it, Vance!” he said irritably. “This case gets more difficult by the hour. I feel worn out.”
“You really shouldn’t take it so seriously, old dear,” Vance advised lightly. “It doesn’t pay, y’ know, to worry over the trivia of existence.
‘Nothing’s new,
And nothing’s true,
And nothing really matters.’
Several million johnnies were killed in the war, and you don’t let the fact bedevil your phagocytes or inflame your brain cells. But when one rotter is mercifully shot in your district, you lie awake nights perspiring over it, what? My word! You’re deucedly inconsistent.”
“Consistency—” began Markham; but Vance interrupted him.
“Now don’t quote Emerson. I inf’nitely prefer Erasmus. Y’ know, you ought to read his Praise of Folly; it would cheer you no end. That goaty old Dutch professor would never have grieved inconsolably over the destruction of Alvin Le Chauve.”
“I’m not a fruges consumere natus like you,” snapped Markham. “I was elected to this office—”
“Oh, quite—‘loved I not honor more’ and all that,” Vance chimed in. “But don’t be so sens’tive. Even if the captain has succeeded in bungling his way out of jail, you have at least five possibilities left. There’s Mrs. Platz…and Pfyfe…and Colonel Ostrander…and Miss Hoffman…and Mrs. Banning.—I say! Why don’t you arrest ’em all, one at a time, and get ’em to confess? Heath would go crazy with joy.”
Markham was in too crestfallen a mood to resent this chaffing. Indeed, Vance’s lightheartedness seemed to buoy him up.
“If you want the truth,” he said; “that’s exactly what I feel like doing. I am restrained merely by my indecision as to which one to arrest first.”
“Stout fella!” Then Vance asked: “What are you going to do with the captain now? It’ll break his heart if you release him.”
“His heart’ll have to break, I’m afraid.” Markham reached for the telephone. “I’d better see to the formalities now.
“Just a moment!” Vance put forth a restraining hand. “Don’t end his rapturous martyrdom just yet. Let him be happy for another day at least. I’ve a notion he may be most useful to us, pining away in his lonely cell like the prisoner of Chillon.”
Markham put down the telephone without a word. More and more, I had noticed, he was becoming inclined to accept Vance’s leadership. This attitude was not merely the result of the hopeless confusion in his mind, though his uncertainty probably influenced him to some extent; but it was due in large measure to the impression Vance had given him of knowing more than he cared to reveal.
“Have you tried to figure out just how Pfyfe and his Turtledove fit into the case?” Vance asked.
“Along with a few thousand other enigmas—yes,” was the petulant reply. “But the more I try to reason it out, the more of a mystery the whole thing becomes.”
“Loosely put, my dear Markham,” criticized Vance. “There are no mysteries originating in human beings, y’ know; there are only problems. And any problem originating in one human being can be solved by another human being. It merely requires a knowledge of the human mind, and the application of that knowledge to human acts. Simple, what?”
He glanced at the clock.
“I wonder how your Mr. Stitt is getting along with the Benson and Benson books. I await his report with anticipat’ry excitement.”
This was too much for Markham. The wearing-down process of Vance’s intimations and veiled innuendoes had at last dissipated his self-control. He bent forward and struck the desk angrily with his hand.
“I’m damned tired of this superior attitude of yours,” he complained hotly. “Either you know something or you don’t. If you don’t know anything, do me the favor of dropping these insinuations of knowledge. If you do know anything, it’s up to you to tell me. You’ve been hinting around in one way or another ever since Benson was shot. If you’ve got any idea who killed him, I want to know it.”
He leaned back and took out a cigar. Not once did he look up as he carefully clipped the end and lit it. I think he was a little ashamed at having given way to his anger.
Vance had sat apparently unconcerned during the outburst. At length he stretched his legs and gave Markham a long contemplative look.
“Y’ know, Markham old bean, I don’t blame you a bit for your unseemly ebullition. The situation has been most provokin’. But now, I fancy, the time has come to put an end to the comedietta. I really haven’t been spoofing, y’ know. The fact is, I’ve some most int’restin’ ideas on the subject.”
He stood up and yawned.
“It’s a beastly hot day, but it must be done—eh, what?
‘So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man.
When duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can.’
I’m the noble youth, don’t y’ know. And you’re the voice of duty—though you didn’t exactly whisper, did you?… Was aber ist deine Pflicht? And Goethe answered: Die Forderung des Tages. But—deuce take it!—I wish the demand had come on a cooler day.”
He handed Markham his hat.
“Come, Postume. To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.17 You are through with the office for today. Inform Swacker of the fact, will you?—there’s a dear! We attend upon a lady—Miss St. Clair, no less.”
Markham realized that Vance’s jesting manner was only the masquerade of a very serious purpose. Also, he knew that Vance would tell him what he knew or suspected only in his own way, and that, no matter how circuitous and unreasonable that way might appear, Vance had excellent reasons for following it. Furthermore, since the unmasking of Captain Leacock’s purely fictitious confession, he was in a state of mind to follow any suggestion that held the faintest hope of getting at the truth. He therefore rang at once for Swacker and informed him he was quitting the office for the day.
In ten minutes we were in the subway on our way to 94 Riverside Drive.
CHAPTER 20
A LADY EXPLAINS
(Wednesday, June 19; 4:30 P.M.)
“The quest for enlightenment upon which we are now embarked,” said Vance, as we rode uptown, “may prove a bit tedious. But you must exert your willpower and bear with me. You can’t imagine what a ticklish task I have on my hands. And it’s not a pleasant one either. I’m a bit too young to be sentimental and yet, d’ ye know, I’m half inclined to let your culprit go.”
“Would you mind telling me why we are calling on Miss St. Clair?” asked Markham resignedly.
Vance amiably complied.
