The Philo Vance Megapack

by S. S. Van Dine

  “But we already had a line on Pfyfe.”

  “Oh, I don’t mean material clues. I wanted to learn about Pfyfe’s nature—his psychology, y’ know—particularly his personality as a gambler. Y’ see, it was the crime of a calculating, cold-blooded gambler; and no one but a man of that particular type could possibly have committed it.”

  Markham apparently was not interested just now in Vance’s theories.

  “Did you believe the major,” he asked, “when he said his brother had lied to him about the presence of the jewels in the safe?”

  “The wily Alvin prob’bly never mentioned ’em to Anthony,” rejoined Vance. “An ear at the door during one of Pfyfe’s visits was, I fancy, his source of information.… And speaking of the major’s eavesdropping, it was that which suggested to me a possible motive for the crime. Your man Stitt, I hope, will clarify that point.”

  “According to your theory, the crime was rather hastily conceived.” Markham’s statement was in reality a question.

  “The details of its execution were hastily conceived,” corrected Vance. “The major undoubtedly had been contemplating for some time elim’nating his brother. Just how or when he was to do it he hadn’t decided. He may have thought out and rejected a dozen plans. Then, on the thirteenth, came the opportunity: all the conditions adjusted themselves to his purpose. He heard Miss St. Clair’s promise to go to dinner; and he therefore knew that Alvin would prob’bly be home alone at twelve thirty, and that, if he were done away with at that hour, suspicion would fall on Captain Leacock. He saw Alvin take home the jewels—another prov’dential circumst’nce. The propitious moment for which he had been waiting, d’ ye see, was at hand. All that remained was to establish an alibi and work out a modus operandi. How he did this, I’ve already eluc’dated.”

  Markham sat thinking for several minutes. At last he lifted his head.

  “You’ve about convinced me of his guilt,” he admitted. “But damn it, man! I’ve got to prove it; and there’s not much actual legal evidence.”

  Vance gave a slight shrug.

  “I’m not int’rested in your stupid courts and your silly rules of evidence. But, since I’ve convinced you, you can’t charge me with not having met your challenge, don’t y’ know.”

  “I suppose not,” Markham assented gloomily.

  Slowly the muscles about his mouth tightened.

  “You’ve done your share, Vance, I’ll carry on.”

  Heath and Captain Hagedorn were waiting when we arrived at the office, and Markham greeted them in his customary reserved, matter-of-fact way. By now he had himself well in hand and he went about the task before him with the somber forcefulness that characterized him in the discharge of all his duties.

  “I think we at last have the right man, Sergeant,” he said. “Sit down, and I’ll go over the matter with you in a moment. There are one or two things I want to attend to first.”

  He handed Major Benson’s pistol to the firearms expert.

  “Look that gun over, Captain, and tell me if there’s any way of identifying it as the weapon that killed Benson.”

  Hagedorn moved ponderously to the window. Laying the pistol on the sill, he took several tools from the pockets of his voluminous coat and placed them beside the weapon. Then, adjusting a jeweler’s magnifying glass to his eye, he began what seemed an interminable series of tinkerings. He opened the plates of the stock and, drawing back the sear, took out the firing pin. He removed the slide, unscrewed the link, and extracted the recoil spring. I thought he was going to take the weapon entirely apart, but apparently he merely wanted to let light into the barrel; for presently he held the gun to the window and placed his eye at the muzzle. He peered into the barrel for nearly five minutes, moving it slightly back and forth to catch the reflection of the sun on different points of the interior.

  At last, without a word, he slowly and painstakingly went through the operation of redintegrating the weapon. Then he lumbered back to his chair and sat blinking heavily for several moments.

  “I’ll tell you,” he said, thrusting his head forward and gazing at Markham over the tops of his steel-rimmed spectacles. “This, now, may be the right gun. I wouldn’t say for sure. But when I saw the bullet the other morning, I noticed some peculiar rifling marks on it; and the rifling in this gun here looks to me as though it would match up with the marks on the bullet. I’m not certain. I’d like to look at this barrel through my helixometer.”21

  “But you believe it’s the gun?” insisted Markham.

  “I couldn’t say, but I think so. I might be wrong.”

  “Very good, Captain. Take it along and call me the minute you’ve inspected it thoroughly.”

  “It’s the gun, all right,” asserted Heath, when Hagedorn had gone. “I know that bird. He wouldn’t’ve said as much as he did if he hadn’t been sure.… Whose gun is it, sir?”

  “I’ll answer you presently.” Markham was still battling against the truth—withholding, even from himself, his pronouncement of the major’s guilt until every loophole of doubt should be closed. “I want to hear from Stitt before I say anything. I sent him to look over Benson and Benson’s books. He’ll be here any moment.”

