Lieutenant Tragg rang the front doorbell, then raised his hat as Mrs. Gentrie opened the door.
“I’m sorry to keep on disturbing you,” he said, “but there are one or two minor matters on which I have to get more information.”
She seemed apprehensive for a moment, then smiled and said, “Come right on in, Lieutenant.”
“I’m not inconveniencing you?”
“Not at all, but now those other officers just came bursting in here without so much as a by-your-leave or without taking their hats off. You’re always a perfect gentleman.”
“Thank you,” he said, and then added after a moment, “but let me put in a good word for the hard-boiled officers. They’re overworked and have so many things to do, they simply don’t have time to think of people as human beings. They regard them as witnesses, suspects, possible victims, and accomplices — if you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I see,” Mrs. Gentrie said, ushering Tragg into the living room.
Rebecca looked up with a quick smile, a smile that was almost a simper. “Good afternoon, Lieutenant.”
Tragg came across to stand before her. “And how are you today?” he asked.
“I’m fine, thank you.”
“Well, you’re certainly looking well.”
“Isn’t she,” Mrs. Gentrie said. “I believe murder cases agree with her. She’s perked up no end.”
“Now, Florence,” Rebecca said, “you’re talking as though I had been an invalid.”
“Don’t be silly. But you must know you’re looking a lot better, and I think you’re feeling a lot better. Now that you have something to interest you.” She turned to Lieutenant Tragg, and said, “Rebecca spends too much time in her darkroom, and she stays in the house too much of the time. I keep trying to persuade her to get out, and take more exercise, but I don’t have much luck.”
“Well, sakes alive, what’s a body going to do?” Rebecca demanded. “I never stand a chance at getting the family car — even if I knew how to drive, which I don’t. And as far as walking is concerned, it isn’t any pleasure to get up and pound your feet to pieces on the cement sidewalk while automobiles go whizzing by and spewing a lot of poison gas into the atmosphere. I don’t see why they allow automobiles on residential streets, Lieutenant. I think it’s an outrage and a menace to health.”
“It may be at that,” Tragg agreed. “Are there any new developments?”
Mrs. Gentrie shook her head.
Rebecca, having started to talk, rambled on. She said, “Mr. Mason was out here just about an hour ago. He was making what he called a final check-up.”
Tragg’s finely chiseled features lost some of their boyish look. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Mr. Mason. He’s been out here several times, hasn’t he?”
“Well, off and on,” Rebecca said.
Lieutenant Tragg was looking at Mrs. Gentrie. “I wonder just what Mason’s interest is in the case,” he said.
“Why, what do you mean?”
Tragg said, “Mason is a lawyer. He doesn’t go around solving mysteries. He isn’t particularly interested in apprehending murderers. He’s interested in making fees, and he makes fees because he represents some one client. I haven’t been able to find out whom he’s representing in this case. He hasn’t said anything, has he?”
Mrs. Gentrie said, “Well... no. I can’t say that he has.”
He frowned. “Rather strange. Mrs. Gentrie, I am going to have to talk frankly with you about rather a disagreeable matter.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“It’s about your oldest son.”
“Yes.”
“I’m wondering if you’ve found him always truthful?”
Mrs. Gentrie said somewhat defiantly, “Junior is a good boy.”
“Of course he is,” Tragg said. “But I am asking you if you have found him entirely truthful.”
Rebecca, who had been squirming uneasily on her chair, anxious for an excuse to enter the conversation, said, “Of course, Florence, you must admit that since he’s started going...”
Florence turned to her. “Please, Rebecca,” she said.
Tragg was apologetic, but insistent. “This is rather embarrassing to me,” he said, “but I think your sister-in-law was commenting on the exact phase that I wanted to bring up, Mrs. Gentrie.” He turned to Rebecca. “You were going to say that since he became interested in that stenographer next door, he’s been a little secretive, weren’t you?”
