The Benson Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine Page A

so,” Vance rejoined placidly: “not if she herself swore to it and produced a tome of what you scions of the law term, rather pompously, incontrovertible evidence.”
    â€œAh!” There was no mistaking the sarcasm of Markham’s tone. “I am to understand then that you even regard confessions as valueless?”
    â€œYes, my dear Justinian,” the other responded with an air of complacency; “I would have you understand precisely that. Indeed, they are worse than valueless—they’re downright misleading. The fact that occasionally they may prove to be correct—like woman’s prepost’rously overrated intuition—renders them just so much more unreliable.”
    Markham grunted disdainfully.
    â€œWhy should any person confess something to his detriment unless he felt that the truth had been found out, or was likely to be found out?”
    â€œâ€™Pon my word, Markham, you astound me! Permit me to murmur,
privatissime et gratis
, into your innocent earthat there are many other presumable motives for confessing. A confession may be the result of fear, or duress, or expediency, or mother-love, or chivalry, or what the psycho-analysts call the inferiority complex, or delusions, or a mistaken sense of duty, or a perverted egotism, or sheer vanity, or any other of a hundred causes. Confessions are the most treacherous and unreliable of all forms of evidence; and even the silly and unscientific law repudiates them in murder cases unless, substantiated by other evidence.”
    â€œYou are eloquent; you wring me,” said Markham. “But if the law threw out all confessions and ignored all material clues, as you appear to advise, then society might as well close down all its courts and scrap all its jails.”
    â€œA typical
non sequitur
of legal logic,” Vance replied.
    â€œBut how would you convict the guilty, may I ask?”
    â€œThere is one infallible method of determining human guilt and responsibility,” Vance explained; “but as yet the police are as blissfully unaware of its possibilities as they are ignorant of its operations. The truth can be learned only by an analysis of the pyschological factors of a crime and an application of them to the individual. The only real clues are psychological—not material. Your truly profound art expert, for instance, does not judge and authenticate pictures by an inspection of the underpainting and a chemical analysis of the pigments, but by studying the creative personality revealed in the picture’s conception and execution. He asks himself: Does this work of art embody the qualities of form and technique and mental attitude that made up the genius—namely, the personality—of Rubens, or Michelangelo, or Veronese, or Titian, or Tintoretto, or whoever may be the artist to whom the work was tentatively credited.”
    â€œMy mind is, I fear,” Markham confessed, “still sufficiently primitive to be impressed by vulgar facts; and in the present instance—unfortunately for your most original and artistic analogy—I possess quite an array of such facts, all of which indicate that a certain young woman is the—shall we say—creator of the criminal
opus
entitled
The Murder of Alvin Benson
.”
    Vance shrugged his shoulders almost imperceptibly.
    â€œWould you mind telling me—in confidence, of course—what these facts are?”
    â€œCertainly not,” Markham acceded. “
Imprimis
: the lady was in the house at the time the shot was fired.”
    Vance affected incredibility.
    â€œEh—my word! She was actu’lly there? Most extr’ordin’ry!”
    â€œThe evidence of her presence is unassailable,” pursued Markham. “As you know, the gloves she wore at dinner, and the handbag she carried with her, were both found on the mantel in Benson’s living-room.”
    â€œOh!” murmured Vance, with a faintly