Erle Gardner: The Case of the Perjured Parrot

“I’d like to see as much as you care to show me,” Mason said to the sheriff. “I take it, that chalk outline on the floor represents where the body was found when it was first discovered.”

“Yes, that’s right. The gun was found over there about ten feet away, where you’ll notice the outline in chalk.”

“Is it possible that Mr. Sabin could have shot himself?” Mason asked.

“Absolutely impossible according to the testimony of the doctors. What’s more, the gun had been wiped free of fingerprints. Sabin wasn’t wearing gloves. If he’d shot himself, he’d have left some fingerprints on the gun.”

Mason, frowning thoughtfully, said, “Then the murderer didn’t even want it to look like suicide.”

“How so?” the sheriff asked.

“He could very easily have placed the gun nearer the body. He could have wiped off his own fingerprints, and pressed the weapon into the hand of the dead man.”

“That’s logical,” the sheriff said.

“And,” Mason went on, “the murderer must have wanted the officers to find the gun.”

“Baloney,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “The murderer simply didn’t want the officers to find the gun on him . That’s the way all clever murderers do. As soon as they commit a crime, they drop the rod. They don’t even keep it with them long enough to find some place to hide it. The gun can hang them. They shoot it and drop it.”

“All right,” Mason said, smiling, “you win. They shoot it and drop it. What else, Sheriff?”

“The parrot cage was over here on the floor,” the sheriff said, “and the door was propped open with a little stick so the parrot could walk out whenever he wanted to.”

“Or walk in, whenever it had been out?” Mason asked.

“Well, yes. That’s a thought.”

“And how long do you think the parrot had been here without food or water, Sheriff?”

“He’d had plenty of food. The water had dried up in the pan. See that agateware pan over there? Well, that had evidently been left pretty well filled with water, but the water had dried out — what the parrot hadn’t had to drink. You can see little spots of rust on the bottom which show where the last few drops evaporated.”

“The body then,” Mason said, “must have been here for some time before it was discovered.”

“The murder,” Sheriff Barnes asserted, “took place some time on Tuesday, the sixth of September. It took place probably right around eleven o’clock in the morning.”

“How do you figure that?” Mason asked. “Or do you object to telling me?”

“Not at all,” the sheriff said. “The fishing season in this entire district opened on September sixth. The Fish and Game Commission wanted to have an area for fall fishing which hadn’t been all fished out. So they picked out certain streams which they kept closed until later on in the season. This was one of the last. The season opened here on September sixth.

“Now then, Sabin was a funny chap. He had places that he went and things that he did, and we haven’t found out all of ’em yet. We know some of them. He had a trailer and he’d drive around at trailer camps, sit and whittle and talk with people, just finding out that way what was going on in the world. Sometimes he’d take an old suit of shiny clothes and go prowl around libraries for a week or two...”

“Yes, I read all about that in the newspaper,” Mason interrupted.

“Well,” the sheriff went on, “he told his son and Richard Waid, his secretary, that he was going to be home on Monday the fifth to pick up his fishing things. He’d been away on a little trip. They don’t know just where, but he surprised them by coming home on Friday the second. He took his fishing tackle, picked up his parrot, and came up here. It seems he was putting across a big deal in New York, and had told his secretary to charter a plane and be ready to fly East when he gave the word. The secretary waited at the airport all Monday afternoon. He had a plane in readiness. About ten o’clock on the night of the fifth, the call came through. Waid says that Sabin seemed in wonderful spirits. He said everything was okay, that Waid was to jump in his plane and get to New York at once.”

“He was talking from the cabin here?” Mason asked.

“No, he wasn’t. He told Waid the telephone here had gone dead so he’d had to go to a pay station. He didn’t say where, and Waid didn’t think to ask him. Of course, at the time, it didn’t seem particularly important. Waid was in a hurry to get started to New York.”

“You’ve talked with Waid?” Mason asked.

“On the long distance telephone,” the sheriff said. “He was still in New York.”

“Did he tell the nature of the business?” Mason asked.

“No, he said it was something important and highly confidential. That was all he’d say.”

“Waid, I take it, had a chartered plane?” Mason asked.

The sheriff grinned and said, “It looks as though Waid may have cut a corner there. Steve Watkins, who’s the son of Sabin’s wife by a former marriage, is quite a flyer. He’s got a fast plane and likes to fly around the country. I take it Sabin didn’t care much for Steve and wouldn’t have liked it if he’d known Waid was going to fly back to New York with Steve; but Steve wanted to make the trip and needed the money, so Waid arranged to pay him the charter price and Steve Watkins flew him back.”

“What time did they leave?”

“At ten minutes past ten, the night of Monday the fifth,” the sheriff said. “Just to make sure, I checked up with the records of the airport.”

“And what time did Sabin call Waid?”

“Waid says it wasn’t more than ten minutes before he took off. He thinks it was right around ten o’clock.”

“He recognized Sabin’s voice?” Mason asked.

“Yes, and said Sabin seemed very pleased about something. He told Waid he’d closed the deal and to start at once. He said there’d been a little delay because the telephone here was out of order. He’d had to drive down to a pay station, but he said he was driving right back to the cabin and would be at the cabin for two or three days, that in case Waid encountered any difficulties he was to telephone.”

“And Waid didn’t telephone?”

“No, because everything went through like clockwork, and Sabin had only told him to telephone in case something went wrong.”

Mason said thoughtfully. “Well, let’s see then. He was alive at ten o’clock on the evening of Monday, September fifth. Did anyone else see him or talk with him after that?”

“No,” the sheriff said. “That’s the last time we actually know he was alive. From there on, we have to figure evidence. The fishing season opened on Tuesday the sixth. Over there’s an alarm clock which had run down. It stopped at two forty-seven. The alarm was set at five-thirty.”

“The alarm run down too?” Mason asked.

“Uh-huh.”

The telephone bell shattered the silence. The sheriff said, “Excuse me,” and scooped up the receiver. He listened a moment, then said, “All right, hold the line,” and turned to Mason. “It’s for you,” he said.

Mason took the receiver and heard Paul Drake’s voice at the other end of the line. “Hello, Perry. I took a chance on calling you there. Are you where you can talk?”

“No,” Mason said.

“But you can listen all right?”

“Yes. Go ahead. What is it?”

“I think I’ve found your murderer — at any rate, I’ve got a lead on that profane parrot, and a swell description of the man that bought him.”

“Where?”

“At San Molinas.”

“Keep talking,” Mason told him.

“A man by the name of Arthur Gibbs runs a pet shop in San Molinas. It’s known as the Fifth Avenue Pet Shop. On Friday the second, a seedy-looking chap came in to buy a parrot in a hurry. Gibbs remembers it, because the man didn’t seem to care anything about the parrot except its appearance. Gibbs sold him this profane parrot. He thinks the man didn’t know about its habit of cussing... I think you’d better talk with Gibbs, Mason.”