Erle Gardner - The Case of the Runaway

“He probably stayed that night at Fresno. Then he started out and got as far as this little town of Crampton, which is about thirty or forty miles from Fresno, and there he became ill. I guess actually he became ill before he got there, but when he got to Crampton he didn’t have the strength to go on.”

“What sort of an illness?” Mason asked.

“Now there, of course, you can’t tell for sure. I’m coming to that in a minute. He was a heavy drinker. He had high blood pressure and he had no business drinking, but he’d evidently been drinking and he’d eaten something that disagreed with him. Anyway he became terribly ill. He stopped at this motel at Crampton and asked if there was a doctor in town. The landlady told him there were three and gave him the names. He telephoned one of them, a Dr. Renault. Dr. Renault came out right away and decided that Ed was seriously ill. That was between eight and nine o’clock in the morning.

“Now I have an idea that Ed had stayed in Fresno the night before and had been on something of a bat, probably with some woman. Personally I wouldn’t doubt but what she’d slipped him some knockout drops. In any event, he’d been rolled.”

“How do you know that?” Mason asked.

“I’m coming to that.” she said, “but first I want to tell you about what happened. After Dr. Renault got there Ed had quite a sinking spell. Dr. Renault called and told us we’d better get up there at once, that Ed was very seriously ill. He was so ill that the doctor didn’t even want to try moving him to a hospital. The nearest one was at Fresno. He said he was trying to get a nurse, but there was a shortage of nurses and he thought it would be a good plan for Myrna to come up at once and she could help with the nursing.”

“Go on,” Mason said.

“After seeing you, we took a plane to Fresno, then rented a Drive-Ur-Self car and went down to the motel at Crampton.

“Ed was seriously ill all right. I gathered he’d been vomiting and was in pretty much a state of collapse. The doctor talked with us and left word for us to call if there was any change. He said he’d be back within an hour.

“We remained with Ed for a while, then he dropped off to sleep. He seemed to be resting easier, but he was a pretty sick man all right.

“While he was sleeping, I went to my cabin. Myrna stayed with Ed. Then after I’d cleaned up I went back and took over.

“Almost at once Ed had some sort of a spell. He started to choke and gag and gasped for air.

“I ran out and phoned for the doctor and he came almost at once. He said it was serious and sent me to phone to a drugstore for some medicine.

“Myrna was in the shower, but she said she’d throw on a robe and rush over. By the time she got there it was too late. Ed had passed away.

“Then the doctor showed that Ed must have told him something that aroused his suspicions. He glowered at us, locked up the cabin where Ed’s body was and told us that we’d have to wait for the sheriff, the coroner and the district attorney. He said that there were circumstances connected with what had happened so that he couldn’t sign a death certificate and that an autopsy would have to be performed. He even intimated that he thought Ed had been murdered.”

“So what did you do?”

“Well,” she said, “I didn’t pay very much attention to all that. As soon as I could decently get away I went across the street to a telephone booth at a service station and called you. Then I came back and tried to comfort Myrna. She wasn’t overcome by grief. They were headed for a divorce—had been, that is. Ed had ceased to mean anything to her emotionally. But the whole thing was something of a jolt and I wanted to comfort her. It had been a shocking experience for the poor girl.”

“Go on,” Mason said.

“Well, the doctor locked up the cabin. He said he was ‘sealing up the place’ and took us to our cabin and questioned us and then he went to call the coroner.

“I guess it was over an hour when finally the coroner came, accompanied by the deputy district attorney and a representative of the sheriff’s office. They made quite a thing out of questioning the doctor and asking questions about knockout drops. The doctor gave them the key to the cabin. The deputy sheriff opened the door, went in there and found that Ed must have regained consciousness, climbed out of the window and driven away.”

Mason gave alow whistle.

“That’s right,” she said, “and the officials certainly were angry about it. It seems they’d had some trouble with this Dr. Renault before. This time they were really burned up.”

“What did Dr. Renault say?”

“Dr. Renault stuck by his guns. He said that Ed had been dead, that he knew he was dead. He even intimated that we must have disposed of the body in some way so that an autopsy couldn’t be performed. He let it be pretty plain that he thought we were afraid to have an autopsy.”

“Go on,” Mason said as she stopped. “Tell me the rest of it.”

“Well, of course. Dr. Renault kept insisting that the body had been moved, but finally the deputy sheriff, talking around with some of the people in the other cabins, found someone who had seen Ed climb out of the window, get into a car and drive away.”

“The deuce!” Mason exclaimed.

“That’s right. He must have got quite a bit better. The man said Ed was wearing pajamas, that he slid out of the back window. Some car was parked right behind the cabin. Ed stepped on the starter and drove away. Whatever car it was Ed must have stolen it because his car was still there.”

“He was in his pajamas?”

“That’s what the man said. He naturally wondered why. Then he thought perhaps someone was trying to escape a raid or something and—”

“He was close enough to recognize the man he saw,” Mason asked, “to identity him from photographs or—?”

“Oh, heavens no. He was a hundred feet away. He just saw the figure of a man, and he’s quite certain the figure was wearing pajamas. He said they were dotted with red. And those were Ed’s pajamas all right.

“Well, then we tried to get you on the telephone but by that time you had left for Paradise and we didn’t know how to reach you. We left word at the San Francisco Airport in case you stopped there but evidently you missed the message. So we waited until we thought you’d be in Paradise and called the number of Ed’s phone and you answered.”

“Now wait a minute,” Mason said, “tell me one other thing. How do you know Ed had been rolled?”

“Oh yes, I was coming to that. The money that was in his clothes was an even forty-five dollars and he had paid for the cabin in the motel with a fifty-dollar bill that had been worn smooth. Ed was a heavy drinker. He knew that he was apt to be rolled and he always carried a fifty-dollar bill under the leather lining in the sole of his right shoe so that if anyone rolled him he’d have get-by money to get home on.

“There wasn’t even so much as a nickel in change in his pockets—just that forty-five dollars. That was the change he’d been given after paying five dollars for the cabin.”

“But why did he get out of the window?” Mason asked. “And how could he have done that if he was as sick as the doctor claimed?”

“Frankly,” she said, “I don’t think that doctor is willing to tell what really happened. You know when a man dies a doctor gives a shot of some powerful stimulant directly into the heart. I think Dr. Renault did that with Ed and then didn’t wait long enough to see if it took effect. He was too anxious to get out and question us. Something Ed must have said at the last must have convinced the doctor that Ed was blaming his sickness on Myrna in some way.