Erle Gardner - The Case of the Lame Canary

“An inside tip from headquarters,” Drake said, “is that they have enough on Rita Swaine to hang her. I don’t want to discourage you on your case, Perry, but I thought you’d like to know.”

Mason said, without taking his eyes from the road, his profile grim and granite-hard, “Don’t ever kid yourself, Paul, circumstantial evidence is sometimes a liar. I think this is one of the times.”

“You don’t think she did it?”

“No.”

“Who did, then?”

“I’m damned if I know. I’m hoping there’ll be something on the body of Jason Braun which will give us a clue as to whom he’d been talking with, where he’s been hiding during the last day or two. He saw something in one of the windows. He must have told someone what he saw.”

“Well, we’ll know in a few minutes. We’re eating up the miles now.”

Again Mason sat back and was silent. Not until the car slued off to the side of the road where a light roadster was parked, with a man standing beside it frantically waving his arms, did the lawyer appear to be conscious of his surroundings. “That your man, Paul?” he asked then.

The detective nodded. “He’ll lead the way,” he said.

Mason sat forward on the edge of the seat, watching every curve in the road as it snaked its way up a precipitous canyon.

“What the devil was Jason Braun doing up here?” the lawyer asked.

“I can’t figure it myself,” Drake said, “unless he came up here to meet someone. Remember, he was an investigator working on a case, and—”

“And if he’d wanted complete privacy, he could have secured it just as well about twenty-five miles nearer the city,” Mason interrupted.

Drake said, “We’ll see.”

The pilot car labored up the heavy grade, rounded a turn, and the stop light flashed an angry red of warning. Ahead of the car, a motorcycle officer, attired in whipcord, puttees and a leather coat, flagged the car to a stop. A tow car was parked crossways a hundred feet beyond him, a taut wire rope stretched down into the depths of the canyon. The motor of the car was turning slowly and the wire rope gradually reeling in over the revolving drums.

Mason and Drake jumped to the ground. Drake showed his card to the traffic officer. “I’m making an investigation of this,” he said.

“What’s the idea?” the officer wanted to know.

“I’m representing an insurance company,” Drake said. “The big-shot thinks the man’s a policy holder.”

“What makes him think that?” the traffic officer wanted to know.

Drake shrugged his shoulders and said, “Probably just a poor hunch, but one of his policy holders has been missing for two or three days, and he’s just playing it safe. Anyway, there’s ten dollars a day and expenses in it for me, eight and expenses for the photographer, and this guy, here, so I should worry.”

The traffic officer nodded. “I’d like prints of any pictures you take,” he said.

“Sure,” Drake told him.

“And don’t mess up anything. The coroner hasn’t arrived yet.”

“Think he’ll come?”

“He’ll probably tell us to bring the body in, but we’re awaiting definite instructions to make sure.”

“Where’s the body?” Mason asked.

“Over there under that tree, covered with a canvas. But you can’t tell anything by that.”

“Why not?”

“Take a look at the head and you’ll see why. Lying out in the sun for a couple of days hasn’t improved things any, either.”

Drake said, “Okay, thanks, we’ll take a look. Come on, boys, let’s go.”

They walked up the road to where the tow car, with its back wheels blocked, was straining at the weight on the other end of the steel line.

The sun beat down from a cloudless sky. The air in the canyon was dry, hot and still. A growth of scrub oak covered the slope which stretched down for a hundred feet below the roadbed to terminate abruptly in a fifty-foot drop. The tow car had raised the wreck above this drop and was now inching it up the slope. From time to time, branches of the scrub oak cracked explosively. Little spurts of powdery dust puffed upward from the trees.

Mason said to the man in charge of operations, “We’re investigators,” and moved over to the white canvas which had been spread beneath the shade of a big oak tree.

Picking up a corner of the canvas, he moved it back. Flies buzzed in angry circles. Mason dropped the canvas back into place and said, “Not much help there.”

Drake dropped to his knees, brought out a small inked pad from his pocket and said, “I can get something from the finger-tips, Perry.”

Mason once more turned a corner of the canvas back. The traffic officer continued to stand where he could warn traffic coming around the blind curve from below. The men in charge of raising the wreck from the canyon were completely occupied with the problems which confronted them. Someone shouted from down below. The winches ceased to turn, and the sounds of an ax, chopping away at a bush, could be heard from the thicket.

Drake transferred prints of the dead man’s fingers to a white piece of paper, produced a magnifying glass and another set of prints from his pocket. Sitting on his heels beside the mangled form of the dead man, Drake made his comparison.

“Don’t try to reduce it to a mathematical certainty,” Mason said. “All I want is a working hypothesis.”

“Well, you’ve got it,” Drake told him. “This is the guy.”

“Jason Braun?”

“Yes. Alias Packard.”

There were shouts from the brush-covered slope. One of the men leaned over the edge of the road, steadying himself by holding to the wire cable. Mason said, “Okay, Paul, go through his pockets. I’ll keep watch.”

“It’s highly irregular,” Drake pointed out. “The coroner is the one who’s supposed—”

“Forget it,” Mason told him. “Go through his pockets. There’s a car coming up the road now.”

For a moment there was comparative silence in the canyon. The grinding winches of the big tow car had stopped. There were no more shouts from down below. The ax blows were suspended. In the hot silence could be heard the faint grind of a car coming up the winding road.

Drake nodded to his assistant. Turning back the canvas, they explored the stained, stiff clothes of the corpse.

Drake said, “A knife, some keys, a handkerchief, half-smoked package of cigarettes, card of matches from the Log Cabin Café in Pasadena, a pencil, fountain pen, forty-eight dollars in bills, two dollars and seven cents in small change. And that’s all. No rings, stick pins, wrist watch — in fact, nothing else.”

Mason said, “That car’s about ready to come around the curve. Probably it’s the coroner. Get that stuff back in his pockets. Make an inventory if you can.”

The men pushed the things back in the pockets. Drake said, “Gosh, Perry, this is getting me where I live. I’m going to be sick.”

“Shut up,” Mason ordered. “Get busy and keep busy. I’ll tell you when that car rounds the corner. Then get up and get away— Here it comes. Beat it!”

Drake’s assistant jumped to his feet, pulled a cigarette from his pocket, inserted it in his lips and held the flame of a match cupped in trembling hands. Drake jerked the canvas back into position, took two uncertain steps toward Mason, veered abruptly, and leaned against the trunk of a tree. His face was a greenish-white.

The car slowed to a stop in front of the traffic officer’s upraised palm. Two men got out. They talked for a few moments. Then the officer nodded and stood to one side.

Mason watched the two men.

“Is it the coroner?” Drake asked, without moving his position.

Mason said, “Move down toward that tow car, Paul, I’m joining you. Let’s keep out of sight.”