The Case of the Smoking Chimney

Chapter 24

Milred Duryea said: “I have a feeling of impending disaster.”

“Gramps?” her husband asked, smiling.

“Yes. Whenever I don’t know what he’s doing, I become uneasy. When I find out what he’s done, my worst suspicions are invariably confirmed. What do you suppose he’s doing?”

Duryea said: “I was rather short with him last night when he faked a toothache to come busting into the office and try and get in on the examination of those witnesses. I think probably I hurt his feelings. Haven’t seen him since.”

“You may have hurt his feelings,” she admitted, “but you probably didn’t cramp his style any.”

“Well, after all,” Duryea said, “we can’t worry about him. I like him, but—”

“You don’t get me,” Milred interrupted. “As long as this murder case is unsolved, Gramps is out doing something. Heavens knows what it is.”

Duryea seemed strangely good-natured about it all. “Oh, well, if he gets pleasure out of it, let him go. As a matter of fact, any citizen can read about a crime that’s been committed and go out and start trying to solve it. Only, thank heavens, they don’t.”

“Gramps,” Milred announced, “never does the expected.”

“He’s probably headed back toward Mexico with his feelings hurt.” the district attorney said. “He’ll think it over for a while, let the hurt wear off, and some morning we’ll hear the old rattletrap wheezing and banging into the driveway.”

Milred slowly, deliberately wiped the flour off her hands, walked over to Frank Duryea’s chair, placed firmly determined fingers under his chin, elevated his head, and said: “Open your eyes — wide.”

“Why, what’s wrong with my eyes?”

“You,” she announced, “are deceiving me.”

“That’s a blanket accusation! You’ll have to be more specific before I dare commit myself. I might ’fess up to something that you didn’t know about. Give me a bill of particulars.”

She said: “You’re solving that Pressman murder case. That’s why you don’t care what Gramps is doing.”

“Well,” he admitted, “we’re making headway.”

“And holding out on me.”

“Well, not exactly.”

Milred sat down on the arm of the chair. “The biscuits,” she said, “are practically ready to go in the oven. Standing isn’t going to do them any good. Then I did intend to take some of that biscuit dough, add a little more shortening and sugar to it and when we’re about halfway through dinner, slip it in a nice hot oven to cook up for strawberry shortcake. The strawberries are all crushed and sugared in the icebox. There’s a big bowl of cream all whipped and sugared... And I thought I’d take those slabs of hot shortcake right out of the oven, spread on a generous amount of butter, put on a layer of crushed, sweetened fruit, let the ice-cold strawberry juices mingle with the melted butter and run down the outside of the shortcake. Then I’d put on another slab of hot shortcake, put more berries on that, put on great gobs of whipped cream, and bring it in for dessert. But... if you continue to hold out on me, I won’t have time.”

The district attorney ostentatiously wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Woman,” he said, “you’re making my mouth water so I’m about to drown. Go get that strawberry shortcake ready, and quit pulling a Gramp Wiggins on me.”

She said: “I sit right here until you give me the low-down on that Pressman case. Don’t think that any husband of mine is going to hold out on a murder case and get away with it.”

“It isn’t ready to close yet. We still have some work to do on it.”

“Tell me what you know, and quit stalling.”

“You didn’t used to be like this.” Duryea laughed.

“I know. It’s the Wiggins in me. Gramps hangs around here and brings out all the worst that’s in me. I was almost becoming a Duryea, and now that horrible Wiggins streak has come to the surface. But, that’s just the way it is. No information, no shortcake.”

“All right.” Duryea surrendered. “I’ll tell you.”

“And tell me all of it. Don’t hold out anything.”

Duryea said: “We’ll start with the gun. There’s a methodical, regular way of tracing guns, although it would never do to tell one of the gifted amateurs like your grandfather a thing like that.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, he doesn’t go in for the painstaking routine steps which point toward success. He wants some subtle clue to follow or something like that.”

“I get you. The way the gun’s clasped in the dead man’s hand, for instance.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, what about the gun?”

“The gun,” Duryea said, “is an old one. It was manufactured twenty-seven years ago. It was sold to a dealer in Butte, Montana. The dealer sold it to a cattleman who is now dead. We located this man’s widow. She remembered that he had such a gun of which he was very proud, and that he had sold it to some dude from California. She couldn’t remember the dude’s name.

“We then started a methodical investigation to find if any of the men who might possibly be connected with the case had ever had any contact with this cattleman.”

“Well,” Milred asked, her eyes sparkling with excitement, “did you have any luck?”

Duryea cocked his eyebrow at her quizzically. “You,” he announced, “are getting worse than Gramps.”

