Erle Gardner - Case of the Silent Partner

“You see,” Mason went on, “each piece of candy was held in a little brown paper cup folded and scalloped so as to fit around the piece of candy.”

“Well?” she asked.

“In the box of candy which was on the table,” Mason went on, “several pieces were missing, but the little paper containers were also missing, and those weren’t anywhere in the room. You’d hardly have devoured the papers as well as the candy.”

A swift flicker of expression showed on her face.

Mason followed up his advantage quickly. “But where you gave yourself away was when you told me that when you saw the card in the candy box, with the initials ‘M.F.’ on it, you were completely reassured. If you’d been telling the truth, that card would have made you suspicious, because, not thirty minutes earlier, you had received an orchid corsage with an identical card. You will even notice that on the card there were two pinholes, showing where the card had been pinned to the orchids. It’s hardly possible that you could have failed to notice that .”

“You’re cuckoo,” she said. “Why would I want to send myself poisoned candy?”

“Because,” Mason said, “you wanted an alibi.”

“An alibi for what?”

“For killing Lynk.”

“Oh, so I killed him, did I?”

Mason nodded. “And then gave yourself away by trying to implicate too many people this afternoon in court. Magard, Peavis, Irma Radine... You very adroitly suggested numbers of people who knew of your candy-eating propensities.”

“Well, aren’t you interesting!”

“You see,” Mason said, “you wanted an alibi. It occurred to you that it would make a swell alibi if you could be drugged into complete unconsciousness at the time when the murder was committed. So you sent yourself the poisoned candy, slipped out of your evening dress, put on more serviceable and less conspicuous clothes, and drove to Lilac Canyon.

“You probably telephoned Lynk to make certain he would be there. Then you stopped on the way to telephone me. You had to telephone me early enough to give yourself an alibi, but not early enough to enable me to locate your apartment and get out here while you were still out on your murder mission. The best place you knew to telephone from was where Sindler Coll lived. You knew there was a booth in the lobby, that no one would be in the lobby to see you using the telephone, or to overhear the conversation.”

“And just why did I telephone you? ” she asked.

“For a very particular reason, Miss Dilmeyer. You wanted to have someone whose word the police would take. You wanted to have someone who knew something about you, but didn’t know where you lived. You wanted someone, in short, who would make a good witness; but who wouldn’t know where you lived or how to go about finding out.

“You’d planned your alibi and the murder for two or three days. You were wondering just how you could fix it so you would be found before you had been unconscious too long, but not soon enough to interfere with your alibi.

“You knew that I would have to get hold of Mildreth, Faulkner to connect you with the Golden Horn. Even if I did, you weren’t particularly concerned, because no one in the nightclub knew your address.

“You felt reasonably certain that I wouldn’t be able to get hold of Miss Faulkner until she came to keep her appointment at one o’clock, that then Miss Faulkner would give me the lead to the Golden Horn, that even then it would take me quite a while to locate your apartment.

“As a matter of fact, I almost got here too soon. Thanks to a little detective work on the part of my secretary, Miss Street, I connected you with the Golden Horn almost at once.”

She said sarcastically, “Aren’t you smart? I mean real-l-ly!”

Mason said, “You left Coll’s apartment house after you had telephoned me, drove out to Lilac Canyon, killed Lynk, and then, after you killed him, took a big dose of veronal. Then you drove to your apartment, placed the telephone on the floor, taking care not to change the position of the receiver, and yielded to the drug which was beginning to make you sleepy. By the time I found you, you had just dropped off into deep sleep.”

“That’s your story?” she asked.

Mason nodded.

“Well, go jump in the lake. I suppose you’d like to have me be a nice fall guy so you could get your rich client out of a mess, but unfortunately for you I’m not going to do it. You’ll have to find some other fall guy.”

There was an interval of silence. Lieutenant Tragg looked across at Esther Dilmeyer, then looked away. He studied the carpet thoughtfully.

“Well,” Esther Dilmeyer said, after more than a minute had elapsed, “what is this, a new kind of third degree, or are we just sitting here enjoying the scenery?”

“We’re waiting,” Mason said, “for you to tell us about the murder.”

“ You can wait until doomsday. Don’t hold your breath until I start talking. I’m going out. And now if you folks will excuse me, I’ll start dressing.”

Tragg said, “You’re not going out.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Mason has built up a logical case.”

“You mean you fall for that stuff?”

He nodded.

“You’re nuts,” she said, and then, after a moment, made the expression inclusive by a sweep of her hand, “All of you.”

Again there was an interval of silence which seemed to make Esther Dilmeyer more nervous than when Mason had been accusing her of murder. “My God,” she said, “don’t all sit here looking at me in that tone of voice! Good Lord! This is my apartment. I want to dress.”

“You’re not going out,” Tragg said. “You can consider yourself under arrest.”

“All right, I’m under arrest. That doesn’t mean that I have to sit here and look at a lot of sourpusses. And I suppose, since I’m under arrest, you’re going to take me somewhere.”

“Perhaps.”

She flung open her robe. “In my undies, I suppose.”

“No. You may dress.”

“While you guys get an eyeful? No, thank you.”

Mason lit a cigarette.

“Well, for God’s sake, somebody say something. Won’t you at least argue about it?”

“There’s nothing to argue about,” Mason said. “The evidence is conclusive against you, on the poisoned candy. If you didn’t kill Lynk, you’d better start talking. You might have had some extenuating circumstances in your favor.”

She said, “I know your game. You’re trying to get me to talk. Well, brother, since you’re so damn smart, I’ll tell you something. Little Esther knows her rights. She’s going to sit very quiet and not answer a single damn question. If the cops think they have enough to hold me on, they can take me up in front of a jury, and I’ll get a lawyer who won’t turn out to be a double-crosser. Then we’ll see what happens.”

Mason said, “That’s fair enough if you deliberately murdered him in cold blood, but if you shot him in self-defense, or if it was an accident, you’re going to have to say so now.”

“Why now?” she asked.

“Because if you keep quiet now, and then try to make a defense of accident or justifiable homicide when you get to trial, it’ll sound to a jury as though you were reciting something a lawyer had thought up for you.”

She said, “ You’re a big help.”

“I am at that,” Mason told her. “There are several weak points in your scheme. The police would have stumbled on them sooner or later. Then it would be too late for you to save yourself by telling what actually did happen.”

“Oh, is that so? What are the weak points?”