Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Smoking Chimney

“Darling, don’t you want me to have Arthur bring you a Scotch and soda?”

He said: “Shut up. Keep that damned butler out of here. I think he’s a snoop who is suspicious already.”

There was another interval of silence. “Of course, darling,” Mrs. Pressman said, “ I’m not going to tell the police that it’s your gun... Not unless you make me.”

He didn’t say anything to that.

Mrs. Pressman started opening telegrams with a paperknife. “People are so thoughtful, so considerate,” she said. “Some of them sent the nicest telegrams.”

After a while Pelly said: “It’s all so damned cold-blooded and useless, Sophie.”

“What is?”

“You framing it on me. If anything happened, you could beat the case hands down. Women as poised and as beautiful as you are can always get away with a little husband-shooting. He was having an affair with his secretary, and when you found it out he laughed at you, and asked you what you were going to do about it.”

She studied him thoughtfully. “Go on, Pelly.”

“That’s all there is to it. You had discovered him in his secret love-nest up near Petrie. You went there to ask him to please give this woman up and return home. He laughed at you. He had a suitcase lying open on a chair. This gun was in it. You wanted to frighten him, so you grabbed the gun. He jumped at you and started trying to wrest the gun away from you. Your finger was locked in the trigger guard. You screamed that he was hurting you and tried to jerk your hand away. Then you heard a terrific roar — and there he was, lying dead at your feet. You loved him, and you threw yourself on his body, crying to him to open his eyes, to speak to you... You realized he was dead. After what seemed hours to you, you closed his suitcase, took it with you, and went home.”

She considered that for some little time. “You have a good imagination, Pelly.”

“It’s the truth. They’d acquit you.”

“Don’t they sometimes send women to the women’s prison at Tehachapi — for life?”

“Not you. They’d acquit you and want to kiss you!”

“No, dear,” she said. “I don’t want any of it. I wouldn’t do that for you. I don’t love you enough. Your great anxiety to save your own precious skin has done something to me. If you really loved me, you’d swear you did it, to save me from being convicted. No, Pelly, dear, definitely not. I don’t want any of it.”

Pelly got to his feet again. “Let me think this over. Something’s got to be done.”

She looked up at him and smiled. “And don’t forget about that little minx, that agate-eyed little secretary of Ralph’s. Do you know, after hearing what you said about Ralph and her, I’m beginning to think that he might have been interested in her. I let her stay on just a little too long. Ralph was very impressionable, you know.”

“What time do the police think the murder was committed?” Baxter asked.

She smiled. “You phrased the question very adroitly. What time do the police think the murder was committed... Let me see... As I remember it, it was some time along in the evening. An oil lamp had been lit. The autopsy surgeon says it might have been any time after four o’clock in the afternoon and before eleven at night. He’s afraid to try fixing it any closer than that.”

Pelly started for the door. “I’ll see what I can think up,” he promised, without enthusiasm. “It’s a ticklish business. I’ll want you to back me up in any statements I make.”

“Oh, of course; but just be certain that I know what they are... And don’t leave without kissing me, darling. You know you’re all I have to turn to now. It will be a year before you can marry me without exciting comment, but I wouldn’t want to feel that your affection was getting cold. That would never do. Not if I’m willing to forgive you for — well, you know, what you did.”

For a long moment he stood facing her without moving. Then he walked toward her, put his arms around her, kissed her, and almost jerked away, as though there had been something repellent in the embrace.

She laughed, a cooing, throaty laugh. “Still play-acting with yourself, Pelly? Come, dear, kiss me with more fire, more passion! Kiss me tenderly. Let your lips cling to mine as though you hated to leave me... And you won’t ever leave me now, dear. You’ll be true to me as long as — as long as I want you.”

The girl at the counter in the telegraph office smiled cordially.

“Yes, we have a telegram for you, Mr. Wiggins. Just a moment... Here it is.”

Gramps pulled back the flap of the freshly sealed envelope, extracted the folded sheet of yellow paper on which a paper ribbon of typed words had been pasted he message read:

COURTESIES EXTENDED BETWEEN COUNTIES IN POLICE MATTERS STOP WHEN WE HAVE ANYTHING TO DO IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY WE ADVISE CHIEF OF POLICE IF WITHIN CITY LIMITS OR SHERIFF IF IN COUNTY OR SOMETIMES BOTH REQUESTING CO-OPERATION STOP ANY TIME SANTA DELBARRA COUNTY FEELS IT NEEDS ASSISTANCE IN LOS ANGELES WILL REQUEST PROPER AUTHORITIES TO CO-OPERATE STOP DISLIKE TO PUT DAMPENER UPON YOUR EFFORTS WHICH NO MATTER HOW CLEVER ARE STILL AMATEURISH BUT SITUATION WILL BE GREATLY CLARIFIED IF YOU CONFINE YOUR DETECTIVE ACTIVITIES TO READING PUZZLING CASES IN CURRENT MAGAZINES STOP YOU LEFT YOUR TRAILER PARKED IN MY DRIVEWAY IN SUCH A POSITION CAN’T GET MY CAR OUT OF GARAGE WITHOUT MOVING IT AND CAN’T MOVE IT WITHOUT POSSIBLE DAMAGE TO TRAILER HITCH STOP MILRED JOINS ME IN SENDING KINDEST REGARDS SINCERELY YOURS

Harvey Stanwood held a folded newspaper in his hand as he studied Eva Raymond searchingly across the little table in the cocktail bar. “I’ve been dumb,” he announced.

She yawned. “You sound peeved over something. Remember I haven’t had breakfast yet. I just got up.”

“You haven’t seen the papers, I suppose?”

“No, I don’t read the papers... Why didn’t you give me a ring last night, dear?”

He looked at her accusingly. “You went to Petrie last night.”

There was languid boredom in the manner in which she raised her eyebrows. “Petrie,” she said, repeating the word after him as though trying to recall what it meant. “Oh, yes, I remember now. That’s the place where you said they were having the oil excitement.”

“You went to Petrie,” Stanwood repeated, “to see Ralph Pressman. You were going to try and intercede for me — and perhaps cut yourself a piece of cake... After all, if Pressman and his wife were washed up, there just might be a chance.”

“Harvey, dear, what are you talking about.”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“Don’t you feel well?”

“Where,” he asked, “is that compact I gave you, the one with your initials engraved on it?”

She opened her purse, looked inside, frowned as though puzzled, said suddenly: “Why, remember I gave it to you night before last, when we were dancing. You slipped it in your coat pocket... Let me have it back, dear.”

She extended her hand across the table.

“It won’t work,” Stanwood said.

“What do you mean?”

Stanwood opened the paper to the second page, folded it, and pushed it across the table.

The reproduction of a photograph of a woman’s compact with a cracked mirror and the initials “E.R.” engraved on it was headed by the caption, “WOMAN’S COMPACT FOUND BY POLICE ON PORCH OF MURDERED MAN.”

“Harvey,” she breathed, an exclamation that was a half whisper. “What happened?”

“Pressman was murdered. Your compact was found on the porch... Perhaps you’d better read about it.”