The Benson Murder Case

by S. S. Van Dine

  “I thought I noticed you ogling the girl,” said Markham. “But since her hair was bobbed and she had her hat on, how could you analyse the bumps?—if that’s the phrase you phrenologists use.”

  “Forget not Goldsmith’s preacher,” Vance admonished. “Truth from his lips prevailed, and those who came to scoff remained, et cetera…. To begin with, I’m no phrenologist. But I believe in epochal, racial and heredit’ry varieties in skulls. In that respect I’m merely an old-fashioned Darwinian. Every child knows that the skull of the Piltdown man differs from that of the Cromagnard; and even a lawyer could distinguish an Aryan head from a Ural-Altaic head, or a Maylaic from a Negrillo. And, if one is versed at all in the Mendelian theory, herdit’ry cranial similarities can be detected…. But all this erudition is beyond you, I fear. Suffice it to say that despite the young woman’s hat and hair, I could see the contour of her head, and the bone structure in her face; and I even caught a glimpse of her ear.”

  “And thereby deduced that we’d hear from her again,” added Markham scornfully.

  “Indirectly—yes,” admitted Vance. Then, after a pause; “I say, in view of Miss Hoffman’s revelation, do not Colonel Ostrander’s comments of yesterday begin to take on a phosph’rescent aspect?”

  “Look here!” said Markham impatiently. “Cut out these circumlocutions, and get to the point.”

  Vance turned slowly from the window, and regarded him pensively.

  “Markham—I put the question academically—doesn’t Pfyfe’s forged cheque, with its accompanying confession and its shortly-due note, constitute a rather strong motive for doing away with Benson?”

  Markham sat up suddenly.

  “You think Pfyfe guilty—is that it?”

  “Well, here’s the touchin’ situation: Pfyfe obviously signed Benson’s name to a cheque, told him about it, and got the surprise of his life when his dear old pal asked him for a ninety-day note to cover the amount, and also for a written confession to hold over him to insure payment…. Now consider the subs’quent facts: First, Pfyfe called on Benson a week ago and had a quarrel in which the cheque was mentioned: Damon was prob’bly pleading with Pythias to extend the note, and was vulgarly informed that there was ‘nothing doing.’ Secondly, Benson was shot two days later, less than a week before the note fell due. Thirdly, Pfyfe was at Benson’s house the hour of the shooting, and not only lied to you about his whereabouts, but bribed a garage owner to keep silent about his car. Fourthly, his explanation, when caught, of his unrewarded search for Haig and Haig was, to say the least, a bit thick. And don’t forget that the original tale of his lonely quest for nature’s solitudes in the Catskills—with his mysterious stop-over in New York to confer a farewell benediction upon some anonymous person—was not all that one could have hoped for in the line of plausibility. Fifthly, he is an impulsive gambler, given to taking chances; and his experiences in South Africa would certainly have familiarised him with firearms. Sixthly, he was rather eager to involve Leacock, and did a bit of caddish talebearing to that end, even informing you that he saw the Captain on the spot at the fatal moment. Seventhly—but why bore you? Have I not supplied you with all the factors you hold so dear—what are they now?—motive, time, place, opportunity, conduct? All that’s wanting is the criminal agent. But then, the Captain’s gun is at the bottom of the East River; so you’re not very much better off in his case, what?”

  Markham had listened attentively to Vance’s summary. He now sat in rapt silence gazing down at the desk.

  “How about a little chat with Pfyfe before you make any final move against the Captain?” suggested Vance.

  “I think I’ll take your advice,” answered Markham slowly, after several minutes’ reflection. Then he picked up the telephone. “I wonder if he’s at his hotel now.”

  “Oh, he’s there,” said Vance. “Watchful, waitin’ and all that.”

  Pfyfe was in; and Markham requested him to come at once to the office.

  “There’s another thing I wish you’d do for me,” said Vance, when the other had finished telephoning. “The fact is, I’m longing to know what everyone was doing during the hour of Benson’s dissolution—that is, between midnight and one a.m. on the night of the thirteenth, or to speak pedantically, the morning of the fourteenth.”

  Markham looked at him in amazement.

