Vance had scarcely finished speaking when Swacker came in to say that Emery from the Homicide Bureau had been sent over by Heath, and wished, if possible, to see the District Attorney.
When the man entered I recognized him at once as the detective who had found the cigarette butts in Benson’s grate.
With a quick glance at Vance and me, he went directly to Markham.
“We’ve found the grey Cadillac, sir; and Sergeant Heath thought you might want to know about it right away. It’s in a small, one-man garage on Seventy-fourth Street near Amsterdam Avenue, and has been there three days. One of the men from the Sixty-eighth Street station located it and ’phoned in to Headquarters; and I hopped up town at once. It’s the right car—fishing-tackle and all, except for the rods; so I guess the ones found in Central Park belonged to the car after all: fell out probably. . . . It seems a fellow drove the car into the garage about noon last Friday, and gave the garage-man twenty dollars to keep his mouth shut. The man’s a wop, and says he don’t read the papers. Anyway, he came across pronto when I put the screws on.”
The detective drew out a small note-book.
“I looked up the car’s number. . . . It’s listed in the name of Leander Pfyfe, 24 Elm Boulevard, Port Washington, Long Island.”
Markham received this piece of unexpected information with a perplexed frown. He dismissed Emery almost curtly, and sat tapping thoughtfully on his desk.
Vance watched him with an amused smile.
“It’s really not a madhouse, y’ know,” he observed comfortingly. “I say, don’t the Colonel’s words bring you any cheer, now that you know Leander was hovering about the neighborhood at the time Benson was translated into the Beyond?”
“Damn your old Colonel!” snapped Markham. “What interests me at present is fitting this new development into the situation.”