Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Backward Mule

On the other hand, however, I have received money from the partnership. Taonon is evil, but the other partners are blameless. I leave a fair sum in insurance and no immediate relatives. I therefore give, devise and bequeath all of my individual estate, share and share alike, to George Gloster, Stacey Nevis and Ricardo Taonon as copartners transacting business under the firm name and style of Eastern Art Import and Trading Company.

“He killed himself,” Cynthia said breathlessly.

“I felt certain that he did,” Clane told her. “Edward Harold told me what had happened. I think that was the first time he ever told anyone the true story of what had occurred. He found Farnsworth very dejected, hinting at some dark secret. He went back to get that image I had given you. He wanted to use it to cheer Farnsworth up. Harold said it had helped him and... well, you can see what happened. All that the picture needed to be a complete case of suicide was this letter on the desk and the presence of a gun. Someone slipped into the room, removed the gun, and took this letter and the envelope of papers. That made it look like murder.”

“You mean Ricardo Taonon had...”

“No, no,” Clane said impatiently. “Don’t you see? There’s only one person. Once you look at the evidence properly, it points to — What’s that?” he asked, stopping abruptly.

“What?”

“I thought I heard a noise, a...”

A switch clicked, lights blazed into brilliance — a blinding illumination which left them dazed and blinking. Their eyes, having accustomed themselves to the darkness and the faint illumination of the fountain-pen flashlight which Clane had been using, failed for a moment to adjust themselves to the sudden burst of light.

Inspector Malloy’s voice was booming and genial. “Well, well, well, Clane. You did it again. You really did! I told you that you were more value to us running around loose and playing bird dog. You flushed some real game this time. Cynthia Renton! We’ve certainly been looking for you. I rather expected Clane would come back here and start snooping around; but to think that you... And what have we here, Mr. Clane? What’s this paper you were talking about?”

Wordlessly Clane handed him the paper.

Inspector Malloy glanced at it then gave it intense study.

“A plant?” he asked suspiciously.

Clane shook his head.

Malloy said, “This could be serious, you know, Clane. This will be subjected to scrutiny by the best handwriting experts in the country.”

“Scrutinize it all you want,” Clane said. “You can see now what happened. It’s the only thing that could have happened. Gloster found something that startled him, something that made it imperative that he meet with the others immediately. He couldn’t reach Nevis at once because Nevis was in a poker game. But he called Taonon and told him to come to the warehouse at once.”

“Go on,” Malloy said.

“Gloster had to get something here in the warehouse,” Clane went on. “He drove here. Harold was hiding here. He jumped out of the window as Gloster came in. Gloster phoned Taonon. While he was waiting for Ricardo Taonon, something made him decide to look around. He found this note.

“The note speaks for itself. Farnsworth committed suicide. Let’s examine the evidence in the light of that hypothesis. Farnsworth was despondent, trapped. He took the easy way out.

“Now let’s look at what happened after that — the only thing that could have happened. When the police arrived at Farnsworth’s house, they found a kettle of water on the electric stove, the water boiling rapidly. They found the oven hot, and Farnsworth’s wrist watch, bearing evidences of having been wet, drying in the oven. When Harold returned to the house, the back door was unlocked.

“Figure it out. Sam Kenyon must have returned from his afternoon off. He let himself in through the back door. He put on a kettle of water, turned on the oven, and then went in to see what Farnsworth wanted for supper. He found Farnsworth dead, this document on the desk, the gun lying where it had dropped from Farnsworth’s nerveless fingers.

“Kenyon evidently is an opportunist. He saw a chance to get rich. He took the gun, the envelope, the document, and he went to Ricardo Taonon or to Stacey Nevis. He made his demands. Whatever they were, they were met. He was instructed to return to the house and call the police.

“When he went back to the house he let himself in through the front door. He called the police, and then just before they arrived he went back to the kitchen. The water was boiling merrily away. The oven had been turned on and was now smoking hot — evidence that he had previously been to the house. Even if he had dumped out the water, he couldn’t have cooled off the oven. The police were driving up to the place even then. He thought fast. He rushed in, took Farnsworth’s wrist watch, snapped off the back, put water in it, put it in the oven, and then let the police in. Later on, when police looked around and found the boiling water and the wrist watch, it looked as though Farnsworth had put the water on the stove, had got water in his watch in the process and had put the watch in the oven to dry.

“The police never did explain that kettle of boiling water and the wrist watch. Because of the way Harold messed up his case, they didn’t have to. But when you put the whole thing together, there’s only one explanation.”

Malloy frowned as he studied the paper. “It sounds logical the way you outline it — and if this is genuine. But right now it looks like a plant to me. It smells fishy.”

“It’s genuine. It has to be. It can’t be a plant. Once Farnsworth had killed himself, once Kenyon had seen the body and this note... it’s so obvious there’s no use wasting time talking.”

“And so they let Harold take the rap?”

“At the time, they didn’t know anything about Harold, or about Harold’s visit. They were merely turning a suicide into a murder so as to save their own skins. It probably never occurred to them someone would be convicted of that murder.”

Malloy thought things over, pursing his lips as he fitted this new evidence into the picture.

“Everyone agrees Gloster was honest as the day is long,” Clane went on. “He was a grouch, but he was on the square. So he wasn’t in on it at all. Taonon simply told Gloster that Farnsworth had been working for the partnership in locating those Philippine investments. Gloster believed him. Then came Harold’s trial and conviction. Taonon and Nevis were in a quandary. To let Harold be executed for a murder he hadn’t committed was beyond the scope of their plans. They didn’t dare to speak up and tell the truth... So they did the next best thing. They arranged for Harold to escape.”

“And what of this paper?” Malloy asked.

“They concealed it here. They didn’t dare destroy it because if the worst ever came to the worst, this was a will. They could plant it in some place where it could be found. If the cat got out of the bag and there was other evidence Farnsworth had left which would strip the partnership of the mining properties, then Farnsworth’s estate would be a consolation prize. So they concealed the paper here. After Gloster was killed, the paper was reconcealed in its original hiding place.”

“Go on,” Malloy said.

“Gloster couldn’t get Nevis on the phone because Nevis was at a poker game,” Clane said. “But he got Taonon, and Taonon came down here.”

“And killed him?”

“No. He told him where Nevis could be reached, and then Taonon ducked out. He crawled in a hole and pulled the hole in after him. He would probably have tried to leave the country if the newspapers next day hadn’t carried the story of Gloster’s death. So Taonon hid out to wait and see what the next developments were, and he phoned his wife and told her to do the same thing. That’s the only consistent way of explaining what happened.”