The Case of the Backward Mule

Fifteen

Clane, with a map of the city to aid him, was patiently plodding along, putting himself in the place of Edward Harold, trying to anticipate Harold’s next move.

Some hundred yards behind him was the warehouse where tie murder had been committed. Assuming that Harold had jumped from that window in a panic and had raced across the strip of soft ground where his footprints had been found, he had hit the pavement and then had started walking. Where would he walk and what would he do?

Clane plodded along through the drab warehouse district until he came to a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant.

Clane ordered a cup of coffee. “How late are you open?” he asked.

“Nine o’clock. Used to stay open until midnight when there was a lot of draying down here. Things are quieter now, costs are up and you can’t get help, so I’m closing early.”

“Any place around here that’s open all night?” Clane asked.

“Don’t know of any.”

“Until after midnight?”

“No, I don’t think so. Wait a minute, there’s a place up the street, two blocks up over on the right. Sid Melrose runs the joint. I think he’s been staying up lately. Used to close but I think he’s been open now.”

“Thanks,” Clane said. “I may be on night shift down here and wanted to know where I could come for a cup of coffee.”

“Most satisfactory way is to carry a thermos bottle.”

Clane thanked the man, paid for the coffee, and walked up to the restaurant operated by Sid Melrose.

There was a sign over the door, Open until 11:00 p. m.

Clane seated himself at the counter, ordered coffee, toast and eggs.

The waitress who served him eyed the dollar bill which Clane pushed across the counter. “What’s this for?”

“Information.”

Her fingers rested on the edge of the dollar bill. “About what?”

“I want to find out something that happened here last night around closing time. Who was on shift?”

“I was.”

“And you’re on again this morning?”

“Uh-huh, we stagger shifts. Today is my change-over from night shift. I worked until eleven last night and then came on again at eight this morning and work until one. Then I come back at four and work until seven. What did you want to know?”

“Some time around closing time,” Clane said, “I think a man came in here and wanted to use the telephone. He didn’t have a hat or an overcoat. He was rather tall and had dark hair which he combed straight back, the eyes were dark and...”

“Sure, I remember him. What do you want to know about him?”

“What did he do?”

“He came in here and wanted to telephone. Then he asked for some coffee. He seemed sort of nervous. What about him?”

“Just trying to check up on him,” Clane said. “It’s all right. Just a personal matter.”

“Well, he got some nickels and went over to the telephone and dialed a number. He didn’t get any answer, came back and had another cup of coffee, then went over and dialed the same number again...”

“The same number?” Clane asked.

“I think so. The first two calls were to the same number. At least the first two or three numbers were the same. I happened to notice him when he was working the dial on the telephone. Business was slack and... well, you know how it is, you just sometimes notice people like that. He seemed... well, there was something funny about him. I don’t know exactly what it was but he seemed sort of all on edge.”

“All right, what happened then?”

“He didn’t get any answer either time. He came back and had another cup of coffee and then went over and dialed another number. That time he got an answer. He talked on the telephone for a minute or two and then came back and sat down. He seemed more quiet then. About ten minutes later a car drove up outside and the driver tapped the horn. The man got up, shoved a quarter across the counter at me and almost ran out of the place.”

“Could you see the driver of the car?” Clane asked.

“Not very plain. It was a woman. She was a young woman, but that’s about all I know.”

“Blonde or brunette?”

“I really couldn’t say.”

“Could you tell me anything about the car?”

“Yes. It was a convertible, a sporty job. I’m trying to think of what it was about the man that made me watch him, something that wasn’t just... well, it was something that made you think he was in trouble or something.”

“Something in the way he looked?”

“Well, not exactly. Something in his manner.”

“Can’t think what it was?”

“I’m trying to.”

Clane watched her intently. “Something in the way he was breathing?” he asked after a moment.

“That’s it,” she said. “Why didn’t I think of it in the first place? He was breathing as though he was excited about something when he came in.”

“Or as though he’d been running?”

“Well, not just before he came in here, but he might have been running earlier and... you know, he was breathing short and quick-like. You’re wrong about one thing, though. It wasn’t just before we closed up. It was just about ten-thirty when he came in here, and he was out by quarter of eleven.”

Clane thought that over. “You’re certain?”

“Absolutely. I was sort of keeping an eye on the clock. I had a date.”

“You’d know him if you saw him again?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t suppose you could give me any clue as to the number he called?”

“Gosh, no, except that the exchange number was down by the bottom of the dial and the number was up near the top. The exchange number might have been — oh say, Twin Oaks or something like that and he was dialing the T and then the W.”

