“That’s right.”
“Now where did you get that taxi?”
“It was one I just happened to find cruising along the street.”
“Lucky, that’s what you are,” Malloy said. “You know, lots of people would be prowling around the street looking for a taxicab for an hour or so and wouldn’t get it. But you just pop out of your apartment and bang, There’s a taxicab right there. That right?”
“Not right there, I had to walk two or three blocks.”
“Walk two or three blocks. Well, well, well, think of it, stepping out and finding a taxi within two or three blocks. That’s marvellous. That’s really wonderful. I guess you’re just lucky. Perhaps it’s a good thing you didn’t talk baseball and get a bet out of him, Fred. Mr. Clane’s lucky enough, so he might have won just on sheer luck, ha, ha! Now right this way, Mr Clane. But before we do that, let’s pause here just for a moment. Your taxi swung around and made a turn. Yes, I can see it did. Here”s some tracks that must have been made by the car you came down in. So the taxi stopped about here and let you off.”
“That’s right.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I walked towards the door of the building.”
“Tut, tut, tut, Mr. Clane,” Malloy said. “You mustn’t do that.”
“Mustn’t do what?”
Malloy was grinning at him. “Mustn’t cheat your cab-driver out of his fare,” he said. “You told me you let the cabby go.”
“That’s right. I did.”
“Then you must have paid him off.”
Clane smiled. “I overlooked that.”
“You mean you overlooked paying him off?”
“No, overlooked telling you about it.”
“Come, come, Mr. Clane, you mustn’t do that. Now, as I remember it, You’ve had quite a bit of rather unusual mental training?”
Clane said nothing.
“Seems to me I heard once that you knew all about concentration. I recall that in the Mandra case the district attorney told me to watch out for you. A man with a trained mind that way mustn’t forget those little things. Now, don’t misunderstand me, Mr. Clane, I want you to tell me everything you did, absolutely everything. Understand?”
“I understand.”
“Nothing is too trivial. Nothing is too small. I want you to just show me what you did and tell me what you did. Now you were standing right here when you got out of the taxicab?”
“Well, about over in here,” Clane said.
“All right, you were standing over there. Now you reached down in your pocket and took out some money and paid the cab?”
“That’s right.”
“How much was the amount of the note?”
Clane suddenly realized the trap into which he had been led. Inspector Malloy would subsequently check up on the exact distance from a point within two or three blocks of his apartment to this warehouse. Clane, having recently arrived from the Orient, being unfamiliar with present taxicab rates and not knowing the distance, would be certain to blunder if he had not come in a taxicab.
Clane’s mind raced to meet the situation. He answered Malloy’s question with no apparent hesitancy. “I don’t know, Inspector. I gave the man a note and told him to keep the change.”
“A note?”
“That’s right.”
“What kind of a note? Dollar note? Two-dollar note? Five-dollar note?”
“A two-dollar note.”
“Well, well, well, well,” Inspector Malloy said. “That’s generous of you. The fare probably wouldn’t have been that much.”
“I didn’t think it would be, but didn’t know.”
“You didn’t look at the meter?”
“No, I didn’t. I was thinking about something else and just got out and handed the man a two-dollar note.”
“Well now, That’s a point, Mr Clane. You see now why I told you that no detail was too small. We might have had some trouble finding the cab-driver who drove you down here. But the way you handed him a two-dollar note and told him to keep the change, we shouldn’t have any difficulty. Lots of people consider two-dollar notes bad luck, you know. A cabby wouldn’t refuse to take it, but he’d change it into something else first chance he had. That’s a break for us, Mr Clane. A two-dollar note, and told him to keep the change. That shows how it is in this game. You just can’t overlook anything, no matter how small it is. You see what you’ve done? You’ve given us an excellent means of finding that cab-driver. That’ll be a break for you because he’ll substantiate your story. Now you gave him a two-dollar note and told him to be on his way?”
“That’s right.”
“Now why did you come here in the first place?”
“Because Mr Gloster asked me to meet him here.”
“Asked you to meet him here? Now that’s strange. Rather a peculiar place for an appointment, isn’t it?”
“I thought it was after I arrived.”
“That’s right. The lights weren’t on, you said?”
“No, they weren’t on.”
“District was all dark?”
“Yes.”
“And you were certain Gloster had told you to meet him here?”
“That was the address he had given me.”
“And how did he ask you?”
“Over the telephone.”
“Over the telephone. Know what time that call came in?”
“No, I don’t. It was some time after eleven.”
“About how long before you got here?”
“Oh, within, say, twenty minutes.”
“Within twenty minutes. Now where was he telephoning from?”
“He didn’t say.”
“But you assumed he was telephoning from here?”
“Well, I didn’t know. He had told me to meet him here, and I told him I would.”
“Quite friendly with him, were you?”
