Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Smoking Chimney

Stanwood said: “It’s all right. Just some old codger with a yen for playing the races.”

Karper, studying Gramp Wiggins covertly, said: “I’m not so damned certain... This is poor business. We can’t afford to be seen together in public.”

“On the other hand,” Stanwood said in a low voice, “it’s the only way we can afford to be seen together.”

Karper said: “I suppose you figure your best defence is to beat me to the punch and try to pin the thing on me.”

Stanwood said: “You’re not kidding me any. That’s what you’re trying to do, and I want you to know you can’t get away with it. Here’s something for you to think over. Frank Duryea, the district attorney at Santa Delbarra, telephoned me a half hour ago and asked me to come up there this evening for a conference. He wants to know certain things about Pressman’s associates.”

Karper frowned.

The waiter brought their drinks. Karper paid for them. When the waiter had left, Karper said in a conciliatory voice, “Let’s be reasonable about this thing, Stanwood. Perhaps we’re both wrong. You’ll remember that you said you could fix things up if Pressman didn’t show up that afternoon. Well, I thought you’d taken steps to see that he didn’t. I may be mistaken. I hope I am.”

Stanwood said shortly; “You are — and don’t make another mistake right now.”

Karper fished a cigar from his pocket, gave a quick glance over to where Gramp Wiggins was doping out the horses, said, “I think you understand my position, Stanwood. I don’t know one damn thing about what happened to Pressman. And I’m beginning to think you don’t, either. I’m sorry I said what I did — and I’d hate to have you make some crack to the district attorney up there that would drag me into it. Look here, why can’t we have an understanding on this thing?”

“How?”

“You keep me out of it, and I’ll keep you out.”

“That’s a deal.”

Karper’s eyes were cold and steady. He said, “Well, there you are,” and raised his glass.

Fifteen minutes later from a Western Union branch office Gramp Wiggins scrawled a hurried wire to Frank Duryea, district attorney of Santa Delbarra County, Santa Delbarra, California.

SHADOWING CERTAIN PARTY STOP THINK I HAVE STRUCK PAY DIRT STOP IF YOU ARE GOING TO BE IN LOS ANGELES TO INTERVIEW PARTIES HERE LET ME KNOW WHERE AND WHEN I CAN MEET YOU STOP THINK I CAN BE OF REAL HELP IN GETTING SOLUTION STOP ADDRESS CARE WESTERN UNION

“Pelly” Baxter was properly touched by grief, as became an old friend of the family.

For the butler he had just the right greeting, a democratic, man-to-man touch which was called for in the leveling presence of grief.

“Good afternoon, Arthur. Terrible, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, Mr. Baxter.”

“I realize something of how you must feel, Arthur.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You’ve been with him for several years?”

“Four, sir.”

“A very marvellous man, Arthur. We’re going to miss him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s been a terrible shock to Mrs. Pressman, I suppose.”

“Yes, sir, very much. She’s eaten hardly a thing.”

“Ask her if she’d like to see me for a few minutes, or whether she’d prefer to be left entirely alone. If the latter, Arthur, ask her if there’s anything I can do, anything at all.”

“Yes, sir. She’s upstairs. If you’ll wait in the library, sir, I’ll let her know you’re here.”

Pelly Baxter walked across the reception corridor and entered the spacious library.

The room was as filled with silence as a cemetery. The books on the shelves seemed as resentful of a living intruder as tombstones in the moonlight. The room was partially darkened by drawn curtains, heavy with the gloom of its silence.

Baxter walked over to where a shaft of sunlight filtered in through the half-closed drapes, looked out upon a well-kept lawn sprinkled here and there with shady trees and shrubbery. By an effort, he kept himself from walking the floor.

After several seconds’ silent contemplation, he turned back to the gloomy interior of the library, just as the butler, entering the room, said: “Mrs. Pressman will see you in her upstairs sitting-room... If you’ll step this way, please.”

The butler led the way up the stairs, down a corridor, and into a cosy, feminine sitting-room which was filled with the sunlight streaming through the French doors that opened on a little balcony. At the other end of the sitting-room, through an open door, Baxter glimpsed a bedroom.

Sophie Pressman was as alert as a football coach on the eve of a big game. Yet in the presence of the butler she seemed as strangely subdued as the huge library had been.

“Hello, Pelly,” she said without enthusiasm. “It was nice of you to come... There’s nothing anyone can say that helps, but knowing that people want to help makes all the difference in the world.”

She indicated a stack of telegrams on a table. “In times past I’ve had to send telegrams of condolence, and, groping for words in which to express something of what I felt, have realized how horribly futile words were. But now I realize that it isn’t what friends say that helps, but that they try to say it... Do sit down, Pelly. Let Arthur bring you a Scotch and soda.”

“No, thanks,” Pelly said. “I just dropped in to extend my condolences and see if there was anything on earth I could do — anything at all.”

“Nothing, thanks, Pelly. I knew I could count on you... That’s all, Arthur.”

The butler quietly closed the door.

For a moment there was silence in the room; then Pelly Baxter moved over closer to Sophie Pressman. “You’ve got it?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“In a safe place?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t trust that butler too far.”

“I don’t.”

“How did you get it?”

She said, “I went up to Ralph’s office, told his secretary I was going to take the mail home with me so that Ralph could have it when he came in.”

“What did she say?”

“She was completely nonplussed, but there wasn’t very much she could do about it. She couldn’t stand up and say: ‘I don’t think your husband would like you to do that, Mrs. Pressman.’”

Pelly Baxter grinned. “Hardly.”

“She was reluctant enough about it,” Mrs. Pressman said, and then added, grimly: “It’s going to be a pleasure to fire that girl.”

“You think she knew what was in it, and—”

“Of course she knew what was in it,” Mrs. Pressman said. “She’d opened the letter. She hadn’t opened the envelope containing the pictures, thank God.”

“And, knowing that, she handed it to you?” Baxter asked incredulously.

“She did not. She handed me the rest of the mail. She had this carefully put away in a drawer in her desk. So I sent her out on an errand just as I was leaving the office, then doubled back, claimed I’d forgotten my gloves, and opened the drawer in her desk. It was in there.”

“She’d read the letter?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“That’s rather — dangerous.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t. But it would have been a lot more dangerous to have left that letter there in the office.”

“The detective agency will make a duplicate report?”

She smiled and said; “The detective agency is operated by a realist. If Ralph had lived, Ralph would have paid him. As the situation now stands, I pay him. I think you’ll find the detective agency will be very, very discreet.”

“And the secretary?”

She met his eyes squarely. “We’ll have to silence her.”

“How?”

“I don’t know yet.”