Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Musical Cow

For a moment there was that tense silence which precedes dramatic, drastic action.

Then Rob heard the sound of a chair scraping back.

A woman screamed, “Look out!”

A man’s heavy voice muttered a threat, a door swung open, and Rob found himself dazzled by the blinding glare of a flashlight which was shining full on his face.

For a moment sheer surprise robbed the man who was holding the flashlight of the power to take action.

Rob took advantage of that split second of frozen immobility. Despite the fact that his eyes were so dazzled he could see nothing, he lowered his head, charged, and after three running steps flung himself forward in a football tackle.

Above him, a long, spitting, orange-blue flash of flame was followed by the roar of a revolver, then Rob had his arms around the man’s legs. He crashed into him in the most approved tackling style and the two men went down with a fall that jarred the house. The flashlight fell from the man’s hand, rolled over for half a dozen lopsided turns, then came to rest with its beam illuminating the opposite wall of the corridor, sending back a reflected light which furnished a dim, weird illumination. By this light, Rob was able to recognize the features of the man whom he had heard called Rex, the one with whom he had had the fist fight on the houseboat. The fact that one of the man’s eyes was swollen almost shut and badly discolored somehow gave Rob a feeling of confidence.

They wrestled around on the floor of the hallway in a sudden mad scramble, Rob fighting for either a good hold or a knock-out punch, Rex pushing himself clear, trying to get room to use his right arm.

Rob caught the glint of light on blue steel and grabbed for the gun.

He missed and flung himself to one side. The gun roared, and even in the heat of the combat, Rob’s keyed-up senses took note of the chunk knocked from the ceiling, felt the small particles of powdered plaster raining down on his head.

He ran his hand along the hot barrel of the gun, shoved two fingers in between trigger and trigger guard, effectively jamming the mechanism of the double-action revolver.

The man wrestled and pulled, trying to work the trigger of the gun. He was not able to pull the trigger as long as Rob’s finger kept it from moving back far enough to cause the double-action mechanism to function.

Rex freed his left hand, rained blows on Rob’s head. Rob, still hanging on to the gun, jerked his head forward blindly, and the impact of the top of his head smashing against the other man’s features all but stunned him.

However, the blow did the trick. Rex released his grasp on the revolver and Rob jerked it out of his hand.

Then of a sudden the house was filled with running steps, with voices that were shouting, with the shrill of police whistles.

Too late, Rob sensed Rex’s intention. He tried to dodge, but the heel of the man’s shoe crashed into his jaw.

Rob was conscious of flinging his left arm over and around, locking the leg, holding the foot under him. He felt a black wave of nausea but hung on to the man’s foot and leg with dogged persistence and kept a firm grip on the gun with his right hand.

Some unconscious inhibition kept him from using the gun, even when the man freed his right foot and poised it for another kick.

At that moment Rob’s head cleared slightly. He raised the gun and brought the barrel down sharply on his antagonist’s knee.

He heard a yell of agony and then flashlights were in the corridor like fireflies in the trees in summer. Men seemed to be all around him, business-like, uniformed men who knew exactly what to do and how to do it.

Rob felt himself jerked to his feet. The gun was yanked from his hand with an expert twist which came as such a surprise that the gun was gone even before he realized the importance of hanging on to it. Someone said, “ He’s all right,” and Rob was pushed to one side.

He heard a vicious string of oaths from Rex, the sound of a blow and then the click of handcuffs.

Dr. Dixon’s voice came out of the darkness, “Are you hurt?”

Rob’s own voice sounded strange to him, “I guess I’m a little groggy.”

“Come in here.”

There were lights now and Rob was in a bedroom, plainly but comfortably furnished.

In a chair by a window, her hands tied behind the back of the chair, was Linda Carroll. Her ankles were tied to the legs of the chair, and Rob was conscious of the pallor of her face.

“Rob. Oh, Rob!” she said, and then was silent.

Lieutenant Tyler clicked on more lights.

Moose Wallington wrapped his big hand around the arm of the prisoner, said, “Don’t start anything now. You might get hurt.”

Dr. Dixon, moving across the room, said, “It’s all right, Miss Carroll,” and stooped to untie the knots which held her ankles to the legs of the chair. A moment later, he had brought out his knife and quickly cut the bonds which tied her wrists. “How are you? All right?”

“Yes,” she said. “I...” She laughed nervously, became silent.

Dr. Dixon said, “We’re State Police. Would you care to tell us...”

“I have nothing to say.”

Dr. Dixon’s face darkened. “You can’t afford to adopt that attitude, Miss Carroll. After all, it was your car that was used for smuggling.”

“I’m sorry, I have nothing to say. There’s no statement I care to make.”

Rob stepped forward. “I think I can tell you all the essential facts,” he said.

Dr. Dixon cocked a quizzical eyebrow at him, said, “The State Police were under orders to follow you when I let you out of my car. You probably didn’t know you were being shadowed, but you seemed to know just where to go and just what to do when you got here.”

Rob, somewhat crestfallen, said, “I suppose I should have confided in the police.”

“You didn’t need to,” Dr. Dixon said with a smile. “I think we know pretty generally what happened. I think our reasoning parallels yours, Rob, but I don’t know how you knew about this place and what you were going to find here.”

Rob said, “After all, it’s rather simple. There had to be some woman involved. Some woman who knew the people at that Swiss inn. Some woman who could count on easy access to the Rapidex sedan. I knew it wasn’t Linda Carroll. There was only one other person it could have been, Linda Mae. She locked up the desk that had the gun in it and gave a key to Ostrander. She always referred to it as the key, but it’s quite reasonable to suppose that there were two keys to that desk.”

“Of course there were,” Dr. Dixon said. “It’s the only explanation. I can appreciate that Miss Carroll dislikes to testify against her own family, but I think it will simplify matters if she’ll tell her story.”

“All right,” Linda said dispiritedly. “I guess there’s no use trying to conceal things any longer.

“My aunt has always been eccentric and decidedly unconventional. She has a certain amount of talent but a limited imagination. She can paint like nobody’s business, but she has a hard time finding things to paint.

“A year ago when she was over in Switzerland she found a very fine painting by some little-known Swiss artist. A painting of dawn on a lake, with a campfire by the lake and the smoke coming up in a straight shaft and then spreading out into a long, hazy cloud.

“Well, Linda Mae simply stole that picture. That is, she didn’t touch the painting itself, but she studied the composition, the coloring and the general theme of the painting. Then she came home and duplicated it and it was sold to a calendar company. That was her undoing, because the calendar attracted so much attention and was so popular that eventually a copy found its way into Switzerland and... well, the thing was hushed up, but people who were in a position to make or break an artist’s reputation learned about it.