The Case of the Backward Mule

Twenty-Two

At the warehouse of the Eastern Art Import and Trading Company Clane dismissed the Chinese driver. “Do not wait,” he said. “It may be dangerous.”

“I was instructed to be at your service.”

“You’ve done a splendid job. You’re certain we were not followed?”

“You were not followed,” the Chinese driver assured him positively.

“That is all I ask,” Clane said. “You may report to your master that you have done all that I wished.”

The Chinese inclined his head, the motor whirred into activity, and the car glided smoothly away through the poorly lighted streets.

Terry Clane and Cynthia Renton stood there in the darkness, waiting until the taillight had vanished around a corner, until the sound of the motor was no longer audible.

“Owl,” Cynthia whispered, “I’m scared.”

“Want to go back?”

“Gosh, no! I wouldn’t miss it for a million dollars. I’m just telling you I’m scared. That makes it all the more thrilling. What do we do next?”

Clane tried the door. It was locked. Like two furtive shadows, they moved around the building until they came to the window through which police claimed Edward Harold had made his escape the night of the murder, only to return later and kill the man who had discovered him.

Not only was this window unlocked, but it had not been entirely closed. There was an opening of an inch and a half at the bottom.

“Gosh, that’s luck,” Cynthia whispered.

Clane frowningly contemplated the window for several seconds.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s almost too inviting,” Clane said. “It may be a trap. If you hear a noise when we raise the window, Cynthia — the sound of a burglar alarm or anything — just get moving. Don’t wait for me.”

Clane slipped on light gloves so his fingers would leave no print, and raised the window.

The sash slid up smoothly and noiselessly.

“You’d better wait here, Cynthia, and...”

“Don’t be a sap, Owl. I’m coming in. You give me a boost and I can help you up.”

Without a word, Clane lifted her in his arms, boosted her through the window, then followed her into the silence of the office.

“Now what?” Cynthia whispered.

Clane said, “I want to find the paper which Gloster must have found before he was killed.”

“How do you know he found a paper, Owl?”

Clane said, “I don’t know. I’m guessing, but we have pretty good grounds for guessing. Gloster came to the warehouse for something. He found Edward Harold here. That must have started him looking around. His hands got in some deep dust somewhere. Then he must have found something. Whatever it was, he took it to the desk here and put it on the desk. The fingerprints of his left hand were outlined in dust on the blotter. The nature of the prints showed he was putting pressure on the first and second fingers of his hand. That means he was leaning over the desk in the position a man would assume in studying a paper. In that position his thumb must also have borne part of the weight he was resting on his hand. But there is no thumb print.”

“Why, Owl?”

“Malloy says it’s because there was no dust on his thumb.”

“You don’t think so?”

“No. I think he had found a rolled paper in a dusty place. He went to the desk, unrolled the paper and held it with his left hand, the fingers on the blotter, the thumb on the top of the paper. So put your feminine mind to work and tell me where a rolled paper could have been concealed in a place where dust must have been a quarter of an inch thick.”

“There’s only one place, Owl, that I can think of.”

“Where?”

“That picture molding around the top of the wall. After all, this is a warehouse and they don’t do too much housekeeping.”

Clane moved a chair over to the wall, put a box on top of the chair. While Cynthia steadied the chair, he climbed up to the box. The beam of his flashlight slid along the edge of the picture molding.

“Dust enough, Cynthia,” he said, “but nothing here.”

“Let’s try the other wall.”

The second wall also yielded a blank, but midway along the third wall, Clane saw where the dust had been disturbed. There was something which could have been a rolled piece of paper reposing in the dust.

Clane marked the place, said excitedly, “I think we’ve got it, Cynthia! We’ll have to move the chair.”

Too excited now to bother about being cautious, they dragged the chair midway along the wall, and Clane climbed up on the chair, then on the box and possessed himself of two sheets of paper which were held in a tight roll with two small elastic bands.

Clane slipped off the elastic bands, unrolled the papers.

They were covered with fine pen-and-ink writing.

Clane held the flashlight. He and Cynthia put their heads together reading.

“It’s Farnsworth’s handwriting,” Cynthia said, “and the date... Owl! It’s the date he was murdered.”

Clane nodded, gave himself to a perusal of the document.

“He killed himself,” Cynthia said breathlessly.

“I felt certain that he did,” Clane told her. “Edward Harold told me what had happened. I think that was the first time he ever told anyone the true story of what had occurred. He found Farnsworth very dejected, hinting at some dark secret. He went back to get that image I had given you. He wanted to use it to cheer Farnsworth up. Harold said it had helped him and... well, you can see what happened. All that the picture needed to be a complete case of suicide was this letter on the desk and the presence of a gun. Someone slipped into the room, removed the gun, and took this letter and the envelope of papers. That made it look like murder.”

