Fools Die On Friday

by Erle Stanley Gardner

I interrupted, “If you pass up an opportunity for Mrs. Ballwin to get a made-to-order social status and have it advertised in all of the national magazines, you’ll be back waiting tables in a beanery.

Carlotta Hanford watched both cars, then got the idea. “Are you having her shadowed?” she asked. “Sure. Why not?” “What for? What do you hope to gain?” “I want to find out who her boyfriend is.” “She hasn’t any.” I said, “Don’t be silly. A woman doesn’t put arsenic in the lemon pie unless there’s a boyfriend.”

He picked out various numbered strips of Celluloid, then placed them all together, one on top of the other; then dropped them one at a time into slots in a queer boxlike affair on a table under the window. Carefully he manipulated little knobs which moved the strips of colored Celluloid by fractions of an inch. At length he had the strips adjusted to his liking. “Now watch,” he said. He clicked on a switch which illuminated an oblong behind the colored Celluloids with an intense illumination. Evidently it was a quartz light which ran the full length of a slot in the machine. As the light came on, I could see a half-dozen wavy lines stretching up to peaks and down to lows. Keetley once more began a process of adjustment with micrometer screws. Each strip of Celluloid, I saw now, made almost imperceptible motions as Keetley made his careful adjustments. There were certain cabalistic marks upon the edges of the Celluloid strips, marks which apparently referred to weight, distance, and track conditions. In the end when Keetley had the colored strips of Celluloid all adjusted to his satisfaction, he pressed them together and followed the wavy lines which showed through the sheets of Celluloid.

“Pulled a rabbit out of the hat.” “The hats I’ve had, in those cases, had rabbits in them. It was just a question of knowing where to look.”