Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece

“You mean my halfbrother?”

“Yes.”

“Why, I’ve only told you all about him. He’s really incompetent so far as money matters are concerned. He’s rather radical at times. His attempts to make money have met with failure, so he’s naturally resentful of the chaps who have been more successful. He…”

“At approximately seventhirty this morning,” Mason interrupted, “Mr. P. L. Rease was found dead in his bed. Death had been caused by plunging a sharp carving knife down through the bedclothes into his body. The knife had apparently been taken from a drawer in the sideboard in the dining room and…”

Kent swayed, clutched at his heart. His eyes grew wide. His face turned an ashen gray. “No,” he whispered hoarsely, speaking with a visible effort. “Good God, no!”

Mason nodded.

“Oh, my God!” Kent cried, clutching at Mason’s arm.

Mason jerked his arm away and said, “Stand up and cut out the dramatics.”

Kent said, “You’ll excuse me, but I’m going to sit down.” Without a word, he sat down on the ground. Mason stood above him, watching him with calmly speculative eyes. “When… when did it happen?”

“I don’t know. He was found about seventhirty.”

“Who found him?”

“I did.”

“How did you happen to find him?”

Mason said, “We found a carving knife under the pillow of your bed. After we looked at the blade we started an investigation of the house—taking the census.”

“Under my pillow!” Kent exclaimed, but his eyes did not meet those of the lawyer.

“Did you,” Mason asked, “know that Rease wasn’t sleeping in his own room last night? That he changed rooms with Maddox?”

Kent’s eyes, looking like those of a wounded deer raised to Mason’s. Slowly he shook his head. “Did he?” he asked.

“They exchanged rooms,” Mason said. “Apparently you were about the only person in the house who didn’t know the exchange had been made. The district attorney will claim that when you slipped the knife from the sideboard and went prowling through the house you believed the occupant of that room was Frank Maddox.”

“You mean the district attorney’s going to say I did it.”

“Exactly.”

Kent stared at Mason. His mouth began to quiver. His hand went to his face, as though trying to hold the muscles from twitching. His hand began to shake…

Mason said casually, “If I’m going to represent you, Kent, you’ve got to do two things: First you’ll have to convince me that you’re innocent of any deliberate murder. Secondly you’ll have to cut out this business of putting on the jerks.” As Kent continued to twitch and jerk, the spasm apparently extending all over his body, Mason went on as though he had been engaged merely in casual conversational comment: “Dr. Kelton says you don’t do that right, that you might fool a family physician, but you couldn’t fool a psychiatrist. Therefore, you can see how much you’re weakening your case by putting on an act like that.”

Kent suddenly ceased trembling and twitching. “What’s wrong with the way I do it?” he asked.

“Kelton didn’t say. He simply said that it was an act you were putting on. Now, why were you doing it?”

“I—er…”

“Go on,” Mason said. “Why were you doing it?” Kent pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead. “Go on,” Mason told him. “Get up. Stand on your two feet. I want to talk to you.” Slowly Kent got to his feet. “Why did you put on the act?” Mason asked.

Kent said in a voice that was almost inaudible, “Because I knew I was walking in my sleep again and I was afraid… God, I was afraid!”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid I was going to do this very thing.”

“What, kill Rease?”

“No, kill Maddox.”

“Now,” Mason told him, “you’re talking sense… Have a cigarette.” He extended his cigarette case. Kent shook his head. “Go on and tell me the rest of it,” Mason said. Kent looked around apprehensively. Mason said, “Go on, spill it. You won’t ever have any safer place to talk. They may pounce down on you at any time now.” He raised his finger and dramatically pointed to an airplane which, but little more than a speck in the sky, was heading toward the airport. “Even that plane,” he said, “may hold officers. Now, talk, and talk fast.”

Kent said, “God knows what I do when I’m sleepwalking.”

“Did you kill Rease?”

“Before God, I don’t know.”

“What do you know about it?”

“I know that I walked in my sleep a year ago. I know I’ve been walking in my sleep from time to time ever since I was a boy. I know that these fits come on when there’s a full moon and when I’m nervous and upset. I know that a little over a year ago, while I was walking in my sleep, I got a carving knife. I don’t know what I intended to do with that carving knife, but I’m afraid—horribly afraid…”

“That you intended to kill your wife?” Mason asked.

Kent nodded.

“Go on from there,” Mason said, eyes watching the plane which was banking into a turn in order to come up against the wind. “What about this last flareup?”

“I walked in my sleep. I got the carving knife from the sideboard. Apparently I didn’t try to kill anyone with it, or, if I did, I was prevented from carrying out my plan.”

“What makes you think so?”

“The carving knife was under my pillow when I woke up in the morning.”

“You knew it was there, then?”

“Yes.”

“And do you know what happened after that?”

“I deduced what must have happened. I went in to take my shower and when I returned the knife was gone. At about that time Edna became very solicitous. That night, after I went to bed, someone locked my door.”

“You knew that, then?”

“Yes. I wasn’t asleep. The lock made a faint clicking sound.”

“And you surmised it was Edna?”

“Yes. I felt certain it must have been.”

“So what?”

“So when Edna started pulling her astrological stuff and suggested I see an attorney whose name had five letters, and was associated with rocks, I realized she was trying to put me in an advantageous position in case something horrible should really happen. So I ran over the names of the leading criminal attorneys in my mind, and made things easier for her by suggesting you.”

“So you didn’t fall for that astrological stuff?”

“I don’t know. I think there’s something to it. But as soon as she brought the subject up, I appreciated the advantage of coming to you before anything happened.”

“And you suggested I get a doctor for the same reason?”

“That’s right. My niece made that suggestion and I saw the advantages of it.”

“And his shaking act?”

“I wanted to impress upon both of you that I was laboring under a nervous strain.”

“So you put that act on to impress the doctor?”

“If you want to put it that way, yes.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police or put yourself in a sanitarium?

Kent twisted his fingers together until the skin grew white. “Why didn’t I!” he asked. “Oh, my God, why didn’t I! If I’d only done that! But no, I kept thinking things were going to be all right. Mind you, I’d put that carving knife under my pillow and hadn’t done anything with it; and so I figured that, after all, I wouldn’t actually kill anyone. Just put yourself in my position. I’m wealthy, my wife wants to grab my property and put me in a sanitarium. For me to do anything would have been to deliberately play into her hands. I was in a terrible predicament. The worry of it almost drove me crazy. And then, after I consulted you, and saw the capable way in which you were going at things, I felt certain everything was going to be all right. It was a big load off my mind. I went to bed and slept like a top last night. I can’t remember anything until the alarm went off this morning… I was excited about my marriage… I didn’t look under the pillow.”