The Greatest Works of S. S. Van Dine (Illustrated Edition). S.S. Van DineЧитать онлайн книгу.
down at some time when you had the elevator upstairs, without your seeing him?
Boy: Sure, he could. But I didn’t take the elevator up after I’d took the Major his cracked ice until round two-thirty, when Mr. Montagu came in.
Vance: You took no one up in the elevator, then, between the time you brought Major Benson the ice and when Mr. Montagu came in at two-thirty?
Boy: Nobody.
Vance: And you didn’t leave the hall here between those hours?
Boy: No. I was sittin’ here all the time.
Vance: Then the last time you saw him was in bed at twelve-thirty?
Boy: Yes—until early in the morning when some dame20 'phoned him and said his brother had been murdered. He came down and went out about ten minutes after.
Vance (giving the boy a dollar): That’s all. But don’t you open your mouth to anyone about our being here, or you may find yourself in the lock-up—understand? . . . Now, get back to your job.
When the boy had left us, Vance turned a pleading gaze upon Markham.
“Now, old man, for the protection of society, and the higher demands of justice, and the greatest good for the greatest number, and pro bono publico, and that sort of thing, you must once more adopt a course of conduct contr’ry to your innate promptings—or whatever the phrase you used. Vulgarly put, I want to snoop through the Major’s apartment at once.”
“What for?” Markham’s tone was one of exclamatory protest. “Have you completely lost your senses? There’s no getting round the boy’s testimony. I may be weak-minded, but I know when a witness like that is telling the truth.”
“Certainly, he’s telling the truth,” agreed Vance serenely. “That’s just why I want to go up.—Come, my Markham. There’s no danger of the Major returning en surprise at this hour. . . . And”—he smiled cajolingly—“you promised me every assistance, don’t y’ know.”
Markham was vehement in his remonstrances, but Vance was equally vehement in his insistence; and a few minutes later we were trespassing, by means of a pass-key, in Major Benson’s apartment.
The only entrance was a door leading from the public hall into a narrow passageway which extended straight ahead into the living-room at the rear. On the right of this passageway, near the entrance, was a door opening into the bed-room.
Vance walked directly back into the living-room. On the right-hand wall was a fireplace and a mantel on which sat an old-fashioned mahogany clock. Near the mantel, in the far corner, stood a small table containing a silver ice-water service consisting of a pitcher and six goblets.
“There is our very convenient clock,” said Vance. “And there is the pitcher in which the boy put the ice—imitation Sheffield plate.”
Third floor of Chatham Arms Apartment in West Forty-sixth Street
Going to the window he glanced down into the paved rear court twenty-five or thirty feet below.
“The Major certainly couldn’t have escaped through the window,” he remarked.
He turned and stood a moment looking into the passageway.
“The boy could easily have seen the light go out in the bed-room, if the door was open. The reflection on the glazed white wall of the passage would have been quite brilliant.”
Then, retracing his steps, he entered the bed-room. It contained a small canopied bed facing the door, and beside it stood a night-table on which was an electric lamp. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he looked about him, and turned the lamp on and off by the socket-chain. Presently he fixed his eyes on Markham.
“You see how the Major got out without the boy’s knowing it—eh, what?”
“By levitation, I suppose,” submitted Markham.
“It amounted to that, at any rate,” replied Vance. “Deuced ingenious, too. . . . Listen, Markham:—At half past twelve the Major rang for cracked ice. The boy brought it, and when he entered he looked in through the door, which was open, and saw the Major in bed. The Major told him to put the ice in the pitcher in the living-room. The boy walked on down the passage and across the living-room to the table in the corner. The Major then called to him to learn the time by the clock on the mantel. The boy looked: it was half past twelve. The Major replied that he was not to be disturbed again, said good-night, turned off this light on this night-table, jumped out of bed—he was dressed, of course—and stepped quickly out into the public hall before the boy had time to empty the ice and return to the passage. The Major ran down the stairs and was in the street before the elevator descended. The boy, when he passed the bed-room door on his way out, could not have seen whether the Major was still in bed or not, even if he had looked in, for the room was then in darkness.—Clever, what?”
“The thing would have been possible, of course,” conceded Markham. “But your specious imaginings fail to account for his return.”
“That was the simplest part of the scheme. He prob’bly waited in a doorway across the street for some other tenant to go in. The boy said a Mr. Montagu returned about two-thirty. Then the Major slipped in when he knew the elevator had ascended, and walked up the stairs.”
Markham, smiling patiently, said nothing.
“You perceived,” continued Vance, “the pains taken by the Major to establish the date and the hour, and to impress them on the boy’s mind. Poor show—headache—unlucky day. Why unlucky? The thirteenth, to be sure. But lucky for the boy. A handful of money—all silver. Singular way of tipping, what? But a dollar bill might have been forgotten.”
A shadow clouded Markham’s face, but his voice was as indulgently impersonal as ever.
“I prefer your case against Mrs. Platz.”
“Ah, but I’ve not finished.” Vance stood up. “I have hopes of finding the weapon, don’t y’ know.”
Markham now studied him with amused incredulity.
“That, of course, would be a contributory factor. . . . You really expect to find it?”
“Without the slightest diff’culty,” Vance pleasantly assured him.
He went to the chiffonier and began opening the drawers.
“Our absent host didn’t leave the pistol at Alvin’s house; and he was far too canny to throw it away. Being a major in the late war, he’d be expected to have such a weapon: in fact, several persons may actu’lly have known he possessed one. And if he is innocent—as he fully expects us to assume—why shouldn’t it be in its usual place? Its absence, d’ ye see, would be more incriminatin’ than its presence. Also, there’s a most int’restin’ psychological factor involved. An innocent person who was afraid of being thought guilty, would have hidden it, or thrown it away—like Captain Leacock, for example. But a guilty man, wishing to create an appearance of innocence, would have put it back exactly where it was before the shooting.”
He was still searching through the chiffonier.
“Our only problem, then, is to discover the custom’ry abiding place of the Major’s gun. . . . It’s not here in the chiffonier,” he added, closing the last drawer.
He opened a kit-bag standing at the foot of the bed, and rifled its contents.
“Nor here,” he murmured indifferently. “The clothes-closet is the only other likely place.”
Going across the room, he opened the closet door. Unhurriedly he switched on the light. There, on the upper shelf, in plain view, lay an army belt with a bulging holster.
Vance lifted it with