Rebecca sniffed. “Secretive’s no name for it. There’s no good going to come of it, if you ask me. A young boy like him running around with a woman that’s so much older. They certainly didn’t do anything like that when I was a girl.”
Mrs. Gentrie said doggedly, “Rebecca, I think it would be better if you left Junior out of it.”
Rebecca said, “It isn’t anything against Junior as much as it is against that little minx. She has that butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth manner of looking at you. And she says” — and here Rebecca’s voice changed entirely to assume a startling likeness to that of Opal Sunley — “ ‘Good mo ahning, Miss Gentrie — ahnd how’s all the fahmily today?’ I feel like up and giving her a piece of my mind, just coming right out and saying, ‘They’d be very well, thank you, if you’d just leave your painted finger hooks out of Junior and let him grow up as a normal boy should.’ ”
Mrs. Gentrie said sternly, “Rebecca! Stop it!”
Tragg flashed Mrs. Gentrie his best smile. “I’m sorry. I’m quite certain it was my fault. I led her into it, and, as you probably realize, I did it with a purpose. Mrs. Gentrie, are you absolutely certain that your son was in bed when that shot was heard next door?”
Mrs. Gentrie said slowly, “No. I’m not certain he was in bed.”
“Are you perhaps certain that he wasn’t?” Tragg asked, his voice quietly insistent.
“I don’t know. What makes you say that?” she asked.
“I’m not certain that I know myself,” Tragg observed, still smiling, “only it impresses me that you’re a very efficient mother, that you keep an eye on your children, that in the event you heard something you thought might be a shot, your first idea would be to look for the safety of your children. And, as I understand it, Junior’s bedroom is between your room and the head of the stairs.”
Mrs. Gentrie met his eyes steadily, and asked, “Is there some particular reason why you’re trying to drag Junior into this?”
“I’m not trying to drag him into it, Mrs. Gentrie, but I think it’s only fair to tell you that the two fingerprints on the telephone in Mr. Hocksley’s house are those of your son.”
Mrs. Gentrie started to say something, then changed her mind and was silent.
“The paint-smear fingerprints on the telephone were made by someone who had touched the paint your husband had placed on the garage door. He didn’t finish that painting until around nine-thirty at night as I understand it. Obviously then, your son, who was out at the time, returned home sometime after that, entered this house, probably in the dark, went down to the cellar for some purpose. Without realizing that the garage door had been painted, he came groping his way toward it. I think you follow me, Mrs. Gentrie. If he’d been using a light, or if a light had been on in the cellar, he’d have seen the fresh paint on the door, and, moreover, wouldn’t have been groping along with his hands outstretched.”
Rebecca said, “I think you’re quite right, Lieutenant. Personally, I thought I heard someone moving around here in the corridor just about the time the noise of the shot wakened me.”
“Someone moving around in the house?” Tragg asked her.
“Yes.”
“And you said you thought you heard someone moving, Mrs. Gentrie?”
“No. I heard Mephisto, the cat.”
“Yet you got up and got your husband to go downstairs?”
“Well, yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I was worried.”
“About what?”
“I thought that noise might have been a shot.”
“You didn’t think it came from this house?”
“Well, no — that is, I didn’t think very much about it.”
“You got your husband to get up and investigate things here in this house?”
“Yes.”
Tragg remained silent for several seconds, letting the significance of those questions and replies soak into Mrs. Gentrie’s mind; then he went on smoothly, “Your son went downstairs in the dark. He groped for the garage door, opened it, and went into the garage. Then he opened the other door and went across to Hocksley’s flat. In groping for the garage door in the dark, he got paint on the fingers of his left hand. After he got over to Hocksley’s flat, he struck matches to light his way. Your husband is left-handed. Your son, however, is right-handed. He was taking matches from his pocket with his right hand and striking them with his right hand. So he didn’t touch anything with the fingers of his left hand until he picked up the telephone over in Hocksley’s flat. The paint on his fingers was still wet. It’s obvious that must have been within a very few minutes of the time he got his fingers in the paint on the garage door. When he came back, he...”
