The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito

Chapter 24

Afternoon shadows were collecting in purple pools on the desert floor far below when Mason and Della Street drove around the last turn in the grade, to roll out on the plateau mesa where Salty had his camp.

Salty Bowers came ambling over toward the car as Mason brought it to a stop. There was hostility and suspicion in his manner until he recognized the car. Then he slouched into friendliness.

Mason and Della Street clambered out and stretched travel-stiffened limbs.

“Brought you some news,” Mason said. “And then we’re going to stay up here for a day or two and get some of the so-called civilization purified out of our minds. Your murder is all solved.”

“Who did it?”

“Sheriff Greggory and Lieutenant Tragg working in Los Angeles.”

“No. I mean who did the murder?”

“Oh — Moffgat killed Banning Clarke. He took a shot at Dr. Kenward first, thinking he was shooting at the sleeping figure of Banning Clarke. After he found out his mistake, he learned about your departure in the house trailer and started looking for you. He probably would never have found you if it hadn’t been that, just by chance, you drove under a street light a couple of blocks in front of him. Banning Clarke had been poisoned and you were looking for medical attention. When you went in to telephone the hospital, Moffgat simply opened the door of the house trailer, walked in, pulled the trigger, and walked out. It was that simple and that fast.”

“Why did he do it?” Salty asked.

“That,” Mason said, “is the part of it that has a direct bearing on you.”

Salty raised his eyebrows.

“Mrs. Banning Clarke made a will in December of nineteen forty-one. She died in January of nineteen forty-two. Hayward Small was a witness to the new will. The other witness was a man by the name of Craiglaw. The Bradissons bribed Moffgat to say nothing about the latter will and to offer the earlier one for probate. That earlier will had been made before Banning Clarke gave his wife the stock in the mine. At that time she didn’t have a great deal of property in her own name, so she left it all to her mother and brother, share and share alike.”

“But why kill Banning Clarke?” Salty asked.

“Because Banning Clarke had uncovered a clue. In going through some of his wife’s papers he found a diary, and under date of December fifth there was an entry in the diary: ‘Went to Los Angeles — witnesses, Rupert Craiglaw and Hayward Small.’ That clue in the diary was all that Banning Clarke had to work on. You remember that he told me he was going to want me in connection with another matter. His pooling agreement and getting me to represent Mrs. Sims in that fraud suit were just excuses to give him an opportunity to size me up. He’d been double-crossed by one lawyer. He didn’t want to repeat the experience.

“After the shooting, and the poisoning of the Bradissons, Clarke thought his life might be in danger. He wasn’t quite ready to confide in me as yet, but, in the event something happened to him, he wanted me to go ahead and see that justice was done. You must remember that he knew the seriousness of his heart condition, and had to plan every move with the constant thought in mind that he might die at any minute.”

Salty fished a plug of tobacco from his pocket, bit of? a corner and rolled it over into his cheek.

“Moffgat came out to the house after he had killed Clarke. The Bradissons weren’t there. Della and I were lying asleep, under the influence of drugs. Velma Starler was engaged in waiting on Dr. Kenward, who had, of course, been wounded by Moffgat when he shot him.

“Moffgat looked through Clarke’s desk. He would have destroyed Clarke’s will if it hadn’t been that he was afraid Clarke might have told me about it, and — if so — that when the will couldn’t be found I’d become suspicious of what had really happened. But Clarke had mentioned in his will that the clue he was leaving me was contained in a certain drawer of his desk; it was where he had left his wife’s diary. But Moffgat, with diabolical ingenuity — knowing that I would be looking for some clue, and remembering what Velma had said about the drowsy mosquito, and because Clarke had also mentioned that in his will — emptied some gold out of a little phial, caught a mosquito, put it in the phial, and left it there for me. — The noise of the drowsy mosquito, of course, was the noise made by one of those black-light machines as Moffgat either surreptitiously deciphered the message Banning Clarke had left in the stone well, or spied on Clarke when Clarke was putting the finishing touches to the fluorescent diagram he left there.

“Clarke’s will left everything to you, Salty. The mining stock that was placed in my name, I am of course holding as trustee for you, although I didn’t dare admit it earlier. The estate not only includes that, but also all of the other property which was fraudulently distributed to the Bradissons.”

Salty said nothing for several seconds. His tongue rolled the moist bit of tobacco from one cheek over to the other. “How did you find out all of this?” he asked.

