Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Smoking Chimney

“Yep, but I’d kinda like to see this man. True first... Wait a minute. There he is.”

Gramps darted out of the car and wiggled through the outskirts of the crowd with the smooth ease of a trout threading his way through the pool of a mountain stream.

“Hi-ya!”

Everett True turned to regard the grinning old man who thrust out a cordial hand.

“My name’s Wiggins. You’re True, editor of the paper up there at Petrie, ain’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“Just heard him reading that editorial,” Gramps said, “a mighty nice piece of writing, mighty nice!”

“Thank you.”

Gramps said: “I got my car parked over here. Thought maybe you might give me a minute or two soon as the speechmaking is over.”

“What was it you wanted?” True asked.

“Just wanted to ask you a couple of questions,” Gramps said.

True edged over towards the limits of the crowd. “What sort of questions?”

“Something about that murder out your way.”

True looked at him with quick appraisal. “Are you an officer?”

“Nope.”

“I’ve seen you somewhere before. I— Oh, I place you now. You were out there at the cabin... Related to the district attorney, aren’t you?”

“Well, in a way,” Gramps admitted.

True became slightly cautious. “I’ve told all I know to the district attorney.”

“Yep, I know,” Gramps said, “but this is different. This is just a question I wanted to ask you about the man you heard in that cabin when you and Sonders went out there.”

“What about him?”

“You think that was Pressman?”

“Why, certainly... That is, if Reedley was Pressman, that’s who it was.”

“Couldn’t have been a woman that was in that cabin?” Gramps asked.

“ A woman! ” True exclaimed.

“Uh huh.”

“I’m afraid I don’t get you.”

“Well now,” Gramps said, “you don’t know that was Pressman in that cabin. All you know is you heard somebody moving around.”

“Well?”

Gramps said: “I was sort of wondering if maybe Pressman might not have been all alone. Maybe someone was with him. Maybe that’s why he didn’t want to come to the door, or talk with you... Might have been a woman.”

“No,” True said. “I think not. I think those steps were definitely the steps of a man. I gathered the impression that it was a man moving rather stealthily. You could hear the boards creak under his weight.”

“Didn’t hear any high heels, like as if it had been a woman?” Gramps asked.

“No.”

Gramps tilted back his sweat-stained sombrero, dug with scratching fingertips at the curly grey hair above his left ear. “Well,” he said, “I reckon that’s that, then.”

“What,” True asked, “gave you the idea that it was a woman?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Gramps said. “Just sort of wonderin’ why Pressman wouldn’t have told you to get off the place or have come to the door an’ told you he didn’t want to give you an interview or—”

“Wait a minute,” True interrupted. “Here’s Sonders... Oh, Hugh! Look over here a minute... Hugh, this is Mr. Wiggins, related to the district attorney. He wants to know if the person we heard moving around in that cabin could have been a woman.”

“No,” Sonders said. “It was Pressman. At any rate, it was a man. I saw a man’s arm when the last shade was being pulled down.”

Gramps became suddenly excited. “Then this man could have seen you?”

“He must have. That was why he was whipping down the shades.”

“He saw you gettin’ out of the car,” Gramps went on. “ An’ you had a paper in your hand! ”

“A paper?”

“Yes. The proof of the editorial.”

“Why, yes — what’s that got to do with it?”

Gramps said: “Might have had a lot to do with it — particularly if that wasn’t Pressman in that shack, but was the murderer, an’ he pulled down the shades so you couldn’t look in an’ see the corpse.”

True was instantly alert for a story. “What’s that? What makes you think—”

But Gramps had turned away and was threading through the crowd, headed for his trailer.

Duryea telephoned his house, and when Milred answered, said: “I’m afraid I’m going to disrupt your family. Perhaps you’d better be in on it.”

“What’s the matter, Frank?”

“Your esteemed grandfather.”

“What about him? What’s he doing now?”

“According to reports we have just received, he has attended a political rally and listened to the speech of an opposition candidate. Now he’s headed toward Petrie, very probably intending to break into that cabin.”

“Going to arrest him if he does?”

“As the sheriff pointed out to me a few minutes ago, I can’t very well do that.”

“Why?”

“With an election coming up in a couple of months, I could hardly afford to give the opposition press that sort of ammunition. You can feature the headlines, and the editorials: ‘IT’S ALL IN THE FAMILY — DISTRICT ATTORNEY ARRESTS WIFE’S GRANDFATHER. UNABLE TO FIND PRESSMAN’S MURDERER, DISTRICT ATTORNEY SWOOPS DOWN ON WIFE’S RELATIVE’— No, I can’t arrest him, not now anyway.”

“What are you going to do?”

“In about five minutes,” he said, “I’m going to pick you up; then you and the sheriff and I are going out to Petrie. If Gramps is in that cabin, we’re going to throw the book at him. It will be a star chamber session, and we’ll give him what’s known as a floater... But I think you get the idea.”

“You mean scare the pants off him?”

“Exactly. Your paternal grandparent is about to be completely denuded of trousers. We’re going to give him the cure.”

“I’ll be standing out in front ready to hop into the car,” she promised. “But don’t be too rough with him, Frank.”

The big county car glided smoothly along the road. Sheriff Lassen, studying the speedometer, abruptly reached forward and dimmed the headlights. “We’re within a mile of the place now,” he said. “We’ll have to use our parking lights and crawl along for the rest of the way.”

The car slowed to but little more than fifteen miles an hour.

“Of course,” Milred pointed out, “Gramps may not be here.”

“I think so,” the sheriff said. “Borden reported from Petrie. He didn’t dare follow the old man too closely — said he’d get out to the cabin, and if your grandfather wasn’t there, he’d leave a signal for us.”

The car rolled along over the paved road. Ahead, they could see the tall forms of the eucalypti silhouetted against the starlit sky. “Getting close to the place,” the sheriff said. “Must have been a little closer than I thought when I switched off the headlights. I hope he didn’t see us, or—”

The sheriff broke off abruptly as a hand flashlight blinked ahead in the darkness.

“What’s that?” Milred asked.

“Probably Borden,” the sheriff announced, but he slid his hand under his coat and hitched his gun forward so that it would be in readiness.

“Better switch off the lights,” Duryea said in a low voice.

The sheriff clicked the car into darkness.

They waited a moment, then saw the vague outline of a figure. The beam of a spotlight stabbed through the darkness to illuminate the forward licence on the automobile; then the spotlight was extinguished, and a low whistle came from the darkness.

The sheriff rolled down the glass on his left, said in a low voice: “That you, Borden?”

“Okay, Sheriff,” the voice came from the darkness. A moment later, the huge figure of Harry Borden cat-footed up to the side of the car. “Had to make sure it was you,” he explained. “Don’t know just what’s going on.”