Canneziano
He pushed right past me, into the room, without waiting for an
invitation. He always was a polished-up, perfumed little fellow, but
that evening, what with his gray spats and a cane, he was right-down
dandified.
“Got a chap to drive me up from Rattail,” he said. “Beastly things,
these Ford cars. What?”
He gave that explanation of how he had got up from Rattail, as if it
were the only thing any of us could possibly be wondering about him,
or wanting to know.
“I left my trunk down there,” he went on, taking off his light gray
overcoat, and brushing it, and folding it across his valise that he
had set on a chair. “The Ford chap couldn’t bring it. I thought you
could send a truck down for it, to-morrow, Sam.”
“Counting on paying us quite a visit, eh, Canneziano?”
Sam found his voice at last. “Trunk and everything.”
“As a matter of fact,” Canneziano answered, sitting down and making
himself comfortable on the small davenport, “all that mess you stirred
up about me, on the night of the murder, makes traveling not
altogether agreeable for the present. Yes, I think, all things
considered, that having me for a guest, after having set all the
police in the country on my trail, keeping me safely here, as it were,
is about the least you can do, isn’t it?”
“I reckon I could do a little less, in a pinch,” Sam drawled. “But,
all things considered, as you say—though it might be you and I aren’t
considering the same things—I’m glad to see you here. Make yourself
right at home, for you may be going to stay even longer than you
planned.”
“Righto! However, if you have some neat little scheme of trying to pin
the murder on me, I’d advise you to abandon it. If I hadn’t had
water-tight alibis, all along the line——”
“Keep your water-tight alibis in a dry place till you need them,” Sam
advised. “Maybe you will need them. We’ve got a crime analyst,
specialist in murder cases, coming up here Friday. You can give your
alibis to him.”
“That crime analyst sounds like Lynn MacDonald. That’s what she calls
herself.”
“She!” Sam said.
“If you’ve got Lynn MacDonald, you’ve got a woman.”
“Hell!” Sam exploded.
“Just the same,” Canneziano said, “she’s the best dic on the coast.
Some say that she is the best in this country. Not that I give a hang.
But, this is inside dope, if anybody can find who killed the Gaby,
this MacDonald woman can. You should hear some of the San Quentin boys
compliment her—in their way.”
“We don’t want a woman. Better wire her not to come, dad,” John urged.
This time it was Canneziano who looked quickly and sharply at John.
“You’re dead right you had,” he said, “if you don’t want the murderer
discovered.”
“Sam,” Hubert Hand suggested, “you’d better wire and verify her
references, anyway.”
Canneziano laughed. “I see what you are getting at. I take it you’ve
all gotten pretty jumpy around here, these last few days. Can’t see
the woodpile for the niggers. Now this gentleman—by the by, Sam, you
are forgetting your manners; I have not, as yet, met any of your
guests—thinks that this coming dic may be a pal of mine; something of
the sort. If that were the case, what good would it do to verify her
references, by wire? The people you wired to would all answer that
Lynn MacDonald was honest, capable, and so forth. She’s got a
reputation around the bay that is hard to beat. But, if this were a
plant, Jane Jones or Amaryllis De Vere could come along, just the
same, posing as Lynn MacDonald. If you are really concerned about it,
why not have a Burns man bring her up? You shouldn’t mind the extra
expense, Sam.”
“There’s generally more than one way to skin a cat,” Sam said,
“besides the way you are told to do it.”
Leaving us to think that over, he went to the telephone and called the
office of _The Morning Record_, at Telko, and asked for Mr. Clarence
Pette.
When he finally got him, he asked him whether he knew Lynn MacDonald.
Evidently he said that he knew who she was, for Sam told him to take
number Twenty-one at Telko, Friday afternoon, and to meet him here,
and he would pay him fifty dollars for his trouble.
“Pretty work, Sam,” Canneziano approved. “Too bad I got you all so
rattled. As a matter of fact, I rather fancy myself in the rôle of a
sleuth. If Lynn MacDonald weren’t coming, I’d like to take a try at
this job myself. For instance, I noticed that, though Dan is in
’Frisco now—according to the papers—none of you suggested that she
meet Lynn MacDonald, have her identified, and bring her back here with
her. I am trying to decide whether that means that you don’t trust the
gentle Dan, or whether, though the newspapers say she is to return at
once to her home in Nevada, you do not expect her to return.”
“It means neither,” John snapped.
“Mr. Canneziano,” I said, “this is John Stanley, Sam’s adopted son. He
and Danny are engaged to be married. This other gentleman is Mr.
Hubert Hand, and the lady is Mrs. Ricker.”
Things felt real polite, for a minute, as they always do just after
folks have been introduced.
“Bad times you have been having around here, lately,” Canneziano said,
pleasantly, as if he were talking about the weather.
Mrs. Ricker excused herself and went upstairs.