Page:The Benson Murder Case (1926).pdf/142

 Reluctantly Markham complied. As he stood taking aim, Vance asked me to measure the height of the gun's muzzle from the floor.

The distance was four feet and nine inches.

"Quite so," he said, rising. "Y' see, Markham, you are five feet, eleven inches tall; therefore the person who shot Benson was very nearly your own height—certainly not under five feet, ten. . . . That, too, is rather obvious, what?"

His demonstration had been simple and clear. Markham was frankly impressed; his manner had become serious. He regarded Vance for a moment with a meditative frown; then he said:

"That's all very well; but the person who fired the shot might have held the pistol relatively higher than I did."

"Not tenable," returned Vance. "I've done too much shooting myself not to know that when an expert takes delib'rate aim with a pistol at a small target, he does it with a stiff arm and with a slightly raised shoulder, so as to bring the sight on a straight line between his eye and the object at which he aims. The height at which one holds a revolver, under such conditions, pretty accurately determines his own height."

"Your argument is based on the assumption that the person who killed Benson was an expert taking deliberate aim at a small target?"

"Not an assumption, but a fact," declared Vance. "Consider: had the person not been an expert shot, he would not—at a distance of five or six feet—have selected the forehead, but a larger target—namely, the breast. And having selected the forehead, he