“Very good, Captain. Take it along and call me the minute you’ve inspected it thoroughly.”
“It’s the gun, all right,” asserted Heath, when Hagedorn had gone. “I know that bird. He wouldn’t’ve said as much as he did if he hadn’t been sure.… Whose gun is it, sir?”
“I’ll answer you presently.” Markham was still battling against the truth—withholding, even from himself, his pronouncement of the major’s guilt until every loophole of doubt should be closed. “I want to hear from Stitt before I say anything. I sent him to look over Benson and Benson’s books. He’ll be here any moment.”
After a wait of a quarter of an hour, during which time Markham attempted to busy himself with other matters, Stitt came in. He said a somber good-morning to the district attorney and Heath; then, catching sight of Vance, smiled appreciatively.
“That was a good tip you gave me. You had the dope. If you’d kept Major Benson away longer, I could have done more. While he was there he was watching me every minute.”
“I did the best I could,” sighed Vance. He turned to Markham. “Y’ know, I was wondering all through lunch yesterday how I could remove the major from his office during Mr. Stitt’s investigation; and when we learned of Leacock’s confession, it gave me just the excuse I needed. I really didn’t want the major here—I simply wished to give Mr. Stitt a free hand.”
“What did you find out?” Markham asked the accountant.
“Plenty!” was the laconic reply.
He took a sheet of paper from his pocket and placed it on the desk.
“There’s a brief report.… I followed Mr. Vance’s suggestion and took a look at the stock record and the cashier’s collateral blotter, and traced the transfer receipts. I ignored the journal entries against the ledger, and concentrated on the activities of the firm heads. Major Benson, I found, has been consistently hypothecating securities transferred to him as collateral for marginal trading, and has been speculating steadily in mercantile curb stocks. He has lost heavily—how much, I can’t say.”
“And Alvin Benson?” asked Vance.
“He was up to the same tricks. But he played in luck. He made a wad on a Columbus Motors pool a few weeks back; and he has been salting the money away in his safe—or, at least, that’s what the secretary told me.”
“And if Major Benson has possession of the key to that safe,” suggested Vance, “then it’s lucky for him his brother was shot.”
“Lucky?” retorted Stitt. “It’ll save him from state prison.”
When the accountant had gone, Markham sat like a man of stone, his eyes fixed on the wall opposite. Another straw at which he had grasped in his instinctive denial of the major’s guilt had been snatched from him.
The telephone rang. Slowly he took up the receiver, and as he listened I saw a look of complete resignation come into his eyes. He leaned back in his chair, like a man exhausted.
“It was Hagedorn,” he said. “That was the right gun.”
Then he drew himself up and turned to Heath. “The owner of that gun, Sergeant, was Major Benson.”
The detective whistled softly and his eyes opened slightly with astonishment. But gradually his face assumed its habitual stolidity of expression. “Well, it don’t surprise me any,” he said.
Markham rang for Swacker.
“Get Major Benson on the wire and tell him—tell him I’m about to make an arrest and would appreciate his coming here immediately.” His deputizing of the telephone call to Swacker was understood by all of us, I think.
Markham then summarized, for Heath’s benefit, the case against the major. When he had finished, he rose and rearranged the chairs at the table in front of his desk.
“When Major Benson comes, Sergeant,” he said, “I am going to seat him here.” He indicated a chair directly facing his own. “I want you to sit at his right; and you’d better get Phelps—or one of the other men, if he isn’t in—to sit at his left. But you’re not to make any move until I give the signal. Then you can arrest him.”
When Heath had returned with Phelps and they had taken their seats at the table, Vance said, “I’d advise you, Sergeant, to be on your guard. The minute the major knows he’s in for it, he’ll go bald-headed for you.”
Heath smiled with heavy contempt.
“This isn’t the first man I’ve arrested, Mr. Vance—with many thanks for your advice. And what’s more, the major isn’t that kind; he’s too nervy.”
“Have it your own way,” replied Vance indifferently. “But I’ve warned you. The major is cool-headed; he’d take big chances and he could lose his last dollar without turning a hair. But when he is finally cornered and sees ultimate defeat, all his repressions of a lifetime, having had no safety valve, will explode physically. When a man lives without passions or emotions or enthusiasms, there’s bound to be an outlet sometime. Some men explode and some commit suicide—the principle is the same: it’s a matter of psychological reaction. The major isn’t the self-destructive type—that’s why I say he’ll blow up.”
Heath snorted. “We may be short on psychology down here,” he rejoined, “but we know human nature pretty well.”
Vance stifled a yawn and carelessly lit a cigarette. I noticed, however, that he pushed his chair back a little from the end of the table where he and I were sitting.
“Well, Chief,” rasped Phelps, “I guess your troubles are about over—though I sure did think that fellow Leacock was your man.… Who got the dope on this Major Benson?”
“Sergeant Heath and the homicide bureau will receive entire credit for the work,” said Markham; and added, “I’m sorry, Phelps, but the district attorney’s office, and everyone connected with it, will be kept out of it altogether.”
“Oh, well, it’s all in a lifetime,” observed Phelps philosophically.
We sat in strained silence until the major arrived. Markham smoked abstractedly. He glanced several times over the sheet of notations left by Stitt and once he went to the water cooler for a drink. Vance opened at random a law book before him and perused with an amused smile a bribery case decision by a Western judge. Heath and Phelps, habituated to waiting, scarcely moved.
When Major Benson entered Markham greeted him with exaggerated casualness and busied himself with some papers in a drawer to avoid shaking hands. Heath, however, was almost jovial. He drew out the major’s chair for him and uttered a ponderous banality about the weather. Vance closed the law book and sat erect with his feet drawn back.
Major Benson was cordially dignified. He gave Markham a swift glance; but if he suspected anything, he showed no outward sign of it.
“Major, I want you to answer a few questions—if you care to.” Markham’s voice, though low, had in it a resonant quality.
“Anything at all,” returned the other easily.
“You own an army pistol, do you not?”
