Vance’s mind was basically philosophical—that is, philosophical in the more general sense. Being singularly free from the conventional sentimentalities and current superstitions, he could look beneath the surface of human acts into actuating impulses and motives. Moreover, he was resolute both in his avoidance of any attitude that savored of credulousness, and in his adherence to cold, logical exactness in his mental processes.
“Until we can approach all human problems,” he once remarked, “with the clinical aloofness and cynical contempt of a doctor examining a guinea-pig strapped to a board, we have little chance of getting at the truth.”
Vance led an active, but by no means animated, social life—a concession to various family ties. But he was not a social animal.—I can not remember ever having met a man with so undeveloped a gregarious instinct—and when he went forth into the social world it was generally under compulsion. In fact, one of his “duty” affairs had occupied him on the night before that memorable June breakfast; otherwise, we would have consulted about the Cézannes the evening before; and Vance groused a good deal about it while Currie was serving our strawberries and eggs Bénédictine. Later on I was to give profound thanks to the God of Coincidence that the blocks had been arranged in just that pattern; for had Vance been slumbering peacefully at nine o’clock when the District Attorney called, I would probably have missed four of the most interesting and exciting years of my life; and many of New York’s shrewdest and most desperate criminals might still be at large.
Vance and I had just settled back in our chairs for our second cup of coffee and a cigarette when Currie, answering an impetuous ringing of the front-door bell, ushered the District Attorney into the living-room.
“By all that’s holy!” he exclaimed, raising his hands in mock astonishment. “New York’s leading flâneur and art connoisseur is up and about!”
“And I am suffused with blushes at the disgrace of it,” Vance replied.
It was evident, however, that the District Attorney was not in a jovial mood. His face suddenly sobered.
“Vance, a serious thing has brought me here. I’m in a great hurry, and merely dropped by to keep my promise. … The fact is, Alvin Benson has been murdered.”
Vance lifted his eyebrows languidly.
“Really, now,” he drawled. “How messy! But he no doubt deserved it. In any event, that’s no reason why you should repine. Take a chair and have a cup of Currie’s incomp’rable coffee.” And before the other could protest, he rose and pushed a bell-button.
Markham hesitated a second or two.
“Oh, well. A couple of minutes won’t make any difference. But only a gulp.” And he sank into a chair facing us.
II
At the Scene of the Crime
(Friday, June 14; 9 a.m.)
John F.-X. Markham, as you remember, had been elected District Attorney of New York County on the Independent Reform Ticket during one of the city’s periodical reactions against Tammany Hall. He served his four years, and would probably have been elected to a second term had not the ticket been hopelessly split by the political juggling of his opponents. He was an indefatigable worker, and projected the District Attorney’s office into all manner of criminal and civil investigations. Being utterly incorruptible, he not only aroused the fervid admiration of his constituents, but produced an almost unprecedented sense of security in those who had opposed him on partisan lines.
He had been in office only a few months when one of the newspapers referred to him as the Watch Dog; and the sobriquet clung to him until the end of his administration. Indeed, his record as a successful prosecutor during the four years of his incumbency was such a remarkable one that even today it is not infrequently referred to in legal and political discussions.
Markham was a tall, strongly-built man in the middle forties, with a clean-shaven, somewhat youthful face which belied his uniformly grey hair. He was not handsome according to conventional standards, but he had an unmistakable air of distinction, and was possessed of an amount of social culture rarely found in our latter-day political officeholders. Withal he was a man of brusque and vindictive temperament; but his brusqueness was an incrustation on a solid foundation of good-breeding, not—as is usually the case—the roughness of substructure showing through an inadequately superimposed crust of gentility.
When his nature was relieved of the stress of duty and care, he was the most gracious of men. But early in my acquaintance with him I had seen his attitude of cordiality suddenly displaced by one of grim authority. It was as if a new personality—hard, indomitable, symbolic of eternal justice—had in that moment been born in Markham’s body. I was to witness this transformation many times before our association ended. In fact, this very morning, as he sat opposite to me in Vance’s living-room, there was more than a hint of it in the aggressive sternness of his expression; and I knew that he was deeply troubled over Alvin Benson’s murder.
He swallowed his coffee rapidly, and was setting down the cup, when Vance, who had been watching him with quizzical amusement, remarked:
“I say; why this sad preoccupation over the passing of one Benson? You weren’t, by any chance, the murderer, what?”
Markham ignored Vance’s levity.
“I’m on my way to Benson’s. Do you care to come along? You asked for the experience, and I dropped in to keep my promise.”
I then recalled that several weeks before at the Stuyvesant Club, when the subject of the prevalent homicides in New York was being discussed, Vance had expressed a desire to accompany the District Attorney on one of his investigations; and that Markham had promised to take him on his next important case. Vance’s interest in the psychology of human behavior had prompted the desire, and his friendship with Markham, which had been of long standing,
