
rampant, and mysterious influences at work, and all the pomp and
trappings of a mediæval romance. . . . You’d think even a schoolboy
could see that it was only an ordinary robbery and murder of the kind
that’s taking place regularly throughout the country.”
Vance paused in the act of lighting a cigarette, and his eyebrows
lifted. Turning, he regarded Markham with a look of mild incredulity.
“I say! Do you really mean to tell me that your statement for the
press was given out in good faith?”
Markham looked up in surprise.
“Certainly it was. . . . What do you mean by ‘good faith’?”
Vance smiled indolently.
“I rather thought, don’t y’ know, that your oration to the reporters
was a bit of strategy to lull the real culprit into a state of false
security, and to give you a clear field for investigation.”
Markham contemplated him a moment.
“See here, Vance,” he demanded irritably, “what are you driving at?”
“Nothing at all—really, old fellow,” the other assured him affably. “I
knew that Heath was deadly sincere about his belief in Skeel’s guilt,
but it never occurred to me, d’ ye see, that you yourself actually
regarded the crime as one committed by a professional burglar. I
foolishly thought that you let Skeel go this morning in the hope that
he would lead you somehow to the guilty person. I rather imagined you
were spoofing the trusting Sergeant by pretending to fall in with his
silly notion.”
“Ah, I see! Still clinging to your weird theory that a brace of
villains were present, hiding in separate clothes-closets, or
something of the kind.” Markham made no attempt to temper his sarcasm.
“A sapient idea—so much more intelligent than Heath’s!”
“I know it’s weird. But it happens not to be any weirder than your
theory of a lone yeggman.”
“And for what reason, pray,” persisted Markham, with considerable
warmth, “do you consider the yeggman theory weird?”
“For the simple reason that it was not the crime of a professional
thief at all, but the wilfully deceptive act of a particularly clever
man who doubtless spent weeks in its preparation.”
Markham sank back in his chair and laughed heartily.
“Vance, you have contributed the one ray of sunshine to an otherwise
gloomy and depressing case.”
Vance bowed with mock humility.
“It gives me great pleasure,” was his dulcet rejoinder, “to be able to
bring even a wisp of light into so clouded a mental atmosphere.”
A brief silence followed. Then Markham asked:
“Is this fascinating and picturesque conclusion of yours regarding the
highly intellectual character of the Odell woman’s murderer based on
your new and original psychological methods of deduction?” There was
no mistaking the ridicule in his voice.
“I arrived at it,” explained Vance sweetly, “by the same processes of
logic I used in determining the guilt of Alvin Benson’s murderer.”
Markham smiled.
“_Touché!_ . . . Don’t think I’m so ungrateful as to belittle the work
you did in that case. But this time, I fear, you’ve permitted your
theories to lead you hopelessly astray. The present case is what the
police call an open-and-shut affair.”
“Particularly shut,” amended Vance dryly. “And both you and the police
are in the distressin’ situation of waiting inactively for your
suspected victim to give the game away.”
“I’ll admit the situation is not all one could desire.” Markham spoke
morosely. “But even so, I can’t see that there’s any opportunity in
this affair for your recondite psychological methods. The thing’s too
obvious—that’s the trouble. What we need now is evidence, not
theories. If it wasn’t for the spacious and romantic imaginings of the
newspaper men, public interest in the case would already have died
out.”
“Markham,” said Vance quietly, but with unwonted seriousness, “if
that’s what you really believe, then you may as well drop the case
now; for you’re foredoomed to failure. You think it’s an obvious
crime. But let me tell you, it’s a subtle crime, if ever there was
one. And it’s as clever as it is subtle. No common criminal committed
it—believe me. It was done by a man of very superior intellect and
astoundin’ ingenuity.”
Vance’s assured, matter-of-fact tone had a curiously convincing
quality; and Markham, restraining his impulse to scoff, assumed an air
of indulgent irony.
“Tell me,” he said, “by what cryptic mental process you arrived at so
fantastic a conclusion.”
