Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Careless Kitten

Shore nervously took the cigarette from his mouth, dashed it out of the window to the sidewalk. He took off his hat and ran his hands through the wavy splendor of his gray hair. “This is something which must never, never come out,” he said.

“Go ahead,” Mason said.

Gerald Shore said, “I begged and pleaded with my brother. I had to have ten thousand dollars. He read me a lecture on my general business methods — a lecture which I wasn’t in a position to appreciate because, if I didn’t get that ten thousand dollars, I was completely ruined. If I did, I felt I’d clean up enough money on that one deal so I could quit taking long chances and become more conservative. My brother finally promised that he would help me. He said that he had some other matters to attend to that night, but that before he went to bed, he would make a check for ten thousand dollars and put it in the mail.”

“A check payable to you?” Mason asked.

“No. A check payable directly to the party to whom the money was due. Time was too short to have a check go through my account.”

“Your brother did that?” Mason asked.

“My brother didn’t. He disappeared without doing that.”

“Then we can take it for granted that after your visit, he was confronted with a certain urgency which made his disappearance so imperative that he forgot his promise to you.”

“I suppose so.”

“When did you learn of the disappearance?”

“Not until the next morning.”

“And that day was the last day you had in which to take some action?”

Shore nodded.

“You had, perhaps, already assured your associates that the matter had been taken care of?” Mason inquired.

“At nine-thirty that morning,” Shore said with feeling, “I rang up the party to whom the payment was due and told him that he would have his check before the banks closed that afternoon, that the check would be made payable to him and would be signed by Franklin B. Shore. About ten minutes after I’d hung up the telephone, Matilda got in touch with me and asked me to come over at once. She told me about what had happened.”

“Now, as I remember it,” Mason said, “the fact of the disappearance was kept from the public for a day or two.”

Shore nodded.

Mason looked at him shrewdly. “During that time, several large checks were cashed,” he said.

Shore nodded.

“Well?” Mason prompted.

“Among them,” Shore said, “was a check to Rodney French for ten thousand dollars.”

“Rodney French was the man to whom you owed the money?”

“Yes.”

“And to whom you had promised the payment?”

“Yes.”

“And that check?” Mason asked.

Gerald Shore said, “That check was made out and signed by me. I forged my brother’s signature. My brother had promised me that I could count on that check. I felt that — that I was entitled to do what I did in all honesty.”

“And Matilda Shore never knew that the check was forged?”

“No one ever knew it was forged. I... I made a good job of it. As it happened, my brother had called up his bookkeeper late that night in connection with some other matters, and had mentioned that he was making out this check to Rodney French for ten thousand dollars.

“I don’t suppose, Mr. Mason,” Shore went on, emotion choking his voice, “I could ever explain to you what all this meant to me. It was the turning point in my career. Prior to that time, I’d been mixed up in a lot of get-rich-quick schemes — legitimate all right, but, nevertheless, promotional gambles. I’d been intent on making money. I guess my brother’s influence furnished the spur which goaded me on. I wanted to be like him. I wanted to show that I, too, had the ability to make money. I wanted the things which went with financial security.

“After the devastating experience which I had that time, I took stock of myself. I wasn’t particularly impressed by what I found. — That’s been ten years ago, Mr. Mason. I think I can truthfully say that I’ve changed since then — changed in a great many respects.”

“Go on,” Mason said. “I’m interested.”

“For one thing, I’ve realized that there’s something more to life than making money.”

“You mean acquiring wisdom, or a philosophy of life?” Mason asked.

“No, I don’t,” Gerald Shore said. “I mean in the duties and responsibilities a man has toward others.”

“In what way?”

“I used to think a man’s life was his own to live as he wanted to live it. I realize now that isn’t true. A man isn’t entirely a free agent. He’s constantly influencing others by his character, by what he says, by the way he lives, by... ” Shore’s voice choked, and he became silent.

Mason waited, smoking quietly.

Shore went on after a few seconds, “Take Helen, for instance. She was a girl of fourteen, standing, to use a trite expression, on the threshold of life. She had always looked up to me and respected me. She was approaching a time in life when moral values were about to become more significant to her. If something happened, if she had discovered that — well, Mr. Mason, from that time on, I changed my entire goal in life. I got a completely different set of objectives. I began to try and pattern my life so that those who looked up to me wouldn’t— Oh, what’s the use?”

“There’s a great deal of use,” Mason said, his voice kindly.

“That’s all there is to it,” Shore said shortly. “I quit trying to make money. I began to take more of an interest in people, not for what they could do for me, but for what I could do for them. I realized that, to younger persons at least, I was a trustee for certain standards. And I,” he continued bitterly, “a confessed forger, am ranting all this stuff, I who have committed a crime and who thought that crime would go undiscovered, had the temerity to think that I could avoid paying for what I had done.”

Mason waited until his emotion had subsided, then inquired, “How about Rodney French? Did he ask any questions?”

“No. He did go so far as to telephone Franklin’s bookkeeper and ask him if Franklin had said anything about making out that check. That was when the check wasn’t in the morning mail. Upon being assured that Franklin had so advised his bookkeeping department, French took the money and kept quiet.”

“Otherwise, French might have resorted to a little blackmail after he learned of Franklin’s disappearance?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know. I suppose that after he heard of the disappearance and heard my denial that I had been with my brother, French became rather suspicious.”

“And just why,” Mason asked, “did that make you feel that your brother would have become estranged from you?”

“Don’t you see?” Shore said, unmistakable anguish in his voice. “The newspapers dug up a lot of stuff. A lot of the details about my brother’s financial transactions were given to the public, the amount of his bank balance, the checks which had been drawn in the last few days — and there was, of course, mention made of the fact that the last check which he had drawn had been one in favor of Rodney French to an amount of ten thousand dollars.”

Mason gave the matter thoughtful consideration. “You don’t think your brother forgave you — under the circumstances?”

“I had hoped that he would understand and forgive,” Gerald said, “but when he saw fit to make himself known by calling up Helen instead of me, I— Well, you can draw your own conclusions.”

Mason pinched out the end of his cigarette. “If Lieutenant Tragg ever gets hold of all these facts,” he said, “he’ll convict you of first-degree murder.”

“Don’t I know it!” Gerald Shore exclaimed. “And there’s nothing I can do. I feel like a swimmer who’s being carried along by a current against which he can’t struggle, headed toward a deadly whirlpool.”