Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Smoking Chimney

She snatched at the paper, read eagerly the story under the headline, “VICTIM OF SLAYING IDENTIFIED AS LOS ANGELES BUSINESSMAN.”

When she had finished, she looked up at him with eyes that held bewilderment and just a touch of horror. “Harvey, did you do that?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“You must have. You had my compact in your pocket night before last, and—”

“I gave you back that compact as soon as we came back to the table.”

“I don’t remember it.”

“I put it in your purse.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“Well, I did.”

She said demurely: “All right, darling. I’ll protect you on that, but where does that leave me ?”

“It leaves you,” Harvey said brutally, “on the front porch of that shack up in Santa Delbarra County.”

She shook her head.

Stanwood put his elbows on the table. “All right, baby, you’re not fooling me any. I told you Pressman and his wife were ready to split up. I told you he liked figures. I told you that if he didn’t come back to the office, I might stand a chance... You could kill two birds with one stone. I suppose it was the old ‘innocent’ act. Your automobile was out of gas. You’d walked for half a mile and had come to this house. You hated to disturb him, but did he have a telephone and could he call for someone to come and help you get your automobile started? You felt pretty certain he didn’t have a telephone, and at that hour in the morning—”

The demure mask dropped from her face. Instantly she was cold and hard. “Why do you say at that hour of the morning ?” she asked, the question fairly crackling from her lips.

“Because that’s just about the time you’d pick to pull a stunt like that — too late for him to put you out, too early to have him get up to go help you with the car.”

She smiled at him then, and said: “You want me to take the rap for you, don’t you, dear?”

“What are you getting at?”

“You went up there, and either accidentally dropped my compact out of your pocket while you were killing him, or did it deliberately after you killed him. I suppose you felt I could beat the case by saying I was fighting to protect myself.”

“Babe, you’re crazy — plumb nuts.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

“Do what?”

“Say I was up there, to protect you.”

“But you were there!”

“Of course I was, dear.”

“But damn it, don’t say anything to that district attorney!”

“Why, I thought that was what you wanted.”

“Eva! Listen to me! Were you up there, or weren’t you?”

“I was up there, of course — if that will help you beat the rap, dear.”

Stanwood sighed, said fervently: “Damn!”

Eva Raymond looked up to find the waiter standing by the table.

“Make mine an old-fashioned,” she said casually.

It was just turning dusk as Gramp Wiggins backed his automobile carefully into position, using an ingeniously constructed mirror on the rear of his car to centre the trailer hitch.

Milred, attired in a cooking apron, came out of the kitchen door to stand on the screen porch, regarding him grimly.

Gramps didn’t see her until he had the trailer centered; then he looked up and grinned. “Hi, Milred.”

“Hi, Gramps.”

“They tell me I’m in the doghouse.”

“You haven’t heard anything yet.”

Gramps climbed out of the car, went around, and twisted the handle which lowered the trailer into position on the hitch. When he had the assembly locked into position, he came up to the screen porch. “Well, go ahead and say it.”

“Say what, Gramps?”

“What a heel I am for goin’ away and blockin’ the driveway an’ all that stuff.”

She laughed and said: “You’re getting a persecution complex.”

“Well, I’m sorry. I never thought about Frank’s car. I was in a hurry, and I had to leave the trailer some place.”

“That’s a minor matter. Frank can get along without his car as long as there are taxicabs in town, and the county furnishes him with an automobile for transportation on his official business... Had anything to eat?”

“Nope.”

“Come on in and sit down. I’m having a bite in the kitchen.”

“Where’s Frank?”

“He’s up at the office. Busy.”

Gramps came in, said: “Got anything to drink around the place?”

“Nothing that you’d be interested in, and don’t try to inveigle me into any of your concoctions tonight. That cocktail of yours had me trying to jab a fork in my steak every time it came whizzing around.”

“Nothing to that,” Gramps protested in well-simulated surprise. “That was mild. Didn’t give you no headache next morning, did it?”

“No.”

“Well, there you are. That’s good liquor.”

“The presence or absence of a headache the next morning isn’t the only thing in life, Gramps. I like to see where I’m going once in a while.”

“I tell you that was mild. I’ll run out and grab a nip of the pure quill, won’t bother to mix up no cocktail... Sure you don’t want to join me?”

“Absolutely, definitely, positively, certain,” she said. “And in case you’re interested, you’re having steak hash tonight.”

“Yum yum,” Gramps said. “Hash is swell,” but added with quick suspicion, “when it’s good.”

“This,” she said defiantly, “is good, and don’t make any insinuations. Otherwise you’ll find yourself on the outside looking in.”

“Onions in it?”

“Lots of onions.”

“Garlic?”

“Some.”

“Got some garlic salt in the place?”

“Yes.”

“Well, put a shaker by my plate, and I’ll spike it up a little,” Gramps said. “Hash ain’t hash without lots of garlic.”

Gramps went out to the backyard, unlocked the door of his trailer, entered the sacred precincts, and poured himself a generous swig of that which he referred to as “the pure quill’. He came back to find Milred putting the dinner on the table.

Gramps tasted the hash, added garlic salt, tasted it again, and nodded his head. “Put a little gravy in here, didn’t you?”

“Uh huh.”

“That’s what makes it nice. Hash ain’t no good when it’s dry. Tastes like sawdust. Always save out a mite of gravy when you’re goin’ to make hash the next day, an’ put it in the hash. Doesn’t do any hurt to slice a lot of onions an’ cook ’em up first. The meat’s already been cooked. Ain’t no use to cook it to death, just warm it enough to get it good ’n’ hot ’n’ let the gravy soak in.”

“That’s right.”

“Could have put a little more garlic in there, and it’d have been better.”

“Frank has to be careful about garlic. He’s working so much at the office nights... Never know when he’s going to be called.”

“That’s right. What’s he working on tonight? That murder case?”

“Uh huh.”

“Got a lead in it?” Gramps asked, unable to keep the eagerness out of his voice.

She laughed. “It’s simply routine. He’s interrogating some witnesses from Los Angeles. He’s asked them to come up.”

“Uh huh,” Gramps said noncommittally.

“How about some more hash, Gramps?”

Gramps said: “Don’t care if I do. I claim that’s pretty darn good hash. Guess it’s the Wiggins in you that makes you such a darn good cook.”

He passed his plate. Milred spooned him out a generous second helping of the hash. Gramps put on garlic salt, and had just cleaned up his plate when he suddenly gave a convulsive start and clapped his hand to his mouth.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.