Эрл Гарднер: The Case of the Buried Clock

Della Street looked at him curiously. “What good does that do?” she asked.

Mason pulled open a drawer in his desk, took out a bunch of skeleton keys.

“It gives us an opportunity to go through the room of Martha Stevens, and do a little searching along lines that probably haven’t occurred to the police... And perhaps steal a pair of glasses.”

“That comes under the head of burglarious house-breaking?” Della Street asked.

Mason grinned. “In view of the fact that I’m employed by the owner of the house, and might be considered to have his implied permission, there’s a technical question as to the burglarious intent.”

“Would the district attorney appreciate such a technicality?”

“I’m afraid he wouldn’t. Hamilton Burger, the district attorney, or Thomas L. McNair, the brilliant trial deputy, would hardly think there was anything to differentiate the act from burglary — if I got caught.”

“Can’t you get the evidence in the regular way?”

“There isn’t time. If I can find some peg on which to hang the evidence of that clock, I’ve got to know about it tonight. And if I can’t find anything, the sooner I know that, the sooner I can start on some other approach.”

Della Street walked over to the cloak closet and took her hat down from the shelf.

“Where,” Mason asked, “do you think you’re going?”

“Along.”

Mason grinned. “Okay. Come on.”

Vincent Blane’s house went back to an ancient day of architecture when huge frame houses garnished with gables, ornamental half turrets and balconies sprawled over spacious grounds, in an era of tranquillity, financial security and happiness.

Mason surveyed the big spaciousness of the house. “I presume,” he said, “it will be one of the rooms in the back.”

“Probably on the ground floor,” Della said. “Let’s try the back door first.”

“No,” Mason said. “The back door will be locked from the inside, and have the key in it. The front door will have a nightlatch. We can work it with one of these passkeys — if we’re lucky.”

They waited until the street was deserted, then slipped up to the dark porch. Della Street held a small fountain-pen flashlight while Mason ran through his bunch of skeleton keys, looking for the right one.

“Here’s where we give another statute a compound fracture,” Della Street said. “I was afraid our law-abiding rôle was getting too irksome.”

Mason selected a key he thought might do the work, and inserted it tentatively in the lock. “We’re doing it in an emergency to clear a client who may be innocent.”

“If she’s innocent,” Della Street said spitefully, “why doesn’t she tell you the true story of what happened?”

“Because she’s afraid to. The truth looks too black. She—” The lock clicked back in the middle of the explanation. Mason opened the door, grinned and said, “Did it with the first key. That’s an omen, Della.”

The house was warm, with an aura of human occupancy. There was a comfortable, lived-in aroma clinging to the rooms, the faint after-smell of good cigars and well-seasoned cooking — the mellow feeling which clings to huge wooden houses and is almost never found in fireproof apartments.

Mason said, “Okay, we’ll head for the back of the house. There are back stairs. I remember seeing them that day when the officers came to get Milicent Hardisty.”

Della Street said, “Her room might be at the head of the back stairs. At any rate, it’ll be a good place to start.”

Within five minutes they had found it. A room on the second floor, at the extreme back of the house.

“It’s pretty hard to make a search with flashlights,” Della Street said.

Mason nodded, boldly walked over to the light switch, and clicked it on. “Neighbors,” he announced, “get suspicious when they see the beam of a flashlight playing around a room, or even impinging against the drawn shades, but they think nothing of it when lights are on... Just make certain the shades are all drawn, Della.”

Della Street went around the room pulling shades.

“All right,” Mason said, “let’s get to work.”

“What are we searching for?” Della Street asked.

Mason grinned. “That’s the beauty of it. We don’t know, we—” He broke off abruptly. “What was that, Della?”

Della Street said, “Someone tossed gravel up against the window.”

Mason frowned. “Sit tight. See what happens.”

A moment later more gravel was thrown against the window.

“Do I dare to switch out the lights, and take a peek at whoever is below?” Della asked.

Mason thought for a moment, then said, “Give it a try, Della.”

He switched out the lights. Della Street drew back the window shades, stood against the dark window, looking down into the back yard.

After a moment she moved back from the window and said with an odd catch in her voice, “It’s a man. He beckoned to me, and then moved up to the back porch. He’s standing there waiting, as though expecting me to let him in.”

For a long moment Mason deliberated this new development, then he said with sudden decision, “Okay, Della. We let him in.”

“But we can’t afford to be caught here, and—”

“We let him in,” Mason repeated. “It’s a hunch. Maybe Martha Stevens’ boy friend... Come on, Della, unlock the back door, and don’t say a word. I’ll be standing directly behind you. See what he does.”

With the aid of the flashlight, they negotiated the back stairs, crossed the kitchen. Della Street unlocked the back door, Mason switched out the flashlight, stood directly behind her. As the door opened, a slender man, wearing a reefer-type overcoat, pushed his way into the room and slipped a familiar arm around Della Street’s waist. “Cripes,” he said, “thought I wasn’t going to get away. Give us a kiss.”

Mason’s flashlight snapped on.

The man frowned at the annoyance of the flashlight, then caught a glimpse of Della Street’s face and jumped back as though he’d been shot. “Say, what’s the idea?” he demanded.

Mason kicked the back door shut and locked it. “Come on up,” he invited.

“Where to?”

“Martha’s room.”

“Say, who do you think you are?”

Mason said with every assurance of authority. “Come along, my man, I want you to answer questions about what happened the night Jack Hardisty was murdered.”

Every bit of resistance oozed out of the man as though he had been hit hard in the solar plexus. “Who... who are you?” he asked, his shoulders drooping, the coat seeming suddenly much too large.

Mason merely clasped an authoritative hand on the man’s arm. “Come on.”

Silently they climbed the stairs, entered Martha Stevens’ room. Accusingly, Mason turned to regard the frightened man. He fixed him with a steady, penetrating scrutiny that he used at times effectively in his cross-examination.

“All right,” he said, at length. “Let’s have it.”

“Where’s Martha?”

Mason said, “Martha’s having a chance to tell her story to a Los Angeles detective. You can tell yours now.”

The man fidgeted uneasily. “I haven’t done anything.”

Mason merely smiled.

The man settled down in a chair, his body seemingly trying to hide behind the heavy folds of the sagging coat.

Mason said, “We haven’t got all night... What’s your name?”

“William Smiley.”

“Where were you,” Mason asked, “when Martha Stevens broke her glasses?”

“I was right there.”

“How did they get broken?”

“This guy lunged at her.”

“You mean Hardisty?”