Clane pushed the dollar bill across to her and then extracted a five-dollar bill from his billfold and pushed that over to keep the one company. “Thanks a lot,” he told her.

“Oh, I’m sure you’re welcome. Could I... did you want to leave a number and in case he should come in again, I...”

“No, that’s all right,” Clane said. “I think I know everything that I need to know. You’re sure the car was a convertible?”

“Yes. I know that, a dark convertible.”

“And it was driven by a woman?”

“I’m pretty certain she was a young woman, but I didn’t get a good look at her — through the doors, you know, and looking out into the night. It was foggy and...”

“Yes, I know. Thanks.”

Outside of the restaurant, Terry Clane paused for a moment to take into consideration the various aspects of the problem which confronted him.

Edward Harold had left the warehouse in something of a panic. He had been running. And the time element indicated the facts were not as the police had reconstructed the murder of George Gloster. In fact Edward Harold had, perhaps, a perfect alibi if he had only remained long enough in the company of this mysterious woman.

This woman had not been the party to whom he had first appealed for aid. That party had not answered. So then as a last resort Harold had called an alternate number and that number had responded. A woman in a convertible automobile had come to meet him. That woman could hardly have been Cynthia. Could it have been her sister, Alma?

Clane gave that matter consideration and called Alma by telephone. “Let’s try being casual,” he warned. “I didn’t get you up, did I?”

“Of course not, I’m a working woman.”

“Working on a portrait?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Anyone I know?”

“No. Some rich nabob wants his wife portrayed on canvas. She admits she isn’t looking quite her best right now but next summer she intends to take off ten pounds and those lines on her face are because she’s been under quite a strain lately and hasn’t been sleeping well. She’s quite certain they’ll disappear.”

“In other words, she wants you to paint her the way she’ll be next summer and she thinks that will be the way she looked ten years ago.”

“Exactly.”

“Nice going,” Terry said.

“Oh, it isn’t so bad. After all, art deals with composition and lighting and character. The envelope of flesh in which that character is contained is not quite as important as many people think. You know, Terry, I sometimes think that a really good portrait painter could paint a subject at any age from ten to seventy and if the portrayal were really faithful, there shouldn’t be a great deal of difference in the eyes, the pose of the head, the set of the mouth. That isn’t as absurd as it sounds. It’s just expressing a principle of character. What have you heard from Cynthia?”

“I think she’s all right, Alma. I’m not in touch with her right at the moment. Say, how about borrowing a car?”

“Why, certainly, you may have mine.”

“What is it? Roadster, coupé, or...”

“It’s a nice conservative, quiet sedan.”

“Not a convertible?”

“No.”

“I’m trying a find a convertible automobile,” Clane said. “I want to drive past a building and take some movies of the lines of almost perpendicular perspective. You don’t know anyone that has a convertible, do you?”

“Gosh, no. Not unless you feel on friendly terms with Daphne.”

“Who’s Daphne?”

“Daphne Taonon. Ricardo Taonon’s wife.”

“Eurasian?”

“Heavens, no! She’s a blond showgirl with a figure like an art calendar. And she likes to show it.”

“She has a convertible?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Is it hers or her husband’s?”

“Hers individually. No one else ever drives it. Not that I’ve seen. That is, her husband doesn’t.”

“You don’t know her well enough to borrow it?”

“Heavens, no. Tell me about Cynthia, Terry. What’s she doing? Have you heard anything...?”

“I don’t know where she is,” Terry said, “and even if I did... well, you know, the walls have ears and telephone lines have feelers.”

“You don’t think they’d tap my line, do you?”

“Can’t tell what they’d do,” Clane said. “But don’t worry about Cynthia. She’s thoroughly able to take care of herself. I understand, incidentally, the police have some clues that weren’t given to the press. You’ve read the papers?”

“You mean about Gloster?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve read them. They say someone was hiding in the warehouse and that police think it was Edward Harold. If he was there, well, that should let Cynthia out of it, shouldn’t it? She couldn’t have put him there.”

“I should think that’s right,” Clane said, “but let’s wait to talk about that.”

“When will I see you, Terry?”

“I’ll be dropping by later on in the day.”

“Do, Terry, and... well, you know.”

“I know,” Clane said, and hung up.

So Ricardo Taonon’s wife had a convertible and it was her own property and no one else ever drove it and Edward Harold had called her not as his first choice but as his second. A woman with a superb figure who liked to show it. Edward Harold’s second choice.

