Traps Need Fresh Bait

Chapter 6

I made it a point to keep away from the office and from all of my accustomed haunts. I had coffee and ice cream in a little French restaurant where most of the patrons were regular and where they didn’t try to hurry anyone through the meal.

I bought the early edition of the afternoon paper and read everything I could find about the murder of Dale Finchley.

Finchley was a distinguished member of the Bar, but his practice was largely political. He was seldom seen in court; in fact, he was known as a man who kept his clients out of court, and most of his clients were the sort of men who would pay big money to be kept out of trouble.

Finchley had a palatial house in which he lived by himself, having servants come in by the day. He was a widower and something of a recluse, although he frequented a couple of exclusive clubs. Wealthy, socially acceptable, entirely unencumbered, affable, polished, magnetic — he was much sought after.

The man was an avid reader and maintained a library in his house which was well stocked with books. In this room, old-fashioned, overstuffed leather chairs and comfortable reading lights gave Finchley a chance to spend many of his evenings in quiet relaxation.

Friends stated that the lawyer had expensive radio and television sets; that he listened to news, to certain commentators, and to the weather. But, aside from that, he had little use for those channels of amusement which had so changed the reading habits of the nation.

He had a study in his house on the second floor where he transacted much of his business. And it was rumored that many of his clients preferred to drop in at night and discuss their problems in the big old-fashioned library downstairs rather than be seen going to Finchley’s office by daylight.

At the time of his death, Finchley had evidently been having a quarrel with someone who had aroused his anger. It was not known whether this person was a man or a woman. It was known that Finchley had been shot once with a .38 caliber revolver; but the murderer had evidently taken the gun away with him, as police found no trace of the weapon.

It was thought that perhaps Finchley had been preparing to go out, because there was a brief case on a table at the head of the staircase which contained a summary of bids which were being submitted on a grading, road-development and storm-drainage project in a sub-division, for which Finchley acted as attorney.

These were not sealed bids but were in a file marked “Highly Confidential” and were not supposed to be given out until the contract was awarded.

Because of the position of the brief case and the contents, police felt that Finchley had intended to see some member or members of the subdivision project that night. But each of the members stated that, while he would not have been surprised if Finchley had called him to ask for an appointment, he had had no communication from him on the evening of his death.

However, police felt the only explanation for the brief case’s being on that little table at the head of the stairs was that Finchley was either intending to go out and take the data with him or was planning to go to the library on the lower floor and discuss details with some member of the commission. Police intimated that they would appreciate it if all members of the commission would submit a schedule of where they had been during the evening, and particularly at what hours they had been absent from their homes.

Police said they wanted these schedules to check and see if Finchley might have been trying to get in touch with some one of the members but had been unable to reach him.

Orville Maxton, one of the commissioners, resented this request by the police. “It is too much like asking us to furnish an alibi,” he is reported to have snapped. “I’ll be damned if I do it!”

Police had learned that Finchley was inclined to keep large sums of cash in the house. His safe was opened in the presence of a state inheritance tax appraiser and was found to contain some one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash. There had, however, never been the slightest suspicion that Finchley was putting away money in the form of cash in order to avoid paying an income tax, because he deposited his earnings, then withdrew large sums of cash.

It was generally understood that Finchley had been dealing with one or more lobbyists whose identities were unknown. These lobbyists were known for receiving large sums of money for which they made no accounting except to “get results”. Presumably the money went to political candidates for “campaign expenses”.

Finchley had, from time to time, told associates that he himself made substantial contributions to the campaign expenses of various prominent public figures. And it was known that many of the political giants in the state sought Finchley’s advice from time to time.

Police had recovered the fatal bullet and announced that it had been fired from a .38-caliber Colt revolver.

Had the weapon been a so-called automatic, the ejected empty cartridge case would have been found in the study. No such cartridge case was found. There had been but one shot fired, according to the testimony of the neighbors who had heard Finchley’s voice raised in anger, quite evidently having a quarrel with some individual.

Because one of the neighbors had distinctly heard a woman scream, it was thought that perhaps a woman had wielded the fatal gun.

The newspaper painted a somewhat cautious picture of a middle-aged, honored member of the Bar: the confidant of important political figures in state and city politics; a big, dignified individual who had, at the time of his death, been jarred from the even equanimity which usually characterized him — had lost his temper and had shouted curses.

I read the newspaper account twice in order to see if there was anything I had missed.

How did the person who hired Daphne know that that brief case would be on the table at the head of the stairs? It seemed possible that Finchley had told him so. It was also quite possible that when Finchley had an appointment to discuss business matters with someone in the library he would collect the data from his office, bring it home and put it there on the little table, where it would be available, either from his study or in going down for a consultation in the library. It was also possible Harper knew of this custom.

Under those circumstances, what about Daphne?

Had she been used in a daring scheme to get those documents? And perhaps had picked up the wrong brief case? Or did she pick up the right brief case?

There was one possible explanation.

It was mentioned in the newspaper that the nature of the improvements covered in the bids consisted of a package running generally in the eight-hundred-thousand-dollar figure.

It was quite possible that the brief case containing forty thousand dollars was a so-called “good faith” deposit on the amount of an eight-hundred-thousand-dollar bid which had just been made and the deposit accepted.

Daphne’s false affidavit not only placed her in the power of the people who were running the conspiracy but made it so that, if she had ever repented of the part she had played and took the stand to tell her story, her testimony would be promptly discredited by showing that she was willing to commit perjury for hire.

I finished my light lunch and again called the second number Adams had given us. The girl who answered the telephone told me that Mr. Adams had not been in, that he was keeping an important luncheon engagement; said if I would leave my name she would give Mr. Adams any message I cared to transmit, but she thought it might be late in the afternoon before he came in.

I said, “All right, I’ll leave a message for him. Tell him it’s about an ad in the paper. Tell him I’ve been trying to get in touch with him.”

“What’s the name?” she asked.

“Adams,” I said.

“No, no. Your name.”

“Tell him it’s Mr. Trubel calling — T-R-U-B-E-L.”

“Very well, I’ll tell him”

I said, “You might also tell him there are several ways of spelling my name,” and hung up the phone.