  “Seems silly, doesn’t it?” Vance went on blithely. “But you put such faith in alibis—though they do prove disappointin’ at times, what? There’s Leacock, for instance. If that hall-boy had told Heath to toddle along and sell his violets, you couldn’t do a blessed thing to the Captain. Which shows, d’ye see, that you’re too trustin’…. Why not find out where everyone was? Pfyfe and the Captain were at Benson’s; and they’re about the only ones whose whereabouts you’ve looked into. Maybe there were others hovering around Alvin that night. There may have been a crush of friends and acquaintances on hand—a regular soirée, y’know…. Then, again, checking up on all these people will supply the desolate Sergeant with something to take his mind off his sorrows.”

  Markham knew, as well as I, that Vance would not have made a suggestion of this kind unless actuated by some serious motive; and for several moments ho studied the other’s face intently, as if trying to read his reason for this unexpected request.

  “Who, specifically,” he asked, “is included in your ‘everyone’?” He took up his pencil and held it poised above a sheet of paper.

  “No one is to be left out,” replied Vance. “Put down Miss St. Clair—Captain Leacock—the Major—Pfyfe—Miss Hoffman—”

  “Miss Hoffman!”

  “Everyone! … Have you Miss Hoffman? Now jot down Colonel Ostrander—”

  “Look here!” cut in Markham.

  “—and I may have one or two others for you later. But that will do nicely for a beginning.”

  Before Markham could protest further, Swacker came in to say that Heath was waiting outside.

  “What about our friend Leacock, sir?” was the Sergeant’s first question.

  “I’m holding that up for a day or so,” explained Markham. “I want to have another talk with Pfyfe before I do anything definite.” And he told Heath about the visit of Major Benson and Miss Hoffman.

  Heath inspected the envelope and its enclosures, and then handed them back.

  “I don’t see anything in that,” he said. “It looks to me like a private deal between Benson and this fellow Pfyfe. Leacock’s our man; and the sooner I get him locked up, the better I’ll feel.”

  “That may be to-morrow,” Markham encouraged him. “So don’t feel downcast over this little delay…. You’re keeping the Captain under surveillance, aren’t you?”

  “I’ll say so,” grinned Heath.

  Vance turned to Markham.

  “What about that list of names you made out for the Sergeant?” he asked ingenuously. “I understood you to say something about alibis.”

  Markham hesitated, frowning. Then he handed Heath the paper containing the names Vance had called off to him.

  “As a matter of caution, Sergeant,” he said morosely. “I wish you’d get me the alibis of all these people on the night of the murder. It may bring something contributory to light. Verify those you already know, such as Pfyfe’s; and let me have the reports as soon as you can.”

  When Heath had gone Markham turned a look of angry exasperation upon Vance.

  “Of all the confounded trouble-makers—” he began.

  But Vance interrupted him blandly.

  “Such ingratitude! If you only knew it, Markham, I’m your tutelary genius, your deus ex machina, your fairy godmother.”

  Chapter XVI

  Admissions and Suppressions

  (Tuesday, June 18th; afternoon.)

  An hour later, Phelps, the operative Markham had sent to 94 Riverside Drive, came in radiating satisfaction.

  “I think I’ve got what you want, Chief.” His raucous voice was covertly triumphant. “I went up to the St. Cla
ir woman’s apartment and rang the bell. She came to the door herself, and I stepped into the hall and put my questions to her. She sure refused to answer. When I let on I knew the package contained the gun Benson was shot with, she just laughed and jerked the door open. ‘Leave this apartment, you vile creature,’ she says to me.”

  He grinned.

  “I hurried downstairs, and I hadn’t any more than got to the switchboard when her signal flashed. I let the boy get the number, and then I stood him to one side, and listened in…. She was talking to Leacock, and her first words were: ‘They know you took the pistol from here yesterday and threw it in the river.’ That must ’ve knocked him out, for he didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he answered, perfectly calm and kinda sweet: ‘Don’t worry, Muriel; and don’t say a word to anybody for the rest of the day. I’ll fix everything in the morning.’ He made her promise to keep quiet until to-morrow, and then he said good-bye.”