Terry Clane, standing in the doorway of the telephone booth at the service station from which he had placed his call, began to breathe regularly and deeply, filling his blood with oxygen, letting the rhythm of his breathing furnish the preliminary foundation for concentration. Then when he had properly readied himself, he threw his mind completely into pin-point focus on the problem which confronted him.

Edward Harold had an alibi — or did he? When had he jumped from that window? Why had he jumped? Had it been because Gloster had walked in? If that were so, then Gloster had been in the warehouse probably as early as ten-thirty. Yet he had telephoned Clane shortly after eleven. And what of Edward Harold? That man at the time he had jumped through that window was already being sought by the police, a fugitive from justice with a death sentence hanging over his head. Bouted unexpectedly from the hideout where he had established himself for a long stay, fleeing out into the city without hat or coat... The police, already hot on his trail, would redouble their efforts to find him. Every new occupant of a hotel would be subject to suspicion. A man who would try to find a room without baggage at eleven o’clock at night... Airports watched, train terminals under surveillance... What would a man do under those circumstances? Where would he go? How would he hide?

A few seconds later, Clane became conscious of the service station attendant watching him.

Clane smiled and started walking away.

“Hey,” the attendant called, “you all right?”

“Yes, why?”

“I don’t know. I thought something had happened. All of a sudden you stood still and looked as though... looked as though you were sleeping with your eyes open.”

“I was thinking of something,” Clane said and hurried away.

He now had the answer that he wanted.

Clane couldn’t be certain that he was right because he hadn’t had all the facts on which to predicate a solution. But he felt that he knew what Edward Harold would try to do, the only thing that was left for him to do, if the facts were as Terry Clane understood them.

Discreet inquiry of the night man at the garage of the apartment house where Ricardo Taonon lived, plus a ten-dollar bill, gave Clane additional information as well as a look at Daphne Taonon’s convertible.

The car was a dark, low-slung, sleek convertible. It had been returned to the garage at about eight-thirty in the morning. The man didn’t know when it had been taken out. He came on duty at seven o’clock.

There was no evidence that the car had been off the main-traveled highway, no dust on the inner rims of the wheel. The windshield was now clean and polished. The day man said he had done that. When the car had been brought in, the windshield had been streaked with the evidences of moisture which had collected with fog drippings. There had been two clear semicircular spaces where the windshield wipers had fought back the moisture. The sides of the automobile were still streaked with stain where water, dripping down from the windshield, had been thrown back by the wind. The day man had suggested to Mrs. Taonon that he would “clean it up a little bit.” He just hadn’t got at it yet. He had polished the windshield, checked the radiator, and was about ready to wipe off the car with a damp cloth. It didn’t need a general wash, just a good wiping.

Clane made note of the license number.

The garage man volunteered more information. The night switchboard operator had told him long distance had been calling Mrs. Taonon at intervals all night. There had been no answer; apparently both Mr. and Mrs. Taonon had been out since midnight at least.

In a rented “drive-yourself” car, Terry Clane started exploring the possibilities.

Time, he knew, was running out. Yet he had to play a lone hand; to hurry would be fatal. His course of action called for self-discipline as rigorous as that inflicted upon himself by a race-track habitué who must discipline himself to a predetermined manner of betting over a period of weeks in order to play a consistent system.

Simply because he did not have the time to cover all of the territory, and because he knew that according to the law of probabilities, the better class of auto courts would have been completely filled up long before midnight, Clane decided on only the smaller, less pretentious courts.

He had four routes to choose from — one over the Golden Gate Bridge up through Marin County, another across the bay bridge up the Sacramento Road, another down through the Altamont Pass to the San Joaquin, and last of all, the peninsular road down to San Jose. And it was this last road that Clane took, merely because it would have been difficult to guard. The other roads involved crossing toll bridges, and plain-clothes officers unobtrusively stationed at the toll gates could have scrutinized closely the occupants of each automobile as toll was collected.

Clane sped on down the wide road, passed up all stops until he had left San Jose behind. Then he started his inquiries.

It was quite conceivable that Daphne Taonon would have written down a wrong license number on the register of an auto court, but she was not so apt to have misrepresented the type of car she was driving since that would have been a glaring discrepancy too easy to check.

Painstakingly Clane covered all of the smaller auto courts until at length a growing doubt turned to the bitter taste of defeat. He had quite evidently failed to duplicate Edward Harold’s process of reasoning. Or else they had taken a chance in crossing on one of the toll bridges.

