Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Backward Mule

“No, don’t, Owl,” she interrupted. “I’ll lie to you just as sure as shooting.”

Clane grinned. “If you have any good lie, you can trot it right out. It might be a good plan to sort of warm it up and get it ready for action, because you may have to be using it soon.”

“The police?”

“Yes.”

“I think I’d rather tell the truth instead.”

“That suits me.”

She was silent for a moment. Then, as though having reached a decision, she spoke swiftly, trying to get the words out before she might change her mind. “You know, Owl, I have been doing a little commercial painting lately. Not the sort of stuff that Alma would approve of. It was commercial, pot-boiling, mail-order stuff, and I didn’t want to do it under my name. So I took the name of Vera Windsor. It was sort of a pen name and I needed an address for it; so I got a post-office box. No one knew anything at all about Vera Windsor’s being Cynthia Renton. Alma didn’t know it.”

“Edward Harold know it?”

“Yes.”

“And he got in touch with you that way?”

“Yes. I went over to the post-office box and sure enough, yesterday afternoon there was a postcard giving me the address of the warehouse of the Eastern Art Import and Trading Company. Nothing else on it, just the printed address.”

“What did you do with the card?” he asked. “You didn’t leave it in your purse, did you?”

“No. I put it right back in the post-office box. I felt that it might be dangerous evidence and I wasn’t at all certain but that at any moment some detective might step out and tap me on the shoulder. And then I knew they’d search me. But I felt they’d never dare to go in and search a post-office box; so I just read the card and dropped it right back in the box and left it there.”

“You knew it was from Harold?”

“Yes.”

“And there was just that address on it and that’s all?”

“Yes.”

“So what did you do?”

“So I knew you were coming in on the boat and I wanted to ask you what to do. I didn’t know whether I dared to see him or what to do. And I wasn’t at all certain that I wasn’t being shadowed. So I went down to the boat and I saw them nab you. And then I was pretty much in a pickle. So I came back and waited around.”

“Why didn’t you tell me right away?”

“I had to sort of sound you out first to... Oh, I don’t know, Owl. I’m just not built that way. I can’t throw myself wide open without any preliminaries. I care so much for you that it hurts. But even you can’t open the door and walk right in.”

“But you intended to tell me?”

“Yes. I was stalling around. I wanted to find out how important your errand was and — well, I wanted to suggest that you go down there and see Edward with me.”

“You don’t think he’d have liked that, do you?”

“I don’t know. I... I... I don’t know, Owl.”

“But why did you want me with you?”

“I don’t even know that.”

“You knew it was dangerous to see him?”

“Yes.”

“You knew he was in love with you and wanted to see you alone?”

“I suppose so.”

“But you wanted to drag me along?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Not right away, but after we had been talking a while?”

“I don’t know, Owl. It was sort of delicate. I thought you might not like to go and I felt that Edward might not like to have you there and — but I wanted you there. And if you ask me why, all I can tell you is, I don’t know, and if you keep on asking me why, I’ll tell you one of the most marvelous hand-embroidered lies you ever heard in your life.”

Clane ground out the end of his cigarette. “I still don’t get it.”

“Neither do I.”

“You must have had some reason, something in the back of your mind.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what it may have been, Owl. I have always wondered about Edward and whether... well, I think perhaps I wanted to find out just how far things were going to go. I... Owl, stop it, you’re making me lie to you and I don’t like it.”

“And that was a lie?”

“That was the beginnings of a peach of a lie,” she said, “a gee-whillikens of a lie. I was making it up as I went along, but I was just a paragraph or two ahead and it sounded fine to me. What was coming would have really been a razzle-dazzle. Stop asking me questions about it.”

“If you didn’t arrange for Harold’s escape, then who did?”

“It must have been Bill Hendrum. I can’t think of anyone else. Hendrum is just the type who would have gone through with it.”

“But you don’t know it was Hendrum?”

“No, I’m just guessing.”

“Tell me something about Hendrum.”

“He’s a big, tall, raw-boned chap, reckless as they come. It would be just like him to do something like that.”

“But you haven’t talked with him about it?”

“No.”

“Have you had any communication with him?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Hendrum was the last man in the world I would have tried to talk to. You see I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to have any knowledge that would be dangerous. And then, of course, I knew that the police would be keeping an eye on me, so I thought I’d just run around in circles and — well, you know, that would be a help.”

“And then you dropped your purse.”

“And then I dropped the purse,” she said bitterly.

Terry Clane thought things over.

“Well?” she asked after a few moments.

“I think,” Clane said, “we have to find out about Hendrum.”

“Why?”

Clane said, “I’m not certain but that this escape plays into the hands of the police rather than otherwise. Of course, the police are irritated at the ease with which it was accomplished. At least they pretend they are.”

“But you think it may be some sort of a police trap?”

“No, not that. But the point is that Harold is playing right into the hands of the police now.”

“What do you think he should do?”

Clane said instantly, “I think he should surrender himself into custody, then go ahead with his appeal.”

“It would be pretty difficult to convince him.”

“But I think we have to do just that — difficult or not.”

“Well,” she said, “in order to do that, we’ve got to find him and we’ve got to talk to him. That isn’t the sort of thing you can do without personal contact — you know, you couldn’t just put an ad in the personal column of the paper, and say, ‘Dear Ed — Terry C. thinks you should go to nearest police station and surrender’.”

Clane poured Cynthia another cup of coffee, filled his own cup, said, “There’s one way you could bring him out into the open.”

“How?”

“Let the police catch you and charge you with aiding and abetting in his escape. Then he’d come forward.”

“I don’t like that way, Owl.”

“I don’t either.”

“Any other suggestions?”

Clane said, “I think we should talk with this man Hendrum. If you’ll give me his address, I’ll get in touch with him.”

“And what do I do in the meantime?”

Clane said, with emphasis, “There are only two things that you can do. One of them is to stay here without even going near a window, keeping yourself absolutely out of sight.”

“And what’s the other thing?”

“You can try to be smart and pull something and get your picture in the paper.”

Cynthia said, “You do think of the most wonderful things, Owl.” Then she started to hum, “Oh, what a beautiful morning, oh, what a beautiful day.”

Clane took a pencil from his pocket and on the tablecloth traced a circle about the size of a half-dollar. Within that he placed a circle the size of a dime, and within that second circle a dot.