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

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СКАЧАТЬ the window. Laying the pistol on the sill, he took several tools from the pockets of his voluminous coat, and placed them beside the weapon. Then, adjusting a jeweller’s magnifying glass to his eye, he began what seemed an interminable series of tinkerings. He opened the plates of the stock, and drawing back the sear, took out the firing-pin. He removed the slide, unscrewed the link, and extracted the recoil spring. I thought he was going to take the weapon entirely apart, but apparently he merely wanted to let light into the barrel; for presently he held the gun to the window and placed his eye at the muzzle. He peered into the barrel for nearly five minutes, moving it slightly back and forth to catch the reflection of the sun on different points of the interior.

      At last, without a word, he slowly and painstakingly went through the operation of redintegrating the weapon. Then he lumbered back to his chair, and sat blinking heavily for several moments.

“I’ll tell you,” he said, thrusting his head forward and gazing at Markham over the tops of his steel-rimmed spectacles. “This, now, may be the right gun. I wouldn’t say for sure. But when I saw the bullet the other morning I noticed some peculiar rifling marks on it; and the rifling in this gun here looks to me as though it would match up with the marks on the bullet. I’m not certain. I’d like to look at this barrel through my helixometer.²¹”

      “But you believe it’s the gun?” insisted Markham.

      “I couldn’t say, but I think so. I might be wrong.”

      “Very good, Captain. Take it along, and call me the minute you’ve inspected it thoroughly.”

      “It’s the gun, all right,” asserted Heath, when Hagedorn had gone. “I know that bird. He wouldn’t ’ve said as much as he did if he hadn’t been sure. . . . Whose gun is it, sir?”

      “I’ll answer you presently.” Markham was still battling against the truth—withholding, even from himself, his pronouncement of the Major’s guilt until every loop-hole of doubt should be closed. “I want to hear from Stitt before I say anything. I sent him to look over Benson and Benson’s books. He’ll be here any moment.”

      After a wait of a quarter of an hour, during which time Markham attempted to busy himself with other matters, Stitt came in. He said a sombre good-morning to the District Attorney and Heath; then, catching sight of Vance, smiled appreciatively.

      “That was a good tip you gave me. You had the dope. If you’d kept Major Benson away longer, I could have done more. While he was there he was watching me every minute.”

      “I did the best I could,” sighed Vance. He turned to Markham: “Y’ know, I was wondering all through lunch yesterday how I could remove the Major from his office during Mr. Stitt’s investigation; and when we learned of Leacock’s confession, it gave me just the excuse I needed. I really didn’t want the Major here,—I simply wished to give Mr. Stitt a free hand.”

      “What did you find out?” Markham asked the accountant.

      “Plenty!” was the laconic reply.

      He took a sheet of paper from his pocket, and placed it on the desk.

      “There’s a brief report. . . . I followed Mr. Vance’s suggestion, and took a look at the stock record and the cashier’s collateral blotter, and traced the transfer receipts. I ignored the journal entries against the ledger, and concentrated on the activities of the firm heads. Major Benson, I found, has been consistently hypothecating securities transferred to him as collateral for marginal trading, and has been speculating steadily in mercantile curb stocks. He has lost heavily—how much, I can’t say.”

      “And Alvin Benson?” asked Vance.

      “He was up to the same tricks. But he played in luck. He made a wad on a Columbus Motors pool a few weeks back; and he has been salting the money away in his safe—or, at least, that’s what the secretary told me.”

      “And if Major Benson has possession of the key to that safe,” suggested Vance, “then it’s lucky for him his brother was shot.”

      “Lucky?” retorted Stitt. “It’ll save him from State prison.”

      When the accountant had gone, Markham sat like a man of stone, his eyes fixed on the wall opposite. Another straw at which he had grasped in his instinctive denial of the Major’s guilt, had been snatched from him.

      The telephone rang. Slowly he took up the receiver, and as he listened I saw a look of complete resignation come into his eyes. He leaned back in his chair, like a man exhausted.

      “It was Hagedorn,” he said. “That was the right gun.”

      Then he drew himself up, and turned to Heath.

      “The owner of that gun, Sergeant, was Major Benson.”

      The detective whistled softly, and his eyes opened slightly with astonishment. But gradually his face assumed its habitual stolidity of expression.

      “Well, it don’t surprise me any,” he said.

      Markham rang for Swacker.

      “Get Major Benson on the wire, and tell him—tell him I’m about to make an arrest, and would appreciate his coming here immediately.” His deputizing of the telephone call to Swacker was understood by all of us, I think.

      Markham then summarized, for Heath’s benefit, the case against the Major. When he had finished, he rose and rearranged the chairs at the table in front of his desk.

      “When Major Benson comes, Sergeant,” he said, “I am going to seat him here.” He indicated a chair directly facing his own. “I want you to sit at his right; and you’d better get Phelps—or one of the other men, if he isn’t in—to sit at his left. But you’re not to make any move until I give the signal. Then you can arrest him.”

      When Heath had returned with Phelps and they had taken their seats at the table, Vance said:

      “I’d advise you, Sergeant, to be on your guard. The minute the Major knows he’s in for it, he’ll go bald-headed for you.”

      Heath smiled with heavy contempt.

      “This isn’t the first man I’ve arrested, Mr. Vance—with many thanks for your advice. And what’s more, the Major isn’t that kind; he’s too nervy.”

      “Have it your own way,” replied Vance indifferently. “But I’ve warned you. The Major is cool-headed; he’d take big chances, and he could lose his last dollar without turning a hair. But when he is finally cornered, and sees ultimate defeat, all his repressions of a lifetime, having had no safety-valve, will explode physically. When a man lives without passions or emotions or enthusiasms, there’s bound to be an outlet some time. Some men explode, and some commit suicide,—the principle is the same: it’s a matter of psychological reaction. The Major isn’t the self-destructive type,—that’s why I say he’ll blow up.”

      Heath snorted.

      “We may be short on psychology down here,” he rejoined, “but we know human nature pretty well.”

      Vance stifled a yawn, and carelessly lit a cigarette. I noticed, however, that he pushed his chair back a little from the end of the table where he and I were sitting.

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