The Benson Murder Case

The Benson Murder Case Read Free Page A

Book: The Benson Murder Case Read Free
Author: S. S. Van Dine
Tags: Fiction, General, Mystery & Detective
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gifted with an instinctively accurate judgment of people, and his study and reading had co-ordinated and rationalised this gift to an amazing extent. He was well grounded in the academic principles of psychology and all his courses at college had either centred about this subject or been subordinated to it. While I was confining myself to a restricted area of torts and contracts, constitutional and common law, equity, evidence and pleading, Vance was reconnoitring the whole field of cultural endeavour. He had courses in the history of religions, the Greek classics, biology, civics, and political economy, philosophy anthropology, literature, theoretical and experimental psychology, and ancient and modern languages. 4 But it was, I think, his courses under Münsterberg and William James that interested him the most.
    Vance’s mind was basically philosophical—that is, philosophical in the more general sense. Being singularly free from the conventional sentimentalities and current superstitions, he could look beneath the surface of human acts into actuating impulses and motives. Moreover, he was resolute both in his avoidance of any attitude that savoured of credulousness, and in his adherence to cold, logical exactness in his mental processes.
    â€œUntil we can approach all human problems,” he once remarked, “with the clinical aloofness and cynical contempt of a doctor examining a guinea-pig strapped to a board, we have little chance of getting at the truth.”
    Vance led an active, but by no means animated social life—a concession to various family ties. But he was nota social animal—I cannot remember ever having met a man with so undeveloped a gregarious instinct—and when he went forth into the social world it was generally under compulsion. In fact, one of his “duty” affairs had occupied him on the night before that memorable June breakfast; otherwise, we would have consulted about the Cézannes the evening before; and Vance groused a good deal about it while Currie was serving our strawberries and eggs
Bénédictine
. Later on I was to give profound thanks to the God of Coincidence that the blocks had been arranged in just that pattern; for had Vance been slumbering peacefully at nine o’clock when the District Attorney called, I would probably have missed four of the most interesting and exciting years of my life; and many of New York’s shrewdest and most desperate criminals might still be at large.
    Vance and I had just settled back in our chairs for our second cup of coffee and a cigarette, when Currie, answering an impetuous ringing of the front-door bell, ushered the District Attorney into the living-room.
    â€œBy all that’s holy!” he exclaimed, raising his hands in mock astonishment. “New York’s leading
flâneur
and art connoisseur is up and about!”
    â€œAnd I am suffused with blushes at the disgrace of it,” Vance replied.
    It was evident, however, that the District Attorney was not in a jovial mood. His face suddenly sobered.
    â€œVance, a serious thing has brought me here. I’m in a great hurry, and merely dropped by to keep my promise…. The fact is, Alvin Benson has been murdered.”
    Vance lifted his eyebrows languidly.
    â€œReally, now,” he drawled. “How messy! But he no doubt deserved it. In any event, that’s no reason why you should repine. Take a chair and have a cup of Currie’s incomp’rable coffee.” And before the other could protest, he rose and pushed a bell-button.
    Markham hesitated a second or two.
    â€œOh, well. A couple of minutes won’t make any difference. But only a gulp.” And he sank into a chair facing us.

Chapter II
At the Scene of the Crime
    (
Friday
,
June
14
th
; 9
a.m.
)
    John F.-X Markham, as you remember, had been elected District Attorney of New York County on the Independent Reform Ticket during one of the city’s periodical

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