The Case of the Backward Mule

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  Clane plodded along through the drab warehouse district until he came to a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant.

  Clane ordered a cup of coffee. “How late are you open?” he asked.

  “Nine o’clock. Used to stay open until midnight when there was a lot of draying down here. Things are quieter now, costs are up and you can’t get help, so I’m closing early.”

  “Any place around here that’s open all night?” Clane asked.

  “Don’t know of any.”

  “Until after midnight?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Wait a minute, There’s a place up the street, two blocks up over on the right. Sid Melrose runs the joint. I think he’s been staying up lately. Used to close, but I think he’s been open now.”

  “Thanks,” Clane said. “I may be on night shift down here and wanted to know where I could come for a cup of coffee.”

  “Most satisfactory way is to carry a thermos-bottle.”

  Clane thanked the man, paid for the coffee, and walked up to the restaurant operated by Sid Melrose.

  There was a sign over the door, Open until 11 PM.

  Clane seated himself at the counter, ordered coffee, toast and eggs.

  The waitress who served him eyed the dollar note which Clane pushed across the counter. “What’s this for?”

  “Information.”

  Her fingers rested on the edge of the dollar note. “About what?”

  “I want to find out” something that happened here last night around closing time. Who was on shift?”

  “I was.”

  “And you’re on again this morning?”

  “Uh-huh, we stagger shifts. Today is my change-over from night shift. I worked until eleven last night and then came on again at eight this morning and work until one. Then I come back at four and work till seven. What did you want to know?”

  “Some time around closing time,” Clane said, “I think a man came in here and wanted to use the telephone. He didn’t have a hat or an overcoat. He was rather tall and had dark hair which he combed straight back, the eyes were dark and …”

  “Sure, I remember him. What do you want to know about him?”

  “What did he do?”

  “He came in here and wanted the telephone. Then he asked for some coffee. He seemed sort of nervous. What about him?”

  “Just trying to check up on him,” Clane said. “It’s all right. Just a personal matter.”

  “Well, he got some nickels and went over to the telephone and dialled a number. He didn’t get any answer, came back and had another cup of coffee, then went over and dialled the same number again …”

  “The same number?” Clane asked.

  “I think so. The first two calls were the same number. At least the first two or three numbers were the same. I happened to notice him when he was working the dial on the telephone. Business was slack and … well, you know how it is, you just sometimes notice people like that. He seemed … well, there was something funny about him. I don’t know exactly what it was but he seemed sort of all on edge.”

  “All right, what happened then?”

  “He didn’t get any answer either time. He came back and had another cup of coffee and then went over and dialled another number. That time he got an answer. He talked on the telephone for a minute or two and then came back and sat down. He seemed more quiet then. About ten minutes later a car drove up outside and the driver tapped the horn. The man got up, shoved a quarter across the counter at me and almost ran out of the place.”

  “Could you see the driver of the car?” Clane asked.

  “Not very plain. It was a woman. She was a young woman, but That’s about all I know.”

  “Blonde or brunette?”

  “I really couldn’t say.”

  “Could you tell me anything about the car?”

  “Yes. It was a convertible, a sporty job. I’m trying to think of what it was about the man that made me watch him, something that wasn’t just… well, it was something that made you think he was in trouble or something.”

  “Something in the way he looked?”

  “Well, not exactly. Something in his manner.”

  “Can’t you think what it was?”

  “I’m trying to.”

  Clane watched her intently. “Something in the way he was breathing?” he asked after a moment.

  “That’s it,” she said. “Why didn’t I think of it in the first place? He was breathing as though he was excited about something when he came in.”

  “Or as though he”d been running?”

  “Well, not just before he came in here, but he might have been running earlier and … you know, he was breathing short and quick-like. You’re wrong on one thing, though. It wasn’t just before we closed up. It was just about ten-thirty when he came in here, and he was out by quarter to eleven.”

  Clane thought that over. “You’re certain?”

  “Absolutely. I was sort of keeping an eye on the clock. I had a date.”

  “You’d know him if you saw him again?”

  “Sure.”

  “I don’t suppose you could give me any clue as to the number he called?”

  “Gosh, no, except that the exchange number was down by the bottom of the dial and the number was up near the top. The exchange number might have been—oh, say, Twin Oaks or something like that, and he was dialling the T and then the W.”

  Clane pushed the dollar note across to her and then extracted a five-dollar note from his note-case and pushed that over to keep the one company. “Thanks a lot,” he told her.

  “Oh, I’m sure you’re welcome. Could I … did you want to leave a number, and in case he should come in again, I…”

  “No, That’s all right,” Clane said. “I dunk I know everything that I need to know. You’re sure the car was a convertible?”

  “Yes. I know that, a dark convertible.”

  “And it was driven by a woman?”

  “I’m pretty certain she was a young woman, but I didn’t get a good look at her—through the doors, you know, and looking out into the night. It was foggy and …”

  “Yes, I know. Thanks.”

