The Case of the Backward Mule

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  Yat T’oy’s face brightened under Terry Clane’s approval. He spoke now in Cantonese. “The man who is the janitor of this building is of my family.”

  Clane nodded silently, knowing that Yat T’oy referred to a relationship for which there is no exact counterpart in the Western world. The nearest that one can approach it is to say “Alle same my cousin.”

  “People who live this flat have much trouble,” Yat T’oy went on, grinning. “Cook-stove make trouble alle time, trouble with electricity, burn out radio machine.”

  Yat T’oy had reverted to English once more as he contemplated the trouble he had getting the apartment.

  “What happened?” Terry Clane asked, fighting to keep back a smile. “What did the janitor have to do with it?”

  “Flat leased by very rich, very greedy woman,” Yat T’oy said. “She owns stock big hotel, but too greedy stay there.”

  “I don’t get it,” Clane said.

  “Has very fine rooms, four, five, six- rooms in big hotel,” Yat T’oy said. “Hotel rooms become very easy to rent. She very greedy. She makes all five rooms into bedrooms and leases flat here. Rent on hotel rooms for one week pays rent on flat for one month. Always same, rich people try get more money. Americans very rich, never so rich have plenty. Always want more.”

  “And I take it she has gone back to live in the hotel now?” Clane asked.

  “Alle same gone back. Very damn fast gone back.”

  “What happened?”

  “Much trouble with flat. Electricity makes big blue flame, burns out fuses, burns out tubes in radio, radio tubes very hard get. Much trouble with stove, much trouble with radiators, make noise all the time, leak water on carpet, very bad.”

  “I see,” Clane said gravely, “and so she preferred the conveniences of the hotel?”

  “She moves.”

  “Soon?”

  “Two weeks. She make trouble, then move.”

  “And how about us?” Clane asked gravely. “Will we have trouble with the radiators? Will there be short circuits in the electric wires? Will there be blowing out of radio tubes?”

  “No trouble,” Yat T’oy said shortly, and began unpacking Terry Clane’s bags. “Janitor alle same my cousin.”

  Clane prowled around the place. Much of the furniture was that which he had left in storage, valuable Chinese pieces which Yat T’oy had reconditioned with great care. For the rest, the Chinese, with that shrewd sense of values which is inherent in his race, had picked up here and there and at auctions and in second-hand shops luxurious furniture of prewar quality. Furniture which had been built to last and needed only reconditioning under the cunning touch of Yat T’oy’s skilful fingers to be as good as new.

  There was about the apartment a comfortable lived-in atmosphere, and so familiar had Yat T’oy made himself with the tastes of his master that things were arranged exactly as Terry Clane would have arranged them had he been there.

  Clane settled down into the luxury of a deep-cushioned chair, reached out mechanically and found that Yat T’oy had placed a humidor with his favourite mixture of tobacco and a pipe-rack at his hand.

  Clane tamped moist tobacco into the pipe, lit a match and puffed contentedly. Yat T’oy watched him solicitously. “Have eaten already?”

  “Have eaten,” Clane said.

  “Brandy?”

  “Good brandy, Yat T’oy?”

  “Number one.”

  Clane nodded. Yat T’oy brought him a snifter glass and Clane spun the golden liquid about, watching the oily streaks which clung to the sides of the polished glass.

  “Where did you ever find brandy like this, Yat T’oy?”

  “China boy work in liquor store,” Yat T’oy said. “Alle same my cousin.”

  Clane let the aroma of the brandy seep to his nostrils, settled back in the chair, his eyes lazy-lidded with contentment, his muscles relaxed.

  “Edward Harold escaped from the police officers, Yat T’oy.”

  “I read in newspapers.”

  “Cynthia Renton disappeared the same night that Edward Harold disappeared. She has not been in touch even with her sister.”

  Yat T’oy’s eyes rested briefly on Clane’s face, then slithered away, then returned once more to his master’s countenance. He blinked attentively, turned his eyes away once more. He said nothing.

