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departed—eh, what? . . . It’s a charmin’ little problem. I wouldn’t have missed it for worlds.”
“It’s uncanny,” pronounced Markham gloomily.
“It’s positively spiritualistic,” amended Vance. “It has the caressin’ odor of a séance. Really, y’ know, I’m beginning to suspect that some medium was hovering in the vicinage last night doing some rather tip-top materializations. . . . I say, Markham, could you get an indictment against an ectoplasmic emanation?”
“It wasn’t no spook that made those finger-prints,” growled Heath, with surly truculence.
Markham halted his nervous pacing and regarded Vance irritably.
“Damn it! This is rank nonsense. The man got in some way, and he got out, too. There’s something wrong somewhere. Either the maid is mistaken about some one being here when she left, or else one of those phone operators went to sleep and won’t admit it.”
“Or else one of ’em’s lying,” supplemented Heath.
Vance shook his head. “The dusky fille de chambre, I’d say, is eminently trustworthy. And if there was any doubt about any one’s having come in the front door unnoticed, the lads on the switchboard would, in the present circumstances, be only too eager to admit it. . . . No, Markham, you’ll simply have to approach this affair from the astral plane, so to speak.”
Markham grunted his distaste of Vance’s jocularity.
“That line of investigation I leave to you with your metaphysical theories and esoteric hypotheses.”
“But, consider,” protested Vance banteringly. “You’ve proved conclusively—or, rather, you’ve demonstrated legally—that no one could have entered or departed from this apartment last night; and, as you’ve often told me, a court of law must decide all matters, not in accord with the known or suspected facts, but according to the evidence; and the evidence in this case would prove a sound alibi for every corporeal being extant. And yet, it’s not exactly tenable, d’ ye see, that the lady strangled herself. If only it had been poison, what an exquisite and satisfying suicide case you’d have! . . . Most inconsiderate of her homicidal visitor not to have used arsenic instead of his hands!”
“Well, he strangled her,” pronounced Heath. “Furthermore, I’ll lay my money on the fellow who called here last night at half past nine and couldn’t get in. He’s the bird I want to talk to.”
“Indeed?” Vance produced another cigarette. “I shouldn’t say, to judge from our description of him, that his conversation would prove particularly fascinatin’.”
An ugly light came into Heath’s eyes.
“We’ve got ways,” he said through his teeth, “of getting damn interesting conversation outa people who haven’t no great reputation for repartee.”
Vance sighed. “How the Four Hundred needs you, my Sergeant!”
Markham looked at his watch.
“I’ve got pressing work at the office,” he said, “and all this talk isn’t getting us anywhere.” He put his hand on Heath’s shoulder. “I leave you to go ahead. This afternoon I’ll have these people brought down to my office for another questioning—maybe I can jog their memories a bit. . . . You’ve got some line of investigation planned?”
“The usual routine,” replied Heath drearily. “I’ll go through Odell’s papers, and I’ll have three or four of my men check up on her.”
“You’d better get after the Yellow Taxicab Company right away,” Markham suggested. “Find out, if you can, who the man was who left here at half past eleven last night, and where he went.”
“Do you imagine for one moment,” asked Vance, “that if this man knew anything about the murder, he would have stopped in the hall and asked the operator to call a taxi for him?”
“Oh, I don’t look for much in that direction.” Markham’s tone was almost listless. “But the girl may have said something to him that’ll give us a lead.”
Vance shook his head facetiously. “O welcome pure-ey’d Faith, white-handed Hope, thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings!”
Markham was in no mood for chaffing. He turned to Heath, and spoke with forced cheeriness.
“Call me up later this afternoon. I may get some new evidence out of the outfit we’ve just interviewed. . . . And,” he added, “be sure to put a man on guard here. I want this apartment kept just as it is until we see a little more light.”
“I’ll attend to that,” Heath assured him.
Markham and Vance and I went out and entered the car. A few minutes later we were winding rapidly across town through Central Park.
“Recall our recent conversazione about footprints in the snow?” asked Vance, as we emerged into Fifth Avenue and headed south.
Markham nodded abstractedly.
“As I remember,” mused Vance, “in the hypothetical case you presented there were not only footprints but a dozen or more witnesses—including a youthful prodigy—who saw a figure of some kind cross the hibernal landscape. . . . Grau, teurer Freund, ist alle Theorie! Here you are in a most beastly pother because of the disheartenin’ fact that there are neither footprints in the snow nor witnesses who saw a fleeing figure. In short, you are bereft of both direct and circumstantial evidence. . . . Sad, sad.”
He wagged his head dolefully.
“Y’ know, Markham, it appears to me that the testimony in this case constitutes conclusive legal proof that no one could have been with the deceased at the hour of her passing, and that, ergo, she is presumably alive. The strangled body of the lady is, I take it, simply an irrelevant circumstance from the standpoint of legal procedure. I know that you learned lawyers won’t admit a murder without a body; but how, in sweet Heaven’s name, do you get around a corpus delicti without a murder?”
“You’re talking nonsense,” Markham rebuked him, with a show of anger.
“Oh, quite,” agreed Vance. “And yet, it’s a distressin’ thing for a lawyer not to have footprints of some kind, isn’t it, old dear? It leaves one so up in the air.”
Suddenly Markham swung round. “You, of course, don’t need footprints, or any other kind of material clues,” he flung at Vance tauntingly. “You have powers of divination such as are denied ordinary mortals. If I remember correctly, you informed me, somewhat grandiloquently, that, knowing the nature and conditions of a crime, you could lead me infallibly to the culprit, whether he left footprints or not. You recall that boast? . . . Well, here’s a crime, and the perpetrator left no footprints coming or going. Be so good as to end my suspense by confiding in me who killed the Odell girl.”
Vance’s serenity was not ruffled by Markham’s ill-humored challenge. He sat smoking lazily for several minutes; then he leaned over and flicked his cigarette ash out of the window.
“’Pon my word, Markham,” he rejoined evenly, “I’m half inclined to look into this silly murder. I think I’ll wait, though, and see whom the nonplussed Heath turns up with his inquiries.”
Markham grunted scoffingly, and sank back on the cushions.
“Your generosity wrings me,” he said.
CHAPTER IX
THE PACK IN FULL CRY
(Tuesday, September 11; afternoon)
On our way down-town that morning we were delayed for a considerable time in the traffic congestion just north of Madison Square, and Markham anxiously looked at his watch.
“It’s