Erle Gardner - The Case of the Empty Tin

“Oh, I have it,” Rebecca said. “S-c-a-r-p... but whoever heard of a young salmon being called a parr?”

“You might look it up.”

Rebecca turned the pages of the dictionary. “Yes. Here it is. P-a-r-r.”

She worked quickly with her pencil, then looked at the watch again. For a moment there was silence, then she threw down the pencil. “I don’t know what good it does a body to try and concentrate when you keep thinking about empty tins being found on the shelves. Why would an empty tin be put on a shelf, anyway?”

Mrs. Gentrie smiled indulgently. “I’m sure I can’t tell you. Go back to your puzzle, Rebecca. I’m certain you’ll have much better than average intelligence. What else are you having trouble with?”

“A four-letter word meaning ‘an East Indian tree used for masts.’ ”

“Do you have any of the letters?”

“Yes. I’ve got the first two letters. — P-o.”

“What other words would give you a clue?”

“A four-letter word meaning ‘of domestic animals, vehicles, etc., on the left.’ Now what in the world would that mean?”

Mrs. Gentrie puckered her forehead. “Don’t they talk about the ‘near’ side and the ‘off’ side of an animal? Wait a minute. It’s ‘nigh.’ Would that fit in?’

Rebecca moved her pencil tentatively, then faster. Abruptly, she reversed the ends of the pencil to make an erasure and said, “That’s right. It’s nigh. That makes that tree p-o- something -n .”

“Why don’t you take the dictionary and look under p-o? There certainly wouldn’t be so terribly many words.”

Rebecca’s fingers moved with a fluttering rapidity. “Oh, I’ve got it — poon. Now I’ve got the whole thing. Saber-toothed and poon were the two words that were sticking me, and I’ve got a high intelligence rating. I’m way ahead of the average. Isn’t that splendid?”

Mrs. Gentrie said, “That’s really fine. Don’t you think you’d better straighten up Mr. Steele’s room?”

“Oh, it isn’t time for that.”

“It’s ten-thirty.”

“Good heavens, how time flies. Yes, I suppose I should. Sometimes he comes home at noon. Do you know, Florence, I wonder if he’s really an architect. He left some sketches in his room yesterday, and they looked very crude and amateurish to me.”

“I don’t think we should bother about his sketches, Rebecca.”

“Well, good heavens, they were right where a body would notice them. They were right in his upper bureau drawer, right where I couldn’t help seeing them.”

“Did he leave the bureau drawer open?”

“Well, no; but you know how the dust collects on those handles, and when I was dusting, it pulled the drawer open just a little, so I peeked.”

“An architect doesn’t necessarily have to be an artist.”

“Well, perhaps not, but he certainly should be able to draw the floor plans of this house so it would look — well, professional.”

“The floor plans of this house!”

“That’s what I’m telling you. There was a complete sketch of the basement floor plan with the garages, my darkroom, the shelves, window, stairs, and everything.”

Mrs. Gentrie said, “Well, I should think that would prove he was an architect and was interested in this old architecture.”

Rebecca sniffed. “Like as not he’ll turn out to be snooping for some of these agencies, and a building inspector will show up to tell us that our foundations are defective and that we’re going to have to do a lot of expensive repair work.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, run along in and clean up the room, Rebecca.”

Mrs. Gentrie had utilized an outside entrance two years ago to create a room and bath which could be rented. Delman Steele was a very recent tenant. He had moved in within the last ten days. Yet in that short time he had made himself quite one of the family. In the evening he frequently sat with Rebecca, helping her solve crossword puzzles or assisting her in the darkroom.

The huge, rambling, old-fashioned house had its defects. It was hard enough to heat and to keep clean, but there was lots of space, and the rental from the room more than made up for a lot of the inconveniences due to the size of the house.

Moreover, because the house was on a slope, two garages had been cut out of the basement. One of these garages was rented to R. E Hocksley, who lived in one of the flats next door. Mrs. Gentrie had never seen Hocksley himself, but his secretary, who came in by the day, Opal Sunley, was always on hand to pay the garage rent promptly in advance. That started Mrs. Gentrie thinking about Junior. Junior had been evidencing quite an interest in Opal Sunley lately. Junior was only nineteen. In a way, he was old enough to take care of himself; but lately there had been a smug expression about Opal’s eyes that Mrs. Gentrie didn’t like. Opal was four or five years older than Junior, and Mrs. Gentrie felt certain she’d been married and was separated from her husband. It would be a lot better if Junior would spend more time with some of the girls in his own set. Suppose Opal was twenty-three or twenty-four. Those few years made a big difference.

Mrs. Gentrie sighed with the realization that the years, of late, had begun to flit by with smooth, streamlined speed.

Mrs. Gentrie awakened sometime during the night with the vague feeling that she had heard a door open and close, and steps on the stairs — the cautious steps of someone trying to be quiet and succeeding only in being furtive.

It was that time of the night when weary muscles and tired nerves wrap themselves in the mantle of slumber as in a protective cloak, drugging the senses into an oblivion so deep that sounds, penetrating through to the consciousness, are robbed of significance.

Mrs. Gentrie felt no apprehension, only a mild irritation. Her sleep-numbed senses struggled with her uneasiness and won the argument. As soon as the sounds themselves ceased to register, she slipped tranquilly back into a deeper slumber, from which she was aroused abruptly by some sound so sinister that she found herself sitting bolt upright in bed, trying to call back a noise which had already become an echo in her ears.

At her side, Arthur Gentrie said sleepily, “Whatsmatter?”

“I thought I heard something, Arthur.”

“Goschleep.”

“Arthur it sounded like — like a door banging or — or — or a shot.”

Arthur Gentrie rolled over, said, “ ’Sall right,” and almost immediately settled down into a rhythm of breathing which soon deepened into a gentle snore.

Mrs. Gentrie could hear sounds on the stairs again, the steps of someone trying to be quiet, yet someone who was in a hurry. A board creaked.

Mrs. Gentrie switched on the light over her bed. She looked at the sleeping form of her husband; then realized that before she could waken him to a realization of the emergency, it would be too late to do anything about it. She slid out of bed, flung her robe around her, kicked her feet into slippers, and opened the door which led to the hallway.

Down at the far end of the corridor, by the bathroom door, a dim night light furnished a vague sort of illumination which was hardly brilliant enough to penetrate the shadows near the doorways.

Mrs. Gentrie rubbed sleep from her eyes, walked over toward the head of the stairs. She paused to listen, and could hear nothing. The insidious chill of the night air stole the warmth from her body, and Mrs. Gentrie wrapped the robe more tightly around her. She shivered nervously. She knew that an ominous noise had wakened her yet her mind could conjure up only an uncertain memory of that sound. It might have been a slamming door. It might have been that someone had fallen over a chair, or... well, it might have been the sound of a backfire from a truck somewhere. Mrs. Gentrie, sufficiently wide awake now to be more matter-of-fact, refused to consider the possibility of a shot.