  After a wait of a quarter of an hour, during which time Markham attempted to busy himself with other matters, Stitt came in. He said a somber good-morning to the district attorney and Heath; then, catching sight of Vance, smiled appreciatively.

  “That was a good tip you gave me. You had the dope. If you’d kept Major Benson away longer, I could have done more. While he was there he was watching me every minute.”

  “I did the best I could,” sighed Vance. He turned to Markham. “Y’ know, I was wondering all through lunch yesterday how I could remove the major from his office during Mr. Stitt’s investigation; and when we learned of Leacock’s confession, it gave me just the excuse I needed. I really didn’t want the major here—I simply wished to give Mr. Stitt a free hand.”

  “What did you find out?” Markham asked the accountant.

  “Plenty!” was the laconic reply.

  He took a sheet of paper from his pocket and placed it on the desk.

  “There’s a brief report.… I followed Mr. Vance’s suggestion and took a look at the stock record and the cashier’s collateral blotter, and traced the transfer receipts. I ignored the journal entries against the ledger, and concentrated on the activities of the firm heads. Major Benson, I found, has been consistently hypothecating securities transferred to him as collateral for marginal trading, and has been speculating steadily in mercantile curb stocks. He has lost heavily—how much, I can’t say.”

  “And Alvin Benson?” asked Vance.

  “He was up to the same tricks. But he played in luck. He made a wad on a Columbus Motors pool a few weeks back; and he has been salting the money away in his safe—or, at least, that’s what the secretary told me.”

  “And if Major Benson has possession of the key to that safe,” suggested Vance, “then it’s lucky for him his brother was shot.”

  “Lucky?” retorted Stitt. “It’ll save him from state prison.”

  When the accountant had gone, Markham sat like a man of stone, his eyes fixed on the wall opposite. Another straw at which he had grasped in his instinctive denial of the major’s guilt had been snatched from him.

  The telephone rang. Slowly he took up the receiver, and as he listened I saw a look of complete resignation come into his eyes. He leaned back in his chair, like a man exhausted.

  “It was Hagedorn,” he said. “That was the right gun.”

  Then he drew himself up and turned to Heath. “The owner of that gun, Sergeant, was Major Benson.”

  The detective whistled softly and his eyes opened slightly with astonishment. But gradually his face assumed its habitual stolidity of expression. “Well, it don’t surprise me any,” he said.

  Markham rang for Swacker.

  “Get Major Benson on the wire and tell him—tell him I’m about to make an
arrest and would appreciate his coming here immediately.” His deputizing of the telephone call to Swacker was understood by all of us, I think.

  Markham then summarized, for Heath’s benefit, the case against the major. When he had finished, he rose and rearranged the chairs at the table in front of his desk.

  “When Major Benson comes, Sergeant,” he said, “I am going to seat him here.” He indicated a chair directly facing his own. “I want you to sit at his right; and you’d better get Phelps—or one of the other men, if he isn’t in—to sit at his left. But you’re not to make any move until I give the signal. Then you can arrest him.”

  When Heath had returned with Phelps and they had taken their seats at the table, Vance said, “I’d advise you, Sergeant, to be on your guard. The minute the major knows he’s in for it, he’ll go bald-headed for you.”

  Heath smiled with heavy contempt.

  “This isn’t the first man I’ve arrested, Mr. Vance—with many thanks for your advice. And what’s more, the major isn’t that kind; he’s too nervy.”

  “Have it your own way,” replied Vance indifferently. “But I’ve warned you. The major is cool-headed; he’d take big chances and he could lose his last dollar without turning a hair. But when he is finally cornered and sees ultimate defeat, all his repressions of a lifetime, having had no safety valve, will explode physically. When a man lives without passions or emotions or enthusiasms, there’s bound to be an outlet sometime. Some men explode and some commit suicide—the principle is the same: it’s a matter of psychological reaction. The major isn’t the self-destructive type—that’s why I say he’ll blow up.”

  Heath snorted. “We may be short on psychology down here,” he rejoined, “but we know human nature pretty well.”

  Vance stifled a yawn and carelessly lit a cigarette. I noticed, however, that he pushed his chair back a little from the end of the table where he and I were sitting.

  “Well, Chief,” rasped Phelps, “I guess your troubles are about over—though I sure did think that fellow Leacock was your man.… Who got the dope on this Major Benson?”

  “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 color 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 housebreaker, 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 melee, 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 c
hair, Markham put his hand on Vance’s arm.

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

  CHAPTER 25

  VANCE EXPLAINS HIS METHODS

  (Thursday, June 20; 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 today,” Markham observed. “And if we had, they’d probably not be detectives.”

  “But even should they have yearnings toward 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 Vance. “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.”