Erle Gardner - The Case of the Runaway

“We’ll find out what’s in it,” Mason said, “and then we’ll be able to answer some of your questions.”

“It might be better to answer them first.”

Mason smilingly shook his head. “We have to know the contents before we can determine our responsibilities, Della.”

Mason went to the kitchen, filled a teakettle with water, switched on the electricity in the stove.

“You certainly are making yourself right at home,” Della Street said.

Mason grinned. “The story is that a watched pot never boils. Perhaps we’d better look around some more in the office.”

Mason led the way back into the office, prowled through Ed Davenport’s desk, looked through the files, reading letters, opening drawers.

“Are you looking for something specific?” Della Street asked.

“I’m trying to get the people pictured in my mind,” Mason said. “Davenport evidently has a great deal of confidence in his secretary. Apparently she makes out and signs the checks. There’s a balance of one thousand, two hundred and ninety-one dollars in the bank here in Paradise. There’s some correspondence in relation to mining matters. It is interesting to note that whereas certain letters are addressed to Mrs. Edward Davenport there are answers from Mr. Davenport stating definitely what his wife will and will not do.”

“Then—”

“Apparently he didn’t consult her,” Mason went on. “Carbon copies of replies show that several times letters went out on the same date they were received.”

“Perhaps he kept in touch with her by long-distance telephone.”

“The bill for last month for the entire telephone service was only twenty-three dollars and ninety-five cents,” Mason said, “including the federal tax.”

“And all this time,” Della Street said, “he had a fear that his wife might he planning to kill him—and then he had to go and die a natural death.”

Mason raised his eyebrows.

“Why do you do that?” she asked. “You don’t…. Chief, you don’t suppose that … that it wasn’t a natural death?”

“Why not?” Mason asked.

“But, good heavens! Why … then what are we doing here ?”

“We’re protecting Mrs. Davenport’s best interests,” Mason said, “but there are certain things which we can’t do. We can’t suppress evidence or tamper with evidence, but we really can’t tell whether it’s evidence until after we get a look at it, can we, Della? Come on, I think that pot is boiling now.”

Mason returned to the kitchen. Very carefully he steamed open the sealed envelope, reached inside, took out the papers and unfolded them.

Della Street’s sharp gasp sounded above the singing of the teakettle as the water continued to boil.

“Well, there we are,” Mason said cheerfully. “Six sheets of perfectly blank paper.”

Della Street’s domestic tendencies came to the front. With her eyes still on the blank pages she turned off the burner under the tea-kettle.

“Now what in the world?” she asked, and then, after a moment, added, “Do you suppose there’s any secret writing on them?”

Mason moved the teakettle to one side, held one of the sheets of paper over the still-glowing burner on the stove, heated it thoroughly, then tilted the sheet first one way and then the other so that the light would fall on it from every angle.

“Of course,” he said, “there could be some secret writing which could be developed only by iodine fumes, but—well, we don’t dare to assume that there is, and yet it may be dangerous to assume that there isn’t.”

“Why in the world would a man go to all the trouble of leaving an envelope with instructions that it should be opened in the event of his death and then have nothing in it but blank sheets of paper?”

“That,” Mason said dryly, “may be something to which we’ll have to find an answer.”

“How do you mean?”

“Was there a tube of mucilage there in the office, Della?”

She nodded.

“Well,” Mason said, “we’ll seal this envelope and I think under the circumstances it may be a good idea if I am careful not to leave fingerprints.”

Mason dried off the flap of the envelope over the warm burner of the stove, went back to the office, carefully sealed the envelope, put it back in the lockbox, dropped the lockbox into the drawer, and, by using Della Street’s nail file, again locked the drawers on the right-hand side of the secretarial desk.

“Chief, you seem to have some idea,” Della Street said, “that …” She hesitated.

“That things have been just a little too opportune?” Mason asked.

“Well, yes, in a way.”

“They have been very opportune,” Mason said. “Ed Davenport died and—”

A woman’s voice said sharply, “What are you doing here? Who are you?”

Mason turned.

The tall, rather good-looking young woman who stood in the doorway abruptly whirled without waiting for an answer. Mason heard the sound of running steps, then from the living room the whirring of the dial on a telephone.

Mason grinned at Della Street, walked across to the desk, and picked up the receiver from the telephone.

He could hear the woman’s voice on the extension telephone saying, “Operator, get me the police at once. There’s an emergency. I’m Mabel Norge, at the Davenport house on Crestview Drive. Someone is in the house ransacking the place. Send police at once.”

Mason dropped the receiver back into place. He heard the front door slam.

Della Street raised her eyebrows. “Police?” she asked.

Mason nodded.

“How long will it take them to get here?”

“That depends,” Mason said. “Probably not very long.”

“Do we try to get out?”

“Oh certainly not. We stay and talk with them.”

Mason settled himself in the chair behind Ed Davenport’s desk, lit a cigarette.

“Chief,” Della Street said nervously, “there’s no reason why we couldn’t get out the back way.”

“Our rented car’s out front,” Mason said. “The young woman undoubtedly has the license number by this time. It was because of the car standing there and the lights being on that she made such a quiet entrance. She must have tiptoed softly down the passageway. Incidentally I heard her give her name over the phone. It’s Mabel Norge. She’s Davenport’s secretary.

“Definitely, Della, we remain here, and we remain in possession. We have no choice in the matter. When you stop to think of it, we’ve left rather a broad back trail. Flight would, of course, indicate a consciousness of guilt.”

“Nevertheless there’s something about this whole thing I don’t like,” Della Street said.

“So far,” Mason said, “we’ve done everything that was expected of us. Now let’s try to be a little more independent.”

“What do you mean? Do you … ?”

They heard the sound of a siren growing louder.

“That,” Mason said, “will be the police. That’s good service. Keep very quiet, Della, because they may be a little nervous, perhaps a little quick on the trigger.”

They heard the front door again, the sound of voices, then heavy feet. A man with a shield on the lapel of his coat, a gun in his hand, thrust a cautious head into the room, said, “Get ’em up.”

Mason, tilted back in the swivel chair at the desk, took the cigarette from his mouth, blew a stream of smoke into the air and said, “Good evening, Officer. Come in and sit down.”

The officer remained in the doorway, the gun in his hand. “Who are you,” he asked, “and what are you doing here?”

“I’m Perry Mason, an attorney,” Mason said. “Permit me to introduce my secretary, Miss Street. I am at the moment engaged in taking charge of things on behalf of the widow of Edward Davenport.”