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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 some time. 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 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