Page:The Benson Murder Case (1926).pdf/336



On leaving the apartment, Markham took with him the pistol and the case of jewels. In the drug store at the corner of Sixth Avenue he telephoned Heath to meet him immediately at the office, and to bring Captain Hagedorn. He also telephoned Stitt, the public accountant, to report as soon as possible.

"You observe, I trust," said Vance, when we were in the taxicab headed for the Criminal Courts Building, "the great advantage of my methods over yours. When one knows at the outset who committed a crime, one isn't misled by appearances. Without that foreknowledge, one is apt to be deceived by a clever alibi, for example. . . . I asked you to secure the alibis because, knowing the Major was guilty, I thought he'd have prepared a good one."

"But why ask for all of them? And why waste time trying to disprove Colonel Ostrander's?"

"What chance would I have had of securing the Major's alibi, if I had not injected his name surreptitiously, as it were, into a list of other names? . . . And had I asked you to check the Major's alibi first, you'd have refused. I chose the Colonel's alibi to start with because it seemed to offer a loop