And I am suffused with blushes at the disgrace of it, Vance replied.
It was evident, however, that the District Attorney was not in a jovial mood. His face suddenly sobered.
Vance, a serious thing has brought me here. Im in a great hurry, and merely dropped by to keep my promise. The fact is, Alvin Benson has been murdered.
Vance lifted his eyebrows languidly.
Really, now, he drawled. How messy! But he no doubt deserved it. In any event, thats no reason why you should repine. Take a chair and have a cup of Curries incomprable coffee. And before the other could protest, he rose and pushed a bell-button.
Markham hesitated a second or two.
Oh, well. A couple of minutes wont make any difference. But only a gulp. And he sank into a chair facing us.
Chapter II. At the Scene of the Crime
(Friday, June 14; 9 a.m.)
John F.-X. Markham, as you remember, had been elected District Attorney of New York County on the Independent Reform Ticket during one of the citys periodical reactions against Tammany Hall. He served his four years, and would probably have been elected to a second term had not the ticket been hopelessly split by the political juggling of his opponents. He was an indefatigable worker, and projected the District Attorneys office into all manner of criminal and civil investigations. Being utterly incorruptible, he not only aroused the fervid admiration of his constituents, but produced an almost unprecedented sense of security in those who had opposed him on partisan lines.
He had been in office only a few months when one of the newspapers referred to him as the Watch Dog; and the sobriquet clung to him until the end of his administration. Indeed, his record as a successful prosecutor during the four years of his incumbency was such a remarkable one that even to-day it is not infrequently referred to in legal and political discussions.
Markham was a tall, strongly-built man in the middle forties, with a clean-shaven, somewhat youthful face which belied his uniformly grey hair. He was not handsome according to conventional standards, but he had an unmistakable air of distinction, and was possessed of an amount of social culture rarely found in our latter-day political office-holders. Withal he was a man of brusque and vindictive temperament; but his brusqueness was an incrustation on a solid foundation of good-breeding, notas is usually the casethe roughness of substructure showing through an inadequately superimposed crust of gentility.
When his nature was relieved of the stress of duty and care, he was the most gracious of men. But early in my acquaintance with him I had seen his attitude of cordiality suddenly displaced by one of grim authority. It was as if a new personalityhard, indomitable, symbolic of eternal justicehad in that moment been born in Markhams body. I was to witness this transformation many times before our association ended. In fact, this very morning, as he sat opposite to me in Vances living-room, there was more than a hint of it in the aggressive sternness of his expression; and I knew that he was deeply troubled over Alvin Bensons murder.
He swallowed his coffee rapidly, and was setting down the cup, when Vance, who had been watching him with quizzical amusement, remarked:
I say; why this sad preoccupation over the passing of one Benson? You werent, by any chance, the murderer, what?
Markham ignored Vances levity.
Im on my way to Bensons. Do you care to come along? You asked for the experience, and I dropped in to keep my promise.
I then recalled that several weeks before at the Stuyvesant Club, when the subject of the prevalent homicides in New York was being discussed, Vance had expressed a desire to accompany the District Attorney on one of his investigations; and that Markham had promised to take him on his next important case. Vances interest in the psychology of human behavior had prompted the desire, and his friendship with Markham, which had been of long standing, had made the request possible.
You remember everything, dont you? Vance replied lazily. An admirable gift, even if an uncomfortable one. He glanced at the clock on the mantel: it lacked a few minutes of nine. But what an indecent hour! Suppose someone should see me.
Markham moved forward impatiently in his chair.
Well, if you think the gratification of your curiosity would compensate you for the disgrace of being seen in public at nine oclock in the morning, youll have to hurry. I certainly wont take you in dressing-gown and bed-room slippers. And I most certainly wont wait over five minutes for you to get dressed.
Why the haste, old dear? Vance asked, yawning. The chaps dead, dont y know; he cant possibly run away.
Come, get a move on, you orchid, the other urged. This affair is no joke. Its damned serious; and from the looks of it, its going to cause an ungodly scandal.What are you going to do?
Do? I shall humbly follow the great avenger of the common people, returned Vance, rising and making an obsequious bow.
He rang for Currie, and ordered his clothes brought to him.
Im attending a levee which Mr. Markham is holding over a corpse, and I want something rather spiffy. Is it warm enough for a silk suit? And a lavender tie, by all means.
I trust you wont also wear your green carnation, grumbled Markham.
Tut! Tut! Vance chided him. Youve been reading Mr. Hichens. Such heresy in a district attorney! Anyway, you know full well I never wear boutonnières[24]. The decoration has fallen into disrepute. The only remaining devotees of the practice are roués and saxophone players. But tell me about the departed Benson.
Vance was now dressing, with Curries assistance, at a rate of speed I had rarely seen him display in such matters. Beneath his bantering pose I recognized the true eagerness of the man for a new experience and one that promised such dramatic possibilities for his alert and observing mind.
You knew Alvin Benson casually, I believe, the District Attorney said. Well, early this morning his housekeeper phoned the local precinct station that she had found him shot through the head, fully dressed and sitting in his favorite chair in his living-room. The message, of course, was put through at once to the Telegraph Bureau at Headquarters, and my assistant on duty notified me immediately. I was tempted to let the case follow the regular police routine. But half an hour later Major Benson, Alvins brother, phoned me and asked me, as a special favor, to take charge. Ive known the Major for twenty years, and I couldnt very well refuse. So I took a hurried breakfast and started for Bensons house. He lived in West Forty-eighth Street; and as I passed your corner I remembered your request, and dropped by to see if you cared to go along.
Most considrate, murmured Vance, adjusting his four-in-hand before a small polychrome mirror by the door. Then he turned to me. Come, Van. Well all gaze upon the defunct Benson. Im sure some of Markhams sleuths will unearth the fact that I detested the bounder and accuse me of the crime; and Ill feel safer, dont y know, with legal talent at hand. No objectionseh, what, Markham?
Certainly not, the other agreed readily, although I felt that he would rather not have had me along. But I was too deeply interested in the affair to offer any ceremonious objections, and I followed Vance and Markham downstairs.
As we settled back in the waiting taxicab and started up Madison Avenue, I marvelled a little, as I had often done before, at the strange friendship of these two dissimilar men beside meMarkham forthright, conventional, a trifle austere, and over-serious in his dealings with life; and Vance casual, mercurial, debonair, and whimsically cynical in the face of the grimmest realities. And yet this temperamental diversity seemed, in some wise, the very cornerstone of their friendship: it was as if each saw in the other some unattainable field of experience and sensation that had been denied himself. Markham represented to Vance the solid and immutable realism of life, whereas Vance symbolized for Markham the care-free, exotic, gypsy spirit of intellectual adventure. Their intimacy, in fact, was even greater than showed on the surface; and despite Markhams exaggerated deprecations of the others attitudes and opinions, I believe he respected Vances intelligence more profoundly than that of any other man he knew.