The Philo Vance Megapack

by S. S. Van Dine

  Markham regarded him a moment. “Have you entirely forsworn human reason as a means of reaching a decision? Here we have an admitted threat, a motive, the time, the place, the opportunity, the conduct, and the criminal agent.”

  “Those words sound strangely familiar,” Vance smiled. “Didn’t most of ’em fit the young lady also?… And you really haven’t got the criminal agent, y’ know. But it’s no doubt floating about the city somewhere. A mere detail, however.”

  “I may not have it in my hand,” Markham countered. “But with a good man on watch every minute, Leacock won’t find much opportunity of disposing of the weapon.”

  Vance shrugged indifferently.

  “In any event, go easy,” he admonished. “My humble opinion is that you’ve merely unearthed a conspiracy.”

  “Conspiracy?… Good Lord! What kind?”

  “A conspiracy of circumst’nces, don’t y’ know.”

  “I’m glad, at any rate, it hasn’t to do with international politics,” returned Markham good-naturedly.

  He glanced at the clock. “You won’t mind if I get to work? I’ve a dozen things to attend to and a couple of committees to see.… Why don’t you go across the hall and have a talk with Ben Hanlon and then come back at twelve thirty? We’ll have lunch together at the Bankers’ Club. Ben’s our greatest expert on foreign extradition and has spent most of his life chasing about the world after fugitives from justice. He’ll spin you some good yarns.”

  “How perfectly fascinatin’!” exclaimed Vance, with a yawn. But instead of taking the suggestion, he walked to the window and lit a cigarette. He stood for a while puffing at it, rolling it between his fingers, and inspecting it critically.

  “Y’know, Markham,” he observed, “everything’s going to pot these days. It’s this silly democracy. Even the nobility is degen’rating. These Régie cigarettes, now; they’ve fallen off frightfully. There was a time when no self-respecting potentate would have smoked such inferior tobacco.”

  Markham smiled. “What’s the favor you want to ask?”

  “Favor? What has that to do with the decay of Europe’s aristocracy?”

  “I’ve noticed that whenever you want to ask a favor which you consider questionable etiquette, you begin with a denunciation of royalty.”

  “Observin’ fella,” commented Vance dryly. Then he, too, smiled. “Do you mind if I invite Colonel Ostrander along to lunch?”

  Markham gave him a sharp look. “Bigsby Ostrander, you mean?… Is he the mysterious colonel you’ve been asking people about for the past two days?”

  “That’s the lad. Pompous ass and that sort of thing. Might prove a bit edifyin’, though. He’s the papa of Benson’s crowd, so to speak; knows all parties. Regular old scandalmonger.”

  “Have him along, by all means,” agreed Markham. Then he picked up the telephone. “Now I’m going to tell Ben you’re coming over for an hour or so.”

  1 As a matter of fact, the same watercolors that Vance obtained for $250 and $300 were bringing three times as much four years later.

  2 I am thinking particularly of Bronzino’s portraits of Pietro de’ Medici and Cosimo de’ Medici, in the National Gallery, and of Vasari’s medallion portrait of Lorenzo de’ Medici in the Vecchio Palazzo, Florence.

  3 Once when Vance was suffering from sinusitis, he had an X-ray photograph of his head made; and the accompanying chart described him as a “marked dolichocephalic” and a “disharmonious Nordic.” It also contained the following data:—cephalic index 75; nose, leptorhine, with an index of 48; facial angle, 85º; vertical index, 72; upper facial index, 54; interpupilary width, 67; chin, masognathous, with an index of 103; sella turcica, abnormally large.

  4 “Culture,” Vance said to me shortly after I had met him, “is polyglot; and the knowledge of many tongues is essential to an understanding of the world’s intellectual and aesthetic achievements. Especially are the Greek and Latin classics vitiated by translation.” I quote the remark here because his omnivorous reading in languages other than English, coupled with his amazingly retentive memory, had a tendency to affect his own speech. And while it may appear to some that his speech was at times pedantic, I have tried, throughout these chronicles to quote him literally, in the hope of presenting a portrait of the man as he was.

