The Greatest Murder Mysteries of S. S. Van Dine - 12 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). S.S. Van Dine
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impersonal as ever.
“I prefer your case against Mrs. Platz.”
“Ah, but I’ve not finished.” Vance stood up. “I have hopes of finding the weapon, don’t y’ know.”
Markham now studied him with amused incredulity.
“That, of course, would be a contributory factor. . . . You really expect to find it?”
“Without the slightest diff’culty,” Vance pleasantly assured him.
He went to the chiffonier and began opening the drawers.
“Our absent host didn’t leave the pistol at Alvin’s house; and he was far too canny to throw it away. Being a major in the late war, he’d be expected to have such a weapon: in fact, several persons may actu’lly have known he possessed one. And if he is innocent—as he fully expects us to assume—why shouldn’t it be in its usual place? Its absence, d’ ye see, would be more incriminatin’ than its presence. Also, there’s a most int’restin’ psychological factor involved. An innocent person who was afraid of being thought guilty, would have hidden it, or thrown it away—like Captain Leacock, for example. But a guilty man, wishing to create an appearance of innocence, would have put it back exactly where it was before the shooting.”
He was still searching through the chiffonier.
“Our only problem, then, is to discover the custom’ry abiding place of the Major’s gun. . . . It’s not here in the chiffonier,” he added, closing the last drawer.
He opened a kit-bag standing at the foot of the bed, and rifled its contents.
“Nor here,” he murmured indifferently. “The clothes-closet is the only other likely place.”
Going across the room, he opened the closet door. Unhurriedly he switched on the light. There, on the upper shelf, in plain view, lay an army belt with a bulging holster.
Vance lifted it with extreme delicacy and placed it on the bed near the window.
“There you are, old chap,” he cheerfully announced, bending over it closely. “Please take particular note that the entire belt and holster—with only the exception of the holster’s flap—is thickly coated with dust. The flap is comparatively clean, showing it has been opened recently. . . . Not conclusive, of course; but you’re so partial to clues, Markham.”
He carefully removed the pistol from the holster.
“Note, also, that the gun itself is innocent of dust. It has been recently cleaned, I surmise.”
His next act was to insert a corner of his handkerchief into the barrel. Then, withdrawing it, he held it up.
“You see—eh, what? Even the inside of the barrel is immaculate. . . . And I’ll wager all my Cézannes against an LL.B. degree, that there isn’t a cartridge missing.”
He extracted the magazine, and poured the cartridges onto the night-table, where they lay in a neat row before us. There were seven—the full number for that style of gun.
“Again, Markham, I present you with one of your revered clues. Cartridges that remain in a magazine for a long time become slightly tarnished, for the catch-plate is not air-tight. But a fresh box of cartridges is well sealed, and its contents retain their lustre much longer.”
He pointed to the first cartridge that had rolled out of the magazine.
“Observe that this one cartridge—the last to be inserted into the magazine—is a bit brighter than its fellows. The inf’rence is—you’re an adept at inf’rences, y’ know—that it is a newer cartridge, and was placed in the magazine rather recently.”
He looked straight into Markham’s eyes.
“It was placed there to take the place of the one which Captain Hagedorn is keeping.”
Markham lifted his head jerkily, as if shaking himself out of an encroaching spell of hypnosis. He smiled, but with an effort.
“I still think your case against Mrs. Platz is your masterpiece.”
“My picture of the Major is merely blocked in,” answered Vance. “The revealin’ touches are to come. But first, a brief catechism: . . . How did the Major know that brother Alvin would be home at twelve-thirty on the night of the thirteenth?—He heard Alvin invite Miss St. Clair to dinner—remember Miss Hoffman’s story of his eavesdropping?—and he also heard her say she’d unfailingly leave at midnight. When I said yesterday, after we had left Miss St. Clair, that something she told us would help convict the guilty person, I referred to her statement that midnight was her invariable hour of departure. The Major therefore knew Alvin would be home about half past twelve, and he was pretty sure that no one else would be there. In any event, he could have waited for him, what? . . . Could he have secured an immediate audience with his brother en déshabillé?—Yes. He tapped on the window: his voice was recognized beyond any shadow of doubt; and he was admitted instanter. Alvin had no sartorial modesties in front of his brother, and would have thought nothing of receiving him without his teeth and toupee. . . . Is the Major the right height?—He is. I purposely stood beside him in your office the other day; and he is almost exactly five feet, ten and a half.”
Markham sat staring silently at the disembowelled pistol. Vance had been speaking in a voice quite different from that he had used when constructing his hypothetical cases against the others; and Markham had sensed the change.
“We now come to the jewels,” Vance was saying. “I once expressed the belief, you remember, that when we found the security for Pfyfe’s note, we would put our hands on the murderer. I thought then the Major had the jewels; and after Miss Hoffman told us of his requesting her not to mention the package, I was sure of it. Alvin took them home on the afternoon of the thirteenth, and the Major undoubtedly knew it. This fact, I imagine, influenced his decision to end Alvin’s life that night. He wanted those baubles, Markham.”
He rose jauntily and stepped to the door.
“And now, it remains only to find ’em. . . . The murderer took ’em away with him; they couldn’t have left the house any other way. Therefore, they’re in this apartment. If the Major had taken them to the office, someone might have seen them; and if he had placed them in a safe deposit-box, the clerk at the bank might have remembered the episode. Moreover, the same psychology that applies to the gun, applies to the jewels. The Major has acted throughout on the assumption of his innocence; and, as a matter of fact, the trinkets were safer here than elsewhere. There’d be time enough to dispose of them when the affair blew over. . . . Come with me a moment, Markham. It’s painful, I know; and your heart’s too weak for an anæsthetic.”
Markham followed him down the passageway in a kind of daze. I felt a great sympathy for the man, for now there was no question that he knew Vance was serious in his demonstration of the Major’s guilt. Indeed, I have always felt that Markham suspected the true purpose of Vance’s request to investigate the Major’s alibi, and that his opposition was due as much to his fear of the results as to his impatience with the other’s irritating methods. Not that he would have balked ultimately at the truth, despite his long friendship for Major Benson; but he was struggling—as I see it now—with the inevitability of circumstances, hoping against hope that he had read Vance incorrectly, and that, by vigorously contesting each step of the way, he might alter the very shape of destiny itself.
Vance led the way to the living-room, and stood for five minutes inspecting the various pieces of furniture, while Markham remained in the doorway watching him through narrowed lids, his hands crowded deep into his pockets.
“We could, of course, have an expert searcher rake the apartment over inch by inch,” observed Vance. “But I don’t think it necess’ry. The Major’s a bold, cunning soul: witness his wide square forehead, the dominating stare of his globular eyes, the perpendicular spine, and the indrawn abdomen. He’s forthright in all his mental operations. Like Poe’s Minister D——, he would recognize the futility of painstakingly secreting the jewels in some obscure corner. And