Page:The Benson Murder Case (1926).pdf/82

 word is erroneously used to-day. I can not say with Terence,  ' Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto ' , because I regard most things that are called human as decidedly alien to myself. But, y' know, this little flurry in crime has proved rather int'restin', or, as the magazine writers say, intriguing—beastly word! . . . Van, you really should read this precious interview with Sergeant Heath. He takes an entire column to say 'I know nothing'. A priceless lad! I'm becoming pos'tively fond of him."

"It may be," I suggested, "that Heath is keeping his true knowledge from the papers, as a bit of tactical diplomacy."

"No," Vance returned, with a sad wag of the head; "no man has so little vanity that he would delib'rately reveal himself to the world as a creature with no perceptible powers of human reasoning—as he does in all these morning journals—for the mere sake of bringing one murderer to justice. That would be martyrdom gone mad."

"Markham, at any rate, may know or suspect something that hasn't been revealed," I said.

Vance pondered a moment.

"That's not impossible," he admitted. "He has kept himself modestly in the background in all this journalistic palaver. Suppose we look into the matter more thoroughly—eh, what?"

Going to the telephone he called the District Attorney's office, and I heard him make an appointment with Markham for lunch at the Stuyvesant Club.

"What about that Nadelmann statuette at Stieglitz's," I asked, remembering the reason for my presence at Vance's that morning.