The Benson Murder Case

by S. S. Van Dine

  “Sergeant Heath and the Homicide Bureau will receive entire credit for the work,” said Markham; and added: “I’m sorry, Phelps, but the District Attorney’s office, and everyone connected with it, will be kept out of it altogether.”

  “Oh, well, it’s all in a lifetime,” observed Phelps philosophically.

  We sat in strained silence until the Major arrived. Markham smoked abstractedly. He glanced several times over the sheet of notations left by Stitt, and once he went to the water-cooler for a drink. Vance opened at random a law book before him, and perused with an amused smile a bribery case decision by a Western judge. Heath and Phelps, habituated to waiting, scarcely moved.

  When Major Benson entered, Markham greeted him with exaggerated casualness, and busied himself with some papers in a drawer to avoid shaking hands. Heath, however, was almost jovial. He drew out the Major’s chair for him, and uttered a ponderous banality about the weather. Vance closed the law book and sat erect with his feet drawn back.

  Major Benson was cordially dignified. He gave Markham a swift glance; but if he suspected anything, he showed no outward sign of it.

  “Major, I want you to answer a few questions—if you care to.” Markham’s voice, though low, had in it a resonant quality.

  “Anything at all,” returned the other easily.

  “You own an army pistol, do you not?”

  “Yes—a Colt automatic,” he replied, with a questioning lift of the eyebrows.

  “When did you last clean and refill it?”

  Not a muscle of the Major’s face moved.

  “I don’t exactly remember,” he said, “I’ve cleaned it several times. But it hasn’t been refilled since I returned from overseas.”

  “Have you lent it to anyone recently?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  Markham took up Stitt’s report, and looked at it a moment.

  “How did you hope to satisfy your clients if suddenly called upon for their marginal securities?”

  The Major’s upper lip lifted contemptuously, exposing his teeth.

  “So! That was why—under the guise of friendship—you sent a man to look over my books!”

  I saw a red blotch of colour appear on the back of his neck, and swell upward to his ears.

  “It happens that I didn’t send him there for that purpose.” The accusation had cut Markham. “But I did enter your apartment this morning.”

  “You’re a house-breaker, too, are you?” The man’s face was now crimson; the veins stood out on his forehead.

  “And I found Mrs. Banning’s jewels…. How did they get there, Major?”

  “It’s none of your damned business how they got there,” he said, his voice as cold and even as ever.

  “Why did you tell Miss Hoffman not to mention them to me?”

  “That’s none of your damned business either.”

  “Is it any of my business,” asked Markham quietly, “that the bullet which killed your brother was fired from your gun?”

  The Major looked at him steadily, his mouth a sneer.

  “That’s the kind of double-crossing you do—invite me here to arrest me, and then ask me questions to incriminate myself when I’m unaware of your suspicions. A fine dirty sport you are!”

  Vance leaned forward.

  “You fool!” His voice was very low, but it cut like a whip. “Can’t you see he’s your friend, and is asking you these questions in a last desp’rate hope that you’re not guilty?”

  The Major swung round on him hotly.

  “Keep out of this—you damned sissy!”

  “Oh, quite,” murmured Vance.

  “And as for you”—he pointed a quivering finger at Markham—“I’ll make you sweat for this! …”

  Vituperation and profanity poured from the man. His nostrils were expanded, his eyes blazing. His wrath seemed to surpass all human bounds; he was like a person in an apoplectic fit—contorted, repulsive, insensate.

  Markham sat through it patiently, his head resting on his hands, his eyes closed. When, at length, the Major’s rage became inarticulate, he looked up and nodded to Heath. It was the signal the detective had been watching for.

  But before Heath could make a move, the Major sprang to his feet. With the motion of rising he swung his body swiftly about, and brought his fist against Heath’s face with terrific impact. The Sergeant went backward in his chair, and lay on the floor dazed. Phelps leaped forward, crouching; but the Major’s knee shot upward and caught him in the lower abdomen. He sank to the floor, where he rolled back and forth groaning.

