Erle Gardner - The Case of the Runaway

“I’m almost certain that box the officers have now is the one you fixed up from the two open boxes. I could almost swear to it.”

Without a word to Sara Ansel, Myrna turned to the officer. “Will you please take me back to jail?” she said. “I’m tired.”

The officer led Myrna Davenport away. Sara Ansel turned to Mason and said angrily, “ Well , can you beat that! . Here I try to be of some help to her and I get slapped down like that.”

“Well,” Mason said, “you have to admit that you tried to do everything you could to help the Los Angeles authorities make a case against her.”

“That was when I was excited and—the poor child. She never harmed a fly. I am sorry. I am terribly sorry for what I did, Mr. Mason, but I’m certainly not going to go around turning the other cheek to that mousy little nincompoop. Why, if it hadn’t been for me Ed Davenport would have robbed her blind. He’d have had her funds so involved she wouldn’t have had a cent in the world except what he was willing to give her, and then he’d have left her. I know it just as well as I know anything. I’ve been around men enough to know them.”

“Are you going to be here for a while?” Mason asked.

“Certainly. You heard what the judge said. I’ve got to be here.”

“I may want to talk with you,” Mason told her.

“Well, you’ll find me at the Hotel Fresno.”

“Thanks, you may be seeing me. I may want to ask you some more questions—about the candy.”

Chapter 12

Perry Mason, Paul Drake and Della Street gathered in Mason’s suite in the Californian Hotel.

“Well,” Mason said, “we’re at least getting the situation clarified.”

“Clarified!” Paul Drake exclaimed. “It’s mixed up until I can’t make head or tail of it and I doubt if anyone else can.”

“Why, Paul!” Mason said. “As it now stands there’s only one person in the world who could have murdered Edward Davenport.”

“You mean Myrna?” Drake asked.

Mason smiled. “How would Myrna have gone about murdering him?”

“That’s easy,” Drake said. “After she arrived in Crampton she could have given him a dose of cyanide of potassium, then called Dr. Renault to come down on an emergency.”

“Then how would she have removed the body?”

“By having some male accomplice slide the body out of the window and then put on the red-spotted pajamas and jump out when he was certain a witness was watching—a witness who was far enough away so he could see the man’s figure but couldn’t see his face.”

“Very interesting.” Mason said. “But how would she have known that her husband was going to get sick when he reached Crampton?”

“She didn’t care when he got sick,” Drake said. “She was an opportunist. She simply administered the poison because she found him sick. She wouldn’t have cared whether he’d been taken sick in Crampton, Fresno, Bakersfield, Paradise or Timbuktu.”

“That’s fine.” Mason said. “But you’re overlooking the grave. How did Mrs. Davenport know there was a grave waiting out there three miles out of town?”

“Because she’d dug it.”

“When?”

“She’d probably gone up the week before and dug the grave, or else had her male accomplice do it.”

“Then,” Mason said, “she must have known he was going to get sick at the exact moment he reached Crampton.”

Drake started scratching his head. “Well I’ll be damned,” he said.

“Who did murder him?” Della Street asked.

“Someone who knew that he was going to be sick when he reached Crampton,” Mason said.

“But who could that have been?”

Mason said, “I have an idea but it’s going to take a little checking. As nearly as I can tell only one person was in a position to know what was going to happen.”

“Who?” Della Street asked.

Mason said, “I won’t make any predictions at present. We’ll go out and look for some additional evidence while our friend, Talbert Vandling, is having an argument with the district attorney in Los Angeles.”

“An argument?” Drake asked.

“Sure,” Mason said. “Don’t think the district attorney of Los Angeles is going to be anxious to take over now.”

“Why not?”

“Because Fresno started in on the case. It made a pass at convicting Myrna Davenport and then suddenly backed up when it found the facts were all cockeyed.

“If the district attorney of Los Angeles could have had her convicted of any crime in Fresno, even the crime of being an accessory after the fact, or of having negligently administered poison, he’d have been only too glad to have prosecuted her for the murder of Hortense Paxton. Then when she took the stand he’d have impeached her by showing she’d been convicted of a felony and shown what the felony was. After that she wouldn’t have stood a ghost of a chance.

“As it is now the district attorney in Los Angeles can show that Hortense Paxton died from poison, that Myrna Davenport was in a position to benefit by her death, that Myrna Davenport had some poison in the house and that she tried to conceal that poison after it was learned that the body of Hortense Paxton was being exhumed.”

“It’s a strong case,” Drake said.

“It’s a strong case but it’s not a convicting case,” Mason replied. “Just one or two additional facts and they’d be sure of a conviction. On the other hand, just one or two little additional facts in favor of the defense and the best they could hope for would be a hung jury.”

“What facts could you get in favor of the defense?”

Mason grinned. “The poisoning of Ed Davenport.”

“How do you mean?”

“The person who poisoned him would presumably be the person who poisoned Hortense Paxton.”

“Could you bring that in?” Drake asked.

“Under other circumstances the district attorney would try to one way or another. If he thought Myrna Davenport could be shown to be guilty, he’d use the old dodge of showing that these were crimes of a similar pattern and all of that. As it is now, the defense would claim it was entitled to bring the facts in in the same way. At least the defense could try to bring them in and if the prosecution fought to keep these facts out the jury would become so suspicious of the whole thing that it wouldn’t convict.”

“Well,” Drake said, “that means that the D.A. in Los Angeles will tell Vandling that he started this thing and to go ahead and finish it.”

Mason nodded.

“So what will Vandling do?” Drake asked.

“Try to get some additional evidence. If he doesn’t he’ll have to dismiss.”

“Why?”

“Look at it in this way,” Mason said. “Myrna Davenport put candy in her husband’s bag. The candy was poisoned. It contained arsenic and cyanide of potassium. Dr. Renault can swear the man told him he had symptoms of arsenic poisoning but he didn’t die of cyanide of potassium. He can’t swear of his own knowledge that the man had any symptoms of arsenic poisoning He only knows that from what Davenport told him, and that’s hearsay and not admissible.

“Dr. Hoxie will swear that the man must have died from cyanide of potassium poisoning but he can’t find any trace of candy in the stomach. Therefore he couldn’t have died from eating poisoned candy. The only thing they can really connect Myrna Davenport with is the poisoned candy.”

“So what do we do?” Drake asked.

“We drive out to the site of the grave up near Crampton,” Mason said, “and we look for something.”

“For what?”

“Where a six-wheeled vehicle has been parked.”

“A six-wheeled vehicle?” Drake asked.

“That’s right.”