Erle Gardner - Case of the Silent Partner

“I see,” she said, “but I’m fairly well informed. You don’t need to explain elemental psychology to me.”

“That makes it easier then for me to explain exactly what I do want. I want you to try and give me one word which is called to your mind by the words I will give you.”

“Very well.”

“And I want you to give me that word without any delay whatever. In other words, the minute I speak of a word, you come back fast with the word which you think of.”

“Very well, go ahead.”

“Home,” Tragg said.

“Run,” she snapped back at him with a slight glitter of malicious triumph in her eyes.

“Flower.”

“Customer,” she snapped, before the word was hardly out of his mouth.

“Orchid.”

“Corsage.”

“Faster,” he said. “Come back at me just as fast as you can.”

“Aren’t I doing all right?”

“Just a little faster if you can.”

“Go ahead.”

“Coupe.”

“Sister,” she said, her voice slightly higher pitched.

“Gun.”

“Accident,” she almost shouted triumphantly.

Tragg’s expression didn’t change. “Stock.”

“Transfer.”

“Competitor.”

“Peavis.”

“Police.”

“You.”

“Paraffin.”

“Test.”

Lieutenant Tragg settled back in his chair and smiled at her. “I told you I’d trap you, Miss Faulkner,” he said quietly. “Now hadn’t you better sit down and tell me about it.”

“I... I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, yes, you do. You know of the paraffin test for determining whether a person has fired a gun. Mr. Mason told you about it. It’s fresh in your mind. You were so anxious to give the right answer when I came to the gun part, which you were smart enough to know I was leading up to, that you let down the bars of your vigilance just a bit after that, and walked into the trap on that paraffin test.”

“Does a person have to be guilty of murder to know about that?”

“No,” he said, “but when a woman has a gun in her possession which has probably been used to commit a murder, when I find a noted criminal attorney closeted with her at two-thirty in the morning, and when, as soon as a police car drives up, she discharges the revolver, and when the first word which comes into her mind in connection with paraffin is the word ‘test,’ then I have pretty good reason to believe that the lawyer told her about the paraffin test, that she is a woman of intelligence, and realizes that the only way to protect herself is not by trying to get the powder out of her hand, but by having a perfectly legitimate excuse for showing powder in her hand.

“You see, Miss Faulkner, if a policeman were asked what word he associated with paraffin, he might very well say ‘test,’ but for a woman who is in the business of selling flowers to the public to associate paraffin with the nitrate test — well, it’s just a little too much.”

“So you think I killed him?”

“I don’t know. I do know that that gun which you tried to conceal under the davenport has recently been fired twice. I know that the second shot was fired deliberately. I know that Perry Mason was here talking to you shortly before that shot was fired. It’s a fair inference that he warned you that if you had fired that revolver recently, the paraffin test would furnish proof. And you were sufficiently ingenious to know what to do.

“I thought for a moment that it might have been Mason’s idea, but the adroit manner in which you anticipated the simple traps which I set for you, and the swiftness of your mental reactions convinces me that you’re a very clever woman, Miss Faulkner, and that you thought it up yourself.”

She said, “I’m not going to make any statement. You’re being unfair. I suppose now you’ll arrest me.”

“No. I’m not making an arrest right now. First, I’m going to check this gun for fingerprints. I’m going to compare a test bullet fired through the barrel of this gun with the fatal bullet which killed Lynk.”

“You’ve already said it’s the murder weapon.”

“I think it is. You see, a ballistics expert found the bullet which had gone completely through Lynk’s body. He was able to tell me the caliber, the make of shell, and certain other facts about the ammunition. I find this weapon in your possession loaded with exactly that same ammunition. Now, perhaps you’ll tell me where you got the gun.”

“At a sporting goods store.”

“No. I mean tonight.”

“Why — why couldn’t I have had it with me all the time?”

Tragg said, “Miss Faulkner, you’re trying to protect someone, either someone you love, or someone to whom you feel obligated.”

“Why not myself?”

“Or,” he admitted, “perhaps yourself.”

“Well?” she asked.

Abruptly, Lieutenant Tragg got to his feet. “You’re a very intelligent and a very clever woman. I’ve got just about all the information out of you I’m going to get, at least for the present. I’m taking that gun with me. By the time I talk to you again, I’ll know a lot more than I do now.”

“I suppose,” she said sarcastically, “that in addition to my business worries, I can look forward to regular visits from the police.”

“Miss Faulkner, I’ll see you just once more. At the end of that next interview, I’ll either exonerate you or arrest you for first-degree murder.”

For a moment her eyes wavered.

He said quietly, “God knows I hated to do this. I warned you — not once but several times.”

She was silent.

“I don’t suppose,” Tragg said, “there’s any chance of getting you to look on me as a human being. After all, I’m only trying to find a killer. If you didn’t kill him, you shouldn’t fear me. I don’t suppose there’s any chance that we could be — well, friends?”

She said haughtily, “I am inclined to pick my friends for reasons other than that they happen to have been given employment on the police force.”

He turned toward the door without another word.

Her eyes were frightened as she watched him, carrying the gun by a string looped through the trigger guard, quietly open the front door.

“Good night, Lieutenant,” she said as he passed over the threshold.

He closed the door behind him without a word.

She stood there for a moment until she saw his car drive away, then she dashed to the telephone and frantically dialed the number of Carlotta’s residence.

There was no answer.

Mason shamelessly used the prestige resulting from his association with Lieutenant Tragg. The manager of the apartment house, summoned once more to the door in the small hours of the morning, strove to conceal her natural irritation.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “The police again.”

Mason smiled. “Well, I’m not. That is, I’m not calling in an official capacity, although I’m trying to solve the case.”

He acted as though there could be no possible doubt of his welcome, and, entering the lobby of the apartment house, said, “I want to go up to see Coll for a minute, and I don’t want him to know I’m on the way. You might get me a key. Then I won’t have to bother you.”

Her face was swollen with sleep, her hair stringy, her skin still greasy with make-up, but she smiled coyly. “A key — to Coll’s apartment? I’m afraid...”

“Just the outer door,” Mason said hastily.

“Oh, that will be easy. I have quite a few extras. Just a moment and I’ll get one.”

As she walked into her own apartment, shuffling along in heelless slippers, Mason closed the door of the apartment house, and consulted his watch. He was fully conscious of the rapidity with which the precious minutes were ticking across the dial.