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The Case of the Velvet Claws :: Гарднер Эрл Стенли
Страница: 50 из 149Thepolice will get sore if they aren’t notified right away. They’ll also want to know how you happened to telephone to a lawyer before you telephoned to them. It makes it look like a suspicious circumstance as far as you’re concerned. D’you understand?”
She nodded again, her eyes wide and dark.
“All right,” he said, “now get this, and get it straight, and keep your head all the way through. Here’s what happened. You’re going to tell exactly the truth, just as you told it to me, with one exception. And that is about your coming back upstairs after the man had left the house. That’s the thing that I don’t like about your story, and that’s the thing that the police won’t like about it. If you had presence of mind enough to go up the stairs and look around, then you would have had presence of mind enough to call the police. The fact that you wanted to call an attorney before you called the police, is going to make the police think that you had a consciousness of guilt.”
“But,” she said, “we can explain to them that I had consulted you on this other matter, and that it was all so mixed up together that I wanted to talk with you before I talked with the police, couldn’t we?”
He laughed at her.
“What a sweet mess that would be. Then the police would want to know all about what that other matter was. And before you got done, you’d find that you had given them the best kind of motive for you to kill your husband. That other matter can never come into the thing at all. We’ve got to get hold of Harrison Burke and see that he keeps his mouth closed.”
“But,” she protested, “how about the paper? How about Spicy Bits?”
“Has it ever occurred to you,” he asked, “that, with your husband’s death, you are the owner of that paper? You can step into the saddle, and control the policy right now.”
“Suppose he left a will disinheriting me?”
“In that event,” he said, “we’ll file a suit contesting the will and try and get you put in as a special administratrix, pending the determination of the suit.”
“All right,” she said, swiftly, “I ran out of the house, and then what happened?”
“Exactly the way you told it to me. You were so panicstricken that you ran out of the house. And remember that you ran out before the man who was in the room with your husband ran down the stairs. You dashed out of the house and out into the rain, grabbing up the first coat that you came to as you went past the hall stand.
She nodded again, her eyes wide and dark.
“All right,” he said, “now get this, and get it straight, and keep your head all the way through. Here’s what happened. You’re going to tell exactly the truth, just as you told it to me, with one exception. And that is about your coming back upstairs after the man had left the house. That’s the thing that I don’t like about your story, and that’s the thing that the police won’t like about it. If you had presence of mind enough to go up the stairs and look around, then you would have had presence of mind enough to call the police. The fact that you wanted to call an attorney before you called the police, is going to make the police think that you had a consciousness of guilt.”
“But,” she said, “we can explain to them that I had consulted you on this other matter, and that it was all so mixed up together that I wanted to talk with you before I talked with the police, couldn’t we?”
He laughed at her.
“What a sweet mess that would be. Then the police would want to know all about what that other matter was. And before you got done, you’d find that you had given them the best kind of motive for you to kill your husband. That other matter can never come into the thing at all. We’ve got to get hold of Harrison Burke and see that he keeps his mouth closed.”
“But,” she protested, “how about the paper? How about Spicy Bits?”
“Has it ever occurred to you,” he asked, “that, with your husband’s death, you are the owner of that paper? You can step into the saddle, and control the policy right now.”
“Suppose he left a will disinheriting me?”
“In that event,” he said, “we’ll file a suit contesting the will and try and get you put in as a special administratrix, pending the determination of the suit.”
“All right,” she said, swiftly, “I ran out of the house, and then what happened?”
“Exactly the way you told it to me. You were so panicstricken that you ran out of the house. And remember that you ran out before the man who was in the room with your husband ran down the stairs. You dashed out of the house and out into the rain, grabbing up the first coat that you came to as you went past the hall stand.