“You mean Ricardo Taonon had...”

“No, no,” Clane said impatiently. “Don’t you see? There’s only one person. Once you look at the evidence properly, it points to — What’s that?” he asked, stopping abruptly.

“What?”

“I thought I heard a noise, a...”

A switch clicked, lights blazed into brilliance — a blinding illumination which left them dazed and blinking. Their eyes, having accustomed themselves to the darkness and the faint illumination of the fountain-pen flashlight which Clane had been using, failed for a moment to adjust themselves to the sudden burst of light.

Inspector Malloy’s voice was booming and genial. “Well, well, well, Clane. You did it again. You really did! I told you that you were more value to us running around loose and playing bird dog. You flushed some real game this time. Cynthia Renton! We’ve certainly been looking for you. I rather expected Clane would come back here and start snooping around; but to think that you... And what have we here, Mr. Clane? What’s this paper you were talking about?”

Wordlessly Clane handed him the paper.

Inspector Malloy glanced at it then gave it intense study.

“A plant?” he asked suspiciously.

Clane shook his head.

Malloy said, “This could be serious, you know, Clane. This will be subjected to scrutiny by the best handwriting experts in the country.”

“Scrutinize it all you want,” Clane said. “You can see now what happened. It’s the only thing that could have happened. Gloster found something that startled him, something that made it imperative that he meet with the others immediately. He couldn’t reach Nevis at once because Nevis was in a poker game. But he called Taonon and told him to come to the warehouse at once.”

“Go on,” Malloy said.

“Gloster had to get something here in the warehouse,” Clane went on. “He drove here. Harold was hiding here. He jumped out of the window as Gloster came in. Gloster phoned Taonon. While he was waiting for Ricardo Taonon, something made him decide to look around. He found this note.

“The note speaks for itself. Farnsworth committed suicide. Let’s examine the evidence in the light of that hypothesis. Farnsworth was despondent, trapped. He took the easy way out.

“Now let’s look at what happened after that — the only thing that could have happened. When the police arrived at Farnsworth’s house, they found a kettle of water on the electric stove, the water boiling rapidly. They found the oven hot, and Farnsworth’s wrist watch, bearing evidences of having been wet, drying in the oven. When Harold returned to the house, the back door was unlocked.

“Figure it out. Sam Kenyon must have returned from his afternoon off. He let himself in through the back door. He put on a kettle of water, turned on the oven, and then went in to see what Farnsworth wanted for supper. He found Farnsworth dead, this document on the desk, the gun lying where it had dropped from Farnsworth’s nerveless fingers.

“Kenyon evidently is an opportunist. He saw a chance to get rich. He took the gun, the envelope, the document, and he went to Ricardo Taonon or to Stacey Nevis. He made his demands. Whatever they were, they were met. He was instructed to return to the house and call the police.

“When he went back to the house he let himself in through the front door. He called the police, and then just before they arrived he went back to the kitchen. The water was boiling merrily away. The oven had been turned on and was now smoking hot — evidence that he had previously been to the house. Even if he had dumped out the water, he couldn’t have cooled off the oven. The police were driving up to the place even then. He thought fast. He rushed in, took Farnsworth’s wrist watch, snapped off the back, put water in it, put it in the oven, and then let the police in. Later on, when police looked around and found the boiling water and the wrist watch, it looked as though Farnsworth had put the water on the stove, had got water in his watch in the process and had put the watch in the oven to dry.

“The police never did explain that kettle of boiling water and the wrist watch. Because of the way Harold messed up his case, they didn’t have to. But when you put the whole thing together, there’s only one explanation.”

Malloy frowned as he studied the paper. “It sounds logical the way you outline it — and if this is genuine. But right now it looks like a plant to me. It smells fishy.”

“It’s genuine. It has to be. It can’t be a plant. Once Farnsworth had killed himself, once Kenyon had seen the body and this note... it’s so obvious there’s no use wasting time talking.”

“And so they let Harold take the rap?”

“At the time, they didn’t know anything about Harold, or about Harold’s visit. They were merely turning a suicide into a murder so as to save their own skins. It probably never occurred to them someone would be convicted of that murder.”

Malloy thought things over, pursing his lips as he fitted this new evidence into the picture.

“Everyone agrees Gloster was honest as the day is long,” Clane went on. “He was a grouch, but he was on the square. So he wasn’t in on it at all. Taonon simply told Gloster that Farnsworth had been working for the partnership in locating those Philippine investments. Gloster believed him. Then came Harold’s trial and conviction. Taonon and Nevis were in a quandary. To let Harold be executed for a murder he hadn’t committed was beyond the scope of their plans. They didn’t dare to speak up and tell the truth... So they did the next best thing. They arranged for Harold to escape.”

