It was nearly five o’clock when we reached the Criminal Courts Building. Swacker had lit the old bronze-and-china chandelier of Markham’s private office, and an atmosphere of eerie gloom pervaded the room.
“Not a nice family, Markham old dear,” sighed Vance, lying back in one of the deep leather-upholstered chairs. “Decidedly not a nice family. A family run to seed, its old vigor vitiated. If the heredit’ry sires of the contempor’ry Greenes could rise from their sepulchres and look in upon their present progeny, my word! what a jolly good shock they’d have! . . . Funny thing how these old families degenerate under the environment of ease and idleness. There are the Wittelsbachs, and the Romanoffs, and the Julian-Claudian house, and the Abbassid dynasty—all examples of phyletic disintegration. . . . And it’s the same with nations, don’t y’ know. Luxury and unrestrained indulgence are corruptin’ influences. Look at Rome under the soldier emperors, and Assyria under Sardanapalus, and Egypt under the later Ramessids, and the Vandal African empire under Gelimer. It’s very distressin’.”
“Your erudite observations might be highly absorbing to the social historian,” grumbled Markham, with an undisguised show of irritability; “but I can’t say they’re particularly edifying, or even relevant, in the present circumstances.”
“I wouldn’t be too positive on that point,” Vance returned easily. “In fact, I submit, for your earnest and profound consideration, the temperaments and internal relationships of the Greene clan, as pointers upon the dark road of the present investigation. . . . Really, y’ know”—he assumed a humorsome tone—“it’s most unfortunate that you and the Sergeant are so obsessed with the idea of social justice and that sort of thing; for society would be much better off if such families as the Greenes were exterminated. Still, it’s a fascinatin’ problem—most fascinatin’.”
“I regret I can’t share your enthusiasm for it.” Markham spoke with asperity. “The crime strikes me as sordid and commonplace. And if it hadn’t been for your interference I’d have sent Chester Greene on his way this morning with some tactful platitudes. But you had to intercede, with your cryptic innuendoes and mysterious head-waggings; and I foolishly let myself be drawn into it. Well, I trust you had an enjoyable afternoon. As for myself, I have three hours’ accumulated work before me.”
His complaint was an obvious suggestion that we take ourselves off; but Vance showed no intention of going.
“Oh, I sha’n’t depart just yet,” he announced, with a bantering smile. “I couldn’t bring myself to leave you in your present state of grievous error. You need guidance, Markham; and I’ve quite made up my mind to pour out my flutterin’ heart to you and the Sergeant.”
Markham frowned. He understood Vance so well that he knew the other’s levity was only superficial—that, indeed, it cloaked some particularly serious purpose. And the experience of a long, intimate friendship had taught him that Vance’s actions—however unreasonable they might appear—were never the result of an idle whim.
“Very well,” he acquiesced. “But I’d be grateful for an economy of words.”
Vance sighed mournfully.