Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Smoking Chimney

Milred left her second cocktail half finished to turn the steaks. Gramps managed to squeeze an additional dividend out of the shaker so that he and Duryea had a third cocktail while Milred’s share consisted in having her glass “freshened’.

It wasn’t until Milred announced that dinner was served and Duryea started to get up that he realized something was wrong with his knees. There was a peculiar buzzing in his head. His brain felt clear enough, but his legs were like rubber, and there was a sudden urge toward hilarity.

Startled, he glanced at his wife. One look at her eyes, and he knew that she was aware of exactly how he felt.

“Gramps,” Duryea said, looking at the enthusiastic little old man who seemed hardly to have turned a hair, “what the devil was in those drinks?”

Gramps said: “A drink they make from mescal down there in Mexico. After she gets so old, she turns a clear yellow. A darn nice drink. You mix that with—”

“You mean to say you’ve mixed tequila with gin?”

Gramps said soothingly, placatingly, “Now you just sit down and relax, buddy. Don’t get all steamed up about what you’ve taken. It’s just a nice tonic... Tasted good, didn’t it?”

Duryea dropped into his chair. Milred glanced across the table at him. “Who,” she asked, “is going to carve these steaks?”

Duryea grinned. “Gramps,” he said.

Silently Milred handed the carving knife and fork to her grandfather.

Harvey Stanwood looked up and down the bar, over at the dark booths where electric lights disguised as candles gave an intimate, cosy illumination. There were not more than half a dozen people in the entire place. It was a place Stanwood had never been in before.

He ordered a drink, then sauntered to the telephone booth and dialled George Karper’s number.

When he had Karper on the line, he said: “I guess you know who this is, Mr. Karper. I had lunch with you day before yesterday.”

“Oh, yes,” Karper said cautiously. “I hope nothing you ate disagreed with you?”

“So far, I’m getting along all right,” Stanwood said, “but I think it might be a good plan for you and me to have a little chat.”

“I don’t,” Karper snapped promptly.

“At a place,” Stanwood went on, “where there wouldn’t be any chance of our being seen together... I’m at a little bar called The Elmwood on Grand Avenue. You can get down here any time within the next ten minutes. I’ll be in the back booth on the right-hand side.”

Karper said positively: “That’s out. As far as I’m concerned you’re poison. You—”

Stanwood interrupted: “I’m not taking this all by myself, Karper. I want to talk with someone. You’d better get here in ten minutes.”

“Or what?” Karper demanded truculently.

“Or else,” Stanwood said, and hung up.

Exactly eight minutes later Karper walked in the door, surveyed the bar, strolled leisurely over to the booth, and said in a loud voice to Stanwood: “Why, hello! What are you doing here? Haven’t seen you in ages.”

Stanwood got up and shook hands. “It has been a long time. I just dropped in for a drink. Won’t you join me? Understand you’ve gone in for ranching these days. Have a drink and tell me about it.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Karper said cordially, sliding in along the leather cushion.

Once inside the booth, however, where he could lower his voice, he glared across the table at Stanwood. “In the first place, I don’t like the manner in which you arranged this appointment. In the second place, it’s dangerous for you and me to be seen together.”

“Dangerous for whom?” Stanwood asked coldly.

“For me — for both of us — for you.”

Stanwood pressed the button which summoned the bartender. “What’s yours?” he asked Karper.

“Old-fashioned,” Karper said.

“Make mine Scotch and soda,” Stanwood ordered.

When the bartender had withdrawn, Stanwood leaned across the table, put an unlit cigarette in his mouth, and said: “Got a match?”

Karper said coldly: “Yes.”

“Lean over and light my cigarette,” Stanwood told him.

Karper hesitated a moment, then scraped a match on the underside of the table and leaned forward to hold the flame to Stanwood’s cigarette.

Stanwood said rapidly in a low voice: “I’m not in a very sweet spot, but you can cover up for me.”

“Not me,” Karper said promptly. “Whatever spot you’re in is your own funeral.”

Stanwood glanced furtively around him, then said: “When I told you where the boss was hiding out, I didn’t expect you were going out and murder him... That’s too strong a dose for my stomach.”

He sucked in a deep drag on the cigarette, and settled back against the cushions to exhale smoke, apparently thoroughly relaxed and very much at his ease.

Karper said indignantly: “So that’s your game! Well, I’m not taking any part of it. You can’t get by with that!”

“You don’t have to run a bluff with me,” Stanwood told him.

Karper said coldly: “I’m just on the verge of going to the police myself.”

“With what?” Stanwood asked.

“In case you really want to know, I’ve had detectives keeping an eye on you for some time. You’ve been hitting a fast pace — and I mean damned fast. A lot of it can be proven. You were short about seventeen thousand bucks. You tried to make a last plunge and failed to get anywhere. Pressman was on to you. He was going to get in touch with the district attorney. You wanted him out of the way.”

Stanwood’s smile was frosty. “I sold out to you at your suggestion. A few hours after I gave you the information that Reedley was Pressman, Pressman was dead.”

Karper said: “I have an alibi, in case you try that.”

“For what time?”

“For whatever time is necessary. What were you doing after you left me?”

Stanwood said: “Listen, this isn’t getting us anywhere. Here’s all you have to do. When the police question me about my shortage, I’ll tell them you and Pressman were really associated in certain secret business matters; that Pressman advanced all the expense incurred, but he didn’t want it to show on the books, so he had me take out the cash which represented your share, use it to defray your half of the partnership expenses; and then you would give this amount back to me in cash and I’d return it to the business as simply a deposit to cover withdrawals.”

“For what?”

“For your share of the operating expenses in certain mines.”

“You’re crazy!”

“Okay. Remember two things: one is that that would give you a half interest in some profitable mining investments — and the other is if I go to jail for embezzlement, you go up for murder.”

Karper regarded Stanwood with cold rage. “I’m going to check out of this right now. I’m going to tell the police—”

“—that you made a secret trip to Petrie right after I left you the day of the murder,” Stanwood said.

Karper showed the statement gave him a jolt.

Stanwood said, “You thought I didn’t know that, didn’t you? Well, I—”

Karper interrupted him. “That trip was political. I want to beat that courthouse ring up there this election, particularly the district attorney and the sheriff.”

Stanwood smiled triumphantly. “Santa Delbarra is the county seat. You went to Petrie. You went there because—”

Karper said suddenly: “Take it easy, Stanwood. Somebody’s coming over to this adjoining booth.”

For a moment they were silent, both of them watching the old man in the frayed, disreputable clothes who slid in at the table of the booth across the way, spread a sporting section of the newspaper out in front of him, and started a nervous pencil making cabalistic marks on the margin of the newspaper.