“Hiding in the closet?”
“Yes. That would account for the closet not having been disturbed. As I see it, it wasn’t ransacked, for the simple and rather grotesque reason that the elegant Skeel was locked within. How else could that one clothespress have escaped the rifling activities of the pseudo-burglar? He wouldn’t have omitted it deliberately, and he was far too thoroughgoing to have overlooked it accidentally.—Then there are the fingerprints on the knob. …”
Vance lightly tapped on the arm of his chair.
“I tell you, Markham old dear, you simply must build your conception of the crime on this hypothesis, and proceed accordingly. If you don’t, each edifice you rear will come toppling about your ears.”
XV
Four Possibilities
(Wednesday, September 12; evening)
When Vance finished speaking, there was a long silence. Markham, impressed by the other’s earnestness, sat in a brown study. His ideas had been shaken. The theory of Skeel’s guilt, to which he had clung from the moment of the identification of the fingerprints, had, it must be admitted, not entirely satisfied him, although he had been able to suggest no alternative. Now Vance had categorically repudiated this theory and at the same time had advanced another which, despite its indefiniteness, had nevertheless taken into account all the physical points of the case; and Markham, at first antagonistic, had found himself, almost against his will, becoming more and more sympathetic to this new point of view.
“Damn it, Vance!” he said. “I’m not in the least convinced by your theatrical theory. And yet, I feel a curious undercurrent of plausibility in your analyses. … I wonder—”
He turned sharply, and scrutinized the other steadfastly for a moment.
“Look here! Have you anyone in mind as the protagonist of the drama you’ve outlined?”
“ ’Pon my word, I haven’t the slightest notion as to who killed the lady,” Vance assured him. “But if you are ever to find the murderer, you must look for a shrewd, superior man with nerves of iron, who was in imminent danger of being irremediably ruined by the girl—a man of inherent cruelty and vindictiveness; a supreme egoist; a fatalist more or less; and—I’m inclined to believe—something of a madman.”
“Mad!”
“Oh, not a lunatic—just a madman, a perfectly normal, logical, calculating madman—same as you and I and Van here. Only, our hobbies are harmless, d’ ye see. This chap’s mania is outside your preposterously revered law. That’s why you’re after him. If his aberration were stamp-collecting, or golf, you wouldn’t give him a second thought. But his perfectly rational penchant for eliminating déclassées ladies who bothered him, fills you with horror: it’s not your hobby. Consequently, you have a hot yearning to flay him alive.”
“I’ll admit,” said Markham coolly, “that a homicidal mania is my idea of madness.”
“But he didn’t have a homicidal mania, Markham old thing. You miss all the fine distinctions in psychology. This man was annoyed by a certain person, and set to work, masterfully and reasonably, to do away with the source of his annoyance. And he did it with surpassin’ cleverness. To be sure, his act was a bit grisly. But when, if ever, you get your hands on him, you’ll be amazed to find how normal he is. And able, too—oh, able no end.”
Again Markham lapsed into a long thoughtful silence. At last he spoke.
“The only trouble with your ingenious deductions is that they don’t accord with the known circumstances of the case. And facts, my dear Vance, are still regarded by a few of us old-fashioned lawyers as more or less conclusive.”
“Why this needless confession of your shortcomings?” inquired Vance whimsically. Then, after a moment: “Let me have the facts which appear to you antagonistic to my deductions.”
“Well, there are only four men of the type you describe who could have had any remote reason for murdering the Odell woman. Heath’s scouts went into her history pretty thoroughly, and for over two years—that is, since her appearance in the Follies—the only personae gratae at her apartment have been Mannix, Doctor Lindquist, Pop Cleaver, and, of course, Spotswoode. The Canary was a bit exclusive, it seems; and no other man got near enough to her even to be considered as a possible murderer.”
“It appears, then, that you have a complete quartet to draw on.” Vance’s tone was apathetic. “What do you crave—a regiment?”
“No,” answered Markham patiently. “I crave only one logical possibility. But Mannix was through with the girl over a year ago; Cleaver and Spotswoode both have watertight alibis; and that leaves only Doctor Lindquist, whom I can’t exactly picture as a strangler and meretricious burglar, despite his irascibility. Moreover, he, too, has an alibi; and it may be a genuine one.”
Vance wagged his head.
“There’s something positively pathetic about the childlike faith of the legal mind.”
“It does cling to rationality at times, doesn’t it?” observed Markham.
“My dear fellow!” Vance rebuked him. “The presumption implied in that remark is most immodest. If you could distinguish between rationality and irrationality you wouldn’t be a lawyer—you’d be a god. … No; you’re going at this thing the wrong way. The real factors in the case are not what you call the known circumstances, but the unknown quantities—the human x’s, so to speak—the personalities, or natures, of your quartet.”
He lit a fresh cigarette, and lay back, closing his eyes.
“Tell me what you know of these four cavalieri serventi—you say Heath has turned in his report. Who were their mamas? What do they eat for breakfast? Are they susceptible to poison-ivy? … Let’s have Spotswoode’s dossier first. Do you know anything about him?”
“In a general way,” returned Markham. “Old Puritan stock, I believe—governors, burgomasters, a few successful traders. All Yankee forebears—no intermixture. As a matter of fact, Spotswoode represents the oldest and hardiest of the New England aristocracy—although I imagine the so-called wine of the Puritans has become pretty well diluted by now. His affair with the Odell girl
