The Case of the Musical Cow
- Автор: Гарднер Эрл Стенли
- Год: 1950
- Язык: английский
- Год: Morrow
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Case of the Musical Cow». Краткое содержание книги:
It was there that Rob Trenton found himself on a blissful tour with the lovely, if mysterious, Linda Carroll. And it was there that the bumptious Merton Ostrander joined the twosome and, as far as Rob was concerned, made it a crowd.
But it was on a lonely road outside New York City that the real trouble began. For that was when Rob discovered the cache of dope cleverly concealed in Linda’s car — setting the scene for murder...
“All right,” she said, her voice sharp with indignation, “I’ll explain it, and then I’ll ask you to leave here, and I don’t care if I never see you again.”
“Go ahead and explain it.”
She said, “For reasons which I don’t need to go into here, I didn’t want anyone whom I met on the boat to know where I lived and...”
“Exactly,” Rob said. “Reasons which you don’t want to go into here. Those are the reasons that I’m interested in, that I have a right to be interested in — under the circumstances.”
The older woman, watching Rob with twinkling eyes, said, “You’re certainly leading with your chin, young man. You’re in for it now. But since you’ve made your play, you’ll either have to go ahead and master her now, or be thrown in the ash can.”
“Auntie! You keep out of this!” the girl stormed.
“I’m still waiting for an explanation,” Rob pointed out.
Linda looked scornfully contemptuous. “I hardly expected all these dramatics from you, but since you choose to burst into the house with your trained-dog trick and all the rest of it, I’ll tell you the story — and then you can leave and, so far as I’m concerned, never come back.
“Aunt Linda is my father’s sister. We both have the same given name. Her middle name is Mae and in the family she’s always been known as Linda Mae. I’m simply Linda. After my father died we went abroad last year and we each had our passports. At that time I was living with Aunt Linda, so the address on my passport was this same address here at Falthaven. Since that was still the address on my passport I used it as my address in traveling this summer. Now, does that explain matters?”
“It doesn’t explain why your aunt deliberately lied to me this afternoon,” Rob said.
“I didn’t lie to you, I... I swapped words with you. I didn’t tell you all I knew and I didn’t have to. I told you that I hadn’t been abroad and that no one had been using my passport and that no other Linda Carroll was living here, and that’s the honest truth — even if I did embellish it a little.”
“She seems to be living here now,” Rob said.
“She’s visiting here. After I telephoned her about your visit and what you said about the stolen car, she came down to talk with me. If you want my opinion, young man, you’re making a spectacle of yourself as well as being a fool. You’ve let her put you on the defensive now. That licks you.”
“I don’t want your opinion,” Rob said. “I’m trying to get the facts. As soon as I get at the facts so I can protect myself I’m going to call the police and tell them the whole story.”
“What story?” Linda asked.
“About the fact that your car was used for the smuggling of dope. I can’t believe that you were a party to anything like that, but if you weren’t, then Merton Ostrander...”
Lobo suddenly growled.
“Well,” a man’s voice said from the staircase, “if you’re going to talk about me, Rob, suppose you say it to my face.”
Rob whirled, and Merton Ostrander, fully dressed in tweeds, a faintly cynical smile on his face, came down the stairs.
“All right,” Rob said, “I will say it to your face. Someone has used Linda’s car for the purpose of smuggling dope into this country and an attempt was made to make me the fall guy. I resent it... Lobo, come over here and lie down.”
“I don’t blame you,” Ostrander said, “if your facts are right. If they’re not, you deserve to be thrown out in the street.”
“My facts are right,” Rob said grimly. “Only too right. And if there’s going to be any throwing out, you’d better start calling in help because you’ll need it. I discovered the cache of dope myself and buried it, thinking that would give me an opportunity to find out what it was all about.”
“Did it?” Merton Ostrander asked mockingly.
“It did to this extent,” Rob said. “Someone stole the car, and then when I started to investigate someone kidnapped me. I was taken to a place up the river and imprisoned on a houseboat. Now then, I want an explanation.”
“I don’t blame you,” Ostrander said. “Only you’ve come to the wrong place to get it, but since you’re here, there are a few things you should explain to us, Rob. How does it happen that you were turned loose and come wandering around here at this hour of the night with what quite evidently is a gun in your hip pocket?”
Rob pulled the gun from his pocket. “I confiscated this from one of my captors. I had to shoot twice to keep from being overpowered and recaptured.”
“Kill anyone?” Linda Mae asked almost casually.
For the first time that possibility occurred to Rob. “I doubt it. I just shot in his general direction.”
“But you don’t know whether you hit anyone?” Ostrander asked.
“Frankly, I don’t. And at this point, I don’t much care.”
Ostrander’s look of amused tolerance gave way to friendly laughter. “All right, Rob,” he said, his voice natural for the first time, “let’s have your story of what happened. Then we’ll see what’s best to be done.”
Rob resented having Merton Ostrander act as master of ceremonies. He wondered how Ostrander happened to be there, but he realized there was little he could do except tell his story. It had been one of the basic principles of his dog training to order a dog to do something just when the animal was about to do it anyway. Now Ostrander, by insisting that he tell his story, was turning the tables on Rob. Yet, standing there with the gun in his hand, with all three of them waiting, Rob saw no alternative but to tell what had happened, starting with the time he drove away in the Rapidex sedan.
When Rob had finished, Ostrander, his face grave, said, “But this is serious, Rob.”
“Of course it’s serious.”
“You made your escape from that houseboat and cut the rope that held it?”
Rob nodded. “I cut one rope, cast the other loose.”
“And as I understand it the boat started drifting down the stream. That was when you saw the figure on the deck and fired two shots?”
“That’s right.”
“Why did you shoot, Rob?”
“I wanted them to know I was armed and that it wouldn’t be healthy to rush out after me, trying to hunt me down. And I wanted to keep this man from jumping to the pier.”
“Did you shoot directly at him?”
Rob said, “Of course not. Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t even see the sights. I just shot in the general direction of the boat. I don’t think the bullets came within a mile of the man.”
“You don’t know who this man was?”
“The one who was running on deck when I shot?”
“Yes.”
“No. He was just a figure, a dim figure.”
“But your shots caused him to quit trying to jump to the pier?”
“That’s right, he flung himself down on the deck.”
“And when you dropped those shafts on the leader of the gang, you knocked him out, but his lighted cigar rolled out to one side?”
“Yes.”
“It continued to burn?”
“Yes, I remember seeing the smoke spiral up from it.”
“That’s probably where the fire started,” Ostrander said, “some gasoline must have been leaking and the lighted cigar...”
Linda said with sudden feeling, “Well, I think Rob was wonderful! Only... only I don’t like the way he thought that we... that I...”
She blinked back sudden tears.
“I didn’t, Linda,” Rob said.
“You did so,” she charged.
“Well?” Linda Mae asked. “Wouldn’t you have done the same thing in his place?”
“No,” her niece said. “If you have friends you must have confidence in them.”