“You saw nothing else? Nobody in the car, or anyone hanging around who might have been the owner?”
“No, sir, I did not.”
Several other questions of a similar nature were asked him; but nothing more could be learned, and he was dismissed.
“Anyway,” remarked Heath, “the car story will be good stuff to hand the reporters.”
Vance had sat through the questioning of McLaughlin with drowsy inattention—I doubt if he even heard more than the first few words of the officer’s report—and now, with a stifled yawn, he rose and, sauntering to the center-table, picked up one of the cigarette butts that had been found in the fireplace. After rolling it between his thumb and forefinger and scrutinizing the tip, he ripped the paper open with his thumbnail, and held the exposed tobacco to his nose.
Heath, who had been watching him gloweringly, leaned suddenly forward in his chair.
“What are you doing there?” he demanded, in a tone of surly truculence.
Vance lifted his eyes in decorous astonishment.
“Merely smelling of the tobacco,” he replied, with condescending unconcern. “It’s rather mild, y’ know, but delicately blended.”
The muscles in Heath’s cheeks worked angrily. “Well, you’d better put it down, sir,” he advised. Then he looked Vance up and down. “Tobacco expert?” he asked, with ill disguised sarcasm.
“Oh, dear no.” Vance’s voice was dulcet. “My specialty is scarab-cartouches of the Ptolemaic dynasties.”
Markham interposed diplomatically.
“You really shouldn’t touch anything around here, Vance, at this stage of the game. You never know what’ll turn out to be important. Those cigarette stubs may quite possibly be significant evidence.”
“Evidence?” repeated Vance sweetly. “My word! You don’t say, really! Most amusin’!”
Markham was plainly annoyed; and Heath was boiling inwardly, but made no further comment: he even forced a mirthless smile. He evidently felt that he had been a little too abrupt with this friend of the District Attorney’s, however much the friend might have deserved being reprimanded.
Heath, however, was no sycophant in the presence of his superiors. He knew his worth and lived up to it with his whole energy, discharging the tasks to which he was assigned with a dogged indifference to his own political well-being. This stubbornness of spirit, and the solidity of character it implied, were respected and valued by the men over him.
He was a large, powerful man, but agile and graceful in his movements, like a highly trained boxer. He had hard, blue eyes, remarkably bright and penetrating, a small nose, a broad oval chin, and a stern straight mouth with lips that appeared always compressed. His hair, which, though he was well along in his forties, was without a trace of greyness, was cropped about the edges, and stood upright in a short bristly pompadour. His voice had an aggressive resonance, but he rarely blustered. In many ways he accorded with the conventional notion of what a detective is like. But there was something more to the man’s personality, an added capability and strength, as it were; and as I sat watching him that morning, I felt myself unconsciously admiring him, despite his very obvious limitations.
“What’s the exact situation, Sergeant?” Markham asked. “Dinwiddie gave me only the barest facts.”
Heath cleared his throat.
“We got the word a little before seven. Benson’s housekeeper, a Mrs. Platz, called up the local station and reported that she’d found him dead, and asked that somebody be sent over at once. The message, of course, was relayed to Headquarters. I wasn’t there at the time, but Burke and Emery were on duty, and after notifying Inspector Moran, they came on up here. Several of the men from the local station were already on the job doing the usual nosing about. When the Inspector had got here and looked the situation over, he telephoned me to hurry along. When I arrived the local men had gone, and three more men from the Homicide Bureau had joined Burke and Emery. The Inspector also phoned Captain Hagedorn—he thought the case big enough to call him in on it at once—and the Captain had just got here when you arrived. Mr. Dinwiddie had come in right after the Inspector, and phoned you at once. Chief Inspector O’Brien came along a little ahead of me. I questioned the Platz woman right off; and my men were looking the place over when you showed up.”
“Where’s this Mrs. Platz now?” asked Markham.
“Upstairs being watched by one of the local men. She lives in the house.”
“Why did you mention the specific hour of twelve-thirty to the doctor?”
“Platz told me she heard a report at that time, which I thought might have been the shot. I guess now it was the shot—it checks up with a number of things.”
“I think we’d better have another talk with Mrs. Platz,” Markham suggested. “But first: did you find anything suggestive in the room here—anything to go on?”
Heath hesitated almost imperceptibly; then he drew from his coat pocket a woman’s handbag and a pair of long white kid gloves, and tossed them on the table in front of the District Attorney.
“Only these,” he said. “One of the local men found them on the end of the mantel over there.”
After a casual inspection of the gloves, Markham opened the handbag and turned its contents out onto the table. I came forward and looked on, but Vance remained in his chair, placidly smoking a cigarette.
The handbag was of fine gold mesh with a catch set with small sapphires. It was unusually small, and obviously designed only for evening wear. The objects which it had held, and which Markham was now inspecting, consisted of a flat watered-silk cigarette-case, a small gold phial of Roger and Gallet’s Fleurs d’Amour perfume, a cloisonné vanity-compact, a short delicate cigarette-holder of inlaid amber, a gold-cased lipstick, a small embroidered French-linen handkerchief with “M. St.C.” monogrammed in the corner, and a Yale latchkey.
“This ought to