Rebecca suddenly sucked in her breath as though she had been about to make some exclamatory statement.
Tragg turned to her. “Well?” he asked after a moment as she failed to speak.
Rebecca said, “I was just wondering if...”
“I don’t think Lieutenant Tragg is interested in any of your wild theories, Rebecca,” Mrs. Gentrie cautioned.
Tragg kept smiling affably. “What were you thinking, Miss Gentrie?”
“Well,” Rebecca said, “I suppose it’s nothing, but my darkroom door opens into the basement, and there’s a curtain hanging just inside that door, so that when you open the door to come into the darkroom, you don’t let light in.”
“You mean the curtain is far enough behind the door so you can open and close the door before you go through the curtain?” Tragg asked.
“That’s right.”
Tragg said, “It’s a very nice darkroom you have.”
Rebecca beamed with pride. “It has the finest equipment! And we’ve made it ourselves. I have a daylight enlarger, so I can use diffused daylight in enlarging my pictures and...”
“But there was something about the darkroom itself you were going to tell me?” Tragg asked.
“That’s right, there was.”
“What was it?”
“Well,” she said, “I had some cut film lying in a box on the darkroom shelf. I hadn’t developed some exposed film in the other plate holders, and I was going to put this new film in...”
Mrs. Gentrie interposed to say to Lieutenant Tragg, “She thinks that the officers were careless. They opened the door of her darkroom, and then pulled the curtain all the way back. That let light into the darkroom, and fogged...”
“No, that isn’t what I was going to say,” Rebecca said. “I’m quite capable of doing my own talking, thank you, Florence.”
“What were you going to say, Miss Gentrie?”
“Simply that those films might not have been fogged during the daytime by the police, but might have been fogged the night before by someone who struck a match. I found a burnt match stub on the floor of my darkroom. I thought at the time one of the officers had lit a cigarette, but I’m just wondering now if it mightn’t have been someone who was looking for something in my darkroom and struck a match. Lots and lots of people don’t realize that striking a match in a darkroom is just the same as turning on a light. It can cause just as much damage as though you’d switched on an electric light.”
Tragg said, “That’s very interesting. You keep a pretty fair stock of materials in your darkroom, Miss Gentrie?”
“Well, no, I don’t. I don’t have the money to buy them.”
“It’s rather an expensive pastime,” Mrs. Gentrie said.
“Well, you don’t need to talk. It pays its own way.”
“You do work for others?”
Rebecca said, “Occasionally.”
“A few of the neighbors,” Mrs. Gentrie supplemented.
“Not much developing and printing,” Rebecca said. “There’s no money in that, but I do do enlargements occasionally. I do wish I had enough money so I wasn’t always worrying about expense. I could really turn out marvelous work if I had enough money to get myself a little car so I could get out and...”
“She does very fine work,” Mrs. Gentrie explained to Tragg. “I’ve often told her that if she’d specialize in taking pictures of children and...”
“Children!” Rebecca flared. “That’s the mother complex of yours. You want pictures of the little darlings taken on their birthdays, pictures when they first put on long pants, pictures in their new suits. Those sort of pictures clutter up the house and don’t mean a blessed thing.”
“They mean a lot to Arthur and me,” Mrs. Gentrie said.
“Well, they mean nothing to me. They simply are a waste of good photographic material. You find family albums filled up with that sort of junk.” She turned to Lieutenant Tragg and said, “What I want are pictures of unusual cloud effects, of trees against the sky, of flowers. I could win prizes if I just had enough money to get myself a car and didn’t always have to use photographic material which had expired.”
“What do you mean by material that has expired?” Tragg asked.
“Oh, you know, films are only good while they’re fresh. They’ll keep for a certain length of time. You must have noticed that whenever you buy film, there’s an emulsion date on it.”
