Case of the Silent Partner

Chapter 6

Left alone with Mildreth Faulkner, Tragg waited until the sound of Mason’s car had died away in the distance, watched her eyes fight back the expression of panic and become defiant. There was nothing of the quitter about her. She stood, with her chin up, fighting for control. Excitement brought added sparkle to her eyes, color to her cheeks. She was, Tragg admitted, a beautiful woman, quite evidently accustomed to masculine deference — and she was trapped. It remained only for him to close the jaws of that trap.

Because he had her so thoroughly in his power, and because she was so naïvely unaware of the danger of dealing with an experienced police detective, he hesitated for a moment, then, putting admiration of her courage aside, he said abruptly, “Miss Faulkner, I’m going to ask you two questions. The answers to those two questions will determine our whole future relationship. If you tell me the truth, I may be able to help you.”

“What are they?” she asked, in a voice which was as harsh and strained as the crackle of static on a radio.

“First, did you send Esther Dilmeyer the poisoned candy?”

“No.”

“Second, did you kill Harvey Lynk?”

“No.”

Tragg helped himself to a chair, made himself at ease. “Very well, I’m taking you at your word. If you had killed Lynk or sent Esther Dilmeyer the poisoned candy, I would have been the first to advise you to stand on your constitutional rights and not answer my questions.”

A note of contempt crept into her voice. “In other words, if you’d asked me if I sent Esther Dilmeyer the poisoned candy, and I’d said, ‘Yes,’ you’d have been very magnanimous, and said, ‘Now, Miss Faulkner, since you’ve told me the truth, I advise you not to answer any questions because you might incriminate yourself.’ ”

He grinned. “Hardly. I didn’t expect you would admit it if you had been guilty. Not in so many words. But I could have told from your manner.”

“Do you mean to say that you can ask a person a question like that, and tell from the manner in which the reply is given whether the answer is true?”

“Not all the time, but I can get a pretty good idea.”

“Then,” she said, still with that note of contempt in her voice, “having ascertained that I didn’t commit either crime, you have done your duty, and there’s no need to waste any more of your valuable time here.”

“Not so fast. In the first place, I didn’t say that I had decided you weren’t guilty. In the second place, if you aren’t guilty, you may have some information which will be of value.”

“Oh, so you haven’t cleared me yet?”

“No.”

“I thought you said you had.”

“No. I said that if you had been guilty, I would have been the first to advise you not to answer questions. Now I’m going to explain that a little, Miss Faulkner. If you are guilty, don’t answer my questions because, if you are guilty, I’m going to trap you!”

“Well, I’m not guilty. And even if I were, I don’t think you could trap me into admitting it.”

“I think I could,” he said. “Say, nine times out of ten.”

Her silence was significant.

“Now remember, Miss Faulkner, if you are guilty, please don’t answer these questions. Simply say that you won’t answer them.”

“I’m not guilty.”

“All right, with that understanding, you can answer questions, but remember, I’ve warned you.”

She said hotly, “Since seven o’clock tonight I’ve been faced with a very difficult and trying business situation. I’m endeavoring to extricate myself from a difficulty — and I’m not going to tell you what that difficulty is or what I did with my time. I don’t have to. I don’t...”

“All right, all right,” he interrupted. “Let it go at that. Can you tell me anything at all of the nature of your business difficulty?”

“No.”

“Was it perhaps because your brother-in-law had turned over stock in your company to Coll as security for a gambling debt, and Coll, in turn, had turned it over to Lynk, and Harry Peavis, your competitor...”

He stopped at the expression on her face.

“How did you know that?” she asked.

“As it happens, I learned it from Mr. Magard, Mr. Lynk’s partner.”

“Then he was in on it?”

“No. He told me that he learned of it only this afternoon. He and Lynk had words about it. Magard told Lynk he’d buy him out, or Lynk could be the one to do the buying, but the partnership was finished.”

“How did Magard find out about it?”

