We took the subway to Seventy-second Street and walked up West End Avenue to Mrs. Paula Banning’s address. She lived in a small apartment-house just around the corner in Seventy-fifth Street. As we stood before her door, waiting for an answer to our ring, a strong odor of Chinese incense drifted out to us.
“Ah! That facilitates matters,” said Vance, sniffing. “Ladies who burn joss-sticks are invariably sentimental.”
Mrs. Banning was a tall, slightly adipose woman of indeterminate age, with straw-colored hair and a pink-and-white complexion. Her face in repose possessed a youthful and vacuous innocence; but the expression was only superficial. Her eyes, a very light blue, were hard; and a slight puffiness about her cheek-bones and beneath her chin attested to years of idle and indulgent living. She was not unattractive, however, in a vivid, flamboyant way; and her manner, when she ushered us into her over-furnished and rococo living-room, was one of easy-going good-fellowship.
When we were seated and Markham had apologized for our intrusion, Vance at once assumed the rôle of interviewer. During his opening explanatory remarks he appraised the woman carefully, as if seeking to determine the best means of approaching her for the information he wanted.
After a few minutes of verbal reconnoitring, he asked permission to smoke, and offered Mrs. Banning one of his cigarettes, which she accepted. Then he smiled at her in a spirit of appreciative geniality, and relaxed comfortably in his chair. He conveyed the impression that he was fully prepared to sympathize with anything she might tell him.
“Mr. Pfyfe strove very hard to keep you entirely out of this affair,” said Vance; “and we fully appreciate his delicacy in so doing. But certain circumst’nces connected with Mr. Benson’s death have inadvertently involved you in the case; and you can best help us and yourself—and particularly Mr. Pfyfe—by telling us what we want to know, and trusting to our discretion and understanding.”
He had emphasized Pfyfe’s name, giving it a significant intonation; and the woman had glanced down uneasily. Her apprehension was apparent, and when she looked up into Vance’s eyes, she was asking herself: How much does he know? as plainly as if she had spoken the words audibly.
“I can’t imagine what you want me to tell you,” she said, with an effort at astonishment. “You know that Andy was not in New York that night.” (Her designating of the elegant and superior Pfyfe as “Andy” sounded almost like lèse-majesté.) “He didn’t arrive in the city until nearly nine the next morning.”
“Didn’t you read in the newspapers about the grey Cadillac that was parked in front of Benson’s house?” Vance, in putting the question, imitated her own astonishment.
She smiled confidently.