“You mean the little rubber-stamped date which says develop before a certain date?”
“That’s right,” Rebecca said.
“But you can use it after that date?”
“Oh, yes. It depends on the sort of care the film has had, the place where it’s been stored. You can use it very nicely for as much as six months after the expiration date, and if it’s been in a cool, dry place, you can use it for years afterwards.”
“And you buy this film and paper which has expired?” Tragg asked.
“That’s right. You can get it at certain places at a very great discount.”
Tragg thought that over for several moments, then said, “What happens, however, when it finally gets too old?”
“Well, then, of course, it does different things. Usually it fogs.”
Tragg said, “Then these films which were in the box were old films — that is, the expiration date had passed?”
“Yes.”
“And couldn’t the fact that the films had fogged been due to the age of the emulsion?”
“Well, I guess it could,” Rebecca said hesitatingly, “but I’ve never had any trouble before with films I’ve got from this particular source. This person handles only the best.”
“But they were fogged?”
“Oh, yes, very definitely.”
Tragg said, “That’s very interesting. But it’s rather a definite change of subject from the thing I was trying to impress upon Mrs. Gentrie. That is the fact that her son is in a very dangerous position. He’s seen fit to try and confuse the issues in a murder case. It’s quite possible that he’s protecting the guilty party.”
“I don’t know what makes you say things like that,” Mrs. Gentrie said indignantly. “Junior’s a good boy. He...”
“The reason I’m saying that,” Tragg interrupted firmly, “is that I’m satisfied your son is a good boy. I’m satisfied, however, that he’s very young, very romantic, and inclined to carry gallantry altogether too far. He’s trying to protect someone in a murder case, and that’s a particularly dangerous thing to do. Now I think your boy’s a mighty good kid, Mrs. Gentrie, but I think Opal Sunley is a woman who is older, more experienced, and knows her way around. I’m not satisfied the companionship would have been a good thing under any circumstances. And now that a murder has been perpetrated, I’m absolutely satisfied something about that companionship is causing your son to withhold information from us, and put himself in a very questionable position with the law.”
Mrs. Gentrie averted her eyes, said almost under her breath, her voice choking in a sob, “He wouldn’t do anything wrong.”
Tragg said, “That’s not it. If he doesn’t tell the truth, we’re going to take steps to get the truth. I felt I should come to you and talk frankly, since you’re so deeply concerned and so fond of him.”
Rebecca said, “You see how it is, Florence. You wouldn’t listen to me. I hope you’ll listen to the lieutenant. When a boy starts trying to conceal things from his own mother...”
“What did Junior ever try to conceal?” Mrs. Gentrie demanded angrily.
“Plenty,” Rebecca said with a disdainful sniff. “He and that girl started making all kinds of surreptitious dates. You know as well as I do they didn’t make them over the telephone. He never called her — at least not from here, and yet they were having their dates, dates he never told you about. I tried to warn you about it and...”
“I think,” Mrs. Gentrie said, “it’s going to be better if you wait until we’re alone to go into this, Rebecca. You always make it a point to listen when the children are making dates on the telephone, and then you ask them questions. Junior’s getting to the age where he resents that. He isn’t a boy any more. He’s growing into real manhood.”
“Well, this creature has got him mixed up in a murder case,” Rebecca said with self-righteous approval, “and I’m trying to help Lieutenant Tragg, that’s all. It’s just as distasteful to me as it can be. I consider Junior just as much a part of me as though he were my own boy, but after all, when a young man starts gallivanting around — and now, the evidence of those fingerprints makes it just as plain as the nose on your face. He’s been sneaking over there at night...”
“Stop it!” Mrs. Gentrie commanded indignantly. “You don’t know that he’s been sneaking over there, and as far as that’s concerned, Opal Sunley doesn’t stay over there nights.”
“How do you know she doesn’t?”
“Well, she comes in and works by the day.”