“But it’s so darned interesting, Frank. It’s a chase.”

“It’s a darn chore,” he said. “Just a lot of things you have to run down in a regular, methodical manner.”

“All right, have it your own way, but tell me the answer. What did you find out?”

“We found,” he said, “that a Pellman Baxter of Los Angeles had been on a neighbouring dude ranch, and we found that a ‘Pelly’ Baxter was a close friend of Pressman. Naturally, we started investigating Baxter.”

“When was it he was up at the dude ranch?”

“About five years ago.”

“And this cattleman has been dead how long?”

“Three years... Well, that’s all there was to it. The cattleman’s widow remembered the name of Baxter when we called it to her attention, remembered all about Pelly Baxter, and remembered he’d bought the gun.”

“Then what?”

“Then we moved in on Baxter. He remembered the gun distinctly, and said he’d bought it for a friend.”

“And the friend?” she asked.

“Pressman.”

“He’d given it to Pressman?”

“Yes. He said he knew Pressman was very much interested in a gun of that particular type, and he’d given it to him as soon as he got back from Montana, and had forgotten all about it, completely dismissed it from his mind until we called it to his attention... It seems Baxter is quite a collector of firearms; has revolvers, rifles, shotguns of ancient and modern vintage hung up on the walls of his den, in his library — in fact, all over his place.”

“Married?” Milred asked.

Duryea laughed. “What’s that got to do with it?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I was just wondering. You mentioned his house.”

“No,” Duryea said. “He isn’t married. He’s a bachelor, quite a sportsman, keeps a house so he has room for his various possessions, says he can’t stand to be cramped, and doesn’t like apartments.”

“Then you think it was really suicide?”

“What makes you ask that?”

“It being Pressman’s gun.”

Duryea smiled. “We discounted the suicide theory almost at the start.”

“Well, if he was killed with his own gun—”

“That,” Duryea said, “opens an interesting possibility. We made a quiet investigation of Mrs. Pressman. She’s in the thirties. He was in the fifties. They’d been married five years. He devoted virtually all his attention to his business. You can appreciate how a younger wife would feel about that.”

“May I quote you on that?” she asked.

Frank laughed.

She said: “Go ahead, elaborate on that theme some more. I don’t care anything about the solution of the case now. Just keep telling me about what happened in the Pressman household.”

Duryea said: “I’m afraid I can’t give you any of the spicy, salacious details, so dear to the heart of a woman.”

“Why not?”

“It’s all cut-and-dried, all the same old methodical routine pattern.”

“And what’s the pattern?”

“Well,” Duryea said, “we enlisted the aid of the butler, a man who apparently was very much attached to Mr. Pressman. We explained to him what we were looking for, and he made a careful search of the house.”

“What were you looking for?”

“A newspaper with certain phrases cut out of it — three phrases, to be exact — which were pasted together to form a message that was intended as a suicide note.”

“Did he find that paper?”

Duryea nodded wearily. “In the glove compartment of her car.”

“And what happens next?”

“Oh, it means another disagreeable legal chore. I’ve notified Mrs. Pressman to come up here tomorrow morning. The sheriff and I will interview her.”

“Will that be what they call a third degree?”

“It will follow the same old routine pattern,” Duryea said. “We’ll be very courteous and sympathetic. We’ll get her to tell her story over and over. We’ll look for some little discrepancy in it. We’ll ask her about her domestic life, let the questions get more and more personal until she gets really angry... The same old sparring match. She’ll be frightened, desperate, and hopeful by turns. She’ll mix in a few falsehoods with the truth, try to move us with tears, become indignant when we crowd her, make more and more slips, then get rattled, and finally probably break down and tell us the whole story.”

“You make it sound very disagreeable and unromantic,” Milred said.

“I hate to spar with people when their lives are at stake... Although probably her life isn’t at stake.”

“Why not?”

“Women with beautiful figures never get the death penalty.”

“Is that all?” Milred asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Are you holding out anything else?”

“Oh, just the usual incidentals,” Duryea said somewhat wearily.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, the usual wild-and-woolly clues.”

“Now just what is a wild-and-woolly clue?”

“All the anonymous tips, and things of that sort.”

“You act as though there were hundreds of them.”

“Sometimes it seems that way... Notice that when an airplane is lost dozens of people will come forward to tell of seeing mysterious lights in the mountains, hearing planes flying overhead, hearing crashes, and seeing mysterious flares in the night sky.”

“Yes,” she said, suddenly thoughtful. “I’d never realized before just how many of them there are.”

“It’s the same way with a murder. When a murder has been committed, every crank in the country hypnotizes himself to attach some great significance to some trivial affair.”

“Such as what, in this particular case?” Milred asked.

