Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Fenced-In Woman

“He’s around some place, Mr. Mason. Just hang on. He... Here he is now. Hold on.”

Mason heard the man’s voice say, “Lieutenant Tragg, Perry Mason wants to talk with you.” Then, after a moment, Tragg’s dry voice came over the wire, “Now, Perry; don’t tell me you’ve found a body.”

“I haven’t,” Mason said, “the reporters have and they’re trampling all over the place getting photographs.”

“What place? What body? What reporters? Where are you talking from?” Tragg asked crisply.

Mason said, “It’s a house that was put up by Loring Carson on property selected by Morley Eden. Morley Eden is here now and the man who is sprawled in the living room, and who apparently has been murdered, is Loring Carson. It’s a difficult place to find, but my secretary, Della Street, has a map that will show you exactly how to get here and—”

“We’ve got maps here,” Tragg said. “Give me the street and number. If there isn’t a number on the street, give me the description from the tax record or the deed. Give me anything and keep those reporters away from that body.”

“I stand as much chance keeping reporters away from that body as I would keeping a flock of moths away from a light,” Mason said. “Here, I’ll let you talk with Morley Eden. He’ll tell you how to get here.”

Mason nodded to Eden, who had moved up close to the attorney. “You tell him, Eden,” Mason said. “It’s Lieutenant Tragg of Homicide. I want him to get here before all the clues have been obliterated.”

The lawyer handed the phone to Eden and ran back to the living room.

One of the reporters was kneeling beside the body.

“Look at those diamond cuff links,” he said. “See what the guy has done. He’s put some kind of black stuff over those diamonds so they don’t glisten, but you can see where some of it came off. That’s a diamond underneath all right and... Hey, you fellows, his shirt sleeves are all wet.”

Mason bent down beside the reporter. “Homicide is on its way out here,” he said. “They’d like to have the scene kept intact.”

“Sure they would,” the reporter said, “and my newspaper wants the news. Now as I understand it, this guy is Loring Carson. He’s the divorced husband of the woman living on the other side of the fence; he’s the man who built the house, the fellow who sold the lots to Morley Eden?”

“That’s right.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know,” Mason said. “How wet are the shirt sleeves?”

“They’re good and wet, but the sleeves on the coat aren’t wet.”

“How did he die?” Mason asked. “I noticed blood. Was there a shot or—”

“Look around on this side and you can see how he died,” the reporter said. “There’s a wooden-handled butcher knife sticking into his back, and I mean it’s sticking all the way in. Just the handle protrudes.”

“ Both shirt sleeves are wet?” Mason asked.

“That’s right, both shirt sleeves, but the sleeves of the coat aren’t wet.”

“How high are the sleeves wet?”

“To the elbows. I’m not going to take the coat off or disturb the position of the body in any way. You can feel the wet cuffs and shirt sleeves.”

Abruptly one of the newspaper reporters broke away from the group and sprinted for the hall.

As though his departure had been a signal which triggered action, there was a general scampering exodus.

One of the men grabbed Morley Eden. “A phone,” he demanded. “Where’s a phone?”

“There’s one in the hall and—”

“That’s being used.”

“There’s one in my bedroom.”

“An extension or a main line?”

“A main line.”

“Lead me to it.”

“Hey, Mac,” one of the others said, “you can’t hog it. You can get first call but that’s all.”

“The hell I can’t hog it. I’ll stay on the line until I’ve got my story in and it’s quite a story.”

“Where’s the next nearest phone?” one of the men asked Mason.

The lawyer shook his head. “There’s a service station up where this road leaves the main highway. I don’t know of any other place.”

A few moments later the lawyer was left alone in the room with the sprawled figure of Loring Carson.

Mason surveyed the dead man, then moved slowly along the room.

Near the body, and at a point almost directly under the barbed-wire fence, the glint of reflected light caught Mason’s eye. He bent down to examine the source of the light and found two little pools of water, perhaps no more than three teaspoons of water in each pool, and directly between them the mark of a foot where evidently one of the reporters had been standing in such a way that he caused water from the edge of one of the little pools to spread into a muddy smear.

Hurriedly Mason moved to the door which opened onto the patio and looked across to the swimming pool.

There could be no question that there had been activity around the pool. There was still a puddle in a shaded section of the tiles on Morley Eden’s side, and on the sunny side at the shallow end there were very definite indications of recent moisture.

Mason turned and hurried back into the house.

“Morley,” he called. “Oh, Morley.”

They met in the hall, Morley Eden emerging from the direction of the bedrooms.

“Any more phones in this house?” Mason asked.

“Not on this side. There’s one in the other side.”

“A main line?”

“A main line.”

“You have a key that will fit that side of the house?”

“Sure I have a key. That is, it used to fit, but I don’t dare use it. I—”

“Give it to me,” Mason said.

Eden hesitated for a moment. “You know you could get in trouble with this and—”

“Give me the key,” Mason told him. “Hurry!”

Eden took a leather key container from his pocket, selected a key and unsnapped it from the container. “This did fit the side door,” he said. “I don’t know whether it does now...”

Mason didn’t wait to hear him but, grabbing the key, dashed out through the door, hesitated a moment as he surveyed the fence, then decided he could make better time rounding the fence in his car than by trying to run for it. He jumped in the car, switched on the ignition and sent gravel flying as he spun the wheels in taking off down the driveway.

When he came to the heavy post embedded in cement, the lawyer slammed on the brakes, whipped the car into a skidding turn around the end of the fence, dashed up the driveway on the other side of the house, stopped his car directly in front of the side door, ran up the steps and fitted his key.

The key clicked back the lock.

Mason hurried into the house through the utility room, looking frantically for the telephone, found it in the kitchen, picked up the receiver and dialed the number of Paul Drake’s office.

A few seconds later, when he heard Drake’s voice on the line, Mason said, “Paul, this is Perry. Get this; get it right, get it first and get started.”

“Okay, go ahead.”

“Nadine Palmer, a divorcee living at 1721 Crockley Avenue, left her apartment house with me about an hour ago, maybe a little longer. When we reached the main intersection — there’s a row of apartments there called Nester Hill — she saw a cab standing at the place reserved for a two-cab stand on the right-hand curb. She took that cab and went somewhere. I want to find out where she went. When you find her, I want her tailed.

“You’re going to have to contact the cab company. You’re going to have to find out what cab was there. You’re going to have to find out where it went. You’re going to have to pick up the trail of Nadine Palmer and do it fast. I want to know everywhere she goes. I want to know everyone she sees. I want to get the whole dope on her and I don’t want her to know it, and I don’t want anyone to—”