“Now don’t quote Emerson. I inf’nitely prefer Erasmus. Y’ know, you ought to read his Praise of Folly; it would cheer you no end. That goaty old Dutch professor would never have grieved inconsolably over the destruction of Alvin Le Chauve.”
“I’m not a fruges consumere natus like you,” snapped Markham. “I was elected to this office⸺”
“Oh, quite,—‘loved I not honor more’ and all that,” Vance chimed in. “But don’t be so sens’tive. Even if the Captain has succeeded in bungling his way out of jail, you have at least five possibilities left. There’s Mrs. Platz . . . and Pfyfe . . . and Colonel Ostrander . . . and Miss Hoffman . . . and Mrs. Banning.—I say! Why don’t you arrest ’em all, one at a time, and get ’em to confess? Heath would go crazy with joy.”
Markham was in too crestfallen a mood to resent this chaffing. Indeed, Vance’s light-heartedness seemed to buoy him up.
“If you want the truth,” he said; “that’s exactly what I feel like doing. I am restrained merely by my indecision as to which one to arrest first.”
“Stout fella!” Then Vance asked: “What are you going to do with the Captain now? It’ll break his heart if you release him.”
“His heart’ll have to break, I’m afraid.” Markham reached for the telephone. “I’d better see to the formalities now.”
“Just a moment!” Vance put forth a restraining hand. “Don’t end his rapturous martyrdom just yet. Let him be happy for another day at least. I’ve a notion he may be most useful to us, pining away in his lonely cell like the prisoner of Chillon.”
Markham put down the telephone without a word. More and more, I had noticed, he was becoming inclined to accept Vance’s leadership. This attitude was not merely the result of the hopeless confusion in his mind, though his uncertainty probably influenced him to some extent; but it was due in large measure to the impression Vance had given him of knowing more than he cared to reveal.
“Have you tried to figure out just how Pfyfe and his Turtledove fit into the case?” Vance asked.