Erle Gardner - The Case of the Lame Canary

Sergeant Holcomb made little jabbing motions with the cigar he was holding between the first two fingers of his right hand. “Never mind that,” he said. “How do you fit in on this murder?”

“What murder?” Mason asked, raising his eyebrows.

Sergeant Holcomb said sarcastically, “Oh, sure, you wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”

“Not a thing,” Mason told him.

“And I presume,” Holcomb said with a sneer, “you just dropped in for a social chat, to ask Mrs. Anderson to go to a movie.”

Mason said with dignity, “As a matter of fact, Sergeant, I called to investigate an automobile accident.”

Holcomb turned toward Stella Anderson and raised inquiring eyes.

Her glittering eyes were fastened in beady indignation on the cigar which Sergeant Holcomb returned to his lips.

“That right?” Sergeant Holcomb mumbled past the moist end of the soggy cigar.

“Yes,” she said, sniffing audibly.

“Okay,” Holcomb said to Perry Mason. “You’ve found out about the automobile accident, and that’s all you’re concerned with. Don’t let me detain you. I have business with Mrs. Anderson.”

Mason, moving toward the door, smiled at Stella Anderson and said, “Thank you so much, Mrs. Anderson. It’s a pleasure to meet a woman who sees and remembers things as clearly as you do. So many witnesses are putty in the hands of an officer who wants them to swear to facts which will support his theory of the case.”

Holcomb cleared his throat ominously, but Perry Mason, smiling at Stella Anderson, slipped out of the door and walked rapidly across to Paul Drake’s car.

The detective was seated behind the steering wheel.

“Find out anything at Weyman’s?” Mason asked, sliding into the seat beside him.

Drake grinned and said, “I got thrown out on my ear.”

“By the homicide squad?” Mason asked.

“No, by an irate husband. He’s crocked to the eyebrows. Some guy’s given him a beautiful licking. His face is patched, bandaged and bruised, and now he’s looking for someone he can lick. The woman is nice. I don’t think she knows very much about what happened, but this Anderson woman gave her an earful about seeing a girl named Swaine and some unidentified man hiding a gun. And Mrs. Weyman got to thinking it over and decided to call the cops.”

Mason stared through the windshield in frowning concentration and said, “I don’t like this thing, Paul. Why should a woman call up the cops just because she’s heard that a next door neighbor and a boy-friend were hiding a gun? And why should the cops come out and start searching the house on a tip like that? Usually, you could phone things like that to headquarters until you were black in the face and get nothing more than a stall out of the desk sergeant.”

Drake motioned toward the house and said, “Well,there’s your answer. Mrs. Weyman got more than a stall out of them.”

“Tell me some more about her,” Mason said.

“She’s in the late thirties, rather slender, and sounds nice. She talks in a quiet, refined way, but there’s a lot of determination about her. Her face shows unhappiness and character. Looking at her, you’d say she’s been through some great tragedy and it had made her — oh, you know, sort of sweet and gentle and patient.”

“Any idea what the tragedy was?” Mason asked.

Drake chuckled and said, “Take a look at her husband when you get a chance.”

“What’s he like, a big bully?”

“No. Medium sized. He’s about her age, but he’s an awful soak, probably all right when he’s sober, but he isn’t sober now. You know the kind I mean, Perry, four drinks and they’re wonderful fellows, five and they’re quarrelsome. And from then on they just get more quarrelsome. Well, I should judge he’s had about fifteen drinks.”

“What did he say to you?” Mason asked.

“He heard me talking, and came stumbling downstairs, busted into the room and made a scene. I could have hung one on his jaw and stuck around. But Mrs. Weyman was so embarrassed to think I’d seen him in that condition she wouldn’t have told me anything more anyway. I’d already got most of it.”

“Had the homicide squad been in there?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Told her I was investigating an automobile accident, and then asked her what was happening next door.”

“She admitted calling the police?”

“Yeah.”

“But she didn’t say why she’d called them?”

“She said that Mrs. Anderson had told her about seeing a Miss Swaine, and some fellow who was evidently making pretty violent love to her, hiding a gun. And she said they looked guilty. She said that after worrying about it for some time she’d called the police.”

“You didn’t find out any more than that?”

“No, I didn’t, Perry. I was just about that far in the interview when the trouble started, and I figured it was a good plan to get out.”

“Well,” Mason told him, “let’s drive to a phone, put in a call for the office and see what’s new. There’s nothing we can do here while the homicide squad are making nuisances of themselves.”

“Take both cars?” Drake asked.

Perry Mason nodded. “Let’s clear out of the neighborhood,” he said, reaching for the car door. “I’ll meet you in the drug store on the boulevard.”

By the time the lawyer arrived at the drug store, Drake was at the telephone. He scribbled something in his notebook and said, “Okay, hold the line a minute.”

“I have a report on that accident stuff. Do you want it?” he asked Mason.

“Go ahead. Shoot,” the lawyer told him.

“The Trader’s Transfer Company, which owns the van, is a one-man concern. Harry Trader’s the big shot. He was driving the van himself, delivering some stuff to Walter Prescott’s garage. Prescott had given him a key. Trader says he was coming down the Alsace Avenue and was just getting ready to turn into Fourteenth Street when this chap, Packard, driving a light coupe, tried to pass him on the right without sounding the horn. Trader says he had to swing fairly wide to get the big van around the comer, and when he made the turn, the coupe was between the van and the curb, and it was just too bad for the coupe. Packard was unconscious, and Trader delivered him to the Good Samaritan Hospital. He stuck around there until the doctor told him Packard was okay, and could leave under his own power. He had a sock on the side of his head which had put him out. He was punch-groggy for a while after he came to. Trader says it was all Packard’s fault, but he’s fully covered by insurance and isn’t going to worry about it very much. He said he was frightened at first because he thought the man was seriously injured, but that any damn fool who tries to pass a big moving van on the right, without using the horn and without watching the road, is a candidate for the boobyhatch. Trader says that after Packard recovered consciousness at the hospital, he admitted it was all his fault, said he wasn’t watching the street, but was staring at something he’d seen in a window. First thing he knew, he saw this big van on his left, and then he struck it, just as Trader was making a right turn.”

“Something he saw in a window?” Mason asked.

“That’s what Trader reports.”

“Didn’t say what window?”

“Apparently not.”

“Then it must have been either in Prescott’s house or Stella Anderson’s house. Let’s run out to the hospital and see if we can chase down the doctor who treated Packard. I’d like to find out just what Packard said when he admitted liability.”

Drake said, “Okay, Perry,” turned to the telephone and said, “That’s all, Mabel. Stay on the job and take down the dope as it comes in. The homicide squad’s doing things out at Prescott’s house. They’re not passing out any information, but you’ll probably hear details from one of the boys. As soon as you get anything definite, call me at the Good Samaritan Hospital. I’m going out there now. I’ll call you again when I leave. Okay Mabel. G’by.”