“He began putting two and two together, and finally called for a showdown with Lynk and forced Lynk to tell him.”

“I see no reason for me to say anything.”

“Why?”

“How do I know you aren’t trying to trap me? You’ve been good enough to warn me that you intended to.”

“The point is well taken,” he said. “Now, I’m going to ask you to help me uncover some of the facts.”

“What?”

“Did you know Sindler Coll?”

“No.”

“You’ve heard your brother-in-law speak of him?”

“Yes.”

“What did Lawley say about him?”

“He said that he wanted to bring Coll up to the house some night when my sister got better.”

“Your sister is an invalid?”

“That’s right — temporarily.”

“Did Mr. Lawley mention anything about betting or horse racing in connection with Mr. Coll?”

“No. He just said that he thought we’d like Coll.”

“What did you say?”

“I said nothing.”

“Do I understand that you and your brother-in-law don’t get along very well?”

“Oh, he’s all right, but — well, you’re asking me what I said, and that’s what I said — nothing.”

“And your sister?”

“I’ve forgotten. I think Carla said it would be very nice.”

“Now,” Tragg said, “I’m going to give you a few words, Miss Faulkner, and I want you to be thoroughly relaxed and at ease and tell me what each word calls to your mind.”

“Another trap?” she asked.

He raised his eyebrows slightly. “My dear young woman, I told you that if you were guilty, I was going to trap you. The way you keep harping on the subject leads me to believe that you are — oh, well, skip it.”

She said, “Just because you’re a police officer who comes barging in here at two-thirty in the morning, I suppose that if I’m not guilty, I’m to sit up all night and play charades with you.”

“Hardly that. I’ll take only a few minutes more of your time. Please remember, Miss Faulkner, that what I’m trying to do is to uncover the facts. If you’re afraid to have me learn the truth, don’t co-operate. If there’s no reason why you wish to keep me from learning the truth, your co-operation will be appreciated.”

“You’ve said all that before.”

“So I have.”

“Go ahead. What are the words? I suppose this is one of those association tests.”

“Not exactly,” Tragg said. “The association test calls for a lot of psychological stuff, holding a stop watch on a person to see how long it takes to answer. I’ll be frank with you, Miss Faulkner. It’s a trick which is sometimes used by psychologists. A lot of innocent words are given until the average reaction time of the witness is noted. Then words are given which might bring up a guilty train of thought. The person naturally wants to guard against betraying himself, and therefore his reaction time is a little longer on all of these words.”

“I see,” she said, “but I’m fairly well informed. You don’t need to explain elemental psychology to me.”

“That makes it easier then for me to explain exactly what I do want. I want you to try and give me one word which is called to your mind by the words I will give you.”

“Very well.”

“And I want you to give me that word without any delay whatever. In other words, the minute I speak of a word, you come back fast with the word which you think of.”

“Very well, go ahead.”

“Home,” Tragg said.

“Run,” she snapped back at him with a slight glitter of malicious triumph in her eyes.

“Flower.”

“Customer,” she snapped, before the word was hardly out of his mouth.

“Orchid.”

“Corsage.”

“Faster,” he said. “Come back at me just as fast as you can.”

“Aren’t I doing all right?”

“Just a little faster if you can.”

“Go ahead.”

“Coupe.”

“Sister,” she said, her voice slightly higher pitched.

“Gun.”

“Accident,” she almost shouted triumphantly.

Tragg’s expression didn’t change. “Stock.”

“Transfer.”

“Competitor.”

“Peavis.”

“Police.”

“You.”

“Paraffin.”

“Test.”

Lieutenant Tragg settled back in his chair and smiled at her. “I told you I’d trap you, Miss Faulkner,” he said quietly. “Now hadn’t you better sit down and tell me about it.”

