Erle Gardner - The Case of the Lame Canary

“Did Trader implicate Weyman?”

“Not by the time I’d left. He did implicate Prescott and this Diana Morgan. Now, suppose you be nice to a poor working girl and satisfy my curiosity as to what happened, and then give your undivided attention to your driving. Personally, I want to catch that ship.”

“Well,” Mason said, “it all started when I got to figuring the thing from the standpoint of psychology. I figured that Walter Prescott had the psychology of a murderer rather than that of a victim, so starting my reasoning in that goofy way, I got to wondering who his victim could possibly have been. And I began to think of Carl Packard’s disappearance. Then, suddenly, I saw a great light. Suppose Walter Prescott, as an insurance adjuster, had been standing in, either with or without Wray’s knowledge, with a gang of incendiaries. It would make a perfect set-up, and it wouldn’t have been the first time such a thing had happened. And if Packard had suspected Prescott, and was getting hot on the trail, Prescott would have been just the type to bump him off.

“But Carl Packard, who was a logical victim, couldn’t have been a victim because he’d shown up at the hospital and made a voluntary statement that the accident had been his fault; that he’d been looking at something he saw in the window — and then the whole thing clicked in my mind.

“Packard was getting close on the trail of the real firebugs. They decided to murder him in such a way it would be virtually impossible to bring home the murder to them. You can see what happened: Weyman, one of the conspirators, let the gang beat him up enough so that he looked as though he’d sustained minor injuries in an automobile accident. Then, when Packard started out for Walter Prescott’s house, Harry Trader, with his big van, followed along behind, and, at the proper moment, smashed Packard into the curb. He promptly unloaded Packard, put him in the covered van — and note that the covered van was an important factor in the conspiracy — and hustled off toward a hospital. The next time we contact the injured man is when he appears in the hospital. But, just as a stage magician frequently substitutes watches when he’s walking from the audience up to the stage, so the victims were substituted during that journey in the covered van.

“The more I thought of it, the more I realized how perfectly plausible such a murder would be. Jason Braun, alias Carl Packard, was put into the van in an unconscious condition. He may have been dying then. For all we know, he was immediately the victim of the brutal assault which smashed in his head in such a way that identification became virtually impossible.

“When the covered van arrived at the hospital, Weyman, feigning unconsciousness, took Jason Braun’s place and was carried out on the stretcher.

“Now then comes the masterly touch. Jason Braun was to disappear permanently. The conspirators wanted to make it seem that there was nothing suspicious about his disappearance. Therefore, they pulled that traumatic amnesia business, and Dr. Wallace fell for it, hook, line and sinker. He patched up Weyman’s face, and Weyman came back to his house, having poured a little whiskey on his garments, taken a few drinks, and put on the act of having been drunk and fighting again.

“Now, when he arrived at the house, his wife told him of the latest gossip of the neighborhood; of what Mrs. Snoops had seen in Walter Prescott’s house.

“Weyman immediately realized what a wonderful opportunity it would be to murder Prescott and get away with it. And Prescott was a thorn in the flesh of the incendiaries. For the one person who we absolutely know Jason Braun suspected in connection with this gang of firegugs was Walter Prescott. The conspirators were afraid that if Braun knew Walter was tied up with them, other people might know it. And they also knew that if Walter were arrested, he’d implicate them.

“As a sheer coincidence, and part of the act which the conspirators had put on at the hospital, Weyman, posing as Packard, had stated that the accident was his fault because his attention had been distracted by something he saw in the window of the house.

“So Weyman dropped over to call on Walter Prescott,who had gone to his house following the accident, after the departure of his wife, and prior to the arrival of Rita Swaine. Weyman put on gloves, took the gun from its hiding place, approached Walter Prescott casually, under the guise of friendship, and fired three shots into him before Prescott knew what was happening, then returned the gun to its hiding place, and left the house.

“You see, the crime must have been committed after Jimmy Driscoll gave that gun to Rosalind Prescott. That is, if we’re to believe Wray’s testimony. And there’s no reason why we shouldn’t. In other words, Prescott was alive at eleven fifty-five. Virtually every minute of Driscoll’s time is accounted for after that. Of course, he might have left the telephone and killed Prescott. But I couldn’t figure him as Prescott’s murderer because of things entirely foreign to the time element.

“Notice the manner in which Prescott was killed: He was killed in his bedroom. He was killed with no evidence of struggle. He was killed by someone, who, under the guise of friendship, was able to walk quite close to him, produce a gun and fire three times before Prescott realized he was in any danger.

“Prescott had previously mentioned to the police that someone had been prowling around the house, and, he thought, intended to kill him. It’s quite possible that he had seen Braun while that individual was making some preliminary investigations. In any event, Driscoll, who was his sworn enemy, could not have approached him in the limited time which Driscoll had within which to act, and fired the fatal shot — not in the bedroom of his own house. Prescott would have been too much on his guard, too hostile. No, Prescott was killed by a friend, someone he trusted.

“Rita Swaine could have done it. Stella Anderson might have done it. Mrs. Weyman could have done it. None of those three really would have done it. Rita wouldn’t have taken the gun from its hiding place after she had gone to so many pains to let Mrs. Snoops see her in the solarium. Mrs. Snoops and Mrs. Weyman could have had no possible motive for the murder. None of the three could have approached Walter in his bedroom without arousing Walter’s suspicions.

“There was only one other person who knew that the gun was hidden in that place, and that was Weyman. His wife must have told him, and asked him what to do, whether to call the police, and so forth. Thinking the thing over, it all became perfectly clear.

“Having reasoned that far, and assuming that Prescott was in a conspiracy to get places of business heavily insured, remove the most valuable goods from the buildings fire them, and subsequently, as an adjuster, hold up the insurance company for a splendid settlement, I realized that the gang must have some way of disposing of the goods.

“The redhead in Prescott’s office looked like a phony to me. In other words, she didn’t look the part of a legitimate stenographer, secretary and receptionist. As soon as an investigation disclosed that she was leading a double life, I knew I was right. As Diana Morgan, a rich divorcee who traveled about the country, she was in a position to have boxes and bags brought to her apartment, taken out by Trader, and eventually dispose of the merchandise. Her apartment in the Bellefontaine made an excellent place in which to hide and sort over the loot. Later on, when the conspirators were ready to dispose of it, they could move it out, all packed in trunks, bags and boxes.”