The Case of the Smoking Chimney

Chapter 19

Harvey Stanwood held a folded newspaper in his hand as he studied Eva Raymond searchingly across the little table in the cocktail bar. “I’ve been dumb,” he announced.

She yawned. “You sound peeved over something. Remember I haven’t had breakfast yet. I just got up.”

“You haven’t seen the papers, I suppose?”

“No, I don’t read the papers... Why didn’t you give me a ring last night, dear?”

He looked at her accusingly. “You went to Petrie last night.”

There was languid boredom in the manner in which she raised her eyebrows. “Petrie,” she said, repeating the word after him as though trying to recall what it meant. “Oh, yes, I remember now. That’s the place where you said they were having the oil excitement.”

“You went to Petrie,” Stanwood repeated, “to see Ralph Pressman. You were going to try and intercede for me — and perhaps cut yourself a piece of cake... After all, if Pressman and his wife were washed up, there just might be a chance.”

“Harvey, dear, what are you talking about.”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“Don’t you feel well?”

“Where,” he asked, “is that compact I gave you, the one with your initials engraved on it?”

She opened her purse, looked inside, frowned as though puzzled, said suddenly: “Why, remember I gave it to you night before last, when we were dancing. You slipped it in your coat pocket... Let me have it back, dear.”

She extended her hand across the table.

“It won’t work,” Stanwood said.

“What do you mean?”

Stanwood opened the paper to the second page, folded it, and pushed it across the table.

The reproduction of a photograph of a woman’s compact with a cracked mirror and the initials “E.R.” engraved on it was headed by the caption, “WOMAN’S COMPACT FOUND BY POLICE ON PORCH OF MURDERED MAN.”

“Harvey,” she breathed, an exclamation that was a half whisper. “What happened?”

“Pressman was murdered. Your compact was found on the porch... Perhaps you’d better read about it.”

She snatched at the paper, read eagerly the story under the headline, “VICTIM OF SLAYING IDENTIFIED AS LOS ANGELES BUSINESSMAN.”

When she had finished, she looked up at him with eyes that held bewilderment and just a touch of horror. “Harvey, did you do that?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“You must have. You had my compact in your pocket night before last, and—”

“I gave you back that compact as soon as we came back to the table.”

“I don’t remember it.”

“I put it in your purse.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“Well, I did.”

She said demurely: “All right, darling. I’ll protect you on that, but where does that leave me?”

“It leaves you,” Harvey said brutally, “on the front porch of that shack up in Santa Delbarra County.”

She shook her head.

Stanwood put his elbows on the table. “All right, baby, you’re not fooling me any. I told you Pressman and his wife were ready to split up. I told you he liked figures. I told you that if he didn’t come back to the office, I might stand a chance... You could kill two birds with one stone. I suppose it was the old ‘innocent’ act. Your automobile was out of gas. You’d walked for half a mile and had come to this house. You hated to disturb him, but did he have a telephone and could he call for someone to come and help you get your automobile started? You felt pretty certain he didn’t have a telephone, and at that hour in the morning—”

The demure mask dropped from her face. Instantly she was cold and hard. “Why do you say at that hour of the morning?” she asked, the question fairly crackling from her lips.

“Because that’s just about the time you’d pick to pull a stunt like that — too late for him to put you out, too early to have him get up to go help you with the car.”

She smiled at him then, and said: “You want me to take the rap for you, don’t you, dear?”

“What are you getting at?”

“You went up there, and either accidentally dropped my compact out of your pocket while you were killing him, or did it deliberately after you killed him. I suppose you felt I could beat the case by saying I was fighting to protect myself.”

“Babe, you’re crazy — plumb nuts.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

“Do what?”

“Say I was up there, to protect you.”

“But you were there!”

“Of course I was, dear.”

“But damn it, don’t say anything to that district attorney!”

“Why, I thought that was what you wanted.”

“Eva! Listen to me! Were you up there, or weren’t you?”

“I was up there, of course — if that will help you beat the rap, dear.”

Stanwood sighed, said fervently: “Damn!”

Eva Raymond looked up to find the waiter standing by the table.

“Make mine an old-fashioned,” she said casually.