Erle Gardner - The Case of the Runaway

“What were you looking for?” Mason asked.

“Oh, just things that would help.”

“You went into her room?”

“Well, yes.”

“And what did you find?”

“I found a box of candy in her bureau similar to the kind of candy that Ed Davenport carries with him when he travels—those cherries that are in chocolate with sweet syrup around them. She has a sweet tooth herself. I remember a couple of boxes of that same type of candy had been hanging around the living room, and Myrna had kept asking me to help her eat them up. I only had a couple of pieces because I’m watching my figure. However, you can see what it means—the significance of it all.

“Good heavens, suppose she’d been trying to poison me! Suppose one of the pieces of candy she offered me had been poisoned! It must have been fate that guided my hand to the right pieces.

“And then she kept insisting I have more. I didn’t take any on account of my figure, but you can see what she must have had in mind. I thought at the time she was unduly insistent.

“Looking back at it now, I can see that the little minx must have been pulling the wool over my eyes all along.

“I can think of a lot of little things now that had seemed trivial at the time, but now they all begin to fit into a pattern. She’s a murderess, a poisoner, a regular Lucrezia Borgia.”

Mason thought things over for a few seconds, then said, “Let me ask you a few questions. As I understand it, you two women were together all of the time you were there in Crampton. You—”

“Oh no, that’s not true. She was alone with Ed while I was taking a shower. Then, shortly after the doctor reported that Ed had passed away and locked up the place, I went to telephone you. Now I remember seeing her talking with some man as I started back toward the cabin. Then she and the man separated. I didn’t think much of it at the time because I thought perhaps it was just one of the other tenants who was expressing his sympathy, but now I know it could have been a male accomplice. He probably entered the cabin through the window. After he got in there he was smart enough to put on a pair of pajamas. He must have slipped Ed’s body out through the window and into his own automobile. Then he waited until he was certain someone was looking, climbed back out of the window again, got in his automobile and drove away.”

“Your feelings seem to have changed all of a sudden,” Mason said.

“Well, I’ll certainly say they have. Why wouldn’t they? The scales have dropped from my eyes, Mr. Mason.”

“Thank you very much for telling me.”

“What are you going to do?” Sara Ansel asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

“Well, I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to clear my skirts. I’m going to maintain my good name and my reputation.”

“I see,” Mason said. “I suppose that will include going to the police?”

“I’m not going to the police but I’m certainly not going to avoid them when they come to me.”

“And what are you going to tell them about me?” Mason asked.

“You mean about going up to Paradise to get that letter?”

Mason nodded.

She met his eyes grimly and uncompromisingly. “I’m going to tell them the truth.”

“I thought perhaps you would,” Mason announced dryly.

“I don’t think your attitude is being co-operative, Mr. Mason.”

“I’m an attorney and I only co-operate with my clients.”

“Your clients! You mean you’re still going to represent that woman after what she did to you, after the position in which she put you, after the lies she told you, after the—?”

“I’m going to represent her,” Mason said. “At least I’m going to see that she has her day in court and isn’t convicted of anything except by due process of law.”

“Well, of all the fools!” Sara Ansel snapped. She got up out of the chair, stood glowering at Mason for a moment, then said, “I might have known I was wasting my time.”

With that she turned and strode toward the exit door. She jerked it open, looked back over her shoulder and said, “And I was trying to help you!”

She walked out into the corridor.

Mason watched the closing door. “That,” he said to Della Street, “is what comes when an attorney accepts the obvious.”

“What do you mean?”

“A client’s statement to an attorney is a confidential communication,” Mason explained. “An attorney’s clerk or secretary can be present at the conversation and it’s still confidential. The law gives that protection. But when a third person is present the communication ceases to be confidential.”

“But, good Lord, Chief, this was a woman who came with her, a woman whom she brought along and—”

“I know,” Mason said. “At the time Mrs. Davenport thought it was to her best interest to have Sara Ansel with her. I was the attorney. I should have insisted that the conversation about that letter take place in private.”

“And since it didn’t? Then what?”

“Since it didn’t,” Mason said, “it isn’t a privileged communication.”

“And you mean you can’t avoid answering questions about it?”

“Not when those questions are asked by the proper persons in the proper forum under proper authorization,” Mason said.

“And until then?”

“Until then,” Mason told her, “I don’t have to answer a damn thing.”

“So what do we do about the district attorney of Butte County?” Della Street asked.

“Oh, we talk with him by all means. Tell the operator that I’m ready to take his call now.”

Della Street busied herself on the telephone and a moment later nodded to Perry Mason, who picked up the phone, said in his most formal voice, “Perry Mason speaking.”

The voice that came over the wire sounded slightly forced, as though a man might be trying to mask a certain amount of diffidence by excessive vigor. “I am Jonathan Halder, Mr. Mason. I’m the district attorney of Butte County and I want to question you, and your secretary, about a visit you made up here to Paradise.”

“Indeed,” Mason said cordially. “I’m mighty glad to meet you, Mr. Halder, even over the telephone, but I don’t know why you would want to question us on what I consider a very routine matter of business.”

“Well, it may not be so routine,” Halder said. “Now we can get at it the easy way or we can get at it the hard way.”

“The hard way?” Mason asked.

Halder kept the forced vigor in his voice. “I have the right of course to take the entire matter before the grand jury and—”

“What matter?” Mason asked.

“The matter that brought you up here and what you did.”

“Good Lord, man,” Mason interrupted with all the geniality of one talking to an old friend, “if, for any reason, you have any official interest in anything that Miss Street and I did in your county we’ll be only too glad to answer questions. You won’t have to bother with a grand jury or a subpoena or trying to resort to any legal formalities—”

“Well, I’m mighty glad to hear you say that!” Halder interrupted, his voice relaxing into a more normal tone. “I guess perhaps I’ve misjudged you. People up here told me you were pretty resourceful and pretty ingenious, that if you didn’t want to be interrogated I might have to go the limit, even to the extent of getting out a warrant.”

Mason threw back his head and laughed. “Well, well, well,” he said. “One’s reputation certainly can get distorted with distance, like a mirage. How important is all this, Mr. Halder? When do you want to see me?”

“I’m afraid it’s very important, and I want to see you as soon as possible.”