  “She will try to get in touch with me. She knows that I am due to arrive at about this time, and the newspaper will report that my boat has docked. Do we have a telephone, Yat T’oy?”

  “Have telephone.”

  “Be careful in case anyone should call to leave a message. Be sure that you get the message exactly right. It is possible the police will listen in on the wire.”

  “Janitor who is alle same my cousin very smart,” Yat T’oy said. “Police no listen in.”

  Clane said “The police are very smart too.”

  “China boy more smart.”

  Clane smiled. “Perhaps,” he said, “the message will be in newspapers. Do you have the newspapers?”

  “Today’s newspapers already here. Also newspapers about escape from policemen of Edward Harold. Also newspapers about murder.”

  “You mean you have back copies telling about the murder of Horace Farnsworth?”

  “Have got.”

  “How on earth did you get them?”

  “China boy works in Red Cross where collect old papers,” Yat T’oy said.

  “And I suppose he is alle same your cousin?”

  “Alle same.”

  “It must have taken much work to go through that mass of papers in order to find the ones you wanted,” Terry Clane said.

  “My cousin help me, I help him. We work at night, not much work.”

  Clane settled down to reading the newspapers.

  Yat T’oy stood for a few moments in the doorway watching him. Then he said “Bell by your chair. You want me you ring a bell.”

  He noiselessly vanished, leaving Terry Clane to concentrate on what had been reported in the daily press of the murder of Horace Farnsworth, the subsequent trial of Edward Harold, the conviction, and then Harold’s dramatic escape.

  According to the evidence as reported in the press, Edward Harold on the day of the murder had called on Horace Farnsworth. Harold, testifying on his own behalf, had insisted that this had been at Farnsworth’s request, and that when he had called on Farnsworth he had found the latter very uneasy, even to the point of being despondent, perhaps frightened. Apparently Farnsworth had wanted to confide in Harold and, according to the defendant, had changed his mind between the time he had telephoned and the time Harold had arrived.

  After some conversation which Harold had described from the witness-stand as “pointless”, Harold had brought up the subject of certain investments Farnsworth was making for a mutual friend, a Cynthia Renton—thinking that perhaps this had been the thing about which Farnsworth wished to consult him.

  Farnsworth, however, had stated that he invested in some securities and hadn’t liked them. He had arranged matters so that Miss Renton could get her original capital out of the investment or, if she desired, hold it for a speculative profit.

  But the place where Harold had trapped himself and the testimony which, when proven false, had brought about his conviction of murder in the first degree was his assertion that he had not, after that first visit, returned to Farnsworth’s house.

  The first visit had concededly taken place about five o’clock in the afternoon. Apparently it had lasted until around five-twenty. It was the contention of the prosecution that about six o’clock Harold had returned. He swore that he had not done so but a neighbour had seen him hurriedly emerge from the front door of Farnsworth’s house, almost run down the street, jump into a car and drive away. The identification was positive and absolute. Another person who had known Harold for years had seen him at a minute or two past six driving his car along the road within a block of Farnsworth’s house. Yet Harold had, at first, sworn positively he
had not returned to Farnsworth’s house after that first visit. Then, confronted with the statements of these other witnesses, Harold had lost his head, become angry and sullen. He had suddenly refused to answer further questions concerning that second visit on the ground that the answers might incriminate him. After that there had been nothing to it. The jury had retired and reached a verdict of first-degree murder with a deliberation of less than an hour.

  The body of Farnsworth, discovered at six-twenty-five by one Sam Kenyon, Farnsworth’s house-man, cook, chauffeur, valet and man-of-all-work, had been carefully examined by a police surgeon who had arrived before seven o’clock. He had sworn that the time of death was between five and five-thirty.