“But she’s over there quite frequently at night.”
“Only when she has to work.”
Rebecca sniffed.
Lieutenant Tragg, who had been keenly observing the trend of the conversation and the facial expressions of the two women, interposed soothingly, “I’m sorry I gave the wrong impression, Mrs. Gentrie. All I’m interested in is finding out just how it happened your son left those fingerprints on the telephone.”
“You’re absolutely certain they’re his?”
“Absolutely.”
“Couldn’t he have been using that paint — well, later?”
Tragg raised his eyebrows. “You mean after the shot was fired?” he asked.
Mrs. Gentrie thought that over. “Well, no. I mean before — before his father started to paint.”
“I believe his father mixed up the paint from some he’d brought home from the hardware store.”
“I guess so,” Mrs. Gentrie said.
Hester came through from the kitchen, stood silently in the doorway.
“What is it, Hester?” Mrs. Gentrie asked.
“You want me to get some more preserves from the pantry shelves?”
“Yes...” Mrs. Gentrie looked at Lieutenant Tragg and said, “I wonder if you could pardon me for just a moment, Lieutenant. It seems as though I haven’t been able to keep abreast of my work all day, and...”
“Certainly,” Tragg interposed. “I can understand just how it is, Mrs. Gentrie. Go right ahead.”
Mrs. Gentrie said to Hester, “Clean out all of those ’39 and ’40 tins and jars over on the left side of the shelf, Hester. Bring them up and put them on the pantry shelves. We’ll start serving them until we’ve used them all up.”
Lieutenant Tragg said, “If you’re going down in the cellar, I’ll take a look around after you are finished.”
“Certainly,” Mrs. Gentrie said.
Hester opened the cellar door. The heavy, flat-footed pound of her springless steps sounded on the stairs.
Rebecca said, “Well, if you ask me, I think that can had a lot to do with what happened over there across the street. Don’t you think that message was intended for someone who...”
Mrs. Gentrie interrupted firmly, “Now, Rebecca, Lieutenant Tragg isn’t interested in your theories, and I certainly am not going to have you make any veiled insinuation that it was a code communication between Opal Sunley and Junior. Thought your crossword-puzzle club was having a meeting today.”
Rebecca sniffed. “I’m quite capable of arranging my own affairs, Florence. I don’t have to leave for an hour yet, and the way you’re trying to get rid of me only makes Lieutenant Tragg all the more suspicious of Junior. You know just as well as I do that these messages in the can may as well as not be the way they made their dates. They never dared to do it over the telephone. Land sakes, you’d have thought she was a married woman from the way Junior was acting! She might have...”
From the cellar came Hester’s voice, calling out without emotion, “Mrs. Gentrie, here’s another one.”
Mrs. Gentrie walked toward the cellar door, looking back over her shoulder, conscious of the fact she was leaving Rebecca and Lieutenant Tragg alone, conscious also that this might well be what Lieutenant Tragg wanted. It was certainly what Rebecca wanted.
“What is it, Hester?” she called.
“Another one.”
“Another what?”
“Another empty tin on the shelf,” she said.
Mrs. Gentrie turned to where Lieutenant Tragg was drawing up a chair close to Rebecca, preparatory to the intimacy of a low-voiced conversation.
Tragg looked up.
Mrs. Gentrie said, “Hester says there’s another empty tin on the shelf in the basement, Lieutenant.”
Tragg came up out of the chair and reached the cellar door with long, quick strides. He pushed past Mrs. Gentrie and took the cellar stairs two at a time.
“Where is it?” Tragg asked Hester.
“Here. I...”
“Good Lord, don’t touch it!” Tragg shouted.
There was the sound of an empty tin clattering to the cement floor.
“I didn’t mean for you to drop it.”
“You said not to touch it,” Hester said stolidly.
