Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Smoking Chimney

“ Unusually early,” Duryea said dryly.

Gramp Wiggins didn’t take the hint. “Gettin’ up early’s a good thing. Gets your system cleaned out of poisons. Poisons pile up in your system when you sleep. Sleep too long at a time, and it don’t do you no good... If you want to know somethin’ about cooking bacon, son, look at the way we’re cookin’ this.”

Gramp Wiggins indicated Milred, who was holding a frying pan tilted at a sharp angle over a burner in the gas stove.

“Never let bacon cook in grease,” Gramp Wiggins said. “Grease gets to bubbling, makes the bacon indigestible, and ruins its flavour. Tilt the fryin’ pan up a little more, Milred... That’s right. Now keep pressing against the bacon with that pancake turner, so you squeeze the grease out... That’s right. Now pour the grease off into that can... No, no, no. Don’t let it get down so close to the flame. Keep that frying pan tilted up! Keep the bacon up in the upper end of it. It’s more work all right; but once you’ve tasted bacon cooked that way, you know what good bacon really is... A gentle heat to melt the grease, and then a little pressure to squeeze it out, an’ keep repeatin’ the process until you’ve cooked your bacon gently and slowly with no bubbling grease... Now these here are hot cakes, son! That’s the kind o” coffee you don’t get very often in this country.”

“Coffee you smuggled in from Mexico, I suppose,” Duryea said with mock sternness.

“What do you take me for?” Gramp Wiggins said. “I declared that coffee and got it through all due and regular. The only things I smuggle are the things the government says I can’t bring in with me the way I want ’em — sugar and booze.”

“Has it ever occurred to you,” Duryea asked, trying to make his voice sound officially stern, “that you might wind up in jail?”

“Sure it has,” Gramps admitted readily enough, “but you can’t let a little thing like that stop you. Nowadays to do what a man wants to, he has to take chances on going to jail, same as he does on gittin’ killed in an automobile smash. You’d just lose out on lots of things you wanted to do, if you got finicky about going to jail.”

“Rather an unsocial attitude,” the district attorney commented.

“Unsocial!” Gramps screamed at him. “Unsocial, hell! It’s still a free country. Lots of people think the legislature has taken your liberties away. It ain’t done nothin’ of the sort. It’s only passed laws providin’ that you go to jail if they catch you exercising those liberties. Hell, it’s still a free country!”

“An interesting glimpse of the psychology of an individualist,” Duryea pointed out, “but if everyone—”

“Now you quit worryin’ about me goin’ to jail, an’ spell Milred on that frying pan. Keep her tilted up high, an’ keep pressin’ that grease out. Not too hard now, just a gentle pressure, holding it down against the pan.”

Duryea followed Gramps’ instructions, had the pleasure of seeing the bacon turn to a crisp, golden brown, entirely unlike any bacon he had ever cooked before, and all the time Gramps was keeping up a running fire of conversation.

Travelling around the country and associating with people in various and sundry trailer camps, Gramps had a weird assortment of contacts in various parts of the country. A California grape grower sent him choice wines. A pal who had a farm in Vermont provided maple sugar and syrup. Even the jar of thick, red jam had been contributed by the wife of a boysenberry grower whom Gramps had met on his travels.

“How on earth do you ever get all that stuff delivered?” Duryea asked.

“Oh, I write to ’em, an’ let ’em know about where I’m going to be, and they send things on by mail. Us trailer folks kinda keep in touch with each other... Okay, son, that bacon’s done. Put it out on a piece of paper. Sit down there and sink your teeth into one of these here hot cakes. Now, put on lots of that maple syrup and try some of that jam. Best you ever tasted... Better let me spike that coffee up a little bit with some brandy. Put more kick in it.”

“This is fine,” Duryea said.

Milred grinned across at her husband. “My gosh, I’m famished. I—”

She broke off to listen.

“Car coming, fast,” she explained, standing in the doorway and looking down the street.

They heard the car squeal to a stop, then steps on cement, the sound carrying clearly in the crisp morning air.

Milred looking out of the window, said: “It’s the sheriff. I’d better let him know we’re in here.”

“You mean Sheriff Lassen?” Gramp Wiggins said, his voice shrill with excitement. “Tell him to come in here! I ain’t seen him in a coon’s age! I want to shake hands with him. He’ll remember me, won’t he, Frank?”

“Remember you is right,” Duryea said. “You gave him more headaches. The last time you tried to help him—”

“Now, whoa! Back up!” Gramps said. “You gotta admit that I put him on the right track.”

“Yes, you guessed right,” Duryea admitted.

“ Guessed! Guessed, hell!” Gramps shrilled. “I called the turn. I—”

The trailer swayed on its springs as the sheriff hoisted himself into the crowded quarters.

“Hello, everybody.”

“You remember my grandfather, Gramp Wiggins?” Milred asked.

The sheriff came over to shake hands. “Sure do. He gave us quite a bit of help on that case when he was here last.”

Gramps beamed with pride.

“Sort of a block off the old chip,” Milred muttered demurely.

Lassen said: “I hope there’s enough coffee in that pot for an extra cup. This cooking smells so good it’s a crime.”

“Plenty of coffee, lots of bacon, hot cakes, jam, lots of everything,” Gramps said. “Now you folks sit down an’ start eatin’ right away. These hot cakes are going to come up so fast it’ll s’prise you. No use letting good food get cold.”

Lassen slid into a chair. Gramps poured him coffee. “Help yourself to a plate up there, Sheriff, and a knife and fork and spoon. Use all the sugar you want. The government ain’t got no restriction on that sugar, and if you want to talk with Frank, go right ahead. Don’t mind me.”

Duryea made a warning signal which the sheriff, reaching for a plate, failed to get.

“Guess you saw Gentry last night. He was pretty worried. That’s nothing new for him. I’ve never known him when he wasn’t worried. This time he seems to have had some reason for worry.”

“What’s the matter?”

“He told you about what the Petrie Herald was going to claim?”

“Uh, huh.”

“Well, before the paper hit the streets, Gentry took a couple of deputies and went out to Reedley’s house. He was going to put it up to him cold turkey. If Reedley was Pressman, he was going to give him a chance to get out of the place without getting hurt. If he wanted to stay on, he was going to tell him that the constable wasn’t going to act as a bodyguard for him.”

“I know,” Duryea said. “I advised him to handle it that way. What happened?”

“It’d already happened when Gentry got there.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dead. Sometime during the night. Curtains were pulled up so you could look right into the house. An oil lamp was burning. Body lying on the floor. An attempt had been made to make it look like suicide... Perhaps it was. The door was locked from the inside, and the key was clutched in his right hand. I understand he left a suicide note. Gentry thinks we should go out there and look things over — says it’s going to set off a lot of fireworks.”

Duryea gave a long, low whistle.

“Thought I’d come by and get you,” the sheriff went on, “and we could pick up a bite of breakfast somewhere and run out... Didn’t expect I’d find you up this early. And,” he nodded at Gramps, “didn’t expect I’d run into such a nice breakfast.”