Erle Gardner - The Case of the Lame Canary

Dimmick struggled to his feet. “You look here,” he shouted, “you can’t bulldoze us! You’re not doing business with some cheap firm of shysters! Dimmick, Gray & Peabody represent the—”

Mason said, “Don’t forget what the doctor told you, Mr. Dimmick. You mustn’t get excited.”

He strode toward the exit door, opened it, turned to Cuff and said, “How about the wallet you took from Packard’s coat pocket, Cuff?”

“The wallet!” Cuff said, his eyes widening.

Mason nodded.

“There wasn’t any wallet.”

“There isn’t any,” Mason said. “That’s no sign there wasn’t any.”

“But I don’t understand you,” Cuff said. “You—”

“I understand him,” Dimmick said. “He’s going to claim that you wrongfully removed a wallet from Packard’s pocket.”

Mason said, “I’m not going to claim anything of the sort, gentlemen. I am going to point out to the press that it’s most unusual for a man to be driving a car without a driving license. When Dr. Wallace treated Packard at the hospital, Packard had a driving license showing his name and his Altaville residence. That driving license was in a wallet. The wallet and the driving license were returned to him. What became of them?”

“How should I know?” Cuff asked.

“What were you doing, going through the man’s pockets?”

“I was trying to identify him.”

Mason nodded and said, “That’s what you say. You’re representing James Driscoll. Don’t forget Prescott was killed with Driscoll’s gun. Don’t forget Carl Packard saw something in the window of Prescott’s house just about the time Prescott was being killed. Don’t forget that Packard was murdered to keep him from talking, and don’t forget that James Driscoll knew that the body was that of Packard just as soon as the wreck was found. Perhaps the ultra-respectable firm of Dimmick, Gray & Peabody will have some embarrassing questions to answer before I get finished.”

Cuff came striding toward Mason, his face indignant. “You can’t pull that stuff,” he said. “That’s—”

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Mason said, stepping into the corridor. “You have half an hour.” He slammed the door shut behind him.

Perry Mason, his thumbs pushed through the armholes of his vest, head dropped forward in thought, paced the floor of his office with rhythmic regularity. From time to time he flung remarks over his shoulder to Della Street; his eyes, however, kept staring straight ahead in fixed focus.

“—Can’t understand the thing — like reaching in the dark for a light globe that’s dangling from a string. It hits your fingers, bounces away. You grope for it, can’t find it,then bump into it again... What the devil could Packard have seen in that window?... And Packard was murdered, don’t forget that. Personally, I’m inclined to think he was unconscious when somebody ran the car over the bank. In the first place, it was a stolen car. Now, why the devil should Packard steal a car? In the second place, there wasn’t a single finger-print on the steering wheel, but Packard wasn’t wearing gloves. Someone stole that car, wiped all prints from the steering wheel. Packard was unconscious. They ran the car up the mountain road, then someone who wore gloves stood on the runningboard, pushed down the hand throttle, kicked in the clutch, ran it to the edge of the cliff, and let ’er go.”

Della Street tapped with her pencil on the polished surface of her desk. “Now listen, Chief,” she said. “Don’t forget our ship sails tomorrow. And, while I think of it, here’s the ticket for you to sign.”

She unfolded a sheet of paper filled with fine printing. Mason paused in his stride, whipped a fountain pen from his pocket, bent over the desk, and affixed his signature with a flourish.

“If a client did that you’d jump all over him,” she said.

“Did what?”

“Sign a printed form without reading it.”

He grinned. “After they get in trouble,” he said, “and bring a printed document in to me, bearing their signature, I always tell them they shouldn’t have signed it without reading it. And they shouldn’t. Not that one. But if a business man stopped to read over the nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand fine print regulations they put on the backs of tickets, bills of lading, telegraph blanks, and things of that sort, he’d be blind before he was fifty.”

“Perry Mason, you’re avoiding the question. Are you or are you not going to start getting your trunks packed?”

He frowned and said, “You know as well as I do, Della, we can’t leave on that ship until we have Rita Swaine out of her difficulties.”

“Suppose she’s guilty?”

“Do you think she’s guilty?”

“To tell you the truth, Chief, I don’t know. I don’t think I pay as much attention to the sob-sister stories women hand out as you do. But, just the same, it’s hard to figure how she could have gone in the house, killed Walter Prescott, and then tried to plan things so it would look as though her sister had done the job.”

“How about Rosalind Prescott?”

“I’m not so sure about her. Rosalind’s in love. A woman will do anything to protect the man she loves.”

“Even to the extent of getting her sister convicted of murder!”

“Her sister isn’t convicted of murder yet,” Della Street pointed out. “And if she is, it’ll be the first client you’ve defended who has been convicted. Rosalind may have passed the buck to you.”

Mason resumed his pacing of the floor and said, “Yes, that’s so.”

“Chief, will you please take the time out tonight to pack your trunks?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t promise. If I can’t clear this case up, there’s no use packing any trunks. You know as well as I do I won’t sail unless it’s finished.”

“That isn’t what’s bothering me,” she said. “I don’t doubt your ability to work out a solution of this case before tomorrow afternoon at two o’clock. But, what I’m afraid of is, you’ll get interested in some other case and stay over to handle that.”

“No,” he told her, “when we get this thing cleaned up we’re going around the world.”

“Will you promise you won’t take on any other case?”

Mason said, with a grin, “Well, now, a promise is definite and final.”

“So you really don’t mean it.”

“Well,” he offered, “I’ll make you a conditional promise.”

“What do you mean by a conditional promise?”

“I won’t take any ordinary case,” he said. “Of course, if something should come in which fairly reeked of mystery— Well, you wouldn’t want me to go around the world putting in every waking minute wondering what I’d left behind me, would you?”

“Yes,” she said, “I would.”

“I wouldn’t enjoy the trip.”

“You think you wouldn’t. If you once got started you’d get a kick out of it. You’d see so much beneath the surface that you’d get a lot of fun sizing up your fellow travelers, going ashore in the different ports, and—”

She broke off, to lift the receiver from the telephone on her desk as the bell shrilled into noise. Listening a moment, she looked up and said, “Frederick Carpenter, the Vice-President of the Second Fidelity Savings & Loan.”

Mason grinned and said, “That may be good. Better listen in.”

He strode to his desk, jerked up his telephone, said, “Hello. Mason speaking.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Mason. This is Mr. Frederick Carpenter of the Second Fidelity Savings & Loan. You’ll remember talking with me about the account of Walter Prescott, deceased.”