Tragg carefully picked up the tin, holding it in such a way that his fingers touched it only in one place. He placed it on the workbench and took from his pocket a small leather case across the top of which was a zipper, a case not much larger than a flexible spectacle case.
The two women who had dashed down the cellar stairs after him, watched him in silent fascination as he slid open the catch on the zipper, took out a camel’s-hair brush, and three small containers. Selecting one of the containers, he removed the top to disclose a fine powder. With the camel’s-hair brush he dusted the powder evenly over the surface of the can.
Carefully, Tragg examined the fingerprints which the powder brought to light.
“Let me see your hands,” he said to Hester, and when she had extended her hands for his inspection, he opened one of the other small tins to disclose a sticky black ink which he placed upon the tips of her fingers. He recorded her inked impressions on paper in his notebook.
“What’s the matter?” Hester asked sullenly. “I didn’t do nothing.”
Lieutenant Tragg had nothing of the bulldozing, arrogant manner of the detective who has graduated from pavement-pounding to the Homicide Squad. He was, instead, suavely courteous and never more so than when he was hot on the trail of a significant clue. “I’m sorry,” he said with a reassuring smile. “I thought you’d understand. I am trying to find the fingerprints of the person who placed the tin on the shelf. In order to do that, I have to eliminate your fingerprints.”
Mrs. Gentrie knew that Hester didn’t quite know what Tragg meant by eliminate, so she added by way of explanation, “He just wants to find out which fingerprints are yours, so he can rub them off, and get them out of the way, Hester.”
Hester said, “Oh.”
But Tragg didn’t rub off any of the fingerprints. He did, however, check them off one at a time, after comparing them, with the aid of a magnifying glass, with the prints Hester’s fingers had left on the paper. During the time he was doing this, he was exceedingly careful not to get any of his own fingerprints on the surface of the can.
“Where was that tin?” Rebecca asked.
Lieutenant Tragg seemed to feel it was unnecessary to answer the question. Rebecca turned to Hester. “Where did you find it, Hester?” she demanded.
Hester mutely pointed toward the shelf.
“Humph,” Rebecca said. “The exact place where that other can was!”
Mrs. Gentrie nodded.
Rebecca said, “There was something written on the top of that other tin on the inside. Mr. Mason discovered that.”
“I overlooked a bet there,” Tragg said, laughing. “Don’t ever underestimate the ability of Mr. Perry Mason. He’s a very shrewd, very adroit attorney. And is there a can opener here I can use, Mrs. Gentrie?”
“Yes. How about fingerprints?”
He shook his head. “Everyone of them that we can use seems to have been made by Hester. Apparently, whoever placed the tin there had first taken the precaution of wiping it free of fingerprints.”
“Well, a person couldn’t have put it up there without leaving some prints,” Rebecca said.
“Not unless he’d deliberately tried to avoid doing so,” Tragg said.
Mrs. Gentrie showed him the location of the can opener. Lieutenant Tragg fed the can into the holder, rolled the rotating blade around the edges, and then shook out the detached circle of tin which was the top of the can.
Hester remained sullenly aloof, but Mrs. Gentrie and Rebecca crowded close to look over his shoulder as Tragg tilted the circle of tin so that the light would enable him to examine the surface closely.
“Well,” he said, “we’ve got something here. Looks like another code message.”
“You don’t say!” Rebecca said, her voice quivering with excitement. “Now, don’t tell me there’s going to be another murder, Lieutenant.”
Tragg turned to Mrs. Gentrie. “Can you read these letters off for me while I copy them into my notebook?”
Mrs. Gentrie squinted at the top of the can. “I haven’t my reading glasses and this print is pretty fine...”
“I can,” Rebecca volunteered.
“Her eyes are sharp as needles,” Mrs. Gentrie said.
Tragg said, “Hold it by the edges so you don’t get your fingerprints on it. After I’ve seen what the words are, I’m going to try dusting it for fingerprints.”
