“That’s a good suggestion, Major,” Markham said, making a notation on the back of a letter. “I’ll get after it immediately.”
Vance, who, during this brief interchange, had been gazing unconcernedly out of the window, turned and addressed himself to the Major.
“How about Colonel Ostrander? I’ve seen him several times in the company of your brother.”
Major Benson made a slight gesture of deprecation.
“Only an acquaintance. He’d be of no value.”
Then he turned to Markham.
“I don’t imagine it’s time even to hope that you’ve run across anything.”
Markham took his cigar from his mouth, and turning it about in his fingers, contemplated it thoughtfully.
“I wouldn’t say that,” he remarked, after a moment. “I’ve managed to find out whom your brother dined with Thursday night; and I know that this person returned home with him shortly after midnight.” He paused as if deliberating the wisdom of saying more. Then: “The fact is, I don’t need a great deal more evidence than I’ve got already to go before the Grand Jury and ask for an indictment.”
A look of surprised admiration flashed in the Major’s sombre face.
“Thank God for that, Markham!” he said. Then, setting his heavy jaw, he placed his hand on the District Attorney’s shoulder. “Go the limit—for my sake!” he urged. “If you want me for anything, I’ll be here at the Club till late.”
With this he turned and walked from the room.
“It seems a bit cold-blooded to bother the Major with questions so soon after his brother’s death,” commented Markham. “Still, the world has got to go on.”
Vance stifled a yawn.
“Why—in Heaven’s name?” he murmured listlessly.
Chapter VI. Vance Offers an Opinion
We sat for a while smoking in silence, Vance gazing lazily out into Madison Square, Markham frowning deeply at the faded oil portrait of old Peter Stuyvesant that hung over the fireplace.
Presently Vance turned and contemplated the District Attorney with a faintly sardonic smile.
“I say, Markham,” he drawled; “it has always been a source of amazement to me how easily you investigators of crime are misled by what you call clues. You find a footprint, or a parked automobile, or a monogrammed handkerchief, and then dash off on a wild chase with your eternal Ecce signum![46] ’Pon my word, it’s as if you chaps were all under the spell of shillin’ shockers. Won’t you ever learn that crimes can’t be solved by deductions based merely on material clues and circumst’ntial evidence?”
I think Markham was as much surprised as I at this sudden criticism; yet we both knew Vance well enough to realize that, despite his placid and almost flippant tone, there was a serious purpose behind his words.
“Would you advocate ignoring all the tangible evidence of a crime?” asked Markham, a bit patronizingly.
“Most emphatically,” Vance declared calmly. “It’s not only worthless but dangerous. … The great trouble with you chaps, d’ ye see, is that you approach every crime with a fixed and unshakable assumption that the criminal is either half-witted or a colossal bungler. I say, has it never by any chance occurred to you that if a detective could see a clue, the criminal would also have seen it, and would either have concealed it or disguised it, if he had not wanted it found? And have you never paused to consider that anyone clever enough to plan and execute a successful crime these days, is, ipso facto[47], clever enough to manufacture whatever clues suit his purpose? Your detective seems wholly unwilling to admit that the surface appearance of a crime may be delib’rately deceptive, or that the clues may have been planted for the def’nite purpose of misleading him.”
“I’m afraid,” Markham pointed out, with an air of indulgent irony, “that we’d convict very few criminals if we were to ignore all indicatory evidence, cogent circumstances and irresistible inferences. … As a rule, you know, crimes are not witnessed by outsiders.”
“That’s your fundamental error, don’t y’ know,” Vance observed impassively. “Every crime is witnessed by outsiders, just as is every work of art. The fact that no one sees the criminal, or the artist, actu’lly at work, is wholly incons’quential. The modern investigator of crime would doubtless refuse to believe that Rubens painted the Descent from the Cross[48] in the Cathedral at Antwerp if there was sufficient circumst’ntial evidence to indicate that he had been away on diplomatic business, for instance, at the time it was painted. And yet, my dear fellow, such a conclusion would be prepost’rous. Even if the inf’rences to the contr’ry were so irresistible as to be legally overpowering, the picture itself would prove conclusively that Rubens did paint it. Why? For the simple reason, d’ ye see, that no one but Rubens could have painted it. It bears the indelible imprint of his personality and genius—and his alone.”
“I’m not an aesthetician,” Markham reminded him, a trifle testily. “I’m merely a practical lawyer, and when it comes to determining the authorship of a crime, I prefer tangible evidence to metaphysical hypotheses.”
“Your pref’rence, my dear fellow,” Vance returned blandly, “will inev’tably involve you in all manner of embarrassing errors.”
He slowly lit another cigarette, and blew a wreath of smoke toward the ceiling.
“Consider, for example, your conclusions in the present murder case,” he went on, in his emotionless drawl. “You are laboring under the grave misconception that you know the person who prob’bly killed the unspeakable Benson. You admitted as much to the Major; and you told him you had nearly enough evidence to ask for an indictment. No doubt, you do possess a number of what the learned Solons of to-day regard as convincing clues. But the truth is, don’t y’ know, you haven’t your eye on the guilty person at all. You’re about to bedevil some poor girl who had nothing whatever to do with the crime.”
Markham swung about sharply.
“So!” he retorted. “I’m about to bedevil an innocent person, eh? Since my assistants and I are the only ones who happen to know what evidence we hold against her, perhaps you will explain by what occult process you acquired your knowledge of this person’s innocence.”
“It’s quite simple, y’ know,” Vance replied, with a quizzical twitch of the lips. “You haven’t your eye on the murderer for the reason that the person who committed this particular crime was sufficiently shrewd and perspicacious to see to it that no evidence which you or the police were likely to find, would even remotely indicate his guilt.”
He had spoken with the easy assurance of one who enunciates an obvious fact—a fact which permits of no argument.
Markham gave a disdainful laugh.
“No law-breaker,” he asserted oracularly, “is shrewd enough to see all contingencies. Even the most trivial event has so many intimately related and serrated points of contact with other events which precede and follow, that it is a known fact that every criminal—however long and carefully he may plan—leaves some loose end to his preparations, which in the end betrays him.”
“A known fact?” Vance repeated. “No, my dear fellow—merely a conventional superstition, based on the childish idea of an implacable, avenging Nemesis. I can see how this esoteric notion of the inev’tability of divine punishment would appeal to the popular imagination, like fortune-telling and Ouija boards, don’t y’ know; but—my word!—it desolates me to think that you, old chap, would give credence to such mystical moonshine.”
“Don’t let it spoil your entire day,” said Markham acridly.
48
Descent from the Cross – «Снятие с креста», центральная панель триптиха фламандского художника Питера Пауля Рубенса, 1610–1614.