Erle Gardner: The Case of the Perjured Parrot

“Any details?” Mason asked.

“I’ve got a swell description.”

“Does it fit anyone?” Mason inquired.

“No one so far as I can tell,” Drake said. “... Tell you what I’ll do, Perry. I’ll go to the Plaza Hotel and wait in the lobby. You get down here as soon as you can. If it’s after five-thirty, I’ll arrange with Gibbs to wait.”

Mason said, “That’ll be fine,” and hung up the telephone to face the coldly suspicious eyes of Sergeant Holcomb.

Sheriff Barnes, apparently not noticing the interruption, said, “When we broke in here, we found a creel filled with fish. We boxed it up in an air-tight container and sent it to the police laboratory in the city. They report that the creel contained a limit of fish which had been cleaned and wrapped in leaves but hadn’t been given a final washing. We’ve found the remains of his breakfast — a couple of eggs and some bacon rinds. We’ve found the remains of his lunch — canned beans. The body was clothed in slippers, slacks, and a light sweater. That leather coat there was on the back of the chair. Those are his fishing boots over there with mud on them. There’s his fly rod and flies on the table, just as he’d left them when he came in.

“Now, I figure he was killed right around eleven o’clock on the morning of Tuesday the sixth. Would you like to know how I figure it?”

“Very much indeed,” Mason said.

Sergeant Holcomb turned on his heel and walked away, showing his silent disgust.

Sheriff Barnes said, “Well, I ain’t had much experience in murder cases, but I know how to figure probabilities. I’ve been in the forest service, and I’ve worked cattle, and I know how to read trail. I don’t know whether the same kind of reasoning will work in a murder case or not, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t. Anyway, here’s the way I figure it. Sabin got up at five-thirty because that’s when the alarm went off. He had breakfast of bacon and eggs. He went out fishing. He caught a limit. He got back here, and he was tired and hungry. He didn’t even bother to wash the fish and put them in the icebox. He took off his boots, chucked the creel of fish over there, went out into the kitchen and cooked himself some canned beans. There was some coffee in the pot — probably still left from breakfast. He warmed that up.

“The next thing he’d have done was to have given the fish a good washing and put them in the icebox. He was murdered right after lunch and before he’d had a chance to do that. I fixed the time at around eleven o’clock.”

“Why not later?” Mason asked.

“Oh, yes,” the sheriff said, “I overlooked that. The sun gets on the cabin here about half past ten or eleven and it starts to get warm. It’s off the cabin by four o’clock in the afternoon, and it gets cold right away. During the middle of the day it’s hot. During the nights it’s cold. So I figured he was murdered after it had warmed up and before it had cooled off, but not during the middle of the day when it was real hot. If it had been real cold, he’d have had his coat on and would have lit the fire over there in the fireplace. You see, it’s all laid. If it had been real hot, he wouldn’t have been wearing his sweater.”

“Nice going,” Mason said approvingly. “Have you made any experiments to find out how long it takes the alarm clock to run down after it’s wound up?”

“I wired the factory,” the sheriff said. “They say from around thirty to thirty-six hours, depending on the condition of the clock and how long it’s been used.

“Now, here’s another thing, Mr. Mason. Whoever killed Sabin was a kindhearted, considerate sort of a guy. Anyway, that’s the way I figure it.”

He tilted back his hat and scratched the thick hair back of his ears in a characteristic gesture. “Now, you may think it sounds kind of funny for a man to say that about a murderer, but that’s the way I figure it just the same. This man had something against Sabin. He wanted to kill him, but he didn’t want to kill the parrot. He figured it was apt to be some time before Sabin’s body was discovered, and he arranged so the parrot wouldn’t starve to death in the meantime.

“Now that makes it look as though the murderer had some powerful reason for wanting Sabin out of the way. It wasn’t robbery and it wasn’t just sheer cussedness. The murderer was kindhearted... if you get what I mean.”

“I think I do,” Mason said with a smile. “And thank you very much, Sheriff. I won’t intrude on you and Sergeant Holcomb longer. I think I understand the situation. I’ll walk around the outside of the cabin a couple of times and give it the once-over. I certainly appreciate your courtesy and...”

He broke off as someone knocked on the cabin door.

Sheriff Barnes opened the door. A blond, studious-appearing young man in the early thirties peered owlishly from behind horn-rimmed spectacles. “Sheriff Barnes?” he inquired.

“You’re Waid?” the sheriff asked.

“Yes.”

Sheriff Barnes shook hands. “This is Sergeant Holcomb,” he said, “and this is Mr. Mason.”

Waid shook hands with each in turn. “I’ve followed your instructions to the letter, Sheriff,” he said. “I got off the plane at Las Vegas. I traveled under an assumed name. I’ve ditched all the newspaper reporters and...”

“Just a minute,” Sergeant Holcomb interrupted. “Don’t do any talking right now, Waid. Mr. Mason is a lawyer, not an officer. He’s just leaving .”

Waid suddenly turned to regard Perry Mason with wide eyes. “You’re Perry Mason, the lawyer,” he said. “Pardon me for not recognizing the name. I’ve read of your cases, Mr. Mason. I was particularly interested in that one where you acquitted...”

“Mason is leaving,” Sergeant Holcomb interrupted, “and we’d prefer that you didn’t talk with anyone , Waid, until you tell us your story.”

Waid lapsed into silence with an amused smile flickering at the corners of his mouth.

Mason said, “I’ll talk with you some other time, Waid. I’m representing Charles Sabin. Does he know you’re here?”

Sergeant Holcomb stepped firmly forward. “That,” he said, “is all. There’s the door, Mason. Don’t let us detain you.”

“I won’t,” Mason assured him with a grin. “The atmosphere here is just a trifle stuffy — or don’t you think so, Sergeant?”

Sergeant Holcomb’s only retort was to slam the door as Mason stepped out into the glare of the mountain sunlight.

Della Street was seated on the running board of the automobile, making friends with some half-dozen chipmunks. The little animals came almost to her fingertips before turning to scamper away to the comparative safety of a dead pine log, where they chattered their spirits up before slowly creeping back, to approach within a matter of inches. Up in the pine tree above her head a bluejay, apparently thinking she was feeding the chipmunks, fluttered nervously from limb to limb, dropping ever lower, cocking his head from side to side, muttering low throaty squawks of protest at being excluded from the feast — a strange combination of impudence and diffidence.

“Hello, Chief,” she said. “Who’s the new arrival?”

“Waid, the secretary,” Mason replied. “He has something to tell them. That’s why they came up here to the cabin. They wanted to meet Waid where no newspaper men would be around... And Paul Drake’s telephoned he has something hot in San Molinas.”

“How about Waid?” she asked. “Going to wait and see if he’ll talk, Chief?”

“No. We’ll rush to San Molinas. Sergeant Holcomb will warn Waid not to tell me whatever it is he knows, but Charles Sabin will get it out of him later, and then we’ll find out. Come on, tell your friends good-by and let’s go.”