  5 The book was O. Henry’s Strictly Business, and the place at which it was being held open was, curiously enough, the story entitled “A Municipal Report.”

  6 Inspector Moran (as I learned later) had once been the president of a large upstate bank that had failed during the panic of 1907, and during the Gaynor Administration had been seriously considered for the post of Police Commissioner.

  7 Vance’s eyes were slightly bifocal. His right eye was 1.2 astigmatic, whereas his left eye was practically normal.

  8 Even the famous Elwell case, which came several years later and bore certain points of similarity to the Benson case, created no greater sensation, despite the fact that Elwell was more widely known than Benson, and the persons involved were more prominent socially. Indeed, the Benson case was referred to several times in descriptions of the Elwell case; and one anti-administration paper regretted editorially that John F.-X. Markham was no longer district attorney of New York.

  9 Vance, who had lived many years in England, frequently said “ain’t”—a contraction which is regarded there more leniently than in this country. He also pronounced ate as if it were spelled et; and I can not remember his ever using the word “stomach” or “bug,” both of which are under the social ban in England.

  10 The following conversation in which Vance explains his psychological methods of criminal analysis, is, of course, set down from memory. However, a proof of this passage was sent to him with a request that he revise and alter it in whatever manner he chose; so that, as it now stands, it describes Vance’s theory in practically his own words.

  11 I don’t know what case Vance was referring to; but there are several instances of this device on record, and writers of detective fiction have often used it. The latest instance is to be found in G. K. Chesterton’s The Innocence of Father Brown, in the story entitled “The Wrong Shape.”

  12 It was Pearson and Goring who, about twenty years ago, made an extensive investigation and tabulation of professional criminals in England, the results of which showed (1) that criminal careers began mostly between the ages of 16 and 21; (2) that over ninety percent of criminals were mentally normal; and (3) that more criminals had criminal older brothers than criminal fathers.

  13 Sir Basil Thomson, K.C.B., former Assistant Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, London, writing in the Saturday Evening Post several years after this conversation, said: “Take, for example, the proverb that murder will out, which is employed whenever one out of many thousands of undiscovered murderers is caught through a chance coincidence that captures the popular imagination. It is because murder will not out that the pleasant shock of surprise when it does out calls for a proverb to enshrine the phenomenon. The poisoner who is brought to justice has almost invariably proved to have killed other victims without exciting suspicion until he has grown careless.”

  14 In “Popular Fallacies About Crime” (Saturday Evening Post; April 21, 1923, p. 8) Sir Basil Thomson also upheld this point of view.

  15 For years the famous Concert Champêtre in the Louvre was officially attributed to Titian. Vance, however, took it upon himself to convince the Curator, M. Lepelletier, that it was a Giorgione, with the result that the painting is now credited to that artist.

  THE BENSON MURDER CASE (Part 2)

  CHAPTER 13

  THE GRAY CADILLAC

  (Monday, June 17; 12:30 P.M.)

  When, at half past twelve, Markham, Vance, and I entered the Grill of the Bankers’ Club in the Equitable Building, Colonel Ostrander was already at the bar engaged with one of Charlie’s prohibition clam-broth-and-Worcestershire-sauce cocktails. Vance had telephoned him immediately upon our leaving the district attorney’s office
, requesting him to meet us at the club; and the colonel had seemed eager to comply.

  “Here is New York’s gayest dog,” said Vance, introducing him to Markham (I had met him before); “a sybarite and a hedonist. He sleeps till noon, and makes no appointments before tiffin-time. I had to knock him up and threaten him with your official ire to get him downtown at this early hour.”

  “Only too pleased to be of any service,” the colonel assured Markham grandiloquently. “Shocking affair! Gad! I couldn’t credit it when I read it in the papers. Fact is, though—I don’t mind sayin’ it—I’ve one or two ideas on the subject. Came very near calling you up myself, sir.”

  When we had taken our seats at the table, Vance began interrogating him without preliminaries.

  “You know all the people in Benson’s set, Colonel. Tell us something about Captain Leacock. What sort of chap is he?”

  “Ha! So you have your eye on the gallant captain?”