  Markham sat a while digesting the story.

  “What impression did you get from the conversation?”

  “If you ask me, Chief,” said the detective, “I’d lay ten to one that Leacock’s guilty and the girl knows it.”

  Markham thanked him and let him go.

  “This sub-Potomac chivalry,” commented Vance, “is a frightful nuisance…. But aren’t we about due to hold police converse with the genteel Leander?”

  Almost as he spoke the man was announced. He entered the room with his habitual urbanity of manner, but, for all his suavity, he could not wholly disguise his uneasiness of mind.

  “Sit down, Mr. Pfyfe,” directed Markham brusquely. “It seems you have a little more explaining to do.”

  Taking out the manilla envelope, he laid its contents on the desk where the other could see them.

  “Will you be so good as to tell me about these?”

  “With the greatest pleasure,” said Pfyfe; but his voice had lost its assurance. Some of his poise, too, had deserted him, and as he paused to light a cigarette I detected a slight nervousness in the way he manipulated his gold match-box.

  “I really should have mentioned these before,” he confessed indicating the papers with a delicately inconsequential wave of the hand.

  He leaned forward on one elbow, taking a confidential attitude, and as he talked, the cigarette bobbed up and down between his lips.

  “It pains me deeply to go into this matter,” he began; “but since it is in the interests of truth, I shall not complain…. My—ah—domestic arrangements are not all that one could desire. My wife’s father has, curiously enough, taken a most unreasonable dislike to me; and it pleases him to deprive me of all but the meagrest financial assistance, although it is really my wife’s money that he refuses to give me. A few months ago I made use of certain funds—ten thousand dollars, to be exact—which, I learned later, had not been intended for me. When my father-in-law discovered my error, it was necessary for me to return the full amount to avoid a misunderstanding between Mrs. Pfyfe and myself—a misunderstanding which might have caused my wife’s great unhappiness. I regret to say, I used Alvin’s name on a cheque. But I explained it to him at once, you understand, offering him the note and this little confession as evidence of my good faith…. And that is all, Mr. Markham.”

  “Was that what your quarrel with him last week was about?”

  Pfyfe gave him a look of querulous surprise.

  “Ah, you have heard of our little contretemps? … Yes—we had a slight disagreement as to the—shall I say terms of the transaction?”

  “Did Benson insist that the note be paid when due?”

  “No—not exactly.” Pfyfe’s manner became unctuous. “I beg of you, sir, not to press me as to my little chat with Alvin. It was, I assure you, quite irrelevant to the present situation. Indeed, it was of a most personal and private nature.” He smiled confidingly. “I will admit, however, that I went to Alvin’s house the night he was shot, intending to speak to him about the cheque; but, as you already know, I found the house dark and spent the night in a Turkish bath.”

  “Pardon me, Mr. Pfyfe,”—it was Vance who spoke—“but did Mr. Benson take your note without security?”

  “Of course!” Pfyfe’s tone was a rebuke. “Alvin and I, as I have explained, were the closest friends.”

  “But even a friend, don’t y’know,” Vance submitted, “might ask for security on such a large amount. How did Benson know that you’d be able to repay him?”

  “I can only say that he did know,” the other answered, with an air of patient deliberation.

  Vance continued to be doubtful.

  “Perhaps it was because of the confession you had given him.”

  Pfyfe rewarded him with a look of beaming approval.

  “You grasp the situation perfectly,” he said.

  Vance withdrew from the conversation, and though Markham questioned Pfyfe for nearly half an hour, nothing further transpired. Pfyfe clung to his story in every detail, and politely refused to go deeper into his quarrel with Benson, insisting that it had no bearing on the case. At last he was permitted to go.

  “Not very helpful,” Markham observed. “I’m beginning to agree with Heath that we’ve turned up a mare’s nest in Pfyfe’s frenzied financial deal.”