  The Major then turned on Markham. His eyes were glaring like a maniac’s, and his lips were drawn back. His nostrils dilated with each stertorous breath. His shoulders were hunched, and his arms hung away from his body, his fingers rigidly flexed. His attitude was the embodiment of a terrific, uncontrolled malignity.

  “You’re next!” The words, guttural and venomous, were like a snarl.

  As he spoke he sprang forward.

  Vance, who had sat quietly during the mêlée, looking on with half-closed eyes and smoking indolently, now stepped sharply round the end of the table. His arms shot forward. With one hand he caught the Major’s right wrist; with the other he grasped the elbow. Then he seemed to fall back with a swift pivotal motion. The Major’s pinioned arm was twisted upward behind his shoulder-blades. There was a cry of pain, and the man suddenly relaxed in Vance’s grip.

  By this time Heath had recovered. He scrambled quickly to his feet and stepped up. There was the click of handcuffs and the Major dropped heavily into a chair, where he sat moving his shoulder back and forth painfully.

  “It’s nothing serious,” Vance told him. “The capsular ligament is torn a little. It’ll be all right in a few days.”

  Heath came forward and, without a word, held out his hand to Vance. The action was at once an apology and a tribute. I liked Heath for it.

  When he and his prisoner had gone, and Phelps had been assisted into an easy chair, Markham put his hand on Vance’s arm.

  “Let’s get away,” he said. “I’m done up.”

  Chapter XXV

  Vance Explains his Methods

  (Thursday, June 20th; 9 p.m.)

  That same evening, after a Turkish bath and dinner, Markham, grim and weary, and Vance, bland and debonair, and myself were sitting together in the alcove of the Stuyvesant Club’s lounge-room.

  We had smoked in silence for half an hour or more, when Vance, as if giving articulation to his thoughts, remarked:

  “And it’s stubborn, unimag’native chaps like Heath who constitute the human barrage between the criminal and society! … Sad, sad.”

  “We have no Napoleons to-day,” Markham observed. “And if we had, they’d probably not be detectives.”

  “But even should they have yearnings towards that profession,” said Vance, “they would be rejected on their physical measurements. As I understand it, your policemen are chosen by their height and weight; they must meet certain requirements as to heft—as though the only crimes they had to cope with were riots and gang feuds. Bulk—the great American ideal, whether in art, architecture, table d’hôte meals, or detectives. An entrancin’ notion.”

  “At any rate, Heath has a generous nature,” said Markham palliatingly. “He has completely forgiven you for everything.”

  Vance smiled.

  “The amount of credit and emulsification he received in the afternoon papers would have mellowed anyone. He should even forgive the Major for hitting him. A clever blow, that; based on rotary leverage. Heath’s constitution must be tough, or he wouldn’t have recovered so quickly…. And poor Phelps! He’ll have a horror of knees the rest of his life.”

  “You certainly guessed the Major’s reaction,” said Markham. “I’m almost ready to grant there’s something in your psychological flummery, after all. Your aesthetic deductions seemed to put you on the right track.”

  After a pause he turned and looked inquisitively at Van
ce.

  “Tell me exactly why, at the outset, you were convinced of the Major’s guilt?”

  Vance settled back in his chair.

  “Consider, for a moment, the characteristics—the outstanding features—of the crime. Just before the shot was fired Benson and the murderer undoubtedly had been talking or arguing—the one seated, the other standing. Then Benson had pretended to read: he had said all he had to say. His reading was his gesture of finality; for one doesn’t read when conversing with another unless for a purpose. The murderer, seeing the hopelessness of the situation, and having come prepared to meet it heroically, took out a gun, aimed it at Benson’s temple, and pulled the trigger. After that, he turned out the lights and went away…. Such are the facts, indicated and actual.”

  He took several puffs on his cigarette.

