Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Backward Mule

“Of course you knew you shouldn’t touch anything, Mr. Clane.”

“Of course. I understood that as a general proposition,” Clane said. “But I also knew that I would be supposed to notify the police immediately of finding the body of a murdered man this way, and I didn’t want to leave the place.”

“Well, I can see your point. There’s a good deal to that. Yes, I can see the point. You felt that there might be quite a delay in getting to a telephone.”

“And,” Clane went on dryly, “in case there should be a watchman around I didn’t want to be placed in the position of having someone seeing me switch out the lights and leave a building in which there was the body of a freshly murdered man.”

“A freshly murdered man? Then you thought the shooting had just been done, Mr. Clane?”

“I didn’t know. I assumed that it might have been.”

“Well, yes, I can see your point. Yes, it might have been very embarrassing if someone had seen you leaving the building and then before you got to a telephone a discovery had been made and people would have said, ‘That Mr. Clane now, he must have been the last man to see Gloster alive.’ Yes, yes, I can see your point. Very embarrassing position for you to be put in, Mr. Clane. So you went right over to the telephone and called the police.”

“That’s right.”

“And asked for Homicide?”

“Yes.”

“Well, now that seems to cover the situation. By the way, did you notice this cot over here that has the blankets on it and the canned goods? And the wastebasket with the empty cans? You must have if you were prowling around enough to have noticed a bullet.”

“I wasn’t prowling around,” Clane said.

“But you did notice the bullet?”

“Yes.”

“That’s rather a small object.”

“It had plowed up a fresh sliver there in the woodwork. Naturally I noticed it. It was right by the telephone.”

“That’s right, that’s right,” Malloy said apologetically. “I’d forgotten about that, Mr. Clane. You’ll pardon me for what I said about prowling around. Of course, you went over to use the telephone and naturally noticed that fresh sliver there. Of course you would, I should have realized that. It’s natural that you would have noticed it. But let’s get back to this cot and the canned goods and the cooking utensils. You noticed those?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, naturally you would have. A man who is trained to notice details like a bullet would have noticed a whole stack of canned goods. I was just wasting your time and mine asking the question. Now what impression did that make on you, Mr. Clane?”

Clane said, “I assumed that someone had been living here.”

“Someone. Now did you have any idea who that someone might have been?”

“No.”

“Well now, you know it’s a very peculiar thing, Mr. Clane, but here’s Edward Harold, who murdered one of the members of this here Chinese art company, and he’s just as apt as not to have taken some keys from the body of the man he murdered. Keys, let us say, which would fit the warehouse. Did that ever occur to you?”

“No.”

“And, of course, the way we’ve been watching things — the hotels and rooming houses and apartment houses — and getting reports from any new transient that showed up, it almost stands to reason that this man Harold had to be hiding somewhere in a place just about like this, doesn’t it?”

Clane said, “I’m afraid, Inspector, that the ideas of an amateur would be of no value to you on a case of this kind. It’s rather late and I’d like to tell you what I saw and then get back to bed. I’ve had a strenuous day. I don’t feel very much like speculating on what might or might not have happened.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Inspector Malloy said. “I understand exactly how you feel, Mr. Clane, but what I’m trying to get at is whether perhaps the thought didn’t flash through your mind that this man Harold had been hiding here?”

“I see nothing to indicate to me that the man who was living here was Edward Harold. After all, Inspector, you must remember that I don’t know Edward Harold. I’ve never met him.”

“You haven’t?”

“No.”

“Well, well, well, that’s a new angle. That’s something I hadn’t considered. Interesting too, the way you get around. You arrive here from China and the first thing you know you’re all mixed up in this murder case. Well, well, let’s see. You want to go home and I’ll just ask you a few more routine questions. Now you’re certain that you didn’t know that Harold was here when you came to call and you didn’t come to call on Harold instead of this man Gloster?”

“I have told you,” Clane said with dignity, “that Gloster telephoned to me. He was the one who suggested that I meet him at this address.”

“That’s right, that’s right. And you’re certain you came alone?”

“Yes.”

“There wasn’t a woman in that taxicab with you?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Well now, that’s strange, that is indeed. You didn’t carry anything with you that belonged to a woman, did you?”

“Certainly not.”

Malloy suddenly turned to one of the men and said, “Let me have that bag.”

The man handed him a woman’s black handbag.

One look at it and Clane realized that it was Cynthia Renton’s handbag. The purse she had been carrying with her that evening.

“Now here’s a handbag or purse, whichever you want to call it,” Inspector Malloy went on, “that seems to have been brought here by a woman. The driving license in there is in the name of Cynthia Renton and there’s twenty-five hundred dollars in twenty-dollar bills. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Clane shook his head.

“You didn’t bring it with you?”

Again Clane shook his head.

“About what time would you say that you arrived here?” Malloy asked.

Clane looked at his watch. “Well, let’s see. I would say that I arrived here — oh, around midnight. Perhaps four or five minutes before twelve.”

“That’s your best guess?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t see anything of a woman here?”

“No.”

“Now you know this Cynthia Renton?”

“Yes.”

“Quite well?”

“Yes.”

“A very close friend of yours?”

“Yes.”

“You were going with her? You were pretty much wrapped up in her when you were here last, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re quite certain she wasn’t here visiting this Edward Harold and she asked you to come and see her and she was the one who telephoned and not George Closter?”

“I’ve answered that several times.”

“I know you have, Mr. Clane, and you’ll pardon me for asking it again, but I want to be absolutely sure that there couldn’t have been any mistake. It was Gloster who telephoned you?”

“Yes.”

“And you know Gloster?”

“Yes.”

“You talked with him?”

“Yes.”

“When was the last time you saw him before the murder?”

“Earlier this evening.”

“Earlier this evening? Well, well, well! Now isn’t that something? It just goes to show what happens when we bring out all these little details. Now what was the occasion of meeting him that time, Mr. Clane?”

“I had an appointment with Mr. Gloster, Stacey Nevis and a man by the name of Ricardo Taonon. Taonon didn’t show up. I met the other two.”

“Indeed, and why did you meet them?”

“I had a business matter to discuss with them.”

“Now aren’t those the men who are the partners in this here Oriental art company?”

“You mean the Eastern Art Import and Trading Company?”