“With pleasure.” Vance took a few puffs on his cigarette, and lazily
watched the smoke curl upward.*
* I sent a proof of the following paragraphs to Vance, and he
edited and corrected them; so that, as they now stand, they
represent his theories in practically his own words.
“Y’ know, Markham,” he began, in his emotionless drawl, “every genuine
work of art has a quality which the critics call _élan_—namely,
enthusiasm and spontaneity. A copy, or imitation, lacks that
distinguishing characteristic; it’s too perfect, too carefully done,
too exact. Even enlightened scions of the law, I fancy, are aware that
there is bad drawing in Botticelli and disproportions in Rubens, what?
In an original, d’ ye see, such flaws don’t matter. But an imitator
never puts ’em in: he doesn’t dare—he’s too intent on getting all the
details correct. The imitator works with a self-consciousness and a
meticulous care which the artist, in the throes of creative labor,
never exhibits. And here’s the point: there’s no way of imitating that
enthusiasm and spontaneity—that _élan_—which an original painting
possesses. However closely a copy may resemble an original, there’s a
vast psychological difference between them. The copy breathes an air
of insincerity, of ultra-perfection, of conscious effort. . . . You
follow me, eh?”
“Most instructive, my dear Ruskin.”
Vance meekly bowed his appreciation, and proceeded pleasantly.
“Now, let us consider the Odell murder. You and Heath are agreed that
it is a commonplace, brutal, sordid, unimaginative crime. But, unlike
you two bloodhounds on the trail, I have ignored its mere appearances,
and have analyzed its various factors—I have looked at it
psychologically, so to speak. And I have discovered that it is not a
genuine and sincere crime—that is to say, an original—but only a
sophisticated, self-conscious and clever imitation, done by a skilful
copyist. I grant you it is correct and typical in every detail. But
just there is where it fails, don’t y’ know. Its technic is too good,
its craftsmanship too perfect. The ensemble, as it were, is not
convincing—it lacks _élan_. Æsthetically speaking, it has all the
earmarks of a _tour de force_. Vulgarly speaking, it’s a fake.” He
paused and gave Markham an engaging smile. “I trust this somewhat
oracular peroration has not bored you.”
“Pray continue,” urged Markham, with exaggerated politeness. His
manner was jocular, but something in his tone led me to believe that
he was seriously interested.
“What is true of art is true of life,” Vance resumed placidly. “Every
human action, d’ ye see, conveys unconsciously an impression either of
genuineness or of spuriousness—of sincerity or calculation. For
example, two men at table eat in a similar way, handle their knives
and forks in the same fashion, and apparently do the identical things.
Although the sensitive spectator cannot put his finger on the points
of difference, he none the less senses at once which man’s breeding is
genuine and instinctive and which man’s is imitative and
self-conscious.”
He blew a wreath of smoke toward the ceiling, and settled more deeply
into his chair.
“Now, Markham, just what are the universally recognized features of a
sordid crime of robbery and murder? . . . Brutality, disorder, haste,
ransacked drawers, cluttered desks, broken jewel-cases, rings stripped
from the victim’s fingers, severed pendant chains, torn clothing,
tipped-over chairs, upset lamps, broken vases, twisted draperies,
strewn floors, and so forth. Such are the accepted immemorial
indications—eh, what? But—consider a moment, old chap. Outside of
fiction and the drama, in how many crimes do they _all_ appear—all in
perfect ordination, and without a single element to contradict the
general effect? That is to say, how many actual crimes are technically
perfect in their settings? . . . None! And why? Simply because nothing
actual in this life—nothing that is spontaneous and genuine—runs to
accepted form in every detail. The law of chance and fallibility
invariably steps in.”
He made a slight indicative gesture.
“But regard this particular crime: look at it closely. What do you
find? You will perceive that its _mise-en-scène_ has been staged, and
its drama enacted, down to every minute detail—like a Zola novel. It
is almost mathematically perfect. And therein, d’ ye see, lies the
irresistible inference of its having been carefully premeditated and
planned. To use an art term, it is a tickled-up crime. Therefore, its
conception was not spontaneous. . . . And yet, don’t y’ know, I can’t
point out any specific flaw; for its great flaw lies in its being
flawless. And nothing flawless, my dear fellow, is natural or
genuine.”
