The Greatest Murder Mysteries of S. S. Van Dine - 12 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). S.S. Van Dine
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much, I can’t say.”
“And Alvin Benson?” asked Vance.
“He was up to the same tricks. But he played in luck. He made a wad on a Columbus Motors pool a few weeks back; and he has been salting the money away in his safe—or, at least, that’s what the secretary told me.”
“And if Major Benson has possession of the key to that safe,” suggested Vance, “then it’s lucky for him his brother was shot.”
“Lucky?” retorted Stitt. “It’ll save him from State prison.”
When the accountant had gone, Markham sat like a man of stone, his eyes fixed on the wall opposite. Another straw at which he had grasped in his instinctive denial of the Major’s guilt, had been snatched from him.
The telephone rang. Slowly he took up the receiver, and as he listened I saw a look of complete resignation come into his eyes. He leaned back in his chair, like a man exhausted.
“It was Hagedorn,” he said. “That was the right gun.”
Then he drew himself up, and turned to Heath.
“The owner of that gun, Sergeant, was Major Benson.”
The detective whistled softly, and his eyes opened slightly with astonishment. But gradually his face assumed its habitual stolidity of expression.
“Well, it don’t surprise me any,” he said.
Markham rang for Swacker.
“Get Major Benson on the wire, and tell him—tell him I’m about to make an arrest, and would appreciate his coming here immediately.” His deputizing of the telephone call to Swacker was understood by all of us, I think.
Markham then summarized, for Heath’s benefit, the case against the Major. When he had finished, he rose and rearranged the chairs at the table in front of his desk.
“When Major Benson comes, Sergeant,” he said, “I am going to seat him here.” He indicated a chair directly facing his own. “I want you to sit at his right; and you’d better get Phelps—or one of the other men, if he isn’t in—to sit at his left. But you’re not to make any move until I give the signal. Then you can arrest him.”
When Heath had returned with Phelps and they had taken their seats at the table, Vance said:
“I’d advise you, Sergeant, to be on your guard. The minute the Major knows he’s in for it, he’ll go bald-headed for you.”
Heath smiled with heavy contempt.
“This isn’t the first man I’ve arrested, Mr. Vance—with many thanks for your advice. And what’s more, the Major isn’t that kind; he’s too nervy.”
“Have it your own way,” replied Vance indifferently. “But I’ve warned you. The Major is cool-headed; he’d take big chances, and he could lose his last dollar without turning a hair. But when he is finally cornered, and sees ultimate defeat, all his repressions of a lifetime, having had no safety-valve, will explode physically. When a man lives without passions or emotions or enthusiasms, there’s bound to be an outlet some time. Some men explode, and some commit suicide,—the principle is the same: it’s a matter of psychological reaction. The Major isn’t the self-destructive type,—that’s why I say he’ll blow up.”
Heath snorted.
“We may be short on psychology down here,” he rejoined, “but we know human nature pretty well.”
Vance stifled a yawn, and carelessly lit a cigarette. I noticed, however, that he pushed his chair back a little from the end of the table where he and I were sitting.
“Well, Chief,” rasped Phelps, “I guess your troubles are about over—though I sure did think that fellow Leacock was your man. . . . Who got the dope on this Major Benson?”
“Sergeant Heath and the Homicide Bureau will receive entire credit for the work,” said Markham; and added: “I’m sorry, Phelps, but the District Attorney’s office, and everyone connected with it, will be kept out of it altogether.”
“Oh, well, it’s all in a lifetime,” observed Phelps philosophically.
We sat in strained silence until the Major arrived. Markham smoked abstractedly. He glanced several times over the sheet of notations left by Stitt, and once he went to the water-cooler for a drink. Vance opened at random a law book before him, and perused with an amused smile a bribery-case decision by a Western judge. Heath and Phelps, habituated to waiting, scarcely moved.
When Major Benson entered Markham greeted him with exaggerated casualness, and busied himself with some papers in a drawer to avoid shaking hands. Heath, however, was almost jovial. He drew out the Major’s chair for him, and uttered a ponderous banality about the weather. Vance closed the law book and sat erect with his feet drawn back.
Major Benson was cordially dignified. He gave Markham a swift glance; but if he suspected anything, he showed no outward sign of it.
“Major, I want you to answer a few questions—if you care to.” Markham’s voice, though low, had in it a resonant quality.
“Anything at all,” returned the other easily.
“You own an army pistol, do you not?”
“Yes—a Colt automatic,” he replied, with a questioning lift of the eyebrows.
“When did you last clean and refill it?”
Not a muscle of the Major’s face moved.
“I don’t exactly remember,” he said. “I’ve cleaned it several times. But it hasn’t been refilled since I returned from overseas.”
“Have you lent it to anyone recently?”
“Not that I recall.”
Markham took up Stitt’s report, and looked at it a moment.
“How did you hope to satisfy your clients if suddenly called upon for their marginal securities?”
The Major’s upper lip lifted contemptuously, exposing his teeth.
“So! That was why—under the guise of friendship—you sent a man to look over my books!” I saw a red blotch of color appear on the back of his neck, and swell upward to his ears.
“It happens that I didn’t send him there for that purpose.” The accusation had cut Markham. “But I did enter your apartment this morning.”
“You’re a house-breaker, too, are you?” The man’s face was now crimson; the veins stood out on his forehead.
“And I found Mrs. Banning’s jewels. . . . How did they get there, Major?”
“It’s none of your damned business how they got there,” he said, his voice as cold and even as ever.
“Why did you tell Miss Hoffman not to mention them to me?”
“That’s none of your damned business either.”
“Is it any of my business,” asked Markham quietly, “that the bullet which killed your brother was fired from your gun?”
The Major looked at him steadily, his mouth a sneer.
“That’s the kind of double-crossing you do!—invite me here to arrest me, and then ask me questions to incriminate myself when I’m unaware of your suspicions. A fine dirty sport you are!”
Vance leaned forward.
“You fool!” His voice was very low, but it cut like a whip. “Can’t you see he’s your friend, and is asking you these questions in a last desp’rate hope that you’re not guilty?”
The Major swung round on him hotly.
“Keep out of this—you damned sissy!”
“Oh, quite,” murmured Vance.
“And