“And what of this paper?” Malloy asked.

“They concealed it here. They didn’t dare destroy it because if the worst ever came to the worst, this was a will. They could plant it in some place where it could be found. If the cat got out of the bag and there was other evidence Farnsworth had left which would strip the partnership of the mining properties, then Farnsworth’s estate would be a consolation prize. So they concealed the paper here. After Gloster was killed, the paper was reconcealed in its original hiding place.”

“Go on,” Malloy said.

“Gloster couldn’t get Nevis on the phone because Nevis was at a poker game,” Clane said. “But he got Taonon, and Taonon came down here.”

“And killed him?”

“No. He told him where Nevis could be reached, and then Taonon ducked out. He crawled in a hole and pulled the hole in after him. He would probably have tried to leave the country if the newspapers next day hadn’t carried the story of Gloster’s death. So Taonon hid out to wait and see what the next developments were, and he phoned his wife and told her to do the same thing. That’s the only consistent way of explaining what happened.”

“Then who the devil killed Gloster?” Malloy asked.

“Let’s reconstruct what must have happened,” Clane said. “Gloster got Taonon down here. Taonon told him to call Nevis. Then Taonon skipped out. That made Gloster mad. He called Nevis at the number Taonon had given him, and he called me later on.”

“I’m listening,” Malloy said. “So far this is your baby.”

Clane said, “Nevis came down here and...”

“No, he didn’t,” Malloy interrupted. “He didn’t come down here. Gloster went to see him.”

Clane shook his head. “Nevis came down here.”

“Clane, you’re crazy. There are half a dozen witnesses to...”

“To what?” Clane interrupted.

“The telephone conversation when Nevis and Gloster agreed to meet — to the meeting itself.”

“How many witnesses saw Nevis and Gloster engaged in conversation?” Clane asked.

“Well, of course, you can’t expect...”

“Nevis lied,” Clane said. “Gloster never went to see Nevis at all. Nevis came down to see him.”

“Any evidence to prove that?” Malloy asked.

“Gloster’s car.”

“What about the car?”

“Did you notice anything peculiar about the car when you saw it?” Clane asked.

“In what way?”

“The windscreen, for instance?”

“No.”

“Notice where particles of fog moisture had condensed on the windshield?”

“Yes. There was nothing unusual about that. It was foggy. Naturally the moisture would have condensed, on the windshield.”

“And some of the moisture had run in little rivulets down the hood.”

“Yes.”

“But did you notice any fan-shaped streaks on the windshield which would have been there if the windshield wipers had been at work, or any splash stains where drops of water running down from the windshield had been blown back by wind caused by the motion of the car? You did not. The reason you didn’t see those things is that they weren’t there. The reason they weren’t there is that the fog settled some time after ten and before eleven, and Gloster’s car wasn’t moved after the fog settled. The mute evidence of that car proves Nevis is a liar.”

Malloy scratched his head. “Well, now, Mr. Clane, you’ve contributed something there. Damned if you haven’t.”

“So,” Clane went on, “we are in a position to reconstruct what happened. As soon as Stacey Nevis arrived, Gloster must have realized his danger and started for the telephone. Perhaps to call the police. Nevis shot him.”

“They both were in on the murder?” Malloy asked.

“Nevis killed him,” Clane said. “If Taonon had known he was dead, he would never have gone into hiding. While Gloster was telephoning to Nevis, Taonon saw his opportunity to wash his hands of the whole mess and get out. He left it entirely up to Nevis.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because of the way Taonon skipped out, then phoned his wife to skip out.”

“Nevis is a man of action, not a man of words. Gloster told him enough over the telephone so that Nevis knew what had happened. He made up his mind right then to commit murder. He put his finger on the receiver hook to cut the connection, then raised his voice so everyone at the poker table could hear him, and said he couldn’t get away from the poker game, that if Gloster wanted to come up and honk the horn, he’d go down and talk with him briefly. He was gone approximately twenty minutes. He had ample time in the twenty minutes while he was out of the poker game to drive down to the warehouse, kill Gloster, turn around and come back. I have an idea that if you check back on that poker party, you’ll find that no one actually heard the honking of the horn except Nevis, that Nevis made it a point to tell everyone he had to be dealt out for a hand or two while he went down to talk with his partner on a business matter. He told them he would only be away five or ten minutes. Actually he was away for twenty minutes. But because he had been careful to implant the belief in their minds that he was sitting down in an automobile talking, everyone thought That’s where he was. When you stop to analyze it, Nevis has no alibi at all. And furthermore, the mute evidence of Gloster’s car shows that Nevis was lying. It has to be that way.”

“I began to think that it might be something like that,” Malloy admitted, “after I heard Harold’s story.”

“You heard Harold’s story?”