  “Now, let’s analyse ’em…. As I pointed out to you, the murderer didn’t fire at the body, where, though the chances of hitting would have been much greater, the chances of death would have been less. He chose the more diff’cult and hazardous—and, at the same time, the more certain and efficient—course. His technique, so to speak, was bold, direct, and fearless. Only a man with iron nerves and a highly developed gambler’s instinct would have done it in just this forthright and audacious fashion. Therefore, all nervous, hot-headed, impulsive, or timid persons were automatically elim’nated as suspects. The neat, businesslike aspect of the crime, together with the absence of any material clues that could possibly have incrim’nated the culprit, indicated unmistakably that it had been premeditated and planned with coolness and precision by a person of tremendous self-assurance, and one used to taking risks. There was nothing subtle or in the least imag’native about the crime. Every feature of it pointed to an aggressive, blunt mind—a mind at once static, determined and intrepid and accustomed to dealing with facts and situations in a direct, concrete and unequivocal manner…. I say, Markham, surely you’re a good enough judge of human nature to read the indications, what?”

  “I think I get the drift of your reasoning,” the other admitted a little doubtfully.

  “Very well, then,” Vance continued. “Having determined the exact psychological nature of the deed, it only remained to find some int’rested person whose mind and temp’rament were such that, if he undertook a task of this kind in the given circumstances, he would inev’tably do it in precisely the manner in which it was done. As it happened, I had known the Major for a long time; and so it was obvious to me, the moment I had looked over the situation that first morning, that he had done it. The crime, in every respect and feature, was a perfect psychological expression of his character and mentality. But even had I not known him personally, I would have been able—since I possessed so clear and accurate a knowledge of the murderer’s personality—to pick him out from any number of suspects.”

  “But suppose another person of the Major’s type had done it?” asked Markham.

  “We all differ in our natures—however similar two persons may appear at times,” Vance explained. “And while, in the present case, it is barely conceivable that another man of the Major’s type and temp’rament might have done it, the law of probability must be taken into account. Even supposing there were two men, almost identical in personality and instincts in New York, what would be the chance of their both having had a reason to kill Benson? However, despite the remoteness of the possibility, when Pfyte came into the case, and I learned he was a gambler and a hunter, I took occasion to look into his qualifications. Not knowing him personally, I appealed to Colonel Ostrander for my information; and what he told me put Pfyfe at once hors de combat.”

  “But he had nerve: he was a rash plunger; and he certainly had enough at stake,” objected Markham.

  “Ah! But between a rash plunger and a bold, levelheaded gambler like the Major, there is a great difference—a psychological abyss. In fact, their animating impulses are opposites. The plunger is actuated by fear and hope and desire; the cool-headed gambler is actuated by expediency and belief and judgment. The one is emotional the other mental. The Major, unlike Pfyfe, is a born gambler, and inf’nitely self-confident. This kind of self-confidence, however, is not the same as recklessness, though superficially the two bear a close resemblance. It is based on an instinctive belief in one’s own infallibility and safety. It’s the reverse of what the Freudians call the inferiority complex—a form of egomania, a variety of folie de grandeur. The Major possessed it, but it was absent from Pfyfe’s composition; and as the crime indicated its possession by the perpetrator, I knew Pfyfe was innocent.”

  “I begin to grasp the thing in a nebulous sort of way,” said Markham after a pause.

  “But there were other indications, psychological and otherwise,” went on Vance: “the undress attire of the body, the toupee and teeth upstairs, the inferred familiarity of the murderer with the domestic arrangements, the fact that he had been admitted by Benson himself, and his knowledge that Benson would be at home alone at that time—all pointing to the Major as the guilty person. Another thing: the height of the murderer corresponded to the Major’s height. This indication, though, was of minor importance; for had my measurements not tallied with the Major. I would have known that the bullet had been deflected, despite the opinions of all the Captain Hagedorns in the universe.”

  “Why were you so positive a woman couldn’t have done it?”