“Oh, for one thing, Jane Graven, Mr. Pressman’s secretary.”

“What about her?”

“I had an anonymous tip over the telephone that she was having an affair with Pressman and trying to poison his mind against his wife; that she’d probably make some attempt to drag his wife into it; that if she did, I should go after her hammer and tongs.”

“Who gave you the tip — man or woman?”

“A man’s voice.”

“You have no idea who he was?”

“No. I didn’t get a chance to trace the call.”

“Anything else?”

“That woman’s compact that was found on the porch of the house.”

“Have you identified it?”

“I think so.”

“Whose is it?”

“A girl by the name of Eva Raymond. She’s a lady of leisure.”

“Professional?”

“Well, what you might call a gifted amateur with commercial tendencies.”

“I see. And how did her compact get there?”

“I’m not exactly certain,” Duryea said. “She denies it’s her compact. We’re pretty certain she’s lying, but we can account for her time up until midnight of the twenty-fourth. According to the autopsy surgeon, Pressman must have been dead by eleven o’clock. That leaves her out as having anything to do with the murder, but... well, I don’t like it.”

“Don’t like what?”

“All these women in Pressman’s life. It doesn’t sound right.”

“Why not?”

“He wasn’t that kind of a man.”

“Don’t be silly, Frank. All men are ‘that kind’ when they are tempted by good-looking women.”

“That’s the point,” Duryea said. “He wasn’t the type that good-looking women would tempt. He was cold, austere, selfish, undemonstrative, and he lived his life for only one purpose — the pursuit of wealth.”

“Perhaps he had another side to his nature which people didn’t see.”

“Quite possibly,” Duryea admitted, “but if so, it was a side which came out from hibernation only at rare intervals, and sneaked back as soon as it had accomplished its purpose.”

Milred said: “Frank, you’ve got to quit that job.”

“Why?”

“It’s making a dirty, nasty cynic out of you. You’re getting world-weary while you’re still a very young man.”

Duryea laughed. “Oh, it’s just that these things follow a pattern.”

“I’m going to make you get out of that job. I’ll... I’ll just turn Gramps loose — and then you won’t have any job.”

“We’d starve to death in private practice, the way things are now.”

“All right, we’ll starve then... And, in the meantime, what you need is a darn good stiff drink.”

Duryea grinned. “You haven’t any of that delightfully mild liquor from Mexico, have you?”

“I wish I did have. You just need something like that. You— Oh, oh!”

“What’s the matter?” Duryea asked, looking up to see her staring out of the window.

She said: “I’m becoming psychic. Your path is about to be crossed by a little old man who’s unusually active for his years, a man who will ask you if you wouldn’t like a nice, mild drink, and—”

“Do you see that man now?” Duryea asked.

“I see a rattletrap car and a home-made trailer swinging around so that the trailer can be backed up into our driveway.”

Duryea said: “Doggoned if I’m not going to be glad to see the old reprobate. I could just go for one of his cocktails tonight, and I wouldn’t care whether he made it mild or not.”

They heard steps on the porch, and Gramps came in with just a little too much enthusiasm, like a small boy who has been in mischief and tries to overcome the tendency to sneak in quietly by making his feet deliberately loud.

Milred looked at her grandfather appraisingly. “You,” she announced, “have been up to something.”

Gramps’ eyes were as innocent and guileless as clear pools of mountain water. “Up to somethin’? Been sorta traipsin’ around, that’s all.”

Duryea said: “We were talking about one of your cocktails, Gramps.”

Gramps’ face lighted. “Were you now!”

Milred said: “Don’t let him change the subject, Frank. He’s been up to something. I can tell it.”

Gramps grinned at her. “You’ve been associatin’ too much with district attorneys. Maybe a good cocktail will fix you up. How’s for havin’ dinner with me, folks?”

“No, you’re going to have dinner with us,” Milred said, “but go ahead and fix up that drink.”

When he had gone, Milred Duryea looked at her husband, said: “I’ll give you ten to one.”

“That he’s been up to something?” Duryea asked.

She nodded.

Duryea said: “Don’t try to worm it out of him, Milred. It might be better if I didn’t know — just find out whether he’s been in this county, or down in Los Angeles. If it’s here, I suppose I’ll have to do something about it. If it’s down in Los Angeles, we’ll let Nature take its course.”

She said: “You don’t know Gramps. He has all the capacity for destruction of a five-thousand-pound bomb.”

Duryea said positively: “I don’t care about that. If the thing that he’s done wasn’t done in this county, and if he didn’t use his connection with me to put it across, I don’t care a hoot what it is.”