“Lieutenant Tragg arrested Moffgat in Los Angeles, found Mrs. Clarke’s diary in his pocket. I instantly decided that this was the real clue Banning Clarke had left in his desk drawer. We managed to locate Rupert Craiglaw, got him on long-distance telephone, learned that he remembered the occasion of having witnessed the will. We also tricked Hayward Small and Bradisson into making recriminations. That cracked the case, and Moffgat finally made a complete confession.

“Bradisson got tired of being blackmailed, and he also wanted Clarke out of the way. He planted arsenic in the saltcellar used by himself and his mother, then got some ipecac. He and his mother took it, pretended to have exactly the symptoms they would have had if they’d taken the arsenic. That was just window-dressing to divert suspicion from themselves over what was due to happen twenty-four hours later, when they opened Pete’s bag of arsenic, took out some and waited for an opportunity to plant it where Small would get it. Right after the directors’ meeting, they saw their chance. They saw Dorina put a note under the sugar bowl, and knew that Hayward Small usually had a cup of tea in the evening, taking sugar in it. When Jim saw Small looking at the teapot, he introduced the arsenic into the sugar. His mother was standing so as to partially shield what he was doing. But Small, for reasons of his own, didn’t take tea that night, and Jim couldn’t say anything without giving himself away.”

“The dirty rats,” Salty said. “If Banning had only told me about that evidence... Oh, well, we can’t change things now.”

“That’s right. It’s finished now. There are a few more incidental angles,” Mason told him, “but those are the main points.”

“Never mind the incidental angles,” Salty said. “I reckon you’re pretty well fed up with murder stuff, and so am I. Suppose you and Miss Street come over to the camp and we’ll fix up a little chow. Lucille’s coming up tonight and we’re going in to town on a marrying party tomorrow. I thought for a while we’d put it off on account of Banning’s death; but I know how Banning would feel about it — he’d want us to go ahead. So we decided we’d make it a foursome.”

“A foursome?” Mason asked.

Salty twisted the small piece of tobacco back to the other side of his mouth, nodded. “Dr. Kenward and the nurse decided they were going to Las Vegas and get spliced, and I thought Lucille and I would go along. Well, I’ll be getting the food together. We’ll have a little banquet tonight. Expect Lucille up almost any time.”

Salty turned abruptly away, walked over to the blackened stone fireplace, and got a fire going.

Mason turned to Della Street. “Know something?”

“What?”

“I bet the preacher would make a reduced rate on marrying three couples instead of two.”

She looked up at him with wistful tenderness. “Forget it, Chief.”

“Why?”

Her eyes looked out over the long reaches of desert that stretched out far below. “We’re happy now,” she said. “You can’t tell what marriage would do to us. We’d have a home. I’d be a housekeeper. You’d need a new secretary... You don’t want a home. I don’t want you to have a new secretary. Right now you’re tired. You’ve been matching wits with a murderer. You feel as though you’d like to marry and settle down. Day after tomorrow you’ll be looking for a new case where you can go like mad, skin through by a thousandth of an inch. That’s the way you want to be, and that’s the way I want you. You’d never settle down and I don’t want you to. And besides, Salty couldn’t leave the camp all alone tomorrow.”

Mason moved to her side, slipped his arm around her shoulders, held her close to him. “I could argue with you about all that,” he said softly.

She laughed up at him. “You could argue all right, but even if you could convince me, you couldn’t convince you. You know I’m right.”

Mason started to say something, then checked himself, tightened the pressure of his arm. They stood in silence, looking out at the desert where varicolored peaks thrust up into the red sunlight.

“And,” Della said, laughing, “we’re hardened campaigners who can’t waste time with romance when there’s work to be done. Salty needs help with that fire, and perhaps he’ll let me do some of the cooking.”

“Ten to one he won’t,” Mason said.

“What?”

“Let you help with the cooking.”

“No takers. Come on. You don’t see Salty wasting time with desert scenery when there’s work to be done.”

They walked over to where Salty was bending over the fireplace, saw him straighten up, saw him turn toward the boxes of provisions, then pause to stand looking out over the desert.

As they joined him, Salty said almost reverently, “No mat- tsr what I’m doing, I always knock off for a few minutes along about this time of day just to look out over the desert — makes you realize man may be pretty active, but he ain’t so darn big. You know, folks, the desert is the kindest mother a man ever had, because she’s so cruel. Cruelty makes you careful and self-reliant, and that’s what the desert wants. She don’t want any softies hanging around. Sometimes, when she’s blistering hot and the light burns your eyes out, you see only the cruelty. But then, along about this time of day, she smiles back at you and tells you her cruelty is really kindness, and you can see it from her viewpoint — and it’s the right viewpoint.”