Slowly Rebecca spelled off the code words while Tragg made a note of them in his notebook. Then Tragg stood behind Rebecca so that he could look over her shoulder and compare what he had written with the message which appeared on the tin.
“Right,” he said at length. “Now let’s just try dusting it. I don’t think we’ll find any fingerprints, but we’ll go through the motions just the same.”
When he had found no fingerprints, Tragg said, “Well, that’s that.”
Rebecca sniffed. “If you ask me,” she said pointedly to Mrs. Gentrie, “it’s a lovers’ post office, and that stenographer is getting Junior to pull some more chestnuts out of the fire.”
“Where is Junior?” Tragg asked Mrs. Gentrie.
“At the hardware store with his father.”
“I think it might be a good idea to call him on the telephone and ask if he can come home at once,” Tragg said.
Mrs. Gentrie obediently moved toward the stairs, but halfway up she paused to inquire, “Am I to tell him why you want him?”
“No. Just that I’m here and want him to come at once.”
Mrs. Gentrie said, “As far as that tin is concerned, Junior wouldn’t...”
“I understand,” Tragg interrupted, “but wouldn’t it be better to let Junior speak for himself?”
Mrs. Gentrie resumed her climbing up the stairs, closed the kitchen door behind her. Tragg turned to Rebecca, said, “We’ll try...”
“Look,” Rebecca exclaimed, her eyes bright with excitement, “I’ve just thought of a way to find out if it’s Junior.”
“Yes?” Tragg’s tone was only politely courteous.
Rebecca said, “We can seal this tin again and put it back on the shelf.” She was plainly trying to make an impression on Tragg, smiling coquettishly.
Tragg’s eyes narrowed. “You might have something there,” he said. “Provided, of course, we could get that top back into the can without it appearing the tin had been opened.”
Rebecca countered that objection with the rapid-fire retort of an enthusiast upholding a pet idea. “We could copy the message on to the top of another can and seal that one up and put it up there on the shelf. After all, the person who’s going to get that message couldn’t tell one tin from the other.”
Tragg regarded Rebecca with a certain respect appearing in his eyes. “That might be an excellent thing to do,” he admitted.
Rebecca, conscious of the impression she had made, modestly lowered her eyes. Her skirt swung slightly as she moved her bony hips from side to side. “Somehow, you really inspire a person to get ideas, Lieutenant.”
Tragg hesitated for only a moment, then he was running up the cellar stairs two at a time, calling Mrs. Gentrie away from the telephone.
“Now look,” he said when he had the three women gathered around him in the basement, “I’m going to take this tin for evidence. But I’m going to copy this message in another new tin, seal it, and place it on the shelf. I don’t want anyone to know anything about what I’ve done. That means anyone. None of you women are to communicate to a soul what has happened. Do you understand, Hester?”
She looked at Mrs. Gentrie. “If Mrs. Gentrie says so...”
“I do, Hester,” Mrs. Gentrie said. “You mustn’t tell a soul.”
“And you?” Tragg asked Rebecca.
The spinster clamped her lips together tightly and nodded with vehemence.
Tragg shifted his glance to Mrs. Gentrie. She said, “I can’t understand the fact that my cellar is being used for...”
“But you do appreciate the necessity of keeping this matter absolutely to ourselves?” Tragg asked.
Slowly, Mrs. Gentrie nodded.
“That means that you mustn’t tell even your husband about it,” Tragg said.
“I don’t keep secrets from Arthur. I...”
“But this is a secret you must keep. Everyone must maintain absolute and complete silence about this. Do you understand?”
“Well, if you say so.”
“I do say so, and that means particularly that Junior isn’t to know anything about it.”
Mrs. Gentrie glanced resentfully at Rebecca. “I suppose I have you to thank...”
“Do I have your promise?” Tragg interrupted.
“Yes,” Mrs. Gentrie said. “I guess so — yes, if you say so. But you’ll see Junior isn’t the one who will walk into your trap.”
