Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece

When she had left the room, Drake said in a low voice, “Would Kent have had any reason for making a detour with that airplane, Perry?”

Mason said tonelessly, “How the hell do I know? He said he had motor trouble, and so did the pilot.”

“And he’s your client,” Drake remarked.

“He’s my client—and yours,” Mason admitted. “But don’t be so damned cynical. I think he had trouble.”

“Perhaps he did,” Drake admitted, “but try and make a jury believe it.”

The door opened to admit Jackson. Mason nodded. “Give us the lowdown, Jackson.”

Jackson was excited. “I’ve just been talking with the Clerk’s office in Santa Barbara. I put my name, address and telephone number on the back of that final decree of divorce when I filed it as attorney for Peter Kent.”

“Well?” Mason asked, as Della Street unobtrusively slipped through the door and to her secretarial desk.

“The Clerk called me to say that Doris Sully Kent, acting through Hettley and Hettley, of this city, had filed an action alleging fraud on the court in connection with the entire divorce action, claiming there’s been collusion; that Kent had persuaded her to file a divorce action; and that he’d lied to her about the community property, in that he had an undisclosed interest in a patent on a valvegrinding machine, and that he was a part owner in the Maddox Manufacturing Company of Chicago; that the patents controlled by that company are worth more than a million dollars and that they’re community property. She also alleges that the final decree was a fraud on the court, and has filed an affidavit and application under Section 473 of the Code of Civil Procedure, alleging that she discharged her Santa Barbara attorneys and retained Hettley and Hettley; that she was under the impression the interlocutory decree had been granted on the fifteenth and told them such was the case; that they didn’t have an opportunity to look up the matter until last night; that they sat up all night, getting the action ready to file.”

“When were the papers filed in Santa Barbara, Jackson?”

“The action to set aside the interlocutory decree was filed around ninethirty. They figured no final decree would be issued before ten o’clock anyway.”

“And the affidavit and motion under 473?”

“Just a short time ago. They found out about the final when they got up there, and evidently prepared and signed those papers in Santa Barbara. The Clerk’s office didn’t telephone me until an attack had been made on that final decree.”

Mason said to Della Street, “Send someone down to the Clerk’s office here, find if they haven’t filed a petition to have Peter Kent declared an incompetent person and his wife appointed a guardian.”

He turned back to Jackson. “What about the business you were mentioning over the phone?”

“At three o’clock this morning,” Jackson said, “Maddox telephoned Mrs. Kent and wanted her to pool her interests with them.”

“At three o’clock in the morning!” Mason exclaimed. Jackson nodded. Mason gave a low whistle and said, “Give me the details. Tell me everything that happened.”

“When I got your instructions I started watching Mrs. Kent’s house.”

“Have any trouble finding it?”

“No, I went right to the address you gave me. I stayed there until midnight and didn’t see a sign of life about the place, except there were lights on on the lower floor.”

“You mean you didn’t see anyone moving around?”

“That’s right.”

“Then what happened?”

“Around midnight Harris came up. It may have been a little before midnight; I don’t remember the exact time. He told me he’d take over the job of watching, so I took Helen Warrington from his car, and we went to a hotel. Harris stayed there in his car. The night was unusually warm for this time of year, and Mrs. Kent had her windows open. Harris proved himself a darn good detective. When the telephone rang he made a note of the time. It was two minutes past three o’clock. He checked his watch with Western Union time the next morning and found he was one minute and five seconds fast, so that would make the time fiftyfive seconds past three o’clock, and he made notes in his notebook of what she said.”

“He could hear her?”

“Yes, it was still night and he could hear her voice through the bedroom window.” Jackson pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and read, “Telephone bell rings three times, then a drowsy voice says, ‘Hello… Yes, this is Mrs. Kent… Yes, Mrs. Doris Sully Kent of Santa Barbara… What’s that name again, please?… Maddox… I don’t understand your calling at this hour… Why, I thought that was all fixed… Your lawyer has arranged a conference, and I’ll meet you, as agreed… You can get in touch with Mr. Sam Hettley, of the firm of Hettley and Hettley, if you want any more information. Goodby.”

Jackson handed the paper over to Mason. Mason glanced significantly at Paul Drake and said, “One minute past three, eh?” He made little drumming motions with his fingertips on the edge of the desk, then said suddenly, “Look here, Jackson, when they filed that action at ninethirty this morning they didn’t know a final decree of divorce had been granted.”

“That’s right, yes, sir.”

“Then they filed a motion, affidavit, and what not, under Section 473 to set aside the final decree?”

Jackson nodded again.

“Therefore,” Mason said, “somewhere between the hour of ninethirty this morning and the time those papers were filed, they must have been in touch with Mrs. Kent and secured her signature. How does it happen your man on duty hasn’t reported that, Paul?”

Paul Drake shook his head and said, “I’ve arranged to be notified by telephone, if anything unusual happens. The last report I had was about twenty minutes ago and he said Mrs. Kent hadn’t been out of the house.”

“She must have given him the slip,” Mason said.

“If she did, she’s clever as the devil. The house backs up against a barranca. There’s a big retaining wall which encloses a back patio. The only way to reach the back of the house is by going past the front and around the side. There’s a cement walk running around to the back door.”

“An enclosed back patio?” Mason asked. Drake nodded. The telephone rang. Mason scooped the receiver to his ear, said, “Hello… It’s for you, Paul,” and handed over the instrument.

Drake listened for a minute, said, “Are you sure?” then made a notation of certain figures in a notebook he whipped from his pocket, and said, “Okay, you stay on the job down there. I’m sending two more men down to cooperate. You stay with your couple unless they separate. If they do, you follow Duncan — he’s the big bird with the bushy eyebrows. Let one of the other men tail Maddox.” He slammed the receiver back on the telephone, looked at his wristwatch and said to Perry Mason, “She got out of the house all right. She’s down here having a conference with her lawyer. My men trailed Maddox and Duncan to the Securities Building. They went to the offices of Hettley and Hettley on the fifth floor. My operative was starting back to the elevator after having followed them up when he met a million dollars’ worth of blonde class in the corridor. She wasn’t a spring chicken exactly, but she had clothes and she knew how to wear them, and she had a figure to put the clothes around, and she knew what to do with that. When my operative got down to the street, he asked his partner if he’d noticed the blonde doll, and it happened the partner had noticed her drive up in a green Packard roadster. The license number is 9R8397.”

Perry Mason scraped back his chair. “That’s the break we want,” he said to Paul Drake. “Get started. Put a hundred men on it, if you have to. Get witnesses to see Mrs. Kent, Maddox and Duncan come out of that office. That’ll corroborate the telephone call at three o’clock this morning, regardless of what anyone may claim on the witness stand, and, if I can prove that Maddox and Duncan were putting in long distance calls at three o’clock in the morning I can bust Duncan wide open on crossexamination. He said in his first statement that he saw the sleepwalker around midnight. Now, if he changes it to say that it was three o’clock in the morning, I can impeach him by showing that he and Maddox were putting in long distance calls at that hour.”