Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Smoking Chimney

Milred gave him her hand, said: “Do come over here and sit down, Mr. Gentry. We’re just welcoming Gramps, and having a nightcap.”

Gentry cleared his throat nervously, seated himself by the side of Milred Duryea.

Gramps poured out hot toddies and said: “Now take it easy, folks. When I make a hot toddy, I mean she’s hot ... Here’s regards.”

Three spoons dipped tentatively into the mixture. Three faces showed varying expressions. Milred registered surprise, Duryea downright satisfaction. The constable from Petrie seemed just a little less worried. The sharp lines of his face relaxed for a moment into a smile. “What’s in that?” he asked.

Duryea laughed. “Don’t ask him. It’s a secret.”

“Four kinds of liquor,” Gramps said, “blended in just the right proportions, and then a few leaves of a certain herb... That herb’s what gives it that little pungent flavour. Mix it with the lemon peel, and it tickles your palate at the same time it gives you a full-bodied taste of real satisfaction.”

Gentry said: “It certainly hits the spot. I’ve been worried about developments up my way tonight, and thought I’d better drive down and have a talk with you and the sheriff... Sort of a strain taking a drive all by yourself. At night, thataway. Got to feeling sorta jumpy. This just hits the spot!”

Gramps looked at him searchingly, said significantly: “When a man takes a drink of this, he can’t worry about nothin’ — jus’ don’t give a damn.”

“You don’t look as though you ever worried about much,” Gentry said enviously.

“Don’t,” Gramps announced laconically. “Used to, but quit. Only way for a man to go through life is to feel like a cat. Let ’em throw you up in the air and you’ll light on your feet. When you feel you can do that, you just don’t give a damn what happens.”

“You said this was your father?” Gentry asked Milred.

“Grandfather,” she said.

Gentry stared in surprise from Gramps to Mrs. Duryea.

“Careful now,” warned the district attorney, laughing.

Gentry scratched the greying hair over his left ear, said lamely: “Well, he doesn’t look like anybody’s grandfather.”

Duryea laughed.

Milred said: “You couldn’t have put it more tactfully.”

Gentry said to the district attorney: “Could I see you for a moment, Mr. Duryea?”

“Can’t you talk right here?” Duryea asked. “Or is it real private?”

“No, it’s not real private... That’s the trouble with it. It’s too darned public.”

“Well, go ahead. What is it?”

“You know something of the trouble we’ve been having up our way.”

“Over those oil rights?”

“Yes.”

“I thought the court had settled that,” Duryea said.

“Well, you know how it is. You take a farmer and start tramping down his crops, and you’re going to have a fight on your hands. I don’t care whether it’s the law, or whether it ain’t the law. If it is the law— Well, that’s what starts revolutions.

“Of course, I can see the other side of the thing. Those oil rights were reserved, and everybody knew they were reserved. Nobody just paid any attention to ’em, that’s all. Everybody thought that if the folks that had the oil rights wanted to come on the land and prospect, they’d have to pay for the drilling and any crops they destroyed, have to buy roads and all that sort of thing... The farmers figured they’d stick ’em enough for right of way, derrick space, and crop damage, so it would amount to about the same thing in the long run as though they didn’t have any oil rights. And no one ever figured there was any oil in that part of the country, anyway.”

Duryea nodded.

“Well, feeling’s running pretty high,” Gentry said, “and it seems like this man, Pressman, may have tried to pull a fast one and got caught at it... That’s going to make trouble.”

“What did he do?” Duryea asked.

“Well, we ain’t absolutely plumb certain yet, but certain enough so Everett True, the editor of the Petrie Herald , is going to run a story about it in the morning, and when that paper hits the streets, there’s going to be hell to pay... Pardon me, ma’am, that slipped out.”

“It’s all right,” Milred said, smiling.

“What is it?” Duryea asked.

“Well, it seems like there’s some kind of a poker game going on out there. Some of that country that Pressman has the oil rights on is mighty good citrus land. Some of it is pretty well improved with buildings, orchards and all that... Now then, if he starts puttin’ in roads an’ derricks, it’s going to make things pretty bad. My idea is you’d just about have to call out the militia when he did it. But the people out there are law-abiding, and they’d buy him out if he’d make ’em any reasonable sort of an offer. Now it looks as though he’s dickering around and maybe getting ready to sell out. A lot depends on what he finds in that test well he’s putting down. The rumour is that the test well’s gone deep enough already, so he knows just about what he’s got; but you can’t find out one single thing about the well.”

Duryea nodded.

“Tom Howser,” Gentry went on, “is sort of organizing all the farmers out that way, getting ’em all together, and having secret sessions, figuring just how much each man is willing to pay to get rid of the cloud on his property; then putting the thing in a pool and doing a little horse trading.

“Some man that’s got a good orange orchard with maybe a fifteen- or twenty-thousand-dollar house on his property, barns, warehouses, and all that, might be willing to pay fifty or seventy-five dollars an acre to get the cloud removed. Some other fellow with a little place wouldn’t pay so much, but he might pay four or five dollars an acre... Well, suppose Howser gets the whole thing pooled together and finds he’s got three or four hundred thousand dollars. Well, then he goes to Pressman and starts playing poker, tells him the oil rights ain’t worth anything, didn’t cost him much, that he’s willing to pay seventy-five thousand to clear the whole thing up, and then they start working up.”

Duryea said: “And Pressman, on the other hand, is also doing horse-trading. He’s trying to make them believe he’s got a good showing of oil in that test well. No one will know whether he has or not.”

“That’s exactly it,” Gentry said. “Now then, nobody out our way knows Pressman. He’s just a name so far as our community is concerned. But a week or so ago, a man bought out one of the small chicken ranches here. This man was named Jack Reedley... This afternoon Hugh Sonders got a straight tip that Reedley was really Pressman who had bought the property just to see what the owners had in mind. What makes it look a little more reasonable that way is that when we looked it up, we found the sale never went through escrow. The man who owned the place just took his dough, signed a deed, and moved out all at once.”

“How did Sonders get the tip?” Duryea asked.

“Well, we’re not certain, but we think that George Karper picked it up somewhere. Karper’s in Los Angeles. He’s got big holdings near Petrie; seems like he was just ready to put on a subdivision. Had everything ready to go.”

“And Karper gave Sonders that tip?” Duryea asked.

“We don’t know. That’s just a guess, but, anyway, Sonders got that tip. He showed up at the Herald office, and Everett True clapped on his hat, and the two of them went sailing out to Reedley’s place.”

“What happened?” Duryea asked.

“Reedley wouldn’t let ’em in. He barricaded the doors and windows, and pulled the shades down, refused to see ’em, wouldn’t answer questions, just stayed in there and sulked... You can figure that out. Not only wouldn’t he let them see his face, but he wouldn’t let them hear his voice... Well, Everett True has been checking around getting all the information he could, and he came to the idea that it is true, that Reedley was really Pressman. He’s going to publish the thing in the morning. He isn’t going to stick his neck out too far, but he is going to state that the property owners, who have organized this protective and mutual association under Howser, are going to make the claim that Reedley is really Pressman.”