  “You’ll never be anything but your own sweet trusting self, will you?” lamented Vance sadly. “Pfyfe has just given you your first intelligent line of investigation—and you say he’s not helpful! … Listen to me and nota bene. Pfyfe’s story about the ten thousand dollars is undoubtedly true: he appropriated the money and forged Benson’s name to a cheque with which to replace it. But I don’t for a second believe there was no security in addition to the confession. Benson wasn’t the type of man—friend or no friend—who’d hand over that amount without security. He wanted his money back—not somebody in jail. That’s why I put my oar in, and asked about the security. Pfyfe, of course, denied it; but when pressed as to how Benson knew he’d pay the note, he retired into a cloud. I had to suggest the confession as the possible explanation; which showed that something else was in his mind—something he didn’t care to mention. And the way he jumped at my suggestion bears out my theory.”

  “Well, what of it?” Markham asked impatiently.

  “Oh, for the gift of tears!” moaned Vance. “Don’t you see that there’s someone in the background—someone connected with the security? It must be so, y’know; otherwise Pfyfe would have told you the entire tale of the quarrel, if only to clear himself from suspicion. Yet, knowing that his position is an awkward one, he refuses to divulge what passed between him and Benson in the office that day…. Pfyfe is shielding someone—and he is not the soul of chivalry, y’know. Therefore I ask: Why?”

  He leaned back and gazed at the ceiling.

  “I have an idea, amounting to a cerebral cyclone,” he added, “that when we put our hands on that security, we’ll also put our hands on the murderer.”

  At this moment the telephone rang, and when Markham answered it a look of startled amusement came into his eyes. He made an appointment with the speaker for half-past five that afternoon. Then, hanging up the receiver, he laughed outright at Vance.

  “Your auricular researches have been confirmed,” he said. “Miss Hoffman just called me confidentially on an outside ’phone to say she has something to add to her story. She’s coming here at five-thirty.”

  Vance was unimpressed by the announcement.

  “I rather imagined she’d telephone during her lunch hour.”

  Again Markham gave him one of his searching scrutinies.

  “There’s something damned queer going on around here,” he observed.

  “Oh, quite,” returned Vance carelessly. “Queerer than you could possibly imagine.”

  For fifteen or twenty minutes Markham endeavoured to draw him out; but Vance seemed suddenly possessed of an ability to say nothing with the blandest fluency. Markham finally became exasperated.

  “I’m rapidly coming to the conclusi
on,” he said, “that either you had a hand in Benson’s murder, or you’re a phenomenally good guesser.”

  “There is, y’know, an alternative,” rejoined Vance. “It might be that my aesthetic hypotheses and metaphysical deductions—as you call ’em—are working out—eh, what?”

  A few minutes before we went to lunch Swacker announced that Tracy had just returned from Long Island with his report.

  “Is he the lad you sent to look into Pfyfe’s affairs du cour?” Vance asked Markham. “For, if he is, I am all a-flutter.”

  “He’s the man…. Send him in, Swacker.”

  Tracy entered, smiling silkily, his note-book in one hand, his pince-nez in the other.

  “I had no trouble learning about Pfyfe,” he said. “He’s well known in Port Washington—quite a character in fact—and it was easy to pick up gossip about him.”

  He adjusted his glasses carefully, and referred to his notebook.

  “He married a Miss Hawthorn in nineteen-ten. She’s wealthy, but Pfyfe doesn’t benefit much by it, because her father sits on the money-bags—”

  “Mr. Tracy, I say,” interrupted Vance; “never mind the née-Hawthorn and her doting papa—Mr. Pfyfe himself has confided in us about his sad marriage. Tell us, if you can, about Mr. Pfyfe’s extra-nuptial affairs. Are there any other ladies?”

  Tracy looked inquiringly at the District Attorney: he was uncertain as to Vance’s locus standi. Receiving a nod from Markham, he turned a page in his note-book and proceeded.

  “I found one other woman in the case. She lives in New York, and often telephones to a drug stores near Pfyfe’s house, and leaves messages for him. He uses the same ’phone to call her by. He had made some deal with the proprietor, of course; but I was able to obtain her ’phone number. As soon as I came back to the city I got her name and address from Information, and made a few inquiries…. She’s a Mrs. Paula Banning, a widow, and a little fast, I should say; and she lives in an apartment at 268 West Seventy-fifth Street.”

  This exhausted Tracy’s information; and when he went out, Markham smiled broadly at Vance.