Clane drove on, confident that he had now passed the last remote point of probability at which the parties would have stopped. He was now persevering only because he could, for the moment, think of nothing better.

An auto court of the cheaper sort was ahead on the right and because it offered a good place to turn around, Clane drove up to it. His inquiries were made merely from force of habit. Had a convertible containing a man and a woman registered at about — and Clane, doing quick mental arithmetic as to driving time, fixed the hour as one o’clock in the morning.

The woman who ran the place was in the aggressive forties, a woman who had been kicked around enough by life to learn to fight back. Her combat with life had given her a “what’s-in-it-for-me” attitude and a theory that, if you didn’t grab what you wanted out of life the minute you saw it, someone else was going to snatch it first.

Obviously she didn’t want any trouble with the law, but Terry would get no real cooperation from her until she knew more of what was in the wind.

“We rent cabins pretty late sometimes.”

“My question was specific,” Clane said, and paved the way with a ten-dollar bill, his pulse surging with sudden hope.

“Well, yes. We did rent a cabin. What’s your interest in it?”

“I am trying to find the woman,” Clane said. “I believe she drove away.”

“Yes, she’s working in town. The husband’s got the flu. He’s staying here in bed.”

“That’s too bad,” Clane said. “You don’t know where I could locate the woman?”

“She’s some sort of a saleswoman, I think. They’re selling stockings or something. Maybe cosmetics. She said she’d be out early in the morning, I don’t know just what time she left. She was gone when I got up. The husband’s still there, feeling pretty much under the weather. Maybe if you wanted to go into town, you could spot the car, a nice convertible.”

“I’ll talk with the husband,” Clane said. “He may know. What cabin’s he in?”

“Just a minute,” the woman said. “Let’s have an understanding. I don’t want any rough stuff.”

“There won’t be.”

“Sometimes a married woman runs away from a husband she don’t like.”

“That’s her privilege.”

“And the husband lots of times thinks he should follow her up and get nasty.”

“I wouldn’t feel that way. If a woman didn’t want me, I certainly wouldn’t want her. What cabin did this couple take?”

“You a friend of the man or the woman?”

“I’ve never seen either one of them in my life.”

“You ain’t a paid detective?”

Clane, meeting the hesitancy in her eyes, was conscious of a red light.

He turned to look over her shoulder. A high-powered sedan of the type driven by county sheriffs was slowing down at the entrance of the driveway.

“Quick,” Clane said. “Where’s your register, what’s the cabin?”

“I don’t know...”

Clane pointed toward the red spotlight. “You fool.” he said, “do you want your place advertised as a gangster hideout?”

She gave the car a quick look. “Number three,” she said.

Clane sprinted for the cabin she had indicated, noticing as he did so that the big sedan had stopped, blocking the driveway, apparently waiting for other cars which were behind to catch up before turning into the court.

The door of the cabin was locked from the inside.

“Who is it?” a man’s voice called.

Clane said gruffly, “This is your landlord. There’s a long-distance call from San Francisco for you. A woman wants to talk to the occupant of cabin three. She won’t give her name. Think you can take it?”

“Sure.”

There were quick steps on the thin carpet behind the door, then the door opened.

Clane, lowering his shoulder, charged against the door.

The occupant of the cabin was not caught entirely by surprise. He spun back, somewhat off balance for a moment, but quickly caught himself, and Clane found he was looking into a round black hole at the business end of a .38 caliber revolver. Back of the weapon were eyes that were hard with desperation and a species of insane defiance. The man circled, keeping behind the gun, kicked the door shut.

“You’re Edward Harold,” Clane said. “I’m Terry Clane, you may have heard of me.”

“So you’re back.”

“I’m back.”

“How did you trace me here?”

“The same way that the police did,” Clane said, “only I had to leave a back trail.”

“What do you mean, the police did?”

“Just what I say. Take a look out through that curtain and you’ll find the sheriff’s car blocking the road out. He’s probably waiting for an automobile driven by Inspector Malloy of the San Francisco Homicide Squad to make a rendezvous with him.”

“I see. You want me to look out the window so you can jump me.”

Clane said, “What I want you to do is to walk out and give yourself up.”

Harold’s laugh was derisive.

Clane said, “I have a theory on this thing. I think I can help you but I can’t do a thing if you don’t surrender.”

“I know. You want me to surrender. You’d like to have me out of the way. You came back from China at a very opportune time, at a very opportune time, didn’t you? You walked out on Cynthia and now you’d like to have her back. For a while I was in the way, then you heard...”

