Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Crooked Candle

Mason bowed, “I certainly wouldn’t even try to get you to betray your husband’s business secrets, Mrs. Milfield,” he assured her, “but I do want to impress upon your mind the necessity of getting my message to your husband at once.”

Abruptly she said, “Mr. Mason, I’m going to confide in you. I need you. I... I’m going to tell you something.” She paused, seemed to brace herself, inhaled a deep breath as one does who is starting a rush of words.

The ringing of the telephone bell froze the first of those words on her lips. She looked at the instrument with definite annoyance.

Her embarrassment was sufficiently evident so Mason couldn’t resist saying, “Perhaps that’s your husband now.”

She bit at her lip, moved uneasily in her chair. The telephone rang once more.

Mason sat quietly waiting, saying nothing, putting the next move definitely up to her.

Her hesitancy became the more marked as she quite apparently debated with herself whether it would be more awkward to accept what was very evidently an unwelcome call in Mason’s presence, or betray herself by refusing to answer the telephone while he was there.

Abruptly she snapped, “Excuse me,” and picked up the receiver. Her face, turned now so that the light shone on her profile, was a graven mask.

“Yes?” she asked in the carefully modulated voice of one who is guarding against betraying her thoughts by any vocal inflection.

Mason watched her face, saw it change into puzzled perplexity. “Why no, I don’t know a Mr. Tragg... Lieutenant Tragg. No I don’t... Oh, I see... Tell him my husband won’t be back until sometime late this evening... He does? I can’t... He is...? Oh!”

She dropped the receiver back into place, said angrily to Mason, “The nerve of the man! He’s on his way up here. I simply won’t answer the bell.”

“Wait a minute,” Mason said rapidly. “Do you know who Lieutenant Tragg is?”

“I suppose he’s some lonely soldier who...”

“Lieutenant Tragg,” Mason said, “is not a soldier. He’s a lieutenant of police. He’s from headquarters and connected with the homicide squad. I don’t know why you’ve been crying, Mrs. Milfield, but Lieutenant Tragg doesn’t mix around with petty crime. If you’re connected with a homicide, you’d better start thinking — and think fast! ”

She turned to him and he saw the blank dismay in her eyes.

Mason regarded her steadily. “Whom do you know that’s been murdered?”

“Good heavens! No one, except perhaps my...”

“Go on,” Mason prompted as she checked herself in mid-sentence.

“No. No! No one.”

“You said ‘my’ and then stopped,” Mason reminded her. “That possessive pronoun is a giveaway. Were you going to say ‘my husband’?”

“Heavens no! Whatever gave you that idea? What are you trying to do — put words in my mouth?”

“Why have you been crying?” Mason asked.

“Who said I’d been crying?”

“Look. We haven’t all day to talk things over. Incidentally, if anything has happened to your husband, and Tragg should find me here, it would put you in a spot. You’d never be able to explain to him that I hadn’t called on you at your request. Is there a back way out?”

“No.”

“Got any onions in the house?”

Her eyes widened with perplexity, “Onions! What do onions have to do with it?”

Mason said, “I’m going to duck into the pantry. Don’t tell Tragg I’m here. Don’t let him know you know me. Put some onions in the sink. Put on an apron. When he rings the bell, go to the door with a knife in your hand, and tell him you were just peeling some onions — that is, if you want to save yourself a lot of trouble. That’s just a gratuitous tip from a casual acquaintance. You...”

The buzzer on the doorbell sounded explosively.

Mason picked up his hat, grabbed Mrs. Milfield around the waist, rushed her back to the kitchen. “Where’s an apron?”

“Hanging up — there.”

Mason put the loop of the apron over her head, hastily knotted it behind her waist.

“Get the onions. It’s the only way you can account for those, swollen eyes.”

She opened a bin, and Mason dumped onions into the sink.

The buzzer sounded again — a prolonged, harsh, strident summons.

Mason pulled open a drawer, found kitchen knives, took one out, sliced an onion in half, grabbed Mrs. Milfield’s right hand, smeared onion on it, said, “All right, I go to the door. Be careful what you say. Remember to tell him you were just fixing onions, and above all, don’t say anything about my having been here. Good luck!”

Mason patted her shoulder, gave her a gentle push toward the door, just as Lieutenant Tragg rang the bell for the third time.

Mason moved silently across the kitchen, opened the door of the pantry, found a stool and settled himself as comfortably as he could.

He heard the front door open, heard the sound of voices in the first tentative preliminaries of conversation, heard the door close and the voices become louder and the words more rapid. He couldn’t distinguish their words, but he could hear the rumble of Lieutenant Tragg’s voice, and the higher pitched notes of Mrs. Milfield’s answers.

Abruptly Mason heard Mrs. Milfield give a half suppressed scream; then there were several moments of silence — a silence which was eventually broken once more by the insistent murmur of Lieutenant Tragg’s voice.

After that, the conversation was lowered, finally died away altogether.

Mason impatiently glanced at his wrist watch, opened the pantry door an inch and listened.

He could hear people moving around in the front room. He heard a door open and close, and then once more the sound of Tragg’s voice. He was asking some question about shoes.

Mason gently closed the pantry door, went back to his position on the stool, let his eyes rove around in an appraisal of the food on the pantry shelves, and eventually yielded to the temptation of a carton of crisp soda crackers.

The lawyer raised the lid, thrust in his hand and, locking his heels in the rungs of the stool, started munching soda crackers.

A few moments later he spied a jar of peanut butter. He spread the creamy, golden mixture on crackers with his pocket knife, and was fairly well covered with crumbs by the time the pantry door was jerked open.

Mason didn’t glance up until he had finished spreading peanut butter on the soda cracker he was holding.

Lieutenant Tragg said, “It’s okay, Mason. You can come out now.”

“Thanks,” Mason said nonchalantly, “I’ve been wanting a glass of milk.”

“It’s in the icebox,” Mrs. Milfield said. “I’ll get it for you.” Her voice, was syrup smooth.

Tragg looked Mason over and suddenly burst out laughing. “What,” he asked, “was the idea?”

Mason said, “I was just giving you a break, Lieutenant.”

“Giving me a break!” Tragg exclaimed.

“That’s right.”

“I don’t get you.”

Mason said, “I was calling on Mrs. Milfield in connection with a matter of business. I didn’t know what your business was, but I realized that if you found me here, it would put her in an embarrassing position and start you off on a wrong scent. So I decided to keep out of the way until after you had left.”

Mrs. Milfield said, “Here’s the milk, Mr. Mason.”

Mason took the quart bottle of milk over to the drain board of the sink. Mrs. Milfield gave him a glass. Mason poured out a glass of milk and grinned at Lieutenant Tragg over the rim.

“Here’s looking at you, Lieutenant.”

Tragg said, “You didn’t think you were really going to slip this on over on me, did you, Mason?”