Erle Gardner - The Case of the Lame Canary

“You know what I mean,” Mason told her, and then kept them waiting while he fished a cigarette case from his pocket, went through the motions of offering a cigarette to the others, selected one, sat back, lit it, and said, “After all, you know, I’m not Mrs. Snoops.”

Driscoll said ominously, “I’m not certain that I like that crack, Mason.”

Mason locked eyes with him. “No one asked you to, Driscoll.”

“Well,” Driscoll said, “suppose you explain — or apologize.”

“Bosh!” Mason said. “What do you people think you’re pulling?”

Rosalind Prescott, standing very straight, said, “I think Mr. Mason’s right.”

“Rossy!” Rita exclaimed.

Driscoll didn’t take his eyes from the lawyer. “I don’t think he’s right,” he said, “and I don’t like his manner.”

“You,” Mason told him, “can go to the devil! I suppose because you’re good-looking, women have been easy for you all your life. Now you’re in a jam and you find it a lot easier to hide behind petticoats than to come out in the open.”

Driscoll started for Mason. The lawyer raised himself ominously from the bed. Rosalind Prescott, jumping forward, grabbed Driscoll’s arm, clung to it and said, “Jimmy, stop it! You hear me? Stop it!”

Mason said, “Go ahead, you young fool. Start something. That’ll bring in the house detective, and then the cops. It’ll be about on a par with the bonehead moves you’ve made so far.”

Driscoll said with quivering lips, “I don’t have to take this from you, you know.”

“The hell you don’t,” Mason said easily, “You just think you don’t. You’ll take it and like it. Sit down!”

“Please, Jimmy,” Rosalind Prescott pleaded.

Rita Swaine, staring across at the lawyer, said, “Why are you talking like that?”

“You should know. There are two reasons. One of them is that I don’t like to be double-crossed by clients.”

“No one tried to double-cross you,” she said.

“Oh, certainly not,” Mason observed sarcastically. “When you told me that you were the one Mrs. Snoops saw with Jimmy, you weren’t trying to play me for a sucker. You were just giving your imagination a few indoor calisthenics.” He turned moodily to survey Rosalind Prescott and said, “I think you’ll tell the truth.”

“Shut up, Rossy,” Driscoll warned in a low voice. “This is serious.”

Mason appraised him with hostile eyes and said, “It’d be different if you could get away with it, but you can’t get away with it. You didn’t get away with it with me, and, in the long run, you won’t get away with it with the district attorney. But, trying to get away with it is playing right into his hands. Why the devil didn’t you folks tell me the truth in the first place, and let me tell you what to do? But no, you had to go on the amateur hour, and try and dress the window so it would look all nice and pretty. So Rosalind skips out and leaves her dress where Rita can put it on. Rita catches the canary, goes up to the window so as to make sure Mrs. Snoops can see her, and finishes clipping the canary’s claws. Where she makes her mistake is in being too excited to notice that the claws on the right foot have already been clipped once. It’s the left foot which was left unfinished. But Rita painstakingly cuts the right claws twice, and leaves one of the left claws untouched.”

Rita Swaine said indignantly, “Why, I never—”

“You’re right, Mr. Mason,” Rosalind Prescott announced.

Mason shifted his eyes to her and said, “I think I’m going to like you. Tell me what happened, and tell it fast. We may not have much time. Your sister left a wide back trail. I followed it, and someone else may follow it.”

Driscoll took a deep breath and started to say something. Mason said, “Shut up, Driscoll.”

Rosalind Prescott said, “I fought with my husband.He was going to divorce me. He found a letter Jimmy had written. The letter was capable of two interpretations. He chose the worst. He left the house to go see a lawyer. I became panic-striken and did the worst possible thing. I telephoned for Jimmy, to tell him what had happened, and to tell him I was leaving. Then Jimmy got hotheaded and came tearing out to the house. And, to cap the climax, carried a gun, with some fanciful idea of protecting me from Walter. Walter’d threatened to kill me if I tried to claim any share of his business.”

“You’d told Driscoll that?” Mason asked.

“Yes, over the telephone.”

“Okay,” Mason said, “remember it. Driscoll thought you were in actual danger. You probably were in actual danger. He carried a gun only for the purpose of protecting you. Now go ahead.”

“Jimmy came out there. We were in the solarium. I tried to talk things over sensibly with him. Jimmy — well, Jimmy lost his head and took me in his arms, and I—”

“Yes, I know,” Mason said. “Mrs. Snoops described the scene to me.”

“How did it sound when she described it?”

“Passionate,” Mason said tersely.

She met his eyes frankly and said, “All right, it was.”

Mason nodded. “Good girl. Go ahead.”

“Jimmy told me I must leave, and he was going to get plane reservations. Then there was this automobile accident. Jimmy ran out and helped lift the man out of the coupe and put him in the van. Then he came back, and I suddenly realized he might be called as a witness; that the man who was driving the van might come back and try to get his name and address, and Jimmy’s car was standing outside, parked down on the side street. So I told Jimmy he must leave at once, that I’d pack and go later. Jimmy didn’t want to go. I insisted. So then Jimmy told me that I must take his gun, for protection, in case Walter should come back. I told him I didn’t want a gun, and would never use one, but he insisted — I must have one somewhere in the house where I could get it if I had to. So I took the gun and hid it back of the drawer in the desk, where I knew Walter would never find it. I never did intend to use it, not even as a last resort. I just took it in order to make Jimmy feel better and so he’d quit arguing and get out of there. He’s obstinate at times — and this was one of the times.”

“And then?” Mason asked.

“Then,” she said, “I looked up and saw Mrs. Snoops had been watching. Lord knows how long she’d been watching — probably she’d seen everything. I told Jimmy to leave. He started to go and ran into some officers from a radio prowl car, who took his name and address from his driving license. Then I knew we were sunk.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Mason said. “Did Jimmy come back into the house after the officers took his name and address?”

“Yes.”

“And then what happened?”

“We talked things over, and Jimmy had the idea of having Rita come over and put on my dress, catch the canary, finish clipping his claws, and take occasion to stand in the window where Mrs. Snoops could see her and recognize her plainly. You see, we look enough alike so Mrs. Snoops couldn’t have been absolutely certain, seeing through the lace curtains.”

“Go ahead,” Mason said.

“I rang up Rita. She knows the rest.”

“Where did you ring her up from?”

“The house, but I didn’t dare say much.”

“How long were you there after you telephoned?”

“No time at all. Telephoning her was the last thing I did in the house. I rushed to the airport, where I called Rita again and told her everything.”

“Did you come here in a regular plane, or a chartered plane?”

“No, I flew to San Francisco, and then took a plane to Reno.”