The Case of the Crooked Candle

Chapter 21

Mason, Della Street, Carol Burbank, and Roger Burbank sat in Mason’s office. Roger Burbank was nervously smoking a cigar. Mason drummed lightly on the desk top. Della Street sat on the edge of her secretarial chair. Carol Burbank alone gave no outward indication of nervous tension.

Mason said, “Paul Drake is on his way up. He just phoned.”

Carol said, “Do you think Judge Newark had all this, figured out?”

“Not all the angles,” Mason said. “He had a theory as to the time of the murder, predicated on the state of the tides, but it hadn’t occurred to him that the murderer had given himself away by moving the body. He... Here comes Paul now.”

Drake had hardly knocked on the door of Mason’s office before Della Street had it open for him.

Under the impetus of excitement, Drake had lost his habitual drawl.

“You called the turn, Perry,” he said without wasting any time on salutations. “They’ve got the whole picture, now.”

“Did they get a confession?” Mason asked.

“Not from the main guy. He’s sitting tight as a drum. Mrs. Milfield was the one who caved in.”

“What did she say?”

“Enough to give Burger a case. Tell me, Perry, how you knew who committed the murder.”

Mason said, “The pay-off was the fact that the body was moved from position number two to position number one. That indicates that the person who moved it must have known about the skeleton in Roger Burbank’s closet, and realized that if he could make it seem the crime had been committed by Burbank, and a clumsy attempt had been made to cover up, Burbank wouldn’t stand a ghost of a chance.

“There were three outsiders who knew about the secret of Burbank’s past. First there was only Mrs. Milfield, then she told her husband and Van Nuys.

“Van Nuys’ entire profits in the oil deal were predicated upon Milfield’s ability to collect from Burbank. If Burbank could prove fraud they wouldn’t get a nickel.

“As I see the picture, because of the fact that an attempt was made to capitalize upon Burbank’s past trouble, the murderer had to be either Mrs. Milfield or Van Nuys. I’m inclined to think Van Nuys is the party because it must have been the murderer who planted that bomb, and when he planted it, he did quite a bit of splashing around with the oars. Not as amateurish as Burwell would have been, but certainly not as expert as Mrs. Milfield who knew a good deal about handling a boat.

“However, it’s obvious that Mrs. Milfield must have known about her husband’s murder shortly after it occurred and must have co-operated with the murderer to build up an alibi. Therefore, I felt that Mrs. Milfield would probably be the weak link in the chain.”

“Well, you’re right, Perry,” Drake said. “When Burbank realized Milfield had been knocking down on him, he ordered Milfield to meet him for a conference aboard the boat. Milfield, in a panic, got in touch with Van Nuys. Milfield didn’t know what to do. He was going to try and stall it along some way if possible. But just in case he couldn’t, he told Van Nuys Burbank would have to be eliminated before he could do any talking.

“Between them they worked out a nice little murder scheme. Milfield was to rent a boat from Cameron, row out to the yacht, talk with Burbank, try and persuade Burbank it was all a lie and find out just what he knew. Shortly before he went to keep his appointment, Milfield had got Palermo on the telephone. That must have been shortly after Burbank had left Palermo’s cabin. Milfield recognized the description of the ‘competitive’ speculator who had made the five thousand dollar offer. In desperation, he offered Palermo a large sum of money to go out to Burbank’s yacht and tell him that he’d made up the story of the knockdown out of whole cloth, having recognized Burbank, and hoping thereby to get a bigger slice of money for himself.

“Van Nuys was to get a folding boat — an idea they’d picked up from seeing Palermo’s boat, carry it down to the estuary launch it at a point where he wouldn’t be seen, and then hang around at a safe distance but within sight of the yacht.

“When Milfield left the yacht he was to signal Van Nuys. If he had managed to pacify Burbank, then nothing was to have been done. But if he hadn’t been able to save the situation with a lot of convincing lies, backed by Palermo’s repudiation of his earlier statement, then Van Nuys was to slip quietly down the estuary drifting along with the outgoing tide, place a bomb on the deck of the yacht, drift down the channel for a hundred yards or so then swing around and row back to the place where he’d left his car, collapse his boat and drive back.

“Van Nuys would need an alibi for the time of the explosion.