  Sam Kenyon had spent some two hours during the afternoon with friends He had purchased a pair of shoes and a necktie, walked home somewhat leisurely since Farnsworth required only a light supper in the evening. On entering the kitchen, Kenyon had been impressed by something which struck him as highly unusual. There was a kettle of furiously boiling water on the electric stove. The burner under the water had been turned on to its hottest adjustment and the water in the kettle had boiled down until only an inch or two remained.

  Because this indicated Farnsworth had wanted hot water for something and had then forgotten he had put the kettle on the stove, Kenyon had gone at once to Farnsworth’s study. He had found him lifeless, sprawled on the floor, and the servant had immediately telephoned the police. The call had been relayed to a radio car and police had arrived within five minutes to find Farnsworth’s lifeless body—and the kettle still furiously boiling away in the kitchen.

  At this point police, making a further investigation, found the oven of the stove had been heated until its highest temperature had been reached on the built-in thermometer in the oven door. They opened this door, found Farnsworth’s uncovered wristwatch in the oven, bearing traces of water in the mechanism and stopped at five-twenty-six.

  Apparently Farnsworth had in some manner got his watch filled with water, had gone to the kitchen, put on a kettle of water, turned on the heat in both burner and oven, had removed the back from his wrist-watch, put it in the oven to dry out, returned to the study and almost immediately met his death.

  How had he got his watch partially filled with water? Why had he wanted boiling water? The police considered these interesting but incidental questions.

  Studying the reports of the case, Clane realized that the evidence linking Harold with the actual crime of murder was weak and circumstantial. It had been the man”s unfortunate attitude on the witness-stand, his attempt to cover up that second trip, his deliberate perjury, which had convicted him.

  It had been the theory of the prosecution that Harold had killed Farnsworth on the occasion of the first visit, but that after he had returned home Harold had realized he had left at the scene of the crime some evidence which would betray him, and that he had returned to remove that evidence—a very nice, very logical contention, but there had not been the slightest shred of evidence to substantiate it.

  Viewing the case from the viewpoint of a jury, irritated at Harold because of his attempt to conceal that second trip, angry at the man”s clumsy attempt at lying, it was only natural that a first-degree verdict would have been returned. Looking at it from the calm, dispassionate viewpoint of a reviewing tribunal, it would be seen at once that Harold”s conviction was on circumstantial evidence that while he had apparently lied about making a second trip to Farnsworth’s house, yet it could be claimed by a shrewd lawyer that Harold, having returned to Farnsworth’s house on a second visit, a visit which related to some matter so private he did not wish to disclose it to anyone, had entered the house, found the man murdered, and acting upon a sudden surge of blind panic had decided to keep out of it. Having been trapped into a denial that he had made that second trip, he had sought to stick to his story.

  Since it was elemental that circumstantial evidence alone should not be considered by a jury as sufficient to warrant a conviction unless there was no reasonable hypothesis other than that of guilt consistent with the evidence, there was every chance the Supreme Court would reverse the verdict.

  This possibility made the evidence of that kettle of boiling water and the waterlogged wrist-watch in the oven more important than ever. Had Farnsworth had some other visitor and decided to heat a kettle of water because of something this visitor had proposed?—such, for instance, as steaming open the flap of a sealed envelope? If so, who was that visitor? Had he left any clues? And had the wrist-watch got waterlogged while the kettle was being filled in too big a hurry? It was an interesting field for speculation, one that the Supreme Court might well enter into and, having embarked upon such speculation, would possibly feel the case had not been really solved until the mystery of the steaming kettle and the waterlogged watch had been explained.

  Therefore, Harold”s escape became a second major tactical blunder in a case which had been ineptly handled from the beginning.