  Outside of the restaurant, Terry Clane paused for a moment to take into consideration the various aspects of the problem which confronted him.

  Edward Harold had left the warehouse in something of a panic. He had been running. And the time element indicated the facts were not as the police had reconstructed the murder of George Gloster. In fact, Edward Harold had, perhaps, a perfect alibi if he had only remained long enough in the company of this mysterious woman.

  This woman had not been the party to whom he had first appealed for aid. That party had not answered. So then as a last resort Harold had called an alternate number and that number had responded. A woman in a convertible motor-car had come to meet him. That woman could hardly have been Cynthia. Could it have been her sister, Alma?

  Clane gave that matter consideration and called Alma by telephone. “Let’s try being casual,” he warned. “I didn’t get you up?”

  “Of course not, I’m a working woman.”

  “Working on a portrait?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “No. Some rich nabob wants his wife portrayed on canvas. She admits she isn’t looking quite her best right now, but next summer she intends to take off ten pounds, and those lines on her face are because she’s been under quite a strain lately and hasn’t been sleeping well. She’s quite certain they’ll disappear.”

  “In other words, she wants you to paint her the way she’ll be next summer, and she dunks that will be the way she looked ten years ago.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Nice going,” Terry said.

  “Oh, it isn’t so bad. After all, art deals with composition and lighting and character. The envelope of flesh in which that character is contained is not quite as important as many people think. You know, Terry, I sometimes think that a really good portrait-p
ainter could paint a subject at any age from ten to seventy, and if the portrayal were really faithful, there shouldn’t be a great deal of difference in the eyes, the pose of the head, the set of the mouth. That isn’t as absurd as it sounds. It’s just expressing a principle of character. What have you heard from Cynthia?”

  “I think she’s all right, Alma. I’m not in touch with her right at the moment. Say, how about borrowing a car?”

  “Why, certainly, you may have mine.”

  “What is it? Roadster, coupé, or …”

  “It’s a nice conservative, quiet sedan.”

  “Not a convertible?”

  “No.”

  “I’m trying to find a convertible motor-car,” Clane said. “I want to drive past a building and take some movies of the lines of almost perpendicular perspective. You don’t know anyone that has a convertible, do you?”

  “Gosh, no. Not unless you feel on friendly terms with Daphne.”

  “Who’s Daphne?”

  “Daphne Taonon. Ricardo Taonon’s wife.”

  “Eurasian?”

  “Heavens, no! She’s a blonde show-girl with a figure like an art calendar. And she likes to show it.”

  “She has a convertible?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Is it hers or her husband’s?”

  “Hers individually. No one else ever drives it. Not that I’ve seen. That is, her husband doesn’t.”

  “You don’t know her well enough to borrow it?”

  “Heavens, no. Tell me about Cynthia, Terry. What’s she doing? Have you heard anything…?”

  “I don’t know where she is,” Terry said, “and even if I did … well, you know, the walls have ears and telephone-lines have feelers.”

  “You don’t think that’d tap my line, do you?”

  “Can’t tell what that’d do,” Clane said. “But don’t worry about Cynthia. She’s thoroughly able to take care of herself. I understand, incidentally, the police have some clues that weren’t given to the press. You’ve read the papers?”

  “You mean about Gloster.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve read them. They say someone was hiding in the ware-house and that the police think it was Edward Harold. If he was there, well, that should let Cynthia out of it, shouldn’t it? She couldn’t have put him there.”

  “I should think that’s right,” Clane said, “but let’s wait to talk about that.”

  “When will I see you, Terry?”

  “I’ll be dropping by later on in the day.”

  “Do, Terry, and … well, you know.”

  “I know,” Clane said, and hung up.

  So Ricardo Taonon’s wife had a convertible, and it was her own property, and no one else ever drove it, and Edward Harold had called her not as his first choice but as his second. A woman with a superb figure who liked to show it. Edward Harold’s second choice.

  Terry Clane, standing in the doorway of the telephone-booth at the service station from which he had placed his call, began to breathe regularly and deeply, filling his blood with oxygen, letting the rhythm of his breathing furnish the preliminary foundation for concentration. Then when he had properly reached himself, he threw his mind completely into pin-point focus on the problem which confronted him.

  Edward Harold had an alibi—or did he? When had he jumped from that window? Why had he jumped? Had it been because Gloster had walked in? If that were so, then Gloster had been in the warehouse probably as early as ten-thirty. Yet he had telephoned Clane shortly after eleven. And what of Edward Harold? That man at the time he had jumped through that window was already being sought by the police, a fugitive from justice with a death sentence hanging over his head. Routed unexpectedly from the hide-out where he had established himself for a long stay, fleeing out into the city without hat or coat … The police, already hot on his trail, would redouble their efforts to find him. Every new occupant of a hotel would be subject to suspicion. A man who would try to find a room without baggage at eleven o’clock at night … Airports watched, train terminals under surveillance … What would a man do under those circumstances? Where would he got. How would he hide?

  A few seconds later, Clane became conscious of the service station attendant watching him.

