Erle Gardner - The Case of the Runaway

Halder hesitated and said, “Why, I think—I don’t see how they could.”

“But will you definitely assure me?” Mason asked. “Will you take the responsibility? Will you guarantee it?”

“Certainly not.”

“There you are,” Mason said.

The lawyer settled back in his chair and smoked thoughtfully as though making a good-faith attempt at finding some way out of the impasse.

Halder glanced at the sheriff, then at his deputy. Abruptly he said. “Mr. Mason, will you and Miss Street pardon us for a few minutes? You wait right here. I want to confer with my associates. Will you, Sheriff, and you, Oscar, mind stepping in this other office with me?”

The three scraped back their chairs, crowded through the door into the second office.

Della Street turned to Perry Mason. “Well,” she said, “you seem to—”

Mason placed a warning finger to his lips and rolled his eyes around the room, then interrupted to say, “I seem to be in a devil of a fix, don’t I, Della? I’d like to be fair with Mr. Halder and I’d like to be frank. But for the life of me I don’t see how I can overlook the fact that I’m in a position of responsibility as far as my client is concerned. Now you take that question of title and it could become very complicated.”

“Yes,” Della Street said, “even with these few preliminary questions I can see that it’s going to be complicated, and the district attorney has a list of several typewritten pages.”

“Well,” Mason said, “Of course I want to co-operate with him, Della, but we have other things to do. We can’t stay here indefinitely. I do hope he’ll expedite matters.”

Della Street smiled.

Mason winked at her. “Care for a cigarette, Della?”

“No, Chief, thank you.”

Mason settled back to smoking. After a moment, he said, “I do hope they won’t take too much time with their conference. After all, Della, we’re holding a chartered plane here and I have very definite responsibilities back in my own office.”

After a moment, Mason again winked at Della Street and said, “That’s right, Della. Put your head back and try and get some sleep. After all, you’ve had quite a siege of it, being up all last night.”

“Did I have my eyes closed?” Della Street asked innocently.

“Yes,” Mason said. “If you can doze off by all means do so.”

And Mason, with a finger on his lips, gestured for silence.

“Well, thanks,” Della Street said, yawning audibly.

There was an interval of several minutes during which there was complete silence in the room. Della Street held her head against the back of the chair, her eyes closed. Mason smoked thoughtfully, from time to time holding his cigarette out in front of him, studying the eddying smoke.

At length the door from the other room opened. The three men filed back into the room. They were followed by a fourth.

Mason looked at the man and said, “Well, well, Sidney Boom. How are you, Mr. Boom? It’s good to see you again.”

He got up and shook hands.

Boom smiled. “How are you, Mr. Mason? How do you do, Miss Street?”

Della Street gave the officer her hand. “Nice to see you again.”

“Thank you.”

Chairs scraped once more.

Halder seemed to have decided upon a new line of attack. He turned to question Boom.

“You’re an officer up at Paradise?”

“Yes.”

“A deputy, working out of the sheriff’s office here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you were such a deputy last night?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now were you called to the residence of Ed Davenport last night?”

“That’s the place out on Crestview Drive?”

“Don’t ask me where it is. I asked you a question.”

“Well, I’m not sure who owns the house except—yes, I am, too. The woman told me.”

“What woman?” Mason asked.

“The secretary, Mabel Norge.”

“Now just a moment,” Mason said. “I can’t sit here without registering some protest at this method of proving title.”

“I’m not proving title,” Halder said angrily. “I’m simply trying to confront you with some of the proof that we have.”

“But you distinctly asked him about who owned the property,” Mason said, “and he told you that the only way he knew was from a statement made by Mabel Norge. Now I submit that Mabel Norge isn’t an expert on real estate titles and therefore any statement she made to him was simply hearsay and—”

“All right, all right,” Halder said. “This isn’t a court of law. We’re not trying title to the property.”

“But you raised the question of title.”

“I’m merely describing the house.”

“Then why not describe it with reference to the number of the location on Crestview Drive?”

“All right,” Halder said. “Let’s go at it this way, Boom. You were called out to a place on Crestview Drive. Where is it?”

“As you go out on Crestview Drive and come to the end of the street it’s the last place on the right—a big, rambling house surrounded by fruit and shade trees.”

“You make a difference in your own mind between a fruit tree and a shade tree?” Mason asked.

“I do,” Boom said.

“Well, now actually, Mr. Boom, a fruit tree can well give shade. You take these fig trees, I suppose one would call them fruit trees, and—”

“Now just a moment,” Halder interpolated, his voice edged with anger. “I’m conducting the inquiry, Mr. Mason. I’m interrogating Mr. Boom at the moment, and I’m going to ask you to keep quiet.”

“Regardless of any inaccuracies in Mr. Boom’s statement?”

“Regardless of anything,” Halder said. ‘I ‘m going to ask you to keep quiet.”

“Very well,” Mason said. “I trust that everyone here understands that I have been asked to keep quiet regardless of any inaccuracies in Mr. Boom’s statements. I’m sorry, Counselor. I won’t interrupt again. Go right ahead.”

“You went out to this house?” Halder asked.

“I did.”

“At whose request?”

“Mabel Norge.”

“Who’s she?”

“I understand she’s the secretary for Ed Davenport. I’ve seen her around Paradise some.”

“Did you know Davenport in his lifetime?”

“Yes, I’ve talked with him a few times.”

“And you went out to this house at the request of Mabel Norge?”

“That’s right. She was calling for the police.”

“And what did you find?”

“I found the door unlocked, the lights on, and Mr. Mason and Miss Street making themselves very much at home.”

“What else?”

“I was instructed by Mabel Norge to find a letter that had been written by Mr. Davenport and left with her with the instructions that it was to be opened in the event of his death.”

“And what did you do?”

“I found that letter—that is, I found a lockbox which contained envelope which was sealed. On the envelope there was a statement in Mr. Davenport’s handwriting that it was to be delivered to the officers in the event of his death.”

“And what did you do with that?”

“I took it into my custody.”

“You have that envelope here?”

“You have it.”

“Well, you gave it to me, didn’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“And I have it here in my desk. You’d know that envelope if you saw it?”

“Certainly.”

“How would you know it?”

“Because I wrote my name on it.”

“And the date?”

“And the date.”

“And then what did you do with it?”

“I gave it to you.”

“We had some discussion about what should be done with the letter, didn’t we?”

“That’s right.”

“And I put it in the safe?”