Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Smoking Chimney

Lassen grinned and said: “Sounds a little foolish, but here we go.”

He knocked on the door and called: “Open up.”

From the front of the house, they heard a banging on the door, then Gramps’ shrill voice: “Hey, open up in there! Come on, open up!”

The sheriff knocked again.

In the interval of silence that followed, the little group listened to the banging that came from the front of the house.

“Sounds like he’s trying to kick the door down,” Duryea said. “One thing you have to admit is that when Gramps does anything, he—”

Milred’s hand grasped his arm. “Frank,” she said. “Listen.”

For a moment there was silence, and from the inside of the house could be plainly heard the sound of a surreptitious step, the creaking of a board.

“Hey,” the sheriff shouted abruptly, “open up that door! Who’s in there?”

There was no further sound from the person in the house.

“You there,” the sheriff called. “This is the law. Open up that door!”

From the front of the house, Gramps’ voice cried: “That’s right, Sheriff. You’re doin’ fine. Keep poundin’. Make a lot of racket. You’ll — Holy Christmas, Sheriff, somebody is in there! He’s comin’ toward the front door. Look out! ”

The sounds of knocking ceased abruptly. Gramps’ voice, sounding just a little frightened, called: “Oh, Sheriff!”

The sheriff flashed one look at Duryea, said: “You women get back. Keep under cover.” His hand streaked to the holster at his hip.

“Okay.” Frank said, “let’s go.”

Their shoulders hit against the door.

Eva Raymond screamed.

Milred said: “Watch your step, Frank.”

The door bent, creaked, then suddenly exploded inward, to crash against the wall, and rebound shivering on its hinges.

The sheriff’s flashlight illuminated the interior of the little cabin, showing the kitchen, neat, clean, and utterly devoid of human occupancy. The flashlight sought out the door of the room in which Pressman’s body had been found.

Duryea crowded forward. The sheriff shouldered him back. “Look out, Frank,” he said. “I’ve got the gun.”

“This is the law,” he called. “Whoever’s in here, get your hands up and keep ’em up.”

Gramps, pounding away at the front of the door, yelled: “Are you in there, Sheriff? Get this door open. Someone’s in there. Let me in on this, too.”

Lassen and Duryea paid no attention to the excited old man. They entered the room in which Pressman’s body had been found.

That room was empty.

The little bedroom also was empty.

The sheriff looked at the district attorney in startled surprise.

Duryea said: “There’s a trap door or a hidden passage somewhere.”

Gramps, pounding at the door in a frenzy of impatience, shrilled: “You open this door. I’ve got a right to be in on this. Who is it that’s in there with you? Who you talkin’ to?”

Duryea called: “Gramps, go around and protect the women.”

“Protect the women, hell!” Gramps yelled. “I want to get in on this, too. I’m the one that gave you the idea in the first place. You open that door.”

“It’s locked,” Duryea said, trying the knob. “You’ll have to go around to—”

But Gramps was running around the house before Duryea had finished the sentence.

The beam of the sheriff’s flashlight shot in swift searching circles around the cabin. “Watch out for closets, Frank,” he cautioned.

“There aren’t any,” Duryea said.

“There’s either a closet or a trap door,” the sheriff insisted. “Wait a minute,” Duryea pointed out. “How about the ceiling?”

The sheriff raised his flashlight to the tongue-and-groove ceiling, said: “There’s a trap door up there in the ceiling... Look out, Frank, I’m going up.”

“It’ll take a ladder,” Frank said.

“Here’s a chair I can stand on.”

The sheriff dragged a chair out into the middle of the floor. Gramps, who had circled the house, came running excitedly in the back door. “What happened?” he asked. “Who was it? Somebody came and stood by the front door. Heard him just as plain as day—”

“You get back out of the way,” the sheriff ordered. “Keep an eye on those women.”

Gramps said: “The women can look out for themselves. You ain’t goin’ to put me in any feminine corner. You—”

“ GRAMPS! ” Milred exclaimed.

The sheriff got up on the chair, poked at the trap door with the muzzle of his revolver.

“Gramps!” Milred said again.

“You girls get out of here,” Duryea ordered.

“GRAMPS!” Milred shouted.

Gramps turned to meet her eyes.

The sheriff pushed the trap door out of its seat, said: “You up there, come on out, or I’ll shoot.”

Milred said: “You can rest at ease, Frank. It was Gramps.”

“What was?”

“The man in the house.”

“What do you mean?” Duryea demanded.

“Look at him,” Milred said.

Gramps tried, but he couldn’t keep guilt from showing on his face as Milred stared at him accusingly.

“What the devil are you talking about?” Duryea asked impatiently.

“The man you heard in the house was Gramp Wiggins,” Milred asserted. “Don’t you remember? He had a key to that front door. All he had to do was to open it, pound on the front door, then tiptoe through the house, stand quietly by the back door, tiptoe back, and start pounding.”

Sheriff Lassen, who had raised himself so that his head protruded through the trap door, brought a cobweb-covered countenance down far enough to glare at Gramp Wiggins. “I don’t think it was,” he said slowly, “but if it was —”

Borden who had been prowling around the grounds, suddenly appeared at the back door.

The sheriff started to say something to him, then at the expression on Borden’s face, stopped.

Borden said: “A car stopped down the road about fifty yards, switched off the lights, and a lone man got out. Thought you’d ought to know.”

Gramps said dryly: “All right, boys, that’s it. The murderer has one chink in his armour. He can’t tell whether Eva Raymond did or didn’t see him through that window when she screamed and ran. She didn’t, but the murderer doesn’t know that. I thought by takin’ her out here, I could sort of get him to tip his hand.”

Abruptly Sheriff Lassen thumbed the flashlight into darkness.

“He’ll be most apt to make for my trailer,” Gramps muttered, “an’ when he finds nobody’s in there, he’s goin’ to come to the house. I wouldn’t show any light. He just might be kinda dangerous.”

“Who is it?” Lassen asked.

“Good heavens,” Gramps said with exasperation, “don’t you know who it was yet ?”

“Remember the demonstration Gramps made of the man walking in the house,” Milred said.

There was a moment’s silence. Duryea said: “Okay, I get you. Now everybody keep together and keep quiet.”

They waited for what seemed an endless succession of slowly ticking seconds. Then there was a faint scraping noise on the porch. A moment later, a very faint beam of light appeared around the edge of the keyhole; then the light was extinguished. Apparently, the man outside was listening.

Just when the nerves of the little party of watchers seemed strained to the point of being raw, a key rasped in the lock. A well-oiled bolt clicked back.

It was another five seconds before the door slowly opened.

The beam of the sheriff’s flashlight stabbed Hugh Sonders full in the face.

As the man instinctively drew back, throwing up his left hand to shield his eyes, the sheriff said dryly: “Drop that gun, Sonders, or I’ll blow you apart.”