“No, I was not friendly with him.”
“Not hostile to him, were you? Surely you didn’t have anything against the man?”
“No.”
“Just more or less indifferent?”
“More or less.”
“Well, which is it? More? Or less?”
Clane laughed and said “It’s neither. I was just indifferent to the man.”
“But you knew him?”
“Yes, I knew him.”
“And you’d got off the boat from China this afternoon, I believe?”
“That’s right.”
“And then had a session with the police. That was unfortunate. I’m sorry about that. Do you know the first thing I said when I heard that that’d grabbed you at the dock and taken you up for questioning? I said “That’s too bad. That really is? Here’s Mr. Clane just arrived from China. He’s been away from this country for a long time and there are people he wants to see and … well, It’s just too bad, That’s all.””
Clane waited, knowing that Malloy would give him no respite from the flow of seemingly innocent questions which were, nevertheless, designed to trap Clane into such a position that the incongruity of his statements would soon become apparent.
Knowing Inspector Malloy’s technique from previous experience, Clane sought to take advantage of every second’s lull in the conversation to think ahead.
“So you got off here and found that this man Gloster wasn’t here and paid off the cab.”
“That’s right.”
“Didn’t the cab-driver ask you if you wanted him to wait?”
“Yes.”
“And you told him no?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re a brave man, Mr Clane. But then I suppose You’ve been in lots of tough places in your life, and a dark section of a big city doesn’t hold any particular terrors for you. But as you so aptly pointed out, a person would have to walk perhaps for a mile or two in order to find any telephone down here, and It’s pretty dark and deserted. Not the sort of district you’d pick out for an evening stroll, is it
?”
“No.”
“And yet, despite the fact that you had an appointment with Gloster, that Gloster apparently wasn’t here to keep that appointment, that twenty minutes had elapsed from the time Gloster had telephoned you and he still wasn’t here, and the building was dark, and the district seemed to be deserted, you let the cab-driver go?”
“That’s right. You see, I felt certain Mr. Gloster would be here.”
“You knew he was a man of his word, eh?”
“I thought he’d be.”
“A great deal of confidence to have in a man you hardly knew. I believe you said you hardly knew him?”
“I knew him. I wasn’t particularly friendly, but I wasn’t unfriendly. I just knew him.”
“Just a matter of indifference, I take it.”
“That’s right.”
“We’ve been all over that before, haven’t we? Ha, ha! We keep going around in circles. Well, let’s get away from that circle. Now, did you notice this motor-car parked over here when you drove up?”
“I did.”
“Did it occur to you that that might be Gloster’s motor-car?”
“I didn’t think very much about it one way or the other.”
“Well, it’s his motor-car.”
“Yes, I assume now that it must have been. Unless Gloster came here by cab.”
“That’s right. That’s Gloster’s motor-car. It was parked there, right in the same position when you arrived?”
“Well, that’s fine. Then we know that Gloster must have been here and lying dead in that office while you were out here paying off me cab-driver. Giving him a two-dollar note and telling him to keep the change. That’s right, isn’t it, Mr Clane?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, then, we may assume that the cab bill was less than two dollars. Probably less than a dollar seventy-five. If it had been more than a dollar seventy-five, the cab-driver would have told you about it. He’d have wanted more man a two-bit tip. Well, perhaps more man a dollar and eighty cents. So we’ll assume that from the place you came to this place the bill was less than a dollar and eighty cents, and you let the cab-driver go. All right, we’re that far. Now you watched me cab drive away, didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You didn’t?”
“No. I started right for the door of the Eastern Art Import and Trading Company here.”
“Started right for the door?”
“That’s right.”
“Despite the fact that the building was dark and the man you expected to meet apparently wasn’t here, you started for the door?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, now, isn’t that a bit unusual, Mr Clane, for a person to try to enter a dark building where apparently no one …”
“I didn’t say I tried to enter the building.”
“But you did enter it, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then do you want me to understand that you entered it without trying? Ha, ha, ha! That’s rather illogical, Mr. Clane.”
“Perhaps,” Clane said, “you’d better let me go ahead and give it to you in narrative form the way it happened.”
“Oh, we’re doing very well by this question-and-answer method. It enables me to keep right on the subject. But let’s see now. You walked towards the entrance of the building, but you didn’t intend to enter. Is that right?”
“I intended to stand in the doorway of the building, waiting for Mr Gloster. There was no particular reason to remain standing here in the middle of the street.”
“Well, That’s right. It’s not the middle of the street. It’s pretty much to one side of it, but I can see your point. You went over intending perhaps to sit down on the doorstep there?”
That’s right,”
“Well, looking at it that way, that’s perfectly logical, Mr Clane. So you went over and sat down on the doorstep?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You didn’t?”
“No.”
“But I thought you told me That’s what you intended to do?”
