Markham lifted his head jerkily, as if shaking himself out of an encroaching spell of hypnosis. He smiled, but with an effort.
“I still think your case against Mrs. Platz is your masterpiece.”
“My picture of the Major is merely blocked in,” answered Vance. “The revealin’ touches are to come. But first, a brief catechism: … How did the Major know that brother Alvin would be home at twelve-thirty on the night of the thirteenth?—He heard Alvin invite Miss St. Clair to dinner—remember Miss Hoffman’s story of his eavesdropping?—and he also heard her say she’d unfailingly leave at midnight. When I said yesterday, after we had left Miss St. Clair, that something she told us would help convict the guilty person, I referred to her statement that midnight was her invariable hour of departure. The Major therefore knew Alvin would be home about half past twelve, and he was pretty sure that no one else would be there. In any event, he could have waited for him, what? … Could he have secured an immediate audience with his brother en déshabillé?—Yes. He tapped on the window: his voice was recognized beyond any shadow of doubt; and he was admitted instanter. Alvin had no sartorial modesties in front of his brother, and would have thought nothing of receiving him without his teeth and toupee. … Is the Major the right height?—He is. I purposely stood beside him in your office the other day; and he is almost exactly five feet, ten and a half.”
Markham sat staring silently at the disembowelled pistol. Vance had been speaking in a voice quite different from that he had used when constructing his hypothetical cases against the others; and Markham had sensed the change.
“We now come to the jewels,” Vance was saying. “I once expressed the belief, you remember, that when we found the security for Pfyfe’s note, we would put our hands on the murderer. I thought then the Major had the jewels; and after Miss Hoffman told us of his requesting her not to mention the package, I was sure of it. Alvin took them home on the afternoon of the thirteenth, and the Major undoubtedly knew it. This fact, I imagine, influenced his decision to end Alvin’s life that night. He wanted those baubles, Markham.”
He rose jauntily and stepped to the door.
“And now, it remains only to find ’em. … The murderer took ’em away with him; they couldn’t have left the house any other way. Therefore, they’re in this apartment. If the Major had taken them to the office, someone might have seen them; and if he had placed them in a safe deposit-box, the clerk at the bank might have remembered the episode. Moreover, the same psychology that applies to the gun, applies to the jewels. The Major has acted throughout on the assumption of his innocence; and, as a matter of fact, the trinkets were safer here than elsewhere. There’d be time enough to dispose of them when the affair blew over. … Come with me a moment, Markham. It’s painful, I know; and your heart’s too weak for an anaesthetic.”
Markham followed him down the passageway in a kind of daze. I felt a great sympathy for the man, for now there was no question that he knew Vance was serious in his demonstration of the Major’s guilt. Indeed, I have always felt that Markham suspected the true purpose of Vance’s request to investigate the Major’s alibi, and that his opposition was due as much to his fear of the results as to his impatience with the other’s irritating methods. Not that he would have balked ultimately at the truth, despite his long friendship for Major Benson; but he was struggling—as I see it now—with the inevitability of circumstances, hoping against hope that he had read Vance incorrectly, and that, by vigorously contesting each step of the way, he might alter the very shape of destiny itself.
Vance led the way to the living-room, and stood for five minutes inspecting the various pieces of furniture, while Markham remained in the doorway watching him through narrowed lids, his hands crowded deep into his pockets.
“We could, of course, have an expert searcher rake the apartment over inch by inch,” observed Vance. “But I don’t think it necess’ry. The Major’s a bold, cunning soul: witness his wide square forehead, the dominating stare of his globular eyes, the perpendicular spine, and the indrawn abdomen. He’s forthright in all his mental operations. Like Poe’s Minister D⸺, he would recognize the futility of painstakingly secreting the jewels in some obscure corner. And anyhow, he had no object in secreting them. He merely wished to hide ’em where there’d be no chance of their being seen. This naturally suggests a lock and key, what? There was no such cache in the bedroom—which is why I came here.”
He walked to a squat rosewood desk in the corner, and tried all its drawers; but they were unlocked. He next tested the table drawer; but that, too, was unlocked. A small Spanish cabinet by the window proved equally disappointing.
“Markham, I simply must find a locked drawer,” he said.
He inspected the room again, and was about to return to the bedroom when his eye fell on a Circassian-walnut humidor half hidden by a pile of magazines on the under-shelf of the center-table. He stopped abruptly, and going quickly to the box, endeavored to lift the top. It was locked.
“Let’s see,” he mused: “what does the Major smoke? Romeo y Julieta Perfeccionados, I believe—but they’re not sufficiently valuable to keep under lock and key.”
He picked up a strong bronze paper-knife lying on the table, and forced its point into the crevice of the humidor just above the lock.
“You can’t do that!” cried Markham; and there was as much pain as reprimand in his voice.
Before he could reach Vance, however, there was a sharp click, and the lid flew open. Inside was a blue-velvet jewel-case.
“Ah! ‘Dumb jewels more quick than words,’ ” said Vance, stepping
