Page:The Benson Murder Case (1926).pdf/348

 "You own an army pistol, do you not?"

"Yes—a Colt automatic," he replied, with a questioning lift of the eyebrows.

"When did you last clean and refill it?"

Not a muscle of the Major's face moved.

"I don't exactly remember," he said. "I've cleaned it several times. But it hasn't been refilled since I returned from overseas."

"Have you lent it to anyone recently?"

"Not that I recall."

Markham took up Stitt's report, and looked at it a moment.

"How did you hope to satisfy your clients if suddenly called upon for their marginal securities?"

The Major's upper lip lifted contemptuously, exposing his teeth.

"So! That was why—under the guise of friendship—you sent a man to look over my books!" I saw a red blotch of color appear on the back of his neck, and swell upward to his ears.

"It happens that I didn't send him there for that purpose." The accusation had cut Markham. "But I did enter your apartment this morning."

"You're a house-breaker, too, are you?" The man's face was now crimson; the veins stood out on his forehead.

"And I found Mrs. Banning's jewels. . . . How did they get there, Major?"

"It's none of your damned business how they got there," he said, his voice as cold and even as ever.

"Why did you tell Miss Hoffman not to mention them to me?"

"That's none of your damned business either."