Vance’s serenity was not ruffled by Markham’s ill-humored challenge. He sat smoking lazily for several minutes; then he leaned over and flicked his cigarette ash out of the window.
“ ’Pon my word, Markham,” he rejoined evenly, “I’m half inclined to look into this silly murder. I think I’ll wait, though, and see whom the nonplussed Heath turns up with his inquiries.”
Markham grunted scoffingly, and sank back on the cushions.
“Your generosity wrings me,” he said.
IX
The Pack in Full Cry
(Tuesday, September 11; afternoon)
On our way downtown that morning we were delayed for a considerable time in the traffic congestion just north of Madison Square, and Markham anxiously looked at his watch.
“It’s past noon,” he said. “I think I’ll stop at the club and have a bite of lunch. … I presume that eating at this early hour would be too plebeian for so exquisite a hothouse flower as you.”
Vance considered the invitation.
“Since you deprived me of my breakfast,” he decided, “I’ll permit you to buy me some eggs Bénédictine.”
A few minutes later we entered the almost empty grill of the Stuyvesant Club, and took a table near one of the windows looking southward over the treetops of Madison Square.
Shortly after we had given our order a uniformed attendant entered and, bowing deferentially at the District Attorney’s elbow, held out an unaddressed communication sealed in one of the club’s envelopes. Markham read it with an expression of growing curiosity, and as he studied the signature a look of mild surprise came into his eyes. At length he looked up and nodded to the waiting attendant. Then, excusing himself, he left us abruptly. It was fully twenty minutes before he returned.
“Funny thing,” he said. “That note was from the man who took the Odell woman to dinner and the theatre last night. … A small world,” he mused. “He’s staying here at the club—he’s a nonresident member and makes it his headquarters when he’s in town.”
“You know him?” Vance put the question disinterestedly.
“I’ve met him several times—chap named Spotswoode.” Markham seemed perplexed. “He’s a man of family, lives in a country house on Long Island, and is regarded generally as a highly respectable member of society—one of the last persons I’d suspect of being mixed up with the Odell girl. But, according to his own confession, he played around a good deal with her during his visits to New York—‘sowing a few belated wild oats,’ as he expressed it—and last night took her to Francelle’s for dinner and to the Winter Garden afterwards.”
“Not my idea of an intellectual, or even edifyin’, evening,” commented Vance. “And he selected a deuced unlucky day for it. … I say, imagine opening the morning paper and learning that your petite dame of the preceding evening had been strangled! Disconcertin’, what?”
“He’s certainly disconcerted,” said Markham. “The early afternoon papers were out about an hour ago, and he’d been phoning my office every ten minutes, when I suddenly walked in here. He’s afraid his connection with the girl will leak out and disgrace him.”
“And won’t it?”
“I hardly see the necessity. No one knows who her escort was last evening; and since he obviously had nothing to do with the crime, what’s to be gained by dragging him into it? He told me the whole story, and offered to stay in the city as long as I wanted him to.”
“I infer, from the cloud of disappointment that enveloped you when you returned just now, that his story held nothing hopeful for you in the way of clues.”
“No,” Markham admitted. “The girl apparently never spoke to him of her intimate affairs; and he couldn’t give me a single helpful suggestion. His account of what happened last night agreed perfectly with Jessup’s. He called for the girl at seven, brought her home at about eleven, stayed with her half an hour or so, and then left her. When he heard her call for help he was frightened, but on being assured by her there was nothing wrong, he concluded she had dozed off into a nightmare, and thought no more of it. He drove direct to the club here, arriving about ten minutes to twelve. Judge Redfern, who saw him descend from the taxi, insisted on his coming upstairs and playing poker with some men who were waiting in the Judge’s rooms for him. They played until three o’clock this morning.”
“Your Long Island Don Juan has certainly not supplied you with any footprints in the snow.”
“Anyway, his coming forward at this time closes one line of inquiry over which we might have wasted considerable time.”
“If many more lines of inquiry are closed,” remarked Vance dryly, “you’ll be in a distressin’ dilemma, don’t y’ know.”
“There are enough still open to keep me busy,” said Markham, pushing back his plate and calling for the check. He rose; then pausing, regarded Vance meditatingly. “Are you sufficiently interested to want to come along?”
“Eh, what? My word! … Charmed, I’m sure. But, I say, sit down just a moment—there’s a good fellow!—till I finish my coffee.”
I was considerably astonished at Vance’s ready acceptance, careless and bantering though it was, for there was an exhibition of old Chinese prints at the Montross Galleries that afternoon, which he had planned to attend. A Riokai and a Moyeki, said to be very fine examples of Sung painting, were to be shown; and Vance was particularly eager to acquire them for his collection.
We rode with Markham to the Criminal Courts building and, entering by the Franklin Street door, took the private elevator to the District Attorney’s spacious but dingy private office which overlooked the gray-stone ramparts of the Tombs. Vance seated himself