  Colonel Ostrander pulled importantly at his white moustache. He was a large pink-faced man with bushy eyelashes and small blue eyes; and his manner and bearing were those of a pompous light-opera general.

  “Not a bad idea. Might possibly have done it. Hotheaded fellow. He’s badly smitten with a Miss St. Clair—fine girl, Muriel. And Benson was smitten, too. If I’d been twenty years younger myself—”

  “You’re too fascinatin’ to the ladies, as it is, Colonel,” interrupted Vance. “But tell us about the captain.”

  “Ah, yes—the captain. Comes from Georgia originally. Served in the war—some kind of decoration. He didn’t care for Benson—disliked him, in fact. Quick-tempered, single-track-minded sort of person. Jealous, too. You know the type—a product of that tribal etiquette below the Mason and Dixon line. Puts women on a pedestal—not that they shouldn’t be put there, God bless ’em! But he’d go to jail for a lady’s honor. A shielder of womanhood. Sentimental cuss, full of chivalry; just the kind to blow out a rival’s brains:—no questions asked—pop—and it’s all over. Dangerous chap to monkey with. Benson was a confounded idiot to bother with the girl when he knew she was engaged to Leacock. Playin’ with fire. I don’t mind sayin’ I was tempted to warn him. But it was none of my affair—I had no business interferin’. Bad taste.”

  “Just how well did Captain Leacock know Benson?” asked Vance. “By that I mean, how intimate were they?”

  “Not intimate at all,” the colonel replied.

  He made a ponderous gesture of negation, and added, “I should say not! Formal, in fact. They met each other here and there a good deal, though. Knowing ’em both pretty well, I’ve often had ’em to little affairs at my humble diggin’s.”

  “You wouldn’t say Captain Leacock was a good gambler—levelheaded and all that?”

  “Gambler—huh!” The colonel’s manner was heavily contemptuous. “Poorest I ever saw. Played poker worse than a woman. Too excitable—couldn’t keep his feelin’s to himself. Altogether too rash.”

  Then, after a momentary pause: “By George! I see what you’re aimin’ at.… And you’re dead right. It’s rash young puppies just like him that go about shootin’ people they don’t like.”

  “The captain, I take it, is quite different in that regard from your friend, Leander Pfyfe,” remarked Vance.

  The colonel appeared to consider. “Yes and no,” he decided. “Pfyfe’s a cool gambler—that I’ll grant you. He once ran a private gambling place of his own down on Long Island—roulette, monte, baccarat, that sort of thing. And he popped tigers and wild boars in Africa for a while. But Pfyfe’s got his sentimental side, and he’d plunge on a pair of deuces with all the betting odds against him. Not a good scientific gambler. Flighty in his impulses, if you understand me. I don’t mind admittin’, though, that he could shoot a man and forget all about it in five minutes. But he’d need a lot of provocation.… He may have had it—you can’t tell.”

  “Pfyfe and Benson were rather intimate, weren’t they?”

  “Very—very. Always saw ’em together when Pfyfe was in New York. Known each other years. Boon companions, as they called ’em in the old days. Actually lived together before Pfyfe got married. An exacting woman, Pfyfe’s wife; makes him toe the mark. But loads of money.”

  “Speaking of the ladies,” said Vance, “what was the situation between Benson and Miss St. Clair?”

  “Who can tell?” asked the colonel sententiously. “Muriel didn’t cotton to Benson—that’s sure. And yet…women are strange creatures—”

  “Oh, no end strange,” agreed Vance, a trifle wearily. “But really, y’ know, I wasn’t prying into the lady’s personal relations with Benson. I thought you might know her mental attitude concerning him.”

  “Ah—I see. Would she, in short, have been likely to take desperate measures against him?… Egad! That’s an idea!”

  The colonel pondered the point.

  “Muriel, now, is a girl of strong character. Works hard at her art. She’s a singer and, I don’t mind tellin’ you, a mighty fine one. She’s deep, too—deuced deep. And capable. Not afraid of taking a chance. Independent. I myself wouldn’t want to be in her path if she had it in for me. Might stick at nothing.”

  He nodded his head sagely.