“He wouldn’t use his connection with you,” Milred said. “I know that. He’s scrupulously careful on that score... But what would you do with him, if he got into trouble, Frank?”

“In Los Angeles County?”

“Yes.”

“That’s easy,” Duryea said. “I’d let him go to jail or get fined for contempt of court, or take whatever would happen to any ordinary person who interfered with the administration of justice. In other words, I’d wash my hands of him and let him learn not to interfere in the future.”

“Is that a promise?”

“Yes.”

“Okay then. I feel better. That’s the only way we’re ever going to teach him a lesson.”

Duryea was filling his pipe when Gramps came in, agitating the shaker.

“Now this here cocktail,” Gramps said, “is just a leetle mite different from the one you had the other night. This won’t taste quite as smooth, but it ain’t got too much dynamite in it — not too much.”

Milred said: “We didn’t put any limitations on the dynamite, Gramps. Frank’s feeling low, and we need to cheer him up.”

Gramps stopped shaking the cocktail shaker as though someone had touched a button that switched off the current which was animating his activity. “What’s he low about?”

“Just the routine of things,” Duryea said.

“What kind of routine?”

“The routine of office.”

“You worried about that murder case?”

“I’m always worried about an unsolved murder case.”

“Ain’t solved it yet, eh?”

“Not entirely. I have a very disagreeable duty to perform tomorrow. I’m dreading it.”

“Careful,” Milred warned.

Gramps shook the shaker, very slowly, very deliberately. “Humph! Looks like you’ve uncovered some new evidence that points to an attractive woman... Ain’t that man’s secretary, is it?”

“Whose secretary?”

“Pressman’s.”

Milred said: “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Frank.”

Duryea said: “So far as I know, I have nothing to discuss with Pressman’s secretary. I don’t think she killed him.”

Gramps brought the tempo of his cocktail shaking back to its former gusto. “Okay,” he said, “that settles it, and as far as I’m concerned, I wouldn’t pull my punches none. I’d go after this here woman, whoever she is, hammer and tongs.”

“What are you talking about?” Duryea asked.

“Pressman’s widow,” Gramps said. “Where the heck are those cocktail glasses, Milred?”

“Who said anything about Pressman’s widow?” Duryea asked sharply.

“You did.”

“I certainly did not.”

“Well, you might as well have said it. All blue about some duty you’ve got to perform. Looks like that had to do with pickin’ on a woman. You’re that type. A man you wouldn’t mind about, but a woman, yes... You’d get the idea you were tryin’ to trap her into a betrayal, that she was tryin’ to save her life an’ you were tryin’ to take it. All that sort of stuff. Lots of people wouldn’t feel that way, but you’re just the kind that would. Okay, it has to be either Mrs. Pressman or the secretary. If it isn’t the secretary, it’s got to be Mrs. Pressman. Personally, I’d give her the works. If you ask me, she’s a cold-blooded little—”

“That’s just the point, Gramps,” Milred said laughingly. “He hasn’t asked you. No one’s asked you. All we asked you for is a drink.”

Gramps, no whit abashed, poured the cocktail into the glasses. “That’s right,” he said. “I was just volunteerin’ a little advice, wasn’t I? Shouldn’t do that. No percentage in it. Wait until they ask for it. Then they appreciate it more... Well, try this; it’ll cheer you up.”

Gramps passed the glasses. “Now the way to drink this here cocktail,” he went on, “is to get the first one down fast, while it’s still got air bubbles in it from the shaking. Then the second one you take kinda medium, and the third one you take right slow to enjoy the flavour.”

Duryea glanced across the rim of his glass at his wife; then tossed off the cocktail. He made tasting sounds with his tongue against the roof of his mouth, said: “Milred, there’s no use talking. It’s the silver lining.”

She laughed and held out her glass for more.

“Taste all right?” Gramps asked.

“Like nectar,” Duryea said. “What’s in it? More of this Mexican liquor?”

“Nope. This here is all north of the Rio Grande, but there’s just a leetle touch of somethin’ in it to shake off the raw taste. You wouldn’t like it if I told you what that was, so just drink it and quit worryin’. What’s this about a silver linin’?”

“It’s the name Milred and I are giving this cocktail. You wouldn’t understand.”

“No,” Milred agreed, “not unless you’d read Emerson’s law of compensation.”

Duryea joined in her laugh at Gramps’ mystification.

“I don’t get that law of compensation business either. Silver linin’ — law of compensation... Oh, well, what do I care! Go ahead an’ drink her down.”

After the second cocktail, Milred felt a warm glow stealing through her veins. She felt a surge of friendship for the somewhat wistful old man, who seemed in some ways so anxious to keep their friendship, and yet in others to be so completely independent of it.

