Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Smoking Chimney

“ Where did you get it?”

“Well,” Gramps said, “I... Now wait a minute, folks. Let’s not let this interfere with the dinner. Let’s go ahead and start eatin’. Things are goin’ to get cold, and—”

“Where did you get it?” Duryea repeated.

“Well,” Gramps said, “I dropped into Pressman’s office to talk with Pressman’s secretary.”

“What was the object in doing that?” Duryea asked ominously.

Gramps said: “Well, I wanted to know a little bit about Pressman — wanted to find out if maybe he used to live out in a cabin somewhere.”

“Go on,” Duryea said quietly.

Gramps said: “Someone came in to see Miss Graven while I was there, so I sort of rubbered around the office. This man Stanwood that was in your office the other night... You know he works there.”

“I’m still waiting,” Duryea said, “to find out where you got that paper.”

“Well,” Gramps went on, after the manner of a small boy explaining how the rock slipped out of his hand to crash through the plate-glass window, “I went on into Stanwood’s office, an’ I noticed a newspaper on the desk. It wasn’t a current newspaper. It was dated the twenty-fourth. I looked at it an’ happened to notice some headlines. I noticed they was the same headlines that was on that suicide note, so, later on, I got to lookin’ through the paper an’ found that every one of the pieces that made up that message had been cut from that same newspaper... Now that newspaper was put out on the twenty-fourth. It’s a Los Angeles afternoon newspaper. It doesn’t get up to Petrie until around eight o’clock in the evenin,” maybe a little later than eight o’clock... Figure that one out, son.”

Duryea said: “I’m not figuring anything out right now. Where did you get that newspaper that has the words cut out ?”

Gramps said: “Nope. I’m not gonna say another word until I’ve had some of this grub. ’Tain’t right for Milred to slave her fingers to the bone out there tryin’ to get grub for you, if you ain’t goin’ to enjoy it, an’ ’tain’t right for you to get yourself all excited on an empty stomach. Didn’t know you were goin’ to carry on so about it, or I wouldn’t have mentioned it until after dinner... Milred, how about some of those biscuits while they’re hot?”

Gramps reached across the table, calmly selected three biscuits from the napkin-covered dish, opened them, put a generous slab of butter in each, and closed them to let the butter melt.

“That’s the way with biscuits,” he said. “You’ve got to let the butter melt an’ soak right into ’em.”

Milred nodded to her husband. “Go ahead, Frank. Let’s start eating. I know Gramps when he gets one of these fits. You can’t budge him with dynamite.”

Duryea didn’t say anything, but ate with grim, unsociable silence. Watching him, Milred suddenly remembered the emergency operation she had performed on the telephone and made an excuse to leave the table and put the receiver back into place.

When Gramps had finished with his biscuits and honey, fried chicken and mashed potatoes with country gravy, he pushed back his plate, said hopefully: “Don’t tell me there’s dessert.”

“Strawberry shortcake,” Milred said.

Gramps grinned across at Frank Duryea. “Son, I guess it’s the Wiggins strain in her. That woman certainly can cook.”

Duryea said nothing, registering an austere, silent disapproval.

Gramps said: “Now son, you don’t want to be like that. You just go ahead an’ enjoy this strawberry shortcake, ’cause somethin’ seems to tell me when I get done tellin’ you about this here clue, you’ll be makin’ a beeline for the office.”

Milred said suddenly: “Look here, Frank, you can trust this man if you want to, but he’s my own flesh and blood, and I know him like a book! I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw a truck by the steering wheel with one hand.”

Duryea said sternly: “Gramps, if you’ve been interfering in this case, you’re going to have to take it right on the chin. I’m not going to intercede for you.”

“Intercede for me! ” Gramps exclaimed indignantly. “Well, I should hope to say you ain’t. Nobody ever interceded for me in my life, an’ we ain’t goin’ to begin now.”

“That’s the old spirit, Gramps,” Milred said, “but I have an idea you’re going to jail. My husband really takes his official duties quite seriously.”

“Let ’em put me in jail if they can catch me,” Gramps said, and then added with a grin, “that’s always been my motto. Where’s that strawberry shortcake?”

Gramps helped Milred clean off the table. She brought in the dessert, and it wasn’t until after they had finished it that Gramps pushed back his plate, pulled his villainous pipe from his pocket, grinned across at Duryea, and said: “Well, son, I says to myself, says I to myself, says I, ‘Now suppose you had cut out headlines from a newspaper and pasted ’em together to make a sort of a note? That paper that the headlines had been cut from would be sort of an incriminatin’ piece of evidence. Of course, you could get rid of that piece of evidence all right, but then s’pose somebody got to lookin’ through a file of newspapers you had, an’ found every one except the newspaper of the twenty-fourth. That would be sort of a giveaway, too.’ So I started snoopin’ around.”

“And found what?” Duryea asked.

“Found the paper that had pieces cut from it — the same pieces that was on that message. Now then, son, as soon as I found that, I started puttin’ two and two together, an’—”

“ Where did you find that newspaper?” Duryea interrupted.

“In Stanwood’s automobile,” Gramps said. “An’ that was the natural place to find it, too. Right in the glove compartment of the automobile.”

“ Where is that newspaper?” Duryea demanded.

“You mean you ain’t interested in hearin’ my conclusions about it?” Gramps asked in a hurt voice.

“Not in the least,” Duryea said.

Gramps turned to Milred. “You heard him say that?”

“Definitely and distinctly, and, what’s more, Gramps, I’m warning you. He means it. This is his official mood. He isn’t to be trifled with.”

“Well,” Gramps said, “you can’t ever say that I didn’t offer to give you my theory an’ my explanation.”

“That’s right,” Milred said. “No one’s ever going to claim that, Gramps.”

“Get me that newspaper,” Duryea said. “I should have had it as soon as you came in. That may be one of the most important clues in the entire case.”

“That’s what I was tryin’ to tell you!” Gramps said. “Now, the way I figure it—”

“ I... am — not — interested .”

Duryea pronounced the words slowly and distinctly and with an emphasis of cold finality. Then he added: “I want that newspaper — now .”

Gramps pushed back his chair, trotted out across the kitchen to his trailer.

“Watch him, Frank,” Milred warned. “He’s as full of guile as a sausage skin is of sausage. He planned this whole business carefully, dropping in on us just before dinner, mixing up one of his dynamite cocktails, getting you off your guard, and then springing this business about the newspaper.”

Duryea said grimly: “He’s carried this thing too damned far. If there’s anything phoney about that newspaper, he’ll go to jail, and he’ll stay there.”

They heard the door on Gramps’ trailer slam, heard his quick steps on the porch; then he was in the house, smiling disarmingly, handing a newspaper to Duryea.

“Here you are, son. See for yourself where these things are cut out.”