Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Lonely Heiress

“How about that letter you got from Rose Keeling? What’d you do with it? Why did you destroy it? Who told you to destroy it?”

She tried to assume an external appearance of calm disdain.

“Come on,” Sergeant Holcomb said, “let’s hear the rest of it. You knew that if she changed her testimony you were licked on the whole will case. Your only hope was to murder her so that she couldn’t change her testimony.”

“Yes,” the sneering voice said. “Then you could use the testimony she’d given at the probate, of the will and get by on that.”

Marilyn Marlow sat silent.

“Notice that she isn’t denying it,” the voice taunted. “We’ve accused her of murder, and she hasn’t denied it. Remember that!”

“I do deny it!” she stormed.

“Oh, you do? We thought you’d quit talking.”

“I’m denying that I murdered her.”

“But you do admit you were in the apartment after she was dead, and you didn’t notify the police.”

“I...”

She realized suddenly she was being trapped into further conversation, and clamped her lips shut.

“Come on,” Sergeant Holcomb said, “let’s have the rest of it.”

She sat silent, quivering inwardly, but trying to preserve a calm exterior.

“Okay,” Sergeant Holcomb said, “let’s let the newspaper reporters take a crack at her.”

Someone opened the door. Men came pouring into the room. Someone said, “Look up a little, Marilyn.”

A flashlight blazed into brilliance, but her eyes were so accustomed to the glare of the big light that she hardly noticed the flash bulb.

Other flashlights shot off in succession. Photographers moved about, pointing cameras. Then a newspaper man said, “Okay, Miss Marlow. How about a little statement? It isn’t going to hurt you any, you know; give you an opportunity to get your side of the case presented to the readers.”

“No comment,” she said.

“Come, come, Marilyn, don’t be like that. That’s being dumb. That’s not going to do you any good. A lot depends on public sentiment and public sentiment goes a lot according to first impressions. Get your story before the readers right at the start of the case. Look at all these gals who kill ’em and get off. Every one of them took the newspaper readers into their confidence right at the start.”

“No comment,” she said desperately.

They hounded her for some five minutes more, trying every expedient to get her to talk.

Then they took more photographs and left.

The police started on her once more, and Marilyn Marlow, by this time so thoroughly weary that her very soul felt numb, could hear her own voice mouthing words which sounded as if the words were emanating from her mouth through the medium of some ventriloquist saying from time to time, “No comment... No comment... I will not discuss the matter until my attorney is here... I demand that you call my attorney.”

They were at her like a pack of yapping dogs, worrying the heels of some high-strung, nervous horse. She felt that she wanted to run, if only some avenue of escape would open up...

A door opened. She sensed a tall figure standing in the doorway. A man’s quiet voice said, “What’s going on here?”

Sergeant Holcomb said, “We’re getting a statement from Miss Marlow.”

“How are you getting it?”

“We just asked her questions. We...”

“Shut off that light!” Lieutenant Tragg ordered. “Shut it off instantly!”

A light switch clicked and suddenly her tired, aching eyes were able to relax as the bright light ceased to beat into her brain through her weary eyes.

“I sent Miss Marlow up here for questioning,” Lieutenant Tragg said angrily. “I didn’t mean that she was to be browbeaten. She’s just a witness.”

“Witness, hell!” Sergeant Holcomb said. “I don’t want to seem disrespectful, Lieutenant, but she’s admitted to being in the house just about the time the crime was committed. She claims that Rose Keeling was dead at the time, but there’s no evidence to back her up. And then she called Perry Mason. She got Mason to go up there, and Mason evidently fixed things up so she could take a powder. She admits that she used the telephone in there to call Mason. Remember, her fingerprints weren’t on the receiver, just Mason’s prints, not another print there. The thing had been wiped and polished clean as a whistle.”

“Nevertheless,” Tragg said angrily, “I do not care to have Miss Marlow submitted to the indignity of an inquisition. You men get back to your posts. I’ve left assignments for you. Get out and get busy. Try and get some evidence by using your head and your feet instead of mouths.”

With the glaring overhead light out, Marilyn Marlow could see Lieutenant Tragg clearly now, a tall, somewhat slender, well-knit individual whose clean-cut features were a welcome relief from the heavy faces of the officers who had been leering at her.

There was a general scraping of chairs, a shuffling of feet. Men sullenly left the room, until finally only Lieutenant Tragg was there with her.

“I’m sorry about this, Miss Marlow. Was it really quite terrible?”

“It was ghastly,” she said with a note of hysteria creeping into her voice. “That light got to beating down on me until — I just couldn’t get away from it anywhere. I...”

“I know,” Tragg said sympathetically.

“It gave me a beastly headache and... I hardly knew what I was saying.”

“I understand. Won’t you come in my office?”

He escorted her through a door into an inner office, gave her a comfortable chair, carefully turned the desk light so that the blessed shadow enveloped her, left the light shining on the desk blotter and on Tragg’s features.

Tragg took a cigar from his pocket, then paused with the match halfway to the cigar. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all.”

He lit the cigar, settled back in the chair, said casually, in a well-modulated voice, “The life of an officer is not a happy one.”

“No, I suppose it isn’t.”

“I have been going all day,” Tragg said, “hitting a pretty hard pace. This whole case is, of course, a tragedy to you. To me it’s just another case, one that has to be investigated and cleaned up.”

He took the cigar from his mouth, stretched, yawned, regarded the tip of the cigar for a moment, then puffed out more blue smoke. “I guess Rose Keeling was a rather peculiar girl,” he said.

“I think she was.”

“Any idea how she happened to write you that letter?”

“What letter?”

Tragg said, “The one that she sent you. I believe yesterday. The Endicotts have a carbon copy of it.”

“No, I don’t know what caused her to write it.”

“Think there was any truth in it?”

“Definitely not. I don’t think there was anything irregular about the execution of that will. I talked with her before Mother died and I’ve heard her tell what happened several times, and I just can’t account for that letter.”

“By the way,” Tragg said quite casually, “the carbon copy of that letter isn’t the best evidence. Of course, we can use it if we have to, because it’s a bona fide carbon copy and there’s no question but it’s in the handwriting of Rose Keeling. But I’d like to have the original. Do you happen to have it with you?”

He extended his hand as casually as though he had asked her for a match.

“Why, I... no, not with me.”

“Oh, it’s at your apartment?”

“I... I don’t know where it is.”

Tragg raised his eyebrows. “You received it yesterday — or was it this morning?”

“This morning.”

“Oh, yes, I see. That is the reason you went to see Rose Keeling.”

“No, Lieutenant. Frankly, it isn’t.”