“So Van Nuys, with whom Mrs. Milfield was really infatuated, worked out this alibi scheme. Mrs. Milfield was to go to the airport at just about the time the explosion was to take place. She was to telephone Burwell in San Francisco, saying she’d decided to join him, but the circumstances beyond her control had changed her mind. Burwell was an infatuated, inexperienced chap who had fallen head over heels in love with Mrs. Milfield. She’d given him a tumble just as a casual flirtation. He had written a lot of impassioned letters asking her to run away with him.

“So Mrs. Milfield worked out this fake note which she was to pretend to leave for her husband, gave Van Nuys the note and the letters Burwell had written her. Van Nuys, under pressure, was to tell very reluctantly about how Mrs. Milfield, the emotional gypsy, had been out at the airport and how he had joined her. He was to substantiate his story by dramatically producing the very note she was supposed to have left for her husband together with the packet of Burwell’s letters.

“But Burbank lost his temper, knocked Milfield over and decided to have him arrested. He climbed out to the deck of the yacht, untied Milfield’s skiff and cast it adrift, then got in his own dinghy, started the outboard motor and vanished in the direction of the yacht club.

“Naturally, Van Nuys was quite disturbed. He promptly rowed out to the yacht and found Milfield somewhat groggy from a punch on the jaw. And Van Nuys was so completely, utterly angry with Milfield that he lost his own temper, and Milfield in turn lost his, accused Van Nuys of intimacy with his wife, and struck him. Van Nuys was no match for Milfield with his fists. He was knocked over by the first blow but saw the heavy iron poker lying near where he fell. He picked it up and cracked Milfield over the head. The body fell in what you’ve referred to as position number two.

“When Van Nuys saw that Milfield was dead, he was in a sudden panic. Then it occurred to him that since Burbank had had a fight with Milfield, he could make it appear that Milfield had died as a result of a blow Burbank had struck, and incidentally make it appear that Burbank was trying to use the same excuse he used before when he had killed a man in New Orleans.

“So Van Nuys rolled the body over to a position directly in front of the brass-covered threshold which led to the inner cabin, opened the door to the inner cabin and arranged everything so that the crime was framed on Burbank, then he got in his boat and rowed back — but he had to tell Mrs. Milfield.

“That wasn’t too difficult. He told her the whole business, told her that if she’d keep quiet he felt certain he could patch up some sort of a settlement on Milfield’s oil rights with Burbank, and that Mrs. Milfield would then become a rich widow. Mrs. Milfield had gone to the airport and put through the call to Burwell just as they had planned, leaving it so that police could trace the long distance call as having been placed through one of the booths at the airport. So the alibi that they had fixed up to cover Van Nuys in the murder of Burbank, came in very handy to cover Van Nuys in the murder of Milfield.”

Mason said, “I had an idea that alibi might have been cooked up for something else — and I suppose when Mrs. Milfield found out about what had happened she pointed out that Van Nuys had overlooked something.”

“That’s right,” Drake said.

“What was it?”

“A little vest-pocket account book that Milfield kept in code. The Palermo deal wasn’t the only one. Milfield had been knocking down in a systematic way, and for his own information he was keeping a little account book which listed his transactions.”

“And they decided, I take it, they had to get this book in order to make their claims good against Burbank?”

“That was about the size of it. They knew the police would start trying to pin the murder on Burbank, and felt that once this book was discovered, it wouldn’t take police long to decipher the code, and have a complete record of Milfield’s chicanery. This didn’t suit Van Nuys or Mrs. Milfield because then Burbank would be able to set aside all of Milfield’s contracts on the ground of fraud.”

“So Mrs. Milfield volunteered to go and get it, is that right?”

“Right. Burwell had shown up by then, so it was decided Daphne could use her infatuated boy friend to get her out to the yacht. She was confident she could twist him around her finger. No one at the yacht club would know him, and he could rent a boat and row down to the little rickety pier and pick her up. She’d take the boat out to the yacht. Mrs. Milfield felt she was absolutely safe because she could prove she’d been at the airport when the crime was being committed. Well, those are the highlights of the situation. You can see that...”

The phone rang.

Mason nodded to Della. She picked up the receiver, then listened a moment, then placed her hand over the mouth piece.

“Chief, there’s a blond woman out there with a black eye who says she has to see you at once. Gertie says she’s terribly upset and she’s afraid she’ll have hysterics if...”

“Show her into the law library,” Mason said. “I’ll talk with her there. While I’m doing that, you can get a check from Mr. Burbank payable to Adelaide Kingman for one hundred thousand bucks. You’ll excuse me, I know. An hysterical blonde with a black eye would seem to be an emergency case, at least an interesting one — The Case of The Black Eyed Blonde.”