  “To begin with: it wasn’t a woman’s crime—that is, no woman would have done it in the way it was done. The most mentalised women are emotional when it comes to a fundamental issue like taking a life. That a woman could have coldly planned such a murder and then executed it with such business-like efficiency—aiming a single shot at her victim’s temple at a distance of five or six feet—would be contr’ry, d’ye see, to everything we know of human nature. Again: women don’t stand up to argue a point before a seated antagonist. Somehow they seem to feel more secure sitting down. They talk better sitting; whereas men talk better standing. And even had a woman stood before Benson, she could not have taken out a gun and aimed it without his looking up. A man’s reaching in his pocket is a natural action; but a woman has no pockets and no place to hide a gun except her handbag. And a man is always on guard when an angry woman opens a handbag in front of him—the very uncertainty of women’s natures has made men suspicious of their actions when aroused…. But—above all—it was Benson’s bald pate and bedroom slippers that made the woman hypothesis untenable.”

  “You remarked a moment ago,” said Markham, “that the murderer went there that night prepared to take heroic measures if necessary. And yet you say he planned the murder.”

  “True. The two statements don’t conflict, y’know. The murder was planned—without doubt. But the Major was willing to give his victim a last chance to save his life. My theory is this: The Major, being in a tight financial hole, with State prison looming before him, and knowing that his brother had sufficient funds in the safe to save him plotted the crime, and went to the house that night prepared to commit it. First, however, he told his brother of his predic’ment and asked for the money; and Alvin prob’bly told him to go to the devil. The Major may even have pleaded a bit in order to avoid killing him; but when the liter’ry Alvin turned to reading, he saw the futility of appealing further, and proceeded with the dire business.”

  Markham smoked a while.

  “Granting all you’ve said,” he remarked at length, “I still don’t see how you could know, as you asserted this morning, that the Major had planned the murder so as to throw suspicion deliberately on Captain Leacock.”

  “Just as a sculptor, who thoroughly understands the principles of form and composition, can accurately supply any missing integral part of a statue,” Vance explained, “so can the psychologist, who understands the human mind, supply any missing factor in a given human action. I might add, parenthically, that all this blather about the missing arms of the Aphrodite of Melos—the Milo Venus, y’know—is the utt’rest fiddle-fadd
le. Any competent artist who knew the laws of aesthetic organisation could restore the arms exactly as they were originally. Such restorations are merely a matter of context—the missing factor, d’ye see, simply has to conform and harmonise with what is already known.”

  He made one of his rare gestures of delicate emphasis.

  “Now, the problem of circumventing suspicion is an important detail in every deliberated crime. And since the general conception of this particular crime was pos’tive, conclusive and concrete, it followed that each one of its component parts would be pos’tive, conclusive and concrete. Therefore, for the Major merely to have arranged things so that he himself should not be suspected, would have been too negative a conception to fit consistently with the other psychological aspects of the deed. It would have been too vague, too indirect, too indef’nite. The type of literal mind which conceived this crime would logically have provided a specific and tangible object of suspicion. Cons’quently, when the material evidence began to pile up against the Captain, and the Major waxed vehement in defending him, I knew he had been chosen as the dupe. At first, I admit, I suspected the Major of having selected Miss St. Clair as the victim; but when I learned that the presence of her gloves and handbag at Benson’s was only an accident, and remembered that the Major had given us Pfyfe as a source of information about the Captain’s threat, I realised that her projection into the rôle of murder was unpremeditated.”

  A little later Markham rose and stretched himself.

  “Well, Vance,” he said, “your task is finished. Mine has just begun. And I need sleep.”

  Before a week had passed, Major Anthony Benson was indicted for the murder of his brother. His trial before Judge Rudolph Hansacker, as you remember, created a nation-wide sensation. The Associated Press sent columns daily to its members; and for weeks the front pages of the country’s newspapers were emblazoned with spectacular reports of the proceedings. How the District Attorney’s office won the case after a bitter struggle; how, because of the indirect character of the evidence, the verdict was for murder in the second degree; and how, after a retrial in the Courts of Appeals, Anthony Benson finally received a sentence of from twenty years to life—all these facts are a matter of official and public record.