  Clane smiled and started walking away.

  “Hey,” the attendant called, “you all right?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “I don’t know. I thought something had happened. All of a sudden you stood still and looked as though … looked as though you were sleeping with your eyes open.”

  “I was thinking of something,” Clane said, and hurried away.

  He now had the answer that he wanted.

  Clane couldn’t be certain that he was right because he hadn’t had all the facts on which to predicate a solution. But he felt that he knew what Edward Harold would try to do, the only tiling that was left for him to do, if the facts were as Terry Clane understood them.

  Discreet inquiry of the night man at the garage of the apartment-house where Ricardo Taonon lived, plus a ten-dollar note, gave Clane additional information as well as a look at Daphne Taonon’s convertible.

  The car was a dark, low-slung, sleek convertible. It had been returned to the garage at about eight-thirty in the morning. The man didn’t know when it had been taken out. He came on duty at seven o”clock.

  There was no evidence that the car had been off the main-travelled highway, no dust on the inner rims of the wheel. The windscreen was now clean and polished. The day man said he had done that. When the car had been brought in, the windscreen had been streaked with the evidences of moisture which had collected from fog drippings. There had been two clear semi-circular spaces where the windscreen-wipers had fought back the moisture. The sides of the motor-car were still streaked with stain where water, dripping down from the windscreen, had been thrown back by the wind. The day man had suggested to Mrs Taonon that he would “clean it up a little bit”. He just hadn’t got at it yet. He had polished the windscreen, checked the radiator and was about ready to wipe off the car with a damp cloth. It didn’t need a general wash, just a good wiping.

  Clane made note of the licence number.

  The garage-man volunteered more information. The night switchboard operator had told him long distance had been calling Mrs Taonon at intervals all night. There had been no answer apparently both Mr and Mrs Taonon had been out since midnight at least.

  In a hired “drive-yourself” car, Terry Clane started exploring the possibilities.

  Time, he knew, was running out. Yet he had to play a lone hand to hurry would be fatal. His course of action called for self-discipline as rigorous as that inflicted upon himself by a race-track habitué who must discipline himself to a pre-determined manner of betting over a period of weeks in order to play a consistent system.

  Simply because he did not have the time to cover all of the territory, and because he knew that, according to the law of probabilities, the better class of auto courts would have been completely filled up long before midnight, Clane decided on only the smaller, less pretentious ones.

  He had four routes to choose from—one over the Golden Gate Bridge up through Marin County, another across the bay bridge up the Sacramento Road, another down through the Altamont Pass to the San Joaquin and, last of all, the peninsular road down to San José. And it was this last road that Clane took, merely because it would have been difficult to guard. The other roads involved crossing toll-bridges, and plain-clothes officers unobtrusively stationed at the toll-gates could have scrutinized closely the occupants of each motor-car as toll was collected.

  Clane sped on down the wide road, passed all stops until he had left San José behind. Then he started his inquiries.

  It was quite conceivable that Daphne Taonon would have written down a wrong licence number on the register of an auto court, but she was not so apt to have misrepresented the type of car she was driving, since that would have been a glaring discrepancy too easy to che
ck.

  Painstakingly Clane covered all of the smaller auto courts until at length a growing doubt turned to the bitter taste of defeat. He had quite evidently failed to duplicate Edward Harold’s process of reasoning. Or else they had taken a chance in crossing on one of the toll-bridges.

  Clane drove on, confident that he had now passed the last remote point of probability at which the parties would have stopped. He was now persevering only because he could, for the moment, think of nothing better.

  An auto court of the cheaper sort was ahead on the right, and because it offered a good place to turn round, Clane drove up to it. His inquiries were made merely from force of habit. Had a convertible containing a man and a woman registered at about—and Clane, doing quick mental arithmetic as to driving time, fixed the hour as one o”clock in the morning.

  The woman who ran the place was in the aggressive forties, a woman who had been kicked around enough by life to learn to fight back. Her combat with life had given her a “what’s-in-it-for-me” attitude and a theory that, if you didn’t grab what you wanted out of life the minute you saw it, someone else was going to snatch it first.

  Obviously she didn’t want any trouble with the law, but Terry would get no real cooperation from her until she knew more of what was in the wind.

  “We let cabins pretty late sometimes.”

  “My question was specific,” Clane said, and paved the way with a ten-dollar note, his pulse surging with sudden hope.

  “Well, yes. We did let a cabin. What’s your interest in it?”

  “I am trying to find the woman,” Clane said. “I believe she drove away.”

  “Yes, she’s working in town. The husband’s got the flue. He’s staying here in bed.”

  “That’s too bad,” Clane said. “You don’t know where I could locate the woman?”

  “She’s some sort of saleswoman, I think. They’re selling stockings or something. Maybe cosmetics. She said she’d be out early in the morning, I don’t know just what time she left. She was gone when I got up. The husband”s still there, feeling pretty much under the weather. Maybe if you wanted to go into town, you could spot the car, a nice convertible.”