He leaned his head back meditatively.
“First, there’s Miss St. Clair. You were quite pos’tive she did the deed, and you told the Major you were all ready to arrest her. My demonstration of the murderer’s height could be thrown out on the grounds that it was intelligent and conclusive, and therefore had no place in a court of law. I’m sure the judge would concur.—Secondly, I give you Captain Leacock. I actu’lly had to use physical force to keep you from jailing the chap. You had a beautiful case against him—to say nothing of his delightful confession. And if you met with any diff’culties, he’d help you out: he’d adore having you convict him.—Thirdly, I submit Leander the Lovely. You had a better case against him than against almost any one of the others—a perfect wealth of circumst’ntial evidence—an embarras de richesse, in fact. And any jury would delight in convicting him—I would, myself, if only for the way he dresses.—Fourthly, I point with pride to Mrs. Platz. Another perfect circumst’ntial case, fairly bulging with clues and inf’rences and legal whatnots.—Fifthly, I present the Colonel. I have just rehearsed your case against him; and I could elab’rate it touchin’ly, given a little more time.”
He paused, and gave Markham a smile of cynical affability.
“Observe, please, that each member of this quintette meets all the demands of presumptive guilt: each one fulfills the legal requirements as to time, place, opportunity, means, motive, and conduct. The only drawback, d’ ye see, is that all five are quite innocent. A most discomposin’ fact—but there you are. … Now, if all the people against whom there’s the slightest suspicion, are innocent, what’s to be done? … Annoyin’, ain’t it?”
He picked up the alibi reports.
“There’s pos’tively nothing to be done but to go on checking up these alibis.”
I could not imagine what goal he was trying to reach by these apparently irrelevant digressions; and Markham, too, was mystified. But neither of us doubted for a moment that there was method in his madness.
“Let’s see,” he mused. “The Major’s is the next in order. What do you say to tackling it? It shouldn’t take long: he lives near here; and the entire alibi hinges on the evidence of the night-boy at his apartment-house.—Come!” He got up.
“How do you know the boy is there now?” objected Markham.
“I phoned a while ago and found out.”
“But this is damned nonsense!”
Vance now had Markham by the arm, playfully urging him toward the door.
“Oh, undoubtedly,” he agreed. “But I’ve often told you, old dear, you take life much too seriously.”
Markham, protesting vigorously, held back, and endeavored to disengage his arm from the other’s grip. But Vance was determined; and after a somewhat heated dispute, Markham gave in.
“I’m about through with this hocus-pocus,” he growled, as we got into a taxicab.
“I’m through already,” said Vance.
XXIII
Checking an Alibi
(Thursday, June 20; 10:30 a.m.)
The Chatham Arms, where Major Benson lived, was a small exclusive bachelor apartment-house in Forty-sixth Street, midway between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. The entrance, set in a simple and dignified façade, was flush with the street, and only two steps above the pavement. The front door opened into a narrow hallway with a small reception room, like a cul-de-sac, on the left. At the rear could be seen the elevator; and beside it, tucked under a narrow flight of iron stairs which led round the elevator shaft, was a telephone switchboard.
When we arrived two youths in uniform were on duty, one lounging in the door of the elevator, the other seated at the switchboard.
Vance halted Markham near the entrance.
“One of these boys, I was informed over the telephone, was on duty the night of the thirteenth. Find out which one it was, and scare him into submission by your exalted title of District Attorney. Then turn him over to me.”
Reluctantly Markham walked down the hallway. After a brief interrogation of the boys, he led one of them into the reception room, and peremptorily explained what he wanted.19
Vance began his questioning with the confident air of one who has no doubt whatever as to another’s exact knowledge.
“What time did Major Benson get home the night his brother was shot?”
The boy’s eyes opened wide.
“He came in about ’leven—right after show time,” he answered, with only a momentary hesitation.
(I have set down the rest of the questions and answers in dramatic-dialogue form, for purposes of space economy.)
Vance: He spoke to you, I suppose?
Boy: Yes, sir. He told me he’d been to the theatre, and said what a rotten show it was—and that he had an awful headache.
Vance: How do you happen to remember so well what he said a week ago?
Boy: Why, his brother was murdered that night!
Vance: And the murder caused so much excitement that you naturally recalled everything that happened at the time in connection with Major Benson?
Boy: Sure—he was the murdered guy’s brother.
Vance: When he came in that night did he say anything about the day of the month?
Boy: Nothin’ except that he guessed his bad luck in pickin’ a bum show was on account of it bein’ the thirteenth.
Vance: Did he say anything
