Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Lonely Heiress

“Ethel Furlong is positive about that?”

“Positive.”

“Had Rose Keeling approached her with any proposition?”

“Nothing.”

Mason resumed pacing the floor.

“Of course,” he said after a few moments, “Marilyn Marlow called a turn when she said that she had to hold two witnesses in line in order to get anywhere. But the other side only needed to have one of the witnesses lined up to win their case.

“When you come right down to it, it makes you a little hot under the collar to think of these brothers and sisters, who never gave a damn for George Endicott in his lifetime, sitting out there in his house and plotting and planning to beat Marilyn Marlow out of her inheritance. Apparently someone had made a payoff to Rose Keeling, and I don’t think it was Marilyn Marlow. But Endicott says it was and the police are going to be pretty apt to take his word for it.”

Drake said, “It could be, of course, that both Ethel Furlong and Rose Keeling received a thousand bucks to make their testimony come out right, and Ethel Furlong is staying put. Rose Keeling was having an attack of jitters.”

Mason said, “It’s possible, but I don’t warm up to the idea. What about Caddo, Paul? What did you find out about him?”

“He and his wife had a battle and she threw an inkwell, I guess. He sent a suit out to the cleaners that was all spotted with ink. You knew, didn’t you, that the police found a playsuit with the blouse ripped open and ink spattered over it?”

“No. Where?”

“In the soiled clothes hamper of Rose Keeling’s flat.”

Mason was excited now. “Was it Rose Keeling’s sunsuit?”

“Apparently it was.”

“Any police theories on that?”

“None. They think she had been filling a fountain pen, and...”

Mason gestured Paul Drake to silence, resumed pacing the floor, then abruptly he turned to face the detective.

“Rose Keeling must have been murdered when she was leaving the bathroom.”

“Yes. Apparently she was hit over the head with some blunt instrument, probably a blackjack,” Drake said. “She wasn’t stabbed until after she’d hit the floor.”

Mason stopped his pacing abruptly. “How’s that?”

“Someone sapped her before she was stabbed.”

“That’s interesting!”

“Why would they do that, Chief?” Della Street asked.

Mason said, “Probably someone hiding behind the door, waiting for her to come out of the bathroom. The minute she did, this person hit her on the head. He did that because he had to be certain she wouldn’t make any noise and he wasn’t certain he could make a clean-cut stab that would kill her instantly. What about the time of death, Paul?”

“Right around twelve o’clock.”

Mason said, “The way I figure it, Della Street telephoned at just about the time the murder was being committed. The murderer was lying in wait for Rose Keeling to come out of the bathroom. The phone started ringing. That didn’t suit the murderer at all. He was afraid Rose might wrap a towel around her and rush out to answer the telephone. He knew that if that happened, she’d be on the run and he wouldn’t stand any chance to sneak up behind her and club her.”

“So you think the murderer was the one who picked up the receiver to make the telephone quit ringing?” Drake asked.

“I can’t figure any other explanation right at the present time. Do you know whether the police noticed any cigar ashes on the floor of Rose Keeling’s bedroom, Paul?”

Drake shook his head. “If they noticed them, they’re keeping quiet about it. They haven’t told the newspaper men — I don’t think they found any.”

“Have your men looked around, Paul?”

“Naturally we couldn’t get into the flat. There’s a vacant lot on the south. The police looked around it a bit, thinking perhaps the murderer had tossed the knife out of a window in Rose Keeling’s flat after the crime had been committed. They didn’t find anything. My men looked around in the lot after the police left. I was with them. We searched every inch of it.”

“No dice?” Mason asked.

“No dice.”

Mason paced the floor for a few moments, then asked, “You didn’t happen to notice any half-smoked cigar out there in the vacant lot while you were searching for the knife, did you?”

Drake shook his head, then said, “Wait a minute. I remember Kenneth Barstow poking a half-smoked stogie with his foot. Barstow is quite a cigar smoker and claims to be a connoisseur of good cigars. He poked a half-smoked cigar with his foot and said, ‘That just goes to show, even the cops can’t finish the nickel cigars they sell nowadays.’ ”

Mason’s eyes narrowed. “It was half smoked, Paul?”

“Just about half smoked.”

“A stogie?”

“A regular rope,” Drake said. “One of those black stogies the cops chew on. It takes a man with a strong stomach to smoke more than half of one.”

“And Barstow likes good cigars?”

“That’s right, the best,” Drake said.

Mason again started pacing the floor.

“Of course,” Drake pointed out, “insofar as that inheritance is concerned, there’ll be a lot of public sympathy on behalf of the brothers and sisters.”

“Why?” Mason asked, snapping the question over his shoulder.

“After all, they’re — well, the rightful heirs."

“What do you mean by that, Paul?”

“They’re the blood relatives.”

“And they didn’t give a damn about George Endicott until after he died. There’s altogether too much sloppy thinking about the ‘natural’ relatives being entitled to inherit. The only real protection an elderly man or a sick man has in this world is the power to dispose of his property the way he wants to. That enables him to reward special service and special attention if he gets it, and it enables him to hold his relatives in line. If a man couldn’t make a will leaving his property to whomever he wanted, relatives would simply crowd him into the grave as fast as they could — that is, lots of them would.”

Drake said, “Of course, if your theory is correct, Perry — about the murderer being the one who lifted the receiver off the telephone-well, in that case the fingerprints on the receiver would have been the most important bit of evidence in the whole case.”

Mason said nothing.

“Just how did Marilyn Marlow get into the apartment?” Drake asked.

“She says Rose Keeling gave her a key.”

“How come?”

Mason said, “Marilyn went to see Rose. Rose wanted to play tennis. Marilyn went back to her apartment to get her things. Rose gave Marilyn a key so Marilyn could get in when she came back. Marilyn went home, came back and found Rose murdered. However, Marilyn says that she didn’t get in with the key. She says the door to the street at the foot of the stairs was actually open an inch or two when she returned, so she just pushed it open and walked in.”

“That’s Marilyn’s story?”

“That’s her story.”

“When did she leave Rose?”

“Right around eleven-thirty-five. Perhaps a few minutes earlier.”

“When did she get back?”

“She wasn’t in any particular hurry. She had some things to do. She bought some groceries and stopped by her bank. She got back about twelve-five or twelve-ten.”

“And in that time the murder had been committed?”

“That’s right. Marilyn phoned me right around twelve-fifteen.”

“You figure right around eleven-forty was the time of the murder?”

Mason nodded.

“When did Marilyn get to the bank?”

“Not in time to give her an alibi. No one remembers seeing her in the grocery store.”