“You,” she told her husband, “can try sipping the third cocktail. I personally am going to lay off it.”

“What’s the matter?” Duryea asked.

“I feel it.”

“Can’t feel that,” Gramps insisted. “That’s as mild as coconut milk. Just got a little fruity tang to it that stings your throat and stimulates your digestive juices, that’s all. Ain’t enough alcohol in it to hurt a kitten.”

Milred said: “Nevertheless, I’m going into the kitchen while I can still get there under my own power. I’ve weighty responsibilities. And if you, Gramp Wiggins, knew what was cooking you’d be the last one to suggest that I betray my trust.”

Gramps pulled his black briar from his pocket. “Okay,” he announced. “I ain’t never one to argue with a person against his moral convictions.”

Milred went out into the kitchen, still feeling that great glow of physical and mental well-being. Once or twice during the next fifteen minutes she looked into the living-room, and, on the occasion of her last inspection, surreptitiously lifted the receiver from the telephone and left it dangling.

The district attorney of Santa Delbarra County was rapidly getting in no condition to answer the phone, and Milred was glad of it. Frank had been taking himself and his responsibilities altogether too seriously. That prosecutor’s job was going to make an old, cynical man out of him before he’d really had a chance to enjoy his youth. And he needed to let go more, to get out and relax. After all, Gramps was a pretty good influence for them... Look at Gramps. Somewhere around the seventies, and younger in many ways than any of them. Responsibilities had never weighed heavily on Gramps. He’d always been a man of wild enthusiasms, always chasing some particular mirage. It had always been a mirage. He’d never caught up with it, but he’d always been just as keen to start out chasing the next one. Perhaps that was the secret of it. Gramps never got discouraged over a failure. He enjoyed the chase as much as the goal itself... There was a moral there. She’d have to think it out sometime... Mildred realized that Gramps certainly had loaded those cocktails.

She poured herself a cup of black coffee.

From the living-room she heard the hilarious roar of Frank Duryea’s laughter.

“A good belly-laugh,” she muttered to herself. “Someone’s held out a story on me — and it’s been a long time since I’ve heard that roar from Frank.”

She got the dinner on the table, called the others.

Duryea was having a complete reaction from the blue mood which had gripped him earlier in the evening. Now, he was hilariously joyful. Gramps seemed to be completely unchanged, but from the twinkle in his eye and the continued chuckles from her husband, Milred knew that the men had been having a good time. The old man, she realized, was just about immune to alcohol. A case-hardened old sinner who lived his own life just as he damn pleased.

Milred was glad she’d had that coffee.

Gramps flashed her a shrewdly appraising glance, then said to Duryea: “How’d you like to talk over that murder a little bit, son?”

“I wouldn’t like it,” Duryea said.

“Definitely not,” Milred announced.

“Well,” Gramps said, “I got a clue that I think Frank should know about before he talks with Mrs. Pressman.”

“A clue or a theory?” Milred asked.

“A clue.”

Duryea had picked up his salad fork and was spearing the ice cube in his water glass, trying to hold it under water, laughing quietly every time it bobbed up.

“Consider the ice cube, my dear,” he said. “You can’t hold it down. Every time you think you’ve got it anchored, it bobs up again. Just goes to show what a little determination will do... Reminds me of someone we know.”

“Determination is right,” Milred said. “I have a very strong suspicion that Gramps has deliberately tried to soften the blow he’s about to land, with an alcoholic cushion.”

“Good old cushion,” Duryea said. “That’s the stuff, Gramps! Always cushion your blows. Hit me again sometime.”

“What,” Milred asked Gramps, “is your clue? Something seems to tell me this is going to be very, very serious.”

“Well,” Gramps said, “I’m going to tell you something. I’ve found the newspaper that the suicide message was cut from.”

Milred heard a clatter of silver against glassware and looked up to see Frank Duryea’s wet salad fork lying unnoticed in his plate. All of the hilarity had left him. He was coldly efficient, and, Milred realized, suddenly sober.

“You have what?” he asked.

“I got that newspaper,” Gramps said.

“Where did you get it?”

Gramps said: “Well, now, that’s a funny story. You promise me you ain’t goin’ to be sore at me, Frank?”

“Where did you get it?”

“Well,” Gramps said, “I... Now wait a minute, folks. Let’s not let this interfere with the dinner. Let’s go ahead and start eatin’. Things are goin’ to get cold, and—”

“Where did you get it?” Duryea repeated.

“Well,” Gramps said, “I dropped into Pressman’s office to talk with Pressman’s secretary.”

“What was the object in doing that?” Duryea asked ominously.

