Markham hesitated. “If nothing interferes.”
“But really, y’ know, it mustn’t,” insisted Vance. “You’ve no idea how eager you are to see me.”
He was unusually silent and thoughtful during the ride home. Not one explanatory word could I get out of him. But when he bade me good night he said:
“There’s a vital part of the puzzle still missing, and until it’s found none of it has any meaning.”
XXVIII
The Guilty Man
(Tuesday, September 18; 1 p.m.)
Vance slept late the following morning, and spent the hour or so before lunch checking a catalogue of ceramics which were to be auctioned next day at the Anderson Galleries. At one o’clock we entered the Stuyvesant Club and joined Markham in the grill.
“The lunch is on you, old thing,” said Vance. “But I’ll make it easy. All I want is a rasher of English bacon, a cup of coffee, and a croissant.”
Markham gave him a mocking smile.
“I don’t wonder you’re economizing after your bad luck of last night.”
Vance’s eyebrows went up.
“I rather fancied my luck was most extr’ordin’ry.”
“You held four of a kind twice, and lost both hands.”
“But, y’ see,” blandly confessed Vance, “I happened to know both times exactly what cards my opponents held.”
Markham stared at him in amazement.
“Quite so,” Vance assured him. “I had arranged before the game, d’ ye see, to have those particular hands dealt.” He smiled benignly. “I can’t tell you, old chap, how I admire your delicacy in not referring to my rather unique guest, Mr. Allen, whom I had the bad taste to introduce so unceremoniously into your party. I owe you an explanation and an apology. Mr. Allen is not what one would call a charming companion. He is deficient in the patrician elegancies, and his display of jewellery was a bit vulgar—though I infinitely preferred his diamond studs to his piebald tie. But Mr. Allen has his points—decidedly he has his points. He ranks with Andy Blakely, Canfield, and Honest John Kelly as an indoor soldier of fortune. In fact, our Mr. Allen is none other than Doc Wiley Allen, of fragrant memory.”
“Doc Allen! Not the notorious old crook who ran the Eldorado Club?”
“The same. And, incidentally, one of the cleverest card manipulators in a once lucrative but shady profession.”
“You mean this fellow Allen stacked the cards last night?” Markham was indignant.
“Only for the two hands you mentioned. Allen, if you happen to remember, was the dealer both times. I, who purposely sat on his right, was careful to cut the cards in accordance with his instructions. And you really must admit that no stricture can possibly attach to my deception, inasmuch as the only beneficiaries of Allen’s manipulations were Cleaver and Spotswoode. Although Allen did deal me four of a kind on each occasion, I lost heavily both times.”
Markham regarded Vance for a moment in puzzled silence, and then laughed good-naturedly.
“You appear to have been in a philanthropic mood last night. You practically gave Mannix a thousand dollars by permitting him to double the stakes on each draw. A rather quixotic procedure, I should say.”
“It all depends on one’s point of view, don’t y’ know. Despite my financial losses—which, by the by, I have every intention of charging up to your office budget—the game was most successful. … Y’ see, I attained the main object of my evening’s entertainment.”
“Oh, I remember!” said Markham vaguely, as if the matter, being of slight importance, had for the moment eluded his memory. “I believe you were going to ascertain who murdered the Odell girl.”
“Amazin’ memory! … Yes, I let fall the hint that I might be able to clarify the situation today.”
“And whom am I to arrest?”
Vance took a drink of coffee and slowly lit a cigarette.
“I’m quite convinced, y’ know, that you won’t believe me,” he returned, in an even, matter-of-fact voice. “But it was Spotswoode who killed the girl.”
“You don’t tell me!” Markham spoke with undisguised irony. “So it was Spotswoode! My dear Vance, you positively bowl me over. I would telephone Heath at once to polish up his handcuffs, but, unfortunately, miracles—such as strangling persons from across town—are not recognized possibilities in this day and age. … Do let me order you another croissant.”
Vance extended his hands in a theatrical gesture of exasperated despair.
“For an educated, civilized man, Markham, there’s something downright primitive about the way you cling to optical illusions. I say, y’ know, you’re exactly like an infant who really believes that the magician generates a rabbit in a silk hat, simply because he sees it done.”
“Now you’re becoming insulting.”
“Rather!” Vance pleasantly agreed. “But something drastic must be done to disentangle you from the Lorelei of legal facts. You’re so deficient in imagination, old thing.”
“I take it that you would have me close my eyes and picture Spotswoode sitting upstairs here in the Stuyvesant Club and extending his arms to 71st Street. But I simply couldn’t do it. I’m a commonplace chap. Such a vision would strike me as ludicrous; it would smack of a hasheesh dream. … You yourself don’t use Cannabis indica, do you?”
“Put that way, the idea does sound a bit supernatural. And yet: Certum est quia impossibile est. I rather like that maxim, don’t y’ know; for, in the present case, the impossible is true. Oh, Spotswoode’s guilty—no doubt about it. And I’m going to cling tenaciously to that apparent hallucination. Moreover, I’m going to try to lure you into its toils; for your own—as we absurdly say—good name is at stake. As it happens, Markham, you are at this moment shielding the real murderer from publicity.”
Vance had spoken with the easy assurance that precludes argument; and from the altered expression on Markham’s face I could see he was moved.
“Tell me,” he said, “how you arrived at your fantastic belief in Spotswoode’s guilt.”
Vance crushed out his cigarette and folded his arms on the table.
“We begin with my quartet of possibilities—Mannix, Cleaver, Lindquist, and