“Don’t be foolish,” Clane said.

“I’m not being foolish, I’m just telling you facts. If you’re telling the truth and there’s a sheriff’s car out there, I’m not going out of here alive. I’ll fight it out right here. I’ve got the guns and the ammunition. Personally, I think you’re lying to me.”

“I’m telling you the truth.”

“All right, I’m going to go out feet first and you’re going out the same way. Don’t kid yourself, Clane. The minute the first shot is fired, I’m going to see that you get a dose of lead poisoning.”

Clane said, “You fool, I think you stand a chance. If...”

There were hard pounding steps on the porch, knuckles banged on the door. “Open up,” a gruff voice said.

Harold motioned Clane to silence as he tiptoed stealthily back toward a corner.

“Come on, Harold,” the voice said, “the jig is up. This is the sheriff. I’m taking you into custody as an escapee.”

Harold said nothing.

“Come on, don’t be a fool. We’ve got the place surrounded,” a new voice said, the voice of Inspector James Malloy of San Francisco.

“Come and get me,” Harold shouted as the doorknob rattled and the door bent under the weight of a burly shoulder. “Stay away from that door if you value your life. I’m going to start putting lead through it.”

There was that in his voice that carried conviction. There was a sound of motion outside the door, then sudden silence.

Seconds became minutes. Nothing from the outside disturbed the calm tranquillity of the afternoon. Inside the shabby cabin the curtains were drawn. The afternoon sunlight which turned the curtains into oblongs of gold beat against the western side of the flimsy board cabin and warmed the close air in the place until it seemed stifling.

The cabin contained the usual cheap furniture: an iron bedstead with a thin mattress, a worn carpet, a cheap dressing table, a dark-finished pine rocking chair, two cane-bottomed straight-backed chairs, a cement shower with a faucet which wouldn’t quite shut off.

In the tense, hot silence of the cabin, Clane could hear the drip, drip, drip of water from the leaky shower and the lazy buzz of a big fly which circled around the room, striking against the warmth of the window shades at intervals in an attempet to follow the source of light to a means of egress.

Clane noticed the tenseness of the skin over Harold’s knuckles, saw the sheen of small beads of perspiration across the skin of his forehead.

Clane said evenly, “If you surrender, you stand a chance. The minute you pull the trigger on that gun for the first shot, you’ve sealed your fate. That’s assault with a deadly weapon with intent to commit murder. It’s resisting an officer. They’ll throw the book at you even if you could fight free on the other charge.”

Harold said grimly, his eyes still on the door, “Don’t kid yourself, the first shot isn’t going to be any assault with a deadly weapon with intent to commit murder. It’s going to be a dead-center shot right in the middle of your yellow guts.”

Clane said, “Whoever engineered your escape wasn’t doing you a favor. It was putting your neck in a noose.”

“Keep talking,” Harold said. “If you can talk your way out of this, you’ll be a world’s champion. You...”

A slight scraping sound from the front porch caused him to jerk the gun half toward the door.

Abruptly and without warning the glass of the window crashed explosively. The window shade billowed inward from the force of a solid body which had been hurled through the glass, then snapped upward as the impact released the catch which was holding the shade down.

A tear-gas bomb from which the plug had been pulled rolled free of the broken glass; from the nozzle came a hissing sound as the gas spewed out into the room.

“Don’t reach for it,” Clane yelled as Harold started forward. “They’ll be waiting to machine-gun you.”

The first whiff of the tear gas stung Clane’s nostrils. He saw Harold brace himself for a leap to grab the tear-gas bomb and throw it back out through the window.

At that moment Clane went forward in a football tackle.

He felt his shoulders smash against Harold’s body, heard the rattle of a sub-machine-gun, then a voice yelling, “Hold everything.”

Clane’s eyes and nostrils caught a full undiluted whiff of the tear gas and he went blind, the tears streaming down his face but his hands were busy getting a wrestler’s lock on Harold’s arms.

They were threshing blindly about the floor, Clane holding on with dogged persistence, trying to get a scissors hold on Harold’s legs, Harold kicking and pummeling with his knees, trying to break free.

Clane could hear the sound of Harold’s labored breathing, felt the cold perspiration of Harold’s skin against his cheek, heard the hissing of the tear gas; and then suddenly Harold’s arms were jerked back. The struggling ceased.

From the vague realm of space above him, which he could not see because of his blinded eyes, Clane heard Inspector Jim Malloy’s voice saying in shocked surprise, “Well, I’ll be damned! It’s Terry Clane!”