Gramps said: “Well, I wanted to know a little bit about Pressman — wanted to find out if maybe he used to live out in a cabin somewhere.”

“Go on,” Duryea said quietly.

Gramps said: “Someone came in to see Miss Graven while I was there, so I sort of rubbered around the office. This man Stanwood that was in your office the other night... You know he works there.”

“I’m still waiting,” Duryea said, “to find out where you got that paper.”

“Well,” Gramps went on, after the manner of a small boy explaining how the rock slipped out of his hand to crash through the plate-glass window, “I went on into Stanwood’s office, an’ I noticed a newspaper on the desk. It wasn’t a current newspaper. It was dated the twenty-fourth. I looked at it an’ happened to notice some headlines. I noticed they was the same headlines that was on that suicide note, so, later on, I got to lookin’ through the paper an’ found that every one of the pieces that made up that message had been cut from that same newspaper... Now that newspaper was put out on the twenty-fourth. It’s a Los Angeles afternoon newspaper. It doesn’t get up to Petrie until around eight o’clock in the evenin,” maybe a little later than eight o’clock... Figure that one out, son.”

Duryea said: “I’m not figuring anything out right now. Where did you get that newspaper that has the words cut out?”

Gramps said: “Nope. I’m not gonna say another word until I’ve had some of this grub. ’Tain’t right for Milred to slave her fingers to the bone out there tryin’ to get grub for you, if you ain’t goin’ to enjoy it, an’ ’tain’t right for you to get yourself all excited on an empty stomach. Didn’t know you were goin’ to carry on so about it, or I wouldn’t have mentioned it until after dinner... Milred, how about some of those biscuits while they’re hot?”

Gramps reached across the table, calmly selected three biscuits from the napkin-covered dish, opened them, put a generous slab of butter in each, and closed them to let the butter melt.

“That’s the way with biscuits,” he said. “You’ve got to let the butter melt an’ soak right into ’em.”

Milred nodded to her husband. “Go ahead, Frank. Let’s start eating. I know Gramps when he gets one of these fits. You can’t budge him with dynamite.”

Duryea didn’t say anything, but ate with grim, unsociable silence. Watching him, Milred suddenly remembered the emergency operation she had performed on the telephone and made an excuse to leave the table and put the receiver back into place.

When Gramps had finished with his biscuits and honey, fried chicken and mashed potatoes with country gravy, he pushed back his plate, said hopefully: “Don’t tell me there’s dessert.”

“Strawberry shortcake,” Milred said.

Gramps grinned across at Frank Duryea. “Son, I guess it’s the Wiggins strain in her. That woman certainly can cook.”

Duryea said nothing, registering an austere, silent disapproval.

Gramps said: “Now son, you don’t want to be like that. You just go ahead an’ enjoy this strawberry shortcake, ’cause somethin’ seems to tell me when I get done tellin’ you about this here clue, you’ll be makin’ a beeline for the office.”

Milred said suddenly: “Look here, Frank, you can trust this man if you want to, but he’s my own flesh and blood, and I know him like a book! I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw a truck by the steering wheel with one hand.”

Duryea said sternly: “Gramps, if you’ve been interfering in this case, you’re going to have to take it right on the chin. I’m not going to intercede for you.”

“Intercede for me!” Gramps exclaimed indignantly. “Well, I should hope to say you ain’t. Nobody ever interceded for me in my life, an’ we ain’t goin’ to begin now.”

“That’s the old spirit, Gramps,” Milred said, “but I have an idea you’re going to jail. My husband really takes his official duties quite seriously.”

“Let ’em put me in jail if they can catch me,” Gramps said, and then added with a grin, “that’s always been my motto. Where’s that strawberry shortcake?”

Gramps helped Milred clean off the table. She brought in the dessert, and it wasn’t until after they had finished it that Gramps pushed back his plate, pulled his villainous pipe from his pocket, grinned across at Duryea, and said: “Well, son, I says to myself, says I to myself, says I, ‘Now suppose you had cut out headlines from a newspaper and pasted ’em together to make a sort of a note? That paper that the headlines had been cut from would be sort of an incriminatin’ piece of evidence. Of course, you could get rid of that piece of evidence all right, but then s’pose somebody got to lookin’ through a file of newspapers you had, an’ found every one except the newspaper of the twenty-fourth. That would be sort of a giveaway, too.’ So I started snoopin’ around.”

“And found what?” Duryea asked.

“Found the paper that had pieces cut from it — the same pieces that was on that message. Now then, son, as soon as I found that, I started puttin’ two and two together, an’—”

“Where did you find that newspaper?” Duryea interrupted.

