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“Y’ know,” put in Vance, “I feel the same way about the Captain that you do, Major. It rather pleases me to have my impressions verified by one who has known him so long.”
“What, then, was Leacock doing in front of the house that night?” urged Markham acidulously.
“He might have been singing carols beneath Benson’s window,” suggested Vance.
Before Markham could reply he was handed a card by the head-waiter. When he glanced at it, he gave a grunt of satisfaction, and directed that the caller be sent up immediately. Then, turning back to us, he said:
“We may learn something more now. I’ve been expecting this man Higginbotham. He’s the detective that followed Leacock from my office this morning.”
Higginbotham was a wiry, pale-faced youth with fishy eyes and a shifty manner. He slouched up to the table and stood hesitantly before the District Attorney.
“Sit down and report, Higginbotham,” Markham ordered. “These gentlemen are working with me on the case.”
“I picked up the bird while he was waiting for the elevator,” the man began, eyeing Markham craftily. “He went to the subway and rode up town to Seventy-ninth and Broadway. He walked through Eightieth to Riverside Drive and went in the apartment-house at No. 94. Didn’t give his name to the boy—got right in the elevator. He stayed upstairs a coupla hours, come down at one-twenty, and hopped a taxi. I picked up another one, and followed him. He went down the Drive to Seventy-second, through Central Park, and east on Fifty-ninth. Got out at Avenue A, and walked out on the Queensborough Bridge. About half way to Blackwell’s Island he stood leaning over the rail for five or six minutes. Then he took a small package out of his pocket, and dropped it in the river.”
“What size was the package?” There was repressed eagerness in Markham’s question.
Higginbotham indicated the measurements with his hands.
“How thick was it?”
“Inch or so, maybe.”
Markham leaned forward.
“Could it have been a gun—a Colt automatic?”
“Sure, it could. Just about the right size. And it was heavy, too,—I could tell by the way he handled it, and the way it hit the water.”
“All right.” Markham was pleased. “Anything else?”
“No, sir. After he’d ditched the gun, he went home and stayed. I left him there.”
When Higginbotham had gone Markham nodded at Vance with melancholy elation.
“There’s your criminal agent. . . . What more would you like?”
“Oh, lots,” drawled Vance.
Major Benson looked up, perplexed.
“I don’t quite grasp the situation. Why did Leacock have to go to Riverside Drive for his gun?”
“I have reason to think,” said Markham, “that he took it to Miss St. Clair the day after the shooting—for safe-keeping probably. He wouldn’t have wanted it found in his place.”
“Might he not have taken it to Miss St. Clair’s before the shooting?”
“I know what you mean,” Markham answered. (I, too, recalled the Major’s assertion the day before that Miss St. Clair was more capable of shooting his brother than was the Captain.) “I had the same idea myself. But certain evidential facts have eliminated her as a suspect.”
“You’ve undoubtedly satisfied yourself on the point,” returned the Major; but his tone was dubious. “However, I can’t see Leacock as Alvin’s murderer.”
He paused, and laid a hand on the District Attorney’s arm.
“I don’t want to appear presumptuous, or unappreciative of all you’ve done; but I really wish you’d wait a bit before clapping that boy into prison. The most careful and conscientious of us are liable to error: even facts sometimes lie damnably; and I can’t help believing that the facts in this instance have deceived you.”
It was plain that Markham was touched by this request of his old friend; but his instinctive fidelity to duty helped him to resist the other’s appeal.
“I must act according to my convictions, Major,” he said firmly, but with a great kindness.
16. Obviously a reference to Tetrazzini’s performance in La Bohème at the Manhattan Opera House in 1908.
CHAPTER XV
“PFYFE—PERSONAL”
(Tuesday, June 18; 9 a.m.)
The next day—the fourth of the investigation—was an important and, in some ways, a momentous one in the solution of the problem posed by Alvin Benson’s murder. Nothing of a definite nature came to light, but a new element was injected into the case; and this new element eventually led to the guilty person.
Before we parted from Markham after our dinner with Major Benson, Vance had made the request that he be permitted to call at the District Attorney’s office the next morning. Markham, both disconcerted and impressed by his unwonted earnestness, had complied; although, I think, he would rather have made his arrangements for Captain Leacock’s arrest without the disturbing influence of the other’s protesting presence. It was evident that, after Higginbotham’s report, Markham had decided to place the Captain in custody, and to proceed with his preparation of data for the Grand Jury.
Although Vance and I arrived at the office at nine o’clock Markham was already there. As we entered the room, he picked up the telephone receiver, and asked to be put through to Sergeant Heath.
At that moment Vance did an amazing thing. He walked swiftly to the District Attorney’s desk and, snatching the receiver out of Markham’s hand, clamped it down on the hook. Then he placed the telephone to one side, and laid both hands on the other’s shoulders. Markham was too astonished and bewildered to protest; and before he could recover himself, Vance said in a low, firm voice, which was all the more impelling because of its softness:
“I’m not going to let you jail Leacock,—that’s what I came here for this morning. You’re not going to order his arrest as long as I’m in this office and can prevent it by any means whatever. There’s only one way you can accomplish this act of unmitigated folly, and that’s by summoning your policemen and having me forcibly ejected. And I advise you to call a goodly number of ’em, because I’ll give ’em the battle of their bellicose lives!”
The incredible part of this threat was that Vance meant it literally. And Markham knew he meant it.
“If you do call your henchmen,” he went on, “you’ll be the laughing stock of the city inside of a week; for, by that time, it’ll be known who really did shoot Benson. And I’ll be a popular hero and a martyr—God save the mark!—for defying the District Attorney and offering up my sweet freedom on the altar of truth and justice and that sort of thing. . . .”
The telephone rang, and Vance answered it.
“Not wanted,” he said, closing off immediately. Then he stepped back and folded his arms.
At the end of a brief silence, Markham spoke, his voice quavering with rage.
“If you don’t go at once, Vance, and let me run this office myself, I’ll have no choice but to call in those policemen.”
Vance smiled. He knew Markham would take no such extreme measures. After all, the issue between these two friends was an intellectual one; and though Vance’s actions had placed it for a moment