a perplexed frown. He dismissed Emery almost curtly and sat tapping thoughtfully on his desk.
Vance watched him with an amused smile.
“It’s really not a madhouse, y’ know,” he observed comfortingly. “I say, don’t the colonel’s words bring you any cheer, now that you know Leander was hovering about the neighborhood at the time Benson was translated into the Beyond?”
“Damn your old colonel!” snapped Markham. “What interests me at present is fitting this new development into the situation.”
“It fits beautifully,” Vance told him. “It rounds out the mosaic, so to speak.… Are you actu’lly disconcerted by learning that Pfyfe was the owner of the mysterious car?”
“Not having your gift of clairvoyance, I am, I confess, disturbed by the fact.”
Markham lit a cigar—an indication of worry. “You, of course,” he added, with sarcasm, “knew before Emery came here that it was Pfyfe’s car.”
“I didn’t know,” Vance corrected him; “but I had a strong suspicion. Pfyfe overdid his distress when he told us of his breakdown in the Catskills. And Heath’s question about his itiner’ry annoyed him frightfully. His hauteur was too melodramatic.”
“Your ex post facto wisdom is most useful!”
Markham smoked awhile in silence.
“I think I’ll find out about this matter.”
He rang for Swacker. “Call up the Ansonia,” he ordered angrily; “locate Leander Pfyfe, and say I want to see him at the Stuyvesant Club at six o’clock. And tell him he’s to be there.”
“It occurs to me,” said Markham, when Swacker had gone, “that this car episode may prove helpful, after all. Pfyfe was evidently in New York that night, and for some reason he didn’t want it known. Why, I wonder? He tipped us off about Leacock’s threat against Benson and hinted strongly that we’d better get on the fellow’s track. Of course, he may have been sore at Leacock for winning Miss St. Clair away from his friend, and taken this means of wreaking a little revenge on him. On the other hand, if Pfyfe was at Benson’s house the night of the murder, he may have some real information. And now that we’ve found out about the car, I think he’ll tell us what he knows.”
“He’ll tell you something anyway,” said Vance. “He’s the type of congenital liar that’ll tell anybody anything as long as it doesn’t involve himself unpleasantly.”
“You and the Cumean Sibyl, I presume, could inform me in advance what he’s going to tell me.”
“I couldn’t say as to the Cumean Sibyl, don’t y’ know,” Vance returned lightly; “but speaking for myself, I rather fancy he’ll tell you that he saw the impetuous captain at Benson’s house that night.”
Markham laughed. “I hope he does. You’ll want to be on hand to hear him, I suppose.”
“I couldn’t bear to miss it.”
Vance was already at the door, preparatory to going, when he turned again to Markham. “I’ve another slight favor to ask. Get a dossier on Pfyfe—there’s a good fellow. Send one of your innumerable Dogberrys to Port Washington and have the gentleman’s conduct and social habits looked into. Tell your emiss’ry to concentrate on the woman question.… I promise you, you sha’n’t regret it.”
Markham, I could see, was decidedly puzzled by this request and half inclined to refuse it. But after deliberating a few moments, he smiled and pressed a button on his desk.
“Anything to humor you,” he said. “I’ll send a man down at once.”
CHAPTER 14
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 rat-catcher 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 nightcap,—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 eyeglass.
“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 garageman wholly out of consideration for the district attorney and the police.
“Why didn’t you continue on your trip?” asked
