The Benson Murder Case (11 page)

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 labouring 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 role of playful indifference.

“I never inquired into the make or calibre of Captain Leacock's firearms,” 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 endeavour 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 realise 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 towards 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.”

(
Saturday
,
June
15
th
; 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 come 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 that 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.
¹

“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 in a different manner. The result in each case is a distinct and unmistak
able 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 organisation. 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 analyse a picture and tell you who painted it, or the personality and temperament of the person who painted it, so can the expert psychologist analyse 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 theorising 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.”