Frayne, then, faced Vince Lamont. His voice, now, came in a drawl.
“Still Greek to you, Lamont?”
“Worse than ever, inspector,” laughed Lamont, his own eyes not doing such a bad job of bluffing.
“When Mr. Haggerty slips the handcuffs on you, as the murderer of Baa-Baa Jackson, I’ll explain.”
The handcuffs clicked.
“I’ll try to reconstruct the crime for you as nearly as I can,” said the man-hunter. “You and Baa-Baa did have a fight, of course, but I don’t think it was about any little cabaret girl. I think it was because she wouldn’t come across with as much money as you asked for. Right on that, Lamont?”
“Aw—”
But Frayne had started to walk forward. Frayne was flexing the fingers of his right hand. A good many crooks — a good many other people — knew about those fingers. It was said that Frayne, with a mere pressure of them here and there, could cause a man torture. He did not have any sympathy for a killer, either. He did not believe they were sick creatures who should be coddled; he believed they were extremely dangerous people who should be eliminated from the scheme of things.
“Aw... aw, maybe we did have a run-in about jack,” grumbled Lamont, as Frayne’s hand went for a handcuffed wrist.
“I thought so,” said Frayne suavely. “Thanks. Well, I don’t know with what you hit her on the jaw — it’s unimportant, now, and we’ll get it later — but you hit her so hard that you thought you’d nearly killed her. You got frightened, then, and you’d been drinking, and you were sore because you couldn’t get the money. Anyway, you went and grabbed that knife and stuck it in her. Did you say I was right?”
“You leave me alone, Frayne! You... All right, all right! Jeez, I’ll say yes. I got to say yes, ain’t I?”
“Sensible lad. Too bad you weren’t as sensible before you killed her. Then you wouldn’t have done the job. Too bad you weren’t as sensible after you killed her. Then you wouldn’t have pinned all those clews onto yourself!”
“What... what clews?”
“Wait. Let me tell you what you did. You went out the door, after you’d murdered her, and you went to that party downstairs. When you left there, though, you went into the cellar from that door in the back of the main floor hallway. When you got in the cellar you went to the dumb-waiter, and yon hoisted yourself up here. Then you waited until Bethenia let herself in!”
Frayne, paused, started to stretch out a hand. But Vince Lamont, with a cry, had covered his face.
“You imitated a female voice — Baa-Baa’s voice — and told the maid to clean up the front room and not to disturb you until eleven. It isn’t so difficult, imitating a female voice, especially when that voice is supposed to come from a person just waking from a sound sleep. Anyway, as the maid came into this front room, and you heard her start to clean, you sneaked out of the bedroom and again made for that dumb-waiter in the kitchen. Then you let yourself down. You hid in either the cellar or the hallway downstairs. After a few minutes you came and rang the bell!”
Frayne paused. He pointed to Blondy Baker.
“This lad? Where does he come in? That was just one of those things that happen. You heard him ring the bell and knock at the door, when you were waiting here with the corpse. You probably peeked out of the window to see who it was. You brought his name up to me because you thought you might pin something on him. You thought you had a break there, didn’t you?”
Lamont was swaying.
“I asked you a question, Lamont,” came Frayne’s voice. “Answer that one and answer the rest. Have I or have I not doped it as it all happened?”
Lamont uncovered his face. It was a very weak face, now. A very stunned face. Dazedly, he nodded his head.
“Your clews?” Frayne was saying, his own voice quickening. “That dumb-waiter rope was hard on soft hands. You left blood on it. The rope left little particles of hemp in your bruises and blisters, too, as Denham saw with the magnifying glass. Your shoulder blades, as you went down the shaft brushed against the kalsomined wall. My dear fellow, you should see how the back of your coat looks. For one as particular about his clothes as you are, you’d be damned ashamed of yourself. But another thing, too. How could a woman speak at around nine o’clock when as reputable a physician as Dr. Grady will testify she was killed in the vicinity of four?”
Vince Lamont didn’t answer this one. He sagged forward, a great gulping sob coming from his throat.
Frayne didn’t expect him to answer. Didn’t want him to answer. He was speaking to Geogan.
“Take him away, lieutenant.”
A Fair Reward
by Erle Stanley Gardner
Clint’s lie detector was a strange contraption, and he put it to strange uses in the Thurmond Murder Case...
Chapter I
A Backwater of Life
Governor Kendall blotted the signature, laid down the pen and whirled the big executive chair through a complete half circle to regard his visitor.
“Clint, do you know why I sent for you?”
The dapper individual on the other side of the desk shrugged his shoulders.
“I might guess — wrong.”
The Governor nodded. “And again you might guess right. Try.”
Clint Kale smiled, and there was a trace of mockery in that smile.
“Something to do with my work in psychology?”
“You’re asking questions. I told you to guess.”
“Some mission you want to have me undertake, and are having difficulty getting the ice broken?”
The Governor frowned.
“Hang it, Clint, it’s your coldblooded efficiency, your ever-present air of supercilious superiority that gets you into trouble!”
Clint smiled affably.
“Really?” he drawled.
“Yes, really! You remember that talk you made at the club the other night, about the fallacies of circumstantial evidence? You claimed that circumstances could lie just as well as human witnesses.”
Clint Kale reached for a cigarette.
“Ah!” he said. Then, after an interval during which he lit the tobacco and exhaled smokily: “So you’re wondering if she’s really guilty?”
The Governor started, flushed.
“I haven’t said so.”
“You were about to.”
The executive pulled a black cigar from a desk humidor, bit the end off with a snap of his decisive jaw, regarded his visitor over the flare of a match.
“Suppose we eliminate the mind reading.”
“You asked me to, you know.”
“Yes. You’re right. Hang it, you’re always right. That’s the irritating thing about you, Clint.”
He paused for a moment, and Clint bowed.
“All right. This is confidential,” snapped the harassed executive. “Jane Thurmond, fifty-two, convicted of first degree murder, sentenced to death, and the papers are urging me to sit tight and let the sentence be carried out.”
Clint nodded.
“Circumstantial evidence,” he said.
“Yes, and no. Partially circumstantial evidence. Partially direct testimony. But here’s the rub. If the woman had any sex appeal the newspapers would be singing another tune. If she’d had any looks the jury would never have convicted her. You can’t imagine an adventuress of twenty-five or six with pretty ankles and a baby stare, having been convicted of anything on that sort of evidence.
“It was because this woman was a coarse-skinned product of half a century of work that the jury rushed in and made short work of it. They weren’t out two hours!”