’em.”
“There is the remote possibility that you are so busily engaged in looking at one particular tree that you are unaware of the others.”
A shadow passed over Vance’s face.
“I wish you were right,” he said.
It was nearly half past one, and we dropped into the Fountain Room of the Ansonia Hotel for lunch. Markham was preoccupied throughout the meal, and when we entered the subway later, he looked uneasily at his watch.
“I think I’ll go on down to Wall Street and call on the Major a moment before returning to the office. I can’t understand his asking Miss Hoffman not to mention the package to me. . . . It might not have contained the jewels, after all.”
“Do you imagine for one moment,” rejoined Vance, “that Alvin told the Major the truth about the package? It was not a very cred’table transaction, y’ know; and the Major most likely would have given him what-for.”
Major Benson’s explanation bore out Vance’s surmise. Markham, in telling him of the interview with Paula Banning, emphasized the jewel episode in the hope that the Major would voluntarily mention the package; for his promise to Miss Hoffman prevented him from admitting that he was aware of the other’s knowledge concerning it.
The Major listened with considerable astonishment, his eyes gradually growing angry.
“I’m afraid Alvin deceived me,” he said. He looked straight ahead for a moment, his face softening. “And I don’t like to think it, now that he’s gone. But the truth is, when Miss Hoffman told me this morning about the envelope, she also mentioned a small parcel that had been in Alvin’s private safe-drawer; and I asked her to omit any reference to it from her story to you. I knew the parcel contained Mrs. Banning’s jewels, but I thought the fact would only confuse matters if brought to your attention. You see, Alvin told me that a judgment had been taken against Mrs. Banning, and that, just before the Supplementary Proceedings, Pfyfe had brought her jewels here and asked him to sequester them temporarily in his safe.”
On our way back to the Criminal Courts Building Markham took Vance’s arm and smiled.
“Your guessing luck is holding out, I see.”
“Rather!” agreed Vance. “It would appear that the late Alvin, like Warren Hastings, resolved to die in the last dyke of prevarication. . . . Splendide mendax, what?”
“In any event,” replied Markham, “the Major has unconsciously added another link in the chain against Pfyfe.”
“You seem to be making a collection of chains,” commented Vance drily. “What have you done with the ones you forged about Miss St. Clair and Leacock?”
“I haven’t entirely discarded them—if that’s what you think,” asserted Markham gravely.
When we reached the office Sergeant Heath was awaiting us with a beatific grin.
“It’s all over, Mr. Markham,” he announced. “This noon, after you’d gone, Leacock came here looking for you. When he found you were out, he ’phoned Headquarters, and they connected him with me. He wanted to see me—very important, he said; so I hurried over. He was sitting in the waiting-room when I came in, and he called me over and said: ‘I came to give myself up. I killed Benson.’ I got him to dictate a confession to Swacker, and then he signed it. . . . Here it is.” He handed Markham a typewritten sheet of paper.
Markham sank wearily into a chair. The strain of the past few days had begun to tell on him. He sighed heavily.
“Thank God! Now our troubles are ended.”
Vance looked at him lugubriously, and shook his head.
“I rather fancy, y’ know, that your troubles are only beginning,” he drawled.
When Markham had glanced through the confession he handed it to Vance, who read it carefully with an expression of growing amusement.
“Y’ know,” he said, “this document isn’t at all legal. Any judge worthy the name would throw it precip’tately out of court. It’s far too simple and precise. It doesn’t begin with ‘greetings’; it doesn’t contain a single ‘wherefore-be-it’ or ‘be-it-known’ or ‘do-hereby’; it says nothing about ‘free will’ or ‘sound mind’ or ‘disposin’ mem’ry’; and the Captain doesn’t once refer to himself as ‘the party of the first part’. . . . Utterly worthless, Sergeant. If I were you, I’d chuck it.”
Heath was feeling too complacently triumphant to be annoyed. He smiled with magnanimous tolerance.
“It strikes you as funny, doesn’t it, Mr. Vance?”
“Sergeant, if you knew how inord’nately funny this confession is, you’d pos’tively have hysterics.”
Vance then turned to Markham.
“Really, y’ know, I shouldn’t put too much stock in this. It may, however, prove a valuable lever with which to prise open the truth. In fact, I’m jolly glad the Captain has gone in for imag’native lit’rature. With this entrancin’ fable in our possession, I think we can overcome the Major’s scruples, and get him to tell us what he knows. Maybe I’m wrong, but it’s worth trying.”
He stepped to the District Attorney’s desk, and leaned over it cajolingly.
“I haven’t led you astray yet, old dear; and I’m going to make another suggestion. Call up the Major and ask him to come here at once. Tell him you’ve secured a confession,—but don’t you dare say whose. Imply it’s Miss St. Clair’s, or Pfyfe’s—or Pontius Pilate’s. But urge his immediate presence. Tell him you want to discuss it with him before proceeding with the indictment.”
“I can’t see the necessity of doing that,” objected Markham. “I’m pretty sure to see him at the Club to-night, and I can tell him then.”
“That wouldn’t do at all,” insisted Vance. “If the Major can enlighten us on any point, I think Sergeant Heath should be present to hear him.”
“I don’t need any enlightenment,” cut in Heath.
Vance regarded him with admiring surprise.
“What a wonderful man! Even Goethe cried for mehr Licht; and here are you in a state of luminous saturation! . . . Astonishin’!”
“See here, Vance,” said Markham: “why try to complicate the matter? It strikes me as a waste of time, besides being an imposition, to ask the Major here to discuss Leacock’s confession. We don’t need his evidence now, anyway.”
Despite his gruffness there was a hint of reconsideration in his voice; for though his instinct had been to dismiss the request out of hand, the experiences of the past few days had taught him that Vance’s suggestions were not made without an object.
Vance, sensing the other’s hesitancy, said:
“My request is based on something more than an idle desire to gaze upon the Major’s rubicund features at this moment. I’m telling you, with all the meagre earnestness I possess, that his presence here now would be most helpful.”
Markham
