[38] as we laymen say.”
“You don’t think much of Heath’s capacity, I know,”—Markham’s voice was patient—“but he’s a clever man, and one that it’s very easy to underestimate.”
“I dare say,” murmured Vance. “Anyway, I’m deuced grateful to you, and all that, for letting me behold the solemn proceedings. I’ve been vastly amused, even if not uplifted. Your official Aesculapius rather appealed to me, y’ know—such a brisk, unemotional chap, and utterly unimpressed with the corpse. He really should have taken up crime in a serious way, instead of studying medicine.”
Markham lapsed into gloomy silence, and sat looking out of the window in troubled meditation until we reached Vance’s house.
“I don’t like the looks of things,” he remarked, as we drew up to the curb. “I have a curious feeling about this case.”
Vance regarded him a moment from the corner of his eye.
“See here, Markham,” he said with unwonted seriousness; “haven’t you any idea who shot Benson?”
Markham forced a faint smile.
“I wish I had. Crimes of wilful murder are not so easily solved. And this case strikes me as a particularly complex one.”
“Fancy, now!” said Vance, as he stepped out of the machine. “And I thought it extr’ordin’rily simple.”
Chapter V. Gathering Information
(Saturday, June 15; forenoon)
You will remember the sensation caused by Alvin Benson’s murder. It was one of those crimes that appeal irresistibly to the popular imagination. Mystery is the basis of all romance, and about the Benson case there hung an impenetrable aura of mystery. It was many days before any definite light was shed on the circumstances surrounding the shooting; but numerous ignes fatui[39] arose to beguile the public’s imagination, and wild speculations were heard on all sides.
Alvin Benson, while not a romantic figure in any respect, had been well-known; and his personality had been a colorful and spectacular one. He had been a member of New York’s wealthy bohemian social set—an avid sportsman, a rash gambler, and professional man-about-town; and his life, led on the borderland of the demimonde, had contained many high-lights. His exploits in the night clubs and cabarets had long supplied the subject-matter for exaggerated stories and comments in the various local papers and magazines which batten on Broadway’s scandalmongers.