Erle Gardner - The Case of the Empty Tin

The plane settled swiftly down on the San Francisco field, gliding in just over the tops of coarse brush grass to settle on the runway and taxi up to the place where passengers were scheduled to disembark. A man in dark blue, wearing a chauffeur’s cap, touched two fingers to the celluloid visor and said, “Mr. Mason?”

Mason nodded.

“The car’s ready.”

Mason said, “We’ll get in it and wait right here. Be ready to start at any minute.”

The man held the door open for them to get in.

Mason said to Della Street, “Well, I guess we have a while to wait.”

“How long?”

“Perhaps an hour, perhaps longer.”

“I suppose,” she said, “this has something to do with our lisping aviator, Rodney Wenston.”

Mason nodded.

“Did you gather the impression that he was pretty much disconcerted when that girl began to produce proofs that she was the daughter of Karr’s former partner?”

“His expression didn’t indicate that he was exactly pleased,” Mason said with a grin.

“I was watching him closely. Would her showing up with the claim which she will probably make against Karr have some effect on Wenston?”

“It might affect the size of the estate he expects to inherit eventually. If there’s any estate, and if he expects to inherit it,” Mason said, smiling. “Come on, Della, let’s move down toward this end of the field. Wait a minute. We may as well be comfortable. Here, driver. How about moving your car down toward this end of the field away from the lights, where we can sit and be comfortable?”

“Okay,” the driver said, “I can move down as far as the edge of this fence.”

“All right, go ahead. Got a radio?”

“Yes, sir. Any particular station you’d like?”

“Just a little organ music, if you can find any.”

The driver moved the car. Mason settled back to the relaxation of a cigarette. The driver, after some dial twisting, found a program in which organ music was blended with that of a steel guitar. The furrows ironed themselves from Mason’s forehead as he sat back and gave himself up to the music.

Half an hour passed. The program changed. The driver looked back at Mason for instructions. Mason said, “Try and find more organ music or some Hawaiian music. Perhaps... hold it.”

A quick change came over the lawyer’s face. He moved forward, dropping to one knee so that he could study the plane which was coming in from the south, a compact monoplane with retractable landing gear.

“Start your motor,” Mason said to the driver as the lowered wheels of the plane slid smoothly on to the cement runway.

The driver obediently stepped on the starting switch. The motor purred into life.

“Switch off the radio,” Mason said.

Della Street turned to look at Mason, then back to the plane again. The relaxation had vanished from Mason’s face. He was as tense now as a runner awaiting the starting gun.

“Neat job that,” the driver said, noticing Mason’s interest in the plane.

The lawyer didn’t even hear him.

The plane taxied up to a point almost directly opposite the place where Mason was seated in the parked automobile. A gate opened. A long gray-colored automobile with a red spotlight slid through the gates.

“An ambulance,” Della Street said.

Mason, without taking his eyes from the ambulance, motioned her to silence.

The ambulance turned, backed up to the plane. The driver jumped out and opened the doors in the back. The body of the ambulance concealed what was taking place, and Mason frowned his annoyance.

“Get ready to go,” he said to the driver, “and you’re going to have to go fast. Never mind the speed laws. I’ll stand good for fines.”

The driver said dubiously, “You want that ambulance followed?”

“Yes.”

“He’ll use a siren and spotlight and go right through all the signals.”

“Follow right along behind,” Mason said.

“I’ll get pinched.”

“Not if you’re close enough. Cops will think it’s a member of the family rushing to the bedside of a dying relative.”

“What’ll the driver of the ambulance think?”

“I don’t give a damn what he thinks, just so we find out where he goes. Okay, here we go.”

The doors of the ambulance slammed shut. The driver ran around, jumped in behind the steering wheel, and the gates swung open once more as the big machine gathered momentum.

The driver of Mason’s car started out in low gear, turned to say over his shoulder, “It might not be just a fine. Up here they...”

“Get over,” Mason told him. “I’ll take the wheel.”

“I can’t let you do that. I...”

“Look,” Mason said. “If I threatened you with a monkey wrench, and made you get over, you’d do it, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know. I...”

“And then,” Mason said, “if anything happened, you could say that you had been in fear of your life, that you thought I’d gone crazy, and that I took the automobile away from you by force... Get over.”

The man stopped the car, slid over in the seat, said dubiously, “I don’t like this. You ain’t even got a monkey wrench.”

Mason swung his long legs over the back of the front seat, jackknifed his slim figure, slipped in behind the steering wheel, and snapped the car into second gear, easing back the clutch as he pressed the foot throttle. The car slid smoothly forward. Mason swung it into a sharp turn, snapped the gear shift into high, and fell in behind the ambulance.

The blood-red rays of the spotlight from the car ahead made a sinister pencil of light. A siren screamed. Mason, moving the wheel of the rented car with deft skill, kept the machine within a few feet of the rear of the ambulance, following through the traffic in the pathway cleared by the spotlight and siren.

The man who had been driving the car gripped the back of the front seat with his left hand, held to the edge of the door with his right. “Good Lord,” he moaned. “I didn’t know it would be like this! ” His face was strained with nervous tension. Several times he instinctively pressed down with his feet against the floorboards as though trying to put on the brakes. Once when collision seemed imminent, he reached for the ignition switch. Mason, batting his hand away, stepped on the throttle and avoided the oncoming car.

“Don’t be a fool,” Mason said without taking his eyes from the road. “No chance to stop on that one. Using the throttle was our only chance. If you hesitate, you’re licked.”

Della Street, in the back of the car, hanging on to the robe rail, her heels braced against the foot rest, watched the kaleidoscope of traffic which flashed past the windows of the speeding automobile. Her lips were half parted; her eyes sparkling. The driver of the car, looking back to her for moral support to back up his demand for less speed, abruptly changed his mind and concentrated simply on hanging on.

The ambulance cut its way through traffic, to slow down in front of the red brick structure of a rambling hospital.

Mason left the ambulance as it turned into the emergency entrance. He swung his car around to the front of the hospital, parked it, and said to the driver, “Here’s the monkey wrench I was holding over your head.”

He handed him three ten-dollar bills.

The driver put the money in his pocket wordlessly.

“Okay?” Mason asked.

The driver tried to speak. His voice came as a throaty squeak. He coughed, cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and said, “Okay, but I wouldn’t go through it again for a thousand.”

Mason slid out of the car. “Come on, Della.”

She followed him into the hospital. Mason said to the girl at the information desk, “I know something about this ambulance case that’s just coming in the door now. I’m supposed to tell the doctor something about the patient.”