Erle Gardner - The Case of the Runaway

“Go on,” Mason said. “Tell me about it. You may not have too much time, you know.”

“Why that woman is a regular Lucrezia Borgia. She’s a minx, a poisoner, a murderess.”

“ Please give me the facts,” Mason said, seating himself and studying Sara Ansel.

“Well,” she said, “to begin with the coroner exhumed the body of Hortense Paxton. He found she’d been poisoned. Myrna Davenport did it.”

“When did you learn all this?”

“Well, it all started when we got home. There was a notice of a telegram under the door. Myrna called the telegraph office and it seems some friend of hers had sent a telegram that said to call immediately, no matter what hour of the day or night.”

“Go on,” Mason said.

“So Myrna called and this friend told her that the coroner had exhumed the body and was taking the stomach and organs for an analysis.”

“And then what?”

She said, “Believe me, Mr. Mason, I have never been so completely shocked in my life. Myrna stood there just as demure and quiet as anything, and then said, ‘Aunt Sara, before I sleep I want to do a little work in the garden.”

Mason raised his eyebrows.

“She’s a great little gardener,” Sara Ansel explained. “That was her only recreation. But—well, wait until you hear what that woman was doing.”

“I’m waiting,” Mason reminded her.

“I was just completely all in,” Mrs. Ansel went on. “I’m not young enough and resilient enough to go tearing around on these trips, taking all this excitement and experiencing all of these night plane rides. I was about ready to fall on my face, but I decided to take a hot shower and then get into bed. I went up to my room, showered, and—well, I’d better explain that that room is on the second story and it looks down on the yard in back of the patio, and what do you think I saw Myrna Davenport doing?”

“What was she doing?” Mason asked impatiently.

“Calmly proceeding to dig a hole, a very deep hole. She wasn’t gardening at all. She had a spade and she was digging a hole.”

“Go on,” Mason said.

“And right while I was watching her she took some packages, little paper packages, and dumped them in the hole and then proceeded to cover the packages with dirt. After she’d filled the hole with dirt she took sod that she had cut out and carefully patted the sod back into place, making a good smooth job of it.”

“And then?” Mason asked.

“Well, all that time I was standing at the window watching her. I’m not nosy, Mr. Mason, but I do have a normal, healthy, human curiosity.”

“So what did you do?”

“So I marched right downstairs and caught that demure little hypocrite before she’d had a chance to get rid of the spade.”

“What happened?”

“I asked her what she’d been doing and she said that when she got nervous she always liked to be out with her flowers, that she’d been spading up around some of the plants, loosening the soil and getting them so they could enjoy a new day, and now she was thoroughly relaxed and she could go in, go to sleep and sleep for twelve hours.”

“And what did you say?”

“I asked her to show me where she’d been spading, and she said that that wasn’t important and besides I should get in the house and get some sleep.”

“And then what?”

“I insisted that I wanted to see where she’d been spading. I told her that I wanted to see how she did it.”

“Well?” Mason asked.

“She’d given me the impression, Mr. Mason, of being a demure little thing, a meek little woman who could be pushed around, but you should have seen her then. She was just as obstinate as a brick wall. She wouldn’t look at me, but she didn’t budge an inch. She said in that low voice of hers that it really wasn’t important and that I was upset and nervous because of my night’s trip and that I should go back into the house.”

“And then what?”

“So then I came right out and asked her why she lied to me. I asked her why she had dug that hole, and she told me she hadn’t dug a hole.”

“What did you do?”

“So with that I snatched the shovel out of her hands and marched out across the patio to the lawn and over to the exact place where she’d been digging.”

“And then?” Mason asked.

“Then for the first time she was willing to admit what she had been doing, but there was no shame about her and she didn’t even raise her voice. She said, ‘Aunt Sara, don’t do that,’ and I asked her why not and she said, ‘Because I’ve been very careful to replace the sod over that hole so that no one will notice it. If you tamper with it. If’s going to make it obvious that something has been buried there.”

“And then?”

“So then I asked her what she’d buried, and what do you think she told me?”

“What?”

“Little packages of arsenic and cyanide of potassium. Now isn’t that nice?”

“Go on,” Mason said.

“Well, the tittle minx had the audacity to stand there and tell me that she had been experimenting with different types of spray for pests on flowers, that she had some ‘active ingredients,’ as she called them, that were very poisonous. The arsenic she had purchased. Some of the cyanide of potassium she had got from the laboratory in her husband’s mining operations. She’d been experimenting with different types of plant sprays for killing various pests, and now she was afraid her action in collecting those poisons might be subject to question, just in case someone started looking around with the idea of poison in mind. She said under the circumstances she thought she’d better get rid of the stuff.”

“So what did you do?” Mason asked.

“I suppose I should have had my head examined. I believed her. She never raised her voice and was so sweet and demure and so completely unexcited that I let her convince me. I even got to feeling sorry for her again. I sympathized with her and told her I couldn’t understand how she could go through so much and not be hysterical.

“Well, I put my arm around her and we walked back to the house, and I went upstairs and went to bed, and I was just getting to sleep when there was this pounding on the door and the housekeeper came up to tell us that an officer was there, that he had to see us right away upon a matter of the greatest importance.”

“And what was the matter of greatest importance?”

“It seemed that the coroner’s chemist had found arsenic in Hortie’s body, and the district attorney wanted to question Myrna.”

“Then what?”

“So then they took Myrna up to the district attorney’s office.”

“And you?”

“Nothing was done with me,” she said. “They asked me how long I’d been there and I told them. They asked me a few questions and then they took Myrna up to the district attorney’s office.”

“How did Myrna take it?” Mason asked.

“Just like she takes everything,” Sara said. “She was quiet and mouselike. Her voice didn’t raise a bit. She said that she’d be glad to go to the district attorney’s office but she thought she should have a little sleep, that she’d been up all night on account of her husband’s illness.”

“And then?” Mason asked.

“That’s all I know. They took her away. But I began to start putting two and two together, and then I got to thinking about that candy that Ed Davenport had in his bag. You know, Mr. Mason, she told me that she packs his bag every time he goes away. She said he was helpless—didn’t know how to fold his clothes and all of that.”

“That’s not unusual,” Mason said. “Most wives do that for their husbands.”

“I know, but that meant she must have packed the candy, so I started looking around after she left. I just started looking things over a little bit and—”