“In Stanwood’s automobile,” Gramps said. “An’ that was the natural place to find it, too. Right in the glove compartment of the automobile.”

“Where is that newspaper?” Duryea demanded.

“You mean you ain’t interested in hearin’ my conclusions about it?” Gramps asked in a hurt voice.

“Not in the least,” Duryea said.

Gramps turned to Milred. “You heard him say that?”

“Definitely and distinctly, and, what’s more, Gramps, I’m warning you. He means it. This is his official mood. He isn’t to be trifled with.”

“Well,” Gramps said, “you can’t ever say that I didn’t offer to give you my theory an’ my explanation.”

“That’s right,” Milred said. “No one’s ever going to claim that, Gramps.”

“Get me that newspaper,” Duryea said. “I should have had it as soon as you came in. That may be one of the most important clues in the entire case.”

“That’s what I was tryin’ to tell you!” Gramps said. “Now, the way I figure it—”

“I... am — not — interested.”

Duryea pronounced the words slowly and distinctly and with an emphasis of cold finality. Then he added: “I want that newspaper — now.”

Gramps pushed back his chair, trotted out across the kitchen to his trailer.

“Watch him, Frank,” Milred warned. “He’s as full of guile as a sausage skin is of sausage. He planned this whole business carefully, dropping in on us just before dinner, mixing up one of his dynamite cocktails, getting you off your guard, and then springing this business about the newspaper.”

Duryea said grimly: “He’s carried this thing too damned far. If there’s anything phoney about that newspaper, he’ll go to jail, and he’ll stay there.”

They heard the door on Gramps’ trailer slam, heard his quick steps on the porch; then he was in the house, smiling disarmingly, handing a newspaper to Duryea.

“Here you are, son. See for yourself where these things are cut out.”

Duryea snatched at the newspaper, opened it, studied carefully the places where the sections had been cut out, then said to Gramps: “All right, Gramps, you’ve stuck your neck out. It happens that I have in my office the original newspaper of this date from which the phrases which composed that message were cut. Obviously then, this paper is spurious, a red herring designed to draw the police off the track. And the planting of such a red herring is a serious offence.

“Now, then, it probably hasn’t occurred to you, but it’s readily possible to prove that this clue has been planted and that this paper is a fraud, by a very simple method. I am having made a series of photographic copies of the so-called suicide note. These photographs are exactly the same size as the original. By using those photographs to check the edges of the cuts in the paper, I can prove my newspaper is genuine and that this is spurious... Get your hat. You’re going to my office, and you can consider yourself virtually in custody until this matter is clarified.”

Gramps said soothingly: “Tut, tut now, Frank. You’re getting yourself all worked up. You shouldn’t get nervous right after you eat.” He beamed at the district attorney paternally, said: “And don’t tell me to get my hat an’ come to your office as though that was some kind of punishment. You know darned good an’ well that’s more of a treat to me than takin’ a kid to a three-ring circus... Come on, son. Let’s get started for your office before you change your mind.”

Milred said: “Watch him, Frank. He’s pulled a fast one. Looks to me as though he might be protecting someone. And with a masculine Wiggins, of any age, the thing to remember is cherchez la femme. I’d consider the secretary, myself.”

Duryea said: “I’m quite certain he’s planned all this carefully — and the moment I demonstrate the strips which were cut from the newspaper and used in that message don’t fit in with this newspaper Gramps gave me, he’s going to jail, and unless he then gives a satisfactory explanation, he’s going to spend the night in a cell. So don’t look for him back.”

Gramps shook his head deprecatingly. “No wonder,” he announced dolefully, “so few people really try to help the law. Officials just don’t seem to want to co-operate... Come on, son. Let’s go.”

They went to the courthouse in Duryea’s car. Once in his office, Duryea called the sheriff, asked him to come at once. The sheriff brought with him freshly developed photographic, full-size copies of the message which had been found in the room with Pressman’s body.

“Now then, Gramps,” Duryea said grimly, “I’m going to show you something.”

He opened the newspaper Gramps had given him, laid the cut spaces over the photographic copy, comparing the edges which had been cut, and looked at Gramp Wiggins accusingly.

“What’s the matter?” Gramps asked innocently.

“This newspaper is a plant,” Duryea charged. “It doesn’t agree in the least with the edges of the words pasted on that message.”

“Well, now,” Gramps said, “ain’t that somethin’.”

“That very definitely is something,” Duryea told him coldly. “It means that you’ve tried to bamboozle this office with a spurious clue.”

Gramps raised his eyebrows. “Meanin’ me? Meanin’ that I have?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your proof of that?”

“You produced the newspaper,” Duryea said, “and that means you’re responsible for it.”