Malloy grinned. “Sure. What the hell did you think we put you two in the same cell for? We wouldn’t have put you in with a convicted murderer unless we’d wanted to hear his story. We thought he might talk to you.”

“And you had the room wired?”

“Sure,” Malloy said. “Us professionals can’t do this brilliant deductive reasoning that you amateurs do, so we have to rely on a little practical stuff now and then. Well, that’s the way it goes. Anyhow, you certainly did a job on that automobile. Guess that’s something we overlooked... But you must learn not to go around breaking into buildings, Mr. Clane, and doing all those unconventional things. When you have any information in the future, you’d better go to the police and tell them frankly what you have.”

“And be laughed at for my pains,” Clane said.

Malloy grinned. “Well, now, Mr. Clane,” he said, “just between you and me, I don’t think the police are going to laugh at you any more. I really don’t for a fact. And now I have an idea perhaps you and this young lady would like to get the hell out of here, because we’re going to bring Mr. Nevis down here and ask him a few questions.”

“And how about Edward Harold?” Clane said.

“Well, now, if the conversation with Nevis turns out the way I think it’s going to, I’m going to get in touch with the district attorney and the governor, and there’s just a chance a pardon might come through for Mr. Harold.”

“In which event,” Clane said, “I think you will agree that it’s only fair Cynthia Renton should be the one who takes the news to him.”

“We’ll do it together,” Cynthia said.

Clane smiled. “I think you’ll find two would be company and three would be a crowd. But I think you’ll agree, Malloy, that Miss Renton is entitled to go to police headquarters and wait there until you have some definite information.”

“She is for a fact,” Malloy agreed.

“And you?” Cynthia asked. “Where are you going?”

Clane said, “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve got to go hunt up Yat T’oy, and I think it’s only fair I should tell Chu Kee what has happened.”

“That’s the old Chinese party you were with?” Malloy asked.

Clane nodded.

“A pretty good friend, I’d say,” Malloy said. “Damn it, Clane, we sewed up Chinatown. I mean we really had men parked all around it, and damned if you didn’t slip through our fingers. And also what I want to know is how it happened you went in a door at the east end of Chinatown and made your next appearance in the hotel where Mrs. Taonon had hid herself — more than two blocks away, with every street corner guarded? Will you kindly tell me how the hell you did that?”

“That,” Clane said, “is a matter of concentration, my dear Inspector...”

“Yeah, I know,” Malloy said. “You go into the fourth dimension and wrap yourself in a robe of invisibility or something. All right, Clane, we’ll let it go this time, but you might tell this Chu Kee person that if things like that keep up, the police are apt to make a raid on Chinatown and look around a little. We may not be able to find the secret doorways, but a sledgehammer will accomplish a lot.”

“Thanks,” Clane said dryly, “I’ll tell him.”

“And in this particular instance,” Malloy went on, “you might give him my thanks, and that good-looking Chinese-American girl, too.”

“I’ll tell her.”

Cynthia Renton followed him out. “Owl,” she said, “you’re leaving me just when I... damn it, just when I want you more than I ever wanted you in my life.”

Clane said, “You have a duty to perform, Cynthia. Edward Harold has lost faith in everything. You’ve got to tell him the news in such a way that he feels that justice can triumph in the world.”

“When you’re around to help it triumph,” Cynthia said. “Where would he have been if you hadn’t shown up?”

“Don’t put it to him that way,” Clane said, “or you’ll undo all the good you want to accomplish.”

“What will I tell him?”

“Tell him he’s been exonerated and they’re rushing through a pardon for him as soon as the red tape can be unwound. That’s about all you need to do.”

“And you? Where will you be?”

“Oh, I’ll be around.”

“Owl, are you trying to... Owl... are you in love with that Chinese girl?”

Clane said, “She’s just a dear friend, Cynthia.”

“You play around with that stuff and you’ll find out something about friendship you never knew before,” she told him. “Owl — come here.”

He moved closer to her. Suddenly her arms were around his neck and her lips, salty with tears, were against his. “Oh, Owl, I need you so much,” she sobbed, “and you’re going away.”

“Not very far away.”

She watched him wistfully. “One can never tell about you, Terry Clane. I...”

Inspector Malloy opened the door. “Men are bringing Nevis down here,” he said. “You’ll have to get out of sight, Miss Renton. And you, Clane, are...”

“Just leaving,” Clane said.

Cynthia Renton stood in the doorway with Malloy, watching Clane walk away into the darkness.

Inspector Malloy said musingly, “A remarkably talented young man.”

“A rank amateur,” Cynthia said, so savagely that Malloy turned to her in surprise. “The things that a really smart man should know, he doesn’t know a damn thing about!”

Malloy raised his eyebrows, then stepped back inside the warehouse and softly closed the door.