murderer, and it didn’t correspond at all to that of the young lady you suspected, I knew your active mind was busy looking around for another possibility. And, as the lady’s inamorato was the only other possibility on your horizon, I concluded that you were permitting your thoughts to play about the captain. Had he, therefore, been the stipulated height, you would have said nothing; but when you argued that the murderer might have stooped to fire the shot, I decided that the captain was inord’nately tall.… Thus, in the pregnant silence that emanated from you, old dear, your spirit held sweet communion with mine and told me that the gentleman was a six-footer no less.”
“I see that you include mind reading among your gifts,” said Markham. “I now await an exhibition of slate writing.”
His tone was irritable, but his irritation was that of a man reluctant to admit the alteration of his beliefs. He felt himself yielding to Vance’s guiding rein, but he still held stubbornly to the course of his own previous convictions.
“Surely you don’t question my demonstration of the guilty person’s height?” asked Vance mellifluously.
“Not altogether,” Markham replied. “It seems colorable enough.… But why, I wonder, didn’t Hagedorn work the thing out, if it was so simple?”
“Anaxagoras said that those who have occasion for a lamp supply it with oil. A profound remark, Markham—one of those seemingly simple quips that contain a great truth. A lamp without oil, y’ know, is useless. The police always have plenty of lamps—every variety, in fact—but no oil, as it were. That’s why they never find anyone unless it’s broad daylight.”
Markham’s mind was now busy in another direction, and he rose and began to pace the floor. “Until now I hadn’t thought of Captain Leacock as the actual agent of the crime.”
“Why hadn’t you thought of him? Was it because one of your sleuths told you he was at home like a good boy that night?”
“I suppose so.” Markham continued pacing thoughtfully. Then suddenly he swung about. “That wasn’t it, either. It was the amount of damning circumstantial evidence against the St. Clair woman.… And, Vance, despite your demonstration here today, you haven’t explained away any of the evidence against her. Where was she between twelve and one? Why did she go with Benson to dinner? How did her handbag get here? And what about those burned cigarettes of hers in the grate?—they’re the obstacle, those cigarette butts; and I can’t admit that your demonstration wholly convinces me—despite the fact that it is convincing—as long as I’ve got the evidence of those cigarettes to contend with, for that evidence is also convincing.”
“My word!” sighed Vance. “You’re in a pos’tively ghastly predic’ment. However, maybe I can cast illumination on those disquietin’ cigarette butts.”
Once more he went to the door and, summoning Snitkin, returned the pistol.
“The district attorney thanks you,” he said. “And will you be good enough to fetch Mrs. Platz. We wish to chat with her.”
Turning back to the room, he smiled amiably at Markham. “I desire to do all the conversing with the lady this time, if you don’t mind. There are potentialities in Mrs. Platz which you entirely overlooked when you questioned her yesterday.”
Markham was interested, though sceptical. “You have the floor,” he said.
CHAPTER 10
ELIMINATING A SUSPECT
(Saturday, June 15, 5:30 P.M.)
When the housekeeper entered, she appeared even more composed than when Markham had first questioned her. There was something at once sullen and indomitable in her manner, and she looked at me with a slightly challenging expression. Markham merely nodded to her, but Vance stood up and indicated a low tufted Morris chair near the fireplace, facing the front windows. She sat down on the edge of it, resting her elbows on its broad arms.
“I have some questions to ask you, Mrs. Platz,” Vance began, fixing her sharply with his gaze; “and it will be best for everyone if you tell the whole truth. You understand me—eh, what?”
The easygoing, half-whimsical manner he had taken with Markham had disappeared. He stood before the woman, stern and implacable.
At his words she lifted her head. Her face was blank, but her mouth was set stubbornly, and a smouldering look in her eyes told of a suppressed anxiety.
Vance waited a moment and then went on, enunciating each word with distinctness.
“At what time, on the day Mr. Benson was killed, did the lady call here?”
The woman’s gaze did not falter, but the pupils of her eyes dilated. “There was nobody here.”
“Oh, yes, there was, Mrs. Platz.” Vance’s tone was assured. “What time did she call?”
“Nobody was here, I tell you,” she persisted.
Vance lit a cigarette with interminable deliberation, his eyes resting steadily on hers. He smoked placidly until her gaze dropped. Then he stepped nearer to her, and said firmly, “If you tell the truth, no harm will come to you. But if you refuse any information you will find yourself in trouble. The withholding of evidence is a crime, y’ know, and the law will show you no mercy.”
He made a sly grimace at Markham, who was watching the proceedings with interest.
The woman now began to show signs of agitation. She drew in her elbows, and her breathing quickened. “In God’s name, I swear it!—there wasn’t anybody here.” A slight hoarseness gave evidence of her emotion.
“Let us not invoke the Deity,” suggested Vance carelessly. “What time was the lady here?”
She set her lips stubbornly, and for a whole minute there was silence in the room. Vance smoked quietly, but Markham held his cigar motionless between his thumb and forefinger in an attitude of expectancy.
Again Vance’s impassive voice demanded: “What time was she here?”
The woman clinched her hands with a spasmodic gesture, and thrust her head forward.
“I tell you—I swear it—”
Vance made a peremptory movement of his hand and smiled coldly. “It’s no go,” he told her. “You’re acting stupidly. We’re here to get the truth—and you’re going to tell us.”
“I’ve told you the truth.”
“Is it going to be necess’ry for the district attorney here to order you placed in custody?”
“I’ve told you the truth,” she repeated.
Vance crushed out his cigarette decisively in an ash receiver on the table.
“Right-o, Mrs. Platz. Since you refuse to tell me about the young woman who was here that afternoon, I’m going to tell you about her.”
His manner was easy and cynical, and the woman watched him suspiciously.
“Late in the afternoon of the day your employer was shot the doorbell rang. Perhaps you had been informed by Mr. Benson that he was expecting a caller, what?
