Erle Gardner - The Case of the Empty Tin

Mrs. Gentrie said doggedly, “Rebecca, I think it would be better if you left Junior out of it.”

Rebecca said, “It isn’t anything against Junior as much as it is against that little minx. She has that butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth manner of looking at you. And she says” — and here Rebecca’s voice changed entirely to assume a startling likeness to that of Opal Sunley — “ ‘Good mo ahning, Miss Gentrie — ahnd how’s all the fahmily today?’ I feel like up and giving her a piece of my mind, just coming right out and saying, ‘They’d be very well, thank you, if you’d just leave your painted finger hooks out of Junior and let him grow up as a normal boy should.’ ”

Mrs. Gentrie said sternly, “Rebecca! Stop it!”

Tragg flashed Mrs. Gentrie his best smile. “I’m sorry. I’m quite certain it was my fault. I led her into it, and, as you probably realize, I did it with a purpose. Mrs. Gentrie, are you absolutely certain that your son was in bed when that shot was heard next door?”

Mrs. Gentrie said slowly, “No. I’m not certain he was in bed.”

“Are you perhaps certain that he wasn’t?” Tragg asked, his voice quietly insistent.

“I don’t know. What makes you say that?” she asked.

“I’m not certain that I know myself,” Tragg observed, still smiling, “only it impresses me that you’re a very efficient mother, that you keep an eye on your children, that in the event you heard something you thought might be a shot, your first idea would be to look for the safety of your children. And, as I understand it, Junior’s bedroom is between your room and the head of the stairs.”

Mrs. Gentrie met his eyes steadily, and asked, “Is there some particular reason why you’re trying to drag Junior into this?”

“I’m not trying to drag him into it, Mrs. Gentrie, but I think it’s only fair to tell you that the two fingerprints on the telephone in Mr. Hocksley’s house are those of your son.”

Mrs. Gentrie started to say something, then changed her mind and was silent.

“The paint-smear fingerprints on the telephone were made by someone who had touched the paint your husband had placed on the garage door. He didn’t finish that painting until around nine-thirty at night as I understand it. Obviously then, your son, who was out at the time, returned home sometime after that, entered this house, probably in the dark, went down to the cellar for some purpose. Without realizing that the garage door had been painted, he came groping his way toward it. I think you follow me, Mrs. Gentrie. If he’d been using a light, or if a light had been on in the cellar, he’d have seen the fresh paint on the door, and, moreover, wouldn’t have been groping along with his hands outstretched.”

Rebecca said, “I think you’re quite right, Lieutenant. Personally, I thought I heard someone moving around here in the corridor just about the time the noise of the shot wakened me.”

“Someone moving around in the house?” Tragg asked her.

“Yes.”

“And you said you thought you heard someone moving, Mrs. Gentrie?”

“No. I heard Mephisto, the cat.”

“Yet you got up and got your husband to go downstairs?”

“Well, yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I was worried.”

“About what?”

“I thought that noise might have been a shot.”

“You didn’t think it came from this house?”

“Well, no — that is, I didn’t think very much about it.”

“You got your husband to get up and investigate things here in this house?”

“Yes.”

Tragg remained silent for several seconds, letting the significance of those questions and replies soak into Mrs. Gentrie’s mind; then he went on smoothly, “Your son went downstairs in the dark. He groped for the garage door, opened it, and went into the garage. Then he opened the other door and went across to Hocksley’s flat. In groping for the garage door in the dark, he got paint on the fingers of his left hand. After he got over to Hocksley’s flat, he struck matches to light his way. Your husband is left-handed. Your son, however, is right-handed. He was taking matches from his pocket with his right hand and striking them with his right hand. So he didn’t touch anything with the fingers of his left hand until he picked up the telephone over in Hocksley’s flat. The paint on his fingers was still wet. It’s obvious that must have been within a very few minutes of the time he got his fingers in the paint on the garage door. When he came back, he...”

Rebecca suddenly sucked in her breath as though she had been about to make some exclamatory statement.

Tragg turned to her. “Well?” he asked after a moment as she failed to speak.

Rebecca said, “I was just wondering if...”

“I don’t think Lieutenant Tragg is interested in any of your wild theories, Rebecca,” Mrs. Gentrie cautioned.

Tragg kept smiling affably. “What were you thinking, Miss Gentrie?”

“Well,” Rebecca said, “I suppose it’s nothing, but my darkroom door opens into the basement, and there’s a curtain hanging just inside that door, so that when you open the door to come into the darkroom, you don’t let light in.”

“You mean the curtain is far enough behind the door so you can open and close the door before you go through the curtain?” Tragg asked.

“That’s right.”

Tragg said, “It’s a very nice darkroom you have.”

Rebecca beamed with pride. “It has the finest equipment! And we’ve made it ourselves. I have a daylight enlarger, so I can use diffused daylight in enlarging my pictures and...”

“But there was something about the darkroom itself you were going to tell me?” Tragg asked.

“That’s right, there was.”

“What was it?”

“Well,” she said, “I had some cut film lying in a box on the darkroom shelf. I hadn’t developed some exposed film in the other plate holders, and I was going to put this new film in...”

Mrs. Gentrie interposed to say to Lieutenant Tragg, “She thinks that the officers were careless. They opened the door of her darkroom, and then pulled the curtain all the way back. That let light into the darkroom, and fogged...”

“No, that isn’t what I was going to say,” Rebecca said. “I’m quite capable of doing my own talking, thank you, Florence.”

“What were you going to say, Miss Gentrie?”

“Simply that those films might not have been fogged during the daytime by the police, but might have been fogged the night before by someone who struck a match. I found a burnt match stub on the floor of my darkroom. I thought at the time one of the officers had lit a cigarette, but I’m just wondering now if it mightn’t have been someone who was looking for something in my darkroom and struck a match. Lots and lots of people don’t realize that striking a match in a darkroom is just the same as turning on a light. It can cause just as much damage as though you’d switched on an electric light.”

Tragg said, “That’s very interesting. You keep a pretty fair stock of materials in your darkroom, Miss Gentrie?”

“Well, no, I don’t. I don’t have the money to buy them.”

“It’s rather an expensive pastime,” Mrs. Gentrie said.

“Well, you don’t need to talk. It pays its own way.”

“You do work for others?”

Rebecca said, “Occasionally.”

“A few of the neighbors,” Mrs. Gentrie supplemented.

“Not much developing and printing,” Rebecca said. “There’s no money in that, but I do do enlargements occasionally. I do wish I had enough money so I wasn’t always worrying about expense. I could really turn out marvelous work if I had enough money to get myself a little car so I could get out and...”