Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Smoking Chimney

“No, thank you. I’ll sit here. Just don’t feel much like walkin’ tonight. Got a bunion that’s botherin’ me.”

“You don’t need to wait, Gramps,” Duryea said. “The sheriff will drive me home.”

“That’s all right,” Gramps told him. “I’ll sit here for a while. Gotta go out to your house anyway. Ain’t no use wastin’ rubber.”

Duryea hesitated as though finding the situation hardly to his liking, then, apparently reaching a decision, said, “Very well,” and popped back into the private office, pulling the door shut behind him.

Gramps grinned across at the girl. “Mind my pipe?” he said.

“Not at all.”

“It’s kinda strong.”

“I like pipe tobacco.” She beamed at him. “It’s strong — and masculine.”

She moved over to the table in the centre of the room, picked up a magazine, and selected a seat across from Gramp Wiggins.

Gramps appreciatively surveyed the scenery.

She looked up abruptly, caught his eye, and adjusted her skirt.

Gramps puffed placidly away at his pipe, said: “Did you know Pressman?”

She met his eyes. “No.”

Gramps said: “Funny thing the district attorney wanting to see you, then.”

“That’s what I can’t understand.”

“Well, you can’t ever tell these days just what’s going to happen.”

“Just what’s your connection with the case? Are you a witness?”

Gramps said: “No, I’m just sorta investigatin’. Of course, I don’t want to pry into your business none, but sometimes when a person talks things over with somebody else, it sorta gets things clear in their own minds, and they can answer questions better.”

She thought that over, said abruptly: “The district attorney is a very young man, isn’t he?”

“Uh huh.”

“I expected to find a much older man.”

“He’s young, but he’s tough,” Gramps said. “Don’t make no mistake about that. He’s tough.”

“Just who are you?”

“Well, I’m kinda related to him. Sort of a member of the family by marriage, you might say.”

“Related to his wife?”

“Yes.”

“Her father?”

“Father, hell! I’m her grandfather.”

Eva Raymond showed genuine surprise. “You don’t look it.”

“Don’t feel it,” Gramps announced pertly. “I been here an’ there, an’ seen quite a few birthdays; but I don’t feel old. Liquor and birthdays never seem to affect me much. Some people can’t take too much of either one without havin’ trouble. Me, I ain’t like that.”

She looked him over appreciatively, said: “Some people just don’t seem to get old. You’re just in the prime of life. You’re waiting to see him after he gets finished?”

“To take him home.”

“Perhaps you can tell me who’s in there now?”

“Yep,” Gramps said. “I could .”

“Well?” she asked.

Gramps grinned at her. “Perhaps you could tell me what he really wants to see you about.”

“Why should I?”

“Why should I tell you who’s in there?”

“I really don’t know what he wants to see me about, but I’m very anxious to know whether — well, whether a certain party is in there.”

“Who?”

She studied him for a moment, said: “Harvey Stanwood.”

“You know Stanwood?”

“Yes.”

“Know him well?”

“Yes.”

Gramps puffed on his pipe. “Perhaps that’s what he wants to see you about.”

“Perhaps it is. It won’t do him any good. I’m free, white, and twenty-one. I can do anything I please. There’s no law against a girl having boyfriends or having a good time.”

“That’s right,” Gramps said.

“ Is Harvey in there?”

Gramps said: “Come over here, sister. Sit down beside me where I can talk to you without my voice carryin’ into the other office.”

She moved over to sit down beside him.

Gramps said: “Yep. Harvey Stanwood’s in there. Lookin’ kinda green around the gills, too, if you ask me.”

Eva Raymond’s quick intake of breath was almost a gasp. She said: “I’m going right on in there, then.”

“I’d advise you not to.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Looks kind of as though you was afraid to have your boyfriend face the music,” Gramps said. “Ain’t no reason why he can’t take care o” himself. He ain’t got nothin’ to conceal, has he?”

“No, of course not.”

“What’s the district attorney want to see him about?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I’d like to find out.”

“Perhaps just gettin’ some financial details ’n’ stuff,” Gramps said.

“Perhaps.” Her tone showed that she didn’t place much credence in that theory.

Gramps said abruptly: “What was Stanwood’s motive for murdering him?”

She jumped as though he had slipped a piece of ice down her neck. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“Just asking what his motive was,” Gramps said.

“I don’t know... He didn’t have any, of course.”

Gramps said musingly: “Kinda funny the district attorney would bring him all the way up here from Los Angeles. If it was routine information he’d wanted, he’d have got it through the Los Angeles police.”

“Well, he’s bringing me all the way up here from Los Angeles,” Eva Raymond said.

Gramps looked at her as though seeing her for the first time. “Doggoned if he ain’t,” he said.

There was silence for a moment; then Eva Raymond asked, “What sort of a man is he? Is he the sort that browbeats you and shouts at you?”

“Not Frank,” Gramps said positively. “He’s the smooth, slick kind. He’ll apologize all over the office for getting you up here from Los Angeles. He’ll ask you some innocent questions, and make you think you’re just about finished, and then he’ll slip over a fast one, and the first thing you know you’ll be floundering around trying to explain what you said and getting in deeper all the time.”

“You’re wrong there,” she said. “Nothing like that is going to happen to me, because I have nothing to conceal.”

“Oh, sure,” Gramps admitted, just a little too readily to be convincing.

She looked at her wristwatch, said: “I wonder what he’s asking Harvey about... And I wonder why he can’t ask Harvey and me questions together.”

Gramps said: “Perhaps he wants separate answers. Did you know George Karper?”

She didn’t move her head, nor did she change expression; but her blue eyes slowly slid around to appraise Gramp Wiggins. “Why do you ask that?”

“I was just wondering if maybe that’s what Frank was askin’ Stanwood about.”

“What’s Karper got to do with it?”

“That’s what I was wondering,” Gramps said.

“Karper,” she told him, “is in the cattle ranching and subdividing business. I don’t think he and Mr. Pressman had anything in common.”

“You know him?”

“I know him when I see him.”

“Ever talked with him?”

She hesitated for a moment, then said definitely: “No.”

“Harvey Stanwood know him?”

“I believe he does. He’s told me something about him.”

“Harvey talk over business with you occasionally?”

“Nothing of a confidential nature.”

“But things generally?”

“Naturally. Our futures depended upon what Harvey could do.”

“How come he ain’t in the Army?”

“They rejected him the first time on account of some minor physical ailment. I understand they may call him back and re-examine him.”

“When were you two going to get married?”

“You want to know a lot, don’t you?”

Gramps grinned at her and said: “Uh huh.”