  Terry Clane folded the papers, replaced them on the table and devoted his thoughts to the case against Edward Harold, a case in which a mere surmise of the police, virtually without anything to back it up other than circumstantial evidence, had resulted in Harold’s conviction. The gun with which the murder had been committed had never been found. There was some weak and inconclusive evidence that it was Harold’s gun. It was conceded that he owned a 38-calibre revolver. The murder had been committed with a 38-calibre revolver. When called upon to produce his revolver, the one which he admittedly owned, Harold had been unable to find it. The gun had apparently vanished from a bureau drawer in which it had been kept. But, as Harold had tried to point out to the police, he simply kept the gun there wrapped in oiled rags. He had had no occasion to look for it or to use it for a year. During that time he had experienced the usual turn-over in help, during a time when labour, restless and prosperous, had made it almost a universal habit to take jobs, work on them for a few weeks and then drift to other jobs.

  In one of the other rooms Clane could hear the steady insistent ringing of a telephone bell. Then he heard Yat T’oy’s muffled voice answering the instrument, and a few seconds later Yat T’oy, shuffling into the room, said “Man who say name alle same Gloster must talk very important. I tell him maybe so you not home I go find out. You home? You not home?”

  Clane gave the matter swift consideration. “I’m home,” he said.

  “Very well,” Yat T’oy said. “You sit still. I bring telephone.”

  Yat T’oy shuffled out. A few moments later he returned with a telephone instrument, which he plugged into a socket near Clane’s chair.

  Clane said “Hello, Gloster. What is it you wanted?”

  Gloster’s voice seemed tense with emotion. “Clane,” he said, “I know it’s late, but I want to see you. I have something to tell you. There are reasons why I can’t go to your apartment. Could you come to the warehouse of the Eastern Art Import and Trading Company?”

  “Why there?”

  “Because there’s something here I want to show you, something I want you to see, and then I want to make a statement to you. It’s important, damned important.”

  “I’ll be there,” Clane said. “What”s the address?”

  Gloster gave him the address, asked him to come at once.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can get there,” Clane said, and hung up.

  He found Yat T’oy’s eyes registering disapproval, but no remonstrance came from the lips of the old servant. He merely shuffled to the closet, brought out Clane’s coat, hat, scarf and gloves.

  It wasn’t until Clane was half-way to the street that he realized the thing he had thought was a cigarette-case in the side pocket of his overcoat was in reality a small automatic which Yat T’oy had thoughtfully slipped into the pocket.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  TERRY CLANE EMERGED FROM THE DOOR of his apartment, turned up the collar of his overcoat against the chill fog which was swirling in and started walking b
riskly down the pavement towards the hotel where he felt certain he would find a taxicab waiting.

  A dark coupe across the street showed a little pinpoint of red light glowing brightly, then fading.

  Momentarily Clane slackened his pace. That would be someone puffing on a cigarette, probably some dumb cop who had been given the job of watching his apartment and who failed to realize that eyes which had been trained in China to observe the most minute details would instantly pick up the glowing end of a cigarette.

  Terry dismissed such espionage as being too clumsy to be worthy of his attention. He heard the car motor start into life. From the corner of his eye, he saw the car make a U turn in the middle of the block, still without the lights being switched on.

  Not until the car had completed the turn and was coming up behind him did the dim parking lights come on. Then abruptly the car gathered speed and drew alongside.

  For a brief moment Clane was startled as he realized that this was no shadowing job. The car was speeding to a point directly abreast, then it slammed to a stop. A door swung open and a rough voice commanded “Get in.”

  Clane glanced over his shoulder, saw, somewhat to his surprise, there was only one person in the car, a huddled, shapeless figure that sat behind the steering-wheel. Nor was there any indication of a weapon. The cigarette had been tossed away and he could see only the vague outline of the shadowy figure.

  Clane glanced up and down the street. At that hour of the night there was no one in sight.

  “Come on,” the voice said gruffly. “Get in.”

  Clane’s ears picked up something incongruous in the command, a vague, indefinite something which clamoured at the threshold of his attention for recognition. There was something wrong with that voice, something… suddenly he had it. It was the voice of a woman.

  Clane turned abruptly, walked to the kerb.

  “Oh, Owl,” the voice said with sobbing anxiety, “please. I didn’t want to shout who I was.”