Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Crooked Candle

Mason said nothing.

Carol hesitated, then slowly picked up the shaving brush and contemplated the safety razor on the glass shelf.

“He didn’t even clean it,” she said. And then to Mason, “Do you think I should wash it off and clean it?”

“That all depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether you think it’s important to establish the fact that your father was here.”

“He wouldn’t ever admit that he was here.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve explained to you. It would be political suicide for the people who were here...”

“It wouldn’t hurt your father’s career any, would it?”

“What wouldn’t?”

“If it were known that he was here.”

“No, not my father. I’m thinking of the others.”

“Suppose your father didn’t mention their names?”

“Why? What good would that do?”

“Just in case,” Mason said, “your father needs to show where he was yesterday night, that razor might be a bit of corroborative evidence. Microscopic examination of hairs, you know.”

Her face lit up with sudden realization of the import of Mason’s words. “You’re right!” she exclaimed. “How right you are!”

“You could,” Mason observed, “stop by the manager’s office, explain to her that you wish to keep this same cabin for a week, pay the rent on it in cash, and stipulate that it be left absolutely as it is, that no one be permitted to enter the cabin, not even the chambermaids.”

“That’s an idea!” she exclaimed. “Come on!”

Mason said, “We should be able to lock that front door. You don’t see a key around anywhere, do you?”

They searched the place and could find no key. The door from the cabin number thirteen was locked and the key was on the inside, but there was no key for the door to cabin fourteen.

“That seems to be it,” Mason said. “Where do you suppose your father is now?”

Her eyes showed panic at his question. “He’s gone back to the yacht,” she said in dismay. “The police will be waiting to question him, and he’ll tell them some awful fib about where he was — anything to keep from admitting that he was here.”

Mason said, “Let’s go make our arrangements with the front office, then get back to Los Angeles, and try to find your father.”

Mason held the door open for Carol, watched appreciatively as the wind whipped her skirt high on her shapely legs. Then she fought the skirt down and Mason pulled the door shut against the cold west wind blowing in from the ocean.

“You do the talking to the manager,” she said. And then suddenly added, “Here, you’d better have some money for expenses.”

She pushed a sheaf of bills into his hand. Mason looked down at it. They were twenty-dollar bills and were fastened together with a gummed paper which bore the imprint of a Los Angeles bank, and the amount of money contained in the sheaf of bills — five hundred dollars.

Mason said, “It’ll hardly be this much.”

“Keep it. You’ll have other expenses. Just keep an account of them and we’ll adjust later.”

Mason slipped the bills into the side pocket of his coat, entered the cabin marked OFFICE and stood waiting at the counter until the woman who acted as manager came out.

Her smile was an automatic reflex.

“Find the people you want?” she asked.

Mason assumed his most magnetic manner. “The situation,” he explained, “is rather peculiar, and somewhat complicated.”

The smile immediately faded from the woman’s face. Her eyes were cold and hard as she shifted them from Mason to a glittering appraisal of the young girl at his side.

“Yes?” she asked coldly. “In what way is the situation complicated, please?”

Mason said, “We were looking for this young woman’s father. He was to have met us in cabin fourteen, but we were late and I’m afraid he’s gone on to try and pick us up on the road. We’ll have to go and get in touch with him.”

The woman’s expression remained one of hard, cold appraisal. She said nothing, but waited as Mason paused, giving him no sign of encouragement.

“So,” Mason went on, “I think the only thing for us to do is to see that you don’t rent this cabin again.”

“Rent is paid until tomorrow at twelve o’clock,” she said.

“Does the registration show the names of all the parties who occupied the cabin?” Mason asked.

“Why?”

“I want to be absolutely certain that this is the party we want.”

“Was the name Lassing?”

Carol said hastily, “That’s the name of one of the members of the party but not my father’s name. I’m wondering if they were all registered.”

“What’s your father’s name, dearie?” the woman asked.

Carol Burbank met her eyes steadily. “Burbank,” she said. “Roger Burbank.”

The woman softened somewhat. “We don’t usually keep registrations of all the members of the party — where it’s a large party. One man registers, usually the owner of the automobile, but he writes the make and license number of the car. Just a minute and I’ll look it up.”

She turned to a book of records and said, “No, the registration is just J. C. Lassing and party .”

Mason said, “The cabin is all made up. There’s no necessity for anyone going in there until tomorrow morning.”

“Why should anyone go in there?” the manager asked.

“The chambermaids,” Mason said, “might be changing towels.”

“Well, what of it?”

“We’d prefer to have the cabin left exactly the way it is.”

“The rent,” the woman said coldly, “is eight dollars a day.”

Mason handed her forty dollars. “That will pay the rent for five days.”

She seemed somewhat mollified as she looked at the money. “You want a receipt?” she asked.

Mason’s voice was as cold as hers had been.

“Certainly.”

“Any ideas?” Carol asked Mason as they drove out of the motel and she turned the car back toward Los Angeles.

“It’s still your party,” Mason said, and then asked after a moment, “Do you plan to have refreshments?”

She smiled. “Hungry?”

“Practically starved. That cold wind gives me an appetite.”

“We’ll eat down the road a ways. I want very much to find Father.”

“Don’t you think it’s too late for that? Don’t you think the police have rounded him up by this time?”

“Probably.”

The sun had dipped below the horizon, leaving the ocean a steely blue, the surface lashed into restless turmoil by the wind. Over to the right, the Channel Islands were silhouetted sharply against the greenish blue of the western sky.

“Guess we’d better have lights,” Carol said, and switched on the headlights.

It was after they had passed Ventura and were approaching Camarillo that Mason said, “How long ago do you suppose your father actually left that motel?”

She took her eyes from the road long enough to flash him a quick glance. “I don’t know. Why?”

“I was just wondering.”

“I have no means of knowing.”

“I see.”

The car purred smoothly up the Conejo Grade, ran past a rolling plateau country that was studded with huge live oaks. The wind had gone down now and the stars of early evening were resplendent in a sky that was clear as crystal. Far out in the country, they encountered the sign indicating the city limits of Los Angeles, and fifteen or twenty minutes later, Carol Burbank said abruptly, “There’s a restaurant ahead where my father usually eats when he’s on the road. There’s just a chance we might find him there — if he didn’t leave that motor lodge until sometime late in the afternoon.”