“It is.”
“Then something changed your mind. You must have seen something. You must have noticed something a little out of the ordinary.”
“That’s right.”
“What was it?”
“When I got over here, I saw that the door was partially open.”
“Well, now that’s something, Mr Clane. That’s a very fine point, a very fine point indeed. The door was partially open. You see how we’re getting things just by having you go over every detail of what happened. That door being partially open may be quite a clue. You’re sure the door was partially open?”
“That’s right.”
“So you walked right in?”
“No,” Clane said, “I called first.”
“You called. What did you call?”
“I said “Oh, Gloster!”
“And you got no answer, I take it?”
“That’s right.”
“So then you walked right in in the dark?”
“No, Clane said, “I didn’t. I had a little torch in my pocket.”
“A little torch,” Malloy said. “Well, now, That’s something. You really go prepared, Mr Clane. You really do. When you go to call on a person, you take a torch with you.”
Clane said, somewhat angrily “It’s not an unreasonable precaution. When I was in the Orient, I never went out with-out …”
That’s it. That’s it, Malloy said, his voice showing relief. “I’d forgotten about your being in the Orient. Of course, that explains it. Here a person ordinarily wouldn’t take a torch in going to pay a sociable visit. But you’ve been in the Orient. Streets are narrow and dark, and … why, that accounts for it. You’ll pardon me, Mr Clane. Go right ahead. You had a little torch so you took the torch out and walked into the office …”
“No,” Clane said. “Remember I told you about the light-switch. I took the torch out and stepped inside the door and looked around for a light-switch. I found the light-switch right there by the door. Apparently It’s a master switch that turns on all the lights in the building.”
“Of course,” Malloy said, his voice indicating that he was disgusted with himself. “I remember you told me you turned on the lights. You used your torch to look for a light-switch, and then you found the light-switch and turned on all the lights and then you put the torch back in your pocket.”
“That’s right.”
“And oh, by the way, you were alone, Mr Clane? I didn’t ask you specifically about that, but I gather you were alone.”
“If there had been anyone in the taxicab with me, I’d have told you,” Clane said.
“I’m satisfied you would. I’m satisfied you would. But you know the way things are, Mr Clane. I’m just an inspector and I’m supposed to make a report, and I’m supposed to cover everything in that report—absolutely everything. Now go right ahead. You were in the building here all alone. The lights had snapped on and you could see the entire warehouse and that door over there to the office? Now let’s just go stand right in the position where you were when you turned the lights on. All right. You were standing right here. Now you put the torch back in your pocket, I take it. There was no need for having a torch after the lights came on.” That’s right.”
“Then you put the torch back in your pocket and stood there with the lights on. Now how about this door into the office here? Was that open?”
“It was slightly open.”
“So you walked right in?”
“I paused and called out Gloster”s name.”
“I see. And then you pushed the door open.
“That’s right.”
“And what was the first thing you saw?”
“I don’t know. I just saw the room generally.”
“You didn’t see the body right away?”
“Not right away. No.”
“Now did it occur to you, Mr Clane, that you�
��d gone rather far? That you’d gone to a perfectly strange place, one in which you had no interest, had turned on the lights, and entered the place?”
“Not right at the time,” Clane said. “One step sort of led to another rather naturally.”
“I see. But later on it occurred to you that your actions were … well, shall we say, just a bit unusual?”
“Not unusual, I would say. But the culminating effect of those actions was, of course, to leave me standing in this room.”
“Exactly. And you put that rather cleverly, Mr Clane. Rather unusual for a man who was meeting a man who wasn’t even a friend, a man to whom he was more or less indifferent. You just walked right in, didn’t you?”
“Well, when I saw the open door, I stepped inside. And then I looked for a light-switch, and then I saw the light-switch and saw this other open door, and stepped in here.”
“Yes, I can see when you put it that way that one thing sort of led to another. Now go ahead, Mr Clane. You saw the body.”
“That’s right.”
“And what was the first thing you said when you saw the body, Mr Clane?”
“Why, I didn’t say anything.”
Malloy looked at him in surprise. “You didn’t say anything, Mr Clane?”
“Nothing.”
“Why, why not? Didn’t it impress you as being unusual to find a body lying here?”
“Naturally.”
“And yet you didn’t mention it, didn’t say a word?”
“To whom would I have addressed the remark?” Clane asked.
Inspector Malloy slapped his thigh with his palm. “Of course,” he said, “you were alone. I’d overlooked that minute. Wasn’t anyone with you? A woman perhaps?”
“I think we’ve already gone over that.”
“So we have, so we have. But I just wanted to be certain. That’s right. You didn’t say anything because there wasn’t anyone with you to say it to. You’re not the type of person who would be apt to go around talking to yourself. So you saw the body and then what did you do?”
The Case of the Backward Mule Page 9
