“Tell Ben to send me in a man at once.”[11]
Swacker went out through the corridor door, and a minute or two later a suave, rotund man, dressed immaculately and wearing a pince-nez, entered, and stood before Markham with an ingratiating smile.
“Morning, Tracy.” Markham’s tone was pleasant but curt. “Here’s a list of four witnesses in connection with the Odell case that I want brought down here at once—the two phone operators, the maid, and the janitor. You’ll find them at 184 West 71st Street: Sergeant Heath is holding them there.”
“Right, sir.” Tracy took the memorandum, and with a priggish, but by no means inelegant, bow went out.
During the next hour Markham plunged into the general work that had accumulated during the forenoon, and I was amazed at the man’s tremendous vitality and efficiency. He disposed of as many important matters as would have occupied the ordinary business man for an entire day. Swacker bobbed in and out with electric energy, and various clerks appeared at the touch of a buzzer, took their orders, and were gone with breathless rapidity. Vance, who had sought diversion in a tome of famous arson trials, looked up admiringly from time to time, and shook his head in mild reproach at such spirited activity.
It was just half past two when Swacker announced the return of Tracy with the four witnesses; and for two hours Markham questioned and cross-questioned them with a thoroughness and an insight that even I, as a lawyer, had rarely seen equalled. His interrogation of the two phone operators was quite different from his casual questioning of them earlier in the day; and if there had been a single relevant omission in their former testimony, it would certainly have been caught now by Markham’s gruelling catechism. But when, at last, they were told they could go, no new information had been brought to light. Their stories now stood firmly grounded: no one—with the exception of the girl herself and her escort, and the disappointed visitor at half past nine—had entered the front door and passed down the hall to the Odell apartment from seven o’clock on; and no one had passed out that way. The janitor reiterated stubbornly that he had bolted the side door a little after six, and no amount of wheedling or aggression could shake his dogged certainty on that point. Amy Gibson, the maid, could add nothing to her former testimony. Markham’s intensive examination of her produced only repetitions of what she had already told him.
Not one new possibility—not one new suggestion—was brought out. In fact, the two hours’ interlocutory proceedings resulted only in closing up every loophole in a seemingly incredible situation. When, at half past four, Markham sat back in his chair with a weary sigh, the chance of unearthing a promising means of approach to the astonishing problem seemed more remote than ever.
Vance closed his treatise on arson, and threw away his cigarette.
“I tell you, Markham old chap,” he grinned, “this case requires umbilicular contemplation, not routine. Why not call in an Egyptian seeress with a flair for crystal-gazing?”
“If this sort of thing goes on much longer,” returned Markham dispiritedly, “I’ll be tempted to take your advice.”