Erle Gardner - The Case of the Lame Canary

She teetered back and forth on the edge of her chair, her bony back rigid with indignation. “What’s that?” she snapped.

Mason said, “They probably had all the information about the automobile accident they needed.”

“Well,” she said, bristling, “it just happens this wasn’t about the automobile accident. Don’t you go jumping at conclusions, young man.”

Mason raised his eyebrows. “What was it?”

“No,” she said, “it doesn’t concern you. You’re investigating the automobile accident. What do you want to know about it?”

“Everything you know about it,” Mason said.

“Well,” she said, “I was here in my house at the time.”

“Did you actually see the accident?”

Her face showed disappointment. “I heard the sound of sliding tires and ran to the window just about the time of the crash. The cars were locked together and skidding. Then they struck the curb with an awful crash. The man who was driving the van jumped down and tried to get the door of the coupe open, but he couldn’t do it. Then he ran around to the other side of the coupe, and by that time the man had run out of the Prescott house. He helped—”

“What man?” Mason interrupted her.

“A man I’d seen over there earlier.”

Mason raised his eyes and said, “Oh, you had seen him, then.”

“Of course I’d seen him.”

“You didn’t say so.”

“Well, you didn’t give me a chance.”

“I thought,” Mason remarked, “that I’d asked you about what you saw in the house and you told me it was none of my business— Do you mind if I smoke?”

“I didn’t say it was none of your business,” she said, “and I’d very much prefer you didn’t smoke. The odor of tobacco gets in the curtains and stays there.”

Mason nodded. “Where were you when you first heard the sound of sliding tires?”

“I was in the dining room,” she said.

Mason nodded to an open archway and said, “That’s the room?”

“Yes.”

“Would you,” Mason asked, “mind showing me exactly where you were standing?”

She got to her feet with effortless agility and without bending her back. Without a word, she strode through the doorway into the dining room.

“Stand just as you were standing when you heard the sound of the tires,” Mason said.

She turned and stared out through the south window. Mason stepped over and stood at her side. “That’s the Prescott house over there?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You’re rather close to it, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the room directly opposite?”

“That’s the solarium.”

“And you were standing here when you heard the sound of the tires?”

“Yes.”

“In just about this position?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you do?”

“I ran through that door, across the parlor, pulled back the curtains and looked out.”

“Just in time to see the van push the coupe into the curb?”

“Yes.”

“Do you,” Mason asked, “know who was to blame?”

“No. I didn’t see enough of it. And, even if I had, I might not be able to tell much. I never did learn to drive a car. Now, let’s go back in the other room. There’s something I’m interested in, and—”

“What did you do after the accident?”

“Well, I went to my telephone and notified the police there’d been an accident and a man was hurt. After a few minutes, a police car came around that corner. The young man who had helped load the driver of the coupe in the truck was just leaving the Prescott house. The men from the police car asked him questions and made him show them his driving license—”

She broke off as a car drove by on Alsace Avenue. She followed it with her eyes until it slowed and rounded the corner on Fourteenth Street.

“That’s seven cars,” she said, “that have come there in the last half hour. Now, who do you suppose that could be?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Mason told her.

“Well, one of the cars had ‘Homicide Squad’ painted on the side. You could hear the siren coming a mile away.”

Mason said, “Perhaps the man who was hurt in the automobile accident died.”

“Don’t be silly,” she snapped. “The man who was hurt went to a hospital. Traffic accidents aren’t homicides. This was the homicide squad.”

“Are you,” Mason asked, “absolutely certain that the young man ran out of the Prescott house?”

“Of course I’m certain.”

“Isn’t it possible he’d been sitting in a car parked around the corner? I see that the Prescott house is right on the corner of Fourteenth Street and—”

“Certainly not,” she interrupted. “That’s absurd! I guess I know when a man comes out of a house. What’s more, I saw him in the house before that accident.”

Mason raised inquiring eyebrows. “Whatever happened in the Prescott house couldn’t have any bearing on the automobile accident. I’m afraid you’ve exaggerated some trivial neighborhood happening—”

“Fiddlesticks!” she interrupted. “Now you look here, young man— What’s your name?”

“Mason.”

“All right, Mr. Mason, you look here. I know when something’s important and when it isn’t. Now you let me tell you just what I saw over there, and you’ll realize that it is important and what a mistake those radio officers made not coming over to talk with me in the first place.

“Now, I was standing in front of that window in my dining room, looking out. I wasn’t looking at anything in particular, but you can see how things are. A body can’t help but see things that go on in the solarium over in the Prescott house unless the shades are drawn. And Mrs. Prescott never draws the shades. Land sakes, the things I’ve seen— Well, this young man was in there with Mrs. Prescott’s sister. She was alone in that house with this young man.”

“He probably just dropped in to pass the time of day,” Mason said.

Her sniff was eloquent. “The time of day,” she exclaimed scornfully. “Well, he’d been there exactly forty-two minutes before the accident, and if you’d seen what I saw when Rita Swaine let go of that canary you’d change your tune a bit.”

“What,” Mason asked, striving to keep the interest from his voice, “caused her to let go of the canary?”

“She was standing there,” Mrs. Anderson said, “right in front of that window. The shades were up and she must have known I could see her from my dining room if I’d happened to be looking out of the window — not that I make a practice of looking into people’s houses, because I don’t. I haven’t any desire to go sticking my nose into other people’s business. But if a young woman leaves the shades up and engages in passionate lovemaking right in front of my eyes, she’s got no complaint if I look. Land sakes! I’m not going to keep my shades down just because the neighbors haven’t any modesty. These modern women don’t know the meaning of the word. When I was a girl—”

“So the young man was making love to her, was he?” Mason prompted.

“Well,” she said, drawing herself up primly, “in my time that wasn’t what we’d have called it. Love, huh! I never saw two people carry on so in my life.”

“But aren’t you mistaken about the canary?” Mason asked.

“Certainly I’m not mistaken about him. Rita Swaine was holding that canary in her hand. She’d just started to clip his claws when this young man grabbed her in his arms. And the shameless way in which she twined herself around him made me blush for her. I never did see such carryings-on. She certainly never learned embraces like that in any young woman’s finishing school. She just—”