In response to a nod from his Chief, he held open the door, and a dozen or more newspaper men came trooping in.
“No questions, please, this morning,” Markham begged pleasantly. “It’s too early in the game. But I’ll tell you all I know. . . . I agree with Sergeant Heath that the Odell murder was the work of a professional criminal—the same who broke into Arnheim’s house on Park Avenue last summer.”
Briefly he told of Inspector Brenner’s findings in connection with the chisel.
“We’ve made no arrests, but one may be expected in the very near future. In fact, the police have the case well in hand, but are going carefully in order to avoid any chance of an acquittal. We’ve already recovered some of the missing jewellery. . . .”
He talked to the reporters for five minutes or so, but he made no mention of the testimony of the maid or the phone operators, and carefully avoided the mention of any names.
When we were again alone, Vance chuckled admiringly.
“A masterly evasion, my dear Markham! Legal training has its advantages—decidedly it has its advantages. . . . ‘We’ve recovered some of the missing jewellery!’ Sweet wingèd words! Not an untruth—oh, no!—but how deceivin’! Really, y’ know, I must devote more time to the caressin’ art of suggestio falsi and suppressio veri. You should be crowned with an anadem of myrtle.”
“Leaving all that to one side,” Markham rejoined impatiently, “suppose you tell me, now that Heath’s gone, what was in your mind when you applied your verbal voodooism to Skeel. What was all the conjurer-talk about dark closets, and alarums, and pressing thumbs, and peering through keyholes?”
“Well, now, I didn’t think my little chit-chat was so cryptic,” answered Vance. “The recherché Tony was undoubtedly ambuscaded à la sourdine in the clothes-press at some time during the fatal evening; and I was merely striving, in my amateurish way, to ascertain the exact hour of his concealment.”
“And did you?”