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The Case of the Caretakers Cat :: Гарднер Эрл Стенли
Страница: 139 из 146The police jumped to the conclusion those tracks were made by Clinker. But Keene said he had left the house shortly after eleven, taken Clinker with him, and, at the time he left, Ashton's body was most certainly not in the room.
"In place of following the reasoning of the police and acting on the assumption Keene was lying, I decided to act upon the assumption Keene might be telling the truth. In that event, the cat tracks could not have been those of Clinker; in that event Ashton could not have been at the place where his body was found at ten thirty. Yet, since he was undoubtedly killed at ten thirty, it becomes very apparent that he must have been killed at some place other than that in which his body was found. In that event, the cat tracks must have been made by some cat other than Clinker.
"When I had reasoned this far I suddenly realized the importance of proving just that point and of accounting for every minute of Clinker's time, from the moment Keene took him from the house. I could think of no better manner than to take him into my personal custody and keep him where the murderer couldn't find him."
"Why," Truslow demanded, "did you want to establish the fact that this cat, Clinker, was taken from the house by your client?"
"Because," Mason said, "Clinker was the only cat who had access to the residence. Moreover, Clinker kept other cats chased out of the neighborhood. Therefore, if Keene was telling the truth, Ashton's body must have been brought to the house after Ashton was murdered, and the murderer, in order to make it seem that Ashton had been murdered in bed, and to direct suspicion toward Douglas Keene, must have gone out into the night in search of a cat and brought it forcibly to the house, taken it to the bed where Ashton's body lay—a bed, by the way, on which the sensitive nostrils of a cat could have detected the odor of Clinker—and forced that cat to make tracks on the counterpane.
"If that is what happened, one who is at all familiar with the nature of cats would realize that the cat would be very apt to resent such treatment and that his resentment would take the form of deep scratches on the murderer's hands. I therefore looked over the possible suspects to find someone with scratched hands. When I found that person, I found he had sought to conceal the scratches on his hands by making additional scratches under circumstances which would seem to offer an explanation for scratched hands—towit—digging around a rose bush, apparently in an attempt to discover treasure, but the digging was certainly not the type of digging one would indulge in if trying to unearth a million dollar treasure.
"In place of following the reasoning of the police and acting on the assumption Keene was lying, I decided to act upon the assumption Keene might be telling the truth. In that event, the cat tracks could not have been those of Clinker; in that event Ashton could not have been at the place where his body was found at ten thirty. Yet, since he was undoubtedly killed at ten thirty, it becomes very apparent that he must have been killed at some place other than that in which his body was found. In that event, the cat tracks must have been made by some cat other than Clinker.
"When I had reasoned this far I suddenly realized the importance of proving just that point and of accounting for every minute of Clinker's time, from the moment Keene took him from the house. I could think of no better manner than to take him into my personal custody and keep him where the murderer couldn't find him."
"Why," Truslow demanded, "did you want to establish the fact that this cat, Clinker, was taken from the house by your client?"
"Because," Mason said, "Clinker was the only cat who had access to the residence. Moreover, Clinker kept other cats chased out of the neighborhood. Therefore, if Keene was telling the truth, Ashton's body must have been brought to the house after Ashton was murdered, and the murderer, in order to make it seem that Ashton had been murdered in bed, and to direct suspicion toward Douglas Keene, must have gone out into the night in search of a cat and brought it forcibly to the house, taken it to the bed where Ashton's body lay—a bed, by the way, on which the sensitive nostrils of a cat could have detected the odor of Clinker—and forced that cat to make tracks on the counterpane.
"If that is what happened, one who is at all familiar with the nature of cats would realize that the cat would be very apt to resent such treatment and that his resentment would take the form of deep scratches on the murderer's hands. I therefore looked over the possible suspects to find someone with scratched hands. When I found that person, I found he had sought to conceal the scratches on his hands by making additional scratches under circumstances which would seem to offer an explanation for scratched hands—towit—digging around a rose bush, apparently in an attempt to discover treasure, but the digging was certainly not the type of digging one would indulge in if trying to unearth a million dollar treasure.