The Greatest Murder Mysteries of S. S. Van Dine - 12 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). S.S. Van Dine
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(Monday, June 17; 12.30 p.m.)
When, at half past twelve, Markham, Vance and I entered the Grill of the Bankers’ Club in the Equitable Building, Colonel Ostrander was already at the bar engaged with one of Charlie’s prohibition clam-broth-and-Worcestershire-sauce cocktails. Vance had telephoned him immediately upon our leaving the District Attorney’s office, requesting him to meet us at the Club; and the Colonel had seemed eager to comply.
“Here is New York’s gayest dog,” said Vance, introducing him to Markham (I had met him before); “a sybarite and a hedonist. He sleeps till noon, and makes no appointments before tiffin-time. I had to knock him up and threaten him with your official ire to get him down town at this early hour.”
“Only too pleased to be of any service,” the Colonel assured Markham grandiloquently. “Shocking affair! Gad! I couldn’t credit it when I read it in the papers. Fact is, though—I don’t mind sayin’ it—I’ve one or two ideas on the subject. Came very near calling you up myself, sir.”
When we had taken our seats at the table Vance began interrogating him without preliminaries.
“You know all the people in Benson’s set, Colonel. Tell us something about Captain Leacock. What sort of chap is he?”
“Ha! So you have your eye on the gallant Captain?”
Colonel Ostrander pulled importantly at his white moustache. He was a large pink-faced man with bushy eyelashes and small blue eyes; and his manner and bearing were those of a pompous light-opera general.
“Not a bad idea. Might possibly have done it. Hot-headed fellow. He’s badly smitten with a Miss St. Clair—fine girl, Muriel. And Benson was smitten, too. If I’d been twenty years younger myself——”
“You’re too fascinatin’ to the ladies, as it is, Colonel,” interrupted Vance. “But tell us about the Captain.”
“Ah, yes—the Captain. Comes from Georgia originally. Served in the war—some kind of decoration. He didn’t care for Benson—disliked him, in fact. Quick-tempered, single-track-minded sort of person. Jealous, too. You know the type—a product of that tribal etiquette below the Mason and Dixon line. Puts women on a pedestal—not that they shouldn’t be put there, God bless ’em! But he’d go to jail for a lady’s honor. A shielder of womanhood. Sentimental cuss, full of chivalry; just the kind to blow out a rival’s brains:—no questions asked—pop—and it’s all over. Dangerous chap to monkey with. Benson was a confounded idiot to bother with the girl when he knew she was engaged to Leacock. Playin’ with fire. I don’t mind sayin’ I was tempted to warn him. But it was none of my affair—I had no business interferin’. Bad taste.”
“Just how well did Captain Leacock know Benson?” asked Vance. “By that I mean: how intimate were they?”
“Not intimate at all,” the Colonel replied.
He made a ponderous gesture of negation, and added:
“I should say not! Formal, in fact. They met each other here and there a good deal, though. Knowing ’em both pretty well, I’ve often had ’em to little affairs at my humble diggin’s.”
“You wouldn’t say Captain Leacock was a good gambler—level-headed and all that?”
“Gambler—huh!” The Colonel’s manner was heavily contemptuous. “Poorest I ever saw. Played poker worse than a woman. Too excitable—couldn’t keep his feelin’s to himself. Altogether too rash.”
Then, after a momentary pause:
“By George! I see what you’re aimin’ at. . . . And you’re dead right. It’s rash young puppies just like him that go about shootin’ people they don’t like.”
“The Captain, I take it, is quite different in that regard from your friend, Leander Pfyfe,” remarked Vance.
The Colonel appeared to consider.
“Yes and no,” he decided. “Pfyfe’s a cool gambler—that I’ll grant you. He once ran a private gambling place of his own down on Long Island—roulette, monte, baccarat, that sort of thing. And he popped tigers and wild boars in Africa for a while. But Pfyfe’s got his sentimental side, and he’d plunge on a pair of deuces with all the betting odds against him. Not a good scientific gambler. Flighty in his impulses, if you understand me. I don’t mind admittin’, though, that he could shoot a man and forget all about it in five minutes. But he’d need a lot of provocation. . . . He may have had it—you can’t tell.”
“Pfyfe and Benson were rather intimate, weren’t they?”
“Very—very. Always saw ’em together when Pfyfe was in New York. Known each other years. Boon companions, as they called ’em in the old days. Actually lived together before Pfyfe got married. An exacting woman, Pfyfe’s wife; makes him toe the mark. But loads of money.”
“Speaking of the ladies,” said Vance: “what was the situation between Benson and Miss St. Clair?”
“Who can tell?” asked the Colonel sententiously. “Muriel didn’t cotton to Benson—that’s sure. And yet . . . women are strange creatures——”
“Oh, no end strange,” agreed Vance, a trifle wearily. “But really, y’ know, I wasn’t prying into the lady’s personal relations with Benson. I thought you might know her mental attitude concerning him.”
“Ah—I see. Would she, in short, have been likely to take desperate measures against him? . . . Egad! That’s an idea!”
The Colonel pondered the point.
“Muriel, now, is a girl of strong character. Works hard at her art. She’s a singer, and—I don’t mind tellin’ you—a mighty fine one. She’s deep, too—deuced deep. And capable. Not afraid of taking a chance. Independent. I myself wouldn’t want to be in her path if she had it in for me. Might stick at nothing.”
He nodded his head sagely.
“Women are funny that way. Always surprisin’ you. No sense of values. The most peaceful of ’em will shoot a man in cold blood without warnin’——”
He suddenly sat up, and his little blue eyes glistened like china.
“By Gad!” He fairly blurted the ejaculation. “Muriel had dinner alone with Benson the night he was shot—the very night. Saw ’em together myself at the Marseilles.”
“You don’t say, really!” muttered Vance incuriously. “But I suppose we all must eat. . . . By the bye; how well did you yourself know Benson?”
The Colonel looked startled, but Vance’s innocuous expression seemed to reassure him.
“I? My dear fellow! I’ve known Alvin Benson fifteen years. At least fifteen—maybe longer. Showed him the sights in this old town before the lid was put on. A live town it was then. Wide open. Anything you wanted. Gad—what times we had! Those were the days of the old Haymarket. Never thought of toddlin’ home till breakfast——”
Vance again interrupted his irrelevancies.
“How intimate are your relations with Major Benson?”
“The Major? . . . That’s another matter. He and I belong to different schools. Dissimilar tastes. We never hit it off. Rarely see each other.”
He seemed to think that some explanation was necessary, for before Vance could speak again, he added:
“The Major, you know, was never one of the boys, as we say. Disapproved of gaiety. Didn’t mix with our little set. Considered me and Alvin too frivolous. Serious-minded chap.”
Vance ate in silence for a while, then asked in an off-hand way:
“Did you do much speculating through Benson and Benson?”
For the first time the Colonel appeared hesitant about answering. He ostentatiously wiped his mouth