Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Backward Mule

Terry Clane and Cynthia Renton stood there in the darkness, waiting until the taillight had vanished around a corner, until the sound of the motor was no longer audible.

“Owl,” Cynthia whispered, “I’m scared.”

“Want to go back?”

“Gosh, no! I wouldn’t miss it for a million dollars. I’m just telling you I’m scared. That makes it all the more thrilling. What do we do next?”

Clane tried the door. It was locked. Like two furtive shadows, they moved around the building until they came to the window through which police claimed Edward Harold had made his escape the night of the murder, only to return later and kill the man who had discovered him.

Not only was this window unlocked, but it had not been entirely closed. There was an opening of an inch and a half at the bottom.

“Gosh, that’s luck,” Cynthia whispered.

Clane frowningly contemplated the window for several seconds.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s almost too inviting,” Clane said. “It may be a trap. If you hear a noise when we raise the window, Cynthia — the sound of a burglar alarm or anything — just get moving. Don’t wait for me.”

Clane slipped on light gloves so his fingers would leave no print, and raised the window.

The sash slid up smoothly and noiselessly.

“You’d better wait here, Cynthia, and...”

“Don’t be a sap, Owl. I’m coming in. You give me a boost and I can help you up.”

Without a word, Clane lifted her in his arms, boosted her through the window, then followed her into the silence of the office.

“Now what?” Cynthia whispered.

Clane said, “I want to find the paper which Gloster must have found before he was killed.”

“How do you know he found a paper, Owl?”

Clane said, “I don’t know. I’m guessing, but we have pretty good grounds for guessing. Gloster came to the warehouse for something. He found Edward Harold here. That must have started him looking around. His hands got in some deep dust somewhere. Then he must have found something. Whatever it was, he took it to the desk here and put it on the desk. The fingerprints of his left hand were outlined in dust on the blotter. The nature of the prints showed he was putting pressure on the first and second fingers of his hand. That means he was leaning over the desk in the position a man would assume in studying a paper. In that position his thumb must also have borne part of the weight he was resting on his hand. But there is no thumb print.”

“Why, Owl?”

“Malloy says it’s because there was no dust on his thumb.”

“You don’t think so?”

“No. I think he had found a rolled paper in a dusty place. He went to the desk, unrolled the paper and held it with his left hand, the fingers on the blotter, the thumb on the top of the paper. So put your feminine mind to work and tell me where a rolled paper could have been concealed in a place where dust must have been a quarter of an inch thick.”

“There’s only one place, Owl, that I can think of.”

“Where?”

“That picture molding around the top of the wall. After all, this is a warehouse and they don’t do too much housekeeping.”

Clane moved a chair over to the wall, put a box on top of the chair. While Cynthia steadied the chair, he climbed up to the box. The beam of his flashlight slid along the edge of the picture molding.

“Dust enough, Cynthia,” he said, “but nothing here.”

“Let’s try the other wall.”

The second wall also yielded a blank, but midway along the third wall, Clane saw where the dust had been disturbed. There was something which could have been a rolled piece of paper reposing in the dust.

Clane marked the place, said excitedly, “I think we’ve got it, Cynthia! We’ll have to move the chair.”

Too excited now to bother about being cautious, they dragged the chair midway along the wall, and Clane climbed up on the chair, then on the box and possessed himself of two sheets of paper which were held in a tight roll with two small elastic bands.

Clane slipped off the elastic bands, unrolled the papers.

They were covered with fine pen-and-ink writing.

Clane held the flashlight. He and Cynthia put their heads together reading.

“It’s Farnsworth’s handwriting,” Cynthia said, “and the date... Owl! It’s the date he was murdered.”

Clane nodded, gave himself to a perusal of the document.

To Whom It May Concern

I have lost the desire to live. There is no atonement I can make, save to confess. And after I have made that confession, I do not care to go on living. I was trustee for money for Cynthia Renton. I invested this money in gold-mining properties near Baguio in the Philippines, gold-mining properties which I had carefully investigated and which looked good to me. At that time all of my personal money was invested in a partnership enterprise for Oriental trade, a partnership consisting of George Gloster, Ricardo Taonon and Stacey Nevis as my associates. We all held an equal interest We had an opportunity to plunge heavily and we plunged and lost. In the meantime, the mining enterprise in which I had invested the trust moneys proved to be immensely rich. I had an opportunity to sell out at an enormous profit. It was then that Ricardo Taonon pointed out to me that no one knew the gold mine had been an investment of trust funds since it had all been in my name. I had only to take some money from that to recoup the partnership business, and there would still be enough left to yield Cynthia a handsome profit and the money would only be in the nature of a loan to the partnership.

Ricardo Taonon made the thing sound so convincing that I felt certain taking twenty-five thousand dollars of the profits on the gold mine and investing it temporarily in me partnership business would give us just the added capital we needed to get over the hump and would enable us to turn what would otherwise have been a hundred-thousand-dollar loss into a half-million-dollar profit.

Either the man hypnotized me or I was crazy. I did as he suggested. That involved signing papers. I signed them — papers showing the whole gold mine was a partnership investment. Then I asked Taonon for an accounting. It was men he told me I could draw out any sum of money I wished to reimburse Miss Renton for her trust funds but that the documents I had signed were to the effect I had acted for the partnership in the mining deal. I was trapped in my own duplicity. True, Cynthia would sustain no impairment of her trust funds, but she had lost enormous profits. I decided to try again I put five thousand in an oil deal for her. This oil proposition looked better than the mining deal ever had. I convinced myself Taonon’s treachery had all been for the best. And then the oil deal failed to be profitable. It gives every sign of simply dying on the vine. But Cynthia Renton is asking for an accounting. I am satisfied that Edward Harold, to whom she is engaged and who has just called me, is suspicious and intends to make a detailed investigation.

The only way I can really make atonement is by a full confession. Cynthia Renton is the real owner of all my interest in the Eastern Art Import and Trading Company. Moreover, she is entitled to all the assets of that company. She is also the real owner of the contents of the envelope which I am leaving in plain sight on the desk. There is nothing I can add to this statement. I only wish to God that I could subtract from it. I have loved Cynthia Renton. I have been entrusted with her confidence. I have failed her, and I have failed myself. The only thing I can say by way of justification is that Ricardo Taonon is unspeakably evil. The man has a hypnotic influence upon those with whom he comes in contact. Under his suave, persuasive influence I have done that which has robbed me of the desire to live. I am taking the easy way out. I only hope that Cynthia will forgive me.