“I... I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, yes, you do. You know of the paraffin test for determining whether a person has fired a gun. Mr. Mason told you about it. It’s fresh in your mind. You were so anxious to give the right answer when I came to the gun part, which you were smart enough to know I was leading up to, that you let down the bars of your vigilance just a bit after that, and walked into the trap on that paraffin test.”

“Does a person have to be guilty of murder to know about that?”

“No,” he said, “but when a woman has a gun in her possession which has probably been used to commit a murder, when I find a noted criminal attorney closeted with her at two-thirty in the morning, and when, as soon as a police car drives up, she discharges the revolver, and when the first word which comes into her mind in connection with paraffin is the word ‘test,’ then I have pretty good reason to believe that the lawyer told her about the paraffin test, that she is a woman of intelligence, and realizes that the only way to protect herself is not by trying to get the powder out of her hand, but by having a perfectly legitimate excuse for showing powder in her hand.

“You see, Miss Faulkner, if a policeman were asked what word he associated with paraffin, he might very well say ‘test,’ but for a woman who is in the business of selling flowers to the public to associate paraffin with the nitrate test — well, it’s just a little too much.”

“So you think I killed him?”

“I don’t know. I do know that that gun which you tried to conceal under the davenport has recently been fired twice. I know that the second shot was fired deliberately. I know that Perry Mason was here talking to you shortly before that shot was fired. It’s a fair inference that he warned you that if you had fired that revolver recently, the paraffin test would furnish proof. And you were sufficiently ingenious to know what to do.

“I thought for a moment that it might have been Mason’s idea, but the adroit manner in which you anticipated the simple traps which I set for you, and the swiftness of your mental reactions convinces me that you’re a very clever woman, Miss Faulkner, and that you thought it up yourself.”

She said, “I’m not going to make any statement. You’re being unfair. I suppose now you’ll arrest me.”

“No. I’m not making an arrest right now. First, I’m going to check this gun for fingerprints. I’m going to compare a test bullet fired through the barrel of this gun with the fatal bullet which killed Lynk.”

“You’ve already said it’s the murder weapon.”

“I think it is. You see, a ballistics expert found the bullet which had gone completely through Lynk’s body. He was able to tell me the caliber, the make of shell, and certain other facts about the ammunition. I find this weapon in your possession loaded with exactly that same ammunition. Now, perhaps you’ll tell me where you got the gun.”

“At a sporting goods store.”

“No. I mean tonight.”

“Why — why couldn’t I have had it with me all the time?”

Tragg said, “Miss Faulkner, you’re trying to protect someone, either someone you love, or someone to whom you feel obligated.”

“Why not myself?”

“Or,” he admitted, “perhaps yourself.”

“Well?” she asked.

Abruptly, Lieutenant Tragg got to his feet. “You’re a very intelligent and a very clever woman. I’ve got just about all the information out of you I’m going to get, at least for the present. I’m taking that gun with me. By the time I talk to you again, I’ll know a lot more than I do now.”

“I suppose,” she said sarcastically, “that in addition to my business worries, I can look forward to regular visits from the police.”

“Miss Faulkner, I’ll see you just once more. At the end of that next interview, I’ll either exonerate you or arrest you for first-degree murder.”

For a moment her eyes wavered.

He said quietly, “God knows I hated to do this. I warned you — not once but several times.”

She was silent.

“I don’t suppose,” Tragg said, “there’s any chance of getting you to look on me as a human being. After all, I’m only trying to find a killer. If you didn’t kill him, you shouldn’t fear me. I don’t suppose there’s any chance that we could be — well, friends?”

She said haughtily, “I am inclined to pick my friends for reasons other than that they happen to have been given employment on the police force.”

He turned toward the door without another word.

Her eyes were frightened as she watched him, carrying the gun by a string looped through the trigger guard, quietly open the front door.

“Good night, Lieutenant,” she said as he passed over the threshold.

He closed the door behind him without a word.

She stood there for a moment until she saw his car drive away, then she dashed to the telephone and frantically dialed the number of Carlotta’s residence.

There was no answer.