Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Long-Legged Models

“I don’t know how you found out about this, Mason. I haven’t told a soul.”

“Never mind how I found out,” Mason said. “You went to your office from Casselman’s apartment?”

“Not directly. I stopped to get gas and called Las Vegas. Then I went to my office. I have a little emergency apartment fixed up in connection with my office. I had previously telephoned on ahead and asked Eva Elliott to wait for me. I wanted some information on some business matters, and wanted her to give it to me personally.”

“All right,” Mason said. “You went to your office. What happened?”

“I changed my clothes and took a shower. I told Miss Elliott to get the information for me while I was taking the shower and put it on my desk. After my shower, I asked Eva Elliott what the devil she meant by not telling you where I was. One thing led to another and I fired her. You know what happened after that.”

“I’m not sure I do,” Mason said.

“Well, I went to see you, and then we went down to see Stephanie Falkner, and...”

“And you were at Stephanie’s when we left,” Mason said.

“I stayed there for a short time. I tried to let Stephanie know how much I had wished to have her in my family.”

“What about the gun?” Mason asked.

“I always carry a gun. I have a shoulder holster and my suits are tailored so I can carry the gun under my left arm without it showing. I took my gun out of the holster and gave it to her.”

“Was that gun fully loaded when you gave it to her?”

“Of course.”

“Had it been fired?”

“That gun hadn’t been fired for months, Mason. I’m telling you this, but I’m not going to tell anyone else. Before I left Las Vegas I removed the shells in the gun and put in fresh shells. I intended to get rough with Casselman and I wanted to be armed when I called for a showdown. I felt I might need my gun.”

“All right,” Mason said. “Go ahead. What happened?”

“I keep another gun in my safe in the office. I was going to see Casselman at eleven, but I didn’t tell anyone about that appointment. I wanted to be armed when I saw him, so after I left Stephanie’s apartment I returned to my office, got the other gun out of my safe, put that gun in my shoulder holster, and then went to call on Casselman.”

“That was at eleven o’clock?”

“Perhaps five or ten minutes either way.”

“All right, what happened?”

“I used my key on the front door. I went up to Casselman’s apartment. I knocked and got no answer. I tried the apartment door. It was unlocked. It had a key lock, not a night latch. I could walk right in, and I did.

“Casselman was in there, sprawled in a pool of blood. He was dead as a mackerel. I looked around. Some woman had stepped in the blood and there was the imprint of her foot and heel plate as plain as could be.

“I felt certain it was the print of Stephanie’s shoe. I had to know for sure. So I left Casselman’s apartment leaving the door unlocked.

“I went to Stephanie’s apartment. She was in bed. She got up and let me in. I didn’t tell her where I had been or what I had found. I told her I was terribly nervous and simply had to see her and talk with her for a while.”

“All right. What happened?”

“I tried to tell her something about how I felt toward her without going too far. I told her to call on me if she ever needed a friend.

“I could see the gun I had given her was under the pillow. I made an excuse to handle it very briefly. When she had her back turned, I surreptitiously opened the cylinder and sure enough one shell had been fired since I had given her the gun.

“She was wearing a bathrobe, pajamas and slippers. I saw a pair of shoes. I managed to get a good look at them. One of them was still damp. Evidently it had recently been washed. There was a metal heel plate, it matched the imprint of the bloody shoe print I’d seen in Casselman’s apartment.”

“Did you ask her about it?” Mason asked.

“No. I stayed until around midnight. I told her I wanted her to know I’d be her friend if anything ever happened and she needed a friend, and then I left. I knew I had work to do.”

Mason regarded him with level-lidded appraisal. “You went back to Casselman’s apartment?”

“Yes. I went back and took time enough to eliminate all evidence that could point to Stephanie.”

“What did you do?”

“I am kicking myself for overlooking the one real golden opportunity I had. I had that other gun of mine in my shoulder holster while I was in Stephanie’s apartment that second time. I should have simply made a substitution, then and there. But I was too shocked to think clearly.”

Mason, his face only a matter of inches from the other man’s, regarded him with steady concentration. “You’re not lying to me, Homer? You didn’t switch guns?”

“Definitely not. I tell you, Mason, that gun had been fired between the time I left it with her and the time I returned.”

“So what did you do in Casselman’s apartment?” Mason asked

“I did the only thing that could be done. The blood that outlined the print of Stephanie’s shoe had dried. At first I thought of trying to scrub it up, but I was afraid there would still be traces they could find and I was afraid of being caught in there with the murdered man. I knew I had to work fast. I put my own foot in the puddle of blood and pressed down enough to get blood all over the sole of my shoe and particularly on my heel. The blood was thick and sticky by that time. I pressed my own bloodstained shoe directly over the print that had been made.

“I decided to take the heat off Stephanie in every way I could. I left several clues that would point to me. I wanted to be a red herring. Then I left the State, intending to keep out of the way of the police here so they couldn’t question me. However, after this other matter came up, Junior was destroying your work. I felt I had to see him personally and tell him to sit tight.

“I thought I had eluded the detectives who were shadowing me in Las Vegas. Evidently, I played right into their hands. They waited until my chartered plane landed, and then they picked me up and brought me here for questioning. I refused to make any statement until you were present, and that’s the story to date.”

“All right,” Mason said, “let’s go back and face the situation. You follow my lead. I’ll do most of the talking. Don’t tell them anything unless I give you an okay. You’re going to have to take the newspaper publicity. That’s the weapon they’re holding over you to make you talk. Under the circumstances, you can’t avoid it. Come on. Let’s go.”

Mason opened the closet door, turned out the light, led the way across the secretarial office and back to Hamilton Burger’s office.

“Well?” Hamilton Burger asked.

“What do you want to know?” Mason asked.

Burger said, “Mason, I’m calling your attention to a photograph. You’ve seen a reproduction of this photograph in the press. I want you to study a glossy print of the original photograph. You can see some things on there you can’t see in the newspaper reproduction.”

Burger handed Mason the glossy eight-by-ten print showing the pool of blood on the floor and, quite plainly, the print of a foot.

“Go ahead,” Mason said. “What do you want to know?”

“Now this information,” Burger said, “we would like to have come from your client rather than from you, Mr. Mason. We want to know if that is the print of your shoe, Garvin?”

Garvin looked at Mason. Mason smiled and shook his head.

“Now wait a minute,” Hamilton Burger said, his face coloring. “We’re in this thing in good faith. Garvin at least intimated that he would tell us his story straight from the shoulder if we gave him an opportunity to get in touch with his attorney. Either you folks talk or you don’t talk!”