“I’m glad you got here, sir,” he said; and the worried look in his cold blue eyes seemed to relax a bit. “I’ve been waiting for you. There’s something damn fishy about this case.”
He caught sight of Vance, who had paused in the background, and his broad pugnacious features crinkled in a good-natured grin.
“Howdy, Mr. Vance. I had a sneaking idea you’d be lured into this case. What you been up to these many moons?” I could not help comparing this genuine friendliness of the Sergeant’s attitude with the hostility of his first meeting with Vance at the time of the Benson case. But much water had run under the bridge since that first encounter in the murdered Alvin’s garish living-room; and between Heath and Vance there had grown up a warm attachment, based on a mutual respect and a frank admiration for each other’s capabilities.
Vance held out his hand, and a smile played about the corners of his mouth.
“The truth is, Sergeant, I’ve been endeavorin’ to discover the lost glories of an Athenian named Menander, a dramatic rival of Philemon’s. Silly, what?”
Heath grunted disdainfully.
“Well, anyhow, if you’re as good at it as you are at discovering crooks, you’ll probably get a conviction.” It was the first compliment I had ever heard pass his lips, and it attested not only to his deep-seated admiration for Vance, but also to his own troubled and uncertain state of mind.
Markham sensed the Sergeant’s mental insecurity, and asked somewhat abruptly: “Just what seems to be the difficulty in the present case?”
“I didn’t say there was any difficulty, sir,” Heath replied. “It looks as though we had the bird who did it dead to rights. But I ain’t satisfied, and—oh, hell! Mr. Markham . . . it ain’t natural; it don’t make sense.”
“I think I understand what you mean.” Markham regarded the Sergeant appraisingly. “You’re inclined to think that Sperling’s guilty?”