“It’s been in your pocket all day?”
“Uh huh. Well, let’s call the sheriff.”
She laughed. “Boy, oh, boy! Won’t Gramps burn when he finds out what’s happened?”
Bill Wiegart straightened from an examination of the type-writer with a magnifying glass. “Not a fingerprint on it any-where,” he said.
“Isn’t that unusual?” Duryea asked.
“Well,” Wiegart said cautiously, “I’d say it was. To tell you the truth, Mr. Duryea, I haven’t had much experience with typewriters. I’m going to do a little checking up.”
“You can’t find a single fingerprint on any part of it?”
“No. It looks as though someone’s gone over it with an oiled rag. Now, that might be all right. Just keeping the typewriter in condition. I suppose the salt air raises the devil with metal parts, and a good caretaker would keep it pretty well cleaned and oiled.”
“How about the keyboard?” Milred asked.
“Well, you’ve got to bear in mind that a person banging his fingers down on a keyboard doesn’t hold his fingers still. There’s a certain twisting motion.”
“Well,” Duryea said, “let’s concede that Stearne used it in writing some letters, that he either wrote them himself, or had them written by someone to whom he had dictated the correspondence. Then let us suppose he went over the typewriter with an oiled rag, cleaning it up preparatory to putting it away. What I can’t understand is why there aren’t fingerprints on it from that last message. If he crawled over to the typewriter and tapped out that message just as he was dying, be certainly should have left fingerprints.”
“You’d think so,” Wiegart said thoughtfully.
“You didn’t go over this before for fingerprints?”
“No, I didn’t. I don’t believe I paid very much attention to the typewriter. Lassen said to concentrate on door-knobs, bits of the brass work around the ship’s rail, catches on the windows, and places of that sort where you’d expect to find prints left by someone who’d broken in or who was escaping after a murder.”
“Get anything?” Duryea asked.
“I got a few prints that don’t tally with those of the two dead men. Of course, you can’t tell. Some of them may be fairly old.”
Sheriff Lassen, who had been prowling around the yacht, came down the companionway. “Find anything, Bill?”
“Not a sign.”
“It may be a plant,” Duryea said, “something to throw us off the trail. Or, more likely, something that would assist one of the claimants in the estate matter.”
Lassen said, “Well, I guess that covers things. Huh?”
Duryea nodded.
“Then let’s go,” Lassen said.
Riding back down California Avenue. Milred, strangely subdued and thoughtful, said, “Frank, put yourself in the position of a dying man. Isn’t it rather odd that he’d try to leave a message on a typewriter?”
“I’ve thought of that,” Duryea said, “but the bullet struck against his spine. He was paralyzed from the waist down. He couldn’t walk, but he could have reached the keyboard of the typewriter. The photographs show that.”
“And he died while he was typing the message?”
“Not necessarily. He was dying when he typed it. The effort was probably too much for him. He thought he could rest and then finish it. When he started to type, he thought he had more strength than he did have. Thought he was going to be able to write a longer message. That frequently happens with persons who are suffering from internal hemorrhage. They don’t realize the extent or gravity of their injuries. They concentrate on doing something and don’t appreciate the fact that they’re dying until their strength gives way entirely.”
She made a little shivering gesture with her shoulders and said, “Well, I guess I haven’t what it takes, after all. I never thought murder was quite as — as gruesome.”
Duryea said, “Murder is a tear across the whole fabric of life. It isn’t just the snapping of one thread. It leaves unmistakable clues if a person has the patience to unravel all of the threads. How about driving me to the office, hon, and then taking the car home? Sheriff Lassen will drive me home when we quit.”
“What are you going to do?”
“The doctors are working. I may find out something from them.”
“And we have a date for a movie tomorrow?”
“Absolutely.”
She drove him to the courthouse. He kissed her, said, “Don’t wait up for me. I may be late.”
Chapter 17
Milred was in the shower when Frank Duryea awoke. He had that peculiarly lifeless feeling which always enveloped him when he had worked too late at night. He knew that it was late; but lacked the energy to pick up his watch from the dresser. He knew he should be getting up, but postponed doing anything about it.
Milred emerged from the shower, fresh and glowing, a rose-colored robe thrown over her shoulders. She saw that he was awake, and said, “ ’Lo, Sherlock.”
“ ’Lo, Watson.”
“Sleep?”
“Uh huh. How about you?”
“Fine, after I once got quieted down. What time did you get in?”
“Nearly two.”
“Good heavens, what were you doing?”
“Oh, a lot of gruesome things,” he said with a little grimace of distaste. “Post mortems, trying to fix the time of death.”
“Were you there?”
“I talked with the doctors, and they insisted on showing exhibits A and B. Doctors are a cold kettle of fish. Haven’t ever seen a post mortem, have you, Millie?”
“No.”
“Don’t.”
“What did you find out about the time of death?”
“You can’t be positive,” he said, “but apparently they died around five o’clock Saturday afternoon. Say between four and six. One thing’s certain. They didn’t eat dinner Saturday night.”
Milred vanished into her dressing closet to emerge presently, pulling a housedress down over her head.
“What time is it?” Duryea asked lazily.
“Eight-thirty.”
“Oh, my gosh!”
“What’s the matter?”
He struggled up out of bed. “Have an appointment with these oil lease men, Elwell & Fielding, for this morning.”
The unmistakable sound of a spoon banging against the bottom of a frying pan came through the open window.
“That,” she said, “will be Gramps calling us to breakfast. I heard him chasing the maid out of the kitchen. That’s what woke me up.”
Duryea grinned. “Boy, I could go for some of his scrambled eggs, and that special brand of coffee he makes. Go tell him to hold it for a minute, and I’ll be there. Just going to jump into the shower, then come over and eat breakfast in my robe.”
“You’ll shock the neighbors.”
“To hell with the neighbors.”
She laughed. “After all, if they’ve stood Gramps this long — I’d better go keep him from beating a hole through that frying pan.”
Duryea jumped into the shower, needled off with cold water, rubbed with a coarse towel, put on underwear, wrapped a heavy robe around him, and shuffled slippered feet to the trailer, where Gramps Wiggins was turning hotcakes by the simple expedient of tossing them up in the air and catching them in the frying pan as they came down. He had both burners on the gasoline stove going, and was working two frying pans, flipping the hotcakes over with his left hand as easily as with his right.
“Come on, sit down, and hop to it,” he said. “This is the kinda grub that really sticks to your ribs. These here are sour-dough hotcakes. Just sink your teeth into ’em — an’ put on lots o’ that maple syrup. Met a chap in a trailer camp in Florida last winter that has a grove o’ sap trees on his place up in Vermont. He sends the syrup to me by mail. Hundred per cent pure, smooth as oil. Them there hotcakes ain’t gonna hurt you, folks; eat all you want.”