Erle Gardner - The Case of the Empty Tin

“You mean the fingerprints which were outlined in the paint?” Mason asked.

She nodded.

Junior said, “I tell you I was in bed.”

Mrs. Gentrie said, by way of explanation, “He’d been out with that stenographer, Opal Sunley, and he swears he took her home about midnight. I’m afraid, Mr. Mason, that he’s just doing it to — well, to give her sort of an alibi. Now you look here, Junior. You were just coming up the stairs to your room when that shot was fired, weren’t you? You took your flashlight and went sneaking down the stairs.”

Junior said, “I thought you said I wasn’t in my room.”

“You weren’t when I looked in there. The bed wasn’t even so much as wrinkled. But I’d heard someone sneaking along the corridor and on the stairs.”

“I tell you, you didn’t have your glasses on, and you made a mistake in the time.”

“But everybody says the shot was at twelve-thirty-five.”

“Phooey,” Junior said. “Because you didn’t have your glasses on and...”

“Then you think the shot was fired at eleven- thirty-five?” Mrs. Gentrie interrupted.

“Why, sure, if I wasn’t in my room... no, wait a minute... Yes, sure, that’s right. The shot was fired at eleven -thirty-five.”

She said, “Arthur, you’re stalling for time. You’re trying to think whether you can give her a good alibi for eleven-thirty-five.”

Arthur jumped to his feet. “Oh, let me alone,” he cried. “You make me tired! You’re always twisting everything I do so as to make it seem I’m trying to think of Opal. Can’t you leave her out of it ever?”

Mrs. Gentrie glanced at Mason.

Mason, without raising his voice, but putting the timbre of authority into his command, said, “Sit down, Arthur. I want to talk with you.”

Arthur’s eyes met the lawyer’s. The young man hesitated for a moment, then seated himself somewhat tentatively on the edge of a chair.

Mason said, “This is your first murder case. I’ve seen dozens of them. I don’t know very much about Miss Sunley. I’ve seen enough to know that you’re trying to protect her. Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to you that the most certain way to turn the limelight of pitiless, hostile publicity on her would be to twist the truth to try to keep her out of it.”

Arthur Gentrie was interested despite himself. “I don’t get you,” he said.

“You start suppressing or distorting facts to keep Opal Sunley out of that case,” Mason said, “and you’ll find that you’ve not only dragged her in, but have painted her with a crimson brush doing it.”

“What’s that crimson-brush crack?” Arthur Gentrie asked, suddenly belligerent.

Mason said, “Nice young men don’t tell lies in murder cases for nice young women. Do you get me?”

“I’m not certain that I do.”

“You make a good impression. The public would look on you as a nice young man. They would consider that the motivation which would cause you to lie to protect a woman would have to be more powerful and more compelling and, frankly, a little more sinister than the ordinary attraction which a nice young woman would or should have for you.

“Now, I’m not going to argue with you. I’m not going to plead with you. I’ve told you facts. If you want to drag Opal Sunley into this thing, if you want to smear her reputation, if you want the newspapers to treat her as an older woman who was leading a young boy around by the nose...”

Gentrie came up out of the chair as though he had been a fighter springing for an antagonist at the sound of the gong. “No, you don’t,” he shouted. “You can’t...”

Mason held up his hand, palm outward. Aside from that, he made no move. “Hurts, doesn’t it?” he said. “It hurts because you know it’s the truth. Now, what have you to tell me?”

“Nothing.”

Mason said, “All right, go on home. Get out. I told you I wasn’t going to argue with you, and I wasn’t going to plead with you. I’ve told you. There’s truth in what I’ve told you, and truth is an acid which burns through every falsehood. The only thing it won’t touch is the pure gold of unvarnished truth. My words are going to eat into your consciousness until they’ve cut through the falsehood and got down to the real truth. Then you’re going to make a clean breast of things, either to your mother or to me. And after that you’re going to feel better. Now, I’m busy. I haven’t time to discuss things further. Good-by.”

Gentrie, who had quite evidently braced himself when he was taken to the lawyer’s office for resistance against cajoleries and blandishments, appeared somewhat dazed by this abrupt dismissal. He said, “Why, I haven’t told any...”

Mason said, “I’m sorry, Gentrie. I haven’t the time to waste. Don’t bother to say anything more until you’ve had a chance to think over what I’ve said. Good afternoon, Mrs. Gentrie. Let me know if you want to see me again.”

Her eyes were troubled but grateful. “Thank you, Mr. Mason. Come, Arthur.”

Arthur hung back at the door, then suddenly squared his shoulders, pushed up his chin, and marched out, jerking the door behind him. He would have slammed it violently had it not been for the automatic door check.

Mason grinned across at Della Street. “Hot-headed youth on the rampage.”

Della Street said, “I thought he was going to hit you when you said what you did about Opal Sunley.”

“He was trying to make himself think so, too. At his age, it was what he considered the manly thing. Sometimes, Della, I don’t know but what hot-blooded, impetuous youth which has no time for weighing disadvantages against advantages, or consequences against acts, is a darn sight better than what we are pleased to call the mature outlook.”

Her eyes smiled at him. “Obey that impulse, eh?”

“Exactly,” he said.

She was laughing now. “Well, it’s a good idea. More the philosophy one would expect to hear in a taxicab driving home than in a law office. How about that code message?”

Mason said, “You would bring my nose back to the grindstone. Well, I’ll bite. What about the code?”

“Given it any thought?”

“Lots of thought, probably too much.”

“Look, Chief, if it’s a cipher, couldn’t you read it? There are nine words in the message, and I’ve always understood any cipher can be solved if there’s a long enough message.”

Mason said, “I guess that’s right, but I don’t think it’s an ordinary cipher in which letters are transposed.”

“Why not?”

“Let’s analyze this. There are nine words. Five of them begin with the letter c. The letter c is in every single word at least once.”

“Wouldn’t that indicate it was either e or a?”

“I’m afraid you’re missing the most significant thing about the whole message, Della.”

She studied the typewritten copy of the message which Mason pushed across to her. After an interval of silence, she said, “I’m afraid I don’t get it.”

“Look again. It’s relatively simple.”

“You mean that there are no short words in it?”

“That’s one thing,” Mason said. “The shortest word in there has five letters. The longest has six. That’s an interesting peculiarity of the message. Nine words. Three of them have five letters, and the other six have six letters. But there’s something that’s far more significant than that.”

“What?”

“Give up?” he asked banteringly.

She nodded.

“The last fourteen letters of the alphabet aren’t represented there at all,” he said. “The entire message is composed of words made up from the first twelve letters of the alphabet.”

Della Street frowned, stared down at the typewriting, then said thoughtfully, “That’s right. What does it mean?”