Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Smoking Chimney

“Who?”

“Reedley,” Karper said, “is Ralph G. Pressman.”

“What!”

“That’s right.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the idea?”

“He thought you’d call on him and he’d have a chance to find out the low-down.”

Sonders said: “I’ll call on him, all right. I’ll get Everett True of the Petrie Herald . We’ll go down there, and—”

“Wait a minute,” Karper interrupted. “Do something for me, will you?”

“What?”

“Don’t go down there for a couple of hours. Give me that much leeway.”

“Why?”

“I have some things I want to do.”

“He might get away.”

“No. He’s going to stay right there. Here’s something else. The oil well is a dry hole — dry as a bone.”

“How did you get this information?”

“It came to me straight.”

Sonders said: “This is a break. If we catch him putting over something like that, it might even have some bearing on the lawsuit. Might get us a rehearing in the Supreme Court.”

“That wouldn’t affect his legal position,” Karper said.

Sonders laughed. “He has to come to court with clean hands, legally speaking. And don’t the Supreme Court justices read the newspapers?”

“All right,” Karper said, “just be certain of one thing.”

“What?”

“Wait two hours. Don’t ever let on that I knew anything about it. Never tell anyone where you got the tip, not a soul, not even Howser or True.”

Sonders hesitated a moment, then said: “Okay. It’ll probably take a couple of hours for me to get hold of True and get the story lined up.”

Frank Duryea, the district attorney of Santa Delbarra County, kicked his shoes off and lay back on the bed, his hands clasped behind his head, watching his wife with affectionate pride in his eyes.

Milred Duryea, some five years younger than her husband, tall, slender, tolerant, sat in front of the mirror at the dressing-table, rubbing creams into her face with the tips of long, pliable fingers.

“Don’t do that,” she said, over her shoulder.

“What?” her husband asked.

“Settle down there on the bed. You’ll go to sleep. Get up and take your clothes off.”

Duryea said amiably: “Some of them are already off. I have made a great concession to the bedroom conventions. I have removed my shoes.”

“You’ll go to sleep there, and I’ll have to undress you myself.”

The district attorney yawned. “A very interesting thought. Undressing seemed such a chore, I thought I’d rest for a minute. Now you suggest the delightful possibility that I might drift off to sleep and wake up to find myself neatly tucked into bed.”

“I’d skin your clothes off wrong side out,” she threatened.

“I know; but, being a dutiful wife, and a good housekeeper, you couldn’t bear to let them stay that way. You’d turn them back right side out again and put them on the hangers in the closet.”

“And your love letters would fall out of your coat pocket,” she said.

“How little you know of the legal mind,” he said. “I burn my love letters as fast as I get them.”

“Have you no sentiment?”

“Not in regard to love letters. When you’ve practised law as long as I have, and heard as many love letters read to juries in that patient, dreary monotone with which an opposing attorney discusses matters of sentiment— No, my darling, not love letters.”

“Not even mine?”

“You never wrote me any.”

“Well, you never wrote me any.”

“That legal training again.”

Milred removed the surplus cream on a soft towel, then wiped off her hands. “Come on. Get started,” she ordered.

“I can’t,” Duryea said, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m thinking of love letters — read in court. ‘My dear darling,’” he recited in a flat, expressionless voice, “‘you have no idea how much I miss you. My body cries out for the touch of your tender caress. The haunting memory of your lips pressed against mine makes my heart beat more quickly. When I first clasped your body, so soft and pliable, in my arms, and—’”

“Oh, I know!” his wife exclaimed triumphantly, pouncing upon him and depositing her weight so that his legs were imprisoned. She began tickling the bottoms of his feet.

The district attorney tried to continue declaiming his love letter, but his words became more rapid and higher-pitched. Abruptly he broke off in nervous laughter, doubling up his knees, trying to push her off his legs.

She clung to him, working on the bottoms of his feet.

“I surrender,” the district attorney of Santa Delbarra County yelled. “Absolute, unconditional surrender!”

She ceased her ministrations. “Off with them,” she ordered.

Duryea slid his legs over the bed, unbuttoned his vest. “A very dirty trick, I call it,” he said. “Distinctly unprofessional. With the ratio of divorces constantly on the increase—”

“What is it?” she asked, as he broke off to listen, his head held slightly on one side.

“I thought,” he said, “I heard a car come up the driveway and stop.”

“A car?”

“A car,” he insisted. “A very disreputable car with a decrepit motor.”

“ Gramps! ” she exclaimed.

“It is, of course, within the bounds of dire possibility. I have accustomed myself to earthquakes, have even geared myself to anticipate the possibility of an enemy invasion. Airplane bombings and gas attacks are part of the everyday hazards of life, but your grandfather, my dear, is a special calamity reserved for—”

A cracked, quavering horn, having some of the qualities of a phonograph record which is about half run down, made raucous noise.

“It is Gramps!” Milred Duryea exclaimed.

The district attorney buttoned his vest, reached down for his shoes.

Milred dashed to the closet for a robe.

“The time?” she asked.

“Ten-forty-eight,” her husband announced. “The advent of the calamity is now duly noted for posterity.”

She said, “You’re dressed. Go to the back door and get him to lay off that infernal horn. Tell him we know he’s here.”

“Wait a minute,” Duryea said. “I think I hear steps outside the window.”

A moment later a high-pitched voice called through the Venetian blinds. “Hello, folks. Guess who this is.”

Frank Duryea said sternly: “There is no necessity to guess. No friend would drive such a disreputable motor. You are, therefore, a relative. No Duryea ever sported such an out-of-tune, thoroughly raucous, run-down horn. That means it’s a Wiggins, one of my wife’s relatives.”

“Yep,” Gramp Wiggins chuckled, “that’s me... Don’t aim to disturb you folks none. Got my house trailer outside. Going to roll in, but thought I’d have a hot toddy first. Didn’t intend to let you know I was here until morning, but I saw the light in the bedroom and thought you might like a snort.”

“The occasion,” Duryea proclaimed, “calls for stimulant — definitely. Your last visit all but ruined my chances of re-election. Heavens knows what will happen this time.”

“Now you look here, young fellow,” Gramps said. “I’m not going to interfere none this time. I know the way you feel about having me butt in on your office, so you just set your mind easy on that score. I’m pulling out before noon... Just dropped by to say hello... How about it, Frank? You want to join me in a snifter?”

“You’re darned right I want a snifter,” Frank said. “I need it. I had even craved it before I heard your coffee mill. But you should ask Milred first.”

Gramp Wiggins’ voice sounded hurt, and it was impossible for the district attorney to tell whether the old man was stringing him along or whether he really was insulted. “What are you talkin’ about? Ask Milred if she wants a toddy! She’s a Wiggins ain’t she? Nobody ever needs to ask a Wiggins when there’s a hot toddy bein’ brewed. You take the assent of a Wiggins for granted. It’s only these damn Yankees that have to be asked... All right, you folks be out in five minutes, and she’ll be ready.”