Erle Gardner - The Case of the Postponed Murder

“You mean about coming here and...”

“Certainly not,” Mason said. “You were struggling with Wentworth. Someone shot him. He ran into the after cabin. You tried to follow. You were half unconscious from the struggle. You tried the door. His body was jammed against it so you couldn’t open it. You tried and tried. You don’t know how long — it seemed forever. Finally, you succumbed to hysteria and began screaming for help. Think you can do that?”

“Yes, I guess so.”

“Well,” Mason said, “it’s the only way you can get yourself out of the mess. Your car’s down there. Your fingerprints are all over the cabin. I don’t suppose you thought to wipe your fingerprints off, did you?”

She shook her head.

“Wentworth in his underwear. There are probably fingernail marks on his arm. Your clothes are torn and your body is bruised. The police won’t take more than two guesses to figure out what he was doing.”

“But why shouldn’t I try and get out of it?” she asked. “Why shouldn’t I wipe my fingerprints off the knobs, get my car, and...”

“Because they’ll start looking for the woman in the case, and then start looking for her boyfriend,” Mason said. “They’ll trace Anders and pin a first degree murder rap on him. As it is now, they’ll only ask for second degree or manslaughter, and if worst comes to worst, and you can make the story of that struggle sound realistic enough, we can get a justifiable homicide out of it. But you two try to cover the thing up, and here’s what’ll happen: The D.A. will claim you’d forged a cheque, that Wentworth was holding it over you, that you went down prepared to offer him almost anything to square the rap.”

“They can see,” she said, “that I was fighting for my honor.”

Mason stared steadily at her. “They can see it,” he said ominously, “unless they can prove that you’d already been his mistress, and if they can prove that, God help you.”

She stared steadily at the lawyer, her face utterly devoid of expression.

“All right,” Mason said, “let’s get started. We’ve wasted too much time already.”

“How about me?” Anders asked. “Do I stay at the hotel until — the police come?”

“No,” Mason said, “but stay there until I call. I want to look the thing over. I’ll telephone you before the police can possibly nab you. Then, probably, the thing for you to do will be to go to another hotel, register under an assumed name, and lie low, pretending that you were planning on taking other steps to get in touch with Mae, and didn’t want anyone to know what they were. I’ll give you a ring. Come on, Mae. Let’s go. Della, I’m playing with dynamite. You can keep out of it if you want to.”

“I don’t want to,” Della Street said, “not if I can possibly help.”

“Okay,” Mason said. “Come along.”

A few scattering drops of rain spattered against the windshield when the car was halfway to the Yacht Club. Behind them, the stars were blotted out by great banks of clouds from which came the flash of lightning, the crash of thunder. By the time they reached the harbour, they had left the thunderstorm behind.

“Which way?” Mason asked the girl at his side.

“Turn right at this next intersection. Now go slow. You have to make another turn within a few hundred feet. It’s right along in here. It’s just by that fence. There it is. Turn here. There’s a place to park cars over on the left.”

“Where is your car parked?”

“Right over there.”

Mason said, “Wait a minute. Tell me your licence number and describe the car.”

“It’s a Ford convertible,” she said. “The licence number is WVM five, seven, four.”

Mason said, “Sit here for a few minutes.”

He switched out the lights, said, “Keep an eye on her, Della,” slid out of the car, and walked around the parked automobiles until he spotted the car Mae Farr had described. After a few minutes he came back and said, “Everything’s quiet along here. Let’s get aboard that yacht and look things over. Della, you’d better stay here.”

Della said, “Let me go. You may want to take some notes.”

“All right,” Mason said. “If you feel that way about it, come along. You show us the way, Mae.”

Mae Farr hung back, a trembling hand on Mason’s arm. “Gee,” she said, “I don’t know if I can... can face it.”

Mason said, in a low voice, “If you haven’t nerve enough to make the play, let’s not take a crack at it. I have no great desire to stick my neck out. As far as you’re concerned, it’s the only way you can save your boyfriend. Do you love him that much?”

She said very emphatically, “I don’t love him at all. He thinks he loves me. Perhaps he does. I don’t know. I put him out of my life when I left North Mesa. I was never cut out to be the wife of a rancher.”

Mason looked at her curiously.

She went on to say calmly, “I’m doing this for him because I think I owe him that much. I’d much prefer that he stayed home and minded his own business, but he did what he could to help me.”

Mason said quietly, “Do you think he shot Wentworth, Mae?”

Mae Farr tightened her grip on Mason’s arm. “I don’t know,” she said. “Sometimes I think... No, he wouldn’t lie about it.”

“All right,” Mason said. “I can’t hold your hand through the mess that’s going to come next. How about it? Do you want to go through with the thing the way I suggested or telephone the police and give them the whole story?”

“The way you suggested,” she said quietly, “but give me a minute to get my breath. I hate to go back in that cabin.”

Mason cupped his hand under her elbow. “If you’re going to do it, get started. If you’re not going to do it, say so.”

“I’m going to do it,” she said.

Mason nodded to Della Street. The three of them walked from the parking lot down to the long float where a miscellaneous assortment of boats were crowded into U-shaped stalls, a tangle of masts stretching up to where the edges of advancing clouds obscured the starlight.

“That thundershower’s catching up with us,” Mason said.

No one answered. Their feet sounded on the cross boards of the float. A vagrant breeze, springing up, sent little ripples of water slapping against the sides of the boats.

Mason asked, “Where is this yacht?”

“Down toward the far end,” she said.

They walked on. At intervals they passed yachts in which there were lights. From some of them came the sounds of merriment, from one, the tinkle of a guitar. From another, a girl’s voice, sharp with indignation, asked someone where he thought he got off, told him he was no gentleman but a four flusher, a cad, and a cheapskate.

Mason said, “Well, where the deuce is this yacht?”

“It shouldn’t be much farther.”

“Do you know it when you see it?”

“Of course. I’ve... I’ve cruised on it quite frequently.”

“A big one?”

“Uh huh. Pretty big, about fifty feet.”

“Motor and sail or just motor?”

“A motor sailer. It’s an old timer, what Penn called a ‘character’ boat, but the whole thing is the last word. Lots of electronic equipment and even what they call an Iron Mike.”

“What’s an Iron Mike?” Della asked.

“An automatic steering thing,” Mae Farr said. “You switch the thing on, and it’s connected in some way with the compass and the steering wheel. You set the course you want the yacht to travel, and it never gets off that course. As soon as it starts to veer, the compass sets an automatic mechanism into action. I don’t know the details, but it works perfectly.”

Mason said, “Well, there are three boats between here and the end of the landing. Is it one of those three?”