Markham was silent for a while.
“You deny even the remote possibility of a common thief having
murdered the girl?” he asked at length; and now there was no hint of
sarcasm in his voice.
“If a common thief did it,” contended Vance, “then there’s no science
of psychology, there are no philosophic truths, and there are no laws
of art. If it was a genuine crime of robbery, then, by the same token,
there is no difference whatever between an old master and a clever
technician’s copy.”
“You’d entirely eliminate robbery as the motive, I take it.”
“The robbery,” Vance affirmed, “was only a manufactured detail. The
fact that the crime was committed by a highly astute person indicates
unquestionably that there was a far more potent motive behind it. Any
man capable of so ingenious and clever a piece of deception is
obviously a person of education and imagination; and he most certainly
would not have run the stupendous risk of killing a woman unless he
had feared some overwhelming disaster—unless, indeed, her continuing
to live would have caused him greater mental anguish, and would have
put him in greater jeopardy, even than the crime itself. Between two
colossal dangers, he chose the murder as the lesser.”
Markham did not speak at once: he seemed lost in reflection. But
presently he turned and, fixing Vance with a dubious stare, said:
“What about that chiselled jewel-box? A professional burglar’s jimmy
wielded by an experienced hand doesn’t fit into your æsthetic
hypothesis—it is, in fact, diametrically opposed to such a theory.”
“I know it only too well.” Vance nodded slowly. “And I’ve been harried
and hectored by that steel chisel ever since I beheld the evidence of
its work that first morning. . . . Markham, that chisel is the one
genuine note in an otherwise spurious performance. It’s as if the real
artist had come along at the moment the copyist had finished his faked
picture, and painted in a single small object with the hand of a
master.”
“But doesn’t that bring us back inevitably to Skeel?”
“Skeel—ah, yes. That’s the explanation, no doubt; but not the way you
conceive it. Skeel ripped the box open—I don’t question that;
but—deuce take it!—it’s the only thing he did do: it’s the only thing
that was left for him to do. That’s why he got only a ring which La
Belle Marguerite was not wearing that night. All her other baubles—to
wit, those that adorned her—had been stripped from her and were gone.”
“Why are you so positive on this point?”
“The poker, man—the poker! . . . Don’t you see? That amateurish
assault upon the jewel-case with a cast-iron coal-prodder couldn’t
have been made _after_ the case had been prized open—it would have had
to be made _before_. And that seemingly insane attempt to break steel
with cast iron was part of the stage-setting. The real culprit didn’t
care if he got the case open or not. He merely wanted it to look as if
he had _tried_ to get it open; so he used the poker and then left it
lying beside the dinted box.”
“I see what you mean.” This point, I think, impressed Markham more
strongly than any other Vance had raised; for the presence of the
poker on the dressing-table had not been explained away either by
Heath or Inspector Brenner. . . . “Is that the reason you questioned
Skeel as if he might have been present when your other visitor was
there?”
“Exactly. By the evidence of the jewel-case I knew he either was in
the apartment when the bogus crime of robbery was being staged, or
else had come upon the scene when it was over and the stage-director
had cleared out. . . . From his reactions to my questions I rather
fancy he was present.”
“Hiding in the closet?”
“Yes. That would account for the closet not having been disturbed. As
I see it, it wasn’t ransacked, for the simple and rather grotesque
reason that the elegant Skeel was locked within. How else could that
one clothes-press have escaped the rifling activities of the
pseudo-burglar? He wouldn’t have omitted it deliberately, and he was
far too thorough-going to have overlooked it accidentally.—Then there
are the finger-prints on the knob. . . .”
Vance lightly tapped on the arm of his chair.
“I tell you, Markham old dear, you simply must build your conception
of the crime on this hypothesis, and proceed accordingly. If you
don’t, each edifice you rear will come toppling about your ears.”