Markham was silent and preoccupied during the trip. Nor did Vance make any comment until we were comfortably relaxed in the easy chairs of the Stuyvesant Club’s lounge-room. Then, lighting a cigarette lazily, he said:
“You grasp the subtle mental processes leading up to my prophecy about Miss Hoffman’s second coming—eh, what, Markham? Y’ see, I knew friend Alvin had not paid that forged check without security, and I also knew that the tiff must have been about the security, for Pfyfe was not really worrying about being jailed by his alter ego. I rather suspect Pfyfe was trying to get the security back before paying off the note, and was told there was ‘nothing doing’. . . . Moreover, Little Goldylocks may be a nice girl and all that; but it isn’t in the feminine temp’rament to sit next door to an altercation between two such rakes and not listen attentively. I shouldn’t care, y’ know, to have to decipher the typing she said she did during the episode. I was quite sure she heard more than she told; and I asked myself: Why this curtailment? The only logical answer was: Because the Major had suggested it. And since the gnädiges Fräulein was a forthright Germanic soul, with an inbred streak of selfish and cautious honesty, I ventured the prognostication that as soon as she was out from under the benev’lent jurisdiction of her tutor, she would tell us the rest, in order to save her own skin if the matter should come up later. . . . Not so cryptic when explained, what?”
“That’s all very well,” conceded Markham petulantly. “But where does it get us?”
“I shouldn’t say that the forward movement was entirely imperceptible.”
Vance smoked a while impassively.
“You realize, I trust,” he said, “that the mysterious package contained the security.”
“One might form such a conclusion,” agreed Markham. “But the fact doesn’t dumbfound me—if that’s what you’re hoping for.”
“And, of course,” pursued Vance easily, “your legal mind, trained in the technique of ratiocination, has already identified it as the box of jewels that Mrs. Platz espied on Benson’s table that fatal afternoon.”
Markham sat up suddenly; then sank back with a shrug.
“Even if it was,” he said, “I don’t see how that helps us. Unless the Major knew the package had nothing to do with the case, he would not have suggested to his secretary that she omit telling us about it.”