The Benson Murder Case Read Online Free Page A

morning Markham appeared preoccupied and gloomy. No word had been spoken since we left the apartment; but as we turned west into Forty-eighth Street Vance asked:
    â€œWhat is the social etiquette of these early-morning murder functions, aside from removing one’s hat in the presence of the body?”
    â€œYou keep your hat on,” growled Markham.
    â€œMy word! Like a synagogue, what? Most int’restin’! Perhaps one takes off one’s shoes so as not to confuse the footprints.”
    â€œNo,” Markham told him. “The guests remain fully clothed—in which the function differs from the ordinary evening affairs of your smart set.”
    â€œMy
dear
Markham!”—Vance’s tone was one of melancholy reproof—“The horrified moralist in your nature is at work again. That remark of yours was pos’tively Epworth Leaguish.”
    Markham was too abstracted to follow up Vance’s badinage.
    â€œThere are one or two things,” he said soberly, “that I think I’d better warn you about. From the looks of it, this case is going to cause considerable noise, and there’ll be a lot of jealousy and battling for honours. I won’t be fallen upon and caressed affectionately by the police for coming in at this stage of the game; so be careful not to rub their bristles the wrong way. My assistant, who’s there now, tells me he thinks the Inspector has put Heath in charge. Heath’s a sergeant in the Homicide Bureau, and is undoubtedly convinced at the present moment that I’m taking hold in order to get the publicity.”
    â€œAren’t you his technical superior?” asked Vance.
    â€œOf course; and that makes the situation just so much more delicate…. I wish to God the Major hadn’t called me up.”
    â€œ
Eheu!
” sighed Vance. “The world is full of Heaths, Beastly nuisances.”
    â€œDon’t misunderstand me,” Markham hastened to assure him. “Heath is a good man—in fact, as good a man as we’ve got. The mere fact that he was assigned to the case shows how seriously the affair is regarded at Headquarters. There’ll be no unpleasantness about my taking charge, you understand; but I want the atmosphere to be as halcyon as possible. Heath’ll resent my bringing along you two chaps as spectators, anyway; so I beg of you, Vance, emulate the modest violet.”
    â€œI prefer the blushing rose, if you don’t mind,” Vance protested. “However, I’ll instantly give the hypersensitive Heath one of my choicest
Régie
cigarettes with the rose-petal tips.”
    â€œIf you do,” smiled Markham, “he’ll probably arrest you as a suspicious character.”
    We had drawn up abruptly in front of an old brown-stone residence on the upper side of Forty-eighth Street, near Sixth Avenue. It was a house of the better class, built on a twenty-five foot lot in a day when permanency and beauty were still matters of consideration among the city’s architects. The design was conventional, to accord with the other houses in the block, but a touch of luxury and individuality was to be seen in its decorative copings and in the stone carvings about the entrance and above the windows.
    There was a shallow paved areaway between the street line and the front elevation of the house; but this was enclosed in a high iron railing, and the only entrance was by way of the front door, which was about six feet above the street level at the top of a flight of ten broad stone stairs. Between the entrance and the right-hand wall were two spacious windows covered with heavy iron grilles.
    A considerable crowd of morbid onlookers had gathered in front of the house; and on the steps lounged several alert-looking young men whom I took to be newspaper reporters. The door of our taxicab was opened by a uniformed patrol man who saluted Markham with exaggerated respect and ostentatiously cleared a