Vance adjusted himself more comfortably in his chair.
“Now for your judicial considerations. . . . First, let us assume that at a little before half past twelve on the night of the thirteenth the villain came to Benson’s house, saw the light in the living-room, tapped on the window, and was instantly admitted. . . . What, would you say, do these assumptions indicate regarding the visitor?”
“Merely that Benson was acquainted with him,” returned Markham. “But that doesn’t help us any. We can’t extend the sus. per coll. to everybody the man knew.”
“The indications go much further than that, old chap,” Vance retorted. “They show unmistakably that Benson’s murderer was a most intimate crony, or, at least, a person before whom he didn’t care how he looked. The absence of the toupee, as I once suggested to you, was a prime essential of the situation. A toupee, don’t y’ know, is the sartorial sine qua non of every middle-aged Beau Brummel afflicted with baldness. You heard Mrs. Platz on the subject. Do you think for a second that Benson, who hid his hirsute deficiency even from the grocer’s boy, would visit with a mere acquaintance thus bereft of his crowning glory? And besides being thus denuded, he was without his full complement of teeth. Moreover, he was without collar or tie, and attired in an old smoking-jacket and bed-room slippers! Picture the spectacle, my dear fellow. . . . A man does not look fascinatin’ without his collar and with his shirt-band and gold stud exposed. Thus attired he is the equiv’lent of a lady in curl-papers. . . . How many men do you think Benson knew with whom he would have sat down to a tête-à-tête in this undress condition?”
“Three or four, perhaps,” answered Markham. “But I can’t arrest them all.”
“I’m sure you would if you could. But it won’t be necess’ry.”
Vance selected another cigarette from his case, and went on:
“There are other helpful indications, y’ know. For instance, the murderer was fairly well acquainted with Benson’s domestic arrangements. He must have known that the housekeeper slept a good distance from the living-room and would not be startled by the shot if her door was closed as usual. Also, he must have known there was no one else in the house at that hour. And another thing: don’t forget that his voice was perfectly familiar to Benson. If there had been the slightest doubt about it Benson would not have let him in, in view of his natural fear of house-breakers, and with the Captain’s threat hanging over him.”
“That’s a tenable hypothesis. . . . What else?”
“The jewels, Markham—those orators of love. Have you thought of them? They were on the center-table when Benson came home that night; and they were gone in the morning. Wherefore, it seems inev’table that the murderer took ’em—eh, what? . . . And may they not have been one reason for the murderer’s coming there that night? If so, who of Benson’s most intimate personæ gratæ knew of their presence in the house? And who wanted ’em particularly?”