The Benson Murder Case / Дело Бенсона. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Стивен Ван Дайн
for the life of me imagine—really I can’t, don’t y’ know.”
“Why do you say she’s a brunette?” asked Markham.
“Well, if she isn’t,” Vance told him, sinking listlessly back in his chair, “then she should consult a cosmetician as to the proper way to make up. I see she uses ‘Rachel’ powder and Guerlain’s dark lip-stick. And it simply isn’t done among blondes, old dear.”
“I defer, of course, to your expert opinion,” smiled Markham. Then, to Heath: “I guess we’ll have to look for a brunette, Sergeant.”
“It’s all right with me,” agreed Heath jocularly. By this time, I think, he had entirely forgiven Vance for destroying the cigarette butt.
Chapter IV. The Housekeeper’s Story
“Now,” suggested Markham, “suppose we take a look over the house. I imagine you’ve done that pretty thoroughly already, Sergeant, but I’d like to see the layout. Anyway, I don’t want to question the housekeeper until the body has been removed.”
Heath rose.
“Very good, sir. I’d like another look myself.”
The four of us went into the hall and walked down the passageway to the rear of the house. At the extreme end, on the left, was a door leading downstairs to the basement; but it was locked and bolted.
“The basement is only used for storage now,” Heath explained; “and the door which opens from it into the street areaway is boarded up. The Platz woman sleeps upstairs—Benson lived here alone, and there’s plenty of spare room in the house—; and the kitchen is on this floor.”
He opened a door on the opposite side of the passageway, and we stepped into a small modern kitchen. Its two high windows, which gave into the paved rear yard at a height of about eight feet from the ground, were securely guarded with iron bars, and, in addition, the sashes were closed and locked. Passing through a swinging door we entered the dining-room which was directly behind the living-room. The two windows here looked upon a small stone court—really no more than a deep air-well between Benson’s house and the adjoining one—; and these also were iron-barred and locked.
We now re-entered the hallway and stood for a moment at the foot of the stairs leading above.
“You can see, Mr. Markham,” Heath pointed out, “that whoever shot Benson must have gotten in by the front door. There’s no other way he could have entered. Living alone, I guess Benson was a little touchy on the subject of burglars. The only window that wasn’t barred was the rear one in the living-room; and that was shut and locked. Anyway, it only leads into the inside court. The front windows of the living-room have that ironwork over them; so they couldn’t have been used even to shoot through, for Benson was shot from the opposite direction. … It’s pretty clear the gunman got in the front door.”
“Looks that way,” said Markham.
“And pardon me for saying so,” remarked Vance, “but Benson let him in.”
“Yes?” retorted Heath unenthusiastically. “Well, we’ll find all that out later, I hope.”
“Oh, doubtless,” Vance drily agreed.
We ascended the stairs, and entered Benson’s bed-room which was directly over the living-room. It was severely but well furnished, and in excellent order. The bed was made, showing it had not been slept in that night; and the window shades were drawn. Benson’s dinner-jacket and white piqué waistcoat were hanging over a chair. A winged collar and a black bow-tie were on the bed, where they had evidently been thrown when Benson had taken them off on returning home. A pair of low evening shoes were standing by the bench at the foot of the bed. In a glass of water on the night-table was a platinum plate of four false teeth; and a toupee of beautiful workmanship was lying on the chiffonier.
This last item aroused Vance’s special interest. He walked up to it and regarded it closely.
“Most int’restin’,” he commented. “Our departed friend seems to have worn false hair; did you know that, Markham?”
“I always suspected it,” was the indifferent answer.
Heath, who had remained standing on the threshold, seemed a little impatient.
“There’s only one other room on this floor,” he said, leading the way down the hall. “It’s also a bed-room—for guests, so the housekeeper explained.”
Markham and I looked in through the door, but Vance remained lounging against the balustrade at the head of the stairs. He was manifestly uninterested in Alvin Benson’s domestic arrangements; and when Markham and Heath and I went up to the third floor, he sauntered down into the main hallway. When at length we descended from our tour of inspection he was casually looking over the titles in Benson’s bookcase.
We had just reached the foot of the stairs when the front door opened and two men with a stretcher entered. The ambulance from the Department of Welfare had arrived to take the corpse to the Morgue; and the brutal, business-like way in which Benson’s body was covered up, lifted onto the stretcher, carried out and shoved into the wagon, made me shudder. Vance, on the other hand; after the merest fleeting glance at the two men, paid no attention to them. He had found a volume with a beautiful Humphrey-Milford binding, and was absorbed in its Roger Payne tooling and powdering.
“I think an interview with Mrs. Platz is indicated now,” said Markham; and Heath went to the foot of the stairs and gave a loud, brisk order.
Presently a grey-haired, middle-aged woman entered the living-room accompanied by a plain-clothes man smoking a large cigar. Mrs. Platz was of the simple, old-fashioned, motherly type, with a calm, benevolent countenance. She impressed me as highly capable, and as a woman given little to hysteria—an impression strengthened by her attitude of passive resignation. She seemed, however, to possess that taciturn shrewdness that is so often found among the ignorant.
“Sit down, Mrs. Platz,” Markham greeted her kindly. “I’m the District Attorney, and there are some questions I want to ask you.”
She took a straight chair by the door and waited, gazing nervously from one to the other of us. Markham’s gentle, persuasive voice, though, appeared to encourage her; and her answers became more and more fluent.
The main facts that transpired from a quarter-of-an-hour’s examination may be summed up as follows:
Mrs. Platz had been Benson’s housekeeper for four years and was the only servant employed. She lived in the house, and her room was on the third, or top, floor in the rear.
On the afternoon of the preceding day Benson had returned from his office at an unusually early hour—around four o’clock—announcing to Mrs. Platz that he would not be home for dinner that evening. He had remained in the living-room, with the hall door closed, until half past six, and had then gone upstairs to dress.
He had left the house about seven o’clock, but had not said where he was going. He had remarked casually that he would return in fairly good season, but had told Mrs. Platz she need not wait up for him—which was her custom whenever he intended bringing guests home. This was the last she had seen him alive. She had not heard him when he returned that night.
She had retired about half past ten, and, because of the heat, had left the door ajar. She had been awakened some time later by a loud detonation. It had startled her, and she had turned on the light by her bed, noting that it was just half past twelve by the small alarm-clock she used for rising. It was, in fact, the early hour which had reassured her. Benson, whenever he went out for the evening, rarely returned home before two; and this fact, coupled with the stillness of the house, had made her conclude that the noise which had aroused her had been merely the backfiring of an automobile in Forty-ninth Street. Consequently, she had dismissed the matter from her mind, and gone back to sleep.
At seven o’clock the next morning she came downstairs as usual to begin her day’s duties, and, on her way to the front door to bring in the milk and cream, had discovered Benson’s body. All the shades in the living-room