Gramps’ eyes were twinkling. “Well now, son,” he said, “let’s not go off half-cocked on this thing.”

“I’m not going off half-cocked on it,” Duryea said. “It happens that I have the original newspaper in my office safe, the one from which these phrases which make up the message had actually been cut.”

“Well, now,” Gramps said, “what I was gettin’ at is that before you go talkin’ about me cuttin’ up newspapers an’ drawin’ red herrings across the trail, you’d better be certain that it ain’t someone else who’s takin’ you for a ride.”

Duryea said: “One genuine clue and one spurious one. You have produced the spurious one. In view of your activities in the case, I think we’ll place the burden of proof on you.”

Gramps was not in the least ruffled. “Okay, son. Okay, that’s all right. But you keep talkin’ about this other newspaper bein’ the genuine one, the one from which the message was clipped. Don’t you think you’d sorta oughta compare that one with the message?”

Duryea started to say something, then with cold dignity opened his safe, took out a newspaper, opened it, and spread the cut places over the message.

For a moment there was a puzzled scowl on his face as he kept moving the newspaper around, trying to adjust its position; then the scowl gave way to an expression of incredulous surprise.

Gramp Wiggins, observing this expression, fished his pipe from his pocket. “There you are, son. Both of ’em are spurious — and, under those circumstances, it might not be such a good idea to stick your neck out by givin’ this here Mrs. Pressman a third degree tomorrow. It just goes to show you can’t trust evidence that turns up after a crime has been committed.”

Duryea glanced up at the sheriff, said wearily: “All right, Gramps. We won’t need you any more.”

“Then I ain’t under arrest?” Gramps asked with some surprise.

“You are not under arrest,” Duryea told him, “—not as yet. And the sheriff and I have some things to discuss in private... And it might be a good thing for you to keep this entire affair in strict confidence... And if I ever find out who is planting evidence in this case,” Duryea said with sudden savage anger in his voice, “I’ll put him in jail and keep him there.”

“Attaboy!” Gramps said. “Now you’re whizzin’! When you get him, give him the works... Now then, son, would you like to have my theory about that?”

“I would not,” Duryea said coldly.

Gramps looked as though he had been struck in the face. “You mean after I went to all the trouble of findin’ this an’—”

“Exactly,” Duryea said. “This isn’t a game. It isn’t a puzzle contest. It’s a murder case. Someone has been fabricating evidence in that murder case. Frankly, I’m just a little afraid that someone is you.”

Gramps registered an expression of wounded dignity.

“I don’t think you’re deliberately trying to shield a murderer,” Duryea said, “but I do think you’re trying to protect someone, probably a woman, who has enlisted your sympathies. Under the circumstances, the less you say the better. I’m going to handle this case my own way. You can’t give me any help, and I don’t want any hindrance.”

Gramps grinned. “I guess that means you’re wishin’ me good night.”

“That’s right.”

Gramps fumbled with his hat for a moment, walked to the door, paused with his hand on the knob as though about to say something, then grinned, said, “Goodnight,” and ducked out into the corridor.

When he had gone, Duryea looked up at the sheriff, reached wearily for the telephone. “Well,” he said, “I may as well call Mrs. Pressman and tell her she needn’t come up tomorrow.”

“You think he planted that newspaper?” Sheriff Lassen asked after Duryea had completed the call.

The district attorney nodded. “Probably both of them.”

“Somehow, he doesn’t seem to me like a man who’d do that.”

“You don’t know him,” Duryea said. “He wouldn’t do it to protect a murderer. He wouldn’t do it to hamper our investigations. He’d do it to aid them. But his idea of aid would be to have us concentrate on some particular person that he thought was guilty.”

“Yes,” Lassen admitted. “I guess there’s something in that.”

“Tell you what, Pete. Have you got someone you can trust, some deputy on duty that’s immediately available?”

The sheriff nodded.

Duryea walked over to the courthouse window, looked down at the parking space, said: “He’s left his car and trailer out at my place. Get your deputy to rush out there and shadow him. If he’s planting evidence, he’ll go out to that shack before midnight. If he goes out there, I want to know about it. We’ll catch him red-handed, and then I’ll teach him a real lesson.”

“We’d better handle this kinda quietly,” the sheriff said. “You can’t throw your own relative in jail.”

“The hell I can’t,” Duryea said with emphasis.

Pete Lassen gently shook his head.

“Why not?”

“Not with the fight against the courthouse ring that’s going on in this county. You put one of your relatives in jail for tampering with evidence, and by the time the voters got done with us, we’d both be laughed out of office.”

Duryea’s face held an expression of angry futility. “Okay,” he said. “Get your deputy on the job. At least, I can scare him to death.”