Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Crooked Candle

The outboard motor sputtered into life. The bow of the boat moving through the water pushed ahead of it a bow wave which broke out into a series of ripples on each side. The cold night air brushed moist, chill fingers against their faces. The little boat chugged out into the channel, then after a minute or two rounded a point and started fighting against the tide up the black waters of the estuary.

“Rather hard to navigate here?” Mason said.

“Oh, you get so you know your way around. Learn a few simple landmarks and you’re okay. Keep the tip of that point outlined against that little glow of light on the other side. Keep ‘em right in line. See, I’ve got ‘em dead astern.”

Mason laughed, “You’ll have me applying for a pilot’s license directly.”

Della Street said, “Something ahead.”

The outboard motor promptly slowed its speed.

“That’s the yacht,” the boatman said.

They swung around the yacht in a circle, came up close to the rail. The boatman said to Mason, “Now if you can just get aboard...”

Mason nodded, reached up, caught the cold, clammy, iron handrail of the yacht, and clambered aboard. The boatman tossed him a rope, said to Della, “Now, Miss, I’ll give you a hand.”

They boosted Della Street up to the deck of the yacht. Cameron moved over to cling to the handrail, holding the skiff up against the yacht. “She’s aground already,” he said.

“That’s right.”

“Well, watch your step when she settles. Shell go over part way, then sort of stick and then go way over with a lurch. Now, you want me back here at two o’clock. That right?”

“That’s right,” Mason said.

“Okay, I’ll be here. You watch your step now. Don’t get hurt.”

“We won’t,” Mason promised.

Cameron still seemed reluctant to shove off. He continued for several seconds to stand holding the rail, the idling outboard motor pop-pop-popping, a faint odor of burnt gasoline clinging to the water. “Well, I’ll be on my way. Right around two o’clock, eh?”

“That’s right.”

“Think you’ll be all done and ready to start back by that time?”

“I think so.”

“Well, I’ll be seeing you.”

Cameron pushed the skiff clear, settled back in the stern. The outboard purred into activity and within a matter of seconds the skiff was lost to sight, although the sound of the motor continued to drift back through the misty darkness.

“Well,” Mason said, taking a flashlight from his pocket, “let’s go below. Watch your step, Della, the deck’s slippery.”

Mason took a key from his pocket, unlocked a padlock, slid back the hatch, assisted Della Street down the companionway and into the main cabin.

“How cozy,” Della exclaimed.

“It is, all right,” Mason agreed, lighting a candle.

“What did they do for heat?”

“There’s a little stove that burns wood and coal,” Mason said. “They used it for cooking as well as for heating. I told Cameron I wanted a fire laid in it. Yes, it’s all ready to start going.”

Mason lit a match, tossed it into the stove. The paper and kindling crackled into cheery flame. Mason said, “Now then, all we have to do is to wait for the tide to run out.”

Della Street looked at her wrist watch. “The boat is aground now?”

“Yes,” Mason said, “the keel’s resting on the mud.”

The yacht gave a slight, all but imperceptible list.

“Not only aground,” Mason said, “but it’s going to start tilting in a few minutes. Well, it won’t take us long now. I want to see just exactly how long before low tide a body would roll to the lower side of the cabin, and just how the yacht starts listing as the tide runs out.”

Della shivered slightly.

“Getting nervous?” Mason asked.

“A little,” she admitted. “It’s creepy here. Let’s blow out the candle and wait here in the dark. The stove will give out enough light... I feel sort of conspicuous... Anyone could... Well, you know... through the porthole...” She broke off and laughed.

Mason promptly blew out the candle.

“There, that’s better,” Della said. “I had the feeling that eyes were peering through the portholes.”

Mason slipped his arm around her, “Forget it,” he said. “No one even knows we’re out here.”

She laughed, a little apologetic laugh, and pressed herself close to his protecting shoulder.

The fire crackled merrily. Little ruddy reflections of flame flickered out from the draft in the front of the stove. Silence descended upon them, a silence broken only by the gurgling sound of tide water swirling past the grounded yacht.

The yacht swung a little more over to the side, moving almost imperceptibly.

Mason consulted the luminous dial of his wrist watch, said, “Well, here’s where I lie down on the floor and pretend I’m a dead body.”

Della Street glanced over in the direction of the dark red stain on the carpet and said, “I don’t like to have you lie there.”

“Why?”

“It seems too sinister. It might bring... Can’t you lie in another part of the yacht just as well?”

“No,” Mason said, “I’m going to conduct the experiment right here.”

Mason stretched himself out on the carpeted floor of the cabin, his head within a few inches of the brass door sill of the cabin in the rear of the boat.

“Okay, Della?”

“Well, its sort of creepy. Makes you think of ghosts.”

“If Milfield’s ghost could only come back and tell us exactly what happened,” Mason said, “it would be a break for us.”

Della came over to sit on the floor beside him. Her hand slid down Mason’s arm, her fingers found his hand, and closed about it.

Mason patted her shoulder, said, “Remember, I’m supposed to be a corpse.”

She laughed, “Don’t you feel like a corpse?”

“No.”

The boat moved sluggishly, taking a little more list.

“Not enough slant as yet to roll me down to the other side,” Mason observed, “—when that happens, we’ll take a look at the watch and notice the exact time. Where’s the flashlight, Della?”

“On the table.”

Mason sighed wearily. “It certainly was quite a day in court. Hard as this floor is, it feels nice and restful.”

Della took her hand from his, let her fingertips stroke his forehead, “You should take things easier.”

“Uh huh,” Mason agreed somewhat drowsily, asked a few minutes later, “What time is it now, Della?”

She looked at his wrist watch. “Getting along toward one-thirty.”

“Another ten or fifteen minutes should tell the story,” Mason observed.

Abruptly Della Street shifted her position. “You don’t need to be so darned uncomfortable,” she said. “Here, lift up your head.”

She placed his head on her lap. “There, that’s better. Now, you can tell just as much about it as you can with your head lying on that hard floor.”

“I can’t,” Mason protested drowsily. “I should have my head down there... on the floor... I want to know the exact time... Oh well... perhaps this will do if I keep completely relaxed.”

Her fingers moved along his forehead, the fingertips caressed his eyebrows and the closed eyes, smoothed back his hair.

“You just lie there and relax,” she said softly.

Mason raised his hand to hers, moved it to his lips, held it there for a moment, then released it.

A moment later, his regular breathing showed that he was asleep, and, in his sleep, his hand once more groped for Della’s, held it close.

Minutes passed with no change in the situation. Della Street sat motionless. The boat, firmly aground now, seemed to have ceased tilting.

Della Street herself became drowsy. The warmth of the cabin, the utter quiet which enveloped them, the relaxing of taut nerves after a hard day in court, coupled with the lateness of the hour, made her head nod in little snatches of welcome sleep.