The Greatest Murder Mysteries of S. S. Van Dine - 12 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). S.S. Van Dine

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ do with the box of jewels when he went out to dinner?” he asked.

      “Nothing, sir,” she answered nervously. “He left them on the table there.”

      “Did you see them after he had gone?”

      “Yes; and I was going to put them away. But I decided I’d better not touch them.”

      “And nobody came to the door, or entered the house, after Mr. Benson left?”

      “No, sir.”

      “You’re quite sure?”

      “I’m positive, sir.”

      Vance rose, and began to pace the floor. Suddenly, just as he was passing the woman, he stopped and faced her.

      “Was your maiden name Hoffman, Mrs. Platz?”

      The thing she had been dreading had come. Her face paled, her eyes opened wide, and her lower lip drooped a little.

      Vance stood looking at her, not unkindly. Before she could regain control of herself, he said:

      “I had the pleasure of meeting your charmin’ daughter recently.”

      “My daughter. . . ?” the woman managed to stammer.

      “Miss Hoffman, y’ know—the attractive young lady with the blond hair. Mr. Benson’s secret’ry.”

      The woman sat erect, and spoke through clamped teeth.

      “She’s not my daughter.”

      “Now, now, Mrs. Platz!” Vance chided her, as if speaking to a child. “Why this foolish attempt at deception? You remember how worried you were when I accused you of having a personal interest in the lady who was here to tea with Mr. Benson? You were afraid I thought it was Miss Hoffman. . . . But why should you be anxious about her, Mrs. Platz? I’m sure she’s a very nice girl. And you really can’t blame her for preferring the name of Hoffman to that of Platz. Platz means generally a place, though it also means a crash or an explosion; and sometimes a Platz is a bun or a yeast-cake. But a Hoffman is a courtier—much nicer than being a yeast-cake, what?”

      He smiled engagingly, and his manner had a quieting effect upon her.

      “It isn’t that, sir,” she said, looking at him appealingly. “I made her take the name. In this country any girl who’s smart can get to be a lady, if she’s given a chance. And——”

      “I understand perfectly,” Vance interposed pleasantly. “Miss Hoffman is clever, and you feared that the fact of your being a housekeeper, if it became known, would stand in the way of her success. So you elim’nated yourself, as it were, for her welfare. I think it was very generous of you. . . . Your daughter lives alone?”

      “Yes, sir—in Morningside Heights. But I see her every week.” Her voice was barely audible.

      “Of course—as often as you can, I’m sure. . . . Did you take the position as Mr. Benson’s housekeeper because she was his secret’ry?”

      She looked up, a bitter expression in her eyes.

      “Yes, sir—I did. She told me the kind of man he was; and he often made her come to the house here in the evenings to do extra work.”

      “And you wanted to be here to protect her?”

      “Yes, sir—that was it.”

      “Why were you so worried the morning after the murder, when Mr. Markham here asked you if Mr. Benson kept any fire-arms around the house?”

      The woman shifted her gaze.

      “I—wasn’t worried.”

      “Yes, you were, Mrs. Platz. And I’ll tell you why. You were afraid we might think Miss Hoffman shot him.”

      “Oh, no, sir, I wasn’t!” she cried. “My girl wasn’t even here that night—I swear it!—she wasn’t here. . . .”

      She was badly shaken: the nervous tension of a week had snapped, and she looked helplessly about her.

      “Come, come, Mrs. Platz,” pleaded Vance consolingly. “No one believes for a moment that Miss Hoffman had a hand in Mr. Benson’s death.”

      The woman peered searchingly into his face. At first she was loath to believe him,—it was evident that fear had long been preying on her mind,—and it took him fully a quarter of an hour to convince her that what he had said was true. When, finally, we left the house she was in a comparatively peaceful state of mind.

      On our way to the Stuyvesant Club Markham was silent, completely engrossed with his thoughts. It was evident that the new facts educed by the interview with Mrs. Platz troubled him considerably.

      Vance sat smoking dreamily, turning his head now and then to inspect the buildings we passed. We drove east through Forty-eighth Street, and when we came abreast of the New York Bible Society House he ordered the chauffeur to stop, and insisted that we admire it.

      “Christianity,” he remarked, “has almost vindicated itself by its architecture alone. With few exceptions, the only buildings in this city that are not eyesores, are the churches and their allied structures. The American æsthetic credo is: Whatever’s big is beautiful. These depressin’ gargantuan boxes with rectangular holes in ’em, which are called skyscrapers, are worshipped by Americans simply because they’re huge. A box with forty rows of holes is twice as beautiful as a box with twenty rows. Simple formula, what? . . . Look at this little five-story affair across the street. It’s inf’nitely lovelier—and more impressive, too—than any skyscraper in the city. . . .”

      Vance referred but once to the crime during our ride to the Club, and then only indirectly.

      “Kind hearts, y’ know, Markham, are more than coronets. I’ve done a good deed to-day, and I feel pos’tively virtuous. Frau Platz will schlafen much better to-night. She has been frightfully upset about little Gretchen. She’s a doughty old soul; motherly and all that. And she couldn’t bear to think of the future Lady Vere de Vere being suspected. . . . Wonder why she worried so?” And he gave Markham a sly look.

      Nothing further was said until after dinner, which we ate in the Roof Garden. We had pushed back our chairs, and sat looking out over the tree-tops of Madison Square.

      “Now, Markham,” said Vance, “give over all prejudices, and consider the situation judiciously—as you lawyers euphemistically put it. . . . To begin with, we now know why Mrs. Platz was so worried at your question regarding fire-arms, and why she was upset by my ref’rence to her personal int’rest in Benson’s tea-companion. So, those two mysteries are elim’nated. . . .”

      “How did you find out about her relation to the girl?” interjected Markham.

      “’T was my ogling did it.” Vance gave him a reproving look. “You recall that I ‘ogled’ the young lady at our first meeting,—but I forgive you. . . . And you remember our little discussion about cranial idiosyncrasies? Miss Hoffman, I noticed at once, possessed all the physical formations of Benson’s housekeeper. She was brachycephalic; she had over-articulated cheek-bones, an orthognathous jaw, a low flat parietal structure, СКАЧАТЬ