But Vance interrupted him blandly.
“Such ingratitude! If only you knew it, Markham, I’m your tutelary genius, your deus ex machina, your fairy godmother.”
CHAPTER 16
ADMISSIONS AND SUPPRESSIONS
(Tuesday, June 18; afternoon.)
An hour later Phelps, the operative Markham had sent to 94 Riverside Drive, came in radiating satisfaction.
“I think I’ve got what you want, Chief.” His raucous voice was covertly triumphant. “I went up to the St. Clair woman’s apartment and rang the bell. She came to the door herself, and I stepped into the hall and put my questions to her. She sure refused to answer. When I let on I knew the package contained the gun Benson was shot with, she just laughed and jerked the door open. ‘Leave this apartment, you vile creature,’ she says to me.”
He grinned.
“I hurried downstairs, and I hadn’t any more than got to the switchboard when her signal flashed. I let the boy get the number and then I stood him to one side and listened in.… She was talking to Leacock, and her first words were: ‘They know you took the pistol from here yesterday and threw it in the river.’ That must’ve knocked him out, for he didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he answered, perfectly calm and kinda sweet: ‘Don’t worry, Muriel; and don’t say a word to anybody for the rest of the day. I’ll fix everything in the morning.’ He made her promise to keep quiet until tomorrow, and then he said good-bye.”
Markham sat awhile digesting the story.
“What impression did you get from the conversation?”
“If you ask me, Chief,” said the detective, “I’d lay ten to one that Leacock’s guilty and the girl knows it.”
Markham thanked him and let him go.
“This sub-Potomac chivalry,” commented Vance, “is a frightful nuisance.… But aren’t we about due to hold polite converse with the genteel Leander?”
Almost as he spoke the man was announced. He entered the room with his habitual urbanity of manner, but for all his suavity, he could not wholly disguise his uneasiness of mind.
“Sit down, Mr. Pfyfe,” directed Markham brusquely. “It seems you have a little more explaining to do.”
Taking out the manilla envelope, he laid its contents on the desk where the other could see them.
“Will you be so good as to tell me about these?”
“With the greatest pleasure,” said Pfyfe; but his voice had lost its assurance. Some of his poise, too, had deserted him, and as he paused to light a cigarette I detected a slight nervousness in the way he manipulated his gold match safe.
“I really should have mentioned these before,” he confessed, indicating the papers with a delicately inconsequential wave of the hand.
He leaned forward on one elbow, taking a confidential attitude, and as he talked, the cigarette bobbed up and down between his lips.
“It pains me deeply to go into this matter,” he began; “but since it is in the interests of truth, I shall not complain.… My—ah—domestic arrangements are not all that one could desire. My wife’s father has, curiously enough, taken a most unreasonable dislike to me; and it pleases him to deprive me of all but the meagerest financial assistance, although it is really my wife’s money that he refuses to give me. A few months ago I made use of certain funds—ten thousand dollars, to be exact—which, I learned later, had not been intended for me. When my father-in-law discovered my error, it was necessary for me to return the full amount to avoid a misunderstanding between Mrs. Pfyfe and myself—a misunderstanding which might have caused my wife great unhappiness. I regret to say, I used Alvin’s name on a check. But I explained it to him at once, you understand, offering him the note and this little confession as evidence of my good faith.… And that is all, Mr. Markham.”
“Was that what your quarrel with him last week was about?”
Pfyfe gave him a look of querulous surprise. “Ah, you heard of our little contretemps?… Yes—we had a slight disagreement as to the—shall I say terms of the transaction?”
“Did Benson insist that the note be paid when due?”
“No—not exactly.” Pfyfe’s manner became unctuous. “I beg of you, sir, not to press me as to my little chat with Alvin. It was, I assure you, quite irrelevant to the present situation. Indeed, it was of a most personal and private nature.” He smiled confidingly. “I will admit, however, that I went to Alvin’s house the night he was shot, intending to speak to him about the check; but, as you already know, I found the house dark and spent the night in a Turkish bath.”
“Parden me, Mr. Pfyfe”—it was Vance who spoke—“but did Mr. Benson take your note without security?”
“Of course!” Pfyfe’s tone was a rebuke. “Alvin and I, as I have explained, were the closest friends.”
“But even a friend, don’t y’ know,” Vance submitted, “might ask for security on such a large amount. How did Benson know that you’d be able to repay him?”
“I can only say that he did know,” the other answered, with an air of patient deliberation.
Vance continued to be doubtful. “Perhaps it was because of the confession you had given him.”
Pfyfe rewarded him with a look of beaming approval. “You grasp the situation perfectly,” he said.
Vance withdrew from the conversation, and though Markham questioned Pfyfe for nearly half an hour, nothing further transpired. Pfyfe clung to his story in every detail and politely refused to go deeper into his quarrel with Benson, insisting that it had no bearing on the case. At last he was permitted to go.
“Not very helpful,” Markham observed. “I’m beginning to agree with Heath that we’ve turned up a mare’s nest in Pfyfe’s frenzied financial deal.”
“You’ll never be anything but your own sweet trusting self, will you?” lamented Vance sadly. “Pfyfe has just given you your first intelligent line of investigation, and you say he’s not helpful!… Listen to me and nota bene. Pfyfe’s story about the ten thousand dollars is undoubtedly true; he appropriated the money and forged Benson’s name to a check with which to replace it. But I don’t for a second believe there was no security in addition to the confession. Benson wasn’t the type of man—friend or no friend—who’d hand over that amount without security. He wanted his money back, not somebody in jail. That’s why I put my oar in and asked about the security. Pfyfe, of course, denied it; but when pressed as to how Benson knew he’d pay the note, he retired into a cloud. I had to suggest the confession as the possible explanation; which showed that something else was in his mind—something he didn’t care to mention. And the way he jumped at my suggestion bears out my theory.”
“Well, what of it?” Markham asked impatiently.
“Oh, for the gift of tears!” moaned Vance. “Don’t you see that there’s someone in the background—someone connected with the security? It must be so, y’ know; otherwise Pfyfe would have told you the entire tale of the
