Markham smiled broadly. “You’d be worse than the police in the matter of supplying me legal evidence, I fear.”
“I, at least, wouldn’t procure evidence against some unsuspecting person whose boots had been appropriated by the real culprit,” retorted Vance. “And, y’ know, Markham, as long as you pin your faith to footprints you’ll inevitably arrest just those persons whom the actual criminals want you to—namely, persons who have had nothing to do with the criminal conditions you’re about to investigate.”
He became suddenly serious.
“See here, old man; there are some shrewd intelligences at present allied with what the theologians call the powers of darkness. The surface appearances of many of these crimes that are worrying you are palpably deceptive. Personally, I don’t put much stock in the theory that a malevolent gang of cut-throats have organized an American camorra, and made the silly night clubs their headquarters. The idea is too melodramatic. It smacks too much of the gaudy journalistic imagination: it’s too Eugène Sue-ish. Crime isn’t a mass instinct except during war-time, and then it’s merely an obscene sport. Crime, d’ ye see, is a personal and individual business. One doesn’t make up a partie carrée[15] for a murder as one does for a bridge game. … Markham, old dear, don’t let this romantic criminological idea lead you astray. And don’t scrutinize the figurative footprints in the snow too closely. They’ll confuse you most horribly—you’re far too trustin’ and literal for this wicked world. I warn you that no clever criminal is going to leave his own footprints for your tape-measure and calipers.”
He sighed deeply, and gave Markham a look of bantering commiseration.
“And have you paused to consider that your first case may even be devoid of footprints? … Alas! What, then, will you do?”
“I could overcome that difficulty by taking you along with me,” suggested Markham, with a touch of irony. “How would you like to accompany me on the next important case that breaks?”
“I am ravished by the idea,” said Vance.
Two days later the front pages of our metropolitan press carried glaring headlines telling of the murder of Margaret Odell.
(Tuesday, September 11; 8.30 a.m.)
It was barely half past eight on that momentous morning of September the 11th when Markham brought word to us of the event.