Tragg said, “Now let’s go some place where we can get a can. I’ll etch these letters in the top of the can with the point of my jackknife.”
Rebecca beamed at Tragg with the smile an unattached woman in the forties bestows upon an attractive male. “I’ll get the can for you and show you how to seal it.”
“Thanks,” Tragg said. “First, however, I want to use the telephone. Is it where I can have absolute privacy?”
“Well,” Mrs. Gentrie said apologetically, “it isn’t in a phone booth, if that’s what you mean. It’s in the living room, but...”
“I guess that will do,” Tragg said.
“We won’t listen,” Rebecca assured him.
“And to make certain we don’t,” Mrs. Gentrie said with the ghost of a smile twitching the corners of her lips, “we’ll all go out in the kitchen.”
Rebecca said indignantly, “Well, I don’t see any reason for us being herded around like...”
“We’ll all go out in the kitchen,” Mrs. Gentrie interrupted firmly.
Rebecca, her lips compressed into a thin line of indignation, marched up the cellar stairs and followed Mrs. Gentrie into the kitchen while Hester tagged along behind her. Tragg turned toward the living room. Carefully closing the doors behind him, he surreptitiously twisted the key. To his discomfiture, the lock clicked noisily. But there was nothing to do about it now. Tragg picked up the telephone, took out his notebook, called for Detective Texman, and when he had him on the line, said in a low voice, “This is Tragg, Tex. Get that dictionary and look up these words. Got a pencil?... Okay. The seventh word in the first column on page 569. The sixth word in the first column on page 615. The second word in the second column on page 455. Seventh word in the first column, page 377. Twelfth word in the first column, page 748. Seventeenth word in the second column, 472. Eleventh word in the second column, page 1131. Sixth word, second column, page 364. Twenty-second word, second column, page 1094. Fourth word, first column, page 832, and the twenty-sixth word in the second column on page 600. When you have that list of words, call me back at the residence of Arthur Gentrie. I’ll be sticking around here, stalling along until I get your call. It shouldn’t take long. Read me those words in that order. And keep absolutely mum about this message. I don’t want a word of it to get out to the newspapers — not even to anyone else on the force. Keep this as the most closely guarded secret in the office. Got it? All right, good-by.”
Tragg hung up, and went back to the kitchen where Hester was matter-of-factly engaged in peeling potatoes, where Mrs. Gentrie was rubbing a tin can with a rag and watching her sister-in-law with tolerant good humor.
Rebecca, sitting in the straight-backed kitchen chair, was tapping the floor with her toe. Her thin, rigid form fairly quivered with indignation. She got to her feet to face the officer.
“Was it necessary to lock that door?” she snapped.
Tragg regarded her with candid surprise in his blue eyes. “Good heavens,” he exclaimed. “Did I do that? That’s what the force of habit does for a man who’s detecting murders for a living. Miss Gentrie, I apologize. No hard feelings, I hope.”
He extended his hand, and as Rebecca hesitantly placed her thin, bony hand in his, Tragg put his left hand over hers, and stood for a moment smiling down at her.
The indignation vanished from her face. Her smile became coy and arch. “No one could withhold forgiveness from so attractive a penitent,” she said.
Mrs. Gentrie said matter-of-factly, “Forget it, Rebecca. The lieutenant’s a busy man. He doesn’t have time to think of all the little things. After all, he isn’t a suitor.”
Rebecca turned to her sister-in-law, started to say something, then changed her mind. The anger in her face gave way once more to a smile as she turned back to Lieutenant Tragg. “Do be seated, Lieutenant.”
He bowed, holding her chair gallantly. “After you, Miss Gentrie,” he said.
Rebecca sighed with satisfaction. She settled down into the straight-backed kitchen chair as though she had been the star in a movie receiving a penitent but ardent swain. “Do you ever do crossword puzzles — on your days off, Lieutenant?” she asked invitingly.