Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Backward Mule

“I’m not thinking. I’m asking questions. You don’t know anything about him, do you?”

“In what way?”

“Oh, about his not being — shall we say available?”

“No. I wish you’d tell me what you found out about him. How did he die?”

“I didn’t say he was dead.”

“You intimated it.”

“I’m just commenting about what we found out,” Malloy said. “You see, we’re trying to find out about that call that sent Taonon rushing out last night. So we asked his partner in this Oriental company — chap by the name of Stacey Nevis. You know him?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Nevis hadn’t called him, but he thought Gloster had.”

“Indeed?”

“That’s right. Nevis had a call himself from Gloster. You see, Stacey Nevis was out with some friends playing cards — a sociable little poker game — and Nevis was winning. So naturally the boys didn’t want him to leave and take the winnings with him — just human nature.”

“Go on,” Clane said, fighting to keep the eagerness out of his voice.

“Well, now,” Malloy said, “that’s about all there was to it. Nevis got to winning early in the evening, and it seems he began to get telephone calls wanting him to go places, and naturally the boys didn’t want him to go. He had a call from Gloster, who seemed very much excited — said that he’d gone down to the warehouse for something or other and found that someone was living in the warehouse, and he wanted Nevis to come down there right away. Said he had already called Ricardo Taonon and got him to come down. Said he’d been trying to call Nevis for half an hour. Wasn’t until Taonon gave him the number of the place where the poker game was on that Gloster knew where he could reach Nevis.”

“And what did Nevis do?” Clane asked.

“What could he do? The minute he started to talk about getting away, the boys got up in arms. They could hear his conversation on the telephone. He was in an adjoining room, but the door was open and they started shouting at Nevis that if he left the game before midnight, it would mean a fifty-dollar fine. Well, Nevis was in something of a quandary. First he told Gloster he’d come down there; then he explained the situation to him and they talked for a minute, and then Gloster said that he’d tell Taonon to wait for him and he’d make a quick run up to where Nevis was playing poker and talk with. Nevis up there. So Nevis finally agreed to that.”

“And Gloster came up?” Clane asked.

“That’s right. Gloster drove up outside and honked his horn. Nevis went down and talked with him. Then Nevis went back to the game and Gloster went back to the warehouse. And that, as nearly as the time can be fixed, was about ten to fifteen minutes before Gloster telephoned to you. Gloster must have had that talk with Nevis and then driven back to the warehouse, met Ricardo Taonon, talked with you, and then got himself murdered when he was trying to put through a telephone call to somebody.”

“And who do you claim murdered him? Who’s the official suspect now?”

“Either you and Cynthia Renton did it,” Malloy said, “or Edward Harold came back and pulled the trigger to keep Gloster from calling the police. My associates pick Harold. Me, I’m not so sure.”

“I suppose,” Clane said somewhat wearily, “Nevis has witnesses to all these facts you’ve given me?”

“Witnesses?” Malloy said. “My gosh, what are you trying to get at now, Mr. Clane?”

“I was just asking a question.”

“Well it sounded suspicious. Like a little more of your amateur getting the cart before the horse. Witnesses, bless my soul, yes! I guess you never tried to get away from a poker game when you were a heavy winner. Has he got witnesses? He’s got a whole tableful of witnesses, six men in that poker game and five of them out money to Stacey Nevis! Has he got witnesses? I’ll say he has.”

“And what time did this poker game finally break up?”

“About three o’clock in the morning.”

“Nevis still winner?”

Malloy chuckled. “Nevis lost his shirt. So you see, Mr. Clane, why it’s a bad thing to have you running around with this amateurish enthusiasm of yours. You mess things up — although I will admit you probably saved us some shooting when we picked up Harold here. But I’m afraid I’ve got to put you out of circulation for a while.”

Clane said, “Tell me one thing, Inspector.”

“What’s that?”

“Down in the warehouse, there were four fresh fingerprints on the desk blotter — apparently the prints of dusty fingers. Whose prints were they? Taonon’s? Harold’s?”

“No, they were Gloster’s.”

“Gloster’s!”

“That’s right, the dead man’s. The prints of four fingers on the left hand, spread out so each was about an inch apart.”

Clane said, almost musingly, “As I remember it, the prints of the first and second fingers were broad, that of the little finger hardly more than a dot.”

“That’s right.”

“Indicating that Gloster was standing at the desk — probably bent over it, his weight resting on his left hand which was turned so that most of the weight was on the first two fingers and on the thumb.”

“That’s right, only there was no thumb print.”

“It’s almost impossible to put weight on the first two fingers without touching the thumb to the same surface,” Clane said.

“I didn’t say he didn’t touch the thumb,” Malloy said. “I said there was no thumb print . The prints were made from dust. The thumb simply didn’t have any dust on it, therefore it left no print.”

“And why was there dust on the fingers but none on the thumb?” Clane asked.

“Lord bless you, Mr. Clane, I wouldn’t know! That’s the sort of thing we leave to you bright amateurs. And now, Mr. Clane, if you’re ready, I’m afraid I’ve got to arrest you as being an accessory after the fact. It’s too bad, but I have to do it. No hard feelings, Mr. Clane.”

But Terry Clane made no answer. For the moment his face was an expressionless mask as though he were in a hypnotic trance.

The sweetish smell of jail disinfectant filled the air, permeated Terry Clane’s clothing, clung to his hands until it seemed a sticky, tangible something from which there was no escape. The corridors reeked with an aura of discouragement, of human oppression. Under the veneer of men’s enforced acquiescence in the will of their captors lay a vicious resentment that lurked in the corners of the jail as an intangible psychic force evaporating wherever one looked, only to form in a miasmic menace behind one’s back.

Terry Clane and Edward Harold occupied the cell together, a cell which contained two wooden stools, an unscreened toilet, a washbasin and two steel bunks, hinged to the wall and let down by a chain into a level position. Each had a thin straw mattress and one blanket.

Harold said to Clane. “They have no right to put you in here. They haven’t even put a charge against you yet.”

Clane said, “Right or not, I’m here.”

“Aren’t you going to do anything about it?”

“Perhaps.”

Harold, seated on the stool, his elbows resting on his spread knees, his back humped in an attitude of dejection, said, “I’d ten times rather be dead.”

Clane said nothing.

“I’d made up my mind to go out fighting. I don’t want to be cooped up like a rat watching the days trickle away until they drag me out of my cell and shove me into a gas chamber.”

Clane said, “On the contrary, this is the best thing that’s happened to you for a long time.”

Harold raised his eyebrows.

“Now,” Clane said, “we’re going to go ahead with your appeal. You would have been in a stronger position if you had surrendered to the police, but even as it is you have a chance. The Supreme Court is going to look over the case pretty carefully. It won’t have the emotional instability of a jury. The only thing that convicted you was lying about going back to Farnsworth’s house that second time. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you committed a murder. It merely means that you falsified your testimony.”