  “Women are funny that way. Always surprisin’ you. No sense of values. The most peaceful of ’em will shoot a man in cold blood without warnin’—”

  He suddenly sat up, and his little blue eyes glistened like china. “By gad!” He fairly blurted the ejaculation. “Muriel had dinner alone with Benson the night he was shot—the very night. Saw ’em together myself at the Marseilles.”

  “You don’t say, really!” muttered Vance incuriously. “But I suppose we all must eat.… By the bye, how well did you yourself know Benson?”

  The colonel looked startled, but Vance’s innocuous expression seemed to reassure him.

  “I? My dear fellow! I’ve known Alvin Benson fifteen years. At least fifteen—maybe longer. Showed him the sights in this old town before the lid was put on. A live town it was then. Wide open. Anything you wanted. Gad—what times we had! Those were the days of the old Haymarket. Never thought of toddlin’ home till breakfast—”

  Vance again interrupted his irrelevancies.

  “How intimate are your relations with Major Benson?”

  “The major?… That’s another matter. He and I belong to different schools. Dissimilar tastes. We never hit it off. Rarely see each other.”

  He seemed to think that some explanation was necessary, for before Vance could speak again, he nodded, “The major, you know, was never one of the boys, as we say. Disapproved of gaiety. Didn’t mix with our little set. Considered me and Alvin too frivolous. Serious-minded chap.”

  Vance ate in silence for a while, then asked in an offhand way, “Did you do much speculating through Benson and Benson?”

  For the first time the colonel appeared hesitant about answering. He ostentatiously wiped his mouth with his napkin.

  “Oh—dabbled a bit,” he at length admitted airily. “Not very lucky, though.… We all flirted now and then with the Goddess of Chance in Benson’s office.”

  Throughout the lunch Vance kept plying him with questions along these lines; but at the end of an hour he seemed to be no nearer anything definite than when he began. Colonel Ostrander was voluble, but his fluency was vague and disorganized. He talked mainly in parentheses and insisted on elaborating his answers with rambling opinions, until it was almost impossible to extract what little information his words contained.

  Vance, however, did not appear discouraged. He dwelt on Captain Leacock’s character and seemed particularly interested in his personal relationship with Benson. Pfyfe’s gambling proclivities also occupied his attention, and he let the colonel ramble on tiresomely about the man’s gambling house on Long Island and his hunting experiences in South Africa. He asked numerous questions about Benson’s other friends but paid scant attention to the answers.

  The whole interview impressed me as po
intless, and I could not help wondering what Vance hoped to learn. Markham, I was convinced, was equally at sea. He pretended polite interest and nodded appreciatively during the colonel’s incredibly drawn-out periods; but his eyes wandered occasionally, and several times I saw him give Vance a look of reproachful inquiry. There was no doubt, however, that Colonel Ostrander knew his people.

  When we were back in the district attorney’s office, having taken leave of our garrulous guest at the subway entrance, Vance threw himself into one of the easy chairs with an air of satisfaction.

  “Most entertainin’, what? As an elim’nator of suspects the colonel has his good points.”

  “Eliminator!” retorted Markham. “It’s a good thing he’s not connected with the police; he’d have half the community jailed for shooting Benson.”

  “He is a bit bloodthirsty,” Vance admitted. “He’s determined to get somebody jailed for the crime.”

  “According to that old warrior, Benson’s coterie was a camorra of gunmen—not forgetting the women. I couldn’t help getting the impression, as he talked, that Benson was miraculously lucky not to have been riddled with bullets long ago.”

  “It’s obvious,” commented Vance, “that you overlooked the illuminatin’ flashes in the colonel’s thunder.”

  “Were there any?” Markham asked. “At any rate, I can’t say that they exactly blinded me by their brilliance.”

  “And you received no solace from his words?”

  “Only those in which he bade me a fond farewell. The parting didn’t exactly break my heart.… What the old boy said about Leacock, however, might be called a confirmatory opinion. It verified—if verification had been necessary—the case against the captain.”

  Vance smiled cynically. “Oh, to be sure. And what he said about Miss St. Clair would have verified the case against her, too—last Saturday. Also, what he said about Pfyfe would have verified the case against that Beau Sabreur, if you had happened to suspect him—eh, what?”