The Philo Vance Megapack. S.S. Van Dine
a matter of form.
Heath had instigated a citywide search for the gray Cadillac, although he had little faith in its direct connection with the crime; and in this the newspapers helped considerably by the extensive advertising given the car. One curious fact developed that fired the police with the hope that the Cadillac might indeed hold some clue to the mystery. A street cleaner, having read or heard about the fishing tackle in the machine, reported the finding of two jointed fishing rods, in good condition, at the side of one of the drives in Central Park near Columbus Circle. The question was: were these rods part of the equipment Patrolman McLaughlin had seen in the Cadillac? The owner of the car might conceivably have thrown them away in his flight; but, on the other hand, they might have been lost by someone else while driving through the park. No further information was forthcoming, and on the morning of the day following the discovery of the crime the case, so far as any definite progress toward a solution was concerned, had taken no perceptible forward step.
That morning Vance had sent Currie out to buy him every available newspaper; and he had spent over an hour perusing the various accounts of the crime. It was unusual for him to glance at a newspaper, even casually, and I could not refrain from expressing my amazement at his sudden interest in a subject so entirely outside his normal routine.
“No, Van old dear,” he explained languidly, “I am not becoming sentimental or even human, as that word is erroneously used today. I can not say with Terence, ‘Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto,’ because I regard most things that are called human as decidedly alien to myself. But, y’ know, this little flurry in crime has proved rather int’restin’, or, as the magazine writers say, intriguing—beastly word!… Van, you really should read this precious interview with Sergeant Heath. He takes an entire column to say, ‘I know nothing.’ A priceless lad! I’m becoming pos’tively fond of him.”
“It may be,” I suggested, “that Heath is keeping his true knowledge from the papers as a bit of tactical diplomacy.”
“No,” Vance returned, with a sad wag of the head, “no man has so little vanity that he would delib’rately reveal himself to the world as a creature with no perceptible powers of human reasoning—as he does in all these morning journals—for the mere sake of bringing one murderer to justice. That would be martyrdom gone mad.”
“Markham, at any rate, may know or suspect something that hasn’t been revealed,” I said.
Vance pondered a moment. “That’s not impossible,” he admitted. “He has kept himself modestly in the background in all this journalistic palaver. Suppose we look into the matter more thoroughly—eh, what?”
Going to the telephone, he called the district attorney’s office, and I heard him make an appointment with Markham for lunch at the Stuyvesant Club.
“What about that Nadelmann statuette at Stieglitz’s,” I asked, remembering the reason for my presence at Vance’s that morning.
“I ain’t9 in the mood for Greek simplifications today,” he answered, turning again to his newspapers.
To say that I was surprised at his attitude is to express it mildly. In all my association with him I had never known him to forgo his enthusiasm for art in favor of any other divertisement; and heretofore anything pertaining to the law and its operations had failed to interest him. I realized, therefore that something of an unusual nature was at work in his brain and I refrained from further comment.
Markham was a little late for the appointment at the club, and Vance and I were already at our favorite corner table when he arrived.
“Well, my good Lycurgus,” Vance greeted him, “aside from the fact that several new and significant clues have been unearthed and that the public may expect important developments in the very near future, and all that sort of tosh, how are things really going?”
Markham smiled. “I see you have been reading the newspapers. What do you think of the accounts?”
“Typical, no doubt,” replied Vance. “They carefully and painstakingly omit nothing but the essentials.”
“Indeed?” Markham’s tone was jocular. “And what, may I ask, do you regard as the essentials of the case?”
“In my foolish amateur way,” said Vance, “I looked upon dear Alvin’s toupee as a rather conspicuous essential, don’t y’ know.”
“Benson, at any rate, regarded it in that light, I imagine.… Anything else?”
“Well, there was the collar and the tie on the chiffonier.”
“And,” added Markham chaffingly, “don’t overlook the false teeth in the tumbler.”
“You’re pos’tively coruscatin’!” Vance exclaimed. “Yes, they, too, were an essential of the situation. And I’ll warrant the incomp’rable Heath didn’t even notice them. But the other Aristotles present were equally sketchy in their observations.”
“You weren’t particularly impressed by the investigation yesterday, I take it,” said Markham.
“On the contrary,” Vance assured him, “I was impressed to the point of stupefaction. The whole proceedings constituted a masterpiece of absurdity. Everything relevant was sublimely ignored. There were at least a dozen points de départ, all leading in the same direction, but not one of them apparently was even noticed by any of the officiating pourparleurs. Everybody was too busy at such silly occupations as looking for cigarette ends and inspecting the ironwork at the windows. Those grilles, by the way, were rather attractive—Florentine design.”
Markham was both amused and ruffled.
“One’s pretty safe with the police, Vance,” he said. “They get there eventually.”
“I simply adore your trusting nature,” murmured Vance. “But confide in me: what do you know regarding Benson’s murderer?”
Markham hesitated. “This is, of course, in confidence,” he said at length; “but this morning, right after you phoned, one of the men I had put to work on the amatory end of Benson’s life reported that he had found the woman who left her handbag and gloves at the house that night—the initials on the handkerchief gave him the clue. And he dug up some interesting facts about her. As I suspected, she was Benson’s dinner companion that evening. She’s an actress—musical comedy, I believe. Muriel St. Clair by name.”
“Most unfortunate,” breathed Vance. “I was hoping, y’ know, your myrmidons wouldn’t discover the lady. I haven’t the pleasure of her acquaintance or I’d send her a note of commiseration.… Now, I presume, you’ll play the juge d’instruction and chivvy her most horribly, what?”
“I shall certainly question her, if that’s what you mean.”
Markham’s manner was preoccupied, and during the rest of the lunch we spoke but little.
As we sat in the club’s lounge room later having our smoke, Major Benson, who had been standing dejectedly at a window close by, caught sight of Markham and came over to us. He was a full-faced man of about fifty, with grave, kindly features and a sturdy, erect body.
He greeted Vance and me with a casual bow and turned at once to the district attorney. “Markham, I’ve been thinking things over constantly since our lunch yesterday,” he said, “and there’s one other suggestion I think I might make. There’s a man named Leander Pfyfe who was very close to Alvin; and it’s possible he could give you some helpful information. His name didn’t occur to me yesterday, for he doesn’t live in the city; he’s on Long Island somewhere—Port Washington, I think. It’s just an idea. The truth is, I can’t seem to figure out anything that makes sense in this terrible affair.”
He drew a quick, resolute breath, as if to check some involuntary sign of emotion. It was evident that the man, for all his habitual passivity of nature, was deeply moved.
“That’s a good suggestion,