Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Crooked Candle

Resistance oozed out of Burwell as air from a punctured tire. “My letters!” he exclaimed.

“ Your letters?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you said you hardly knew the woman.”

“Mr. Mason, where did you get those letters?”

“Does that need to enter into it?”

“Yes.”

“They were given to me,” Mason said.

“By whom?”

“It might have been the police,” Mason said, “or it might have been a newspaper reporter, or it might have been a client. I can’t tell you where I received them. But I can tell you what I’m going to do with them.”

“What?”

“I’m going to give them to the police.”

“Mr. Mason, please don’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“The newspapers would get hold of them.”

“I can’t help that. I have no right to keep evidence from the police.”

“Evidence!”

“Yes.”

“Of what?”

“Evidence connecting you with the murder of Fred Milfield.”

“Mr. Mason, are you stark, staring crazy?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What possible connection do those letters have...?”

Mason said, “Listen, Burwell, why don’t you come clean? Mrs. Milfield was on her way to San Francisco to join you. She was going to run away with you. She was stopped by a friend. She...”

“It was a friend who stopped her!” Burwell exclaimed.

Mason nodded.

“No. That wasn’t it. She just changed her mind. She told me over the telephone that she’d decided not to come. She... Mr. Mason, this isn’t another trap. You’re not trying to trap me, are you?”

Mason indicated the telephone, “Ring her up and ask her.”

Burwell started toward the telephone, then changed his mind. “No, I... No, I won’t do that... not now.”

“All right,” Mason said, “do it later then. She started to go to San Francisco. A friend of her husband made her change her mind, and so you came down here. And Fred Milfield had found out about the whole affair. He was aboard Burbank’s yacht. You were just young enough and crazy enough to go down there to see him. You two men had it out, and he made a swing at you. You hit him, and...”

“Stop!” Burwell exclaimed. “You have absolutely no grounds for making any such statement. Fred Milfield was nothing in my life. I had no reason to see him. I didn’t want to see him. He was a hard, tyrannical husband. He was absolutely callous to the emotional needs of his wife. He left her completely starved for affection while he devoted himself to the everlasting pursuit of the almighty dollar. He wasn’t worthy to touch the hem of her garment. He wasn’t...”

Mason said, “You’ve been reading the old-fashioned romances. Why don’t you get yourself up to date?”

There was misery in Burwell’s eyes.

“All right,” Mason said, taking sympathy on the man’s quite evident distress, “you came to Los Angeles. You got in touch with Mrs. Milfield. What did she say?”

“She told me...”

“Yes?” Mason asked.

“Well,” Burwell blurted, “she told me her husband bad been killed, and that I mustn’t try to see her because the police would become suspicious.”

“And what time was this?” Mason asked.

“Shortly after I got off the train.”

Mason veiled his glance at Della Street, said rather unconcernedly, “You came down on the Lark, didn’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“Did you call her from the depot or from the hotel?”

“From my hotel.”

“About what time?”

“Oh, somewhere right around ten o’clock.”

“I see,” Mason said very carelessly. “And she told you her husband had been murdered?”

“Not then. I couldn’t get her on the phone when I first called.”

Mason slipped the letters back into his pocket. “You got her later?”

“Yes. When I finally got hold of her, she told me about her husband’s death.”

“Told you he had been murdered?”

“Well, not in so many words. She said there’d been an unfortunate accident and he had been killed, and that the police were investigating.”

“What did she tell you to do?”

“Told me to keep away from the place, to make no effort to see her, and to take the next train back to San Francisco.”

“And you didn’t do that?”

“No.”

“You came down on the Lark?” Mason asked.

“That’s right.”

“And as I understand your story, you called Mrs. Milfield as soon as you got to town?”

“I tried to call her, yes. She didn’t answer until shortly after noon.”

“Shortly after noon, eh,” Mason said somewhat musingly, “You don’t think it was as late as one o’clock?”

“Oh, no. It was right around noon sometime.”

Mason glanced at Della Street and said very casually, “That was the first, you had heard about it?”

“Yes.”

“And she told you some of the details?”

“She said the body had been found on Mr. Burbank’s yacht, and that I wasn’t to say anything about it.”

“You didn’t go back to San Francisco?”

“Certainly not. I want to be here. I want to be near her in case there’s anything I can do to help, in case...”

“There isn’t,” Mason interrupted.

“Oh, I know! My reason tells me that’s the case; but I can’t bring myself to leave.”

“You keep hoping you may have a chance to see her, don’t you?”

“Well, yes.”

“Did you,” Mason asked, “know Roger Burbank?”

“No.”

Mason said, “I may get in touch with you again. In the meantime, if I were you, I’d make no attempt to communicate with Mrs. Milfield in any way.”

“Mr. Mason, can’t you tell me how she is? Can’t you tell me how she’s looking — how she’s standing up? This is a terrific strain. This is...”

Mason interrupted him to say, “Do you get talkative when you get drunk?”

Burwell laughed nervously, “No. I get dizzy and go to sleep.” There was something almost apologetic in the statement.

Mason held the door open for Della Street. “My advice to you then,” he said, his voice firm to the point of command, “is to start in without delay and get yourself quite drunk. Good night.”

The Skinner Hills lay in rolling contours under a warm California sun. The early spring grass gave them a soft green texture that made the land seem fertile and prosperous.

A month or so later, when the dry season had become definitely established, the sun would toast the hills to a golden brown. Then the beauty spots would be the massive live oaks which would furnish relief from the glare of the eye-aching sunlight. Now those trees which dotted the green landscape were mere incidentals. The eye feasted upon the rolling green slopes.

Mason stopped his car on a turn in the road at the summit of the grade, and said to Della Street, “Well, here you are.”

“How beautiful!” she exclaimed.

“It is,” Mason agreed.

“Where are all these Karakul sheep?”

Mason took binoculars from the glove compartment, opened the car door and got out to stand in the warm, late, spring sunlight, his elbow propped against the door to steady the binoculars.

“There they are.”

“You mean those little spots way down there in the pasture?”

“Yes.”

“Let me look.”

Della Street swung quickly in a half turn, thrust out her feet, jumped to the ground with a swirl of skirts, then came to stand at Mason’s side. The lawyer handed her the binoculars, moved over so that she could rest her arm on the door of the car.

“Oh, how interesting!” Della Street exclaimed, looking through the powerful glasses. “So that’s where our fur coats come from?”