Page:The Benson Murder Case (1926).pdf/356

 "But he had nerve: he was a rash plunger; and he certainly had enough at stake," objected Markham.

"Ah! But between a rash plunger and a bold, level-headed gambler like the Major, there is a great difference—a psychological abyss. In fact, their animating impulses are opposites. The plunger is actuated by fear and hope and desire; the cool-headed gambler is actuated by expediency and belief and judgment. The one is emotional, the other mental. The Major, unlike Pfyfe, is a born gambler, and inf'nitely self-confident. This kind of self-confidence, however, is not the same as recklessness, though superficially the two bear a close resemblance. It is based on an instinctive belief in one's own infallibility and safety. It's the reverse of what the Freudians call the inferiority complex,—a form of egomania, a variety of folie de grandeur. The Major possessed it, but it was absent from Pfyfe's composition; and as the crime indicated its possession by the perpetrator, I knew Pfyfe was innocent."

"I begin to grasp the thing in a nebulous sort of way," said Markham after a pause.

"But there were other indications, psychological and otherwise," went on Vance, "—the undress attire of the body, the toupee and teeth upstairs, the inferred familiarity of the murderer with the domestic arrangements, the fact that he had been admitted by Benson himself, and his knowledge that Benson would be at home alone at that time—all pointing to the Major as the guilty person. Another thing: the height of the murderer corresponded to the Major's height. This indication, though, was of minor importance; for had my measurements not tallied with