Erle Gardner - The Case of the Perjured Parrot

PERRY MASON — Noted criminal lawyer — intrepid, dramatic, elusive fighter, whose cause is never lost

DELLA STREET — His secretary, whose horizon is bounded by that of her chief, and whose only fear is that some day he may overstep the charmed circle of his daring

CHARLES SABIN — Son of Fremont C. Sabin, a substantial citizen, quiet, determined, ready to pay anything to bring his father’s murderer to justice

PAUL DRAKE — Detective, long, laconic, and loyal, willing to toss his natural caution to the winds in the service of Perry Mason

SERGEANT HOLCOMB — One-track representative of the long arm of the law, with a wistful, pugnacious hope of catching Perry Mason off his guard

SHERIFF BARNES — Efficient, tolerant, slow, who would rather be sure of his man

RICHARD WAID — Erstwhile secretary to Fremont C. Sabin, whose conscience is his guide, when convenient

ARTHUR GIBBS — Calmly observant trainer of parrots to suit the public taste

MRS. WINTERS — Neighbor of Helen Monteith, whose friendship isn’t quite deep enough to drown her curiosity

HELEN MONTEITH — Buffeted by the winds of circumstance, whose ship finally reaches port

MRS. HELEN WATKINS SABIN — Widow of the murdered man — a juggernaut with a purpose

STEVE WATKINS — Suave son of Mrs. Watkins by a former marriage, and her able disciple

DISTRICT ATTORNEY RAYMOND SPRAGUE — Explosive, frustrated exponent of the high-pressure technique

RANDOLPH BOLDING — Handwriting expert, who found to his surprise that professional pride had better be denied

ANDY TEMPLET — Practical, non-partisan coroner, determined that justice shall be done

GEORGE WALLMAN — Innocent bystander, whose simple philosophy is the cause of much confusion

Perry Mason regarded the pasteboard jacket, labeled “IMPORTANT UNANSWERED CORRESPONDENCE,” with uncordial eyes.

Della Street, his secretary, looking as crisply efficient as a nurse in a freshly starched uniform, said with her best Monday-morning air, “I’ve gone over it carefully, Chief. The letters on top are the ones you simply have to answer. I’ve cleaned out a whole bunch of the correspondence from the bottom.”

“From the bottom?” Mason asked. “How did you do that?”

“Well,” she confessed, “it’s stuff that’s been in there too long.”

Mason tilted back in his swivel chair, crossed his long legs, assumed his best lawyer manner and said, in mock cross-examination, “Now, let’s get this straight, Miss Street. Those were letters which had originally been put in the ‘IMPORTANT UNANSWERED’ file?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve gone over that file from time to time, carefully?”

“Yes.”

“And eliminated everything which didn’t require my personal attention?”

“Yes.”

“And yet this morning of Monday, September twelfth, you take out a large number of letters from the bottom of the file?”

“That’s right,” she admitted, her eyes twinkling.

“How many letters, may I ask?”

“Oh, fifteen or twenty.”

“And did you answer those yourself?”

She shook her head, smiling.

“What did you do with them?” Mason asked.

“Transferred them to another file.”

“What file?”

“The ‘LAPSED’ file.”

Mason chuckled delightedly. “Now there’s an idea, Della. We simply hold things in the ‘IMPORTANT UNANSWERED’ file until a lapse of time robs them of their importance, and then we transfer them to the ‘LAPSED’ file. It eliminates correspondence, saves worry, and gets me away from office routine, which I detest... Incidentally, Della, things which seem frightfully important at the time have a habit of fading into insignificance. Events are like telephone poles, streaming back past the observation platform of a speeding train. They loom large at first, then melt into the distance, becoming so tiny they finally disappear altogether... That’s the way with nearly all of the things we think are so vital.”

Her eyes were wide and innocent. “Do the telephone poles really get smaller, Chief, or do they just appear smaller?”

“Of course, they don’t get smaller,” he said; “it’s simply that you’re farther away from them. Other telephone poles come in and fill up the foreground. The telephone poles are all the same size. However, as you get farther distant from them they appear to be smaller, and...” He broke off abruptly and said, “Wait a minute. You aren’t gently trying to point out a fallacy in my argument, are you?”

At her triumphant grin, he made a mock grimace. “I should have known better than to argue with a woman. All right, Simon Legree, get your notebook ready, and we’ll write those confounded letters.”

He opened the filing jacket, scanned a letter from a prominent firm of lawyers, tossed it across the desk to her, and said, “Write these people that I’m not interested in handling the case, even at twice the fee named. It’s just a plain, ordinary murder case. A woman gets tired of her husband, plugs him with a six-gun, and then weeps and wails that he was drunk and trying to beat her up. She lived with him for six years, and seeing him drunk was no novelty. The business about being afraid he was going to kill her doesn’t check with the story of the other witnesses.”

“How much of that,” Della Street asked with calm efficiency, “do you want me to put in the letter?”

“Just the part about not wanting to handle the case... Oh, Lord, here’s another one. A man, who’s swindled a bunch of people into buying worthless stock, wants me to prove that he was within the letter of the law.”

Mason slammed the file shut and said, “You know, Della, I wish people would learn to differentiate between the reputable lawyer who represents persons accused of crime, and the criminal lawyer who becomes a silent partner in the profits of crime.”

“Just how would you explain the difference?” she asked.

Mason said, “Crime is personal. Evidence of crime is impersonal. I never take a case unless I’m convinced my client was incapable of committing the crime charged. Once I’ve reached that conclusion, I figure there must be some discrepancy between the evidence and the conclusions the police have drawn from that evidence. I set out to find them.”

She laughed. “You sound as though you were more of a detective than a lawyer.”

“No,” Mason said, “they are two different professions. A detective gathers evidence. He becomes skilled in knowing what to look for, where to find it, and how to get it. A lawyer interprets the evidence after it’s been collected. He gradually learns...”

He was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone at Della’s desk. She answered it, saying, “Hold the line a moment, please,” and then, cupping her hand over the mouthpiece, turned to Perry Mason. “Would you be interested in seeing a Mr. Charles Sabin on a matter of the greatest importance? Mr. Sabin says he’s willing to pay any consultation fee.”

Mason said, “Depends on what he wants. If he has a murder case, I’ll listen to him. If he wants me to draw up a chattel mortgage, the answer is ‘no.’ There isn’t enough money in the mint to tempt me to... Wait a minute, Della. What’s his name?”

“Sabin,” she said, “Charles W. Sabin.”

“Where is he?”

“In the outer office.”

Mason said, “Tell him to wait a few minutes. No, wait a minute. Find out if he’s related to Fremont C. Sabin.”

Della asked the question over the telephone, and waited for the girl at the information desk in the outer office to relay the inquiry to the visitor. She turned once more to Mason and said, “Yes, he’s the son of Mr. Fremont C. Sabin.”